It's 2023 now, which means everyone has been posting their top games of the year. I don't usually play all that many brand new games, so instead this is my "top 5 games I played for the first time this year". Which is, uh, almost all of the games that could fit in that category. I don't play many new games >.>

5. Stray You play as a cat and do cat-like things, like meowing, scratching up people's carpets and chairs, and knocking shit over. What more is there to say? But also, it's a neat post-apocalyptic world with some interesting worldbuilding choices that slowly reveal themselves over the course of the game. And has some genuinely terrifying enemies. However, the game is pretty short and pretty linear. Sometimes short is good, but I literally beat this game in two sittings. Granted, there are trophies you can collect, but given the fact that the speedrun trophy is to beat the game in under two hours, there really isn't all that much content here. And aside from two hub areas that sprawl out nicely, the rest of the game doesn't have much to explore. What content does exist, though, is excellent. Visually, it's beautiful. Wet things look wet, cat fur looks fuzzy and very pettable, and slimy stuff looks disgusting. The gameplay is always fun, and it was one of the most engrossing games I played this year. For those few hours of playtime, you ARE the cat.

4. Kirby and the Forgotten Land I haven't purchased a Kirby game since... Nightmare in Dreamland, so I'm not so up-to-date with modern Kirby. This new 3D installment feels right, though. The team obviously did a lot of work to make 3D Kirby feel like Kirby, despite the extra dimension. A lot of that comes down to the level design. While there's more room to explore, each level is still set out as a mostly-straightforward set of paths from beginning to end. This doesn't make the game feel boxed-in, though. Each level gives you plenty of hidden things to find on replays, some of which were so hidden I needed to check a walkthrough for them. Speaking of replays, KFL heavily incentivizes replaying levels in a way that I love. Each level has 5 challenges you can complete. Some are basic and universal, like beating the level or collecting 5 Waddle Dees. But others are really unique and make for some fun gameplay challenges, like beating a race in a set time limit, or watering a bunch of flowers. This goes for the bosses, too - there's no-hit challenges, time limits, and requiring specific copy abilities (or no ability). It feels really good to beat each and every one, especially on some of the harder levels. That said, I haven't felt the need to go back to the game after I rage quit in the final colosseum. There's still plenty to do in the postgame, but for some reason it doesn't drive me the way some other games on this list do.

3. Dicey Dungeons I first played this game when it was in beta and could be played free in-browser, and really enjoyed it, enough to come back several times to try the updated versions when they were released. But I didn't think to much about it after the beta was locked for the final push to completion. I re-found the game on the Switch e-shop when I was looking for things to spend my birthday points on and decided to pick it up. I then proceeded to play it the entire weekend I was at my cousin's wedding. I couldn't put it down. It even made me late to the ceremony (sorry!) because I just HAD to finish one more run before we left. The game is mostly the same as its beta version, but more. More character options, more cool enemies, more dialogue, more humor... It's a fantastic little roguelike and you should definitely pick it up and play it.

2. Pokemon Scarlet I couldn't not put Pokemon on the top of this list. Scarlet is a great addition to the series, and I feel like it's one of the best entries the series has had in a long time. Sure, I enjoyed SwSh, SuMo, and even the Let's Go games, but they certainly weren't anything like RSE or B2W2. Scarlet isn't, either, but it does a lot of things well. First, the new Pokemon are really good. I haven't finished the game yet, but I've liked almost all of the new designs I've seen. The new evolution methods add a ton of lore to the Pokemon they affect (Palafin, anyone?), and the concept of Paradox Pokemon is super interesting. And they've brought back some Pokemon that haven't had a lot of love recently, like Gogoat and Sawsbuck. It's a really good roster this time around. Second, story. The series generally isn't too in-depth with their stories. Sure, there's extra lore tucked away in places, but the main storyline is usually just "evil team is trying to capture legendary X to take over the world, stop them while getting all the badges". SV's three-story approach lets the story shine through a lot more. You still have the usual badge collection, but you also have a tale of a boy and his sick dog, and a group of outcasts who got vilified for standing up for themselves. Not to mention Area Zero. And the general worldbuilding is solid, too. The fact that most of the tutorials and exposition are done through lessons at the academy (which are all optional) is brilliant. Third, the music is kickass. You have songs by Toby Fox, sure, and they're brilliant as always. But the non-Toby songs are really good, too. The Team Star themes especially. I don't think I've heard a song yet that I've gotten tired of. But with the good comes the bad. If you've been playing these games or seeing the discourse around them, then you know. There are a ton of bugs, and not just for bug hunters. You can get stuck in walls, you can get stuck falling forever, models will sometimes glitch into weird positions. Multiplayer is especially prone to errors. And the framerate in some areas leaves a lot to be desired. It's obvious this game could have used another few months of work.

1. Pokemon Legends: Arceus And my top game this year is also the first I played. Arceus was a breath of fresh air for the series and really hit it out of the park. It had a semi-open world that looked beautiful. It had interesting new Pokemon despite being a game set in the past. It had a good story. It had completely new battle mechanics. It had Pokemon attacking you. It had boss battles. It had great music. It had almost everything a Pokemon fan could ask for. Almost. Most of the negatives here imo were the result of this being a truly new thing. While the world was open, it was still split into distinct maps with rigid boundaries that fog up your screen if you hit them or even get too close, in some cases. Being set in the past, they decided to add a weird time travel plot that mostly feels tacked on in order to explain why nobody has a big Pokemon team except you and a small handful of powerful people. The new speed-based turn system wasn't explained super well, to the point where most of the time I didn't know why a Pokemon I was facing was getting extra turns that I wasn't. And lastly, the really nice area music was constantly getting interrupted by danger music (which was fine, but annoying after playing for a while). Still, I've had a ton of fun playing it and trying to perfect my Pokedex. 250 hours in, I'm still enjoying the gameplay, especially stealthing around to chuck Pokeballs at things. It's 100% the best Pokemon game I've played in a very long time and I hope the Pokemon Company sees the reception it's gotten and makes tons more of these types of game.