It’s time to start giving out awards for 2022, and I’m going to begin with the action genre. This award is for the games with the best combat systems where action and reflex-driven design are the focus.
Could Have Been a Contender: Kirby and the Forgotten Land
One action game I missed this year that I wanted to try was the new Kirby game. The idea of playing “Kirby Souls” sounds interesting to me. Unfortunately, this has been a year of me sticking with PC games and I did not play any console titles at all.
3. Elden Ring
Despite me not enjoying the final quarter of the game, Elden Ring is certainly the culmination of From Software’s gameplay in the Soulslike series. While I don’t play open-world games enough to warrant giving an award, Elden Ring is just a fantastic game in that respect of seeing something cool in the distance, riding to it, and then proceeding to fight everything that stands in your way. Out of all the other games in the series, this one has the most ways of building your character, including summoning and spells.
I do wish that close-ranged combat was given a bit more love alongside magic and range builds, as the counterattack and jump poise breaking seemed to overshadow everything else. This is just a massive amount of game, and the faults are somewhat swallowed up by just everything else From Software did right here. And as I’ve said in the past, even a “bad” From Software game is still one of the best games to be released that year.
2. Astlibra Reviison
When I think about my favorite action-rpg games, they are those where the combat feels really good, and the RPG systems are there to facilitate and grow that. With Astlibra Revision, the game’s design definitely does that, with very fast-paced combat and a variety of passive and active skills, with multiple progression systems to power up your character. Like any good action RPG, there are ways of breaking the game that you can find and learn about. For your sanity, I would recommend lowering the sound effects in the menu, as all the hacking and slashing can lead to a lot of attack noises being played at once.
The game doesn’t really do anything outside of the norm, but it’s just a very solid take-on action design.
1. Rollerdrome
Rollerdrome could technically also win my favorite sports game if I played sports games. A mix of rollerblading, performing tricks, and shooting bad guys, there isn’t anything else quite like it. The hallmark of a good action game is how well the actual moment-to-moment gameplay feels, and this is where Rollerdrome excels. Similar to last year’s Webbed, once you learn the mechanics, it is just a joy to go around and combine tricks and trick shooting.
The aesthetics of the game work well to convey this dystopian blood sport with a variety of enemies to go up against. The challenge of combat is figuring out who you should kill first, how do you get to them, and what is the fastest way to power up and deal with them. Having boss fights is also a trip, when you must grind up the legs of a giant mech in order to 600 spin shoot its weak point.
If I had any complaints, I wish that the tricks and scoring had a bit more connection to the actual gameplay and combat. This is the kind of movement and combat system I want open-world games to adopt — where the player is able to explore the mechanics and the world is designed around that exploration. The closest comparison I would make is to Sunset Overdrive where the world, combat, and movement, were just perfectly synced up.
If you’re looking for something that is very nonconventional, but still a solid action game, I think this is a game that more people should be playing.
