2022 Game Recomendations

The first title that I was genuinely excited about it's release last year was Pokémon Legends: Arceus. The new catching mechanics and focus on studying wild pokémon in their natural habitat pulled me in right away. Despite the early trailers showing choppy performance, the game wowed me with tough boss fights, intimidating alphas, and a story that held twists and turns. I really felt for the other members of the survey corps, and the members of the Diamond and Pearl clan were engaging in their own right, though some of them did get on my nerves. Despite lackluster graphics for background elements, the game delivered in a few key areas: mainly the core gameplay, the wild pokémon animations, the sidequests, bosses and the final stretch of its main campaign. I really enjoyed a lot of the newly introduced forms and new evolutions. The only areas I felt could have used improvements were the dex size, the menu UI, and background graphics. This was my favorite pokémon game in quite some time, especially after the Diamond and Pearl remake greatly disappointed.

Despite the game coming out in September, it is the game on the Switch I've played the most except for Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Excluded from this list because I mostly played in in 2020 and some in 2021). As of this weekend's Splatfest, I've put 445+ hours into it. I unfortunately only heavily played in the Grub/ Gear/ Fun Splatfest due to a few busy weekends, I feel like there's a lot of fun to be had outside of the major events. I've beaten all the story mode levels up to After Alterna, ranked to level 32 in Tableturf, played to 20 in the main multiplayer mode, and through lots of days of Salmon Run, ranked to 100 catalogue level for Drizzle Season. The music is great as always, I love the fashion style, the humor of the story was charming as I'm someone who always gravitates toward funny games and I love both the new and returning characters. I put gobs of hours into Splatoon 2 before it, and if I can find enough free time, I bet even before DLC is announced I'll likely hit 800 hours or more. Splatoon 3's Salmon run is my favorite mode, and though I wish I would get paired with more teamates matching my skill so I can get past Professional+2 rank, I have fun, even when I get splatted. My only thee complaints about the game are the communication issues, as I've lost a decent amount of rewards to them, I felt story mode had too many perfect target challenge levels and that Salmon run loves giving me chargers, when I do best with mid-range or close range weapons. If I had played more varied games this year, this would be a top 5 or 10 list, and this would be #1, hands down.

Because of feeling let down by Brilliant Diamond and Sword I actually got this game the day after it's release, because I wanted to see if my friends who got it day 1 were having fun with it. Since they were, I told my fiance to pick up a copy when he got his own, and I definitely was engaged with the story the whole way up through the credits. It was, however, not without problems. I've never had a pokémon game crash more than once unless I had a busted cartridge, which my copy of blue is, but in the month and I half I've had it, I can remember at least 4 crashes. There's plenty of graphical glitches and shortcuts made to make the game playable, but shows its lack of polish and the crunch applied to the developers. I loved the opportunity to play multiple story paths and lots of the characters that were introduced are super appealing, but I just see the potential it fell short of. It's not only crashes, gitches, lag, and pop-ins, and still small dex, this game sorely lacks in not having voice acting. Sword needed it too, but the emotional scenes with Arven and Team Star would have had a much greater impact with decent voice actors, instead of the none we got. The story was well told, I liked plenty of the new pokémon, having an open world was definitely a bonus, but the catching, flying around, and crafting was better executed in Legends Arceus, and the lack of polish still shows. I can still recommend this game to people who really like pokémon games who don't mind the lackluster graphics, mainly because it kept me engaged and there was some challenge to it, but I honestly would tell new players to start with either Legends Arceus or Sun/ Moon.

It comes a no surprise to me that I would come back to this game at least once a year, and still consider it a favorite. I started playing some time between 1.4 and 1.8 beta, because one of the first long term worlds my uncle and I messed around in used beds to get away from spawn, and not much time later, we made a new world which had my first terrifying experience in the underground mineshafts. I can't say that the newest update of 1.19 really added a lot for me personally, but I played a ton of 1.17 and 1.18 this year and last year. The improvements to villages after being away from it for a while made me feel like every new village made lots of progress as I traded and built better fortifications. I think unless an update really tanks functionality, I will come back to it once I get around to upgrading the account from the previous Minecraft to a Microsoft account.

Since EA is a publisher plagued by DRM and poor treatment of it's developers, I've avoided the modern Sim City games. It was a real shame to do so, since I played Sim City 2000 a lot as a kid. But once I heard about Cities: Skylines, I was interested, as that itch for a fun citybuilder hadn't been scratched in a long time. I first noticed a review for the version on the Switch, which was lackluster according to the review I had read, but once I saw it on sale for Steam, I picked it up and it's given me loads of fun this year. I love seeing the public transportation lines come together, the electricity spread and allow for new neigborhoods and industrial areas to grow, and as the population increases, being able to put down new monuments and unique building is always exciting. It's nice to be able to set up a bunch of changes while the game is paused, go get something to eat, unpause the game and watch as the population blooms as you've added new structures while you eat a meal. The music and graphics are lovely, and you get quite a lot of detail for the smaller structures, which is neat. The only thing I wish was more clear would be building streets on mulltiple levels, like over or under a rail or subway line. I have only finagled a workaround with raising the elevation to make overpasses. Overall, a lot of fun, and worth your time if you miss having a solid citybuilder in your modern library.

Do you miss the old 2D pokémon sprites? Did you want a top down openworld pokémon experience? Pokewilds is the perfect blend of those two concepts. This dex contains 217 of the 250 pokémon released in Gold Silver Crystal with their original sprites, but also an additional 133 other pokémon, all with new spritework to fit the Gen II style. They have more pokémon still in development, and the multiplayer release is still yet to have a release date, but what is here is phenominal. This was the biggest surprise of the year for me. It includes crafting, terraforming, and multiple map generation to explore. With lots of biomes, boss pokémon and several dungeon types it is a treat every time you play. This game will challenge you in ways your official releases hasn't since Black and White. The new music is fantastic, and the return of old favorites are all greatly welcome, especailly the music to the boss fight in the catacombs. I love the new field moves and despite the selection only being 350 (for now), the world still feels super lived in. This game has tons of surprises if you try not to get much more information than on the base development page. This is a fantastic experience.