I had no idea who Sloclap was, and I hadn't heard of this game until just before it came out. Never in a million years would I have expected this to be the best game of 2022, and one of the all time great action games, but that's exactly what Sifu is. And it keeps getting better as they update it! The Master difficulty, especially, really brought this game to the next level.

Sifu is everything I could want out of an action game. Fast, fluid combat with a robust moveset, a wide range of enemies to deal with, and a compact, infinitely replayable campaign with no filler. Easy choice for GOTY.

This game is the only reason why I have a Switch. I'm glad I wasn't disappointed with it, after not being interested in anything I saw in its original gameplay trailer. Instead of making another plain, safe sequel, Platinum made something completely original around their kaiju concept. It has some balance issues, the camera can be terrible, and the Switch is painfully incapable of running this game properly, but Platinum hasn't made an interesting action game in almost a decade, and Bayonetta 3 was a wonderful return to form for them. This game has an enormous arsenal of weapons and monsters to experiment with, and Viola is a fun new addition to the series, both from a mechanical and character perspective (and her battle theme is goated). Though it would have been better if you could choose to play the whole game with any character of your choice, rather than having them locked to specific missions. I've put almost 100 hours into this so far, and I'm looking forward to playing more.

The desert stage sucks though.

Not my favorite Souls game, but a solid second after Sekiro. Has to be the best RPG of all time.

Best new shmup in years. Incredibly fun scoring, a huge cast of characters (all with different mechanics), a massive amount of stages, great music. Can't ask for anything more, this is an excellent game all around.

This game was made for boomers like me. I loved TMNT when I was a kid, and I love beat 'em ups. I grew up playing Konami's games, but there's no comparison, Shredder's Revenge blows all of them out of the water. The combat is fast and satisfying, landing in a nice middle ground between the simplistic Konami games and the more modern, combo centric games like Streets of Rage 4. There's plenty of enemy types too, and they do a good job of mixing them up, so it never gets boring. The pixel art and soundtrack are excellent, and there's a huge amount of stages - which would be my main gripe - the game is too long. But it's fantastic regardless, and a must play for anyone like me. They've just released a new update too, but I haven't had the chance to try it out yet. Hopefully it makes it even better!

Probably the most fun I've had with Monster Hunter yet. They cut down the busywork, increased mobility, expanded your moveset, and let you zip around like Spider-Man to set up some aerial attacks or escape an incoming attack. I've only played the main game, too. Sunbreak should make it even better, but it's firlmy in my backlog right now...

Tengo Project don't miss. Pocky & Rocky Reshrined is probably their most robust remake yet, with a LOT of new content in comparison to the SNES original, and all of it is fantastic. This one even has a fun scoring system to play around with, even if it is too abusable to take seriously. The Ninja Warriors Once Again is still my favorite of the Natsume trilogy, but all three games are excellent, and it seems like their scope increases with each game. I can't wait to see what they do next.

I haven't really cared for a Grasshopper game since the original No More Heroes, which is one of my all time favorites. (I have yet to play Lollipop Chainsaw) I did not expect this to be as great as it is. The combat is massively improved over the original; it's now a genuinely good action game. There's decent enemy variety and they all have unique patterns to learn (parrying is vital), and of course the game has plenty of unique boss fights. They aren't as memorable as the original NMH's, but I wasn't disappointed either. The story is interesting and takes some unexpected turns, and the graphics are generally pretty nice (played on PC). I loved this game, I'm looking forward to replaying it on the highest difficulty.

The origin of Pocky & Rocky, Taito's 1986 arcade game Kiki Kaikai. I was surprised by how good this game still is. The balance between the randomness and static elements is practically perfect; it always keeps you on your toes and doesn't let you autopilot for too long. The game doesn't auto scroll, so they have a hidden timer in place that sends a death wheel at you if you stand around for too long. The timer can be really short, so you're always being hurried along, never giving you too much time to safely clear out an area or mindlessly milk enemies for points. The game also has a few interesting tricks to learn for powering up, getting extends, and maximizing score. It's just a really well crafted game, and the fact that it holds up so well almost 40 years later means it's one of the timeless classics. Underrated.

More Cuphead, at a level of quality that's consistently as high (or higher) than anything in the main game. Excellent DLC, and it's dirt cheap.

RGG Studio's best combat engine. Great sequel, but I like the story and characters in the original Judgment more. Still a great game though. Haven't played the Kaito DLC yet.

I'm sure there won't be many people who like Ghostwire: Tokyo as much as I do. It feels like it was aimed at such a specific niche - people who love Japanese horror, and have familiarity with the folklore and urban legends - that I can't believe they even got the budget to make something like this. But I'm glad they did, since I enjoyed every minute I spent playing it. The combat is really unique for an FPS too, with enemies who primarily attack with melee, which you're meant to parry and counter with your equivalent of shotgun/pistol/rockets. It's really satisfying, but I felt like they needed to expand it more - more enemies, weapons, abilities, etc - to really make something special. Still, it's a fun game. Plus I just enjoyed exploring Tango's beautiful recreation of Shibuya. I'd recommend this as long as you know what you're getting into.

Wasn't expecting much out of this game. I think the reception to The Avengers really poisoned the well for Marvel & Eidos, because this game is actually awesome. Guardians of the Galaxy are my favorite Marvel movies - this is based off the comic afaik, but regardless, I really like all of the characters, and the concept of a ragtag space crew taking on oddjobs, so I should have realized I'd enjoy this sooner! They did a great job on just about everything - the graphics, story, voice acting, writing, gameplay. This game is a complete package. Play it!

Super solid indie beat 'em up. Almost arcade-like in its design, with the high damage enemies dish out and its short run time (especially for this genre), but there's lots of hidden lives to collect, so it's not that hard to clear. It has an interesting scoring system too, built around racking up combos and keeping your chain up. Combat is pretty great too, as your characters have a lot of different attacks you can combo together for big damage. Just a great game.

Wasn't sure where to place this. It's practically a reskin of the original Demon's Souls, with very few design changes. The new art design mostly hits the mark, and the game not only looks incredibly good, but runs at a consistently high framerate as well. I think this is just a fresh coat of paint for an all-time classic, so I won't rate it too high.

I can't believe the negative reviews this game got. I think people tried to play it like Dead Space, or any other TPS, but The Callisto Protocol is built around melee combat first and foremost. Dodge enemy attacks, counter them with a combo of your own, cap it off with a quick-shot from your gun, then hit them with another combo while they're stunned. Or use the gravity gun to toss enemies around, and drag them back to you for another combo. The combat feels great and is really satisfying.

This game gave me what I wanted out of it. Fun combat, incredible graphics (best I've seen yet), a linear campaign without a boring open world and RPG bloat to bog it down, and a decent story (pretty generic, but told well enough). I enjoyed this a lot, and I'm looking forward to the DLC.

I enjoyed the original River City Girls a lot, and I felt like this was a total improvement in comparison. But this game has one gigantic flaw... you can only play new game+ once. If you want to play through the story again after that, you have to restart from a new save file. What the hell were they thinking? That really took the wind out of my sails for this game. I assume they'll fix that eventually, but unfortunately, I finished this game on a sour note. I probably would have ranked it higher otherwise.

Deathsmiles I & II are two of the best games ever, but this is a fresh port of the old 360 releases, so I won't rate it high. So far I've only played Deathsmiles II's arcade mode on PC, which plays well enough in comparison to the 360 version, from what I can remember at least. I wish they would have put more effort into this and made some improvements, but a straight port is all we got. Too bad!

Lumines is my favorite puzzle game ever. This is just a high res remake of it. I won't rate it too high, but of course everyone should play Lumines.

The most unnecessary remake of all time. I like The Last of Us quite a bit; it has a great mix of combat and stealth, and each encounter is thoughtfully designed. The story is very well told, the characters are great, the graphics are awesome - overall it's just a great game. But this remake doesn't add much to the original game, so again, I won't rate it too high. But of course, if you've never played TLOU, this is the one to get.

I felt like Ragnarok was a total improvement over the previous God of War. But by the end of the game, I was so tired of it - the slow pacing, the open world filler, the RPG bloat, the characters treating you like you have the IQ of a brick any time you encounter a puzzle or boss; I was just waiting for it to end. So it's hard to rate for me. The combat is really fun, the graphics are awesome, the story is actually really good (far better than the previous game imo), and the side quests actually feel pretty significant. I liked the game a lot, but maybe it just overstayed its welcome and I got burned out on all the AAA Sony features. I dunno.

Platinum made a good shmup?! Who would believe it after all of the awful shmup segments they've shoehorned into their action games. But they did it, Sol Cresta is really good.

It's pretty hard for new shmups to grab my attention; most indie games come across as third rate knockoffs of legendary games from the past - so why play them when there are tons of similar, better games already out there? Platinum went in a different direction with Sol Cresta - they didn't try to compete with the standard formats set by the big boys, instead they made something more unique. You control three ships, and line them up in different formations to switch between a variety of super powerful weapons, similar to The Wonderful 101. You've even got some extra attacks with fighting game inputs, and an invincible dodge you'd expect from one of Platinum's action games. They even finish with one of their typical bombastic setpieces.

The stages are loaded with secrets and bonuses to pick up as well, but unfortunately, none of it really matters. Platinum's biggest mistake with this game was making it loop infinitely. There's no need to pay attention to all of the details they've packed into the stages when you can just play forever to get a high score. This game really needs a one loop mode.

But regardless, even if you just want to take it as a casual console shmup, it's a lot of fun to play. Hopefully they follow up on this "Neo Classic Aracde" idea with some more new games.

Another really fun indie beat 'em up. Great combat system, and awesome hand drawn art and animation.

I've always been a (casual) kaiju fan. I have some nostalgia for playing King of the Monsters as a kid, I grew up watching Ultraman, and I always liked Godzilla and other monster movies. Dawn of the Monsters is a 2D kaiju beat em up, and it'll satisfy fans of both genres. The combat is very fun; you have a nimble Ultraman type character who has quick attacks and is more combo centric, a Gundam-ish (?) character with ranged attacks, and two giant monsters with slow, beefy hits. There's great variety among the cast, and you can easily jump between them before any mission.

Dawn is structured more like a console action game than an arcade beat em up, with several missions in each continent, all capped off with boss fights. There's plenty of story in between missions too, and you get cards that bring various buffs to customize your characters with. I'm fine with all that, but personally, I like the arcade format more. I wish they would put together an arcade mode, but I know that would be a lot of work for a niche audience, so whatever. I enjoyed the game a lot regardless.

This game's a lot more fun than I expected it to be. I'm still in the process of unlocking everything, but I'm having fun finding secrets and trying different characters and weapon combinations. I do kinda dislike how powerful you become, because after a certain point, you don't even need to touch the controls - your character just wipes everything out on his own until the run's over. I think cranking up the challenge modifiers will alleviate that but for now I dunno. It's a fun game anyway.

I guess this can be described as a roguelike action-platform Mr. Driller? The items are fairly well balanced, so the randomness doesn't have a huge impact on the game, it has a nice level of difficulty, and it's very replayable thanks to its brief run time. This game came out of nowhere for me, so I was surprised by how much I liked it.

Played briefly to prepare for the new remake, did a no death clear on Hard difficulty. On its own, it's a really good game. But the remake is vastly superior, so this feels kinda obsolete in comparison...

Probably the worst game in the series. Haruka's storyline is god awful, but the rest of the scenario is pretty good, with Beat Takeshi being a highlight. Combat isn't good, side content is sparse and uninteresting, XP is poorly balanced. Hiroshima is a nice location, but there's not much to do in it. But Yakuza is one of my favorite series, so I still liked it well enough.

It plays exactly like Contra. I feel like I should have liked this more than I did, but I just never really cared for it. It's a decent run and gun though, worth trying if you really want to play a new Contra.

The graphics are pretty nice, and I like being able to instantly swap between different characters... otherwise the game isn't particularly good. Combat just comes down to using the special attacks as much as possible since they're practically the only consistently safe way to engage and do actual damage. Not bad, just not good either.

Great aesthetics, at times it almost looks like one of the 1950s samurai movies it was inspired by. As a game it's just alright. The combat is very simple with no depth, but it's satisfying enough to carry the game through the few hours it takes to finish.

Way too long, way too much grinding to unlock skills, some janky mechanics, and poorly thought out scoring and ranking systems hold this game back. At its core, it's still fun to play, it just needs some fixes to be really good. (Though I guess deleting 10~ stages would be too much to ask for)

I went into this with low expectations and it was still worse than I thought it would be. Inferior to the original in every conceivable way. I only liked some of the characters.

Generic, low budget Metroidvania with no map. Not bad, but there's nothing particularly good about it either. Probably only interesting to RWBY fans, which I am not.