Going into this year I knew I was going to love Xenoblade 3 or Bayonetta 3. I played a lot of games this yeard and enjoyed about all the 2022 releases I bought aside from 1. Then one game I took a chance on. I heard vague comparisons months before release to Astral Chain and I thought yeah I'm in. I was not prepared for what I got.

Western studios are more often than not, not very good with in depth melee combat. One reason DmC reboot was so bad aside from writing and tone. Just didn't have the depth of DMC4 combat before it. Well I can say today a western studio has not only made a great DMC clone but they added in a little Nier and Berserk.

Soulstice.

I like the Berserk Guts Rage game on Dreamcast but it's a bit dated and rough esp as it predates DMC1. Not many Berserk games exist. Sure every From Soft Soulsish game is everything is a nod to Berserk but since DMC5 came out I have wanted Capcom or someone to make a Berserk DMC. One of my game devs friends we like to bounce ideas off of for fun and we went over mechanics and such. My god I had no idea someone was already making what I wanted.

Video explains a lot but yes this has the tone of Berserk with the gameplay of DMC. Lute your sister acts like Grimoire Wiess from Nier or the Pod from Nier Automata. For you Switch fans. The legion from Astral Chain.

Safe to say I have loved this game and it kinda came out of nowhere. The fixed camera angles are fine as I'm used to them in DMC 1-4. A lot of unique fun weapons. A lot of skills to unlock. An interesting story for this kind of game. If I have one complaint and it's the same issue I had with GOW1-3. Make your character stand out more from the environments. She wears a dark blue scarf in environments with a blue hue. Make it red. Yellow. Something that stand out. Dante was red for this reason. Bayonetta's black stands out in contrast as well to the colorful environments. Other than that this is a great game.

What are your surprises this year so far?

Autonauts really surprised me. It's an interesting twist on the crafting games that have become so popular. While you can gather resources and craft on your own, the real backbone of the game is the bots that do the work for you. And these bots have to be programmed by you. I've played the demo to Gamebuilder Garage before this, and Autonauts definitely reminded me of that. I'm hoping we get more games in this style in the future. And I'm definitely hoping for an Autonauts sequel with better graphics and a bit easier to use interface.

Also, and I can't believe the game only came out this year on Switch, Astroneer.  What a joy that game was to play.  There is a definite learning curve that many folks could quit before mastering, but once you get it figured out this game world truly opens up. I still haven't beaten the game or come nearly close to it, but the journey has been more than satisfying.

HoloCure

It's a fan made free game inspired by Vampire Survivors, and I did not expect to be as addicted to it as I was.

Download it here if you're interested: HoloCure by Kay Yu (itch.io)

Persona 5 Strikers. I figured the mix of Koei Tecmo and Atlus would be terrible for a franchise like Persona. Even though I pretty much always buy Warriors games or JRPGs, I left this one on the shelf. Eventually I got it for free with PS Plus, and I am a bit sad that I didn't support the devs now. The end result of the game was something extremely enjoyable, so much so that I want more.

Good to hear! It's a game I find interesting but there was no way I was going to buy it until Persona 5 released too. I've gone pretty much PC only so it was annoying to have Strikers on Steam since February but no actual P5. At least that's finally being rectified this month. I'll look forward to playing Strikers when I've finished P5

Oh man you're in for a treat, Persona 5 is amazing.

Strikers is quite good too, though I wouldn't praise it as highly as Farsala did there.

Really loved Strikers. Like Persona 5 itself I finished it twice. Once on Switch and the other on PS4. P5 I did vanilla on launch and then P5R early this year.

The TMNT Cowabunga Collection. M2 packed it with so much content.. If only Konami still made all of its games like that, or threw that much production into contracted-out games.

Demon Souls on PS5

It's the best game I've played this year and a very easy an entry on my all time top 50

I was expecting this game to be clunky and badly designed, as everybody says "this is Dark Souls without polish"

The game is not only have great maps and funny bosses, but also a good leveling and classic system. Technically speaking the game looking is an absolute delight. It's one of the games that I was always amused with the amount of diversity in scenarios and how pretty they look.

I haven't played the original, but I guess if I've played this would probably be among my favorite remakes ever

The downside of this masterpiece is, as with all Souls games, it makes me bored with almost anything that I play next to it. Fortunately Splatoon 3 just released and as multiplayer it requires has a pretty decent level of skill to be actually enjoyable, so I wasn't left so bitter

Played Strikers for 2 hours and dropped

Better than other Warriors games, but bad, really bad, just like every Warriors game