The sphinx from Dragon’s Dogma 2 is by far the most interesting part of the game, and this lengthy questline is completely missable. In fact, it’s likely that you’ll miss it.

2024 was a very good year for video games, but it was an even better year for me. I made things official with the woman I’m dating, I started my ADHD medication journey, I embarked on a five-country tour of Europe for the first time with some of my best friends, I built a pair of (expensive) retro gaming setups with a PS2, a Dreamcast and a Super Famicom at the center, and Hunter x Hunter came back with 10 verbose, intrigue-laden chapters.

I’m more than a little proud of myself for finding the time to play 24 games from last year—and another 13 from yesteryear—all while touching more figurative and literal grass than I ever imagined possible. And as usual, albeit a bit later than usual, I’ve compiled a list of the best of them just for you.

The ones that almost made the cut:
Helldivers 2 – I played this game with friends exactly once and I heard the call of the void. For months, I was genuinely afraid to launch this game for fear of throwing my entire evening (and eventually, my job) away.
Unicorn Overlord - It’s the complete inverse of Vanillaware’s last project, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim—excellent combat with an underwhelming narrative. I prefer 13 Sentinels to Unicorn Overlord, but I look forward to returning to it someday.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 – The only thing holding this game back from a top-10 spot is its 2003-ass quest design. Otherwise, what a remarkable playground for emergent experiences.
Animal Well – I wish I had more time to delve into its postgame mysteries. Among the many, many things I’ll never know about Animal Well is how a game this small has an atmosphere this big.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 – Not unlike the anomalies peppered throughout the game’s map, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s weird magnetism drew me in almost completely by accident. I booted it up from Game Pass on a whim one day and lost 30 hours to the infamous zone and its wonders.

10. Stellar Blade

Korean developer SHIFT UP Corporation trade in their wealth of mobile game experience for their first console effort and the result is the best character-action game of the year. As it turns out, grafting a character-action game onto From Software’s classic design framework (limited-use healing items, bonfires, resetting enemies, shortcuts, etc.) isn’t a wholly original idea, but it’s an effective one.
And that really sums of Stellar Blade, one of the most talked-about games of 2024 for the most annoying reason imaginable.

Some of the environmental storytelling is a little hamfisted in these Resident-Evil-like enclosed areas, but the environments are stunning nonetheless.

It’s not an exploration of new ideas, but an enduring marriage of synergistic ones. Its biggest fault is an overly-ambitious story, but even that manages to land effectively on occasion; when its main narrative flies too close to the sun, you can expect to find more meaningful and tender moments in the shade of a handful of side quests. Though annoyingly, some of these side quests tee up main story developments a bit too transparently (Ironically, Nier: Automata, Stellar Blade’s obvious muse, was much better at foreshadowing).

Still, you’re probably not here for the story, and that’s fine because Stellar Blade succeeds on almost every other front. The simple act of moving Eve around is a joy. Combat somehow rewards well-timed dodges and parries, all while doling out a spate of powerful abilities as you ramp up to the memorable final trio of bosses. Its soundtrack sounds like a K-Pop channel you might hear on a radio in the world of Nier: Automata; I found myself lingering at bonfires on more than one occasion to let a song finish. And there is a wealth of incentives for poking around amid the various nooks and crannies of the environments you’ll explore. Say what you will about the costumes, but I long for the days when unlockables weren’t gated behind DLC.

9. 1000xResist

You won’t find 1000xResist on any Best Graphics shortlists, but the artistry here is undeniable.

There’s not a more striking juxtaposition on this list than the move from #10 to #9.

1000xResist was the best video game story I experienced last year, and the only reason it’s not higher on this list is because the act of playing it was frequently an impediment to my enjoyment of that story. Still, if you care about narratives, video game or otherwise, you should buy this game and play it for yourself. I don’t say this lightly, but this game changed me in some small but probably permanent ways.

Few games have made “hold right to advance” as compelling.

At the heart of 1000xResist is Watcher, recently elevated to the title of her namesake in a post-apocalyptic society of clones. An alien invasion has driven humanity to the brink of extinction. These aliens, called Occupants, spread a virus that sent humans into a trauma loop, causing them to relive their worst moments until they literally cried themselves to death. This is only like the 1th-most f***ed-up idea explored in 1000xResist.

The classic fisheye forehead shot is used to great effect here.

Watcher is one of six Sisters (alongside Principal, Healer, Knower, Fixer and my personal favorite, Bang Bang Fire) who serve as leader figures in their home, the Orchard. But they in turn are subservient to the All-Mother, a quasi-religious figure who is the progenitor of the clones. One day, in the course of performing her duties, Watcher stumbles head-first into a conspiracy that threatens to undermine not only life at the Orchard, but her entire understanding of the world.

It is astounding what developer Sunset Visitor has accomplished with such limited resources. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such emotion playing a video game starring characters whose mouths don’t even move when they speak. Artistic choices triumph technological limitations at every turn in 1000xResist, particularly the striking cinematography that unfolds in the game’s numerous cutscenes. Sunset Visitor’s limitations were essential building blocks for the artistic merit scaffolding that holds up 1000xResist’s story, but I hope they’ve found enough success to fund an even more ambitious follow-up.

8. Nine Sols

You can hack and slash all day, but you won’t advance without parrying and tagging enemies with talismans.

On its face, Nine Sols is a Metroidvania with a heavy emphasis on parry-based combat. But in reality, Nine Sols is a Sekiro-like with the structure of a Metroidvania. It sounds like I just repeated myself, but the distinction is meaningful—if all you want out of a Metroidvania is a light romp through a handful of varied biomes, discovering progress-gating equipment all the while, there’s a non-zero chance that Nine Sols might disappoint you.

But if you seek mastery—of the game’s combat and perhaps even of yourself—you’ve found the right place. The Nine Sols parry is not only mechanically satisfying, but mechanically unique. For starters, it’s a two-part process. A precisely-timed block completely negates incoming attacks, but you must then dash through your opponent and tag them with a talisman that will detonate after a short delay. In Nine Sols, you can hack away at foes with traditional sword attacks until the cows come home, but you’ll soon find that the talisman detonation is your only real means of damaging enemies. The talisman is only available after a perfect parry, and performing perfect parries build qi charges, which allow for the use of talisman detonations in the first place. It’s a synergistic, if strict, economy of patience and aggression: build you qi charges with good defense, and then pick your moments carefully to go on the offensive.

Unsurprisingly, Nine Sols is hard as hell. This game’s true final boss gave me an even harder time than a certain promised consort from 2024’s other notoriously-difficult game. But the resulting wave of relief and accomplishment help cement Nine Sols as a standout experience of 2024, alongside its wonderful art and story.

7. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

It’s a good thing Indy stuck with archeology instead of art.

A lot of people are surprised to hear that Indiana Jones was not a staple in my household growing up until I remind them that there was exactly one (1) notable Black character (Captain Katanga) across the entire run of films until Dial of Destiny in 2023. But as luck would have it, neither familiarity nor fondness for Dr. Henry Walton Jones Jr. were required for enjoying MachineGames’ latest Nazi murdering simulator. And it must be said, particularly after this unhinged start to 2025, that you haven’t lived until you’ve El Kabonged an unsuspecting Nazi over the head with a guitar.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle reminds me of my favorite game of all time, Metroid Prime, for two reasons. First, it lets me live out my explorer fantasy of diving headlong into temples, caves and other abodes not touched by living creatures for millennia. And secondly, of course, I was skeptical of the first-person perspective. Indy shifts to third-person perspective often enough, usually when he’s climbing walls with his trusty whip, or ziplining across an impossible chasm with his trusty whip, or…you get the idea. But the first-person perspective makes all the sense in the world once you fully digest this game’s dedication to puzzle-solving. It’s all about observation, and an unhindered first-person perspective is the correct—and in retrospect, only—choice.

The first-person perspective isn’t just for puzzles, though. The Great Circle drew a lot of early comparisons to immersive sims like fellow Bethesda affiliate Dishonored, though it would be much more fair to call it a stealth game with some light decision-making elements. The stealth is perfunctory but satisfying—throw bottles to create distractions, sneak up behind guards and knock ‘em out, drag bodies to a dark, quiet corner, etc. When it’s time to go loud, though, the action is a lot less remarkable; I’d recommend against using guns, if possible, if only for the comedic value that improvised weapons bring.

6. Astro Bot

I should’ve added a gif here so you could see me knocking this pile of cubes into the air for almost 5 minutes.

If Astro’s Playroom was a proof of concept for what Team ASOBI could do with the PS5 hardware, then Astro Bot is a PhD candidate’s thesis defense. It is a love letter to 3D platformers and Sony history in equal measure. And while the latter might be a little off-putting for corporate skeptics or those missing context for the literal hundreds of nods to dormant and dead Sony titles, the former quality is unassailable.

Like the best Mario platformers (I’m thinking specifically of Super Mario Galaxy 2), the most impressive thing about Astro Bot is how quickly it is willing and able to discard an idea. Single levels are built around novel concepts that could fuel the entirety of lesser platformers. I thought “This could be a whole game!” to myself no less than a dozen times while playing Astro Bot.

If this list were a measure of games that make the fewest mistakes, Astro Bot would be the clear #1. That’s not to say that it’s lacking in ambition, but rather that this was the year I learned that a perfect 3D platformer might not resonate with me as much as a flawed JRPG.

5. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

Usurping FFXV as the definitive FF roadtrip story

Aerith has many more ways to engage with Rebirth’s combat proactively compared to her rather passive role in Remake.

No game has ever fit the axiom “greater than the sum of its parts” more than Square Enix’s middle chapter of its three-part Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy. Yes, it is absolutely padded with inessential side quests that seem engineered specifically to punish completionists. Yes, it has a messy ending. Yes, there are a few too many minigames.

But. BUT.

I have more fond memories from my time with Rebirth than every other game on this list combined. Every single character interaction among the core cast landed for me in a way that my 8-year-old self could’ve only dreamed of in 1997. Red XIII’s human “disguise” aboard the Costa-Del-Sol-bound ship, the Nibelheim flashback, the Gold Saucer date, visiting Cosmo Canyon, Barret’s faceoff with Dyne—everything you want is here, plus a little extra. Unfortunately, the extra doesn’t always land (the Zack sequences are disappointing), but I remain excited for the final third of this FFVII reimagining.

Bugenhagen’s observatory is every bit as breathtaking as you remember it.

I pet every single baby chocobo on the head and if you didn’t do the same, I’m coming for you.

And of course, the best-in-class action-RPG combat system from Remake is back with new bells and whistles, including synergy attacks and just defense (perfect block) for the fighting game sickos. Technically, the latter made its appearance in Remake’s DLC with Yuffie, but now the whole cast has a perfect block. Speaking of the cast, not only does each party member feel incredibly distinct, but each permutation of teams does as well. Every Kingdom Hearts game, Crisis Core, Lightning Returns and every other experimental action-RPG Square Enix made between 2003 and now paved the way for Rebirth, and it was all worth it. Yes, even Kingdom Hearts 3.

4. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

It’s not exactly a looker, but The Lost Crown has its moments.

It’s always disappointing when a critically-acclaimed game fails to find its audience, as was the case with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. It feels even worse when the aforementioned game is the high-water mark in its genre. I believe we are firmly in the era of Metroidvanias made before The Lost Crown and after The Lost Crown.

It’s glaringly obvious that Ubisoft Montpellier studied other excellent games in this space. It has Hollow Knight’s badge system, which augments your playstyle in completely transformative ways. Want to focus on benefits gained from parrying, such as slowing time or regaining health? Feel free. Or how about your extremely unique Shadow of the Simurgh power, which lets you create a copy of yourself and recall back to that copy any time you like? You can augment that ability with amulets too.

But the best of all is also its most understated. How many times have you pored over a map in a Metroidvania after getting a new ability, wondering which dead end is now accessible with your newfound power? Worry no longer with The Lost Crown’s ingenious screenshot system. Now you can just *look* at that treasure chest, gate or door you couldn’t access directly from your map at any time, as long as you took a screenshot of the room while you were there. The quality of future Metroidvanias will be measured by their adherence to this elegant feature.

3. Tactical Breach Wizards

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from reading this, it’s that you absolutely must give Tactical Breach Wizards a try. Lead a ragtag bunch of SEAL Team 6 spellcasters on missions around the globe to thwart a terrorist wizard whose whole deal is “What if Dio Brando had 7 quadrillion guns?”

It is very difficult for video games to make me laugh, but Tactical Breach Wizards had me consistently holding my sides. But it’s more than funny—it’s genuinely one of the best-written games of 2024 with rich world-building and expansive lore, all while having the audacity to be an extremely flexible and clever tactics game on top of it.

You actually get to create these diagrams yourself. It’s a nice break between missions and serves as a nice narrative refresher.

Find hidden synergies between your squad mates, including Banks, a doctor who can heal allies by shooting them in the head first (it kills them but don’t think about it too hard), or Zan, who always sees exactly one second into the future and can make clones of himself. The possibilities aren’t endless but they feel endless, and developer Suspicious Developments knows because each mission has a handful of optional objectives that hint at further possibilities. Though Tactical Breach Wizards’ default difficulty isn’t too challenging—and in fact, you can skip gameplay altogether if you just want to experience the excellent story—you can place any number of self-imposed limitations on your experience or shoot for optional objectives to make yourself a decently competent puzzle game.

Extra costumes, interesting perks, bonus missions ala Metal Gear Solid’s VR training and more await beyond the main campaign. I couldn’t get enough of this game, and I would gladly welcome a sequel, a comic book or any other excuse to spend more time in this world.

2. Metaphor: ReFantazio

OK, I lost all my screenshots from this game and it hurts that this is all I have left.

Before I deleted my Twitter account, my biggest claim to fame was tweeting in all caps “WHERE IS PROJECT RE FANTASY?” every couple of months. From the very first moment I saw that armored elf with red hair seven years ago (who in retrospect seems to have been a composite character of Will, the MC, and Hulkenberg), it’s arguable that I was primed to like Metaphor: ReFantazio long before it ever had a proper name. Even taking the seven years of anticipation into account, I never actually imagined Atlus and P-studio would make good on their promises of a capital-P Political story about the meaning of democracy and what it takes to achieve it.

And yes, there is the added surrealism of playing Metaphor as a US citizen in November 2024. My memories of this game will unfortunately always probably be tied to Trump’s reelection and the many glaring parallels between him and Metaphor’s charismatic and scene-stealing villain, Louis.

But I’ll also be thinking about Heismay, a standout party member in a stacked cast that could go down as one of the very best JRPG parties ever. Though Persona 4 is my seventh-favorite game of all time, I have to admit that Metaphor will make revisiting the older Atlus classics a daunting proposition thanks to a suite of quality-of-life improvements and a continued refinement of P-studio’s patented calendar and social systems.

For my P4 heads out there, little Maria here is the new Nanako.

It has shortcomings like every game on this list: the job system ultimately disappointed me as the promised flexibility gave way to an objectively correct way to play when the royal archetypes are unlocked near the endgame. Also, as refined as the calendar system is in Metaphor, it feels a little out of place without the overarching structure of, say, a semester of high school.

Still, I hope P-studio continue to reinvent what a turn-based JRPG experience can be, even if they are still operating within the relative safety of their decades-old formula.

1. Balatro

Nothing I did in a game last year felt better than this.

Balatro is the reason why this blog entry arrived so late. I put 60 hours into this game after I started making this list. I can’t stop, and I’ve run out of reasons why I would ever want to in the first place.

If you missed it, Balatro is the indie phenomenon from one-man-dev-team Localthunk, an unsuspecting Canadian dude who just wanted to make a game for himself and a handful of friends. Balatro ended up doing a little more than that, selling 3.5 million copies as of December 2024 and netting a gazillion accolades, including a Game of the Year nomination from the Game Awards and, not for nothing, the actual Game of the Year award from me.

Balatro is a deckbuilding roguelike under the guise of poker, a game I barely understood a year ago. I didn’t know the different between a flush and a straight this time last year, but now I see matrix code whenever I stare at a poker hand in the wild. I feel activated, Winter-Soldier style, at the sight of a deck of cards. Each round tasks you with reaching a certain score threshold using a standard (or, eventually, very nonstandard) deck of 52 playing cards. Rarer hands (such as a straight flush) earn you far more points than more common ones (three of a kind). Between rounds, you’re able to augment your deck with planet cards that increase your multiplier for certain hands scored, tarot and spectral cards that add special properties to your deck, and most importantly, jokers.

Balatro is all about the jokers, which effectively determine your win condition in any given run. In a standard game, you can hold five, and there are literally thousands of synergies to be discovered among the game’s 150 jokers. Some of them are evidently powerful, like the Baron, which adds a 1.5x multiplier to your score for each held king in hand. Others seem less useful at first, like the Gros Michel, which offers a flat +15 multiplier to your score but threatens to break on 1 out of every 6 played hands. But…then you realize that having a Gros Michel break is the only way to obtain the ultra-powerful Cavendish joker, which gives you a 3x multiplier to your score and only has a 1 in 1000 chance of breaking.

There are mysteries and discoveries around every corner in Balatro, and that’s just standard play. There are also 20 challenges to complete, such as Bram Poker, which gives you the Vampire joker from the start—it strips away special abilities on cards you play, but adds a cumulative 10 percent multiplier to your score each time. And eventually, the final challenge tasks you with clearing a run without any jokers at all.

There are also non-standard decks like the abandoned deck, which has no face cards, or the checkered deck, which abandons the typical four suits in favor of 26 spades and 26 hearts.

Balatro is Tetris for a modern age. It’s a puzzle game that’s always at my fingertips that I can easily give either 20 minutes or 2 hours of my life to on a whim. I will probably continue to play this game for the rest of my life as long as I can hear that sweet, hypnotizing, endless melody. If you haven’t played Balatro yet, what are you waiting for? It’s also available on phones, and there’s a free demo you could be playing right now. It takes some time to unlock jokers and fully realize what’s possible, but just know that you are standing on the precipice of a gaping maw. Be careful not to fall.

Feb 13 Game of the Year 2024