I love making this thread every year tbh. Just one big thread to list the games people happened to play in this one 365 day period of time.
The only rule, as always, is that it has to be games that you played for the first time (for a significant amount of time) in 2022. So as to not be able to choose games you've played regularly for years, but also to not negate games you just happened to play a small amount of in the past. But that also means the game didn't have to actually release in 2022. That's especially good for me, that played literally only two games that came out in 2022.
1. Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve: What a game. I had heard a lot of hype about this 2nd game, and it absolutely lived up to it. There's not a bad Ace Attorney game, and most of them are great. But it has felt like its slowly lost its excitement from the original trilogy. This game really brought it back. It's not actually dramatically different from the first game in most regards, it even re-uses (probably too much) of the previous game's soundtrack. But it felt like Shu Takumi finally toned down his obsession with trying to switch up the formula in every post-AA3 game he makes, and just made what he set up in the first game, in terms of both mechanics and story, and improved and one-upped it. The pacing is a thousand times better than the first game in particular, and after establishing things in the first game it went all in on making a truly epic feeling Ace Attorney story. Like if the final case of AA3 was at least half the game, its incredibly well done. One of the most consistently compelling stories in games I've played in a long time.
2. Neo: The World Ends With You: This was a bit of a surprise. For the first half, I did not expect this to be high on this list. But it really proved me wrong, because the original TWEWY is the seemingly rare JRPG that I loved early on, so it didn't have that moment where it became great later in the same way a lot of the genre does. But this one took its time. Maybe too much, it felt like it risked forgetting to be a story that's about something, which is a large chunk of why the original game stands out. But top tier coming of age anime game showed itself eventually, and it did a great job at that. And also the combat got better as it went on, just by being given more attack options at once. But my experience playing the ENTIRE finale in one sitting is what put it over the top. It was honestly a much better finale than even the original, it tied everything together as well as you could reasonably hope for, the final bosses were a lot of fun. But in particular, for very personal reasons, the ending stuck with me, especially having played it when I did. That ending could not have come at a better time for me, so that made me even more fond of it.
3. Kirby: Planet Robobot: I think the hype for this game is slightly overstated maybe? It's just another Triple Deluxe with an admittedly cool gimmick surrounding it. That's plenty of course, and I kinda get the hype but to me this is closer to Kirby games are awesome and this is one of them. Also, I liked the finale, but like Bayonetta 1, I found the hype towards that in particular was overdone. It's cool, I get the scale of it is really neat, but this was not some all time great gaming experience like I heard about it. But that aside, its still one of the better games in one of the best gaming series out there, so its still pretty awesome. And I do like the gimmick, and how much they committed to it, for the gameplay, the world, the aesthetic, the bosses, the story. And like Triple Deluxe, its consistently better the most I play it.
4. Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion: AKA the moment Splatoon figures out fully how to do single player. The first 2 Splatoon campaigns have always been in an awkward place in that they're notably better than the average for a campaign in a multi-player centric shooter, but so much worse than the Mario Galaxy games which they also kinda remind me of. But the changes they made for Octo Expansion were perfect for the series. Having it feel like a mixture of challenges and normal levels, the strange music choices, the absolutely great final level/s and memorable finale, it was just a really solid campaign.
5. Splatoon 3: I feel this should be lower on the list because...those connection issues. It's not good. But I can't pretend this isn't in most other regards, the best Splatoon game. Have no idea how I'll feel in a year about it, but I beat the campaign, put a solid amount of time in multiplayer, so right now the connections issues have merely put it below the other games for me instead of dramatically hurting it for me. I dunno, ask me again in a year.
6. The Misadventures of Tron Bonne: Another game I have very specific feelings about, having spent two years to be able to get one Let's Play out. But I think the positive and negative feelings surrounding that whole ordeal counter each other out, so as a game, its just a charming, weird time that I liked a lot. I can't say it lives up to the Megaman Legends games, largely because the combat is worse and in places, kinda just bad. But its a variety filled game, and that variety is in most other regards, lovely. This whole series is one of the most charmingly dated of the era, with its PS1 mix of dated and yet surprisingly aged well graphics, and its wonderfully dated 90s dub voice acting, and its just a joy to play as the wacky villain of the series doing a variety of wacky things.
7. Shovel Knight Dig: Surprisingly, the game that might make me finally enjoy instead of merely tolerate rogue-likes. Weirdly the other Shovel Knight spinoff also went rogue-like and I didn't like that aspect of it, felt like a waste of a cool puzzle game. But doing it with a slightly more traditional platformer, and some other decisions they made with it, made me make way more sense to me. It's also a perfect game to just play for a round or two, and I appreciate those shorter experiences contrasted to the more traditional and often longer games I play.
8. Doom: ...as in the original, not the reboot (god I hate these naming schemes for reboots). I played the first set of levels back in the 2000s, but never the rest. And having now done that, as dated as the game can be, its still great. It's a simple, fast and fun FPS without concerns of needing to aim up or down. Thank god for how easy it is to save whenever though, particularly for the 4th set of levels, which are otherwise kinda bs. But now they're at least fun bs. Also I'm just amused the Switch version has gyro for this super old game.
9. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon: Speaking of games I played in the 2000s and didn't get far in, this game. The most cursed GBA release of an otherwise good game ever, where you couldn't see it on the original hardware and it was too difficult for the kids who played it (myself included!). But finally going back towards it, I had a really good time. I'm not sure this lives up to the truly great Castlevanias, but having not played much of this era of the series in the past 15 years, going back to that made up for its more obvious flaws (there's just an entire area that's nothing but a hallway, do you even level design?). Just a nice return to these games, that's all I needed.
10. Batman: Arkham Knight: What a fantastic 20 hour game that's unfairly stretched to be 40. That's my main thought on this one. I did really, really like it, but there's a lot of content that either is mid or becomes mid from over-exposure. Between that and the mix of good and bad ideas to make the series more dark and serious, its not quite the first two games. But I actually really liked the batmobile, which goes against a lot of what I saw about the game when it came out. And quite frankly, it doesn't have the flaws of Origins, the quality from Rocksteady is still here, and it plays so great. But I do also wish they could've recaptured the well paced magic of the first two games instead of feeling obligated to add more on top of more, when the Arkham games already had extra challenges for people who want more for the sake of there being more. Basically, for the third year in a row, right after Xenoblade 2, and Animal Crossing, the last game on this list is a game I ultimately think is kinda great, but I'm frustrated at the all time fantastic game we clearly could've gotten but didn't.
1.Ghost of tsushima
2. Astro's playroom
3.Horizon Forbidden west
4.Spider man miles morales
5.Mass Effect trilogy
6.God of war 2018
7.Dragon quest XI
8.Sonic frontiers
9. Batman Arkham city
10. COD MW2 2022
Honorable Mentions: GoW: Ragnarok (PS5) Is easily good enough to be on the main list and is special amongst the honorable mentions, it's just that I haven't completed it yet. Otherwise Mario Golf Super Rush (Switch), Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PS5), Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal (Steam), & Samurai Maiden (Steam).
Pokemon Legends was the biggest highlight for me. It was nice just to play an enjoyable Pokémon game again even if it’s not the mega lol AAA super game as other games I’ve played this year.
Portal, Splatoon 3, Nier Automata, Dragonball Fighter Z, Mario Strikers and (finally finishing) Wolfenstein 2 round out the rest of my highlights this year.
I also got Persona 5, Mario + Rabbids 2, Bayonetta 3, Pokemon Violet and Lego Star Wars all of which I’ve barely played yet but I imagine they will make up my 2023 gaming highlights.
I've gone in depth on what I love about my favourite games that I played in 2022 so I won't go into detail here (you can check out my Backloggd list on the topic if you're curious about that kind of thing) but my Top 5 for this year would probably be:
5. Street Fighter Alpha 2
4. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
3. Splatoon 3
2. Pokemon Legends Arceus
1. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Got a lot of games lined up for 2023 (Skyward Sword HD, Mega Man 1-10, Murder By Numbers, etc.) so hopefully most of them can come even a bit close to the ones listed here!
Mario Maker 2 Maker ID: YT1-0Q2-YFF
Please ask for permission before using my FC!
Most of what I played came out in 2022, but here's my list.
Xenoblade chronicles 3
Sparks of Hope
Bayonetta 3
Shredders Revenge
Trangle Strategy
Honorable mentions: Legends Arceus, P5R, Resident Evil 2 Remake, and only played a small amount, but halo infinite. Decent year I suppose, but I really wish we we got at least a mario title in 2022 since we had to wait on TotK. Ah, whatevs.. now we'll just have all the youtubers out there making videos that say, "Could 2023 be Nintendos best year?!?" Every year, it's the same video just a swapping of titles 🤣
Pokémon Legends Arceus
Nier:Automata
Sonic Frontiers
The three games I enjoyed the most in terms of big releases, because there’s plenty of indies that would make the list too like lil gator game. Honestly my most anticipated releases like sparks of hope and Xenoblade 3 just ended up being huge disappointments for me but it was still a pretty good year.
I keep buying fighting games for some reason, even though I barely got anyone to play against.
I'm glad that lists like these exist because I hardly played any new games this year. My top 5 of the year are as follows:
1: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy - Trials and Tribulations in particular. A phenomenally well-written experience. It’s one of the only games that has made me feel emotional at the end. It’s an absolute must-play for everyone.
2: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask - The best classic Zelda game bar none. Tightly designed mechanics, an amazing story, great dungeons, and an incredible atmosphere.
3: The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles - While Adventures was great, Resolve was the one that really resonated with me. A tightly written and cohesive story through and through. Holds some incredible plot revelations, amazing characters, and a phenomenal soundtrack.
4: Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze - The best 2D platformer of all time.
5: Splatoon 3 - A fantastic story mode, great improvements to multiplayer modes, and the absolute greatest soundtrack in the series. It has some technical issues but I’m sure that these will be ironed out soon.
"Science compels us to explode the sun!"
Currently playing:
Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition (Switch)
Balatro (PC)
1) Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - Not a perfect game, if only because the main story doesn't explain some things well, and is perhaps a bit slow paced early on, but no matter how I look at it, I can't get around the fact that I adored pretty much every aspect of this game. It's the best Xenoblade Chronicles, but also, going further, one of the best JRPGs I've ever played, full stop. Monolith Soft has finally created a Xenoblade game without any massive, crippling flaws somewhere in the design, and it's glorious. The game's tone is serious, but not boring or humorless. Comedy arises organically from the character interactions, but remains grounded in the reality of the world. Side quests are pretty much all narratively meaningful, with several tying into and enriching the main plot in substantial ways. The combat and customization are involved, in some respects, but never felt overly complicated. XC3's laser focus on how people grapple with fear, forge meaning, and find hope in the midst of an unfair world designed to exploit and destroy them makes this Monolith's most thematically resonant work to date. And did I mention this looks good and runs well undocked, despite being the best-looking and most technically complex game in the series? Because it does. This is a once-in-a-generation sort of experience.
2) Triangle Strategy - I actually wasn't even planning on picking this one up initially, because I remember finding both Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, which this game is clearly a spiritual successor to, to be quite dull. But I was convinced to take the plunge by a variety of factors, and I'm glad I did, because this is one of the best experiences on the system. The plot is a bit of a slow burn, but all of the intricately-plotted political intrigue more than pays off as the game progresses and you, the player, are forced to make increasingly impossible moral choices. Characterization is strong throughout. The soundtrack is powerful. But, most importantly, this is a darn good SRPG, with some of the tightest combat mechanics and map design I've seen in the genre to date. Crucially, the game is short enough, and includes enough new content on NG+ runs, that even players averse to replaying games like myself will eventually want to dip back into this world to unlock new narrative branches and see everything the game has to offer. The game isn't a technical marvel, with somewhat muddy visuals and questionable performance at times, but everything else is top of the line.
3) Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak - A humongous expansion on Monster Hunter Rise that addresses the base game's flaws and less attractive design elements (rampages are gone now, thank goodness) and throws so much new content at the player that it feels like a separate game in its own right. This is effectively the Monster Hunter Rise game for series veterans. The wirebugs and palamutes are still here, alongside a new followers mechanic, so it's still significantly easier than older games in the series, but much of endgame roster still knows how to put up a decent fight, so the player won't be steamrolling these beasties like they probably did in the base game. This is the sort of AAA third party support I'd love to see more of on Nintendo consoles.
4) Metroid Dread - I liked Samus Returns quite a bit, which improved tremendously on the original Metroid 2, but Metroid Dread frankly embarrasses Mercury Steam's last effort. This game is dripping with quality in every respect, from the gorgeous presentation, to the almost perfect framerate, to the layered and intricately designed environments, to the awesome boss encounters, to... well, pretty much everything else. I've enjoyed every 2D Metroid since Super Metroid, and I expected to like this as well, but... I liked this significantly more than I had anticipated. I'm not sure if it knocks my previous favorite, Zero Mission, off its prestigious perch yet, but if it doesn't, it comes in at a close second.
5) The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve - A follow-up to TGAA: Adventures, although unlike that game's uniquely deconstructive approach to the series, this opts for a more traditional Ace Attorney experience. But what an Ace Attorney experience it is! Like Spirit of Justice and Trials and Tribulations, this brings the narrative arc of this spinoff series to a sensational close with a densely plotted and brilliantly realized overarching mystery that never ceases to be entertaining. The presentation, music, and character development are all top-tier as well. This is, pound for pound, one of the very best games in the entire series.
6) Elden Ring - I spent years trying and failing to get into From Software's catalogue, but Elden Ring has finally broken the pattern, and provided an experience I could properly get lost within. It's definitely not perfect, and I heavily disagree with those who would rank it alongside the likes of Breath of the Wild, but it does do a great job of mixing traditional Soulsian dungeons and bosses with an open world that's ripe for exploration.
7) Pokemon Legends: Arceus - The most unique Pokemon RPG ever made. This one compares rather favorably to other mainline entries on the Switch: it runs extremely well, features a minimum of bugs, and actually had the guts to challenge the player from time to time. While its design is more focused and limited than in other Game Freak developed Pokemon RPGs, it also rethinks numerous design elements that it shares with other games in the series, and is usually better for it. The result is a refreshingly unique take on the series, and the best Pokemon-related game in many generations.
8) Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope - As much a successor to previous Mario RPGs as it is to the original Kingdom Battle, Mario + Rabbids 2 really splashes out and becomes a proper RPG adventure. I don't actually know that I like it more than the original, since I really enjoyed its tighter combat focus, but this is solidly better than just about any other Mario RPG-style experience you'd get from other series. Looks beautiful, runs well, and is still a ton of fun.
9) AI: The Somnium Files - A mostly solid release that's an improvement in every way on Uchikoshi's somewhat dire "Zero Time Dilemma." This does echo the high notes of the cult writer's best work, although it's hard to shake the feeling that he's simply reaching into the same bag of magic tricks over and over, and the low points here are... pretty low. Nevertheless, even if it doesn't match his work on the Infinity series or the Zero Escape trilogy, once the game's mystery is in full swing, it still grips you with an iron claw.
10) Kirby and the Forgotten Land - The first fully 3D mainline Kirby game, and... it's good. Very safe, and not terribly ambitious, but, from beginning to end, it's polished, clean fun. Not a landmark release like Super Mario Odyssey by any means, but this sits alongside Planet Robobot as one of the funnest entries in the series.
I've only played a few 2022 games, but these are my favorites.
My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure - A licensed game, as someone who's a long time My Little Pony fan who loved the movie My Little Pony: A New Generation, I loved it. It was a short game, and it's clearly a kids game, but the presentation and story did a great job capturing the the movie, while providing mini-games, quests, and being able to explore the world of the movie. A good example of a good licensed game IMO. I like it so much, I decided to get a PC copy during the Steam sale just to have it on PC too.
Sonic Frontiers - I just got this one for Christmas, and so far, I love it! I wouldn't have guessed an open world would work so well for Sonic, so far, it feels like there's so much to do and so much to try out, like finding different paths and grinding on rails to reach new areas. There are levels that play similar to previous Sonic games, but I'm having a great time on Kronos Island. It even feels like it's borrowing ideas and concepts of previous Sonic games, and it's cool. Also Kronos Island gives some serious Breath of the Wild vibes.
Vampire Survivors - played the mobile port, but it's the same game on PC and Xbox. It's hard to describe, it's like a shooter, except your fighting off vampires and other monsters, while leveling up and upgrading your character's weapons and attacks. It's a fun indie game, and I do enjoy playing it, even if it's the mobile port. It's simple to pick up and play, but a lot of fun.
It was mostly Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for me in 2022, since the DLC courses came out. Been having a good time with them, especially the ones from waves 2 and 3! I do like wave 1, but the next two waves were even better. Paris Promenade, Coconut Mall, New York Minute, Kalimari Desert, Maple Treeway, Peach Gardens, Merry Mountain, and 3DS Rainbow Road are my personal favorites from the DLC! Definitely looking forward to wave 4 and beyond this year.
I played Splatoon 3 during the pre-launch Splatfest, and when I got it as a Christmas present. I was initially skeptical about the game, but I was pleasantly surprised with this one. The new special attacks are awesome, and there are some nice QoL improvements from the last two games, like practicing with your weapon setup while you're being matched up with others. I haven't got to the story mode or Salmon Run yet, but I will soon enough. I feel like I should practice for the Splatfest, though.
I also enjoyed Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It's a very solid Kirby game with some great music. I haven't fully completed it yet, but I might come back to do it at some point.
I also played some of Monster Hunter Rise during the NSO game trial. The game didn't click with me at first, but it pretty much did after I practiced with the game and played with another friend of mine. I might get the game at some point, I still have my save data left over.
I also played various Nintendo 64 games from NSO+EP. Got to play stuff like Mario Kart 64 and the Mario Party games online, as well.
"Give yourself the gift of being joyfully you."
Favorite games: Super Mario 3D World, Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Playing: Hollow Knight
Ask if you want to be Switch friends with me, but I'd like to know you first. Thanks! ❤️
@MarioLover92 I was thinking games with mine, yeah I've also enjoyed the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Course Pass, albeit I paid for the standalone DLC without the Expansion Pack. That is one of my favorite add-ons this year.
The resident Trolls superfan! Saw Trolls Band Together via early access and absolutely loved it!
I also played Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the first time this past year, but I personally didn't include it on my list since I already played it plenty back in the Wii U days. Octo Expansion I could at least say was more or less entirely stand-alone, this was just some new content to a game I played before.
Completely forgot about these others that I completed this year and absolutely loved. Went back to my HLTB account to check my playthroughs. More honorable mentions below.
FE: Three Hopes
Shantae and the 7 Sirens
FF7 Crisis Core
Cowabunga Collection
M&L Paper Jam
DKCR
FE Awakening ( this may be lumped in with my top 5 somewhere, actually).
I think the top games I've played in 2022 would be:
1. Psychonauts 2 - Really love the level design and comedy, highly recommend to any platformer/collectathon fan
2. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - On par with the other Xenoblade games, was my most hyped game in 2022 and didn't disappoint
3. AI The Somnium Files: nirvanA Initiative - Liked the original and this one was much better.
4. Pokemon Legends Arceus - The catching mechanic is fast paced and addictive, makes me want to go back and play. I enjoyed Violet but Arceus just stands out more to me.
5. Triangle Strategy - Takes a while to get going but once you get invested in the game's world it's hard to put down.
6. Splatoon 3 - Feels like the pinnacle of Splatoon to me, I love all the small improvements they made.
7. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Fates - They really captured the feel of FE 3H, much better than the first FE Warriots imo. I'll definitely go back and do another route someday.
Honorable mention to Genshin Impact. I've been playing it consistently since launch and I feel like the updates and regions have been getting better.
Played hardly anything that came out in 2022, as the list below will show…
10 - Halo Infinite (PC). Played this right at the turn of last year, so nearly forgot. And Halo is quite forgettable. That said, I had fun with the main campaign on this.
9 - Child of Light (Switch). Annoying rhyming speech, but everything else was lovely. Art, music, fairytale story, characters, Grandia-inflected turn-based combat - lovely.
8 - Shin Megami Tensei V (Switch). I know others are cool on it, it I enjoyed this for what it was. Brilliant Xenoblade-style environments, packed with secrets and hidden areas, meshed with classic SMT turn-based battles and monster collection. Didn’t miss the dungeons as much as others did - it’s just a different game. But the story didn’t really do the setting justice. Overall, I prefer SMT IV Apocalypse, but I still enjoyed this.
7 - Triangle Strategy (Switch). A good game initially that ended up being very good indeed by the end. The way they pile the story scenes on you does feel tiresome, but it really pays off eventually. The actual tactical combat and character builds are always great, and I am sure I will go back for NG+ and chase the other endings eventually.
6 - Super Metroid (SNES). Yep, first time for me. It’s as good as they say - although I’ll admit I found things like the wall jump and shine spark a bit obtuse and had to look them up. But a very good Metroidvania.
5 - Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (GBA). Superb. Everything you’d want out of a 2D Fire Emblem. Sprawling maps, tough as nails combat, and secrets galore. About three quarters of the way through I discovered I wasn’t going to be able to get the best ending. It’s fine - gives me an excuse to come back to it one day.
4 - Xenoblade Chronicles 3D (3DS). Yes, while everyone else was awaiting XC3, I was playing XC 3D. Loved it. Even on a cramped New 3DS screen, the scale and scope are epic, with huge environments, a gorgeous musical score and an engaging story. I can see why many people preferred the original to XC2 - I certainly liked the story more. Only downside is the combat, which isn’t as good as XC2. And yes, I did get XC3 - I’m sure it’ll be on my list for 2023 games.
3 - Return of the Obra Dinn (Switch). Just a brilliant experience. So atmospheric, so unusual and really just a perfect puzzle game. An easy 10/10.
2 - Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (3DS). I’m a big fan of Ocarina of Time, but this blew me away. It’s so much more ambitious and strange, and it even looks better. Instantly took second spot in my Zelda rankings, behind only BotW.
1 - Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition (iOS). One of the oldest games I played this year, but just about my favourite. Good storytelling, highly enjoyable D&D character building, decent voice acting. If I was to score all the games I played this year, I might give this a lower score than MM or Obra Dinn, purely because of its pixel-hunting and fiddly touchscreen controls, but this was the most fun I had all year.
@Krull SMT V's Xenoblade-esque environments and open exploration were a ton of fun, but yeah, the story was probably the worst in the series to date. Characters were totally uninteresting as well. They wanted to make something akin to Nocturne, but the plot structure didn't really work well with that style of game design. Tbh the game probably would have been better without the Tokyo segments entirely. Nocturne works because it immerses the player in a nightmare setting, and you kind of work through the details of what's happening as you talk to NPCs throughout the game. SMT V should have been more like that. Or, better yet, not try to emulate Nocturne at all and instead give us something more story-heavy like in I, II, IV, and IV: Apocalypse.
As it stands, it's an incredibly fun exploratory JRPG with awesome music, but that nevertheless feels like it has fundamental narrative flaws holding it back. I'm really hoping Atlus releases a Maniax version of the game that restructures the plot, or at least fleshes it out more.
I'm going to limit this to 2022 releases (including ports) even though I didn't play that many of them, because I didn't keep track of what other games I played this year and I can't remember what they were now. Metroid Dread would probably be my number 1 non-2022 game I played in 2022, unless I'm forgetting something I liked more, which is entirely possible. Also I'm not including Pokemon Scarlet because I didn't get it until Christmas so I'm nowhere near finishing it yet.
1. Pokémon Legends: Arceus - After a string of samey and unambitious outings, this was the Mud Shot in the arm the Pokémon series desperately needed. The ancient Sinnoh setting is a novel idea and the level of interactivity with wild Pokémon (you can chuck stuff at them!) makes catching 'em all more of an enjoyable and rewarding task (although I still need to go back and complete the dex).
2. Overwatch 2 - This sort of doesn't deserve to be so high up seeing as it's basically just Overwatch 1 with more annoying monetisation, but as I haven't been able to play Overwatch 1 for a while as it no longer runs well on my computer, I was really glad to be able to play this for free on Switch. There are enough modes and characters to make it endlessly playable, and it's already replaced Splatoon 3 as my go-to online multiplayer game on Switch, which is saying something.
3. Splatoon 3 - Another very safe sequel, I'm a little disappointed by the lack of a flagship new mode, but the myriad little QoL improvements and minor new features make this easily the best game in the series. Equally, the story mode is fun but I found most of the stages a little too easy and short... until the final boss, which is one of the most bonkers battles Nintendo has ever come up with and I loved it.
4. Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series - I'd never played this pair of games before but they're very fun little platformers, if a bit short. Not much else to say about them but I'd definitely recommend them to platforming fans.
5. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - Definitely the most unusual and interesting game I played this year. I'm only putting it this low because I found the story a bit too complex for its own good and the strategy segments are decent but nothing special, but I appreciate what it was going for and I enjoyed the journey.
Thank you Nintendo for giving us Donkey Kong Jr Math on Nintendo Music
@Ralizah Totally agree - and I’d love to see Atlus straight up reuse all the assets and make an Apocalypse style follow-up to SMTV that incorporates a decent story. Such a shame about the Tokyo segments - you’re right that they feel totally redundant, but they could have been the best bit.
@Krull I would LOVE a more story-heavy follow-up that had similar gameplay and level design. SMT V's structure gives me the sense that the developers originally planned something more story-heavy, but the changed direction mid-development for whatever reason.
SMT IV: Apocalypse is still the peak of the series (and MegaTen in general) for me, since it combined mainline's tight gameplay and well-balanced difficulty with an actual cast of developed personalities to care about. SMT IV is a little lower because of some aggravating issues related to the pacing and gameplay, although I also really like it a lot.
With that said, I also really appreciated SMT V's technical ambition. It's the only game they've made this generation that feels... modern, if that makes sense. Their other RPGs this gen (Persona 5; Soul Hackers 2) feel like they're still stuck in PS2 territory in terms of game design. I really hope they continue to build on this foundation.
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Topic: Your Favorite Games of 2022
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