I know quite a few people who also thought 2023 was the greatest year in gaming, but I just don't see it. Armored Core VI was a lot of fun I guess. Personally, I'm really looking forward to 2024: Granblue Fantasy Relink, Persona 3 Reload, Unicorn Overlord, Visions of Mana and Ys X: Nordics. Now that looks like a great year for gaming!
I'm a huge Zelda fan, but Breath of The Wild wasn't it for me so I have not played Tears and after seeing people play, the story didn't even change my mind. I hope the next game goes back to form or at least finds a way to adapt the style started with Ocarina of Time to an open world better.
Star Ocean 2 really needed a more difficult NG+. I played it a fair bit, so I have some substantial nitpicks with the game. Still, it's the best version, at it's always a fun time playing Star Ocean. Tears of the Kingdom was probably my favourite. You can see the game has awesome bones and that the Zelda team is on to something here. I agree that they'll have to address open world fatigue but overall I appreciate the direction.
I don't think they are going to stop the open world anytime soon, but I'm here for whatever they do next. And yeah, the difficulty was definitely an issue on Star Ocean 😭
Mario RPG and Star Ocean 2R have hit me right in the nostalgia feels with Sea of Stars reminding me why I fell in love with gaming. Favourite game this year belongs to Tears of the Kingdom. (I haven't yet picked up Baldur's Gate III yet) Here's to 2024 ^.^
BS. Toxic, predatory practices. Unfinished games and the patch it later mentality. Nothing original. Agenda pushing getting shoehorned into far toi many games. Remakes of old games getting sold as multiple games. Companies actively supporting grooming kids. If that is a platinum age to you, you're extremely deficient in the grey matter area.
Yeah, no. Most of the AAA this year was mediocre. Starfield was guff. SM2 was meh. TotK was a fantastic core absolutely ruined by copy paste mentality. BG3 was great. Nothing else of note came out of AAA. Indie had a pretty good year.
Lol nah. SM2 was far from meh. TotK had the best gameplay elements of any Zelda and played nothing like BotW, despite half of it being the same exact map. Good to know nothing impresses you though.
@@n1nj4l1nk i read it perfectly. you said nothing of note came out on the greatest year of game releases in history with several major franchises getting remakes and new releases on AAA scale. Acting like you're above everything is a lame personality trait. And TotK does not "copy paste" it's gameplay. Thanks for your comment though.
@@SolaceAndDread so you can't read. I said BG3 was great so your nothing of note comment is fucking stupid. As for Zelda, I said the core was great because it is, the mechanics are fantastic. The content is 90% copy paste though and I'm not even talking about them reusing the BotW map. On a side note, your shitty attitude is going to do your channel harm. Learn how to disagree with someone without being an arsehole.
@@SolaceAndDread Issues with TotK: 1. Being able to get the tears out of order and spoil the story and being able to get them all at the start of the game. I tend to stick to a quest until I've finished it so I knew the twist before I had done any dungeons or even my 6th shrine. 2. The Fuse UI is ridiculous, once you have a bunch of items having to scroll through them every time you want to fuse is insane and by the end of a playthrough can easily have taken an hour plus just scrolling. 3. The amount of copy/paste. Reusing the map and enemy types from BotW is fine but they didn't learn from the mistakes of BotW. Take overworld bosses for example: there are 69 Hinox in TotK but only 5 types of them, after awhile it becomes "oh, yet another Hinox". If they reduced it to: 2×Red, 2× Blue, a black, a silver, a gold, an electric, an ice, a fire, a gloom, and a stalnox they would be much more exciting to find. Do that with all the OW bosses then fill the spaces that no longer have bosses with new ones and you'll never lose the sense of discovery. Similar ideas can be implemented with all the tedious aspects, especially the two biggest complaints about BotW: The Korok and the Shrines. Korok should be dropped down to like 200, while the other pouch upgrades are collected by other means: Dojos or quests that give you a slot, prizes in minigames or buying some from the dye guy ect. Maybe even killing say the gold hinox gets you a new base bag but you have to visit the dye guy to get your previous upgrades changed from the previous bag onto the new one. Maybe you could get one slot expansion from the jewellery shop, earrings that you wear permanently that make everything you're carrying lighter thus letting you carry more. Shrines would be easy: keep the puzzles but only have 25 shrines with Zonai theming then 20 microdungeons of each of the other species theming and 15 be fully unique themes. (some of all of these could double as the dojos from the Korok section which would help with the issue of rewards being crap and repetitive, then there could be some heart/stamina pieces that are in the overworld/rewards for quests). This lack of uniqueness is everywhere in the game: There are like 5 types of skylands repeated for every area with only a few unique ones. The depths are a copy/paste and invert of the surface that is filled with identikit mines/yiga camps/enemy mine camps/random item dumps/too many malice versions of enemies we've seen too many of elsewhere. The rewards are crap. Korok always give you a seed that is always used to upgrade your pouch, chests and most other rewards are a tiny bit of money or some random consumable which you likely have too many of anyway. 4. The depths are FAAAAR too easy to light up which kinda takes away from the atmosphere. They're also a missed opportunity for having something like the Mogma. I know this sounds like I hate the game but I don't, it has an incredible core, the gameplay is amazing but Zelda is as much about adventure and discovery as it is tight gameplay. The fact that after a little while you pretty much know everything you'll find when you enter a new area is detrimental to the feeling of adventure and discovery.
What was your favorite game of 2023?
Final Fantasy 9 LOL
@@gamingturtle8412you misspelled Mario RPG
I know quite a few people who also thought 2023 was the greatest year in gaming, but I just don't see it. Armored Core VI was a lot of fun I guess. Personally, I'm really looking forward to 2024: Granblue Fantasy Relink, Persona 3 Reload, Unicorn Overlord, Visions of Mana and Ys X: Nordics. Now that looks like a great year for gaming!
I'm a huge Zelda fan, but Breath of The Wild wasn't it for me so I have not played Tears and after seeing people play, the story didn't even change my mind. I hope the next game goes back to form or at least finds a way to adapt the style started with Ocarina of Time to an open world better.
Star Ocean 2 really needed a more difficult NG+. I played it a fair bit, so I have some substantial nitpicks with the game. Still, it's the best version, at it's always a fun time playing Star Ocean.
Tears of the Kingdom was probably my favourite. You can see the game has awesome bones and that the Zelda team is on to something here. I agree that they'll have to address open world fatigue but overall I appreciate the direction.
I don't think they are going to stop the open world anytime soon, but I'm here for whatever they do next.
And yeah, the difficulty was definitely an issue on Star Ocean 😭
Tons of great games in 2023. Had a new god of war and Baldur’s Gate 3 too (which you mention while I typed this, lol)
I got Ragnarok for Xmas, can't wait to dive in!
Rawr
Well spoken as always. Happy new year. 🙂
@@SolaceAndDread The happiest of New Years unto you and yours
I can't wait to play Spider-Man 2
It's actually amazing. Pun intended.
20th
Ty!
Star Ocean 2nd Story R was definitely a GOTY contender
It got snubbed at TGA, lol. Should have at least been nominated for best rpg
Mario RPG and Star Ocean 2R have hit me right in the nostalgia feels with Sea of Stars reminding me why I fell in love with gaming.
Favourite game this year belongs to Tears of the Kingdom. (I haven't yet picked up Baldur's Gate III yet)
Here's to 2024 ^.^
To 2024!
TotK was so great 🥹
This is the platinum era of gaming
Facts
BS.
Toxic, predatory practices.
Unfinished games and the patch it later mentality.
Nothing original.
Agenda pushing getting shoehorned into far toi many games.
Remakes of old games getting sold as multiple games.
Companies actively supporting grooming kids.
If that is a platinum age to you, you're extremely deficient in the grey matter area.
Yeah, no. Most of the AAA this year was mediocre.
Starfield was guff.
SM2 was meh.
TotK was a fantastic core absolutely ruined by copy paste mentality.
BG3 was great.
Nothing else of note came out of AAA.
Indie had a pretty good year.
Lol nah. SM2 was far from meh. TotK had the best gameplay elements of any Zelda and played nothing like BotW, despite half of it being the same exact map.
Good to know nothing impresses you though.
@@SolaceAndDread learn to read and not be a 🛎️end.
@@n1nj4l1nk i read it perfectly. you said nothing of note came out on the greatest year of game releases in history with several major franchises getting remakes and new releases on AAA scale. Acting like you're above everything is a lame personality trait. And TotK does not "copy paste" it's gameplay. Thanks for your comment though.
@@SolaceAndDread so you can't read.
I said BG3 was great so your nothing of note comment is fucking stupid.
As for Zelda, I said the core was great because it is, the mechanics are fantastic. The content is 90% copy paste though and I'm not even talking about them reusing the BotW map.
On a side note, your shitty attitude is going to do your channel harm. Learn how to disagree with someone without being an arsehole.
@@SolaceAndDread Issues with TotK:
1. Being able to get the tears out of order and spoil the story and being able to get them all at the start of the game. I tend to stick to a quest until I've finished it so I knew the twist before I had done any dungeons or even my 6th shrine.
2. The Fuse UI is ridiculous, once you have a bunch of items having to scroll through them every time you want to fuse is insane and by the end of a playthrough can easily have taken an hour plus just scrolling.
3. The amount of copy/paste. Reusing the map and enemy types from BotW is fine but they didn't learn from the mistakes of BotW.
Take overworld bosses for example: there are 69 Hinox in TotK but only 5 types of them, after awhile it becomes "oh, yet another Hinox". If they reduced it to: 2×Red, 2× Blue, a black, a silver, a gold, an electric, an ice, a fire, a gloom, and a stalnox they would be much more exciting to find.
Do that with all the OW bosses then fill the spaces that no longer have bosses with new ones and you'll never lose the sense of discovery.
Similar ideas can be implemented with all the tedious aspects, especially the two biggest complaints about BotW: The Korok and the Shrines.
Korok should be dropped down to like 200, while the other pouch upgrades are collected by other means: Dojos or quests that give you a slot, prizes in minigames or buying some from the dye guy ect. Maybe even killing say the gold hinox gets you a new base bag but you have to visit the dye guy to get your previous upgrades changed from the previous bag onto the new one. Maybe you could get one slot expansion from the jewellery shop, earrings that you wear permanently that make everything you're carrying lighter thus letting you carry more.
Shrines would be easy: keep the puzzles but only have 25 shrines with Zonai theming then 20 microdungeons of each of the other species theming and 15 be fully unique themes. (some of all of these could double as the dojos from the Korok section which would help with the issue of rewards being crap and repetitive, then there could be some heart/stamina pieces that are in the overworld/rewards for quests).
This lack of uniqueness is everywhere in the game:
There are like 5 types of skylands repeated for every area with only a few unique ones. The depths are a copy/paste and invert of the surface that is filled with identikit mines/yiga camps/enemy mine camps/random item dumps/too many malice versions of enemies we've seen too many of elsewhere.
The rewards are crap. Korok always give you a seed that is always used to upgrade your pouch, chests and most other rewards are a tiny bit of money or some random consumable which you likely have too many of anyway.
4. The depths are FAAAAR too easy to light up which kinda takes away from the atmosphere. They're also a missed opportunity for having something like the Mogma.
I know this sounds like I hate the game but I don't, it has an incredible core, the gameplay is amazing but Zelda is as much about adventure and discovery as it is tight gameplay. The fact that after a little while you pretty much know everything you'll find when you enter a new area is detrimental to the feeling of adventure and discovery.