Best Of 2022: Maddie's Dance Beat | Winter Spectacular 2022

2022 is the year video games spoke to me again. Not in the same seductive tongues as before. Gaming isn't the siren song it was for me growing up. Back then, it was easier to build my life around sand foundations. Now it's difficult to muster the same myopic focus, especially as the medium slips further into AAA mediocrity, habitual overwork, refusal to get a new idea. Who still gives a fuck about Kratos?

But let's talk turkey. (It is the holidays, after all.) Here are some games - in any order you like - that gave me something to remember. Examples of how the artform touched me, moved me, and gave me hope for its future in the coming years. 

TeToTe

Generally, rhythm games have stagnated into a cottage industry of also-rans that keep trying to reinvent the wheel. A good rhythm title doesn't need to also be an RPG, or a shooter, or some other gimmick. Like one that involves a trombone, for example. It's okay to just rely on hitting buttons in time to really good music. I promise!

TeToTe does that with panache. Loaded with an arsenal of fresh bangers and modern rhythm staples, Taito's new arcade title reimagines Osu! as cardio. You stand and face a precious anime avatar, tapping their hands in time on a long touch screen. It's a simple, novel concept that makes TeToTe a refreshing dance game experience for this jaded fan. 

Pokémon Scarlet

Scarlet is the best Pokémon has ever been. It's the quintessential promise of the series, finally realized. Players get to have their own Pokémon journey, distinct from their friends and unlike anyone else's. Exploration and curiosity are rewarded by a map teeming with life and lore to discover. Tinkaton is my child. 

Sound Voltex

Clack! Clack! Clack-clack-clack! Playing Voltex feels so good. The Valkyrie cabs are the nicest version of Konami's stalwart Beatmania derivative yet. With hundreds of songs to choose from, constant updates, and perhaps the most forgiving learning curve of any arcade rhythm title, there's never been a better time to get into Voltex. Sitting in Round1 and trading rounds with both my partners is some of the most fun I had playing a game this year. 

Sonic Frontiers

There's never been a bad Sonic game. Frontiers borrows from three of the best ones - Forces, Sonic 2006, and Adventure - to create the best open-world platformer I've played. Sega understands how to modernize its mascot better than Nintendo. Because Frontiers not only capitalizes on the mechanical strengths of the series, but also makes the effort to tell a meaningful story. For the first time, a Sonic title doesn't feel as if it exists in stasis - removed from the others, contained to one experience. It's a compelling sprawl informed by the past and looking to the future. 

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge

Brawlers are a favorite old-school genre, and few modern devs know how to make a good one. It finally happened with Shredder's Revenge, a beautiful and snappy beat 'em up. Held side by side with a classic like Turtles In Time, it feels like a smoother and more responsive evolution of the concepts there. A true successor, not a chintzy imitator. And you can play as April! My girlfriend and I beamed at her every frame of animation.

Cardfight Vanguard -Dear Days-

Don't sleep on Vanguard. The niche card game made its way to the Switch with a splashy, robust, and story-driven introduction. It's spiced up with otome seasoning, complete with a charming VN component and loads of cute, Clamp-designed boys to play cards with. I just started learning Vanguard this year, and try to squeeze in a game or two each week with the partner who's been teaching me. It's the most fun you can have with a card game right now. MTG kids need not apply. We don't want you!

Pocky And Rocky Reshrined

Pocky and Rocky Reshrined is an anomaly. A physical release by Natsume. A retro remake done not with cheap 3D renders, but painstaking pixel art animation. And a game that is very, very eager to curbstomp players in the very first level. Games like this don't get made anymore and yet, here's Reshrined - a perfect love letter to a bygone era and an addictive arcade experience with one of the year's best soundtracks. A demanding game, and one that's better for it.

DJMAX Respect 

DJMAX has eaten at least 1000 hours of my life up, between entries. Days of my life spent tapping my fingers to stylish music videos full of pretty anime and cherubic dancing animals. I've sunk plenty of time into earlier releases of Respect, but this latest one for the Xbox brings with it years of tweaks and content drops. It's the most fully featured DJMAX to date, a far cry from the scant PSP playlists I grew up with. High as a kite, surround sound pumping, lights set to purples and blues, there are few experiences more hypnotic.

Neptunia X Senran Kagura 

The arc of Senran Kagura is long and full of questionable clothing choices, but it trends towards feminist praxis. These games taught me more about female friendship and liberation in my transition than any safe-y safe American game with a ponytailed brunette. 

Neptunia X Kagura is a cross-over for the ages if you're a lesbian or otaku weirdo. (Or both.) Cute girls come together in cute ninja outfits and have cute exchanges before they beat the pants off each other. This game boasts a funny story with a memorable translation, and stellar brawling mechanics from pedigreed dev Acquire. It's a better and more honest action game than most released in a while - a fast food burger with Wagyu beef and truffle fries. 

Dance Dance Revolution A3

2022 is the year I got back into DDR. Years of rust, finally gone. I got off my ass, grabbed that handrail, and made myself the most sore I've been in years. Thanks to my local Round1, I was there for the launch window of a new DDR arcade entry for the first time since Supernova. 

This past Spring and Summer are, in part, a blur of this latest update. It brought a wealth of little tweaks and new tracks to the already sprawling A2. Despite the world leaving it behind, Konami has continued to make DDR better and better into the 2020s. We're never going back to the series' heyday, but when you're on that dance pad, it feels like 2005 again. I'll never forget any of my AAA or AAs this year - earned through sweat, leg pain, arm cramps. It's the most fun I've had playing since I was thirteen - smirking my little gay crush smile to the best friend I'm always trying to chase, each time I play a song. He's too busy to play these days. I wonder if he's proud of how good I finally am. 

I said I was done with games, but I suppose that wasn't true. Games will always be an artform that speaks to me. How much stock or faith I put in the people who make them, or the industry that yields them, is a different matter. Because it will never be enough to pull me back in full-time. I'll never be chasing that editorial position, never be that newshound with the hot scoops, that guides girl who can't play a game without breaking into cold sweats. It ain't me. 

This year has been a transformation. A different approach to how I talk games. Garrett Martin over at Paste has helped me find my voice again. Between 2016 and 2021, I wrote around 700 pieces. In 2022, I wrote six - four for Paste, two for physical books. It's the happiest I've ever been with any of my games writing. People who bailed on me after I 'bowed out' of being a workhorse have missed the best writing of my career. 

But that's okay. I'm not writing for that crowd anymore. Not playing for them. Games are for me, my partners, my friends. My writing is for the people that deserve it - the people that will pay me more than 10 dollars for 1000 words every single day of my life. I will never open Google Trends to try and find my topics for the week ever again. Never play the new expensive slop because "it's important". And I thank my goddess for that. 

Next year, I'll continue to play my own games and write my own way. For me, and me alone. Because art and our relationship to it is personal. We can't be slaves to the algorithm. A good writer knows when their craft is being ground into content and knows not to fall for the fool's errand of flash-in-the-pan Twitter fame - here today, gone the first time you say call anyone that buys Ubisoft a fucking embarrassment. 

So play your game - not the same one as everyone else. I promise you'll have more fun. Thanks for reading.

Madeline Blondeau is a podcaster, essayist, and transgender menace. She's the creator of Cinema Cauldron, a long-form look at films from the fringe (available on Spotify and LibSyn.) Her work can be found in Paste, Anime Feminist, Anime News Network, and Coming Soon. You can find her on Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter @ VHSVVitch.