So ignoring the whole “favorite/best game that came out in 2022” point of this topic (it’s Elden Ring BTW) I’m gonna take a moment to talk about my personal gaming project for '22 I stumbled upon a few months into said year. I decided to play and beat one game for each console I own(ed) that I had not previously done so, with an exception for the DC (I’m pretty sure mine is busted and only one game would qualify) and the Colecovision (god knows how to hook it up to a modern TV and no clue how many are even beatable).
Amazingly enough I actually completed this task with a few weeks to spare in spite of the whole “Elden Ring took three months and about 145 hours to complete” deal. Anyways I decided to rank and mention these games in this topic right now off the top of my head because why not, I do things like that sometimes.
From worst to first:
Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth (N64): TBF I played this on easy as I am scared of shoot 'em ups sometimes, but this was the most brainless game of this sort I’ve played in ages. I literally just moved from left to right and back near the bottom of the screen while firing and 1cc’d my way up to the final boss which I only died to as I mistakenly thought it was a “you have to avoid this invincible enemy’s attacks for 100 seconds to win” boss. The enemy patterns were as creative as my movements.
Killer 7 (Gamecube): If you’d have told me before this year that this wouldn’t finish such a project in last place I’d have slapped you. On my… 4th or 5th attempt at playing this I finally stuck with it and saw it through to the end, and I will give it credit in that it can be rather stylish. I also think every single puzzle in this game was below average, that the shooting was never all that good (didn’t mind the on-rail movement), and I still have no idea what the story was going on about. Anyways this was a true fair shot I gave it and I still think it is awful, but no longer perhaps the very worst game I’ve ever played.
Dead Space Extraction (Wii): I liked that the game had some ideas as to how to freshen up the light gun genre, I didn’t like that visibility was consistently poor and that the mediocre story took up so much time.
Bangai-O Spirits (DS): Broke my heart a bit as I expected to like it, but too tiny on that small screen, some of the level design was just a mess, basically I don’t think I ever got on the same page as it. I do want to try a different version someday as I could see enjoying it if things were mixed up a bit.
Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA): I just don’t think I care for any kart racer that isn’t exceptional unless it is in a real life multiplayer setting, so this was never likely to work. Hilariously I had played this up until unlocking the set of courses that upon beating ran the end credits so I only played a single circuit.
NEON STRUCT (PC): Worth noting is that I only wrote down the first game I beat on a given device so while I played through a bunch of PC games this year this was the first one so it was the one written on the list. This is basically a low budget first person stealth game, very simple stages but they still often had multiple ways of approaching them. The only real poor element was awful AI, otherwise it was fine for what it was.
Gargoyle’s Quest II (NES): I’ve played through both the GQ games now and they both feel like they should be great but don’t quite come all the way together. The player character has a great moveset, this is among the very best NES spritework and the Adventures of Link-esque set-up except with platform stages instead of 2d battles/dungeons is a neat one. Unfortunately the “enemy respawns if you scroll back a smidge too far” is strong in this game and every so often the game demands an honest to god pixel-perfect jump over an instant-death pit with 3 deaths setting you back a good bit.
Mega Man (Gameboy): For whatever reason I never managed to get anywhere in any version of the first Mega Man game before. This is a very stripped back Mega Man game with some rough “struggling against the limited hardware” sections but I still enjoyed it well enough. I found it rather tricky and I’d recommend probably every NES MM over it but hey, lesser Mega Man is usually still pretty okay.
Spy Hunter (PS2): I just wrote about this in the big games you played today topic so basically it has its ups and downs but playing it in '22 it has more charm as an example of a kind of game that isn’t made anymore than it likely did when new.
The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4): Man I legit have no clue where to put this so it goes here. I cannot deny its craft and if it was half the length it’d be near the top of this list but it isn’t which means IMO it is catastrophically paced, I legit non-hyperbole would have cut half of the game (about 15-20 hours) out of it. A personal all-time “what if not for that one thing?” case.
Ace Combat II (PS): I had never played any of these before and it didn’t feel all that aged (aside from awful visibility in the night-time missions) but I also wish there was a bit more variety to things. If I played it at the time I’d have likely been wowed.
Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES): It feels like a midpoint between the earliest pure run & shoot Contra games and the almost boss rush of a Shattered Soldier, except I kinda liked either of those more than what was here. A lot of it was rather good but I didn’t really like the top-down Mode 7 stages at all and they made up like a third of the stages, basically I liked the mix in those other games were a bit more to my tastes.
Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (3DS): This is only this high as I am a true Professor Layton sicko. Weakest game in either series I have played, the actual crime/writing had notable plot holes, play any of the other ones instead, I still love you Professor.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5): The first modern Marvel Spider-Man game on PS4 was remarkably better than I expected it to be, swinging was great and the story was paced, delivered and just plain better than what I’d expect out of an open world game. This is basically a smaller version of it that adds very little and just isn’t quite as well delivered aside from the characters which may have been better. Still fun and great to swing around (I used to read a ton of Spider-man comics as a kid so biased) but definitely a lesser version of it.
Super Mario 3D World (Wii-U): A real solid mash up between the 3d and 2d Marios. Basically feels like a slightly more refined 3D Land except I liked that game more due to being actually 3d and the stages themselves feeling a bit more experimental.
Alien Soldier (Genesis): Man this was pretty great. I am generally not a fan of boss rushes when in the context of an actual game, but when the game is just that (and let’s me save my progress/walk away) I am down. Felt like Treasure was given a chance to explore all kinds of boss battle ideas here and while the controls were very complex once I wrapped my head around them they added a ton to things. I’d never try to one credit this but with continues it was a blast to see what it was gonna throw at me next.
Final Fantasy XIII (PS3): HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, the upset of upsets~! I’m not saying it didn’t have its issues, and I will forever hold it killing my beloved backwards compatible phat PS3 against it… but while I think there is only one way to appreciate this game it happened to be the way I did so. No random battles, a battle system that due to the linearity of the game could be developed and balanced much better than is typical of FF games, often gorgeous even today. Yeah it is mostly a straight line and yes I wouldn’t argue that many of the characters were good and no I can’t explain much of what the story was about, but as a game that basically sacrificed everything else to focus on the battle system… I dug said battle system.
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