If there was one theme to this year in games, it was the industry saying hey, let’s make our release schedule all about making Lorelai happy. I was being fed from start to finish, and it truly made it a struggle to put together a list of the best stuff this year. Yes, there were some releases that were guaranteed a high spot because they were something I’ve wanted forever, but there were so many things that came out of nowhere to leave me wondering how a game this good might not even make my top 10. The bottom 5 flipped and flopped for weeks before I was finally able to lock them in, and I decided to add a few more games before we get started with the top 10.
Honorable Mention: dirtbag MAHJONG
This came out of nowhere for me. I missed the Kickstarter and only ended up buying it because my fellow Bluesky Mahjong freaks started posting about it on release. dirtbag MAHJONG is a combination of mahjong with a visual novel story that had me rolling with laughter from the jump. The humor is crass and stupid in all of the best ways. It’s a game about a bunch of complete assholes playing mahjong together with HP pools, attacks you can build up to, and so many dumb ways to play. It’s a genuine delight that does a pretty good job tutorializing Mahjong. The game is exactly what the title says it is: a bunch of complete dirtbags playing Mahjong. A goofy mess of pure fun from start to finish.
Honorable Mention: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
I think it’s a phenomenal game that everyone should play if they have the ability to. Clair Obscur is carried by some incredible performances and some phenomenal art design. The background details of every area shine. It’s a fantastic game that lives up to the legacies of the games that inspired it, but it falls on its face for me in the end. I can pretty much guarantee that if I had beaten the game without doing some of the Chapter 3 sidequests, this would have been in my top five. But one of the main character’s sidequests contradicting the way she acts in the finale completely ruined it for me. The more I think about that decision, the less I liked the game, until it fell off my list.
Honorable Mention: Assassin’s Creed: Shadows
Hey, they made a great Assassin’s Creed game. This spot was bouncing between Ghost of Yotei and this, both games I greatly enjoyed my time with, but one just slightly edging out the other. I am a sucker for open world collectathon checklist podcast games and this one just really did it for me. I think part of it is me just being really into this era of Japanese historical fiction. Being the Nioh/Samurai Warriors freak that I am, it’s fun to go, “I KNOW THAT GUY” every once and a while. All and all it ended up being far more enjoyable than I expected and I don’t regret the 87 hours I spent with it at all. Being able to stealth through the game as Naoe or just barrel in as Yasuke gave me two play styles for whatever mood I was in, and that really tickled my fancy.
10. Octopath Traveler 0
Hey, did you know that if you just have one narrative throughline and more linear storytelling, the Octopath formula works a lot better? I thought they did a lot towards improving their storytelling with Octopath Traveler 2, but this is a much better story that flows from beat to beat rather than being multiple stories that don’t really feel connected. I was someone who did play Champions of the Continent and liked the story they were trying to tell, so it was great to see it put out in a form everyone could enjoy. Its biggest issue is that it is based on a gacha game that brings in everyone from the series, which does make some of the character moments feel lacking while its overall story shines. I would rather have somewhat weaker characters to go with fun turn-based action than great characters with a weaker overall narrative. I’m hoping they do DLC to take a look at some of the other stories that the mobile game has told because there’s some really great stuff in there.
9. Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
I honestly didn’t think I was going to be writing about this game at all this year. I was burned out, I watched its community be destroyed by grifters, and I was pretty close to uninstalling and being done after finding a lot of the patch story to be lackluster. But then the 7.4 patch came out, and suddenly I was back! I’m enjoying the game more now than I have in a long time. No more burnout, I’m enjoying the game on its merits rather than logging in every day out of some daily necessity. These days I log in to work on pointless achievements and spend time with friends, and it’s been a healing experience. I went from averaging 20+ hours a week to four, and it’s completely rekindled my love of the game and the time I spend on it. I didn’t think I’d ever be an achievement hunter in the game, but playing with a casual purpose is such a relaxing time. Hanging out in space and macro crafting as second screen material while I work is just a nice diversion. I’m making progress towards something, but it’s also relaxing listening to the sounds of crafting while I’m playing other games on my Steam Deck or second monitor.
7.4 came with something I sorely needed, the final raid series, and god damn is it a good one. Finally a raid with no bad fights and all bangers. Seriously, the biggest advancement in Dawntrail has been in the quality of their fight design, and the Heavyweight tier has been incredible to grind out my weekly clears. Do I wish we spent more time in Tuliyollal instead of the cyberpunk city? Oh god yes I do, but what we got this patch was so much better than I expected and has me hooked for what’s coming.
8. Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To
There are two games on my list this year that I think are important for the same reason: experiencing things from a different culture than my own. The game is dripping with the queerness and the Arabic culture of the people who made it, and it’s a genuine delight from start to finish. The main story fleshes out all of the characters, their world, their culture, and the way magic works. It’s a fascinating way to immerse myself in something different. My only complaint is that after you finish the story, the dating sim fully starts and there is a lot less of the match-3 puzzle gameplay. To this day, my morning routine has been to load up a game on Endless Mode, and play until I lose. It’s a zen start to my day, listening to great chill music while I swap tiles to make lines to make things disappear until I lose after around 10 minutes.
7. Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake
I probably wouldn’t have gotten this if I hadn’t gotten a little preview at PAX. I thought it looked good and didn’t fall into the HD-2D trap of muddied visuals from everything needing to have the same fidelity. The demo challenge of an underleveled party going into midgame dungeons was a lot of fun, and led to me snagging the release version for myself. Needless to say, it was a great decision. If you’re going to do a remake while keeping the core of the original intact, this was a pretty incredible way to do it. Not to mention, Dragon Quest II getting an entire extra game worth of stuff added to it that is not only challenging and fun, but surprisingly well written, building up a true end to the trilogy and providing a new experience for someone who had played the originals before, is super fun to see.
6. Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
When I played Rune Factory 5, I called it a promising start for a new team of developers that had to figure the series out. I was hopeful for the future of the franchise, even while I took major issues with the game. I don’t think they have it 100%, but Guardians of Azuma gives me great hope for the future of the franchise. They gave me a fantastic game with fun town building as well as fun action. The action is where it needs to be for a game like this—the real thing they still need to work on is farming. I found the farming to be relatively boring, and the town management a little lackluster as well. Still, an incredibly charming cast of characters and an overall story that left me very content made this one of my most played games this year, and it’s still one I come back to when I just want to chill out and grind a little.
5. Coral Island
Last time I talked about Coral Island, I spent a significant amount of time gushing about its core while still lamenting the fact that it was not a true 1.0. This year we got two major patches which brought it to a place where I can fully say it feels like a real and complete game. Not only did we get a massive update that adds an underwater farm, and the initially introduced mermaids finally getting characterization, we also got a fantastic online co-op mode that has made the game more than worth revisiting. Coral Island is also steeped in Southeast Asian culture, being developed by Indonesian studio Stairway Games, and it really does make it so much better than just “Stardew Valley in 3D”. If you like the farming style games, this is not only a great one, it might actually be the best of them.
4. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
When they announced this, I didn’t have a lot of hope. Previews left me feeling skeptical, and the state of Level-5 as a company makes Fantasy Life i feel like a complete miracle. I was worried it was going to be a game that lacked what I loved about the original, and never have I been happier to be wrong. While I would have loved more varied crafting between all the different crafters, every single craft is fun to pull off, every combat style feels great and has some incredibly fun abilities to play with. Every party member that can join you adds something to the game, whether it’s a crafter who sometimes attacks or regularly throws out buffs and debuffs or the fighting class characters who do a surprising amount of damage while being competent elsewhere. Your crafters can also aid in crafting, and gathering friends can help you by chopping trees to make farming materials so much faster. When you factor in the procedural dungeons, a procedural open world dungeon, and more content than you could play through in a reasonable amount of time, there is something to constantly do and unlock. I thought I was done when I finished the main story, but I keep coming back because there is still something new for me to do after 200 hours.
3. Warriors: Abyss
Who would have thought that a repetitive Dynasty Warriors roguelike would have been one of my most played games of the year? Look, I don’t have a lot to say about this game: the localization is bad, multiple abilities are incredibly confusing to understand, and there is no story to care about at all. But there is an incredibly fun and rewarding gameplay loop where every character feels different, every stage is fun to blast through, and it goes fast enough that it never feels like it’s wasting your time. It’s been updated multiple times with DLC from the Atelier series, Ninja Gaiden, and more. Every new character they add has been a blast to play with. Is this the best Roguelike of the year? Probably not, but god damn it’s the most fun I’ve had with one in a very, very long time.
2. Dynasty Warriors: Origins
Dynasty Warriors is back! After the disaster of Dynasty Warriors 9 and the sales failure of Samurai Warriors 5, I thought they were done with Musou. But this year they really came back with a vengeance. They finally hit the right formula with deeper movesets and more varied combat, alongside numbers so big that past games wish they could see a KO count that high. Having a big map to run around with multiple sidequest opportunities, along with an emphasis on telling a single story of one person acting as a mercenary, leads to a much meatier story that allows character personality to shine through a lot of visual novel style cutscenes—with a ton of “so bad it’s good” voice acting that filled me with delight. Seriously, the English dub is a thing of beauty with some absolutely hilarious line delivery that captures the magic of the early games while still being something a little more directed. My only issue is the game has gender counterparts that do nothing to change the story, other than making the gayest Lu Bu straight if you were to be able to play as the female character.
1A. Game of the Year: Unbeatable
I’m not a rhythm gamer, but Unbeatable grabbed me in a way I didn’t expect, and I’ve even been bopping through the arcade mode every morning for a song shortly after I wake up. The story is where this game shines. I keep going back to Chapters 3 and 5 which are where the whole point of the game solidifies. If you go into this wanting a game where music is illegal and you do crimes, you can play Chapter 2, but the chapters where they were going through the actual story they were telling, those hit me hard in the feels. It’s like the writer held a mirror up to my face and said you, this is you. I’ve never felt so seen. There is so much to chew on with the story they told, and while it definitely has some messy transitions and pacing, all of that fits the vibe and truly hit me. The main thesis of the story really is about someone who was lost finding themselves and regaining the will to live through both music and fighting for the people around her.
“I don’t know who I am right now. But I am better than who I was before. I am seven years different. And I am seven years better. And I refuse to be worse than who I was before.”
1B. Game of the Year: Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars
You all knew this was coming. Suikoden was one of the most formative games for me growing up. It’s lived rent free in my head since I played it on release. It was a franchise where I had finally accepted that it was dead and gone and the only way we’d ever see anything like it was through spiritual successors like Eiyuden Chronicle. And then after that game had an incredibly successful Kickstarter, suddenly a remaster for the original was announced. You had an active social media presence, you had Konami interacting with fans for a few weeks and then…
Radio silence.
Suikoden was dead again. There was no news, no updates, the social media that was so active went completely silent and whenever they got asked, they refused to say anything. I was sure it wasn’t going to happen. I was back to being mad that they got my hopes up, that my long dead franchise was still dead. Konami was just faking coming back to being a gaming company. All that hope that myself and the other Suikoden freaks felt had become a lie from a company who was only pretending to care about games again.
Then the release date reveal happened…
My hope was restored. Literal tears on the podcast as I felt an overwhelming wave of joy that I would be able to share this thing I love so much with friends who would never have the chance without shelling out hundreds of dollars on original discs. Something I could share on every system. Then TGS came around and not only were we getting the remasters, we’re getting a stage show, an anime, and a mobile game. Not only was my favorite franchise alive, they seemed to be making the series a core component in their return to video games. I have cried tears of joy more than once over the past year as they continue to show that they care and are acting like they want Suikoden to be one of their tentpole franchises. I don’t know about corporate, but the people on the team sure feel like they have a real passion for everything.
But what about the game you ask? Well, there are two ways to do a remake: you can do the HD-2D thing like Dragon Quest or you can upscale the backgrounds and keep the original work as close as you can. They went with that second option for this one and they nailed it; even going back to address complaints that the fanbase had about background details. There are two games in this world where I would be angry if they remade the spritework: Suikoden and Chrono Trigger. I’m happy to say that the character sprites weren’t touched at all. In some ways the high resolution backgrounds with the original sprites can feel a little off, but the spritework is such a huge part of the charm and personality of these games that if they had messed with it I would have been sent into a violent seething rage.
All of the jank from the original releases is still there. Inventory management in Suikoden 1 is genuinely terrible and always was, but it also was the first RPG released on the Playstation, coming weeks before Final Fantasy 7 completely changed the environment. The story is quick and to the point, with my first playthrough of the remaster being about 20 hours to get everything while going out of my way to talk to every single NPC. The localization of Suikoden 1 sands some edges off, sometimes to its detriment, but is an overall improvement over the original release. If you don’t have the nostalgia for some of the sloppy editing, you’re getting a better version now than you did before.
Suikoden 2 got the biggest upgrade in this release though. I think it goes to show the power of the story they were telling that it’s still considered one of the best RPGs of all time despite having an absolutely horrendous translation. The translation errors of the original were so numerous, with some NPCs having lines of code in their text boxes. This was a lot less charming than the “All this killing in front of a children” moments from Suikoden 1. With the translation fixed, it’s far easier to appreciate the rest of Suikoden 2’s strengths. Tons of minigames to waste your time with, tons of characters, incredible villains, and sprites that do fit in a lot better with the upscaled backgrounds. This release of Suikoden 2 is by far the definitive version of the game. I wish they could have put the inventory management from 2 into 1 to make it a smoother experience, but overall both games are an incredible experience that I think everyone who wants a great JRPG should pick up. Meet these characters I’ve been obsessed with for the last 30 years of my life, and the woman I named myself after!
