The thing with Game of the Year awards is that it pre-supposes that we are all adults with lots of free time to keep up with the ever-increasing firehose of game releases. You would think that games journalists, of all the types of adult, would be more on top of this than most... and you would be wrong! Like any other person, we get waylaid, sidetracked, postponed, and backlogged, spending hours playing this hot new thing called Skyrim instead of checking out Elden Ring.
If you're familiar with our semi-regular Backlog Club series, you'll know we've spent a good chunk of this year playing non-2022 games. So, in honour of the games that dominated our 2022, but aren't eligible for this year's GOTY, we present to you the horribly-titled "Best Non-2022 Switch Game We Played A Whole Bunch" 2022 Game Of Not-This-Year Awards. Let's go!
Jim Norman, Staff Writer
Winner: Metroid Dread
Realistically, my answer to this one would be Metroid Dread – a little indie game that I’m sure you haven’t heard of. Except, of course, you have heard of it. Everyone has. I was very late to the party on this one and only picked Dread up in November of this year so I kind of feel like I am saying “oh, have you ever played Breath of the Wild? It’s really good!” I’ll therefore quickly round it off before talking about something else: great game, one of the best on Switch, best Metroid ever?, lived it loved it etc., etc.
If I was to disqualify Dread based on the fact that of course it’s really good, then I would have to go for Owlboy instead. How on Earth I hadn’t played this before is completely beyond me! It had absolutely everything that I look for in a video game. A stunning art style, interesting combat system, a guy in green hat. If I could have made it last for longer then I would have done so in an instant, but the few evenings that I spent playing this title were some of my top gaming memories of the year. It might not quite match up to Metroid Dread in terms of the best games on Switch, but I know which one made me cry a whole lot more…
Kate Gray, Staff Writer
Winner: Slay the Spire
My GOTY this year is Metal Gear Solid V, a game I steadfastly ignored when it came out because of the legitimately atrocious way it handles women (or, "woman", since there's really just the one). But god, it's a gorgeous little thing all the same — a masterpiece of "I wonder if this would work" systems design. Shame about the sexism.
If we're talking Switch games, though, my non-2022 GOTY is easily Slay the Spire. I played it on Steam when it first came out, and I played it a lot back then, but getting it on Switch tripled my hours in the game, easily. It's such a perfect pick-up-and-play game, and I think those kind of games get overlooked in GOTY lists because they're so bitesized. It's so good though, and I love being able to rediscover a game like that.
Gavin Lane, Editor
Winner: Spelunky
Earlier this year I was perusing my Switch menu determined to tick something off the backlog to make myself feel better. Something short, something sweet, something quick that I could complete in a couple of hours just to activate that dopamine spurt when you get something ticked off a list.
Stupidly, I saw Spelunky sitting there and tapped on that. Having enjoyed a fair few roguelites, I reasoned that it was about time to go back to the one that kickstarted indie devs’ love affair with the genre — at least on consoles — a decade ago. It’s good. It’s really good. You know it already, but if you’ve somehow overlooked it for the past ten years like I had, I can confirm that Derek Yu’s video game Spelunky is a good video game. I haven’t finished it yet, and when I do I’ve got Spelunky 2 waiting for me. By the time I’ve finished that I could have ticked a dozen other games off the backlog... but none of them would be Spelunky.
So first things first, right? Perhaps Yu will have wrapped development on UFO 50 by the time I get through them!
Alana Hagues, Staff Writer
Winner: Unpacking
I feel like it’s cheating to put a game that came out in the last few months of 2021 here, but gosh do I wish I’d played Unpacking when it first came out.
Actual, real unpacking is stressful. One moment you’re packing up your life into perishable cardboard boxes, then the next you’re trying to find new places for it in a brand new shell. Unpacking (the game) removes the stress but still keeps the reflection in – it’s a game that managed to tell a story without words. For ten hours I carefully unpacked various times, filling shelves and examining rooms, while paying attention to the changes in both the type of house and in items – what was missing and what had stayed – and the mood. It’s a beautiful game and has me a little bit more hopeful and positive for my next life-changing move.
What's your GOTY-that-wasn't-actually-TY? Give us your catch-up candidates in the comments!
Comments 60
I'll give a shout-out to Pushmo. I've been solving a few puzzles here and there for years, but with the announcement of the eShop closure, I picked up the pace and solved around 80 puzzles this year. Some of the later puzzles are incredibly devious. It's amazing how addictive and challenging such a simple concept can be.
Mine was Hades, I was utterly absorbed by it. I won't be waiting to pick up the sequel, that's a day one purchase.
The award goes to Hollow Knight! Finally completed it last week and it's one of the best games ever created.
I've not even finished botw and I bought that with my switch 1 month after release lol. I've bought more games on switch than I've any chance of playing through
Isaac, for one? It's somehow had enough of a resurgence burst in my backlog to make it into the top three played items in the recent Switch summary from Nintendo, and I've progressed through an impressive amount of unlocks by my standards as a result, including the complete sheet for Isaac, unlocking most characters and getting all the daily run achievements. There's still more to do which I want to wrap up before installing the balance-shaking Repentance (which I can't immediately buy anyway - I'll need to find time and temporarily set my account back to something European again) but there was a time when I felt a bit too intimidated to expect to be even where I'm now.
@BigE I know the feeling, bro (although I don't feel any particular remorse about it😆). Which includes BotW played since 2017 where I'm well over 100 hours and have yet to unlock the full map.😅
Metroid Dread was a fantastic game, with a forgettable sound track. Metroid music is usually incredible (especially the Prime series) so it's that much more bizarre to only get one or two good tracks in a Metroid game
Dusk was originally released on other consoles in 2018 and made it to the Switch, I think, back in 2020 (correct me if I'm wrong). I finally checked it out, and I can't stop! It's retro FPS style (Grampa's 286 graphics!) polygonal madness, and B-E-A-U-TIFUL gory horror story takes me back!
Mine has to go to Shadowverse: champions battle, best card game on switch (at least of the ones i've played so far) and to be honest, I doubt anything will rob it of it's crown. I only stopped playing because the online was dead.
Side note, I played unpacking recently, honestly I'm not sure what all the hype was about, I actually got bored despite its short runtime, and I love me some cozy games, maybe it's just me, as it seems to be universally praised.
Game designers just can't win with the "sexist" argument. First it was sexist because all the ladies were helpless princesses. Now because there isn't a 50/50 ratio (even funnier when taking into account MGS5s 1980s setting, which is when the first 62 women were even enlisted in the US) and the main woman is total badass but dressed sexily, it's yet again..a horrible sexist thing. But topless ripped guys is okay I'm sure?! Just a losing battle any which way when adding females into a game while also using 'sex sells' to...well..sell games.
A bunch for me- Stardew Valley, Danganronpa Decadence, Pokémon BW2, The Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess
Shoutout the the Phoenix Wright and Great Ace Attorney games. The best things I’ve played this year bar none
Dead Cells! Finally bought it.
The Binding of Isaac for me. Always fancied it, and I've played it nearly every day since getting it in February or March. Working my way through the challenges now.
Much of my gaming life has been dominated by Pokémon this year, but between Halloween and ScarVio coming out, I put time into Dicey Dungeons. Loads of fun, and I gotta get around to playing it more.
For me, definitely Hollow Knight. I bought it in 2021, but I finished it this year. I archived the software on Switch to save space, but now I have a second copy on my PC!
Mine was Wind Waker. I tried and tried to like this game when it came out and then a few times over the next two decades 😳 But then, this Fall, something just clicked and I fell in love with the game. I started a fresh quest and finished it just before Christmas. I took my time and immersed myself in that world. No online hints. No guide books. And some days it took a really long time to find the next plot point. Sailing around side-questing was also so much fun this time around.
My game of not-this-year comes down to a tie between Blasphemous and Monster Hunter Rise. Both awesome games with enough content and depth to keep you hooked for a long time. The best part is I already have an upcoming sequel to the former and as-yet-untouched DLC for the latter to look forward to.
Octopath traveler, God that game is as amazing as I hoped it would be. Don't get me wrong, the fact the stories don't interact is a letdown. But the stories we have are diverse, the characters great and that battle system is still keeping me on my toes after 70 hours!
And I played final fantasy 10 for the first time, truly one of the best video game stories ever made! Can't recommend that one enough, still!
The 2 ridiculously good games which I didn't play until this year are Super Mario Galaxy and Stardew Valley. I don't know why I didn't play these earlier, but love them.
Not as good, but I'll throw Fall Guys as a runner up just because I was actively waiting for it to come to Switch since 2020 so never played it on pc. I fell of the wagon somewhat quickly, but I still really enjoyed finally playing it.
@Logicfire so glad it finally "clicked" for you!
@StarPoint yes, someone new in our Fandom!! ❤️❤️❤️
GoNTY for me is Portal 2. I've played it before, but any reason to come back to it is a good reason. Still probably Valve's best game, with its design, characters*, presentation, soundtrack, Old Aperture(one of my favorite settings in a game); it's a game everyone should play at least ONCE to see what all the fuss is about.
As a runner-up, I'll go with Katamari Damacy. I played the Switch remaster earlier this year and it's one of the most pure fun experiences I've ever had with a game.
*Cave Johnson is still the best Half-Life character.
Earlier this year (last weekend, to be precise), I did a 100% playthrough of Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island on the Game Boy Advance. The last time I attempted this was over 15 years ago, sometime after Yoshi's Island DS released, but one of those Secret Stages, Kamek's Revenge, gave me so much trouble that I never fully completed it. Now that I'm a more seasoned gamer, I thought I'd give it a go, and nothing was more satisfying than finding out that 305 Yoshi's actually died during my playthrough. Thank you, family friendly Nintendo, I hate it.
Actraiser Renaissance, hands down. Hades would be a runner up.
Still playing SOR4 every day, not ashamed to admit it.
Finally something sensible, I totally agree that the prospect of a GOTY for a specific year is rather pointless unless you have played every game that was released on that year, it's just a popularity contest, nothing else.
When I've made my own personal "GOTY" list I always count every new game I got to experience in the year, whether it was released on 80s or this year is entirely irrelevant as long as I complete the game or at least play it enough to get a good enough feel on it then it's a fair game I think. That way every game gets their chance in the limelight.
When did this year start, anyway?
I think I played Banjo-Kazooie and Beyond Oasis this year on NSO. And Halo 3 on PC. Those are worth a shout-out. Oh, and Wave Race 64. Probably the best one.
In more modern backlog news, I'd have to mention Death Stranding. Mind-expanding and, for my money, about 100 times more interesting than Metal Gear Solid V, a game I don't really like that much. (Took me about 80 hours to realize that, though.) I don't care about systems being deep if I'm on a boring, repetitive playground.
Finally played through both Nier Replicant and Automata this year.
They're both so good and while i'd say Automata is probably the better game for most people i liked Replicant more.
It's a chore to actually finish but i prefer the setting and gameplay
This year, I played Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Dicey Dungeons, and Luigi's Mansion 3. These were my favorites. I finished Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey (3DS). I continued with Animal Crossing. To round off the list, I played Iconclasts, 3 Picross games, Overcooked! 2, LIMBO, The TakeOver, and Lumines. It will be a long time before I am not playing back-log games.
This entire year was basically a backlog year for me (I only played FOUR games from this year and a DLC. That's IT) and I've basically enjoyed every second of combing through it. I adored finally being able to play Street Fighter for the first time and Kirby 64 has officially become my favourite in the entire series....but I'm sorry it's got to be The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. I've already talked IN LENGTH about how much I love this game but in short: it managed to top what I deemed to be peak fiction in the original trilogy.
Please for the love of Herlock Sholmes: PLAY THEM.
I played over 270 hours of Risk of Rain 2 this year. The DLC came out in March (for PC at least. console players still wait...) and it absolutely hooked me. But looking at my Steam Replay I was already obsessed before the DLC came out - January was my biggest month for playing it aside from March.
I'm just playing my first 2022 game now (Cult of the Lamb) so it's all backlog club for me. The winner is Stardew Valley
Darksiders 3!!! Rhat was quite the adventure this year, love that game!
@theModestMouse there is literally no reason for Quiet to be dressed the way she is (and yes the in game reason is inane) especially as a badarse soldier you are supposed to take seriously (not even a sniper walks around with no armor). And a topless man is not sexualized the way a topless woman is. The moment society gets to the point that every woman can walk around topless and nobody care is the moment devs won’t get flack for putting women in a state of undress for no reason.
My winner is Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition. Corpse Party Blood covered: ...Repeated fear.(Corpse Party (2021)) would be a runner-up.
My podium would be:
Metallic Child
Ender Lilies
Pokemon blue rescue team
Bear in mind that I have a memory of a goldfish so I probably missed a lot of bangers I played
There were a lot but some favourites were Persona 5 (The original version on PS3), Persona 5 Strikers, Horizon Zero Dawn, Octopath Traveler
Mine this year were Hades, Dead Cells, Xenoblade Chronicles and the first Bayonetta
I spent most of the year playing the entire mainline Halo games. Some say Infinite is the worst, which I disagree. Halo 5 is the one that I don’t wanna touch ever again.
Right now I can’t put down the controller playing GoW 2018. It’s basically Tomb Raider, but with a depressed bald man and a heavily annoying BOY
My GontY has to go to Kirby Planet Robobot. With the imminent 3ds and Wii U eshop closures, as well as having a stable income, I'm trying to procure the main games I missed on these devices and Robobot is the first one I decided to play!
My god did they perfect 2D Kirby action. I love everything about this game and its sub-games. Really reignited my love for Kirby (I actually dropped off at Triple Deluxe, though I want to revisit that now) and I am excited to get to Forgotten Land at some point! It'll probably be next year's GontY 😅
As a runner up, @Fizza pointed a gun at my head and made me get the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. I'm only on case 3 of game 1 but holy cow I am in love with the whole cast and aesthetic so far. Being a big fan of Sherlock Holmes irl, I'm enjoying dancing with Herlock Sholmes in this one! This game will probably also be a candidate for next year's GontY now that I think about it.
My goty that wasn’t ty was 100% portal 2, finished it this year
@N00BiSH Everyone talks about Wheatley and Glados, no one ever seems to mention Cave Johnson. Except when lemons are involved. My favorite part of the game.
I’ll be honest. I don’t think I beat a game this year that wasn’t released in 2022 outside of Pokémon Shining Pearl on Switch and I’m definitely not tossing any awards to that thing. A Plague Tale: Innocence might in fact be the only non-2022 game I played through this year in full, so it wins. It’s a good choice.
@Barbara001 YES! Finally another Darksiders 3 fan! I hope you’re not being sarcastic, because that is one fun just pure action game. I love it
@Toshiro_Baloney ph no sarcasm at all!!! I love the Darksiders franchise and I particularly loved the 3rd one!!! I put many hours into it and it was the first game springing to mind after I read the article, so I thought, apparently that's my back-log GOTY!
@Maulbert we gotta phase that out and get people talking about the goldmine that is Cave's DLC lines
Definitely Yuppie Psycho. One of the best 2D indie horror games I've ever played!
@theModestMouse Winning is actually quite simple. Sell well in spite of the critics.
@UsurperKing I'm glad you loved Kirby Planet Robobot. Such an amazing game.
And the final boss was a beautiful homage to a certain other Nintendo franchise.
@Ade117 I mean, yes and no? Ever since Kirby's Adventure, the second ever Kirby game, the final boss is a bullet hell/shooter type thing with few exceptions.
So it's quite on brand with its own franchise while being similar to Star Fox at the same time, which is what I assume you were getting at.
Metroid Dread would be my answer as well. I actually just finished it yesterday for the first time. A rather relaxed 100% run. Phenomenal game. Looks so good and runs so well on the system. It's exactly the sort of ultra-optimized exclusive I wish we could get more of on the system.
I think Zero Mission is probably still my favorite, but this is an easy second place in terms of the 2D games. MercurySteam did an incredible job with it. Dread makes even the highly decent Samus Returns feel like a proof-of-concept demo in comparison.
Last two Ys games. Somehow missed them before but picked them up and played them this year. Put a ton of hours into both.
@theModestMouse yeah its like women should only look like teenage boys or it gets the sexism tag. (**cough** life is strange **cough**)
btw Slay the Spire is wonderful on switch... brilliant
Double Dragon 4! I waited 5 years for it to go on discount, and it didn't disappoint. Great single player campaign, and an addictive tower mode. I put 20 hours into it! Not bad for supposedly a limited, old fashioned game.
Second would be World of Tanks Blitz. Over 900 hours this year, for 2300 total.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden Country for me! Loved the base game, but the DLC was phenomenal. And it felt like I wasn’t losing a massive chunk of my life at only 30 hours.
@garfreek Final Fantasy X is a masterpiece! I've played it on PS2 back in the day and then again years later on PSVITA, PS4 and recently on PS5, maybe I should buy it on Switch again 😅
The story, the battle system, the music, I truly love that game 🥰 Glad to see others enjoying it!
Off the top of my head I'd say the Donkey Kong Adventure DLC for Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle!
Despite loving the base game I didn't play it until this year in preparation for Sparks of Hope and I absolutely loved it, too!
Definitely Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for me. I loved that game when it came out and I still play it once in a while to this day.
Not beaten many games this year, but I think I finished a run through Samus Returns that I'd started a year or two ago, and I'd probably give it to that. Not as good as Dread, but I finished that last year, and for a 3DS game, it looks great.
@Mr_Gamecube I just recently started playing "Dragon Quest Builders" on my smartphone with the Gamesir X3 mobile controller. I could barely play the game on my phone at first, because of the way the touchscreen controls were setup. But after I mapped most of the functions to the Gamesir controller it's like I'm playing a totally different game. I've highly enjoyed the game ever since. So much so that I added "Dragon Quest Builders 1 & 2" to my wishlist on the Nintendo Switch eShop.
Most games I played this year were older ones. I’d say the best of them were in the last few weeks - Bioshock and Hades (which I’m still playing).
Next year I’m hoping to tackle a few more old games, hopefully Octopath Traveller quite soon.
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