re: your year in gaming 2023

Looking back, and realizing that the only 2023 releases I played are FF16 and Octopath Traveler 2. I may be too picky.

I really liked FF16 but it was a bit too ambitious and I strongly disliked the ending. I would say I was disappointed, but it's more of a mixed bag. It definitely could have been better in ways. But the normal combat was good and if you took the time to do all the side quests, the world immersion was really good. The boss fights against Titan and Ultima, in particular, were quite punishing yet rewarding.

OT2, however, blew my mind. Playing a "modernized" but still old school pixelated feeling JRPG with 8 separate and unique stories tied together by incredibly challenging endgame content to top it off, was a breath of fresh air in a gaming industry that's tripping all over itself trying to constantly reinvent the wheel. I haven't had as much fun playing a game since Skyrim and Witcher 3. If any of you old school JRPG fans haven't played it, you seriously don't know what you're missing.

Rest of the year I spent playing/replaying ACNH, Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma and CotW The Angler. Briefly played Graveyard Keeper, but couldn't learn all the intricacies of the system fast enough to enjoy it, so abandoned it pretty quickly.