The Best Games Eoghan Watters Played This Year | Winter Spectacular 2023
2023 was certainly a turbulent year for the games industry. It may be a tired statement at this point, but it bears repeating again and again, that the mass layoffs and consolidation present in the games industry and games press in 2023 has been horrific. In a year that presented some of the best pieces of art the industry has ever seen, observing the gaming industry has been somewhat miserable. It’s important that we don’t forget that as we reminisce the best of 2023’s offerings and look forward to all of the great games releasing in 2024.
It is also important to acknowledge the great games that we’ve seen this year. I’ve played more new games in 2023 than any other year, and that’s because 2023 delivered a constant stream of new games and experiences. The year was so good that games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom left the public consciousness within two months. In contrast, however, 2023 also saw more unique games succeed than ever before. Experimental and niche games like Alan Wake 2 and Hi-Fi Rush have defined what 2023 is as much as Zelda and Final Fantasy. It’s kind of impossible to pick just 10 games or to truly have a game of the year in a year like this, but for the sake of structure, that’s the format. I feel good about the ranking, but what’s beautiful about 2023 is that it feels weird to position these games against one another. It’s tough to compare Venba to Pikmin 4 or Final Fantasy XVI, but that’s what I did regardless. Ultimately, these are the 15 games that I’d encourage you all to give a shot now that we’ve wrapped up 2023, delivered as a nice top 10.
Honourable Mentions
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is the best Sonic game released in a year where the blue blur returned to 2D platforming in the first fully original successor to Sonic 3, and Sonic Frontiers received an expansive DLC story featuring new characters and a new ending. I liked those experiences a lot, but The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog surprised me with witty dialogue, engaging mini-games and a killer soundtrack. Taking the Sonic cast and placing them in a murder mystery proves that they were never the problem with Sonic games. Hopefully, this incredibly ambitious April Fools’ joke inspires SEGA to take more risks with the Sonic IP and see people blame poor management for failures rather than Blaze the Cat for weaker entries.
Super Mario RPG
I’m only four hours into Super Mario RPG on the Nintendo Switch, but yeah, I get the hype. While the game has an engaging turn-based combat system, it’s the game’s abundance of personality that makes it shine. Mario is portrayed as small and adorable, asking for uppies as he fights gods and acts out the game’s events. All this while often falling on his face like a toddler makes him unbelievably charming. The little dance Mario does when you level him up is fantastic, and I would like to adopt him. Alongside all of this, the game has successfully silenced the Geno for Smash fans, by convincing me that it is Mallow who deserves the world. Mario RPG also graced us with a beautiful remaster of Yoko Shimamura’s soundtrack that feels like it belongs to a long-lost Kingdom Hearts spinoff. I can’t wait to keep exploring this remake of a Super Nintendo classic.
Baldur’s Gate 3
To call Baldur’s Gate 3 ambitious is an understatement, but it’s impressive I feel that way with only eight hours in the game. Already my friends and I have discussed how our playthroughs have differed, with the title emulating the feeling of playing Dungeons & Dragons in a way I truly didn’t believe could be done. The possibilities feel truly endless, and the characters, world and aesthetics of Baldur’s Gate have won me over. I just don’t think I can judge such a massive game on eight hours of playtime.
Street Fighter 6
I love fighting games. I also suck at fighting games. I would love to put Street Fighter 6 on my top ten , but it feels disingenuous. I’ve barely played the game because I truly suck at it and the story mode is unfortunately dull. That being said, not only has Street Fighter 6’s modern controls given me a fighting chance and made the game much more entertaining, but SF6 has served as a great jumping-on point for watching professional games, and the SF6 Top Eight Evo 2023 finals made me finally understand why my friends all scream at football. The fun of watching Evo alone makes Street Fighter 6 a highlight of 2023.
Tren
As a child, I adored toy trains. Thomas the Tank Engine was my obsession throughout my childhood, and I still have all of my trains. So, when I found out that Media Molecule, developers of LittleBigPlanet, were making a game about toy trains, I thought it would be the perfect game. I have long adored LittleBigPlanet and all of Media Molecules games, so I was delighted to see Tren embrace the atmosphere that made LittleBigPlanet and Tearaway so charming. Tren is a return to form for Media Molecule, and while I believe it’s one of the best games of the year, it’s a game I’ve been picking up and putting down, and I don’t feel ready to rank it.
Now, on to the actual list.
10. Venba
“Two hours long, and it's on Xbox Game Pass”. That was enough to convince me to play Venba. While I had heard great things in the run-up to game of the year season, I wasn’t exactly sure the game would be for me. To immerse oneself in another person’s culture can be illuminating, but I wondered if I’d get anything from the game. It’s that length that convinced me to give it a shot.
Venba might be my easiest recommendation of the year. Despite only sitting at number 10 on my list, Venba was a perfect game that expanded my worldview and touched my heart. It was a game that made me think about the experiences that my multi-cultural friends have had in Ireland, battling with dual identities, and reminded me of the feeling of never truly belonging as an amputee. Venba is a reminder that all experiences are individual, and all cultures are beautifully unique, but that we can all find something to relate to with those around us. Venba told a story that made me think deeply about the world around me, and the people in it, and encouraged me to empathise more with them, and that’s truly special.
Venba does feature a great mechanic/storytelling device in the form of its cookbook, but the gameplay does feel relegated to the side. I believe that’s a good thing; the simple gameplay immerses you in Venba’s journey, which is the core of the experience, but Venba does feel like an experience. It’s a game that everyone should play, and I do believe you need to play it to get that full experience, but Venba can be a tough sell for some. I understand that mindset, but I encourage everyone to give it a chance. Venba’s journey might affect you as much as it affected me.
9. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
My favourite (MAINLINE) 2D Mario game is (SUPER MARIO WORLD 2:) Yoshi’s Island. That might be a strange take to all of the 40-year-olds on the internet who claim Super Mario World is the greatest game of all time, but I honestly never cared for Super Mario World, not in the way I thought I should. Mario simply didn’t feel good to control. Controlling Mario and exploring imaginative worlds is what made me fall in love with the series when I played Super Mario Galaxy, and 2D Mario had never given me that sense of wonder… except for Yoshi’s Island.
When the first trailer for Super Mario Bros. Wonder was released, something seemed strange. The art-style, the level design, the powerups, the music, it all reminded me of Yoshi’s Island. Super Mario Bros Wonder, for the first time since Yoshi’s Island, seemed to be giving me something that felt truly original. The best 2D platformers are the ones that take existing formats and add new mechanics on top every few levels. Sonic Mania, Rayman Legends and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze all had this ideology, where the developers built new fun twists on top of their already near-perfected bases.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder takes this to its natural extreme, with a new gameplay mechanic in (nearly) every level. The wonder flower is one of the best gameplay concepts of the year, and the way the Mario team use it not only adds innovative gameplay elements but also adds tons of personality to the title. The use of music in particular is a highlight of Wonder, and the game’s badge system and non-linear progression just add to the list of things that Wonder does to feel like more than just another 2D Mario game. For the first time, I find myself seeing it, and agreeing that it doesn’t get much better than Mario.
8. Cocoon
The best puzzle games leave you feeling like the solution was obvious, while still challenging you. Cocoon goes one step further than that, it makes you feel like the solution was obvious, but that you’re a genius for figuring it out. These feelings inherently don’t go together, if the solution was obvious then why didn’t I get it immediately, but Cocoon builds on each of its mechanics in such an ingenious way that I found myself wondering how the team at Geometetric Interactive kept taking it further.
Cocoon is probably the most complete vision of a video game I’ve played this year. While I would love to see more of this style of puzzle game, Cocoon takes all its mechanics, which all build on top of one core mechanic to their theoretical extremes in a brisk runtime that never lets any puzzle overstay its welcome. It does all of this while immersing you in a world that’s visually stunning and filled with intrigue. The narrative is simple, but engaging, and is moved forward through gameplay, with the aid of a beautiful score, in a way that again feels obvious. In taking a simple plot and gameplay mechanic and taking them both to their extremes over a four-hour-long campaign, Cocoon leaves you feeling full and satisfied.
7. Resident Evil 4
When Resident Evil 4 got nominated for Game of the Year at the annual Keighley’s, I found myself disgusted, and not just because it’s a remake, but because it’s not called Final Fantasy XVI. The game had been sitting in my backlog all year, and I couldn’t believe it was really that good. I’m not a horror person, although I quite enjoyed Resident Evil 2, but I had to see for myself if it was really worthy of all this acclaim. Well, I’m glad that this mild spite motivated me to play Resident Evil 4, because I was wrong, so very wrong.
Resident Evil 4 feels good, and I don’t just mean controlling Leon. Resident Evil 4 has a flow that’s particularly tough to pull off in a slower game like it. Likely the result of being a remake and essentially being designed twice, Resident Evil 4 doesn’t lull at any point. The game never made me feel like it was wasting my time. It had a nice difficulty progression, never feeling like it ramped up too much and successfully gave me moments where I felt like an action movie hero, and moments where I felt like I was helplessly trapped among Saddler’s eccentric goons.
Resident Evil 4 left me with the same feeling that Metroid Prime Remastered had. With every big set piece, every small character moment and the never-ending joy of landing a knife parry in between, I found myself understanding why the first Resident Evil 4 was so beloved. When I finished the game and rolled credits, I didn’t find myself having a deep revelation about how games can evolve or about how they affect us, instead, I found myself saying, “They were right. This is a damn good video game.” Sometimes, that’s the best thing a game can do.
6. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
I’m not sure what the first game I played was. When I think back, there are two games that I remember before any others. The first of these games was Spider-Man, developed by NeverSoft and published by Activision. The opening of that game, with Venom and Doctor Octopus setting a killer gas over New York City and Stan Lee introducing Spidey and Black Cat atop the Baxter Building, is seared into my mind. Of course, I thought that was the entire game, but it was the first game I’d ever played, and it set my love for the character of Spider-Man for years to come.
The second game, the one that defined in my mind what games were capable of at such an early age, and cemented my love for the medium, was Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer (subtitled Ripto’s Rage outside Europe). Spyro 2, to a four-year-old in the early noughties, this game may well have been a playable cartoon. The bright, vibrant colours on display, the serene music that transported you to Summer Forest and the joy of controlling Spyro, all of these elements made Spyro 2 unforgettable and a defining experience in my childhood.
If NeverSoft’s Spider-Man established my taste in superheroes, then Spyro 2 established my taste not just in video games, but video game developers. When, at the edgy and cool age of five years old, I told my brother that he should get Shadow the Hedgehog for the PlayStation 2, only for him to come home with Ratchet & Clank 3, I was devastated… until I realised that this was also a game about an anthropomorphic animal with a gun. Ratchet was my first HD experience with Tools of Destruction, the first Steam game I bought was Slow Down Bull, and I bought an Xbox One just for Sunset Overdrive. So, when PlayStation, Marvel and Insomniac Games announced they were developing a Spider-Man game, I was ecstatic.
I absolutely adored Marvel’s Spider-Man, and its half-sequel, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales blew me away when it launched on PlayStation 5. Insomniac then kept its hot streak alive with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. With all of this in mind, Spider-Man 2 was already a slam dunk before it even launched. It was always going to be on this list… and that’s the game’s biggest problem.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a fantastic sequel, building on its predecessors in all of the ways that I expected it to. The game adheres to the formula laid down by the first game, expanding on the combat and traversal. The story is scaled up and the performances are better than ever, and Miles continues to be the best character in this universe. However, I expected all of this. In any other year, Spider-Man 2 would be a triumph, it would be a game I constantly think about, but in 2023, it just doesn’t do enough to stand out. It’s still an incredible experience, but Spider-Man 2 is ultimately, just another sequel.
That would be everything I had to say, but then last week this game jumped from the bottom of my list. Just like how Ratchet was my first experience of HD Gaming, Spider-Man 2 was my first experience with 4K and HDR, and with the high frame rates possible with a HDMI 2.1 display. The experience was magical, the game looked and felt smoother than ever, and I truly believe that had I bought my 4K TV a month earlier, I might have a different outlook on this game. When I was four, I would look at the skybox in Spyro 2 and wonder how it was so blue… Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 brought back that childhood wonder.
5. Final Fantasy XVI
Over the Summer, I found myself isolated with COVID, and Final Fantasy XVI engrossed me at a time when I desperately needed it. I found myself playing nothing else, despite having other games to play. I became entranced in the world of Valisthea, the melodrama of Clive Rosfield, and this world of Eikons. Then after a weekend of playing, the game lost me. I found myself bored with the combat and mission structure and bounced off the game. Six months later I returned to Final Fantasy XVI, played the coolest boss battle I’ve ever experienced in a game and played the entire back half of the game in two weeks.
Final Fantasy XVI is a perplexing game. It’s not something I could easily recommend to people. The combat can become repetitive, as can the mission design. The side missions are particularly guilty of this, being a chore in the first half of the game.
That being said, Final Fantasy XVI thrives on its heart and soul. It’s a game that gets better not just because the combat system gains more depth as you progress through the game, and those side missions become more interesting, but because Final Fantasy XVI builds a world and a set of characters that have more depth than any other game in 2023. The variety of emotions felt in the game’s best moments are unrivalled.
While the game struggles with mundanity in its moment-to-moment gameplay, it’s both the bombastic and expensive-looking titan battles, with their swelling musical scores beautifully composed by Masayoshi Soken, and the smaller more character-driven moments delivered by an incredibly cast with a star-turning performance by Ben Starr that cement Final Fantasy XVI as one of the best games of the year.
4. Hi-Fi Rush
Context is everything. Some games benefit from a marketing campaign that builds them up into events you simply cannot miss, but some are best dropped on you out of nowhere. That’s what the team at Tango Gameworks and Xbox decided to do with Hi-Fi Rush.
This absolutely played into what made Hi-Fi Rush so appealing. In the era of social media, with marketing all around us, and as an adult who’s possibly too tuned in to online goings-on, it’s rare for me to find a truly surprising game. The era of looking at box art in my local Xtra-Vision and accidentally finding a new favourite franchise is one that feels long gone. Not only did downloading Hi-Fi Rush immediately after it was announced emulate this experience, but it’s the perfect game for it, emulating the tone and design ethos of PS2-era games.
Describing Hi-Fi Rush as a lost PS2 gem is appealing. It’s the kind of description that’s built for a YouTube video essay title, but to say that would be a disservice to Hi-Fi Rush. To call this game impressive would be an understatement. The game has immense depth, but the combat system and the rhythm mechanic feel accessible, making Hi-Fi Rush a game I’d recommend to a novice who has only played Ratchet & Clank, or a die-hard Devil May Cry fan. I’ve acknowledged the visuals of many of the games on this list, but Hi-Fi Rush is, in my opinion, the best-looking game of 2023. The game oozes visual flair. The game is the best-looking 3D animated cartoon I’ve ever seen, and the transitions from 2D to 3D in cutscenes are incredible.
The writing and performances are absolutely stellar. Chai is the most lovable version of the generic doofus white-boy protagonist you could make, surrounded by a cast of diverse and eclectic personalities that all stand out and elevate Chai as a protagonist. While the focus has been on the adorable 808, whom I have successfully avoided buying a plush toy of, I want to speak on Peppermint for a moment. Hi-Fi Rush centres its premise on amputees, and as an amputee, I found this cool but disappointing. The game had treated these characters more like Night City residents rather than real amputees, despite Chai clearly having a messed up arm. I just assumed the game wouldn’t delve into these topics. That is until Peppermint (who my brother had pointed out was missing her right leg like I am, and who is 23, like I was playing the game) reveals that the prosthetic limbs central to the game’s narrative were created by her mother because she’s an amputee. All of a sudden, the plot had personal stakes for our protagonists, Peppermint’s guarded attitude made much more sense and all of our protagonists, and their bonds with one another were elevated with this reveal. More than that, however, the reveal gave me an emotional investment in the game. It's very easy to say that representation doesn’t matter when you always see yourself, and it's hard to know why people care when you never see yourself, but that moment got a very real, emotional reaction out of me and took Hi-Fi Rush from a fun PS2 throwback to an important piece of art for me.
This moment occurs in the final quarter of Hi-Fi Rush’s roughly ten-hour-long campaign and is followed by the game's two best moments. Hi-Fi Rush’s gimmick is the use of music, both licensed and original, but it’s the pitch-perfect needle drops that leave the biggest impression. The use of songs such as Invaders Must Die by The Prodigy and Whirring by The Joy Formidable lead to moments that emphasise the core tenants of the game both in its gameplay and its thematic storytelling. Hi-Fi Rush picks its tracks very carefully, which results in the game acting as a very well-curated, playable mixtape.
Hi-Fi Rush isn’t the long-lost PS2 gem we’ve all been yearning for, instead, it’s the evolution of the design ethos of some of that generation’s best titles and a game that subverts what a major AAA studio such as Tango can produce. It’s a high-budget, mass-market attempt at an art-house title that wears its heart on its sleeve and has succeeded because of it. It’s proof that the industry can and should take risks, and it’s a game that will stand the test of time.
3. Pikmin 4
When Pikmin 4 was announced at a Nintendo Direct, they did so not with normal gameplay footage, but with footage of the world you would inhabit. It didn’t make for a particularly exciting trailer, but it had a charm present that few games have. The trailer, alongside the reaction from Nintendo fans, inspired me to finally play Pikmin 3. I had started the game on Wii U, where I received it as part of a promotional campaign for buying Mario Kart 8 at launch (which my brother, who bought Mario Kart 8 is still bitter about, I may have used his code…). I found Pikmin 3 interesting and intended to play more, but it just never clicked with me. I think at 14, I didn’t have the patience for Pikmin, but I wanted to see if it would click with me when I was older. With my Wii U broken and well and truly out of commission, I bought Pikmin 3 Deluxe and fell in love with the series. Pikmin 4 very quickly became one of my most anticipated games of 2023.
Pikmin 4 is magical, from you start up the game, to that beautiful title screen using the footage showcased in the previously mentioned reveal teaser, up until the post-game challenges that put your Dandori skills to the ultimate test. The game knows the charm it possesses with the Pikmin and with its wide array of colourful personalities, and it delivers that charm at every turn. It feels so uniquely Nintendo and that makes Pikmin 4 so refreshing.
There’s something unique about Pikmin, the way this franchise balances high-stakes gameplay with an incredibly relaxing gameplay loop. The levels feel so intricately designed, the game is clearly the work of two decades’ worth of franchise evolution, but it feels effortless with how satisfying that loop becomes.
Pikmin 4 also surprised me in many ways. While I felt confident that most of what I loved about Pikmin 3 would be carried over, I worried that the new gameplay perspective and the lack of pointer controls, alongside elements such as Oatchi and the night missions, would make the experience more tedious and bloated. To my shock and delight, not only did the new controls and camera feel natural immediately, but Oatchi in particular (alongside the true star of the game, my beloved Moss), was such a wonderful addition to the Pikmin formula that I wondered how I played Pikmin without him.
Pikmin 4 also wins my award for the best villain of the year. Pikmin 4 seemed like a meticulously designed, albeit short game, until during the credits the game drops a reveal that sets the game on a path toward two more levels, a bunch of post-game challenges and an entire side story. The way in which Pikmin 4 makes a certain character (if you know you know) the most entertaining antagonist of 2023 is incredibly impressive, especially for a game that doesn’t seem to focus too much on its narrative.
The visuals also stand out as being the best on the hardware, despite the Switch entering its seventh year on the market, I believe that Pikmin 4 is a better-looking game than a lot of modern AAA releases on more powerful hardware thanks to its wonderful art design. The original soundtrack also stands out, being so relaxing and integral to that feeling of joy in Pikmin. The title screen track in particular was one that I left running for much longer than intended, and I’m even listening to the OST as I write this, to relax me and help me get in the headspace I need to.
The Pikmin series radiates a charm that simply sucks you into its world. Pikmin 4 surprised me not because I loved the game, but because it did such a wonderful job of bringing me into its world and making me play, “Just one more day.” I felt so emotionally attached to my Pikmin, to the characters that surrounded my avatar and to their survival. It’s a game that left me feeling refreshed, that inspired a feeling of warmth in me and turned me from an average Pikmin enjoyer into a crazed Pikmin fan.
2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Tears of the Kingdom opens with the grandiose-ness of a first-party PlayStation title, a cinematic opening fitting for a game of its importance. It introduces all new biomes and environments, enough to fill two sequels. It gives Link new abilities that expand on what made Breath of the Wild’s chemistry system unique. It does all of this while giving the player more freedom than they ever had in Breath of the Wild. Tears of the Kingdom feels like an impossible game.
In one of the games many shrines, I found myself stuck. The game presented me with the tools to complete the puzzle, and the tools to reach a chest in the corner of this large sand pit. As I approached the chest, I messed up and lost what I needed to reach the chest. Had I left the shrine and tried again, the sequence would have taken me five minutes. Instead, I took the slabs of wood that were spawning on a loop and created a ridiculously large bridge. This was unbelievably stupid, but it stands out as being a very satisfying moment.
At every turn, in the game’s dungeons, shrines, open world, and battle encounters, Tears of the Kingdom gives you unlimited options. The game has so much content that it can be overwhelming, but the world is so fun to explore that you find yourself getting lost in it, rather than taken over by it. When one type of activity proves boring, there are countless other things to do. Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t ever slow down because it never has to. The pace is entirely in your control, even more so than in Breath of the Wild.
Tears of the Kingdom also expands on what Breath of the Wild lacked. The dungeons and boss battles take a major jump in quality, being better designed and more interesting aesthetically. The story is also refined compared to Breath of the Wild, with better-acted and directed cutscenes that bring back the spectacle of previous Zelda games. Hyrule feels fresh with new biomes and evidence of time passing, adding more character to locations that previously felt barren, and the game shows restraint with nostalgia, making those big moments that pull from other Zelda games all the more impactful. All of this is showcased perfectly in the game’s final dungeon and bosses, which balances the freedom that’s so important to the game’s identity with the spectacle that a big finale deserves, to deliver a sequence that brought tears to my eyes with its magnificence.
As you can see, Tears of the Kingdom is not my Game of the Year. That honour goes to the game that defined 2023 for me and surprised me the most. Tears of the Kingdom feels weird in that sense because while it isn’t my game of the year, I can see with confidence that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is the greatest game that I have ever played. If this list were less personal, I would say Tears of the Kingdom is the best game of 2023, easily.
1. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
The magic of Fires of Rubicon isn’t immediately apparent. The game starts off like a typical Triple-A title with a mission acclimating you to the feeling of controlling your mech and setting a perceived standard of difficulty for the rest of the experience. The game then gives you a choice of missions and you begin to mess around with your mech and what it can do.
Halfway through the game’s opening chapter, you face Balteus. This is the first truly tough boss, and the point in the game that most players will jump off, but a friend of mine happened to be playing the game at the same time as me. “Try the pulse guns on his shield”, my friend advised. I went back to Balteus and all of a sudden it clicked. It took me a few more tries with this knowledge, but I pushed through and continued to understand more about my mech.
As I reached the end of the game's second chapter, I fought the Sea Spider. My friend gave me advice on this boss as well, but I had my own strategy. I made some small adjustments as I continued to fight the Sea Spider, but the change that made a huge difference was my mech’s legs. If I used the bipedal legs, I could make big leaps with my dodge to avoid his attacks. Once again, the fight clicked. I continued on and eventually defeated the Sea Spider in one of the most glorious moments I have ever experienced in a game, and onto Chapter 3 I went.
As I progressed through Chapter 3, I decided to go back to the game’s first chapter and fight Balteus again… It was a breeze. My mech and my understanding of it had evolved so much, but the game’s internal difficulty hadn’t. I had simply adapted. Throughout my three playthroughs of Armored Core VI, that was the loop. Play a mission, unlock new parts, fight my friend in the online battle arena to test these new parts, build new mechs, save them and head on to the next mission.
Armored Core VI emulated the often reminisced ‘schoolyard chatter’ that millennials often talk about in relation to games first released during the 8-bit and 16-bit generations. Despite the game’s main story being a completely single-player experience, there was a communal element to Armored Core VI that was notable of the best games of 2023, and that Armored Core benefitted from more than any other. Armored Core VI sparked the creativity through problem solving that Tears of the Kingdom also sparked, but Armored Core VI feels so deliberate in that creativity, that it leads to the most satisfying gaming experience this year. Topped off by an incredible soundtrack that delivers the underlying dread of Rubicon and its inhabitants alongside some early noughties’ punk-rock bangers, and a surprisingly poignant story with some heart-wrenching scenes and some shockingly affecting performances. Armored Core VI is without a doubt my favourite game of 2023.
