Assassina San: Delaila's Top 10 Games of 2022
I love video games so much, so I would love to get to know you and your favorite games! I have 169 platinum trophies and I write reviews on games. I love wearing hoodies. I love my chonky cat Raiden. I love anime, manga, comics, fantasy, horror, wrestling, outdoors activities, and more.
1. Elden Ring
When I was becoming fatigued of open world games, Elden Ring somehow managed to refresh the genre. I haven’t felt this much freedom in a game where my path and interpretation of the story was completely different from everyone else who played. It improved the Souls formula by a tenfold while creating an expansive environment where every inch felt like a painting and every sound evoked an emotion, without spouting a single word. This took the crown as my favorite game of all time.
2. God of War Ragnarök
Kratos Saga has become an incredibly emotional experience that tugs at my heart strings by developing a character I’ve been familiar with for about 17 years. I was constantly laughing and crying in this game. It’s a premium title that checks all of the boxes with top tier combat, graphics, story, characters, beautiful environments and impactful music. My only issue is that it feels extremely formulaic next to other Sony 1st party titles and I really need a break from it. It’s one of the best in its class but it is held back my unnecessary RPG mechanics and lack of innovation. I still absolutely adore it though.
3. Sifu
This game surprised me! Not only did it innovate with its implementation of an age system upon death but it also redefined the beat em up formula, and became my favorite beat em ups of all time. The combat is so fun and challenging. It’s pulls direct influence from martial arts which really enhanced combat, but made the story a bit too surface level. The art design is top tier and coupled with some amazing music. This game is special and I wish it was nominated for GOTY 2022.
4. Cult of the Lamb
This game was an immediate buy just due to aesthetics. What’s not to love about cute little animals that are part of a satanic cult? What I didn’t know is the gameplay loop would innovate so hard and make me addicted. It’s basically Animal Crossing for dark minds by melding rogue like dungeon crawling with farm sim elements. This is one of those stay up until 3am mindlessly playing as if I was under the spell of this cute ass satanic cult.
5. Stray
I love cats so I’m biased but cats are statistically one of the most entertaining creatures to watch. In Stray, we got to play as a cat and it’s the best cat simulator to date. Like a cat, you use your agility to traverse a post-post-apocalyptic Cyberpunk-like city and do cat shit like knocking down things or scratching on rugs. It’s so frikkin cute but it also had some emotional story moments, though some story threads left a lot to be desired. It also had some interesting puzzles that forced you to think like a cat, which is really cool. The gameplay loop introduces different mechanics that don’t overstay their welcome, providing some excellent pacing. Plus, the graphics are really amazing, the environments are super detailed and the music is a bop. I can stare at my cat do nothing all day and be entertained so this game was an extra treat.
6. A Plague Tale Requiem
Cinematically this game is gorgeous with some really amazing locations. It also brings back hardcore stealth gameplay, which has been a bit of a dying genre. It’s fun using your arsenal to sneak past and kill enemies but because this game was much longer than its predecessor, it wound up dragging toward the middle of the game. This gameplay style works best with shorter games but what kept me going is the amazing story. I loved the characters so much and the ending of the game was extremely impactful and so I will remember it forever.
7. Horizon Forbidden West
This game really set a bar for amazing facial animations and graphics. The world is gorgeous and there were some interesting story moments. In the end, I was a bit disappointed with the story direction and the dialogue became a slog to listen through. I also became fatigued at the open world structure being very Ubisoft-like with lots of bloat that didn’t feel too relevant to the world. Thankfully the combat and enemy designs are still fun as hell, and the new robot creatures were amazing to experience. The only thing holding the combat back is the unnecessarily deep RPG systems that bog it down.
8. TMNT: Shredder's Revenge
This game is perfect. Just straight up fun. Bringing me back to the days of playing TMNT Turtles in Time on the couch with friends. The music, the animation, and the combat is just fun as hell. It’s hard not to love but it doesn’t do anything that makes it GOTY worthy, and it doesn’t need to.
9. Vampire Survivors
Truthfully, I haven’t finished this game but it’s the kind of game that you can pick up, have a blast with, and put down at any time. It’s amazing how a game with such an incredibly simple button input scheme can have such an intricately complex gameplay loop. Constantly unlocking abilities to use against hordes of enemies to create a “bullet heaven” experience is super rewarding and fun! I can’t wait to play more!
10. Metal: Hellsinger
A rhythm FPS that has a Doom aesthetic with fast kinetic gunplay to the beat of metal music? Fuck yea. Shooting demons to the beat of metal music had me headbanging for hours. My only complaint is the environments didn’t vary enough and sometimes the calibration felt off. Metal Hellsinger might be one of my favorite rhythm games and that final boss fight was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced in a game.