Well, here we are, friends and folks. Gimmick Awards season is going strong, and it’s time to reflect on 2023. We all know by now that I’m the resident doomer, in more than just politics: classically that’s called a “pessimist,” I believe, but the doomer label has been slapped on me and I am forced to acknowledge it. 2023 was bad. 2022 was bad! And you know, I bet, 2024 will be bad.
And while I know every year I am the one who says “none of these games deserve Game of the Year,” really though… I found it hard to even write this list this year. Truthfully, it was supposed to come out a week ago- maybe a week and a half ago. But I kept staring at it and going “I don’t know, what did I like enough to mention?” It doesn’t help that in 2024, I’ve already played a few games I’m more excited to talk about than anything on this list. But enough downplaying. Let’s talk about what stood out to me during the year.
The Repeat Customers
Our personal lists don’t come with any rules for what they’re allowed to have on them, but I try to hold myself to the same standards as the Awards themselves: no repeats, and clear relevance to 2023. With that said, some of the best times I had this year are from games that break those rules, and I wanted to namecheck them before the list proper. The biggest one is Touhou Mystia’s Izakaya. It’s just one of the most charming games I’ve ever played, full of humor and warmth and engaging gameplay. Cooking is about people, and about cooking for individuals. For as great as, say, Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! is, the individual doesn’t matter in that game. Touhou Mystia’s Izakaya is all about getting to know people and catering their needs, and sometimes even serving up a dish that challenges their palettes and expands their horizons. Cooking is love, and showing consideration for the person that will eat it and what they like is the surest expression of that.
Damn, I really wasn’t planning to let myself write that much per game in this section. Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation 2 can be a quicker hit, I think. It’s a mess of a game in ways, with some of the worst netcode I’ve seen in a decade, and some weird other code to boot, but no other game matches the grounded way it represents mecha fights. Finally, I come back to Devil May Cry 5 over and over when I just want a good action game to play, because its combat just feels better than any other game.
My Favorite Games of 2023
5) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Modded)
Despite the amount of time I spent with it, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will not be appearing on this list. Why? Because they took the basic structure of Breath of the Wild and said, “what if we put Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts in here, plus a lot lot lot of Ubisoft open world checklist stuff?” And that still makes it a game worth playing a lot of, because Breath of the Wild is so good that even poisoning it with stupid bullshit doesn’t completely ruin it, but you know what’s better?
Breath of the goddamn Wild! But, of course, I’ve already played that game, and since it’s already won our Game of the Year category before, it shouldn’t really b- wait! The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out BEFORE we did the first Gimmick Awards! Yesssss in on a technicality! But seriously though, the thing that made BotW relevant to 2023 for me was getting it to run on my Steam Deck, and then modding it.
My mods were relatively straightforward, doing things like removing fast travel, making shields not be damaged by shield surfing, changing a transphobic quest (to be differently transphobic, it turns out… god dammit…), and… oh yeah, changing Link to Linkle! And though these things don’t change the game that much, they do change the experience that much. It felt like a different game, in a way I really enjoyed. It got closer to what I want, which is simply an action game about being a wandering swordsman. One day we’ll get that for real. I’d like it if that happened before I died.
4) Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
This is gonna be a weird entry, because the world has successfully convinced me I owe this game something. A big, pretty, ambitious mecha game in 2023? If this isn’t my GotY I’m out of my mind! Armored Core is back and better than ever! And that story! Instant 10 outta 10 game!
And I mean, y’know. I can imagine feeling that way. It IS one of my top games of the year, in a year full of games that exhausted me, got on my nerves, or were monuments to genres I hate. But after I (finally) finished my first playthrough, and started going for the other endings, I fell off and haven’t had the slightest urge to return.
Even the time I already spent is slightly soured, really. The classic From Soft difficulty held little to no appeal to me this time, largely pissing me off and making me grouchy about fights even when I did finally win. (The Ibis is garbage boss design, the Michigan fight is fucking trash.) The build variety was a false front, a mirage that gave way to “go heavy or go home.” And fundamentally, the concept of the gameplay- a compromise between AC4/5’s speed and 1/2/3’s clumsiness- held no appeal. I don’t WANT you to slow down Armored Core: For Answer! That game perfected how the series should play! This is worse!
I do like AC6, I am positive that I do. But I won’t be gaslit into supreme gratitude for a game that has a cruel difficulty curve, isn’t tightly designed enough to make that rewarding, and backs away from the joy of its predecessors. Take your number 4 and be grateful.
3) El Paso, Elsewhere
To be honest, I feel like I said everything I needed to say on Best New Character? But I suppose there’s a decent chance you haven’t listened to that, so let me give you the pitch.
El Paso, Elsewhere gets you in the door with the promise of supernatural Max Payne. That’s no lie, but it isn’t exactly true either: turns out bullet time doesn’t mean much when no one else has bullets. The gameplay ends up feeling like someone tried to make a Doom mod for Max Payne 1. But the moment you step inside, you’re given something so much more powerful to care about. The music is excellent, the atmosphere is sinister and compelling, but these are supporting actors.
You’re here for James, in more ways than one. To see the best written and acted character of the year, but also to play the role of, as he puts it, “the last 2%” of him not ready to give up.
James as a recovering drug addiction relapsing to give himself the strength to confront and avert a doomsday he thinks is partially his fault (it isn’t) thanks to the influence of his toxic ex Draculae, Lord of the Vampires.
What follows is a harrowingly honest exploration of toxic relationships, the lies abusers put in our heads, substance abuse, and more… and yeah, you’re shooting witches and ghouls as it plays out, but it doesn’t undermine the somber humanity of the story at all.
Further specifics I’ll refrain from mentioning: so far I’ve only given details about the very beginning, and it’s truly a story to experience yourself. I hope you’re willing to try it.
Here’s to believing.
2) Pokemon Unite
As much as I often shout otherwise, Dota 2 will always have a special place in my heart. I met Nick via Dota 2, I bonded with my sister Emily over Dota 2. The mechanical depth offered so much to learn amongst its many roles, and I couldn’t get enough. I even captained a few teams in amateur leagues! There was a point in the life of Scanline where if you’d told me I could either only play Dota for the rest of my life, or never touch it again… I’d have picked Dota.
Damn, people sure do change.
I neither envy my past self their passion, nor resent the time they spent. They’re simply decisions a different person made, years ago. I have no desire to pick Dota back up- there’s simply no appeal to me anymore. The parts of Dota I miss? Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it- Pokemon Unite hits them all without ruining my life.
If nothing interrupts our schedule, my sister and I play Pokemon Unite together once a week. And y’know, stuff comes up sometimes! But even so, I put in quite a few hours into the Pokemon MOBA. I get everything I want from a Lord’s Management Game: laning, pushing towers (well, goals, but), matchups, role dynamics, teamwork with a friend. And hey, I’ll say it: I like Mewtwo better than Juggernaut! I like Delphox better than Lina! I like Pokemon in a way that no Dota hero can approach.
Pokemon Unite is less mechanically complex than Dota 2… much so, in fact. There are fewer system and map mechanics, less build variety, more predictability. But for where I’m at now, that’s good, actually. I’m not going to spend time trying to decide if I’m better off going Hood or Medallion, I’m not going to practice my bottle crow-ing micro. …Wait those aren’t things aren’t even in Dota anymore! See, this is how out of touch I am. And in Unite, that’s fine! I learn my character’s abilities, I show up, and the rest is pretty much map awareness, character knowledge, and knowing when to engage and when to run. I don’t have to lab or train. I just play my best, then turn my Switch off!
The real secret of Pokemon Unite, though. The timer. Oh, my god. It’s so good. So check this out: in Dota 2, a match can go anywhere from 15 minutes to… well, there’s no hard end point. But besides bizarre outliers, nearly every game is over by 90 minutes.
90 minutes.
An hour and a half potentially trapped in a box with the worst person you’ve ever met. And you can sometimes know five minutes in that you’re gonna be miserable. Or maybe it’s not even a toxic teammate! Maybe you just can tell you’re utterly outmatched, and you’re just gonna get punched in the gut for like an hour. Misery! It’ll ruin your day, easy! It could ruin your week!
(Note: this is not an argument for surrender votes. You queued for the match, you knew the risks. No one made you be here. You play to the B U Z Z E R. Surrendering is cowardly, and what’s more, you made a deal with your opponents. I am sorry you’re having a bad time. Play it out. Not that Dota players have a choice, that game doesn’t have surrender, but League players I am talking to you.)
Every game of Pokemon Unite is 10 minutes long. Oh, sorry, except Quick Match- those are 5. There is no overtime, there is no anything: ten minutes, and you are done. Every time. Dawg, I can play anything for ten minutes.
To a non-MOBA player, saying “you can’t suffer forever” as the high point sounds insane. But any Dota or League player understands. There are no miserable matches. The worst it gets is, you shrug and move on. And no, this doesn’t come at the cost of the highs. Ten minutes is plenty of time to feel like an Ace Trainer, as it turns out.
No pun intended.
1) Disco Elysium
Pretty late to the party on this one, I know. Not only that, but if we check the record, I believe I wrote an article years ago about how shit the party was. I’ve mea culpa’d on that one several times over, at this point it just makes me laugh to see how much I missed my first time with the game. Disco Elysium opens in a deeply abrasive way, and while a lot of this proves to be to the game’s benefit, I still am not convinced I needed to have a child shouting slurs at me for quite so much of the opening.
But really, Disco Elysium is… the dream? All the breadth and world complexity of a CRPG, except much better written, and no stupid isometric battles to pad things out, just talking to people. It’s a game about talking, and deciding who you are, while grappling with who you were. Why can’t all games be excellently written games with complex characters, tons of dialogue, excellent attention to detail, and… right, right. This game was an INCREDIBLE endeavor to build, the product of so so much work- and difficult work too, not something that can be made via sheer numbers. You need that many good writers, and you need them to care deeply about what they’re making.
Most tragically, it seems highly unlikely we’ll see a game like it ever again. The studio that made a story (partially) about socialism being smothered by a capitalist dystopia was in turn smothered by our current capitalist dystopia. Venture capital did what venture capital do- buy a studio, make unhinged demands not anchored in any reality I know of, and then unravel their purchase into nothing. Disco Elysium would have been a tough act to follow… but I don’t think it was lighting in a bottle. I actually think that studio could have done it. And that makes their destruction all the more tragic, and Disco Elysium itself that much more worth celebrating.
My Favorite Anime and Manga of 2023
3) Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
Not long ago this would have started with a big disclaimer about how the current arc in the manga sucks, but they have finally ended it and moved on to something else. So y’know, keep in mind it isn’t exceptional for the entire run: there are stinker arcs and world elements. But on the whole, Frieren is my favorite manga I read in 2023.
Most of it comes down to Frieren as a character, and the relationships people have with her. I definitely identify with how little her emotions show, and also with the fact that she’s generally okay with that. The time scale of the story starts off broad, covering decades in chapters, then slows to a more standard pace as Frieren herself learns to approach events with a different, more connected perspective. The comedy is routinely funny, and you gotta feel sorry for Frieren’s companions putting up with this extremely capable but irresponsible (except when it really matters) woman.
It’s held back by the bad arc, as mentioned, and the story’s take on demons, which is… I mean. So Frieren‘s demons are “simply monsters pretending to be human” and they’re “utterly incapable of emotion or connection, and merely fake them to manipulate people.” Even if you set aside the fucked up way this interacts with how nearly all fiction is in some way an analogue for the real world, and this is how some bigots view other groups of people… even if you set that aside, which there’s really no need to… it’s just bad? It’s bad storytelling. It is shutting the door to the possibility of engaging antagonists to say they can’t have emotions. That’s dumb!
Still, Frieren’s journey on its face is compelling enough that I keep coming back. I want to see her flighty kindness and impulsive selfishness. I want to see a world where magic is interesting, magically mundane much of the time. That’s enough, for now.
2) Turn A Gundam
So Jen doesn’t finish shows. We all know this, right? Of her own accord, Jen doesn’t tend to finish shows. And hey, I don’t intend this as shade, or at least not to single her out- I so rarely finish games, and she is much better about that. We all have an area where we’re less methodical, more impatient, whatever the case is. For Jen, it seems to be anime. And rock on! Don’t watch anything you don’t want to, right? Spend your free time how you wish.
That said, there are shows that I think are… listen, “important” is loaded phrasing. There are anime that were influential to me, and I feel are both enjoyable to watch, and are a foundation for a lot of my interests. I’m mostly talking about Gundam. And so along with other friends, I embarked on a project to group watch some Gundam to give us all a mutual understanding of the series. We did 0079, Zeta, ZZ, CCA, 0080, and 0083. 0083 was kind of a bonus, but to me “Solomon, I have returned” is key to my thoughts on Gundam. And then we were done! Or… we could have been. But then we started watching Turn A Gundam.
There are a lot more Gundam shows, many of them good and worth watching! But my goal was to say, “ok you understand Gundam, you understand what it’s about, you can now watch any Gundam show you want and feel confident.” And I still think that’s true! You can probably stop at CCA to do that, but I do think 0080 is tonally important.
Turn A Gundam is funny because it’s kind of the opposite of our project’s goal? Turn A isn’t required reading for any other series: as a matter of fact, just about every Gundam series since has ignored Turn A, which is the problem! Turn A is Gundam creator Tomino really looking at the legacy of the series and what it does well, what it doesn’t, the ways it’s misunderstood in culture, and more. Do I agree with all his answers? No. But After War Gundam X is maybe the only other series entry that even TRIES to tackle Gundam’s impact on culture!
Even setting that aside, Turn A is sweet and sour, with great comedic sense and slice of life warmth, mixed with an honesty and tragedy that feels much realer than the insane melodrama shows like Zeta Gundam sometimes deal in. We’re not finished yet: the one big downside of a group watch is that scheduling can be a real issue. But even without being done yet (we’re at like the 2/3rds mark?), Turn A is one of the best things I watched last year.
1) Gunbuster
It feels almost impossible that Gunbuster is the product of Hideaki Anno, the creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion. My interest in talking about Evangelion was blissfully buried forever by the Rebuilds, which ended so badly it was like waking up from a bad dream. I don’t have questions, curiosity, or takes anymore: 3.0+1.0 was such a whiff that I’m free of caring about the series ever again. Gunbuster, on the other hand, is a miracle of a show: smart, funny, succinct, bittersweet, and powerful. Just a masterwork that left me stunned.
I say almost impossible, because of course you can see traces of the same hand between the works. An interest in visual detail, and very direct visual metaphor. A confidence that “wow cool robot” and “this machine is evil” are complimentary, not contradictory, thoughts. An empathy for weakness, a patience for grieving, and an anger at self-pity.
Gunbuster is one of the best mecha anime I’ve ever seen. To think, before watching I was grouchy that Jen was making me watch that much anime for one podcast episode. Foolish.
I want to try harder in 2024. That’s easy to say, and in fact a good guiding principle most of the time. But I think 2023 is a year where I did a bad job of checking the nooks and crannies. I stand by the statement that it was a bad year for games, but… how many corners did I leave unexplored? How many indie gems would I have loved if I had only tried? So, let’s try harder in 2024. In 12 months, I want to show up with a list of bangers. I know it’s possible.
