And now... everything else:
Honorable Mentions:
Triangle Strategy, dev. Square Enix & Artdink
Triangle Strategy was already barely clinging onto the Top 10 list and then Tactics Ogre: Reborn came out later in the year, and threw it off the list with more brutality than Scar regiciding his brother. Tactics Ogre is simply a better game than Triangle Strategy. One is the nostalgic retread, the other is the real deal, one of the best games ever made, there is no discussion. Still, I do feel bad because I had a great time with Triangle Strategy. This game's reputation seems to have sunk poorly as the year went on due to several issues: too many cutscenes, an awful English dub, and a frustrating morality system screwing you out of plot decisions. But I got a solid strategy RPG campaign out of it. I have favorite units (Anna), favorite battles (Chapter 7 Morality), and favorite moments. Triangle Strategy gave plenty of options to build an army that kicked ass. One late game boss thought charging alone up to a plateau to kill my squishy mages was the right play. He soon learned my units were not stuck up there with him, he was stuck up there with them. He died badly, in great pain, on fire. Glorious.
Bayonetta 3, dev. PlatinumGames
There's many things wrong with this game and this experience - and I'll get to the ending later. Bayonetta 3 is unfortunately a classic case of "Just Another One of Those" Syndrome. It is clearly inferior to the first two. Worse, it looks like shit, it was one of the ugliest games I played last year. Platinum really thought the monster summoning mechanic was what the series needed, and so every environment is enormous and barren. The increasingly ancient Switch hardware does this game no favors.
However, Bayonetta 3 is an enormously ambitious game with huge scale, the kind of blockbuster that makes the average MCU movie seem restrained and low-key. There's Godzilla, there's a Metal Gear Solid pastiche, and there's a giant lady taking a bubble bath in the clouds. There's the most awesome moment of all, when your giant frog summon Yassifies into a parasol lady and sings the techno opera song from The Fifth Element in a rhythm minigame. I really hope that Bayonetta 3 gets a remake on a stronger system so the environments are not so terribly gray and flat. But no hardware will fix this game's real problems - I'll get to that later.
Sable, dev. Shedworks
Yes, this was a 2021 game. However, Sable did get ported to the PS5 in November, so it just barely makes my ridiculously vague definition of what a year is! Sure, I didn't play Sable on the PS5, I played it on SteamDeck, and sure, it still ran as poorly as it did on release, but I like this game. It's Breath of the Wild with no combat and no stress. You're a young adult released onto a vast alien desert world with no real goal other than self-discovery. The whole planet is a big friendly zone to climb and see. Yeah, I could have used more in the way of friction and story. Worse, the more extreme platforming challenges are certainly possible, but Sable does not really have rewards for the trouble. I spent hours climbing up this vast sea of giant dinosaur bones and huge skyscraper-sized mesas to only find another empty settlement. The view was great, though. Sable is a gorgeous game, even if the splendor will run at remarkably low framerates.
Heaven Will Be Mine, dev. Pillow Fight Games & Worst Girls Games
Okay, this is a not 2022 game. Heaven Will Be Mine was the best old game I played last year. When else am I gonna find time to talk about this? It didn't the 2018 list and that's on me.
Heaven Will Be Mine is every joke that Mobile Suit Gundam has gay subtext made text. It's every queer reading of Shinji Ikari made flesh. It's a mecha visual novel about three ladies, Luna-Terra, Saturn, and Pluto, all representing different factions in solar system-wide war. They all jump into their ridiculously over-powered machines and do battle. Or maybe the dogfights are just them flirting with each other, the metaphor barely remains a metaphor after awhile, these mobile suits might be fucking. Heaven Will Be Mine is not long, each of the three campaigns only takes about an hour, depending on how fast you can read. There's dense lore, Heaven Will Be Mine actually does a very poor job explaining the backstory. Mankind went to space to fight aliens and discovered instead that we were all lesbians, is basically the metaphysics. There are some truly terrifying powers, such as Pluto's robot, the Krun Macula, which is a collapsed star in humanoid form. If this were not a very low-budget visual novel, Heaven Would Be Mine would need a billion dollars to actually animate all of its ideas.
Dishonorable Mentions:
I don't really touch truly bad games so this is all graded on a curve. Please do not murder me for not loving these games:
Stray, dev. BlueTwelve Studio
Okay, the cat is cute. It's really cute. I get it. Even the wacky French animation robots are cute. Cool. Stray is unfortunately limited otherwise. Once you get over the instinctual need to yell "kitty!", you'll realize this is a not great game. Most of Stray involves a terrible stealth system avoiding annoying head crabs that will wipe out your little kitty in one mistake. The rest of the game is fetch quests, Stray feels ancient, despite how good it looks. There's even worse stealth segments later, reaching Hyrule Castle in Ocarina of Time-levels of rote hide-and-seek gameplay. I'm embarrassed for this game that it brought back an idea that stale.
Cyberpunk 2022, dev. CD Projekt Red
I've already written tons about this game and its myriad disappointments. Yeah, I know the Studio Trigger anime on Netflix has people excited about Cyberpunk again. If anything that series made me dislike the game more. Because Edgerunners was the story of a game I wanted to play. You know, with an actual party of memorable characters and real body customization and a sick yellow jacket. There's even cooler powers! Why do I gotta play this awful FPS built around a broken unbalanced RPG when these anime kids get to have fun?
"I Really Want to Stay at Your House" was my favorite last year, on the other hand. I've listened to it 1000 times.
Overwatch 1, dev. Blizzard Entertainment
RIP my GOTY 2016. Blizzard shut it down, and that's it. It's over for me and Overwatch. Everything about the second game looks terrible. F in the chat, bros.
Bayonetta 3's Ending (Spoilers)
The Bayonetta series
lead, Hideki Kamiya, went out and said basically "don't touch the
series in the future" if you didn't like the ending to the third game.
And well, if that's how you feel about it, dude, I won't play Bayonetta
4. Makes it easier for me. This game was getting heat before hand due to
labor issues, than Bayonetta's old actress decided to go TERF on us. So
the temperature was pretty high in the room before the game decided to
kill off everybody's favorite characters, including the title character, then
pair her in her dying moments with the useless chucklefuck dude from
the first game, and promise in the sequel a Raiden-like character
switch. I actually like Viola, I dig her goth-y vibe, the only problem is her
sections of Bayonetta 3 are bad. Her parry is frustrating, I hate
her combos, and all the fun of just flipping around and crunching
enemies as her mom is gone. I do not want to play a whole game as
her. Who would??
Also Bayonetta is not a character that should lose. She
basically isn't a character. She's Superman but fetish camp. She's met
God before and laughed at him and then basically shoved a stiletto heel
up his ass. She is all sexuality but cannot actually have sex, because
no living person could ever possibly be her equal. No franchise needed
to go turn towards tragic melodrama less than Bayonetta. Who asked for this?
Best Boss Fights of 2023 (More Spoilers!)
5. Mummy from Bayonetta 3 - There were remarkably few encounters in Bayonetta 3's core game that I felt were exceptional. Rosa, your Mummy and Viola's Grandmummy, stands out because in a game full of Bayonettas, she was the only one you actually get to fight. The best fights in any action RPG are against enemies as quick as you and with similar skillsets. The Rose boss fight turns into a awesome rail-shooter segment, because Mummy can also deploy giant kaiju-sized monsters against you. Finally an enemy my equal, versus the villain who is as gray and meaningless as the environments.
4. Siege Engine from Tunic - Usually the bigger the boss, the less interesting it is. They're slow, they're dumb, their patterns are predictable. Not Siege Engine. They are surprisingly nimble for a spider of their size. It can really scurry. It's got about a dozen different attack patterns and many different moves. Maybe this time it wants to summon a lot of drones to pester you, maybe this time it wants to lay mines, maybe they're just going to keeping spinning out of the way. The whole fight is a positioning battle to get behind them and smash their one weakness. Also, the Engine's roar synchs up great with the music and I love that.
3. Purity of Odio from Live a Live - The original final boss on the SNES, now just phase one of three. (Which by the way, really messed me up because I had to take on the true final boss with badly underleveled characters and very nearly softlocked my game when I saved between phases. Getting out of that pickle was my second greatest achievement of 2022.) Purity of Odio is a very impure-looking pile of nasty body horror. This is a really tough fight, because you're fighting four bosses at once: two eyes, a mouth, and a winged bastard in the back who you do not want to wake up early, let me tell you. Your party is split across the field, so the whole thing becomes this epic slug match to keep control of the situation and not get overwhelmed by the many status effects.
2. AI Sada from Pokémon Scarlet - The Champion in this game is an immense disappointment, but do not fret, AI Sada is easily the best final boss fight in Pokémon history. A lot of the encounters in Pokémon Scarlet are surprisingly decent, because even if the game does not give the gym leaders full teams, they do give them good movesets and competitive strategies. Sada comes with a team full of ancient Pokémon, who you're probably unfamiliar with, and also are Pseudo-Legendary levels of strong. It gets even more awesome considering the whole presentation. You're in a freaky diamond disco ball nightmare zone, the opposing trainer is this machine woman glitching uncontrollably on a plateau above you, and the music, as always in Scarlet, slaps hard.
1. The Heir from Tunic - I did not intend this but I realize that three out of these five bosses are evil moms. Because the plot is so vague in Tunic, I'm not sure if The Heir really is your little fox's mom. They have an hourglass figure and they seemed nice when you were praying to them, I just kinda assumed. However, when you reach the end of the game, Mommy has a huge sword and will spank your ass hard. A lot of this battle is about staying in "the spice range". You gotta keep within access of punishing her mistakes. If you run away, she will dominate the field with huge AEO attacks and ranged moves. Her main attack is pretty easy to dodge, until it becomes a three hit combo, and until the second form when it starts hacking away at your max HP bar. This is a really tough fight, I ended up having to spam fire balls to get through the second phase. Fox Mommy is a masterpiece of a great boss fight, the best way to end GOTY 2022.
My Best Party Members of 2023:
5. Tinkaton from Pokémon Scarlet - Fairy/Steel is great typing. Her unique move, Gigaton Hammer has 160 base power, plus STAB. I loved to bring in Tinkaton to finish off battles, since my Clodsire would have already poisoned everybody with Toxic Spikes. Tinkaton's Fake Out is basically a free turn to sap the enemy's energy. Then I'd hit them with the big hammer.
4. Pogo from Live a Live - Pogo is a darling little caveman boy, easily my favorite character from Live a Live. He gets the best moment of the whole game when he gives the final boss a big hug. Also, since he was born before language, Odio's big villain speech meant nothing to Pogo, he did not catch a word of it. As a unit, Pogo is a great tank and hits like a truck. His move Whee Jump throws him right onto of enemies and slams hard, it is great all game long.
3. Skeledirge from Pokémon Scarlet - The final form of my beloved Fuecoco! Playing Skeledirge is real simple: use Torch Song. It's a solid fire attack and boosts your Special Attack one stage, it's ridiculously broken, and only gets more so if you Terastallize to pure Fire. Within a few uses, you'll probably sweep any boss's team... until you reach AI Sada, who actually can overcome this guy. But until then, Skeledirge is an unstoppable avalanche of fire.
2. Sienna from Chained Echoes - Being lesbian Balthier makes Sienna already the best character in the game, but she's also a great fighhter. She's really fast, she can Poison enemies, and she's got the best DPS of any party member in that game. Sienna has very hit Crit rates and many moves that hit multiple times, or the entire enemy party. Her Limit Break is also the most reliable way to hit for four digits of damage, which is a lot in Chained Echoes.
1. Anna from Triangle Strategy - Turns out I like fast ninja girls. Anna has a broken invisibility that the enemy AI cannot break, so she can wall off routes all on her own. She also is fantastic for hitting enemies from behind to set up brutal follow-up attacks. On top of that, se can Poison bosses for you in complete safety, or just assassinate annoying squishy mages. She can do it all, and usually retreat right back into the shadows to hit them again.
Wildly Inaccurate Predictions for 10 Top Games of 2023:
10. Hi-Fi Rush, dev. Tango Gameworks - Yeah, I know it's out, maybe I can finally play it now that this list is done. I do not foresee a world where this game does not make the 2023 Top 10.
9. Season: A Love Letter to the Future, dev. Scavengers Studio - See above.
8. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, dev. Rocksteady Studios
6. Sea of Stars, dev. Sabotage Studio
5. She Dreams Elsewhere, dev. Studio Zevere
4. Mina the Hollower, dev. Yacht Club Games
3. Hollow Knight: Silksong, dev. Team Cherry - It makes the list every damn year and will continue to do so until it comes out.2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, dev. Nintendo - Same!
1. Final Fantasy XVI, dev. Square Enix - Honestly if these top 3 games all release this year, I might become depressed because I'll have nothing left to look forward to.
And... that's it. 2022 is done, and it's almost March. I hope to finish up next year's lists in January.
Skeledirge from Pokémon Scarlet ist so cool;)
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