20.
Pseudoregalia
[Best goat] [Best jumping] [Best wall kick]
A charming N64 inspired 3D platformer, with a focus on movement and chaining moves to reach places your own way. My only gripes were the abrupt/anticlimactic ending, and there's one
little tuba playing enemy that was so cute I couldn't bring myself to hurt them ever. Don't put cute enemies in games! It's uncomfortable!
8/10
19.
The Invincible
[Best visuals] [Best voice acting] [Best sci-fi] [Best skyboxes]
Awesome walking sim with a wonderful retro future aesthetic. Heavy in atmosphere and quiet exploration. I only wish it didn't trick you so much with seemingly giving choices but if you
were to replay you'd find all the options lead to mostly the same outcome anyway. That said, there ARE some actual choices and consequences here and there, they're just mixed it with
a bunch of fake choices. Still! Cool game! Not a very feel good story tho! Great stuff!
8/10
18.
Venba
[Best food] [Best visuals] [Best music] [Most heartbreaking text messages] [The Made Qwarky Cry Award for making Qwarky cry]
Lovely and heartbreaking little story of cultures, legacy, food and a family falling apart and maybe coming together again. Light on gameplay, but definitely a memorable and emotional
experience for all the senses. Incredible soundtrack and absolutely wonderful food makes it a treat.
8/10
17.
Stasis: Bone Totem
[Bleakest game] [Most bones] [Most totems] [Most brave and strong bear]
The bleak, BLEAK world of Stasis continues, and it's bleaker than ever. Everything is fucked up and horrific and there are no happy endings. An absolutely bad time is had for all,
and it's awful. Great stuff.
8/10
16.
Resident Evil 4 (2023)
[Best shotgun] [Best bingo] [Best minecart]
I did not have huge hopes for this and it turned out to be quite alright. It's a great game, and it's certainly interesting to see the RE4 story fit into the modern remake tone.
I'm interested in seeing what they will do next with the series, but I hope it's more third person and puzzles, and less shooty bang and/or first person spooks.
8/10
15.
A Highland Song
[Best Moira] [Best hills] [Best music]
Inkle does it again with a lovely little trip over scottish highlands, through folk tales and legends. I can't say I love the very ending, but it's a very pleasant and memorable
journey that you will want to take several times. Incredible use of music, and some of the prettiest hills you'll see all year.
8/10
14.
Cookie Cutter
[Best animation] [Best Cherry] [Best parry] [Most violence]
A heady and ultraviolent metroidlike with incredible and macabre animations and lots of fun exploration and combat. Kind of abrupt cliffhangery ending aside, this was a total
delight from an extremely talented developer who I definitely want to see what they do next.
8/10
13.
Oxenfree II: Lost Signals
[Best writing] [Best dialogue] [Best voice acting] [Best Riley] [Best Jacob] [Best Nick] [Best music] [The Made Qwarky Cry Award for making Qwarky cry]
It's not the followup I was hoping, and I struggled (a lot) to find the kind of closure it was meant to provide, but it is still a wonderful game and in typical Night School fashion
an extremely engaging story with flowing natural dialogue and likeable characters. Another absolute banger of a score from SCNTFC. Very emotional and hardhitting themes,
I just wish it had nailed the ending(s) in a more satisfying manner. Unless of course they ARE actually planning on making another game ohmygodguysithinkgifinallyfigured-
8/10
12.
Planet of Lana
[Best Mui] [Best visuals] [Best music]
Lovely cinematic platformer with some amazing sights and sounds and setpieces, and a very satisfying ending. I feel like they could have done a bit more with pacing and variety
in gameplay, but it remains a very nice "short but sweet" game. Looking forward to seeing what the team does next!
8/10
11.
Dordogne
[Best visuals] [Best flashbacks] [The Made Qwarky Cry Award for making Qwarky cry]
Fond and heartbreaking childhood memories in the french countryside. A lovely little adventure game with an incredible visual style and an emotional little story in the core.
But mostly you're just gonna be gawking at the incredible visuals.
8/10
10.
Showgunners
[Best gameshow] [Best interludes] [Best tactics] [Best Scarlett]
Really enjoyable ultraviolent romp through a messed up gameshow, with a fun story and engaging tactical combat. The ending is really satisfying, but I wouldn't mind seeing
a new story continuing after the first game.
8/10
9.
Alan Wake 2
[Best horror] [Best meta] [Best Saga] [Best Alex] [Best Alan] [Best musical interlude]
I dunno what to say about AW2 that people haven't already said. It's great. I loved parts of it, but not all of them, so it's not higher on my list. Aside from the non-ending
and treatment of one particular character from AW1, it was excellent stuff all around. Remedy just kinda struggles on how to wrap up their games, it's been a thing for
over a decade now. Still, exciting to see how much people love AW2, and I can't wait to see their next game.
8/10
8.
En Garde!
[Best Adalia] [Best fencing] [Best El Vigilante] [Best slapstick]
Delightful swashbuckling adventure in the spirit of Zorro and The Princess Bride, with tons of quips and cheeky anarchy. Easily one of the most unabashedly charming games all year.
8/10
7.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
[Best visuals] [Best music] [Best grinding] [Best flips]
The spiritual followup to Jet Set Radio we were hoping for and it's a delight. I had a wonderful time just comboing and grinding as I explored everywhere, finding all the
outfits and records. The actual story didn't quite land for me as I'd hoped, but it's still a lot of fun to follow and just a joy to play. I even got the DLC cause I
gotta have my girl Jett in the game. Excited to see what Team Reptile will do next!
8/10
6.
Teslagrad 2
[Best visuals] [Best animation] [Best Scandivania] [Best Lumina] [Best music]
Excellent metroid-like with some gorgeous animation and really satisfying movement. This one has been criminally overlooked this year, especially with how much of an
improvement on the first game it is. Would love to see a third game!
9/10
5.
Hi-Fi RUSH
[Best visuals] [Best music] [Best boss fights] [Best guitar] [Best 808] [Best Peppermint] [Best use of Prodigy] [Best use of Nine Inch Nails]
Joyful character action game with a wonderful visual style and terrific use of music both in combat, cutscenes and especially bossfights.
A wonderful cast of characters, great and inventive setpieces and just a whole lot of fun gags, details and clever ideas. A celebration of video games,
the power of music and killing a bunch of corporate executives. Delightful!
9/10
4.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
[Best Mario] [Best Peach] [Best music] [Best animation] [Most platforming] [Best multiplayer]
It's the best Mario platformer since 3D World, and a worthy successor to Super Mario World. Pure, imaginative joy, with inventive level design, great music and a delightful
visual style, the game gets very trippy and it's all the better for it. Bonus points for an absolutely lovely indirect shared co-operative online play, that was just a perfect fit
for the game, complete strangers rooting for each other and helping others out just because it's better that way. Wonderful!
9/10
3.
Jusant
[Best climbing] [Best rocks] [Best music] [Best architecture] [Best stamina management] [The Made Qwarky Cry Award for making Qwarky cry]
Lovely, lovely Jusant. Gorgeous sights and sounds. Engaging climbing and exploration. Wonderful wordless narrative and rich world building. In any other year, this could
have easily been my favourite game of the year, but this year was PACKED. Play Jusant. It's SO good.
9/10
2.
Misericorde: Volume One
[Best writing] [Best characters] [Best music] [Best visuals] [Best Darcy] [Best Margaret] [Best sheep] [Best nuns] [Best wehehe] [The Made Qwarky Cry Award for making Qwarky cry]
There's hardly anything to "play" in this visual novel, but I don't give a shit, I loved Misericorde so fucking much it's up there as my second favourite thing all year.
Such an engaging story, so many compelling, fleshed out characters you grow to care so much about. STRONG atmosphere and tone. An absolutely incredible soundtrack that
I've bought both on steam and on bandcamp, just to support XEECEE. The cliffhanger-y ending has been AGONY, waiting for the next chapter, but thankfully we have
a teaser for Volume Two and it's looking incredible. I am ready to have my heart torn to shreds again! no I'm not, I'm just kidding because I'm terrified where the story
is gonna go oh god-
9/10
1.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
[Game of the Year] [Best Zelda] [Best sidequests] [Best visuals] [Best music] [Best ending] [Best final boss] [Best exploration] [Best climbing] [Best gliding] [Best Purah]
[Best Tulin] [Best Harold] [Most grass] [Most sky] [Best swords] [Best dragons]
It's a little daunting trying to think of what to say about Tears of the Kingdom. What a magnificent game. I put 212 hours into it and I generally struggle to stick with games
for longer than 20, so it had to be doing something right. As much as I loved Breath of the Wild (it was the Qwarky Game of the Year 2017 after all), Tears of the Kingdom
took that, and elevated and elaborated and finetuned all of that to a whole new level.
Wonderful sense of exploration and discovery, very strong atmosphere and world building, surprisingly compelling and well written sidequests, and so much things to discover
and wonder at. The new abilities are all great fun and open up the world and encourage your curiosity and imagination in wonderful new ways. It looks and sounds gorgeous,
and in a complete reversal from BOTW, actually provides an amazing and satisfying finale that wraps up everything in such a wonderful way, I was crying at the end.
This is my favourite Zelda game since Ocarina, and while I hope the next one moves a bit back towards more traditional (older) Zelda dungeon design and structure, this is
one of the best open world games, and one of the best Zelda games ever made. I love it. It's enchanting.
Absolutely the best game all year, and I'm still thinking about it pretty much every week.
10/10
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