2022 saw me spiral further into a retro setup first started when the next generation of consoles were announced way back before covid. A decision was made at the time to skip the new gen and instead divert those funds into the old stuff. My biggest recommendation is to give that a try one gen, it’s been really fun!
I also decided to focus my physical library on one genre this year, that being PS1 era fighting games, so more than a few of those appear in this list too.
I also played Elden Ring. Until now, no game has come as close to perfectly capturing the scale and romance of distant, mountainous landscapes or the awe and inspiration of being inside grand architecture invokes in a person. What a miracle that thing turned out to be, not just in world design but in pure aesthetics.
Special mentions:
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I was confident 3rd Strike was Capcom’s best fighter until I got my hands on this. Game is shockingly good, most fun I had playing a game with real people this year. Has a generous, varied roster all with super interesting and creative moves. Lots of options with each character leads to some pretty exciting matches.
This is really a place for Tobal 1 and 2 as they both rule. Tobal 1 especially looks incredible, I don’t know how Square managed to get this working the way it does early in the PS1’s life. Ambitious and weird as fuck but still extremely playable.
Alex Kidd is the real shit Sega-people should be weird and shouty about.
This spot is shared with the Retro-Bit Genesis controller as it was what fixed the one thing stopping me from properly getting into Sega’s old consoles. Those old pads are that horrible. Landstalker is pretty cool too and tries a bunch of stuff Zelda didn’t dare and Alundra probably took inspiration from.
Bought this last year in anticipation for the Analogue Pocket and didn’t touch it until that arrived a month ago. Game is great, surprisingly breezy and playable given its genre and vintage.
The 3rd entry in the series is still great but the thing that struck me coming back to this is how ambitious some of the 3D modelling was - you can tell the team had a lot of fun figuring stuff out and making the various objects and effects used in this game. RIP tri-Ace.
People bang on about JRPG’s not being like they used to and this has been here the whole time. Might be the most pure of heart thing Squeenix have made in the last 10+ years. They did some dark magic making this look and run the way it does on a DS, too.
I bought a bunch of Japanese Game Boy carts on eBay at the start of the year, basically as a lucky dip and for a bit of fun. Tenjin Kaisen was one of them and it turns out to be a really great Game Boy SHMUP 100% worth everyones time.
I’ll save ya’ll 20 or so hours - the trend of Star Oceans starting off promising but devolving into generic JRPG’s started with the first. For a series about space, they sure do hate doing anything in space.
I’ve always been curious about this one as a game, notoriety aside, and it’s not great. I’d forgotten this came out so close to Skyrim and even with so many years removed the thing that sticks out most is how outdated this would have felt the moment it went gold. Sad, given the talent of its developers and artists still shines through.