The Best and Worst of 2022
This year has been a bit of a mess, moving a dozen times which makes for a fractured look back. It makes me appreciate how rich and beautiful the world is though, seeing so many different environs. Here's a playlist of songs I liked this year to go along with the lists.
Best Games
Selected from all the games I enjoyed this year. Felt like I didn't play that many games but this is the most decked out it's been since I started doing these rundowns. To think last year I had to pick a single-star chump that got the honor of 10th place, but now I'm having to cut multiple two-stars.
1. Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye (PC)
More contained and focused on physical riddles than the base game, with layers of meaning to everything you discover. Every leap of logic not being obvious enough to predict, but not so obscure as to be unintuitive makes for organic linear progression. Read my review of the whole game!2. Elden Ring (PC)
Wonderful to discover and wander in, thanks to the subdued music and range of aesthetics. Systemically well-rounded with healing and jumping improving on old foundations. Some incredible contained areas, though replayability is mixed and bosses never excel. Read my full early thoughts! I played it a dozen more times but besides finding more issues with various bosses (I dread Elden Beast without a physical damage build) my thoughts remain very similar.
3. Tunic (PC)
Magical wanderlust that slowly transitions into probing the world for all its secrets, revealing hidden layers to all that's known. Some of the music is really good, beyond just well-executed like the art. The action gameplay tends to complement exploration well, but contextual inputs can be annoying (e.g. climbing ladders instead of dodging and vice versa) and individually enemies and bosses can be pretty weak. Namely, birds only work well after you get a powerup, the void spiders and clones suck, and The Heir is the only boss without annoying random dodges (still not great with a very iframe-centric moveset).
4. Ori and the Will of the Wisps (PC)
I've played this on and off since 2020, mainly due to technical issues that got patched over time and moving house with some awkward PC set-ups, so it's a bit hard to judge overall. It's just as great as the first game in terms of moveset, but gets there a lot faster. I can't call it a strict upgrade since they forsook the dynamic checkpointing, but it's damn close. The escapes are mostly set pieces, of varying clarity (I either got them first try or got stuck not understanding a part), while the addition of races really push you on combining the various movement options efficiently. Exploration, more puzzle-y bits, music and visuals are all well executed as complementary elements, but rarely a high point themselves.
Combat is a bit more than that, gelling well with platforming due to the focus on positioning and juggles, though most combat abilities requiring you to pause the game to switch meant I didn't stray much from the sword and hammer. The bosses have pretty poor conveyance which made them play out more like set pieces, but if I replay there's room for some interesting optimisation there (Willow Stone was already very good). Combat shrines are too easy and don't put enough enemies on you at once to really explore all of what you're able to do, but I still had fun fooling around.
5. Stephen's Sausage Roll (PC)
Intricate movement that's utilized in really cool solutions, but doesn't feel like it all combines into mastering that fundamental movement, more disparate tricks. That becomes clear on some levels that look completely fucked and I can't comprehend the full logic space of, but are generally pretty straight forward to solve through instinct, signposting and experimenting. Sometimes fiddly and/or very long as well, e.g. Skeleton is pure turn one dick move, and the structure makes it annoying to get stuck as you can't inspect or replay old puzzles nor try out future ones before beating a batch. Still up there among puzzle gods, amazing fundamentals, just didn't expect the story to be the most solid part.
6. Heaven's Vault (PC)
It's so cool to explore another culture's way of codifying the world, and the setting as a whole is deeply mysterious with magical discoveries. Translating handwaves much so that as the sole appeal in NG+ doesn't quite hold up, but actually learning the language's structure and basics by taking notes is awesome. Visually the rivers are beautiful but the rest tends to be meh, music is a treat when it plays but for much of the time there's just nothing, and it can be too slow to walk around at times. Compared to their previous 80 Days, the story is also very rigid which could've been another reason to do NG+.
7. NAM-1975 (Arcade, via PC)
Really cool shooting gallery without the usual hitscan. Limited controls (mainly a slow moving reticule) force you to set up and play proactively with where (and whether) you shoot and move, rather than just testing your aiming and reactions. Despite how inefficient you can be, I rarely die due to simply being overwhelmed by enemies (since they move on, failing to shoot them is half just about losing score), more poor reading of where the enemies are and how to dodge the resulting overlaps, or being greedy. The dodge is very lax, letting you get out of almost any situation, but takes so long to execute that you never want to do it if you can just run to avoid a bullet instead.
8. Yugo Puzzle (PC)
Early on the gleeful bouncing is unintuitive in a comical way (the solution being far more complicated due to how happy the blocks are to simply move), and once that's internalized it makes for really wild possibilities despite small, concise levels. Its precursor Jelly no Puzzle is a bit more minimalistic, but this manages to do more with fewer pieces due to the ability to travel upwards. Sometimes it leads to more pure brain load though, since there's just so many possibilities (often the solution doesn't demand using all the nuance that exists in a level's layout). Went mostly smooth for me with a few complete walls.
9. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (PC)
Fun gameplay all around (puzzles, exploration, combat, platforming and navigation, everything works), built around dynamic physics entities with good content design and a structure that explores it all (mainly the speedrun challenges testing consistency and efficiency). Instant death traps are a bit annoying, weapon variety could've been better (the guns are pretty similar, endgame you finally get some cool alternative spears but they're both overpowered), and there's some jank to the platforming.
10. The Unforgettable Gem Hunt! (Web)
The red cats are a bit heavy on memorization but outside the maze that worked ok, and the trickiest ninja rooms like Gear Wastes are sick, from broad routing down to nitty gritty precision movement, all interweaving and vying for attention.
Worst Games
The year of the trashy late 1990s shooters with bad signposting (GoldenEye was too bad to make the cut). Excluding most properly bad games as I stop playing those before forming a complete opinion, but I do feel generally negative about all these. Examples of what I didn’t hate quite enough include Control, Bloodborne PSX, Dr. Mario, Nuclear Throne, Myst, and Tomb Raider.
1. The Silver Case (PC)
The sole riddle mechanic in the first scene is a super simple cipher, yet they think you need an automatic decoder to the point where they lock you off from the second door until you complete the tutorial? It's also just the same puzzle twice but the second time it's more tedious. Scratch that, there's yet another "harder" step of the same puzzle because counting to twelve is easy but counting to fifteen is a serious skill worth testing.
Controls are awful, moving slowly to a place of interest, going back, going to interact, realize I need the camera tilted down because it's slightly below me, press back, go over to move, tilt camera, go back, over to interact, select it. Holy shit. Progression is also very awkward, in the sewers the player character is in literal shock and cannot move, but to progress you have to rotate around and interact with different people? So much just tedious walking around to progress dialogue linearly. The story seemed ok when it was actually happening but really, really should just be a VN in my opinion.
2. Final Fantasy VI: Brave New World (SNES romhack, via PC)
Overwhelmingly decided by numbers and RNG rather than strategy despite their claims. RNG drains your resources with no possible counterplay, but it's irrelevant because you can just buy effectively infinite consumable heals or revives or cures (which of course makes the general resource management pretty meaningless). Unless you fully die of course, which is common early game with very swingy combats off surprise and timed mechanics.
Encouraging switching party members only to lock in your party does not work with how it can punish being underlevelled; the opera house with Gau and Locke instead of the basic brothers was one of the worst experiences I've had with games, taking more than 50 attempts to stealth past the rats (something that would usually require replaying several minutes of cutscenes for each attempt, but I resorted to save states after doing that half a dozen times). At least the boss did die after chipping it down for like ten minutes, as opposed to the Magitek Research Facility duo boss which seems to be genuinely impossible with my setup. Generally good system design and rebalancing (though maximalist and still often autopilot), Cloud's review covers a lot of that, but god the structuring and content design and rpgshit is still absolutely atrocious.
3. Half-Life (PC)
The save system, auto aim, clunky precision platforming, and janky crate movement makes for a shaky foundation to say the least. Then to work off that the encounters are mostly ambushes relying on initial unfairness (sometimes just jumpscares, which at least have a purpose), anything hard past that are because of armored hitscan enemies (or just turrets) that you can't defeat without taking damage unless you cheese them or use grenades knowing their location.
In the mainstream this is most talked about for its innovative storytelling; that is, making the cutscenes unskippable but letting you jump around NPCs while they're spewing exposition. With no subtitles, poor audio mixing and voice audio being part of the sound effects setting bar, I couldn't hear much of it anyway. I think some of the signposting was bad too, like when having to backtrack, but that might've just been not hearing something an NPC said.
Due to dynamic physics and practical goals (you progress by going places and activating things, not triggering cutscenes or winning combats), I can see the speedrun being pretty cool, but as a casual first playthrough I thought this was awful.
4. Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (DS, via PC)
Real bad writing ("getting depressed would get him nowhere but depressed" is a real line), and the circumstances and events that cause the various different endings to happen are contrived as hell. Taking so long to recognize basic clues like being able to use dead people's bracelets, lots of idiot plot, and Zero going as far as breaking established rules to enable a twist or two, makes it really unsatisfying as a mystery.
As a story, it's bad enough on a moment to moment basis, then every bad ending that lets you piece together what to do for the true ending are awful, and finally that true ending is pretty damn unsatisfying and nonsensical. Getting to it is also awkward, particularly in the DS version navigating the timeline is terrible (not as a hard and obscure puzzle, just how tedious and unintuitive it is), and the shorter term interaction (escape rooms) is the most basic riddles. While constant exposition overload ruins the pacing, it still tends to be pretty entertaining with the characters spouting on about tangent after tangent like Joe Rogan fans who swallowed random wikipedia pages.
5. The Looker (PC)
Mostly just about the same style of annoying, tedious maze drawing, or various riddles that aren't very good in any conventional sense. Despite the first puzzles letting you go outside the maze, once past that you need to actually draw the accurate line, and out of the box thinking (like drawing on the power cord) is always a gimmick, never giving a new perspective as something you could stumble upon earlier than required.
BEEP doesn't act within established rules (there's no "end"), the chess is the best it gets but still very basic and doesn't ask you to actually find the mate in 3. Later with symbols it's pure trial and error without building up any kind of knowledge like, say, Understand. There's some fun narrative bits (give me more "Oh wait it's a giant coc-"!) but they're far too few and far between to keep me engaged, and as a parody the most I can see it doing is be bad on purpose only to go "look, this thing is bad in The Witness", which is boring.
6. Omori (PC)
Some sweet coming-of-age melancholy absolutely drowned in an ineffective JRPG framework. Avoidable encounters are good but still lots of poor quality of life (bad conveyance, bad save pacing, unskippable cutscenes, no xp if a character dies at the end). The rare bears onslaught was the only combat encounter I liked in a 20h game! Most of the plot is stuff I don't care about, Sweetheart's wedding and Humphrey particularly, both of which are stuffed with meh riddles. While it's not explored much, the fantasy world's reflections of reality are neat, and the theme of growing apart from childhood friends is touching.
7. Metal Slug X (PlayStation, via PC)
Nice pixel art, but it doesn't carry it alone and I'm not very into the gameplay. Mainly due to the very clunky contextual melee attacks, and initial unfairness so common of the era and genre, as well as some lacking visual clarity. A lot of the obstacles are unreasonable to react and respond well to the first time, but beyond that die without posing any threat (there should be a smaller gap so it's both interesting to scramble when surprised, and tricky to position for a known threat). Initial unfairness is temporary, and you can play around the contextual melee even if it's awkward, but so much content being boring once you learn what to do is more damning.
Melee action platformers (which I generally enjoy) tend to both focus on platforming more and don't reward you as readily for random attacks (even if memorizing enemy spawns can still be a huge advantage that swings encounters). There's also a bit too much commitment here it feels like, easy to get into unwinnable situations with a bunch of projectiles on screen you don't have time to destroy or space to dodge, but I'd have to finish the game to tell if it's an issue or just me being bad at playing proactively.
Other Media
No ranking here. Focusing on not just quality but things that are more obscure or underrated. Not necessarily unpopular but things that surprised me and that I would recommend beyond what the current cultural consensus indicates (elsewise there's a lot of films that are more predictably masterpieces and would hog this list).Lord Brocktree (novel)
Pure joy. Incredibly evocative creatures, cultures and locations, with great characterization. It has the same baffling details as the best Ghibli movies that makes it feel so lifelike.
At the climactic fight all I can think of is, how could any other medium essentialize combat this effectively? Cinematography and choreography are one thing, but the best action films or series rely on a mix of pure spectacle (The Matrix), and explaining what happens (Hunter x Hunter). Having to show everything visually ironically makes it really difficult to convey the nuance of how and why one wins over the other, the tactics and physical progression of the fight. There's so many details that get ignored, and what is explained but not immediately obvious from the visuals has to be set up (predictable, unless you've got complex superpowers) or explained post facto (summative, zero tension).
While it's amid other payoffs, this three-page fight has to be one of the most enjoyable plain battles I've witnessed. It reminds me that many years ago I really liked The Hunger Games as a first-person action novel, and maybe that wasn't just me being a teenager with low standards.
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (anime film)
I watched a lot of Gainax this year, only having seen Gurren Lagann years ago, and while almost their whole catalogue have stunning art and animation, this one takes the crown. It's an achievement how it utilizes alt-history to construct an industrial aesthetic nonetheless fantastically separate from our own machinery and fashion, both multifaceted and nuanced. So many shots feel like I'm sifting through some ambitious concept art with tons of research and deliberation behind it, capturing the wonder and beauty of engineering, flight, space, human progress, without ignoring the troubled context these exist within. It doesn't use that to drive a strong character arc or more local storyline, particularly the romance stuff is just weird most of the time, but there's still some nice understated themes of gaining perspective and self-actualization.
Spartacus (film)
What a beautiful film. Epic scale and themes with class, freedom and politics centred, but made so intimate in their personal motivations and histories. Some of the best dialogue put to screen, spoken with seasoned reverence. And visually stunning, such good restoration work.
Run with the Wind (anime series)
Very grounded, nuanced characters that are explored at great pace in the story, moving deftly from one to another without feeling like there's a strict separation between arcs or parts. I didn't expect to get behind the villain and Kakeru but the backstory contextualizes that very well. I've yet to watch the rest of Production I.G's sports series but this is either a return to amazing form or elevating their craft.
Die (comic)
All-around beautiful and thoughtful look into the cast and general portal fantasy escapism (or its denial), whose plot and world expand to match in impressive fashion. Growing up reading and watching so much Narnia set me up to love this genre, and even the deluge of trash that is isekai anime can't conceal that's still true.
The Best-Looking Anime
This title was passed around like a hot potato with how many visually stunning 90s OVAs and films I watched (beyond Gainax's already impressive catalogue). Yoshiaki Kawajiri working with Madhouse produced several of them, from arresting natural beauty in Ninja Scroll to thick noir atmosphere in Demon City Shinjuku, and best of all Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust's impeccable gothic characters and space ship castles. Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers is another Madhouse masterpiece with its expressive animation and tender winter cityscapes. Iria: Zeiram the Animation has gorgeous sci-fi vistas with clarity and detail thanks to a remaster, while Shamanic Princess shines in its interior design even on the original compressed DVD release. War in the Pocket takes Gundam closer to the ground, and man is that ground pretty. Finally, Harmagedon is messy but captivating both in grand spectacle and dreamy imagery.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (film)
Impressive step up from the first film's entertaining, over the top villain that is perfectly, neatly dealt with, to this richer and messier plot’s sort of mirror match. Looks beautiful, standing out in scenes like the trek to Germany, and the music goes beyond the already great first too, the secret exit (“to the opera!”) and boat ride still sticking in my mind. The latter elevates one of two scenes of wordless love that brings a somber touch to the pair’s usual hijinks. And then the forest scene, an all-time action spectacle. Continues going above and beyond to impressive results, it'll be interesting to see how the eventual third film fares with a different director.
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