by fakekisser
I wasn't going to make this list... I was very busy in December, winding down my old job and then busy in January and February, starting and learning my new job. :)
I also had stopped listening to Giant Bomb for a while, but like many, the newest crew make-up has won me over, again.
Therefore, it made me think, I should just put this up, at least for my own historical reference. Per usual, I didn't get to a ton of games last year, but here are the top 10 out of the ones I finished.
I hate to get into spoilers here, but it's an older game, and I feel the secret is mostly out. However, I will say the part of Glittermitten Grove I liked is the part before the actual secret. Yes, it's not fully fleshed out or something you're supposed to play for hours and hours, but for the few hours it lasts, it was fun.
Now...
As far as this game being Frog Fractions 2, the ASCII game is much to frustrating and long. I would have been fine with it, if it was only a two hour game or so and more straight forward, but there is no feeling of cleverness with the difficulty of having to figure out secrets and platforming in an ASCII game that plays like it is from the 80's. In my opinion, it defeats the purpose of what made Frog Fractions 1 great.
I wish more people would check this game out. It's pretty short and could be a little shorter and not wear out its welcome. It's fun, quirky, and a humorous while having a relatively unique gameplay loop.
I have played through all the Monkey Island games but only within the last five years or so. Therefore, I really don't have the nostalgia to make Return to Monkey Island truly work, especially the ending.
Therefore, I felt it was a fine and even good game but not great, partly due to an ending I didn't care for pretty much at all and a few puzzles that were as abstract as some of the older games.
I loved the idea and most of the presentation of this game. I really dislike that so many games set in feudal Japan pull in the mythological. I understand that is a part of the culture, but I would have preferred something more grounded, like Kurasawa films like Seven Samurai.
There were also some unfun sequences due to what I felt were pretty severe difficulty spikes.
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First of all, I'm talking about the remaster here, which is finally in a pretty good place - definitely playable with only a couple hitches and one crash. :P I have played through Vice City before, but I barely remembered it. In fact, I remembered less than I even thought. And I absolutely loved going through it in 2024. There are still a couple parts that really show their age in the difficulty that is mostly due to the not-so-great controls. However, the atmosphere, soundtrack, and writing essentially holds up - as long as you know what GTA humor is and are accepting of it conveying an 80's point-of-view.
I am almost caught up with the Yakuza Franchise!! I beat Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon last year, and, honestly, I don't like the turn-based combat in this game as much as the older, beat-em-up gameplay, but it was still fun. I do felt the game dragged in the middle too much, which was a surprise for how much I love the Yakuza games. However, at least a couple of the older games felt similar, so I just ended up putting Y7 down for a couple months at one point before going back and finishing it.
I played Dragon Quest II on switch. I was very surprised how well it held up. At the time I played it, I was trying to get ready for the Dragon Quest III remake, not knowing they'd then announce a I & II remake, as well. But, I'll play the remake, as well, since they aren't that long, and it will be fun to see the changes.
I started In Other Waters 3 times. The first time, I fell off hard, with the game just not clicking for me. The second time, I got stuck very early on, and by the time I came back to it, I had forgotten too much. I think there is a lot to love in this game, from the writing to the soundtrack. The gameplay is clever in parts, too, but it could very much benefit from a tightening of the mechanics. I kind of hope it does get a kind of remaster/remake in the future, because fans of Gareth Damian Martin's Citizen Sleeper games can find a lot to love in In Other Waters, if they stick it out.
Northern Journey was a "Game of the Month" club game that I do with some friends. I didn't pick it, but I was very happy to have been introduced to it, as I really did love a lot of the atmosphere and quirkiness of it. It goes on for a little longer than I think it should, and a couple boss fights are unnecessarily frustrating, mostly due to the simpler mechanics. However, it is definitely worth a shot for anyone into gothic settings and adventure games (similar to Skyrim).
I'm sure that, to a lot of people, me having Hellblade II on my list at all, let alone at #6 seems crazy. And, honestly, I understand. The gameplay basically is the same for the entire game, and it can be very frustrating how unresponsive she is to controls. However, the beautiful setting, the atmosphere, and a lot of the themes resonated with me, personally.
Open Roads is a short experience, but I like "walking simulators" and short games with a touching story. It isn't as good or as built out as Gone Home, but it is similar in a lot of ways, and I did enjoy it.
Hypnospace Outlaw could have been a lot higher on this list if it was a bit shorter and didn't try to challenge the player with search-and-find challenges that make the player look through places basically at random looking for changes, essentially backtracking in a way that was often not very fun. Overall, though, it is a clever game and a fun setting for someone that grew up as the internet became a household product in the many forms places like AOL and Geocities made it. I am looking forward to the "spiritual sequel" and hope that addresses a lot of the problems I had with this game.
Chicory was a game I wanted to play for a while, but I finally got around to it, and I really liked it. I didn't spend as much time as others painting scenery and the extra paintings, but I did a little, and I felt it was a very smart and brilliant in the way the creators made a mini-RPG with such a unique gameplay mechanic.
Even though Siege of Dragonspear is an expansion, it is as long as a lot of full games, and it also was, at the time of its release, an expansion to a game a couple decades old, which is amazing. I replayed Baldur's Gate 1 for the first time since the early 2000's, and I felt Siege of Dragonspear was much better than many fans give it credit for. It was an interesting story that fits pretty well between the two older Baldur's Gate games, and everything else about it maintained the gameplay for fans of the original.