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New Game Releases: 2023 Buyer’s Guide – Part 2

Andy Tuttle

With 2023 coming to a close, and Christmas just around the corner, most game companies have taken the next few weeks off.

“OH MY GOD?! IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!! What do I do? My kid/wife/husband/secret santa wanted some game about…I don’t know, a crying king, or Fatal Fury 16, or game where you farm stars in a field, or maybe something that had all three. Do those exist? If they don’t exist what can I get?? HELP ME!”

Okay, okay, stop fretting, I got you covered. I will be giving you a buyer’s guide for each month with my top picks in BOLD. What were the best games to come out; which ones sucked, and which ones flew under the radar and deserve your attention? Get ready to find out!

Since this guide tends to be on the long side, and in the interest of keeping your attention, I will be splitting it into two parts; January to June and July to December. Get your pencils ready, folks, because the games are coming fast and I hope you’re taking notes.

July:

Heading into July, we had already had a stellar first half year of games, but we hadn’t even scratched the surface yet. After a ten year break, Nintendo finally released a new Pikmin game called, of course, Pikmin 4. While each entry in the series seemed to build on the world of Olimar and his companions, Pikmin 4 super charged it by having a large hub world filled with characters to talk to and, for the first time, receive quests from. The plot of Pikmin 4 revolves around a group of explorers, called the Rescue Corps, heading out into deep space in order to rescue the stranded Captain Olimar. However, when the Rescue Corps lands on Earth, their ship is damaged and much of their crew is scattered around in various locations. It is up to the player character to head into uncharted territory to rescue their compatriots, as well as other stranded tourists, all while trying to solve the mystery of where Captain Olimar has gone.

To help the player along the way, a kind, dog-like creature named Oatchi joins them on their journey. Oatchi can act similarly to Pikmin, carrying objects and attacking hostile creatures, but can also act as a means of transportation, allowing the player to bring Pikmin across bodies of water, or if they just want to move a little faster than normal. Split into two main parts, Pikmin 4 is a LONG game, but well worth your time. The dandori tips the game teaches you are also great habits to form in your real life. Why, in fact, I’m using dandori right now, writing this article, heating up my lunch, listening to the news in the background, and texting with my wife about Christmas plans. Dandori!

July was a little slow in comparison to June, but it wasn’t a slouch either. The next biggest game of the month was yet another “soulslike”, Remnant II, that has a heavy emphasis on gunplay. Narrative adventure fans were treated to Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, one of the more prestigious games published by Netflix Games. In a year already bursting with RPGs (honestly, what year isn’t), Nihon Falcom put out The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie, finally free of the Trails of Cold Steel subseries, and setting itself up as the precursor to next year’s Trails Through Daybreak; fun!

In the realm of “B” tier games, Disney Illusion Island came out, featuring Metroidvania style gameplay, while Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons came out, acting as the latest entry in the long running series. In smaller games you probably heard about but haven’t played, Koei Tecmo put out Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening, reminding me of all the times I’d see the box at Blockbuster when I was a kid and NEVER renting it; Telltale reformed and put out The Expanse, a narrative adventure based on the kinda/sorta popular TV series; and, finally, the mind bending puzzle game Viewfinder came out to rave reviews.

Oh god, and, of course, we had another massive RPG that was ALSO a re-release, Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg, which had bee previously released in 1997 on the PlayStation, exclusively in Japan. Phew.

Again, there isn’t really anything overtly terrible this month, but if you need to avoid something then I can almost always guarantee that the “always online” games are usually ones to skip, sorry Exoprimal. With average scores from critics and less than a million copies sold worldwide, I don’t expect the shelf life of Exoprimal to extend very far past 2024, if it even makes that far at all. Still, shooting dinosaurs with your friends can be fun, maybe just wait until the announce the closing of the servers and the drop the price to free-to-play.

Instead of playing Russian roulette with an online only game, why not check out Venba? At least you know your digital copy will (probably) be available for download over the next 20+ years. If you’re wondering just what Venba is, this is a cooking sim with some light visual novel elements. Players take on the role of Venba, an Indian woman who has immigrated to Canada with her husband and son. Starting in the year 1988, each story in Venba moves forward in time by one year, seeing how the family is getting accustomed to life in Canada. Venba, worried that her son is losing his connection to his Indian heritage, spends time cooking the dishes her family has passed down for generations. It’s a touching, poignant tale that is well worth your time.

August:

When writing up the New Game Releases column every Tuesday, I will often ignore most games that release in early access and then finally get a full launch. Baldur’s Gate III was not one of those games I ignored. Originally released in October of 2020 on PC and…Stadia (whatever that was…), the full game was finally dropped in August of 2023 to overwhelming critical praise. With multiple ways to play through the game and characters to meet (and maybe fuck), Baldur’s Gate III was the D&D RPG that many had been waiting for since, well, Baldur’s Gate II. With a win for Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2023, you shouldn’t really need much more incentive to play this. It’s great, patches have made it better, and you can now play it on both PS5 and Xbox Series X. There’s no excuse!

It’s a little odd that Armored Core VI didn’t get more love in 2023, especially at The Game Awards where they act like a new From Software game is ALMOST as important as a new Kojima game, but the fanfare and buzz around this title kind of fizzled out after launch. Why? It’s really a great game, I highly recommend it. Pulling up the rear on the “B” squad are a trio of titles. First we have Goodbye Volcano High, a sort of mashup between a rhythm game and a visual novel about a group of teenage dinosaurs going through an existential crisis (I wonder why more people didn’t play this…). Second is Samba de Amigo: Party Central, another rhythm game but without all of that sad melodrama about extinction, just the song “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera. Third is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, an asymmetrical survival horror game that is played online with friends. I know I said to stay away from “always online” games, but this one looks fun enough and does seem to have community support…for now.

August wasn’t a HUGE month for new releases, though it did have a good amount of smaller titles, including the Chrono Trigger-esque Sea of Stars, the Jet Set Radio-esque Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, and sequels Blasphemous II, Moving Out 2, and Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy. Did you get all that?

This month’s titles to avoid are the painfully generic Atlas of Aveum and Immortals Fallen. Wait, do I have those titles right? Who cares. Let just move on to our hidden gems for the month, picked by members of the New Game Releases community. First we have The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood as suggested by Mr. GamesCast himself, Merve, who called it: “A narrative adventure about a fortune-telling witch exiled from her cosmic coven. Features gorgeous pixel art, an amazing space rock soundtrack, and some of the most emotionally resonant, unapologetically feminist writing of the year“, while longtime commenter Kid Presentable demanded that you all play Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. He didn’t give much context on the game, but it comes from the now defunct German studio Mimimi Games. This pirate themed RTS game has gotten high praise from critics and fans, so at least they went out on a high note.

Oh, and one more honorable mention from Cedric TheOwl, recommending Book of Hours, saying: “It’s a simulation game about moving to a remote island and restoring a library full of occult and arcane knowledge. It’s a much cozier game than Cultist Simulator, trading in the plate-spinning stress factory gameplay for a more leisurely pace of discovery with no real time limits or ways to die“.

September:

While Summer had a few decent hits, the start of Fall was a full on assault from the game companies, with several high profile, AAA titles (and indies) vying for our attention. The biggest game of September was Bethesda’s latest open world RPG, Starfield. For a few years, now, it almost seemed like Starfield was going to be one of the biggest games of not just the year, but of all-time. Unfortunately, the big promises that Todd Howard gave us at various press conferences over the last five years didn’t quite pan out, but its not like Starfield is a bad game. It’s ambitious, maybe too ambitious, what with the hundreds and hundreds of empty worlds to explore, but the fact that you can is pretty remarkable. It isn’t game of the year, and it isn’t an all-time classic, but it’s fun, it’s got a good story, and it’s as good as most of the other great games in 2023. Check it out.

There were three other major titles this month, trying to pull attention away from Starfield. First we have Mortal Kombat 1, a reboot of the franchise that plays around with time and, I think, multiverse stuff. It kind of dropped off the map after release, are you still playing it? Ubisoft tried to remind everyone that The Crew existed with The Crew Motorfest, not sure it worked out all that well. Finally, EA rebooted their soccer franchise after losing the FIFA license, releasing EA Sports FC 24. It got fairly average reviews and was skewered by the press and fans for its bizarre looking character models, especially when it came to female players. Huh, maybe AAA games aren’t all they’re cracked up to be…

Moving into the “B” tier we have four titles to check out. First is Lies of P, a soulslike game that is set in a dark & gritty reimagining of the story of Pinocchio; sounds sick. I kid, but it got rave reviews. We got our THIRD Trails game of the year with The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails. This was a re-release of a 2012 Japan exclusive PSP game, which I’m sure delighted the dozens of fans of this series who hadn’t already imported the original and loaded a translation onto their modded PSPs; *chortle*. Next we had Super Bomberman R 2, which is fine, I guess. Last, and certainly least, was Payday 3. This game was ALMOST my title to avoid, but it has decent enough reviews that I didn’t think it needed to be ignored. Longtime fans, though, didn’t seem to care for it. Take it for what it’s worth.

Looking for something from a smaller dev team? Why not check out Cocoon, the new game from the designer of Limbo and Inside. While the game is a little bit up its own ass with how clever it thinks it is, Cocoon is still a well made and provocative indie title that you would be hard pressed to pass on. If you need a game for the whole family you can check out the brawler Party Animals. Who doesn’t love beating up their grandma when she’s playing a game as an adorable puppy? Rounding out the smaller releases is Mineko’s Night Market, a shop sim set in a cutesy forest. This game has been on my list of potential new releases since before I started writing this column five years ago. I was sure that it would never come out and then, BAM, there it was. Now, let’s see how long it takes Beyond Good & Evil 2 to come out…

Oh god, two more, almost done with September. Okay, in the world of ports, we had Baten Kaitos 1&2 HD Remaster come out on Switch, which is, my god…HD remasters of the GameCube originals that came out back in 2003 & 2006. These games were developed by the same teams that worked on Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, and Chrono Cross, so that’s certainly something to consider if you’ve been sitting on the fence with this one. Finally, one major piece of DLC was released, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, featuring the internet’s OTHER boyfriend, Idris Elba. Cyberpunk 2077 has come a long way since its rocky launch back in December of 2020, but I wouldn’t blame you if you still felt like staying away.

While Payday 3 would have been a fine title to avoid this month, I’ve got to go with the critical dud Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest – The Adventure of Dai. The first of two poorly received Dragon Quest games from 2023, The Adventures of Dai is just slightly worse than December’s The Demon Prince. Based on the anime of the same name, The Adventures of Dai is a shell of a real game. This is a mobile title disguised as a big budget console game, meant to trick only the most gullible of anime nerds into picking it up. Don’t be one of those nerds, be a cool nerd.

Instead you should be playing F-Zero 99, the latest game in the slew of retro titles turned into massive battle royale contests. “Hey, Andy! F-Zero isn’t some obscure title no one has heard of“, you might be screaming at your computer screen, spit frothing up near the corners of your mouth. Relax, it’s okay. Look, did you play F-Zero 99 when it came out? Do you know ANYONE who played F-Zero 99 when it came out? Yeah, exactly. If you have a Switch and you pay for the online service, then check this game out over the holiday. It’s fun as hell and you can say you took part in it before Nintendo inevitably delists it in 2024.

October:

Back in 2017 we got both an amazing new Zelda game and an amazing new Mario game. Six years later and the trend continues. October’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder saw Nintendo take the 2D Mario game format and push it past what we saw in the New Super Mario Bros. franchise. While the core gameplay remains the same, players move from left to right, trying to reach a goal, the addition of the wonder flower turns every level on its head. Yes, EVERY. LEVEL. ALL. 152. What was once a simple level of pipes with a few piranha plants, suddenly transforms into a whimsical sing along where the plants belt out a tune as they try to murder you. What was a simple forest level is suddenly transformed into a striking silhouette, with Mario, and the environment, able to stretch and shrink like shadows. There are a ton of different things that can happen, from flying buffaloes, to Mario transforming into a gooey blob, to the warp pipes coming to life, Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a solid entry in the 40 year old franchise and one of my absolute favorites of 2023. That Nintendo can continually breathe new life into their flagship series is, well, a wonder!

Man, if you thought September was stacked, get a load of October. As far as top games go, the spookiest month of the year also gave us one of the spookiest games of the year, Alan Wake II. It’s has been 13 years since the release of the first Alan Wake and, wouldn’t you know it, 13 years have passed in-game as well! Told in two parts, players must play through the game as both Alan and a new character, FBI special agent Saga Anderson, in order to get the full story. Make sure to keep your flashlight charged. Next we have Spider-Man 2, the sequel to Insomiac’s hit PS4 game…Spider-Man…from 2018. Players, once again, step into the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, but he is not alone. Joining him as co-protagonist is Miles Morales, also Spider-Man, and certain sections of the game can be played as Mary Jane Watson and…VENOM. It might not have made the same critical splash as its predecessor, but it’s a fine game that will certainly be worth every dollar.

Continuing with the big games, Ubisoft put out Assassin’s Creed: Mirage but forgot to tell anyone, Microsoft put out Forza Motorsport and forgot to add a number after it, Total War: Pharaoh came out and forgot that you can’t put a Steam game under the Christmas tree and, finally, Sonic Superstars came out and apparently forgot that Super Mario Bros. Wonder released the same week.

Moving on to the B’s, Nintendo and Game Freak gave us Detective Pikachu Returns, a serviceable but uninspiring game. Cities: Skylines 2 came out and thumbed its nose at SimCity’s corpse. Tactical RPG fans got Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless, releasing just moments after they all finally beat Disgaea 6. Ghostrunner just kept on running until it got a sequel, Ghostrunner II. Another sequel released, Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 and was probably just as good as its sleeper predecessor (seriously, check it out). The final B tier game for October was the reboot Lords of the Fallen yet ANOTHER soulslike in an already crowded (King’s) field.

I still have more October games to talk about? Jeez, okay, what are these? Oh, the smaller releases; okay. First we have The Jackbox Party Pack 10, filled to the brim with wacky party games to whip out at your next gathering. Just wait until you uncle Jack makes a jokey t-shirt about where he was on January 6th (you know where I was! eh…eh…). Next we have Jusant, a low key adventure game in which players climb up the side of a giant tower. The game was developed by the studio Don’t Nod, so it’s probably a safe bet that it’s good. Our last small title is the Advance Wars-esque Wargroove 2. War is still goin’, and it’s still groovin’. Stay vigilant.

Finally, some big ports came out in October. First is the Front Mission 2 remake, a superb tactical RPG with mechs that still holds up today. Konami remembered that they own Metal Gear so they went ahead and put out the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection – Vol. 1, which contains all three PlayStation titles, as well as the first two MSX games AND the two NES games. “Does it contain the VR missions that came out on PSX?“; yeah it fuckin’ comes with that one too, what do you think! Finally, River City: Rival Showdown was re-released on modern consoles after being locked to the 3DS since 2016. I LOVE this 2D brawler and strongly encourage you to check it out.

Typically, the Fall and Winter are when you start to see a slew of terrible licensed games get released. Made with small budgets, these games are shoved onto store shelves in order to be sold at a low price point to entice clueless parents and relatives into buying them for the gamer kid in their life. While October had no shortage of these awful licensed games (Hellboy, PAW Patrol, The Grinch, Transformers, Lord of the Rings, Ghostbusters, Barbie, Trolls) there was one licensed game that was the shittiest of the shits, Skull Island: Rise of Kong. Universally panned by critics and players, Skull Island ranks up there with Gollum as one of the absolute worst games of 2023. Developed in less than a year by a team of no more than 20 people, developer IguanaBee were given little direction, little time, and, obviously, very little money with which to make the game. The graphics are among the worst for a modern game, with an embarrassingly awful cutscene in which a static, low res, image is placed on screen to signify a flashback that Kong had, check it out below, and then burn this game from your memory:

Instead, why not check out a game that has intentionally bad graphics, the co-op survival game Lethal Company. In this game, players work for “The Company” going out on salvage missions that require them to collect mundane items in order to meet a specific quota. If the quota is met then they are moved onto the next stage, with the quotas getting higher and higher as they go. It sounds simple enough, but getting in players way are a slew of nasty creatures and creepy crawlers. The game, played in a first person view, is designed to scare players, with monsters jumping out at you in the dark. When you die, you must watch your companions continue to fill the quota, but are unable to warn them of any incoming monsters. Best played with a group, Lethal Company might be a “meme game”, but it’s good, solid fun. Isn’t that all we need, sometimes?

November:

Oh boy, it’s November, we’re almost done! What was the best title this month? Why, it’s another Mario game; Super Mario RPG! A remake of the 1996 SNES classic, Super Mario RPG is a delightful and wholesome role paying game that is perfect for kids just getting into the genre. Not too hard, but not that easy, Super Mario RPG is a great way to ease into the traditional aspects of a role playing game, from turn based menu combat to party management, it’ll show you the basics while also giving you a great game. This, again, was yet another example of the high amount of ports, remakes, and re-releases we got in 2023. While we often get several of these games each year, 2023 felt especially flush with them. I think the pandemic showed publishers that there is still an audience for retro games and, rather than let some mom & pop used game shop take all the money (or have them emulated) they can slap a bunch of them together and charge cold, hard cash for their back catalog, making a nice profit. Sorry, this got off track, um…play Super Mario RPG, it is good.

I’m a hardcore Yakuza stan, so you know that I’m going to feature it every chance I get. Beside Ishin!, we got another Like a Dragon title in 2023, The Man Who Erased His Name. Featuring long time series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, players must, once again, guide him through the underworld as he searches for answers to a thing that is, like, really, really crazy. Oh, and did I mention that he’s supposed to be dead! Yeah, he faked his death and is trying to conceal his identity, so now he’s got THAT to worry about. I fucking love Yakuza/Like a Dragon. However, if you’re a nerd that doesn’t like badass Japanese dudes eating ramen and hanging out in sex clubs, I guess you can check out Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, which was universally panned for it’s “brisk” four hour single player campaign. The multiplayer portion is “fine”, and if you want to play with the largest online audience then of course you’ll need to pick this up.

In weird Japanese games, Nintendo put out WarioWare: Move It!, a collection of goofy mini games and a spiritual successor to WarioWare: Smooth Moves on the Wii. While we patiently wait for Persona 6 to one day arrive in the next 15 years, Atlus has thrown us another spin-off game, Persona 5: Tactica. This is exactly what it sounds like, a tactical RPG set in the Persona 5 universe. What else do you need? Finally, we have the Square Enix RPG Star Ocean Second Story R which is, yes, a remake of Star Ocean Second Story. Phew.

In the land of B’s, we have yet ANOTHER League of Legends spin-off with Song of Nunu, a 3D platformer about a boy named Nunu and the Yeti that hangs out with him. San Diego studio The Behemoth put out the run & gun game Alien Hominid Invasion, a sequel to their 20 year old debut title, Alien Hominid which, yes, ALSO got an HD re-release this year. Fans of children’s cartoons, i.e., children and weird adults, were delighted this month with the release of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2, a fighting game featuring famous Nickelodeon characters, as well as Dreamworks All-Star Kart Racing, a Mario Kart style game that features, you guessed it, famous Dreamworks characters.

Just a few more. Two games about robots came out, the action/adventure game RoboCop: Rogue City, which features actor Peter Weller reprising his role as the titular cop who is a robot (well, cyborg, to be technical). There was also The Talos Principal II, the sequel to the mind bending puzzle game, featuring even more mind bending and more puzzles. To round out November we have a couple of collections. First is the Jurassic Park Game Collection, featuring a many of the JP titles released on SNES and Genesis (still bummed it didn’t include the Sega CD game). Last, but not least, is the Double Dragon Collection, which features all three NES games, as well as the modern “retro” game Double Dragon IV, the GBA title Double Dragon Advance, and the SNES title Super Double Dragon.

Hey, do you like Roller Coaster Tycoon? Cool, then do not ever play Roller Coast Tycoon Adventures Deluxe, it sucks. Go play Planet Coaster instead. That’s it, I have nothing else to say about this one, let’s move on.

Our hidden gem for November comes from commenter Soufflé Cat who just absolutely loved My Time at Sandrock. They were so enamored with this game that they took every opportunity to bring it up in multiple gaming threads across The Avocado, hoping they weren’t coming across like a broken record. Soufflé Cat, you’re not a broken record, you’re just someone who loves cozy farming simulations, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Be more like Soufflé Cat and talk up your gaming passions every chance you get!

December:

I wish I had stuff to say about Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, but I still haven’t played this. That’s the bad thing about December titles, you kind of just hope for the best when picking them up as gifts. What I can say about the game, though, is that it appears to be a typical Ubisoft open world game. Think Far Cry with an Avatar skin. Critical reception to Frontiers of Pandora has been mixed, with some critics really being taken in by the beauty of Pandora and the charms of the game. Others find it bland and more of the same kind of stuff Ubisoft is known for in their open world games, chiefly, that you run out of things to do rather quickly and end of performing the same tasks over and over. I doubt we’ll see this pop up at next years The Game Awards, but you never know.

The rest of December is pretty quiet. There are obviously going to be games that come out in the next couple weeks that won’t be talked about here, but here’s some of the bigger ones to check out or look forward to. First up is the second Dragon Quest game of the year, Dragon Quest Monster: The Dark Prince. Touted as Dragon Quest’s answer to Pokémon, The Dark Prince tells the story of Psaro, the primary antagonist of Dragon Quest IV, who is on a quest to usurp his father as king of the monsters. The game serves as a prequel to DQIV, so it might be fun to check that out once you beat this!

There was also a fighting game from Arc System Works, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising that I’m sure will generate an obscene amount of cosplay over the next year. Rounding out the top games we have SteamWorld Build, a new entry in that franchise, which has players building towns and cities, all while exploring underground caves in search of materials to help build a spaceship.

December had a large amount of DLC come out as well, with expansions (both paid & free) for Final Fantasy XVI, God of War Ragnarok, and Fallout 76. Hey, if John Carpenter can play and LOVE Fallout 76, you can too. There was also one big port this month, with The Outer Wilds coming to Switch under the subtitle Archeologist Edition. I don’t really know anything about this game, but people seem to love it, so, as with John Carpenter, if other people can love it, why not you?

December’s game to avoid is going to be very easy, because it no longer exists! Yes, folks, just a few short days ago the game The Day Before was released on PC where it instantly bombed, causing the developer to close its doors and refund all purchases. Initially, pre-release hype was high for this zombie survival game that positioned itself as a kind of multiplayer The Last of Us. However, poor optimization, tons of game breaking bugs, empty environments, and a low player base doomed The Day Before and it is now sitting in the dust bin of history. Instead, you can avoid the Switch port of the Batman: Arkham Trilogy. As is the unfortunate norm by now, yet another Switch port of a game performs like dogshit, with poor optimization and hilariously bad bugs. We should all really know by now, but we don’t seem to learn the lesson. Send a message this holiday season, do not buy Batman: Arkham Trilogy.

As for the hidden gem, well, it actually isn’t out yet (as of the posting of this article), so it might be garbage! However, the trailer for Hell Well looks so cool that I can’t imagine it being a complete waste of time. It’s supposed to play a lot like Vampire Survivors, which is a HUGE hit. Will Hell Well be the next big thing? I don’t know…

Oh boy, we did it! That’s all twelve months recapped and dissected. I hope you were able to discover a few titles you missed over the year, and I also hope that I’ve steered you clear of a few of the stinkers. As 2023 comes to a close I am again reminded by how much I enjoy writing these columns every week and seeing all of your wonderful, happy avatars in the comments. That’ll do it for the buyer’s guide, but special coverage will continue this coming Tuesday with Notable Events From 10, 20, 30 & 40 Years Ago. See you next week!

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