It’s time for the only Games of the Year awards that matter!
… Just kidding, no GotY awards matter. But I like doing them (which does, in fact, make this more relevant than the VGAs), so here we go.
I am choosing 5 winners, and then one TOP GAME OF THE YEAR winner, just to attempt at variety, and then posting all my honorable mentions which are games I liked but that weren’t GotY material. This is obviously going to be based on games I played myself (which is still over 50 games, even though I reviewed very few of those). So if there’s a game you liked and it doesn’t appear as one of my winners or honorable mentions… it’s because I didn’t play it. And I probably didn’t play it because it was obviously bad.
As far as notable games I skipped one that aren’t bad (or probably aren’t bad), there’s still a few of those. I skipped on both Like a Dragon games, Baldur’s Gate 3 (I will get it at some point), Persona 5 Tactica, Remnant 2, Hogwarts Legacy, Lies of P, Dave the Diver and probably a bunch of other games that were pretty popular and probably-good. Also didn’t play FF16 which… I’ve not been convinced it’s good, but I’m waiting for the PC version so I will review it when I do play it.
And there’s a few obviously bad games I didn’t touch, like Alan Wake 2, Starfield, Redfall and Diablo 4 (I played the beta, it was not good, so I skipped on the full game). And of course there’s some bad games I did play, like Forspoken and Sonic Superstars… or that were fairly subpar like Spongebob Cosmic Shake.
As a general rule, remakes and remasters will not make the list unless they’re substantially different from the original, but some might make it into the honorable mentions.
Anyways, time to rant quickly, then go through the winners and stuff. LET’S GO!
Table of Contents
The Yearly Rant
Well it’s my tradition, let’s complain about the console manufacturers! Or not, if they did well. And if there’s anything else to rant about, I’ll do that to… And I will.
Nintendo… Released games. They released a Zelda, a Mario, a Fire Emblem… they’re just doing their thing, and doing mostly fine at it. There’s constant questions about Switch 2 or whatever that’s gonna be, because of course that Switch hardware has been kinda pathetic for years (though, of course, they still release good games on it… so whatever). The Nvidia leak from last year (the earliest I can find it is March 2022) is getting a bit long in the tooth at this point but still points to possible hardware for it. I dunno, maybe next year is the time we’ll see something. Earlier in the year I thought we’d see an announcement by year-end, with a release early next year, but it seems we have until the Princess Peach game at least before that happens.
Sony continues being mediocre. But hey at least they increased the price of the PS5 again and it got 2 temporary exclusives that will be better on PC in a year. Not much to say here, Playstation feels a bit like a dead brand that isn’t doing anything noteworthy or even particularly good anymore. They stopped giving a shit after the PS3, truly. The Vita was a last ditch effort where they made a great console, but
Microsoft did nothing. Which is weird to say considering they bought Activision Blizzard… I gotta say it’s weird that Microsoft now owns both Bethesda and Blizzard, 2 companies that have a solid past pedigree and yet are now some of the worst in the industry, constantly releasing awful shit. Crazy how Diablo 4 can have literally over 9000 people working on it and there isn’t a modicum of quality to it, it’s just a thing that exists to extract money from idiots.
One thing this year did in the industry is that localizers for games and anime went CRAZY with their outward hatred of gamers, anime watchers, the products they work on to localize, and of course full-blown racism against japanese people. It’s a well known thing in both the anime and game industry that there’s people working there that just hate the media and do their best to destroy it because they think japanese people are bad, but this year has been particularly awful. Like… why are any of these crazies allowed to be anywhere near any of these projects? How much do gamers need to tell companies that they hate this before the idiots at the top take action and fire the localizers?
What needs to happen is that people hired for this cannot be allowed to actually write anything, just take the japanese words and put them in english. It’s really quite simple. No adding memes that have been dead for years, no shitty politics, no complete rewriting of stories and characters… just japanese, made into english. And for the complete idiots who are like “well you can’t do it word for word”… yeah that’s not what anyone is asking for. If something doesn’t directly translate, find a set of words that mean the exact same thing. Translator notes are preferable to the shit the average localizer shits out. Just straight up put japanese words in there and put a translator note. Yes, I want to see it say “According to keikaku” with a translator note to tell me that keikaku means plan, that’s better than localizers making male crossdressing characters trans when that was the opposite of the original japanese author’s intent. Machine translation or AI are absolutely preferable to taking a conversation in Fire Emblem Engage where 2 women argue about what kind of women men prefer, and “localizing” it to be about folding clothes, you fucking brainlets.
This localization shit isn’t new, but the localizers have been particularly evil about it recently. If you tell one of them you just want them to not be shit at their job, they respond with “Oh you’re one of THOSE people”… fuck off, do your fucking job correctly.
I think it’s crazy that there keeps being attempts at video game movies and TV shows when basically none of them outside of Pokemon end up being any good. Would be great if that stopped. I legit have not heard of anyone seeing the Gran Turismo movie, or the Onimusha anime (which legit only had 2 people discussing the episodes on MAL). Nor have I heard anything particularly positive for any of them outside of FNAF (which, based on the few reviews I saw, sounds kinda dumb… which, yes, is crazy to say about a FNAF product since they’re so dumb in the first place). The only truly good one last year has been Mario, against literally all odds.
There’s really not much else I need to rant about here. I will say I keep seeing people lauding this year as one of the best years in gaming ever and I really just don’t see it. So time for the awards I guess!
The 5 Winners
Fire Emblem Engage
Yeah, despite the localization for this being awful garbage where the localizers just rewrote all the characters and changes the entire dialogue to nonsensical garbage that was not there in the original japanese game…
The game itself is still really good. Definitely the most interesting gameplay for the series in a good long while. Some interesting mechanics and battles, some nice character designs, fun ways to level and customize your characters… I liked this one. Shame about the incompetent localization.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
Well I’m being a bit weird here and putting a game on the list that I didn’t finish. I’m probably a bit less than halfway done with it, but I took a break. I will say, it’s fucking nice for FromSoft to finally make a game that isn’t Souls for the 10th time, but also this is just a really well-made game, with super smooth controls and enough customization to tailor your robot to your gameplay style. It’s just really good.
Now make a new Lost Kingdoms, fuckers.
Hi-Fi Rush
This was announced at an otherwise shitty Microsoft/Bethesda presentation in January, and released instantly. It looked amazing visually, and seemed pretty fun gameplay-wise with its DMC-like action gameplay with rhythm-based combat. Well, turns out it was, in fact, very good. The cartoon-style visuals being just amazingly rendered, the gameplay being smooth and fun, and overall being just super well designed.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Surprise, the game that is at or near the top of every GotY list is here. It takes Breath of the Wild as its base, but changes all the content within, into an experience that is better than Breath of the Wild. It does feel weirdly disconnected from BotW story-wise, and even more disconnected from the overall Zelda timeline (whatever that is), to the point where I think it and BotW are an entire alternate universe… Anyways… It’s good. The fact that it somewhat reuses the oiriginal’s world map (which you probably won’t even realize for the most part outside of landmark-filled areas like Zora’s Domain), it changes so much in it that it’s just not relevant. There’s areas I for sure never saw in the original, and I don’t mean the underground or the sky islands.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
I almost feel weird putting this here. But kinda nothing else I played really fit as a GotY-level game, and this is certainly just about good enough to be here. It features solid gameplay, interesting visuals, cool gimmicks in almost every level, a pretty heavy amount of levels compared to similar modern games, and it’s pretty fun to 100%. It does have issues, namely the boss battles (some worlds don’t even have any), but it still is one of the better games this year.
Game of the Year
I am a Master of Confusion, no one could’ve predicted this. No one could figure out that the winner for Game of the Year is the game where I wrote in its review would be Game of the Year. So without further ado…
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince
There it is. It’s the best game this year. Buy it now, nerds.
I don’t even really know what more to say about this game since I just reviewed it. It’s just a super solid console-style RPG with great party-customization mechanics… and it’s better than any other game that came out this year. So there you go.
Honorable Mentions
9 Years of Shadows (the Switch version has absolutely massive load times, and I feel the different armors don’t change the gameplay enough to warrant the switching mechanic… but it’s good)
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp
Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg
Bat Boy (kinda Shovel Knight-ish, pretty decent)
Class of 09: The Re-Up (a sequel to one of my favorite visual novels, and it’s just about as wild and funny as it gets… there should be an animated show of this coming at some point, I’m hyped)
Darkest Dungeon II
Disgaea 7
Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons (a bit too repetitive, a lot of the playable characters kinda suck)
Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection (I haven’t played this, but it is great… big problem being how ridiculously overpriced it is… even on sale on the eshop it’s ridiculous)
Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star
Fitness Circuit
F-Zero 99
Ghostrunner 2 (I feel it wasn’t as good as the first game)
Gravity Circuit
Grim Guardians: Demon Purge (I think it was renamed to Gal Guardians… actually pretty solid Classicvania)
HoloCure – Save the Fans! (I had this in honorable mentions last year, but it got its OFFICIAL Steam release this year so… check it out. It’s basically “what if Vampire Survivors was good”)
Idol Showdown
Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society (I kinda hate the twist at roughly the halfway point, but overall it is good… I should finish it at some point)
Mameda no Bakeru (Japanese-only Switch game. Not quite the Goemon vibes I was hoping for but close, and so far (10 levels in) it’s still quite fun… I will review it once I’m done with it since it’s an import only thing)
Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection
Metroid Prime Remastered
Mon-Yu: Defeat Monsters to Get Strong Swords and Armor. Even If You Die, Fight and Become Stronger. We Believe in the Day the Heroes Will Defeat the Demon Lord. (the title kinda tells you everything you need to know)
Octopath Traveler II
One Piece Odyssey
Pikmin 4
Pizza Tower (this game is absolutely GotY level overall, though it didn’t quite click with me… still it gets absolutely shafted on other sites, it NEEDS to be higher up there, and I feel bad only putting it in Honorable Mentions)
Sea of Stars
Slay the Princess
Super Mario RPG (if only they made a sequel… and didn’t make it ridiculously easier than the SNES version… still good, but man is this a shitload of missed opportunities)
Thunder Ray (Punch-Out with aliens… it’s pretty short, but it’s actually pretty good… I recommend getting it on sale)
Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun
World of Horror
Noteworthy games I haven’t played but think would probably be honorable mentions
Baldur’s Gate III
Air Twister
Blasphemous 2
Dave the Diver
Final Fantasy XVI (I’m really not convinced about this but I will buy it because it’s Final Fantasy, even though the last truly good one was on PS2… and once it comes to PC I will review it)
Lies of P
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
Like a Dragon: Ishin!
Persona 5 Tactica
Remnant 2
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