whee I have finally joined the “(post deleted by author)” club.
I don’t know how it happened, but while I was in the middle of typing I somehow hit some magic set of keystrokes that just posted my message mid-draft. blarg!
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Chants of Sennaar might take the pole position with just a few days remaining. I am a sucker for language puzzles, tense sequences (I recently had my first brushes with a monster. When it’s running toward the foreground, great stuff), and striking visuals.
Coming to this after Obra Dinn earlier this year feels like a satisfying unit in more recent deductive adventure games that hearken back to deep progenitors (in this case, a bit of Captain Blood in the emphasis on iconic language and a bit of Another World in some of the visuals).
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Now that it is both near the end of the year and for reasons beyond my control I am highly unlikely to play anything else new (to me) before the start of next year, I can start trying to collect my thoughts on the games I played this year.
I don’t know if I’ll manage a Top Ten (ed: I got to 8), I haven’t given this much prior consideration at all.
The main rule I’m working to for inclusion here are games that are new to me / I played for the first time this year. I agree that there is little value in just re-listing the same game every year with a “haha! I played my favourite game again and it is on the top of my list!”, but strongly disagree that I should not talk about older releases – especially things from last year I didn’t see until now – simply because the calendar ticked over.
The List
#1: No Man’s Sky (2016), PC, steam
While not technically entirely new to me – I played NMS briefly on its original launch on my PS4 – the years of updates and changes have resulted in something largely different from those unsubstantial few minutes I played back then. I can’t remember what the genesis of the thought was, but at some point earlier this year I found myself wondering if I should check this game out again: “…maybe it would be nice to just hang out and float about in space for a bit?”. Turns out, it was quite nice to just hang out and float about in space for a bit.
I started a “casual” mode save and played that for 50-ish hours, which let me see a whole bunch of what the game has on offer without much friction. Then the “Aquarius” expedition launched, and I had never seen nor done any of those before. I figured that was as good a time as any to give “normal” mode a shot, so I started a new save and embarked on the expedition. I’ve been hooked (fishing pun re: aquarius expedition only partially intended) ever since. Lately, they’ve been re-running all the expeditions from this year, so I’ve been able to see a bunch of the limited-time content that I missed before picking the game up.
I played this game so much – and it hit the right notes at the right time for me – that I simply can’t imagine giving anything else the nod this year.
The next few, undordered
Indika (2024), PC, steam
I’m not sure I have a great deal to say about Indika that hasn’t already been said on these forums. I’m glad it was made, and I’m glad I experienced it.
Persona 3 Reload (2024), PC, Gamepass
I’d never played P3, FES, nor P3P before, so this was my first time in the Persona 3 world. I liked it! It isn’t my favourite Persona, but that doesn’t matter. I think I have exactly zero interest in the DLC/expansion, I’m happy to leave the story wrapped up as it is at the end of P3.
I then went on to watch all four P3 films, and they for the most part sucked.
Xenosphere (2024), PC, itch (free)
Here’s my candidate for “absolutely wild game that nobody has heard of or played”. I recorded my entire playthrough of this game, and the file is 31 minutes and 8 seconds long.
This is the sort of game that is more of an experience than anything else, and also it is the sort of thing that could not have existed via any other medium nor at any earlier point in history until now. Absolutely wild. It is free on Itch. Go play it.
The next next few, also unordered but after those first few I guess
Balatro (2024), PC, steam
Yeah, Balatro was fun. It didn’t hit me with instant “holy shit this is the best game ever omg omg” feelings, but it is certainly good. I probably don’t need to ever play it again however, but that’s not a bad thing. I had a bunch of fun.
Jusant (2023), PC, Gamepass
I played Jusant early this year after seeing it recommended a bit on a few end-of-year lists last year. Overall it was “ok”, but there were a few strong moments that for me lift it up to properly “good”. I may not have bothered to check it out if it weren’t on gamepass, but I’m glad that I did.
The Exit 8 (2023), PC, steam
Took me only just over an hour to complete, which felt just right. A cool idea and implementation with just enough quirks and variations to keep me interested, but not so many that it overstays the proverbial welcome.
Picross S Namco Legendary Edition (2024), Switch
I’m a sucker for Picross. I’ll play them all.
Honourable mentions
1000xResist (2024), PC, steam
I have only barely started this. I like what I’ve seen thus far and will likely get around to it some time early next year.
Hades II, early access. PC, steam
I’ve had a lot of fun with this – but I think I’m at the point where I’ll check in briefly to see what gets added each “major update” and then go back to waiting for the full release.
Path of Exile II, early access. PC, steam
I think POE2 is both excellent and highly flawed. That’s fine though! Even though this release has been marketed as “early access”, it really is “early early access” or simply just “open beta” – where “beta” really means it, not “you paid 20% more for 3 days early play time before the game comes out, and of course we can’t do any meaningful testing in that time”. The developer has said that they expect the full game to be available “in 2025” but realistically I expect there to be more like 18 months worth of this EA/beta before it is ready.
Unlike with Hades II, I will be continually playing this through early access.
Dishonourable mentions
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree (2024), PC, steam
I had such a good time for the first while playing through this, even though I continue to hate the way From Soft gate the DLC entry via game world state – I’d converted my save to NG+ after playing through the main campaign last year, and that meant I had to replay the whole fucking thing again up to the point I could unlock the DLC just to get access to it. I don’t care for any of the “its not that hard” or whatever arguments: if I’ve made it to NG+ it should just be a main menu option.
I hate the final boss encounter so much that thinking about this game now only results in bitter memories. That was not the fun sort of hard/challenge, it was just “haha we know you tragic fucks will just keep retrying for hours and hours so suck it”. (I am thoroughly uninterested in any “lul it is ez get good” commentary or links to videos of people one-shotting or no-hitting the boss (which exclude the context of the thousand hours worth of practice before the recorded encounter)).
Give me more of the first half-ish of this DLC. Never make the back half again.
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taking advantage of some winter downtime to comment in a non-game guessing thread. games are arranged in the order i played them this year. this is less “game of the year” and more “what i completed this year”
i don’t plan to say anything insightful or meaningful about these games, so feel free to skip!
Orbo’s Odyssey – this is high up on my shortlist for favorite games played in 2024. Light, breezy and some of the most joyous traversal of all time. More please?
Gunbrella – I know I’m spoiled with quality action platformers when I can say I like this game okay. If other games were worse, I might have loved it.
ZeroRanger – I don’t have a top pick this year, but ZeroRanger is not not my top pick. By the time I could complete it, I could 1cc it. I had a similar love affair with Void Stranger last year. System Erasure is building games that are fully impedance matched to my brain.
Frog Fractions – yeah, I needed to actually play it.
PARANORMASIGHT The Seven Mysteries of the Honjo – I like anime, I like VNs (w/in reason), I liked this game. great for travelling/playing on the Deck.
Dead Cells – this was fun in 2017, but did a long revisit this year and more fully explored the possibilities. As with many tight games with procedural generation and many, many ways to play: I got (real) good and eventually lost interest, changing my overall opinion. this is a me problem, good game.
Chants of Senaar – much like ZeroRanger, this is not not my favorite game. the variety of beautifully designed, somewhat unique puzzle/mystery games ala Obra Dinn, Senaar, and the Golden Idols are spoiling me.
Doki Doki Literature Club – finally finished it.
Balatro – if I don’t have something nice to say, I try not to say it.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth – this was a game I 100%’d in 2024. I’ll say two things: Gongaga zone OST is better than metaphor battle theme, if we’re comparing things & chadley is singlehandedly ruining my experience with the remakes.
Animal Well – number three in the not not my favorite game list. went in with hipsterishly low expectations and was very pleasantly surprised.
Diablo IV – forced myself to see what the current devs/management view as a Diablo in 2024.
A Short Hike – met (high) expectations.
Crow Country – also met high expectations.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree – more Armored Core, please.
The Curse of Monkey Island – replayed with family.
Baba is You – did a puzzle a day until I finished. probably should pick up a crossword book.
Nine Sols – i have read the opinions people here have of this game. this is not my GotY, but it was an important experience. boss fights were mostly excellent and a highlight of the experience. had visceral reactions to some aspects of the story and game/level design – this impressed me, even if it didn’t make it my fav.
Tactical Breach Wizards – this was fine. my local book store probably has crosswords, right?
Darkest Dungeon II – the first one was a quarantine blackhole of mine, so I put playing this off for a while. enjoyed it, but ultimately would revisit the OG if I want to live in a gravity well.
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 – tyrannids are not my favorite adversary to fight, which detracted from this game. preferred original, though will always love traipsing around a spectacular 40K environment.
UFO 50 – too much to say, just about all positive. put in a couple hundred hours, finished just about every game. many standouts, but pingolf really hit the spot – even if it took me a while to do the same on some holes. shoutout Night Manor, too, since i’ve seen no one comment on it
The Crimson Diamond – this was great
Metaphor: ReFantazio – well. I sure did like the map, traveling to locations and hanging out on the gauntlet runner.
The Rise of the Golden Idol – I’ll play these all day long.
Parasite Eve – i play this from time to time in december, day for day. this was a more memorable year
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Games I played for the first time in 2024:
Lost Odyssey: it would have become my entire personality if I was 16, but I needed to play it at 33 to really understand what it has to say. This is the Game of My Year.
Dark Souls II: yeah, I’m #ds2crew now. I played it on Xbox 360 offline and I still loved it. There’s a high chance I’ll play it again because I just got a PS4 and I want to see what scholar of the first sin is all about. And cause I just like it.
Pokemon Scarlet: I don’t love this one, but I did play the whole dang thing and all the dlc, whatever that says about me. It’s a little broken, very jank, but I love making Pokemon teams.
Blasphemous: I love a good Search Action Game and this is a pretty good one of those. The most interesting thing about it is that instead of upgrades to your movement throughout the world, the game gives you abilities to change the world around your character. It’s a neat approach that I hadn’t seen yet. The story is a bit, “What’s going on here, again?” But it’s fun to look at.
Vampire Survivors: They got me! It’s stupid, but I did play a stupid amount of it. It’s nice to have a low impact no brain think game to play at the end of the night.
Assorted games I replayed: MegaMan Legends 2, Fire Emblem Awakening, Pokemon Fire Red and Soul Silver, all 3 Castlevanias Advance, Zelda 1, and Hyper Light Drifter
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Oh man, base game isn’t even worth your time when Scholar is a flat out improvement. I’d say you’d love it but I also don’t think it’s different enough to jump in right after finishing the base game. It’s mostly rebalancing, level layout tweaks, performance fixes, etc. It’s the game it deserved to be on launch.
Unless you mean you’re playing Scholar of The First Sin, but haven’t started the DLC areas yet. In that case, ignore me.
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Oh yeah I mean when I get back around to it in a couple years I’ll check out scholar. It’s nice to know it’ll be even better when I return.
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My other game of the year is Gorilla Tag
Happy belated new year! I got a second job near the end of the summer, so I have been way less a part of this forum than I intended to last year. Oops!
But before things pick up again in a big ol’ way next week, I wanted to share a little write-up that I sent to friends of mine on our Discord server, especially because there is a lot of IC Forums Influence at play in what follows. Come expecting enthusiasm, not insight; I don’t mean this to be especially good or critically reflective writing.
Same as most of y’all, this is more about the very many games I gave a fair shake last year. I had a JRPG-heavy winter and spring, while over the summer I picked up a handheld emulator and set up a PC for the purpose of emulating games up through the ~PS2 era in my living room, got kinda wrapped up in Resident Evil, Touhou Project and and Ace Combat along the way; lately, with less free time, I’ve been playing games socially and on Switch. Without further ado, I present my…
TOP TWELVE of TWENTY TWENTY FOUR and seven more
Here are some of my gaming highlights in retrospect. Some have been fogged by memory’s decay, others beloved evermore for the dry brine of time. Links go to reviews I wrote on the games I journal’d about over on Backloggd.
The spoiler tags are few but genuine, so be warned! And this is not a ranking, but games are presented roughly in order of how strongly I’d recommend them to a general audience.
1000xRESIST (2024)
There is the you that remains, that remains and remains.
This dozenish-hour debut is one of the best stories I have ever been told. It is very rare that you get to drop the “…for a video game” portion of narrative accolades. This is not a good production for a video game; this is a genuine work of art akin to great literature or theatre. It is about school and about clones, about the pandemic and about immigration, about aliens and about sisters, about whining and knowing when not to sulk. There are so many layers to the story presented here, and the more I think about it, the more I am impressed with how much there is to sit with in this game. It moved me to tears multiple times and has left a lasting impression. I cannot recommend it enough to all feeling humans.
Void Stranger (2023)
Honestly, I can’t even remember how I ended up in this place.
You go into Void Stranger under the impression that it’s a box-pushing, tile-swapping puzzle game, and it is for a long time, but then it is so much more. You dive into a labyrinth and discover more twists than you could have imagined. This two-man project features some beautiful Game Boy-ish pixel art and fantastic lo-fi, bitcrushed music compositions. Surprising and twisty narrative. The puzzles get devilish and the game runs deep . The end is the beginning. This game is its own sequel and then some. As a favor to your sense of wonder, please: Work through the puzzles, dive deep into the void and learn the many secrets to living in its world.
Sin and Punishment (2000)
The old Earth will die soon. Killed by the very people it fed.
This one’s a cult hit for the N64 that was only released in Japan despite its all-English, only-English voice acting. Smash Bros trophies helped popularize it in the West and now you can play it with Switch Online and emulators! An on-rails shooter (think Star Fox) by the legendary Studio Treasure, Sin and Punishment has your character always running forward as you move them side-to-side and aiming across the screen while alien enemies flood your vision. A lavish and melodramatic Evangelion-esque plot about identity and apocalypse plays out in cutscenes between the stages. Very cool tbh. I played this like 5 times, went for the 1 Credit Clear (i.e. win it without using continues) and failed, but this is the game that helped me discover why shootemups are so cool. You can beat it in about 2 or 3 hours, check it out!
Mouthwashing (2024)
How come it always seems like you’re standing on the edge of a bridge with your feet in cement?
This is a shorter horror title about a Space Amazon delivery that goes terribly wrong. Mouthwashing is a story told out of time, jumping forward and back and hopping characters’ perspectives, perfectly pacing the reveals and setting a suspenseful tone like no other. It pulls no punches; check TWs online if you need. Makes for a gutwrenching evening, I highly recommend it for fans of psychological thrillers.
Mr. Driller (1999)
Dig, Dig and Dig!
This is a precious Namco puzzle game, originally released for Dreamcast, featuring a super cute mascot protagonist and a bumpin’ soundtrack. You move left, right or down to drill deep into the ground, collecting oxygen tanks to replenish your air supply as you try to get to the goal at the bottom, or to see how far you can make it before losing. It’s very chill, and there are plenty of ways to emulate it or to download its sequels and handheld ports. Excellent use case for having a handheld emulator machine!
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (2019)
Does the color of the sky mean anything special to you? It does to me.
This July, I played all of the Ace Combat games available to me in a month: Air Combat, Ace Combat 2, a translation of the Japanese release of Ace Combat 3 (the U.S. release was gutted to fit on a single disc), Ace Combat 4, Ace Combat 5, Ace Combat Zero, and I only skipped AC6 because it is exclusive to the difficult-to-emulate Xbox 360. There was a time when AC7 was my favorite game I had played this whole year. Instead of going into them at great length here, I recommend checking out my extensive Backloggd review above to feel out my vibes on the experience. My summer in the skies was a really fun time and I recommend any fan of action games to try out this superb series, starting with AC04 and AC7. (Another Namco W on this list!)
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999)
All the foxy ladies love my accent. It drives them crazy.
I played through the original RE trilogy in July and early August. This was my favorite! It’s got a fun map that propels you forward, it is a tight and concise experience, and changes things up on you in fun ways, particularly in having the main bad guy, Nemesis, be a pursuer who will occasionally pop out and screw up all your careful planning and resource management as you gleefully squeal away from him. As you can tell from the quote, it’s got goofy, dated, action B-movie dialogue to accompany the survival horror. It’s tight!
Gran Turismo 2 (1999)
Move aside and let the man go through. Let the man go through.
This is such a cool, challenging game. You can tell how much the developers respect car and racing culture from the thoughtful write-ups included on each one of the ~650(!) vehicles you can buy, plus each of the various modifications and tune-ups you can perform to supe your ride up. I never had a sense of what it meant for a vehicle to be front-wheel, rear-wheel or all-wheel drive until this late-90s “simcade” racer taught me; these cars handle so crazy until you learn how to tame them or tune your inputs toward the demands of their drivetrain. Of all games I played this year, this one wins the Legs Award. I came back to this one almost daily for a month straight before I rolled the credits — at 42% completion, about, which is so insane to think of how much more I could wring out of this. Polyphony Digital was pumpin’ out the value back in the day!
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Essential playing for the metroidvania fans out there. Alucard is one of the genre’s best-controlling main characters, I swear it, and the RPG elements are fun as hell. Progression feels so good, the map is immaculately crafted, there are so many cool bosses and music tracks — lie down and knock this out in a dozen or so hours, it is so worth your time.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024)
When the rest of them ran, you were there for me.
Complex like no other. This is a handcrafted love letter to its source material, and it is underbaked in some ways both hilarious and maddening. At least the team is punching above its weight, but big swings come with some big misses. The moment-to-moment is great, though; this and FF7 Remake still have the best action-RPG mechanics in the market IMO, even if the transition to an open-world design falls flat in some regards. But seriously, there will not be games like this for much longer. There may never be another game quite like this one ever again, not even the third & final part of the trilogy. I really think so. Sephiroth calls Cloud a puppy dog early on, so that’s pretty good.
BLUE REVOLVER (2016)
You’re not the only one who can break the rules.
Perfect arcade shmup for fans and newcomers to the genre. Choice of character affects your shot pattern of course but also puts fun twists on the narrative, and each has her own unique secondary weapons to select from. The game is very much in the vein of shmups by Cave (Donpachi, Mushihemasama), i.e. the bullets fly fast and take some twitchy reflexes to get by; there’s more aim-manipulation than pattern-memorization (like in Touhou and in Studio Treasure shmups). The scoring system is really unique and fun too, and the difficulty adapts to how much you are scoring and resets every so often when you lose a life or use a bomb. It’s great!
EA Sports WRC (2023)
Starts slights right, one hundred. Good luck.
This rally racing game is a little under-featured for a full-price title, but the minute-to-minute gameplay is exhilarating like no other. When you give this your full attention, tune in entirely to your co-driver’s callouts and get a feel of the handling of your car, it’s a unique feeling, a sixth sense for weight, sliding, the shape and forces of a vessel so much larger than your own body shooting down the roads. I couldn’t recommend this to anyone who plays without a wheel, it just wouldn’t have the same effect. But it deserves a mention on this list for sure, an enduring highlight I discovered last year.
and then there were seven… HONORABLE MENTIONS!
(Links here go to YouTube vids of gameplay or trailers.)
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Mr. Sun’s Hatbox (2023) — Very funny mission-based game that is kind of like if Metal Gear Solid 5 were a roguelike with the gameplay of Duck Game. Silly good couch co-op!
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It Takes Two (2021) — This one is actually a 9.5/10 incredible all-timer, but I still haven’t completed playing it with my girlfriend just yet. It is unbelievable how many different mechanics they included in there, how well animated and voiced everything is, how joyous the whole experience is, and also it’s rare to have a game be actually, genuinely funny! I am loving this a lot.
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R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (1998) — Just take a look at that minute of gameplay. Listen to that and tell me this game isn’t swag to the max. Do you get it? Don’t you see?
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Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon (2023) — Maybe my favorite FromSoft game! Very fun action game with a ton of replayability, which I still need to get to the bottom of. I like how different it is to control a light mech vs. a heavy tank, how the different weapons demand different movements from you, the whole thing is awesome. Such a cool story going on, with sick tentpole setpiece battles, and you get a great sense of characterization even though you never see a human face and rarely talk to other pilots “in person,” so to speak.(edited)
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Zero Ranger (2018) — Another fantastic modern shmup, also the first game the dev team behind Void Stranger made. It’s relatively light on the gimmicks and convoluted score systems, compared to other entries on this list. If the vibes of BLUE REVOLVER don’t suit your fancy, peep Zero Ranger’s two-toned palette and see if that’s more your style.
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Final Fantasy VI (1994) ROM hack called Vanilla New World (2013) — They say FF6 is the prime of the pre-PS1 FFs, but I say it’s a little too easy to hold my interest! So I searched around for a ROM hack to up the difficulty or change up the battle systems, and found one: Brave New World. But it also came with a ton of changes to the script to make it edgy and humorous, but I don’t want that. Neither did some other guy, so he cut out like 95% of the changes (leaving more than I would have, though) and that’s what I played. I’d recommend it! Fun, challenging JRPG experience!
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Touhou Eiyashou: Imperishable Night (2004) — Two words: Wriggle Nightbug. I had such a crazy Touhou kick this year, it’d be wild to leave one off this list, right? This one is the best of the “old” Windows Touhou games to play IMO because the way this game handles difficulty through its continue system is very smart; your maiden shrine and her youkai companion begin the “imperishable night” at 11 p.m. and you have until 5 a.m. to finish the game. Beating any stage costs half an hour, and every continue costs half an hour, so you can spend a ton of continues on the early stages to master them, and as you get better, you naturally progress further and further as you spend fewer of those continues to get to the final stage. It’s clever!
AND FIN! Great year. I could add so many more, from light gun highlights to the nights I spent playin’ golden oldies like Crusader of Centy and Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete into the night. Or I could say how cool Bulk Slash is again. But I’m tired! GOOD NIGHT!
That’s the post! Lookin’ forward to what 2025 brings us! Gotta add that I owe a great debt to the pod crew and Credit Inserters on this forum for helping guide me to some really fantastic game experiences. Thanks for keeping up the great conversations and turning up excellent finds from the world of gaming. Cheers!
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