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More than simply a love letter to the golden age of arcade beat ’em ups, as well as the franchise as a whole, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is both Dotemu’s and Tribute Games’ best title to date. It is a quasi-perfect arcade title that perfectly blends fanservice, fantastic controls, a downright pristine presentation, and some chaotic fun with up to six players at once. I am so glad this game ended up exceeding my sky-high expectations.
Neon White is not only the most surprising game of the year so far, but also my personal favourite of this year. It provides an interesting story told in the strikingly beautiful visual novel format. It also provides one of the most addicting and satisfying gameplay loops since Ghostrunner. The thrill of moving up those leaderboards and cutting down your times millisecond by millisecond never gets old. I really hope we see a lot more from Neon White in the future.
Finding issues in these games is the real challenge. I just can’t. I’m not even angry, I’m being so sincere right now: Portal: Companion Collection is the real deal. It’s easily one of the best “retro” compilations on the Switch. You get two of the best games of all time running flawlessly on both docked and portable modes, with a fantastic framerate, motion controls, developer commentary, additional maps, online multiplayer, and more. Do yourself a favor and grab this cheap as hell collection if you’re a Switch owner. Even if you’ve played Portal a bagillion times before, it’s still worth another playthrough. Or ten.
I was highly anticipating Lost in Play, but it far exceeded my expectations. For the most part, the puzzles aren’t overly difficult, but they are incredibly entertaining. The solutions make sense and feel organic to discover throughout the journey. The various characters and locations are fantastically weird, in the best possible sense. If you’re a fan of point-and-click adventures, or even just a big kid looking to recapture the feeling of their youth, then you can’t pass up Lost in Play.
Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course is a fantastic addition to the Cuphead package that offers more of everything you loved about the game. Unfortunately, the only downfall really is how short it feels, and the unbalance of the solo and co-op difficulty.
I would have already loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection if it were a mere collection of a handful of TMNT titles from back in the day, with little to no extras. But the addition of online co-op, gameplay modifiers, regional variants, and that adorable Nintendo Power-esque tips guide for each title just elevates this compilation to nonsensical heights. This is Rare Replay levels of good, one of the best retro compilations of the past years.
Potion Permit is brilliant, offering some incredible quality of life improvements to ease a player into the genre. It introduces several accommodations that I hope become the golden standard of slice-of-life romps.
It’s a feeling that can only come from this particular idea playing out as a video game, to be something that combines the best elements of a choose-your-own-adventure book, a 1980s coming of age movie and the moment-to-moment tension of Oxenfree. I cannot and will not stop praising this game, and I earnestly believe this is one of my favorite gaming moments in the past decade. Thank you.
Prodeus would have been great if it was only a mere shooter heavily inspired by 2016’s DOOM, but its developers went above and beyond. What an amazing game. It’s both a love letter to old and modern shooters, embracing the best elements from both eras. Its levels are amazing, its gameplay is fast-paced and punchy, its soundtrack is insane… and it’s got a freaking phenomenal level editor that will basically ensure that players will have an endless supply of brand new levels to tackle for the foreseeable future.
Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is another welcome addition to the drum hero series. With so many different styles of songs to pick from, and not just having to play song after song with no variety, it’s one of the easiest versions of the series to pick up and play.
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is the gift that keeps on giving. Its predecessor was excellent, but left a lot of room for improvements. Ubisoft took that as a foundation and made Sparks of Hope bigger, prettier, funnier… in summary, it’s better in every single conceivable way.
Signalis pretty much perfects this new wave of retro survival horror. It has a surprisingly engaging world that just pulls you in and never lets go. If you are a fan of the genre this is an absolute must-play. Signalis is easily one of my favourite games of this year.
Is there anything else that needs to be said? The The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was nearly perfect back in 2015, mostly hampered by bugs (which have already been fixed) and the hardware they were running on. The hardware issue is no more, with these next-gen versions letting you play these games the way they were intended to be experienced, with nearly no loading times, improved visuals, and a much sexier framerate. Is it worth revisiting it yet again? Absolutely! It might be a nearly 150 hour long RPG (counting the expansions and Gwent, of course), but it’s just way too good to be set aside.
If I had to settle on a single qualm, it’s that I wasn’t able to cover the game on Nintendo Switch. Take that as a hell of an endorsement since, despite a loss of 60fps, I reckon it’s carried by mouth-watering gameplay. Honestly, words can’t even begin to describe the glee I feel.
My complaints are very minute. I simply loved Hi-Fi Rush. I just wasn’t expecting for such a banger to drop without any buildup, coming from such a talented team, right at the beginning of the year. It’s a magnificent mixture of tons of games from the mid-2000s, resulting in a unique combination of gameplay styles, sense of humor and visuals that easily stands out from the rest of Microsoft’s current exclusives.
This is how a remaster of a Nintendo game should look, run, and play. What was already near-perfect is even better, all thanks to Retro Studios just improving upon every single aspect of the original game, making this particular version of an all-time classic the ultimate way to play it. Not to mention the fact you can now take it on-the-go. I may have one or two small issues with it, but to call them deal-breakers would be damn near blasphemous. In short, grab Metroid Prime Remastered.
EA Motive has done an excellent job recapturing the magic of the original game, whilst expanding and improving on several key areas. Managing to take what was already a superb game and make it even better. Although, a couple of extra tweaks really could have brought it to the next level. The Dead Space remake stands up there with Resident Evil in “how to do a remake”, and it’s one that I highly recommend for fans and newcomers alike.
Synth Riders is a must for anyone that is a fan of rhythm games. Immersive, beautiful, really fun gameplay, and best of all, a great collection of tracks! A rhythm game to rival and tide you over while waiting for Beat Saber for PSVR2.
Dead Island 2, regardless of bouncing between developers, has risen like a phoenix. The punchy combat and campy dialogue coalesce to give birth to an addictive and joyous romp. The humor tickles my fancy, giving me a warm feeling in the tum tum.
Whatever gripes I may have faced during my dozens, perhaps hundreds of hours with Tears of the Kingdom, don’t make it any less engrossing and amazing. It’s not perfect, it’s not my favorite Zelda game of all time, it’s not even the best game we’ve played and reviewed in 2023. But does that really matter? At the end of the day, it’s an improvement over Breath of the Wild, a really impossible task that Eiji Aonuma managed to achieve.