The retro Games of the Year of 2023

The best of the games I played for the first time in 2023, that weren't from 2023.

Dec 15, 2023

I’ve wrapped on featuring and reviewing retro video games for the rest of 2023, so, it’s time to look at the best of the ones I played for the first time in the last year. Not every one of these entries is necessarily retro: the only qualifications are that they (1) didn’t release in 2023 and (2) I hadn’t played them before, but now I have.

This isn’t a ranked list, but it’s not the entirety of my Not 2023 playing, either: a much larger sample has been reduced to the 15 best of the bunch. And the list is not every non-2023 game I played during the year: it’s just meant to be the ones I played for the very first time in 2023.

I’ll include developer, publisher, platform, and release year info for each game, too, but I’m restricting all of that, release year aside, to just the actual version I played instead of trying to be all-encompassing. And if I already wrote about the game here, I’m going to share a key section and link to my full write-up. Let’s get to it.

Ace Combat 2

Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
Sony Playstation
Original release year: 1997

While Air Combat was something of a proof of concept, its 1997 sequel, Ace Combat 2, was the real deal.

In the same way something like OutRun was clearly put together by people who just think fast cars and highways are sick and wanted to create a game that made you feel the same, Ace Combat 2 was designed to make you think that flying at incredibly high speeds through the air and pulling off impossible turns and dives toward the ground is the greatest rush in the world.
What’s fascinating, too, is just how much the focus is on that insistence. Ace Combat 2 is obviously rife with violence: the setup for the story is that there was a military coup, and you along with some other mercenary pilots have been employed and deployed to help put a stop to it. While the story is narrated in the game’s intro, it’s essentially the kind of stuff you’d find on one page of an instruction manual before they tell you which buttons do what. There’s a real lack of detail there — was the coup justified or unjustified, what are the political alignments, who are the targets, which side has committed inarguable sins, etc. — but all of that “missing” information isn’t missing, so much as it doesn’t matter. You’re a mercenary, and you’ve been paid to do a job, and that job involves flying some high-tech impossibilities through the sky at a speed that makes the air itself scream.

Cave Noire

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Game Boy
Original release year: 1991

A roguelike that predates the creation of that term, and Cave Noire is a pretty good starter entry for the genre, and its escalation of difficulty makes it perfect for more experienced players, too.

Which is a longish way of saying that Cave Noire’s mission-by-mission breakdown might make things seem simple, but the complexity and intensity of the experience grows. This might be the best way to explain just how significant the change in difficulty goes as you proceed. There are four dungeon and quest types, each with their own arrangements of the standard dungeon theme, environment, and mission to complete. The first has you defeating X number of monsters per dungeon dive, another has you collecting gold, a third collecting a set number of orbs, and the fourth, freeing faeries from cages, which is a combination of finding the keys to open the cages, and also finding said cages. You’ve completed a quest type when you’ve finished level 6, but they actually go to 10 — getting to 6 is a significant challenge on its own, never mind completing it and then optionally continuing onward beyond that.
I mentioned that you have to defeat three monsters in the first level of the first quest: for level 5, you have to defeat 10. You might have picked up one or two extra hit points — which you do retain from level to level within a given quest — between then, but your other stats are all exactly the same on level 5 (or 6, or 8, or whatever) as they were on level 1. You’re in a position where you take quite a bit of damage, could be poisoned and take even more, and have just the one healing potion or antidote unless you find more in the dungeon, and yet, you now have to defeat over three times as many creatures as you did when you first started the quest, all while stretching your limited inventory thin.

Burning Rangers

Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Sega Saturn
Original release year: 1998

Can I think of plenty of issues that Burning Rangers has? Yes, of course, it should get an updated remaster that addresses its various drawbacks and sins. And yet… there’s something here that’s worth playing and enjoying even in its original, sometimes frustrating form.

If only Sega had decided to hold it until the Dreamcast released about a year-and-a-half later, so it was on a more powerful system with better 3D technology and a controller better able to handle what was expected of it. Burning Rangers, in a lot of ways, reminds me of Bulk Slash, in that it’s a 3D game played on a system and a controller that weren’t designed specifically with that kind of thing in mind. Unlike Bulk Slash — which I’d happily argue is one of the best games on the Saturn — everything you’re doing is on a smaller scale. Indoors, in corridors, etc., while huge chunks of Bulk Slash take place outdoors, where you have space to maneuver and room for error in your shots, your dodges, your movement, which helps to hide some of the inherent issues of the platform and time. Burning Storm is a lot more claustrophobic, and, when combined with some dodgy collision detection that sometimes serves to aid you and more frustratingly can mess things up for you, it’s a problem.
Even with myriad issues, though, Burning Rangers is fun. The platforming is far from rock solid even for the era, but the level design itself is top notch, and the act of flying around and double jumping with your jetpack while putting out fires and rescuing survivors still works well 25 years later. Sonic Team might not have had an actual Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Saturn, but they were experimenting all over the place during that console’s life, and while the lack of Sonic was bad for business, the focus elsewhere was great for creativity.

Night Striker

Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
Sega Saturn
Original release year: 1989

You can ignore the Sega CD port of Night Striker, as it was just too much for the 16-bit add-on to handle. The original 1989 arcade edition and 1996 Sega Saturn port — Night Striker S — are excellent, however, if you’re into the Space Harrier-style of fast-paced on-rail arcade shooters.

Why should you want to play Night Striker, though? It’s a hell of an on-rails Super Scaler shoot-em-up, for one. You’ve got a flying car with energy cannons attached, and you use it to complete a series of missions in different locations, via branching pathways. You can say it’s a little like OutRun in that regard — the branching pathways, not the flying car or energy cannons bits — but you could also point out that it’s like Taito’s own Darius, which predates Night Striker by a few years and released less than six months after OutRun. At the least, there’s some shared credit there to give.
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The whole time you’re playing, you’ll be treated to the sounds of Taito’s house band, Zuntata. The only thing missing from the Saturn release is the arranged version of the soundtrack that was included in the Mega CD’s release, but you still get the typical Zuntata greatness of the original.

Final DOOM

Developer: TeamTNT
Publisher: id Software
Nintendo Switch
Original release year: 1996

Final DOOM actually released on MS-DOS back in 1996, but I was 10 years old then and still just messing around with the original DOOM and its first sequel in my limited home computer time, so I missed out on the existence of Final DOOM for years and years. Despite being a full Doom release — a longer one than the other classic Doom games, even, since it was practically two games in one — it’s available now with modern releases of DOOM or DOOM II as a free add-on. So I finally got around to filling this single gap in my Doom knowledge this year.

It was developed by TeamTNT, with the first episode, TNT: Evilution, created before any kind of official release was planned: this was just a bunch of Doom enthusiasts making a megawad, and it got id’s attention. A second episode, The Plutonia Experiment, was then commissioned, and the two were packaged together into Final DOOM, which ended up speaking to the finality of the use of the classic Doom engine for official releases rather than the last Doom game.

id basically wanted to do something besides Doom, but there was still money in the hit that truly launched them into the stratosphere, so, arrangements like this ended up making a lot of sense. More Doom for those who wanted it, made with id’s blessing but with their focus elsewhere, like on Quake.

The Plutonia Experiment is hard. Satisfying, but difficult. The Spider-Demon shows up in the fifth mission of over 30, while the Cyberdemon is in the sixth one. It’s fucked up pacing is what it is, made for sickos and sickos only. Calling it “just more Doom” as some critics of the day dismissively did was reductive, because it’s Doom cranked to 11 while attempting to see if the knob will turn any further. TNT has more puzzle-y elements, while the only puzzle in Plutonia is solving how it is you’re going to survive that many demons.

The Plutonia stages feel (and are) smaller and denser, with more action, more violence, and more opportunities to die or deliver death. If there’s a wall in a room you’re in, there’s a chance it will eventually open and be full of some of Doom’s worst nightmares. And if there’s a second wall, well, you’re never going to believe this, but…

Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale

Developer: Millenium Kitchen, AQURIA
Publisher: Level-5
Nintendo 3DS
Original release year: 2013

Sadly, if you don’t already have a copy of Attack of the Friday Monsters, you’re out of luck, as I wrote about it this year in the first place because it was available digitally on the 3DS eShop that no longer exists. Excellent game despite this, though, so… find a way to experience it.

A coming-of-age adventure featuring a young boy who has just moved to a new place, and that place happens to be attacked by tokusatsu-style monsters every Friday afternoon. What those monsters are, why they’re attacking, where they come from? That’s up to you and your newfound young friends to discover on your own, as you run around town exploring, helping citizens, forgetting your errands, and also playing a rock-paper-scissors-based card game that determines whether you are a boss or a servant to the other kids.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Developer: LucasArts
Publisher: LucasArts
Windows
Original release year: 1992

The Fate of Atlantis originally released on the Amiga and DOS back in ‘92, but it received a port to Windows in 2014, and that (after some tweaking to fix the visuals) is the version I played. I think it’s safe to say that it’s better than the latest Indy movie that got me to write about an Indy game this past year.

It’s not just in the dialogue that Fate of Atlantis feels like it belongs in the Indiana Jones universe. Jetting around all over the world between big cities, dig sites, and ruins helps — you’re rarely in one place for very long, which makes you think of those travel montages in old movies taking place over maps while the characters perform actions while fading in and out of the background — and everything is pretty tightly told, all things considered. It can take longer to play Fate of Atlantis than it does to watch the original trilogy of movies, sure, but it doesn’t feel long: it’s paced appropriately for the format, with Indiana Jones as a concept ported to a different medium with clear expertise and understanding of the subject. The music is also a lovely touch — there are some scripted musical cues, of course, but oftentimes the game’s sound is reacting to what you’re doing on screen, which also helps push you along to keep trying or to do something new. It helps with the sense of satisfaction when you’ve achieved something or progressed somewhere, to hear the game playing your song, essentially.

Dig Dug

Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco
Nintendo Switch
Original release year: 1982

Dig Dug is one of those vital games that’s so good that it’s kind of incredible to me that I never got into it before this year, but now I couldn’t be more on board with it.

It’s still a joy to play over 40 years after its release, and still compels you to try again in the same way it did when it first became a staple of arcades in 1982. Even with all of the advances made in video games in the decades since Namco’s classic “strategic digging” game launched, it’s easy to see how Dig Dug developed the following it did, both with players and with developers who found inspiration within it. And why Namco decided to go in a completely different direction for its first sequel, because what worlds were left to conquer that Dig Dug hadn’t already made its own the first time around?
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Even if the fate of Dig Dug is to be released again and again on new systems, rather than with any new entries in the series, that’s fine. The original is over 40 years old, and it’s still wondrous, still addicting, still a joy to play and discover the secrets of. Not everything needs to be iterated on forever, or made new again: just continue to give us access to the wonders of the past, like Namco does so well with games like Dig Dug, and there will be plenty of happiness and history to discover for anyone searching for them.

Fatal Labyrinth

Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Sega Genesis
Original release year: 1991

I played quite a few roguelikes in 2022, and some of those early genre standouts, like Fatal Labyrinth, are still excellent representations of the genre today.

Fatal Labyrinth has the kind of setup roguelike purists can appreciate, as you start out in a town that lets you know what the title screen cinematic meant: a dragon is back in town, the castle full of evil it lives in has risen from the earth to let everyone know, and also the holy goblet that allows light into the world has been stolen by its forces. You then head into the castle to start exploring and climbing it, and don’t come back out until you’ve finished your quest of getting that Trees of the Valar-ass cup back where it belongs. There are no shops, no treasure chests, just items laying on the ground that might help you, or might be cursed, or might be inhabited by a ghost, or might be a mimic that’s waiting for someone to come by and make the mistake of thinking they won’t die when they pick up that bag of gold. Or it might just be garbage you don’t need, and you used up a turn to pick it up to find out, whoops, sorry about that.

Quantum Break

Developer: Remedy
Publisher: Microsoft
Xbox Series X
Original release year: 2016

Do I think the television episodes that play in between Quantum Break’s chapters looks “good” in 2023? No. Did it look “good” in 2016? Probably not. Does it basically just look like some streaming service’s $250 million show that they claim four billion people watched for 900 billion hours, but you’ve never actually heard of? Well, it looks a little better than that, actually. Let’s just say Remedy was correct to go back to mixing gameplay with FMV for Control and Alan Wake II instead of being so explicit about filming live-action for use inside their games as its own separate thing.

I tease, but I did actually enjoy these bits as a break in between the well-paced, time-breaking action of this third-person shooter. I don’t think Quantum Break was so enjoyable that I regret my decision to not get an Xbox One last decade in order to play it, but I would have had a great time seven years ago if I had. As it is, though, I enjoyed Quantum Break in the present, even after already being exposed to the superior Control, and not just because Dominic Monaghan somehow did the most believable, non-cartoonish Boston accent in media, against all odds. I’m sure it sounds way off to people with a specific idea of what a Boston accent is, but as someone who grew up there and lived in the region into my late-20s, he nailed it.

Bomberman Tournament

Developer: Hudson Soft, A.I.
Publisher: Activision
Game Boy Advance
Original release year: 2001

Known as “Bomberman Story” in Japan, Bomberman Tournament is a single-player affair that shows off what the little guy could do on the action-adventure side of things.

While Bomberman Tournament pulled liberally from Neutopia in some of its dungeon design (as well as the Karabons whose powers were items in Neutopia and Quest), it all feels different here. Finding hidden homes of citizens of the world who will give you advice or items or even heal you is straight out of Neutopia, which had taken the idea from The Legend of Zelda, yes, but had also made it even more of a central mechanic. The block puzzles actually work in Bomberman Tournament because they’re a change of pace from all the other puzzle types you have to solve, which include switches, buttons to depress with weight, hidden stairs and doors, traps, and the most common one, combat: throwing bombs around to explode everything is a puzzle unto itself, lest you find yourself the one blown up. So, when you enter a room and see that it’s full of explodable objects and enemies, you have to take a second to figure out the best way to go about blowing them all up. Both to progress to the next room and to avoid dying from self-inflicted wounds in the process of getting there.
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Bomberman Tournament just missed out on what Metacritic would have labeled as “Universal Acclaim” by a measly two points of average score — 88 out of 100 instead of 90 — and audiences recognized its greatness, too. Its overseas publisher, Activision, saw revenues rise 30 percent during the quarter Bomberman Tournament released, with that game and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on the Game Boy Advance accounting for 31 percent of their United States sales in that period. Everything about that is wild to take in over two decades later, yes, but there it is: a portable Bomberman game once made Activision stockholders very happy.

Taloon’s Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon

Developer: Chunsoft
Publisher: Chunsoft
Super Famicom
Original release year: 1993

Chunsoft got out of the Dragon Quest game with a Dragon Quest game, and the reason it worked is because this Dragon Quest was actually a Mystery Dungeon, the very first.

There’s a real rhythm to the game that starts to come through in the Mysterious Dungeon. Descend, return, deposit, descend, return, deposit, and so on until you complete it. Dying obviously interrupts that rhythm, and in more ways than one, since you’ll lose whatever you had equipped, which is a negative whether you’re talking about whatever random gear you found on that journey or if it was something you specifically saved and set aside for later use. These deaths almost always feel fair, too, rather than due to bad luck. Sure, sometimes you might die because you didn’t expect to step on a mine, or to fall through a floor, or to stumble into a monster lair that’s more monsters than open spaces in the room, but the vast majority of the time, death occurs in Taloon’s Great Adventure because you decided to swing your sword one more time instead of any other number of options. Like using a “Return” scroll to warp to a monster-free room on the same floor, or consuming an Elixir to heal, or using a Blaze grass to breathe fire for massive damage and basically guarantee an enemy’s death, or throwing a Confuse grass, or using a “Change” staff to attempt to make this tough enemy into a weaker one, or just calling it quits and using the Outside scroll to bail on this run.

Judgement Silversword

Developer: Qute
Publisher: Qute
Bandai WonderSwan
Original release year: 2001

Judgement Silversword’s original release was (1) only in Japan, (2) only for the WonderSwan, designed specifically for its vertical orientaiton, and (3) limited to 500 physical copies. So it was just a little difficult to come by for a while there. Since the 2011 Xbox 360 release of Eschatos, however, this revered shoot ‘em up has been included along with that other Qute shooter. Which was originally great news for, again, Japan-only players, but in the years since Eschatos — Judgement Silversword included — has seen a worldwide release on Windows, Switch, and Playstation 4. And good thing, too, because Judgement Silversword rocks.

It’s loaded with enemies and bullets, and between its speed and performance, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s just designed to look like it’s running on a decades-old portable that existed alongside the Game Boy Color. Each stage is very short — like, measured in number of seconds if you’re doing it right — so you can beat Judgement Silversword in a hurry if you can manage to actually survive it’s challenges. That’s the rub, though, and what will keep you coming back. I’ll be writing about this one in more detail at some point in 2024.

Mega Man Legends

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Sony Playstation
Original release year: 1997

The haters don’t know what they’re on about, Mega Man Legends kicks ass.

Its greatest fault is that the world simply wasn’t prepared for this kind of game yet; looking back now, 25 years after its North American debut, and it’s pretty easy to slot this in with other Capcom projects like Lost Planet or Dragon’s Dogma that should have taken the world by storm, but instead released years before the world was ready to embrace them for their excellence and ambition. Not every ahead-of-their-time, slightly awkward experiment of Capcom’s is going to thrive like Monster Hunter did nearly out of the gate, but the disdain that exists for projects like that sometimes is just so strange, especially when hindsight shows the developers to have been ahead of the curve.
Mega Man Legends is a sandbox-style 3D game, released in 1997. Shenmue, also considered wildly ahead of its time, arrived in 1999 on the Dreamcast. Grand Theft Auto III didn’t release until 2001, on the Playstation 2. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind arrived in 2002, and the first two Elder Scrolls entries (1994 and 1996) were also open-world, but the earlier ones were just for computers, not home consoles, where the technology was a bit ahead of what you found on Sony or Nintendo or Sega’s platforms. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time — considered one of the premier conversions from 2D to 3D in video games — wouldn’t release for 11 months after Mega Man Legends’ late-1997 debut in Japan.

I’m real excited to dive into the sequel and spin-off, and then be upset that there isn’t any more Mega Man Legends out there for me.

Demon’s Tilt

Developer: WIZNWAR
Publisher: FLARB, LLC
Nintendo Switch
Original release year: 2019

Shout out to Colin Spacetwinks for correctly identifying that this game rules, and then constantly singing its praises until I went out and bought it. Demon’s Tilt is easily the best pinball video game since the days of Compile’s Crush games: it’s fast-paced, with just so much going on at once basically all the time. You’ve got various, ever-changing missions to complete, score multipliers to rack up, bullets — yes, bullets — to hit with your ball to score more points and also to knock your ball off the path and maybe discover some secrets along the way. Oh, and the soundtrack is killer, too, with a very late-80s/early-90s synth thing going on that fans of a particular era in video game music — like, say, the one the Crush games were released into — is going to adore.

The Crush games were special because Compile explicitly did not try to replicate actual pinball tables, and instead took pinball’s concepts and made video games with them. Demon’s Tilt gets this, too: nothing going on here is something that can happen in a real pinball table, outside of hitting the ball with a flipper, and all of that non-pinball pinball is a joy to experience.

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