2022 In Games
Well, here we are at the end of 2022, and it is time once again to look back at all the games I played this year! 2022 was another slow year for me, as I played around 50 games, most of them small indie titles, or games I played briefly, but didn't finish. Autumn was also much slower than normal, with very few releases I was excited to play initially, despite this typically being the busiest time of the year for gaming. That said, I did end up finding plenty to play. There's always a few download-only titles that sneak in at the last minute. So without further ado!
⭐ =Play If You're Curious
⭐⭐ = Generally Recommended
⭐⭐⭐ = Absolute Must Play
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~JANUARY~
⭐⭐
In December of 2021, I finally received my Analogue Pocket and after playing a round of Super Mario Land, I decided I would really break it in with The Minish Cap. I have always been fairly lukewarm on this game, but I actually haven't played it since 2005. And heck, if I could come around on Phantom Hourglass and Skyward Sword I can come around on this. Right?
Incorrect.
In an unfortunate twist, I actually like this game less than I did before. Despite the game being one of the best looking games on GBA with a stellar soundtrack, it is every bit as frustrating to play in 2022 as it was in 2005. People like to joke about rolling around Hyrule in the N64 games, but I swear, you move so slowly in this game that you basically have to roll everywhere in order to retain any sanity. The overworld is dense, but frustrating to navigate, even with fast travel unlocked. The Kinstone fusions, my favorite aspect of the game on my first playthrough, became a nightmare as I used a guide to ensure I could actually 100% the game this time around; a feat I failed at on my first two playthroughs. Honestly, The Minish Cap feels more like a Zelda fan game than anything official. Like, if this were a Blossom Tales game, I would think it was a great attempt that stumbled at some of the nuance, but the Flagship team that made this had already proven their mettle with the outstanding Oracle of Ages/Seasons, so I don't know why the dropped the ball so hard here.
I still think Phantom Hourglass is the weakest Zelda game overall, as the absolutely awful dungeons really bring it down, but The Minish Cap is by far the least fun Zelda game to play. I am not likely to ever visit this one again.
(*3DS Ambassador exclusive download; WiiU download going offline in March 2023)
⭐⭐
Not content in my Zelda-ing, I decided now was finally the time to pick up that Zelda-like that dropped on the Switch forever ago, especially with the sequel dropping this year! (Which I still haven't played...) Like many games of its ilk, it manages to capture the experience of playing Zelda games at a surface level, but doesn't quite nail the nuance of what really grabs me about Zelda. The combat is solid, the dungeons and puzzles are fun, there's lots of hidden items and areas, but there's also a lot of fetch-questing and annoying mini-games. Much of what's here feels more like going down a checklist of what was fun in the 2D Zelda games without trying to really improve or iterate on anything. It's still a fine game, and I am hopeful that the sequel does a little more to stand out as its own thing. This is a game that I would have adored ten years ago, but in 2022, it's a little too basic and there are way too many games doing things that are truly unique for me to be as impressed by it.
⭐⭐⭐
Alright, that's enough 2D Zelda, how about some... 3D Zelda? Kena: Bridge of Spirits captures a lot of what I love about Zelda and Tomb Raider, with its lush environments, mellow soundtrack, and engaging exploration. The only area where the game stumbles is the combat, which tries to be Dark Souls-esque, but ends up being a little clumsy. By the time I got to the final fights, I was getting so frustrated, I cranked the difficulty down just to get through it. I did love the bow mechanic on PS5, with the triggers having tension when drawing your bow. It's not going to be for everybody, and I think Horizon: Forbidden West did a better job of implementing it less obtrusively, but I liked it. I was also sick the week I was playing this, so it was the perfect game to get lost in as I recovered. In had a great time here, and if you like the vibes of games like Zelda and Tomb Raider, this is one you should definitely check out.
~FEBRUARY~
⭐⭐⭐
By a significant margin, my favorite game of 2022 is Chicory: A Colorful Tale. Unfortunately, this game released in 2021, so it's going to have to settle for "Honorable Mention". When I talk about how much I love Zelda games, and I know you're tired of hearing it at this point, it all comes down to vibes. The exploration and discovery, the satisfaction of all things having a sense of place, the way the world manages to feel game-like yet lived-in... Chicory manages to capture absolutely everything I love about Zelda without really any combat to speak of, which is often my least favorite part of Zelda anyway.
There has hardly been a moment since February of this year that I have not been thinking about Chicory. What started out as a fun coloring book game evolved into this grand adventure about what it means to be an artist through discovery and expression, and dealing with things like mentorship and imposter syndrome. All the places have fun food names, too, and you end up naming your main character after your favorite food. (Mine was Burritos!)
As I said, it's a Zelda game and a coloring book, so how does that work? Well, the entire world is monochrome, and needs to be painted-in. You unlock more brushes and colors as you play, with every area having a 4-color tone, giving each area a specific vibe. That said, regardless of how you play the game (mouse, motion control, touch pad, cursor), there is no way to be precise. Burritos IS a beginner after all, so you are saddled with those limitations in a really clever way. The game unfolds mechanically like a typical Zelda game, and you unlock abilities like swimming through paint ala Splatoon.
And then the music! THE MUSIC! Lena Raine (Celeste) knocks it out the park with an OST that will go down as one of my favorites of all time. I still listen to it constantly, and I find myself humming tunes like the city of Dinners often. Like many games with great soundtracks, often the most exciting part of entering a new area is hearing what new tunes await you there! One thing that Lena does with the soundtrack that is really neat is how she adds more instrumentation as you get deeper through the game, and have narratively brought more life to the world, ending in a strikingly robust rendition of the starting town theme, Luncheon.
Look, I just can not recommend this game enough. If any of this sounded fun, please play Chicory. It truly is something special.
⭐⭐
I had my eye on this one for a while, and finally picked it up on a sale. What the Golf? is a wacky physics-based Arcade-style golf game where you try to clear specific objectives via golf-like mechanics. Fans of weird games like Katamari Damacy will find a lot to love about this, and while I haven't finished it, it's been fun to visit for a few minutes at a time every once in a while. I'm playing it on Switch, but the style of the gameplay seems handmade for mobile, so that might be the best place to try it out.
⭐⭐
I was pleasantly surprised by 2017's Horizon: Zero Dawn. Despite being a pretty standard AAA Open World affair, it managed to grip me with a great cast, art direction, and a fascinating story. Where the first game stumbled was the combat; the game wanted to be Monster Hunter, clearly, but it was so difficult to manage traps that often I would rely on using the bow constantly to slowly chip away at machines. Forbidden West fixes this by adding a ton of combat options, as well as a whole close-range combo system. Now, I'm not one to care much about combat in games, but Forbidden West manages to make the combat really fun in all but the highest difficulty challenges (as I said, I don't care that much). The sequel also adds gliding, no doubt as a response to Breath of the Wild. It really is an improvement over the first game in a lot of ways...
...except for the story. Where Zero Dawn shined, Forbidden West stumbles. It's hard to follow up a narrative built on incredible revelation, because how do you capture that again? That said, Forbidden West DOES have a single trick up its sleeve with the big reveal halfway through the game. It's a great moment, and a really fun trick, but then they just... Don't do anything with it? Like, there are so many great opportunities for storytelling and drama that just do not happen. Everything stays centered around Aloy, instead of the larger implications to the world, and the narrative as a whole suffers from it.
In fact, the main plotline's writing is so uninspired, that when the game's sub-narratives shine it really feels out of place. At one point, you visit the remains of Las Vegas, and meet a group of traveling entertainers trying to eke out a living by researching and spelunking for relics. These three are far and away the best characters in the game, and their story beats are quite possibly the best story beats I experienced in a game this year. That moment when all the lights come on and you see Las Vegas in all its splendor was where Forbidden West peaked for me. I'd say it's worth playing the game for that alone, but it's pretty far into the game.
As it is. I simply can not recommend this game unless you just really like this kind of stuff already. Despite being really great as a game, the story beats truly bring down the whole experience, and now I'm questioning if I really want to bother playing the third game. I guess we'll see how I feel in 4-5 years.
⭐⭐
Before 2021, I had never even heard of Windjammers, a 1994 Neo Geo Arcade game that plays like a hybrid Sports/Fighting game. I picked up Windjammers 2 when it launched, and played it with a friend on one of my game nights. It's a ton of fun! It's essentially like air hockey meets disc golf, and has combos and special moves like a Fighting game to keep your opponent on their toes. If you enjoy competitive multiplayer, this one is really great.
⭐⭐⭐
Can you believe that in 30 years of Kirby games that there has yet to be a full game in 3D? All we've had are spin-offs like Kirby Air Ride and Kirby's Blowout Blast. And so, it is both surprising, and really not surprising at all, that Kirby's first jaunt into 3D would end up being one of his best games to date. Forgotten Land is a stellar 3D Platformer that takes the fixed-camera approach of games like Super Mario 3D World and brings in a new power-up system called Mouthful Mode which has Kirby wrap his body around objects like cars and vending machines to achieve something that makes me DEEPLY UNCOMFORTABLE. While many will assume Kirby games are easy, the reality is that the final modes of Kirby games, such as the final boss rush, The True Arena, are exceedingly difficult. I couldn't even finish the True Arena in Triple Deluxe or Planet Robobot. What Forgotten Land introduces is a dodge mechanic that allows fights to be more dynamic and fun, while actually lowering the overall difficulty once you've gotten the hang of it. This allows the game to hit the perfect balance of difficulty overall. It's a really great game, and one I recommend to anyone who likes 3D Platformers.
~APRIL~
⭐
I'm always on the lookout for interesting eShop games, and this Synthwave Arcade/Racing game caught my eye. As a tribute to Sega racing games, it's really solid. The idea is that you need to be constantly drifting to keep the lead, and the game even has a rewind mechanic to undo mistakes. The problem is that you often can't rewind far enough to actually correct the mistake, and the game has a steep learning curve. Often my problem with 90s Aracde/Racing games is the steep difficulty curve, and sadly, this modern take has the same pitfall. Still, I recommend it if you're into these kinds of games.
⭐
After how much I enjoyed Lament of Innocence, I was pretty excited to finally get around to playing Curse of Darkness. My plan was to play through this before the Netflix anime adapted it in Seasons 3-4, but obviously that did not happen. That said, the anime handled these characters and plotlines far better. The writing here is atrociously bad (not unlike Lament), and despite being less assertive in the show, Hector is nonetheless a far more interesting character there. What's more, where Lament of Innocence was looking to adapt the environment navigation of Symphony of the Night with the more basic whip combat of pre-Symphony games, Curse looks to adapt the more nuanced combat of post-Symphony with a more linear structure.
This was a mistake.
The combat is laughably bad, and really magnifies how before games could learn from God of War and Devil May Cry, 3D Action games were often really rough. Lament sidestepped this by having a very basic combat system, but Curse's doubling down on it really magnifies how they had no business doing this. Honestly, this is one of the few actively bad games in the series, and I simply can not recommend it to anybody.
Music slaps tho.
⭐⭐
Oh, neat, a Galaga sequel from 1984 that I've never played! Really enjoyed this one.
~MAY~
⭐⭐⭐
This is the story of a man named Stanley. He got up from his desk, and suddenly found himself in the middle of a review discussing him and his adventures. While he was initially curious to hear the opinions of a random person on the internet, he decided that he knew better than to let his curiosity get the better of him. People on the internet say all kinds of things, and Stanley cared too much about his work to allow those sorts of distractions. He decided to find his way to the meeting room, where instead of random people on the internet, he could get the opinions of his coworkers and superiors who clearly knew what was best for him.
⭐⭐
It's a pinball Metroidvania! Wow! I've had this game on my list of games to play for a long time, and I finally dove into it this year. It's every bit as fun and frustrating as the premise sounds. I picked up the Hori Split Pad Pro around the same time, which was a great controller for this game. It's really cute and fun!
⭐
I'm a sucker for the Game Boy aesthetic, so I picked up this horizontal Shmup on a whim. It's pretty tough? The check-pointing isn't great, so I didn't make it far. Not sure if I'll play more.
⭐⭐
This was a solid collection of Pac-Man games with most of the classics, as well as a few interesting additions like Pac-Man 256 and Pac 'n Roll. Two notable additions that I would love to have seen are Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+, the latter of which is still stuck on Xbox 360 and PS3, and is still the best Pac-Man game to date.
~JUNE~
⭐⭐
Team Ladybug is at it again with another stunning Metroidvania, this time in the Lodoss War universe. This game is absolutely gorgeous, with a pixel-art aesthetic every bit as beautiful as Touhou Luna Nights. That said, I didn't find this game quite as compelling. It's fairly straightforward as Metroidvanias go. Luna Nights brought in the Touhou mechanic of grazing bullets for bonuses, which really amped up the tension, but Deedlit lacks anything similar. Even so, it manages to be a fantastic entry to the genre, and if you like the post-Symphony Castlevania games, you'll really dig this. Can't wait to play what this team cooks up next.
⭐⭐
It's another 3D Platformer! This time, you use your tongue as a grappling hook, and race through small stages trying to get the best time. I put it down after a few hours, but it's a great time, and I am definitely going to return to it eventually.
⭐⭐
It's another grappling hook game! This time, it's a 2D Puzzle Platformer. I played this one during down-time on my honeymoon this year, and it was a ton of fun! This one I did finish. Racing through the stages and trying to nab all the collectibles was really exhilarating and fun.
⭐⭐
I picked this one up on a whim to have a new multiplayer game to play with family while on my honeymoon. Much like Overcooked, it is a chaotic cooperative game where you move belongings out of a house and into a truck with as little damage to the items as possible. If you have people to play it with, it's a great time.
⭐⭐
Fall Guys is finally on Switch, so I gave it a go! After a couple rounds, I had my fill of it, which is always the case with online multiplayer games. Also, I couldn't get the Bomberman outfit. Apparently the costumes are rotated in and out, and you can't just, like, buy the outfit you want? Thanks, I hate it.
⭐⭐
Finally! A collection of 90s Sonic games! Oh, wait.
Well, this is the first time in a decade we've seen Sonic 3 & Knuckles, so that's nice. When it launched, I played through Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic CD. Sonic 1 holds up pretty great all the way until Labyrinth Zone Act 3, which is a complete nightmare. It's got a lot of ideas that sequels would refine, but I still find the first game pleasant to revisit. And now you can play through it as Tails and Knuckles!
Sonic CD meanwhile, I first played in the Sonic Gems Collection on GameCube. I didn't love it at the time, so I was interested to see how my tastes have changed in 20 years. And you know what? It's good! It's not perfect; the special stages are frustrating, and the timer kind of takes away from the exploration on a few of the larger stages. That said, one reason S3&K is my favorite is the focus on exploration, so having a game more or less solely about it is wonderful. A follow-up to this game that really leaned into level exploration could be something really amazing, but as it is, it's enjoyable.
⭐⭐
Kotaro Uchikoshi is back again with his bullshit, and as always, I am 110% here for it. nivanA Initiative follows up 2019's The Somnium Files a few months after that game's ending. These games are part Visual Novel and part Adventure game. During the puzzle segments, you will dive into the minds of people you are interrogating in order to ascertain their secrets or help them process trauma. The sequel improves on these parts of the game greatly, by making each dive feel unique, and easing up the insane time limits of the first game. While I got stuck in several parts of the first game, I almost always knew the path forward here. Where nirvanA Initiative struggles though, is in its narrative. We follow Mizuki, from the first game, and newcomer Ryuki. Playing as two people is fun, but it does mean you don't get to connect as deeply with both of them as you did Date in the first game. This really hurts Ryuki's story, which is arguably the main focus of the narrative. In typical Uchikoshi fashion, the game pulls the rug out in the 11th hour, but unlike past games, the narrative shift doesn't really affect the characters, just the player. Without spoiling it, the twist is meta-contextual, which, while pretty clever, fails to land as strongly as most of these games do. Setting this twist up also undermines a lot of the character development from the first game, which given how good that narrative was, is really a shame.
I don't want to scare anyone curious off though. There's still a lot to like here, including a narrative moment that's up there with Horizon Forbidden West's Las Vegas segment in Date's batshit insane recounting of his superhero origin story. Really, the character dialogue is where these games shine brightest, and I recommend it for that alone.
~JULY~
⭐⭐⭐
I was really looking forward to this one, and had ordered it from Limited Run, but my friend and I couldn't wait that long to play it, so I double dipped so we could run through the game one evening. Shredder's Revenge manages to capture what you remember Arcade Beat 'em Ups playing and feeling like, rather than what many of them actually are. Where most games like this struggle to hold my attention, I was fixated on this one until we beat it. We need to go back and play more at some point, but I think we both suck at coordinating those plans.
Also, thank you Tee Lopes for one of 2022's best game soundtracks. It's so fun!
Sonic Origins
After wrapping up nirvanA Initiative, I returned to Sonic Origins to play the remaining games, starting with Sonic the Hedgehog 2! I've never had the attachment to 2 that I have 1 or 3&K, so even on a revisit, I still find this game lacks the charm the other games have, and it is now my least favorite, even against Sonic CD. So many of the stages in this one are not fun to play, it's like the game has multiple Marble Zones. It's probably just me. I apologize to the other 35-40 year olds that really like Sonic 2.
Awww, yeah, here we go, it's Sonic 3 & Knuckles time baybeeeeee! I love every minute of this game, even the shitty minutes in Sandopolis. This is the one Sonic game I could play forever, over and over. I love the elemental shields, the awesome music, BLUE SPHERE, the open stages, it's all great! I came to the Sonic series late, as I never had a Sega. But hey, it's been 20 years since Sonic Mega Collection, so really, what's the difference at this point? I love S3&K. An all-time great, and second only to Sonic Adventure 2 on my tier list.
⭐⭐⭐
Holy shit, we're getting Live A Live? And it's HD2D? And it's INCREDBILE?! Ya'll, I can not overstate how good this JRPG is. Live A Live is comprised of 8 vignettes that last 3-5 hours each, wrapping up in a final chapter that brings everything together. Each chapter plays a little differently, with one being a fighting game tournament with just battles, and another being a stealth mission. Each chapter feels like booting up an entirely new game. And while the final two chapters fumble the pacing a bit, having everything great about JRPGs compressed into a light and breezy experience is an incredible feat. Add in the fact that this game is nearly 30 years old, and it's a wonder it took so long to come out, and that we rarely, if ever, see JRPGs try to be this compact. And the localization is phenomenal. The voice work is some of the best I've seen in the genre, and has me so excited for 2023's Octopath Traveler II. I can only hope that game learns from its predecessor as well as Live A Live and inserts some brevity into its opening acts.
And the soundtrack is by Yoko Shimomura, so you know it's boss. Shimomura is the absolute Queen of JRPG soundtracks, and this is one of the JRPGs she cut her teeth on, before Parasite Eve and Kingdom Hearts would really put her name on the map. And holy crap, like I had heard a couple of these songs, but hearing them with full instrumentation like this just makes the experience so full of life and wonder.
Which reminds me, I need to buy the soundtrack. Be right back.
~AUGUST~
⭐
Wa-hoo! It's another chance for Klonoa to shine! And also a good excuse for me to give Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil another shot. Unfortunately for Klonoa and Klonoa fans, I still think these games are mediocre at best. While they have great charm, the platforming is slow and frustrating, especially when trying to collect everything in a stage. I made it through the Wii release of Door to Pahntomile a decade ago, through blood, sweat, and tears, but could not make it through the frustration this time. Klonoa 2 be damned, I couldn't motivate myself to finish Klonoa 1. And yet. Against my better judgement. I've gone out of my way to get my hands on the whole series. I did really like the first GBA game, but I really just don't understand why the console games get the praise they do. I'll never get it.
⭐⭐
Finally, a year after it released, my Limited Run copy of Axiom Verge 2 arrived. I played and loved the first game, and was really excited to experience the follow up. The story is still impossible for me to follow in-game, but the wiki was very helpful once I was done. The game does a little more with the distortion areas from the first game, creating a two-map system that overlap in order to make each section more dense. It's a really good time, and the powers you unlock are a lot of fun to use. The biggest strength of Axiom Verge 2, really, is that it is able to carve out its own identity more than the first game, which is just aesthetically the first Metroid. What I wasn't prepared for though was the South Asian inspired soundtrack that constantly blew me away in each new area. This is another one that I bought the OST for right away. Simply incredible.
⭐⭐
Yo, two new Kirby games in one year? Looks like we're eating as good as Kirby in this game where you compete to make the biggest boi you can. Kind of a shame it's only two players per console, but as a single or multiplayer game, it's a great time. Rolling isn't as smooth as I would like it, as it seems like it uses the same rolling physics as that marble minigame from Forgotten Land, but it's still a fun time. Definitely worth picking up if you like online minigames or cute things.
⭐⭐
I needed to break my new PC in with something, so I figured, "Why not Halo?" It's been a good 10 years since I last played one, so I popped in Halo: Combat Evolved, and had a nice time remembering how much I used to love these games. I don't love it now quite as much as I did, and part of that may be a lot of the love was the experience of playing it with others. That said, it was fun to revisit it, and I do plan on slowly making my way through all of them, including Halo: Infinite.
⭐
I really enjoy the works of OMOCAT, so I was excited to experience their foray into game development. And while Omori has a ton of passion behind it, I feel like the overall experience falls just a little flat. It takes incredibly too long to get a sense of what is going on and become invested in the characters, though once the truth opens up, the game goes to some really dark places. The main mechanic of the battle system, the emotions, likewise is underwhelming by failing to matter in all but the most challenging battles. If you like Earthbound-inspired JRPGs, I do think this is one of the better ones, but I really just failed to connect with it until I was almost finished with it.
~SEPTEMBER~
⭐
While this adorable, chaotic, free-for-all fighting game with cats looks like a lot of fun, it actually runs incredibly poorly, making it difficult to play. I picked it up on Switch for a game night, and we tried our best to enjoy it, but couldn't. Maybe it runs better on PC. If they can patch it up, I'd be willing to give it another shot.
⭐
While I played a little bit of Pac-Man World 2, I never really spent much time with this series, so it was nice to play through the first one. It's a pretty standard 3D Platformer that captures Pac-Man pretty well. I liked it fine, but I don't think I'd recommend it unless you're just really curious.
⭐⭐
In September, I received Virtual Boy Works, a comprehensive restrospective of Virtual Boy's library written by Jeremy Parish. I broke out my Virtual Boy, playing around with a few games, and ultimately beating Vertical Force, which was a solid Vertical Shmup. It's nice to break out the Virtual Boy every once in a while.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
It was time once again to dive into The Master Chief collection for Halo 2: Anniversary. This was a game that really defined the late-00s for me, just as much as games like Kingdom Hearts II and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. And heck, looking at me now, you wouldn't even know it. It's not like I kept that Master Chief helmet from the Halo 3 Legendary Edition, though I absolutely should have. What I always loved about Halo 2 back in the day was the switching between Chief and Arbiter for different stages. It kept the game moving, and while I still enjoy that aspect of the game, it's not quite as dynamic as I remember. What's more, I'm remembering how much spongier enemy health feels in Halo 2 compared to Halo. Soooo, maybe I like the simplicity of the first one better? The real test is going to be how I feel about Halo 3, a game I was so lukewarm on I stopping playing Halo.
⭐⭐
While there are a lot of games on The Cowabunga Collection, all of my TMNT retro nostalgia lies with the Game Boy games. I had TMNT II: Back From the Sewers as a kid and played it a ton. And I am pleased as punch to report that the game is still a ton of fun today. While I was here, I played through all three Game Boy titles. Fall of the Foot Clan ended up being far to basic to be engaging, and I'm honestly glad that wasn't the one I had as a kid. Back From the Sewers, as I said, holds up great not just in the gameplay, but also in the stellar soundtrack with a composer that would go on to play in The Black Mages, Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy rock band. Lastly, Radical Rescue is an interesting early Metroidvania where you gain abilities as you recover turtles, and slowly unlock a large labyrinth. Where it falters however is in its obscene boss encounters, culminating in a boss rush at the end with no checkpoints. Without rewind, there is no way I would have beaten this, it's disgusting. Still though, it was so much fun spending an afternoon with the Game Boy trilogy.
And that's hardly all this collection has to offer with NES, SNES, and Sega games, as well as a ton of behind-the-scenes features including design documentation for the first NES game. Digital Eclipse has been just killing lately, and I think, honestly, I'm just going to buy everything they make now.
⭐
So, this is a game I demoed at E3 back in, like, 2016? I passed on it at the time, but found it on sale one day and decided to go ahead and play through it. XSeed at the time affectionately called it an "Ys-like" due to the similarity to Ys Origin, though it's certainly not on that level. Still though, it's a fun top-down Hack & Slash if you're into that.
~OCTOBER~
⭐⭐
So while Tunic did launch on Xbox months ago, I do not own an Xbox, so I had to wait. Taking obvious inspiration from The Legend of Zelda, Tunic honestly reminds me more of games like Fez and Retro Game Challenge. Where the game shines is in its world building and puzzles which, like Fez, are hidden behind an arcane language. Unlike Fez, no cryptography is required, but there are tons of clues to guide you without spelling anything out. In fact, nearly everything is accessible from the beginning if you know the path forward. The isometric view allows hidden paths to be fully out of sight, and even the controls are obstructed by an instruction manual that you piece together throughout the game. While the game mostly shines, the combat can be incredibly frustrating, and I wonder if this game could be better without it. Fez had no combat after all.
I do have to come clean and say that once I got near the end, I used a walkthrough to parse the game's final puzzles. I mostly don't regret this, though I do regret doing so for the really big puzzle at the end. I was getting impatient and ready to move on to another game. It's a shame Tunic didn't grip me the way Fez did. Granted, I cheated at Fez, too, but come on. You can't expect me to decipher a whole alphabet. And nobody else solved that Metatron puzzle on their own either. So there.
⭐⭐
I finally made time for Miles Morales! We're supposed to be getting Spider-Man 2 in 2023, so I knew I needed to play this sooner rather than later. And it was a great time! Not too long, not too short. I got it half off, but it's long enough I think I would have been okay paying full price. Not that it should be $60, mind you. All in all, a good game with a mostly solid story, though it does do all the typical superhero stuff with Miles and his friends, which leads to a super disappointing finale. If you know, you know.
⭐⭐⭐
ElecHead is one of the better Puzzle Platformers I've played recently. A snappy game with a poppy, mechanical OST where you toss your head to energize the world around you, using the electricity to solve puzzles and avoid obstacles. And it's at most, like 4 hours long. This is definitely one you should check out.
~NOVEMBER~
⭐
While not as solid as Toree, Siactro's new game Beeny is a fun little distraction with some great Donkey Kong Country-inspired visuals. It's a Platformer where you are ascending trees, and trying to get the best time for each stage. It's fun, but there's an even better game by Siactro coming in December...
⭐⭐
After a five-year wait, we finally have a new 3D Sonic game! Frontiers is the first game since Sonic Adventure to really play around with open, explorable areas; and while the end result can get a little repetitive at times, there's a ton of promise here. The writing is also a step-up from what we're used to, with great dialogue between Sonic and his friends, thanks likely to the involvement of Ian Flynn, who has been working on the Archie and IDW comics for a while. The boss battles are easily the highlight of the game; four Super Sonic fights to metalcore music that are as exhilarating as Sonic at his best. And that's the thing that non-Sonic fans need to really understand about being a Sonic fan. Sonic is rarely great, often just fine, and very often not good at all. Gameplay is often messy and glitchy, and the writing has never been great outside of the comics. But the characters have always been great, and that's what really draws the fans in. Which might also be why Sonic fans are... like that.
I make a lot of concessions for this game, but I genuinely loved it. It's getting free DLC next year, and I couldn't be more excited. I just want to be best friends with all the Sonic characters and go on adventures with them all the time. It's such a fun universe.
Tomoya Ohtani returns to lead the music, and brings us great metalcore vocal tracks, some incredible electric, techno, and synth tracks, and some lo-fi for good measure. It's a fantastic soundtrack in a year just packed with them. One Way Dream is going to be an all-time great Sonic song for me.
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Digital Eclipse is back again this year with Atari 50; a game that completely redefines what a collection of retro games can be, and sets the bar so incredibly high, I simply don't know how you follow this up. Rather than a list of games to play, Atari 50 is structured as a virtual timeline that explores the history of Atari's arcade, console, and post-consolidation eras. Each one has information, photos, scans, interviews, and videos to contextualize the company and its games. And as you encounter a game release, you can try it out, right there. For people interested in history, this is something that you have to have.
Gamers like to make waves by pondering what our Citizen Kane of video games is, as if that means anything. And often, they look to games like Metroid Prime, Bioshock, or The Last of Us for excellence in narrative design, which is probably the most shallow way to engage with games, when taking the medium as a whole, and how games influence each other.
But Atari 50 is absolutely our Criterion moment.
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Man, I am just a sucker for this low-poly 3D stuff these days. Linistice is a fast-paced 3D Platformer not too dissimilar from Toree, though a bit longer (Toree even has a cameo!). It's really fun! I struggled a little with the camera, but it has since been patched, so it should be better now.
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While I often enjoy these little narrative Adventure games, Behind the Frame falls a little flat for me. The story is good, but finding what you need to interact with can be difficult, and it's really not that compelling early on. It feels like a mobile game that just wasn't optimized for console well.
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Oh, god, am I... Am I enjoying a Pokemon game? I can't believe they managed to make a core game this good. It's still got a little more friction than it needs, especially after Legends: Arceus and Let's Go proved you didn't need it, but it's such a great improvement already. I'm still a little over halfway through it, so we'll see if the momentum holds, but I'm hopeful!
~DECEMBER~
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And here is Siactro's latest, Super Kiwi 64! This game captures all of the best vibes from classic Collactathons like Banjo-Kazooie, and does so in a breezy two-hour long adventure. Siactro really has been killing it with his bite-sized games, and I really just plan on buying everything he releases going forward.
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Case in point: Immediately after finishing Super Kiwi 64, I purchased and played Macbat 64, an older Siactro release. While not as strong as Super Kiwi 64, it was fun to see one of his earlier works, and some of the recurring characters in other roles.
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Returning to Crisis Core after a decade has been a fun time. I haven't quite finished it yet, as it's important that I make my wife cry alongside me while we watch the ending. The combat and soundtrack are just as fun as they were before. I had planned on playing through all the missions again, but the difficulty spikes at one point, and there's lots of grinding and prep-work required to finish them all, so I'm probably going to call it once I finish the story. Man, I can't wait for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
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Here it is everyone! The 2022 Game of the Year: Lil Gator Game! Taking equal parts inspiration from A Short Hike and Breath of the Wild, Lil Gator Game sees our lil hero work with his friends to create a fun adventure for his big sister to play with them rather than work on her college homework. The writing is so fun and charming, with all the heart and humor of A Short Hike, while bringing in climbing and gliding to make the game feel more like an Action game ala Breath of the Wild. If you play only one game from this list, you need to make it this one.
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Surprise! A new Picross game! In this one, it's a race against the clock to solve 5x5 puzzles as fast as possible. The game also brings in power-ups like in Pokemon Picross in order to solve some of the tougher challenges. I haven't made it far yet, but I'm looking forward to digging further into it.
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Finally, I wrapped up 2022 with the narrative Adventure game Hindsight. In this game, you navigate the loss of your mother as you pack away her things. It's... fine. It really didn't resonate with me, and like Behind the Frame, it feels like it would be better on mobile than on console.
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And that's a wrap for 2022! Not as wild as the last two years, but still chock full of games. Next year is shaping up to be a ton of major releases with Zelda, Spider-Man, and TWO Final Fantasy games. I also didn't make much progress on my backlog this year, sadly. Nearly everything this year was new releases, or new purchases.
2022 SCORECARD
Played: 55Beat: 38
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