Video Game Blog 026: The 2022 Video Game Year in Review

Welcome to my Game Year in Review post, a special time when I reflect back on all the accomplishments and fun I had playing video games in the past year. As always, I went into the year with clear goals and a list of 25 games to complete. How did I do? Read on to find out.

My sword doggy. (Credit: Nintendo, GameFreak)

Focus: I started the year focused, wrapping up Pokémon Omega Red and starting on Super Mario Galaxy 2. I quickly got distracted from the Mario game, but I did manage to finish Lego Batman 2 and Just Dance 2022. I always start the year strong.

This game was wild. (Credit: Shigesato Itoi, Nintendo)

Distraction: For all the focus however, there is always distraction. This year was marked with several distractions. The first of those was Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland. (For some reason I just got into a farming mood.) I resisted the urge to play more Harvest Moon games, so yay for me. From there I took a side quest into Earthbound, a game I’ve wanted to play for years. It took me playing off and on for months, but I managed to get through it recently. (Old RPGs are no joke, difficulty-wise.) I also played a little of TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge and Murderhouse, both of which I wrote about. I figure if I get content out of it, it’s not a complete waste.

The legendary space hero and secret Sith Lord, Jar Jar. (Credit: Traveller’s Tales, Disney)

More Focus: Finally the long wait was over and we got the long-awaited Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. I played that one pretty regularly until I got distracted yet again. Unfortunately, the same was true of Bugsnax, a game that was on my list from last year. These were fun, rewarding games, but my focus was wavered beyond repair at this point. I have yet to finish either of them.

We have ways of making you talk, Sushi... (Credit: Nintendo)

More Distraction: In the Summer I went on a buying spree for my Wii U and 3DS. I talked about that at length here and here. I got a lot of casual play games during this time like Pokémon Pinball, Mario Party Advance and DS, and Mario Kart Advance and DS. I didn’t spend a lot of time on those games, but they did take up a few enjoyable play sessions.

Chicky. (Credit: Nintendo, GameFreak)

Tragedy Strikes: Near the end of the year I had a heartbreak… my 3DS started acting glitchy. See, in the wasteland that was 2020, I bought a new expanded memory card for it so that I could download and play Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I’d gotten pretty far in the game over the past three years, but sadly, this year my 3DS started acting weird. Games kept crashing. New Leaf crashed a couple of times, and Pokémon Shuffle almost every time I played it. I should have seen the signs. The last time New Leaf crashed was the last… my memory card was corrupted beyond repair. I spent an afternoon trying various things but the system and my laptop couldn’t even see it as being a valid memory card. I had to reformat it, losing everything. I copied over the data I’d saved from 2020 so I would at least have most of my Pokémon Shuffle progress, but I lost everything after the new memory card, which means that that version of Buntown is gone forever. Oh well, I’ll always have my memories. (At least most of the games I have played on there were on cartridges, which hold their own save files.) When I get a new memory card I plan to get an even bigger one and back it up regularly. But I don’t think I’ll play New Leaf again. I couldn’t bear to start from scratch with a new Buntown.

That says “tanooki”. I’m proud of myself for my progress in Japanese. (Credit: Nintendo)

Other Games: Well, that tragedy aside, I played lots of other games over the course of the year. I continue to plod along in my Criminal Case games on iOS. I got back into Dark Road, but have yet to finish it. (I’m taking notes as I go, so it’s slow going.) I got way into Marvel Snap and then got too busy to play it. I continue to play Mario Picross here and there, usually when I have some time to kill at the end of my lunch break from work. I also downloaded Kirby Dream Buffet and have played that a few times. I managed to beat several of the Data Battles in Kingdom Hearts re:Mind and am now struggling to hold my own against the secret boss. (Once I get through him I am all set to write my final Kingdom Hearts Untangling post.) Finally, in the past couple of weeks I’ve started Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time. That’s a fun but brutal game.

Koraidon is a good friend. (Credit: Nintendo, GameFreak)

Pokémon Binge: As I discussed in my four part Pokémon series of posts, I played way more Pokémon this year than I intended to. No regrets. When I went through my sinus surgery it seemed the perfect time to dive into Sword and borrow Shield from my brother. Doing this made it possible to get through both games and much of the endgame and DLC content in time to get to Pokémon Scarlet on release day. I’m still playing Scarlet, and have gotten through all three main paths in the game and am embarking on the last of the story. I’ve caught around 300 of the 400 available Pokémon. With the holidays and trying to complete all my posts in time for year-end, I haven’t had much time to play the last few weeks, but I still play here and there when I can spare the time.

Is pink sheep. (Credit: Nintendo, GameFreak)

So far I’ve found two shinies in Scarlet: Mareep and Marill. I’m playing through with Mareep (evolved now to an Ampharos) and when I get Violet I plan to move Marill over to that one to be on my team. I’ll probably get a copy of Violet fairly soon. I’m itching to go through the game again already and complete my Pokédex.

Good Doggy. (Credit: Nintendo, GameFreak)

Indulging in so much Pokémon this year was great, and it really helped me get through my recovery. Pokémon Sword and Shield will always be a happy memory for me because of that. And I’ve been having so much fun with Pokémon Scarlet. I’ll go into more detail about that when I do my follow up posts for Scarlet, Violet, and whatever DLC they come out with. I’ve loved every Pokémon game for different reasons, but the last two Generations have been the best of them all, in my opinion.

The Sexy Beam in action. (Credit: Konami, Team Silent)

Silent Hill Update: As promised in my annual Silent Hill post, here is my update for my continuing play on Silent Hill 3. After finishing my post, I was still enjoying Silent Hill 3 and decided to try for all the trophies. I went through it 2 1/2 more times to get the rest of the endings and get the Platinum trophy. In the process I unlocked the Heather Beam and the Sexy Beam. As I mentioned in the post, I wore the Princess Heart costume for the remainder of my time in the game because it was just so ridiculous and out of place.

My new head canon is that Heather is a closet anime fan and made the costume herself (with Harry’s help of course) to wear at an out-of-state con that she didn’t tell any of her friends she was going to. I can think of no other explanation for that costume… and I don’t want to.

Go Harry! (Credit: Konami, Team Silent)

The Possessed and UFO endings (UFO shown above) were cool, but it was still a little disappointing that those were the only three endings we got this time around. The UFO ending was worth the difficulty, though. I wish they’d kept making UFO endings.

Admiral was a good addition to our town. (Credit: Nintendo)

Buntown Corner: Things have continued to go well in Buntown and I still play Animal Crossing: New Horizons daily without exception. (Even the day of my surgery!) This was a big year in Buntown… I managed to complete my fish and bugs list and so did Cocoa. She also completed her diving creatures. Now we’re just three paintings away from the museum being fully stocked in all categories! I’m casually going through my Nook Miles stamp cards, trying to finish everything off in the game. We got a stack of Amiibos from my brothers last Christmas, and when we accidentally let Beardo move away, we started cycling through the cards, adding to my growing villager poster collection. (I recruited Admital because we don’t have all the Cranky Villager recipes yet. I still need the senmaizuke barrel.) I’ve completed making all the hybrid flowers and have a fully stocked flower garden. (That took a serious amount of time.) I have crafted everything that is available to me so far.

PARTY! (Credit: Nintendo)

One of the biggest things I did this year— aside from completing the bugs and fish— was to play through the Happy Home Paradise DLC. It was a lot of fun, making little environments for our own villagers and random other ones. I have practically every rabbit in the game and a whole island stocked with penguins. (Isn’t that the dream, though?) The best part for me was creating the facilities— making my own diner, café, schoolroom, shop, and hospital. It added several more hours of playtime to Animal Crossing and gave me a bunch of new things to craft. Definitely worth the investment.

ZAP! (Credit: Nickelodeon, Tribute Games)

And now it’s time to look at the progress I made on this year’s game list!

Game List 2022

1. Bugsnax (PS5)

2. Peggle Nights (PC)

3. Kingdom Hearts III re:Mind (PS5)

4. Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 (PS2)

5. Dragon Ball FighterZ (PS4)

6. Assassin's Creed 2 (PS5)

7. Dragon Quest V (iOS)

8. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (PS3)

9. Rogue Legacy 2 (PC)

10. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii U)

11. Luigi's Mansion (3DS)

12. Pokemon Omega Ruby (3DS)

13. Pokemon Sun (3DS)

14. Pokemon Ultra Moon (3DS)

15. Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal: World Duel Carnival (3DS)

16. Steven Universe: Save the Light (Switch)

17. South Park Let's Go Tower Defense (XBox 360)

18. South Park Scott Tenorman Must Die (XBox 360)

19. Sonic and Knuckles (XBox 360)

20. Just Dance 2022 (Switch)

21. Final Fantasy VIII (PS3)

22. Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (PS5)

23. Criminal Case: Mysteries of the Past (iOS)

24. Criminal Case: The Conspiracy (iOS)

25. Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road (iOS)

Yeah, so much worse than last year. This time I only got through 6 out of 25, which is half of what I did last time. Where did I go wrong? Again I overestimated the amount of time I’d have for gaming and just plain lost focus. In addition to those 6 that were on my list, I also finished Earthbound, Pokémon Sword, Pokémon Shield, and Murderhouse. Lots of distraction this year, but I did get more organized, made my master list, and caught up on Pokémon!

That’s right… I finally got around to something I’ve been meaning to do for years. I wrote up a Master List of all the games that I own and have yet to finish. I have a grand total of 14 pages of games, with more being added periodically. It took me a few days to get it typed up, but it feels nice to have a list that I can add to and cross things off of. This way I won’t rebuy games I forgot I have (not that I would ever do that!), and I can review the list to think of where to focus my attentions on next.

Me, fail? (Credit: Traveller’s Tales, Disney)

So, a big fail two years in a row on the ol’ annual game list. But I’m not letting it get me down. Getting caught up on Pokémon and getting organized helps. For the next year I’m going to carry over much of this year’s list, add a couple of other items, and leave it sparse to allow for my inevitable distraction. I’m thinking my 2023 list will have a much more manageable number like 20 or so.

I’ve already determined that 2023 will be a year of reduction and focus. Not just in video games, but in my workload, my recreation time, and everywhere in my life. Having too much on my mind and on my to-do list makes it hard to fully relax and concentrate. So this year I will work on crossing things off all my lists and not adding more to them until I feel things are a bit more manageable. So my main area of focus on video games in the coming year is to finally finish the games that have been nagging at me for years: Dragon Quest V, Final Fantasy VIII, Dark Road, Kingdom Hearts III re:Mind, Sonic & Knuckles… games like that.

Strike a triumphant pose! (Credit: Nintendo)

All in all it’s been a fun year, catching up on Pokémon, crossing a few games off my list, and trying really hard to not add new unfinished games to my backlog. I am determined to continue to get organized and practice more focus in the coming year. But most of all I plan to continue having fun playing video games and sharing that fun with you all!

Thank you for reading this year’s Video Game Year in Review! These are always fun posts to write. I hope you’ve been enjoying all my video game content. (And maybe some of the non-video game stuff?) I managed to keep a little more regular with my video game updates this year and hopefully will continue with that in 2023. See you there!

You have no idea how long this took me. (Credit: Nintendo)