My Most Anticipated Games of 2022

Hello everyone. It's your favorite blogger/YouTuber Shawn The Wonder here again and I'm here to share with you all something I am deeply excited about. Video games are my number one hobby and passion and I am so excited to see what this year is going to bring. 2020 and 2021 had some hitters and and 2022 is looking to be a pretty good year too.

The vast landscape of the Hisui region

The first game I'm looking forward to, but with hesitation is Pokemon Legends Arceus. I was actually unsure if I really wanted to put it on here. Upon initial announcement I was ecstatic, but with the recent gameplay overview I am concerned, but still I wanted to talk about this title. So for Game Freak's next installment in the Pokemon franchise we have an open-world game with Pokemon Legends Arceus. This is set for release on January 28 of this year. Legends Arceus is set in decades past akin to 19th century Japan. You play as a trainer that is helping to build the very first Pokedex. The overworld is vast and when you attempt to catch Pokemon there's a chance a Pokemon can attack you without having drawn out a Pokemon yourself so you'll have to be thoughtful of when you throw a Pokeball and have to dodge attacks from aggressive Pokemon. 

Pokemon battles have added a little flair with the introduction of the Agile and Strong style system. So with these you can pick an attack like regular, but attach an agile or strong attribute to it. Picking agile will make the attack hit for less, but the Pokemon's next attack will come sooner, so on the opposite end picking strong will deal more damage, but your Pokemon's next turn will be delayed. Although this is just two weeks away I still feel like I don't know much about this title. It looks like the gameplay loop will only involve catching Pokemon and battling noble Pokemon which are just like super strong Pokemon you have to whittle down with some powder first. You can still do other modern Pokemon things like customize your character, but that's about all that's been revealed. I feel like I'm not being real if I don't discuss this, but they showed some of the hairstyles you can get in the game and as expected there is a lack of black hair options. The female trainer had one set of grandma braids for a black hair option. I'm glad there are some artists out here creating a 3D library for afro textured hair options.

Anyway, we still don't know what shape Arceus has involved with the story and we have not seen if this game has trainer battles or dungeons either. If that's the case and the side quests and main story only involve catching Pokemon and battle nobles this will be a hard pass for me. Hopefully this will not be the case and even if it is Game Freak won't drop having a game with this level structure and will implement more objectives in a sequel.

Chocobo skating through the streets of Alexandria

Chocobo GP just might be my most anticipated title of 2022. It probably seems weird to a lot of people, but I loved the idea of Chocobo Racing and Square Enix making a sequel to a niche PS1 game twenty-two years later. This has been a thing for the past few years. We saw Crash Bandicoot and Pokemon Snap get sequels after a twenty-year hiatus too. So maybe there's finally hope for a Threads of Fate sequel now? Ugh, I'm probably still never going to happen, but Chocobo GP looks fun. We don't know a lot about this one either, but it's a kart racing game so there's not a lot to have questions about. It has an item and power-up system similar to Diddy Kong Racing where it gets more powerful when you collect more of the same item. Since this is a Final Fantast spinoff the cast features a bunch of FF characters. There was Steiner and Vivi seen in the last trailer along with a Chocobo of course, Mog Hero X, a white mage, Ifrit, and Ramuh. There is also an Alexandria course. Chocobo GP is set for release on March 10 exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. It's odd to me that it's a Nintendo exclusive, but hopefully it's just a timed exclusive because I don't know if I'll have a Switch in time.

Concept art of Aloy tackling a new Wooly mammoth bot in Forbidden West

Horizon Forbidden West. So I played the hell out of Horizon: Zero Dawn in 2019! From the moment it was revealed I was interested and the E3 demo showcase looked cool as hell too, unfortunately I had to wait until 2019 to play it and it's a great game! Riding around on a robo mount is a ton of fun and the hunting in this game is the best. I was also quite surprised about how much I liked the story. It's still not among my favorites, but I was figuring the only I was going to like about this Horizon was the gameplay. It was nice for both to be good, it's just the gameplay over exceeds it. I'm excited what Forbidden West brings on the gameplay front. As far as the story I actually think it feels weird at this point since Zero Dawn reveals what caused the fall of society and where Aloy comes from. I'm just not sure where the story can go. The gameplay though there's a lot they can go from here. The melee combat can be improved. There wasn't much reason to use it in the original and they could do a bit more to make the obstacle traversal feel a bit smoother. I would also like to see more useful things to spend your skill points on in the skill trees and some more armor and weapons. We know we're going to get more prehistoric robot enemies and I'm eager to fight those. Horizon: Forbidden West releases on February 18th.

Advance Wars 1 & 2 are returning with a new graphical art style

I had a lot of fun with Advance Wars years ago, but damn I never finished it. In Nintendo's Re-boot Camp maybe they will readjust that final battle scenario so I can't end up with that terrible commander combination. Nintendo is creating a remake of the GBA games Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2 for the Nintendo Switch. This is the first time in many years since the series has gotten a new game. As I mentioned earlier I had a lot of fun with the first title, but could never beat it due to it's high difficulty at the end. It's planned for release on April 8th.

Something I almost forgot about was Metal Slug Tactics. The side scrolling shooter series is getting a strategy RPG this year. I've barely played any Metal Slug, but I'm still hyped for this just because I love the Metal Slug sprite work and I love me some RPGs. I also have almost no strategy RPG experience so this would be great to add to my repertoire. It doesn't have a specific release date at this time so not much is known about it yet, but I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Kirby Inhaling an enemy in the Forgotten Land

Kirby Super Star is one of my favorite games. I don't play it that often, but it's on my thoughts year round because I'm constantly listening to the soundtrack. Super Star and Kirby's Adventure are the only two entries I've played in the franchise, but I've always wanted to play more and damn if this game doesn't look good. Kirby and the Forgotten Land was shown off last year in the September Nintendo Direct and has gotten the attention of a lot of fans. This is Kirby's first real 3-D game. Like how Super Mario 64 changed Mario going forward I'm intrigued to see how adding the third dimension would differentiate Kirby from his past titles. Firstly, Forgotten Land looks gorgeous! The colors are vibrant and the textures are incredibly smooth. The graphics have great polish while on the other hand Legends Arceus looks kind of bland. I'm also intrigued by the post apocalyptic setting which is weird for a Kirby game. I want to know what he's doing here and how it came to be. This 3-D adventure is slated for March 25, 2022.

Perhaps the game I'm looking forward to the most this year is Bayonetta 3. I bought Bayonetta 2 on a whim in 2017 and I absolutely loved it! We heard this game was in development for a while, but from the last trailer we got it looks like it might actually come out this year. Bayonetta 2 had some of the best gameplay I ever experienced in a character action game. The combat system is simple to learn, but it has depth and requires mastery to conquer the harder difficulties and trials. From the recent trailer Bayonetta is sporting a new hairstyle as per usual. This one I actually like the least. I like the idea of pigtails, but they go in under her armpits and merge into her outfit and then the pigtails are tied into a bow behind her waist. It just looks uncomfortable and makes me want to rub under my armpits. Maybe I can change it in the game or I'll just get used to it. There's a new giant summon mechanic that looks cool. I'm just ready to play the hell out of this since Bayonetta 2 was so good. It's expected to come out sometime this year.

That's all the games I'm looking forward to this year. Let me know what y'all are looking forward to in the comments below.