Instead of celebrating Niggers (Kojima’s new project), Faggots (Baldur’s Gay 3) or NiggerFaggots (Spider-Man 2), let’s celebrate some actually good games for a change:
TOP 5 SWITCH GAMES OF 2023
Honestly, in terms of new exclusives I’d argue that 2023 was the Switch’s best year since 2017, with a new Zelda, a new mainline Mario, and a new Xenoblade (sorta) all coming out, in addition to a very high-quality Metroid remaster. That last one is however ineligible for this list - while I don’t generally include ports or remasters on my top 5 lists, in 2023 it would have been especially unnecessary (in 2020 however, I’d say it was damn near mandatory, given how badly that year sucked, and just how much better Xenoblade Definitive Edition was than every else that came out).
I’ll go over my top 5 picks, and I’ll also give each a Based Morality Score, though I won’t be focusing on that aspect unless it’s genuinely relevant to my game experience (nothing below -3 is a dealbreaker, and -1/+1 isn’t really a big deal).
5) Pikmin 4 (-2)
This game took me by surprise and legitimately turned me into a Pikmin fan, to the point of getting me to finally revisit and finish Pikmin 1, and not only giving Pikmin 2 a chance, but collecting all the treasure! Pikmin 4 was just such a fun, rich, gorgeous, unique, varied and relaxing experience – a little too relaxing in fact, given the easy difficulty and all the broken, overpowered tools you get handed.
After playing Pikmin 1 and 2, I can definitely see the flaws and dumbed down aspects of Pikmin 4 more clearly, and it was always apparent that the game was somewhat tainted by Global Standards. That said, there’s just so much fun to be had in Pikmin 4, from the excellent, meaty main campaign and the new night expeditions to all the optional time attack and high score challenges (THERE you’ll actually get your skills tested if you’re going for Platinum medals), and even the awesome Pikmin 1-inspired prologue, and overall I enjoyed the game tremendously.
4) Fire Emblem Engage (-2/+1)
Another game which really surprised me, Engage stands out from other Fire Emblem games by giving you all these incredibly broken, overpowered new abilities, and yet somehow being shockingly successful at designing the maps around them and effectively balancing the difficulty. The result is some of the most fun and exciting turn-based strategy gameplay I’ve ever experienced – all the more remarkable because I had initially dismissed the Emblem ring mechanic as a cheap, nostalgia-pandering gimmick.
While Engage isn’t on par with Three Houses in terms of story or characters, those aspects of the game are still not nearly as bad as they’re made out to be – the story has quite a number of good moments, and some the characters are real gems, especially Goldmary. Also, I do appreciate the fanservice being significantly improved from the days of Three Houses’ crushingly disappointing Sauna mode, even if the gay pandering and singular theys flying around is obnoxious. At the end of the day, Engage is a fantastic game, and you shouldn’t be put off by the hate it gets from the Fire Emblem community, because the Western FE fanbase is full of fags who prefer Rosado to Hortensia, so what the hell do they know?
3) Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Neutral)
Mario Wonder ended up being pretty much exactly what I wanted, a 2D Mario platformer that has truly been inspired by the endless creativity and inventiveness we’ve been seeing on display in the Mario Maker games since 2015. Not only that, it’s a 2D Mario with the same amount of care, polish and effort put into it as the flagship 3D games have enjoyed ever since Mario Galaxy. This is a game bursting at the seams with fun, new ideas and mechanics, with the much-hyped Wonder Flower effects (which are awesome) only being the cherry on top.
After so many years of stagnation and Ninendo playing it EXTREMELY safe with the New Super Mario Bros. series, it’s almost surreal to now be playing a 2D Mario game that feels this fresh, looks this good and is this exciting – it’s like going from a Lada to a Lamborghini! It’s still not perfect – the bosses are shockingly underwhelming, and I do wish the game was both a little bit longer and a little bit harder (that’s what she said!), but Mario Wonder has nonetheless already established itself as one of my all-time favorite 2D platformers, second only to Yoshi’s Island.
TOP 5 SWITCH GAMES OF 2023
Honestly, in terms of new exclusives I’d argue that 2023 was the Switch’s best year since 2017, with a new Zelda, a new mainline Mario, and a new Xenoblade (sorta) all coming out, in addition to a very high-quality Metroid remaster. That last one is however ineligible for this list - while I don’t generally include ports or remasters on my top 5 lists, in 2023 it would have been especially unnecessary (in 2020 however, I’d say it was damn near mandatory, given how badly that year sucked, and just how much better Xenoblade Definitive Edition was than every else that came out).
I’ll go over my top 5 picks, and I’ll also give each a Based Morality Score, though I won’t be focusing on that aspect unless it’s genuinely relevant to my game experience (nothing below -3 is a dealbreaker, and -1/+1 isn’t really a big deal).
5) Pikmin 4 (-2)
This game took me by surprise and legitimately turned me into a Pikmin fan, to the point of getting me to finally revisit and finish Pikmin 1, and not only giving Pikmin 2 a chance, but collecting all the treasure! Pikmin 4 was just such a fun, rich, gorgeous, unique, varied and relaxing experience – a little too relaxing in fact, given the easy difficulty and all the broken, overpowered tools you get handed.
After playing Pikmin 1 and 2, I can definitely see the flaws and dumbed down aspects of Pikmin 4 more clearly, and it was always apparent that the game was somewhat tainted by Global Standards. That said, there’s just so much fun to be had in Pikmin 4, from the excellent, meaty main campaign and the new night expeditions to all the optional time attack and high score challenges (THERE you’ll actually get your skills tested if you’re going for Platinum medals), and even the awesome Pikmin 1-inspired prologue, and overall I enjoyed the game tremendously.
4) Fire Emblem Engage (-2/+1)
Another game which really surprised me, Engage stands out from other Fire Emblem games by giving you all these incredibly broken, overpowered new abilities, and yet somehow being shockingly successful at designing the maps around them and effectively balancing the difficulty. The result is some of the most fun and exciting turn-based strategy gameplay I’ve ever experienced – all the more remarkable because I had initially dismissed the Emblem ring mechanic as a cheap, nostalgia-pandering gimmick.
While Engage isn’t on par with Three Houses in terms of story or characters, those aspects of the game are still not nearly as bad as they’re made out to be – the story has quite a number of good moments, and some the characters are real gems, especially Goldmary. Also, I do appreciate the fanservice being significantly improved from the days of Three Houses’ crushingly disappointing Sauna mode, even if the gay pandering and singular theys flying around is obnoxious. At the end of the day, Engage is a fantastic game, and you shouldn’t be put off by the hate it gets from the Fire Emblem community, because the Western FE fanbase is full of fags who prefer Rosado to Hortensia, so what the hell do they know?
3) Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Neutral)
Mario Wonder ended up being pretty much exactly what I wanted, a 2D Mario platformer that has truly been inspired by the endless creativity and inventiveness we’ve been seeing on display in the Mario Maker games since 2015. Not only that, it’s a 2D Mario with the same amount of care, polish and effort put into it as the flagship 3D games have enjoyed ever since Mario Galaxy. This is a game bursting at the seams with fun, new ideas and mechanics, with the much-hyped Wonder Flower effects (which are awesome) only being the cherry on top.
After so many years of stagnation and Ninendo playing it EXTREMELY safe with the New Super Mario Bros. series, it’s almost surreal to now be playing a 2D Mario game that feels this fresh, looks this good and is this exciting – it’s like going from a Lada to a Lamborghini! It’s still not perfect – the bosses are shockingly underwhelming, and I do wish the game was both a little bit longer and a little bit harder (that’s what she said!), but Mario Wonder has nonetheless already established itself as one of my all-time favorite 2D platformers, second only to Yoshi’s Island.
2) Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (-1)
TotK is a strange beast –rather than trying to fix the various glaring flaws of BotW, it instead focuses on further improving the things its predecessor already did extremely well, like exploration and experimentation. It introduces a number of absolutely genius new abilities that synergize ridiculously well with the open-word Zelda experience, making traversing the colossal world easier and more fun, giving you way more and better uses for all the items you collect, and letting you create your very own weapons, vehicles, traps and tools. And all these new mechanics of course set up all sorts of incredibly cool and clever puzzles.
Oh, and despite what I said earlier, *some* of BotW’s problems have actually been addressed, especially the boss selection, which is actually quite excellent this time around, while general enemy variety is also significantly improved. And while BotW was always gorgeous to look at, TotK definitely boasts a number of far more unique and interesting environments. That said, the temples are only *slightly* better than in BotW (at this rate open world Zelda like need 30 more years just to be able to match Majora’s Mask’s temple lineup), and the maddening underuse of music is just as terrible as in BotW. The story is also only barely better than in BotW, and ONLY because we have an actual villain this time around, rather than a mindless, malevolent force of nature.
TotK is a bit hard to judge fairly, because it kept me hooked for months and boasted some of the most fun exploration I’ve experienced in a game, but at the same time, the weak story and horribly underutilized soundtrack does result in a game that feels like somewhat less than the sum of its parts – especially when also factoring in the reuse of BotW’s Hyrule, tho to be fair, not having played BotW since 2018 the world still felt plenty fresh to me. In the end, I have to give TotK its due for containing a frankly ridiculous amount of high-quality content, to the point where even more than 150 hours into the game, I still kept coming across cool new ideas and mechanics. It’s not the best Zelda game ever, but it’s easily better than BotW, and a landmark Switch game. Also, no bear sex.
1) Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed (+2/-1)
A DLC being Game of the Year? You better believe it, because Future Redeemed really is THAT damn good. The name was well chosen too, because Future Redeems finally realizes the true potential of Xenoblade 3, both in terms of gameplay and story. Xenoblade gameplay already represented the peak of JRPGs, but Future Redeemed further refines the traditional Xenoblade experience with various smart additions and improvements, making exploration that much more fun and rewarding, while delivering tons of intense, exciting battles with a fantastic selection of Unique Monsters.
Unlike in Xenoblade 3, this story truly builds on and continues the story from past games, with our old heroes Shulk and Rex even returning as party characters. And while (((Western))) media keeps tearing down old heroes like Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones, Shulk and Rex enjoy PERFECT characterization, being older and wiser, yet still fully recognizable as the characters we know and love. They’ve suffered great hardships and losses, but instead of being reduced to bitter, old losers they emerge as leaders and teachers, as well as good, loving parents.
Future Redeemed doesn’t suffer from flaws like Xenoblade 3’s somewhat underwhelming (by Xenoblade standards) area themes – all the new songs here are absolute all-time greats! Nor does it suffer from the pacing issues and forced sidequests that marred Xenoblade 2’s otherwise fantastic Torna DLC prequel campaign. Whatever flaws it has are minor, or merely sins of omission, not commission.
And by successfully continuing the stories of Xenoblade 1 and 2, in addition to being a Xenoblade 3 prequel, Future Redeemed becomes the opposite of TotK, something MORE than just the sum of its part. When you face the final boss (after an already mindblowing final chapter), and one of the best boss themes ever composed starts playing, it doesn’t merely feel like the culmination of an extremely high-quality 30 hour DLC, it feels like the culmination of 300 hours of Xenoblade greatness. Xenoblade 3’s ending had a lot of issues, and while Future Redeemed doesn’t really fix those, it DOES deliver an ending to the Xenoblade trilogy that’s thoroughly satisfying on both an emotional and thematic level.
Honorable mentions:
F-Zero 99 (Neutral)
F-Zero isn’t *fully* back, but this game was still WAY more fun and addictive than I ever expected. Turns out F-Zero and Online Battle Royales are a perfect fit, and all sorts of intelligent tweaks and changes to the SNES F-Zero has resulted in the best experience I’ve had with the series since 2003.
Gravity Circuit (Neutral)
A wonderful mix of Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden, this action platformer feels like a true labor of love and is every bit as good as you could have possibly hoped. Everyone who tries out this game seems to love it, and for good reason.
TotK is a strange beast –rather than trying to fix the various glaring flaws of BotW, it instead focuses on further improving the things its predecessor already did extremely well, like exploration and experimentation. It introduces a number of absolutely genius new abilities that synergize ridiculously well with the open-word Zelda experience, making traversing the colossal world easier and more fun, giving you way more and better uses for all the items you collect, and letting you create your very own weapons, vehicles, traps and tools. And all these new mechanics of course set up all sorts of incredibly cool and clever puzzles.
Oh, and despite what I said earlier, *some* of BotW’s problems have actually been addressed, especially the boss selection, which is actually quite excellent this time around, while general enemy variety is also significantly improved. And while BotW was always gorgeous to look at, TotK definitely boasts a number of far more unique and interesting environments. That said, the temples are only *slightly* better than in BotW (at this rate open world Zelda like need 30 more years just to be able to match Majora’s Mask’s temple lineup), and the maddening underuse of music is just as terrible as in BotW. The story is also only barely better than in BotW, and ONLY because we have an actual villain this time around, rather than a mindless, malevolent force of nature.
TotK is a bit hard to judge fairly, because it kept me hooked for months and boasted some of the most fun exploration I’ve experienced in a game, but at the same time, the weak story and horribly underutilized soundtrack does result in a game that feels like somewhat less than the sum of its parts – especially when also factoring in the reuse of BotW’s Hyrule, tho to be fair, not having played BotW since 2018 the world still felt plenty fresh to me. In the end, I have to give TotK its due for containing a frankly ridiculous amount of high-quality content, to the point where even more than 150 hours into the game, I still kept coming across cool new ideas and mechanics. It’s not the best Zelda game ever, but it’s easily better than BotW, and a landmark Switch game. Also, no bear sex.
1) Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed (+2/-1)
A DLC being Game of the Year? You better believe it, because Future Redeemed really is THAT damn good. The name was well chosen too, because Future Redeems finally realizes the true potential of Xenoblade 3, both in terms of gameplay and story. Xenoblade gameplay already represented the peak of JRPGs, but Future Redeemed further refines the traditional Xenoblade experience with various smart additions and improvements, making exploration that much more fun and rewarding, while delivering tons of intense, exciting battles with a fantastic selection of Unique Monsters.
Unlike in Xenoblade 3, this story truly builds on and continues the story from past games, with our old heroes Shulk and Rex even returning as party characters. And while (((Western))) media keeps tearing down old heroes like Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones, Shulk and Rex enjoy PERFECT characterization, being older and wiser, yet still fully recognizable as the characters we know and love. They’ve suffered great hardships and losses, but instead of being reduced to bitter, old losers they emerge as leaders and teachers, as well as good, loving parents.
Future Redeemed doesn’t suffer from flaws like Xenoblade 3’s somewhat underwhelming (by Xenoblade standards) area themes – all the new songs here are absolute all-time greats! Nor does it suffer from the pacing issues and forced sidequests that marred Xenoblade 2’s otherwise fantastic Torna DLC prequel campaign. Whatever flaws it has are minor, or merely sins of omission, not commission.
And by successfully continuing the stories of Xenoblade 1 and 2, in addition to being a Xenoblade 3 prequel, Future Redeemed becomes the opposite of TotK, something MORE than just the sum of its part. When you face the final boss (after an already mindblowing final chapter), and one of the best boss themes ever composed starts playing, it doesn’t merely feel like the culmination of an extremely high-quality 30 hour DLC, it feels like the culmination of 300 hours of Xenoblade greatness. Xenoblade 3’s ending had a lot of issues, and while Future Redeemed doesn’t really fix those, it DOES deliver an ending to the Xenoblade trilogy that’s thoroughly satisfying on both an emotional and thematic level.
Honorable mentions:
F-Zero 99 (Neutral)
F-Zero isn’t *fully* back, but this game was still WAY more fun and addictive than I ever expected. Turns out F-Zero and Online Battle Royales are a perfect fit, and all sorts of intelligent tweaks and changes to the SNES F-Zero has resulted in the best experience I’ve had with the series since 2003.
Gravity Circuit (Neutral)
A wonderful mix of Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden, this action platformer feels like a true labor of love and is every bit as good as you could have possibly hoped. Everyone who tries out this game seems to love it, and for good reason.
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@ChristiJunior
Tears of the kingdom is ridiculously hard to rate, because while the game does contain a ton of various content, it also has the deepths. And that is the most bland environment I have seen in gaming for a HUGE time.
NOT TO MENTION, the game literally requires you to explore an absolute darkness. That should never be a feature.
