If you have not already listened to the podcast of this category, this is the final results, so this will spoil the course of the discussion on that podcast! Be warned!
As a year, I wasn’t as disappointed by 2022. This far into the pandemic, it’d take a lot to duck my low expectations. Still, there are plenty of individual events and releases throughout the year that let Jen, Kyrie and I down. Let’s talk about the worst offenders.
The Winner
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic
Unforced errors. To me, those are the biggest disappointments- not when you can’t reach your own ambitions, but when you intentionally turn around and drive away from the correct thing to do. That’s what makes WotLK Classic so disappointing- in my opinion the most important feature of the expansion was deliberately removed to make it feel more “classic.” When I was in college skipping class to do Heroics, the Dungeon Finder was a godsend for saving time and sanity. Now that I have a job and am editor-in-chief for a Patreon and podcast network? Dawg I don’t have TIME for this shit!
I can’t say that WotLK Classic was gonna be my game of the year. I did, in fact, already play this game… a lot. But going back to my favorite restaurant in my old hometown and finding out not that the menu has changed, but there are parts of it they simply won’t let you order from for no reason is the most frustrated anything in the games space made me in 2022.
The Runners-Up
AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative
What I’ve learned is that I really need to make time for the first AI: The Somnium Files game. I certainly didn’t think nirvanA Initiative was very good, but to be honest, it was exactly what I would expect of a game by director Kotaro Uchikoshi following the arc of Virtue’s Last Reward then Zero Time Dilemma. But if Jen, Kim, and Olivia are to be believed on the episode of Novel Not New we did together, the first game in the series was actually a resurgence in the quality of his writing.
It’s a bad game, gang. And it’s not bad because the team at Spike Chunsoft failed to execute on the tasks they were assigned. It’s bad because Kotaro Uchikoshi gave them stupid damn orders. An active sabotage of the game’s continuity for a “twist?” Bizarrely undoing the plot of the first in a misguided attempt to make it more newcomer-friendly? It’s a lot of unforced errors, gang.
Danganronpa S
BOY. I didn’t like Danganronpa V3, this is well documented. I think the ending of that game and its attempts to comment on the franchise and its fandom are a cowardly dereliction of responsibility for what they’ve made. A true “you enjoy all the killing.” Even so, it makes a sincere attempt to address the series’ legacy popularizing the graphic murder of children. The sheer concept of Danganronpa S feels like an irresponsible approach to that legacy- turning it into a lighthearted board game celebration of these kids without engaging with the purpose the series created them for.
Turns out that was only the beginning of the despair. What if you made it an eternal Candy Land experience grind powered by gacha mechanics? Would you like an Ultra Rare Swimsuit Junko? God. Maybe video games were a mistake. The only reason this isn’t our winner is the feeling that we should have known how bad it was gonna get.
2023 is young, but the disappointment has already begun. If there’s one thing about this award, it’s that I’m never worried we’ll have enough nominees for a conversation. That’s enough Disappointment for now. Let’s try to get our minds off the negativity with Friday’s Best Movelist, shall we?
Our art for the Gimmick Awards 2022 is a commission from @inkopolis on Twitter.
