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!
Game of the Year is always contentious. And to be honest, I think we came dangerously close to making the wrong call this year. Not in our winner- I don’t think that was gonna change, the wind was blowing that way from the start. But our list of runners-up was almost a mistake. It’s easy to get caught up in our own passions, but this award, and all awards, are about us as a site, as a group… as friends. And this is a list that represents what we all think.
The Winner
Live A Live
Can you believe they hid this from us? A JRPG gem by the makers of Chrono Trigger, using the genre to tell stories from eight different genres, with different mechanics to fit each, and then bringing them all together for a big finale… and they buried it for almost thirty years. It’s almost unforgivable. Almost. If I were to forgive them, it would require a no-holds-barred remake that justifies the HD-2D art style they keep trying, brings in voice acting superstars from every part of the anime world to be these characters, and then gives the ending just that little bit more to make it feel more complete.
Funny, that.
Games can be ANYTHING, gang. A JRPG can tell a quick Western story, or do stealth action, or show a wuxia story. A part of you wants to say “they don’t make games like this any more,” but, they did! It’s a remake, of course, but they made this game now! And there’s nothing stopping them from doing more like this. In any moment, at any time, games could change. Games could be better. And even if the industry as a whole doesn’t shift, in little places, you’ll get exceptions like Live A Live. That’s worth continuing to love and cover the medium for.
The Runners-Up
Pokémon Legends: Arceus
POKEMON HAS A FUTURE AGAIN. No, I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic. I think Legends: Arceus saved the soul of this franchise. Why do you play Pokémon? Partially we play it to see cool monster designs, and though there have been hits and misses over the years, that part has never really faltered. But do you enjoy the act of catching them? Do those creatures exist in a context, can you see them as living beings instead of your fight-dolls?
The time Legends took to re-examine the fundamentals of Pokémon was truly invaluable. Scarlet and Violet took some notes from the Legends dev team, but they didn’t have time to do it all. Because of this, we have a spinoff that’s better than the main entry that released after it! More than I want to go back to Scarlet and Violet, I want to fill out my Dex more in Legends. I want to catch an Alpha Ninetails. I want to simply enjoy being in a Pokémon game again. That’s what Legends achieved.
Witch on the Holy Knight
I really can’t get over the one-two of playing this in the same year we played Tsukihime. That game? Sucks. It’s bad and gross and I wish I hadn’t played it. Witch on the Holy Night, its prequel by the same writer? Innnnncredible. The writing is some of the best of any visual novel I’ve played, and the art… oh, wow. Actually, let’s give this its own paragraph.
Witch on the Holy Night is such a spectacle of art and presentation it defies description. It reflects and honors the tradition of visual novels by making things harder on itself- it doesn’t just resort to traditional animation, it takes the time to emulate the pantomime that the genre has relied on for decades, and turn it into a gorgeous display of talent and love. Even if it weren’t well written, and it super is, anyone who cares about visual novels should play Witch on the Holy Night to see what a high-budget game embracing all the quirks and oddities of the genre can be. Stunning. The only word for it.
That is it for the Gimmick Awards 2022. There’s no more. I hope you enjoyed the pods, the write-ups, and all the wonderful folks who agreed to do lists for us. We’ve talked so much, written so much, that there’s nothing more to say, except… peace out.
Our art for the Gimmick Awards 2022 is a commission from @inkopolis on Twitter.
