Hello Button Buddies (I’m sorry, but this name seems to be sticking),
Welcome to our first ever triannual game of the year issue! This week is all about looking back at the year of games that was, not the month of games to be that looks like a barren wasteland. Rather than saving up all our game of the year picks for December, when we will have been freshly bombarded with the year’s biggest AAA titles, we thought it might be best to celebrate the best games of the year so far now, when you’ll actually have time to play them.
So, without any further ado, here are Press Any Button’s picks for the best games of the first bit of 2022.
Alice’s games of the year (so far)
By Alice
Horizon Forbidden West
How do I love Horizon Forbidden West? Let me count the ways. It’s really hard to pick a favourite thing, but let’s start with the setting: it’s incredible. I want to know more about this world of humans after the idiots involved in the billionaire space race destroy everything. The robotic beasts, the insular human societies, and the hubris of some dickhead oligarch echoing long after he and his name have died are delicious. Aloy is a compelling hero, the acting throughout the game is brilliant (for the most part), and even though the story has some clear pacing issues, it’s compelling enough that those problems can be overlooked.
Anyway, it’s good and you should check it out when you next spot it on sale.
Switch Sports
Wii Sports is the fourth highest selling video game of all time. There are nearly 83 million copies of it in the world and it is almost universally beloved. After Wii Sports Resort sucked so badly and missed the point of the original, I thought it might have been a one and done, but Switch Sports is here to keep us moving and I love it. It’s not as good as Wii Sports, but it’s not as bad as Sports Resort.
I’m obsessed with Tennis and Special Bowling, and the Strikers mode in Soccer adds an interesting new dimension. It’s a great new party game and I look forward to people discovering all the little shortcuts to get around how it’s supposed to be played.
Azul: Queen’s Garden
One of the great things about making our own rules for this newsletter is that not all my GOTY need to be videogames, and Azul: Queen’s Garden really deserves a shoutout here. Azul has such a simple mechanic (tile collection and arranging) that one would imagine it difficult to spread over four different games and have them feel different enough. But, the coaster mechanic combined with the pattern matching in Queen’s Garden was refreshingly familiar and the best new release board game I’ve played this year so far.
Bloons TD6+
Look, I will admit that I’m a little embarrassed to put this game on my GOTY list, but I’ve played it at least half an hour most night for a few months now, and so I feel duty bound to include it. There are two main things about this game that draw me in:
1. It’s adorable. Those little monkeys just love popping balloons with darts, and who am I to stop them?
2. It’s a genuinely good tower defence game. I love tower defence games, but too many of them take themselves too seriously. I don’t want to defend the empire against some racially coded foe, I just want the good numbers to go up while the bad numbers go down, and maybe there are some explosions.
Bloons TD6+ is exactly what I need it to be and I like it.
Tim’s games of the year (so far)
By Tim
Triangle Strategy
A fresh take on Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics, Triangle Strategy is a miraculous arrival for gamers with a very specific kind of brain. I grew more and more in love with it with every chapter and with every new element introduced, while at the same time it became more and more clear how hard this game was going to be to recommend to other people. It's a turn-based strategy game where you’re only taking turns half the time; the other half is a dense and dramatic narrative, with a library of optional content, an awesome branching path system that depends on the votes of your council, and a near constant string of betrayals and setbacks. It’s like a playable anime Game of Thrones. As for the strategy? It's astoundingly good. A rich tapestry of intricate terrain and diverse but easily synergised character abilities, streamlined and made much easier to read than the tactics games that inspired it.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Kirby is very rarely bad, but it also doesn’t often break the mould to offer something incredible to those outside its regular fans and audience. With Forgotten Land, the series has one foot firmly in the past and celebrating its 30-year-history, and one foot in the future with a reinvention close to the scale of Mario Odyssey or Breath of the Wild. Moving, finally, to 3D breathes so much life into familiar Kirby fare and enables his floaty ways and empowering copy abilities to really speak to a modern audience. Plus as usual the creatures, locales and objectives all have that incredible adorable skin over dark and disturbing implications.
Rogue Legacy 2
Released in 2013, Rogue Legacy was part of the first wave of popular roguelites that carved a path for the likes of Dead Cells and Hades to follow. This sequel is more of reimagining, but it’s a stunning achievement nonetheless. You explore a massive and constantly re-arranging castle collecting loot and gaining experience and, when you die, you choose a successor (each of whom have quirky genetic issues that affect play) and go again. From the beautiful hand drawn sprites and atmospheric locations that replace the dinky old pixel art, to the sweet music and huge assortment of classes, weapons, spells and traits, the game gives old fans more of what they love while taking it easier on a brand new audience.
Tunic
A lot of modern games look like late 80s or early 90s adventures, or even play like them, but few capture the spirit. Even playing the original Legend of Zelda today doesn’t convey the feeling, thanks to its total documentation and the passing of time. But Tunic is a true work of mystery and surprise, offering its secret-laiden world openly from the start with no real instruction, trusting that players will work out and discover the wonderful details within. From the moment I realised the disparately scattered pages of NES-style illustrated manual were actually teaching me about the game and teasing out secrets that were hiding in plain sight, I was hooked.
I love the new Kirby, pretty interested in Tunic too, I thought deaths door was fantastic and Tunic gives me similar vibes. I want to go back to deaths door eventually do all that great post game content, just too many games...