My Top 10 Games of 2022

Greetings! I thought this would be a fun thing to do, and I might get in the habit of doing it every year. With 2022 coming to a close it is a time to reflect, look back, and remember the experiences we've had this year. So what better way to do it then by ranking every video game I've played in 2022, from my least favorite to favorite!

Now, before I get on with the ranking I should set a few rules. First, these are not only games I've played that released in 2022. These are games I played in 2022, meaning they can be from any date.

Second, not all games that I played this year will be on this list. There are a couple qualifications the game must meet to be on the list:

• I cannot have played this game extensively in a previous year*
  
• I must be finished with the game**
• My final play time for the game must be 5 hours or more
• *The following can be overridden if the game has extensive new content added, and my playtime with the game is focused on this new content 
• **The following can be overridden if the game has future content coming that I intend to play
  

Any games that do not meet these won't be on the list. Still, it would be a shame not to mention them, so before I get started, here are some honorable mentions, the games I played for a short time, the games I replayed, and the games I am currently playing:

Dr. Mario 64 - I am a fan of puzzle games, and Dr. Mario 64 was a game I adored as a kid. This year, I spent an hour replaying it every now and then on Switch, and it was a lot of fun! So much fun that in 2022 I put over 10 hours into it.

Mario Party: Superstars, Mario Party 4, Mario Party 6 - Mario Party is always a fun time. So fun that I spent an extensive amount of time this year playing various Mario Party games with my friends. Alas, I had already played Mario Party 4 and 6 an extensive amount, and in Superstars I only put 4 hours of playtime into it, so it barely doesn't make the cut. Nonetheless, I look forward to many Mario Party matches in 2023.

Victoria 3 - Ah Victoria 3, I so badly wanted to get into this game and put far too many hours into it. I had done so with a previous game of the developer's: Europa Universalis IV. Alas, I have so much going on in my life these days, so many other games and shows tugging at me, that I'm not sure I can put 1000 hours into a grand strategy game again. Maybe I'll give it another shot and really try to get into it in 2023, but in the end I only put 3.5 hours into the game, and still feel as confused and overwhelmed by it as when I started it.

Omori - I was hoping to complete Omori before 2023 to squeeze it onto this list, but alas. I don't know how close I am to the end, I am 15 hours in, but given it still feels like I have a ways to go, plus my brother tells me there is a second route, I have to accept that Omori won't be on this list. It will have to wait until the 2023 list. Though if I had to place it on right now, I'd place it around number 3. It's a really good game and I'm having a blast with it. I can't wait to finish it and uncover all its fun mysteries.

With those out of the way, I can get onto the list. Here are my Top 10 games of the year:

Number 10 on this list is Luigi's Mansion 3. This game barely qualified, as my total play time was 6 hours. And that explains why it's so low on this list. I was looking forward to playing it, as I have fond memories of the first Luigi's Mansion. The second one I liked, but wasn't as into. This third game seems to continue that trend. I had a fun time with the game, but it wasn't really grabbing me, and I struggled to find the motivation to keep going. The puzzles weren't engaging me, each one felt like it was me cycling through all my abilities to find the right one that worked, the bosses felt similar, just finding the one ability to counter it, then repeat, and I just couldn't get into the game. It's possible that if I go back to it, the later content is much better, and I end up enjoying the game a lot. But every other game on this list, after putting 6 hours into them, I wanted to keep playing. This game....it was so hard for me to work up the motivation to keep going that I dropped it.

My disappointment of the year, Pokemon: Legends Arceus comes in at number 9. I really wanted to love this game. After being disappointed with the latest mainline title: Sword and Shield, I thought this would be different. It was the most ambitious Pokemon title in a long time, changing the formula and gameplay to put more focus on exploring an open world and catching Pokemon. And while I enjoyed it at first, the further I got in, the more I found myself losing interest and not having fun. I already did a huge write up detailing why that is, but to summarize: The emphasis on exploring an open world and catching Pokemon led to a smaller emphasis on characters and battling, and battling for me is everything in Pokemon. Once the novelty wore off, I found myself missing the older mainline titles, and missing their emphasis on battles. I still was able to complete the game, which means it held my attention for that long, but boy I don't want to ever go back and play it again. Bring on Scarlet and Violet.

Number 8 is, funnily enough, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This year saw the announcement of the Booster Course Pass, which will feature 48 new tracks total. In 2022 we got 24 of them, leading me to return and put more time into the game.

Overall they're a lot of fun! The tracks are well designed, and some of the changes the tracks got are incredible, making old tracks feel new again. I also appreciate all the tracks from Mario Kart Tour, as someone who's never played the game. I love the way those tracks change with each lap, and the way they incorporated that design into tracks like Kalamari Desert and Peach Gardens made them so much fun to play. I can't wait to play the next 24 tracks in 2023.

Coming in at Number 7 is Metroid Dread, one of two games I started playing in 2021, but didn't finish until 2022. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this game, given I'm not much of a Metroid fan. I've completed a few Metroid titles, but not that many, and none of them I particularly loved. So when I started this up I wasn't sure how I'd find it, and was pleasantly surprised at how much I got out of it. The controls were very fun, the world a joy to explore, and bosses were insanely difficult, and insanely satisfying to work at and overcome. This was also true of the EMI, and they made exploring the game tense, but in a fun way. Highly recommend it for any metroid or metroidvania fans.

Number 6 is.....a weird one. Fire Emblem Three Hopes was a game I didn't actually buy, and I only put around 3 hours into it. It's on this list however, because I watched over 20 hours of let's plays of this game. So it....kind of counts? I didn't find the musou gameplay that engaging, but I loved the cast and world of Three Houses so much that I went ahead and watched let's plays of all three routes.

While the gameplay didn't grab me, I loved the story so much that I put this game all the way at number 6. They expanded on the beautiful world of Three Houses in great ways, but best of all, they took liberties when writing the character of Claude, and did so in a way that I loved, doing with him what I wanted in Three Houses. His character was made so much more grey and interesting, and boy seeing a timeline in which he switches sides was everything I wanted. I loved his route's story so much I might even say I prefer it to every route's story in Three Houses. Three Hopes did his character so much justice, and I loved it so much that "playing" this game got me back into the lore of Three Houses and get back into writing fanfiction for the game. And I mean, yeah this is the one game on the list I didn't play, but it's also the one game that got me into writing, so it holds a special place for that reason. It's a great send off and expansion to the world of Three Houses.

Ah Animal Crossing, the game that swept the world in 2020. I decided to arrive to the party two years later, mostly because my partner wanted to give the game a try, and I wanted to play alongside her. I've always liked the series, putting tons of time into the Gamecube and 3DS iterations. But I've never loved the game the way some of my online friends and family members do.

Nevertheless, I was excited to dive in, and I can see why many call this the best version of Animal Crossing. The crafting mechanic makes building and customizing more engaging, and the amount of freedom you have in customizing the town is incredible. I don't know if I'll be able to go back to older titles where you can't just move anything in the island so easily, make ponds or cliffs wherever you want, and move villagers around whenever. It made the game a lot of fun to plan out my town and over the weeks go about slowly making it into the idea I had in my head. It was also fun going to the towns of friends and family and seeing what they did with the game, and overall I had a really great time.

Now, will I keep playing it in 2023? Hm, I haven't touched it in a couple months, so jury is still out but.....I'm not optimistic. I still had fun with it, and am happy to place it in the number 5 spot.

Ah Genshin, what am I to do with this game? It has given me more to think about then any game I've played in years, see all the write ups I've done on it. It also has so much I love, this year in particular saw the release of the Sumeru region, arguably the best region  in the game. It introduced the final element: dendro, which has spiced up the gameplay and led to it feeling new again. And best of all, the new parts of the main story were incredible, and easily the best story seen in Genshin. The new characters from the region have been a ton of fun to use, with Tighnari, Collei, Nahida, and Scaramouche being highlights for me.

Yet I cannot let it get farther then number 4. Because for all that I love about the game, there are things that cause me non stop anguish. The never ending grind with new characters, the predatory monetary systems, and most of all the god damn fomo aspect that makes it so hard to not play this game constantly. I've lost so much time to it, in the two years of playing Genshin I've put more time into it then any other video game. But unlike the other games I've put over a thousand hours into, I'm not sure I want to do that with Genshin. But those damn fomo systems make it so hard sometimes, and as much as I loved Genshin and the community around it, one of my new year's resolution is to play this game a lot less and maybe even drop it in 2023, because it steals way too much of my time.

Still, I will remember my time with it fondly, and the card game has given me one last reason to enjoy it. Here's to another year of seeing whatever happens in Genshin, hopefully from a more distant perspective.

Alongside Metroid Dread, Outer Wilds was a game I started in 2021, but didn't fully complete until 2022. Despite how long it's been since I've completed it, I still regard it highly. Ever wanted an open world game without combat, where you just explore a massive world and try to solve its many secrets at your own pace? What if in fact it was a solar system, with various planets and moons to explore and solve however you'd like?

I've never been the biggest fan of sci-fi, but if there's ever been a game that's led to me taking an interest in sci-fi and space, it's outer wilds. Its solar system feels vast with all the different planets to go to, and all the secrets found in each planet. What's so great about this game is how unique and distinct each planet is, and how much freedom you have to just go anywhere and explore them however you want.

But what really makes it fun is that the deeper you dig, the sooner it dawns on you that the puzzles you're solving aren't planet exclusive. The deeper puzzles connect the planets and entire solar system together, and figuring it out and executing the plan to save the solar system was such a tense and satisfying experience.

If you ever wanted a zelda dungeon like no other, with lore and puzzles to get lost in, and a calming world about the vastness and quiet of space, you cannot go wrong with Outer Wilds. It was one of the most fun experiences I've had this year, and is more then deserving in being my number 3 game of the year.

At the start of 2022 there were two games I was looking forward to: Pokemon Legends Arceus, and Triangle Strategy. I couldn't wait to for the former. The latter, I was curious to try, but not as optimistic. After all, while I enjoyed the team's previous games of Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler, I didn't love them. In fact I had large issues with both of them, and I expected the same here.

Yet somehow, in some way, Triangle Strategy blew away all my expectations, fixing the large issues I had with Octopath, and creating quite possibly my favorite story I've experienced in a video game. The battle system was fun, but what really made it special was the story. All the choices the game gave you helped, but what really sold them was how the choices were done: the scales of conviction.

It's nothing groundbreaking to have choices that influence the story, tons of games do this. But never have I seen a game have so many important choices in its story, and have them all be so damn difficult to choose. Most choices in video games will have a clear good or bad choice, or a choice that favors one character over another. But in Triangle Strategy, no choice is simple. Because when you get to a pivotal choice in Triangle Strategy, all seven of your main characters weigh in, with each making valid points regarding the choice, and each leaning in a different direction.

The great thing about the choices is that none of them are right or wrong. Every choice has its merits, and every choice has its risks. Never have I been forced to make so many difficult choices in a video game, and I'll never forget my first playthrough with this game because of it. Every time I got to a choice I would put the game down and spend at least half a day thinking about it, evaluating every option, dissecting what every character said, and god was it fun. It got me so invested in the story and world in a way few games have, and it made that first playthrough so so special.

So much have I enjoyed the game that I went ahead and played through it a second time, and plan to play through it a third and final time in the future. It's the only game I put over 100 hours into this year (aside from Genshin), and for good reason. With a compelling world that forces you to make the hardest of choices, its story was a fun ride I didn't know was possible. Here's to the team behind it, I cannot wait to see what they make next.

Yet when it comes down to it, when I really look inside and think about the games I've played this year, there's no question as to what my favorite was. The game I fell in love with like no other, the game that made me so happy every time I booted it up, the game that surprised me more then any other was Paper Mario: The Origami King.

Origami King is the "Mario RPGs" realized in a way I thought was lost to time. Similar to my favorites like the original Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, the game expertly creates a battle system that is fun to play with, but more then that, creates a world that is a joy to explore. The Mario world has always held a special place in my heart, and it's rare to see it brought to life so well as Origami King does. Every part of the world feels distinct and colorful, packed with characters and games to play, but it also feels distinctly Mario throughout it all. Fun can be found in every corner, bowser's minions bring tons of delight, and the many secrets hidden away as you explore and take on the dark forces of the origami king were an endless delight.

Somehow in some way, my total play time for this game was 41 hours. Yet it is my game of the year because those 41 hours felt like 123 hours of content. So much fun and personality is packed into every part of its world, every character you meet, every dungeon you explore, that I could not stop thinking about this game after I finished it. It still occupies my mind, partly because this game also has my ost of the year. No other game left me with so many songs to jam with, and all in all, Origami King was just a joy from start to finish. I recently wrote an indepth review gushing about this game, so if you want more of my thoughts go there. But to keep this short, no other game left such a strong impression on me then Origami King, thanks to its spectacular world design, tense moments of horror, and quiet moments of beauty, and I am more then happy to call this my favorite game I played this year. I can't wait to see what fun surprises await me in 2023, here's to another year of fun video games!