Games Beaten 2024

[prfsnl_gmr]

Once again, thank you to everyone for your reviews in 2024. I enjoyed reading all of them, and they are a great way for me to learn about new games and learn even more about old ones!

Before I get on the board for 2025, I need to close out my review backlog (and give you another “top ten” list!).

……

1. Chico and The Magic Orchard DX (Switch)
2. Dusk ‘82 (Switch)
3. Dusk (Switch)
4. Rock Boshers DX (Switch)
5. Metal Slug 4 (Neo Geo)
6. Bleed 2 (Switch)
7. Kid Icarus: Uprising (3DS)
8. Mighty Gunvolt Burst (3DS)
9. Love 3 (Switch)
10. Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge (3DS)
11. Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Switch)
12. Mother 3 (GBA)
13. Princess Peach: Showtime! (Switch)
14. Avenging Spirit (Arcade)
15. Blossom Tales II (Switch)
16. The Fall of Elena Temple (Switch)
17. Finding Teddy II (Switch)
18. Animal Well (Switch)
19. Runner 3 (Switch)
20. Master Key (Switch)
21. Gargoyle’s Quest II - The Demon Darkness (NES)
22. Gargoyle’s Quest II - The Demon Darkness (GB)
23. Demon’s Crest (SNES)
24. Master Key Picross (Switch)
25. Prince of Persia (SNES)
26. Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure (Switch)
27. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch)
28. Soul Blazer (SNES)
29. Swords & Bones 2 (Switch)
30. Underground Blossom (iOS)
31. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (Xbox)
32. Faith: The Unholy Trilogy (Switch)
33. Illusion of Gaia (SNES)
34. Hollow Knight (Switch)
35. Dungeons of Dreadrock (Switch)
36. Dungeons of Dreadrock 2 - The Dead King’s Secret (Switch)

Hollow Knight is, pretty much, a perfect metroidvania game. It’s tough, but it’s fair. It has a vast world to explore. It doesn’t hold your hand. It looks great, sounds great, and plays even better. It has well hidden, meaningful secrets to uncover, and the game offers a plethora of optional challenges for the most dedicated players. I really, really liked it, and I think it is deserving of all its praise. Highly, highly recommended.

Dungeons of Dreadrock and Dungeons of Dreadrock 2 - The Dead King’s Secret are just stupendous puzzle games. Both are inspired by classic, grid-based DRPGs (e.g., Dungeon Master, The Legend of Grimrock, etc.), but they play more like classic, overhead, adventure-puzzle games (e.g., The Adventure of Lolo). In them, you must descend through 100 floors of the titular Dungeons of Dreadrock, flipping switches, opening doors, disarming traps, and defeating enemies. The games feature detailed, pixel graphics, solid voice acting, good sound design, and engaging narratives. Better still, they are just first class puzzle games. The puzzles are tough enough to provide you with a sense of accomplishment when you solve them, but never too cryptic or difficult. You can get through each one in a few hours, and the first game is frequently on sale for just two dollars. At that price, you really can’t go wrong, and I’ve certainly paid much more for much worse games. I really can’t recommend these two puzzling gems, highly enough, and I am now very excited for the forthcoming third game in the Dungeons of Dreadrock trilogy.

……

Here’re my lists

- The Ten Best Games I Beat in 2024-

10. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
9. Demon’s Crest
8. Runner 3
7. Dungeons of Dreadrock
6. Animal Well
5. Dusk
4. Faith: The Unholy Trology
3. Master Key
2. Hollow Knight
1. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

- The Four Most Disappointing Games I Beat in 2024 -

4. Kid Icarus: Uprising
3. Princess Peach: Showtime!
2. Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure
1. Illusion of Gaia

[PartridgeSenpai]

It's taken me a few days longer to get around to this than I originally intended to after finishing the top 10 worst list, but here it finally is!

My top 10 games I beat in 2024:

10: Chocobo Dungeon 2 (PS1)
This is a game I'd been meaning to get around to for ages, but I was just so lukewarm on the first Chocobo Dungeon years back, that it ended up sitting on my shelf for years. I was honestly blown away by just how much fun this ended up being! With a fun story, great partner AI, and much better polished overall game mechanics than its predecessor, it's honestly probably a good thing that only this second Chocobo Mystery Dungeon game ever came out internationally, because I think the first game might've soured people on this, a far far better experience.

9: Romancing SaGa (SFC)
I'd been loosely curious about this for a long time, but the SaGa games are so weird and intimidating that it took me an age to work up the nerve to play it XD. The #1 thing that ended up helping me actually tackle this, though, was the blurb at the top of an old Japanese guide site I found for it. It recommended that, before looking up any routes or strategies, to just start playing the game. Take a few words of advice to heart so you can at least work off of best practices, but beyond that, just have the adventure you want to have! It's what the game was built for, and it's how it's best enjoyed. After finishing it, I can heartily agree with those words of wisdom. Romancing SaGa is an extremely novel and bold game for the time, and, even if its oddness does make it a sorta hard game to recommend to folks, the adventure I had saving the land will stick with me for a long time~.

8: The Darkness II (PS3)
I enjoyed the heck out of the first The Darkness earlier in the year, and I never expected to find its sequel so soon out here. I'm so glad I did though! After playing all sorts of FPS games last year, this was such a blast of pure, raw fun that I needed so badly. Quad-wielding is such a brilliant idea, and it's executed marvelously. A campy supernatural mobster story and great fun gameplay made this a super enjoyable time that I absolutely see myself playing through again someday. It's just that good a time! X3

7: Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond (Switch)
I had a ton of fun playing through the first few Pokemon generations and streaming it to my friends over the past year or so, but I had to stop at 3rd gen, as the later ones are all DS games until we get to the Switch. But that's where finding this for so cheap came in! It's been absolutely ages since I've played through 4th gen, and it's always been a generation I've looked back on rather lukewarmly, but this turned my opinion around on it a lot (well, at least in this remake-form). Switch-era Pokemon developments in a DS-era game make for a great time, and the weird team I ended up finding success with made it one of my favorite Pokemon games I've played in recent memory~.

6: To The Moon (PC)
This was a game I bought probably close to 10 years ago after hearing rave reviews about it, but it wasn't until my wife recommended it to me that I finally sat down and played the darn thing X3. It doesn't have much in the way of gameplay, but as a sort of visual novel-via RPG Maker, it lived up to the hype! It's an excellently constructed narrative experience, and I'm definitely hunting down the sequels to play at some point in the future, as I definitely don't need any more convincing that this team really knows what they're doing.

5: Bionic Command (2009) (PS3)
I picked this up on a whim while I was just looking for PS3 games to play now that I finally have a way to stream them. I remembered this getting meme'd on a lot when it was new, and I figured it'd be a janky but at least OK romp. Boy was I wrong! What I ended up finding was a delightfully campy romp that felt like a great send up to old 80's and 90's action movies in its plotting and pacing. All tied to a very novel and fun 3D action platforming experience, this ended up being a game I look on way more fondly than I ever imagined myself being able to do given its rough reputation.

4: Tales of Berseria (PS4)
I ended up playing through a TON of Tales games this year, both ones I had been meaning to replay as well as ones I just needed to play full stop. This was one my wife had actually played through before several years ago, and she wanted to give it a replay. I had an OK time with the previous game in the series, Zestiria, and my opinion of post-Xillia Tales games was so poor that I had very skeptical hopes for the actual quality of this. I sure was glad to be wrong though! This is genuinely a really great and well put together game, and it really did a lot to improve my opinion of current Namco Bandai practices around making these games. It's not my favorite Tales game, but it's still one I loved a lot, and is easily the best one available on modern hardware at the very least (at least until the Graces remaster comes out :b).

3: Night in the Woods (PC)
Much like To The Moon, this is another narrative-focused game I'd heard nothing but rave reviews about for many years, and this was the year I decided to finally play the darn thing. Also, much like To The Moon, it ended up very much living up to the hype! From the art style to how well realized the characters are, Night in the Woods is an incredibly well executed story about adulthood in this troubled world of ours, and it's a real testament to just how adeptly video games can tell a story like that.

2: Eastward (PC)
Yet another game I'd heard rave reviews about, from the few people who I knew played it, and my partner ended up gifting it to me for Christmas the previous year. Not wanting to let her gift sit unplayed for long, I set right to work getting to it and immediately understood just why everyone I knew who'd played it loved it so much. A remarkably challenging but excellently put together Zelda-sorta game, Eastward is a brilliantly executed story about hope and community in a world clinging on despite the disasters that trouble it, and it's a game that *very* nearly made the top of my list this year (but it instead only ended up as another lasting favorite of mine ;b).

1: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (PS3)
I'd been put off from trying this for a long long time. I'm not a super huge fan of a lot of games that attempt to be Pokemon-like monster catching games, and I'd had such sour feelings towards the original Symphonia for so many years that I hardly had much interest in checking out its sequel. However, after replaying Symphonia and coming away with far improved opinions on it, I decided to finally give this a look while the first game was still fresh in my mind. Co-written by the authors of two of my favorite-written Tales games (Rebirth and Abyss), I had a lot to look forward to for the writing for this, and absolutely blew me away by the end of it. While I don't think that it's got the best gameplay in the series, and I also think that games like Abyss and Xillia do things in their narrative regarding social commentary that this game ends up feeling very wanting on, this game ended up being so much more than the sum of its parts for me. The character story is the real star of the show here, and the tale of Emile, Marta, and Richter is easily one of my favorites I've ever seen in a game. The monster raising even ended up being something I enjoyed a surprising amount to boot! While it's definitely not the best Tales games, and a lot of people are likely not going to enjoy it to the same degree that I did, I absolutely adored my time with Dawn of the New World, and it's easily not just my favorite Tales game, but one of my favorite all time games too~.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

Once again, thank you to everyone for your reviews in 2024. I enjoyed reading all of them, and they are a great way for me to learn about new games and learn even more about old ones!

Before I get on the board for 2025, I need to close out my review backlog (and give you another “top ten” list!).

……

1. Chico and The Magic Orchard DX (Switch)
2. Dusk ‘82 (Switch)
3. Dusk (Switch)
4. Rock Boshers DX (Switch)
5. Metal Slug 4 (Neo Geo)
6. Bleed 2 (Switch)
7. Kid Icarus: Uprising (3DS)
8. Mighty Gunvolt Burst (3DS)
9. Love 3 (Switch)
10. Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge (3DS)
11. Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Switch)
12. Mother 3 (GBA)
13. Princess Peach: Showtime! (Switch)
14. Avenging Spirit (Arcade)
15. Blossom Tales II (Switch)
16. The Fall of Elena Temple (Switch)
17. Finding Teddy II (Switch)
18. Animal Well (Switch)
19. Runner 3 (Switch)
20. Master Key (Switch)
21. Gargoyle’s Quest II - The Demon Darkness (NES)
22. Gargoyle’s Quest II - The Demon Darkness (GB)
23. Demon’s Crest (SNES)
24. Master Key Picross (Switch)
25. Prince of Persia (SNES)
26. Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure (Switch)
27. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch)
28. Soul Blazer (SNES)
29. Swords & Bones 2 (Switch)
30. Underground Blossom (iOS)
31. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (Xbox)
32. Faith: The Unholy Trilogy (Switch)
33. Illusion of Gaia (SNES)
34. Hollow Knight (Switch)
35. Dungeons of Dreadrock (Switch)
36. Dungeons of Dreadrock 2 - The Dead King’s Secret (Switch)

Hollow Knight is, pretty much, a perfect metroidvania game. It’s tough, but it’s fair. It has a vast world to explore. It doesn’t hold your hand. It looks great, sounds great, and plays even better. It has well hidden, meaningful secrets to uncover, and the game offers a plethora of optional challenges for the most dedicated players. I really, really liked it, and I think it is deserving of all its praise. Highly, highly recommended.

Dungeons of Dreadrock and Dungeons of Dreadrock 2 - The Dead King’s Secret are just stupendous puzzle games. Both are inspired by classic, grid-based DRPGs (e.g., Dungeon Master, The Legend of Grimrock, etc.), but they play more like classic, overhead, adventure-puzzle games (e.g., The Adventure of Lolo). In them, you must descend through 100 floors of the titular Dungeons of Dreadrock, flipping switches, opening doors, disarming traps, and defeating enemies. The games feature detailed, pixel graphics, solid voice acting, good sound design, and engaging narratives. Better still, they are just first class puzzle games. The puzzles are tough enough to provide you with a sense of accomplishment when you solve them, but never too cryptic or difficult. You can get through each one in a few hours, and the first game is frequently on sale for just two dollars. At that price, you really can’t go wrong, and I’ve certainly paid much more for much worse games. I really can’t recommend these two puzzling gems, highly enough, and I am now very excited for the forthcoming third game in the Dungeons of Dreadrock trilogy.

……

Here’re my lists

- The Ten Best Games I Beat in 2024-

10. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
9. Demon’s Crest
8. Runner 3
7. Dungeons of Dreadrock
6. Animal Well
5. Dusk
4. Faith: The Unholy Trology
3. Master Key
2. Hollow Knight
1. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

- The Four Most Disappointing Games I Beat in 2024 -

4. Kid Icarus: Uprising
3. Princess Peach: Showtime!
2. Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure
1. Illusion of Gaia

Based!

Thanks for reminding me of Faith!!