Every year, I like to do extended blog write-ups of my favorite games of the year. I’ve been doing this for a while now, and it’s honestly much more satisfying than making a 20-tweet thread of 240-character thoughts that basically gets lost as soon as I post it.
And hey, with that burning desire to make more use of non-corporately owned spaces online, this year I decided to post my blog to my personal website instead of using Medium. If you’re new to my site, welcome, feel free to take a poke around. And please keep and eye on this space, because I also have a similar list to this for my favorite movie of 2022 in the works!
Anyway, 2022 was a really good year for games. The AAA space was largely dominated by the massive Elden RIng and God of War Ragnorak at both ends of the calendar, so the space inbetween fell to a lot of smaller surprises in an attempt to avoid direct competition within the gravitational pull of both juggernauts. I don’t think titles like Stray and Vampire Survivors would get to thrive if we weren’t just in need of a cooldown after spending hundreds of hours within a single title this year.
Now before I start breaking down my ten, I wanna give two shout outs— firstly, as someone who already struggles to find free time, there’s games I didn’t play that I’m certainly may have made this list if I had. I only have so much time and my playing decisions are based mostly on my emotional state. so naturally sometimes I don’t end up playing stuff for a few years and sometimes, at this point in my life, decades. So I’m still planning on getting around to the likes of Pentiment, Bayonetta 3, Tactics Ogre, Kirby & The Forgotten Land, Tinykin, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, River City Girls 2, the RE Village DLC, and Crisis Core, among others. Don’t worry, I’ll be getting to you soon.
And of course a brief mention for games that didn’t come out in 2022 that I still played and really enjoyed:
Silent Hill
Played this for the first time and I’m now a fan! I love the art direction, I love the tone, I the sheer uncanniness of it all! Hang this dang game in a museum, y’all.
R4: Ridge Racer Type 4
I spent a lot of 2022 learning the ins and outs of Ridge Racer and there’s a very good chance Ridge Racer Type 4 is probably the best of the lot. I know I used to say OutRun 2 had the most satisfying drifts I’ve ever seen in a game, but uh yeah no it’s R4, the handling in this game is unbelievable for a late PS1 game. Plus I love the FMVs, the music, and the weird visual novel story mode that’s kinda a dating sim that reacts well to your overall performance. Bury me with a copy of this game.
Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright
When I was a teenager, one winter I took my Christmas money to GameStop and I had to choose between the doctor game (Trauma Center) and the lawyer game (Phoenix Wright). I chose the doctor game and every day since playing the first Ace Attorney, I’ve wondered what path my life would’ve taken if I had chosen the latter.
Trigger Happy Havoc: Danganronpa
When you mess up in Ace Attorney, the judge and prosecution are all super patient with you and tell you take your time and give you a cup of cocoa while you try to figure the evidence. Danganronpa is a lot like that game, except it chooses to neg you non-stop the entire time. And I’m kinda really into the hilariously mean attitude of this game? But not in a weird way, I just think it’s genuinely very funny and engaging. I love a good whodunnit.
FFVII Remake: Intergrade
It’s more Final Fantasy Remake and Yuffie is very cute, but not as cute as Tifa. I don’t really know what else to say, it was a very satisfying use of 3 hours of my life.
Dead Space 2
I stopped playing Dead Space 2 in 2012 because the prospect of eviscerating reanimated toddler corpses depressed the everloving shit outta me. Go figure. Ten years later, I’ve given this game another go, and while the kid stuff still bums me out, man this game is just the stupidest most fun roller coaster around. I’m kinda shocked they’re rebooting this series, these original games could still hack it with any contemporary today.
Later Alligator
Dang what a funny and charming adventure game. It’s chock full of wonderful ideas, lovable characters, and hilarious writing and hand-draw animation. This is the only game I fully 100%-ed this year.
Alright, with that out of the way without any further ado, let’s get started…
10. Vampire Survivors
Even I’m not immune to this game’s addicting charms. I’m not entirely sure if the “survivor” game is new (I think it’s vaguely new.. ish? It’s basically Diablo on semi-auto-pilot) but I have a feeling we’re gonna start seeing more of the mechanics from this one turning up in bigger games over the next few years both in and outside of the genre.
Where Vampire Survivors really excels for me is for taking what is basically a joke premise and expanding on it well beyond its logical conclusion that result in something that’s both unbelievably hilarious and fun. I love that a single screenshot of this game looks like a Magic Eye puzzle to anyone except to those who know exactly what they’re looking at.
For a few weeks, this was a go-to podcast game for me, something semi-mindless I can play while catching up on my shows. It also just happened this game was also the biggest culprit of causing me to suddenly find myself surprised when its 2 AM out of nowhere… and secretly, if I didn’t have a day job (or if it was still 2020) I probably woulda just keep going for one more hour anyway.
Absolutely worth dropping the $5 on to see what the hubbub about this one is all about. I can guarantee you’ll at least get an hour of fun out of it, and after all, you could spend the same amount on a burger and be entertained for, what, like fifteen minutes?
9. Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course
Cuphead is back! I was a huge fan of the original game as it hit the perfect nexus of all my interests— animation history, lengthy bossfights, and tough-as-nails arcade action. While I’m still excited to see what else Studio MDHR can pull out of their painted hats, it was nice to see one last true farewell to the Cuphead universe. (Well, that and the impressive Netflix series which I still need to watch more of.)
This extra content has been a long time coming, but it was really neat getting to see what this team can do with a larger staff and a better understanding of their audience going into it. I don’t know if we’ll ever see a Cuphead 2— this DLC took over 3 years to arrive— but I would be more than happy with this as the final adventures of these porcelain pals. Easily just some of the most polished content I played all year, even if it arrived in a package the size of a dessert cart.
Oh yeah— I would be remised if I didn’t take a moment to shout out how great it was to get another heaping spoonful of Kristofer Maddigan’s unbelievable jazz infused soundtrack. I would be content just placing this game on my list just for the final boss fight tune. Wowzers, what another stunner!
8. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin
Man what a dumb game. What a dumb, dumb game.
Hold on, wait, coming from me that’s a very high compliment! Lemme explain!
Nioh has always been an odd duck at the Soulslike table— it storms up threatening to take everyone’s lunch but then trips on the walk away from the table. Stranger in Paradise is still this kind of game, except know everyone’s in middle school and Nioh really got into watching Toonami over the summer.
Played alone, I think this game is another fairly competent Souls clone from Team Ninja. Shockingly, it might actually be the easiest ones I’ve ever played, making it a fantastic starting point for those scared off by the difficulty that has become engrained in the genre itself.
When played with friends, I think this game might secretly be the true successor to Crystal Chronicles? In that it recontextualizes a lot of the verbs of Final Fantasy into something more akin to arcade beat-em-up with a heavy emphasis on cooperation.
I played this one with two buddies over the course of the summer and no matter how trivial the combat got, no matter how many important points the got seemingly skipped over, no matter how much *canonical* Limp Bizket played… I can’t deny I had a great time with this one, even so much to just be able to ask someone on the other end of my headset “Okay, we all just saw the same thing, right?”
Seriously, if you try to solo this one, you might be left asking just what all the hubbub is about, but enjoyed with friends, I think the heart of this game really gets a chance to shine though. And it’s a heart that open embraces actually being the non-existent game that RPG cynics like to say Final Fantasy has become. Leave your baggage at the door and get ready to deck out your party of friends with equippable fedoras, it’s time to destroy Chaos.
7. Gran Turismo 7
Man, I really thought this was gonna be the best game about cars that came out this year until another game higher up on my list came out about 3 weeks prior to this writing. (More on that soon.) But hey, Gran Turismo 7 was still good! Unfortunately, I think this game is a bit more famous at this point for the botched in-game currency system that kinda faceplanted at launch. Which is weird, because cars don’t even have faces to begin with.
It's a total shame too, because at its core is a Gran Turismo game that feels elated to finally exist in the world. I’m a newcomer to this series, but from the outside, it always felt like Gran Turismo struggled to find its place in the HD world. It’s not exactly the non-stop viral video party that Forza Horizon entices racers with and it’s a series with a uniquely Sony perspective on automobiles and the joys of knowing exactly when to hit the breaks on a steep curve. What exactly is it that GT7 does best for me?
I’m gonna argue that it’s the presentation. There’s a level of polished prestige and panache that Gran Turismo rolls out that’s a shockingly welcome fresh breath of air these days. And yeah yeah I know, “prestige” is a bad word when it comes to AAA games, but hear me out. Racing games have never been as popular in the US as they are in Europe and Asia, so many titles drop the attitude on thick in order to Poochie things up a bit. (Again, this is gonna sound weird coming from me, considering what’s in my #4 spot this year).
It's kind of a relief that Gran Turismo isn’t promising players the experience of becoming a viral TikTok star or unlocking a car made of hydrogen rockets. Most of the campaign is spent hanging out in a cozy forest-side café and choosing types of cars from a restaurant menu to take for a ride while what I can only assume are characters based on Actual Real Human Beings chat you up about the history of BMW or how Initial D made certain models of cars popular. The game opens up with a weird rhythm game set to 70’s classical medleys and an original rap about cars by Idris Elba. This game has a very specific vibe.
The entirety of Gran Turismo 7 presents itself with an abstraction that’s intended to help you fall in love with cars and while I think it does, only one game this year did actually make me fall in love with virtual driving again. Sorry Gran Turismo, but hey, I really loved driving down Japanese highways in the nighttime and German forests at dawn, so you did something right.
6. Signalis
This past spring, I played Silent Hill for the first time. I adored my time with it, but it really opened up my eyes to just how many modern horror games are trying to somewhat copy this game wholesale. From the low poly look, the obfuscations darkness and fog provide, to the melancholy tales of guilt and repentance. It’s all there in Silent Hill as uru-text.
Fast forward to this fall when Signalis quietly releases and not only shows a massive amount of appreciation for Silent Hill and Resident Evil before it, but also shockingly shows an understanding and restraint towards what made those series *work.* This game’s approach to retro-horror is nearly the same as Shovel Knight’s wherein the developers aimed to evoke the feelings of classic games without outright copying them. It would’ve been really easy for Signalis to just offer the Silent Hill experience as an anime-tinged android tragedy, but this game— made by just TWO PEOPLE— remixes the verbs of retro horror to find its own voice.
This is probably gonna be the one game on my list that will, honestly, appeal to the least amount of people. And this is the exact same list where I gush about how much I love a game with a restaurant menu used to drool over luxury cars. But, if you miss the early years of horror gaming… hell, if you’re just feeling nonplussed about that recent Silent Hill news, you REALLY owe it to yourself to give Signalis a try. It pumps the breaks on spooky nostalgia with a few knowingly sly references (when you save the game… if you know, you know) and quickly hits the gas once you’re feeling comfortable to do its own thing from start to finish.
Plus, this one’s been on Game Pass from day one. There’s no excuse to not give it a try.
5. Perfect Tides
The internet as we know it is dying. The internet I once knew is already dead. As I watch a billionaire pay for the privilege of commanding everyone’s plugged in attention, killing one of the pillars of the current online community, I find myself thinking back on my younger days at the precipice of Web 2.0.
There was a time where the promise of the internet was that everyone would have their own website. Until you mastered HTML and figured out what was worth putting on a Geocities page, time was you sit down, log on, and visit your favorite websites. Each site was like entering a new country where eventually you might settle in to the community that felt right for you.
I was absolutely blown away when Perfect Tides made me viscerally nostalgic for my own teen years online in the early ‘00’s.
If you were an anti-social nerdy loner (like me) you found the voice you lacked in real life in a forum or with instant messenger pals (like I did). It was a place where you could define your voice and share your passions with others before returning back to the real world where everything was just… grounded again. I truly feel for the youth of today. In order to function, to simply survive, its necessary to be online at all times thanks to the supercomputer that lives all our pockets now. There is no separation between real life and a virtual one. Even the spaces provided for socializing (Twitter, Reddit, TikTok) are ultimately owned by someone, used by all, and constantly are trying to sell you something. And somewhere in the process, every interaction we have online becomes one of commerce before one that yearns for connection and meaning.
Sigh…
Perfect Tides is an adventure game that empathizes with a character growing up on an internet before this brave new world. It’s not a story that postulates that hey, maybe life wouldn’t be so hard if this kid just went outside more. By coming from someone who grew up in that era, there’s an understanding that yes, the life you led as a teen online really WAS just as real as the life you led when you logged off. When real life was out of control, your fan-fic forum persona was a life you truly commanded.
On top of having such a close understanding of its main protagonist and the headspace she inhabits, Perfect Tides was just one of the surprise treats in a year of REALLY good adventure games. Mechanically, its no more complex than early era Sierra games, but by coming from a relative outsider, there’s a voice, tone, subject, and audience this game taps in to that it’s shocking represents new territory for the medium at large. I know within the indie game circuit, there’s no shortage of alternative games, but more than any game before it, Perfect Tides represents just how bizarrely short-sighted video games are in regards to types of stories we can call and the forms they can take.
It's like… it’s like how there’s no reason most stop-motion films need to be adjacent to creepy kids horror aside from the fact that the most prominent stop-motion film set the precedent that small plastic maquettes were great at telling those kinds of stories. Games as interactive medium could truly be more empathetic tools for exploring a character as they grow and change. We could be telling more stories besides the ones writers stumble upon once they have kids of their own and develop sympathy for the first time in their lives.
Perfect Tides is one of the most interesting games of the year that I implore people not to pass up. It’s not some weird meme or vanity project that you missed the train on. It’s just a darn good tale told using the adventure game as a framework for creating empathy. Maybe I’m just a sucker for character portraits or it’s my longtime adoration of the comics of creator Meredith Gran talking, but almost everything about this game immediately spoke to me. There’s truly something special at the heart of this tale of a year spent growing up on both a east coast island as well as online in what feels like the most important year of a young teenage girl’s life.
This game is living proof of video games, of art, succeeding as a conversational vehicle— a plea— for empathy.
4. Need for Speed Unbound
AND BOY HOWDY, SOMETIMES IT’S JUST FUN TO RIP THE SICKEST DRIFT YOU’VE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE.
I don’t know how, but somehow somehow it was deemed that Criterion Games was allowed to make another open world driving game. And yes, thank the gods, it is nearly just Burnout Paradise 3 in every but name. (For the record, Criterion’s Need for Speed Most Wanted is secretly just Burnout Paradise 2 and I’m upset I only found that out about three years after it released).
So here’s the surface level pitch— Need for Speed Unbound is a really fun narrative racing game/RPG/roguelite that looks like someone at EA walked into a room and just wrote “Fast & The Furious + Spider-Verse?” on a whiteboard and walked away. The world looks real, the people look cartoony, and when you drift, it makes anime cartoon clouds. Whattya need, a map?
Okay but for real, here’s why I think this game is another masterpiece from the racing geniuses as Criterion. Most modern racing games focus on delivering a non-stop parade of cars and tracks in the hopes you’ll never get bored or get too frustrated when the giant Suburu you picked doesn’t drift exactly like that souped up Nissan you just used two stages ago.
Criterion makes a bold pitch in opposition to this concern; What if you started the game feeling lost as a navigator with a car that feels like its actively working against you, but by spending hours racing up and down the same streets of Fake Chicago and spending in game days learning the peculiarities of your chosen set of customized cars you grow to know the city and your ride as well as you know the back of your hand?
Guess what; This is the exact same thing that made Burnout Paradise a masterpiece and it still works here like gangbusters. What Unbound adds new is a charming enough story mode starring your own customizable avatar as they race to rebuild their friend’s disgraced autobody shop. This bit of it honestly gave me classic Saints Row vibes and kinda hit the tonal marks for me I really needed the new Saints Row crew to hit for me. (I really REALLY wanted to like that new Saint’s Row, y’all…)
Unbound absolutely oozes style visually and sonically, but it’s got everything right where it counts right under the hood. It’s been almost a full decade since Criterion last got to put out a racing game under EA and I’m happy to find that their characteristic blend of gamefeel and restraint results in the best big game that slipped in under the radar in the final weeks of the year. It almost feels like a miracle that this game exists, but I’m glad it somehow does, against all odds.
Please don’t let this one disappear into the darkness to become the next Titanfall 2, it’s real good.
3. Tunic
The most valuable currency games deal in is information. For me, this is the secret sauce that makes games like original Zelda and Dark Souls work. Brute forcing you way isn’t enough, you have to take in what the game is trying to tell you, interpret it, and discover for yourself a way to make use of that sort of information. Even moreso once you begin to exchange this information with other players outside the game.
Did you know there’s a secret cavern hidden behind that waterfall? If you stand on this exact spot on the stairs, the boss can’t reach you. Have you found the invisible wall in this dungeon?
This experience absolutely is a large part of my #1 pick this year, but Tunic encapsulated this experience into a smaller more digestible portion. I think it’s fitting that this was probably one of the first games a lot of people moved on to after playing Elden Ring as it feels like a very pleasant cooldown for the part of the brain that needed to be engaged for 100+ hours in the years biggest game.
Tunic on its surface uses the verbs of NES and SNES Zelda to deliver an immediately charming little adventure game, but as you peel back the literal layers of the fictional untranslated game menu inside, it becomes really clear this game is playing an expert round of 3D chess.
Being a competent Zelda clone would’ve been enough for this, but they went and made it something more like Retro Game Challenge, bringing the physical artiface of trying understand an inscrutable game to the forefront as a core mechanic. This is the best game to into this year knowing absolutely nothing if not just to get to experience feeling the wrinkles on your brain form in real time every time you utter aloud “wait, I could do that THE WHOLE TIME?”
If you’re tempted to put this one down, I strongly recommend sticking with it. In fact, turn on some of the accessibility options including invincibility. The juiciest stuff in this game doesn’t come from the sword-slinging action, but from engaging in the active conversation with this virtual world.
Ultimately, what really cinches this experience for me as one of my favorites all year is the way Tunic was able to condense that ARG feel of games like Fez or The Witness and turned it into an extremely personal one instead of communal. So just because you may have missed out on this one at launch, doesn’t mean it’s too late to start unraveling one of the best puzzles of 2022.
2. Return to Monkey Island
Good lord, this one really came out of nowhere, didn’t it? I am a huge fan of the LucasArts adventure games, Monkey Island in particular. I’ve made my love of the bumbling Guybrush Threepwood pretty well-known and I was even a huge defender of the most recent outing, Tales of Monkey Island. (Seriously, I know a lot of folks skipped this one, but it's worth giving a shot— it contains some of Telltale’s best puzzles and strongest long-form writing.)
Waiting for the release of a new Monkey Island was interesting to say the least. I was traveling the day the announcement dropped, so I couldn’t believe it when at least two friends texted me to let me know Ron Gilbert dropped a deadly serious April Fools announcement. I remember being at SGDQ when the next major trailer dropped and theorizing with another fellow monkey-head what story elements were being teased in Guybrush’s scrapbook. And yes, I was right there with everyone in scratching my head at the sight of the then controversial new artstyle.
But you know what, it only took about 5 minutes of playing for me to fit right into place with everything in Return to Monkey Island, and yes, that does include the artstyle which— I actually like! Ron Gilbert has been making adventure games for almost 40 years now and that experience shows in Return. Puzzles are satisfying with an emphasis on making reasonable or entertaining connections using an extremely streamlined and accessible interface. Hell, the hint system in this game might quietly be the most ingenious game mechanic of the year. God of War Ragnorak, you could stand to learn a lot from this one.
But largely, it was just so much fun getting to spend time with Guybrush again and hearing the pitch perfect voice of Dominic Armato. (Could he be the best cast voice in all of gaming? Possibly!) Return represented an incredibly satisfying conclusion to Monkey Island, but not in the way you would think. I know a lot of fans were upset or confused by the ending, but I think there’s a finality to the emotion of this game that truly feels like a fitting goodbye.
And without spoiling it, the surprise found after the credits are done rolling did honestly got me a lil’ teary eyed at the end there.
1. Elden Ring
Yeah, we all saw this coming from a mile away. If Elden Ring had not come this year, my #1 would’ve been Return to Monkey Island. But guess what, this did come out this year and I wish I could be cool or introspective enough to say “you know what, this other game meant so much more to me personally and really defined my year and..."
But folks, Elden Ring WAS that game.
One of my favorite Zelda games is undoubtedly the NES original. I love that it drops you in the middle of a clearing, pats you on the back and says “go make and adventure.” I really wish Breath of the Wild could’ve clicked with me in that way, but the freeform design of that game encouraged more play than adventuring. In fact, I’ve never been a huge fan of most open-world games because I just am not the person who would come out of it with stories of how I got distracted picking flowers for 12 hours or spent an entire weekend trying to get a horse on a roof or some such. Elden Ring was the one that finally clicked for me.
It's not that it’s necessarily a space for play, it’s a space for storytelling. The non-linear layout based around nodes encourages finding a landmark in the distance and finding a mystery there. Maybe you’ll meet you hot wolfman boyfriend by happenstance by using a random emote you got from a shopkeeper at that spot you keep hearing howling at. Maybe you strike a bush that’s trying to get your attention and keep having run ins with the imp who had been transformed into a shrubbery, eventually having the secret option of telling him you think he’s beautiful, something he hasn’t heard since he was a babe in his mother’s arms. Maybe you just opened the wrong chest and accidentally got transported to the Souls version of Ohio.
What’s fantastic about these experiences is that these aren’t found by following dotted lines to waypoints and clearing off a punch of microscopic icons on a map. As a player, you have to seek out these adventures and make these connections and choices. And best of all, a lot of it is missible. That might sound like a nightmare to completionists, but if you give yourself into the adventure it makes every experience all the sweeter. It also gives you stories to swap with friends, only to get you excited to get back asap to find a cavern you missed that you only learned about secondhand.
There’s not much to add about what makes this game a medium defining masterpiece, but Elden Ring is the most I personally enjoyed a game this year and there’s a very good chance it may also be the best game I’ve ever played in my entire life. It’s been an absolute joy getting to see From work their way from a niche within a niche to champions of art and design.
Well played, Elden Ring. Well played.
Did you play anything this year you think I should try to check out? Were you also a huge fan of any of my favorites from this year? Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know! Plus, if you enjoyed reading this and want to continue supporting me, you can follow me @Sonic9jct at Twitter, Instagram and Hive. You can also drop me tip over on ko-fi, which is always appreciated.