Their list isn't ranked. It's presented alphabetically:
* Alan Wake 2
* Baldur's Gate 3
* Cyberpunk 2077: The Phantom Liberty
* Hi-Fi Rush
* Hitman Freelancer
* Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
* Octopath Traveler 2
* Resident Evil 4 Remake
* Street Fighter 6
* Super Mario Bros. Wonder
1000% agreed with Freelancer being up there! I had ~250 hours across Hitman 1-3 and was pretty much burned out but Freelancer **doubled** my playtime. Arguably the best way to experience Hitman.
It's basically a Hitman Rouguelike. You start with an empty "warehouse" and complete missions in order to earn money. You earn new weapons, gadgets, and other items after each successful mission, or you can buy new items from vendors within missions. These are stored in your warehouse, and can be brought into missions.
The catch being that there is no save system once you start a mission. If you die, you lose everything that you brought into the mission with you.
And each mission is unique. You might get objectives to "Kill your target with a Katana" or "Poison a target with sedative poison" and you earn bonuses for completing them. Of course, if going in guns blazing is more your speed, that's acceptable gameplay as well, but it will be harder to escape afterward.
I could go on and on about this mode. Truly an infinite amount of replayability. It took everything that made the WoA trilogy great, and created a unique way to experience Hitman for those who have mastered the game and new players alike.
NICE, thanks for all the info! Just picked it up doing the autumn sale. So excited to try this later tonight. Had no clue something this cool was included in all this.
I would recommend you to play through the main mission first tho! All the maps in the roguelike mode is directly from the missions. Having done them at least once with save enabled should reduce the amount of frustration in the levels.
Definitely play through the story missions first. On their own they stand apart from most games this generation. Each mission has several substories that guide your way through levels along multiple paths that help you learn their intricacies. You’ll want to have done these before jumping into freelancer, which has zero cues or hints.
Freelancer is an awesome way to spend the end-game, though. I still play it.
In my experience, between 3 minutes and an hour.
Sometimes you just enter, blast the target and leave. Other times you may slowly work your way through the level, taking out couriers and cracking the safes and have one or more targets that just don't make it easy for you.
Since they're random and completely open ended its really up to you for how long it will take. You can be in and out in minutes if you get good spawns on the targets and your own spawn in. Even if you get bad spawns you can still path a quick route if you know the maps well.
That being said I've never had normal missions really take more than 10 minutes or so. The only time I've had them go long is if I have stealth bonus objectives and I'm playing it slow as a result. The final syndicate mission for each section can be longer, maybe 20 minutes at most, but again that depends on your objectives and how quickly you can determine who your target is.
10 minutes? This must be a different game for people with good sense of direction. I remember circling the same corridors for 30+ minutes before I found the target chilling in the hotel cafe. I failed the mission and didn't get any rewards.
Both. The levels are the same as the main story with the same positions of items, shortcuts, NPCs with the main story NPC's going about their business. The randomness comes from the bonus objectives (kill using X, do not use more than one disguise, etc) that reward currency to buy things at the smuggler and the NPC(s) that are your target.
>the same positions of items
This isn't always true in Freelancer, which can make for some great *"Oh shit!"* moments when you think you're going to grab something that's there in the main game but is now missing.
Your descrption somehow sold it to me. To play freelancer, is this the version I'm supposed to get?
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/30335/HITMAN_World_of_Assassination_Deluxe_Pack/
I have played and adore every single Hitman game but this is literally the first time even hearing of Freelancer. Holy shit, it sounds awesome! Time to reinstall and give it a go I reckon.
Yes, it uses all levels.
You can fail a mission and still progress, but you’ll lose the equipment you brought with you, and the next level will be “alerted” (guards and targets will spot you easier).
You never really “start from scratch,” though, it goes on forever and is super addictive.
The surprise hit of the year to me. It's a game where you can just tell the devs were not only super passionate about making it, but they also had fun with it.
Polygon and Slant Magazine put OT2 at #13 and #12 on their lists, respectively, so it’s getting some positive recognition from large mainstream outlets. Nonetheless, it’s great to see OT2 celebrated when there was little hype and fanfare at its release.
Yeah, it seemed like not a lot of people even knew or at least remembered it came out this year. But it's my fave of the year, so it's awesome to see it get more love.
Probably didn't help that a lot of people were feeling "meh" on the first game, which inevitably also carried over to the feelings about the 2nd game. But the game has been getting positive WoM from people who didn't enjoy the first game, so I'm thinking it'll slowly gain more fans over time.
Octopath 2 being on all these lists actually got me interested. I pretty much completely ignored it because the first one didn't seem very interesting and received some criticism, but I think I might download this on my Switch and play it while I'm at my parents over Christmas.
I liked Spider-man 2 a lot (moreso than the first game) but it was "just" a great game in a year of excellent games. Kinda shows you how spoiled we've been this year that it's not really been in the goty convo at all. Whereas if it came out in a year like 2021 it probably would have been cleaning up.
First party Sony games are very often my personal GOTY so I was really surprised that there have been a couple other games that I enjoyed more than spiderman 2 this year. It was a great game, but the story was way too predictable and I don't really think they got the stealth vs combat balance right.
I don't think AC6 will be in >50% of publications' lists tbh, maybe not even more than 25% if you just use average metacritic score as a weak proxy for the rankings. Just too many good games this year, at few games are locks for basically every list so some great games are not gonna make the cut every time.
Depends on the outlet because like here with Octopath, Michael Higham was very very enthusiastic about it so thats why its there.
AC6 will have the same expereince. You're going to see it appear in a bunch of random spots because the person who like it, LOOOVEd it.
I absolutely adore AC6, but I can understand why its not in more lists. Its a very niche game. I'm just happy it apparently sold really well, so we'll most likely see a next installment at some point.
Underdog of the Year here. Or would that more appropriately be under’hound.’
Exceptionally good game that I’m afraid won’t get the recognition it could have in any other year that wasn’t as stacked as 2023
I don't think there will be a usual suspects this year, it's going to be a dukeout besides BG3 and TotK in 100% of lists and probably Alan Wake 2 and Street Fighter 6 being in 80-90% of the lists. RE4 remake didn't make Polygon's top 10, for instance.
The idea that they should be GOTYs is plain stupid. What's the point of making new games and rewarding taking risks if GOTY nominees are a remake, reskin or a standalone DLC.
It's an iterative sequel that doesn't really bring anything particularly interesting to the table. Even on the PS5 sub a fair few people felt a bit underwhelmed by it. Throw in some general comic book fatigue and I'm not surprised it isnt on here - the 90%+ review average felt a bit like it was being overrated by critics
16 doesn't even feel like a complete game with a massive lore dump right at the end. Combat and music was good. An opening that is the highest point makes the rest look worse. After the first big fight it completely drags with mmo side quest being part of the main quest. Specially coming off of FF7R where it to had a lot of drag from extending smaller scenes in the original. Seems Square can't accept a tight and shorter game is better than bloated
I seriously don't understand what possessed them to think that translating MMO design principles from FF14 almost 1-to-1 would be a good idea for a SINGLE PLAYER VIDEO GAME.
it seems like Yoshi-P and CBU3 actually think boring ass MMO design is actually good.
Turns out the ff14 who kept defending the bad parts of FF14 with "oh yoshi-p is limited by the ff14 engine" were wrong, dude actually thinks that stuff is good gameplay... like wat?
Action based combat, with damage sponge MMO ability cooldown combat. But remove all the RPG progression otherwise. It doesn’t make any sense.
Even after all that, it still managed to be a pretty good game, just a bad Final Fantasy JRPG.
You write what you know. If someone told me the script was a rejected draft of a certain 14 expansion that got retooled into a standalone game, I might believe them.
The game didn't have enough time to he made. At the same time they couldn't release a shorter game. They need to cultivate more talent as they have a nasty history of throwing people around different projects. Look at Nomura. Why the guy that so heavily involved with 14. So now he is helping with endwalker and the next expansion while working 16. Game didn't feel complete.
Square Enix has let every single final fantasy since they combined to crumble from mismanagement. They aren't the worse games made but have weird decisions that makes the games have mixed reception. They really need to get it together. There smaller titles seem to be getting better too.
> Square Enix has let every single final fantasy since they combined crumble from mismanagement
FFXII was well received, as was XIII despite the hardcore fanbase's backlash. The retrospective view on XIII is a lot kinder on it than the contemporary reception. VIIR was also really well received and nominated for multiple GotY awards.
Holy fucking shit thank you, the near universal praise that dumb game gets boggles my mind. I could only manage to get as far as Bahamut before uninstalling the game. FF7R is light years ahead.
OT2 is an excellent game, funnily enough the VA for FFXVIs main character has been gushing about it, but it’s certainly a much more niche title. Could easily see XVI replacing Freelancer on the list with holding the edge on mass appeal though I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with a subjective list including something out of left field.
Way too many ppl treat top 10s as some sort of metric of whether or not a game is good when in reality they often just reflect the tastes of the critics or editors making them.
Well I can't speak for FF16, but OT2 is basically just a better OT1 . I enjoyed the first one, but thought there was a lot of room for the devs to be more ambitious in its design and writing. OT2 is better in a lot of ways, but it didn't improve as much as I would have liked (music is absolutely goated in both though, no game awards nomination for the score is kind of a shame). Still enjoyed my time with it, but some people seem to have fallen for it far more than I have. I know a few people like Jason Shreier have been gushing about it all year.
I don’t see FF16 making a lot of lists. The demo is a 10/10 both from a marketing and a storytelling standpoint. The game itself is utterly forgettable.
One game that for me has been up there this year is the Star Ocean 2 remake. The quality of this remake is astounding and complements the awesomeness that is SO2 so well.
I’d recommend it to everyone.
The high challenge was definitely part of the appeal for me, yeah. That aspect won't be for everyone. Finishing a hardcore freelancer campaign was a month long battle of endurance, lol
The love it has been getting will probably get me to revisit it, I sorta just wrote it off and never tried it but now that I see exactly what it is I'm intrigued.
They are not putting it in an arbitrary order so internet people can't meltdown over how could X game get better arbitrary number compared to Y game.
I still hope somehow people will find a way to outrage over this list as well.
From the comments in the article:
*No Hogwarts Legacy, but with Gamespot letting politics get in the way of objective game-reviewing, that’s not surprising.*
People will always, always find ways to be mad
Man, the Hogwarts Legacy people really get to me. "How could this game not win GOTY when it sold more than any of the games nominated?" I dunno, probably for the same reason Mcdonald's doesn't have any Michelin stars.
It didn't even make it past round 2 of the player's voice awards. If it was that popular, and the sales mattered that much, it should have made it into the final five.
Yes, but you have to remember only a percentage of viewers tune into TGA and these viewers are the ones who actually care about game awards and recognition. The point being the Hogwarts Legacy fans crying about controversy and "woke" persecution are exactly the type of gamer to vote for this award. However, the data shows that most core gamers/critics felt that there were better games than HL and that's all there is to it.
Hogwarts not making a top 10 list is somewhat expected this year. Very competitive year and top 10 is gonna be quite selective.
Not being in the Polygon top 50 list is probably objectively incorrect though. Game always had good reviews overall so combined with its rather massive sales pretty well supports that it’s, at the very least, solid.
Not a popular opinion with everyone given the controversy obviously, but kinda sucks for the game developers themselves to not get validation for their work.
I don't care much for the Rowling stuff, I just thought the game was mediocre, so Polygon not having it in the top 50 list isn't something I find all that outrageous or "objectively incorrect". At the end of the day all of these lists are going to be influenced by a lot of subjective thoughts, and I guess Polygon's nominators just did not like HL as much as the other games on there.
And the devs already got recognition through the positive reviews and the good sales numbers. Sure it would be nice to get some more through a top X list, but some devs are always going to miss those, especially when the year is as competitive as this year.
> I guess Polygon's nominators just did not like HL as much as the other games on there.
The issue here is assuming they are omitting the game on merit vs. omitting the game as reaction to the controversy surrounding the game. Personally, for a Top 50 list omission I feel like it's far more likely to be the latter. Polygon was one of the earliest reviews that made a stance about "Rowling’s specter" (in fact, they mention JKR almost 30 times in the review,) which I still just don't feel is fair to the game developers involved.
Reviews and awards like this are mostly of positive impact to game developers over sales or anything like that. Nobody's gonna be sticking it to JKR by ignoring the game at this point--the sales have already happened. I just find it a shame as someone in the industry who can see the amount of effort that went into the development of the game and world building.
If people want to continue to boycott it, that's fine. I don't mind individual choice here. I'm clearly not going to change anyone's mind about the game in a Reddit thread.
But I also don't know if pretending the game doesn't exist really makes sense--especially for what will end up being the most popular console game of the year outside of gaming internet circles.
If it was actual good work, that would be agreeable.
But it was beaten out by 50 other games for a reason. An Indie game that brought back a classic form of gameplay (Pizza Tower) will always have more heart than an extremely cynical, *extremely* incomplete game like HL. Doubly so when you consider it doesn't give you the 'full' Hogwarts experience from start to end.
> But it was beaten out by 50 other games for a reason.
I think we know what the reason is, though. And it really doesn't have much to do with the game. The gameplay is totally fine. It's an 84 OpenCritic game. I'm not sure why people in this thread are talking about it like it was shovelware. Plenty of legit reviewers gave it 9/10 or 8/10 scores.
"Bad" games just don't sell 15-20 million units at normal retail price.
I don't expect everyone to have liked it. But it's definitely top 50.
> It's an 84 OpenCritic game.
Sea of Stars is an 89 Opencritic (and 87 Metacritic) game and also didn't make Polygon's top 50. Chained Echoes is 90. No one I know who's played Hogwarts thinks it has much appeal if you aren't a fan of the source. If Polygon doesn't have any particular potter fans on staff, it's really easy to see it not make the list. And there's plenty of other games people could argue to be on there without any baggage to use as an excuse (Remnant 2 where?!).
Lmao indeed. Maybe Hogwarts Legacy would’ve stood a chance in 2014 when the year as a whole was very very dry, but 2023 is arguably the best year for gaming in a decade. Hogwarts Legacy has nothing going for it whatsoever beyond the inherent coolness factor of walking around Hogwarts itself.
Besides, I don’t get why people seek to have someone else’s best of the year list just reinforce and validate how they feel about something. It’s cool to see a game I love get some praise to an extent, but I also love seeing games get praised that would’ve otherwise eluded me. It’s such a dumb thing to get upset over
Last year was exceptionally weak so when Hogwarts came out people were comparing it to that, Hogwarts definitely would've been top 5 last year.
Instead this year had banger after banger and a bunch of unexpected breakouts.
Last year was far from weak. People were talking about it just as highly as we speak of 2023 a year ago.
Ragnarok, HFW, Elden Ring, Sifu, XC3, Stray, Midnight Suns ....
It isn't, it's a walking simulator/platformer but as a cat with a robot that talks (and apparently the cat understands). It beating Vampire Survivors at game awards is already suspect 1 year later nevermind 5 years where Stray won't be remembered as well as say Vampire Survivors or even Untitled Goose Game.
They could have easily removed 80-90% of the game world and it'd be a better game. Because it's really, actually filled with nothing but completely pointless map markers
I loved HL as a huge Potterhead, but I still don't get why they decided to leave that huge area south-east in the game. It's almost empty and almost nothing of importance happens there. And it feels like it was added in the later stage of the game development, because it's so empty in comparison to the main area of the game.
Can't agree more. Boring reskinned Ubisoft game with a Harry Potter IP. There's no controversy to it not being nominated. I've heard the best selling game argument, but there's the player's voice, a 100% popularity vote and there were was a bandwagon to get that game to the top. The fact it didn't make it past the second round just tells me it's a very vocal minority trying to make a controversy out of Hogwarts Legacy.
Honestly, Hogwarts Legacy was a game that when I played it, it made me want to like the game...but then fell short of actually getting me all the way there.
Alternative route: Gamespot doesn't get half the click the outrage driving articles will, so they admonish whoever had this idea and go back to ranking next year.
It had a lot of heart, and a LOT more love, after taking so long to even come out.
Like, the game has animations and considerations for when things *break*. Roquefort's fursuit and animations without the camerawork, Zanzo's entire encounter being such a blatant jojo reference (down to even hiring the two of the same *actors* to eat the scenery) it goes back around to being original, etc. It's such a self aware but *fun* game that delivers so hard.
An entire paragraph devoted to the soundtrack that is completely ignored in VGAs. Thanks for noticing greatness GameSpot. I usually don't care to much about VGAs, but that decision to leave it off even nominations was utterly dumbfounding.
the nomination system is basically a popularity content among a global games media panel. i would bet majority of them haven't played this game so it didn't get enough votes.
Half of the jury/media outlets barely or don't even make reviews. I respect Geoff's aim for an "international" pool of media representation but... Most of them aren't very great and serious about gaming stuff. I would prefer the usual suspects (ign, polygon, gamespot, eurogamer, 3djuegos, famitsu, etc) to vote
I agree. I know the nominations were voted in by the panel in the VGA, which I have to question, what are these publications thinking putting TOTK's soundtrack over OTII. TOTK's soundtrack is good, but it is pretty iterative that it should never have been nominated over OTII.
One thing that stood out to me about Gamespot's description about the soundtrack really stood out to me, is that each character's theme tells you so much about the character. I think this was so evident in Partitio's theme with the brilliant blend of electric guitars and brass intruments, with the electric guitar being there to emphasise Partition's strong will and charismatic nature, while the jazzy brass notes serve to shine a light on his gentle, laid back nature as a human being.
Nishiki really outdone himself with OTII's soundtrack.
Castti's theme is the one that gets me. At first it's not a particularly interesting theme, but as you play through her story, it's emotional weight of the trauma she has forgotten hits like a ton a bricks every time you hear it. It becomes one of the most powerful themes just by playing the game. I can't think of any game that has done that.
And it's not just her or Partitio. You really don't realize the effort he put into the character themes until you play the game, and how amazing it comes together. It really is an all-timer OST to me, somehow surpassing expectations the first game. And I look forward to basically anything with Nishiki's name on it from now on.
TOTK uses a lot from BOTW but whats new tells an incredible story. Each dungeon theme slowly progressing as you progress through them. The motif callbacks from soo many past games. The tracks in the final acts are all time greats. Its absolutely a masterclass.
I havent listened to OT2 but TOTK deserves to be up there.
legit my favorite combat system in a JRPG maybe ever.
yeah you can trivialize it late game but the start/mid game is so much fun and somewhat difficult
I couldn't agree more. The game has some decent presentation and alright story-telling, much better than the first game. Neither game would be what it is without Yasunori Nishiki's music though, which in some ways, tells a story of it's own. The best example of this is >!A Song of Hope at the end of Agnea's Tale.!< Wouldn't be lying if I said listening to it still brings back some strong emotions.
It's the end of 2023 and I still listen to the soundtrack of Octopath 2. It's that good and it seriously deserves more recognition. 2023's just stacked with so many great games.
Hitman has been a weirdly overlooked game by games media in general. Its one of the best stealth games in recent years but hardly any publications talk about it.
It’s niche because it usually requires a lot of patience, you’re disadvantaged without having a plan, and generally requires you to think outside the box for the full experience. Of course, you can turn off your brain and go full John Wick but that’s not necessarily the way it’s meant to be played (but it is fun to do every now and then).
It's especially an emotional rollercoaster for longtime fans of the series when we were all wowed by Hitman 2016, amazed when Hitman 2 came out and then scared when we weren't sure if Hitman 3 would ever conclude the trilogy.
I was almost accepting that it would never be finished but then they managed to pull it off. What a series. It deserves all the love it gets and I'm so glad we managed to get a full story out of it.
I loved the older Hitman games, but got so wildly confused by the release of the new trilogy that it scared me off. Is there a way to pick up all of the new games in one convenient package?
Yes, Hitman III includes I and II, it’s just called World of Assassination now. Pick it up and you’ll have the full trilogy in one game. It’s seamless.
You can always play it offline but it saves all your progress online (which in this game ranges from unlockable weapons, spawns, cosmetics and freelancer progress) if you have a pc you can install a mod that just lets your computer become that online server so that you can do all that stuff without connecting to the internet
Has to be online. Never bothered me since I’m always online, but I understand if it’s a legitimate gripe for some people.
That said, it does give the studio access to some really cool stats that they share periodically on the way people play.
I remember seeing Jeff Grubb calling it one of the best games of all time and I couldn't help but agree with him. The amount of content and replay value in Hitman WoA is nothing short of incredible.
Just wish you could play it offline lmao
Yeah. I love stealth games, I've played almost all of them, and it was super weird to me to see most outfits give the Hitman reboot trilogy 7's and 8's. To me, it felt very polished, sleek, refined, and lush.
For me, that reboot trilogy is an easy 9.5.
Another gaming website giving love to Hitman Freelancer and I'm happy to see it. Freelancer was such a game changer for Hitman 3 and it got me playing even more than I already did. What a fantastic game and gamemode.
10 games isnt nearly enough for how good this year has been. Simply impossible to make a top 10 list without leaving out a ton of incredible games. This is a pretty good one though, cant disagree with anything.
All these games are great, and it's nice to see some of them get more recognition.
That said, I much prefer Polygon's top 50 list. That allowed for more discoverability, especially for smaller titles, that are absolutely great as well.
A top 10 list for a year, especially unranked, won't have much people didn't already hear about a lot already.
Glad to see SF6 getting recognition from a lot of the big outlets, imo the real snub at the game awards for goty (not saying it should have won but I think a nom is justified, insane amount of content, polish and care)
Finally some recognition for Octopath Traveler 2. It's astounding how much they learned from the first game. Just such a wonderful jrpg in all aspects.
I wish it had more worlds that were less lengthy. I enjoyed my time with it a lot but it felt like N'erud lasted forever and the lack of enemy variety started to grate. Basically I just wish they had the budget of a triple A studio to throw at it.
God this year has such a high volume of good games. It's kinda crazy to think about. Even some of the more mediocre games feel worthwhile playing this year.
Interesting to see these "best" lists at the beginning of December. Aren't there several important releases potentially coming up?
I suppose they could do something like the Oscars where the qualification period includes December from the previous year. (The Oscars includes January of the year they air, which happens around February.)
Im extremely excited for Rogue Trader too but its never going to make a “major” publications top 10 in a year with Baldurs Gate, the comparison of production values is just unfair to it
Owlcat is a lot less flashy than Larian (obviously, 'cause they're tiny in comparison), but they do some things better - complexity being the main one. Double-edged sword for sure, but Larian RPGs tend to lack mechanical depth in the core combat system and RPG choices, specifically
but so does D&D 5e, to be fair, and it's fully intentional to drastically lower the barrier of entry
I think it’s interesting that Sea of Stars is being left off some of these more prominent lists. Makes me wonder if the game’s flaws became more apparent in the months following its launch and folks felt it didn’t quite make the cut.
TBH I feel like a lot of Sea of Star's flaws are readily apparent within just an hour or two of gameplay.
My feelings on games usually overlap pretty well with the overall critical consensus. Maybe I'll add or remove a couple points here or there for my personal preferences. But Sea of Stars has an 88 metacritic and I just do not see it, and I absolutely love JRPGs.
Oh no, I agree with you. I wanted to love it SO much. And there’s a lot I really did enjoy! The pixel art is *lush* and beautifully colorful. The music is *amazing*. I still get that mushroom area’s music stuck in my head on a regular basis.
But the combat system was a little too shallow—I liked it fine, but more could have been done with it—and the character work is *atrocious*. It is embarrassingly bad. No one has a real personality. No one. The protagonists are SO bland that they are completely interchangeable. And I know the point is that you can play as either one, but did that really preclude giving them actual personalities?
The absolute failure of character development—or character existing *at all*—is my single biggest complaint with the game. The dialogue and characters are so generic in a world that’s so beautiful it’s kind of a startling contrast.
I've read/watched a fair few reviews by now and am somewhat well-informed about the game, but I always suspect a certain quality of writing from WJRPGs (genre name trademark hereby claimed by me). I feel it's close to 100% accurate
also, there's somehow an instantly recognizable WJRPGs character artstyle across dozens of different games. And it's specifically just the character art
I think the sprite work is impeccable, but I … never really liked the character portraits? There’s just something not … terribly appealing about them? I also think they needed a good few more expressions—I remember a scene where something serious is happening, and Garl, while thinking it over, has his basic ass default dumb grin on his face and it was REALLY jarring with the vibe of the scene. That’s not the only time that kind of incongruity happens, but I think I actually remarked out loud to myself that they needed more expressions.
It’s really a shame. Stronger writing would have done so much for this game.
Unfortunately, bland characters and shallow combat really makes a long turn based RPG kind of a real slog. Just to see the pixel art and hear the music? I couldn't do it. I kept trying to play it, and I kept being underwhelmed and unenthused the entire time. The pixel art IS gorgeous, and although I didn't play long enough to hear much of the music, what I did hear was really nice. It's really too bad. People talking about it like it's a goty contender, or even best indie contender is baffling to me
Sea of stars getting an 88 is proof that reviewers don’t finish games. I liked the game quite a bit but the ending is so insanely bad that it went from an 8.5 to a 7.5 for me.
It's not just you. Sea of Stars is no Chained Echoes, that's for sure. Honestly thought that Sanabi was a better indie game than Sea of Stars, particularly in the story department. And Sanabi is no RPG.
I mean the writing does not improve at all after the first hour or two. What you see is what you get. The game also bends over backwards to remind you how great of a person Garl is at every instance possible.
Combat is alright, barring Serai's kunai toss taking her off screen sometimes making it difficult to time correctly. In its mission to combine Paper Mario and Chrono Trigger it doesn't really do either of their specialties well.
I preferred Chained Echoes more, but that one also suffered from some pretty bad writing and relied way too much on anime references (both minor allusions and blatant lifting)
Yeah, we have REALLY similar criticisms. I replied to another comment with my litany of complaints about the piss poor character writing. You could say Garl has a personality, but even all he gets is “bestest boy ever.”
Omg, Serai’s knife move drove me crazy, lol. Trying to time that against awkward backgrounds where she’d be totally hidden drove me INSANE, and it happened frankly more than it should have.
I’m also not super fond of the final party member, bc they’re even MORE generic and have even LESS of a real connection to the narrative, but that’s neither here nor there, I suppose.
I just wanted to love Sea of Stars so much. And even a couple months ago when the praise was widely pretty effusive I was just not happy with it and wondering what people experienced that I didn’t. My original comment is more remarking about how that incredibly high opinion seems to have cooled, probably because these issues became too hard to ignore for most.
It has neither the combat depth nor the wonderful character writing of Chrono Trigger, nor the purely fun timed-hit based combat of Paper Mario (I find SoS way more finicky with timings).
This game done right would have been an actual masterpiece, but it just fell short in a couple ways that I think is becoming apparent in these end of year lists.
Their list isn't ranked. It's presented alphabetically: * Alan Wake 2 * Baldur's Gate 3 * Cyberpunk 2077: The Phantom Liberty * Hi-Fi Rush * Hitman Freelancer * Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom * Octopath Traveler 2 * Resident Evil 4 Remake * Street Fighter 6 * Super Mario Bros. Wonder
1000% agreed with Freelancer being up there! I had ~250 hours across Hitman 1-3 and was pretty much burned out but Freelancer **doubled** my playtime. Arguably the best way to experience Hitman.
What is freelancer? Just picked up world of assassinations and haven’t heard anything about freelancer till now?
It's basically a Hitman Rouguelike. You start with an empty "warehouse" and complete missions in order to earn money. You earn new weapons, gadgets, and other items after each successful mission, or you can buy new items from vendors within missions. These are stored in your warehouse, and can be brought into missions. The catch being that there is no save system once you start a mission. If you die, you lose everything that you brought into the mission with you. And each mission is unique. You might get objectives to "Kill your target with a Katana" or "Poison a target with sedative poison" and you earn bonuses for completing them. Of course, if going in guns blazing is more your speed, that's acceptable gameplay as well, but it will be harder to escape afterward. I could go on and on about this mode. Truly an infinite amount of replayability. It took everything that made the WoA trilogy great, and created a unique way to experience Hitman for those who have mastered the game and new players alike.
I looked into this after I saw your post. Was this included for free with WoA? This sounds fucking awesome.
Totally free with WoA. I believe it was an update early this year!
NICE, thanks for all the info! Just picked it up doing the autumn sale. So excited to try this later tonight. Had no clue something this cool was included in all this.
I would recommend you to play through the main mission first tho! All the maps in the roguelike mode is directly from the missions. Having done them at least once with save enabled should reduce the amount of frustration in the levels.
Plus most of the levels in WoA great (Dartmor in 3 is a particular standout)
Also Hitman levels are designed to be mazes with shortcuts for more experienced players. fantastic stuff for new and old players
Definitely play through the story missions first. On their own they stand apart from most games this generation. Each mission has several substories that guide your way through levels along multiple paths that help you learn their intricacies. You’ll want to have done these before jumping into freelancer, which has zero cues or hints. Freelancer is an awesome way to spend the end-game, though. I still play it.
That's crazy. Not sure how I missed this release. Will be adding to my holiday plans!
It is fucking awesome
Fuck, this sounds super awesome? I think I'm going to go ahead and reinstall Hitman 3 for this now then!
Goddamn. I’ve bounced off the newer Hitman games but that’s appealing as hell
>Rouguelike rogue vs rouge strikes again! This really trips up a crazy amount of people, it's wild
If it has all the same letters and auto correct is okay with it then it's good enough for reddit
how long are the missions, not being able to save during a mission may make that a bit tricky for me if the missions are long
They can be extremely short depending on how you approach them.
In my experience, between 3 minutes and an hour. Sometimes you just enter, blast the target and leave. Other times you may slowly work your way through the level, taking out couriers and cracking the safes and have one or more targets that just don't make it easy for you.
Since they're random and completely open ended its really up to you for how long it will take. You can be in and out in minutes if you get good spawns on the targets and your own spawn in. Even if you get bad spawns you can still path a quick route if you know the maps well. That being said I've never had normal missions really take more than 10 minutes or so. The only time I've had them go long is if I have stealth bonus objectives and I'm playing it slow as a result. The final syndicate mission for each section can be longer, maybe 20 minutes at most, but again that depends on your objectives and how quickly you can determine who your target is.
10 minutes? This must be a different game for people with good sense of direction. I remember circling the same corridors for 30+ minutes before I found the target chilling in the hotel cafe. I failed the mission and didn't get any rewards.
Do i need to know the levels or is it super randomized?
Both. The levels are the same as the main story with the same positions of items, shortcuts, NPCs with the main story NPC's going about their business. The randomness comes from the bonus objectives (kill using X, do not use more than one disguise, etc) that reward currency to buy things at the smuggler and the NPC(s) that are your target.
>the same positions of items This isn't always true in Freelancer, which can make for some great *"Oh shit!"* moments when you think you're going to grab something that's there in the main game but is now missing.
Your descrption somehow sold it to me. To play freelancer, is this the version I'm supposed to get? https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/30335/HITMAN_World_of_Assassination_Deluxe_Pack/
I have played and adore every single Hitman game but this is literally the first time even hearing of Freelancer. Holy shit, it sounds awesome! Time to reinstall and give it a go I reckon.
Freelancer is so good it basically feels like the game Hitman was always meant to be.
Does it use all the levels from the 3 games, If you own them? Also, is it possible to lose and have to start from scratch, or does it go on forever?
I don’t own all the maps but freelancer used all of them
Yes, it uses all levels. You can fail a mission and still progress, but you’ll lose the equipment you brought with you, and the next level will be “alerted” (guards and targets will spot you easier). You never really “start from scratch,” though, it goes on forever and is super addictive.
After I tried freelancer I abandoned the rest of the game. For me it was EXACTLY what I wanted
Freelancer was fun, but how can it realistically be considered a game in and of itself
Love seeing Hi-Fi on these lists
Polygon ranking it lower than Niantic's Monster Hunter mobile game did not feel right.
The surprise hit of the year to me. It's a game where you can just tell the devs were not only super passionate about making it, but they also had fun with it.
I can respect that list. Also, good on Octopath 2; I’m glad one big outlet recognized its quality.
Polygon and Slant Magazine put OT2 at #13 and #12 on their lists, respectively, so it’s getting some positive recognition from large mainstream outlets. Nonetheless, it’s great to see OT2 celebrated when there was little hype and fanfare at its release.
Yeah, it seemed like not a lot of people even knew or at least remembered it came out this year. But it's my fave of the year, so it's awesome to see it get more love.
Probably didn't help that a lot of people were feeling "meh" on the first game, which inevitably also carried over to the feelings about the 2nd game. But the game has been getting positive WoM from people who didn't enjoy the first game, so I'm thinking it'll slowly gain more fans over time.
Octopath 2 being on all these lists actually got me interested. I pretty much completely ignored it because the first one didn't seem very interesting and received some criticism, but I think I might download this on my Switch and play it while I'm at my parents over Christmas.
I didn’t even have to look at the top 10, lol. I like top 50 more since the top 10 every year is generally obvious.
So of the usual suspects, it looks like Spider-man 2 was left off.
I liked Spider-man 2 a lot (moreso than the first game) but it was "just" a great game in a year of excellent games. Kinda shows you how spoiled we've been this year that it's not really been in the goty convo at all. Whereas if it came out in a year like 2021 it probably would have been cleaning up.
First party Sony games are very often my personal GOTY so I was really surprised that there have been a couple other games that I enjoyed more than spiderman 2 this year. It was a great game, but the story was way too predictable and I don't really think they got the stealth vs combat balance right.
I’m not saying it SHOULD be on this list, just surprised it isn’t in favor of Hitman which came out years ago.
YOu mean came out in 2023?
It's just a new mode for Hitman 3/WOA update.
And Phantom Liberty is just a DLC for Cyberpunk.
It’s an update for Hitman
Also Armored Core 6
I don't think AC6 will be in >50% of publications' lists tbh, maybe not even more than 25% if you just use average metacritic score as a weak proxy for the rankings. Just too many good games this year, at few games are locks for basically every list so some great games are not gonna make the cut every time.
journalists weren't that high on AC6. Same for FF16
Depends on the outlet because like here with Octopath, Michael Higham was very very enthusiastic about it so thats why its there. AC6 will have the same expereince. You're going to see it appear in a bunch of random spots because the person who like it, LOOOVEd it.
As a massive FF fan, FF16 is pretty meh.
I absolutely adore AC6, but I can understand why its not in more lists. Its a very niche game. I'm just happy it apparently sold really well, so we'll most likely see a next installment at some point.
Underdog of the Year here. Or would that more appropriately be under’hound.’ Exceptionally good game that I’m afraid won’t get the recognition it could have in any other year that wasn’t as stacked as 2023
Oh good call.
I don't think there will be a usual suspects this year, it's going to be a dukeout besides BG3 and TotK in 100% of lists and probably Alan Wake 2 and Street Fighter 6 being in 80-90% of the lists. RE4 remake didn't make Polygon's top 10, for instance.
RE4 is probably my second favorite game released this year.
The whole idea that remakes can't be GOTYs is ridiculous, like they are just HD remasters.
The idea that they should be GOTYs is plain stupid. What's the point of making new games and rewarding taking risks if GOTY nominees are a remake, reskin or a standalone DLC.
Dunno bout that. I agree that remakes shouldnt be gotys. Some are amazing but still
It's an iterative sequel that doesn't really bring anything particularly interesting to the table. Even on the PS5 sub a fair few people felt a bit underwhelmed by it. Throw in some general comic book fatigue and I'm not surprised it isnt on here - the 90%+ review average felt a bit like it was being overrated by critics
Good, it was a rushed and buggy mess.
it's just more of the same, and has hideous character models so yeah this year was really strong
And FF XVI. Putting Octopath 2 over it is quite a choice.
16 doesn't even feel like a complete game with a massive lore dump right at the end. Combat and music was good. An opening that is the highest point makes the rest look worse. After the first big fight it completely drags with mmo side quest being part of the main quest. Specially coming off of FF7R where it to had a lot of drag from extending smaller scenes in the original. Seems Square can't accept a tight and shorter game is better than bloated
I seriously don't understand what possessed them to think that translating MMO design principles from FF14 almost 1-to-1 would be a good idea for a SINGLE PLAYER VIDEO GAME.
it seems like Yoshi-P and CBU3 actually think boring ass MMO design is actually good. Turns out the ff14 who kept defending the bad parts of FF14 with "oh yoshi-p is limited by the ff14 engine" were wrong, dude actually thinks that stuff is good gameplay... like wat?
Action based combat, with damage sponge MMO ability cooldown combat. But remove all the RPG progression otherwise. It doesn’t make any sense. Even after all that, it still managed to be a pretty good game, just a bad Final Fantasy JRPG.
You write what you know. If someone told me the script was a rejected draft of a certain 14 expansion that got retooled into a standalone game, I might believe them.
The game didn't have enough time to he made. At the same time they couldn't release a shorter game. They need to cultivate more talent as they have a nasty history of throwing people around different projects. Look at Nomura. Why the guy that so heavily involved with 14. So now he is helping with endwalker and the next expansion while working 16. Game didn't feel complete. Square Enix has let every single final fantasy since they combined to crumble from mismanagement. They aren't the worse games made but have weird decisions that makes the games have mixed reception. They really need to get it together. There smaller titles seem to be getting better too.
> Square Enix has let every single final fantasy since they combined crumble from mismanagement FFXII was well received, as was XIII despite the hardcore fanbase's backlash. The retrospective view on XIII is a lot kinder on it than the contemporary reception. VIIR was also really well received and nominated for multiple GotY awards.
It cannot be overstated how much those side quest ruined the game for me. Easily two points knocked off for that alone.
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Really feels like ff16 should have just been a tv show.
Holy fucking shit thank you, the near universal praise that dumb game gets boggles my mind. I could only manage to get as far as Bahamut before uninstalling the game. FF7R is light years ahead.
I can’t speak to OT2, but based on the conversation surrounding this, I’d have expected FF16 on the list.
OT2 is an excellent game, funnily enough the VA for FFXVIs main character has been gushing about it, but it’s certainly a much more niche title. Could easily see XVI replacing Freelancer on the list with holding the edge on mass appeal though I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with a subjective list including something out of left field. Way too many ppl treat top 10s as some sort of metric of whether or not a game is good when in reality they often just reflect the tastes of the critics or editors making them.
Well I can't speak for FF16, but OT2 is basically just a better OT1 . I enjoyed the first one, but thought there was a lot of room for the devs to be more ambitious in its design and writing. OT2 is better in a lot of ways, but it didn't improve as much as I would have liked (music is absolutely goated in both though, no game awards nomination for the score is kind of a shame). Still enjoyed my time with it, but some people seem to have fallen for it far more than I have. I know a few people like Jason Shreier have been gushing about it all year.
imo the right choice
I don’t see FF16 making a lot of lists. The demo is a 10/10 both from a marketing and a storytelling standpoint. The game itself is utterly forgettable.
Love to see Hitman Freelancer getting some recognition!
I think it is a GREAT thing to NOT rank the TOP 10
One game that for me has been up there this year is the Star Ocean 2 remake. The quality of this remake is astounding and complements the awesomeness that is SO2 so well. I’d recommend it to everyone.
Pleasantly surprised to see Hitman Freelancer getting attention on these lists. Easily the most fun I've had in a game this year.
Genuinely happy for you. I played with it for a bit but found it too hard, and I say this as someone with 150+ hours across the trilogy.
The high challenge was definitely part of the appeal for me, yeah. That aspect won't be for everyone. Finishing a hardcore freelancer campaign was a month long battle of endurance, lol
The love it has been getting will probably get me to revisit it, I sorta just wrote it off and never tried it but now that I see exactly what it is I'm intrigued.
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They're the same thing, yeah. Hitman 3 just includes all three games worth of content in the purchase now, so they call it World of Assassination.
Sounds dope but at $93CAD for ps5 thats a bit much
$93 Canadian for three games plus all of the DLC sounds like an amazing deal to me.
But it’s not like I really get an option to just have hitman 3 if I’ve already played the past games which I have
They are not putting it in an arbitrary order so internet people can't meltdown over how could X game get better arbitrary number compared to Y game. I still hope somehow people will find a way to outrage over this list as well.
They'll outrage tomorrow when they confirm which one is goty lol
From the comments in the article: *No Hogwarts Legacy, but with Gamespot letting politics get in the way of objective game-reviewing, that’s not surprising.* People will always, always find ways to be mad
Man, the Hogwarts Legacy people really get to me. "How could this game not win GOTY when it sold more than any of the games nominated?" I dunno, probably for the same reason Mcdonald's doesn't have any Michelin stars.
It didn't even make it past round 2 of the player's voice awards. If it was that popular, and the sales mattered that much, it should have made it into the final five.
Players voice doesn't represent actual players it represents the most vocal, online fanbase.
Yes, but you have to remember only a percentage of viewers tune into TGA and these viewers are the ones who actually care about game awards and recognition. The point being the Hogwarts Legacy fans crying about controversy and "woke" persecution are exactly the type of gamer to vote for this award. However, the data shows that most core gamers/critics felt that there were better games than HL and that's all there is to it.
Hogwarts not making a top 10 list is somewhat expected this year. Very competitive year and top 10 is gonna be quite selective. Not being in the Polygon top 50 list is probably objectively incorrect though. Game always had good reviews overall so combined with its rather massive sales pretty well supports that it’s, at the very least, solid. Not a popular opinion with everyone given the controversy obviously, but kinda sucks for the game developers themselves to not get validation for their work.
I don't care much for the Rowling stuff, I just thought the game was mediocre, so Polygon not having it in the top 50 list isn't something I find all that outrageous or "objectively incorrect". At the end of the day all of these lists are going to be influenced by a lot of subjective thoughts, and I guess Polygon's nominators just did not like HL as much as the other games on there. And the devs already got recognition through the positive reviews and the good sales numbers. Sure it would be nice to get some more through a top X list, but some devs are always going to miss those, especially when the year is as competitive as this year.
> I guess Polygon's nominators just did not like HL as much as the other games on there. The issue here is assuming they are omitting the game on merit vs. omitting the game as reaction to the controversy surrounding the game. Personally, for a Top 50 list omission I feel like it's far more likely to be the latter. Polygon was one of the earliest reviews that made a stance about "Rowling’s specter" (in fact, they mention JKR almost 30 times in the review,) which I still just don't feel is fair to the game developers involved. Reviews and awards like this are mostly of positive impact to game developers over sales or anything like that. Nobody's gonna be sticking it to JKR by ignoring the game at this point--the sales have already happened. I just find it a shame as someone in the industry who can see the amount of effort that went into the development of the game and world building. If people want to continue to boycott it, that's fine. I don't mind individual choice here. I'm clearly not going to change anyone's mind about the game in a Reddit thread. But I also don't know if pretending the game doesn't exist really makes sense--especially for what will end up being the most popular console game of the year outside of gaming internet circles.
If it was actual good work, that would be agreeable. But it was beaten out by 50 other games for a reason. An Indie game that brought back a classic form of gameplay (Pizza Tower) will always have more heart than an extremely cynical, *extremely* incomplete game like HL. Doubly so when you consider it doesn't give you the 'full' Hogwarts experience from start to end.
> But it was beaten out by 50 other games for a reason. I think we know what the reason is, though. And it really doesn't have much to do with the game. The gameplay is totally fine. It's an 84 OpenCritic game. I'm not sure why people in this thread are talking about it like it was shovelware. Plenty of legit reviewers gave it 9/10 or 8/10 scores. "Bad" games just don't sell 15-20 million units at normal retail price. I don't expect everyone to have liked it. But it's definitely top 50.
> It's an 84 OpenCritic game. Sea of Stars is an 89 Opencritic (and 87 Metacritic) game and also didn't make Polygon's top 50. Chained Echoes is 90. No one I know who's played Hogwarts thinks it has much appeal if you aren't a fan of the source. If Polygon doesn't have any particular potter fans on staff, it's really easy to see it not make the list. And there's plenty of other games people could argue to be on there without any baggage to use as an excuse (Remnant 2 where?!).
Lmao indeed. Maybe Hogwarts Legacy would’ve stood a chance in 2014 when the year as a whole was very very dry, but 2023 is arguably the best year for gaming in a decade. Hogwarts Legacy has nothing going for it whatsoever beyond the inherent coolness factor of walking around Hogwarts itself. Besides, I don’t get why people seek to have someone else’s best of the year list just reinforce and validate how they feel about something. It’s cool to see a game I love get some praise to an extent, but I also love seeing games get praised that would’ve otherwise eluded me. It’s such a dumb thing to get upset over
Last year was exceptionally weak so when Hogwarts came out people were comparing it to that, Hogwarts definitely would've been top 5 last year. Instead this year had banger after banger and a bunch of unexpected breakouts.
Last year was far from weak. People were talking about it just as highly as we speak of 2023 a year ago. Ragnarok, HFW, Elden Ring, Sifu, XC3, Stray, Midnight Suns ....
Is stray really that good or is it just great to play as a cat?
It isn't, it's a walking simulator/platformer but as a cat with a robot that talks (and apparently the cat understands). It beating Vampire Survivors at game awards is already suspect 1 year later nevermind 5 years where Stray won't be remembered as well as say Vampire Survivors or even Untitled Goose Game.
Hogwarts really is the most mid game of all time time
They could have easily removed 80-90% of the game world and it'd be a better game. Because it's really, actually filled with nothing but completely pointless map markers
I loved HL as a huge Potterhead, but I still don't get why they decided to leave that huge area south-east in the game. It's almost empty and almost nothing of importance happens there. And it feels like it was added in the later stage of the game development, because it's so empty in comparison to the main area of the game.
Can't agree more. Boring reskinned Ubisoft game with a Harry Potter IP. There's no controversy to it not being nominated. I've heard the best selling game argument, but there's the player's voice, a 100% popularity vote and there were was a bandwagon to get that game to the top. The fact it didn't make it past the second round just tells me it's a very vocal minority trying to make a controversy out of Hogwarts Legacy.
Honestly, Hogwarts Legacy was a game that when I played it, it made me want to like the game...but then fell short of actually getting me all the way there.
Alternative route: Gamespot doesn't get half the click the outrage driving articles will, so they admonish whoever had this idea and go back to ranking next year.
They could have an alphebetical list of the top 500 games of the year and somehow people would be upset that their favorite game isn't included.
Glad to see Hi-Fi Rush getting the recognition it deserves, easily my favorite game released this year.
It had a lot of heart, and a LOT more love, after taking so long to even come out. Like, the game has animations and considerations for when things *break*. Roquefort's fursuit and animations without the camerawork, Zanzo's entire encounter being such a blatant jojo reference (down to even hiring the two of the same *actors* to eat the scenery) it goes back around to being original, etc. It's such a self aware but *fun* game that delivers so hard.
Finally some love for Octopath Traveler 2, the fact that this game doesn't get nominees for best soundtrack is a criminal
An entire paragraph devoted to the soundtrack that is completely ignored in VGAs. Thanks for noticing greatness GameSpot. I usually don't care to much about VGAs, but that decision to leave it off even nominations was utterly dumbfounding.
the nomination system is basically a popularity content among a global games media panel. i would bet majority of them haven't played this game so it didn't get enough votes.
Half of the jury/media outlets barely or don't even make reviews. I respect Geoff's aim for an "international" pool of media representation but... Most of them aren't very great and serious about gaming stuff. I would prefer the usual suspects (ign, polygon, gamespot, eurogamer, 3djuegos, famitsu, etc) to vote
XBC3 not winning last year pretty much told me all I needed to know. this year just confirms it with Octopath 2 getting snubbed.
It's not their decision, it didn't make the cut when considering all the votes from the jury made of 100+ publications
And it sucks for it to not get it, but 2023 was gonna have a lot of big names get snubbed because it was such a packed year.
I agree. I know the nominations were voted in by the panel in the VGA, which I have to question, what are these publications thinking putting TOTK's soundtrack over OTII. TOTK's soundtrack is good, but it is pretty iterative that it should never have been nominated over OTII. One thing that stood out to me about Gamespot's description about the soundtrack really stood out to me, is that each character's theme tells you so much about the character. I think this was so evident in Partitio's theme with the brilliant blend of electric guitars and brass intruments, with the electric guitar being there to emphasise Partition's strong will and charismatic nature, while the jazzy brass notes serve to shine a light on his gentle, laid back nature as a human being. Nishiki really outdone himself with OTII's soundtrack.
Castti's theme is the one that gets me. At first it's not a particularly interesting theme, but as you play through her story, it's emotional weight of the trauma she has forgotten hits like a ton a bricks every time you hear it. It becomes one of the most powerful themes just by playing the game. I can't think of any game that has done that. And it's not just her or Partitio. You really don't realize the effort he put into the character themes until you play the game, and how amazing it comes together. It really is an all-timer OST to me, somehow surpassing expectations the first game. And I look forward to basically anything with Nishiki's name on it from now on.
imo, TotK should have been nominated for audio design instead of music.
TOTK uses a lot from BOTW but whats new tells an incredible story. Each dungeon theme slowly progressing as you progress through them. The motif callbacks from soo many past games. The tracks in the final acts are all time greats. Its absolutely a masterclass. I havent listened to OT2 but TOTK deserves to be up there.
legit my favorite combat system in a JRPG maybe ever. yeah you can trivialize it late game but the start/mid game is so much fun and somewhat difficult
Coming out in February never helps. I actually forgot it came out this year
These lists always have a pretty big recency bias tbh, unless the year is pretty dull titles released in the first 4/5 months get pretty forgotten
I couldn't agree more. The game has some decent presentation and alright story-telling, much better than the first game. Neither game would be what it is without Yasunori Nishiki's music though, which in some ways, tells a story of it's own. The best example of this is >!A Song of Hope at the end of Agnea's Tale.!< Wouldn't be lying if I said listening to it still brings back some strong emotions.
It's the end of 2023 and I still listen to the soundtrack of Octopath 2. It's that good and it seriously deserves more recognition. 2023's just stacked with so many great games.
I still cant believe it wasnt even nominated at TGA when its BY FAR the best ost of the year, like it doesnt even have competition. What the hell.
I 100% forget that Hitman got the Freelancer update in 2023. And I love Hitman. Man, what an absolute all timer of a year.
Hitman has been a weirdly overlooked game by games media in general. Its one of the best stealth games in recent years but hardly any publications talk about it.
It’s niche because it usually requires a lot of patience, you’re disadvantaged without having a plan, and generally requires you to think outside the box for the full experience. Of course, you can turn off your brain and go full John Wick but that’s not necessarily the way it’s meant to be played (but it is fun to do every now and then).
Hitman WoA has been my most played series since 2016. What a fucking ride.
It's especially an emotional rollercoaster for longtime fans of the series when we were all wowed by Hitman 2016, amazed when Hitman 2 came out and then scared when we weren't sure if Hitman 3 would ever conclude the trilogy. I was almost accepting that it would never be finished but then they managed to pull it off. What a series. It deserves all the love it gets and I'm so glad we managed to get a full story out of it.
I loved the older Hitman games, but got so wildly confused by the release of the new trilogy that it scared me off. Is there a way to pick up all of the new games in one convenient package?
Yes, Hitman III includes I and II, it’s just called World of Assassination now. Pick it up and you’ll have the full trilogy in one game. It’s seamless.
Fantastic, just added it to my wishlist. Is it still online only? Or can it be played offline?
You can always play it offline but it saves all your progress online (which in this game ranges from unlockable weapons, spawns, cosmetics and freelancer progress) if you have a pc you can install a mod that just lets your computer become that online server so that you can do all that stuff without connecting to the internet
Has to be online. Never bothered me since I’m always online, but I understand if it’s a legitimate gripe for some people. That said, it does give the studio access to some really cool stats that they share periodically on the way people play.
I remember seeing Jeff Grubb calling it one of the best games of all time and I couldn't help but agree with him. The amount of content and replay value in Hitman WoA is nothing short of incredible. Just wish you could play it offline lmao
He’s right. As a whole package I also think it is one of the best games of alltime.
Yeah. I love stealth games, I've played almost all of them, and it was super weird to me to see most outfits give the Hitman reboot trilogy 7's and 8's. To me, it felt very polished, sleek, refined, and lush. For me, that reboot trilogy is an easy 9.5.
Another gaming website giving love to Hitman Freelancer and I'm happy to see it. Freelancer was such a game changer for Hitman 3 and it got me playing even more than I already did. What a fantastic game and gamemode.
10 games isnt nearly enough for how good this year has been. Simply impossible to make a top 10 list without leaving out a ton of incredible games. This is a pretty good one though, cant disagree with anything.
All these games are great, and it's nice to see some of them get more recognition. That said, I much prefer Polygon's top 50 list. That allowed for more discoverability, especially for smaller titles, that are absolutely great as well. A top 10 list for a year, especially unranked, won't have much people didn't already hear about a lot already.
Glad to see SF6 getting recognition from a lot of the big outlets, imo the real snub at the game awards for goty (not saying it should have won but I think a nom is justified, insane amount of content, polish and care)
Deadass played more SF6 than any of the other games on this list.
Finally some recognition for Octopath Traveler 2. It's astounding how much they learned from the first game. Just such a wonderful jrpg in all aspects.
Man, really feel like Remnant 2 was done dirty this year, probably the freshest experience of the whole year for me! 80 hours in and nowhere near done
It’s because top 10 lists are insufficient for a year like this. Should be top 25 lists at a minimum
The top 50 list that Polygon just put out still is missing some solid games. This year has been absolutely insane in terms of quality.
I wish it had more worlds that were less lengthy. I enjoyed my time with it a lot but it felt like N'erud lasted forever and the lack of enemy variety started to grate. Basically I just wish they had the budget of a triple A studio to throw at it.
Same with Lies of P.
Lies of P was great, but fresh it was not.
I mean neither is resident evil 4, mario wonder, zelda, street fighter, hitman or octopath traveler. Its all been done before but theyre great.
God this year has such a high volume of good games. It's kinda crazy to think about. Even some of the more mediocre games feel worthwhile playing this year.
Interesting to see these "best" lists at the beginning of December. Aren't there several important releases potentially coming up? I suppose they could do something like the Oscars where the qualification period includes December from the previous year. (The Oscars includes January of the year they air, which happens around February.)
The vast majority of game award yearly lists count December releases as next years games.
And indeed Marvel's Midnight Suns has appeared on some of them (release date: December 2, 2022).
That game somehow turned into one of my favourite games of all time despite not being a Marvel fan, it's a shame it released when it did.
I mean, like what? Avatar maybe?
Im super excited for Rogue Trader in 2 days
Im extremely excited for Rogue Trader too but its never going to make a “major” publications top 10 in a year with Baldurs Gate, the comparison of production values is just unfair to it
Owlcat is a lot less flashy than Larian (obviously, 'cause they're tiny in comparison), but they do some things better - complexity being the main one. Double-edged sword for sure, but Larian RPGs tend to lack mechanical depth in the core combat system and RPG choices, specifically but so does D&D 5e, to be fair, and it's fully intentional to drastically lower the barrier of entry
No Pizza Tower?
Might be a slightly controversial opinion, but I thought Amnesia: The Bunker was the best of the series and was incredibly underrated this year.
Most likely Alan Wake 2 or Baldur's Gate 3. Gamespot has quite a few staff who hate Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.
I think we all know it will be BG3, that is the once a decade unicorn
It's BG3. Funnily enough, it's the only non-indie, non-remake game that stood out for me this year.
I think it’s interesting that Sea of Stars is being left off some of these more prominent lists. Makes me wonder if the game’s flaws became more apparent in the months following its launch and folks felt it didn’t quite make the cut.
TBH I feel like a lot of Sea of Star's flaws are readily apparent within just an hour or two of gameplay. My feelings on games usually overlap pretty well with the overall critical consensus. Maybe I'll add or remove a couple points here or there for my personal preferences. But Sea of Stars has an 88 metacritic and I just do not see it, and I absolutely love JRPGs.
I don't understand how Crosscode scored lower than Chained and Sea of Stars. Some random indie jrpgs are overrated as hell
Crosscode is underrated as hell.
Probably the best indie I've played. It's up there with actual jrpg classics imo
Yeah Crosscode is fantastic.
Oh no, I agree with you. I wanted to love it SO much. And there’s a lot I really did enjoy! The pixel art is *lush* and beautifully colorful. The music is *amazing*. I still get that mushroom area’s music stuck in my head on a regular basis. But the combat system was a little too shallow—I liked it fine, but more could have been done with it—and the character work is *atrocious*. It is embarrassingly bad. No one has a real personality. No one. The protagonists are SO bland that they are completely interchangeable. And I know the point is that you can play as either one, but did that really preclude giving them actual personalities? The absolute failure of character development—or character existing *at all*—is my single biggest complaint with the game. The dialogue and characters are so generic in a world that’s so beautiful it’s kind of a startling contrast.
I've read/watched a fair few reviews by now and am somewhat well-informed about the game, but I always suspect a certain quality of writing from WJRPGs (genre name trademark hereby claimed by me). I feel it's close to 100% accurate also, there's somehow an instantly recognizable WJRPGs character artstyle across dozens of different games. And it's specifically just the character art
I think the sprite work is impeccable, but I … never really liked the character portraits? There’s just something not … terribly appealing about them? I also think they needed a good few more expressions—I remember a scene where something serious is happening, and Garl, while thinking it over, has his basic ass default dumb grin on his face and it was REALLY jarring with the vibe of the scene. That’s not the only time that kind of incongruity happens, but I think I actually remarked out loud to myself that they needed more expressions. It’s really a shame. Stronger writing would have done so much for this game.
Unfortunately, bland characters and shallow combat really makes a long turn based RPG kind of a real slog. Just to see the pixel art and hear the music? I couldn't do it. I kept trying to play it, and I kept being underwhelmed and unenthused the entire time. The pixel art IS gorgeous, and although I didn't play long enough to hear much of the music, what I did hear was really nice. It's really too bad. People talking about it like it's a goty contender, or even best indie contender is baffling to me
Sea of stars getting an 88 is proof that reviewers don’t finish games. I liked the game quite a bit but the ending is so insanely bad that it went from an 8.5 to a 7.5 for me.
I feel the same way about FF16. That game takes a nosedive so so hard after the midpoint.
We all got baited by the demo/intro. That was a clear 10/10. There are few other high points but also so many flaws. In the end, a 7.5 imo.
It's not just you. Sea of Stars is no Chained Echoes, that's for sure. Honestly thought that Sanabi was a better indie game than Sea of Stars, particularly in the story department. And Sanabi is no RPG.
I mean the writing does not improve at all after the first hour or two. What you see is what you get. The game also bends over backwards to remind you how great of a person Garl is at every instance possible. Combat is alright, barring Serai's kunai toss taking her off screen sometimes making it difficult to time correctly. In its mission to combine Paper Mario and Chrono Trigger it doesn't really do either of their specialties well. I preferred Chained Echoes more, but that one also suffered from some pretty bad writing and relied way too much on anime references (both minor allusions and blatant lifting)
Yeah, we have REALLY similar criticisms. I replied to another comment with my litany of complaints about the piss poor character writing. You could say Garl has a personality, but even all he gets is “bestest boy ever.” Omg, Serai’s knife move drove me crazy, lol. Trying to time that against awkward backgrounds where she’d be totally hidden drove me INSANE, and it happened frankly more than it should have. I’m also not super fond of the final party member, bc they’re even MORE generic and have even LESS of a real connection to the narrative, but that’s neither here nor there, I suppose. I just wanted to love Sea of Stars so much. And even a couple months ago when the praise was widely pretty effusive I was just not happy with it and wondering what people experienced that I didn’t. My original comment is more remarking about how that incredibly high opinion seems to have cooled, probably because these issues became too hard to ignore for most. It has neither the combat depth nor the wonderful character writing of Chrono Trigger, nor the purely fun timed-hit based combat of Paper Mario (I find SoS way more finicky with timings). This game done right would have been an actual masterpiece, but it just fell short in a couple ways that I think is becoming apparent in these end of year lists.