Top Ten Games of 2022

At what point does passion die?

I've been consuming video games for more than eighty percent of my life at this point, and despite my best efforts I tend to find fewer and fewer of them actually resonate with me whatsoever. Every time I do find one I can lose myself in I appreciate it, but for some it feels like that can happen every week or so. I'm lucky to get one every two months.

This might be part of why I've drifted over to games with shorter run times, a means of getting a sense of completion faster and simultaneously trimming the fat for titles that strive for longer run times despite it being for the worse. Three of my top ten games can be beaten in under two hours on a casual run; several others invite shorter bursts of playtime without sacrificing story elements or making you feel pressured to continue. There are exceptions, of course, but as I get older and (sigh) learn to be responsible with my time and money, this might become the norm for me.

A few notes before we begin:

- Any game released in North America for the first time in 2021 is eligible for this list. Exports are okay (though I suppose the release of LIVE A LIVE might fall under a remake), ports are not. I should note that I also finalized this list about a week ago as of this writing, so if Sports Story is incredible it still wouldn't be eligible. That said, what I've read doesn't fill me with much hope to begin with, so maybe it's for the better.

- I own a pretty crappy laptop PC and a Nintendo Switch with faulty-at-best Joy-Cons. In other words, the closest I got to playing Elden Ring was that fan-made Game Boy version.

- My go-to games include rhythm, platform, and fighting titles, as well as pretty much anything by Grasshopper Manufacture. I tend to not like turn-based RPGs, strategy games, or first-person shooters. Make a note about that last one.

- Shout out to Sonic Frontiers for actively being the worst game I played this year, and perhaps this decade.

If you don't care about my more detailed notes and just want the names of games, they'll be printed in bold. With that, let's dive in.

10) If you're familiar with the story, In the Rural Village of Nagoro probably won't appeal to you.

Even if you don't, it still might not. You play as a young girl walking to school. You can (and should) interact with the townsfolk you pass by, all of whom are very happy to see you and will greet you with a wave, even if they're not in a terribly good mood. It is very nice.

But like I said, if you are familiar with Nagoro and its history, you know where things go from there. It's not bleak, per se, but perhaps melancholic. Either way, it's a free game that takes maybe 20 minutes, and if nothing else you get to wave to a cat and have the cat wave back to you. It's the little things, right?

9) Melatonin is a good example of striking while there's an iron to begin with.

The last Rhythm Heaven game was made half a decade ago, and even then it was more a mishmash of previous titles rather than an entirely new product. As such, more and more developers have taken it upon themselves to fill this niche that other rhythm titles can't quite match.

Melatonin does as good a job as any, providing some cute ideas, natural feeling gameplay, and some quality of life options that the series its deriving from could take some inspiration from. There have probably been a few other released this year, and other titles like Bits & Bops will be following suit, but Melatonin scratched an itch that is hard to satisfy. It's not a novel back scratcher, but they don't all have to be.

8) I can see a world where I played a lot more of OlliOlli World than I actually did.

I hadn't played any of the earlier titles in the series, and there's something hypnotic about trying to nail a perfect run or squeeze out a few extra points despite the risks that come with it. I'm not crazy about the aesthetics, with it feeling a bit too much like it's trying to appeal to the Adventure Time crowd sans any level of seriousness, but taken by itself there's potential for me to lose myself in it more than I did.

But then other games came along that did so instead, making OlliOlli World a big ol'ol' "what if" situation. I'll probably get back to it eventually, especially if the DLC is worth my while, but in the face of a new year with new titles it's possible it will once again be left behind. I kinda feel sorry for it, in a way.

7) GOODBYE WORLD is a game where its biggest fault is something I feel hypocritical about criticizing.

The story, following game designer Kumii and her budding friendship with graphical artist Kumade, is one that is exceptionally real and extremely relatable to anyone who has ever created art. Between each vignette is a retro game called BLOCKS, a somewhat asinine puzzle-platformer whose existence becomes more and more integral to the plot as you continue. You don't need to beat each stage of BLOCKS to finish GOODBYE WORLD proper, but it serves as a nice palate cleanser regardless.

The vignettes, of course, are what you stay for. Kumii and Kumade's relationship is one I haven't experienced directly, but is one that I can still feel to my core. It's heartwarming, it's heartbreaking, it makes exceptional use of diegetic music and sound, and the credits song by Phillippines-based artist Noa Mal hits just as hard.

The problem is that it's priced too highly. Thirteen dollars American for a ninety-minute game is too much to ask no matter the quality, especially considering what other titles are available for a fraction of the price. As I said, it's hypocritical to point this out considering what GOODBYE WORLD discusses, but that doesn't mean it still isn't an issue in an age where wealth is becoming scarcer for more and more of the population.

For a fiver, this would be my game of the year. As it is now, it's an incredible title held back by its own commentary on the medium. I'm part of the problem, but that doesn't mean the rest of it isn't present.

6) The Looker is the second-best parody game I've ever played.

I don't think it quite overtakes Conker's Bad Fur Day's accidental genius, but in terms of taking an established product and dissecting it The Looker is incredible. It takes the arduous and overly dramatic The Witness and boils it down to an hour-long experience with genuinely good humor, but that's not what makes it a good work of parody.

See, parody has to go beyond just making fun of something, and still provide an aspect of it to its audience. That's why parody songs are only as good as the artists who perform them; if "Weird Al" Yankovic wasn't musically talented, we wouldn't really care how clever "Eat It" is because we'd be plugging our ears instead. In this case, the query is simple: how do you take The Witness, a game so incredibly obsessed with its one "a-ha" moment that it drags it on for a solid twenty hours, and make it happen in five percent of that time?

I'm not giving away the answer, but once The Looker provides that moment, you feel just as smart as you would have playing The Witness. That's good game design, and more importantly, that's good parody.

5) There are two moments that defined my experience with Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

The first is one most players have, their first encounter with an Alpha Pokémon. After the lengthy tutorial is completed and you can venture a little further into the first of five open areas, you see a fully evolved creature with glowing red eyes and a level far surpassing whatever motley crew you've gathered thus far. It is the first time a player will feel genuine fear playing the game, knowing that there is a limit to their abilities and that, if tested, they might not be able to conquer it.

The second is probably less likely. After gaining access to Wyrdeer, the first Pokémon you can ride to better access the world, I found myself trying to get up a hill that was probably too steep to actually climb. Despite that, with enough determination, effort, and manipulation of Wyrdeer's physics, I made it to the top and found items I had no experience with and Pokémon that far exceeded my own, Alpha and otherwise. This time exploring off the beaten path felt like a triumph rather than a warning, and while the materials and creatures eventually became items on a checklist, that first experience remains a memorable one.

As for the game proper... it's fine, I suppose. I do wish there wasn't any combat whatsoever, as the hunt to capture Pokémon without doing battle is significantly more satisfying than the tried-and-not-so-true pattern the series has been practicing for 25-odd years. Even the Pokémon themselves don't feel like partners but rather tools for gathering resources, compounded further by the series's asinine insistence on having all Pokémon gain experience in battle rather than one at a time like previous installments. There's also the elephant in the room of this being one of two games in the series released this year alone, and considering how Scarlet and Violet launched you can tell it should have just been one.

If a second Legends game is released it has the capability to become the Pokémon game I've been waiting for since the Safari Zone was first implemented. For now, it's a novelty, albeit one with a few stories to tell.

4) For a game that doesn't work on my computer, I've invested a lot more time in Trombone Champ than I thought I would.

Jokey presentation and baboon fascination aside, Trombone Champ is a masterclass in how to make failure fun. You probably won't be good at it your first time around unless you either A, know how to actually play a trombone, or B, are like me and have a bizarre fascination with Otamatones. But since you're playing mostly recognizable world anthems, the notes you don't quite hit sound funny both because it's just that little bit off and because, well, it's coming out of a trombone.

I watched a video once pointing out part of this genius: if a song has lyrics, such as "Auld Lang Syne" or "O Canada", no vocals will be provided, leaving the trombone to be the only means of carrying the melody. Some mods incorporating tracks don't follow suit, and they're a lot less fun to both play and listen to because it makes the trombone secondary. It has to be the emphasis because the point is lost otherwise; like Guitar Hero before it, there's something magical about knowing you're responsible for making the song sound as good, or as bad, as it does.

Speaking of the mods, they definitely helped carry Trombone Champ to this position. Whether it's a Hideki Naganuma favorite, a eurobeat classic, or one of the many songs made infamous by its difficulty in rhythm games, these charts help give the game life far beyond its initial selection. I genuinely hope that in the coming years more developments arise, and that something even better comes as a result.

I can't play Trombone Champ, but I sincerely wish I could.

3) Shadows Over Loathing feels, for all the world, like how I think many will ultimately feel about God of War: Ragnarok.

It's a sequel that, on paper, surpasses its predecessor in every way. There's more to do, the story is deeper, the gameplay has more room for player expression, and even in its darker tone there is still plenty of opportunity for humor.

But despite all of that, there's no escaping the feeling that a little bit of the magic isn't there anymore. It's not just that it's a similar structure or a similar style of play, but it's knowing that the excitement and "wow" factor of the first title can't be achieved in the same way again.

I really liked Shadows Over Loathing, and everyone else really liked God of War: Ragnarok. But will I think about it quite as fondly as I do West of Loathing? Time will tell.

2) There was a brief moment when I was one of the best Neon White players in the world.

...okay, you got me. By that I mean I was placed in the mid-40s on the Switch version's global charts in terms of fastest overall time. But still, that wasn't something that just happened over night. I was really, really good at Neon White, to the point that it was one of two games that broke the R button on my right Joy-Con.

The problem is that being good at Neon White doesn't really mean that much in the age of YouTube. While the rush to keep playing levels until you get the fastest possible time is undeniable, those times have been reached already and posted online. Being good at Neon White doesn't mean you're necessarily clever or insightful; it just means you can follow directions and maintain both excellent aim and an ability to multitask.

Granted, not everyone can do so, so in that regard maybe I deserved my position in that upper echelon. And even if you're not someone hellbent on getting the best times possible, Neon White is still an incredible ride. It's an FPS where I actually feel in control of my character and my sense of place, the levels are so well designed that it feels like a once-in-a-lifetime achievement, and the soundtrack is nothing short of incredible.

Were it not for the existence of the Internet (as well as the horribly banal story), I could see an argument for this taking the top spot. But for now, like me, it'll just have to do with being among the best, deservedly or not.

1) In a vacuum, Skala probably doesn't deserve this position.

It's a relatively short game available for free. The music is public domain, the graphics are pretty rudimentary, there isn't a story or some bigger meaning to it, and odds are it'll probably be forgotten by most of its players after a few days.

But for me, it was the only time playing a game this year made me think to myself "this is something unique."

Skala's main gimmick comes with the ability to change the proportions of various elements of each stage. Maybe it's your little avatar, who can grow to massive size by ramming themselves through a little gap until they take up more space than the stage itself. Maybe it's a key you manipulate into such a minuscule size that it appears invisible to the naked eye, only to grow back into a discernible state once it's within reach. Maybe it's the stage itself, as you try to find the perfect proportions to make a gap you can fall into without the goal vanishing at the same time.

Every time I beat a stage in Skala I feel smart. Even if my solution clearly wasn't the intended one, it was still something I thought of that the game permitted and welcomed. I haven't even come close to finishing it, because every time you think you've beaten the final challenge a whole new gauntlet shows up to test you even further.

For me, a title worthy of being "game of the year" should do something new, be approachable by all audiences, and/or affect me emotionally. In one way or another, Skala managed to do all three. It might not be the biggest, or (ironically enough) even the best, but there's no other game that comes close to deserving the illustrious title of 2022's game of the year.