The Games That Got Me Through 2023

0:00 it's been another year and despite the fact that I've

0:02 long understood that time feels like it moves faster

0:04 as you get older I'm still at a loss

0:07 as to where 2023 Went A lot happened throughout the year I

0:10 made a handful of videos I'm really proud of I

0:12 started a second channel that I've actually managed to be

0:15 kind of consistent with I watched my baby grow

0:17 into a toddler which is something I am still trying to Grapple

0:20 with and I played a ton of video games while

0:23 the way I engage with games year to year and honestly

0:26 even game to game is Ever Changing I do always

0:28 find myself benefiting from them in one way or another

0:31 and as it has become a tradition for me

0:33 at this point I want to talk about the ones that helped

0:36 me get through this year these aren't necessarily my favorite

0:38 games I played in 2023 but they are the ones

0:41 that have made my life better in some way so

0:44 as always the best place to start is at the start

0:47 with the first game I played last year BioShock

0:51 Infinite I'm really not sure why I wanted to replay

1:00 infinite I probably needed b-roll for a video but regardless

1:06 of the why I chose to and that choice has

1:09 led to it being the single game I spent

1:11 the most time thinking about in 2023 I've touched on it

1:14 in other videos already but infinite used to be

1:17 my favorite game ever and replaying it confirmed that it very

1:20 much no longer is to be honest there's not much

1:22 I even like about it anymore but at the very least

1:25 it still has the ability to grab hold

1:27 of my brain and make me want to analyze every bit

1:29 of of it and as a person who has found

1:31 a way to turn over analyzing things into a job there is

1:34 a lot of value to that for me it's just a bit sad that it came at the cost

1:38 of tarnishing what used to be a game I really

1:40 cherished there is a silver lining here though Upon finishing infinite

1:44 I decided to also revisit Bioshock 1 and 2

1:46 and I had a blast with both of them Rapture is

1:50 such an iconic and enjoyable place to explore and the core

1:53 mechanics of both but especially BioShock 2 are just

1:56 a lot of fun to mess around with however what

1:59 truly made it all worth it was that I finally

2:01 got around to playing manura den and it is now

2:04 by far my favorite entry in the franchise it melds

2:07 the best aspects of Bioshock 1 and 2 to make

2:10 something really special and I hope this is the blueprint

2:13 the next BioShock game works off of coming back to the series

2:16 so many years later has been a bit weird because

2:18 my ranking of the games now is pretty much

2:20 the exact opposite of what it was a decade ago

2:23 with that said I think starting the year with such

2:25 a dramatic shift in opinion benefited me in a handful of ways

2:28 it was a reminder that my taste is ever changing

2:31 and while it's sad to go back to a game

2:33 I used to love and walk away wondering how I

2:35 ever loved it it's exciting to know that a game

2:37 that once didn't leave much of an impression has the potential

2:40 to resonate so strongly with me now I like knowing

2:43 that I'm still capable of change and I think a lot

2:46 of Joy can be found in challenging opinions that once

2:48 felt like they were etched in stone obviously there are

2:50 too many things to play both new and old to justify

2:54 revisiting everything in the way I did with the Bioshock

2:56 series but it is something I think is worth making

2:58 time for as an enjoy finding the ways in which

3:01 I look at things differently life is about constantly growing

3:04 and figuring out who you are and not long after

3:07 finishing all the Bioshock games I actually played a trio

3:10 of titles all within the month of February that explor

3:13 just that and unsurprisingly they ended up being three

3:16 of my favorite games I played last year those being citizen

3:19 sleeper Kana Bridge of spirits and Sable all three in some

3:23 form are about characters searching for their place

3:26 in the world and their relationship to their respective world is

3:30 a pivotal one Kaa communes with spirits and rot to clear

3:33 the corruption that has taken root within a Mountain Village

3:36 and its surrounding areas the sleeper connects with both

3:38 the people of the deric space station they are stranded

3:41 on as well as the station itself in order to survive

3:45 and Sable TS across the dunes of her Sandy planet

3:47 to figure out what parts of it she is most

3:50 drawn to obviously plenty of games put a lot of importance

3:53 on the world they take place within but something about

3:56 these three really vibed with me the settings of sable

3:59 and citizen sleeper are both desolate locations that seem

4:02 unsurvivable and neither were really meant to be permanent spots

4:05 to settle but with nowhere else to go the people

4:08 found a way to make it home in Kaa life has

4:11 largely left the village and the surrounding regions and it's

4:14 on her to guide those who have been lost in order

4:17 to restore peace in the forest they are all places

4:20 that so easily could be given up on yet whether

4:22 it's through the actions of the character you play

4:25 as or those who came long before life in these desperate

4:28 locations finds away ultimately these are games about finding the good

4:32 within places that on the surface seem devoid of it

4:35 and as someone who lives in a state that is

4:38 frozen for 4 months out of the year it shouldn't

4:40 be a huge surprise that I connected to these worlds

4:43 home is a weird thing that can be hard to truly

4:46 find but when you do you end up seeing

4:48 the place you live in a way that no one outside

4:51 of it can really understand you truly get why it's

4:54 special and also why it sucks and there is a sort

4:57 of pride in having that knowledge no one will ever

4:59 hate it and love it as much as you do

5:02 and playing in these worlds that despite being nothing like

5:05 my home still reminded me of it made me care

5:08 about them in a way that most titles don't they

5:10 didn't make me feel better about how I had to shovel

5:13 snow and the freezing cold every other day during

5:15 that time of year but they did reinforce why I'll never

5:18 leave while the games I played right after these three

5:20 weren't as meaningful to me they still were a ton

5:23 of fun pizza Tower felt pretty close to a perfect

5:26 game absolutely nailing What fast platforming should feel like like

5:29 the Resident Evil 4 remake took a game I didn't

5:32 think needed to be remade and proved to me that I

5:34 was wrong as hell and the case of the golden

5:36 idol made my brain Buzz with excitement for solving little mysteries

5:38 in a way that really only outer wilds and the return

5:41 of the overden have been able to do I

5:43 got through as many games as I could during the stretch

5:45 of the year as I knew one title was about

5:48 to take over my entire schedule which it very much

5:50 did and that of course was The Legend of Zelda

5:54 tears of the Kingdom Tears of the Kingdom is how

6:09 I spent the month of May and honestly most of June.

6:12 For that span of time it was the only

6:14 game I thought about—hours would pass in the blink

6:16 of an eye as I made my way across this familiar yet fresh version of Hyrule,

6:21 and I found myself endlessly enthralled

6:23 with the scope and versatility of Link’s core abilities.

6:26 I can’t think of many games that I’ve had more fun with than this one,

6:29 and while I certainly had a lot of issues with it

6:32 that I plan to talk about more in a future video,

6:35 the stuff I loved about it outweighed any problems I

6:37 had by so much that it never hurt my enjoyment.

6:41 Once I stopped playing it though, I barely thought about it anymore.

6:45 Despite putting in a hundred hours and having a blast the whole time,

6:49 it didn’t leave much of a lasting impact on me.

6:51 It was fun and had a lot of cool ideas, but it didn’t feel revolutionary.

6:55 It didn’t change how I looked at games like Breath of the Wild did.

6:59 And obviously it’d be unfair to expect it to—Nintendo’s goal

7:03 was to iterate on what Breath of the Wild established,

7:06 not to redefine the series again.

7:08 Regardless, while this led to a very enjoyable title

7:10 that I think is better than Breath of the Wild,

7:13 it doesn’t matter to me nearly as much.

7:15 Had I played Tears of the Kingdom first, I imagine I’d feel very different,

7:19 but there’s no way to really know for sure.

7:21 And it’s a weird spot because while I did love my time with it,

7:25 a part of me obviously wishes it had meant more to me.

7:27 I wanted it to be my new favorite game of all time, but it’s just not.

7:31 I don’t even know if it’s in my top 20.

7:34 This sort of thing is just part of life.

7:36 You can’t always predict what is going to matter to you,

7:39 and if you expect every game you’re looking forward to playing

7:42 to redefine the medium or teach you some important life lesson,

7:44 you’re setting yourself up for at least a bit of disappointment,

7:47 and I definitely did here.

7:49 Sometimes a game is just a good way to spend a few weeks,

7:52 and maybe one day my thoughts on it will shift,

7:55 but that’s what Tears of the Kingdom was for me.

7:58 After wrapping it up, I moved onto some more really solid games.

8:02 Prodigal scratched the itch that’s come from a lack of any new 2D Zelda

8:05 titles while also having its own spin on things that made it feel wholly unique.

8:08 Remnant 2 got me playing games with friends for the first time in a while,

8:11 and aside from the game itself just being a lot of fun,

8:14 it was incredible to spend a ton of time hanging out

8:16 with friends in voice calls who I normally only communicate with through text.

8:20 Then I finally played Metroid Prime for the first time

8:23 as the remaster seemed like the perfect opportunity to jump into the series,

8:27 and the most notable thing about my experience with it is that it’s what I

8:31 was playing when I found out my wife and I would be having a second kid.

8:35 Now, by no means did I find myself reflecting

8:37 on the themes of the game and how they tied to parenthood,

8:39 although I’m sure there’s probably something there if you look hard enough,

8:43 but playing it did help ease my mind as the excitement of another

8:46 kid on the horizon shifted to panic about the logistics of having a newborn.

8:50 As I talked about last year, those first few months of having a very

8:55 little baby are exhausting and overwhelming and generally terrifying.

8:59 This time around though we’ll also have a toddler

9:02 to be trying to keep up with as well, and me being the anxious guy I am,

9:08 my mind was running a mile a minute trying

9:11 to figure out how we’d be able to do it all,

9:14 and exploring the mysteries of Zebes broke up a bit of that worrying.

9:17 Having something as engrossing as Metroid Prime

9:20 to put some of my focus into, made

9:22 it harder for me to spiral in the way I am often wont to do.

9:26 Obviously, I still spent plenty of time

9:28 thinking about everything to come, as one should,

9:30 but having a way to help me pace out both

9:33 the excitement and fear saved me a lot of trouble.

9:36 As the year continued,

9:36 I hit a nice streak of games that were a ton of fun and also dampened

9:40 some of the outside noise that I easily

9:42 could have spent all my time hyperfixating on.

9:44 The first was Slay the Spire,

9:45 a game I’ve been meaning to play for years that I am now

9:48 glad to report is in fact as good as everyone says it is,

9:52 and I don’t even like rogulites.

9:53 Then I rolled into Lies of P and it exceeded all of my expectations,

9:58 providing a challenging and rewarding soulslike that is FromSoft levels of good.

10:02 Throughout both of those, I also kept going

10:04 back to Getting Over it With Bennet Foddy

10:06 which now that I’ve beaten it a few times and can get over it pretty quickly,

10:10 I find to be a strangely relaxing experience,

10:12 and it was nice to boot up when I only had 20 minutes or so to play something.

10:17 And then I moved on to the best game I played last year: Rain World.

10:25 For the longest time, I was worried I wouldn’t like Rain World.

10:29 It came highly recommended to me by people whose opinion I trust,

10:32 and pretty much in every video where I talked

10:34 about the types of games I like the most,

10:36 those being atmospheric titles centered around player discovery,

10:39 I’d get a handful of comments saying I needed to play Rain World.

10:42 I knew it was a game I could really love,

10:45 but given its reputation as an unforgiving and brutal experience,

10:48 I didn’t want to jump in with the wrong

10:50 mindset and potentially end up hating it.

10:52 Rain World is difficult in a way that can be hard to swallow.

10:56 You’re given little direction, but tons of freedom,

10:58 and this makes it possible to go down

11:00 paths that don’t lead to any real progress.

11:02 In fact you can head down paths that make it

11:05 extremely difficult to even get back to where you started,

11:07 and while you can’t really get stuck, it’s easy to feel like you are.

11:11 Stack that with a simulated world that truly does not care about you,

11:15 unpredictable enemy placement, and a set amount of time to get from one place

11:20 to the next before the rain comes and absolutely obliterates you,

11:22 and it leads to a game that can feel unfair at times.

11:26 Honestly, it’s not just that it feels unfair, often times it is unfair.

11:31 It’s not a huge surprise that a ton of people

11:33 who start it end up bouncing off of it very quickly,

11:35 and I didn’t want that to happen to me, so I dragged my feet for over two years,

11:40 waiting for a time when I’d feel ready to play it,

11:43 and when that time never came because of course it didn’t,

11:45 I eventually decided that it’d be better to try it and hate it

11:48 than to have it sit on my backlog for the rest of my life.

11:52 And that was one of the best decisions I made all year.

11:56 Something about Rain World’s design just gets me.

11:59 Yes, it is unrelenting and cryptic and frequently cruel,

12:03 but finding a way to overcome these things

12:06 against all odds is thrilling and immensely satisfying.

12:09 There aren’t really notable upgrades,

12:11 so getting better involves actually learning how the world,

12:14 the creatures within it, and your little slugcat works,

12:17 and figuring enough of these things out

12:18 in order to reach the end feels incredible.

12:24 Games built around the struggle are a hard sell,

12:31 but there is a reason that people love them so much.

12:34 They get you to care deeply because of how much time,

12:36 energy and patience you invest in them.

12:39 I understand why this kind of commitment isn’t appealing to everyone.

12:42 After a hard day, most people just want to play something that’s fun,

12:46 and not get eaten by a lizard within five seconds of turning it

12:50 on, but man do I love games that get me to care in this way.

12:54 I think a big part of why it hit so hard for me is that it reassured me that I

12:58 am capable of finding joy in the struggle—this is something

13:01 I’ve learned many times throughout my life in many different ways,

13:05 but it can be easy to forget when in times of comfort,

13:08 and that makes it scary to jump back into it.

13:11 Sometimes it takes doing something challenging like playing a game

13:15 Rain World to get some of that confidence back,

13:17 to make it clear that whatever the next challenge is whether it’s

13:21 as inconsequential as a new game or as important as a newborn,

13:25 I’ll be able to handle it,

13:27 and likely will get something out of it that I never could have expected.

13:30 Even though I didn’t think there would ever be a right time to start Rain World,

13:34 it is clear to me now that I picked the perfect time for it,

13:38 and it’s something that will stick with me forever.

13:41 After this, you’d think I’d take at least a bit

13:43 of break from games with a reputation for being tough,

13:45 but instead I ended up replaying Demon’s Souls,

13:48 Dark Souls and Elden Ring as I needed footage for a video I was working on.

13:52 Of course, as I’ve already played them all before,

13:54 none of them felt terribly challenging to get through,

13:56 although I did finally go back and beat Malenia without using any Spirit Ashes,

14:00 which took me 9 hours.

14:02 Replaying these three titles back to back

14:04 to back was interesting for a lot of reasons.

14:06 On a personal level, it brought up a bunch of memories

14:09 and that was especially true for Demon’s Souls.

14:12 I’ll never forget how hopeless I felt when first playing

14:16 as I hadn’t experienced anything as obtuse and unforgiving as it before.

14:20 It was the first time I had played a game

14:23 that I wasn’t positive I’d be able to beat,

14:25 and something about that appealed to me

14:27 enough to want to keep working through it.

14:29 Going back now though, it is by far the easiest FromSoft game I’ve played.

14:33 It does have a decent amount of bullshit that can get you killed in unfair ways,

14:38 but by and large, there’s nothing that’s wildly difficult to overcome.

14:41 After years and years of FromSoft continually

14:44 escalating the difficulty and complexity of their bosses,

14:47 the ones in Demon’s Souls feel pedestrian by comparison.

14:49 Over the past 15 years or so,

14:51 FromSoft has essentially been training it’s player to be

14:53 better and better at these games with every release,

14:56 and this has made me so much better

14:58 at these types of games and honestly video games in general.

15:01 Playing through Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls,

15:04 and Elden Ring gave me a clear understanding

15:07 of how far the studio has come while still holding on to a few central ideas

15:11 that make FromSoft games feel like FromSoft games.

15:13 It’s hard to believe that over the course of just 15 years, a small,

15:18 weird RPG would one day lead to one of the most ambitious games ever made,

15:23 turning FromSoft into an absolute powerhouse within the industry.

15:26 It’s also hard to believe how different I am from the person

15:29 I was when I first played that small, weird RPG.

15:32 We often treat our adolescence as our most formative years,

15:34 but the amount of change I have undergone

15:37 between the releases of Demon’s Souls and Elden Ring,

15:39 all of which has been in adulthood, has been immense.

15:43 At this point of life, I’ve been playing video games as an adult for about

15:46 as many years as I played them as a kid,

15:49 and while Nintendo defined those early days,

15:51 FromSoft has defined the later ones.

15:53 Much of my taste has been influenced by their work,

15:55 and I’ve played their games alongside some of the biggest moments of my life

16:00 from graduating college to working my first real

16:03 job to getting married to having a kid.

16:05 I feel tied to FromSoft in a way,

16:07 and it was nice to look back at how far both of us have come,

16:11 and how their games have been there for me well beyond this past year.

16:15 To end off 2023, I turned my focus mostly towards games with good vibes.

16:20 Sea of Stars provided a colorful and interesting

16:22 world with a really cool combat system, Cocoon broke my brain half a dozen

16:27 times with its thoughtful and mind boggling puzzles,

16:29 Jusant made climbing in a video game both fun and meditative,

16:32 and A Highland Song gave me a beautiful and dense space

16:35 to explore that has me considering buying a plane ticket to Scotland.

16:38 All in all, these games offered a lot of space for reflection,

16:42 which frankly was the dominating trend with most

16:45 of the games that got me through the year.

16:47 And I’m glad it was.

16:48 They helped me recognize a lot of change, like how my tastes have changed,

16:53 how my understanding of the world around me has changed,

16:57 how my expectations have changed, how my priorities have changed,

17:01 and how the way I cope with things has changed.

17:05 Through reflecting on games and just other parts of life,

17:08 I realized something not too long ago that I wish I had noticed sooner;

17:12 which is that for the first time in a long time,

17:16 I don’t feel like I am just surviving.

17:19 For so long my primary goal has just been to keep my head above water,

17:23 to just hang on, to take things day by day.

17:26 And this has looked a little different every year.

17:29 To just focus on the past few, in 2020 it was dealing with social isolation,

17:34 in 2021 it was feeling like this job was not sustainable,

17:37 and in 2022 it was adjusting to the biggest life change I’ve ever had.

17:42 I felt like there would always be something new,

17:45 and that I’d never be able to get my footing, but then I did.

17:49 And now I don’t lie awake in bed every night.

17:52 My jaw isn’t clenched by default.

17:53 I’ve stopped assuming the ground is gonna fall out from under me.

17:57 I’m not just hanging on.

17:59 That isn’t to say I’m thriving by any means.

18:02 I’ve still got a long way to go and there are plenty of days where I struggle

18:06 with feeling lonely or figuring out how to balance

18:08 work and life or keeping up with my toddler, but it feels different lately.

18:13 Overwhelmed is no longer how I expect to feel when I wake up,

18:17 and that shift is a welcome one.

18:19 There are still many things I am anxious about, both personally and globally,

18:23 but I don’t feel as if I am always approaching those anxieties from my backfoot.

18:28 Of course, this sort of progress isn’t a straight line—when the new baby comes,

18:32 I will be right back in survival mode,

18:35 taking things hour by hour just trying to get through the day.

18:38 Also, life is unpredictable,

18:40 and things will come up that push me back to that place,

18:44 but just knowing that I can feel the way I feel

18:47 right now makes me hopeful I’ll be able to feel it again.

18:51 As I’ve said already,

18:52 games certainly provided me plenty of relief throughout the year,

18:56 but instead needing to lean on them to help

18:58 carry me through it like I’ve done in the past,

19:01 they mostly got me to realize that I’ve

19:03 been carrying myself for a good while now.

19:05 I don’t know how this next year will go, but I’m prepared for things to change,

19:10 and I know I am more capable of handling it than ever before.

19:14 So, here’s to hoping this next year is better than the last,

19:18 and that Silksong actually comes out for real this time.

19:23 One thing I’ve been trying to do this year to get back to just enjoying my time

19:27 with games is to sometimes play them without recording

19:29 it or thinking about how it could become a video, ya know, like a normal person;

19:34 so my wife and I decided to reset

19:36 our Animal Crossing island to get a fresh start,

19:39 meaning I’ve been playing the Switch more often,

19:41 which made me want to play it more while on the go,

19:44 but I didn’t have a great way to transport it

19:47 aside from throwing it in the bottom of a backpack,

19:50 and now it sounds like this when I turn it

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20:46 For all of you still here, what’s up?

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20:55 That’s all.

20:57 Have a great day and/or night, and I’ll see you in the next one.

21:15 one