ALL OF 2022, RANKED
2022 was a good year and I spent way more than I needed to on games - most of which were mid! But there were still a lot of highlights and fun laughs over vc. My tastes didn't evolve much, but I felt my linguistics and understanding of old favorites maturing.
This is EVERYTHING ranked - plus blurbs for the Top 50.
(Set to 'List' view for best reading of the blurbs, or 'Grid' for best display of overall ranks.)
Excluded replays:
-Dynamite Headdy -Vectorman 1/2 -Star Allies -Time Crisis 3 -Sonic CD -Ninja Gaiden -Knuckles in Sonic 2 -Barney's Hide & Seek Game -Darius MD [Extra] -GG Aleste -Jurassic Park (Arcade) -Warlords -Sonic & Knuckles -Sonic Classic Heroes -Shinobi III
Excluded new plays:
-Super Cream 64 -Radar Mission -Top Pro Golf 2 -Answer These 10 Questions And I'll Tell You What Kind of Lover You Are -Death Crimson -Two Girls Punch Me Repeatedly -Prehistoric Isle 2 -Boxy & Prisma -New 3D Golf Simulation: Harukanaru Augusta -New 3D Golf Simulation: Waialae no Kiseki
This is EVERYTHING ranked - plus blurbs for the Top 50.
(Set to 'List' view for best reading of the blurbs, or 'Grid' for best display of overall ranks.)
Excluded replays:
-Dynamite Headdy -Vectorman 1/2 -Star Allies -Time Crisis 3 -Sonic CD -Ninja Gaiden -Knuckles in Sonic 2 -Barney's Hide & Seek Game -Darius MD [Extra] -GG Aleste -Jurassic Park (Arcade) -Warlords -Sonic & Knuckles -Sonic Classic Heroes -Shinobi III
Excluded new plays:
-Super Cream 64 -Radar Mission -Top Pro Golf 2 -Answer These 10 Questions And I'll Tell You What Kind of Lover You Are -Death Crimson -Two Girls Punch Me Repeatedly -Prehistoric Isle 2 -Boxy & Prisma -New 3D Golf Simulation: Harukanaru Augusta -New 3D Golf Simulation: Waialae no Kiseki
230 Games
Aw jeez rick, oh no, augh, i ended up in golf hell rick, they put the green on a steep mountain rick, awww, thats pretty bad y'know cause like, if you hit the ball too far it falls all the way to the bottom, and then you have to start over again rick, auuugh, that's pretty fucked up isn't it rick, jesus christ
Low-poly golf got me acting strange. You lose a bit of your senses when you see a 3-D shoreline crashing against the waves on a 1988 processor. There's better golf games mechanically but I think T&E Soft's classics are the best for getting a 'clean' golf experience: Just enough read tools to have full control over your decisions, but not so many that you're controlling the world itself. A good golf game reminds you that you're a participant in a larger plane, and the forces of wind and luck will have the final say in your fate.
Also a proxy for Harukanaru Augusta and Waialae no Kiseki: Essentially the same game across different courses.
Also a proxy for Harukanaru Augusta and Waialae no Kiseki: Essentially the same game across different courses.
(Game Gear)
The trojan horse meme but the horse is 'the worst shmup you've ever played', Troy is 'touhou fans' and the Greek soldiers are 'killer7 but about drawing fetish art of your crush'
(Arcade)
Ok, real talk? Cardfighters Clash kinda has a terrible structure when engaged as an RPG. The card drop randomization is awful and the late-game bosses cheat. But I didn't care man, I loved the main mechanics and I loved collecting the cards: That was enough to get me over the hump. I GET TO BUILD DECKS WITH THE POWER STONE GANG!
The most appropriately-peanuts Peanuts game ever. What else would be more fitting to the meandering everyday of Snoopy than terrible point-and-click platforming, slide puzzles, and a 2 hour fetchquest minigame?
Somehow more exploitative than divine sealing
Target Earth/ASL was the biggest 'I want to like this game but can't' crisis I had this year - powerfully-innovative but mindlessly-cruel in difficulty. The remake takes cues from classics like Armored Core and Ranger-X, adding improved control while respecting the sense of weight and agency a mech has. Peak OVA gaming.
One of my favorite indie plays! A marriage of the 'live for fun' design schemes of 2000's flash games into the system-psychotic quirks of Treasure games. Rare to find an indie throwback to 16/32-bit gigs that understands the same child-like wonders and humors those did.
This artform is truly about weird polygon creatures shooting each other with laser beams for fun. Just as a giggle. A hallway nerf gun fight.
The PS2 Hot Shots games would be the best golf of their entire generation if my american ass could play the version without the bad mighty beanz ass 'tude characters
A cool jetbiker girl rides through the endless sea, eliminating foes while jamming out to jazz-rock. An extremely solid yet overlooked Namco gem - and to me, a shining star of the early MD library.
