Favourite video games of 2024

I played fewer new games this year than I have for the past few, but still got through enough I really liked to have 10 to recommend as favourites. In alphabetical order, with some brief thoughts, 10 games I really enjoyed that were released in 2024.

Balatro

Poker Solitaire meets Slay the Spire. A simple enough concept, but pulled off absolutely perfectly. Get target scores with poker hands, the standard rules modified by a series of power ups and completely game-altering permanent joker effects.

Less stressful than I sometimes find card-based roguelikes with a focus on combat, plenty of potential for different builds, and just a hint of creepy haunted joker energy. Really impressive game design.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

I'm a huge Dragon Age fan & had some significant concerns about this, given a decade of messy development. Really happy that those fears proved largely unfounded. A very good game I enjoyed a great deal. By far the best combat in the Dragon Age franchise, and up with Mass Effect: Andromeda for the best combat Bioware has ever done. Really enjoyed the companion interactions (though could have done with a touch more intergroup conflict), and the finale was perfectly executed.

If I have any quibble about it it is that I'm not sure it's a great Dragon Age game. The weakest writing was in the worldbuilding & ties back to established aspects of Thedas society and the links to the Inquisitor are awkward tokenism. Much of this, I'm sure, comes down to the 10 years of development and the absolute necessity for new players to be able to jump in with no history in the series. But for the longstanding fan that didn't quite work. This is, though, largely a quibble. The game's here in my faves of the year, and what it has done is make me look forward to Bioware's next game with sigificantly less trepidation than I had coming into this one.

Dragon's Dogma 2

I really liked the original Dragon's Dogma and the sequel was iteratively better in every respect. Single player with a simulated party via computer-controlled 'pawns', and if one is being reductive sort of the midpoint between modern western RPGs and JRPGs. Really fun combat, particularly against larger monsters, and amiably batshit worldbuilding, including some meta stuff with Dragonsplague and the pawns. Some of the deliberate friction - notably the very limited fast travel - will irritate as many as it charmed, but I'm here for the throwback. And, really, something like this with a decent production budget trying something unusual in the RPG space.

Hades II

Technically not released this year - it's in early access - but the Hades games are almost uniquely suited to the early access cycle, and there's so much content available that it feels fair to treat this as a 2024 release. Builds off the success of the first game without every being a photocopy; the gameplay is subtly but importantly different. The changed dash mechanic and different way casts work incentivize a more deliberate, slightly less frenetic style of play than one was used to with Zagreus. The art remains gorgeous, the iterative storytelling and characterwork compelling, and the metaprogression hugely satisfying. If it keeps developing as it has over 2024, a decent chance this ends up on my 2025 list as well.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak

There really is nothing else out there like the trails series. A dozen games, years of history, overlapping casts and timelines, all contributing to some of the best anime soap opera storytelling out there. While I like all the sub-series, I think the storytelling is perhaps at its best when the leads are adults; something we saw initially in the Crossbell games, and now see most completely here with Van Arkride and his grey market detective slash mercenary agency. The tone is all just a little darker than some of the previous games, and the support cast (including the younger ones) all well drawn (particular shout out to Aaron Wei, a hilarious total fuckboy you'd also trust with your life). The combat is also innovated past the standard approach of the last few games, to its benefit. Bonus points the first tentative steps Falcom has taken towards not being total cringe on queer issues; baby steps, but I'll take it. The series seems to be reaching its conclusion over the next few games, and I'm very keen to see where it goes next.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

I wish more games were this generous. That starts with out protagonist; Ichiban Kasuga is rapidly becoming one of the great RPG leads. It is impossible to resist his completely unselfconscious sincerity, kindness, and ability to punch people very hard. An excellent oddball cast, mostly but not entirely made up of returning friends from the previous games. The game is also generous in the activities it gives us. You get the rock solid turn-based JPRG combat introduced in the previous game (imo a lot more fun than the previous Yakuza beat-em-up style), the entertainingly melodramatic storytelling (even if it doesn't all quite come together at the end), and the grab bag of minigames common to the Yakuza series. But then on top of that there are two much more substantial gameplay modes; both a pokemon style battle game and an almost entirely optional fullon Animal Crossing island resort management game. You could spend hours just on the latter and have a huge amount of fun just with that. No one does it like RGG; long may they continue doing their thing.

Metaphor: ReFantazio

Metaphor ReFantazio is ultimately mostly Persona 5 in high fantasy drag, plus a few tweaks. At one level, that's great; Persona 5 is one of the great modern RPGs, and more of that with some iterative improvements is to be applauded. And the character work, art, and gameplay are all excellent. The time management aspect of Persona 5 is less stressful here; there's enough give in the calendar that you don't have to hyper optimise to see everything you want to. The ability to defeat lower level enemies in the field really does help reduce grind, and the turn-based combat is an incremental improvement over than of Persona (I love the Archetype job system). Where it doesn't perhaps reach as far as it could have is in the storytelling. The fantasy election plot is good as far as it goes, but some subplots clunk, it declines to explore a couple of obvious themes in depth, and if you were waiting for someone in the Atlusverse to write a queer character who isn't deeply problematic, well, you'd still be waiting after playing Metaphor. I had a huge amount of fun with this game - it's on this list, after all - but there is just the faintest whiff of a missed opportunity.

Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven

A successful ground up remake of a SNES-era JRPG. Aside from some quality of life tweaks, the gameplay is left largely untouched while the graphics are updated to modern standards. What this does is reveal just how good the core systems were. The headline feature is that the game is set over hundreds of years, depicting a war between an empire (led by your player character) and seven legendary heroes who have returned and are, it seems, not exactly heroic. So the world changes according to your activities. Party members are replaced by their descendants (and inherit skills as you've developed them), and your emperor slowly accumulates the powers acquired by their predecessors. The nature of the time-skipping narrative is such that you don't develop that much of a relationship with your party members, and the overarching plot is a bit limited (not being substantially updated from the 1993 original), but I overall just had a huge amount of fun with this. My pleasant surprise of the year.

Starcom: Unkown Space

One man studio, modern iteration on Star Control 2. With maybe a side of Out There? A bit of Space Pirates and Zombies in the combat. If we're trying to describe this without comparators, it's a space exploration game with some light RPG tech tree and ship design elements. About 15-20 hours to see almost all it has to offer.

Really does well in evoking a sense of discovery, and solidly well written. The ship combat is effective if a little simple, and the process of unraveling the various mysteries at the heart of most quests is incredibly satisfying. True indie game here, and well worth throwing some money at for the very reasonable asking price.

Unicorn Overlord

Vanillaware games are almost always interesting, and almost always have comically horny boobs in its art design. Both of those truths continue in Unicorn Overlord. A Tactics Ogre-esque tactical battle game, it's easy enough to get through on default-ish settings if you don't want to get too hardcore, but plenty of if-then logic to customise in the battle system if you want to play on higher difficulty levels and maximise all your synergies. Gorgeous art design (absurd boobs aside), good if minimal character beats, and an effective if slightly cliche plot. Again; it's Vanillaware; other people aren't making games like this these days - vibe with what they're doing and you'll have a great time. I don't adore this one like I did their previous game (13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim), but I do really like it. Well worth playing, particularly for tactical RPG fans.