Logging The Backlog: 2023 Year End Review

Previously on Logging The Backlog...

Logging The Backlog: March 2023

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Logging 2023

At the start of 2023, I made it a goal to make some major progress in clearing out my gaming backlog of over 500 games. And, as added motivation to do so, I started writing this blog series to force myself to make periodic check-ins on my progress. Knowing myself fairly well, I predictable fell off of writing about it and keeping this blog up to date. But I did keep clearing games off my backlog. In fact, as the year went on, in some what some call one of the best years for new game releases, and perhaps the worst for people making them (funny how that works), I found myself increasingly more interested in playing older games, and less so for the new releases. But I did finish 5 games that came out this year, an all-time low for me, and before I get to the actual backlog, I figured I'd give those games a quick shout-out.

2023's Games of the Year That Actually Came Out In 2023

5. MLB The Show 2023

The only part of this year's game that I actually touched was its historical showcase/documentary-type mode highlighting Negro League Baseball. It's a really cool look at a part of sports history that rarely sees much talk in mainstream sports media. Aside from the part where they reward you with cards to get you hooked into whatever their bullshit Ultimate Team mode equivalent is. Because even when big video games do something genuinely cool, they're still a nightmare.

4. Venba

A brief experience, but one that manages to pack in a whole lot of emotion, including through interactivity in the way that only video games can. Through cooking, it simultaneously tells the story of two generations of immigrants. Venba, who moves from India to Canada with her husband, and their struggle to start life there. And their son Kavin, born in Canada, who struggles with his heritage versus assimilating with life in Canada.

3. Cassette Beasts

With my interest in the Pokémon series being at an all-time low (more on that later), this game is a breath of fresh year. It has everything I want in a Pokémon game. A cool 2D pixely-sprite art style, a story, interesting characters, a party system of other trainers, 2v2 battles, monster fusing, pansexual romance options, great music.

2. Baldur's Gate 3

You don't need me to tell you about Baldur's Gate 3. It's on every other GOTY list out there. I didn't even finish it anyway. It's just an amazing piece of video game in the choices it provides. From character building, to story choices, to a fantastic cast of characters and pansexual romance options (weird how that keeps coming up on my list). It truly feels like there's always something interesting around every corner of that game, and it's impressive how a game that sticks pretty faithfully to D&D pulls all of it off.

1. Thirsty Suitors

As per usual, my game of the year is one I've seen on no one else's list, leaving me questioning if I'm just insane, playing games that aren't real and just a figment of my imagination. Thirsty Suitors follows Jala Jayaratne as she skates through town trying to fix her many pansexual relationship fuck-ups (weird how that keeps coming up on my list), and with her family through, of course, cooking minigames and RPG battles.

The Backlog

Now it's time to play some catch up, and recap some of the highlights and lowlights of what I cleared of my backlog since the last time I did one of these blogs. All the way back in April.

Games Left

~~482~~ 486

What I Played

Tomb Raider (PS1) & Tomb Raider II - 3/5 - The problem with doing this 9 months late is that these games have kind of run together in my head now and I don't think I can pull much specifics out of which was which. But I rated them both a 3 out of 5, so let's just lump them together anyway. I do remember the second game involving more combat which, with this series insane idea of how they think a character should move in a video game, I was left feeling a bit more frustrated by. But there's also something weirdly satisfying about finally wrapping your head around these games' weirdo controls, as best as anyone possible can. Also, PS1 games just look cool.

R4 Ridge Racer Type 4 - 4/5 - My first experience with the Ridge Racer series, so I figured I would start with the one I'd heard the most about over the years. This one certainly has style. I don't feel like I ever fully got the hang of the game's brand of arcade-y physics to be particularly good at it, but I enjoyed it all the same. I really like the games visual novel-esque story mode. All the art looks great and it's neat to have some branching story scenes in a racing game.

Mighty Switch Force! - 3/5 - A neat little 2D puzzle-platformer that involves manipulating what boxes appear in the world when. Not a whole lot to say about it. It looks great. Wayfoward's stuff always does.

Mighty Switch Force! 2 - 4/5 - Better than the first game because you play as a firefighter instead of a cop.

Pokémon Violet - 2/5 - We're a few years into the open-world 3D era of Pokémon games now, and I feel like it's added absolutely nothing of value to the series. On top of the notorious performance issues, there's just absolutely nothing to do in these worlds. There's not even anything there to justify the bad performance. Nothing to point at to say "Yeah, it looks bad, but at least we have this cool new thing out of it." It hasn't up the spectacles of battles. There are still no characters of interest to interact with in the world, or interest quests to do, or items of value to find that weren't in previous games. Maybe a more powerful device will alleviate some of that. I don't know. But as of now, not interested in even checking out that DLC.

Doritos Crash Course - 2/5 - I don't why played all of this game. Over even any of it. Or how I even got a hold of it. Surely, this must've been a free game or something that just ended in my library. It's a very boring Wipeout style gameshow obstacle course game. Every course is made up of, like, the same 3 or 4 parts. No idea what any of it had to do with Doritos.

Rumble Roses XX - 3/5 - A grossly oversexualized wrestling game, as was the style of both wrestling and gaming of the time. A bare bones set of game modes. My understanding is that it just stripped out the story mode of the last game. But, at its core there's a really good wrestling game engine there that is both technically competent and fun to play, which is not the case for most wrestling games.

Gris - 4/5 - An absolutely visually stunning game about grief and dealing with loss. I can't remember if this was an original thought of my own or something I heard someone else say about it, but it is the most "I want to frame this video game and put it on a wall" video game I've seen in a while.

AI: The Somnium Files - 3/5 - An odd game. A very sci-fi detective adventure game, that gets way up its own ass with its story of alternate realties and timelines in a way that I love. It just strikes a weird tone alternating between genuinely interesting sci-fi mystery and eye-rolling overbearing sexually innuendo around every line of dialogue. Every other word out of the main characters mouth is some non-joke about panties or big boobies that's rarely, if ever, actually amusing. Which is a shame because when it does lean away from that stuff there are a few genuinely amusing moments of writing and absurdist comedy. But 90% of its humor feels like its just yelling about big ol' tittes.

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Dropped - My first experience with the Dragon Age series. I was playing this in the lead up to Baldur's Gate 3's release, looking for something similar in tone, and even before I got my hands on Baldur's Gate, but especially after, it is embarrassing how utterly boring I found this game to be. Between the auto-combat/wait for an ability timer to end gameplay and the nothing to do game world that follows the Ubisoft roadmap of just a bunch map barf with the same three or four tasks about collecting a number of something or clearing out an enemy base. I'm sure there must be good content in there somewhere, but I have no intention to dig in there in order to find it.

Final Fantasy V - 3/5 - As I've been slowly making my way through the Final Fantasy series, I'm really not finding a whole lot that sets any of these early games apart from one another. I really don't care for the visuals, some of the stories have their moments, like going to the moon, and I hate to say it, but none of the music has really blown my socks off so far. I do, however, like the job system and this is one of the ones that has it. Maxing out classes and mixing and matching different abilities is just fun.

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition Remix - Dropped - This was one of my favorite games growing up that I never actually finished. And the early parts of it were still fun to replay. I don't know if I'm just getting too old, or my eyes are just way worse now, but I found it impossible to play once the game requires you to have a certain speed of card. It's an open-world street racer, which means you are constantly having to doge cars and buildings, and turning corners, and once I got up to a certain speed, I just couldn't hang with this game's requirement of coming in 1st place for every race in order to progress.

Black Knight Sword - 3/5 - A charmingly odd little action platform from the mind of Suda 51, and the usual list of suspects from Grasshopper Manufacture from the early 2010s, including Akira Yamaoka. It can be tough at times, where running out of lives means losing all your power ups, and the games few bullet hell sections. But it's got a really cool papercraft/children's picture book look to it.

Stats Time

Now I'd like to take some look at some stats from throughout the year. The math on "Games Played" was always wishy-washy due to games being added to the list not really being accounted for. So, I'm going to take this time to do some more in-depth statistics.

Games on the Log One Year Ago	Games on the Log Today	Games Played	Games Finished	Games Dropped
500+	486	83	67	16

2023's Backlog Games of the Year

And now, here's my list of the 10 best games I played this year from my backlog.

10. Thoth

9. R4 Ridge Racer Type 4

8. Gris

7. Later Alligator

6. Horizon Forbidden West

5. Subsurface Circular

4. Super Crush KO

3. The Shrouded Isle

2. Fuser

1. Lil Gator Game

Let's Wrap It Up

Well, that's been my year for 2023. Thanks for reading my inane musings and ramblings about having too many video games. See you next year. Or probably more accurately, 2025 when I feel like writing another one of these.