Best of 2022: How Marvel and Mario got me into tactics in 2022

Best of 2022 is ComingSoon's week-long celebration of the entertainment that made this year so memorable.

My eyes go wide in record time when watching games like Total War. An enlarged view of a field of guys throwing spears at each other puts me in a comatose state like no other genre. I had more or less given up on strategy games because they were almost always based on worlds or time periods that didn't interest me. But while I don't care about Faceless Soldiers, I do care about Spider-Man and Rabbid Mario and this wrap was important enough that I finally tried - and enjoyed - tactical games in 2022.

Models are hard to break and I had decided somewhere in my history of playing games that I just wasn't into the strategy genre. My disdain for their serious tones and old-fashioned settings was enough to dispel me whether these generalizations were true or not.

But I've started trying to fight my biases lately and have tried to tackle games I've previously canceled. I dove into more and more soul games after falling in love with Bloodborne in 2019. I didn't think Fallout-style RPGs were for me until I had a great time with The Outer Worlds. The Lovecraftian style of Bloodborne and the goofy sci-fi angle of The Outer Worlds were appealing enough from the outside to draw me into the beauty that both genres have to offer.

This outer wrap can't be underestimated as that's why I started watching Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle more early in the year. The light tone and vivid art style is infinitely more appealing than something filled with orcs or templars, and Kingdom Battle uses it as a cover to draw people in and see its true depth.

This cute title doesn't pull its punches, which was reassuring because I wouldn't have the patience for a dumb game where it never grows back. It wouldn't be exactly unlike Ubisoft to do something too sweet and boring in a desperate attempt to please everyone, after all. Thinking through every move was rewarding, as was pulling off synergistic combos.

I was enthralled from start to finish, and while many games had me hooked through the credits, doing it in a different genre hits, well, differently. Getting ahead of an opponent through turn-based strategy is as rewarding as completing a no-hitter run through a level in Sifu, but they differ ever so slightly. And that slight disparity with the right context is what keeps the hobby fresh, especially when certain genres can blend together if there isn't much to separate them.