Hello everybody, it is once again time for me to talk about video games that came out in a year that I was mostly broke for so let’s go. I don’t feel like writing an extensive reflection on 2022 here, so let’s get straight into the rules and honorable mentions.
Last year I was poor and couldn’t afford to buy enough games that actually came out in 2021 to write about 5 games that had come out that year, so I just made it a list of the 5 best games I played that year. This year I have 5 games that came out this year to talk about, but I still played games this year that came out previously that I wanted to briefly talk about, so let’s get those out of the way right now.
Games I played this year that didn’t come out this year:
Yakuza Kiwami 2 — Yakuza continues to be a fantastic franchise. Kiwami 2 continuing the pattern of a Yakuza game making me cry was unsurprising. I will say the engine change from 0 and Kiwami caught me off guard at first but by the end I didn’t really mind, the ragdolls were very comedic and I found that the game, like its predecessors, did almost every aspect of the game to near perfection, more than easily earning a 10/10. And thanks to a VERY generous friend of mine, I now own all of the Yakuza games up to 6. Expect me to gush about 3 4 5 and 6 for sure in next year’s list, and definitely keep an eye out for my thoughts on Judgment, it’s sequel, and Like A Dragon Ishin!, the former 2 finally hitting PC a few months ago after a long stint of PlayStation exclusivity, and the latter coming to the west and PC after being Japan exclusive for years. I’ll very likely be playing a lot of the franchise in 2023.
Oxenfree — I’m kinda cheating here because the first time I played Oxenfree was in 2021 but I replayed it on Halloween 2022 and remembered “Oh yeah this is one of the best indie games I’ve ever played.” If you haven’t played this psychological horror game I cannot recommend you do so enough, it’s absolutely fucking incredible.
Remnant: From the Ashes — I think I’m probably the biggest fan of this game in the world. It came out a few years ago but I didn’t get the chance to play it until it was one of the free titles given away on the Epic Games Store, and holy SHIT I love it. The game was marketed as a Soulslike with guns, but honestly it doesn’t really fit that description in my eyes, it definitely takes more elements from roguelike titles, what with it’s randomized levels, loot, and bosses. My personal most hype announcement from this year’s Game Awards was it’s sequel, I cannot wait for that game to launch, I will play the shit out of it.
Next up we have a very brief segment detailing the biggest releases of the year that I was interested in but for some reason or another did not end up playing, so let’s start talking about those:
Games I did not play or did not play enough:
Stray — This game took over the internet for like a week and then I never heard about it again, but I’ve thought the concept has looked interesting since I saw the trailers. I’d love to give this a go at some point, I just didn’t get around to it this year.
King of Fighters XV — Look man, I love fighting games, and I can respect KOF for the impact it’s had on the genre, but it just isn’t for me personally. Something about it being a 3v3 fighter and not tag based just doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe I’ll give it a go down the line at some point, but with the rest of the fighting game genre that is either already out or coming soon looking so amazing to me (i.e. Guilty Gear Strive, Street Fighter 6, and Tekken 8), I don’t see myself ever picking up KOFXV as a main game.
Sifu — This game has looked really fucking cool to me since I first learned what it was, I just never got around to buying it this year. I’d love to get it soon but it just wasn’t in the cards this time around. Game looks dope though.
Cult of the Lamb — Another indie game that blew up for a week on Twitter and Twitch, another game I wanted but didn’t buy. Could be fun to try once my stream gets bigger.
Metal: Hellsinger — This game looks so FUCKING cool but I didn’t have the money for it. A rhythm based shooter isn’t anything particularly new, but unlike BPM Bullets Per Minute, which is a roguelike, Hellsinger is much more akin to DOOM. Couple that with a fantastic metal soundtrack and you have a game I would absolutely love to play. I’ll definitely get around to this one.
Splatoon 3 — I fucking loved Splatoon. It’s the one shooter I’ve ever got to the highest rank in. I played the shit out of the Wii U title, even after Splatoon 2 released. By the time I got a Switch though, Splatoon 2’s lifespan was nearly over, so I didn’t bother picking it up. And as much as I wanted to pick up the third installment, I couldn’t financially justify it this year, and at this point I don’t know that I’ll be picking it up at all. If they drop it on PC you will never hear from me again, I’ll be playing that until my dying day. But we all know that’ll never happen. Tragic.
Okay that should cover those ga-
GEDSTER, WHERE THE FUCK IS ELDEN RING
Oh yeah, Elden Ring came out this year and won more Game of the Year awards than the total number of people who think I’m a good commentator. And yeah, this section is telling you that Elden Ring did not make my Top 5 of the year. It isn’t because I didn’t like it, it’s completely because I bought it, played it on stream one time, ran into controller issues, and haven’t got around to fixing them/actually playing the game again. Expect it on the list of games I enjoyed from previous years next year, because I hella enjoyed the little I played.
Okay, I believe that covers the games I wanted to bring up that were just outside of what made the list, so at long last, let’s get into this shit.
Number 5: Overwatch 2 PvP
At the bottom of my best of the year list we’ve got the long awaited Overwatch 2’s PvP reworks and additions. Is this cheating? Probably, considering the biggest draw of this game, the PvE, will be releasing in 2023, but I have enjoyed my time with this game thoroughly enough that I figured it deserved a spot on my list. (This will also not be the only entry that’s probably cheating just a little bit.)
Overwatch 2’s main draws for the PvP changes were the change from 6v6 to 5v5, the removal of the universally hated Assault mode in favor of the new Push game mode, and numerous reworks to heroes, drastically lowering the amount of crowd control in the game. In my opinion, two of these things were fantastic successes and the other has aged poorly since launch. Let’s start with 5v5.
I can confidently say that this is my favorite part of the PvP changes. When I first heard that solo tank was going to be the future of Overwatch, I was extremely skeptical, but the team at Blizzard did a fantastic job at making sure all of the tanks carrying over from OW1 fit into the environment of solo tank, despite my early thoughts being that some tanks would feel extremely difficult to play without a second tank to back them up (For example, I thought Reinhardt would disappear forever considering he no longer had a Zarya to cover him when he overextended, but he’s been run in off meta comps in the Overwatch League to relative success). The only problem I have with this is that Open Queue modes are completely miserable now, as the ridiculous buffs to every single tank essentially ensure that you will be seeing 2 or 3 tanks per game in every team based Arcade Mode, and when those bastards are designed to be the only tanks on their teams, they’re a little bit terrifying when all of a sudden there are three. The simple solution to this, however, is to not play Open Queue modes. Which is what I end up doing.
Next we have the numerous hero reworks. Sombra, Cassidy, Bastion, Mei, and more got changes to their abilities that made all four of them significantly more fun to play as or against. Usually not both though. Bastion is both, Mei is only more fun to play against, and Sombra and Cass are both more fun to play as. Cass in particular has a very annoying ability in place of his flashbang now. Oh well. Overall, good reworks, made a lot of characters more fun and alleviated my fears of solo tanking being miserable, especially since I figured they would be the targets of a LOT of stuns and displacement tools. But considering most of those aren’t in the game anymore, I’m very happy with the reworks.
The worst change to the gameplay was Push. Now I’m personally of the opinion that it’s still a better mode than Assault, I never want to play Temple of Anubis or Paris in ranked again, but Push is a mathematically flawed game type which heavily favors the team that wins the first fight. It’s whatever though, I definitely hate it less than I did Assault. And on the bright side, we have confirmation that we will be getting more competitive modes in the future, so maybe we won’t have to deal with Push forever.
Despite the positives I’ve listed above, I cannot in my right mind put Overwatch 2’s PvP any higher than #5 on this list. The primary reason for this is that despite putting forth major improvements in the gameplay department, I feel this ‘sequel’ takes a step back in almost every other department when compared to the original Overwatch. It plays better, looks better, and sounds better, but other than that it’s a downgrade everywhere else.
The monetization is egregiously awful. This is the single worst free to play model I think I have ever seen a game implement. The premium battle pass doesn’t even give you more premium currency like it would in every other F2P game on the market, which will eventually force even those who bought the Watchpoint Pack prior to the game’s launch to pay more real money for a Battle Pass a few seasons from now. The only way to earn premium currency is to get 60 per week from finishing the weekly challenges. That’s barely anything. Another minor complaint, but one that makes me particularly upset, is the sudden increase in the cost of Overwatch League skins. OWL Tokens can be earned by watching the live broadcasts, and in Overwatch, you could redeem 100 of them for a team’s standard skin and 200 for a special skin, like a championship or MVP skin. However, without warning or announcement, the prices went from 100 and 200 to 150 and 300. It’s still at 200 for some of the special skins, weirdly enough, but the 50 token increase for the standard skins is extremely frustrating.
Outside of the monetization, the UI is a downgrade, looking much less stylish than the original game, although I do appreciate the removal of player borders, account level, fire meter, and the medal system. It removes a lot of the unnecessary fluff the first game had on the UI, and the scoreboard with teamwide stats is very nice, but the more square health bar, smaller kill feed, and smaller elimination notice make the UI feel much less unique.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Overwatch balancing team is still as questionable as ever, with characters releasing with immortality related abilities in 2022 as if it didn’t go horribly last time that happened in 2019, Roadhog somehow being the most played tank in top level ranked at the time of writing, and various other issues making me wonder if they learned anything from the first game’s balancing nightmares.
Overall, Overwatch 2’s PvP is a mixed bag. It does some things extremely well, but it also takes several steps back as a live service game. I’m optimistic for the future of the game, but there is a LOT to work on.
Rating: 7/10
Number 4: Gundam Evolution
Placing Gundam Evolution over Overwatch 2 is a difficult choice to justify considering the dwindling playerbase of this game, however I will attempt to explain my rationale in a way that will win you over, even if ever so slightly:
It’s my list and I think Gundam Evolution is a better game in almost every way.
I don’t want this segment to be me constantly comparing Gundam Evolution to Overwatch 2, so I’ll be avoiding doing so as much as possible, although I will briefly touch on a comparison at the end.
Gundam Evolution is a 6v6 Hero Shooter featuring various Mobile Suits from the entire franchise, from the original Mobile Suit Gundam to Iron Blooded Orphans. It features three core game modes, Point Capture, Domination, and Destruction. Point Capture can be directly compared to Overwatch 1’s Assault mode, with attackers attempting to capture two points with a limited amount of time, gaining more as they capture the first. The teams then swap sides, and whoever makes more point progress wins the match. Domination is a combination of Call of Duty’s hardpoint and your standard King of the Hill mode. Like KOTH, you stand on the point until you capture it, and you attempt to hold it until you reach 100%. You don’t have to be standing on the point for your points to rack up. However, the Hardpoint aspect comes in when you consider that each map has 3 points the teams rotate between fighting over. (Domination is by far my favorite mode.) Destruction is like if Search and Destroy and Overwatch’s Assault had a baby, and it’s fun. Don’t have much else to say about it.
The Mobile Suits themselves are all very fun and relatively well balanced, however the developers have very clearly never made a hero shooter before, because some of these units are STUPID strong, like the newest one, Nu Gundam. On the topic of the mobile suits however, I’d like to bring up something I really appreciate, that being the ambiguity of roles. There are no hard set roles in this game like there are in other hero shooters, rather every character functions as a pseudo DPS, with a few characters filling certain roles better than others (Tank, Support, Long Range, Brawl, etc.)
This game isn’t without it’s fair share of issues, however. A big problem this game faces is that it’s pretty buggy. Crashes are relatively common and Zaku II Melee has now been banned from multiple tournaments due to game breaking bugs that can be triggered by complete accident.
The biggest cardinal sin this game faces in my eyes is that unlike the game it gets compared to a lot, Gundam Evolution does not have a backfill system, even in unranked matches. And fighting a 5v6 is a more impossible task than beating MkLeo if he decides you’re one of the unlucky souls who gets to play his Joker.
I have a lot less to say about this game than the previous, but that’s mostly because of the expectations I had for Overwatch 2 going in. Gundam Evolution was a game I didn’t expect would launch in the West, so I’m honestly just grateful to have it at all. It’s a banger of a video game, with similar balance problems to it’s biggest competitor, and ever so slightly less satisfying gameplay, sound design, and visuals, but in every other department I genuinely believe that it outdoes Overwatch 2, and for that I am very impressed. Well done, guys, you deserve a lot more recognition than you’re getting.
Also the monetization is far less egregious so that’s a W.
Rating: 8/10
Number 3: Neon White
Good year for shooters.
Competitive multiplayer games, especially FPS games, have been a favorite genre of mine for years, but single player or cooperative multiplayer shooters have had a vice grip on me since I played Borderlands 2 for the first time. And when I saw the initial advertising campaign for Neon White, I knew I had to play it. And holy fucking Jesus Christ am I glad I did.
Neon White is a movement based shooter that was literally designed for my ADHD brain, and the brains of speedrunners. Make your way through each level, making sure you kill every demon on your way to the end, and once you’ve got a time you’re happy with, you wonder “Wait how the hell do you cut another seven seconds off that” because that’s what you’ll need for the Platinum medal on that stage. Once you get the Platinum medal, you’ll think you spotted something out of the corner of your eye, so you’ll re-enter the level and find the present on each stage. And then, while you’re making progress through the game’s story, you’ll accidentally unlock a Red Medal. “Those exist???” You’ll ask yourself, before you go back to every level in the game to unlock the ACTUAL highest medal rarity, but the game doesn’t actually tell you what time you have to beat until you’ve already done it so it might take a while, you get the point. The amount of replayability each level alone has makes this game more than worth it’s asking price. That isn’t even mentioning the different weapon cards and their discard effects. The cards function both as weapons and movement options. All of them are extremely fun to use and don’t detract from the experience at all.
The art and environments in this game are gorgeous, the character designs are all pretty damn good, the music is excellent, and the side content that happens outside of the main levels, which is primarily what is unlocked by the aforementioned presents, is just as satisfying as the main levels.
The only major critique I have of this game is the Opening Act. The writing, voice work, and story is pretty weak in the first couple of days, often leaning a little too heavily into horny territory for my taste. That ever so slightly horny aspect never fully leaves, but it’s at it’s worst in the opening couple of levels.
However I think that Neon White more than makes up for this misstep once it’s story starts to pick up a little over halfway into the game. I found myself genuinely invested in the characters and story, which is not what I went into the game expecting, and definitely didn’t expect after my first 3 or 4 hours with the game. I won’t say anything further here because I genuinely think the story gets pretty damn good by the end and I’d rather not spoil anything, but I will once again reiterate that you don’t play this game for it’s story. It picking up the way it did in the second half was just a nice bonus.
Overall, Neon White comes EXTREMELY close to a 10/10, but falls just short due to an extremely weak opening act in every aspect that isn’t the gameplay and level design, which are both consistent 10s throughout the game’s runtime. Neon White was by far my favorite indie title of the year and I cannot wait to see where this development team goes next.
Rating: 9/10
Number 2: Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak
In the most shocking turn of the entire year, my personal GOTY from 2021 got an expansion and I loved it, and it’s here on my list of the best games of 2022. Is that cheating? Most definitely, but again, I don’t care. Fun fact, for the majority of the year, this was going to be my #1 spot, but then something came out and stole the spot away. And honestly, I’m okay with that. It would have felt a little weird to give the same game GOTY two years in a row.
I call Sunbreak the same game, but it IS an expansion, which added multiple new monsters, a new location (Which, by the way, might be my new favorite locale in any Monster Hunter game), and a significant amount of story content. My favorite brand new monster is without question Sunbreak’s flagship monster, the Malzeno (Pictured in the promotional image above). It’s one of the most unique fights I’ve seen in the entire franchise, and it was mind bending the first time I fought it. It breaks the unwritten rules followed by most monsters in the series, but I found myself not caring and simply having fun with the fight. My favorite returning monster was Gore Magala, which has been one of my favorite monsters since I first fought it in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. And with a recent free title update bringing it’s variant, the Chaotic Gore Magala, I could not be any happier with the monster roster Sunbreak has added to what was already quickly becoming a new potential favorite entry in what is very likely my favorite franchise.
The other thing that I absolutely loved about Sunbreak is that it addressed one of the biggest issues I had with base game Rise, the difficulty. I don’t know if it’s because I went in with lower tier gear than I should have, but oh my GOD Sunbreak was way harder than the base game, and for that I am extremely happy.
(Side note, if this isn’t a popular opinion, keep in mind that I am generally pretty bad at Monster Hunter and carried by the best weapon in the game, so if you don’t agree that this was harder than base game then you’re probably a better player than I am lmao)
Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak is everything I wanted Monster Hunter World: Iceborne to be. An expansion that brings in new, fun, and varied content while not making the same mistakes that led to my eventual dislike of Iceborne. Sunbreak has given me hope that the future of the Monster Hunter franchise is in fantastic hands even more so than Rise did last year, and I for one cannot wait for the next title updates and whatever Capcom has in store for us in the coming years.
Rating: 10/10
Number 1
Last year I put a very long intro before I told you all what my favorite game of the year was, but if you’d spoken with me at all that year you’d have known Rise would be #1 anyway. It’s a very similar situation this year, as the literal second I got my hands on this next game, I knew damn well it would be my personal Game of the Year 2022. And once again, it’s a game that you probably expected to see near the top of my list if you’d spoken with me about games this year at all, so let’s cut the bullshit and talk about Xenoblade Chronicles 3.
Game of the Year: Xenoblade Chronicles 3
I won’t lie.
When this game got announced, I was pissed.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is one of my favorite video games of all time, if not my favorite ever. Everything about that game is masterfully done, from the open world to the combat to the music to the story to the side missions, and when I played through the game for the first time a few years back, I completely fell in love.
And then I beat the game.
Xenoblade X is universally agreed to have the weakest story of the franchise, but that didn’t stop me from feeling emotions of all kinds after beating the game. Frustration, confusion, elation that I’d just beaten the boss after hours of trying, all that. All these years later, the main character of X even featuring in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and we get Xenoblade THREE announced? Where’s a Port for X? Where’s a sequel? I need ANSWERS, Monolith!
After that anger wore off, I decided to go into this game forgetting about the existence of X so I could enjoy it to the fullest.
And here we are, it’s my favorite game of the year and quite possibly my favorite Xenoblade game.
At some point down the line I want to make very long video essays about each of the Xenoblade games, and when the time comes, you will get my full, complete, and unfiltered thoughts on Xenoblade Chronicles 3, but for now I’ll give you the highlights.
The first thing I want to mention is the Soundtrack. This is a better soundtrack than Xenoblade 1 and 2 for sure, and I wouldn’t be upset if you were to tell me you liked it more than X’s soundtrack as well. They went above and beyond for the music in this game, and the game is that much better for it. This aspect has always been one of the strongest in the franchise no matter which entry you’re looking at, but this game stood out to me with it’s combat themes, it’s area themes, and especially the music that plays during cutscenes. Phenomenal soundtrack right here.
Next up we have the main roster of characters. While I don’t feel they were of the same level of quality as the main cast of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I felt they were still a very fun group to experience the game with throughout, and there wasn’t a character I disliked, even among the various Heroes that could be recruited as the 7th member of a party. However, the weakest link in this main party was definitely Sena, and it really hurts me to say that because I love her to death, but Sena just got zero development through the entire game and her hero quest felt extremely weird and more like a developmental quest for other characters than it did her.
The last thing I want to bring up is the combat. This is not the worst combat in the franchise, but I definitely like it less than the original and X’s combat systems. Despite that, I actually think the combat here is very well done. I was initially worried that a party size of seven units would lead to the game feeling very easy, with enemies having seven different units to try to take down, in comparison to the previous games, where it was either three or four. However they actually did a very good job of balancing around this, and I found myself struggling in some combat scenarios despite having a much higher number of units to work with.
Suffice to say that this game touches on every aspect that made previous Xenoblade games as good as they are in some way, and even rises above the other entries in some areas, most notably soundtrack. Is it the best Xenoblade game? From a fully objective standpoint, I might be tempted to say yes, however as it stands I have actually not yet beaten the game, all I have left to do is walk into the final boss room and see what happens at the very VERY end of the game, and I may update the article with a paragraph at the end after I do so with my final thoughts on the story. So maybe it does have a better story than 1 or 2, I just don’t know yet.
The best music of the year, fantastic combat, a beautiful world for a game on the Nintendo Switch, a great story, great cast of characters, and excellent internal systems lead me to give Xenoblade Chronicles 3 a 10/10 scoreline, and my personal award for Game of the Year.
Rating: 10/10, Game of the Year 2022
Thank you all so much for reading, go follow me on twitter @gedster49 and twitch also @gedster49 for regular gaming related content. See you whenever I post the albums list. I don’t even know how many albums I’m going to talk about this year. We’ll see.
Bye!
