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
'UNLIKE MOST SHMUPS THIS ONE IS ABOUT THE CHARACTERS' but silly and quirky
It's killer when you get a taste of the weakest spice and it still has more potency than a monster truck. If this is considered the LOW point of the series, I absolutely need to feel the highs right now.
Played a lot of golf this fall and this wound up the best on a pure player experience level. Excellent swing tools on top of 10/10 course design. Sucks that online got cut and 30% of this game's content is gone but I still got my fill from mastering the courses and perusing the character creator.
(Genesis)
(Genesis)
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?
Treasure from another mother. Not the tightly-knit epic the original RKA was, but its wild movement tools and wonderful MIDI-orchestral sounds make it almost as perfect. SNES action doesn't get as hyper-adrenaline-infused as this.
Shmups as jazz: So much shit on-screen and so many weapon types all set against chill house beats. Masterful contrast and the total peak of the SNES' STG library.
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.
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.
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
I hate this game but my brother loves it and demanded me to play it with him. Imagine Portal 2 co-op if it was 10x less funny and had 10x more backstabbing people over spikepits. Bad shit, groan-inducing writing - but, I can't deny the experience got a lot of miserable kicks.
Lots of people's ideal platforming control schemes are conked-out MMX-style speedrun tools with millions of multi-directional airdashes and parkour. But I think I found my soft spot in rigid-style controls supported by a few touches. Skyblazer is a solid realization of Hook's floaty heaven-chasing platforming with strong level design and aesthetic.
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!
(Arcade)
(Arcade)
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
Sunset Riders 2: More style, less substance.
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.
