2022 was a pretty solid year for gaming. Less solid for me than others, because Elden Ring isn’t my jam, and because Ragnarok wasn’t like, the best game in the history of time to me, but still solid all around.

It was an easy one for picking my Game of the Year, though. Without question: Tunic.

No game has so completely consumed me in recent history like Tunic did. No game has so perfectly captured the delightful experience of a sprawling ARG within the walls of its own game since Fez or maybe The Witness, but I feel Tunic did it the best.

The surface level game of Tunic would have been GOTY. The ARG on its own would have been GOTY. The fact that they’re the same game and how tightly integrated the two halves are is mindblowing and I find it depressing that it’s getting blown out by triple-a blockbusters for mainstream press GOTY and blown out by games like Vampire Survivors for Indie GOTY.

But dpad is my opinions so here I get to say that without a doubt, Tunic was the best game of 2022.

What about 2023? Well barring yet another delay we have Tears of the Kingdom in May. In preparation for that, I plan on working through the highlight reel of Zelda history with my kiddo. We worked through The Legend of Zelda last weekend, this is my plan until release:

  • January - A Link to the Past (100%)
  • Late Jan / Feb - Link’s Awakening (Switch Remake)
  • Late Feb / March - Ocarina of Time
  • Mid-March (depending on timing) - Majora’s Mask
  • Late March - April - Wind Waker HD (If the Wii U feels like working)
  • Late April til End - Breath of the Wild

I’m not going to attempt to 100% all of them, because I’m over that and because I’ve got a schedule to maintain. Gotta breeze through those first couple to make sure I have adequate time for Wind Waker, or more importantly, to get it to work.

I also plan on picking up Return to Monkey Island at some point, but that’s going to require getting The Secret of Monkey Island working first, because it’s been literally decades since I last replayed it, and a replay seems mandatory.

I also want to dig into the works of Heart Machine at some point this year, since I’ve owned Hyper Light Drifter for ages, Solar Ash is allegedly coming to Xbox at some point and we’ve got HLD 2 after that.