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InfiniteSpark

I'm an idiot.

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GOTY 2022

Welp. I would first like to quickly share my sadness of Jason and Jess being laid off from Giant Bomb recently. I felt the crew was starting to get some great momentum going the past few months. Combined this with the mass layoffs going on in the games media and tech sectors and boy it’s already feels like a rough year.

I’ll keep this year’s introduction pretty short. I’m probably singing the same tone of having a tough time in both parsing time and being in the right mood to play video games. I’ve gone through a couple of rough in-family fights the past year that have shook my mental health, but I still managed to play through enough games that were released in North America in 2022 that I enjoyed and kept me company through the tough times. I wrote this as best as I could, so forgive any typos or odd grammar and awkward structured sentences. Without further ado, here are my ten favorite games of 2022.

List items

  • NUMBER 10

    Tunic is a game where I feel it’s biggest gambit around using an in-game instruction booklet to guide through the player’s adventure is great and starts off strong. Unfortunately I felt its unique methods to unravel the numerous secrets along with the slog of acquiring the missing pages, progressing through its environments, and lackluster combat and story kills the initial wonder brought up with the intrigue of the instruction booklet. Tunic could have been a wonderful game that mixed solid The Legend of Zelda adventure that unfolded in a neat way with the instruction booklet. Instead, it becomes a game that has a novel idea that dug itself too deep and hampered the potential of what it presented early on.

    Looking back in hindsight, I loved the way Tunic slowly unveiled its story, mysteries, and game progress by starting with an incomplete booklet and figuring out what to do and where to go with the new information with each new missing page acquired. Tying in with the progress of parsing through the information is the old tried and true method of going to a new area and acquiring new weapons and equipment to help access the other area and solving certain puzzles. It’s nice that you can venture to any area to get through the game, though I feel there is a certain path the booklet leads the player to venture in order. I felt I was in for something special playing through the early parts of the games.

    Then my thoughts on Tunic slowly soured as I progressed further into the game. The biggest offender was its combat, which I eventually found to be a massive chore as I dug further into acquiring the missing instruction booklets. There’s nothing wrong for combat to be a simple variant of Dark Souls, but it got stale pretty quickly and soured the adventure enjoyment I initially had. When I got to the final portion of the game and saw the method to attain an ending, my heart sank. While the revelations of puzzles were great, the sheer amount and the execution to successfully solve the puzzles were too great. I resorted to a guide when I went back to get the other ending after I finished through the first ending. I do admire the open yet sly details of the numerous puzzles scattered throughout the environment and instruction booklet.

    I really enjoyed the presentation and technical aspects of Tunic. I loved the blocky 3-D art look of the environments and characters and the soundtrack throughout has a sublime electronica feel that sort of has a relaxing music to listen to vibe. The instruction booklet has numerous neat art pieces scattered throughout from the portraits, the lettering language, and the pen ink markings is a nice touch. I enjoyed my time with the game, I lament that it could have been much more in my eyes.

  • NUMBER 09

    Pentiment is a game you don’t normally come across. A game steeped in European history as its main backdrop with character background and dialogue choices that have varying results and variances to the player’s story details. There’s a lot to like, especially in the presentation department with its art, written fonts, and written dialogue adhering strictly to how it would have been done back then. The gameplay portion where the characters you play as make numerous dialogue choices within a backdrop of the mystery deaths impacting a small village and church is where it’s hit and miss for me. While I didn't quite get the end result that I thought it was leading to by the end, I found the loops of background choices, available time to research, and making the choices an experience a frustrating exercise for the most part.

    There’s a lot to love in Pentiment when it comes to its presentation. The art is front and center the game’s strongest point as it’s just jaw-droppingly beautiful at every single turn. It’s not only the characters who look great in their stylized historic European caricatures, but the environments are wonderfully drawn and painted as if they were painted by painters themselves during that time period. I also like the minimal use of music scores throughout the game as it gives it a more feel using sound ambience instead of period music that I oddly think would work against the game’s adherence to portray a particular set piece.

    The gameplay portion is where I fell a bit out of favor. The player is given a set amount of time to gather as much information before they are confronted to make a critical choice. The investigation part is fine which the player traveling to all the different areas per act to find clues and inquire amongst the village folk and fathers of the abbey, the limited amount of allotted time for the player to gather all information as they can and forcing them to make a crucial choice took makes it feel my investigation time was all for naught, even if that aspect was somewhat alleviated by the end of the game. I also felt miffed by the character background choices as by the end of the game, I felt certain backgrounds were vastly favored over others in terms of the player being able to decipher and attain clues at a higher and more successful rate than others. I assume due to the differing choices made between the acts, certain details regarding the characters and settings will change. Another playthrough may give me second thoughts on how I view the game’s gameplay aspect, for now based off of my first playthrough it’s a sore point.

    I hate to pitch this as the perfect Game Pass game, but Pentiment is that game where it’s that type of game for folks who are interested to see how it is at a low risk proposition. It is a game that I feel folks should check out if the historic setting and presentation peaks their interest or is wondering what all the talk is about should check it out if you have access to Game Pass. The presentation and dedication to adhere are second to none, it’s the gameplay where your mileage may vary.

  • NUMBER 08

    There are plenty of games where the gameplay is the only appealing component and significantly carries the game’s strengths against the myriad of flaws piled against it. Bayonetta 3 carries on its legacy of providing thrilling combat mechanics and battles throughout with some neat inclusions based on the plot. It’s great that it throws a good amount of battles and neat trial challenges that kept me engaged against everything else that weighed the game down in a number of areas. The quality, quantity, and variety of combat ultimately carries Bayonetta’s continued success as one of the most enjoyable character action franchises, even if this release pales considerably against the first two games.

    The Bayonetta games are most well known for two things, its charismatic main character and its excellent combat gameplay. In Bayonetta 3, Platinum did a great job maintaining its combat excellence. I enjoyed the familiarity of the combat with fast attacks, the numerous combos, and initiating witch time with a well timed dodge. I mostly enjoyed the addition of the demon summons as an additional mechanic on top of Bayonetta’s move-set, though I feel they designed the demon summons as necessary to get through the game’s battles as soon and efficiently as possible. The adventuring sections of Bayonetta 3 are decent with a number of secret collectables and puzzles to find for those who seek that content out. I loved the Elevator action nods of Jeanne’s chapters and mildly enjoyed the challenge of playing Viola with her Witch Time activated by parrying an enemy attack instead of dodging.

    However, I felt the writing of Bayonetta and the story really dragged the game down. I understand using the story of multiple universes to help employ more variety in the gameplay department, but it didn't serve everything else well enough. In fact, I believe it does Bayonetta a major disservice as she does not display as much charisma that was a highlight in the first two games. Jeanne barely interacts with Bayonetta and Viola’s introduction feels slapped in. The story atmosphere also takes a major turn from the optimistic and flamboyant to a downright gloomy throughout this entry. Though story and character building was never the highlight in the franchise, the direction in Bayonetta 3 rails against what One and Two did well with their light touches on these fronts.

    Ultimately Bayonetta 3 is a game that could have worked out better but is held back by a number of circumstances that hold it back. It’s no secret that the Nintendo Switch’s lack of horsepower limits what Bayonetta 3 could potentially unleash, especially in the graphics department. In spite of everything that’s gone against it, you can still rely on Bayonetta to deliver the combat rich gameplay to make it a worthwhile venture for franchise and genre fans.

  • NUMBER 07

    It’s been incredible to see games seeped in the beat ‘em up genre find new traction and small innovations and TMNT follows in the same success that Streets of Rage and River City Ransom franchises garnered in the past few years. The developers did a great job balancing the nostalgia of the previous games while implementing their modern touches. Shredder’s Revenge is a solid package overall with no real unsightly flaws to complain about. There’s a couple of gameplay design choices that I did not quite gel with that I felt prevented me from fully enjoying the game to the fullest.

    Shredder’s Revenge checks off everything you want in a modern beat ‘em up: multiple characters with unique characteristics, numerous enemy waves, multiple enemy variety, environmental interactivity, tons of stages, and interesting boss battles. It’s nice for a TMNT game to have playable characters outside of the main four turtles with the inclusion of Master Splinter, April O'Neil, and Casey Jones. Every level has tons of enemies to work your way through and the variety is incredible, from the numerous color coded foot soldiers that have their own distinguishable attack patterns to the nods from the previous games. It’s also nice to see objects being intractable as it was a notable feature from the other games. There’s also a good meat to the bone with sixteen jam packed stages to play through. It’s all funneled through excellent art and animation along with a bumping soundtrack that features impressive features from Mike Patton, Ghostface Killah, and Raekwon.

    My only biggest nitpick with the game is its boss battles. They are oddly the most frustrating feature of the game as the patterns and challenges they feature are not as enjoyable to combat and encounter compared to the venture of the stage. I have no issue with bosses having numerous patterns and awaiting your turn to attack them, but I feel the developers took its boss battle creativity a bit too far. An example of my gripe is the Rat King battle, where after a certain time he’ll retreat back to the background while the player has to dodge waves of rats and a few just pop up to inflict damage to the player. I have similar complaints with the Super Shredder fight where he’s only vulnerable for a small window after having to dodge a number of his attack patterns first. On one hand, it’s a neat added challenge to the players to be mindful of, but it doesn’t feel like a boss challenge where you can constantly pick your spots to go in.

    Nonetheless, Shredder’s Revenge is an excellent package where you’ll get your usual beat ‘em up bells and whistles that’s very rich in the presentation department. While it does not feature anything groundbreaking to set itself apart from the pack, there’s plenty to love and play through to make it worth your time and a neat inclusion into your gaming library if you’re a fan of the genre or the previous games.

  • NUMBER 06

    It’s incredible Forgotten Land is the first true 3D Kirby adventure game after going through numerous gaming generations with 3D capability, yet it still ends up playing like a classic Kirby-esque adventure. Aside from the usual Kirby gimmicks of his floating jumps and suction to acquire certain weapon skills, Mouthful Mode is wonderfully worked into the level design to get through certain sections and stage secrets. Forgotten Land doesn’t do anything extraordinary to mark itself more than a lengthy Kirby journey, it’s still a fun game to venture throughout.

    Mouthful Mode is the marquee feature in Forgotten Land and is excellently designed throughout the game. It’s not only nice to see the various features of Mouthful Mode, but also how hilarious Kirby looks when he morphs into the objects and his abilities in the mode. Most stages are fun to play though with a number of secrets to find if you pay attention to your stage surroundings. It’s also nice that the game allows so much leniency to the player to get them through the stage, from being able to equip a specific weapon at the start, to carrying a health item, and having health items available throughout the stage. The weapon skill challenges are fun side excursions that test the player’s skill use of assigned weapons and provides a nice break for adventuring through the game’s numerous stages.

    As much fun playing through each stage and finding out the secrets and uses with Mouthful Mode, the lengthy adventure made playing through each subsequent stage less enjoyable to venture through and more of an assignment to get to the next stage. At least they made the final stretch a breeze to play through with an exciting and bonkers ending to make up for the slog. I also felt thanks to Mouthful Mode and the ability to equip weapons, I felt there was a lack of use and emphasis of using Kirby’s patented suction skill throughout the game. It also stinks for folks playing co-op that the second player just plays as a Waddle Dee with no special skills to acquire.

    Despite the game feeling a bit one note and the adventure feeling longer than it is, it’s still a pleasant game to play with a lot of variety to discover at each stage. This is a great first crack as the first full 3D Kirby game and with some further tweaks, the next 3D Kirby game will reach the same high potential with the great 3D Mario games. Everything else with Kirby is top notch with vibrant colors used throughout the game, overwhelming cuteness, and a surprisingly excellent soundtrack that includes a killer theme song. Forgotten Land lacks the punch to make a mark as a marquee game, but it does its job very well and most folks will find plenty of enjoyment to find here.

  • NUMBER 05

    Many can blame the existence of another Splatoon and see diminishing returns for the franchise with a third entry. The package on the whole seems no different than what was offered from Splatoon 2 over five years ago with the usual offerings of a single player campaign, various multiplayer modes, and a co-op enemy wave mode. Despite the limited advancements in gameplay, mode offerings, and content, Splatoon 3 still delivers an excellent, engaging shooter that many folks not big into shooters to get into along with some necessary under the hood quality updates to make this the quintessential Splatoon release to date.

    The biggest addition made to Splatoon 3 is the battle hub, where players can use the hub to queue up matches while testing out different weapons and outfits. No longer where the player is waiting idly on the matchmaking screen awaiting a match to sync up and run, players can roam around the lobby and do as they please as they await for matchmaking to complete. The other small quality of life improvements are nice additions to navigate through Splatoon 3’s menus seamlessly through a few buttons. You can even skip the Squid show introduction with a press of a button outside of a new event being introduced (new season, Splatfests).

    Everything else you know about Splatoon is kept in place here. You have the non-ranked mode where the team that inks the most territory wins, a number of different ranked modes that provide unique team based challenges, all fought between two stages rotated every few hours. The Salmon Run co-op wave based mode from 2 is also included here mostly the same with few new bosses tossed in the mix. Players can also group together with friends to play in the same team in all modes. The three clothing slots provide numerous power ups that the players can equip to suit their playstyle needs. Single player continues to serve as a nice, lengthy training mode of how to properly execute Splatoon numerous different weapon and weapon types, though I feel the adventure this go around gets a bit long in the tooth.

    Nonetheless, Splatoon 3 remains the rare Nintendo title that excels as an online centric shooter. It may not offer much new items aside from new content and a new Squid cast to run the show, it’s still an excellent release that retains what makes Splatoon a quick Nintendo fan favorite since its inception back on the Wii U. It’s more Splatoon with a few nice quality of life additions, and as long as Splatoon itself maintains its high excellence to provide an exciting and accessible online shooter that most folks can dive in and play, it’s all a fan can ask for.

  • NUMBER 04

    Life constantly throws you curveballs. At every turn there are hard decisions to make and hoping that the dice rolls in your favor. Citizen Sleeper does a great job putting you in uncomfortable decision making early and often on which story threads to pursue and hoping the actions you take go your way. The game surprisingly produces numerous tense moments based on the progression of every story thread and the results of your dice rolls. While I felt the story and gameplay loops early on to be too busy and then work its way to being too stale by endgame, the interplay works well enough to tough out the threads the player pursues and see how the end of one tangles with others.

    Deep down, Citizen Sleeper is a visual novel game. What makes Citizen Sleeper stand out from being another one of the mill games in a crowded genre is its dice roll cycle gameplay. Instead of relying on dialogue/action prompts to calculate progression, the game uses dice along with the character classes' personality statistics to produce a probability of success or failure for the player’s action. There’s neat intrigue with what dice you roll at the start of the cycle and seeing which story beats you think you can pursue. Outside of the gameplay, the numerous story threads thrown at the player are well written with each one having some sort of conflict with the end result not entirely painting a pretty picture for the characters involved.

    My main gripes during my time with Citizen Sleeper are the busy early game and how the gameplay becomes less of itself toward the endgame. After completing a few introductory story threads, the game throws you open with a number of threads all at once. While the game does its best to connect you to which actions tie into which thread, it ends up being messy as the map features numerous areas with their own action items that may not link to the threads you were pursuing. After you progress your character with better stats, the end game makes the tension of deciding which stories to pursue and which dice to play becomes irrelevant. I felt after the fourth hour and getting through the flow of the cycles and earning certain power ups, I was merely going through the motions until I received a prompt for an ending which I took to finish my time with the game.

    Citizen Sleeper also packs a solid presentation with excellent looking character portraits and an atmospheric, ambient soundtrack. The story threads are well written and I love that the end result of certain story threads ends up being a mess instead of reaching a clean and conclusive resolution. The UI and fonts are sleek and easy to reach throughout the game. I wish there was a bit more even-ness to the chaos over the course of my time with the game but I suppose that was the intent. Life’s so harsh that you just don’t have much time and energy to tackle everything it throws at you. You just do the best you can do at any given point.

  • NUMBER 03

    If there are two words that I would describe my time and enjoyment of playing Vampire Survivors, the words are deceptively simple. The game is easy to play, the player is only concerned in moving the character around while building their character with a number of weapons and passive abilities to defeat the hordes of enemies that constantly spawn and surround the player. It’s also deceptive with the mix and matching of weapons and skills, certain combinations resulting in a weapon and ability to be evolved and finding out which weapon types deal out bigger damage against certain enemy types. While I don’t have a strong connection that makes me go rah-rah on Vampire Survivors, it’s one of those types of games where you can play a good fifteen to thirty minutes into it and feel like you got a good dose of gaming done for the day. It’s always nice to have those types of games in hand against other games that require more of a time and mental commitment to accomplish.

    The constant rise-repeat cycle of choosing a character, building a set of weapons and abilities, choosing a stage, then just going around and wrecking as much havoc as possible while weaving your way through constant waves of enemies never seems to feel old at this point. It feels good that you just boot up the game and jump right in and not have to do much input outside of moving the character around and choosing which power ups to equip. Then finding out there are weapon evolutions, new characters to unlock, and stage secrets add a bit of intrigue and goals for the player to strive for. DLC was recently included before year end to add more content to what is already a good amount of content the player can immediately dive into.

    My qualm with Vampire Survivors is that it provides a short time thrill that fills in the role of wanting to play a game in short bursts and that’s all it does for me. There’s nothing wrong technically or found within the gameplay that I have serious issues with, it doesn’t provide any memorable moments I found during my twenty hours with the game compared to other games where there was something that tugged at me to make it more than just a solid game to play. I also feel that there'll be a point where any new additions to the game just won’t enhance the initial rush that I had with the game.

    Nonetheless, Vampire Survivors was the quintessential chill out game for me that I could check in to play to pass the time. It helped when I finally got my Steam Deck that I could quickly boot up the game on the train and play a session or two on the go. The pixel graphics and soundtrack are pretty good to boot. It may not pack the WOW factor, but the sheer factor of being so simple to play and action packed along with a low price point makes it an easy recommendation for anyone who just wants a game to resort to from time to time.

  • NUMBER 02

    It’s a bit of a miracle that Live A Live made it out to the west. It’s another miracle that it received a lavish HD-2D remake that really brings the pop to the original Super Nintendo pixel graphics and chip soundtrack. The separate short story chapters provide plenty of entertainment and are unique from each other to make each one worth venturing story and gameplay wise. It’s crazy how much the game holds up after so many years. Some may argue the battles and leveling experience are too simple, but I felt the simple RPG mechanics are for the game’s benefit for showcasing each chapter’s unique gameplay gimmick and not get in the way of the storytelling. There’s something endearing and surprising to find in each chapter and sort of wraps up at the end to make Live A Live a journey to take for JRPG fans.

    The secret to Live A Live’s enjoyment is how much they differentiate each chapter to have some sort of gimmick. Some chapter gimmicks I loved more than others but I enjoyed the variety that each one brought up, but each one was at least very interesting to play through. Each chapter contains a great main character and a major side character that really makes each story shine. The battles may not be involved because they’re breezy and rarely bloats each player’s time and the boss battles always feel majestic with the bosses sizes being large against the player’s and accompanied by an awesome boss battle theme composed by the legendary Yoko Shimamura.

    The HD-2D remake works along with nice quality of life additions to help navigating through each chapter’s areas much easier to go through. It’s nice to have a mini-map detail where the doors are and highlight which ones forward progress to the next part of the chapter, which hasn’t been explored before, and which you previously visited. The sleek and redone looking sprite work both respects the pixelized original look from the original Super Nintendo release and gives it a nice polish that looks nice on any monitor. The remade soundtrack equally does the same, maintaining the original songs while giving it a nice flourish that caters to modern sensibilities. The Japanese voice acting is pretty solid to give the characters a little bit more personality. Lastly, the UI and menu font are simple but highly legible and easy to navigate. Plus you can save whenever you want with auto-saving as a backup to your manual saves. If Square Enix plans to release more Japanese RPGs that never got a Western release around this era with the intention to remake it, they should duplicate the great work they did here.

    There are a few items that I can nitpick, but none of the issues really bothered my experience and enjoyment of the game. Some chapters have random battle encounters to deal with, which is annoying in a modern game context but the normal battles didn’t pose any problems to me. A few story chapters I felt were mediocre in quality storywise and how it wraps up and tries to tie in all the eras at the end doesn’t quite stick the landing, but I still enjoyed the journey through the chapters and playing through the optional character trials. The awkward isometric view of the battles with the grids not being exact took me a bit to overcome, but since the battles weren’t much of a challenge or issue I got over this particular qualm pretty quick.

    I like my Live A Live experience as reading a great author’s collection of short stories. The quality may vary slightly and trying to link and wrap them up by the end fell a bit short. But the sheer quality of each story chapter with their unique setting and gameplay gimmicks backed by beautiful art, animation, and soundtrack and it was just a highly enjoyable journey to play through. Not to mention the quality of this HD-2D pixel work and a couple of quality of life items added into the mix serves as one the model recipes on how to properly produce a video game remake. Live A Live will never reach the popularity of Square Enix’s plethora of JRPG franchises, but they did a great job shining a light on one of the deep cuts in their catalog.

  • NUMBER 01

    There was no other game that I played that exudes confidence on what it’s presenting than Norco this year. I did not know what I was facing upon hearing a few glowing recommendations but man I was not expecting a point and click gritty adventure to be an instant favorite of mine for the year. I never expected a gritty, gothic tale based on a location off of New Orleans to feature an eccentric cast of characters, a moody, unsettling soundtrack, and a story that is simultaneously great on rail yet feeling like it can go off the rails at any moment. The game may be short, but it makes its impact felt throughout its run time.

    Norco is one of those games where its presentation meshes well with its storytelling. The harsh early PC-like pixel graphics makes a perfect art setting for telling this dark story of the protagonist returning back to Norco to investigate the mystery left behind from her mother’s death. The background settings look beautiful, offset by the grimy looking characters along with the soundtrack makes you feel unsettled as you play between two vantage points on figuring out the mystery which is unfurled at a nice pace. The point-and-click gameplay is kept nice and simple with most puzzles relatively easy, which removes the frustration of trying to figure out puzzles that barely provide any hints or are vague to find its solution.

    The two aspects of Norco that I really enjoyed are the characters and the story interplay between the two protagonists. Every character I came across in Norco, whether they played a major or minor role in the story, immediately struck a chord with me. I can rave about the detective that rolls along with you from the second half of the story onward, to the demented canal person who at the start doesn’t seem to amount for much but turns out to be a nightmare by the end. I love how the game times which protagonist viewpoint you play as you progress through the game, where you pick up little pieces here and there until you hit the end where everything you learned previously all falls into place. Props to the writers for crafting a wild yet tight ship in their storytelling.

    There wasn’t much that I could find to nitpick my experience with the game. There were likely further non-critical story beats that I could’ve dug into based on the game’s achievements and the lack of manual saves and save slots make it hard to revisit sections to explore certain game sections further, but since the story is short and to the point I don’t think those little quality of life items are relevant. I found myself enthralled with the story, mystery, characters, and the pace that I just wanted to find out as soon as possible. The game being story-centric with light point-and-click gameplay limits the game’s mass appeal, but it sets out what it does so well that it’s worthy to check out.

    I found myself in constant awe as I progressed through the game. The story and characters kept me enraptured and loved the way the plot unfolded throughout. I also love that the puzzle complexity and backtracking were kept to a minimum and not be an impediment to the pacing of the story. The gritty old-school PC pixel art and the soundtrack mesh with the story and set the Norco town setting so well. Norco is a game that knew what it wanted to do and it did it well. Not many games can say that they executed on their initial concepts so well, no matter the size and scope.