The Games That Got Me Through 2023

I hope you're well!

I'm a simple person, I see something slightly touching on rain world I immediately must consume it

Raz, congrats to you and Lady 🎉 Although a second baby is an adjustment, and yes you have to go through the newborn stage again. It comes with the experience of you have done it before and survived. Also, watching the relationship between my two grow has been one of the best things in my life (aside from meeting my husband).

The way you describe Totk is exactly what I feel ( and I’m sure many others feel ) about the game that I was never able to put into words. It’s so accurate

Your ending summary reminded me of my favorite quote from the Stormlight Archive. "This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you Kaladin: You will be warm again."

Wow, the TOTK section pretty much echoed my exact feelings. I put right about 250 hours in that game over the course of a month or two, and while I expected the more sandboxy design to bring me back over and over again, I haven’t touched it since. It was a spectacular experience, but not a revolutionary one. All it really makes me want to do is go back and play BOTW. Although, if there’s one part of TOTK that was even more memorable than BOTW, it’s the music. Those songs are transcendent. EDIT: Most of the replies to my comment so far are people saying that this doesn't make sense because TOTK is just BOTW with more stuff, or that I'm exaggerating. I've continued to think about this topic a lot since I commented, so allow me to elaborate. I like BOTW more than TOTK, and the reason is pretty simple: BOTW is a perfect game. Now, I'm not saying that BOTW doesn't have flaws. It does. But to me, perfection in a videogame does not mean "flawless", it means "synergistic" or "harmonious". A perfect game is a closed system where every element of its design complements and meshes with some or every other element. BOTW achieved this. It had a beautiful open world with interesting things to do around every corner. It had a simple and satisfying combat system that encouraged exploration through durability. The character-focused, flashback-based story worked no matter what order you experienced it in, making it the perfect fit for an open world game. And the ability to challenge the final boss at any time gave you true freedom in how you decided to play the game. You can see how every major element, from the map to the gameplay to the story to the final boss, was designed to fit in with every other element like cogs in a clock. The problem with perfection is that it's extremely difficult to improve upon. Once you have a closed system of complementary design elements, you can't just add or change anything major because the system was designed from the ground up to work with itself. Some people are confused why you would ever return to BOTW when TOTK is just BOTW with more stuff. But that's exactly the problem. TOTK didn't change the BOTW formula to accommodate all the new stuff it added, it just tacked on more content. The new content is certainly fun, but it doesn't fit as perfectly into the BOTW formula. A great example is the story. TOTKs story uses the same flashback structure as BOTW, but it doesn't work nearly as well. The grander story, with more focus on events than characters, would have been better served by a more linear game. In fact, I restarted my first playthrough dozens of hours in just so I could play through the game in what I felt like was the "right order". I didn't have to do that for BOTW, because BOTW worked hard to make sure any order was the right order. I also want to stress that a huge part of my preference for BOTW over TOTK is that I just don't like the Zonai. The Sheikah were a huge part of Zelda lore already, and BOTW gave them new depth by introducing the Sheikah technology. On the other hand, the Zonai are a brand new Zelda race, yet TOTK told us almost nothing about them, so it's hard to care about them that much. I think I would have liked TOTK much more if the Zonai were an ancient or offshoot tribe of Sheikah instead of just a new aesthetic slapped on the "technologically advanced ancient race" archetype. I have exactly the same issue regarding the Secret Stones vs the Triforce. Finally, I just want to say that I love Tears of the Kingdom. The Zonai devices and new dungeons were very fun and well designed. I just wanted to explain why I prefer Breath of the Wild, and hopefully show people like me why TOTK didn't impact them as much as BOTW.

I haven't played rain world in a while, but that game and ESPECIALLY the downpour DLC, really grabbed me in a way that I really didn't expect. No spoilers, but the way the story and map progress through the timeline across the different campaigns is really interesting and unique. That sense of exploration and new discovery isn't something a lot of games replicate for me. Even when I was almost straight up not having fun there was still always that push to find the next cool thing. Sincerely recommend Downpour, it's so good.

I haven’t been having the best time lately, and I don’t comment too often, but thank you for this Raz. You’re probably my favorite youtuber, and your deep dive into your emotions and experiences resonates very deeply with me. Hope you have a great 2024 with lots of games to get you through it!

By the way, I know the Switch noise was mostly just a segway to the ad, but in case you need the info: that harrowing noise is just the fan that ate through its lubricant, if you fix it quickly it's actually really fast and cheap to repair. I had that happen to my D1 Switch and I thought it was dead but it's actually back and healthy now.

when i first played rain world i hated it but forced myself to finish the game. It so happens that I bought the game together with the downpour dlc, so I started a new game as the artificer and realized how beautiful this game is, and also completed all other campaigns, definitely my favorite game of the year. I'm glad I got through these over 20 hours and had a great time afterwards

Wow, your experience of TOTK was honestly so similar to how I found it. I really enjoyed it and can see that in a lot of ways it’s a much better game, but BOTW made so much more of an impact for me

I do wish, that Silksong would come out this year, but I know that I'm just inhaling a pure COPIUM at this point

as someone who is currently always drowning, and trying to keep my head above water... it was really nice to hear that you were there, and made it to a place where you're not anymore

rainworld is one of those games thats quite hard to judge its visually stunning, well designed, and could be very rewarding, but it is for sure not for everyone i love seeing people try out this game, but when i tried it for myself i just could not get into it

I like how the ending of this video ended up being kinda the antithesis of the name of this series - the games didn't get you through 2023, you did, and they just helped you realise that. Love your content as always, the way you blend your life (while maintaining your privacy) with how the games impacted you is appreciated as its a much more even split than gaming channels would often have you believe, and that split is the beautiful part where life happens ❤ great vid, have a wonderful 2024!

7:14 Good observation. TotK was my 1st intro to Zelda, & so it left a lasting impression on me. It's not the same for folks who played BotW, though.

I have the same desktop image as the thumbnail of this video🙀

Your monologue around Rain World & the fear of uncomfortable/challenging situations hit me at the right time in my life. Moving on from a job I was stuck in and having the fear of a new scenario gripped me for years. Today I started a new job, even if temporary, I felt excited after conquering the new and intimidating situation, even if I felt unready. Congrats on your second child, and embracing what we think we're unprepared for.

Thank you for your videos Raz, I wish we could see your videos more often, but understandably so, completing games + making videos take a long time. You were an inspiration for me to start my own YouTube thing, to better document the games I play. Tons of games get released every year, and as you said, time moves faster as we age and it feels like we can play less and less. Documenting games this way helps me keep games in my memory and try my best to not "look forward to what comes next" while playing a game. Thanks again!

I am so happy that you feel that you have gotten over your feeling of being overwhelmed. I am very happy for you. I am feeling that I am barely surviving as well. Also I am having a baby soon it's my first so I am a bit scared. But knowing that you got through it gives me hope that I will get over it as well. Thank you