by mento
Same deal as the other "GOTY (Adjusted)" lists. The idea is to build GOTY lists that are constantly in flux, ever adapting themselves to a new year's worth of catch-up gaming. Like the Borg, but for video game lists. With enough time I should be able to play through every 2023 game that piqued my interest and construct a list that ideally represents what that year meant to me in terms of games, but that wasn't going to happen on the year in question: too many full-price new releases, too little time.
2023 is a year of many surprising returns to the gaming world, which gave this old guard some hope that no video game series can stay dead forever no matter how antiquated its approach or troubled its development (Beyond Good and Evil perhaps being an exception). The year saw critically and financially successful entries in the Baldur's Gate series (inert since Throne of Bhaal in 2001), Alan Wake (quiet since 2012, if you don't include the remaster), Pikmin (no new entries since 2013), the 2D Super Mario games (I don't think there had been a new one of those since New Super Luigi U in 2013), and Armored Core (ACV was a 2012 release). Sometimes just grabbing a shovel and hitting the local cemetery can pay dividends... though if the cops ask, you didn't get that idea from me.
Here's the original 2023 GOTY list, for posterity's sake. Usual rule for the list of games below: if it's in the top 20, or was a top 20 contender when the list was written, it'll get a blurb.
(2023 Games Yet to Play: Armored Core VI, Final Fantasy XVI, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Octopath Traveler 2.)
(2023 Games Yet to Buy: Alan Wake 2, Anonymous;Code, Baldur's Gate 3, Dave the Diver, Dragon Quest Treasures, Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, Humanity, Labyrinth of Galleria, Lunacid, Miasma Chronicles, Persona 5 Tactica, Picross S9, Remnant 2, Starfield, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, Trails to Azure, Trails into Reverie, Trine 5.)
Previous GsOTY (Adjusted): 2009 / 2010 / 2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017 / 2018 / 2019 / 2020 / 2021 / 2022 / 2023
(Last Updated: March 2026.)
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(2023: N/A, 2024: N/A, 2025: 1st) Many have come for FromSoft's forlorn throne but few have gotten as close as Lies of P, which recontextualizes the 19th century Pinocchio story as a macabre steampunk apocalypse that sets machines longing to be human against corrupted humans longing to be something even greater still. A "grass is always greener" sort of situation, I suppose. It takes the best aspects of Bloodborne—its aggressive combat, application of versatile mechanical sidearms, and eerie imagery—and marries it to a superlative grasp of worldbuilding and a wonderful presentation complete with lyrical tracks. It's also hard as hell, but what game in this format isn't?
(2023: N/A, 2024: 1st, 2025: 2nd) A remaster of the second of two historical Like a Dragon games, Ishin! has some fun with its change of venue while also building a fictitious story around real figures that heralded the end of Japan's long-running Edo period and segued into the Meiji Restoration era that saw Japan quickly catch up to the rest of the world with modern thinking and technology. I learned a lot about 19th century Japanese history while playing it, so even if I had to give up the arcade centers and pool halls there was enough of a significant shift in content to make this one of the more appealing side entries in a series that, for as much as I adore it, can run the same from one game to the next (and a big reason why I've never played more than one of them in a single year). Also, that final boss fight was truly one for the ages.
(2023: N/A, 2024: 2nd, 2025: 3rd) Wonder just exudes joy from every pore, to an even greater extent than the Super Mario games already do. Nintendo's most reliable series, if not always its most versatile, these platformers are rarely absent from any GOTY list of mine (provided we were blessed enough to receive any that particular year) but it's less frequently the case for the 2D games—those more focused on nostalgia than pushing the envelope—to exhibit the kind of imagination that this game does, not only pulling the rug from under players with the various wonder seed trips but incorporating a badge system that makes it feel like a completely different platforming series whenever one is applied. If the next Mario Maker incorporates even half the ideas of Wonder, it'll be something rather special indeed.
(2023: 1st, 2024: 3rd, 2025: 4th) I've often discussed games that inspire a level of gratitude in me, along with just enjoyment in general, because they've managed to reach back in time and uplift games that it felt like I appreciated far more than everyone else did. That was true of this Pikmin sequel and its particular fondness for the second game—also my favorite—with the return of its multiple-floor dungeons, hundreds of familiar treasures given new meanings by the perplexed aliens that discovered them absent any context, and such a massive scale and range of evocative environments that dwarfed anything the first (or indeed the third) could manage. I'm less keen on its other new additions—Oatchi can make progress a little too easy at times and the "Dandori" competitive modes are just anxiety-inducing—so while the second remains my favorite I feel glad to my bones that they could, at least in my view, course correct so hard with this fourth entry.
(2023: N/A, 2024: 4th, 2025: 5th) Though a much older PSP game, a remastered localization of this Falcom action-RPG eventually found its way to consoles and Steam in 2023. Though far closer to Ys than Trails with its gameplay, I guess Trails was selling more at the time so they awkwardly tried connecting them with the name. Either way, it's a solid dungeon-crawler type with some striking (if low-poly) visuals and a pervasive sense of uncomplicated fun that Falcom's RPGs have always delivered.
(2023: N/A, 2024: N/A, 2025: 6th) Though I didn't play them the same time this year saw two new Like a Dragon side-games and this one, though I appreciated its emotional core and the hysterical Bond-adjacent "Agent" fighting style, was by far the lesser of the two owing to what I mentioned above about recycled content being a common issue with this series. Almost everything in The Man Who Erased His Name has been repurposed through one method or another from previous entries and so it stands as this inessential ".5" between the events of Yakuza 6 and Yakuza 7, perhaps more befitting of a DLC expansion than a standalone game. All that said, there's very little to criticize about getting to bust heads and be incredulous about modern culture as the Dragon of Dojima for yet another spin.
(2023: N/A, 2024: N/A, 2025: 7th) As more exploraction games take cues from the Souls series of RPGs and try to find common ground between the fluid platforming of the former and the more grounded combat-heavy approach of the latter, Blasphemous 1 felt like a test run that didn't quite manage to find that balance despite some wonderfully macabre visuals and a Catholic-tinged story about a Penitent One bringing down a false eldritch messiah by cutting down its mutated zealous minions one after the other. The sequel fixes almost all my misgivings about misplacing that balance, adding tactical options by way of multiple weapon types you can switch between at any time, while filling its world with even more disquieting full-screen NPCs and bosses that all look like something right out of a heavy metal album cover.
(2023: N/A, 2024: N/A, 2025: 8th) Linguistic puzzle games aren't as common as I might like so I could say that Chants of Sennaar appeals to me by finding a very under-served niche, but honestly the whole package exudes style and intrigue between its cel-shaded look and choice of camera perspectives that it could've been about identifying bits of pottery or managing waterways (there's a bit of that too) and I'd still find it compelling.
(2023: N/A, 2024: N/A, 2025: 9th) The second Talos Principle is much like the first with its specific brand of first-person 3D environmental puzzles, usually involving redirecting laser beams or standing on pressure plates, and continues to expand outwards with its ideas without ever holding back for the sake of talking down to its audience. That goes equally for its tough puzzles but also for its deeply philosophical musings, as a civilization of AI entities inhabiting machine bodies try to preserve and recreate the best of what humanity was about without also incorporating the weaknesses that got all us fleshy monkeys killed. Broadening the scope also diluted the focus a little bit but there was plenty of intriguing twists and turns that kept me pushing through those mind-scrambling puzzle rooms. Keep making games as smart as this and I'll never become exhausted with this medium (though I might need to lie down and let my brain recharge).
(2023: N/A, 2024: N/A, 2025: 10th) Ghostrunner was frequently a case of style over substance, so it didn't surprise me to see this second game try to expand the worldbuilding and narrative drama as well as find new locations to visit. A cyberpunk city locked in permanent midnight makes for an amazing parkour playground, especially when you've been fitted with all manner of implants and cybernetic prostheses, and the "one shot you die" mechanic remains a killer in every sense of the word as you fight desperately to survive each of the game's set-pieces. Tough but rewarding, like its predecessor.
