Ever since I saw Nintendo's Year in review, it's been on my mind. Both because it got me thinking about games I played this year, but also last years as well. It's nice to be reminded of what I played earlier this year, at least on the Switch.
For this year, the list started with Savior of Sapphire Wings/Stranger of Sword City . In truth I had started that game at the end of last year and it rolled over into this one. I'm a fan of First Person Dungeon Crawlers and Experience are the people to look at for modern releases in that genre. I had fun with this, though Sapphire Wings is nowhere near as enjoyable as Sword City. Sword City has an amazing aesthetic that brought to mind Wizardry Tale of the Forsaken Land, and the writing has a good level of intrigue though you're butting heads with a poor localization to parse it.
After that is Triangle Strategy which I played on launch, it was an amazing strategy RPG that very clearly was inspired by games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. I had a great time with it, though to my detriment I managed to get the Golden Ending on my first playthrough and that kind of killed my drive to do more playthroughs, which the game is designed to facilitate. Really glad it got released on the PC so more people can play it.
My next game on the Switch was 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, it had been on my radar since forever but I didn't have the means to play it. The Switch release finally gave me the opportunity and it did not disappoint. It is a fantastic experience, and the gameplay for the battles in it is really fun (Also makes me wish there was some kind of translation patch for Gunparade March as that was the inspiration for the battle system(Also really looking forward to Loop8)) If you have the means to play it, and are interested in Visual Novels and Sci-Fi in general and you haven't played 13 Sentinels yet, you owe it to yourself to play this. And fingers crossed this gets released on more platforms, MORE people need to experience this game.
I guess at this point I should mention Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak? I played it, enjoyed it. It was more Monster Hunter Rise. I never actually finished it either, I got kind of bored playing through it solo and kind of stopped playing after hunting Malzeno. One of the things I always need to be careful of with Monster Hunter is pacing myself out and skipping a release or two just so I don't wind up burnt out on the series, and I may have been playing MHGU too close to the release of Rise.
To finish off this year I played Xenoblade Chronicles 3, which was fantastic. It's truly the most Xeno game to exist. If you know you know. It's the perfect example of a game that is perfectly playable stand-alone, but the experience is enriched all the more with playing other games in the series AND the previous games that share the Xeno prefix. If you've played Xenogears and loved it but were put off by Xenoblade, you should either just jump into XBC3 or at the very least check out a playthrough of the game via your preferred method. It is absolutely worth it.
Before I finish this up I want to shout out two of the games I remember really enjoying on the Switch in 2021, Kowloon High School Chronicles and Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi.
Kowloon is a weird, out of nowhere localization of a port of a PS2 game. It's a weird, janky first person dungeon-crawler/Visual Novel. I loved playing it, though it had some yikes writing that really hurts my desire to recommend this. Though if you're curious about it, it is a fun time with a pulp-action Indiana Jones style setup of you being a Treasure Hunter that's sent to a high school in Japan to try and solve the mystery and conspiracy around ruins that are underneath the school.
Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi however is a fun first person dungeon-crawler that I don't have any hesitation to recommend, the only thing I have to add as a warning is the game leans into a gory horror aesthetic at times, and while it's not a horror game itself it does merit the heads up. But it is a fun dungeon crawler, if that content warning doesn't bother you it's worth checking out. It's the best Experience Dungeon Crawler I've played to date. The systems are pretty easy to grasp, you can easily respec most aspect of a character so if you change your mind on how you want to develop someone, you don't have to start from scratch. It's just a good time all around.
Now to get back to talking about 2022, in end if you were to ask me for my favorite games I played on the Switch. I'd choose both 13 Sentinels and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I can't just choose one I'm too weak to do that.