Insert Credit Forum's 2022 Game of the Year thread

yeso

Know By Heart
Norco
The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow
World Of Horror
Earth Defense Force 6
Saturnalia
The Case of the Golden Idol
Scorn
Angels Bleeding
Critters For Sale
Card Shark

and sure I’ll throw

Elden Ring

on the list too why not

LeFish

yeso Card Shark has intrigued me for ages though from what I remember reading about it it throws somewhat of an overwhelming amount of tricks/plays at you towards the end of it but I wonder whether that is a bit overstated.

I also didn’t know that there was a new EDF game. I’ll check it out.

rejj

I have come to realise the only criterion I care for (when coming up with my own list) is: did I play the game this year?

I haven’t even started to think about this yet, and there are a few games I’d like to get around to soon that perhaps I will run out of 2022 for, and they’ll end up as candidates for next year’s list.

yeso

LeFish that’s true re Card Shark and why it’s on the bottom of my list. It’s a manageable frustration if you play in short sessions. Everything else about it is just that nice though

xhekros

Haven’t played much either but considering I’m going to play a lot of short-ish games it may go up.

Best games of 2022 (all of them are very good, although there’s no game that has been extraordinary imo):

Citizen Sleeper
Immortality
Lunacid
Signalis

Good games that are not on my best games, but are worth playing:

FAR: Changing Tides
Stray
Soul Hackers 2
Saturnalia
Star Ocean: The Divine Force
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story

I’m playing through other games, though (Signalis, Saturnalia and other ones), but I think I’m going to wait because there are a lot. But if I have to recommend any game, those are the first two atm.

Another thing are games from previous years, which is another story.

safetypads

My all around favorite this year was Norco, months later I’m still thinking about it. I guess it’s “easy” to just talk about the stuff the game talks about, like pollution, religion, exploitation and such, but the way it connects them in this personal story is so good. Aaaaghh.

Also, some other stuff that I’ve enjoyed this year:

Splatoon 3
Peglin
KOF XV

Stuff I’ve seen my partner play that I still haven’t touched but that looks cool:

Tunic
Cult of the Lamb
EZ2ON REBOOT: R

KingTubb

Can we throw Rollerdrome in there? That game is very good.
Right now it’s edging out Elden Ring for my game of the year. And depending on how Signalis shakes out I’d say include that (so far I’m enjoying it a fair bit).

yeso

yeah I’d believe P & R should be on the official list. I just had it filed in my brain as an old (great) game

KingTubb Rollerdrome

I have to make this one a priority before the end of the year!

Sable is still on the way for consoles too, have been waiting to play that on the big tv.

and I still need to play citizen sleeper got dang it. And the new devil daggers game

Funbil

I’ve mentioned around the forum a couple times already that Pocky & Rocky Reshrined is my GAME OF THE YEAR 2022 and it’d be impossible for anything else to even approach taking its place - which yes, even coming up on the end of the year this is still true. This is mostly because, despite tons of games coming out this year that I’m aware are immaculately made, not many speak to my particular sensibilities (and certainly not in comparison to Pocky & Rocky). I did enjoy some other games, though! None I’d especially call GAME OF THE YEAR 2022 for various reasons, but such games include:

LIVE A LIVE
Vacant Kingdom
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
A Clumsy Flight

And as far as games I’m sure I’d enjoy but simply haven’t gotten around to/isn’t released yet:

An Outcry
Wayward Strand
Potato Flowers in Full Bloom
Moonleap (actually, visiting the store page for the first time and found out this is free - might just play it today)
Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories

Also, I’d like to retract a similar statement I’ve been making about how New Pokémon Snap was my GAME OF THE YEAR 2021. That game is in fact very good, but I’ve since played Sumire and to me, that is easily and by far the best game released last year. It’s $1.99 on Steam right now during the sale and I’ve linked to the store page. If you think my taste is similar to yours then you know what to do.

2501

Torn between Live A Live remake being a great old game with a newfangled graphical style I don’t love (just can’t get over how these HD2D games deploy bloom lighting & particle effects) and Xenoblade 3 being another majorly flawed monsterpiece that I still willingly allowed to consume my entire life for upwards of a month and still occasionally have pangs to return to.

Yessir, I do only play games on my Nintendo Switch anymore why do you ask

2501

I will be using this thread and the inevitable pod episode to track indie and lowkey releases I very definitely missed from being totally out of touch with the Gaming Beat in the current decade beyond Nintendo Directs and such. Without the gushing here for example I probably wouldn’t even know Dungeon Encounters existed, let alone have blown almost 50 hours on it as my Volume Down Multitasking Game of Choice 2022.

LeFish

TracyDMcGrath Oh for sure. There’s still two months worth of releases to go, no doubt with some real good, fun times involved.

2501 I’ve not really paid an awful lot of attention to indies this year. Mothmen 1966 is the only one that I’ve engaged with from memory and I’ll be using this thread to check out what people have enjoyed too.

TracyDMcGrath

Right now there’s only 3 games worth considering this year: Sophstar, Hazelnut Hex, and (the likely GOTY 2022) Pocky and Rocky Reshrined.

However

The rest of this year seems stacked so I’ll wait to throw together a final list until like January or February I think.

(I will surely remember 2022 as the year of the Vampire Survivors clone, however, no game has ever produced such get off my lawnishness in me. It is a slot machine inside of a slot machine inside of a slot machine. So I can and will say definitely two months early that Vampire Survivors is the scapegoty 2022)

rejj

I’ve thought about it a little bit, and here is a provisional list that I’m going to reserve the right to edit, and is always going to be mostly unsorted. I usually just end up with a #1 and an unordered pile of “everything else that I liked”.

Citizen Sleeper
Picross S7
The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow
Elden Ring
Vampire Survivors
AI: The Somnium Files
The Case of the Golden Idol
Phantasy Star IV
Return to Monkey Island
Last Call BBS

I want to get around to playing Norco, and I’m at least somewhat interested in Pentiment. Stray might make the list just on the first hour or two of hanging out with that game and being a cat. If I get to actually playing 428 Shibuya Scramble there’s a chance it will make the list – I only had a very brief (maybe 30 minutes?) look at it before deciding I needed to try something else before diving in to another VN right after finishing Somnium Files.

Syzygy

I’m going to mention just some games that maybe no one else will:

Azure Striker Gunvolt 3
Babylon’s Fall
Bravely Default Brilliant Lights
Crimesight
Deathverse Let It Die
Demon Gaze Extra
Destiny 2 the Witch Queen
Diofield Chronicle
Dragonball The Breakers
Dragon Quest X Version 6 Patch & “Offline”
DNF Duel
Dungeon & Fighter Level 110 Patch; Meister’s Laboratory; Revised Bakal Raid
FF6 Pixel Remaster
Freedom Planet 2
GrimGrimoire OnceMore
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle R
Kamiwaza: Way of the Thief
Koumajou Remilia: Scarlet Symphony
ダウンタウンスペシャルくにおくんの三国志だよ全員集合！ / River City Saga: Three Kingdoms
Melty Blood Type Lumina DLC Characters
Ninja JaJaMaru: The Great Yokai Battle + Hell
Persona 4 Ultimax, re-release eight years later
両手いっぱいに芋の花を / Potato Flowers in Full Bloom
RPG Time: The Legend of Wright
Samurai Bringer
風来のシレン5plus technically counts
Sifu
Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit
Star Ocean 6 The Divine Force
Triangle Strategy
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodhunt
Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden; The Beasts of Burden
Windjammers 2
Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel
Yurukill
絶頂決戦スタジオエスファイターズ / StudioS Fighters: Climax Champions

,
Upcoming:

Blazing Strike
Crisis Core Reunion
Gungrave G.O.R.E.
Katana Zero DLC
Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song (Remaster)
The Rumble Fish Remaster
Witch on the Holy Night
Wizardry Variants Daphne

,
That’s just a small set and I’m sure to be forgetting many ^{and incidentally, no, ^{I don’t agree with doomsaying that games are all crap}}

LeFish

That new Gungrave Gore game looks more appealing to me by the day so I’ll check that out unless it turns out to be a complete mess. I might still check it out if it is, in fairness.

That Dragon Quest Treasures game will undoubtedly turn out to be a cozy, sit-under-a-huge-blanket, winter-nights game and I’m very down for that.

Edit: I’d totally forgotten about Windjammers 2 until I saw Syzygy ’s list. Borderline perfect stuff.

TracyDMcGrath

(I totally forgot that DNF Duel came out this year but that’s very much a GOTY contender)

JoJoestar

Before listing any games I want to offer some thoughts: I think we have to thank this beginning of the generation crawl for a couple of reasons. First of all, imho it has sufficiently demonstrated that the current AAA model is simply not sustainable for the industry as it is. There are not enough releases and those releases take so much time that if the industry as a whole had to bet all its chips on that it would be a disaster. This has also put us in a space where indies and other mid-tier productions not only get their space to shine, but to also demonstrate how and why they can be more interesting than the 200th ubisoft recycled open world game.

Games I’ve found enjoyable so far:

Caves of Qud. Still on early access, but I put like 30-40 hours into it earlier this year. The ultimate cozy and hang-out videogame for me. Full of discovery, sense of wonder and unique quirkiness. Manages to effortless surprise constantly, so good.
Grand Cross REnovation. One of the many, many good STG releases we’ve got this year. Full of that late 90s weirdly experimental vibe a la Radiant Silvergun, Einhander and Soukyugurentai.
Gran Turismo 7. It caught me completely off-guard how much I’ve enjoyed this game. It’s my favorite Gran Turismo of all time and another extremely chill and hangout-y game to put time into. I love how they introduced all the car history and car-related trivia into the main mode.
Neon White. A bit of a spoiled opportunity in terms of the narrative but the incredibly solid game core + the music and overall presentation compensate for it. Cool game.
SCORN. Lots of texture, atmosphere and vibes. Really committed to the vision, it was a great time.
Bayonetta 3. This game is surprisingly weird??? It’s full of creativity and ideas, it takes huge amounts of risks in terms of taking this far an already established franchise. Secret best kaiju game of 2022.
Pocky & Rocky Reshrined. God bless TENGO Project.
HYPER DEMON. Holy shit this was good.

2022 games I still need to put proper time into, but that I think that could make it to the list:

Citizen Sleeper
NORCO
Case of the Golden Idol
Somnium Files 2
Immortality
The Shin-chan game
Live A Live
Hob’s Barrow
Kamiwaza
Return to Monkey Island
Signalis

Also, shoutout to how much I’ve come to dislike Elden Ring. Every time it pops up on my head and I remember the time I put into it I like it a bit less. Fucking open worlds fill me with dread.

TracyDMcGrath

JoJoestar Caves of Qud. Still on early access, but I put like 30-40 hours into it earlier this year. The ultimate cozy and hang-out videogame for me. Full of discovery, sense of wonder and unique quirkiness. Manages to effortless surprise constantly, so good.

Qud is one of those games that makes “Early Access” lose all meaning to me. I’ve never seen a shipped game with a fraction of a percectage of the things there are in Qud

xhekros

Shit, I completely forgot about Kamizawa and Gungrave GORE. Heck, no…

JoJoestar

Aditionally, this year has been super good both in terms of good/promising early access games being launched AND games in the 90s retro-flavored fps sphere, with some overlap between the two categories. We got Gloomwood, Cultic, Blood West, Ctrl Alt Ego, Lunacid, Dread Delusion, Turbo Overkill, Prodeus just on top of my head, with plenty more I can’t remember right now.

JoJoestar

TracyDMcGrath That’s true! And at the same time I am very excited for them to finish the main story quest for the game because the setting is just so delightful.