Hey, did you know that we’re approaching the 10-year anniversary of Scanline Media? It’s true! Back in March of 2013, Six and I decided we wanted a platform that gave both of us total creative control. We wouldn’t have to pitch articles or write for anyone but ourselves: we’d look over each other’s work and guide it if it needed a push, but beyond that, we’d be free to pursue whatever we want.
A lot has changed over that decade. Kyrie joined up as a fully-fledged member of our crew (and is one of the reasons why the site is in much better shape these days). And instead of squarely focusing on articles, we’ve built up a podcasting network: in an average week, we’re publishing 4-7 episodes from various shows, on the site itself and via Patreon. And Patreon itself has given us a modicum of stability, too! The funds help pay for hosting, equipment, new games to cover, and so much more. It’s given us even more flexibility than what we started with, and we’re deeply thankful for everyone who’s helped make this possible!
Aside from celebrating a decade of work, I also want to return where we started: the writing. The past few years have made it more difficult to sit down and write something out, but writing was the spark that made Scanline Media happen in the first place! Now feels like the right time to crack my knuckles, open a Word document, and rekindle that spark.
With all that said, here’s a list of my favorite games from 2022:
HONORARY SHOUTOUT: SIGNALIS
This is an incredible game, and if I had made the time to finish it before the year was through, it would’ve easily clinched a spot in my top ten. At times, it goes too far out of its way to pay tribute to The Classics of survival horror (why throw in a water tank puzzle, then write its solution on a sheet of paper five feet away?), but it is goddamn stunning to look at, the soundtrack is top-tier, and it did far more to put me on edge than some of its AAA contemporaries from that year. I’m looking forward to finishing it in 2023!
10. THE CENTENNIAL CASE: A SHIJIMA STORY
Right, let’s get this out of the way first: four out of my ten favorite games this year were released by one publisher, and that’s never happened to me before. When they weren’t selling Crystal Dynamics and Tomb Raider for NFT pocket change, Square-Enix had a bizarrely prolific year! There were strategy and action RPGs galore, but by far the oddest game they released was a full-length, FMV detective story. That description alone pushes several of my buttons, so it was inevitable that I’d check it out for myself – I still count myself lucky that The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story turned out as well as it did.
You follow Haruka Kagami, a mystery novelist invited to her friend Yoshino Shijima’s ancestral estate after a skeleton is discovered on the premises. From there, she delves into the supposedly-fictional mystery stories kept at the mansion, and soon finds herself wrapped in family secrets kept for over 100 years (thus, the “Centennial Case”).
Forget qualifiers like “good for an FMV game”, because everyone in the cast gives strong, genuinely great performances, even as they’re bouncing between their dual period drama and present day roles. It’s also surprisingly lengthy, which explains its massive download size on Switch and PS5 – though there’s only four cases, I found myself devoting more than an entire evening to each one of them! If it weren’t for the bizarre, ill-fitting twist at the very end, or the fact that an even better mystery game arrived near the end of the year, it’d be higher on this list. But I’d still heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys sitting down to solve a whodunit for themselves.
9. GRAN TURISMO 7
Believe me when I tell you that when I penciled in Gran Turismo 7 on my Game of the Year list, I did so with a grimace. I spent too much money on the game, first under the false impression that only the “premium” version would allow me to carry my progress from the PS4 to the PS5 without so much as a hitch. Then, after Texas passed a series of horrifying anti-trans laws, I was thrust into such a deep pit of despair that my thumbs found their way to a scalper’s PS5 auction on eBay: I dropped a foolish amount of cash on the infamously hard-to-find console as a coping mechanism, and Kyrie sensibly had me uninstall the app from my phone. I don’t feel guilty about that decision anymore (as a good friend told me, if I let the guilt stick, then I wouldn’t be able to look at the damn thing sitting next to my TV), but when you end up buying a console for one game, its faults truly stick out to you.
You can’t play Gran Turismo 7 offline, leaving its future accessibility up in the air. The fancier cars cost a fortune, which you can only amass through grinding or converting your real-world cash into in-game credits. And while sim racing appeals to me, the strict atmosphere around GT7’s online multiplayer turns me into a nervous wreck whenever I try challenging real humans.
But when I’m being truly, painfully honest with myself? Buying a console for this one game might have been worth it. I’m still logging in for my Daily Workout races at least a few times each week. According to GT7’s trophies, I’ve driven more in-game miles than the very first Transatlantic flight took. There’s a good reason for that: whether I’m driving an ancient Fiat that can barely make it over an incline, or sitting in the all-glass canopy of a beastly concept car, it feels incredible. The DualSense’s finely-tuned rumble motors help me feel the road in my hands. I even find myself squinting at the in-game sun when it’s particularly bright out!
More importantly, Gran Turismo 7 prompted me to think about racing on a deeper level. I found myself turning off assists just to eke out more speed around a hairpin turn, carefully weighing the differences between medium and hard tires, and pushing my luck with pit stops till I was running on fumes. I even felt compelled to hop in the tuning menu (a terrifying beast that’s scared me away in practically every other racing game) and tweak cars until they were at their limit!
Gran Turismo’s always billed itself as “The Real Driving Simulator,” and 7 feels like it’s reached closer to that lofty aspiration than ever before. Whether I’m playing a practical joke by driving a Willy’s Jeep or hopping in a glass-canopy Ferrari, I’ve never felt an appreciation for cars quite like this! It’s just a shame that the always-online servers and stingy approach to car collection makes me want to gnash my teeth.
8. OLLIOLLI WORLD
OlliOlli and I have a history together! Back when I was still in college, and the Vita still had some fight left in it, I needed something to play other than Danganronpa: lengthy visual novels are all well and good, but when you’re sitting around, killing time on campus, you want something more immediate, something you can pop on and off in short intervals without much commitment.
As it turned out, OlliOlli is far more than a simple, score-chasing time waster. Sure, you can finish the average level in less than three minutes, and the game’s flick-based analog controls are dead-easy to pick up. But when it well and truly gets its hooks into you, your time won’t be spent dashing through levels at a breakneck speed: you’re there to complete every objective, then perfect your line. You’re in search of the perfect flow, the sheer thrill that comes from stitching together one, unbroken combo from start to finish, nailing the timing so every grind, flip and landing is *perfect*.
OlliOlli World doesn’t reinvent the skateboard wheel. It takes what OlliOlli 1 and 2 did well, gives it a slightly easier learning curve, then gives it a brand-new, delectably vibrant look, whisking you away to the fictional land of Radlandia. It amplifies the joy of finding your perfect line in whatever shape it may take, but it doesn’t pressure you to get there: it gives you a small push, knowing that if it clicks for you, you’ll be spending far too much time chasing its aptly named “Gnarvana.” And eight years later, this new coat of paint does enough to rekindle that chase in my heart.
7. TRIANGLE STRATEGY
Every few years, a brand-new strategy RPG comes along and reminds me that I’ve overlooked the genre for far too long. I’m not what anyone would call a tactics expert – I often don’t think ahead before attacking, and the enemy army is all too happy to flank me, turning my units into Swiss cheese. But there are the moments where I skirt certain defeat, grasping victory with tired, bloody hands: these moments turn all my failures into footnotes. These moments keep me coming back, again and again, until I’ve seen my campaign through to the end.
I downloaded Triangle Strategy’s prologue demo early in 2022, assuming I would play the free opening and quickly move onto something else. How easily I forgot the power that Fire Emblem: Three Houses held over me! The plot’s attempts at nuance are laughable, and the titular, three-sided scales that decide your path forward are often wasted on simplistic moral decisions. But that defeat/victory cycle still sunk its hooks into me: even when I wasn’t in combat, I found myself spending hours on my army’s upkeep, training them repeatedly and staring at upgrade trees till my eyes hurt. And when I was on the battlefield? I put most of my chips on Hughette, an archer who relies on a massive raven to rain death from above. Plot be damned – few things are more exhilarating than watching a single unit wipe out scores of enemies.
6. THE CALIGULA EFFECT 2
Consider this an apology for not giving Caligula Effect 2 its due in 2021! Despite the constrained budget, this JRPG takes the basic premise from most Persona games (gotta help these high school students fight God for the sake of society!), offers up its own spin on the combat, then one-ups its competition where it truly matters: the cast. Everyone in your party is lovable in their own way, from the comically doting, smartphone-illiterate Sasara to Gin, a sneaker fiend who adds a tower of shoeboxes to your base of operations. The more you dig into what their life is like in the real world, the more imperative it becomes to help them escape from this virtual reality. Crucially, it even treats its queer characters with enthusiasm and affection!
The soundtrack is filled with bops: each dungeon and boss get their own unique song, crafted by real vocaloid artists. Putting together combos that juggle the enemy around is a delight. And with a completion time clocking under 40 hours, it’s the rare JRPG that didn’t take me a considerable amount of time to finish!
I love this game so much, y’all. If you, like me, are a former Persona fan who got burned by its love of authority and hatred of queer people, you need to play this, whether you’re on PS4, PC or Switch. It might be just the thing you’ve been waiting for all this time.
5. STRANGER OF PARADISE: FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN
This game is nothing short of a miracle. From the moment it was first unveiled, I was primed to expect the worst from Stranger of Paradise: the dialogue was stilted, it looked ugly as hell, and Team Ninja’s Nioh seemed like a terrible fit for Final Fantasy! The demo only added to the confusion – why are conversations in the town relegated to a submenu? Why do the cutscenes feel like they’re edited around the seams of massive, cut content? What the hell is going on here?!
Thankfully, sitting down with the full game brought everything into focus. Jack went from the butt of online jokes to an unironic joy: he is far more nuanced than the initial trailers had me believe, and the story that unfolds is up there with the best Final Fantasy has to offer. And the combat! Words cannot accurately capture how delightful it feels to put on your Pugilist gear, then beat the hell out of a Cactuar until it turns into a fragile bundle of crystals. The post-game might be a slog for incrementally better gear, but everything else is a treat, from the Greatest Hits tour of other Final Fantasies to your BFF, the dark elf prince.
By the end, I was ready to raise my fist for a celebratory bump with Jack and his friends. They may not be what you’d expect from “Warriors of Light,” but that makes them all the more delightful. From what I hear, the story DLC
4. WITCH ON THE HOLY NIGHT
This is, far and away, the most expensively built visual novel I’ve ever read. Clocking in at over 20GB on the Switch, it is filled to the brim with expressive sprites, incredible background art, and incidental movement that the story feels alive. The best part? Aside from a few memorable fights, most of this production value is used to portray three bonehead high school students going about their lives. And it is amazing.
After reading Tsukihime, this was the last thing I expected from Nasu, but Witch on the Holy Night made my heart sing. Such love and care is put into every conversation: simply watching Aoko and Alice fight over ordering takeout is a treat unto itself. It’s a dense work that puts witches, magic and immortal beings side-by-side with the importance of a good cup of tea, or the sigh of a headstrong student who’s decided to take everyone else’s problems and make them her own. And above all else, this is a work that cares deeply about everyone involved, from the heroes and villains to an incidental fool of a classmate.
Aside from a few too many typos, the only unfortunate thing about Witch on the Holy Night is that it’s the first entry in a long-overdue trilogy. Thankfully, even if it takes another decade for its sequel, we doubt that we’ll ever stop thinking about Aoko, Alice, and Soujyuro.
3. LIVE A LIVE
If Stranger of Paradise is a love letter to Final Fantasy, then Live A Live is a love letter to storytelling itself. Spanning seven time periods, each with their own unique characters, premise and mechanics, this is a game that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve. Its story beats are all too familiar, yet it embraces each one wholeheartedly, celebrating the quiet gunslinger, the wise martial arts master, the determined World Warrior on their own terms. On their own, each chapter acts as its own delightful game. Taken together, it becomes a moving tapestry of the stories that stick with us.
Now, that all applied to the original, 1994 SNES JRPG: what makes 2022’s Live A Live remake so special? While the new graphical treatment, rearranged soundtrack and extended ending are nice, it’s the addition of a voice cast that truly makes it shine. Play it with the Japanese language track, and you’ll hear the likes of Akio Otsuka as the quiet gunslinger, Norio Wakamoto as a fake Oda Nobunaga, and Tomokazu Sugita as…well, he’s a recurring guest in nearly every chapter, showing up in the funniest of places.
With so many voice acting titans under one roof, Live A Live’s ode to genre fiction also extends to the performers that make it happen. Hearing Hironobu Kageyama sing through the anime-like opening to the Near Future arc means something, even if you’ve only ever heard Dragonball Z’s intro music by chance. And that additional layer of love takes this classic game and makes it even more unforgettable.
2. IMMORTALITY
Sam Barlow and Half Mermaid’s third take on nonlinear, archival sleuthing is easily their best yet. Instead of scrubbing through a police database or candid recordings, you’re poring over the unedited footage from three movies that never saw the light of day, clicking items in the shot to jump from clip to clip. It’s a novel approach that rarely led me to any repeat moments, and kept me glued to the screen as I was unravelling what occurred in front of (and more importantly, behind) the camera.
Now, I don’t want to talk about the Big Thing that makes this story work: that’s the tricky thing about a narrative game where a single, hidden element makes the whole thing tick! Instead, I’ll just mention that the fake movies they’ve constructed here are an absolute delight. They’re all shlock in their own, special way – Ambrosio involves temptation at an abbey through a number of sex scenes, Minsky is all about a rookie detective swayed to the “dark” side of the art world, and Two of Everything is a baffling mix of The Parent Trap with classic 90s suspense.
This trio of crappy movies are phenomenally executed: they’re bad in believable, compelling ways, and as a friend once put it, “I’d watch the shit out of Minsky.” Out of every complex thing that could’ve gone wrong in Immortality, making the movies convincing, lovable garbage had to be the hardest, and they hit it out of the fucking park.
1. PENTIMENT
After The Outer Worlds, an initially-charming Fallout in space, got under my skin, Pentiment was the last thing I expected from Obsidian in 2022. A 2D, limited-scope detective game inspired by literary classics like The Name of the Rose, where questions such as “What do you think of Martin Luther” serve as your branching choices? They might as well have printed FOR JENNIFER UNKLE on the front of the box! Most games are afraid to approach religion with a ten-foot pole, let alone discuss it in an insightful manner: I was on-board the moment it was announced, and was pleasantly surprised when it exceeded every one of my expectations.
While Pentiment is ostensibly a 16th century murder mystery, said mystery is only the thing that gets you in the door. The spotlight belongs to the Bavarian town of Tassing, its next-door abbey, and the peasants, Brothers and Sisters that inhabit both. Over 25 years, you’ll watch changes both small and seismic ripple through the setting – some changes are clearly wrought by your own hand as Andreas, a visiting artist who ends up playing an active role in the community whenever he’s around, while others happen naturally as the world moves on in your absence. But each one makes an impression, like seeing one child grow into a teen, or seeing another disappear altogether, a victim of the age they were born in.
These ripples make investigations into tense affairs. Andreas is an artist, not a figure of authority – you only have so many days to find answers before the church or the peasants take matters into their own hands, and the forces around you always leave you with less time than you’re counting on. Every lead seems worth investigating, but you can only look into so many of them before time’s up. And when you finally have clues, what do you do with them? Who will you condemn with your accusations? And if they’re gone, what happens to the people involved with them?
Pentiment is a game with many questions and few answers. It’s also stunning to look at, with an art style that resembles medieval manuscripts come to life, and conversation bubbles written by an invisible hand. But it’s the community of Tassing that takes center stage. And given the little I glimpsed of their lives, it’s the community of Tassing that makes this game unforgettable.
Again, I just want to thank everyone who made ten years of Scanline Media a reality. This network of ours has taken on a different shape than I ever could’ve imagined when we started, and even though it hasn’t always been the smoothest ride, the friends and connections I’ve made along the way have made every moment of it worthwhile. Let’s make this decade even more action-packed than the last!
