Melos's Best Games Of 2023
Hydlide! Elephantasy Flipside! And more!
This year I feel like I've really honed in about what I like about games. Playing lots of older action games for research for Angeline Era, or games by individual creators, to see what they felt like sharing. Maybe this renewed interest in games is from making a Backloggd Account for reviewing games?? There's something fun about writing about games… (follow me there!)
(Or subscribe to this blog!)
Since the pandemic started I’ve kicked some of the joyless gaming habits I had in my 20s. It really comes down to knowing when to say ‘no!’ and stop. No more plowing through a 20+ hour game just to be like “well, that wasn’t for me…” Shifting my free time this way, I’ve had so much more time to explore older games as a result - even finding time to play and look at hundreds of games as an IGF judge .
Playing so many games forces me to think about why it is I’m even playing in the first place. It comes down to “oh, it’s interesting that a person wanted to share such and such thing…” To me it parallels hanging out with a person - there’s something enriching to two people taking time out of their lives to share time together. Likewise, a game designer puts time into making their game, and a player spends time playing it. I like playing games because it feels like I’m getting a sense of that person - a reminder of the breadth of our world.
Anyways, here’s my list! I’ve prepared some thoughts on about 20 games, about half indie, and half AAA or old.
Favorite Indie Games
24 Killers (Todd Luke, 2023, $19.99)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1668310/24_Killers/
I've waited for nearly 10 years for this game! By a fellow early-2010s TIGSource indie dev, Todd Luke, this life sim game has such a nice rhythm to it. What I loved the most was how it slowly comes to life as you rescue each monster - and how the energy and currency systems take on meaning by being directly related to how you uncover and find new details in the island setting. The game's worldview has this vibe of the value of letting people pass in and out of your life, even if you only pick up on a few details here and there. There’s also a lot of nice touches to the way the art and sound design come together.
Bobo the Cat (Bobo the Cat, 2023, FREE)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2232950/BoboTheCat/
When I heard even game designers like sylvie were impressed by Bobo the Cat, I had to go play it!
Bobo the Cat is a platformer with some movement and combat tech. To say more would be to create comparisons that don't do the game justice. Generally speaking it is a dense and challenging platformer. It is a silent one: the narrative plays out, but it's done mostly through visuals and your progression through its world. It's a hilarious game, enemies and hazards are placed in playful and inventive ways. What’s a useful move in one place can easily work against you in another. It's paced out through intense platforming-levels, and calmer explorative textures. These intense platforming levels often take place in relaxing places like beaches or jungles, where it feels like the game is giving you space to collect your thoughts after multiple deaths. The level design is creative, often leaning into its composite elements in extreme ways. The game always feels like it's really testing you, but only because it's so trusting in its level design ideas being interesting. If you like creative, explorative 2D platformers you should really play this game! To me it defines new possibilities for what a 2D platforming world can feel like.
Elephantasy Flipside (Benjamin Maksym/Linker, 2023, $9.99)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2284310/Elephantasy_Flipside/
One of the most fun worlds in a game to explore this year. Also very charming and I like how compact and landscape-like each screen is. And has made me think a lot about world design and platformer design space. After teaching a few things, you can freely explore a grid-based world (like 2D Zelda) that is also vertically layered (unlike 2D Zelda). The many hidden gems and keys might be located above, or below you! Filling in the game's automap - and making a more detailed map of my own - was a lot of fun, as well as discovering the various way the world was layered together. But what pulls it all together is that you're given limited inventory slots to equip the game's few items, which let you traverse the levels in various ways. A ring lets you levitate objects, some boots let you perform complicated dash jump maneuvers. It was a lot of fun to have to decide which items to bring and which to leave, and then gather information about new areas of the world. Rather than the game's rooms feeling like one-time puzzles, the whole world itself has this level of openness to how you approach them which lets places feel meaningful to re-traverse. I also really liked how the game goes between different styles of spatial layouts - from more open fields, to challenging gauntlets, to mazelike-dungeons. Definitely took a lot of notes from this one!
Sylvie Lime (Love Game (sylvie, aria), 2022, PWYW)
https://sylvie.itch.io/sylvie-lime
…Which brings me to Sylvie Lime, another platformer which has been really memorable! Like Flipside, there's a level of openness to which you can approach the various screens in Sylvie Lime. Abilities let you spawn platforms, become tiny, glide in one direction… I enjoyed how much level design was packed into Sylvie Lime's world, and the way that impossible-looking screens became traversable once I had enough items - and was familiar enough with their uses. There's so much creativity and humor poured into each item. This is a fun game to try to map out, too.
What follows are spoilers… skip it if you don't want to see!
… Sylvie Lime has one of the most interesting meta elements in a game. Despite my games’ post-game sections being various levels of meta (from straightforward commentary to strange occurrences), I'm kind of so-so on meta elements - often because a game's marketing or reviews will implicitly spoil them by saying “Just Play It” (which kind of has us expecting it, doesn't it?) I feel like when a game's meta-ness is so straightforward then it feels like buying a sandwich, in some ways. Nothing wrong with a sandwich but it's going to be a sandwich.
Sylvie Lime ends up telling a detailed story about a team of classmates who worked together on Sylvie Lime, each with their own personality. They even talk about all the items, and part of the late-game involves bringing items and finding secrets to different characters. It ends up being a detailed dev commentary, but the lines are blurred because you have multiple fictional characters expressing their thoughts about making the game.
I Hate You, Please Suffer (scitydreamer, 2023, $12.99)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2583620/IHateYouPleaseSuffer__Complete/
I've been anticipating this game for a while! The developer also released Slimes which is an RPG I really liked. IHYPS is an open-ended RPG where you explore a sort of suburban/urban America-influenced world, taking on jobs to hopefully pay back your rent (which accrues interest quite fast). I really like the way you can poke around the game's locations - downtown areas, beaches, harbors, forests, apartments - learning about the protagonists or seeing how other characters are dealing with living in this world where children are fighting in dangerous dungeons for money. The general feel of it reminds me of some 2000s Flash Games where you'd just walk around towns and ferry items.
On top of that is also a linear story I haven't seen through to the end yet, articulated by 'mainline' quests which take place around the world. It's a funny and detailed game overall. I like all the little touches like the characters sleeping over at the protagonist's home, receiving phone calls, getting kill-stealed by annoying NPCs, past bosses finding you down to essentially jump you (lol), the random unfortunate events that happen… they all paint a picture of a really chaotic kind of city life that feels sort of true to a certain country a lot of us might be familiar with… Ha Ha.
And as an RPG it's really solid, too. There's some kind of scaling going on that keeps battles consistently challenging, and the game hides and gives you enough tools where it's fun to try and figure out each encounter. Just a lot of neat ideas here, if you like RPGs check it out! Excited to finish this one.
Honorable Mentions (Indie)
Mosa Lina (2023, https://store.steampowered.com/app/2477090/Mosa_Lina/, $5, Stuffed Wombat, Silkersoft, Lukke): This 2D platform game got me into sandbox / immersive-sim games for a little bit! But it strips everything down to the base core of experimenting in a way that's really appealing to me - getting away from the usual genre traps (assassination games, crafting-heavy games, open world) in favor of a hyperfocus on what makes sandbox-play cool. Got me thinking a lot about different ways of structuring platformers.
Ruina: Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins (枯草章吉, 2010, Free) - https://dinklations.wordpress.com/2021/01/30/ruina-fairy-tale-of-the-forgotten-ruins-english-version/ A translation of a Japanese indie RPG. Slowly working through the deep dungeons of this game, unravelling the maps and travelling in and out of the dungeons was really neat. The presentation - it's like exploring a TTRPG's map - is unlike anything I've seen (maybe a little like Unlimited Saga, apparently?) It's fun to see how far you can dive into a dungeon without dying to a trap (or gag.)
Ano, Subarashii o Mou Ichido (Japanese-only, 2023, Switch): Remaster of a classic sound-novel game with some branching. Has an interesting system where by 'remembering' a certain word and flipping back to certain points in the story, events can play out differently. Quite a bit of logical leaps here and following guides but it felt really unique to flip back and forth through the game's script like a book - it's like a book contained multiple timelines in one…
Earthen Dragon ($10, Origamihero games, 2023, https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/earthen-dragon-switch/) - Origamihero is a developer I've been following since before I made games - they've released games like Treasure Hunter Man (which has an easter egg in Anodyne 1!) Their games have a unique worldview and sense of design to them I really value. It's very immediate in the sense that you really understand what's expected right away, and the design is also tightly tied to the environment. There's also a lot of nice personal details I like. Earthen Dragon is open-world so it's a bit more spread out, but it still has a lot of memorable moments. I also love some of its levels: they lean into a full ‘use every corner of the level model’ that something like Dark Souls does, but in a platformer context. The mansion level shown above was a favorite.
Favorite Non-indie (or Old) Games
(Note: technically a good number of these were made by smallish teams)
Hydlide 2: Shine of Darkness (1985, T&E Soft, MSX)
I played the Hydlide trilogy this year. I loved each game but in particular 2 was really memorable. It's arguably the most nightmarishly-designed, but even with a guide and save states it's still hard and memorable. I even wrote a few tips and tricks for GameFAQs…
It’s a typical fantasy setting, but the game is just so aggressively obtuse that it’s easy to get stuck. But after a while, the game becomes “how can I get around its strict requirements?” There's so many idiosyncrasies to Hydlide 2, especially in the sprawling final dungeon which feels like diving to some cursed castle ruins below an ocean, the enemy types slowly morphing into the more demonic and twisted.
Brightis (1999, PS1, Quintet/Shade)
I also wrote a FAQ for this game, and since then another user has uploaded maps of the game! This is the Japanese-only basically unknown-in-the-west final game of many folks from Quintet/Shade (Terranigma, Soul Blazer). The story is pretty machine-translatable and sparse so even if you don’t read Japanese you should try it out with google translate mobile’s OCR translation.
Instead of describing it boringly, there’s a super cool final dungeon which is like a fever dream of four castlevania castles and a premonition of Demon’s Souls mashed together in full, chaotic 3D. There’s funny little traps and enemy layouts. There’s waterfall caves, crypts, vast mossy lakeside ruins, snow castles… all realized with this engaging combo of physical combat and funny jumping. If you like swinging swords in 3D you need to play this game.
Banjo Tooie's Grunty Industries (2000, Rare, N64)
It’s 2023: it’s time to redeem Grunty Industries. I’ll assume you know what Banjo-Tooie is. Sure, it’s a little complex, but Grunty Industries really feels like a super-cool and dense dungeon. I love how each floor is themed, the kind of FPS-spatial design logic that’s been transposed into Banjo verbs. Being able to fly around it, get into the roof, or diving deep into its sewage systems. Yeah I couldn’t figure it all out myself in the end but it was really satisfying to try to 100% and see every weird idea the designer had. I also just like the idea that it’s impossible to figure it out all on your own. If I ever make a 3D move-heavy platformer I’d probably think about this level a lot and how much personality it’s packed with. I know the designer has regretted aspects of it on Twitter but if you’re reading this: I Love Grunty Industries.
Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family (AKA Legacy of the Wizard) (1987, Falcom, MSX/etc)
This is a nonlinear adventure platformer. I think it has a good sense of humor. It’s got the kind of loving level design that’s fun to map out, and to see if you can reach its farthest corners. Well, I only really played 4 hours so far but it’s been a good time. Being forced to use one of 5 family members - with different abilities - means there’s 5 ways to look at the rooms of the game’s giant dungeon. You might get stuck as one character, but you can keep in mind to check it out with the character who jumps higher or can carry a magic infinite-keyring. I feel like adventure platformers have solidified around the expensive-animation + typical ability progression in the past decade, which I find boring. DS4 feels like an example of what else is possible!
Honorable Mentions
Tower of Druaga (1984, Arcade, Namco/Masanobu Endo): I didn't get too far in this, but the way it hides so much esoterica beneath its simple premise of climbing a tower and "Simple" combat - and the kind of rumor-trading arcade history it has - is so memorable. It was fun to see a middle-aged man playing this in an actual arcade, too!
Light Crusader (1995, Treasure, Genesis): Isometric dungeon crawler with really eerie vibes, soundtrack and art. I liked delving deeper into its world and solving its at-times nightmarish isometric ball puzzles! It really felt like I was pushing in to some weird cult's dungeon and shouldn't be there. Has a lot of small funny touches reminiscent of indie games today.
Elemental Gimmick Gear (1999, Dreamcast, Birthday): One too many horrible 2D adventure puzzles to give this a recommendation, but the world is so charmingly compact and I like the ambition of connecting so much into these big dungeons with multiple exits. Love that kind of world design.
Sorcerian (Dreamcast Port) - A unique remake of a classic party-based Action RPG. You take your little party of 4 to different episodic scenarios (essentially short 2.5D games!), and I guess the party can age and pass down stuff to later generations? I didn’t get that far because the progression logic is so random but the structure was cute. I’d love to play more stuff like this…
Thanks for reading! Hope you’ll enjoy some of these games in 2024. Be sure to subscribe for other thoughts about games!
A decent chunk of my childhood was spent playing Legacy of the Wizard. I was scared of the bosses. O_O