While I try to be civil and maintain respectful professional relationships, I’m not afraid to call game companies on their BS when they mess up. While I don’t take joy in crapping on someone else’s hard work, I believe it’s important to point out when a developer or publisher does poorly, in hopes that they can improve in their future efforts. Here are the games that failed spectacularly in one area or another this year.
Note: You can listen to a podcast where Jenn and I discuss these awards! Check it out here!
- Worst Monetization / Scam
- Most Overrated
- Laziest Copycat
- Worst Port / Remake
- Most Overpriced
- The “Who asked for this!?” Award
- The “Why is this taking so much space on my memory card!?” Award
- Most Disappointing
- Nintendo’s Biggest Blunder
- Worst Game
- Additional Commentary!
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Worst Monetization / Scam
Previously, this award was named “Worst Microtransactions”, but we have expanded it to include all manner of shady dealings aiming to bilk gamers out of their money.
Prof. Miyamoto’s Soroban & Flash Anzan – The only thing saving this from being one of the sleaziest attempts at monetization of all time is that it’s so absurdly inept. This combines my hatred with targeting predatory monetization at children with an absolutely ridiculous “ticket” system that aims to charge you each time you want to play this purportedly educational game. Thankfully, anyone can see right through this game’s scheme, since it’s posing as free-to-play, and it becomes immediately clear upon playing the game that it’s so terrible even the price of “free” isn’t worth it. The thing is, just because it failed this time doesn’t mean it won’t be seen by someone more confident who will find a way to make it work next time…
Runners-Up:
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Most Overrated
Rakuen: Deluxe Edition (86) – While I think all of the games in this list are overrated, Rakuen is the only one I think is actually a bad game, and one that somehow tricked people into thinking it’s good. What did people like about this game? The inane fetch quests? The nonsensical puzzles? The agonizingly slow walking speed? The rooms that serve no purpose other than to make the game drag on longer? The fact that it was all clearly made in RPG Maker and is being sold for $25? Looking back at my review, I’m actually wondering if I was too kind in my assessment of this game, giving it a grade as high as a C. But it absolutely doesn’t deserve a Metacritic score as high as 86. That puts it ahead of countless other games that are cheaper, more expertly crafted, and just plain better.
Runners-Up:
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (86)
NeverAwake (88)
Bang-On Balls: Chronicles (86)
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Laziest Copycat
Only Way Up! Parkour Jump Simulator – It was a close call between this game and the next runner-up, but frankly how could I not give this award to a game that is not just doing a miserable job trying to copy the gameplay of another game, but trying to copy that game’s name as well. Let me make this easy for you – if you are looking for Only Up on Nintendo Switch, you will only find terrible knockoff games, because Only Up was only made for the PC… and then removed from PC for copyright infringement. This game is actually worse than that.
Runners-Up:
Loot Box Simulator – Crimson Fire / Loot Box Simulator – Heroes of the Dark Age
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Worst Port / Remake
Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy – Given how absolutely gorgeous Trine 4 was on Nintendo Switch, my anticipation for its sequel was through the roof… only to be shattered when I saw how shoddy this port was. Every time the game cuts to a new camera view, you get an ugly version of what you’re looking at before it loads properly, and even worse, the game has a bug that makes important features completely inaccessible unless you jump through a bunch of hoops. This isn’t just a case of a bad port, this is a case of a game that should not have been released in this state.
Runners-Up:
Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition
DobbyxEscape: Spooky Adventure
Crypto Mining Simulator – Ultimate Trading Strategy Tycoon Craft & Idle Game 3D
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Most Overpriced
nOS New Operating System ($40) – If nOS was an actual operating system, this price might be justified. But it isn’t. This is a minigame collection with a gimmicky framing device masquerading as an operating system. And the high price tag is clearly only there so this software’s creators can artificially make it look like a good deal when they drop the price down to $2, when it’s hard to say if this game is even worth the lousy $2. What’s more, this game goes the extra mile by being one of those games that has spammed the eShop with countless “editions” that bundle the game with one of its free DLCs, that were clearly released as free DLCs expressly for this purpose, so this game could take up more real estate on the eShop. Absolutely gross. But since the ridiculous price is a part of this scam, I feel perfectly justified in naming this the most overpriced release(s) of 2023.
Runners-Up:
Catlord ($15)
Rafa’s World ($10)
Daily Dadish ($10)
Hentai World ($15)
Hentai Girls ($20)
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The “Who asked for this!?” Award
Everybody 1-2-Switch! – 1-2-Switch was the worst game at launch for the Nintendo Switch, and it remains Nintendo’s worst game for the console. It was a glorified tech demo sold at a premium price, and virtually everyone who played it was done with it after a few hours at most, with zero desire to play it again… so why the heck did Nintendo make another one!? What’s more, it was strongly rumored before the game was even announced that internal testing had absolutely miserable results and Nintendo was strongly considering shelving it… but instead, they decided to quietly release it. To the game’s credit, it is better than 1-2-Switch, but not good enough to justify its existence.
Runners-Up:
Prof. Miyamoto’s Soroban & Flash Anzan
The Love – Date Simulator With Girls
Loot Box Simulator – Crimson Fire / Loot Box Simulator – Heroes of the Dark Age
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The “Why is this taking so much space on my memory card!?” Award
WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros (2.724GB) – eBaseball isn’t a terrible game, and it actually has a nice little niche when it comes to Nintendo Switch Sports games, being a budget alternative to more expensive games. Along with this comes graphics that look… well, bad. The game looks bad. Low-poly, unimpressive, primitive, ugly. But for $1, that’s forgivable. But why the heck does a game that looks so absolutely terrible take up nearly 3GB of space of your Nintendo Switch’s memory? For comparison’s sake, this is a bigger file size than Super Mega Baseball 2, a much, much better-looking Baseball game released on Nintendo Switch four years prior. I suppose you could attribute the difference to eBaseball’s audio commentary, but that commentary simply isn’t worth this huge gap in quality and file size.
Runners-Up:
Unalive 010 (1.69GB)
Hentai World (975MB)
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Most Disappointing
Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy – I already talked a bit earlier about why I felt this game was so disappointing – it follows in the footsteps of the absolutely sublime Trine 4, but is a disastrously bad port. Not much more to add to that.
Runners-Up:
Borderlands 3 Ultimate Edition
Startup Company: Console Edition
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Nintendo’s Biggest Blunder
Nintendo sets strict new rules forbidding most tournaments – This is the second year in a row that the winner of this award is Nintendo absolutely taking a huge dump over the pro gamer community (and let’s be honest, we’re specifically talking about the Super Smash Bros. pro community here). They made it clear that they would bring their legal assassins out to hunt down any tournaments they didn’t personally sanction that don’t follow their absolutely absurd and controlling rules… which is to say, they’re attempting to pretty much kill all Smash tournaments. This is why we can’t have nice things, Nintendo. You. You’re the reason we can’t have nice things.
Runners-Up:
Shutting down the Wii U / Nintendo 3DS eShops and online services
Nintendo quietly kills Pac-Man 99
Still no sign of Metroid Prime 4
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Worst Game
Chess Maiden – I reviewed a lot of games in 2023 that were lazy attempts to use the base objectification of women to try to sell people on a bad game, but Chess Maiden really takes the cake. For starters, I highly doubt anyone would get excited over the creepy robot girl this game has you playing against, but even worse than that, they couldn’t even get the rules of chess right. Chess! One of the oldest games of all time! As if that wasn’t bad enough, when it became clear that I was about to get the creepy robot girl into a checkmate, its AI responded first by trying several illegal moves, and then by simply refusing to make a move at all rather than concede defeat. My jaw hit the floor with just how bad this game was. It fails on absolutely every level.
Runners-Up:
The Love – Date Simulator With Girls
Crypto Mining Simulator – Ultimate Trading Strategy Tycoon Craft & Idle Game 3D
Loot Box Simulator – Crimson Fire / Loot Box Simulator – Heroes of the Dark Age
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Additional Commentary!
Just going to comment on the categories I feel like I have more to add.
Laziest Copycat
The “next runner up” I mention is Catlord, which tries to sell players an experience that’s like Vampire Survivors, but far worse, at three times the price of Vampire Survivors. In the end, I had to give the edge to a game that’s literally trying to trick you into thinking it’s the game it’s copying.
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Worst Port
I feel I should mention, after I wrote these awards, I saw that Backpack Hero received a patch that was supposed to fix bugs and improve stability, but I actually think it made the game much worse. I may have considered it for this award if I had known this at the time.
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Nintendo’s Biggest Blunder
Honestly, I felt like I was kinda’ reaching for a few of these. Yeah, it’s sad that Nintendo is closing down the legacy eShops and online services, forever making some games no longer playable, but it’s not like anyone expected Nintendo to support them forever. And similarly, while shutting down Pac-Man 99 is disappointing, if there weren’t many people playing it, doing so makes sense (unlike with Super Mario Bros. 35, which was super-popular right up until Nintendo killed it). And sure, it’s silly that we still haven’t seen Metroid Prime 4, but at this point I think everyone expects it to be a launch title for Nintendo’s next console.
However, if we don’t hear about Metroid Prime 4 next year, expect this to climb the list…
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Worst Game
What’s worse, a game that’s bad in a gazillion ways, or a game like Crypto Mining Simulator that’s basically unplayable? I suppose that’s a judgment call, but I’m gonna’ pick the one that’s more interesting to write about, because “this game is so bad I can’t play it” doesn’t seem as compelling a statement.
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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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