HomeFeatures
The RPS Selection Box: Katharine’s bonus games of the year 2022More personal picks that didn’t make the RPS Advent Calendar
More personal picks that didn’t make the RPS Advent Calendar
It’s awell-documentedfacthere at RPS that I love a good spreadsheet. Specifically, my spreadsheet that lists all the lovely games I manage to play each year. I’ve been looking at that spreadsheet a lot in recent weeks, and I’m pleased to report that most of my top game picks from this year have successfully made their way into theRPS Advent Calendar. There were plenty that didn’t, of course (pouring one out for you,Dorfromantik,Flat Eye,Dome KeeperandLost In Play), but such is the way of things when your current list of completed games for the year is teetering on the verge of 50.
No word of a lie, I would probably be here all day if I laid out my entire long list of honourable mentions for 2022 (additional shoutouts toRailbound,Cursed To Golf,God Of War,Weird West,Jack Move,Hard West 2andThe Kids We Were), but for the sake of all involved (and poor Alice Bee’s editing pencil), I’ve narrowed it down to a shortlist of three. (Do still go and check out those other games, though. They’re all absolutely rad).
Marvel’s Midnight Suns
Card based battles make Marvel’s Midnight Suns an essential tactical RPG | ReviewWatch on YouTube
Card based battles make Marvel’s Midnight Suns an essential tactical RPG | Review
HadMarvel’s Midnight Sunsreleased in Octoberas originally intended, I have no doubt this would have been an instant Advent Calendar contender. Several members of the RPS Treehouse have been talking non-stop about Firaxis' excellent superhero deckbuilder since Ireviewed itright at the end of November, and were I more flexible in my own Advent Calendar ruleset, I’d have probably bent them to sneak this in under the radar. In the end, though, I decided against it, and instead birthed the RPS Selection Box instead, so really, it’s a win-win for everyone. I get to shout about how brilliant Midnight Suns is, and you get almost a dozen more personal highlight lists to read over the holidays. You’re very welcome.
Triangle Strategy
I still haven’t been able to play a huge amount ofTriangle Strategysince it came out in the middle of October, but what I have managed to get through has gripped me much, much harder than many of its other Square Enix bedfellows. I still found plenty to like about bothTactics Ogre Rebornand The Diofield Chronicle (at least when the latter wasn’t beingweirdly anti-democratic), for example, but it’s old Triangle that’s ended up standing the test of time - or at least is the one I want to go back to most in a year of very large, time-consuming strategy games.
A big part of that, I’m not gonna lie, is just how well it plays on my Steam Deck. TacticsOgreReborn is a great Steam Deck game as well for what it’s worth, but it’s the way it lets me play it, and actually fit it into my life, that’s the real kicker here - because, let’s face it, Triangle Strategy is morecutscene than combata lot of the time, which I’d rather not be tied to my desk for. I’ll be the first to admit that I wish its turn-based strategy battles were more frequent than they actually are, but man alive, I find I can absorb its story of warring nations and political backstabbingSO. MUCH. BETTERwhen I can just let it run in the background while I’m making dinner or doing the washing up. I appreciate not everyone’s in the same boat here, but cor, it sure does make it a whole lot more digestible.
Foretales
Another card game with turn-based strategy elements? Surely not! Yep, 2022 has definitely been a year of strategy games for yours truly, and I wanted to give my final honorable mention shoutout to Alkemi’sForetales, a story-driven deckbuilder that’s probably the closest thing we’ll ever get to another Hand Of Fate-alike.
And what places you’ll go during your adventures with Volepain and his motley crew of anthropormorphic animal buds. With their world under threat from a series of prophesised disasters, you’ll need to decide who to help and where to concentrate your efforts as you pick through its branching storyline, and one minute you’ll be crawling through sewers tracking down a plague-ridden ne’er-do-well, and the next you’ll be on the high seas dodging pirate ships and seeking out a idden, mystical island that will only reveal itself when you’ve got exactly the right combination of cards on the table in the correct locations. And when battles do occur, brute force isn’t always the answer, resulting in some devious mind games you can play with your enemies to get them to flee of their own accord. It’s a brilliantly conceived little game (I say ‘little’, it’s actually surprisingly substantial), and I cannot recommend it enough.
