“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” ― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Depending on who you ask, 2023 was either the best or worst year for video games. Or to be precise, 2023 was a good year for playing video games, a bad year to be covering games media with job uncertainty on the rise, and one of the worst years for game developers and the industry with multiple studios and companies reporting layoffs at an alarming rate. Unlike that other award show, it’s difficult for me to look back at the year as a whole and not see the cracks that have begun in between several of the biggest games that will undoubtedly come to redefine the video game landscape once more.
To give a quick overview, the rise of the $70 video game, the predatory and aggressive attempts to monetize every portion of the player experience, the difficulty of navigating the industry in a post-AI world for both the artists and the critics, the ballooning and unsustainability of rising AAA development costs, the uphill battle that is modern game preservation, the numerous security breaches at companies like Insomniac which saw hackers release sensitive and critical company and employee data online, and yes, layoffs that are far too numerous to name completely. And that’s just the ones I can recall off the top of my head.
The reality is that no corner of this hobby is completely untouched, whether you’re the consumer or the ones making games, let alone writing about them. As someone with higher aspirations beyond writing for myself watched from a distance the various layoffs at numerous outlets, as well as some questionable takes from professional journalists taking swipes at each other on social platforms over the subject of what is “newsworthy” that I don’t feel like regurgitating – a topic that will no doubt come up in the months to come – it gives me great pause as to what’s next for me beyond my current output.
Not that I have much to talk about as far as my own gaming year. Aside from the other various hats I wear when I’m not writing, most of 2023 was devoted to my personal project. For those reading this outside of AniTAY, you can read the fruits of my labor here which we will touch upon briefly next time as I work towards its logical conclusion. Despite giving myself extra time to work on my top 10 games of the year, ultimately, I came up short without counting the two mobile games I spent the most time in between.
As I sat here contemplating how to best present this list, I figured I might as well get it off my chest anyways and publish what I have, which turned out to be a lot more than I expected! After all, why let one person have all the fun? Because if we take nothing else from The Game Awards, it’s that one man shouldn’t be the final word on the direction of the industry just for having the biggest gaming bucks in their corner. So, here it is, the 7th annual Aether Awards for Game of the Year, featuring 7 – yes, seven – of my favorite games I played, all of which actually came out in 2023!
7. Fire Emblem Engage
As the resident Fire Emblem nerd, it should come as no surprise Intelligent System’s latest installment would find its way onto my list. But as I reflect my time with it – 90+ hours based on my playtime, though it might be higher – I find myself perplexed with Fire Emblem Engage. To be frank, it’s a game with a lot of issues and odd design choices that at times feel in conflict with each other.
Presentation-wise, it’s one of the best-looking FE titles with the cinematics and art direction to match but begins to show the Switch’s age during gameplay with the occasional lag and some noticeable concessions in environments, animations, and so on. After Three Houses experimented with more universal weapons and classes, I was pleased to see the familiar weapon triangle and linear approach to chapter structure return, although I take issue with the game dumping so many new units at you nearly every chapter along with the new break mechanic. While I enjoyed the game’s breakout mechanic – summoning heroes of old by engaging with them via special rings opens the door to all kinds of strategies – in practice, you’re incentivized to find your ideal pairs early to pass on skills and optimize, leaving a larger than normal roster on the bench for most of my playthrough.
Then there’s the story… Right.
Given the rather harsh tone, you might be wondering “okay, so why are you talking about Fire Emblem Engage? Clearly, you have some mixed feelings on it.” I do dear reader, I do. Even now as I’m writing this, I’m pondering what exactly compelled me to spend almost 100 hours on it beyond obligation that I paid money on it? But the more I thought about it – the odd juxtaposition between appeasing the core audience and bringing in new ones, the godawful writing remixed with virtually every FE trope possible, the quaint yet dull halls of the Somniel – it dawned on me that perhaps I might be viewing it from the wrong angle.
That art style that most folks – myself included – so adamantly rebuked eventually grew on me with time, although I still stand the main character is overly designed! The deemphasis on extra curriculars and returning to base by focusing on the strategy side reminded me that I really enjoy the moment-to-moment combat despite its technical limitations and other quirks. And while Engage’s story might be the worst in the franchise if not the year, its delivery and character interactions are handled with such honesty, enthusiasm and seemingly self-awareness on the voice direction side that it never stops being entertaining from the tutorial to closing credits.
Fire Emblem Engage is a double-edged strategy gruel that never quite reaches the heights of its predecessors or innovates in the way that most were expecting hot off the heels of Three House’s runaway success. Instead, it presents a detour pit stop or a quick place to grab a bite, meet some new people and trade a few stories while reminiscing on good times. If nothing else, it made for a truly engaging experience. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play Fire Emblem Heroes. (Sorry reader, couldn’t help myself from mentioning it!)
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(Also, I can’t help but laugh at the ridiculous endgame requirement Engage added to achieve S-rank. They know, y’all are some thirsty-)
6. God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla
I’ll admit, God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla caught me off guard – and not just because it was announced and released near the end of the year at the Keighley’s! What I expected to be just a brief add on expansion and murder gauntlet for Kratos to barrel through ended up being…. Actually, it’s exactly that! It’s also a meaty piece of story content that not only gives us a more definitive ending to last year’s Ragnarök, but also wrestles with the series’ complex legacy while doubling as a series of random murder gauntlets with its own little twists on the base game. I say twists, because this expansion is standalone within the main menu, no save file needed. The game will even recommend completing the main campaign as it takes place post-Ragnarök.
Set in the titular Valhalla, Kratos receives a mysterious invitation to embark on a new journey of self-discovery as he confronts the wheels of prophecy by facing the weight of his past directly. While the gameplay is very much the same as in the base game with one notable weapon addition veterans will recognize, the integration of the roguelike structure further enhances Ragnarök’s core gameplay by forcing the player to mix, match and strategize reward choices with each victory with the goal of completing a successful run.
On normal, I found most runs to be about as challenging as the main campaign, with the one exception being the penultimate gauntlet – which I won’t spoil – that adds a time-based challenge, forcing you to complete a series of fights as quickly as possible, with the difficulty spiking up one level at certain intervals if you’re not moving quick enough.
The real draw to this DLC – and what I imagine most are here for – is the story. Fans of the original GOW trilogy will definitely feel most at home as Valhalla uses its iconic legacy to delve deep into the dark history of the titular God of War, reintegrating some of his deepest regrets and leveraging the knowledge and difficult relationship to the series’ past to tell a poetic story about self-mastery, letting go and learning to walk beside the hardships in service to something greater than yourself.
As I’ve mentioned once before, I’ve never been fond of the idea of the new God of War as a replacement for the Greek trilogy, but God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla not only understood the assignment, its comprehension of its predecessor bolsters its legacy by not only letting us return to familiar landmarks, but by further enhancing Kratos’s new adventures as the series turns to the future in what looks to be a fresh start for the Ghost of Sparta.
5. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
After an 11-year gap, Super Mario Bros. Wonder marks a grand return for the franchise, as well as a familiar yet fresh adventure for myself after having skipped almost the entire New Super Mario Bros. line for reasons that currently escape me, but more than likely a combination of time, money, and it was on the Wii/Wii U. With the Switch however, there hasn’t been a better time to be a platform junkie, and with the added benefit of taking the console experience on the go along with a vibrant indie scene, now seemed like the perfect time for me revisit the franchise that started it all.
Once more following the tried-and-true formula of “stop Bowser from committing evil across various colorful, if not weird lands,” you play as Mario & friends as you hop, stomp and transform your way across multiple levels to reach the goal post, with a few modern tweaks and twists thrown in for good measure. Though not exactly a high concept story or revolutionary in its mechanics, Nintendo has proven time and time again that they are the masters when it comes to level design, with an emphasis on art and environmental scenery, player agency, and most importantly, fun.
That’s where the Wonder Seed comes in, completely rewriting the script on the level and literally turning it on its head, whether it’s transitioning the stage into a full-on musical number, transforming Mario into entirely different creatures with their own powers or, my personal favorite, using the level’s central theme and turning it into a grand spectacle or straight up breaking it all together!
Although I said there isn’t much in the way of “new” mechanics, I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up Wonder’s other big contribution in the Badge system. When equipped, it grants Mario a second or alternate ability (passive buffs, additional movement/jumps, get-out-of jail cards). It’s a fun little quirk that adds another layer of replayability, even if more than a few badges end up being one-trick or too situational to be used on every level for my taste. Still, this is a great idea that feels ripe for further experimentation in future Mario platformers – just don’t bring back the invisibility badge.
Having completed the game and all but the final, FINAL challenge, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is bigger than its elephant sized trunk would have you believe. It may not be my definitive game of the year, much to my own surprise, but it is no less a “Wonderful!” platformer in Nintendo’s amazing portfolio and another must own game on the Switch. In a year that’s seen the iconic franchise celebrate its full-blown embrace into mediums beyond games, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a welcome reminder of why the original jumpman remains at the forefront of video games.
4. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
I’ll admit, I haven’t put as much time into Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon as I’d have liked, but that hasn’t stopped it from keeping me awake as I contemplate firing it up for one more dogfight, one more Garage tune up, and one more side job to earn the funds needed for my next upgrade and finally bury that son of a mech-
(Ahem…)
This being my first Armored Core, I went in with very little in the way of familiarity beyond From Software’s prestigious pedigree, as well as a couple online retrospectives detailing the history of the series in preparation for VI. As an AC newbie, I was stoked to jump in for the first time – and got immediately wrecked by the tutorial boss, a mean aircraft of steel and artillery raining down as I braced for cover. I got it down after a few tries, but that first encounter set the stage for the rest of the game as I hit another wall with chapter 1’s Balteus, arguably the game’s true skill check. Even with a walkthrough and a few modest upgrades, this dance of death shook me as I inched closer to knocking its HP down to 0 with each subsequent attempt across multiple evenings! Those close encounters and knuckle biting life-and-death decisions brought me closer to understanding the game’s ethos, setting the stage for even greater encounters and more weaponry than I know what to do with!
As much as I’ve sold the combat of ACVI, I’d be doing a great disservice if I didn’t bring up the other main attraction in the Garage. At its core – pun not intended – AC is a series that wants you to tinker and toy with your expensive war machines. While great strides are made to accommodate the new pilot – which FromSoft is keenly aware of their target audiences following their recent successes – customization is as much a part of the AC experience as robot combat action. In practice, one can certainly put together a few parts and call it a day or stick with a preferred build until circumstances require otherwise, but ultimately, your enjoyment of ACVI will come down to what you put into the customization portion.
Fortunately, ACVI delivers on that portion, introducing you to the various movement types (legs), weapons, ammunition, explosives, artillery launchers, melee options and so on, all showcased through live tutorials as the game progresses. For those with no creative output, this serves as a template on how to approach encounters and scope out possible purchases through the market. Once I got comfortable enough with the game’s economy and realized you can buy and sell almost everything without consequence, I’d frequently trade out certain parts to test out new ones while earning additional funds through missions to make more permanent purchases.
Though I can’t speak for AC fans on how well this game navigates its legacy into the modern age or if it succeeded in appeasing fears of “selling out” its veteran audience, I think we can all agree it’s a miracle that we are talking about Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon at all given From Software’s rise to prominence following a string of successful dark fantasy titles. Wherever direction the franchise heads in the future, if it’s anywhere near as polished as this, I expect the fire won’t be going out anytime soon.
3. Blasphemous II
What can I say? I’m either a glutton for punishment or it wouldn’t an Aether Awards without one bleak fantasy/gothic horror/dark horse title to even out the list! One of my favorite Metroidvanias and previous game of the year nominee of 2019 got a sequel that manages to improve on its predecessor with one simple addition – a double jump!
Blasphemous II picks up somewhere after the first following the Wounds of Eventide ending as the Penitent One awakens once more to stop the Miracle from returning by stopping the birth of its physical avatar. Gone is the Mea Culpa from your inventory, but in its place are three new weapons with their own strengths, power-ups and navigation properties. Starting the game with one and unlocking the other two in due time, this choice ends up determining what starting areas you can progress in and how hard you want the first few hours to be. I went with the War Censer which deals slow, but heavy damage, often hitting twice with its devastating arc.
One of the biggest criticisms of the first game was the difficulty, which admittedly did spike with some of the later bosses. For my part, I never found it to be unfair, especially since magic is overpowered and your equipables help mitigate some of the challenge even through the optional/expansion content, especially some of the late game upgrades and spells. While The Game Kitchen may have overcorrected a little too much to my personal taste with some of the bosses going down much quicker even with subsequent attempts, I think the tradeoff results in a more balanced and consistent experience. From my experience, you never spend too much time on one particular boss and platforming is far superior in this game with the added movement skills that I picked up on it while revisiting the first game recently. As much as I adore its predecessor, it’s hard to go back to its slower and heavier pace.
Speaking of the previous game, its post content support remains one of the best-case studies on how to improve and refine the experience by rewarding replayability. Excluding Wounds of Eventide’s unlock requirements to view its full content, The Game Kitchen managed to churn out some of the finest examples of supporting a title with New Game + and additional content made available to all with the same skill and attention to detail as the main campaign. While only time will tell if its sequel lives up to its predecessor’s post launch support, I have no problem today calling Blasphemous II one of the best of 2023. Or as my fellow blasphemers would call it – one hell of a good time.
Before moving onto my top two, if you enjoyed the religious imagery and otherworldly lore of the world of Blasphemous, I recently published a very extensive article going through the Inquisition of Radiant detailing some of the real-world figures and tales that influenced the story. For those unfamiliar with the source material, it has all sorts of historical, biblical and brutal retellings of one of the darkest periods in human history and how it connects back to the anime and manga of the same name. If you enjoy your penitence with a side of fantasy or can’t get enough of that eternal torment that is modern history, head on over using the link below after you are finished reading here.
The World of Radiant, Explained (Vol 2) — The Inquisition And The History That Inspired It
And with that intermission out of the way, back to the awards.
2. Super Mario RPG (2023)
Growing up in the 90s, my first exposure to Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars was close to the original 1996 release. I knew exactly one person who owned a copy of this game, and while I would never get the chance to play it until recently, I was keenly aware of this series and the steadfast reputation it had accumulated in the years since – or about proportional to the number of fans asking Sakurai to add Geno to Smash Bros.! Jokes aside, the game came at the right time of my Mario pandemonium – much to my parents’ chagrin – but never entered my radar on account of being very selective with the games I asked for.
Unlike most of my friends at the time, RPGs were never really my thing, and it took about 20+ years before I finally started to warm up on the genre. Of course, there were a few exceptions in that time gap. To name a few, the Mario RPGs that came after, Fire Emblem, Tales of Symphonia, Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced and its sequel – but for the most part, those were introduced to me by others through borrowing or at a friend’s house. In fact, it wasn’t until the PS3 era when I picked one up for myself for the first time, and that title was…. Final Fantasy XIII, a game that in all honesty was pretty terrible looking back on it, for more than one reason (XIII-2 was okay).
Fortunately, it didn’t cause me to swear the genre off forever, so I persevered until I found games more up to my speed, and the rest is history. Even so, there comes a time when a game from out of nowhere comes out and manages to break almost all of your expectations. To my own surprise, 2023’s definitive RPG ended up being a reboot of a game everyone expected would be locked in the Nintendo vault until the heat death of the universe. No, I’m not counting streaming services – buy or die! – but I am counting ArtePiazza’s excellent reimagining of the 1996 classic.
Super Mario RPG (2023) is a modernized take on the Nintendo/Square Enix collaboration which brought together the colorful worlds of the Mushroom Kingdom with Square’s turn-based strategy with a few tweaks and original creations of their own. Featuring a simplified but engaging action commands to the turn-based formula, a strange and whimsical fantasy setting that would become the first of many games to take a turn at fleshing out Mario’s world beyond his usual adventures, and a small, but memorable cast of characters backed up by one of the funniest and heartwarming stories I’ve played in sometime, this brisk 20-hour game accomplishes more in its opening hours than some of the finest 40 – 60 games of this generation. For a game that never wastes your time with grinding or exposition, I found myself exploring for the next surprise around the corner, purposely getting into encounters because its battle system is so damn fun.
Of course, having Yoko Shimomura’s wonderful score doesn’t hurt either! Along with the classic music, the entire soundtrack has been given the remake treatment, with enhanced takes on some of the more memorable tracks with the battle theme seeing the most notable change. Though I mostly stuck with the remakes, the option to switch between it and the 1996 tunes is a thoughtful gesture and a treat for seeing how far things have come in the 27 years since the original’s release.
In the end, Super Mario RPG surprised me more than I expected it to. Between its unexpected reveal and getting to experience the origins of some of my favorite Mario RPGs, I finally understand why this game is so beloved even almost three decades later – and now, it’s one of my favorites too.
1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Back in 2017, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild broke new ground by breaking almost everything we understood about Zelda at the time. Gone were traditional dungeon items and weapons, and in their place were armaments with weapon durability. Linear progression was thrown out the door in favor of empowering the player through the discovery of the world and its inner systems. Even the story and the idea of dungeons took an experimental approach to accommodate this new non-linear Zelda – with mixed results if we’re being completely honest.
While I enjoyed the game enough to include it in my Top 10 Games of 2017 – ranking at #4 – there was always a nagging feeling in the back of my neck that I wasn’t as fond of it as much of the gaming world was. Maybe it was because I was more enamored by games like Super Mario Odyssey, Nier: Automata, and my 2017 GOTY winner, Persona 5, which made me realize I do value storytelling in games more than I care to admit. Perhaps I’m showing my age and prefer the more whimsical tales of games like the Wind Waker and Link’s Awakening, the dark and mature storytelling of Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess, or the challenge of solving an intricate puzzle or quest like in Ocarina of Time, its Master Quest variant or the various other handheld Zeldas I’ve neglected to mention.
Or maybe I just really hate weapon degradation.
Whatever the case, the foundation was there, and the team at Nintendo EPD knew they had only scratched the surface. What started off as an expansion quickly morphed into the next mainland title and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom knocked it out of the park – almost. Sure, I have a few minor nitpicks, but as far as improving what worked in its predecessor and expanding on player agency, I’d be hard pressed to name a title that gives this level of freedom or any game of 2023 I had this much fun inhabiting. Trust me, I tried!
Anyways, Tears of the Kingdom is a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild. Same map, similar concept with more than a few new layers to peel through. Starting with breathtaking skies above Hyrule with seemingly unreachable areas to the forbidden underground where the poisonous Gloom grows and light almost never reaches the abyss, TOTK slowly introduces you to several new mechanics to gradually ease you in before setting you loose on this familiar yet aged world. In Zelda, time is a constant ebb and flow, often manifesting itself literally through gameplay, story wise, or in this game, highlighting how the world changed in Link and Zelda’s absence following the return of a familiar foe.
Despite the six-year gap between games and having not revisited BOTW in the time since – I own the Wii U version btw – the passage of time is made even more apparent upon crashing back down to earth. In a world where the threat of monsters and the blood red moon is a consistent threat, there is a good sense of progression following the events of the first game. Small details like seeing villages and communities rebuilding, the hero being recognized during leisurely strolls and catching up with familiar allies in the aftermath of the Calamity and the current Upheaval go a long way in fleshing out the current state of Hyrule and the expanded areas that have opened in your absence.
BOTW set the stage for experimentation and creativity, but TOTK took the concept and ran with it, giving you far greater options from navigation, problem solving, and my least favorite part of BOTW, combat. By fusing, tinkering, phasing and creating your own makeshift solutions, 9 times out of 10, it probably works! And when it doesn’t, the failure is so spectacular I’d find myself often laughing rather than cursing at the game screen before rebooting to my last checkpoint to try again.
Is TOTK the best Zelda game of all time? Probably not. Hell, I don’t even think it’s the best game of the year on account of not having the luxury of time in 2023 to hit up all the games I would have liked to in a neat fashion! In a year with unusually fierce competition, one could argue that there were better high fantasy worlds, narrative rich stories or even more fun video games released, some of which might have appealed to me greatly had I spent less time on my writing and more on my backlog.
Had things turned out differently though, I do know the following would still hold true: I know it wouldn’t have changed my initial excitement when I picked it up on day one. I would have still put in an odd 160 hours or more, always debating to spend just one more hour exploring another hidden corner of the world before going to bed. And most importantly, in this new hypothetical timeline where a different me got to this point in the list as I reminisce after a long journey, slayed the demon king and put down the sword and shield for likely the last time – for now – I’d remember the house still standing in my save file.
The house that I put an unusually high number of hours into for some reason. Not because of some extrinsic reward, a digital testament to an adventure well finished or a small historical relic that will go unused when all is said and done. No, it’s nothing more than a memory – a story of the Hero of the Wild and my 2023 game of the year, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
Ladies and gentlemen, those were my top 7 games of 2023. I skipped over a lot this time for various reasons, multiple scheduling conflicts, etc., etc. As always, what were some of your favorite games? Given my arduous year, there’s a significantly high chance I missed them – lord knows the jump to another shiny new console is going to hurt my wallet! Anyways, stay tuned for the Anime of the Year portion in a week or two, and until then, I will see you all in the next article.
Credits:
Dark Aether is a writer/contributor for TAY and AniTAY. You can check his main writings on Medium, archives at TAY2, or follow him on Twitter @TheGrimAether. Not Dead Yet.
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