Wilsown's Top 10 (And 1) Games of 2022

This year's list is shorter and more incomplete than what I’m used to doing. I had some life stuff happen (don’t worry, all good stuff) and a consequence of that was having less time to play games and getting wayyyyy behind on new games. I did also have some old games that I played that were quite time-consuming that could have easily accounted for multiple smaller games, but alas….

Anyway, I wanted to have at least something written down for the year, even if it is a bit late. One note before we get to the list: at the beginning I usually like to include novelty awards for all the other games I played this year but didn’t rank in case you were thinking “well, but did you play ________?”. But frankly, I don’t have much more than a top 10 (and 1), so it’s mostly just old games, and then the 2022 games in some order that I’m certain will change once I catch up on them. Enjoy, I guess? [edit 3/5/24, moved Elden Ring from And 1 to #1, knocking off Norco and added Xenoblade Chronicles 3 as the new And 1 (lists are weird, okay?)]

Novelty Awards

2022s Old Games of the year: AI: The Somnium Files, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Psychonauts, Scarlet Nexus, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, Death's Door, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, Psychonauts 2, Beat Saber, Superhot VR, Ghostrunner, Heaven Will Be Mine, NEO: The World Ends with You, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Nuclear Throne, Tribes of Midgard, Persona 4 Golden, OPUS: Echo of Starsong

Best figurative “killing it” on wheels: OlliOlli World

Best literal “killing it” on wheels: Rollerdrome

Best minigame: Monkey staring contest in Norco

2023s long list of 2022 games I will (try to) play but haven’t yet: Horizon Forbidden West, Stray, Live A Live, Splatoon 3, Tinykin, Immortality, AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, Return to Monkey Island, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core Remake, Marvel’s Midnight Suns and the rest of Xenoblade Chronicles 3

And 1: Xenoblade Chronicles 3

It seems like this spot this year is going to be my “super long games I didn’t finish” spot, because after having Elden Ring here for a year, I’ve now got Xenoblade. I’ve only played like about ten hours of this and I’ve never played any of the other games in the series, but this seems very cool? I haven’t quite gotten to the point where I see why some people love this game so much, but I’m hopefully going to chip away at this one until I do. Probably not for a while though at this rate.

Best parts so far: Eunie, Eunie, and Eunie

10. Genshin Impact (2022)

Look, I know that this is now three years in a row that this is on my list. And going forward I think I’m going to just put it at ten by default to leave room for the more recent games. But still, by sheer time played (and a fair amount of enjoyment), I can’t make a list for myself for 2022 without mentioning it. Early this year I got a new phone which happened to be able to run it and so that was why I ended up still playing a lot of Genshin this year as an easy way to keep up with dailies. But there were also new characters, new regions, new story beats, and now a goddamn card game that still kept hitting with me this far in, which, if nothing else, is very remarkable. I am gradually getting concerned that I’ll burnout on it all eventually. But until then, the perennial #10 spot is yours, Genshin.

50-50 record on character banners in 2022: 7-2

9. Signalis

I only get the guts to play a survival horror game maybe once every few years. But once I pulled myself together, it turns out Signalis is a really good one of those. The kind of limited ability to fight is usually what bothers me about this genre, but here it ended up being pretty compelling for whatever reason. I spent a little more time than I wanted to by the end juggling my equipment like a madman, but I think it’s actually a good thing that I cared enough to want to be that efficient with how I managed everything. I didn’t exactly grasp what was going on in the story, which was partly the point I guess, but the creepy vibes and lore were plenty to keep me invested in the space. It was nice lil’ check-in with survival horror, we’ll see how long it takes until the next go-around.

Most distressing hole jumped into: Ummmm, this one

8. God of War: Ragnarok

I haven’t finished this yet but I’ve played enough so far to see that this is another heaping helping of what the 2018 game did. Which isn’t entirely fair to say, because more accurately it’s making me feel like I did playing the 2018 game, but now with the added experience of four years, which makes it something different and more impressive. The timing worked out to where more God of War was exactly what I was in the mood for anyway. It’s taking me forever to finish because I take forever to finish every game, but I have a decent sense that this is around how I’ll feel about it if it hits even just some of what it’s going for.

Low-key best improvement: Auto-pick up of items is just **chef’s kiss**

7. Pentiment

I love a good central space in a game, and Tassing from Pentiment is a great one. I spent probably more time than I needed running around trying to make sure I talked to everyone and saw everything, and even then I likely missed a lot. I have the map of the town pretty much fully downloaded along with the stories of its many inhabitants across different times, which is a huge accomplishment for a game. Sometimes time skips end up being pretty jarring for me, but the pacing of each of its acts was so good that I was actually excited after each time one ended to see how everything had changed in the subsequent years. To say nothing of how great the art style looks and how cool the fonts are. The fonts, people! This year had more than a few games come out of nowhere to really deliver, but Pentiment is probably the one I least expected to end up being so interesting to me.

Actual biggest mystery remaining: How the persuasion system works, I swear half of the time the result didn’t match what I did

6. Marvel Snap

What a delightfully insidious game. The games are so quick that I can just casually finish one, then two, then suddenly I’ve played like a few dozen hours since release. The chaotic, yet somehow manageable amount of combinations coupled with the different location abilities also made it so that it was almost impossible to have the same kind of match twice. Even if I ended up losing it was fun to laugh at the absurdity of some of the final results (okay, maybe some were pretty tilting, but still). I haven’t been this into a card game since I spent like a summer playing Hearthstone every day, which I guess tells you how long it’s been and how exceptional I think Marvel Snap is.

Number of games played while driving: 0, I'm not a maniac

5. Tunic

Tunic is partially to blame for pulling me away from Elden Ring, which is about the highest compliment I can give. You're telling me I can scratch the same kind of itch but in one-tenth of the time? The map and manual of this game are still clear in my mind this many months after playing it and I think that is super impressive the way that a game can imprint this knowledge without any kind of setup and without explicitly telling you anything. At the end of the game, I didn’t quite have the drive to do absolutely everything to get the best ending, but I had a fantastic time with all the rest.

Best Accidental Discovery: I was at the shrine screen and accidentally dropped my controller, which caused it to hit the button to try and upgrade one of my stats. And that's when I figured out THAT YOU COULD EVEN UPGRADE YOUR STATS IN THE FIRST PLACE

4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero

Hey, it’s a 2022 release, it counts! So I’ve played the Sky games and Cold Steel I and II and love ‘em to death, but when I got to the end of Cold Steel II and it was like, “let’s (re)introduce and/or name-drop about 15 characters from the two Crossbell games that aren’t officially out yet in the U.S.”, I decided to wait and play at least one of these games before moving on with Cold Steel.

If that sounds confusing, that’s only because it is. But anyway, regarding Zero itself: even though this is now the sixth one of these I’ve played, Zero still does what Trails does with the best of them. The new cast is very charming, the story is meticulously and expertly well-told, and the music is solid to great with a few bangers. The surprising amount of time that they spent resolving the Renne stuff from Sky might seem to some like it's taking away from wanting to be a new, independent storyline, but as someone who's all the way invested in the crossover aspect of these games I was incredibly glad to see it.

In some sense, I kind of went into this wanting to play it to better enjoy Cold Steel III and IV, but with Azure hopefully coming pretty soon after Zero I’m just as excited to keep hanging out with the Crossbell Crew™. And then I’ll get back to the other Trails, because these games never stop coming out, apparently.

Best banger: "Inevetiable Struggle", how apropos

3. Neon White

Neon White is a perfect example of a game that as soon as it was shown gave me something I never knew I wanted, but then I wanted it IMMEDIATELY. As someone who played a fair amount of CounterStrike surf maps back in the day, the kind of movement and the look of Neon White really reminded me of those times in the best way. And then I guess they also threw some anime on top? I was pretty okay with the story; I didn’t skip anything but also didn’t really retain much other than Steve Blum’s dulcet tones as the main lead. But wow is the movement just totally carrying this game on its back all the way up this list. It’s wonderful and ramps up to where you’re zipping and bebopping so quickly that you don’t even have time to react, all while guiding you towards and rewarding creativity and improvisation. Speedruns of this are gonna be nuts.

Actual biggest sinner: Me, for playing this on the Switch

2. Citizen Sleeper

What I thought was going to be a neat sci-fi story turned into a mini-Persona, for one because I can't help myself in making the comparison but also because its system of spending limited time and resources with a ton of different interesting characters had my brain firing on all of those fronts. Optimizing the characters' storylines and managing money and resources was super compelling and turned into an unexpected power fantasy when I eventually broke the economy of the game. This is probably because I play too many long games more than any other reason, but this was one of the only games that I just plowed through and finished very quickly, which is increasingly rare for me and usually the mark of a great game.

Chosen ending: Grow Vast and Strange, which is all we can ever hope for really

1. Elden Ring

I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but I played like 12 hours of this the first week it came out, and just kind of stopped. It's probably the combination of just being overwhelmed by the size of it and lack of direction and me also playing like 10 other games around the same time. And seeing just how much of a landmark it's become as 2022 went on only made me feel more guilty for not getting to this one as a decent-sized FromSoftware fan.

Anyway, I finally picked Elden Ring back up about a year later and finished it after several more months. But I’m ready to call it now; it’s Game of the Year. Could I have reasonably done this much earlier since it was pretty obvious that it was special? Yes, but also why not just take my time and enjoy this ludicrously large feast of a game? This is probably the easiest Game of the Year that I’ve ever had to give, even if it’s this late after the fact. Cheers, FromSoft; sorry for taking so long and looking forward to that DLC.

Laziest character creation: I picked samurai and named him Jack

Thanks for reading.