Can’t believe we’ve had thousands and thousands of years of writing and there’s only been one good writing system that has become popular so far (Hangeul)
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Sejong the Great would have loved Factorio: Space Age
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Well I don’t think I played many new games this year, even though I played a lot of games. I’m going to go down the list and just see what I’ve played and maybe add a couple of thoughts. In order of release date, per Wikipedia:
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth - this was about 90% awesome, 5% alright that’s a bit much, and 5% please god don’t make me play another mini game. While I do think I prefer the tone and pace of Remake, this owns in its own way and I think eventually when I NG+ it and get to skip a lot of stuff I’ll enjoy it even more.
Unicorn Overlord - played this for half an hour. Seems cool. Hope to get back to it some day.
Princess Peach Showtime - borrowed this from the library. It’s what you’d expect from a Switch game aimed at 4 year olds, including with the irritatingly poor performance. Very whatever, play Astro Bot instead.
Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes - played this for about three hours. I do not hope to get back to it some day.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Sweep the Board - also a library borrow. Was just curious about it. It sucked!
Octopath Traveler II - wasn’t in the right headspace for this, but seems very good. The first one was solid but this is clearly better. Need to get back to it, but I just bought Persona 3 Reload so
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree - the GOAT continues being the GOAT. I won’t count it for my GOTY because that’s lame but it’s an insanely good xpac to an insanely good game.
Astro Bot - just played this this last week, and it was extremely good. The hype is real. Consistently gives fun new mechanics to explore and is filled to the brim with cute little guys. No notes.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - starts off cute and fun, but for me it quickly got tiresome. The writing is hard to get through and there’s too much of it, and I just found the game too simplistic in the end. Really wanted to love it but I couldn’t finish it in the end. The kind of game your phone distracts you from.
Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero - played this with friends at a bar a couple times. It’s a little more complex than you might think and the graphics are cool and stuff. Overall not my cuppa probably but a cool game.
Super Mario Party Jamboree - played this with a friend, feel like this series somehow has gotten even slower since N64 based on this experience??? Pretty grueling and not fun whatsoever. Maybe I had bad luck with the board and all that but was really let down even with low expectations.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard - wish this was a lot better than it is, but still a game I have enjoyed playing. It’s basically just a God of War game in this setting, as the things that make it Dragon Age are minimized while other things that you wouldn’t expect like the action combat turned out pretty good. This is one of my favorite types of game to play, so it’s still fun to make my guy and have him go on an adventure, but the writing is not great, the role playing is subpar, and the companions are pretty ho hum. Certainly the worst Dragon Age game and the worst SP BioWare game outside of Mass Effect: Andromeda in a very long time (in fairness it’s been a decade since they’ve even made a good one), but I still like it.
With all that in mind, I guess my vote goes to FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH
Astro Bot is probably better but I want my buddies to win
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My favorite game of the year by far has been Penny’s Big Breakaway, which probably fast-tracked to being one of my hands down favorite games. The funky fluid movement is an absolute delight to master and play around with, the aesthetics are fire as all hell and the Treasure vibes are tangible. I find myself hopping back into the game every now and then just to mess around with it a bit. Lovely. Also has lesbians.
I was a bit baffled to see it rake in a whopping zero nominations in the Geoff awards, and likewise for that new Indie game awards. What’s up with that anyway?
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Just right now, with less than two months left in the year, I think Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth took an early lead and hasn’t been beaten yet. Rebirth is in a close second, followed by Balatro and Astro Bot.
I suspect if I played UFO 50 it would rank very high with me. One thing I’m finding in these games is the ability to hang out in them. Sometimes that means hanging out in a world (Infinite Wealth and walking down the streets, Rebirth and its minigames, Astro Bot and its hub world and various challenges). Sometimes, as with Balatro, hanging out means trying another run and seeing what surprise combos come up. I’m still picking at that game at least one a week, trying a run with something else.
That quality also embodies some of the non-2024 releases I’ve played for the first time, like Wildermyth. It may be that, with less total time to play games this year, I am valuing the ones that I can take my time with.
Maybe by the end of the year I’ll have played enough Metaphor to say where I’d put it. So far I really like it - more than Persona 3 Reload, but not clear if it’s more than the others I’ve picked here.
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all 2024 releases i played (certainly excluding many games without backloggd pages)
Some words about each of my favs:
Dr. Robotnik’s Ring Racers: Ehhhh just watch a video of this one and you’ll understand why it’s cool lol. Really fun to chill in a server for a couple hours!
Collective Unconscious: The 2024 polished aesthetic creates a new type of Yume Nikki experience. Not as scary or alien but still evocative. There are many memorable places I found, and yet more to discover. The H******* world was breathtaking.
Balatro: Sits on a really good place between the “plays itself” to “every turn is trying to kill me with stress” roguelike spectrum (vampire survivors to Into The Breach). I have squeezed most of the juice after completing every gold stake but I’m excited for the update! More Balatro is a +2 from me.
Anthology of the Killer: Cheating alert!!! It counts. The games get better and better anyway. Love walking round cool environments and reading thecatamites writing, not much else to say.
Persona 3 Reload: It has the uninspiring dungeon crawling. It has the comically stupid villains. It has the slow start. But it is my favorite Persona, mostly because of the story. After 100 hours, of course I’m going to cry at the end. It’s a cheatcode. They’re my friends now. Also, that sun arcana epilogue…
2024 GOTY: Anthology of the Killer
non-2024 GOTY: Void Stranger
~~~PREDICTION ZONE~~~
2025 GOTY: Deltarune Ch. 3+4
2025’s 2024 GOTY: Nine Sols
non-2025 GOTY: The 25th Ward: The Silver Case
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HELL yeah
(though for me it will likely be Monsty Hunty Wilds)
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I played more games than I expected to this year. I’ll try and break this down as best as I can in a roughly ranked order.
22. Cureocity
My biggest complaint about this is that I can’t remember a single thing about this other than that it’s extremely short.
21. Platform 8
I quite liked the simple premise of Exit 8; turning a train station corridor into a looping escape room with some primitive and unusual puzzles. Platform 8 is more of that with slightly more horror-tinged vibes.
20. Mars After Midnight
I think this game is an entertaining toy rather than specifically a game but it’s a pretty decent way to pass 10 minutes every now and then.
19. Sand Land
I dearly wanted to love this, and even though I forced myself to check out everything, much of the game is simply dull and annoying.
18. Mimic Logic
An unexpected hit in my house. The game is entirely a series of logic puzzles to try open as many chests in a room as possible without finding a mimic, all dressed up in some very light touch RPG progression. Ms LeFish and I had a lot of fun figuring out the puzzles.
17. Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore
It’s a loving homage to the Zelda CDi games. Also it’s a 2D action platformer. It’s good!
16. Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
I played this in one sitting after work. It’s a cute little detective adventure-like game with some silly humour and very mild deduction puzzles.
15. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
I fundamentally liked this game a lot, and overall more than Yak User 7, but there was some real pinch points in this that I didn’t like, and the turn-based battles would still be the worst bit about the game had it not included Dodonko Island.
14. Turnip Boy Robs a Bank
A silly, little Zelda game.
13. Dragon Ruins
I posted about this just yesterday but I would recommend this to anyone wanting a simple, short dungeon-crawling experience.
12. Rendsword (Playdate)
I can best describe this as Slay the Spire X Scrabble. There are two difficulty settings; Easy and Really Fucking Hard, and I kinda wish there had been something in the middle. The other fault that I had was that the dictionary used for the game wasn’t comprehensive and a lot of words just aren’t in the game.
11. Logiart Grimoire
I think this was in early access last year but it’s more of Jupiter’s Picross. I don’t particularly like the way that new puzzles are discovered and the music begins to grate quite a bit but dang, it’s Picross.
10. 20 Small Mazes
Does what it says on the tin. I had a good time with this game and some of the puzzles really stumped me. And it’s free.
9. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell
I like this series a lot so I was pretty excited to see that this was arriving at the start of the year and I wasn’t disappointed. As far as contemporary Metroidvania games go it’s up there. It also has a really good-feeling jump.
8. Regency Solitaire II
I’ve somehow been suckered into these narrative Grey Alien games and I love it. As a solitaire game, it’s good. As a love letter to silly period-England dramas it’s great. There is no real reason that I would enjoy this in particular but something about it, and the studio’s other games has me in the palm of their hand.
7. Kunitsu-gami: Path of the Goddess
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this when I first started playing it but in the end I felt like I had a really good time with what is essentially a hybrid tower defense and action game. I liked that different scenarios had different gimmicks and restrictions and that it wasn’t just a series of stages where you could make an unbreakable wall around your tower. My only real criticism is that since finishing it I’ve not had any desire to play it again.
6. Quester Osaka
I have a big soft spot for the original Quester game. On paper, I’d probably not have the commitment for it but between the way that battles are handled to be done so quickly, the fantastically laid out map, and the excellent character portraits in the game I was utterly charmed and felt like I cared for my party of weirdos. Real good and solid RPG and a true hidden gem.
5. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance
I loved the original SMT V but I think the nips and tucks that were brought to Vengeance were broadly very good. My only thought was that at times the changes made the game a little too easy and I didn’t often feel particularly threatened, even on harder difficulties. That said, the new campaign was pretty good, the new bosses were great, and the overall package was a job well done.
4. Rise of the Ronin
As perhaps the forum’s most rabid lover of Nioh and Nioh 2 I was looking forward to Rise of the Ronin with some degree of trepidation after the mild disappointment of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty as well as the game stripping itself almost entirely of the supernatural elements that enhanced Nioh’s experience. I’m happy to say that I had a great time though and the transition to an open world game was a hit. My only major criticisms are that the alignment system didn’t really do much in the end, and that the character creator, as much as it would let me make a freakish clown, wouldn’t let me make my usual go-to of a tiny woman.
3. Balatro
Lord, I had to uninstall this to stop myself playing it.
2. Unicorn Overlord
Ms LeFish kindly got this for my birthday and even though it took a little longer than I liked to get into it, persevere and patience eventually paid off to give me such a satisfying and dense experience with some utterly ludicrous potential for party customisation that would be best explored as part of a new game plus. Other than that, it’s rare to see a game of this size with such a singular vision of what it wants to be and that it exists at all is something that I’m grateful for.
1. Astro Bot
I loved Astro’s Playroom when I first switched on my PS5 but I had a pretty high level of scepticism for a full-fat Astrobot experience. Needless to say my fears were unfounded because every second that I had with that game was an unequivocal joy that was filled with charm and playfulness, and it really is just one of the finest platform games I’ve played, full stop. And whilst I have some cynicism towards the whole PlayStation history aspect of it, I can’t deny that seeing a Astrobotified Kratos bear-walking everywhere is a pleasure in itself.
And a few games I’ve played various amounts of but not finished. I like all of these a lot.
Skald (barely played but looks great)
Proverbs (big Minesweeper, love it)
Shadow of the Ninja: Reborn (haven’t spent enough time to with it but it looks lush)
UFO 50 (only played about half the games but what a treat)
Ys X: Nordics (bit too talky but has real crunchy action)
And by far the biggest turd.
Stellar Blade
14 Likes
man i’ve played like… nothing from this year! these lists always make me sad because i feel like i can’t take part in the current because i am playing in the past (most times).
this year i have played:
Balatro
i had a lot of fun with this, but this doesn’t scream GOTY to me, just a fun time killer and that’s about it.
Metaphor ReFantazio
didn’t finish it, but loved what i played so far and definitely want to play more. just gotta be in the mood.
Silent Hill 2
stuttered like hell so badly that I refunded it. was fun while I played, but I don’t regret refunding it either.
Mouthwashing
really good on the first playthrough, not sure how often I would replay it, but I enjoyed it a lot. I love body horror, and the setting, the characters, the atmosphere, all of it culminated into a memorable experience. not the biggest fan of the non-linear storytelling. it wasn’t hard to follow or anything, just not my bag.
Crow Country
great homage to classic survival horror, but like… where’s the horror??? game itself was okay, hope to see more from the dev.
my vote: Metaphor
i just know when i get around to really diving deep into it i’m going to be absolutely head over heels and that’s more than i can say for the other games i’ve played from this year.
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I’m realizing I haven’t played a single 2024 game.
So I guess I win!
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For me I don’t think the answer can be anything but UFO 50.
UFO 50 isn’t just a great indie game, it’s a potential fundamental shift in the way indie games are made and sold. It’s both a remarkable package of 50 stand alone and excellent games tied together with a fun (and juicy, for the curious) meta-narrative, and proves a way to package and sell small games to a large audience. Games like the ones in UFO 50 just didn’t hit the market the way these did. If these released as 50 games with separate steam pages none of them would do as well. The format presented here enables a new kind of market perspective for a kind of game to economically sustain itself.
In this way, UFO 50 isn’t just great, it’s also potentially important. The shadow of its influence has a good chance to alter the shape of indie games in the future. I think we’re all going to be name dropping this one for a long, long time.
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In the year of the most for-me-type games ever, Metaphor is my GotY. RPGs for me are all about hanging with buds and this is the greatest group of likeable, thoughtful and well-rounded friends of any game ever. The antagonists are decent too, story is entertaining, combat is great, art is beautiful.
Final Fantasy VI is my favorite game ever and Metaphor makes me question whether I like it more or not, so it sorta enters this internal dialogue of being one of the best ever by default. I doubt that any of the good games I haven’t played will do that. Astrobot probably isn’t going to dethrone Mario Odyssey in my mind. Nine Sols might have a chance at being better than Hollow Knight, I’ll have to see eventually.
Also I think Sega is trying to have the best year in games of any company ever:
Metaphor
Persona 3
SMT V
Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth
Sonic X Shadow
Super Monkey Ball
Unicorn Overlord(if that counts)
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Okay looking at the four games I played that were released this year we have:
- Persona 3 Reload, a remake of a game released in 2006
- Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, a remaster/expansion of a game released in 2021
- Sonic X Shadow Generations, a remaster/expansion of a game released in 2011
…so do any of those count?
If not, then congratulations to Astro Bot! You are the Game of the Year!
But if so then I’ll throw a vote the way of SMTVV. That was my favorite of the four. Not a dud in that bunch though. Good year!
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UFO 50 is a delight and I’m looking forward to dusting off more of the collection in the months and years to come. Even the games I bounce off have some interesting design wrinkle in there. Despite being presented as a collection of individual games, there is a certain cohesion. Real thought went into the meta conceit, but it in no way takes priority. The focus of the thing as a whole is game design, which is a feat in and of itself.
All that said, my game of the year is Indika. The developers idiosyncratic vision is beautifully executed. It’s a game about real life in a way that not many games aspire to, let alone pull off, and it’s done in a well written narrative with a strong aesthetic sense of identity. Some scenarios and their images still occupy my mind. I’ve got to give it up to the vision (and it’s excellent execution) of Indika.
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4. minishoot adventures
i felt a slight blush of shame every time i told someone i was playing a game with the title “minishoot adventures” but this was really fun! it’s like a bullet hell zelda. i also completed it in under 8 hours while watching the shield. that’s less than one season!
3. animal well
maybe this is just a “me thing” but certain pieces of art will lose their luster the longer they linger in the public eye. there’s a bratty side to this feeling, but also the more you see something, the more boring it appears and the more obvious the tricks. animal well might be one of those games, but i still remember how cool it felt to play it on release. i didn’t really know what the game was or what it was supposed to be, so it was a continuous process of discovery in a moody world. also i haven’t heard many people talk about the sound design, which really pleased me.
2. ufo 50
avianos
1. metaphor refantazio
i haven’t beaten this game, but i really like what i’ve played. more than anything, though, it has monster designs based off hieronymus bosch and that’s just really charming to me.
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So far 100% of the people who said they played Nine Sols also said it was GOTY. This is no coincidence.
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The version of UFO 50 that exists in my head is one of the greatest games of all time and the UFO 50 that exists in reality just bums me out. So here’s hoping it is influential so somebody makes a better one.
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I didn’t play many of the big ones this year. I still really wanna play Indika and Shadow of the Ninja: Reborn.
For now here is my list of fighting games and games only technically “released” in 2024:
- Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes. Blazing fast systems-heavy fighting game for freaks. Nothing released in the past few years compares imo. Such a blast to play and to spectate.
- Anthology of the Killer. This is a collection of nine playable horror-lite short stories by Space Funeral creator thecatamites. Indie games are back.
- Blue Revolver: Double Action. Been obsessed with this game since the big update dropped last week. Really fun, technical shooter.
- Tekken 8. My first 3D fighter! This game’s hard.
- Rivals of Aether 2. My first platform fighter! This game’s hard.
- Another Crab’s Treasure. Edited to add this one cuz I forgot it came out this year! High-action take on a soulslike with a fun and imo compelling story. I’m very impressed with everything this studio has put out so far.
2016’s 2023’s GOTY 2024:
- Overwatch 2. Since July I’ve been playing this regularly with a group of friends who, like me, haven’t played Overwatch since 2019, and learning and improving at the game alongside them has been uniquely rewarding.
Honorable mentions:
- Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. Very well-done collection. These games are ridiculous.
- UFO 50. High highs and low lows. On the whole I think it’s fine, and I might revisit it someday, but I lost all enthusiasm for it shortly after I raved about it in the dedicated thread lol. Frankly I’d just rather play old games.
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I almost never play games in their release year, but this year I played two! Echoes of Wisdom was fine and cute and fun. And Dragon Quest 3 is The Game For Me, I love it. I’ll have more to say if we have another Time Displaced Games of Your Year type thread.
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Question–is Nine Sols a real Metroid-like, as in, exploration and traversal is a core part of the gameplay (for example, Metroid Prime, Hollow Knight, La-Mulana series), or does it just use the 2D perspective and Metroid-like map while featuring mostly or even exclusively linear progression (for example, Carrion, F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch, Rogue Legacy), noting that the latter category isn’t a value judgement per se