The video games we enjoyed the most in 2023

2023 is just a few days away from entering the history books, and as far as video games go, there’s no denying that we’ve had a lot of interesting titles throughout the year. And there was everything from surprises to disappointments, from AAA titles that promised more to indies that reminded us that there is more to be seen in simplicity. Though this year had its ups and downs, it was one of the most enjoyable, and with that in mind, the staff at Meristation USA shares the titles they enjoyed the most this year.

Mike Reyes - Editor

It’s been a heck of a year for gaming, with dozens upon hundreds of new games flooding the market throughout the past few months. And while AAA blockbusters don’t tend to go unnoticed by MeriStation and most of the media, people who know me know that I have a bit of a taste for smaller titles, more compact but just as engaging as anything else.

Below you’ll find only 5 of the best games I’ve had the pleasure of completing this year (including my Game of the Year).

Pizza Tower

Oh yeah, we’re starting this off by getting weird. What do you get when you mix early 90′s grotesque cartoon art style with the long-forgotten puzzle action platformer genre made famous by Nintendo and the Wario Land games? A mind-bending, overly stimulating indie masterpiece that deserves every bit of attention it gets, and more.

Pizza Tower sees the main hero Peppino Spaghetti as he climbs the titular Pizza Tower to save his restaurant, dashing through blocks, collecting ingredients, and having such satisfying movement that you’ll either get sucked into a trance by it, or by the psychedelic imagery that is all over the place in this game.

Resident Evil 4 Remake

I mean, come on. Capcom knows how to make a remake. As a lifelong fan of the original RE4, having replayed the game way too much and learning almost everything there is about it, I was a bit wary of this modern reimagining of the game. Luckily there is nothing to worry about.

With the new movement of the last remakes (taken straight from Revelations 2) and a new coat of paint, the team at Capcom took almost everything that worked from the original and remixed it into an incredible-looking title that continues to push their top-notch RE Engine to its limits. The wackiness and “b-movie” style of the original is intact, the combat is improved greatly, the music is fantastic, and the return of The Mercenaries mode made of this game one of my favorites of the entire year. There are even more replays in my future, it seems.

Battle Shapers

What do you get when you mix a roguelite, Mega Man X, and Metroid Prime? Battle Shapers! That might not be a perfect description, but it should help you understand why I love this Indie game that has been going unnoticed for far too long. As mentioned above, this is a rogue-lite game that sees you playing as an eponymous “Battle Shaper”, an android built to defend the futuristic city of New Elysium from a horde of corrupted robots that have taken over key complexes.

It is blazing-fast FPS action where you go into the lair of “Overlord” bots and fight through hordes of weaponized bots, stealing their powers and smashing through enemies with a giant mechanical arm, as well as a fun arsenal of guns.

This one comes with a huge “but”, though: the title is knee-deep in its Early Access period, but while its content is limited and the final release is still some time away, I can heartily recommend it to anyone who got even the slightest bit of excitement from reading the first line of its description. I have a couple dozen hours of gameplay just from what’s available right now, and the developers at Metric Empire are quite open about updates and fixes.

System Shock

Nightdive Studios has done it again, and dang it (I don’t know if I’m allowed to swear here), they exceeded all expectations! This remake of the original System Shock basically modernizes the controls to be a bit more accessible, as well as the aiming and movement systems, but it keeps the experience almost intact: it is a slow, terrifying, complex, and unfriendly trek through a sprawling space station where everything including the walls wants to kill you.

Launched into the future straight from the 90s, this First Person Adventure game is not an easy one to get to. The game map is incredibly dense and complex, you don’t get tips or guidance of any kind, instead having to find clues on the environment about where you should go next (it is recommended to have a notebook by your side while playing, to write down these clues and help yourself navigate the game). You can accidentally help the villain win if you just go around pushing buttons without knowing what they do.

System Shock was one of the most important precursors to what we now call the “immersive sim” genre, and it shows. It is full of mystery, with a heavy disregard for player guidance. And I love it for it.

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon

And we finally come to the big AAA boy of the list. My personal Game of the Year, from the minds at FromSoftware. Before Elden Ring, before Dark Souls, there was Armored Core. A hardcore mech combat simulator set in uber-capitalist worlds where mercenaries pilot giant robots to destroy and kill anything and everything for the right price.

Dormant for an entire decade, the recent success of the company allowed Hidetaka Miyazaki to revive their once main franchise, pouting everything they’ve learned over the years into a pot alongside the Armored Core foundations of designing your own mech to solve problems and branching storylines full of wonderful characters you never actually meet face to face. The result is Fires of Rubicon.

And wow did the world pay attention. It became a huge success and AC fans couldn’t be happier. Just this month the game was updated with ranked multiplayer, but even if it had kept only the single player, its campaign is highly replayable with multiple endings and story paths to take, the customization is incredibly complex, and the neck-break speed of its combat is highly addicting. If you only get the chance to play one game this year, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is the one you should try. And try. And try again. Seriously, modernization didn’t make the franchise any easier, you WILL fail a lot.

Gabriel Huerta - Coordinator

Although 2023 initially looked like a year in which we would continue to scrape a pot from an industry still reeling from the pandemic, the second half of the year was merciless to our wallets and what’s left of our free time. Fortunately, it was a year that managed to scratch our itch for great games, and boy, there are still games from this year that we will still be playing at the beginning of 2024.

Without further ado, here are the 5 titles from 2023 that I enjoyed this year, along with my GOTY.

Hi-Fi Rush

Some of the best games are the ones you least expect, and 2023 kicked off with one of the biggest surprises of the year and the surprise release of Hi-Fi Rush. The team at Tango Gameworks left the horror behind for a moment to deliver a colorful, rhythmic game with spectacular cell shading and a soundtrack that was very rewarding.

Chai’s adventure touched our hearts in the same way that that music player touched his, although in his case it was a fusion. The rhythm, the characters, and the scenarios were a surprise that should have been a sign of the surprises we would have this year. I couldn’t tell if Hi-Fi Rush is a message of resistance against the prefabricated music machine and video games that have to be hyper-realistic AAA works to appeal to the masses... but maybe it is.

Pikmin 4

The Pikmin live in a special garden. For many years, this franchise, the latest from the mind of Shigeru Miyamoto, seemed to get lost in the shuffle of other great titles. And it’s not that the franchise didn’t shine or wasn’t great, it just lacked “that” momentum. Fortunately, the Nintendo Switch gave it that, and this was a year to shine.

Pikmin 4 serves as a soft reboot for the series, using much of the mythology created in previous installments to give us a game that is easy to understand, with simpler controls and a pace that makes the learning curve smoother for new players. The game has high-level challenges and is a playground for completionists who want to leave everything clean before moving on to the next area. The world of Pikmin is small, but once you see it from their perspective, the scale expands.

Street Fighter 6

You go back to where you were happy, or at least where the memories are happy. Capcom has had a dramatic turnaround in the last few years where they have been able to return to the triumphant way a whole generation knew them, and the return of Street Fighter was a big surprise with the latest installment.

While the days of having time to learn and master fighting games are long gone, Street Fighter 6 has that open feel that you can still enjoy. Creating your character and traversing Metro City is an adventure that serves the dual function of growing as a player and being a nostalgia parade for a franchise that has been with us for a little over 35 years.

The visual style and adaptability of the RE engine is also an important part of a genre that is always competitive and has kept Street Fighter as an important part of the fighting game circuit.

Baldur’s Gate III

To be a lover of old-school RPGs, it is necessary to spend some time interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons. As with history, you cannot fully understand the systems without knowing the background, or in this case, the foundation of the game. But if all else fails, Baldur’s Gate III is there to fill that gap.

It was in 2019 when Larian Studios announced that they were working on the third installment of Baldur’s Gate for PC. Subsequently, the title was released in Early Access, so that 4 years after its announcement, they would take home the Award of the Year at The Game Awards in 2023, and it would be an oversimplification of what made this game great. On the one hand, there is the story and the performances and all the possible combinations that could be made, or even the impressive character creation mode as some of the strengths of this game. But personally, it is the freedom within the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset, the dice rolls, and the choices that always follow the rules but are driven by the chaos that give Baldur’s Gate III such an important place in the minds of many gamers.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

When Tears of the Kingdom was announced, I wasn’t initially sold on the idea of returning to Hyrule from Breath of the Wild. But it’s okay to keep your mouth shut and be amazed and save Zelda once again.

What makes Tears of the Kingdom my favorite game of the year? Like Baldur’s Gate III, it’s taking a base and knowing how to manipulate it to create something new. Whether it was the fusion of a stick, a rock, and a rocket, or an advanced combat system, the creation and manipulation of physics was something that allowed an entire community to break the game again.

In the end, beyond the surprises of the game, getting to know the maps in the sky and underground, and exploring a Hyrule in more dimensions, it was seeing the creativity of a community build and create. While Tears of the Kingdom is not a game that asks the player to use their imagination to advance, it was surprising what we saw every day on the Internet, with vehicles, traps, torture machines, and even mechas... and certainly, when a game creates culture, it indicates that it has value beyond the game.