Your Retro 2023 Top Favorites!

Finally getting to this.

My list: hardcoreretrogaming.boards.net/post/68968

First off, still happy I got someone like Sarge to finally trek through a Tomb Raider with all my praise over the years haha. I'm guessing you'll give the sequels a look someday, Sarge. While I think it might be diminishing returns for you, I shouldn't totally bet on that because a lot of fans do hold TR2 and even TR3 in higher regard. Since you played on PC that's probably recommended for those as well, since they have a bit of a gamma/brightness issue on PSX. Kids who beat TR3 on legit hardware back in the day, have been through war. I still think TR1 is my favorite since it's so "Oops All Dungeons" but I'm shocked even myself at how excited I am for the TR1-3 remakes coming next year. I can see myself replaying them all for sure.

As I speculated while playing it, before I had even rolled credits, nothing hit me harder than Project EDEN this year in the retro space. Immersive sim? Lost Vikings? Platformer puzzler? Horror? False utopia? It's one of the strangest games I played back on PS2 and dug back into here in 2023 to finally get through it all. In loving the old Tomb Raider games over the years and now this, I guess CORE Design really spoke to me from their mid 90's-2000's era. Bit of a crime they had to close house and didn't get to keep making games. They were too hardcore and esoteric for the mainstream I guess. I feel nothing but awe and joy thinking back to Project EDEN. I don't know how I'll convince others to play this, other than just plainly stating it's the best retro game I played in 2023 for my tastes and a killer game.

My other favorites:

- Tomb Raider III and IV, along with the TR1-TR2 Gold PC exclusive levels.

- I finally saw the light with Bionic Commando and greatly enjoyed both the NES and GB entries. Why and how it finally clicked with me this year, I'm still not sure. Sometimes it just works that way so a fun reminder that giving games another chance can pay off.

- Despite its simplicity, I had a lot of fun playing the Sega Ages version of Phantasy Star.

- Axelay, Ranger X, and Rendering Ranger R2 were great and I'll elaborate on a few of these later.

And yes, the NES Mega Man games are still perfect in my book. BEST NES games.

Other than clamoring for more to play Tomb Raider and Project EDEN, I can see why people champion Bionic Commando now. It really is unique among NES platformers and worth a look.

- What is the longest retro game you played? The shortest?

Longest = Tomb Raider III: 21h 5m

Shortest = Ninja Gaiden Shadow: 28m

- Was there a particular system that you had a strong affinity for this year?

My HLTB stats. Well no surprise my usual bias is shown here, NES, SNES, PSX, etc... my usual favorites with their endless immaculate libraries. That said I think this was the first year I cleared some more SMS games in awhile. I think last year was my first on some PCE beats. Two platforms I still should give more time.

Yes I did. E.V.O.: Search for Eden, while still really charming in ways and only being a few hours long, still overstays its welcome after awhile to me. The combat just isn't great and gets tedious later on, a bit of trial and error with which evolutions you should go with, etc. Finishing this game felt like a chore after awhile.

I also wouldn't call it an outright bad game, but I was fairly disappointed in Armored Core Nexus. It definitely felt like FromSoftware must have been getting bored of the formula by this point, even if it does a few new things (dual analog controls finally), it just seemed like a huge step down from the earlier PS2 entries.

Silent Bomber started off strong too but was a total slog in the last hour or so. It's one I could maybe still recommend, but with a huge asterisk.

- Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation was an awesome surprise. It reinvented much of the first few games with a lot of obvious engine upgrades, new takes on level design and mechanics, etc. The only possible flaw in retrospect being the interconnected hub structure of some areas can make navigation a bit confusing or tedious. But yeah, I went into TR4 loving how it felt fresh and different again. But it does land a little flat in the final act. Like TR2-TR3, there's a few flaws along the way but overall it was an incredible experience.

- Axelay was one of the most atmospheric games I played this year that still sticks with me. An SNES powerhouse. Once I got past the overhead stages, I didn't expect the normal 2D levels to be so freaking good. It's not a hard shmup, but such a cool and densely detailed experience.

- Rendering Ranger R2 is similar. If you really want to be wowed by some wizardry on the SNES, this is one to check out. The first level is pretty bad and insanely long, but after that, it's a technical feast with some fun gameplay along the way for action platformer fans.

Phantasy Star, Axelay, Rendering Ranger R2, Popn Twinbee, Atomic Runner, PN03... lots of unique looking titles I hit up this year that had a lot of nice graphical personality and technical prowess.

- Best controls?

Tomb Raider IV. Oh yes, I love how these games control by this point in ways...

- Top OST or select tracks?

Without boring people of some of the atmospheric ambient tunes I loved from the TR's, or Project EDEN, here's a few bangers:

Interesting to notice while writing this up that I didn't hit up JRPG's much this year. DQ11 taking over 100 hours kicking off the year, after Xenoblade 3 and Elden Ring last year, each being some of the longest time sinks ever for me, yeah maybe that played into my beaten count being a little shorter again this year haha. And not playing too many longer retro games. But that's about to change here soon now that I want to start up SMT Strange Journey Redux.

Next year I want to conclude the Tomb Raider saga. Once I beat TR5: Chronicles and TR6: Angel of Darkness, I will have beaten every single main line Tomb Raider.

For a silly goal I should tell myself to play at least one or two of my physical PS2 JRPG's. I have several on deck. Wild Arms 3 looks like a fun one to check out, or Growlancer stuff. That said, I have a deluge of SMT's and some JRPG's on my 3DS that I should start chipping away at too.

I would like to beat Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox/360) to put my 360 away. I know this version is quite different from the PS3 Sigma release actually, so that'll be interesting. After that, I don't see myself bothering to get much more use out of my 360. It's one of the largest physical libraries I have around actually, but once I switched to the PS3 being my primary and all these years later, I don't have much need for the 360. Any 7th gen stuff I'm interested in now I'll go for the PS3/PC versions if viable.

Shmup Junkie on YT puts out some movie sized compilation reviews of shmups that look awesome and I've made lists of the ones that look worth checking out to me. The biggest being the Genesis set. But I should rewatch his PCE one. As I said above, I should give that system a little more focus again... Will 2024 be the year the NES, SNES, and PSX aren't in the top 3 alongside PC? Doubt. lol, but who knows. There will come a day when I've cleared most of these systems and will have to evolve.