What's Your Top 5 from the First Half of 2022?

In light of Jan sharing his top five from the first half of the year so far, I thought it might be worth checking in with the rest of the community to see what people have been into in 2022.

My personal list is:

1. Elden Ring - I'm not even really a souls-like person, but this game held my interest for 100+ hours. The world is incredible and it's just as mechanically tight and satisfying as these games have been in the past.
2. Pokemon Legends: Arceus - I've dipped into Pokemon here and there and never liked it, but this game really drew me into it. The fast pace of constantly catching and battling Pokemon is just really fun and a stark contrast to the plodding pace of the mainline franchise.
3. Neon White - Before I tried it, everything that I saw of this game looked very intimidating, but this game has such an incredibly smooth learning curve that playing it makes you always feel like you're nailing it - even for someone like me that doesn't play many FPS games these days.
4. Rogue Legacy 2 - After the content-light early access launch, this thing dropped completely off of my radar for years, but they eventually created something that stands alongside Dead Cells as one of the best action platformer roguelikes (roguelites?).
5. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes - If you happen to be in the middle of the Venn diagram of Fire Emblem: Three Houses fans and Musou fans, this might be one of your favorite games of the year.

Honorable Mentions: Citizen Sleeper, Vampire Survivors, Symphony of War, Weird West

1. Sifu

Played through before the May patch. What if God Hand ain't that long.

2. Neon White

What if Killer 7 feels good to move and shoot in.

3. Kirby and the Forgotten Land

The series is a quarter cenutry late to the 3D platformer party, turns out it can steal the show there.

4. Olli Olli World

What Tony Hawk Pro Skater is set in a high fantasy land.

5. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2

What if Mega Man Zero games allow everyone to beat them.

Honorable mention: Tunic

Sorry cub, Death's Door is better in every aspcet.

I haven't played a whole lot of this year's releases so far, and I also haven't finished a lot of the ones I have played yet. Of the stuff I have finished, A Memoir Blue is probably at the top of the list. Princess Farmer is probably somewhere on there. Elden Ring probably fits in there for now. I don't feel strongly enough about anything else I've finished.

As for stuff I haven't finished yet, Neon White seems like it will most assuredly make my list. I'm enjoying my time with Ghostwire: Tokyo. As the one mindless, open-world, mission markers and collectables map barf game I'll play this year, it's at least very stylish and could make my list. Floppy Knights and Cosmonious High also seem pretty cool.

My lists always come together at the last possible minute, so I don't even bother to think about this stuff this early on. But those are some of the cool games I've played this year.

From this year's releases (or at least close) I'm going with:

- Elden Ring: first souls game I've played and man did I lose myself in it.

- Kirby and the Forgotten Land: another game that was exceeded my expectations.

- Iron Lung: not usually a horror game person but this was a great little experience.

- Neon White: only got on the Steam sale but can tell I'm going to put a lot of time into it.

- Pokemon Legends Arceus: got displaced by Elden Ring but I know I'll get back to it.

1. Elden Ring

2. Tunic

3. Horizon Forbidden West

4. Neon White

5. TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge

I'm always a "binge and catch up" kind of guy after spending most of the spring/summer replaying nostalgic favorites or more often just indulging in MLB The Show beyond all reason so this is more of just what I've enjoyed so far, and I promise this postwill not be indulgent. Hold my hand.

1. Horizon: Forbidden West - I worry about saying this, because I'm not stoked to play a NG+. Many mistakes were made with this game, but ultimately it is still the Aloy vs. robot combat I put against MGS V as generationally definitive and looks ridiculous on a PS5. As long as you don't have some weird hangup about a game telling you what's interesting about it, it's also a beautiful world to explore.

2. Elden Ring - I can't say more about this game right now. I've said so much. It's the best game that sucks as much as it does I've ever played. I'm starting to think I might care about this game and what people think about it more than anything outside of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. So in 6 more months, number one might not seem so absurd to me.

3. Gran Turismo 7 - I'm not a car guy, slightly more but still barely a car game guy. Last GT I bought/played was A-Spec on PS2. I bought that game to show my TV what the Emotion Engine could do and had all the same intentions for my 4K TV and the...x86 architecture...But damn! What a showcase for a TV! What a showcase for the DualSense (play this game using the controller as a steering wheel, please, if you ever do!) and what a showcase for how fucking awfully stupid a loot box system can be designed! I get why the community is up in arms about this game - it seems like it did the classic sports franchise thing of losing stuff people liked, emphasizing stuff they didn't while containing far too few of the enjoyable activities the game has to offer - but crap is fun to race cars in this game. If it weren't for the daily mileage reward that acts as a mental red light (and reminder upon accepting its reward that the game treats me like an absentee dad) this could've dominated my whole summer. As is, I've still played it more than Elden Ring, and I've got nearly 100 hours in Elden Ring, so...

4. Grand Theft Auto V (PS5) - Yep, wound up rambling again. Luckily not much to say here. The humor has aged even worse than the last time you or I played it, but boy is this just a fun world to zip around in and full of likable characters despite their mostly awful dialogue. I don't know what it is about this game, other than it feels weird to play it a decade later with minor bells and whistles appended to the other minor bells and whistles it got last generation and think...yea, in some ways, this is still a pinnacle.

5. Returnal - I turned a corner on Returnal in the New Year after weeks of being stuck on the 2nd or 3rd biome. Technically it appears I beat Hyperion at 6 AM on December 31st, 2021, but it lingered with me for months as one of the strongest video game experiences I'd had since I was an impressionable kid. Almost as baffling as the intensity and meticulous crafting of that whole level/experience is the fact that the only way to rediscover it is to watch a fan made Youtube video - there's not even a trace of her theme on the official soundtrack! No matter what aspect of Returnal doesn't speak to you, those with no plans to engage with it should at least look up a clean, audio emphasized run of the 4th biome (which might not even be possible, given Youtubers' needs to speak their piece and edit the heck out of stuff). It's a treat I think games will be struggling to equal for some time.

1. Elden Ring

I mean, what can I say about it that hasn't already been said by pretty much everyone on the internet? It's amazing, and honestly made me fall in love with these sorts of games again after Dark Souls III fell flat with me. Do hope not every Souls-like is an open world though, would be nice to switch it up.

2. Not For Broadcast

A fun little FMV game that really captures the insanity that is British television and also has some great story undertones throughout and strikes a lot of chords I didn't expect it to hit going in to it. Highly recommend it to anyone, if you can make your way through a bit of British cringe.

3. The Quarry

I'm a sucker for Supermassive's games, and still absolutely adore Until Dawn and The Quarry feels like a return to form after The Dark Picture Anthology was a bit more serious than I would've liked. Looks incredible, amazing performances throughout and genuinely hilarious at times. Nextlander's current playthrough of it too has been amazing.

4. Tunic

I loved every minute of Tunic, until the combat starting wearing on me and I ended up turning the God Mode on and off every so often for the final third of the game. The puzzles remain top notch throughout and it scratched an itch I didn't know needed scratched in the same was Fez did many years go

5. Kirby and the Forgotten Land

There's something to be said about a game that just lets me roll through it and enjoy every second. Didn't outstay it's welcome and I will eventually go back to do the tougher boss fights that unlock post-credits. The Mouthful Mode remained horrifying throughout.

Sadly I've fallen off I've fallen off the game diary/blog I kept last year since ~Feb. So it's been harder to keep up, and I've enjoyed games less because of it. None the less...

2022 Top 5 thus far:

1. Norco
2. Neon White
3. Nightmare Reaper
4. Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
5. Last Call BBS

Other notable GB-esque awards:

Best old game: 80 days - In hindsight an absolute triumph.

Most disppointing: Knotwords - clumsy interface, horrible audio glitches, unsatisfying puzzles. Seems to have gotten the praise it did purely on reputation

Most meta-disappointing: Unexplored 2 - The second most disappointing thing about this game is that not enough people actually played it to be disappointed by it. The most disappointing thing is that not enough people played Unexplored 1 to be disappointed by it's sequel.

Right now I can only put together a top 4 of 2022 releases I've completed or played enough of to know they will be favorites this year. Elden Ring is a clear first for me right now, beyond that there's three games that I can't rank in any particular order yet: Nobody Saves the World, Rogue Legacy 2, and Neon White.

Nobody Saves the World is a fantastic game that I think will unfortunately get lost in the shuffle by the time we get to year-end lists because it came out in January.

I've spent a lot of 2022 playing 2021 games, apparently, because my favorite games I've played this year would include Valheim, Guardians of the Galaxy, Death Stranding: DC, AC: Valhalla & Metroid Dread. So excluding those, I have these 5 (in no order since I haven't beaten all of them):

Kirby & the Forgotten Lands

Patrick's Parabox

Elden Ring

Pokemon Legends: Arceus

Lego Star Wars: Skywalker Saga

I think most of these will make it on my top ten at the end of the year with Patrick's Parabox being the least likely.

1. Elden Ring

2. Tunic

3. Pokémon Legends Arceus

4. Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers Edition

5. Neon White

so far my top 5 are

Rogue Legacy 2

Citizen Sleeper

Pokémon Legends: Arceus

Monster Hunter Rise(pc)

Horizon: Forbidden West

thats out of a total of 13 from this yr i've played so far. there aren't tooo many i'm looking forward to this yr so while it might shift some idk how much it will at this point.

So far:

1. Norco
2. Citizen Sleeper
3. Elden Ring
4. Kirby and the Forgotten Land
5. Tunic

I've got a pretty hefty backlog including Neon White, The Quarry, etc. so I suspect this will change.

1. Tunic
2. Horizon Forbidden West
3. TMNT Shredder's Revenge
4. Playdate stuff
5. ????

I've played Triangle Strategy, Gran Turismo 7, Elden Ring, and Cyberpunk (technically a PS5 game this year), but I don't feel strongly enough about any of them to put on a list at this point.

If I felt like buying new games and my backlog wasn't over 200 games deep:

1. Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars
2. Eldin Ring
3. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes
4. The Steam version of Final Fantasy VII Remake
5. And Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak

The top five of what I actually played so far:

1. Pokemon: Sword
2. Dark Souls 1 (third playthough)
3. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
4. Grand Theft Auto Online
5. And Ratchet & Clank 2016

1. Nightmare Reaper
2. Recursive Ruin
3. Forgive Me Father
4. Patrick's Parabox
5. Haiku, the Robot

While I don't think this year is going to rate as highly for me as the last several (for totally understandable reasons development-wise), I feel very good about at least my top 4:

1. Elden Ring
2. Citizen Sleeper
3. Hardspace: Shipbreaker (full release)
4. Songs of Conquest (early access)
5. Peglin (early access)

I rated HS:SB on my 2020 list, while it was in early access, but I felt it added enough to chart again. Honorable mention goes out to Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and a dishonorable mention to Trek to Yomi. Looking forward to Escape Academy (7/14, I'm using US date format), Stray (7/19), Temtem 1.0 (9/6), Pentiment (November?), and The Callisto Protocol (12/2). I'm hoping this year surprises me in the final 4 months as much as last year did.

I think there has no be five. Where there five okay games? Sure, you could make a list of 10 okay games, but to make a list ofp what would be your Top-5 worthy of a list...nah. I would not even offer up three because it no even fair to those three games that they have so little true competition.

Like I said there are some decent games that came out, but those SHOULD HAVE BEEN what was sprinkled around teh edges of major releases that have not shown up. Imagine is at the super bowl Cincinnati and LA Ram never showed up, so two Pop Warner-Youth Football teams showed up and played and the East Orange Junior Jaguars from New Jersey won? Did the Super Bowl happen is the bottom of the barrel pee-wee teams play? is all that is available to play???? Nah, there was no winner...teh kids were great...bunch of champs...but nobody wins that Super Bowl.

Hmm... I'll see if I can think of five.

1. Elden Ring

2. Tunic

3. TMNT: Shredder's Revenge

4. Lego Star Wars Saga

5. Norco

But I spent a lot of time playing games from the past, like Ghost of Tsushima, Genshin Impact, Destiny 2, Returnal, and random PC Game Pass and PS Plus games like Tetris Effect (amazing game) for an example and R-Type Final 2.

1. Elden Ring (by a mile)
2. Rogue Legacy 2
3. Hardspace: Shipbreaker
4. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin
5. OlliOlli World

Total War: Warhammer III is likely to shoot up the list once Immortal Empires is out. Decent enough launch but I just don't care for the Realms of Chaos campaign.

I've only finished four new-release 2022 games so far this year, and I'd order them:

1. Pokemon Legends: Arceus
2. The Quarry
3. Horizon: Forbidden West
4. Kirby and the Forgotten Land

HM to Xenoblade Chronicles and Nier Replicant, which aren't 2022 releases, but were new to me.