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ResetEra Games of the Year Awards 2023
- Thread starter Hecht
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I never participated in any GOTY votes, not here, not at the old site. Ranking stuff is just not a thing I prefer to do for my self. But I do enjoy looking and lists and comparing them to my own tastes and, for the lack of a better word, judge them ;)
And I have to say, that's a great list for a fantastic year for games! 23 truely is one of those GOAT years and the results refelct on that.
And I have to say, that's a great list for a fantastic year for games! 23 truely is one of those GOAT years and the results refelct on that.
Fair enough. To each his own. Turn-based in CRPGs, from what I've experienced, just becomes a tiresome, time-consuming slog for me. Turn-based combat in JRPGs I generally really enjoy, though.
I definitely would've put Hi-Fi Rush on my ballot if I'd played it in time. Glad it got plenty of votes though!
When something niche like GT7 VR beats out your brand-new pillar racing game, you know you have problems. I've never dropped a Forza game as quickly as I did FM. It's definitely my biggest disappointment of 2023. This isn't meant to take away from the impact of GT7 VR though. I think the experience is transformative and the definitive way to play it.
What Forza Motorsport achieved was getting me back into GT7. I haven't even played it enough to say that I disliked it or that it's a bad game. It just didn't grab me and as soon as I turned on GT7 after a months long break I felt comfy and at home… I played FM for two nights and just never came back to it.
It dominated its category though, and Oatchi still loves you. 💛
Dang I missed this thread, sorry I was ran over by a moving goalpost....
Surprised Zelda won, but to be frank if the discussion was about polish, since I played the PS5 version on BG3.. yeah TotK, as tedious as Zelda item and fuse material management was , the inventory and control options in BG3 gave it a run for its money, the framerates averaged the same to me as played splitscreen if one of us entedred menu the other one had to stop playing... and crashes were like BG3 at least 20 to 0 from Tears by the 300 hours I put in tears. So belda edged it out in my vote.
In other topics.... holy canoli 2 of the 30+ million best sellers of the last years are not considered big games, nicheman strikes again.
Surprised Zelda won, but to be frank if the discussion was about polish, since I played the PS5 version on BG3.. yeah TotK, as tedious as Zelda item and fuse material management was , the inventory and control options in BG3 gave it a run for its money, the framerates averaged the same to me as played splitscreen if one of us entedred menu the other one had to stop playing... and crashes were like BG3 at least 20 to 0 from Tears by the 300 hours I put in tears. So belda edged it out in my vote.
In other topics.... holy canoli 2 of the 30+ million best sellers of the last years are not considered big games, nicheman strikes again.
Solid list for an incredible year. I really can't argue with TotK winning, though it didn't top my list (I still need to finish it, actually).
Resetera the outlier when it comes to goty between Zelda and BG3.
BG3 has 3x the goty awards in the media/reader awards
Fascinating
BG3 has 3x the goty awards in the media/reader awards
Fascinating
Pretty close between TotK and BG3.
I'm just happy that Hi-Fi Rush showed up in force! Good to see a good game get the recognition it deserves in a year that was absolutely stacked.
I'm just happy that Hi-Fi Rush showed up in force! Good to see a good game get the recognition it deserves in a year that was absolutely stacked.
How can anyone say any game is undeserving of winning GOTY at TGA? That is as close to a worldwide sample of opinions as we can get in the mainstream. It's not like the votes were decided by a jury of six people or something. And unless the majority of media outlets didn't/weren't able to play TOTK and/or the other nominees - almost impossible especially for TOTK - then it's simply a case that the majority of them liked another game more. Anybody's free to disagree with the choice as much as they want of course, although anyone doing so must at the bare minimum have played whatever won the GOTY. I know from talking to people disagreeing in other forums over the years that that isn't always the case. But you can't say "robbed" in reference to the award.
TotK has won around 20% of all the GOTYs tabulated in the Era thread, including quite a few high profile outlets. That's not an "outlier."
That said, both TotK and BG3 had great showings in this poll and are clearly both beloved games. I vote that we celebrate that instead of all the thinly-veiled console warring ITT.
Absolutely deserved top spot for TotK, unforgettable experience.
Awesome list and work also, congrats and thank you:).
The party games award list is all bangers and although party animals is fun, Wario is much more encompassing imo.
Headbangers is also a wonderful idea with a dreadful execution, could have been one most Fun game ever, such a let down.
Jackbox was not the best iteration but still quite enjoyable.
… Everybody switch not even there lol, understandable
Awesome list and work also, congrats and thank you:).
The party games award list is all bangers and although party animals is fun, Wario is much more encompassing imo.
Headbangers is also a wonderful idea with a dreadful execution, could have been one most Fun game ever, such a let down.
Jackbox was not the best iteration but still quite enjoyable.
… Everybody switch not even there lol, understandable
Homies with the best taste post here what else can you say
The part in Alan Wake 2 where
I haven't seen anyone else talking about it and it's kind of driving me crazy lol
you meet Sam Lake playing the actor who plays Alex Casey tied to a chair was absolutely insane. The man can literally do anything!
Based on the amount of people who played TotK vs other games, the votes makes sense. I'm glad people enjoy it, even though I didn't.
Even if you order the games in this poll by points divided by votes to filter out popularity bias, TOTK ranks #3. At the end of the day, one has to admit that a lot of people really liked the game.
Thanks to the staff for running this event again, and good to see participation has increased year-over-year! My main surprises were how relatively low Forza Motorsport ended up given that series' reputation, and like many others I also figured Baldur's Gate 3 would win handily. Regardless of the order though, 2023 was super stacked. I didn't play any of the top 20, but definitely hope to catch up with some of them.
Neat angle to approach this from, thanks for running these numbers! I wonder if in such a busy year the niche releases simply got crowded out by the big hitters?
Neat angle to approach this from, thanks for running these numbers! I wonder if in such a busy year the niche releases simply got crowded out by the big hitters?
Kinda forgot about this tbh. BG3 deserved the top spot imo, but I get we have a lot of Nintendo fans on here.
I just hope the industry sees how popular stuff like BG3 can be when done correctly. It would be nice to see more of that than the usual cookie cutter MTX money grabs we see all too often. It's possible to have a game be financially and critically successful without milking your customers or cutting corners.
I just hope the industry sees how popular stuff like BG3 can be when done correctly. It would be nice to see more of that than the usual cookie cutter MTX money grabs we see all too often. It's possible to have a game be financially and critically successful without milking your customers or cutting corners.
TotK didn't win because of "Nintendo fans." Nintendo fans are arguably the ones most critical of TotK because they want a return to the classic style of Zelda. And if anything, being a console exclusive limits its reach compared to a multiplat that was in early access for years.
TotK is an incredibly high-quality game -- more complex in its detailed systems than just about any action-adventure game ever (the interlocking physics, chemistry, materials logic, air flow, timespace recording; not to mention being able to combine everything, climb everything, rewind them, phase through them; and the game being intelligently crafted around all this). It's vast at three open worlds deep, all seamlessly connected, and rich in content with no microtransactions and no DLC (took me 250 hours to clear all dungeons, shrines, etc).
TotK has BG3-like gameplay complexity while being an action game you control in real time without taking turns or relying on dice rolls, a game where everything is interactive and there are very few limits. We would be lucky to see games like TotK more often than once every six years.
Definitely, this game was a masterpiece that the fans have been nitpicky about when the actual depth on offer is incredible. I have my own shortlist of shortcomings with ToTK
I recognize the quality of tears of the kingdom, but it's not correct to say that the complexity is anything like BG3. The latter has a deep C&C system (and a LOT of effort put into edge cases) that ToTK just doesn't have.
I personally think BG3 is head and shoulders above ToTK, though I may feel more warmly if there's a 4k60 patch for ToTK on the Switch 2.
I only played through TotK once, closing in on the end of my second BG3 playthrough and planning a third honour one. And still probably agree with the TotK win. I'm (obviously) really liking BG3, but none of it reached the highs that TotK presented. Whether that was the Mineru questline, climbing up to the Sky Temple, or tracking the Zelda dragon and pulling the Master Sword from her hair. Or just fusing twenty wooden boards together and walking around with a makeshift portable bridge for all the islands, feeling like a god lol.
Those were just some freaking magical moments man. All based on simply amazing level, gameplay and game mechanic design.
How much love and care was put into BG3 is just phenomenal. Unbelievable. But TotK was just smoother, more complex in other ways, and a bit more fun.
And it didn't have me reach my level cap when I still had about a quarter of the game to go. :(
Those were just some freaking magical moments man. All based on simply amazing level, gameplay and game mechanic design.
How much love and care was put into BG3 is just phenomenal. Unbelievable. But TotK was just smoother, more complex in other ways, and a bit more fun.
And it didn't have me reach my level cap when I still had about a quarter of the game to go. :(
both games pretty much do the same thing at their core: they're pretty open experiences and let the player mess around with their mechanics.
we just did some really fucking goofy shit that i was sure was gonna break the game in bg3 in a multiplayer run a few weeks back and then last week we went back for even more stupid carnage. like the way the game lets you just get away with stuff is fantastic.
act 3 spoilers:
we went into gortash's coronation, murdered only him, and only one of us escaped alive. then last week we went back, kited all the steel watchers into one spot, and blew em all up. we're level ten.
and i'm still finding shit. i've done a good run, an evil run, a good durge run, a bad durge run, a shadowheart run, and i'm in the middle of a karlach run and the multiplayer run. somehow there's still more things to do and see despite the hundreds of hours i've put into it. before bg3, i played one campaign of d&d that went on for three years and we never reached the end. we just stopped gathering for it because jesus christ. bg3, especially with friends, makes me realize what is actually fun about the experience.
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now tears of the kingdom only got one playthrough from me, but it was 200 hours. i don't do that for a single run of any game. the last one that came close was xenoblade chronicles x (and for somewhat similar reasons). what i got out of it was what others got out of breath of the wild. breath of the wild is... fine... for me. it's not my favorite zelda by a long shot. the dungeons are kind of a let down, the world isn't empty - but it wasn't compelling enough for me to explore. the story has link wake up from a death coma as an amnesiac and people mostly don't know who he is or what he's doing (which can lead to some funny conversation moments).
tears of the kingdom makes its differences known from the start. you aren't waking up from a regeneration pod and heading out into the wild. you are descending into the depths with zelda. and just that small change was enough for me to give a shit this time. even better - as you're playing the game, there's all kinds of people from your past adventure who remember you. i felt compelled to actually go to kakariko and see how things were holding up because i realized i had some level of concern for those folk. then there's a lot to do on the overworld. the quests, helping the sign guy with little physics puzzles, taking pictures for stables, fighting dragons - it had me feeling like i was in the middle of some fantasy action-adventure story. what didn't work for me in botw actually clicked here.
there was a time where i had to get an orb to a place but i didn't have a lot of hearts and the guardian protecting the orb was way too strong. so i conjured a quick way out through a rocket and a glider and put the orb on it to ge the fuck out before the guardian could crush me to death. i could have fought it for the orb instead, but the game gave me the option for a daring escape and i took it. i once had tried to climb to the top of a sky island, almost completely ran out of stamina, and then plunged down to earth - except this was an island situated right above a chasm. without stamina, i had to let link act like a spear down through the chasm, narrowly missing rocks that lined the sides until just the faintest amount of light indicated the ground. i let out the glider, using the last bit of my stamina and successfully made it into the underground. and because i'm that lucky, i happened to land right next to a massive frog boss that i couldn't see, so this turned into a quick dash for safety with barely any sort of guiding light.
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we were really fortunate that the teams at larian and nintendo have strong creative visions and the time to polish their craft. the fact we got two games as special as they are in a single year is incredible.
I don't think it would have worked well as a real time game. Larian has a lot of expertise making TB combat and they made a choice to focus on that enabling them to invest heavily on improving presentation and filling the game with enough content for people to be doing 150 hour first time runs while having enough content left for at least two other playthroughs.
Had they gone real time with pause either the combat would have been pretty mediocre or they would have had to invest a lot more of time (hence less money for content and mocap) into it to make it decent. Not worth it and tbh most people seem to have loved it as it is judging by the huge amount of communities that have chosen it as goty and how close it was here.
I also don't think many D&D games have had co-op, it's just not a big thing in CRPGs at all. BG3 has it only because it's a Larian staple, although I see how the TB nature of it can make it hard to digest for some potential co-op mates.
After finally finishing the game I can wholeheartedly agree. BotW is my favorite game of all time currently but that TotK climax….holy shit.
Very very shocked TotK managed to win, for me BG3 had it in the bag.
I'm still in awe Nintendo managed to do such an open ended game with little to no bugs, developers with their jaw dropped at the things you can do without breaking the game just speaks for itself. I still think reusing the overworld hurt the game, or at least the perception of it, because it seems its not that new, when it really is.
Also I'm very sad Cereza and the lost Demon got completely lost in... well, everything. It really should receive some sort of acknowledgment at least for art direction, what a gorgeous game.
I'm still in awe Nintendo managed to do such an open ended game with little to no bugs, developers with their jaw dropped at the things you can do without breaking the game just speaks for itself. I still think reusing the overworld hurt the game, or at least the perception of it, because it seems its not that new, when it really is.
Also I'm very sad Cereza and the lost Demon got completely lost in... well, everything. It really should receive some sort of acknowledgment at least for art direction, what a gorgeous game.
I was surprised how much the map reuse bothered people. They added significant new zones and did a lot to make the original areas feel fresh, from dotting the landscape with caves to find and significantly remodeling several of the cities to just structuring the story in a way that encouraged you to do it all in a very different order. It wasn't as though you couldn't clearly see all the new stuff the development time went towards.
I really thought tech and performance would be its Achilles' heel, but they managed to keep that to a pretty impressive minimum, while also pulling off such programming stunts with the powers that the game feels like a technical marvel even running at low resolution and frame rate on a years-old budget tablet.
I completely forgot to vote, would have voted for BG3, Cyberpunk, and Alan Wake 2 as my favourites. Street Fighter 6, Armoured Core too. Great to see them all represented.
I wanted to love TotK, but just find these new Zelda games a bit of a drag. I don't know why, I love the open world design elements, and the powers were very cool.
Still, can't argue with any of the placements. A damn fine year.
I wanted to love TotK, but just find these new Zelda games a bit of a drag. I don't know why, I love the open world design elements, and the powers were very cool.
Still, can't argue with any of the placements. A damn fine year.
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