This year, I thought it’d be fun to rank all my games as I played them through the year. And that’s why there’s uh, 25 games on this list. You can stop paying attention after the 10 mark if you want I guess. I thought I’d played more, but I’m only ranking the new games that I played this year. New to me, I mean. Not new to the year. Just letting you know before you google if Donkey Kong Country 1 came out in 2022. I know how much of a stickler you are for this type of thing.
Showing 1-10 of 25 items
I was someone who enjoyed God of War 2018, but didn’t put it on the bees knees game of the year pedestal that I saw a lot of people doing. I can’t tell if the combat is so wildly different this time around, but I found myself enjoying it more? Maybe it’s increased enemy variety, maybe it’s you getting your second weapon really early. Maybe it’s the annoying “Eeeugh” noise Atreus makes when you bump into him when you’re exploring. I definitely enjoy it way more from a narrative standpoint. I find that I like games with a lot of characters with intersecting goals, and there was certainly more of that on offer here than in 2018 which had like 6 characters. Now, we have those, but also we’ve got Odin and Thor and Freyr and Thrud and Tyr and Surtr and fucking Heimdall. They’re all really compelling in their own ways. This game is packed full of good moments too. Thor and Odin’s entrance at Kratos’ cabin, Freya’s final decision on Kratos as an ally, the spear blessing, the Garm fight, Tyr’s defining moment, Surtr’s transformation at the Spark and his apprehension beforehand, the entire Ragnarok sequence. And, of course, a major plot twist involving a doggie’s chew toy.
This was another deadly combination of a gripping story with a lot of silly moments and side-quests. You’ve got this serious drama of Majima struggling to carry out his bosses orders to kill an innocent civilian, and then he walks down the street and has to contend with a school bully who steals peoples' pants. Alternatively, you can play as Kiryu who is suddenly ousted from the Yakuza and now has to survive against his old comrades for long enough for a shady real estate agent to get him off the hook. Sounds pretty dire, but in the meantime there’s a sidequest where a young boy convinces him to buy nudie mags for him, but not while nearby older ladies are watching, because then Kiryu will get embarrassed and walk away. Early on, there’s a guy selling mushrooms (the non-druggy, grocery type) in an alley who is unknowingly presenting himself as a drug dealer and Kiryu is just like ‘this is a bad look, dude.’ I like how money flies out of dudes when you beat them up. I like how intensely Kiryu grabs the phone at the phone sex shop. I like Majima’s break dance fighting. The combat music is dope and has been in my gym music playlist ever since. I looked it up afterwards, and I think it’s the same composer who did F-Zero GX. I’m glad that guy still gets work.
I got this on a Christmas sale in 2020, and it took until Last of Us news came out during the middle of this year did I look at my shelf and go, ‘Oh yeah, I have that second game to play still.’ I’m not a big Uncharted guy (as evidenced by this list), but there’s something about Naughty Dog’s gunplay and narrative structure that works better for me in the more tense setting of The Last of Us. The larger level design and new enemy factions were a nice evolution from the previous game as well. This game broke my brain for a month or so, which I realized when I passed by a building with big glass doors and my first thought was to look for a brick or bottle to chuck, so I can get in and loot the place.
I got all the gifts and aced every level in this game. This was a fun game to master. I played on the Nintendo Switch, which is a great video game console that is good at playing video games, so I didn’t go too out of my way for the red medals or the tippity top of leaderboards, but I still feel like I wrung a lot out of this one. I really like the minimalist aesthetic of the earlier levels; the vibrant colors gave some good readability. I thiiiink I even came around to the story as the game went on. The characters are pretty aggressive in their personality archetypes in a way that was offputting until I got used to it. I felt like I was reading the story as a formality, or as a courtesy for how good the speedrunning gameplay is. I did end up enjoying White and Red’s strained relationship and seeing what would come of that. Mikey’s alright too.
Earlier this year, I was surprised with how comedic I found this game that I started recording some of the highlights down in a document. I think I’ll just post those here: General Radahn's tiny horse The little frog guys that attack by cartwheeling at you Hot air balloons piloted by skeletons It literally rains wolves Jar guys Erdtree Watchdogs animations Birds with sword feet that throw exploding barrels at you Indiana Jones ball that follows you around a room Rest in a coffin prompt If I was on a Game of the Year podcast, I probably would have fought for this to be its own category. I should probably beat this game. It might have been higher on this list if I could vouch for it after the midgame.
Pretty unique Pokemon game here. It reminds me a little of the Gamecube Pokemon RPGs in that there is a fusion of classic Pokemon gameplay with some new ideas. Even if a lot of those ideas seem lifted from some other very popular open world games of recent memory. Still, it was a pretty neat time and I could go for at least another one of these Legends-type games. Maybe do one with Victini or something. Always wanted a Victini smartphone.
Alright, hear me out. You play as a whip guy in a Castlevania game. For like, one stage. Maybe two. Then, you unlock the little girl who throws birds, dragons and a few other animal friends and has a double jump. She just HAS a double jump. And also, she fuckin’ throws those birds fast. Like, an unironically good defense is to just throw birds and it’ll block projectiles fairly well. Beats the shit out of some dumb whip. I think the “tradeoff” is that little girl dies in 4 hits whereas whip dude dies in 8, but those birds block really well and the double jump is a decent safety net from instant death pits, so it kinda just feels like easy mode. Oh! Also, there’s altered story cutscenes for when you beat Dracula as a little girl and they’re pretty funny. He’s this big scary vampire guy doing some melodramatic bit about human greed and she’s just pouting at him and accusing him of being a big meanie. It’s great.
Perfect Chronology version. The 3DS port with the voice acting and the bad economy changes. This was the coolest game ever made for my first bunch of hours with it, until I realized that there were only two main branches to go down. It’s still a pretty decent execution of the protagonist-with-time-travel-powers idea. There’s a lot of one-off endings that Stocke can go down, and when those go awry, he’s always brought back to Historia to try a different route. This means that in-universe, Stocke is reliving all of these side-branches (some of which I assume go on for months at least) without ‘Game Over’ that would make me think “Oh, well that didn’t happen then.” You’d expect Stocke to just be so tired at the end (or even during) this game, but he never falters in his convictions. He’s willing to go through so much shit to make sure his friends don’t die, and I can’t help but root for him. Combat was fun for a while too. I had a good arc with Aht where I thought her traps were useless (or at least not worth using over other party members), but by the end of the game, her Stocke and Rosch were the default threesome.
This is the first metroid-vania-dust-an-elysian-tale-like game I played where I thought the story/worldbuilding was a central part of the appeal. The premise of the game is that you’re a mechanic (or something) in a world where fixing things is a profane act in the eyes of the hyper religious government. I think you get arrested because some lady narc’d on you for fixing her pipes. Then you escape by crawling through the vents of the local bar, but only when the patrons are making a ruckus via bad puns so they don’t hear you. This is all to say that the tone successfully balanced lighthearted goofiness with some pretty tragic character beats and I think that’s neat.
Within 3 minutes of controlling this game, I felt right at home. Aria of Sorrow was one of my first metroid-vania-bloodstained-blasphemous-kirby-and-the-amazing-mirror-likes, but I hadn’t played it in a while, and had never played the other gbavanias. This game is like Aria of Sorrow, but without the monster soul collecting or different equippable weapons, which to me just means less menu usage and a more do-ey game. And hey, your guy uses a whip in this game. In a Castlevania game, there’s a whip guy, can you believe it?
