acequeenking | Games I Plan on Playing in 2022

(This is part of a series I'm gonna do this week, detailing Things I Want to Experience this year: books to read, plays/shows/movies to watch, games to play, music to listen to, etc. These lists are by no means exclusive and being a flighty creature it is likely I either won't get to all of these items or may wind up reading other things instead of/in addition to the ones listed below, but I'm gonna try to get to these and want to look back at the end of the year and see how successful I was at getting through these things.

Base rules on this project: No more than 10 things can be listed. Series can be listed as Series in order to not tie up the entire list with multiple entries. Experiencing at least one thing in a series will count as fulfilling the item. If it's something I started in 2021 but did not finish, it will be put on the list as Continuing: [Name]; otherwise, the item is new to me.

Continuing: Judgment series: This is a series with two games, and I’m somewhere around Chapter 4 of the original game (Judgment). I need to refresh myself on the plot (and am debating starting over because I only remember some of it), but then I’m looking forward to the continuing adventures. Doubt I’ll beat both games (Lost Judgment is still too new to go on deep discount yet, when I usually buy my games), but I’d love to finish Judgment this year.

Continuing: Hades: In a lot of ways, if I were ever going to have a game custom-made for me, that game would have been Hades: set in ancient Greek mythos with a focus on my favorite area of it, family-focused, lets you be a bisexual short king. I’ve gotten to the point where there isn’t a lot of content left in the game and I’m doing the Thing I Do where I go “I should preserve this for later” but I really want to power through it and actually finish it so I can write more fanfic in this universe.

Continuing: Yakuza series: I finished Yakuza 0 in 2020 and it was pretty much the only game I finished that year! I’ve picked up several games in the series since in PlayStation sales and I would like to at least finish Yakuza 1 this year. I’ve heard it’s both exciting and sad and I’m both excited and dreading that. Majima and Kiryu both own my heart in different ways, and even though the series sometimes makes me grimace, it's also a lot of fun and strangely heart-moving. I don't tend to like mafia movies but it turns out I sure do enjoy Yakuza games.

Unavowed: I loved the two games in the Blackwell series I’ve played from this studio and I’ve been in the mood for a point-and-click. I saw a 30 minute preview of this one on Giant Bomb I think, ages ago? It looks so good. I love how this studio’s games tend to be on the shorter side so I’m hopeful I will actually finish this one. It looks like a fun urban-fantasy/crime focused game, and while that genre is popular in lit (and I've read a lot of it), it's not so usual in games and I'd really like to see where this goes.

Continuing: Blackwell series: I really loved the first two games in this series; I kinda ship Joey and both the Blackwells? (I mean, not at the same time, obviously.) I have three to go and am looking forward to playing them. I would like to finish at least 1 in 2022. Thankfully, these games are kinda short, so I might actually have a chance of clearing them: I think most of these can be finished in 3-6 hours which is a very adult-friendly play-time.

Continuing: AA 6 and Great Ace Attorney: I have owned AA6 for FOUR YEARS, bordering on five, and am still on case 2. Inexcusable. I really enjoy the game, but I rarely have my DS on me, and it doesn’t enter into my mind to play it because of that. (Please port the Apollo Justice->Spirit of Justice trilogy to Steam, Capcom, I beg of thee.) I really would like to finish AA6 at least this year, and hopefully get to Great Ace Attorney as well. This series is strangely comforting to play despite being primarily about solving an increasing number of murders.

Continuing: Dishonored 2: I really loved the first game and I really loved the DLCs and I started and got frustrated in the second chapter of Dishonored 2 and now I’ve forgotten the story, but I want to replay and retry. I really love the strange and beautiful, bleak world of Dishonored. Knowing the third game is about Billie just makes me want to play all the more; I loved Daud and Billie’s interactions in the first game. And I want to see Billie and Emily meet because I have a feeling I’ll ship that a lot.

Final Fantasy XIII or Final Fantasy 7 Remake: For FF13: Like Ace Attorney: I’ve had this game a long time (close to A DECADE) without playing it. There were reasons, but those reasons no longer apply, and I always liked the look of Lightning and her crew. I know this game tends to be divisive among FF fans but generally I quite like the more controversial Final Fantasies so I imagine I would like this one as well. Its main competition is that this is a LONG, BIG game, and it’s hard to imagine I’ll have time of this AND Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which is a game where I have more friends who are playing/will play it and be able to talk about it…plus I do love Tifa and Barret and Aerith and I’m told this game does quite a lot with all of them. Ideally I’d have time for both, but we’ll see where and when this goes. FF14 would have been on here too but they prevented new people from joining, so that’ll go in next year’s bucket in all likelihood.

Continuing: Assassin’s Creed: Greece Simulator: I probably will not beat this game. It’s very hard to beat Assassin’s Creed games for me: too many side quests, too long, and there’s a reason I’ve not managed to beat anything in the series post-AC2. But I boot this up a lot in winter, when it is cold, to look and play in beautiful Grecian Island and go sight-seeing. And maybe fight some pirates. Hopefully I will keep making progress in the story and keep smooching sexy girlfriends and honestly that’s all my Kassandra and I could want.

Space Channel 5: Part 2: I have owned this game OVER A DECADE without playing it. I love Space Channel 5 and have played the original to death multiple times. I got busy, never played Part 2 – and this year, I’m going to, because when you’re sad and the world is bleak, what better game to play than a nu-sixties unapologetically bossa nova rainbow space game?