My Top 5 Favorite Games I Played in 2022

Games that didn’t come out this year deserve some love too!

We all have our Game of the Year, or a list of our GOTY, and while that’s all and good, what about the games you played that didn’t end up coming out in the current year? Those don’t really have a chance on getting on a GOTY list and I really do think they deserve some recognition. So, last year I decided to have a list of games I loved the most no matter the year a game released in, and I’m continuing it for a second year. Though, am going to half my list into a Top 5 instead of a Top 10. Drastic decision, I know. Since I am planning on resisting the urges to buy more games and, well, what other way to prep myself than doing another task I find hard? I agonized over my list for a couple days, but I think I found my 5 most favorite games I played this year. I also completed 85 games this year, so close to how many I completed last year.

I ended up only including games that didn’t come out this year, in comparison to last years where I had a couple games that came out the same year, but I still can’t tell if it’s a coincidence or I accidentally did it on purpose.

Here are my Top 5 Favorite Games I Played This Year, not including games on my GOTY list, in no particular order:

Dying Light

|Dying Light Review/The Following Review|

Dying Light was a game I wanted to play when it first game out, but I never got to it and ended up forgetting about it. It was until its sequel was released that I remembered this game, and after watching a video that sold me on the game, I picked it up (which also brought another surprise that it got updates all this time). Anyway, when I got to play it, I fell in love with it. Not only did I end up enjoying it’s story, despite how it’s always talked about as the weakest point and after seeing it’s own plot holes, I loved the characters (Rahim, I still miss you), and the parkour gameplay is so fun. It’s so fun running and parkouring around Harran and it’s even better that the side quests were nailed. If only the final confrontation wasn’t so bad.

Ace Attorney Trilogy

I may be pushing it here, but I’m going to include the first three Ace Attorney games that make up its original trilogy. I may have played the separate releases on the DS, but hey they were later released all together anyway so it has to count. While I do love visual novels, I am a bit picky in terms of the writing style it has, the genre the story itself falls in, and I often don’t like filler unless it’s interesting and/or fun to read through. One of my favorite story genres in VNs are mysteries and detective (as I do seem to like being in the role of a detective solving a mystery). While Ace Attorney isn’t technically a detective game, it does have you play as a defense attorney (which there aren’t that many games with this angle aside from this series) that investigates and gathers evidence and information himself and defends his clients in court the best he could. Not to mention that the characters and the interactions everyone has are amazing, and the storylines in these three games are great and suspenseful.

Since I did mean to play all Ace Attorney games this year, but didn’t, I think it was a good coincidence. I don’t know what I would have done picking a single Ace Attorney game…or just having to deal with most of my picks potentially being Ace Attorney games.

AI: The Somnium Files

Another visual novel made it on this list and guess what? It’s a triple whammy of being a murder mystery detective story! Oh, I didn’t say I also like the mystery sub-genre known as murder mysteries? Anyway, I actually had AI: The Somnium Files for years, but I never got to it until I told myself I’ll play it before the sequel came out. This is mainly due to me hating the demo and I bought it on discount (which sadly wasn’t as discounted as much as it was now *cries*) to hate read. Though, when I actually got to reading it, I loved it. I loved it so much I could only play this game until I finished it. Even my dog loved it and laid with me on the couch as I played (and I’ll let you know, my dog hated Ace Attorney).

Bayonetta

|Bayonetta Review/Bayonetta 2 Review|

Bayonetta was a game I had for a long time on the PS3, but I never played it. I did get to it when Bayonetta 3’s release date became nearer and while I did start on the PS3, I did move onto the Switch as that was where the series is on now. I might as well get the double pack so I can have all the games on one system. I still can’t believe that it took me this long to play Bayonetta as I ended up absolutely loving the game. I love Bayonetta (the character) and I found the combat to be so satisfying and fun to play once I got over its learning curve.

I will also do a soft Bayonetta 2 inclusion, as while a lot did improve in this entry, I still like Bayonetta 1 a bit more.

Just Dance 2022

It’s probably weird seeing me putting up a Just Dance game, but hear me out. I haven’t played Just Dance for years and it was on the Wii. I only had a couple games on the Wii (which is very sad considering how many games I missed up on) and Just Dance 4 was one of them. I loved it and I played it a ton until I did eventually stop. Fast forward to this year and I had the urge to play Just Dance again, but for one of the recently released entries. After researching which one I should get, I ended up getting Just Dance 2022 as not only did it have the most songs in Just Dance Unlimited, but I did like most of the songs that came with the game. Well, Just Dance sucked me back it and I’ve been playing it a lot recently both for fun and to get a little exercise in. I ended up liking the majority of the songs that’s in the base game, which is a big plus, and I do have a lot of selection whenever I join Unlimited.

If you haven’t played Just Dance in forever like me, or just haven’t played Just Dance before, the 2022 version is a great entry to jump in. This is going to be dependent on your tastes, but at least for me, the majority of the songs are great either by just me liking the song, the dance choreograph being great and fun to dance to, or a combination of the two. Even most of the songs I didn’t really like starting out warmed up to me as I danced more to it (I might put out a tier list to go more into it) and the Extreme versions of songs make up the most of my personal hate category.

Now the recent Just Dance 2023 edition? Eeeeehhhh no.