For the third year in a row, I am once again writing yet another game of the year list and depending on who you are 2024 was either a disappointing slog or a fun-filled year of gaming. For me, it was a mixed bag of highs and lows. As always, this is a list of my top 10 games I played this year and not a list of games that released in 2024. Enjoy!
After playing the original game 6 years ago on a whim and adoring the world and lore it created, I was excited for the sequel. I decided not to follow the development at all as the whole game came out on Apple Arcade years ago and I wanted to go in blind, so when I started this I had no idea it was a prequel. The way it all lines up with the implied lore and world storytelling of the original is incredibly well done, one of the best utilisations of a prequel I’ve seen in a long time.
This game is not Zelda, as much as it screams its conventions and follows its models, it’s far from the polish and ingenuity of the Nintendo series. But for a genre of game that’s essentially on hiatus, and has been since 2011, it fills the void left and is very creative with its decisions. The elemental gun item is a good substitute for elemental arrows in a more technologically advanced world and the hookshot is much more useful than the Zelda version (except the twin clawshot from Twilight Princess). The story is a bit hamfisted and the voice acting could be better but it doesn’t get in the way of a really solid experience, and Ray Chase as Mesmeroth is an excellent casting choice, he blows the other actors out of the water.
This started as a slow burner for me; the intro of the game was action-packed and great but when it slowed down to a crawl I took a break. I revisited it when I had the urge to replay one of the older games and when I focused on the side content I eventually found my groove and I’m so glad I did. I was expecting an absolute joke of a game but the story, while short, was fun and kept me engaged. The real stars of the show here are the various side modes you unlock with criminal ventures, some of these are absolutely hilarious, especially the Mad Max-esque LARP quests which were absolute comedic gold.
The other side quests are your usual Saints Row fare but the way you slowly build up and see the evolution of the gang rather than it randomly building up between acts is refreshing and something that would have been cool to expand on. I also experienced one really annoying bug where I couldn’t leave vehicles and had to restart the game on several occasions but outside of that any bugs I encountered were more amusing than egregious, but I did play it after all the patches so that’s likely why.
I don’t get the hate, I found it on par with Saints Row the Third. The characters were more interesting but there was something missing, a bit of heart I think from the earlier titles that made it a little bit hollow feeling but not enough to kill my enjoyment. Hell, I even bought the DLC, two-thirds of which is fun but there is a grindy boring mode I won’t play. I rarely ever buy DLC so that speaks for something at least. Speaking of, the Game of Thrones-inspired Mad Max DLC section was surreal and incredible, well worth the £4 I paid for the season pass alone.
I didn’t really know what I was getting into with this Compile Heart title. I bought it for cheap from eBay and looking at trailers it appeared to be similar to Neptunia but with a game development/bug twist to it, but it is much more than that. With a story written by Makoto Kedouin and Sakuya Kamishiro of Corpse Party fame, the narrative takes a horror mystery approach with a twist towards the late game that will either appear as completely outlandish or utterly surreal depending on your mileage with the duo’s former works. I found myself pretty invested in the plot, there was a core mystery that kept me engaged throughout the game, even if the payoff was a little cliché and a tad predictable if you’ve played any similar type of story (it’s so hard to describe this properly without spoiling it but I think without the mystery the game isn’t as nearly as engaging).
As for the gameplay, it takes the turn-based combat of Neptunia but adds a pinball twist in that any enemy you hit will fly off in the direction that you aimed at them from, with the distance depending on the damage and the weight of the enemy. This adds a layer of strategy that you need to aim for enemies in the path of other enemies to maximise damage per turn, resulting in you literally bowling enemies into larger groups and aiming them toward the other playable characters too so they can get some extra hits in. The level designs are a nice blend of your MMO staples with corruption from these strange horrifying bug monstrosities and some genuinely great music to keep you pushing through the labyrinth dungeons that fill this game’s action side. I feel like the horror could have gone further here, considering the writers’ history, but for my first foray into a horror JRPG, I enjoyed my time and it definitely mixed up my usual gaming habits as an experience I won’t soon forget.
Tinykin is a game I’d been on the fence on for a few years. The 3D platforming element was really appealing, but the Pikmin-styled gameplay was a major put-off for someone that has never so much as touched a Pikmin game. As a result, it was something I’d leisurely hovered over the download button before deciding to play something else. By chance, Tinykin was being thrust from PlayStation Plus Extra and I had just resubscribed so I decided as it was short and I had the time and the subscription that I’d give it a try, and I’m so glad I did. From the ‘tiny character in a large-sized home’ trope (a personal favourite), a fun and colourful cast of NPCs, an engaging and intuitive progression system and a set of abilities that are a joy to control, Tinykin is a wonderful 3D platformer in its own right.
The actual namesakes of the game are introduced slowly and methodically; you never feel overwhelmed and they organically help open up the level’s collectables and progression. The game just screams at you to find everything and uncover all its little secrets. One of the later levels has you go through a child’s bedroom that has been turned into an amusement park and it’s filled to the brim with creativity and charm that is literally bursting with hidden elements, from under the bed to the top of cupboards and even objects hanging from the ceiling. There is a little mystery as you progress too, and the game culminates in this short but sweet conclusion that feels satisfying and does not overstay its welcome. If Splashteam make a sequel, please, please, please add a tracking system for the last few collectables, it’s something I felt this game severely needed when cleaning up the last few pieces of pollen.
Besides its Final Fantasy skin, Stranger of Paradise is a very alien experience for me. I am not familiar with Nioh, nor am I a fan of Soulslike games, but, the multiplayer element of this entry and the ability to persevere with someone else pushed me past the particularly annoying bosses that I probably would’ve given up on alone (looking at you, Tiamut!) As someone with experience with the original outing, it was very interesting to see the original characters fully realised and evolved from their original sprites and with a completely new context. Astos especially steals the show here, being by far the most interesting character and the biggest glow-up from his original interpretation, and the fact the story ties in nicely to the established time loop of the original game is all the more perfect for a prequel title.
As for the gameplay, whilst it took me a while to adjust, it becomes a very satisfying loop of levelling up classes to unlock more advanced ones and setting your loot up to maximise the effects of your selected class. I quickly adapted to Samurai and Paladin and had them set up to take down any boss we encountered, whilst levelling up another class as my primary to ensure that I had all classes levelled up by post-game. There were times I was frustrated, and times that I wanted to give up but persevering felt so damn satisfying when you finally took down a problematic boss and getting to flex and hone your skills in chaos mode in the post-game is a worthy reward for embracing chaos. This was a big surprise to me, I really enjoyed this a lot more than I expected and I am now peering over to Nioh to see what that has in store, maybe someday!
As all sequels should, Re;birth2 exponentially improves over the original outing in every way, with more interesting enemy variety, a better-paced story and less meandering. This made for a much better story to get through, on top of having to not have to replay the game 6 times to see every possible ending as you could position yourself to see endings from just before the point of no return. The multiple endings were still a chore though, especially when you had to do a lot of grinding for a 2-minute cutscene several times, but, the Conquest, Holy Sword and True endings were all exceptionally written, handled with a decent amount of care and a lot more serious than I had anticipated from this series. The new characters are all great, I especially liked the sisters and Falcom but did miss characters like Mages and Tekken.
As a low-budget series, the sequel does reuse a lot of assets from the first which can lead to the game feeling a little samey at times, but, the cast and new abilities go a long way to ensuring that it stays fresh, even with the grind, and the quality of life improvements ensure that this entry stands out as a fantastic time from a series that often isn’t taken very seriously.
Astro Bot has had unanimous praise from anyone who’s spent any amount of time with it, and it is well deserved, even granting it the ‘Game of the Year’ award for this year, so, why isn’t it mine? While I agree, it’s a fun-filled romp from beginning to end, with great themes, unique abilities and many, many cameos from PlayStation legends from all eras. Even the soundtrack is something special, remixing songs from Astro’s Playroom and adds a plethora of other new mixes to please your ears. Astro controls well, looks stunning, and takes everything from the beloved tech demo and expands on it well, especially in the more challenging symbol stages.
I do feel though, that its praise is a little OTT in places. Whilst yes, it’s rare for a triple-A game to have this much fun first gameplay with little regard to being cinematic or story-driven, it is far from the only game releasing to do this. 3D platformers have had a mini-renaissance over the last few years, and while yes, Astro Bot is an excellent addition to the genre, it’s mostly reiterations of existing concepts. Where it does decide to push the envelope, it doesn’t quite push hard enough or the concepts only exist for one use and are never seen again. Because of this the player isn’t truly tested with these concepts to their logical extreme like how Nintendo would utilise them in a Super Mario title. Until time passes, it’s unclear if Astro Bot will hold up for being more than just its exciting, fleeting moments of “Hey look it’s Spyro!“, which is a concern I have with its model of collectables being references. The future is bright, and as long as Sony publish more titles like Ratchet, Sackboy and Astro Bot and keep pushing to innovate we could truly bring a new golden era of 3D Platforming. Astro Bot certainly ignited mainstream attention to the genre again, which is a huge win in my eyes.
I often cite Jedi: Fallen Order as the precursor to my recent Star Wars phase, and Jedi: Survivor is no exception, it is one of the rare perfect sequels and does everything its predecessor does and improves on it. The puzzles feel more purposeful and require more thought. What’s more, the combat feels more fleshed out with the addition of new stances and skill trees as well as a larger variety of techniques and combos to utilise. The bosses in this game are ridiculously fun, especially in the later half of the game against a certain villain that I won’t spoil (you’ll know if you’ve played it). The story is well constructed, deep, and fits smoothly into existing canon. I didn’t see the twists coming in the way they were presented, even if what happened was obvious it didn’t take away from how it was handled. The fact that the game is a clear Anakin Skywalker allegory was top-notch, I love seeing an arc about struggling with darkness.
There are noticeably fewer planets this time, but what we have are far more fleshed out which is fine with me (even if Koboh is damn huge and I never seemed to stop discovering things there). The best part for me on a personal level, is that between the first and second game I’ve consumed almost the entire Star Wars catalogue, so there were a lot more references and character moments that I understood. This game proves EA can produce high-quality single-player content when they want to, which admittedly isn’t very often.
When I finished Persona 3 earlier this year I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it. I knew that I absolutely adored it and that it might be one of my favourite games of all time, but, was it better than Persona 5? I still don’t know where I stand on this just yet, but, P3 is a gripping story of heartbreak, depression, accepting the inevitability of death and making your own destiny. The way each character is presented and characterised conveys real, troubled people who just want to fit into a world that’s hurt them. Everything here is polished, quick, intuitive and easy to follow, the system to rewind a few days in case you missed something vital is a very welcome addition and the updated soundtrack has been on regular rotation in my playlists since I completed it.
It handles character relationships in a much more realistic way than Persona 5 does, but I feel this is more due to the environment the characters are in. Living together in a dorm and tackling the shadows together is a much more relationship-driven affair than a group of like-minded kids solving a case or taking down society together, so it lends itself better to the type of intimate interpersonal issues they are likely to experience than its sequels. I am a little surprised that the extra content of its iterations was not included, it’s hard to call this version definitive when it’s missing so many key components but it’s still a fantastic experience that everyone should play at least once, and this is a damn good way to do that.
If you know me, you knew this, even just seeing the thumbnail from this article likely gave this away too. I could talk for hours about why I love Sonic Generations, and I probably will in the future (I’ll link it here if I get to that), so here I’ll focus on what made this go from a remaster that I would have ranked highly just for an opportunity to replay it to my game of the year. Shadow Generations, something that could have been a brief experience just to sell copies and advertise the movie turned into a whole game’s worth of content, with meaningful stage choices, a heart-warming story, unique powers, and a more challenging set of collectables to obtain and S Ranks to master. Bringing back Shadow’s tormented past is risky, as those games are not held in super high regard, but Sonic Team managed to flesh out a great adventure and brought playable Shadow back in a way that hasn’t been felt since Sonic Adventure 2, 20 years prior.
From the animated short that introduced the story to the interactions with Maria, the challenge stages, remixed songs and boss fights (especially Mephiles, that one was heavy), it’s a fantastic package that would have been an excellent game on its own, but the fact its paired with Sonic Generations too makes it a perfect combination of old and new and a must play for the Year of Shadow to get you hyped up for the movie. It’s hard to really quantify why I love this game so much, it’s a mixture of a long history with the character, excellent game design and a great selection of themes that just makes this game sit right with the core of my being.
My top 10 games this year were ridiculously hard to narrow down, a few great games missed the top 10 by a narrow margin, and even my top four could all have been number one in the right year. Astro Bot was an incredible amount of fun that had me smiling throughout, Persona 3 delved deep into my soul and made me recontextualise how I perceive others’ struggles and mortality, Sonic Generations is my favourite Sonic game, and they added a whole Shadow game too it with phenomenal gameplay, abilities and story. This was a great year for my gaming library and all of these games were fantastic experiences I will not soon forget. But, what was your game of the year? Do you agree with The Game Awards and loved Astro Bot or did you play something else that transcended your very being? Let me know if you get the time!
Video game completionist and 3D platformer connoisseur, Riley is a fan of the whimsical frenzy of bright and colourful characters that blessed us in the late 90's. Their favourite game's are Spyro, Persona 5 and Super Mario Sunshine.
