Cognition Dissemination: The Games of “2022”

The year 2022 was far from the best in my personal life, to say the very least, but it was a good one for playing through video games. It remains a great, if not the greatest, hobby to turn to when life gets you down. Most of the games I played notably did not release in 2022. Part of the experience of playing video games in adulthood involves making progress through the backlog, especially for anyone who likes to play a lot of long games like Japanese RPGs and strategy RPGs like me. I played through a fair amount of them in 2022, though didn’t blog about all of them here. This feels like a good time.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Switch)

I’ll be honest here: I couldn’t get into the previous Pikmin games from Nintendo, despite giving them an earnest shot. My playthrough of the first game was short thanks to being intimidated by the limited timeframe provided to complete tasks and levels, and I had a boring time while playing through the early aspects of Pikmin 2 back in the GameCube days nearly two decades ago.

It took me until the third game to understand what makes them so enjoyable, by getting through the puzzle-filled stages with most of the little Pikmin creatures I raised and found. Chances are a few of them will die along the way thanks to enemies or the player misjudging obstacles, but it hurts when it happens, despite the plentiful number of resources provided to create more of them. The stages in Pikmin 3 Deluxe remain timed, but completing as many tasks as possible before the end feels more rewarding than frustrating, at least for the story mode. The bonus stages have this too, but can get stressful in a hurry. I’m glad I was able to get into the franchise last year, with a fourth game — the first brand-new numbered title in over a decade — on the way.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Switch)

This was my first opportunity to play the first Xenoblade Chronicles game, in a pristine remastered form with an updated presentation. It was as great as I hoped. I wrote a review of the game here, so I won’t spend much time on it in this post. I’ll just say that I was hoping to get around to all three numbered Xenoblade Chronicles games this year, but, came up short. I blame Nintendo and their lack of eShop discounts for certain first-party games.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (Switch)

The two installments in The Great Ace Attorney series, given official localizations for the first time in a two-title collection, were fortunately worth the long wait. The first game is a bit weighed down by the fourth case being one of the worst in the franchise, but the second game more than makes up for that by having many of its best cases. I discussed the games as part of Quarantine Control entries #100 and #111, so I’m keeping this one brief.

Rayman Legends (Switch)

It’s been a good while since I’ve played Rayman Origins on PlayStation 3, which explains why I had a slightly tough time readjusting to the unique mechanics in the 2D Rayman games with Rayman Legends. But don’t take that as a complaint. The game seemed to be created with this expectation, as the difficulty of its stages intensifies in a slower manner compared to its predecessor. It’s unfortunate that this title never reaches the level of challenge that came with Origins, nor does it offer as much level variety. But it’s nonetheless plenty of fun and makes for a good time despite its brevity. The touchscreen-style levels feel a bit gimmicky, a holdover from the game first being designed for Wii U, but I couldn’t complain about having to play it in handheld mode when the colors seriously popped out on the Switch OLED screen.

The staggering number of characters were appreciated too, though it’s a shame they’re all largely interchangeable and don’t have levels designed around them. I wish the team could have been given more time to design a more robust experience despite the existing content being satisfying, but considering Ubisoft’s increasingly homogenous catalogue these days, I’m glad this game came into existence at all.

Child of Light (Switch)

I’ve heard a lot about Child of Light over the years, another title made as part of Ubisoft’s UbiArt series, and finally had the opportunity to sit down and play it. It’s a very solid turn-based RPG that features a charming story about a girl named Aurora, who meets a number of similarly-playable colorful characters along her journey through Lemuria. I first found the fact that only two characters can be used in battle limiting, but later appreciated that as part of the strategy. My extended thoughts about the game are included in Quarantine Control #105. It’s a real shame that Ubisoft has entirely forgotten about this initiative these days, because their lineup could use a number of smaller titles in addition to larger AAA and AAAA games that take about five to six years to make.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch)

Fire Emblem: Three Houses was one of the first games I wanted to get around to after getting a Switch, as someone who grabbed Awakening and Fates as they released. It’s a game in which developer Intelligent Systems, along with partner Koei Tecmo, demonstrated how they learned many of the right lessons from those previous games. It’s a big and long one thanks to including four separate campaigns, depending on which leader the player wishes to side with; the initial hours for each campaign are similar enough, but start feeling different thanks to each path having a separate story, different characters with their own support conversations, and alternate maps.

The story in particular is a standout element. This game is more political than previous installments, in a world with characters out to carve their own path in the best way they see fit, which results in plenty of grey-and-gray morality. No path is the wrong one story-wise, a deliberate decision to ensure that the player won’t waste their time by choosing either one, despite Edelgard’s story feeling a bit unfulfilling by the end.

It’s a shame the core map design wasn’t better, and that activities around Garreg Mach monastery got a little repetitive after participating in them for hours on end, in the developers’ intent to insert social elements akin to Atlus’ Persona titles. But those aren’t enough to prevent it from being another solid Fire Emblem title.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War (Switch)

It was simply the year for me to finally tackle the UbiArt games, with Valiant Hearts being the third after Rayman Legends and Child of Light. This is an adventure game set during World War I, in which the player controls four characters struggling to survive as towns as battlefields are paved with bullets and explosions and towns are being leveled around them. The game is equal parts enjoyable and educational, with its events being largely-accurate retellings of stories that occurred around a century ago, with a linear story in which the player has to quickly figure out solutions to progress in each scenario. The art style is, by the same token, equally aesthetically pleasing and grimy to match the time period.

It’s a short experience (it took me only a couple of evenings to finish), and not too challenging. Best of all, though, it was lot of fun, and made for a preferable way to tell a realistic war story within the confines of a video game. It’s interesting that this is the UbiArt title getting a sequel, Valiant Hearts: Coming Home, that’s coming only to Netflix. I assume that it will release on other platforms afterward.

Neo: The World Ends with You (Switch)

Neo: The World Ends with You was the kind of sequel I was hoping the original The World Ends with You would receive for over a decade. It was the kind of sequel I hoped Square Enix was actively working on when they first teased the mobile version of the original game, which itself fortunately led to a tease for this very game. The developers at Square Enix and h.a.n.d. could not have adapted the original version’s touchscreen-heavy chaotic mess of a battle system to a controller-driven mess of a system any better. I wrote more about my thoughts in a sizable review.

AI: The Somnium Files (Switch)

I had an idea of what to expect with AI: The Somnium Files. It was best to go in not expecting the game to be on par with the better installments of the Zero Escape series, despite this being a new project from writer and director Kotaro Uchikoshi. This, it turned out, was solid advice, as I found an enjoyable adventure game with multiple story paths worth exploring. The game’s story and characters weren’t quite on par with 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue’s Last Reward, but it stands alone as a great anime-influenced detective adventure game with great twists in its own right. It’s certainly better than Zero Time Dilemma, Uchikoshi’s nice-though-iffy try at a Telltale-style adventure game.

One aspect that stood out about the better Zero Escape titles was how it didn’t feel like a typical anime story, but one akin to the kind found in a novel, which also took unique advantages of the video game format it was made for. The story and characters in AI: The Somnium Files, however, feel more like those from a modern anime through its style and character archetypes, beyond protagonist Kaname Date’s penchant for being a perv (who actually reminds me more of City Hunter’s Ryo Saeba — certainly not modern). But I cared about the characters and their fates by the end, the hallmark of a good visual novel/adventure experience.

I played this title right before the sequel released, and, well, perhaps I’ll get to that one this year. I’m hoping it will be just as good.

Live A Live (Switch)

The remake of Live A Live was remarkably the only title I played in 2022 that actually released in 2022. It’s an excellent remake of the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom game from the mid-1990s, keeping a worthwhile amount of the 90s flavor and aesthetics (especially with the Present Day and Near Future stories) while updating its presentation to modern standards. It’s worth a play for anyone who enjoys Japanese RPGs, especially those who remember how brief-yet-rewarding they used to be during the 90s. I wrote plenty more about the game in my review.

Bayonetta (Switch)

Bayonetta! The first game! I played this one shortly after it originally released, and stand by everything I wrote in my review from over a decade ago. But I have to say that the instant-fail QTEs and the linear vehicle levels have not improved with age. The game’s highs remain very high, but the lows are still pretty damn low.

Catherine: Full Body (Switch)

I watched Angela play through this game on our Twitch channel, and made sure to pick a different path considering that I remember everything about that and my playthrough of the original game in 2011. It remains a very solid game with great and frenetic puzzles, and a fun story in which nothing is as it seems from its start. But I was surprised at the level of new content the game contained, beyond the inclusion of third Catherine character Rin. It’s a fun game, but… I haven’t ventured through all the content just yet, so I’ll get back to everyone on this.

Persona 5 Royal (Switch)

Let’s be honest here: It would have been a big missed opportunity for Atlus to never port Persona 5 Royal to a handheld, with the closest system being Switch (and, yes, Steam Deck). It’s the way in which I always wanted to play the game. Long titles like this one are easier to digest in handheld form, and even easier on a hybrid system. It was long overdue, but Atlus did the deed this year, and it was good. I wrote a lot more about my experience, and my opinions on the new content added to Royal, in a review I posted last month.

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (PlayStation 4)

See? I didn’t play every game on Switch last year. It had been three years since I last played a game in the Yakuza (now Like a Dragon) series, that being Yakuza Kiwami 2, and I was long overdue for playing a new one. Many of the Yakuza games take place during the Christmas season, so this could not have been a better season to play Yakuza 6… even though it sure doesn’t feel like December in most of the game.

I had a great time with it, even though the impact of the ending and Kazuma Kiryu’s final decision has since been dulled by the recent news that they’re rolling him out of retirement for at least two more games. The story is a good time, with Kiryu unraveling the mysteries regarding everything that occurred while he was taking the fall for several incidents in jail for three years, especially with his adopted daughter Haruka Sawamura. A portion of these mysteries occur in Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, a unique section for the franchise and Japanese games as a whole, a quiet township with plenty of rural charms.

Outside the decorations in some bars, it was tough to figure out how this game takes place in early December. I really missed the big Christmas tree in Kamurocho and the instrumental version of Joy to the World playing in certain shops from the older games.

The game required tolerating its generally unpolished nature, as Yakuza 6 was the first title Sega’s Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio created using the Dragon Engine. The performance in the city is a bit rough, especially in the large and frequently busy Kamurocho, and it doesn’t have quite as many bonus features as previous Yakuza games. But the titles have a penchant for being uniquely enjoyable, and Yakuza 6 nonetheless made for a fun time.

 

This was a much longer list than I was expecting to compile, but I had fun doing so, as I did playing through all the games listed in this post. I hope that you, the reader, did so too. I’m going to tell myself that more than three people made it this far without skipping much content so I can sleep at night. I’m going to have a good time playing through games in 2023 too, though perhaps it’s time to stream some of them.