GAME OF THE YEAR 2022

List of the games from 2022 I played, ordered from best to worst!

Splatoon 3
Splatoon 3
It's my first Splatoon game, so everything felt fresh to me. I love its vibe and the overall game mechanics, it never gets old. There's something quite nice about such a "pure" multiplayer game - there is no microtransactions or any monetization to speak of and while the game does indulge in a fair bit of FOMO mechanics, it's not enough to sour the experience for me.

The singleplayer campaign shouldn't be overlooked either! It's full of clever ideas that make good use of the mechanics in ways you most likely will never be able to during a multiplayer match. The Singleplayer and Multiplayer combo definitely makes for one of the strongest offerings for the Switch.

1

Gran Turismo 7
Gran Turismo 7
Up and downs through the year - but after 260 hours of Gran Turismo 7 it's clear that it's a game worthy of the Gran Turismo name. Great and accessible physics, great multiplayer, fantastic visuals and the same stylish presentation GT is known for - not much more you can ask.

There's just a little bit for everyone really, with over 400 cars and 35 tracks you've got quite a lot of bases covered in terms of content, and if you want to just race against the AI there's years worth of fun combinations to try - but besides that you have the best multiplayer racing you'll get on a console, one of the most robust photo modes out there, and a promise of support in the form of updates for years to come.

2

Sonic Frontiers
Sonic Frontiers
Sonic Frontiers is exactly the game Sega needed to make after what Forces ended up being. Not the most polished game, or the most cohesive, or the most well designed, but there's a certain charm of highly experimental games you don't get elsewhere. The results of such experiments? I believe they have finally stumbled upon the formula for 3D Sonic, managing a great balance between the freedom of Adventure with the sense of speed of the Boost era, with a story that manages to take itself seriously without falling into the incredibly corny trappings of certain entries.

3

Bayonetta 3
Bayonetta 3
A big divergence from the flair one could expect from Bayonetta, but the result is still something that can stand on its own. Incredibly smooth to play, full of personality, no compromises taken on its action.

It's a game that definitely does take the Switch to its very limit, and maybe it'll shine more on a future remaster for the next Nintendo console, but I still felt like the technical gripes were not enough to overshadow the fantastic game underneath.

4

Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Pokémon Legends: Arceus
A much more focused game than other Pokemon games, but it worked out well for me. The excitement of seeing Pokemon for the first time while just exploring never gets old, and Sinnoh turned out to be the perfect region for a game in this style. I hope Legends becomes a succesful subseries of games instead of a one-off.

5

Vampire Survivors
Vampire Survivors
Proof that a really strong gameplay loop can carry just about anything. Yeah the art might not be the greatest and it might not have much in terms of depth but slaying hundreds of enemies in this casino-style progression system tickles the brain in a way few games do.

6

Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Forbidden West
Expectations are a funny thing. As someone that did not care at all for Horizon Zero Dawn, I don't know what exactly drew me to Forbidden West but I went into it with an open mind.
In the end? Well, it's nice that some of my complaints from the first game were adressed - the world is a lot more varied and full of landmarks, exploration is made a lot less painful with the addition of a glider and a janky (but existing) climbing system, and you fight more machines than you do humans.
The end result still isn't quite there, there are a lot of superflous mechanics I think they should cut, the universe of HZD has lost its novelty factor so it wasn't as interesting to revisit, and overall the game suffers from just not being that memorable.

7

Elden Ring
Elden Ring
Entering 2022, Elden Ring was by far the game I was excited the most for... and as you can guess by its position on this list it just didn't quite hit for me. Coming right off Horizon, I thought that maybe it was just open world fatigue that had set in and prevented me from enjoying it, but after multiple attempts I just can't keep running away from the truth - open world souls is just not interesting.

What once were a series of carefully crafted, interconnected levels that showed off From's expertise at level design is now replaced by a bland open world where you will be holding the stick forwards for 5 minutes in hopes to find the next "thing" to do.

There are moments of the From Software brilliance I was expecting, but they were few and far between - so far between that I ended up not even finishing the game.

8

God of War Ragnarök
God of War Ragnarök
It's hard to talk about Ragnarok, because on paper it has everything the recipe for a good game requires to shine, but they have mixed the ingredients in such a way that the result is just... dull. The game is polished to its core, the content is abundant and in theory some of the main criticisms from the first game have been adressed, but for every minor improvement there have been serveral major setbacks.

The big one for me? It feels devoid of any pacing whatsoever. Characters lack motivation or urgency for the vast majority of the game and just when you think it's finally picking up, they send you off on some mind-numbing task or objective which is completely unrelated to anything going in the game.

The combat was also a major friction point for me. There were a lot of times where I just felt frustrated at the game for sticking me in these cramped arenas, with the same claustrophobic camera, with enemies that can easily swarm you and take away all your health in three hits, without any attempts from the developers to ease the disadvantages of what they went for with this reboot. In a confusing turn of events, it feels like Santa Monica had a better understanding of their limitations when making the first game than the second.

There's more I could talk about, but that's better saved for a full review!

9

Redout 2
Redout 2
Not a year goes by without a game attempting to rekindle the love WipEout and F-Zero fans have been missing for over a decade now, and not a year goes by without that game unfortunately failing to deliver.

Redout 2 is undoubtably a game made for the people that dug the first game's overcomplicated handling system, and I can see the appeal of that, but I'm a much bigger fan of a simpler mechanics that hide a ton of depth than the high barrier of entry we see here. I didn't end up playing much of it, as I quickly found out the same gating of progress behind the upgrades was present in this game for some reason.

To give them some credit, its visual identity is much stronger this time around than on their first go around, and I do hope the game proved succesful so they can give it another shot.

10

1 Comment


1 year ago

Vampire Survivors!!!@#!@#!@#!@#


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