What Was Your Favorite Game Or DLC Announcement That You Loved In 2023?

[Ratchet25tx]

Since 2023 is ending and '24 is coming, I was curious on what was your favorite game/ DLC (or any gaming content) that you liked. 

Mine was Sonic Superstars and the Final Horizons DLC if you were wondering lol

Edited December 31, 2023 by Ratchet25tx

[KingSonicFan134]

Pokemon Indigo Disk easily, with the Sonic Frontiers Wave 3 DLC as a close second.

Indigo Disk did so much to make Gen 9 an absolutely stellar generation for me. The Terrium was an excellent area to progress the story. I wasn't a big fan of the Teal Mask being basically more Paldea so the Terrium was a nice change of pace. The story was top notch as expected from Gen 9, the characters were likeable in many aspects, with each of them doing their best to break from obligatory archtypes usually found in the older games. The gameplay was some of the most fun I've had since I was a fan! With VGC style fight against all Trainers and the Elite Four. A super fun time that blows the other 3 DLC's out of the water for me.

Sonic Frontiers Wave 3 DLC was very fun for me. As a Mega Man fan, I appreciated the higher difficulty, with having to memorize the boss patterns in the Master Trial. Practicing for days to defeat it on hard mode was incredibly satisfying for me. The story was kinda whatever and the new characters didn't wow me, and I couldn't decide if the towers were agonizing or loads of fun to master, but when I had fun, it was a lot of fun.

Despite the bountiful amount of game releasing this year, I was mostly chewing away at older franchises. I recently became a BIG Kingdom Hearts fan after completing 358/2 Days, Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, and Re:Chain Of Memories for example. I'm also about to boot up Tears Of The Kingdom soon.

[Dreadknux]

I haven't had as much time to play games as I'd have liked in 2023 (combination of having a kid and working on this site in my spare time) but I really enjoyed Tears of the Kingdom (which is probably an obvious choice) and Sonic Superstars.

In terms of DLC, I'll pick one of the few ones I played this year - TMNT Shredder's Revenge; Dimension Shellshock. Usagi Yojimbo good.

[ShadowForever]

The Murder of Sonic the hedgehog, for sure! It was such a great surprise!!!

[NegaMix]

There aren't too many new games I really got around to in 2023, nor a lot of DLC.

I suppose there's the Pokémon S/V DLC, as well as Sonic Frontiers' free updates, but I haven't gotten through either enough to really comment much on them, other than how the parts I have played haven't exactly wowed me so far.

As for new games, I did end up loving Spider-Man 2, as well as Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, though I was already a big fan of both series' previous games so I dunno if that's much of a surprise. Neither of them are really my favourites of the year, though, in part at least because of the bugs I'd encountered during my first playthroughs of both.

No, my absolute favourite new release of last year was one that... kinda came out of nowhere:

Full disclosure - I've never been big on rhythm games. Not due to a difficulty with following beats or tempos, but just because games of that genre never really managed to grab my attention, for some reason. Hi-Fi Rush, however, was an exception to that.

From it's initial reveal and subsequent release on Xbox (and PC), the art style, hack-and-slash gameplay, story and characters already piqued my interest. My only concern was the rhythm aspect of the game, which could've been the make-or-break for me. But, even with my TV only just managing to avoid causing latency issues in gameplay, I had an absolute blast with the game! The fact that it wasn't something I was already expecting and anticipating, like Spidey or Star Wars, but something completely new and unexpected, honestly makes it stand out that much more for me. And it wasn't even buggy at launch! (...well, on my end, at least.)

As an honorable mention - while none of the games in this series were released in 2023, I wanna give a shout-out to @Ryannumber1gamerfor getting me properly introduced to the Ratchet & Clank series, which led to me playing through almost all the main series games throughout 2023. It's now amongst some of my favourite game franchises as a result, with Rift Apart in particular becoming one of my favourite games ever.

Edited January 2 by NegaMix

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Resident Evil 4 Remake is just about my game of the year, through and through. Been getting into the Resi series since I played Remake 2 back in 2019 for the first time, and RE4Make is the first Resi game I played at launch. Leon’s my favourite character and I’ve always been more receptive to a remake than most. In my eyes, the original Resi 4 is a revolutionary but flawed game, so I saw a lot of areas where Remake could improve.

Remake more or less hit everything I wanted. They kept the difficulty in tact despite Leon being able to move freely now, they went all in on the horror aspects of the village and what Las Plagas really does, which IMO was the best thing the remake could’ve done, since the original was always more like a cheesy B movie in tone. Especially comparing how dark and geniunely terrifying and sad the original RE4’s credits are when telling the tale of how the village fell to the infection and Saddler’s influence, compared to the main game where the villagers are cheesy and goofy with their bad Spanish, and you’re just meant to have fun blowing through them.

Remake is just plain fun though which does it for me. I did about six playthroughs in the end, and I didn’t really get bored of any of them. Then I proceeded to 100% Separate Ways as well.

In terms of other stuff this year, Spider-Man 2 was pretty great to me, but some story problems along with changes to combat I disliked put it below Resi. Mario Wonder took awhile to click with me, but it was fantastic in the end. Hi-Fi Rush, as mentioned above is just plain excellent and came out of nowhere.

I do have some big games this year that I still need to get around to running through (Namely Dead Space Remake, Alan Wake 2, and Baldur’s Gate 3), so hopefully they live up to the hype.

In terms of surprise hits that I really got into this year, Hades is the big one for me. My friend gifted it to me on Steam for Christmas, and I’ve grown addicted to it since. It might legitimately be what ends up getting me really hooked on Roguelikes.

[Danj86]

It's easy for me. I can only think of one game that truly alluded me to escape and be immersed in the world, it's story and it's content.

And no, I'm sure none of you would think this, but I'm gonna mention it anyway, I'm not mentioning The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom just to annoy @Ryannumber1gamer

Yeah, it had it's faults. But that's true for everything. Nothing is perfect. But I don't need a perfect game to allow me to de-stress and escape my sorrow and anxiety. I didn't think the game would be as powerful as it was. Breath of the Wild was fun and gave me lots to do, but it's impression on me wasn't as lasting as it was with Tears of the Kingdom. Though when I first played BotW, my mental state was not as fragile as it has become.

In some games, it can be a pain in the neck in progressing a puzzle, only to learn that you're on the wrong path and have to start over. That seldom happens in TotK, so part of the fun is beating shrines in multiple ways or watching others play them through YouTube or something similar.

Then the addition of the sky Islands add some new kinds of puzzle types and I did enjoy navigating them specifically as they force you to think three-dimensionally. Maybe your sensor is indicating something you are looking for is close by, but you can't seem to find it. It's not on the surface but it's no on the sky Island too? Then it must be under the Island somehow. I do get a great sense of satisfaction in discovering this as this example is based on something that actually happened when I was playing the game.

Nintendo made the wise choice of keeping the depths under wraps. Diving into absolute nothingness while having not expected it, is an experience all in itself. Especially if you're a cowardly gamer like me, braving the darkness and bumping into a new type of monster is horrifying to say the least. I guess it's neat having a horror gaming experience, despite not being into the genre.

The more complex story helped keep my interest in the game too. With the knowledge of Ganondorf involved, his cunning would come into play which did not disappoint. The story was more involved. You weren't looking at events of the past with a known path. (Kinda.) Because of that, you couldn't be certain of the outcome. I don't remember a BotW memory ending leave me in a state of wanting to rush over to get the next one. TotK did that exclusively.

Another thing that adds depth is the UltraHand, this adds tones of replay value, especially for those that have endless patience. The amount of creativity the game allows you to achieve through this ability on it's own is insane and to this day, you could browse the internet and find new and creative uses for the UltraHand. I've seen some amazing stuff myself and while I think of myself as creative and patient, I have not successfully made a unique device personally. I tried to create an interesting vehicle, but it got too heavy and became more...stationary.

Not to mention the fuse ability allowing for fun experimentation. But I could go on forever at this rate. Nothing comes close to giving the amount of escapism and fun that TotK gave me last year.

Edited January 3 by Danj86

[Lorekitten]

Spoilers for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet DLC part two:

Spoiler

The four paradox legendaries we got in The Indigo Disk were DOPE AS HECC. The dinosaur beasts were as awesome as they were hilarious, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the designers of Iron Crown and Iron Boulder clearly learned from the poor reception of Iron Leaves (which fell into the common future paradox trap of 'literally the exact same Pokemon but as a robot') and actually put thought into the design philosophies of the other two future paradox Swords of Justice. Iron Crown is sleek and majestic, with every visual element carefully planned out and flawlessly executed into the whole, and Iron Boulder is not only a surprisingly solid design for a future paradox form of a mon that wasn't anybody's favorite to begin with (exaggerating Terrakion's already bulky features was definitely the right way to go), but it's actually a competitively viable Rock/Psychic type, which is not a thing I ever expected to say but here we are. Whoever designed these four should get a pay raise and more assignments for the next Pokemon games.

 

[castell-neath]

Has to be Frontiers' birthday update with the extra Koco and jukebox. I had so much fun with that one

[Rabbitearsblog]

I absolutely loved playing The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog!  It was such a pleasant surprise last year and I had a really fun time playing that game!  I hope we have another April Fools' type of game coming out this year!