The day Infernal Ramblings uploads is a good day! I really appreciate the wide variety of mentions in this video and the fact that it isnt just a bog standard top ten list. Excited for your future projects!
I'm new to your channel and haven't watched your previous videos (yet) so take these mentions with a grain of salt, but seeing as we have a few overlaps (primarily in your trailblazers and curiosities) I thought I might direct you to a few things (a very pared back list) I found interesting/engaging this year (in release order): 24 Killers, Sifu, Veil of Dust: A Homesteading Game, Wartales, Planet of Lana, dotAGE. I could easily throw out another half dozen or more titles, but thought this represented a fairly wide mix of stuff. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the year!
As someone who also covered Book of Hours, I was curious to see your perspective on it. Having played the previous game by the same studio, Cultist Simulator, I partly stuck to comparing them, and in doing so, wanted to tease out how much more accessible the game had become while using similar foundations-- but I think a lot of people share your experience-- BoH may be less obtuse in some ways, but it's still something I think many people bounce off of, for whom it doesn't *quite* click, but feels like it could. On some level, I have to wonder if it's down to the mixed tension levels of the game. I couldn't come at that concept free from my comparison to Cultist Simulator, which is a lot more tense, and I blamed prior experience being hard to shake for... ostensibly, creating a sense of dread and need to be "efficient" against a running clock. It's absolutely not something I'd suggest to everyone, but it's something I'd suggest more than Cultist Simulator. Tangential to that, I'm definitely leaving this list with some new recommendations to keep in mind... and, of all things, a reminder that I want to force the world to be more familiar with Golden Sun.
While I did feel you were a tad harsh towards FF16, I can't say I fully disagree. Honestly what I found the most frustrating thing about the game was that it had the potential to be so great, it had the combat director of DMC5, the writer of Heavensward and was produced by the guy that literally saved FF14 from the brink. The pedigree backing the title didn't fit the end product, we got a pretty good game overall, when it should've been incredible and it only gets on that level a few times throughout the entire game.
awesome vid :) you turned me on to (and reminded me of!) at least one game, I love the Wagon World shoutout, and yes, I absolutely would love to hear you deconstruct and critique FF16, a game I will likely never play but would enjoy a video of nevertheless
"Now, if you’ve got a game that you think should be anywhere in this video, I’m all ears. Especially if it’s a bit more niche or indie." - as I do pretty much everywhere, I'll shout out Cassette Beasts. Fun, upbeat indie monster-collecting RPG, queer AF, miles of charm, and one of my favorite soundtracks ever. It's a game you can spend 10 hours on or (checks Steam) 160 hours on. I'm not going to claim it was the objectively best game of 2023, as I have yet to play many of these games you're recommending, etc. but it is unquestionably my personal favorite game of 2023. And it has an "Overwhelmingly Positive" on Steam so I'm not the only person saying it's good!
There's 2 games that I think you'd put at least in the plain good games category: 1) Lunacid is a throwback to old PS1 dungeon crawlers á la King's Field and it's a delightful experience in a kind of dream/nightmare-like way. Playing it is far less excruciating than those old game, but there's enough to make it have that old feeling, it even has a manual in-game. Book Betrayal is the best song in the game. Also, it's quite brisk, you can 100% it in a weekend or 2. 2) Roboquest is an FPS rogue-lite where you shoot a lot of robots. It is not super remarkable in concept but perk system allows for really fun builds and most impressively, the arsenal of like 70 weapons all feel different and distinct. On top of that, it manages to make each level feel distinct in layout and enemy variety, which aleviates some of the repetitiveness inherent to this game structure. It is an immensly fun game and the soundtrack is non-stop bangers, my favourite is probably Xflash, but the menu track Metal Hero is also up there. Blasphemous 2 was really good. I think that 3 were the only 2023 releases I played this year. I played a bunch of older metroidvanias through the year and plus Vampire Survivors and other bullet heavens. But I put the most time into Satisfactory, as I have done since I bought it when update 3 dropped. It is a very easy game to dump a lot of time into.
I've seen Lunacid, but unfortunately didn't get around to playing it. I did play RoboQuest for a bit and thought it was a 2023 release, but it initially came out in 2020 on XBox/Microsoft platforms so I opted to not include it here. Otherwise, I agree-it's a fun time and I love the FPS spin on the rogue-lite.
@@InfernalRamblings No, it came out this november, it was in early access before and it had a couple very different versions during it from what I've seen. Apparently, item upgrades at one point worked like the scrolls in Dead Cells, they were locked to one category of weapons and in the pre-release version you could only take 2 gadgets. There was even an ability to take 3 weapons which I'm glad they got rid of because even 2 is too much for my brain sometimes, those "lose a weapon slot" perks are a real godsend. Anyway, point being: it is a 2023 release. Man, I can't wait for Satisfactory to come out of early access so I can instantly declare it my game of the year. Unless it comes out at the same year as Silksong. Then they'll share the top spot.
The day Infernal Ramblings uploads is a good day! I really appreciate the wide variety of mentions in this video and the fact that it isnt just a bog standard top ten list. Excited for your future projects!
CJ the X and That Dang Dad are always a win.
I'm new to your channel and haven't watched your previous videos (yet) so take these mentions with a grain of salt, but seeing as we have a few overlaps (primarily in your trailblazers and curiosities) I thought I might direct you to a few things (a very pared back list) I found interesting/engaging this year (in release order): 24 Killers, Sifu, Veil of Dust: A Homesteading Game, Wartales, Planet of Lana, dotAGE. I could easily throw out another half dozen or more titles, but thought this represented a fairly wide mix of stuff. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the year!
As someone who also covered Book of Hours, I was curious to see your perspective on it. Having played the previous game by the same studio, Cultist Simulator, I partly stuck to comparing them, and in doing so, wanted to tease out how much more accessible the game had become while using similar foundations-- but I think a lot of people share your experience-- BoH may be less obtuse in some ways, but it's still something I think many people bounce off of, for whom it doesn't *quite* click, but feels like it could.
On some level, I have to wonder if it's down to the mixed tension levels of the game. I couldn't come at that concept free from my comparison to Cultist Simulator, which is a lot more tense, and I blamed prior experience being hard to shake for... ostensibly, creating a sense of dread and need to be "efficient" against a running clock.
It's absolutely not something I'd suggest to everyone, but it's something I'd suggest more than Cultist Simulator.
Tangential to that, I'm definitely leaving this list with some new recommendations to keep in mind... and, of all things, a reminder that I want to force the world to be more familiar with Golden Sun.
I saw your video and been meaning to get around to it! It's definitely one of the reasons why I want to get back to BoH.
Due to life I did not get to much gaming this year. But omg am I looking forward to playing all these bangers next year!
While I did feel you were a tad harsh towards FF16, I can't say I fully disagree. Honestly what I found the most frustrating thing about the game was that it had the potential to be so great, it had the combat director of DMC5, the writer of Heavensward and was produced by the guy that literally saved FF14 from the brink. The pedigree backing the title didn't fit the end product, we got a pretty good game overall, when it should've been incredible and it only gets on that level a few times throughout the entire game.
awesome vid :) you turned me on to (and reminded me of!) at least one game, I love the Wagon World shoutout, and yes, I absolutely would love to hear you deconstruct and critique FF16, a game I will likely never play but would enjoy a video of nevertheless
"Now, if you’ve got a game that you think should be anywhere in this video, I’m all ears. Especially if it’s a bit more niche or indie." - as I do pretty much everywhere, I'll shout out Cassette Beasts. Fun, upbeat indie monster-collecting RPG, queer AF, miles of charm, and one of my favorite soundtracks ever. It's a game you can spend 10 hours on or (checks Steam) 160 hours on. I'm not going to claim it was the objectively best game of 2023, as I have yet to play many of these games you're recommending, etc. but it is unquestionably my personal favorite game of 2023. And it has an "Overwhelmingly Positive" on Steam so I'm not the only person saying it's good!
There's 2 games that I think you'd put at least in the plain good games category:
1) Lunacid is a throwback to old PS1 dungeon crawlers á la King's Field and it's a delightful experience in a kind of dream/nightmare-like way. Playing it is far less excruciating than those old game, but there's enough to make it have that old feeling, it even has a manual in-game. Book Betrayal is the best song in the game. Also, it's quite brisk, you can 100% it in a weekend or 2.
2) Roboquest is an FPS rogue-lite where you shoot a lot of robots. It is not super remarkable in concept but perk system allows for really fun builds and most impressively, the arsenal of like 70 weapons all feel different and distinct. On top of that, it manages to make each level feel distinct in layout and enemy variety, which aleviates some of the repetitiveness inherent to this game structure. It is an immensly fun game and the soundtrack is non-stop bangers, my favourite is probably Xflash, but the menu track Metal Hero is also up there.
Blasphemous 2 was really good.
I think that 3 were the only 2023 releases I played this year. I played a bunch of older metroidvanias through the year and plus Vampire Survivors and other bullet heavens. But I put the most time into Satisfactory, as I have done since I bought it when update 3 dropped. It is a very easy game to dump a lot of time into.
I've seen Lunacid, but unfortunately didn't get around to playing it.
I did play RoboQuest for a bit and thought it was a 2023 release, but it initially came out in 2020 on XBox/Microsoft platforms so I opted to not include it here. Otherwise, I agree-it's a fun time and I love the FPS spin on the rogue-lite.
@@InfernalRamblings No, it came out this november, it was in early access before and it had a couple very different versions during it from what I've seen. Apparently, item upgrades at one point worked like the scrolls in Dead Cells, they were locked to one category of weapons and in the pre-release version you could only take 2 gadgets. There was even an ability to take 3 weapons which I'm glad they got rid of because even 2 is too much for my brain sometimes, those "lose a weapon slot" perks are a real godsend.
Anyway, point being: it is a 2023 release. Man, I can't wait for Satisfactory to come out of early access so I can instantly declare it my game of the year. Unless it comes out at the same year as Silksong. Then they'll share the top spot.
I stand corrected! Thank you@@Ronin11111111
Viseo