It hasn’t exactly been banger after banger for me personally this year, but I can still recognize how big 2023 has been and how much excitement there has been year-round, from Hi-Fi Rush’s shadow drop to Alan Wake 2 right now.
It’s also been a great mix of new properties and long-running franchises. Zelda, Resident Evil, Diablo, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Baldur’s Gate, Mario, and even Armored Core all had well-reviewed, major releases this year.
I’m nowhere near calling 2023 the best ever–I think it’ll take a complete paradigm shift in the industry to ever top 1998–but a lot of people have been eating very good this year.
It’s tempting, but I know it would be too much of a time suck. Especially pre-Planes of Power era, after which time spent traveling drops dramatically.
I can’t imagine anyone unfamiliar with the game dropping into one of these fan servers, though. Bit of a reputation for not everyone being the nicest people, especially towards new players.
I’m on a continuing multiplayer campaign in Baldur’s Gate 3 and I’m also playing Atelier Totori.
It’s amazing how much new stuff I’m still seeing in BG3, and I’ve gotta be in hour 350 or something like that. I’m playing with a long-time video gaming partner and I’m just letting her run with it because I’ve already played through the game.
I really started to get into Atelier Totori once it started rolling, but I’m beginning to run out of steam. I’m really missing some of the UI/UX improvements that were in Atelier Rorona DX, and I also feel like the combat isn’t quite as sharp for some reason. I’m genuinely interested in the story at this point, however. If it wasn’t for that, I probably would have just jumped to Meruru.
When I got my PSX in 1997, the games sure felt like a good deal at $50 after paying $70+ for cartridges for years. I only got one new game per year at full price for my SNES. I also generally felt happier buying on PC because new games were also less than consoles for a while.
Now with the indie scene, there is a lot more variance, even though I also occasionally grab top-shelf releases. I still think FTL might have been the best $10 I’ve ever spent on a game. At the same time, I paid $60 for Persona 5 Royal right at launch even though I had played the original game, and I still thought it was incredible value.
Yes and no. My second play had countless new characters–three of them playable–several new zones, and a ton of new gameplay. I was constantly finding new places, new encounters, new conversations. I know there are still several zones I haven’t poked around in.
The main story beats don’t change much but there are still a lot of branching paths to get to them. Hell, you could even completely skip the goblin camp if you wanted.
Game studios just don’t do the kind of extra work to cover player choice like Larian did here. It’s why the game made waves in the industry. I’d say unless you really went over it with a fine comb the first time around (125 hours or more), it’s absolutely worth revisiting at some point.
I like Disco Elysium. I like BG3. They are much better narrative RPGs. I also feel absolutely no desire to go back and replay them.
Really? This is crazy to me. I get Disco, but outside of intentionally regenerative games (such as roguelikes/lites), I don’t think I’ve had my hands on a more replayable game than BG3 in years. There’s so much you don’t see in a given playthrough.
The best time I had in Warcraft was forming a new guild that had splintered off of an existing one (leadership was unpleasant). It was pretty scary at first, not knowing how it was going to turn out, but we had enough of the guild come with us that we managed top 50 raid progression on the realm the following year. It was super validating to have that kind of success in a casual raiding guild after all the turmoil.
I stayed in contact with our GM, and she and I still play on and off (we’re playing Baldur’s Gate 3 lately).
While four hours would be fast for a new player, 1-10 is very doable in one sitting for those familiar with the game. Early levels are fast; the bulk of those 30 days are later levels. The 50’s in particular are a slog.
It is, and it doesn’t, but one of the important functions of journalism is a public accounting of details such as these and engendering conversation thereof.
So this is a de facto price increase? From a manufacturer that just reported a record high annual profit? 175GB (the slightly increased storage) hasn’t been worth $50 in years.
This generation sucks. I was already annoyed that we probably weren’t going to see price drops with this or the Switch, but I certainly didn’t see a price increase for an unproven hardware revision coming.
It’s too bad you didn’t like the narrative structure with the calls in CP2077. That one ending uses them (or I guess you could call them voicemails, considering) to devastating effect. One of the most harrowing sequences I’ve seen in a game. It might have even saved a couple of lives.
I’d be okay with $70 for this if FeMC was included, as that would mean a lot of branched content. They’ve said there will be (and shown) added content to make up for it, but that could shake out to being an extra two hours in the end.
I’m glad the UI and battle transitions look slick, though, if only to put the fan narrative that no one’s making quality turn-based JRPGs to rest.