by majormitch
Whether 2024 was a good year or not for video games seems to vary wildly depending on your tastes, but for me, from a purely game-playing perspective, this was one of the more consistently enjoyable years for video games in quite some time. We've reached a point where there are more good games coming out in any given month than anyone could reasonably play, and that made for a year with no letup of games I was personally excited for. In particular, this was a banner year for RPGs and indie games, two things I like a whole lot. So count me in the camp of “2024 was a very good year for video games”. And these are my favorites among them! I didn’t get to everything of course, and I enjoyed more than the 10 games on this list, as always. Yet it remains cathartic to sit here at the end of the year and reflect on the games that will stick with me the most. So with that, here are my top 10 video games of 2024. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day.
Honorable mention: I have chosen to exclude Hades II from contention for this list on the technicality that it’s still in early access; I’d rather save my recognition for it once it hits 1.0 (presumably) in 2025. But! Hades II is already a great game worth playing, and one of the best I played in 2024. Death to Chronos.
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It’s wild how ambitious UFO 50 is. As a collection of 50 games under the guise of a long-lost catalog from a fictional developer in the 1980s, I foolishly thought each game would be too shallow or insignificant to be worth much on their own. But these are 50 full-ass games, across numerous genres, with surprising depth and unique mechanics. Mortol is a platformer where the actions and bodies of one life aid the next. Camouflage is a puzzle-stealth game where you must blend in with your environment to avoid predators. Hot Foot is a thrilling 2v2 game of dodgeball with dynamic power-ups. Party House is the best deck-builder of the year. There are strategy games, arcade shooters, multiple Metroidvanias, a full-length JRPG, and so, so much more. And, somehow, nearly all of them are good. Not just passable, but good; a few of them would compete on this list as standalone entries. Even the handful that didn’t click with me personally show clever design, and could be another person’s favorite. And that’s perhaps the truest sign of a strong video game collection: I have a hard time imagining anyone playing UFO 50 and not having a great time with at least one or two of these games. If that’s all UFO 50 was – a collection of 50 good, interesting, and varied video games – it would still easily make this list. But taken together, tracing the progression from the rudimentary Barbuta through the confident Cyber Owls, these 50 games from “UFO Soft” tell a story bigger than the sum of their parts. It’s a story about the creation process, about experimenting and innovating, about a nascent artistic medium finding its footing. UFO 50 explores the early days of video games, when there were no codified standards, and everything was new and exciting. There’s a real joy of discovery to booting each game up for the first time: could this become a new favorite? That’s a feeling I don’t get often enough nowadays, but which UFO 50 delivers in spades. This is a magical collection of video games, a tribute to the pioneers that started it all, and to game design itself. UFO 50 clearly loves video games, and it reminded me just how damn much I love them too. It’s one of the most surprising and delightful things I’ve ever played, and my clear game of the year. Play Forever.
In a year where Silksong still didn’t come out, I could never have guessed I would like a new Metroidvania this much. Even more surprising, it’s from a dormant franchise that’s new to the genre, and from the struggling Ubisoft, of all companies. But The Lost Crown’s quality is immediately obvious. It has a diverse, interconnected world that’s a joy to explore. Its combat is tight and technical, with fun combos and counters at your disposal. Its UI is smartly designed, and introduces clever new features to the genre, such as the ability to place screenshots on your map. The engaging music and vibrant art simultaneously feel like a Prince of Persia game, while also carving out its own unique identity. And perhaps my favorite, the platforming is consistently excellent, varied, and pushes the mechanics to their limits. The Lost Crown nails everything it sets out to do, instantly launching itself into the top tier of one of my favorite genres.
What strength can we take from fiction and fantasy? Is it mere escapism, or can it lend us power to enact change in the real world around us? Metaphor: ReFantazio explores these questions, (mostly) successfully thanks to its sharp writing and endearing characters. The art and music are also as stellar as you’d expect from modern Atlus, and its gameplay systems iterate smartly on Persona’s tried and true template. A lot of the filler has been cut from your daily routine, and its open-ended class system is a joy to experiment with and customize to your liking. Combat feels satisfyingly snappy too, without losing any of the edge that the “press turn” system is known for. But it is the writing and characters that will stick with me most, more than any of the other great RPGs from this RPG-heavy year. Metaphor is a game with things to say, and it says them repeatedly with its full chest. Coincidentally or not, it feels like a game 2024 needed.
I’m admittedly a sucker for tactics games, but Tactical Breach Wizards still surprised me. The tactics themselves are exciting: every member of your squad has some absolutely wild abilities that can combo with each other in ridiculous and fun ways. The missions are varied and dynamic with clever optional goals, and you’re given a generous allowance of rewinds that incentivize playful experimentation. Oh, and defenestration remains one of the most satisfying things you can do in a video game. But what really surprised me were its characters and writing. This is a genuinely funny game – the idea of “tactical wizards” itself is a great start – yet every time I feared it may swing too far into irreverence, it rebounded with sincerity. It’s a fine line to walk, but is pulled off with aplomb here; I could be laughing one minute, then hit with an honest and effective gut punch the next. And then gleefully throw more guys out a window after that.
As much as anything, FF7 Rebirth is an exercise in excess. It takes the original game’s lengthy middle chapter, and expands and doubles down on every part of it; Rebirth is just as likely to add a poignant new scene examining these beloved characters as it is to cook up a half-dozen wholly unnecessary new minigames. The result is both giddy highs (great combat, world-building, music, and characters) and exhausting lows (rote quests, boring minigames, wild story swings), yet Rebirth is perhaps most effective as an exploration of FF7 writ large. As a certified FF7 sicko, who counts the original among my most formative gaming experiences, the ongoing conversation Rebirth has with its players can be powerful. It’s rare to play a game that promotes so much reflection on what a decades-old favorite means to me, but that’s exactly what I spent a good portion of 2024 doing. And that was worth (most of) the minigames.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Sokoban-style puzzle games before, but then I’ve never played one like Isles of Sea and Sky either. The individual puzzles are excellent, and regularly introduce new ideas and mechanics to keep things fresh. Yet what really elevates this game is its nonlinear overworld. You’re given a long leash to poke and prod in different directions, to choose which puzzles to solve to unlock new areas containing escalating challenges and surprising secrets. It adds a mesmerizing layer of mystery and exploration to what could have been a straight-forward puzzle game, further supplemented by a striking Game Boy Color-inspired aesthetic. I spent a few weeks completely consumed by Isles of Sea and Sky, and couldn't put it down until I discovered all it had to offer.
The original SteamWorld Heist was a clever twist on tactics games, with its side-scrolling view and manual aiming setting it apart. Heist II expands on the concept in worthwhile ways, adding a new overworld full of optional missions and secrets, and more importantly, a freewheeling new class system that rewards all sorts of experimentation. It’s kind of bonkers how open it is, allowing you to mix and match abilities across any number of classes and characters. I had a great time building out my squad and coming up with cool combos, and the rest of the package has the level of polish you’d expect from a SteamWorld game. The “more is better” sequel design doesn’t always work, but it does here, making Heist II my new favorite in the series.
A clever mix of RPG and tactics will always catch my attention, and Unicorn Overlord is unlike anything I’ve played before (I say having never played Ogre Battle). It’s immensely rewarding to program a squad with intricate abilities set to pop off at specific triggers, and then sit back and watch them wreck shop in battle. The breadth and depth of strategic options available here is almost overwhelming, yet all those hours I spent in menus adjusting my squad combinations felt like the core of the game; and I’m apparently the type of weirdo who enjoys that. The art and music are also wonderful per Vanillaware tradition, and if only the dull story and characters had been worth anything at all, Unicorn Overlord could have moved even higher up this list.
I didn’t realize just how much I missed Capcom’s energy of the PlayStation 2 era until I played Kunitsu-Gami. It’s nice to see a big publisher take a swing at something fresh and original in 2024, especially when the resulting game is this good. Its mix of basic hack-and-slash action with tower defense elements works, and it keeps things interesting all the way through by introducing new units and upgrades at a snappy pace. I also enjoyed the arcade structure that incentivizes replaying levels to complete a variety of objectives, and the art is regularly gorgeous; not to mention the mesmerizing kagura dance. Kunitsu-Gami has the kind of spunk I wish more games had, and I hope we get more experiments from Capcom going forward.
Astro Bot is one part solid 3D platformer, and one part PlayStation nostalgia engine. The controls are snappy and responsive, there’s a healthy number of cool powerups to play with, and the levels are diverse and fun to explore. It’s one of the best non-Mario 3D platformers I’ve played, and it’s supplemented by near Smash Bros. levels of references to PlayStation-centric characters. I got excited every time I rescued a themed bot, some of which had me almost wistful. It’s a bit sad that many of these franchises are no longer actively with us, yet in this year of PlayStation’s 30th anniversary, it’s nice to have such a wonderful celebration of PlayStation’s lengthy history. Hopefully Astro Bot is the start of another 30 years of memorable games.
