My Favorite Games of 2022
It’s been a very busy year for me! Between learning how to make a game of my own, diving into a lot of new freelance projects, and being a student, I haven’t had a ton of time to catch up on games released during 2022 (and my backlog is becoming very, very scary). Even though I wasn’t able to play everything I wanted to, here are some words about my experiences with games that I actually had time to play this year and enjoyed a lot (and one game that I hated so so so much):
My Two Favorites! The Best of the Best! Wow!
Neon White
I should have hated Neon White. I thought its fast-paced platforming would frustrate me and its card-based guns would remind me of my abysmal aim, but Neon White felt surprisingly streamlined for players like me. Thanks to instant retries and bite-sized levels, dying never felt too penalizing, and when I was forced to repeatedly retry levels for medals, Machine Girl’s frantic soundtrack pushed me through. (I even looked forward to cringing at the game’s Danganronpa-esque dialogue between levels.)
Playing Neon White made me appreciate two genres I’ve continuously written off. Better yet, it turned me into a freak — someone who cares about shaving milliseconds off times, locating every level’s collectible gift, and hanging out with my weird dead friends who wear corsets while racing across heavenly rooftops.
(This was originally written for Into The Spine’s 2022 roundup and I’m reusing it here to save time!)
Splatoon 3
Splatoon 3 doesn’t really change much of Splatoon 2, which didn’t really change much of Splatoon 1. But it’s Splatoon! And I will eat this stuff up every single time Nintendo releases another edition! Of course, its new specials (like the exploding inflatable shark Reefslider) and weapons (like the really cool Snipewriter 5H, which I can’t win with but looks really cool) add a lot to multiplayer matches. And I had an amazing time with its singleplayer campaign, which feels like my beloved Octo Expansion from Splatoon 2.
My favorite part of Splatoon 3 isn’t its core gameplay, though — it’s what happens outside of it. While Nintendo didn’t add long-requested apartments, everything else about the game’s customization and hub world is flawless. I love decorating my locker with trinkets from the adorably quirky Harmony, I love learning new weapons in the training room while queuing, I love gambling for badges and titles for my Splashtag, and I loooooooooove playing a few rounds of Splent (Splatoon Gwent) in between matches.
Splatsville just feels alive because of all of these little things, and while it’s been a busy few months since the game’s release, I love returning to it whenever I’m able to.
Other 2022 Releases I Loved
Wobbledogs
After like??? 16 or 17 years of living a long life, my dog Alex died earlier this year. In the months following his passing, I spent a lot of time playing The Sims 4, giving my Sims Alex lookalikes as a way of getting closure. At one point, I even booted up my old Wii to see his little avatar in Wii Fit. But, oddly enough, nothing quite helped me feel as connected to my dog as the chaos of genetics simulator Wobbledogs.
I spent hours breeding weirder and weirder dogs, building them cozy rooms to reside in, and simply just watching them roam around. Something about raising these little freaks reminded me of Alex, who was quite the weird little freak himself. And raising each Wobbledog made me feel like I had a dog again, even if their paw prints were only virtual.
Here’s a picture of my crusty little freak Alex instead of a large picture of Wobbledogs:
Paradise Marsh
I played plenty of 3D games that gave me motion sickness this year (like Stray, which is not on this list because it made me so nauseous I couldn’t finish it and also because of its own problems with racial representation), but the exploration game Paradise Marsh was worth it. It’s filled with quite a few charming little details, like how colliding with lanterns makes them float into the sky, how flower biomes are filled with little seed packets that let you plant your own flowers, and how running into a rake knocks you out.
The game’s theme of collecting creatures to send into the sky is adorable, too. I wasn’t initially a big fan of the game’s symbolic writing, though it later grew on me as I realized that every creature has its own voice — as I sent more creatures I collected into the sky to form constellations, I met communist bees and comedian frogs and zoomer tadpoles.
Everything about Paradise Marsh’s little details makes it a world worth exploring (despite it making me abysmally nauseous).
Wayward Strand
You’ve heard of games journalism… now get ready for journalism games! When I heard about Wayward Strand, I was immensely excited to finally play a game where the main character is a journalist. Wayward Strand is unfortunately speckled with a few issues like clipping, clunky movement, and badly timed UI appearances. But the airborne hospital where the game takes place felt incredibly alive — nurses came to check on patients and people delivered packages and visitors came to share stories about their loved ones — which let me ignore its technical shortcomings.
Each playthrough of Wayward Strand is wildly different as well. During mine, I grew fond of Tomi, a nonverbal patient whose mysterious trophies and well-watered plants caught my attention. Other players might choose to focus on learning about Ida, the grandmotherly knitter, or Mr. Pruess, the story-filled old man who’s often seen gazing out into the horizon.
None of their stories are exceptional in any way, though I was incredibly invested in the hospital’s happenings, whether it was seeing who conversed over soup at lunchtime or heading to eavesdrop on a routine checkup. I love when a game makes me see beauty in the mundane, and (despite its occasionally unpolished moments) Wayward Strand did exactly that.
A Little to the Left
Speaking of seeing lovely things in mundanity, much like last year’s Unpacking, A Little to the Left creates puzzles out of household objects. (There’s also a cat that occasionally messes up your work, though this concept felt a bit sparse and disconnected from the central gameplay.)
Whether it was fitting push pins and measuring tapes into perfectly sized slots, lining up cans of cat food, or making symmetrical layouts of leaves, every puzzle in A Little to the Left was delightfully satisfying. It’s not a long game, though it makes up for this by giving quite a few levels alternate solutions. Some of these stumped me, though finally getting 100% on every level felt rewarding without being too difficult.
Games That Did NOT Come Out This Year But That I Loved Playing a Lot
Persona 5 Royal
Playing Persona 5 Royal was miserable. I picked up the game on January 11 and I’m still not done… let me explain.
After my playthrough of Persona 4 Golden, which was carried by guides to tell me how to reach the game’s best ending, I assumed Atlus would have improved upon some of the ambiguity of Persona 4 Golden in Persona’s latest installment, but no — I didn’t realize I needed to max out a particular confidant rank until after their deadline until it was too late. I’m a bit of a perfectionist with games, so I felt obligated to reach the true ending, but unfortunately, that meant going back to my only other save slot and repeating 30 hours of gameplay, which I put off for months. It was not fun!
Despite all of my hatred for the way Persona 5 Royal is structured, I can’t hate the game as a whole. Its UI design seamlessly blends with the Phantom Thieves’ edgy style, and I’ve somehow never grown tired of hearing “Beneath the Mask” nearly every time I return to Leblanc. I love how its dungeons contain actual puzzles instead of procedurally generated hallways, and I love how natural taking the subway to hang out in new neighborhoods feels. After finally catching up to where I was when I had to go back (I’m almost done, I swear), I can confirm that almost everything is so noticeably improved that I can’t help but love it.
Screenshot borrowed from this YouTube video because I have no clue how to get screenshots off of the PS4 I borrowed exclusively for the purpose of playing Persona 5 Royal
FFXIV
As you might have guessed from this list, I’ve never been into games that require a lot of commitment, so when my friend suggested playing FFXIV together, I was concerned that the game’s abysmally long download time wouldn’t be worth the wait.
I was wrong! I’ve fallen into a nice routine of doing main story quests while leveling up as a cool little wizard (Black Mage). I also like fishing in games a lot, and fishing in FFXIV is a great way to fill small moments in my day that would otherwise be spent on Twitter.
I’ve never really taken FFXIV too seriously (most of my time is spent decking out my green-haired catgirl with cool clothes from the Gold Saucer), though in a year filled with a lot of stress and uncertainty, I needed a game I could continually return to for relaxation, and FFXIV became exactly that.
Subnautica
For a week or so in May, Subnautica consumed my life. I spent hours building my base, occasionally forcing myself to venture deeper into the unknown to gather new resources and discover new creatures.
Unfortunately, though, I’m anxious as hell, so most of this time was spent inside my base and not actually outside of it. I’ve never been great with horror games, and despite not being marketed as so, Subnautica’s strange creatures and vast dark spaces (paired with the ability to move vertically due to the game’s underwater setting) are… really scary.
Despite being more obsessed with Subnautica than any other game this year, I never actually finished it because I was scared! The fact that the game was able to accomplish this says a lot about it, though. Even though I’m scared, it’s nice knowing that whenever I’m ready to return and hopefully push myself to reach deeper biomes, my base (and the Markiplier bobblehead I found in a sunken escape pod????????) is waiting for me.
I keep my Markiplier bobblehead on top of the bed in my base so he can watch over me while I sleep
Jail For a Game release I Hated So Much It Gets Its Own Segment I Hate This Game So Much Please Blizzard
Overwatch 2
What the hell did Blizzard do to Overwatch. Please put it back :-(
