2023 Games We Missed!

Plus, Final Fantasy 7 spinoff media ranked, and the state of games preservation

Siffrin, protagonist of In Stars and Time, slowly unravelling. Not unlike me under the strain of so many games to play! (Courtesy of Armor Games)

Look, I try to play all the games. I really do.

I’m rather efficient at it, even as my more rational brain recognizes my hubris. Even though I couldn’t play literally every game from 2023, I’ve now finished a few more. I joined fellow NPR busybees Becky Brown and Eric Rodriguez to write about five such titles in an article that published today. Here’s my quick recap, ranked by how much I enjoyed each, for your pleasure:

1 - Cobalt Core
I’ve mentioned this one before and summarized it as “FTL meets Slay the Spire.”: “With writing as snappy as its gameplay, Cobalt Core… [is] the best card-based video game I’ve played in years, and may have one of the best-integrated narratives I’ve seen in the genre — beat out only by 2021’s Inscryption.”

2 - Slay the Princess
Becky Brown summarized this meta visual novel masterfully:

This is a game about relationships. In real life, you make decisions all the time that subtly, imperceptibly change you and the people around you. “Slay the Princess” extrapolates those decisions to their most extreme ends. Your choices will change both the eponymous princess and your attitudes, your mind, your body and the land itself. You'll make what you thought was a simple choice, only to realize from the princess’s behavior and your internal monologue that there was nothing simple about it. That decision meant something about who you must have been to have made it, and whoever or whatever she is now, well — that's her response. And together, you'll have to decide if you can live with that choice, quite literally.

Brown goes on to criticize the game’s ending, which landed better with me than with her. I’m a sucker for spectacle, and it really delivered.

3 - In Stars and Time

Happier times for the heroes of In Stars and Time (Courtesy of Armor Games)

IGN’s Rebekah Valentine, whom I’ve joined on 1A many times, recommended this time loop RPG. I’m not as enamored with it as she is, but it’s certainly the game on this list that I’ve thought about the most.:

Unlike other games like The Outer Wilds where you can unravel a temporal mystery however you wish, In Stars and Time forces you to play through story beats in a particular order. Dialogue choices that advance particular theories won’t show up until you’ve put in the legwork. Sometimes you’ll lose battles just to learn how to win later. Sometimes winning isn’t even the point.

If In Stars and Time was half as cute or charming, this maddening format would wear out its welcome. It’s meticulous in how it gets you to sympathize with Siffrin and how it uses game mechanics to simulate the swings from hope to nihilism that every time loop story indulges. I just wish it could arrive at its glorious catharsis in fewer hours — that it could excavate its emotional depths as efficiently as Undertale, the generation-defining indie it so clearly emulates.

Incidentally, I love Undertale so much that I used its title track to underscore part of my wedding.

4 - The Finals
I’ve not played much of this multiplayer phenomenon, but if I had twitchier FPS skills I’m sure I’d take to it as Eric Rodriguez has (as such, I prefer the more methodical, stealth-based Hunt: Showdown).

5 - Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy
Put simply, it let me down:

Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince proved to be a puzzle action delight. Trine 5, by contrast, felt poorly optimized for co-op.

Multiplayer levels are trickier than their standard versions — each puzzle often takes more steps to make sure everyone has something to do. All well and good, except that sometimes the solutions were so obtuse that I had to replay the same level alone just to move the story forward — a story that starts strong, by the way, only to limp to the finish line over what feels like an obligatory five acts.

I also intended to write about Sanabi (which I didn’t have time to finish, but which has superb grapplehook gameplay) and American Arcadia (which I did finish, but while it had moments of brilliance and excellent art direction, I can’t really contribute much more than what Yahtzee Crashaw already said about it).

Games preservation

Speaking of 1A and Rebekah Valentine, I got to join her and Frank Cifaldi of the Video Games History Foundation to discuss the state of classic games and games preservation! It was fun! I got tasty sandwiches at the local bakery afterwards!

Everything you wanted to know about Final Fantasy 7 media but were too afraid to ask

I’m currently running late to a Magic: the Gathering tournament, so I’ll have to be brief in pitching you on Andy Bickerton’s superb list of FF7 spinoff games, books and yes, that movie, Advent Children. I learned so much working with him on the piece — and I’m trying to speed through as much of it as I can before Rebirth’s release.

Other news

• Nintendo’s new console rumors from Bloomberg!

• What’s driving thousands more layoffs this year, from Stephen Totilo!

• Gee, Palworld is huge, isn’t it? It’s really taken off with over 7 million Steam downloads. I’ve only played a little (I prefer to wait for Early Access games to get more polish), but I can see why combining survival crafting and Pokémon has worked so well (despite or perhaps because of its controversies).

Here & Now Mastromarino productions

• Literally the only fun story I worked on this week: Jon Stewart set to return to The Daily Show and more TV news

• Hepatitis A outbreak amid Gaza civilians as Israel advances offensive

• Death penalty opponents protest execution in Montgomery, Alabama

• Carbon emissions linked to controversial fishing practice of bottom trawling

• Massive layoffs hit LA Times, Business Insider and more as election cycle heats up