Happy New Year readers! Okay, so we’re more than a week into the year 2023 — maybe you’re moving on from last year, trying to look ahead to the best things to come. But we just need to take one last look at 2022 for the best eShop games in December.
December is normally a quiet month for game releases – but Nintendo had to release five short little indie videos in their festive House of Indies series just before Christmas. Some of them had drops in the shade that made our wallets feel even lighter than usual this time of year. We are really spoiled!
Before we jump into the best of December 2022, let’s tackle one of those shadow drops, a long-anticipated game — Sports Story — that we said in our review “undeniably feels like quite a disappointment after years of waiting”. Let’s hope that new patch fixed some things!
Well, without that, here are our eShop Selects for December!
Honorable mentions
As a special late-holiday treat, we expanded the field by including some of those 7/10s we released at the end of the year — which included a few of those shadows. Our plan going forward is to mostly stick to 8/10s, but this time we wanted to highlight more games than usual. So let’s take a look at what just slipped into our top three:
Publisher: Back Digital / Programmer: Games by Daniel Mullins
It should come as no surprise to see this on the list. A critical darling of 2021, Inscryption is a deck builder in disguise, a game that plays with you. While you’ll have to play cards in the game (within a game within a game), the meta, horror, and weirdness are what make Inscryption so special. When you play a Daniel Mullins game, you always know you’re in for a wild ride, and this one is no exception. It’s incredibly smart and feels right at home on the Switch. it was worth waiting a year.
It got an 8/10 from us, which is a damn good combination for a Switch port that came a little over a year later.
Publisher: DECK13 Reflector / Programmer: Matija Lind
One of the few modern indie J-inspired RPGs we can confidently say feels like the SNES game, Chained Echoes is an amalgamation of all the best elements of some of the 16-bit classics while forging its own identity with modern conveniences, passion and heart. The combat system is fast and unique; the maps are large and a joy to explore; and you can drive mechs! There’s a lot to love — and it’s all mostly developed by one person. Madness!
Chained Echoes gets a 9/10 from us, which is well deserved. If you love classic JRPG games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and even PS1 favorites like Xenogarstry this.
Publisher: Playtonic friends / Programmer: MegaWobble
But for the NL team as a whole, we were looking for something nice and cozy during the holiday season. Something that could take us back to childhood, where our imaginations could run wild and we could create our own adventures, run around and dress up. The Lil Gator game is just that.
Short and sweet, and truly creative, Lil Gator Game evokes the best parts of our childhood. It captures the warm, carefree nature we all felt when we were running around having fun as kids. And the lovely scaled visuals and autumnal landscapes match the tone of the game perfectly.#
With our 8/10 rating and a huge fan base here at Nintendo Life Towers, Lil Gator is our December 2022 eShop pick.
< Nintendo eShop Selects - November 2022
How we decide that our eShop chooses the top three: As we come to the end of each month, the Nintendo Life staff votes on their favorite titles from a list of games selected by the editorial team. To qualify for this list, these games must have been released only as a digital Nintendo Switch eShop title in that particular month and must have been reviewed on Nintendo Life; we select qualifying games based on their ratings.
Staff are then asked to vote for the three games they think deserve to be at the very top of that list; the first choice gets 3 points, the second choice gets 2 points, and the third choice gets 1 point. Those votes are then tallied to create a top three list, with the overall winner claiming that month’s top prize.
