by jigenese
For me personally, 2024 was a better year than 2023. I’m more used to my new job and I enjoy what I do at work again for the first time in years. My wife and I went on two great vacations this year, Alaska and Hawaii. I’m looking forward to 2025 as it feels like it’s building up to be a great year.
As for gaming in 2024, I didn’t get to play a lot, but I did play a few games that I really loved and are likely to end up on my All Time Favorite games list. However, as always, before we get into the list of my favorite games of the year, let me give a few honorable mentions:
Pikimin Bloom
My wife has been playing this “game” since it came out, but I just got into it this year. Although I started playing as an excuse to do something with my wife and to get out of the house and go for walks, I’ve come to actually enjoy some of the routine activities that it has you do. Yes, it did get me to take more walks. Yes, it did give my wife and me something to interact with together. Yes, I do find myself having fun planting flowers around the neighborhood in order to collect some meaningless (and let’s admit, ugly) character design items.
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Honorable Mention: I got this game as a Christmas gift and I’ve only put 11 hours into it. I do like it so far. I’ve been pining to play a turn-based RPG for some time - most of the games that I’ve played in the past few years have been action RPGs. Although the game looks like a PS2 game, the gameplay and the general conceit of the game (your team changes to different characters as time passes in the game world) are interesting and fun to play.
Honorable Mention: I just picked this game up last night so I could play it with a group of friends. I haven’t played a Mario Party game for some years now and it felt good to jump back in. I’ve only played three rounds so far, so it would be difficult to consider this for this year’s list, but I have enjoyed what I’ve played so far.
Honorable Mention: This game is still excellent. My wife and I jumped back into the game this month for the first time in nearly a year and I was quickly reminded why this game is still running strong, and was my game of the year in 2019 - it’s absolutely a blast to play and just feels so good when you get into the top five. Although I haven’t managed a win yet on this revisit, I have gotten to #2 a few times.
#5 In 2023, I only played a bit of SF6 with some friends during the summer. Those same friends gave the game to me for Christmas and in January I finally got around to playing the game. I only played the story mode and used the new, simplified control scheme, but I found that I really got into the game. The NPCs and character designs are excellent, the fighting is smooth and very responsive, and just picking fights with random strangers on the street feels so good. I played completely through the story mode and loved every moment.
#4 Nioh 2 was my game of the year in 2021. Wo Long was my runner up in 2023. I was very excited to play Rise of the Ronin and had it high on my list of most anticipated games of 2024. Although the combat in Rise of the Ronin doesn’t hold a candle to Nioh 2, I had a ton of fun running around in Meiji Restoration era Japan (one of my favorite Japanese era), interacting with Sakamoto Ryoma (I have a Sakamoto Ryoma figure that I picked up in a museum in his hometown sitting on my office desk), taking up every mission I could possibly find, designing yet another kickass Japanese lady samurai character based on Tifa from FF7 (foreshadowing?), and upgrading the best gear I could find in the game. It’s not as challenging or intricately designed as Nioh and Wo Long, but Rise is fun! I actually went back and forth between this and my #3 on which should be higher on my list, but in the end, #3 brought back so many great nostalgic memories that it took the lead.
#3 Tomb Raider The original Tomb Raider has long stayed in my top ten favorite games of all time list, but recently I started questioning whether I should revise my top ten games because, like Tomb Raider, I hadn’t played many of these games for years. However, with the recent uptick of remastered games, I have been able to go back and revisit most of my top ten. This year’s remaster revisit was Tomb Raider, and I’m very happy to announce that it still holds strong. I absolutely loved my time with Tomb Raider in 2024 and I played completely through the game twice back to back. I still think it is one of the best games ever made, and it’s a disappointment that they’ve never been able to recreate what made the original so great (Tomb Raider 2 & 3 are still trash games and look and play like garbage).
#2 Shadow of the Erdtree Elden Ring is a masterpiece. It is the only game in my top ten games of all time that was made in the past twenty years. The large expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, does not detract from how high I hold Elden Ring (I consider it the best game of this decade). Shadow continues everything that made Elden Ring great and adds more weapons, areas, bosses, NPCs, and incredible moments. Objectively speaking, Elden Ring as a complete package is possibly the greatest game ever made. I think the standout moment for me was the climb to the top of the dragon mountain (I can never remember the names of places in these games) that culminated in the battle with Bayle, one of the best boss battles in all of the Soulsborne games. From Software’s consistent delivery of greatness and wonderful surprises and uniqueness blows my mind every time. I just want to play more…
Yes, Shadow of the Erdtree is a continuation of a masterpiece, and I loved every minute of playing it, FF7 Rebirth just brought a smile to my face all the way through. Although I do have a few minor complaints, I did feel that the game was everything that I wanted it to be and delivered on my high expectations. Let’s get the negative out of the way first and then I’ll dive into the positive. Negative: [1] Chadley’s sister is brain-rakingly annoying and shouldn’t be in the game. What a disappointment that her annoying voice had to play throughout each of the hunt fights - it completely ruins the hunt fight portion of the game… [2] The voice acting direction for Red XII was mishandled. I do understand that they needed a younger voice when it is revealed that he is actually a young person, but the voice actor and delivery that they chose was very annoying and caused me to stop using Red for the remainder of the game. [3] They just simply botched the ending of the Temple of the Ancients where Cloud hands the black materia to Sephiroth. The scene played out as though everyone suddenly became drooling idiots and they just kind of batted the materia back and forth between each other for no apparent reason - there was no logic to any of the actions taken in that scene. The scene had none of the tension and gravity of the original where you realize that Cloud really cannot control his mind anymore. A missed opportunity… Now, let’s gush about the positive: [1] The open world environments are beautiful and look exactly like I pictured them in my mind for decades. The environments were full of interesting characters, hidden treasures, and fun mini games. I found myself just wandering through the environments for hours. [2] The game is very long and I wanted that. Even when it did end, I just wanted more. [3] The sequence with Dyne was surprisingly emotional and I felt that it was well done. [4] The Golden Saucer was as fun as I hoped it would be. [5] The combat continues to be fun and engaging and I really appreciated the specialty fights, like the final encounter with Roche, that forced you to learn some of the more obscure mechanics. [6] The character models and personalities continue to be the best in gaming and fit perfectly with my nostalgia, including new portrayals of popular characters like Cid and Vincent. [7] My nearly 30 year dream of going on a date with Tifa came true in this game and I loved every second of it. Leading up to the moment, I was afraid that a different character would visit my room (my neighbor in real life got Barrett - LOL), but I was completely relieved and super happy when Tifa came to my door in the Golden Saucer. Easily the best gaming moment of the year for me, and possibly ever (I’m serious). [8] The music is better than anything else out there. Specifically, two tracks really brought a smile to my face: Bow Wow Wow and the Gongaga Region theme. In the end, I really think this was one of the happiest gaming experiences I’ve ever had in my life. I’m not sure where this game will land on my favorite games of all time list, but I think it will be fairly high. I just can’t wait until the final instalment comes out! Part of me just wants to continue to live well just so I can experience it. A side note about the final installment of the remake series: Square really missed a wonderful opportunity when they used up the subtitle “Reunion” for the stinker Crisis Core instead of using it as the subtitle for the final entry of this series…
