I’ve had the urge to make a list like this for a while now. This is the first year in a long time where I’ve thought “huh, I’ve consumed and enjoyed a lot of media that actually released this year. Enough to make a list?”. So here we go. These are in no particular order, though I have left my two absolute favourites until the end, so give me engagem… I mean make sure to read until the end. Very light and vague spoilers ahead, but if you are particularly sensitive to spoilers, I would of course prefer you to experience all these gems for yourself (before swiftly coming back to read the blog, naturally).
Elden Ring (FromSoftware, February 2022)
Elden Ring on a 2022 games of the year list? You’re killing me with the originality, Charles. I know. You’ve heard enough about this game already. There’s not much I can add to the conversation outside of my own experience, so let’s go with that. My experience playing Elden Ring, much like the titular macguffin, was broken into two halves, themselves shattered into two halves of competing wonder and frustration.
The first major half of my Elden Ring experience was coloured with the joy of exploration. The pure act of navigating a FromSoft world has never been more fun. Peering over a vista for a point of interest, galloping in that direction, and getting distracted by fifty doodads along the way is magical. The Lands Between is hands-down one of the most expertly crafted and characterful open worlds I’ve inhabited. In the shadow of this joy, however, was the knowledge that on replaying this game, I want to skip most of it. Going through crypts, caves, and mines composed of the same assets is fine on a first playthrough because at least the layouts are different, you don’t know what enemies you’ll face, or what reward you’ll receive. Subsequent playthroughs, however, will consist of me plotting a route to avoid as much of that copy-paste content as possible while optimising my build. Once you start seeing repeated bosses (with seemingly little story context for them being repeated, like in previous FromSoft games), you start looking for ways to cut this 100-hour game down to a 40-hour one, longing for the (mostly, barring some back-tracking) one-and-done curated level design of a Dark Souls or Bloodborne.
The second phase of my Elden Ring experience kicked in when I was already suffering from open-world content fatigue and realised just how many bosses were guarding the endgame. It’s no secret that once you get past Leyndell Capital, enemy health and damage swells to disgusting size, most likely in an attempt to balance out the levels you gained in the first, open two thirds of the game. What really killed the fun for me, however, is how certain bosses break from traditional FromSoft design. In place of reliable, learnable, telegraphed attacks with clear punish windows for you to get your damage in, a lot of s late-game bosses spend ages comboing thin air, then either leap back out of attack range or roll a die to decide whether they are going to extend their combo and punish you for trying to play at all. After a lineage of games that prided themselves on being beatable without taking any damage, this can’t help but sting. And yet, even when the endgame bosses were putting my pure strength build through the blender (Maliketh can get in a bin), the repercussions of the story events happening around me kept me going. There was something gleefully maddening about the sheer excess of bosses, of everyone and their nan coming out of the woodwork to stop my advance to become Elden Lord. These pompous figures of legend dangled the carrot of the Ring in my face, only to say “this is as far as you go” at the very end of the game. Old allies turned enemies upon seeing how far my ambition would take me. When the ashes settled, it was hard to let a shaky endgame ruin such a grand video game experience.
Bullet Train (dir. David Leitch, August 2022)
Well, this was fun, wasn’t it? I’m a sucker for a film that squeezes so much variety and comedy out of a single location, doubly so with such stylised action. I was bewitched as Bullet Train juggled 50 Chekhov’s guns, waiting to see how they were going to go off. Watching Brad Pitt’s character spew self-help quotes while effortlessly taking down assassins taking their job way too seriously (c’mon guys, it’s only a life or death situation) is a joy. Buried under the fisticuffs is a story about fate and making the most of your luck, a series of ridiculous coincidences resulting in this maelstrom we call life. Bullet Train is confidently joining Snowpiercer and Kill Bill in the exclusive “films that are structured like video games and I love them” club.
Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Series (MONKEYCRAFT, July 2022)
No pretentiousness here. I just like the cute “wahoo” cat games, okay?
Then again, this series was dormant for two decades so I think I can allow some pretentiousness.
Has a work of art ever made you feel nostalgic, even though it’s the first time you’re experiencing it? I only played Klonoa: Door to Phantomile on the PS1 last year, and was instantly struck with a yearning for Christmas mornings spent playing PS2 games wrapped up in a blanket and sipping hot chocolate. Both games included in the Phantasy Reverie collection are so simple and of their time – 2.5D platformers with only a couple of moves (picking up enemies and either throwing them left or right, down to boost yourself up, or into the back/foreground) – and yet nothing else feels quite like them. Few games have as little fat or padding to them as Klonoa. Every mechanic is iterated on through puzzles and platforming challenges until its logical conclusion. The breathy, airy soundtracks, the abstract enemy designs, the light stories that can get pretty dower with themes of inadequacy, fleeting memories, and processing grief instead of running from it: everything makes finishing a Klonoa game feel like waking from a dream.
Decision to Leave (dir. Park Chan-wook, June 2022)
Park Chan-wook’s latest outing follows a detective from professional curiosity to outright obsession with a culprit. The chemistry between actors Tang Wei and Park Hae-il is tantalising, giving us one of the most bizarre romances of the year. Seeing the subtle changes in these characters as they tip-toe around the slight issue that they’re on opposite sides of a murder investigation enthralled me. Their mutual fascination expresses itself in the most unconventional ways, leading to moments of levity in an otherwise tragic narrative. They clutch onto these glimpses of genuine vulnerability and authenticity because they know where this is heading: they are still trying to outwit each other, after all. In the end, the characters are trapped by the directions their lives have taken, and the only agency Seo-Rae can exercise is her decision to leave. I’m left a little uncomfortable by just how depressing this initially playful tale gets, and how imbalanced the narrative is in the detective Hae-jun’s favour. Nevertheless, after this stellar introduction to Park’s work, it looks like I’ve got some Oldboy to watch.
Golf Gang (Lazy Monday Games, May 2022)
Love it or hate it, we all know how golf works, right? You take turns hitting a ball down an unsustainably maintained plot of land to deposit it in a tiny hole. Some golf video games even have the mercy to let everyone take their turn at the same time, so you only have to wait if you sink your ball before everyone else – because you’re just that good, obviously. Golf Gang does away with waiting altogether, turning golf into a race. Turn on certain modifiers in the extra menu and you can do away with gravity, too! The course is only a suggestion. Just fly to the flagpole!
Golf Gang introduces a chaotic side to golf while still promoting precision with your shots (each stroke uses a certain amount of a meter that refills as your ball travels, so you can’t just crank the power up to max on every hit). Modifiers like explosions on collision with other balls, doubling the meter recharge speed, and playing from a first-person perspective expand the possibilities of how golf can be played. You can even build your own courses in Unity to upload to the game’s workshop. A special shoutout to the person who made holes based on the most famous stages from Super Smash Bros. Melee – it was a blast seeing those series represented in golf form. I was instantly drawn to this game when I first saw it at WASD 2022 and played it with my classmate, resulting in us yelling obscenities at each other whenever there was a photo finish. Eight months later, I still wake up at night with new modifier combinations that could make for a fun mode. The two brothers at Lazy Monday Games did a good’un.
TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge (Tribute Games, June 2022)
I was always going to play Shredder’s Revenge: I love Turtles in Time, the SNES beat ‘em up from Konami, and this game looked to be calling back to that with its vehicle levels, platforming elements, and sleek pixel art. The voice actors from the classic 1987 cartoon were reprising their roles. The character roster was going beyond the turtles, letting us play as April, Master Splinter, and even Casey. Tee Lopes was handling the soundtrack! From the outset, Shredder’s Revenge seemed like it was going to be a slam dunk.
Then I took a glance at the credits and was certain. It turns out a lot of this team worked on the superb Scott Pilgrim VS The World game. Shredder’s Revenge is a New York-size pizza slice with all the toppings. The story takes you to varied and vibrant locales. The differences between characters are tempting me to jump into repeat playthroughs. Recently, the developers added a custom game mode where you can toggle certain features for a personalised challenge run. Shredder’s Revenge is not only a competent modern beat ‘em up, but a labour of love for an IP that has brought so much joy to so many over the years. And it even has crossplay and online multiplayer across the billion versions released. Getting slapped in the face by the 90s never felt so sweet.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson, December 2022)
Watching a Knives Out film is like watching a magic trick, and I for one love feeling like a sucker being taken on Rian Johnson’s wild ride. Any fears I had that lightning wouldn’t strike twice evaporated in Glass Onion’s hilarious opening montage. Just when you think the central conflict of the film is going to be one thing, the smoke and mirrors lift and innocuous scenes become resplendent with meaning. Everything I loved about the original is present in the sequel: Benoit Blanc stepping into the background to let another character truly shine is a trope of these films I will never tire of. And now I’m being emotionally manipulated into liking/feeling sorry for characters that the film has spent half its runtime conditioning me to hate? How do you do it, Johnson?
There are so many lines in this film that made me involuntarily break out in applause: lines that perfectly capture and dismantle the discourse around billionaire culture, social media influence, anti-intellectualism, the list goes on. The writing nailed every rich person archetype it went for and the cast looked like they were having a blast bringing them to life. Glass Onion was the most cathartic viewing experience I had all year, desperately needed in an unjust world that feels like it is going insane.
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (Ubisoft Milan, October 2022)
The biggest shock of 2017 was not that Mario + Rabbids + XCOM-style tactical gameplay was in fact a genius idea executed perfectly, it was that Ubisoft managed to get me to like the Rabbids – even after they ganked my childhood hero Rayman. The sequel, Sparks of Hope, doesn’t have the same freshness as the original. It plays its save the universe story a little more straight compared to the irreverence and poking fun at Mario tradition of its predecessor. Swapping sparks on your characters at the beginning of every mission gets tedious, especially when most of them only apply elements to your attacks, rather than changing how you approach a given situation (“do I want to do more damage to an enemy or not?” is not the most compelling decision). A lot of the optional content is hit or miss and is exhausting if you go out of your way to do everything. Once you realise each level’s side content falls into a routine (one secret area, one challenge level from Madame Bwahstrella, one fish-catching minigame (?), one puzzle from Professor Backpack, etc.), the magic is somewhat diminished.
But gosh darn, will I never get tired of Ubisoft Milan’s portrayal of these beloved characters! If a game has me gushing over the animation Luigi does when he goes into cover, that’s a good sign (or I sign that I need serious help). Unlike the sparks, the character skill trees give upgrades that radically change how units can approach situations. The resources needed to upgrade characters are limited to the point that you will need to decide what you want your Rabbid Mario to specialise in (what a sentence). The core gameplay, the joy of composing a team for the objective at hand and pulling off an efficient victory, is just so strong that I cannot consider Sparks of Hope as anything less than equal to its predecessor in terms of quality. The fact that the Rabbids have come full circle, with this game getting DLC in 2023 that will bring Rayman back from the dead, is just the icing on the cake. After the passion these developers have shown to these characters, I think the limbless wonder is in good hands.
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once (dir. Daniels Kwan and Scheinert, May 2022)
My pick for film of the year is the multiverse story against which all future multiverse stories will be assessed (sorry, Bayonetta 3). Very rarely does a work of art come out that appeals to so many of my sensibilities (everything, everywhere) all at once. Comedic martial arts fights? Check. A life-affirming story about finding contentment in who you are, the decisions you’ve made, and healing your relationships with others, even when the stimuli of modern life refuse to give us a second to breathe? Check. References that made film school student Charles wee himself? Check. Doing all this with a degree of creativity that can only be the result of writers having way too much fun? What do you think?
No other film has come close to the minute-to-minute laughter that EEAAO elicited from me. It got to a point where the characters could click their fingers and make me belly laugh because I wanted the world for them. In a pop culture climate where multiverse stories seem to be the new hotness, here is a film that dares to use the concept of the multiverse to develop completely original characters. One of my favourite things that a story can do is take a seemingly mundane situation (an intimate squabble between family members, for instance) and with all the paraphernalia of the storytelling format in question elevate it to epic proportions – because that’s how lived experience feels in the heat of the moment. If a film can make me cry my eyes out from sheer laughter with a shot of a couple of rocks and some subtitles, I have nothing left to say other than Hollywood should pack it up and go. We’re done here.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Monolith Soft, July 2022)
For a while, I wondered whether my mad obsession with Xenoblade Chronicles 1 was a flash in the pan. Its numbered sequel left me feeling like I had just played a phenomenally good JRPG, not that I had been emotionally soothed by its existence. Its spinoff, Xenoblade Chronicles X, left me feeling even less. Xenoblade Chronicles 3, as its credits rolled, had me in tears again with how tenderly it handled its themes at a time when I felt trapped in my life and nothing I could do was ‘the right choice’. Seeing the relationships between these six goofballs blossom as they brazenly revolt against everything they have been conditioned to know and feel was awe-inspiring. It was the best, most affecting a “let’s kill God/the system” scenario has ever been in a JRPG. It was Xenoblade. fucking. Chronicles.
Not only is XC3 a stunning return to form, with a world concept that had me hooked from the start, but it ties this trilogy together perfectly. It incorporates visual and auditory references to previous entries in a way that makes perfect diegetic sense. The plot gets going quickly, with the kind of existential, world-shattering revelations that previous Xenoblade games would have waited 20 or 30 hours to unveil. From there, the tense character interactions and philosophical debates played out as anime battles just keep coming. Xenoblade’s core gameplay strength has always been introducing game mechanics that directly tie into the story, but I think 3 is the peak. Above all, its philosophy is that our identities arise from interactions with other people (interactions that aren’t just fighting to survive). From that core idea comes a class system where characters literally learn the fighting styles of others to become stronger and a fusion mechanic where characters tap into their potential by sharing each other’s grief and aspirations. This bleeds into the sidequests, some of the best I’ve ever played. The fact that I can write that when a lot of them can functionally be boiled down to fast-travelling fifty times and fighting an enemy is insane. It’s in the sidequests that the dialogue and character development made me fall in love with these colonies and their plight. I made it my duty to help them heal and find their purpose in this brave new world. Seeing those same characters then reach out to other colonies and ask how they can help hit it home for me: by the time it comes to face the final boss, you know that your party of loveable goobers has the strength to face the future, whatever that may look like.
I’m choking up as I write this in awe of what the Xeno series has achieved and the comfort it has brought me. From an obscure PS1 game at Squaresoft, to a reboot that nearly didn’t even release in the US, to the thematically complete trilogy we have now, Xenoblade has firmly established itself among the JRPG grandees. These games ask for hundreds of hours of your time, but in return provide so many opportunities to see their characters grow, make mistakes, show every side of themselves, and ask you questions about the meaning of life. Not an hour of that playtime feels wasted. That’s why XC3 is my game of the year.
Also, the fact that XC3 was robbed of the Game Award for best soundtrack is a war crime. I will die on this hill.
I hope everyone had at least a tolerable 2022 and enjoyed some media that resonated with them. As I write this, I’m kicking myself for not including Holy Cow’s genius rhythm game Trombone Champ (maybe I will have to rectify that with another article/stream), so go and play that! I didn’t physically have time to play/watch everything I was excited for this year: for games alone, my backlog is taunting me with Cuphead DLC, Capcom Fighting Collection, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, Live A Live, Trek to Yomi, Immortality, Metal: Hellsinger, Signalis, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, Pentiment… so feel free to yell at me to let me know which one(s) I have to play right this second. Let me know what films or games made you feel a feel this year or what you’re looking forward to in the months ahead. Likewise, if something you read here made a game/film recommendation pop into your head, please share it.