The Specialty Awards, for lack of a better term for it, are awards for games that excel in a particular way that has nothing to do with their genre or any technical part of the game, but that I still feel deserves to be singled out for doing something above and beyond what most games offer, whether that is a particularly good port or collection, the best game for kids, best multiplayer, or simply the game that made me laugh the most. These are games that put in an extra special effort in places that deserve to be recognized for it.
As mentioned previously, today’s nominees include any games released in 2023, even those released on other platforms before 2021. Also, awards like the 2022 Second Chance Awards and Most played Games of 2023 awards are not restricted to games released this year at all, because of what these categories represent. Anyway, on to the awards!
Note: You can listen to a podcast where Jenn and I discuss these awards! Check it out here!
- 2022 Second Chance Awards
- The Top 10 Games I Wish I Could Have Played Before Writing This, But Didn’t Get Around to Doing In Time
- Best Port / Remake
- Best Compilation / Collection
- Best Sequel
- Best Game for Kids and Casual Players
- Best Multiplayer
- Best New Free-To-Play Game
- Best Value
- Funniest Game
- Most Underrated
- Most Overlooked
- Most Original
- Most Efficient Use of File Storage Space
- The “Wow, this game was way better than I expected!” Award
- Best Third-Party Publisher
- Top 10 Games That Would Win a Lot More Awards This Week if They Weren’t Disqualified Due to How Old Their Original Release is
- My Top 10 Most-Played Games of 2023
- My Top 10 Most-Anticipated Games of 2024
- Did Last Year’s Top 10 Most-Anticipated Games Meet Expectations?
- Additional Commentary!
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2022 Second Chance Awards
What follows are games that came out in 2022, but I didn’t get around to playing them until 2023, after doing my 2022 Game Awards. As such, these games did not win any awards from me, but after coming back to them I felt they still deserved recognition. These are the top 10 games that would have been most likely to have been nominated (or even win!) awards in 2022 if I had actually played them that year:
10. Yars: Recharged
8. Lost in Play
7. Tunic
6. Melatonin
4. Inscryption
3. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
2. The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
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The Top 10 Games I Wish I Could Have Played Before Writing This, But Didn’t Get Around to Doing In Time
I’m never going to be able to play every game that comes out in a given year, and some of the games I tend to miss tend to be some of the bigger releases, sadly. However, just to show that I’m well aware of the stuff I’m missing, here is my list of the top ten games I wish I could have played in time for this article, but haven’t been able to get around to:
10. Tin Hearts
9. Rune Factory 3 Special
8. Brok the InvestiGator
7. Cassette Beasts
6. Chants of Sennaar
5. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
4. The Case of the Golden Idol
3. Born of Bread
2. Final Fantasy I-VI Pixel Remaster Collection
1. Super Mario RPG
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Best Port / Remake
Metroid Prime Remastered – Metroid Prime remains, in my opinion, one of the greatest games of all-time, and Nintendo could have easily gotten away with just re-releasing the original GameCube game without changing anything and it still would have been warmly welcomed. However, instead of taking this easy path, they reworked the game’s visuals to the point this was arguably a remake rather than a remaster, they included multiple control schemes to cover just about every possibility, and also threw in a gallery of extras. Multiple games in 2023 gave a classic a wonderful port or remake on Nintendo Switch, but Metroid Prime is a cut above the rest because Nintendo took an absolute masterpiece and somehow made it even better.
Runners-Up:
Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe
Star Ocean: The Second Story R
Advance Wars 1 + 2 Re-Boot Camp
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Best Compilation / Collection
Advance Wars 1 + 2 Re-Boot Camp – It’s wonderful to finally see the Advance Wars series get a new game after so many years of waiting, and in this collection we received two absolute classic games in a full new remake that does these great Strategy games justice. other bundles in 2023 gave gamers a good deal, or brought back beloved classics. Advance Wars 1 + 2 Re-Boot Camp did both of those things while also ensuring that these are the best versions of the included games.
Runners-Up:
Quake + Quake II Enhanced Bundle
Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection
Draknek & Friends Puzzle Bundle (6 Games)
Persona 3 Portable + Persona 4 Golden Bundle
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Best Sequel
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – When Nintendo announced they were working on a direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, everyone wondered, just how do you follow up one of the greatest games of all-time? What’s more, how do you keep it fresh and interesting while asking players to explore what is essentially the same world? To make a worthy successor, it seemed like Nintendo would have to do the impossible… and they did. Whether it’s crafting your own crazy vehicles, rocketing up to the highest sky islands, or plunging down into The Depths, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom recontextualized Breath of the Wild in ways that made the entire experience new and refreshing all over again. How could I not give this award to such an impossible feat?
Runners-Up:
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Best Game for Kids and Casual Players
Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Fewer games are easy to plop a younger or less-experienced gamer in front of than a 2D Mario game, and this year Nintendo took that highly-accessible experience and infused it with enough variety and creativity to ensure that the game kept things interesting throughout its length, and older players playing the game with their kid could even help out in multiplayer without getting in the way. This is a Wonder that pretty much anyone can enjoy.
Runners-Up:
Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe
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Best Multiplayer
Trombone Champ – Trombone Champ is a game that’s pretty silly in single-player, but it really shines in multiplayer, where the absolute cacophony of toots that only loosely resembles the song in question makes for a truly delightful Party Game that’s sure to get your group giggling. If you played this game with friends, you almost certainly had a good time doing it.
Runners-Up:
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Best New Free-To-Play Game
Palia – While it’s a bit lacking as a port, Palia nevertheless provides players with a huge world to explore and tons of things to do. What’s more, this is the first MMO on Nintendo Switch that I feel actually fulfils at least some of the potential of that genre. And being free to play certainly makes it easier to jump right into it!
Runners-Up:
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Best Value
Vampire Survivors ($5) – A genre-defining game, one that many have pointed to as being Game of the Year caliber, and one that countless other games have been scrambling to try to copy (rarely with any success)… and it’s only five bucks? Sometimes I have to weigh options for this award, but not this year – Vampire Survivors is an easy pick for best value on Nintendo Switch in 2023.
Runners-Up:
Quake + Quake II Enhanced Bundle ($15)
This Way Madness Lies ($10)
Sanabi ($15)
Alekon ($16)
Minit Fun Racer ($3)
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Funniest Game
WarioWare: Move It! – I think people take it for granted how funny the WarioWare games are because that’s just what we’ve come to expect from the series. Yet here we are in 2023 with a game that has players making a curtsy to greet a lady, unclogging toilets, searching a grocery store object for a bar code, wiggling like a piece of seaweed to hide from a shark, leaning around to get a princess to poop out a poison apple… and just for old times’ sakes, using your tiny fists to clog up a giant nose. WarioWare is just as ridiculous as ever, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Runners-Up:
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Most Underrated
This is the award for the game I feel was most wronged by its Metacritic score.
Fae Farm (77) – While 77 isn’t a terrible score, I felt that Fae Farm deserved far better, being one of the best “Farming RPG”-style games I have ever played, and truly delivering on the genre’s great, “cozy” gameplay while offering tons of variety. This is a game I felt needed to be celebrated, and 77 hardly seems a fitting celebration to me.
Runners-Up:
Disney Speedstorm (65)
Samba De Amigo: Party Central (71)
WarioWare: Move It! (75)
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Most Overlooked
This year, I am looking at both Metacritic and OpenCritic to determine which games were most overlooked by critics. Specifically, this award is for truly great games that haven’t gotten Metacritic scores on Nintendo Switch (or at all) and/or an OpenCritic score, because not enough reviewers actually played the thing.
Alekon (No Metacritic score for any platform, no OpenCritic score) – Perhaps it’s this game’s unusual name, but even so I’m shocked that so few have been singing its praises. There’s really no excuse for it, either – this game came out on PC in 2021! That’s more than enough time for everyone to try out one of the best takes on the Pokemon Snap formula I’ve ever seen.
Runners-Up:
Sixtar Gate: Startrail (No Metacritic score for any platform, no OpenCritic score)
Fishing Vacation (No Metacritic score for any platform, no OpenCritic score)
Minit Fun Racer (No Metacritic score for any platform, no OpenCritic score)
Sanabi (No Metacritic score for Nintendo Switch)
Backpack Hero (No Metacritic score for Nintendo Switch)
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Most Original
Backpack Hero – There were quite a few games this year that explored new ideas or recontextualized old ones, but Backpack Hero did something truly brave and took an old game mechanic that many players despise, inventory management, and made it the centerpiece if its gameplay, expanding on it and making it something truly remarkable. This willingness to rethink even the worst parts of videogames to think of ways those maligned gameplay elements could be transformed into something wonderful is truly commendable, and I feel we should be encouraging it every chance we get.
Runners-Up:
Squad 51 Vs. The Flying Saucers
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Most Efficient Use of File Storage Space
Nuclear Blaze (155 MB) – When I was writing this game’s review and looked up its file size, I think I did a double-take. This game looks way too good to be so small. While pixel art visuals and no spoken dialogue surely contribute to the small size, the real wonder here is the way the game depicts fire, the way it moves and spreads. That such a visual treat has been squeezed into such a small package is a true feat of engineering.
Runners-Up:
Tents and Trees (151MB)
Patrick’s Parabox (218MB)
Alekon (1.4GB)
Dredge (1.3GB)
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The “Wow, this game was way better than I expected!” Award
Alekon – Prior to playing this game, I had heard nothing about it. To me, it looked like something whimsical and kid-friendly involving taking photographs, not bad, but I certainly wasn’t expecting anything impressive. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this to be a highly-polished, imaginative, creative take on the Pokemon Snap formula that in many ways manages to outdo Nintendo’s own franchise. In a year with plenty of delightful surprises, Alekon is the one that most exceeded my expectations.
Runners-Up:
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Best Third-Party Publisher
Just a note – this award is not about the way these companies conduct themselves behind the scenes. Rather, this award only pertains to which companies most consistently brought out great games on the Nintendo Switch in 2022.
Sega – (Two Point Hospital and Two Point Campus Double Pack, Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 3 Portable & Persona 4 Golden Bundle, Persona Collection, Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection, Etrian Odyssey HD, Etrian Odyssey II HD, Etrian Odyssey III HD, Samba De Amigo: Party Central, Sonic Superstars) – Fun fact: Sega has consistently made the list of runners-up all four prior years of eShopperReviews Game Awards, but this is the first time they won. No one game really put it over the top this year, either – it was just a continual onslaught of great game after great game. We finally have a complete set of all modern mainline Persona games on Nintendo Switch, some decent (if a bit disappointing) remakes of the original Etrian Odyssey trilogy, one of the best Music-Rhythm games of the year, and a Sonic game that, while I felt it was overrated, was still good. Nintendo’s former rival has become one of its greatest allies, and it definitely deserves recognition for this.
Runners-Up:
Square Enix – Octopath Traveler II, Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, PowerWash Simulator, Star Ocean: The Second Story R
Annapurna Interactive – Cocoon, Outer Wilds
Team 17 – Dredge, Blasphemous 2, Blasphemous + Blasphemous 2 Bundle
Devolver Digital – The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, Minit Fun Racer
Chucklefish – Wildfrost, Wargroove 2, Wargroove + Wargroove 2 Bundle
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Top 10 Games That Would Win a Lot More Awards This Week if They Weren’t Disqualified Due to How Old Their Original Release is
9. Quake II
8. We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie
7. Advance Wars 1 + 2 Re-Boot Camp
6. Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe
5. Star Ocean: The Second Story R
4. Outer Wilds
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My Top 10 Most-Played Games of 2023
This is according to Nintendo’s own Year in Review page, which only includes stats through November 30. Here are my top 10:
10. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line (13 Hours)
9. Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe (13 Hours)
8. Vampire Survivors (13 Hours)
7. Sea of Stars (15 Hours)
6. Let’s Build a Zoo (17 Hours)
5. Crush Crush (17 Hours)
4. Atari Flashback Classics (18 Hours)
3. Slay the Spire (42 Hours)
2. Chained Echoes (72 Hours)
1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (223 Hours)
Mostly, I’m not surprised by this list, although I definitely do not remember playing that much Slay the Spire (though it’s easy to melt hours away with that game). I also don’t remember putting 13 hours into Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe.
However, 223 hours on Zelda? That sounds about right – I found all the shrines and lightroots, got a decent number of koroks, and spent quite a lot of time making death machines.
72 hours on Chained Echoes? Definitely. This game sucked me in far more than I ever expected, truly channeling 16- and 32-bit RPGs in the absolute best ways.
17 Hours on Crush Crush? As with last year, being an “idle game” meant I would frequently pop this game up through the first half of the year… but not the second. I would wager this is the last year you’ll see Crush Crush on this list. While it was an amusing way to pass the time, progress slowed to a crawl to the point where I was no longer entertained by the prospect of “number go up”.
18 hours on Atari Flashback classics? Ugh, yeah. I really did play every single one of this collection’s 150 games, the majority of which were absolutely awful. That’s how much I love you guys…
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My Top 10 Most-Anticipated Games of 2024
10. Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story
9. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy
8. Braid: Anniversary Edition
7. Princess Peach: Showtime!
6. Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution
5. The Gecko Gods
4. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
3. Blade Chimera
2. Hades II
1. Metroid Prime 4
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Did Last Year’s Top 10 Most-Anticipated Games Meet Expectations?
10. Pikmin 4 – Mostly it did, though I’m a tad disappointed in the multiplayer.
9. Persona 3 Portable & Persona 4 Golden Bundle – Persona 4 did! Persona 3 mostly did.
8. Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon – I’m not sure I had much in the way of expectations for this one, but I liked it.
7. Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection – This was a pretty good collection! But I forgot how samey all the games in this series are.
6. Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key – Yes and no. It was a solid final entry in the trilogy, but it didn’t impress me in the way the earlier Ryza games did.
5. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line – I think it did, though I do wish it had touchscreen support.
4. Sea of Stars – I think it did, yes.
3. Octopath Traveler II – Mostly, yes, though I still wish its main characters interacted with each other more.
2. Hades 2 – Not released yet. it’s number 2 on this year’s list too!
1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – I think it’s fair to say it met expectations, and possibly exceeded them!
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Additional Commentary!
Just going to comment on the categories I feel like I have more to add.
2022 Second Chance Awards
I cannot express how much I enjoyed Chained Echoes. In fact, if it were released this year, it would absolutely blow away Sea of Stars, which I still thoroughly enjoyed, but nowhere near as much as I enjoyed Chained Echoes.
Also, I should note that I made a choice not to include Splatoon 3 on this list even though I gave it a higher grade than many of the games on this list. That is because I felt that most of what that game did well were things that Splatoon 2 already did, and including it here would feel like awarding the same game twice, even though Splatoon 3 did indeed have multiple improvements that made it superior.
You may notice this same attitude at play later in the week, as well…
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Top 10 Games I Wish I Could Have Played Before Writing This, But Didn’t Get Around to Doing In Time
This list looked completely different before all the games I reviewed in December. I should note that the Batman Arkham Collection, Metal Gear Solid Collection, and Red Dead Redemption are all not on this list either because I heard the port was flawed, or in Red Dead’s case because the price tag was just way too high. And I know I love the Batman Arkham and Metal Gear Solid games anyway, so it’s not like playing it on Nintendo Switch will change my mind on those games.
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Best Port/Remake
There were a lot of really good contenders in this category this year. Quake II was so very close to winning this award – the amount of extra content, options, and the quality of that port made it an absolute shining example for others to follow when porting older games. However, Quake II may be a classic game, but Metroid Prime is an absolute legend. If it wasn’t a port from an older platform, Metroid Prime could have been a Game of the Year contender this year. However, the age of its original release means it’s disqualified for that award, so it will have to settle for this one instead.
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Best Multiplayer
I briefly considered giving this award to WarioWare: Move It!. Honestly, WarioWare and Trombone Champ are both neck and neck for both this award and Funniest Game award in my opinion.
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Best Free-to-Play Game
If anyone’s wondering why Palia won this award over Pinball M, it’s because even though Pinball M does a decent job to set itself apart from earlier Zen Studios Pinball games, it does still feel like it’s using the same formula. Palia, meanwhile, is entirely new, and even if it stumbles a bit in its Nintendo Switch release, I feel it holds much more promise in the long-term.
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Most Underrated
I wanted to make special note of Disney Speedstorm, a game that was sabotaged by its publisher’s greed and stupidity. While this game is certainly far from perfect (the rubber-banding here is horrible), it’s still overall a well-crafted and enjoyable Racing game that was overloaded with gross monetization… and then released at a premium price. Reviewers were displeased, and with good reason – this game was a rip-off. But after a few months went by, the game went free-to-play, and while the monetization was still gross, this was nevertheless a lot more reasonable. But by that point, the damage was done. The reviews were in, and this game was already forgotten by the general public. So in a way, this game deserves its terrible score for trying to scam consumers, but the game as it exists now is better than this score implies.
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Best Third-Party Publisher
Other publishers that came close to being a runner-up for this award included Chorus Worldwide Games (A Space for the Unbound, Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly) and Capcom (The Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection games and Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective).
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My Top 10 Most-Played Games of 2023
I should note that Disgaea 7 would have taken the number 4 spot if this list counted hours through to the end of the year, as I played at least 19 hours of that game.
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That’s all for today! to keep up with all of the eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards, be sure to check back at the Awards’ Start Page, which I’ll be updating throughout the week!
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