And it’s Paste Magazine coming in once again with the first Best Of 2023 list of the year!
As usual, a very indie-friendly list, too! Glad to see Goodbye Volcano High on the list. And Banished Vault taking a strong position, too.
Also, Jusant is better than Baldur’s Gate 3. Who knew!
Can’t help but feel like this is premature when you have A Highland Song and Against the Storm yet to come in December. What are the chances they’ll be remembered for Paste’s 2024 list??
As the season begins, let me grumble about how in my opinion remasters and remakes ought to be banned from such critics’ lists. Especially if the people putting out said lists have any ambitions of promoting recent work, as opposed to making an Xmas buying guide.
(I am reminded of when Lawrence of Arabia was restored for the first time waaaay back in the late 80s and various critics put it on their best-of-the-year list. Real bold stance there, saying a more-than-a-quarter-century-old acknowledged classic is good.)
I think it really depends on what sort of remake it is. Something like the Super Mario RPG remake with all new assets and added content should probably be allowed.
I have no objection to your objection as long as what you are objecting to does not include The Making of Karateka, which should be showered with awards this year.
Well, if you’re a subscriber to Game Pass, then by my count there are six of these games there you can catch up on for free!
I don’t think this is a list that’s going out of its way to be obscure, it’s just very cognizant of this year’s indie scene. Most of the indie games on the list are from makers of notable games of years past (Sea of Stars, Saltsea Chronicles) or major indie publishers (Thirsty Suitors), and games like El Paso Elsewhere and Cocoon have gotten a decent amount of attention in mainstream games media. Speaking personally, there’s only one game on this list I’ve never heard of, and that’s Laika. Arguably, Banished Vault is pretty obscure except in places like Qt3 where we relish weird strategy games.
I’m hoping Thirsty Suitors gets more love (though it’s published by Annapurna so maybe it doesn’t need it?). I’m certainly having a great time with its genre-mixing gameplay—it’s a walking sim, no wait it’s a skateboard game, now it’s a JRPG, now it’s Cooking Mama—and story so far. When I started it, I only knew it was supposed to be good, so the shifting gameplay caught me by surprise. It’s like someone throwing Scott Pilgrim, Jet Set Radio, Rachel is Getting Married, and Persona/Catherine in a blender.
This year’s Paste list is actually full of games I’ve heard praise about already, which is rare compared to previous years.
I’m a little irritated that they included Mario Wonder and their example of an inventive level is the same one as all the reviews of the game, and it’s a really short 2nd level of the game, and I haven’t run into any other level remotely like that again yet.
Haha, last year someone said that every list needs to justify why Elden Ring is not Number One. I’m guessing this year that game will be Baldur’s Gate 3.
And now that I re-read it, the blurb they give on BG3 is kinda more negative than positive, so maybe they’re actually adhering to the rule!
Guess you’d better prepare yourself for my Quarterlies ballot, Mr. _N!
We will need people like you to give token points to other games (Against the Storm?) so that the forum doesn’t look like a very long-term Larian sleeper cell PR operative.
I get the logic, but there are no notable “best game documentary” awards (except in some create-your-own-category or maybe “special recognition” context). And it’s decidedly not a remake. It contains something like 8 ports and prototypes, plus a remastered version, and none of those is the main experience. Instead, they’re all placed on this navigable timeline with artifacts and toys. And yes, its focus is these games from the past, but plenty of the technology and content is new.
I guess I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just call it a game.
I listened to an interview yesterday on the Retronauts podcast about Making of Karateka, and the game’s director said something interesting–I think it was actually about Atari 50. He said that if they’d just released a compilation of all those games, just about everyone who started it up would dip into a few games, play them for a couple minutes, maybe feel a bit of nostalgia or curiosity about the mechanics of a game they had never tried, and then they’d be done and maybe have the inclination to try another two or three before realizing there wasn’t much relevance to the experience. But when the games are put in the context of a history of Atari (or Jordan Mechner’s career, etc.), then those two minute dips into the individual ports have a purpose and relevance, and slot into a larger experience.
It’s not that I don’t get the objection to calling it a game. The developers call it an interactive documentary. But until there’s a culturally significant genre of interactive documentary, I don’t know why it shouldn’t just be treated like a game. There are educational games, and biographical games, and minigame collections. What’s the difference, really?
It’s a good point. By my count, 14 games out of 30 this year fit that description. I went back to 2022 and 2021, when the count was 8 and 10 games out of 30.
Combining remakes and sequels is a bit unfair though. Sequels can be quite different. Like this year’s number 1 game on the list is a sequel, yes, but from what I’ve read, it’s very different from the original and a much better quality game. But on the other hand, putting remasters and remakes like Metroid Prime and Resident Evil 4 does seem a little unfair to me in a year that was just so full of great games.
Turgid, slow, tedious, apparently with a terrible third act, though I didn’t get there. I am not the kind of gamer that BG3 was made for. I liked FF16 better, and I didn’t really even like that game very much.
I think the only games I actually completed this year were Terra Nil, Slay the Princess and Diablo IV (completed the main story.) This wasn’t a banner year in gaming for me and I didn’t really have any standout favorites. My sense is that with the exception of BG3, AAA gaming isn’t going to do well in EoY lists.
