As Desmond continues to trawl through Ezio’s memories, we periodically take some time to trawl through his.
Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud
By and large I have been a defender of the Desmond segments so far in Assassin’s Creed. I find that it helpful to have a main plot that connects the games together, giving us a reason to keep traversing through history. Still is still true, but these sections where we explore Desmond’s backstory are the least interesting parts of the game, both mechanically and narratively.
There were clear inspirations taken from Portal (notably Portal 2 came out six months earlier in the same year). And yet, two of the strength of Portal are most the cleverness of its puzzle design and the dry, humorous wit that permeates the script. These Desmond section lack both, with puzzles that require almost no thought whatsoever and bland monologues accompanying them. I could begin to discuss the ways in which it contradicts established lore, but ultimately that doesn’t matter because if there something more important to say I wouldn’t be focused on such trivial details.
And besides, the best is yet to come in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.
We have finally arrived in Constantinople to search for the Masyaf Keys. And for once, we’re greeted by friendly faces. But we also have enemies, so it’s best we begin our work now.
Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud
To some extent, this intro suffers simply by being in such close proximity to the intros of the other Ezio games. Both of them (yes, even Brotherhood) do a good job of both thrusting players into their role by giving them a ton of gameplay segments to introduce core mechanics, which slowly easing them into the world with light cutscenes sprinkled in.
I give Revelations some credit for the former. We do have a good amount of tutorial missions and opening segments to start out with, but they don’t do a great job introducing us to the game. Thankfully, we’re playing straight after Brotherhood. Remember though, for most players it would have been a year between games and a refresher couldn’t hurt. Doubly so since that made some changes to the controls that even I still fumble with in this session.
The real problem is just the sheer amount of time we spend in these opening hours watching cutscenes of people talking to each other. There are times when I’m taking breaks of ten minutes or more between portions of gameplay where characters are just speaking to each other. I wouldn’t even necessarily mind that if the dialogue was interesting or told us a bit about the people talking, but largely it is pure exposition that is used to describe the state of the world. It’s the equivalent of a large text crawl at the start of a Tactical RPG, where they have to establish the world and factions before the player takes control, and those rarely hold a player’s attention.
I imagine that the reason is simple: This game was developed in a year and the developers had to budget their resources wisely. We don’t have the benefit of an established villain and supporting cast since we’re no longer in Italy, so the new power players need to be quickly introduced. I just wish there was time to do so more elegantly.
After 300 years, the Templars have captured Masyaf Castle, home of original Hashashin, including the legendary Altair Ibn-La’Ahad.
What does that leave for Ezio, searching for the legacy of one of history’s greatest Assassins?
Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud
I am willing to concede that my judgement may have been hasty, and that it might be a good thing that the use the set-piece before this bringing us to the brink of death to narratively justify why Ezio can’t use his parkour skills for the segment that follows.
However, I do think it’s also fair to have that feeling in the moment since that is, to some degree, what the designers intentions are. Yes, the segment is bullshit, but that’s largely because Ezio isn’t as young as he used to be and that kind of damage doesn’t heal as quickly as it used to. If anything, it might have been cool to see Ezio adapt his skills and fighting style for an older body that’s not quite as capable as it used to be.
Unfortunately, that’s just not the kind of advancement we see in video games. By their nature, they tend to skew towards power fantasies. And by the iterative nature of a sequel, players tend to want new abilities and tools grafted onto the existing framework. Even if the team at Ubisoft wanted to explore how age affected the character (which, in fairness, they probably didn’t), they probably wouldn’t have had support from either the publisher or the player base.
And in fairness, early-50s still in the realm of middle mage, even if its the upper boundary of it. Even back then, people could be relatively healthy at that age bracket. Admittedly, it’s unlikely for a man who lives as dangerous a life as Ezio’s, but it’s not impossible either.
It just might’ve been more interesting to play with that for more than this short segment.
Although Ezio is approaching his twilight years, we still have one more adventure with him before we finally say goodbye to the character.
Let us begin the tale of final journey.
Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud
To start this series by starting the obvious, Ezio is in his 50s at around the time this story takes place. In other words, he is an old man well passed his prime. And though this rarely comes up mechanically, it does inform the character and how he interacts with those around him.
Uniquely, he’s also informed by the sense of history most players have with the character. If you, like me, played both Assassin’s Creed 2 and Brotherhood, you would have followed Ezio as he grew from a innocent and naive young teenager to become the leader of the Italian branch of the Assassin Brotherhood. It’s a length of continuity that, especially in the realm of video games, is extraordinarily rare. Odds are high that if Ubisoft wasn’t demanding yearly releases for this series, we wouldn’t have another strong example of this.
And as we’ll see in the weeks to come, that ability to play with history often results in the most interesting moments of Revelations.
Did you know that, on average, most of the hours people play video games go towards older games from previous years? At least, that was the case last year, and I would be shocked if that was any less true this year. From my own experience, many of the games I played were either rereleases of old content, games from my backlog, or updates to live-service games already in my rotation.
This column, as ever, is dedicated to those, as they deserve their own space separate from the new releases. Presented in random order, the games I played in 2024 that weren’t released in 2024 are.
Darkest Dungeon 2
I really want to enjoy the Darkest Dungeon games, and moving what they had before into the medium of a pure roguelike meant the sequel had a better chance of success from me than the original did.
Unfortunately, this one also fizzled out. I hit a wall that I couldn’t seem to surmount no matter how hard I tried. As much as I wished to be the hero who pushes through the horror and stress to triumph over incredible odds, I wasn’t able to thread the needle. And once the game started hard crashing on my Steam Deck, I took that as a sign my adventure was over.
An ignoble end to my ignoble tale.
Ace Attorney Investigations Collection
When the Nintendo Direct announced that the Edgeworth games were getting released on the Switch (and also every other major platform including PC and Steam Deck), my friends who were in the Discord call with me could tell you how hype I was for it.
I had played the first Edgeworth on my phone. (Yes, those games are on the Android store.) And while I was certainly eager to replay it, the much more impactful draw was Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit. For those of you who aren’t big Ace Attorney fans, the second Edgeworth has been playable in English for years via fan translation, but it wasn’t until this collection that it came to Western shores via an official localization.
It’s an important milestone for the franchise, since after The Great Ace Attorney, Prosecutor’s Gambit was the only game left to port over to Western audiences. As of this year, Americans now have official access to every game in the series. And with the sole exception of the Professor Layton crossover, all of them are on the PC (and Steam Deck) now too, and they go on sale often enough that I don’t feel bad recommending them.
And while of course that game itself is as incredible as all of the Ace Attorney games tend to be (especially on Steam Deck), it is that release itself that makes this such a momentous occasion.
Marvel Snap
Like any card game that’s gone on for long enough, Marvel Snap had its share of bad meta games. After a few too many of those in a row, I had to drop the game because I simply wasn’t having fun anymore despite how much I love the game’s mechanics and the Marvel canon.
And this is where I was introduced to the big problem that will likely be the death of Marvel Snap if it is not addressed soon: The card economy. One of the Marvel Snap content creators I follow, Jeff Hoogland, talked about this in detail in one of his videos from a content creator perspective. In broad strokes, if a player is keeping up with the game as the seasons go on, they should be able to acquire the new cards they need for the decks they want to build with very little issue.
But if you’re like me, and you were a lapsed player who chose to dip out of the game for whatever reason, you are more-or-less permanently behind with no realistic road to catching back up. Supposedly, they are looking to correct this issue soon, but to be honest at this point I’ve already moved onto other games and I am personally unlikely to come back. I didn’t even come back for the Symbiote Season, and that was practically aimed at me.
Castlevania Dominus Collection
People have been telling me that these Castlevania games are actually pretty good. While I believed them because the one I played, Symphony of the Night, left a strong impression, I just never got around to seeing what else the series had on offer.
After enough of my friends swore up and down that this was absolutely-definitely-100%-without-a-doubt a solid collection of those games, I figured I had enough free time to see why they were so insistent. A few weeks later I was walking away with the collection’s Platinum Trophy.
I admit that if it wasn’t for the rewind feature, I probably wouldn’t have cleared Order of Ecclesia. And I dislike the anime art style they went with for Portrait of Ruin and Dawn of Sorrow, vastly preferring the more iconic, gothic art from Ayami Kojima. Those misgivings aside, I have almost nothing else to complain about. Play these games and it quickly becomes clear why Castlevania has attained the status it has despite Konami’s endless bungling.
Persona 3 Reloaded
I’m already fond of Persona 3. It was my first ATLUS game, and as such it holds a special place in my heart. I’m very picky about changes to things I love, so when I say that almost every change made to Reloaded was for the better, that means something.
Each of the new voices for all of the main cast, perfectly embody the characters with their performances. Some, particularly Akihiko, better suit the character than their original actors did. (Sorry, Liam O’Brian.) Many of the new scenes add further depth to what was already there. And as far as Persona Fusion goes, I would never want to go back to an era where I can’t pick which skills are passed on.
If there was anything at all to complain about, it’s probably that the various updates and additions overall make the game far too easy. Persona 3 was clearly balanced around the idea of spending multiple nights each month climbing Tartarus, so when it becomes trivial to do it all in a single-night, some of that tension and decision making is lost. With more time on the calendar, it’s easier than ever to boost social stats ahead of the game’s preset expectations. It’s ultimately probably not a genuine problem, since the end result is more approachable for a casual audience, but it means that someone with more experience will want to boost the difficulty to maintain that sense of challenge.
Overall, it’s a rock-solid package that should become the new, definitive way to experience Persona 3.
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (and DLC)
When Valve finally set up this year’s Steam replay, I was surprised to find that this game was the one I had played more than any other game on Steam this year, even Vampire Survivors (and we’ll get to that). The journey of my Knight-Commander, from start to finish, including with DLC, took roughly 125 hours. Considering my two Baldur’s Gate 3 runs were about 90 and 110 hours respectively, that’s not too out of line.
Also typical for the genre, I spend a fair amount of time playing with mods to aid in the adventure, installing a mod to skip a real-time strategy element to the campaign I wasn’t interested in and a separate one that functioned mostly as a debug console to fix issues that I encountered a few times in my campaign.
Additionally, this was my first experience with Pathfinder, and it is regrettable that the campaign uses First Edition Pathfinder instead of Second Edition. Bumped down to the easiest setting, I found that the game wasn’t very approachable even for someone like me who has experience in the genre. I like a crunchy game, but this was so crunchy it hurt my teeth. I also found the character alignment system laughably outed in the current year, with characters and dialog options clearly demarcated as Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaos in case you were afraid to think about the morality of your actions.
All of that is an immense barrier to entry, especially when games like Baldur’s Gate 3 are putting in so much more to make themselves approachable for players looking to give the genre a try. I will make no effort to downplay that cold, hard fact. However, once I was able to push through those barriers, modding and cheating my way into a version of the game I wanted to play, I was hooked. The team at Owlcat did a great job turning an old Pathfinder module into a fully realized campaign from start to finish, and their expansions to that campaign have only further elevated it.
I came in with no knowledge of Pathfinder or its lore beyond rumors and hearsay, but I left Wrath of the Righteous wistfully lamenting that I was unlikely to find a friend group that was able to commit to a Pathfinder campaign.
Legends of Runeterra
With the release of Arcane Season 2, it would have made perfect sense to finally install League of Legends and play as my favorite champions from the show. Fortunately for me, I have enough self-respect to stay away from games I hate.
So instead, I remembered how much I adored everything about Legends of Runeterra before I completed my card collection and grew bored of it. I was aware that the PvP portion of the game was no longer being actively supported, but I also knew that it had been over a year since I last launched the game.
Additionally, they were about to add Warwick and Ambessa into the roguelike “Path of Champions” mode. While I’m not a fan of League, I love the character designs for many of its champions, including Warwick, so that was as good a reason as any to give it a shot.
It’s remained on my phone for the past month now, and in that time I’ve happily completed a single run of the Path of Champions every day. The tragedy of Runeterra is that it’s a great card game even now. From card designs to fundamental structure and mechanics, it’s still the game I have the most fun with.
Which is why it sucks that no else seems to agree with me enough to play it.
Assassin’s Creed (and AC2 and Brotherhood)
Although I can’t remember the exact article, I read a piece earlier this year where the author described the experience of going back and replaying old games from the PS3/360 generation, particularly the original Assassin’s Creed. I was looking for something to do as an intermission for the PhoenixWright series (for the sake of my own voice if nothing else), and that first game was short enough that it was low commitment, even if it didn’t pan out.
And clearly I was having enough fun with that Let’s Play that I shelved the Phoenix Wright games to continue with AC2, and later Brotherhood. What’s blown me away isn’t just how well these games hold up even by modern standards, but in many ways they’re even more fun than much of the content from AAA in recent years, better than most of Ubisoft’s most recent games.
Similar to Dragon’s Dogma (we’ll get to that), going back to the early Assassin’s Creed games reminded me that we’ve lost something in the quest to streamline games. Often, the imperfections and jank add texture, making the overall experience more memorable as a result. You may swear and get frustrated in the moment, but looking back you realize that sticks with you in a way many modern games just don’t.
Armello
Earlier this year, looking to find things to do together on the weekend, they started holding weekly Armello nights. It had been years since I last played a game of Armello, mostly because convincing people to join is normally like pulling teeth. Naturally, I joined up with zero hesitation.
Though I am now wise enough to see some of the flaws that I couldn’t back when I first played the game years ago, I still enjoyed my time getting back into it. Official support for the game was long over when we returned to it, but several new characters and the ability to play by House Rules had not yet been added to the game when I dropped it the first time.
For those few months, the novelty had returned, and our group happily played a few matches weekly. We all had our favorite characters. For me, that was Elyssa and the way she built walls and fortresses around towns to control the movement of other players. But all things eventually fade, and due to scheduling conflicts we could no longer maintain the time slot. The mood only soured when, after hanging our hats, we learned that the development team behind the game had shut down because of the ongoing economic stress felt on all levels but the shareholder and executive class across the world.
It was a tragic addendum to an otherwise joyous period of the year for me.
Fortnite
I am currently recovering from Fortnite burnout since the last two seasons haven’t been very fun for me, each for different reasons. I’ve heard the current season is good, but I launched it and after a few games realized that I have no desire to play Fortnite.
My relationship with Fortnite coincides with my feelings towards live-service in general. I’m growing increasingly exhausted with the way so many games are demanding that I dedicate significant chunks of my free time to them and them alone. Since most of the games I like are largely single-player, I can avoid that most of the time. However, when trying to play with my friends, the live-service machine has grown to become such an ever-present, all-consuming beast that there’s no escaping it.
It’s something we talk about a lot when we play games together, and we’ve all come to the conclusion that it’s unlikely to change anytime soon. Gamers just don’t realize how much they’ve been cucked. At least they can give Master Chief a fresh pair of Jordans, or whatever.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
I think that Shadow of the Erdtree is approaching, if not hitting, the upper limit from what I am willing to tolerate of FromSoftware’s boss design in service to the rich experiences that they are so adept at building.
And admittedly, part of that is my own fault. I, like many people, discounted the importance of collecting Scadutree Fragments to increase my stats. Once I took the time to explore around and gather them up, bosses that were kicking my ass to hell and back suddenly became more reasonable encounters. I go back and forth with myself over whether than is good or bad for the DLC.
On one hand, exploration is a core pillar of the design, and peppering the game world with collectibles that raise your stats and make combat easier is a healthy way of encouraging players to engage on that level. On the other hand, these games are famously bad at communicating vital information to the player by design, and this was no exception. This may have been a time where the uncompromising nature of the development team with regards to their vision bit them in the ass, and I hope that’s a lesson they take with them going forward.
Yet not all of the problems can be explained away by that lack of communication. Some fights, particularly the final boss, are so tough that even From Software themselves admitted to going too far. For the first time in a Soulslike, I was not able to defeat a boss because the hard countered my build in a way skill could not overcome. And thus, I was forced to completely respec my character into a cheese build just to hit end credits.
Part of the appeal of this genre, to me, is that although some builds will always be better or worse than others, generally anything is at least viable. Somewhere along the line, that simply stopped being true, and I don’t think FromSoftware realized what they lost in that transition.
Magic the Gathering: Arena
As a digital client to a paper TCG, the state of Magic the Gathering: Arena is inextricably bound to the state of the paper Magic itself.
Thankfully, we’ve entered a format where Standard is as good as it’s been since Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance. The same is true for Pioneer/Explorer, and I juggle between the two depending on both my mood and what my dailies are. (Though badly my beloved Amalia Combo deck has been banned.)
That said, I don’t play much Brawl anymore, mostly because I find the format miserable. More often than not, if you get off to a good start than the opponent will instantly concede without playing it out, and that’s just not a fun experience.
Hopefully the team at WotC can maintain their momentum in the years to come, especially when Final Fantasy and Spider-man make their debut on Arena next year.
Vampire Survivors
The mad lads actually did it. After all this time, there is finally a vampire in Vampire Survivors. And not just any vampire, but the vampire of all time: Vlad Tepes Dracula from the hit Netflix original Castlevania is finally here.
My goofy jokes aside, love and care was put into Vampire Survivors with the Ode to Castlevania expansion. Clearly, nothing was held back when it came to that DLC. If there’s a character from Castlevania you wanted to play as, or a weapon you wished to wield, the odds are extremely high that it is here. Indeed, there is probably more content in this new map alone than there was in the base game and the rest of the DLC combined.
It was a truly impressive undertaking. Doubly so since the game and DLC are so cheap.
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
When I explained how much fun I was having with Dragon’s Dogma 2, multiple people I know started to recount stories from their time playing the original game. Since I knew by then that I could probably handle Dragon’s Dogma, hearing their tales inspired me to take my chances.
Continuing one of the two recurring elements in my thoughts on this year in gaming, Dragon’s Dogma is a game that is rough around the edges, but rough in a way that is additive to the core experience. It’s a game about being thrust into a difficult encounter and realizing that you have the tools necessary to finish the job, you just need to be mindful about your approach.
And I’ve found over the course of this year I actually want that far more than I want games to be streamlined and frictionless. We’ve been trained to believe that games shouldn’t fight us, but in truth if they don’t at least present a challenge then nothing is gained by rising to meet it.
Immortals of Aveum
I want to draw attention to Immortals because I played it for free via PlayStation Plus. Everyone, myself included, mocked it for being a derivative first-person shooter, only with spells instead of guns. And while that description is unflattering and needlessly defamatory, it’s not technically incorrect. It was a perfectly competent and well-designed video game, from a team that put in quality work.
The problem is that it’s become abundantly clear in the video game arms race that being “just” a competent and fun game isn’t enough anymore. It’s sad that a team of creative people put in the work, and delivered on an excellent product, but they’ll never be rewarded for it. In a healthy industry, they’d be given another chance to showcase the skill they have, but we don’t have a healthy industry, as Ascendant Studio discovered.
Shouting them out will do them no good, but hopefully the people who were laid off or moved onto other teams manage to land on their feet.
God of War: Ragnarok (Valhalla DLC)
Kratos is a complicated man with a complicated legacy, both in the fiction of God of War and outside of it. In his original trilogy, he was a character defined and destroyed by rage and pride. It would have been easy to keep him in that state of perpetual anger, and indeed his original creator would have wanted exactly that.
Which is why I find it so fascinating that this new “rebooted” God of War chooses time and again to directly confront and interrogate that legacy, neither running from it nor wholly embracing it. This Valhalla DLC pushes that even further, adding nuance and perspective that, while not redeeming old Kratos, makes it clear that there was always more to him than what memes and jokes skimmed off the surface. It touches on the themes of redemption and self-forgiveness, which is perfect for the character.
And it still shocks me that such powerful writing came from a free roguelike mode added to the game post-release.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
I haven’t fallen off Final Fantasy XIV completely in the Dawntrail endgame. I still raid with my raid group for about six hours per week, and I’ve been keeping up with the latest PvP seasonal rewards. But that’s about the extent of my gametime, and I’m rarely logged in for more than thirty minutes at a time outside of raid. While it could be part of my generalized live-service fatigue, I think the more likely explanation is simply that there’s just no longer much left for me to catch-up on outside of current content. And that’s fine, that’s just the reality of the game’s release structure.
What I’m curious about is how the community will feel about Dawntrail down the line. It was difficult to take a good pulse of its reception at the time the expansion dropped, because far too much oxygen was taken up by GamerGate freaks getting mad both that the new major lead character was voiced by a trans woman and that the new zones were inspired by Meso-America. With all of their bleating, it was difficult to separate nonsense from substantive critique.
Thankfully, that group of fools has seen fit to find some other game to complain about. However, I’ve noticed other people aside from myself begin to scale down their time with FF XIV, or otherwise just quit the game entirely. To some degree, that should be expected since Endwalker was an excellent jumping off point, having closed the book on a major storyline. I want to know if that trend continues as Dawntrail patch content gets released.
It’s an interesting period to play Final Fantasy XIV. My only hope is that it will be interesting for the right reasons.
And thus, our time reminiscing on 2024 has come to an end. I expect that there will be many more rereleases and live-services updates in the coming year. Even if there aren’t any, I’m sure that there’s something in the old backlog that’ll be worth playing.
We’ve found the numbers, and the painter, and now there’s only one thing left on our to-do list before we end our time in Rome.
Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud
I double checked after recording this episode, and apparently this Copernicus DLC was exclusive to the PlayStation 3 back when Brotherhood was initially released. This was back in the era when consoles would often have exclusive DLC for each game.
And I am full glad that is no longer accepted practice.
Though I can’t speak with full confidence, I’m reasonably sure that this DLC was inspired by The Da Vinci Code, since that too deal in history-spanning conspiracies and secret codes embedded in Leonardo’s work. Honestly, it’s impressive that the chose not to do something along these lines back in Assassin’s Creed 2.
I wonder if DLC was a decision made by corporate, or if this was a choice from creative. I suppose we’ll never truly know either way.
We’re getting closer to Leonardo. We just need to get his last few paintings and decipher his famous code.
Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud
A rare win for the optional objectives here. Even without my Brotherhood backing me up, it would have been trivial to simple assassinate all of the guards with my Crossbow. Asking me to rely solely on melee weapons had me more engaged with both the mission and the mechanics.
We should be also ready to save Leo. All that’s left is some light puzzling.
It feels strange to write a piece like this at the end of 2024. I am not a professional game critic, and thus I am under no further obligation to write this post than what the gremlins in my own head demand from me. And indeed, in a year where those who make and discuss the games I love have been so disrespected, discarded, and disregarded, that might even be the sensible thing to do.
But I’ve done this so long that it just wouldn’t feel like the year was complete without it. As always, they’ll be presented in a random order. Without further ado, the highlights of 2024 are:
Undefeated
As I grow older and more secure with myself, I’ve embraced my interest in furry visual novels more fully than I have in years prior. One of my more fitness minded furry friends, with an interest in combat sports, started talking up this one, and on that recommendation I installed it on my Steam Deck.
The premise of an underground MMA scene controlled by a shadow organization was on its face compelling, but what worked more for me was the way the author used it as a vehicle to discuss and address other, more broadly applicable themes. Themes of toxic/performative masculinity, generational trauma and the cycles of abuse, neurodivergence, and standing up to corrupt authority all take center stage at one point or another. It’s clear that the author, while obviously a fan of the combat sports he is drawing inspiration from, is aware of and alert to the more problematic aspects of it, and chose to acknowledge and incorporate them into the tale.
I didn’t follow it as it was mid-development, opting to play through it only after it became a complete package. Though I came to it late, I’m happy to have come to it in time to appreciate what it was doing.
The Rise of the Golden Idol
To the surprise of absolutely no one, one of my favorite games of the year is a mystery game. Though it lacks the novelty of its predecessor, being the second Golden Idol game, it’s still equally as well thought out and constructed.
If anything, Rise does a better job at breaking down some of the more complicated and esoteric logical leaps from the first game into more digestible chunks that more effectively guide the player to the desired conclusions. Most of the time, when I was stuck, I was correct in the broad strokes, but made a few too many mistakes in assembling the details in stark contrast to the final puzzle in Case where I was mostly lost.
I wish I could discuss more specific details without spoiling significant reveals, but I remember piecing together a conclusion that forced me into stunned silence as I processed it and what it implied for both what was to come and what came before. In fact, the implications of it left me reeling for the rest of the night. It stuck with me such that I needed to get out of bed and pull an all-nighter to finish the game and get it out of my mind.
There aren’t many games that can do that and leave me feeling good about it later, but Rise of the Golden Idol did.
Hades 2
Is it any surprise that the sequel to a game I think of as one of the best roguelikes ever designed would end up on this list? Technically, Hades 2 is still in Early Access. Thus, the game remains incomplete. And yet, what we currently have is more than was available when the original Hades was finally finished.
What impresses me most is that Supergiant, a studio that has only made excellent video games, was not content to just make “Hades, but more”. Melinoe, the new lead character, feels distinct from her brother, who took up the mantle in the previous game. Though she is equally capable, her fighting style makes far greater use of magic, evasion, and spatial awareness than her sibling.
I was also impressed by the appreciably darker tone Hades 2 takes in comparison to the more jovial experience of the first game. Supergiant’s team was clearly well researched, doing an excellent job adapting the source material of Greek myth into something wholly unique while staying true to the sometimes paradoxical and complicated nuance that makes the mythos compelling to this day.
And so, I’ll keep coming back as more is added to it. Death to Chronos.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
I can truly say without a doubt that I have never played a game quite like Kunitsu-Gami before this year.
Though it starts light, combining RTS and action game elements together, asking players to escort a priestess down the titular path so that she can seal away the great evil threatening the land, the game incorporates new mechanics and/or gimmicks on each stage to wring out as much as it can from its core gameplay loop so that players can gradually build up before it introduces its more devious and tactical challenges. On that front, it succeeded, and I left feeling satisfied by the experience, as if it ended at exactly the correct moment.
And that’s before we get to the look and style of this game. In many ways, Kunitsu-Gami closely resembles a Japanese-oil painting brought to life, which is why so many game critics were quick to compare it to Okami in that respect. It might not be the Okami game so many are clamoring for, but it demonstrated well how such an art style could conceivably be translated and implemented in the modern era, one where every frame is almost literally a painting.
It is exactly the kind of game where thinking about it again makes me want to play it.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
While I was shocked to see that an Indiana Jones game both came out and was as close to perfect as it could get as anyone else was in 2024, in hindsight I shouldn’t have been. If there’s anything the team at MachineGames can get right, it’s the sheer joy one can derive from outsmarting Nazis and fascists.
It would have been tempting for most developers to just take the obvious path and adapt Indy using the Uncharted-style that clearly took inspiration from the original films, but they chose instead to walk a harder and more rewarding path. They remembered that while Indy is both skilled and smart, he’s only a man who is unlikely to win a fight when he’s outnumbered and outgunned. Thus, the game places greater focus on stealth, ambushing Nazis with improvised weapons to take them out before their friends are alerted. To call it an immersive sim would discredit both the game and the genre, but the inspiration is present.
Beyond that, that sense of adventure was always kept at the fore. Details like the crack of the whip and how it drives animals away, the smarmy shit-eating grin on Indy’s face as he picks up his Lucky Hat for another go, or even Troy Baker’s pitch-perfect Harrison Ford impression. All of it lends The Great Circle an air of authenticity that makes the player feel like they’re in a classic adventure film.
And if that’s not a metric for success, I don’t know what is besides killing Nazis in 2024.
Tales of Kenzera: Zau
There is a beating heart to Tales of Kenzera: Zau that is so rarely seen in other games of its ilk that it more than makes up for any minor shortcomings. Both the twin narratives of Zau petitioning the God of Death to resurrect his dead father, and the meta-narrative of Zubera reading the tale written by his own deceased father and the way they play off each other results in a gestalt greater than the sum of its part.
Though I’m about as far removed from African culture and heritage as one could possibly be, the themes of death, loss, and the grief that follows are universal. And that language provides a strong inroad with which Tales of Kenzera shares in the powerful, metaphorical storytelling traditions that it draws from. It’s rich in its own unique way, and all the better for it.
Tekken 8
My verdict on Tekken 8 is that the new King model is insanely hot and almost nothing else matters.
Astro Bot
Astro Bot is one of the most twee, saccharine experiences I have played in years, hearkening back to the old school PlayStation 1 and 2 platformers that were my bread-and-butter growing up. I knew going in that’s exactly what I was going to get based on my experiences with Astro’sPlayroom. What I didn’t realize was just how badly I needed a game like this in my life.
For me, Astro Bot is as close to a perfect game as I am likely to get. Not only does it look great and run smoothly on my machine, but it plays well. There was almost never a moment in my time with Astro Bot where I wasn’t smiling either at what I was seeing on my screen or what I was doing in-game. And while part of that is absolutely stemming from the way it’s dipped and coated in a chocolate shell of early PlayStation nostalgia, I’m confident that it stands on its own even for players without that frame of reference.
It has earned a permanent space on my console’s hard drive, since I can almost guarantee that I’ll want to go back to it over and over again.
Dragon’s Dogma 2
When people describe what makes Dragon’s Dogma 2 such an incredible experience, quite frankly they sound insane. They’ll describe scenarios where they’ve made major mistakes and failed quests by either taking too long or accidentally throwing away an important quest item without realizing what they were doing. They’ll talk about how they slept in town when one of their pawns had a dangerous illness, and woke up to find everyone had been slaughtered. They’ll discuss how they hired a carriage to fast travel from one town to another and got ambushed by a giant ogre along the way. And they’ll accompany all of these stories with smiles on their faces as if they’re the coolest things to ever happen in a video game.
Shockingly enough, they’re completely correct in doing so, but these anecdotes fail to capture the true essence of what makes the game special. What all of these stories encompass is how Dragon’s Dogma 2 sells the picture of a world that exists not solely for the player, but also for the rest of the people living inside it. It is a game that asks the player to be mindful of their actions, and their consequences, and trusts that they are responsible and intelligent enough to do so.
In a world where so many games are designed to be as painless and frictionless as possible, putting the player on a pedestal from which all potentially hazardous choices are erased from the space of possibility, a game that expects more, where making mistakes or difficult decisions is possible, is almost more valuable than gold.
Like most games, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is designed to be fun, but it is wise enough to understand that incorporating friction in just the right places adds valuable texture that results in a more memorable experience.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
It is honestly impressive that after spending a decade in development hell, a new Dragon Age was released. And not only that, it provided a much-needed resolution to the plot threads left dangling at the end of Inquisition and its DLC.
By this point in my life, I had already written off Bioware, especially after Anthem, as a non-entity that I no longer needed to keep tabs on. In my mind, they were effectively dead, and any attempt to resurrect them or their properties was destined to fail.
To not only be happy with how Veilguard concludes, but to appreciate what it did with characters like Varric and Solas, a decade after I had mentally closed myself off from that resolution, is honestly more than I could have realistically asked for.
Marvel Rivals
The greatest compliment I could give to Marvel Rivals is that it reminded me of the early days of Overwatch, back when my friends and I would gather together every Friday night over Discord and see what goofy hijinx we could get up to in the Unranked queue. And while I could endlessly complain about one character or another being too powerful or unfun, or list off my favorite characters and why I like playing them, the truth is that almost doesn’t matter.
And it doesn’t matter because for the past week, as I’ve been on my vacation, I’ve had multiple nights where those same people are together playing a 6v6 Hero Shooter with me as if no time has passed whatsoever. I had grown scared for a long time that my old friends’ tastes in multiplayer games would never realign in such a way to make that possible, and yet here we are.
I couldn’t be happier about both that and the shapeliness of Venom’s ass.
Tactical Breach Wizards
My friends could likely point back to the exact time I started playing Tactical Breach Wizards, because it would be around the same time that I started trying to throw the word “defenestrate” into casual conversations.
And truly, there is rarely a more potent joy than defeating an asshole traffic cop by punting him through a window with a gust of storm magic. Or having a dream sequence in which we punt our emotional baggage out the nearest available window, which does nothing to resolve our inner trauma but gives us better ideas at how to effectively shove bad guys out of windows.
Jests aside, what truly impresses me most about the game is how is so effortlessly combines witty, clever writing with the kind of tactical gameplay that encourages skillful thinking and planning with anti-capitalist/anti-corporate propaganda in a way that left me hooked from start to finish.
It’s an easy recommendation, especially if you’re the kind of person who enjoys tossing cops out of windows.
Unicorn Overlord
There are many people who will be turned off by the writing and story of Unicorn Overlord. And these people are correct in pointing out how perfect, yet bland the protagonist is and how there are basically no surprises from start to finish.
However, these people would similarly fail to discuss how the tactical and strategic layers of Unicorn Overlord combine to create a truly unique and innovative take on the tactical RPG, combining high-level real-time strategy with turn-based combat where units play out turns following a script that the player decided in advance, similar to the gambits in Final Fantasy XII. For a first outing, it truly impressed me, and my hope is that it did well enough to justify a new game in a similar style so that it can hone and refine itself over time.
It’s exactly the kind of game I would recommend people try the demo of, so they can at least form a better picture for themselves and see what could be done in the genre space.
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
I am continuously impressed at the way Ryu Ga Gotaku manages to make hit after hit in the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series despite releasing so many more games than any other studio could realistically handle. And this one is no different.
But what I want to call special attention is the way they handle Kiryu’s section of the game, as most of his side quests involve seeking resolution or peace and resolving any lingering business from his previous adventures as his body degrades and he reaches the end of his life. As someone who has played most of these games and been with the character for almost a decade now, it hit home far harder than I expected it to, and I had to put the controller down to wipe tears from my eyes multiple times.
I’m still in my youth, but it left me contemplating the passage of time and whether or not I’m making the best choices when deciding how to utilize the limited time I have on this Earth. I doubt everyone will have that same reaction, but this is my list and not theirs. If a game has me in such deep reflections, then it’s obviously doing something right.
Balatro
I was fortunate enough to get into Balatro about two or three days before it exploded in popularity. A friend of mine was playing it as we were getting ready for our weekly Commander night, and I sat and watched them go through a run.
I was instantly hooked, and before long I had purchased the game for myself, stacking my deck to make it to the 8th blind. Even now, just thinking about Balatro is enough to have the soundtrack playing in my head, conjuring the pleasant dopamine hit from stacking tons of buffs and upgrades onto a basic pair.
And now that I’ve gotten past the Orange stake, it’s my turn to evangelize the gospel of Balatro to all, available now on your mobile device.
Pokemon TCG Pocket
The old adage in the space of trading card games, even virtual ones, is that if many of your friends are playing the same card, so are you. For me, this was the case with Pokemon Pocket. Many of my friends and content creators I follow were giving it a shot, which gave me the interest I needed to try it out for myself.
I’ve never been into the Pokemon TCG, mostly because I never gave it a fair shot, but Pocket ended up being the gateway I needed to enter the space. It’s not the same as the paper card game, which I’ve now come to realize as I started trying to break into the paper card game, but that ultimately works to its advantage. The reduced deck sizes and simplified mechanics result in the type of faster paced gameplay that works better on mobile.
And while I’m embarrassed to admit this, it’s also just fun to crack packs and see what alternate arts or rare EX Pokemon come out of them. It is entirely possible to play Pokemon Pocket without ever engaging in deckbuilding or card battles, just casually opening packs, and that appears to be part of the intention.
The developers knew their audience, and how to adapt the game to mobile to give it the best potential for success, and I won’t be surprised if that continues for years to come.
Metaphor ReFantazio
Since I am someone who loves modern Persona games, it should be no surprise to hear that I was fond of Metaphor ReFantazio. It’s also probably not surprising to hear that if I did Game of the Year, it would be my pick without any hesitation. What may surprise you is that I think it’s the best game the Persona developers have released in almost twenty years, and I don’t think it’s even close.
Almost every problem I have with modern Persona games has been systematically eliminated during the development of Metaphor ReFantazio. The playable cast are all adults over the age of eighteen, and there are no romance options, which eliminates those creepy moments in Persona where John Persona starts dating his teachers while in his teens. And we aren’t in high school, opting for a more creative fantasy setting with a stronger emphasis on politics and intrigue. These two massive changes to the formula give the game leeway to explore stories and themes that were simply not possible in Persona, and inject a much needed breath of fresh air.
As far as combat goes, now that I’ve been introduced to the near infinitely customizable archetype system, I no longer wish to ever go back to Persona Fusion and Fusion Inheritance. The development system Metaphor chooses to go for is not just easier to use and understand, but also gives the player a much greater freedom in how they adapt their party to each fight and dungeon. Even better, if we’re overleveled for a dungeon or encounter, the game allows us to auto-kill the mobs and move on with our lives without forcing us into combat.
I never imagined I would be praising the Persona team for the care and compassion its put into its writing, since the series has struggled for decades now when handling queer and minority characters. But there’s nuance here that so much of their other work lacks, and it genuinely left a strong positive impression on me as a result.
I know. I’m also surprised I feel that way.
Unfortunately, not every game can be a success, especially not in the era of Concord, XDefiant, and the myriad other games released by publishers and left to rot, their development teams either dissolved or getting folded into other projects. As the ever-present twin to my highlights, the disappointments of 2024 are:
Deadlock
This is one of those times where the fault lies less with the game and more with myself. As everyone knows, it wasn’t difficult to get an invite code for Deadlock. Once they were out, they spread like wildfire. And since one of my friend groups was getting into it, I figured this was my best chance to give MOBAs another shot after bouncing off of League of Legends and DOTA 2 after a few hours with each.
Unfortunately, even presented as a 3D shooter, I have come to realize that I simply hate MOBAs. I hate having to plan builds in the item shop. I hate having to worry about XP farming over the course of a match. I hate how the genre encourages people to continue obviously losing fights, sometimes for long stretches of time. I have to be honest with myself and admit the qualities of the genre that fans of it like are the exact things that repulse me.
And my disappointment with Deadlock is tied directly to that. It’s a great MOBA, which is why I hate it.
Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
I wanted to like Echoes of Wisdom, in much the same way I want to like every game I buy. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t have fun with it, but the few issues I do have are major ones that cheapen the experience.
While the premise of a Zelda that can summon clones of any object or enemy she encounters is interesting on paper, in practice most players will quickly settle upon the same strategies both in platforming and in combat, because they are so powerful that nothing else compares. Why would I try to pull off some cool platforming trick when it is far easier to make a stack of bed, or magic water, or clouds, that I can use to climb as high or far over whatever obstacles I encounter? Why would I play around with the numerous monsters I could summon to fight for me when the same two or three of them mop up any fight without a problem?
And in a hypothetical world where I did want to experiment, that would require scrolling through the game’s atrocious UI decision to present the list of available “echoes” as a single, unsorted row, undivided by categories. Players do not even have the ability to favorite or hotbar echoes for easy retrieval. This may seem minor to some, but it means that players are often spending minutes at a time scrolling through available options just to use the game’s core mechanic, and that is simply unacceptable by any reasonable metric.
I was happy to see a game where Zelda was finally playable, but it’s sad to think that it was this one.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
Unlike The Last of Us: Part 2 before it, I think Senua’s Sage: Hellblade 2 is a good video game with a good story. However, like The Last of Us: Part 2 before it, Hellblade 2 is a game that struggles to justify its existence against a predecessor that neither wanted nor needed a sequel.
The conclusion to Hellblade: Seuna’s Sacrifice is so strong that the story feels complete, without any need to continue along with the character. And while it was fun to come back to Seuna for a second outing, almost every moment of the game left me wondering why Ninja Theory chose to return to this character rather than move on to a new one.
And even worse is that I found it difficult to understand why this was a video game as opposed to a film or Netflix original series. To some extent, that was expected since the first Hellblade was in that cinematic “playable movie” mold that so many games find themselves in. What I didn’t expect was how bored I would get by the playable parts, with dull, tedious exploration puzzles and combat with enemies that were both too tanky and too simplistic.
I liked it exactly enough to make it through to the end, but it’s unfortunately not a game that I can recommend when most people have such limited free time as it is. There are just better ways to make use of it.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
It’s not the first time a game has been both a highlight and a disappointment, and it will not be the last. While I stand by every word I wrote, those feelings come with some damning caveats that leave me equally as cautious about future Bioware titles as I was going into Veilguard.
As a setting, Dragon Age has always been strongly rooted in dark fantasy since the beginning. It was clear while playing the game that the new team from Bioware wanted to pivot away from that, into someone at once both more affirming and light in tone and voice. However, in doing so, they rob the setting of much of its texture, to the point where it sometimes feels less like Dragon Age and more like “fantasy Mass Effect”, an important distinction to series fans.
Little incongruities like a child-kidnapping assassins guild being rewritten into something more akin to almost Robin Hood-esque vigilante killers or a fascist dictatorship run by mages being strangely accommodating to queer and trans viewpoints remove much of the bite that gives the setting its texture. Even your party is pleasant, but in a way that co-workers who don’t hang out outside of the office are “pleasant” but otherwise forgettable.
On the Aftermath podcast, one of the hosts said that Veilguard felt as if it was written less by queers and more by “well-meaning allies”, and I feel where the sentiment stems from. I could not tell you whether it’s because the writers were scared of disappointing fans, or if they just didn’t have the skill, but either way they did a poor job incorporating the darkness the gives both the settings and the queer stories they’re trying to elevate the punch they need to stick with the audience well after credits roll.
And while they can build on that, and improve, it makes for bland, flavorless showing once first impressions fade.
The Casting of Frank Stone
I’ve already written about my opinion on Frank Stone at length as a result of my Let’sPlay on the game with Acharky, but in summary the game spends 90% of its six-hour runtime setting up for a mediocre 10% payoff at the very end. As a result, it struggles to stand on its own, using the Dead by Daylight license mostly as a crutch to trick fans of the franchise into feeling as if there’s more to the story than it first appears.
Even on the occasions where Supermassive completely misses, like in Little Hope, there’s always at least something I can look back on and have a meaningful discussion about. With Frank Stone, instead I just make jokes about how he was obviously intended to be a new Dead by Daylight killer and bombed so hard no one cares.
It’s an experience as hollow and dull as its premise.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
I grow more sour on Rebirth the further removed I am from it. There are many things I like about it, from the interpretations of classic scenes from the original game, to new editions like Queen’s Blood. However, it’s held back by several persistent and pervasive issues endemic to the core design philosophy of the remake.
The first is obvious once the player leaves Kalm: Much of the side content is fairly bog-standard Ubisoft open-world fare, from climbing towers to defeating specific grouping of enemies with the occasional side story thrown in. And while it’s not tiresome early on, as the game progressed I grew increasingly annoyed that each new region was bloated with needless guff that I was losing interest in. And while I’m happy Rebirth chose to incorporate more mini-games like the original FF7 did, most of them are ruined by some fundamental issue, from the preset formations of Fort Condor to the scoring system of the shooting gallery.
But the bloat also grafts itself onto the main story, turning what was originally a ten-hour segment of the game and expanding it into a full 70-90 hour epic. The problem is that this section is largely a road trip with an ill-defined goal, so for most of it the actual main plot of Final Fantasy VII doesn’t move forward. Even worse, once the story finally does get underway, after writing Nibelheim in a way that erases part of the magic of the original, they manage to ruin possibly the most important scene in the entire FF7 extended universe and canon. The scene that everyone talks about, that lingers in pop culture and ensured that FF7 would live on in the history of video games forever more.
Yes. That one. They managed to screw up that one, in the interest of fostering debate and speculation. It’s the kind of mistake that makes me question the judgement of the team in charge, even if they’re mostly the same people from the original game.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure
I was not confident that bringing Max Caulfield back to take the leading role in another Life is Strange game was a smart idea. The endings to that game are so wildly divergent that trying to reconcile them while building a new story felt, to me, like a fool’s errand. Additionally, regardless of what choice is made, that ending is conclusive. Similar to my problems with Hellblade 2, Double Exposure is an addendum to a story that needed no further expansion. It was complete, even if I had problems with it.
And yet, as I launched the game, and began playing the first few chapters, I saw the vision. I may have disagreed with the choice to bring Max back, but thrust into the driver’s seat I saw why the development team at Deck Nine felt as though they needed to thrust her back into the limelight. Her experiences back in Arcadia Bay and the trauma of those events are necessary in informing the character and why she, and she alone, was uniquely suited to be the lead for this story they were telling. As the first three episodes continued to set the groundwork for the finale, I became a true believer.
Which is why the final two episodes upset me as much as they did. Not only did it take a turn that I felt unearned by the story leading up to it, it also dropped several threads that felt like they should have been more important than they ultimately were. And worse, after the credits roll, the end with “Max Caulfield will return”.
As the folks at Remap said on their spoilercast, it felt like season one of a Netflix original series, where you can almost sense the development team pleading behind the scenes to get renewed for a season two. When I compare that desperation with the way Dontnod conclusively ended their original game, it bums me out.
And that’s all he wrote. The Non-2024 Gaming in 2024 post should be coming out soon, but until then remember that all of these games, even and especially the ones you dislike, were created by people: People who are suffering, much like you probably are, under the weight of a system that treats us with callous indifference at best and cruel hostility at worst. Be kind to those people, because the works you love wouldn’t be possible without them.
