My Most Recommended Galgame of 2022
Finally got around to writing up everything I played last year. Turns out I went through 31 games, same as 2021. That said, I can already feel 2023’s number dropping off a cliff — not because I don’t have time, but because the industry is just cooked. Look at May: barely a handful of titles worth mentioning. By year’s end I’ll be lucky to count ten on my fingers.
Looks like my dream of “watching the galgame sunset industry finally die” is about to come true.
Last year’s quality was honestly nothing to write home about. If you asked me to list my “personal best,” I doubt I could even fill ten slots. So let’s do it differently this year — alongside the usual recommendations, I’ll throw in some roast-flavored awards. “Worst,” “dumbest,” that sort of thing… just for fun. Helps people dodge landmines.
Lots of people, me included, don’t rate this one highly, but thinking about it, there’s actually a fair bit going for it. The key thing is it gives you that “watching a theatrical anime film” feeling.
The story is one whole piece — you watch the protagonist go from Zero to Hero. Sure, the forced power-up renewals and whatnot are contrived, but most popcorn movies are like that, and you get used to it.
And the game keeps fighting through the mid-to-late sections. The battle scenes aren’t written great, but if you want turn-based fantasy combat in 2022, this is basically your only option.
In a way, this game is worth recommending precisely because “the competition makes it look good” — it doesn’t seem so bad, and actually has some bright spots. The art especially is genuinely gorgeous.
I’m recommending this because it’s a “passing grade” title.
God, that sentence is embarrassing. In 2022, “passing grade” is enough to call something excellent.
This game, billed as a “phantom thief” story, throws in a bunch of “virtual currency” elements. You can tell the writer wanted to say “reality matters more than intangible things,” but the poor bastard clearly has no idea how crypto actually works and just made shit up, leaving gaping logic holes. Still, production values are high, the weak spots are few, and most eroge-playing otaku are brain-dead liberal-arts types who couldn’t tell a blockchain from a chain letter — so it’s actually gotten a decent reception.
That said, Saga Planets games have never won on gripping plot (at least not in recent years). If you just take it as a light “phantom thief” romp and don’t think too hard, it’ll entertain you. Natsuwa Ko and Yoshiki Ai — even if you skip the story, just hearing those two talk is worth the price of admission.
5, Hana wa Mijikashi, Odore yo Otome
My reason for recommending this one is dead simple: the protagonist is way too pretty.
A rare Note-brand game that feels “gorgeous” all the way through. Previous Note games only managed surface-level gorgeousness; this one finally gets it into its bones. The Taisho-era setting coincides with Japan’s absolute peak, giving it a unique Oriental romance.
Plot-wise it’s pretty average — the classic transfer student, student council, school festival three-hitter, just wrapped in a “Taisho period” skin. Fundamentally nothing new. But like most Note crossdressing-infiltration games, the protagonist is just too damn pretty.
And this time he’s not just pretty — there’s a legitimate reason for it. As a cross-dressing performer, he has to train his skills at playing a woman, striving daily to become “more woman than a woman.”
Honestly, I think the protagonist alone is enough for this game.
An alchemy-themed game that looks completely ordinary on the surface, but one heroine’s route single-handedly elevates the whole thing.
In some ways you can treat this as an Alcot substitute — Haruwaka Nene’s route especially has that thick Alcot flavor. If you like cute girls doting on you, this is the one.
The other individual routes aren’t bad either. With Haruwaka Nene carrying things, they start to feel moe too.
3, FLIP*FLOP INNOCENCE OVERCLOCK
My reason here is blunt: it gets the job done.
Don’t worry about the plot. It just works. Whoever uses it knows. Been a while since we had something this simple, brutal, and effective.
2, Kamisama no You na Kimi e Extended Edition
Kamisama no You na Kimi e made my 2020 recommendation list before. Back then I recommended it purely for the art. This time it’s for the story.
It’s hard to believe that through repeated ports and added characters, they could overhaul the original story so drastically. The原作’s rather idiotic plot gets elevated into a sci-fi story worth reflecting on. The AI depiction especially, combined with current society, cuts remarkably deep — I’d say it beats 2045, From the Moon outright.
As I wrote in my commercial piece: if you haven’t played Kamisama no You na Kimi e, go straight for this expanded edition with the new characters. Compared to it, the original is a half-finished product.
If 2022 had a “story wins” game, the only remaining candidate is Same to Ikiru Nanokakan. Actually its story isn’t about conventional “big twists” or “deep character writing” — what it delivers is more like “impact” and “innovation.”
As the game itself says, it’s a B-movie, just presented as a galgame. You can’t demand deep lessons from it, but the wild twists and freewheeling details are enough to give you a simple shock. That shock is a B-movie’s dimensional strike against galgame, a field that’s been a stagnant pond for years.
If you enjoy genuinely interesting stories, Same to Ikiru Nanokakan is absolutely worth a try.
Now for the “less recommended” section:
Dumbest Game: Neko to Joshiryou Seyo!
You can read this as my “worst game of the year.” Hard to believe 2022’s best and dumbest games both came from CUBE — CUBE wins big.
This game is a crude Frankenstein monster. It stitches together basically every successful element in galgame history, but the writer lacks the ability to arrange or control them, and the result is this freak.
While playing, you’ll likely feel this: the later story seems to take place in a different world from the earlier one. That’s normal — not your fault. Maybe we should all discuss whether the planning and writing staff had unprocessed nine-turn intestine where their brains should be.
Most Incomprehensible Game: Unles Terminaria
As of now, I haven’t seen a single person who actually understands what this Uzumaki game is about. Most people hem and haw, or act mysterious — nobody’s come out to analyze the “culture,” “metaphors,” or “foreshadowing” behind it.
The reason is simple: the writing doesn’t speak human. Various Japanese pronouns and riddle-speakers take turns on stage, leaving players 90% of the time totally lost. Even after the final reveal, tons of stuff remains unexplained, and you still can’t figure out what the point was.
I personally despise “doesn’t speak human” plots. It’s also why I now hate miHoYo — not only do they not speak human, they can’t even write proper Chinese anymore.
Maybe Uzumaki’s last game was too successful, giving the writer delusions of grandeur, and this pile of shit was born.
Most “Landmine” Game: Yumahorome: Mayoi Go-tachi Seeking Tomorrow in the Time-Stopped Manor
Similar to the “dumbest” game above, this Lump of Sugar title is also a Frankenstein — except instead of stitching “successful elements,” it stitches every “landmine” eroge players hate. And it doesn’t even realize it’s produced a pile of shit; the writer was actually smug in an interview with the Chinese publisher.
On what grounds? On the strength of this garbage game? Nakajima Taiga, you wrecked akakesoft and now you’re wrecking Lump of Sugar too?
The plot drags, the ending is cliché, the middle has a massive prison-sentence common route, and there are all these flashy-but-pointless horror CGs. It won’t make you feel like you ate shit afterward, but the crime of wasting so much of the player’s time is very real.
Anyway, another year gone. Last year’s games really didn’t deliver, and this year looks even worse… Worth noting I wrote 11 commercial pieces last year — anyone interested can check them out here.
I don’t even know if I can scrape together 10 games to write about for 2023. The releases so far are one worse than the next…
See you next year — if I can still write one.
Appendix: 2022 Game Index:
Arcana Alchemia /archives/13327/
Same to Ikiru Nanokakan /archives/13337/
Hamidashi Creative Totsu /archives/13311/
2045, From the Moon /archives/13298/
Jewelry Hearts Academia /archives/13284/
Japanese school life! /archives/13274/
Tsui no Stella /archives/13266/
Houkago Cinderella 2 /archives/13249/
Kiss kara Hajimeru Egoism /archives/13242/
Study Steady 2 /archives/13234/
FLIP*FLOP INNOCENCE OVERCLOCK
/archives/13211/
Yuunagi Sou no S-Kyuu no Kanojo-tachi /archives/13207/
Hana wa Mijikashi, Odore yo Otome /archives/13197/
Amanatsu /archives/13190/
Natsu no Shuusoku /archives/13184/
Yumahorome: Mayoi Go-tachi Seeking Tomorrow in the Time-Stopped Manor /archives/13171/
Neko to Joshiryou Seyo! /archives/13132/
Zanghua: Anhei Taohuayuan /archives/13127/
Ichizu na (Shojo→) Kanojo to Koi Shitai ver. Hirohashi Runa /archives/13113/
Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm Extra 2 /archives/13103/
Hokenshitsu no Sensei to Koakuma na Kaichou /archives/13097/
Ambitious Mission /archives/13066/
Hokenshitsu no Sensei to Gothloli no Koui /archives/13048/
Futamata Renai /archives/13036/
Kamisama no You na Kimi e Extended Edition /archives/13024/
1/1 Kareshi Kanojo /archives/13012/
Unles Terminaria /archives/12999/
Red: Cherish /archives/12979/
Hentai Prison /archives/12975/
Lian Ai Qi Tan: Bu Cun Zai de Xia Tian Lian Ai Qi Tan: Bu Cun Zai de Zhen Xiang /archives/13350/
Comments are hosted on the Chinese main site. This mirror is read-only.