I didn't play a lot of games that came out this year. Instead I focused on my backlog of games and decided to try a lot of new things to me. I tackled my 16 bit backlog and finished it more or less (still haven't played many of the RPGs) and tried to go out of my comfort zone. I think this is the year I played more games this year than any where I normally only play 1 or 2 and somehow I managed to roll credits on 68 games this year. Some multiple times. Idk what drove me to such degeneracy but. Here I am.

I wanted to make a list of games that was separate from the Backlogg'd top games and talk about my thoughts and feelings of everything I played.

Call of Duty 4 is a game I like way more than I think it deserve. It was one of the games that made me want a gaming PC back in the day of 2008 as I got it as a birthday gift and it looked really bad. I got it on XBox but the PC version always peeked my curiosity. Fast forward to the beginning of 2023 and it felt pretty cathartic to play through it on my GTX 980.. which is funny considering that card is 10 years old. It hit a specific itch of nostalgia that felt really good.
Cathartic is the best way to describe this game. Everything about it felt so good to go back to. While I think the level design peaked in MW2, the thing that made me enjoy this game more than the other games in this trilogy is the story. Everyone is so down to earth and isn't over the top war criminals yet and not "commiting atrocities but it's okay because we're the good guys" yet the later entries love to do, but it's super down to earth and while the premise is really funny to me and has aged about as well as milk, there are a lot of moments that I think really stand out. The American missions are the ones that take place on the battlefield and the ones I liked the least in this game but the ones that really stuck with me story wise. They start off as this set of really cocky "we're gonna catch the bad guys" attitude, replacing a broadcast with fucking American rap music to show it to the man only for their tone to change after the mission war pigs. A nuke goes off and everyone dies and after that and it's this big "Oh shit" moment that I feel like other games try to replicate but don't ever really get close. I remember MW3 gets close by showing a family on vacation. You know the scene. That scene has aged really well and still is heart-wetching to witness. But then I got a steam achievement that is the most 2010s gamer humor epic XD reference that took me out of the entire scene. MW1 was the least afraid to try to have some kind of commentary of well.. Modern Warfare in the entire series. Even though I wouldn't say it has really aged well, I can look at this game in context and appreciate it for what it is. MW1 I think is the most respectful of it, because while it is giving commentary even critiques it, never does it really disrespect it or boil down to "war bad" that I think a lot of games in the FPS genre in the 2000s and 2010s do afraid to alienate it's audience. This was back when talking about war in a respectful manner was this game's whole schtick and I think for me personally it ends up being the most well rounded game in the entire trilogy. That being said, while I really really didn't like MW2 when I played it the more I sat on it, I think MW2's has some really fun level design and it worth going back to as well.

I somehow managed to play almost every single Mario Kart this year. It wasn't really something I was doing consciously, Mario Kart has always been a comfort game to me and I could boot up any of them and have a decent time... except Wii as that game stresses me the fuck out but I digress.. Very little do I really care to go through and unlock everything in them. I usually do a couple of grand prix in 100cc and not touch it for at least a year but I was just.. really into Mario Kart this year for some reason. Scott the Woz might have something to do with it. I also watched him a lot this year in the background and while I was working or doing chores, I would regularly have his stuff on my autoplay and a video that kept popping up was his Mario Kart videos.
Out of all of the ones I played through, I think Double Dash might be my favourite. I go back and forth between DS with all of its really fun single player content and features that was ONLY in that game like customable emblems, missions, and even battle mode bosses, controlling a 3D Mario Kart game with a D-Pad isn't my favourite thing to do, so I put Double Dash on this list. Double Dash doesn't have nearly as much content as newer Mario Kart games but what it does have is a mechanic I have been sorely missing in new entries. While customizing carts is cool, I feel like it gives less strategy on character selection and I find myself just gravitating to the same cart. Double Dash's 2 character mechanic with it's exclusive items is something I much much prefer. It makes it so that it's fun to mix and match characters to find the most optimal item and gives me a reason to play other characters and check out their item rather than just staring at the back of Rosalina's head for the 50th race in a row. While I think later entries, especially 8 has better tracks and much more content, this and DS both really stuck out to me and I had a good time with both quite a bit. Really any of those two can go into this slot.

Soulstice was a game that I was really excited for. It got announced in a Sony State of Play randomly and I think a lot of people forgot it even exists. When you jingle the keys of DMC, Nier, Claymore, and Berserk in my face you absolutely have my attention. This game is a hack and slash with RPG elements ala God of War or DMC3. There's really nothing special about this game that I can really say other than I really enjoyed it. I have a lot of criticisms, I think the game goes on a little too long, the level design gets really tiring to look at, there's a really big difficulty spike in the second half that is really unexpected, Lute can be a little annoying sometimes but despite all of this, I still had a really good time with it. I really enjoyed the world this game sets up, and I think it is an extremely solid foundation for a sequel. Even if Lute is annoying, I really like Briar and Lute as characters.

The only Castlevania game I've played before this year is Symphony of the Night. It's the game that everyone played and one of my favourite PS1 games. I was not expecting to like Castlevania IV. I was not expecting to play Castlevania IV. I played this on a whim because I wanted to try streaming retro games. I had 0 interest in the Castlevania series except SotN and I ended up wanting more. Castlevania IV really surprised me with it's level design, fun slashing mechanics, and how well it's aged. It is a lot more linear and because of that, I was expecting to just not care. I adore this game and I look forward to playing more Castlevania in the future!

Rune Factory 5 was another game I played on a whim, and a game that I dumped 100 hours into completely accidentally. Back on 3DS I got obsessed with Rune Factory 4, so much so that I almost failed a class because of it in high school so it doesn't surprise me that RF5 sucked me in as much as it did. It has a really solid core and while a lot of the game is really simple, I really enjoyed a lot of the dungeon and grinding. I spent the most time farming, getting to know villagers than the usual Rune Factory games which is mostly grinding. I will say, this game's character and premise isn't really has grand or out there as RF4's characters and writing but it's still really solid.

Onechanbara Z2 fucks. This game is pure slop. It's a bad game and yet I had so much fun with it. I put this series in a category I call Crackhead games. Games so over the top, energetic, and stupid that you can't help but go along with it's bullshit. In terms of being a hack and slash, it's not on the tier of say Metal Gear Rising Revengence, or even anywhere near Bayonetta or DMC but It's a fairly competent spectacle fighter with a really really REALLY stupid story and characters. You play as a group of scantily clad women, you fight zombies. There's some plot of the main character of this game dressing like a past protagonist to mock and show up the other girl. I don't care. I didn't care. I was too distracted by LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE this game has to offer. This game runs at mach 10 at all times and I love it for it.

Yoshi's Island is the best Snes game. It's level design, bosses, music, aesthetic is so cozy and warm and it's really just one of the best platformers period. This year has been a big year for Yoshi for me. Both this game and Yoshi's Story have become really special to me. Last year was probably one of the hardest years for me emotionally. A lot was going on in my life and I remember coming home after a particularly hard day at work. Excited for my equivalent of my weekend, snuggling up under blankets with snacks and a 100 mg weed gummy and just playing both of these. I remember booting up Yoshi's Story in particular. The main menu music. The atmosphere. Everything about it just hit me like a truck (a lot of that is probably due to drugs but it was still really impactful) I laughed it off as just "haha I got so high I cried at Yoshi's Story" but the more I think about it, the more I cherish that night. Nothing mattered in that moment. I just was happy. Content. And I felt even more that playing through Yoshi's Island. It's cheery atmosphere and comfy vibes just make me happy. Yoshi's Story other than it's atmosphere is not really a game I super care to go back to any time soon, but Yoshi's Island in particular is a game I've revisited a few times since completing it. I ended up streaming it over the summer as my retro game when I was trying to make retro game streaming a thing I did in particular. That has it's own story, one involving a broken computer, frustrating moments but one that I'm glad I streamed. I think finishing it made it feel all the more better. I love this game to death one that affected me way more than I was anticipating and it makes me happy to have it on this list.

Speaking of games I have emotional attachments to. Dark Souls. I played through it for the first time in November and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I streamed this game all in one stream that lasted 6 days. The stream had a bit of an deflated ending. I couldn't get past the final boss till the morning and even then the morning stream took about 4 hours. That being said, I cherish those streams. It was probably the stupidest way to play through DS. Bashing my head against it for 6 days straight. Not doing ANYTHING ELSE. but I think those 6 days is why I grew so attached to it. I had a lot of scathing criticism at the time. Bed of Chaos, Ceaseless Discharge, Level design that felt unfinished and not well thought out at all but man. I even at the time said I like Code Vein more, but after a few months have passed, I don't really feel that way anymore.
Any parts of the game that feel unfinished almost don't matter. Dark souls is so rich with it's lore level design it almost feels very ecliptic. The game's world does not revolve around you. You simply exist in it. And very few games really capture this specific feeling of hopelessness, and because of that it makes it genuinely one of the most rewarding games I've played. There is a reason anyone who makes it through this game to credits talks about this game like it's some religious experience.