...is actually a very short list, because I've only played three notable "new" games that were released in full at the beginning of this year, while I'm continuing to play through some of my 2023 faves like Street Fighter 6, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, Star Ocean: The Second Story R, and Fate/Samurai Remnant.

We've got Balatro, the poker-based "roguelike deckbuilder" that I tried out during this year's Steam Next Fest and is one of the most unique takes on the genre since 2019's breakout hit Slay the Spire;

...Granblue Fantasy: Relink, an action RPG based on a mega-hit Japanese mobile game I've heard of but never played, and coincidentally released on my birthday (February 1) that I'd recommend playing at least once on the strength of its production values and boss battles alone;

...and Unicorn Overlord, a strategy RPG from Vanillaware (of Odin Sphere, Dragon's Crown, and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim fame), which is the successor to Ogre Battle never thought I wanted but am glad I have. As it's the only disc-based PlayStation 5 game I own, you'd better believe it's getting steady rotation in there until I finish the darn thing a month or two from now while I wait on games like Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes and SaGa: Emerald Beyond to release next month.

Turning 43 years old isn't really anything special. However, along with a couple of gift cards and the usual cupcake/cake/cookie sugar combo from my co-workers, I decided to treat myself to a PlayStation 5.

At first I was foolish and tried to walk into Target to ask for one, only to discover that they didn't keep them out on the sales floor to keep thieves away. The only way to get one was to order it online and either pick it up or have it delivered to me. I picked the former option (from Best Buy instead of Target) because I didn't want to risk anything happening during transit.

I went out to get it this morning, and so far, it works wonderfully. The controller is nice and weighty, and the switch to solid-state drives from hard disk drives means that games load much, much faster than on all of my previous consoles (just like they do on my current high-end custom gaming PC). However, download speeds, while still not as slow as they still are on PS3, haven't improved much from the PS4. And with big-bidget game sizes breaking through triple-digit GB, I need to be careful which games I pick up until I can either buy a replacement or expansion SSD for this thing (6 TB or more; I don't know if portable USB SSDs exist or are available at reasonable prices yet).

Some of the PS4 games I've bought recently, such as Street Fighter 6 and Lies of P, also have native PS5 versions, saving me the trouble of double-dipping on a PS5 disc or separate digital version, so I have a small library ready to go. With the improved frame rates and loading times, I can free up some more space on my PS4 and re-download games for it that can't (yet) be played on PS5, which is nice.