For some, this has been a fantastic year of games, and I can’t blame them. However, as an industry, it has been horrible. You have Embracer trying to make up for spending by firing a lot of staff, with Epic, Sony, Microsoft, EA, CD Projekt Red, Amazon, and beyond doing the same. At the time of writing, I think the latest number is up to/beyond 9,000 people laid off in 2023. Meanwhile, Zelda had one of its best games, several remakes make some fans happy, and of course, there is one I haven’t played because I was saving gay good times in Baldur’s Gate 3 for my current break.

It has been a great year for games, for those playing them, but a horrible year for those making them. Horrendous, I’d say. There have been bad games (some downright terrible), as I finish this up we’re in the aftershock of Fntastic shuttering days after releasing The Day Before, not because they haven’t sold anything but because the response was so negative it once again showed hype (on false ads) versus the released product. Though I want to talk about some good games and maybe one bad one, as is tradition this time of year.

Sea of Stars – 3rd

I debated where to put Sea of Stars. Unlike some that try to recapture their youth with JRPG-inspired games, Sea of Stars didn’t have nostalgia either in its favor or going against it. I fell in love with Sea of Stars before the pandemic hit, before other world events I’ll not mention, and so much more. Its gorgeous art style pulled me in straight away. Then I played its active turn-based gameplay and enjoyed its simple if not great or original story, with the Mario-RPG style gameplay.

I might not have played hundreds of games this year, and maybe not the big RPG everyone wants to talk about, yet when I think about the RPG that I enjoyed this year, it was the heavily inspired one. From breathtaking visuals to its simple gameplay loop, I was engrossed by Sabotage Studio’s turn-based title. As someone who didn’t grow up in that era loving JRPGs, being someone who stated a hatred towards some of them, it is refreshing to enjoy one so much. Both visually, in terms of gameplay, and in terms of accessibility too.

The genre itself isn’t known for its accessibility, and there are areas where I think Sea of Stars could do better. Though with a simple story, fantastic active gameplay, and explosions of color almost everywhere you look, there is something undeniable about Sea of Stars. Maybe for those who grew up with Chrono Trigger and the likes, it lacks this sense of wonder. For me, it opens the door to start enjoying those titles. It urges me to start engaging with the characters of few pixels and awkward dialog. To me, it was fun.

WWE 2K23 – Honorable mention

It has been a hell of a year for wrestling: UFC merger, Gomez Addams returning, massive shows that felt fun, THAT Texas Death match (even if it was in the LA area), The Rock returned, Mer-Ken, Cody didn’t finish the story. Oh and CM Punk returned to AEW, got fired, sat out for 2 months, then returned the same night R-Truth and Randy Orton returned to WWE. I didn’t even mention THAT NXT show, Jade Cargill jumping ship, and the countless other things that made this one of the best years in wrestling, maybe?

In gaming, however, it has been a massive year for wrestling too. We have multiple game releases that offer a very different experience. For me though, it has to be the weirdness and fun that came from WWE 2K23. Fight Forever still has a player base, sure, but I can mostly count that on my fingers. Where Fight Forever mimics a certain type of game in your nostalgia, it failed to properly grab anyone as a solo experience. I challenge anyone to play that story mode with Tavish and not see the fun in that.

Is WWE 2k23 the best game of the year? Far from it. Is it the best wrestling game of all time? Also no, I have Just Bring It, Hear Comes The Pain, and SDVR ‘08 behind me for a reason. Though it is one of the better releases in the last few years, which is a lot to say given where the series was heading into the pandemic. I think more could be done for accessibility, similar to how Street Fighter 6 has a simpler control option. I also think it could expand a little more on some of the modes available.

I still hold that the MyGM mode lacks that spark that pulls me back to SmackDown Vs RAW ‘08 now and then, even if it is modernized. The business simulation aspect isn’t so much there as it makes way for playing matches that don’t work as they should. The entire mode is built on the idea that you get star ratings based on X, Y, and Z criteria, meanwhile, a majority of the play-now style matches are based on a similar star rating. No one plays the matches in MyGM mode simply because you don’t get star ratings based on what you did in the match.

Here is an idea, and it is a simple one on paper but probably a nightmare to code. Have the matches similar to the play now section, but all the things that determine star ratings now become percentages for and against what you did in-ring. You can still game the system a little, but that way you don’t instantly get a five-star Tokyo Dome classic from Ravy Davey out of R-Truth vs Akira Tozawa on a random RAW. If we’re keeping the toned-down business sim, I want the matches to mean something for MyGM mode.

Testament: The Order of High Human – Dishonorable mention

With the ambition of Skyrim and the ability of a young child drawing on their bedroom wall in their fecal matter, I had a lot to pick from this year when it came to the dishonorable mention. I won’t spend too long rambling on here, but Testament: The Order of High Human has to take the award for what feels like an obvious reason. I’ve played VR games this year that gave me motion sickness, I’ll admit that, but even then I felt like I could escape that eventually.

Fairyship Games’ high fantasy first-person action adventure is something I sadly couldn’t escape. It earns this spot due to its lack of FOV slider, pointless puzzles, boring story, and mindless combat. It took the words “generic tripe” and put them through a beige filter of bland fantasy and typical bargain bin crap. If there was one game that I thought had enough going for it then squandered it, it had to be a game with a bland title, a bland name for its lead character, and bland gameplay, with one puzzle sticking in my head because it made me want to vomit playing it.

Landlord’s Super – Honorable mention.

“Working all day for a pittance of pay […] that’s livin’ alright.” Surrealist, strange, and deeply working class, Landlord’s Super pulls focus on a time period in a fictionalized place that deeply resembles The North of England. For a lot of people, it will go over their heads or not do something that they expect it to, and I get that. Landlord’s Super is in a deep niche and doesn’t shy away from that fact. Not many games want to do that, as they seek broad appeal and mass market beyond a little bit of art.

You can take your Flower and Journey ideas of art, but for my money, I’m more likely to enjoy a Ken Loach-like project that shows the brutal honesty of someone’s life than vagueness and symbolism. Landlord’s Super is a bit more crude and angry about it and its gameplay isn’t world-class, but it did something special. I’ve banged on for countless hours about Watch Dogs: Legion and how little the UK is featured with a microscopic focus in games. Landlord’s Super focuses on the UK. It focuses on the conditions of being a tradie in the 80s, and it does it with a commitment to the time.

Tchia – 2nd

I had a couple of things bouncing around this second slot, and maybe even playing a bit with the third. On the one hand, I might have put COCOON in here, maybe Wargroove 2, or Eternights at a push. If I was going to be cheeky I’d have put in Shadows of Doubt. Then I properly sat down and thought about the things I enjoyed the most and things that made me feel a sense of happiness/homeliness, and it just had to be Tchia. The game is full of a childish world of play, a beautiful culture explored, and such a fantastic world. I’m left in awe by its ability to feel like home.

I’ve spoken several times about… well not being from New Caledonia and just not being part of that culture. Yet something about Tchia is welcoming, homely, inviting, and generally fun. We remember fun, right? I hope we do, otherwise one of my upcoming arguments isn’t going to land quite well. In Tchia you play as a young woman called Tchia, and through circumstances best described by magic sticks dancing after a villain eats a baby, your dad is kidnapped and you must save him. In doing so, you explore, run, jump, swim, and even fly on, over, or in New Caledonia.

The Soul-Jumping is just one part of it, as you become a shark with a little flower in your… hair? What I think makes people realize that Tchia is another Just Cause game is when you throw yourself from a tree. You climb up it, you sway it a little, realize it is starting to sway a lot, press the jump button, and start playing The Floor is Lava as you try to do laps of an island by bouncing from tree to tree. Tchia is nothing short of a beautiful world of play that I wish I had more time for this year.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Honorable Mention

At some point, I played Robot Wars in Tears of the Kingdom and made an unkillable tank. That was after I went through a stone man’s urethra to make an annoying unicorn horn. The fact that TOTK exists and runs on a Switch is impressive enough. However, the sheer audacity that Nintendo put together one of the most creative and fun open worlds made from the most boring open world blows my mind. That tank, by the way, had fire shooting out of it, shot electricity, fired kinetic energy rounds, had spikey armor plating, enough batteries to melt the ice caps in their creation, and a wind machine for my escape when it turned on me.

I said it not long after release, the way Tears of the Kingdom changes up the things that it keeps the same is what makes the latest Zelda title so exciting. Movement and combat in games are always something I, and I think many others take note of when playing games. For me, BOTW didn’t have that. TOTK brings it in bucketloads with extra handfuls of stupid to help it along. Want to stick 40 logs together to bridge a gap? TOTK thinks that is A-OKAY! Unsurprisingly, I agree.

Sure, I don’t like the weapons being about as soluble as a chocolate digestive in Ribena, or waiting for the weather to pass. However, when you’re allowed to bound across the hilltops in your modular F-16 or create weapons that have additional benefits, it makes the experience all the better. Especially given the fact I don’t give two wet dreams about Purah (as the internet clearly does) when it comes to the story. I said in my article at the time, Link comes in second in the World Stalker Championships, and I stand by that. A Pratt of a plumber is first.

DREDGE – Game of the Year

My experiences with fishing go as thus: I caught several while standing on the shore, and was nonplussed about it. I then stood on a boat spreading my guts atop the big blue wet thing, and really was not a fan. So you’d think summoning the holy quaternity of Lovecraft monsters would be off the table for me, but taking my tiny boat out into the hostile depths of the dark night when I was “brave” stuck with me throughout this year. Yes, it is a cop-out to go with the game I thought about the most, but I thought about DREDGE for so long for a reason.

DREDGE isn’t the scariest game around, and quite frankly I’m glad about that. It is a psychological horror, which is what I like. If you don’t want to engage with the horrors, you don’t really have to. You don’t even need to engage the “I don’t like horrors, give me a good fishing time” mode, you can just fish during the day, mostly. Some portions of DREDGE will need you to suck up the scariness of what is out there at night, but the truth is, it is all built up in your head.

I’ll break the illusion right now. It isn’t as scary if you let the horrors attack you a little, but if you let that fear of being attacked overpower you, then DREDGE has won. If you want to, you can go deep into the levels of panic and play with danger, but for the most part, you can completely avoid it while the oppressive nature of the world weighs on you. From the art design to the gameplay loops, and even the endings, DREDGE is such a fantastic game that it is my Roman Empire of the year.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

Also, if you’d like to join the Phenixx Gaming team, check out our recruitment article for details on working with us.

Phenixx Gaming is proud to be a Humble Partner! Purchases made through our affiliate links support our writers and charity!