Alright, 2023 was a pretty decent year, I wasn´t expecting it to be good, just decent, I got what I wanted and I feel satisfied, but it´s been weird. I played the amount of 25 videogames past year, that is, games I actually took my time to complete, that´s actually a low amount for me, easily one of the years I´ve played less, 2023 was supossed to be one of the greatest years for the gaming industry and while I agree with that, it wasn´t like that to me personally. Funny, 2022 was one of the worst years of my life but at the same time, it was peak gaming for me, 2023 was kind of the other way around, decent year but bad for my ¨gaming¨. Don´t get me wrong, it´s not like I´m depressed about it or something, that´s life, but seems like I´m running out of time.
I, sometimes, say that ¨x¨ year is going to be transitional, seems like it´s going to be that way this time, 2024 is going to be probably my most transitional year ever, probably. Instead of just doing a list, I had done a tier list before I had laziness of doing it, the tier list kind of summary my 2023 in terms of ¨gaming¨, aint that much but it´s honest work. I think I won´t talk about every game on the tier list because this post would easily reach more than 6000 words if I really wanted so let´s not, I´ll just talk about some game if I feel there is something good to say. In case you don´t know spanish:
es cine = s
peak pero no tan cine = A
ta bien avece maomeno = B
juegos que no terminé = games I didn´t complete
una carta de odio a la humanidad = didn´t like it
Oh boy, Persona 3, what a ride it was, I´m not the most Persona fan nowdays buut I´ve always felt amused for Persona 3, the PSP port was released for the Nintendo Switch past year so I took the chance to play it once again, it´s hard to express with words how painful was to play it (in a good way). Persona 3, more than a videogame, it´s an essay about life and death, about living despite anything. We are all going to die soon, but that doesn´t mean you are not allowed to live your life at your fullest, sometimes we tend to think ¨I´m going to die anyways so why bother¨ but that´s exactly the reason why you should care, yeah, we are going to die but that´s why you should do everything you want before is too late, live everyday as if it was your last day. Persona 3 was probably the game that touched my heart the most, it might not be the best gameplaywise but damn, the story and their characters make up for it. I played Persona 3 when I was a teenager, now, I played it as an adult, once you´ve got certain age, you begin to understand everything as so it happens with this game, there are some videogames that when you play, you feel like the dialogues are like written to you, and that´s how I felt playing this game.
Speaking of which, I played The Legend of Zelda: Majora´s Mask...again, NOT ONLY I played the 3DS remaster but played it AGAIN through the Nintendo Switch Online, that´s funny. I´ve had said it before but I don´t like the 3DS remaster at all, you could say is because of nostalgia but I honestly think it lacks the charm that the original game on the Nintendo 64 had, but of course, I have to agree that in terms of accesibility it´s fine, but that´s all, not my cup of tea, I´ll always recommend the original game over the 3DS remaster. As I said before, I played the original Majora´s Mask again and it was certainly experience, Majora´s Mask is one of those games that I tend to return because, the more I grow up, the more I understand the personal themes of the game, it didn´t destroy me as Persona 3 but it did make me think about things and my life as well, sometimes, I felt like the game was talking to me through the dialogues and of course that´s not possible, that´s how personal and real Majora´s Mask is to me.
Alright,Tears of the Kingdom, you know, this one is tricky, wanna know something? I honestly wasn´t that hyped for this game and if a Zelda fanboy such as myself says something like that, well, that´s because something is happening, I´ve started panicking when I saw you had to build things with all of the minecraft vibe, and fusing stuff...I did think it was awesome but, those games where you build things, you know, like minecraft, they are not my cup of tea, you could say I was worried. I know it might sounds weird but I don´t think Breath of the Wild is the best game of all times, not even my fav Zelda game...and TOTK is a sequel, I don´t know man, even so, I played the game with a my expectations over the sky when I had the chance to play it and oh my god, how did they do such a masterpiece in a console like the Switch?
Tears of the Kingdom absorbed an entire month of my life, and man, did I love it! It was an amazing experience which made me feel as a little child, the same vibes when I played Ocarina of Time as a little kid, everything was so fun to explore and the temples are cool, such a great adventure I managed to live thanks to this game. I´m not saying is perfect, but it´s not so far from that word.
Science Adventures, I still remember the first time I watched Steins;Gate and how I decided to play the visual novel plus other entries in the franchise, they are great games with amazing stories but if I had to choose one, that would be Chaos;Child no doubt. Chaos;Child is basically one of the best things I´ve consumed in my life, I seriously think this visual novel is peak and should be played by anyone. I love how well the plot is structured, the plot twists, how deep the characters can be, I mean, Serika and Takuru are easily the best written characters in the franchise, the character development Takuru goes through and all of the stuff he has to live is pfff, incredible. This game is amazing, such a shame is so underrated.
Silent Hill 2? I mean, the best psychological horror videogame out there, I think there is not so much that I can say about it...only, this time, I decided to play it in the hardest way possible, I wanted a challenge and I can´t complain, I got what I wanted, of course, the experience was painful until you get to the middle game, then it goes easier, but that first half of the game? Damn, I was getting crazy, I still remember that part of the game where Pyramid Head hunts you and Maria in a hallaway, I was truly losing my mind.
Hellblade Senua´s Sacrifice is a videogame that was on my backlog, nevertheless, it was until past year that I got into it, as the way I see it, there are not many videogames which talk about things like schizophrenia in such a good way as Hellblade does. Videogames are a perfect medium for this kind of stuff, like, you are just not watching it, you are the one who are controlling the character, you are the character, so mental health and videogames can go hand in hand because of this. When making Hellblade, the developers team actually investigated all of this so it was as close as a real experience, it´s not a mental ilness that gets romanticized through the game, rather, it´s treated with due respect. Living through Senua´s life was a great experience, really excited to see about Hellblade Senua´s Sacrifice 2, which I think it´ll be released this year, anytime soon.
Soma is not on the S tier list because I consider the game has a few flaws that kind of dragged the experience a little bit to me, even so, I can´t forget how shitty this game made me feel. Soma is a videogame which uses existencialist horror, as you can guess, if it hits the right key, this kind of game makes you question yourself as a human being and your true identity as a person, were you the same person as yesterday? were you the same person a year ago? will you be the same one year in the future? If you were to lose your human body, and your conscience was inside of a machine, would it be safe to say we are talking about yourself? We are chanching constantly everyday, every cell of our body changes day by day, how can we still say we are the same if part what make us ourselves is drying everyday? These are questions that no matter how many times we debate about it, there is no answer yet, still, it really is an interesting topic to talk about. Even today, I keep thinking about this stuff constantly, so you could say Soma did a right job.
If there is one indie I should talk about, that might be Decarnation, which by the way, went under the radar, can´t say I blame people for it, because Decarnation is a videogame that focuses too much on the story rather than the gameplay, you could even say is a narrative ¨adventure¨. At first sight, Decarnation is quite standing, I mean, visually speaking, I´m not talking about the pixelart only, but it seems to me the game has a great artstyle,some ¨monsters¨ design are pretty cool and the way many scenarios are seen by our eyes are pretty cool. As I said, the strongest point about Decarnation is the story, it´s a psychological horror videogame actually, oh, what a surprise, me talking about another psychological horror game, but seriously, this one is pretty neat, I won´t give many details, but the game is all about exploring the psyche of the protagonist, her ¨personal demons¨ and personal hell that she goes through everyday, a great game which talk about sensitive themes, but it´s better you play it for yourself.
We all have dropped games, haven´t we? I personally don´t like doing that so I do my best in order not to drop something at all, but as you can guess, I´m just a human being, it´s not just about a matter of time, sometimes you just lack the ¨motivation¨ to play something. Anyways, if there is one game I really feel bad about dropping, that would be Octopath Traveler II, I was genuinely loving it but I wasn´t in the mood to play something that long, you see, I didn´t know this game was thaaat long, I expected 30 hours as much, maybe 40, I kept playing and playing and playing and playing and playing but the game just didn´t end lol, I was getting overwhelmed, that´s why I did a quick search and found out that the game is like 80 hours, what the heeeeeeell, sorry, I just can´t, then I dropped it. Anyways, I was close to complete it actually, so I might complete this year, I really would like it, I was having a cool time and I´m not the kind of person who likes to have loose ends. Keep in mind that if a game is on that list, is not because I necessarily dropped it, it could mean that I didn´t manage to complete it past year.
Sadly, a videogame I wouldn´t be able to finish is Silent Hill 3, and let´s finish this tier list with a funny story. I was there, standing in my rooom, playing Silent Hill 3 through the Silent Hill Hd Collection from the Xbox 360, not the best way to play it to be honest, but hey, I won´t complain. I still remember, I opened a door, went downstairs aaaaand the Xbox just showed a black screen, I checked the console and there it was, the so famous Red Ring of Death, now I get why they say Silent Hill 3 is the scariest game on the franchise, it was able to kill my Xbox 30 after all, my respects for that HD Collection. Anyways, what I´m saying is actuallly true, not a joke at all, but it´s fine, it do be like that sometimes. This is the end of the tier list, I just talked about the games I felt it´d be cool to talk about, you can see it as a recommendation if you like.
The tier list was done with: https://tiermaker.com/
All of the screenshots were taken by me