2022's Games of the Year, Part 1
2022's Games of the Year, Part 1
Yes, this is a retro video game publication, but I find plenty of time for new stuff, too.
Hey, if I didn’t play lots of new games, I wouldn’t have much to compare older games to, now would I? It’s Game(s) of the Year season, baby.
Eligibility rules! For one, I had to have actually played the game, and in a meaningful way. That seems an obvious point I shouldn’t have to make, but I’m making it so I can follow it up by saying that if a game you love from 2022 isn’t here, it’s most likely just because I haven’t played it yet, not because I hated it. I’m sure Horizon: Forbidden West is just lovely, but I bought it at launch and then didn’t go beyond installing it. Whoops. Second, I’m skipping ports of games that have been out for some time elsewhere (sorry, Eschatos), and a remaster or remake needs to have been significantly altered or improved in some way to qualify. So, no Tactics Ogre: Reborn, since it’s mostly just a refined version of an existing remake of Tactics Ogre. Still, though, give it up for Tactics Ogre.
This list will be broken into three parts, five games per day, with a little bonus section (different each time) at the end of each. Let’s get to it.
Vampire Survivors
Developer: Luca Galante
Publisher: Luca Galante
Windows, macOS, Xbox Series X
Oct. 20
Back in 2020, Hades mashed roguelike and shoot-em-up sensibilities together into one package while adding a killer narrative told in an equally impressive way. It was the “just one more run” of it all that helped push you, not just to discover more of Zagreus’ tale, but also, to see if you could best what you had done before. It was a real triumph of genre mashing and one of the best games that’s hit the scene in years. Vampire Survivors isn’t Hades, no, but it’s from the same school of genre mashups, and shows you can make a rogue-em-up that’s real hard to put down, that can get you in that “just one more run” mindset even without all the narrative bells and whistles of a Hades.
Vampire Survivors is pretty simple, on the one hand. Attacks are automatic, and you don’t even see the cooldowns for your various weapons and effects as they ramp back up. It just all happens, and you start to feel the rhythm of it all as you play. On the other hand, though, Vampire Survivors is pretty complicated. You won’t get very far in unlocking the various stages and characters and weapons and everything else if you don’t figure out a plan of action that works, and the plan is going to differ depending on the stage, the arsenal you build, and the character you start with, since each has their own pros and cons either related to stats or their starting weapons and effects.
Some characters will start with low health or low speed, but in return will have a starting weapon that can do a ton of damage early. And since you can find ways to increase your health and your speed as you play, it’s a trade-off that can work for you. There are also characters who will see inherent experience boosts every 10 levels, or see the area that their attacks cover increase in size — literally just a larger sprite that will mow through more hit boxes than it could before — or maybe even start out cursed to counter that they have a wildly powerful starting weapon. Cursing means more enemies, and tougher enemies, so… it’s a real balancing act. You’ll also want to familiarize yourself with all of the game’s weapons, as, due to the nature of how you collect them for a run in the first place, you can never guarantee a particular option will be available to you on a given playthrough unless your character starts with it. Which, again. Hades got a lot of people who weren’t used to that concept used to it.
Each stage — and you will have to unlock them on your own through various means you’re meant to discover — lasts for 30 minutes, and is full of secrets to find if you can live that long. After 30 minutes, a small army of reapers comes to collect, and unless you have a very specific build, you’re probably going to die before you even know what happened to you. Lasting for that long is considered completion of the stage, however, so it’s fine, move on to the next.
You’ll earn a bunch of gold in your playthroughs, which lets you unlock new characters and improved base statistics that work for all of them. Weapons can be combined, and you can keep track of which ones pair together once one of them has reached level 8 — every level, you get to choose one new weapon or ability to add to your arsenal, or level up an existing one, with the catch being that the 3-4 options are randomized — in the grimoire you eventually get your hands on. However, figuring out what pairs together is something you need to figure out on your own, as is everything in this game. And you have to figure it out, too, as you’re simply not going to survive with the basic versions of weapons as the clock ticks on and the screen completely fills up with bullet sponges. Play, experiment, die, do it all again. That’s Vampire Survivors.
The game pulls you in: I’ve logged about 30 hours, and based on what I see people saying about it, that’s actually not all that much! There are customization options for tougher versions of the stages, challenges to complete to unlock even more of the game, and, eventually, an option that has everything, including the clock, move at double speed so it takes just 15 minutes to play a 30-minute run. I’m not much of a dollar-per-hour kind of guy when it comes to video games for a number of reasons, but it’s hard to say you could do much better than Vampire Survivors with $5 in 2022.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero
Developer: Nihon Falcom
Publisher: Xseed
Windows, Switch, Playstation 4
Sep. 27
Trails from Zero actually first released back in 2010, but only in Japan. It’s fall 2022 release marked the first time it made it to North America, which is why it got the Past Meets Present treatment from me:
Trails from Zero is a great game in its own right, but also benefits from being part of this larger whole: you’ll finish Trails from Zero with questions, but they’re ones that are going to be answered in later entries — some, presumably, in Azure, and others in all but the first Cold Steel title. It remains wild that Nihon Falcom is intent on both zooming into the everyday lives of random NPCs to add a still frankly astonishing amount of local color and depth to the proceedings, while also zooming out into how the day-to-day of specific regions impacts this continent as a whole, and even wilder that they are pulling it off. If you don’t want to read and don’t like intrigue but instead prefer things being a bit more straightforward, the Trails games aren’t going to be for you. But if you do want depth wherever it can be placed, if you want to fall in love with protagonists and feel as betrayed or concerned or invested as they are, then Trails is going to have you covered each time out.
As I wrote before, if you’re new to Trails, don’t start here. But you should get to Zero eventually, yeah. Its direct sequel — Trails from Zero is the first release in a duology which is itself part of the larger Trails series — releases in mid-March of 2023, so if you picked up Zero soon, you wouldn’t have to wait all that long to see how it ties up all of its loose ends.
Unlike the other older Trails games available on Steam, Trails from Zero is fully optimized for Steam Deck play. You can play the three Trails in the Sky titles on there without any real issues, but Zero released compatible with it on day one, so you don’t have to figure out which buttons you feel like you should be pressing but do not want to press, or go through a lot of remapping before you can dive in.
Lunistice
Developer: A Grumpy Fox
Publisher: Deck 13
Windows, Switch
Sep. 2
Now here’s a game I haven’t been seeing on year-end lists, and I can only imagine that’s because the other people who make them haven’t played it. Well, I have played it (which of course means I’ve missed at least one other title those other lists do have — GOTY is a zero-sum game), and I’m placing it. Congrats to Lunistice.
Lunistice is both a throwback to an earlier age and the creation of something that never existed. It’s pure 32-bit style platforming, but built on the technology of today: the art style is clearly from the Sega Saturn/Playstation era, but there is no fog hiding the distant horizon, no object pop-ins, no slowdown at particularly busy sections. And while there’s collecting to do — Lunistice is a 3D platformer based off of 1990s 3D platformers — it’s not a chore. The paper cranes to collect are on your direct path, guiding you like coins in Mario Kart, except for the ones that are contained within the slightly more hidden paths that also house one of four letters, which spell out your character’s name, Hana, when collected.
If you fall to your doom or run out of health, you don’t lose a life, but instead a “reset” is tallied. The number of resets you use will negatively impact your grade for a stage, while the more paper cranes you collect increases the grade. Avoiding dying and collecting them all is how you get an S, and with a game like this, pushing yourself to eventually get an S on every stage is the ultimate goal. There are two stages per world, and seven worlds — not the most game you’ve ever gamed, but the stages get progressively longer as you go, and you’ve got more than enough here to keep your attention for a few hours minimum.
There is combat, but it’s mostly there to intrude on your platforming, or to become part of it — Hana has a double jump, but it’s actually a triple jump, since a spin attack deployed at the right time in the right way also serves as a jump and can help you traverse greater distances in one go. So, jumping then spin attacking an airborne enemy can propel you forward further, while leading into another jump to make it across the gap.
Not the best thing about Lunistice, but a noticed and appreciated thing, is that no one interrupted what I was doing to explain at excruciating length about how if I press this button right here, I’ll do a jump, and if I press it again, I’ll do another one. One of the reasons it’s easy to go back and play some older 3D Mario platformers is because dialogue and forced instruction is either nonexistent or at a minimum. Go back and play the first Banjo-Kazooie sometime and tell me how much fun you had interacting with that tutorial mole who literally never stops talking because your bird friend also won’t stop talking. I just want to jump and run and explore, let me do it! Lunistice lets you do it.
There are unlockable characters with their own play styles besides just Hana’s, but the basic thrust of the game is that she’s trying to reach the moon in a dream. Which means all of the worlds are dreamlike in one or several ways at once, and that helped with the overall design of the game both from a platforming and an artistic point of view. The graphics are 32-bit-looking, sure, but that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the art design.
I said Lunistice is not just a throwback to mid-90s platformers and 32-bit games, but also something that never existed. When you get on a real good run, and start hitting some of those grind rails, spin attacking foes in your way, and nailing jumps at high speed… it feels like the 32-bit 3D Sonic that never ended up existing on the Sega Saturn. Not quite as fast as that likely would have been had Sega actually managed to complete it, but still. You’ll know this to be true if you pick up Lunistice and play for yourself.
Regardless of any potential Sonic comparison, just know that Lunistice is a good time. It seems pretty easy at first, but it’s just laying the foundation for what’s to come: each of the themed levels build in intensity and in how you need to play to succeed, and there is some real meat to them, especially late-game. Like with Vampire Survivors, Lunistice is also just $5, so it won’t cost you much to transport yourself to the past using the tech of today.
Splatoon 3
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Publisher: Nintendo
Switch
Sep. 9
Well, I love Splatoon 2, enough so that it made it to number 67 on the Nintendo top 101.
Splatoon 3 is more of the same, in a lot of ways, but in the ways it’s not the same, it’s better. Which is what you want, yeah? There’s more of everything existing fans are used to and love, and for newcomers, it’s simply the best version of the concept. And all of it — new, old, in between — feels better, tighter, more considered. Which is the kind of update you want from a game like this, that is so heavily focused on the online multiplayer aspects.
Here’s some of what I had to say about Splatoon 2 in the past, all of which holds true for Splatoon 3. In particular, the three-minute time for matches is perfect to me. It keeps any one battle from overstaying its welcome, and makes it real easy to be convinced to give it another go even after a tough loss:
You begin Turf War by shooting/rolling/flinging paint at the area around your spawn point, and then progress further into the arena you’re playing in. You’ll inevitably meet up with the players on the other team, who will then either shoot at you or the area around you, in the hopes of slowing you down either way. That’s because you’ll either be splatted and have to re-spawn, or you’ll need to spend your time painting on top of the paint they put on top of your paint. The short of it is that this goes on for three minutes, and then the winning team is the one with the larger percentage of the arena covered in their team’s color.
There is more to it than that, though. In order to successfully paint the majority of the arena, your team needs perform the roles their selection of weapon or tool implies they’re prepared for. If you’ve got a sniper rifle, you’re not going to paint very much very fast, so your time is better spent picking off opponents. If you’ve got a roller, it’s the opposite situation: sure, you can roll over and smack opposing players with your roller, but you picked that thing so you could do a whole lot of painting, fast. Plenty of weapons fall in a middle range where you can adjust to whatever is needed, so it’s rare that your team isn’t balanced, structurally, in a way that’ll get them destroyed, but even if it does happen, the matches are three minutes long, and you’re unlikely to realize how doomed you are until you’re more than halfway finished, anyway. Then it’s on to the next three-minute battle, which is a chance for an entirely different outcome.
I am in a bit of a weird spot with this game here, though, only because I haven’t played any of the solo stuff yet — I’m certainly familiar with Salmon Run from Splatoon 2, and it’s good to see that’s now just open all the time in the sequel’s sequel, but the campaign and the little competitive puzzle game that’s been added this time, those are untouched by me. However! My wife always plays more Splatoon than I do, and the third entry is no exception. And I’ve watched a whole bunch of all of the non-multiplayer bits Splatoon 3 has to offer while sitting on the couch next to her, so I’m still up to speed. It all looks like great fun, I’m excited to eventually dive in, but I couldn’t help myself from competitively painting the town… whatever color I was assigned in a given match, I guess.
Drainus
Developer: Team Ladybug
Publisher: Playism
Windows
May 22
I enjoyed my time with Team Ladybug’s Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, but I do agree with Dia Lacina’s take that it was a pretty friction-free, overly smooth experience for a Metroidvania. Never too challenging, but did the job when I had an itch to experience something new in the genre, was nice to look at, all of that stuff. That it didn’t push me (or itself) a little harder, though, was a bit disappointing, and likely assures I won’t return to it down the line unless I’m doing this whole thing for so long that it is itself eventually retro.
Team Ladybug went outside of its standard Metroidvania comfort zone with horizontal shoot-em-up Drainus, however, and the result is a game that’s smooth and beautiful and works, but still pushes back on you in a way where the “smooth” there is more about how it feels to play and to control your ship and its functions than in it being a sanded down representation of the genre that makes it as forgettable as it is enjoyable. It feels good to play, and it plays well, but it’s also not making life easy for you unless you’ve chosen for it to do so.
Your ship is a Drainus-class vessel, something of an experimental single-pilot space fighter that can absorb the blasts of enemy vessels, and then fire them back from whence they came in a new, more deadly form. You can’t do that forever, of course: there’s a recharging “Guard” bar that lets you absorb until it empties, and then it has to refill, so you need to figure out the rhythm of absorbing vs. firing while still being able to dodge when you can’t absorb. And there are also enemy bullets you can’t absorb at all, that will cause you damage. Being hit won’t kill you unless you’re at the end of your health, but it will reduce you weapon capabilities, which you’re going to want to stack and stack so you’re fully powered come boss fights.
There’s a story here to follow, a ton of customization for your ship and its armaments and defenses that go beyond simply picking a loadout, and the multiple difficulty levels mean people who don’t normally play STGs and want a little more from it than the more arcade-style fare have a reason to try this title out. Maybe they’ll even realize that they’ve been missing out on the genre! I can dream.
The only oddity to me, as someone who has more shmups than he probably knows what to do with, is that it’s not a score-focused experience, but that’s fine, because what’s here was pulled off wonderfully, and you won’t really miss that side of things since the game is structured in a different way with a different purpose. It’s not like every 90s STG was always about high scores (and they definitely weren’t about online leaderboards) — we’re just pretty used to that sort of thing by now, is all.
Drainus is also set to release on the Switch in February of 2023, as well, for those of you averse to PC gaming but keen on shmups. I didn’t want to wait, and now I’m glad for it.
The Games That’ll Just Have To Wait
I have nothing against these games — I’m mentioning them here so you can exhale and go, “Oh, good, he really doesn’t hate this game that I played and loved this year.” I simply wanted to get to these but did not, either at all or enough to make a GOTY-caliber judgment on them before I ran out of year. I’m just one person!
What about the games I’ve yet to write about you’re not aware of, or the ones that didn’t make this short list below? Well, I have to keep some tension somewhere, you’ll know what made it and what didn’t by week’s end.
Horizon Forbidden West: Seriously, though, I bought it at launch after realizing it wasn’t Playstation 5-exclusive, opened it up, installed it on my PS4, and then just never played it. Or anything else on my PS4 for all of 2022. I will play! The original was great. But when it came time to go all-in on ‘22 releases the last few months of the year, one Forbidden West is what, six other games? Or more, depending on length. So… later.
Immortality: A debate between playing it on Game Pass for “free” but waiting for the living room TV to open up vs. buying it discounted on Steam Deck so I can play it whenever is as of yet unresolved.
Pokémon Arceus/Scarlet/Violet: I really expected my kids would want to see the new Pokémon game when it came out, but they were occupied with other titles, and then the months went by and it was no longer the new Pokémon. You know, I’d probably have more urgency here if Pokémon Go hadn’t made it so I’ve no longer caught them all. Anyone want to put me out of my misery and just send me those two Go ‘mon?
…now I want to play Goemon. This is why I don’t have time to play Forbidden West!
Stray: Bought it on my Steam Deck, but then I kept noticing Vampire Survivors and Lunistice and [redacted], so… 2023. You’re a cat!
Omori: I did decide to just play this one on Game Pass, and failure to be able to play it regularly because my kids were very into a couple of Switch games is what set off the Immortality debate. Really enjoyed the few hours I’ve played so far, though; it’s neat to see someone start their own game from the point in EarthBound where the main character is in a wacky world inside of his mind and also it’s trying to kill him. Hey, I said I’m enjoying it, I didn’t say Omori was uplifting.
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