A couple of quick notes.
I am including any game I played for the first time in 2024, even if it is just a remake/remaster.
I played more games than I have listed, but I haven’t got far enough in them to feel good ranking them, they will show up in a later year.
This is obviously an opinion article, and while I usually keep content 100% positive, since I am just doing every game I felt I played enough to have valid feelings on, there is a game that I blatantly don’t like to start us off.. And speaking of, here it is.
16. Palworld
I think this game is incredibly boring and unoriginal. It’s an open world base builder/automator filled with monsters that have uninspired designs and a battle system that makes two grown men hitting each other with pool noodles feel deep and engaging by comparison. It also seems like the further I got the less interesting the gameplay was to me. I know a lot of people love Palworld, but I genuinely think it’s one of the least fun games I’ve ever played.
15. Final Fantasy 2
I finally bought the Pixel Remaster Collection to play the OG Final Fantasy games since I’ve been a fan of the more modern ones. I think FF2 does something pretty awesome, it adds a real plot to the gameplay, which the first game is pretty light on. That said, the leveling system is pretty bad and janky, but I do like the spirit of it. I think the devs were still clearly experimenting a lot and unfortunately this experiment came out just okay.
14. Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection
So, I have played both these games before, they are not new to me, in fact, I think Battlefront 2 is probably a top 10 game of all time (stay tuned for the top 100-200 games of all time list later this year). While I love that this exists, it offers very little in the way of quality of life updates and upgrades and really would have been served with a little more in the way of touch-ups. For re-releases that have enough changes for me to be willing to rank them having played the original, this is about as bare bones as it gets… also why is the file size so big? I will be finishing my 100% of the xbox achievements on this one this year though, it’s still a lot of fun.
13. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
This was a pretty enjoyable campaign and the omni-movement is probably the best addition to CoD in its whole history. That said, while I still enjoy watching pro play, I don’t enjoy the multiplayer as much as I have in bast CoDs. That may change as the year goes on, but for now, I’m feeling a little burnt out on CoD multiplayer.
12. Tiny Tina’s Wonderland
I feel like Borderlands really peaked on 2. The Pre-Sequel was pretty bad, 3 was good but didn’t have the same magic. This game has some of that magic back, partly because it’s Dungeons and Dragons themed. I enjoyed my playthrough of the game, the dialogue was solid, plot was okay, gameplay was very Borderlands. But it didn’t quite give me that same joy that 2 did, or even still does when I replay it. I will be finishing my achievement 100% on this one this year as well though.
11. Age of Mythology: Retold
Age of Mythology is one of my favorite strategy games of all time and this does a wonderful job of breathing new life into it. This game feels great on PC and Console, I’m really impressed by the World’s Edge team’s ability to make strategy games feel good on console. I really hope they bring this tech to Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds getting a remaster of some sort, and now that Microsoft owns Blizzard, Starcraft and Warcraft getting console ports would be sweet, with some modifications to account for how different the gameplay is. This is what I’m looking for when evaluating remakes and remasters, it’s about as good as they get. That said, top slots are reserved for original games (to me).
10. Final Fantasy 1
This game is great fun! It’s the perfect length for the experience, and a wonderful blend of simple and enjoyable. If you’re expecting a super deep experience from a near 40 year old game, you won’t get it here. But if you haven’t played this and had reasonable expectations like I did, it’s a fantastic little game.
9. Neon White
Notable favorite game of Alpharad, and after finally playing it, I can see why. A great mix of speedrunning and arcade shooter combat that makes it easy to learn and experiment on stages quickly. Improvement feels good, and this game understands that better than most games ever have. The plot was decently interesting too once I started reading it near the end of the game.
8. Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Rankings are from this game forward. I’m just coming off of finishing and 100%ing this game. I genuinely had a great time and binged it pretty hard. The story was really enjoyable and I liked the cast of characters, especially Manfred and Assan. That said, the combat was really lacking in my opinion, and I eventually used the custom difficulty setting to turn enemy health way down because the fights were just kinda boring and janky. I actually think a lot would have been alleviated by having all ally abilities be autocast, and not limited to 3 on the action bar. If we’re moving to action combat, let’s fully commit, pausing breaks the pace. That said, why must everything be action combat? Dragon Age: Origins continues to have the best combat in the series and it isn’t close. Also the movement feels fairly clunky, jumps are unresponsive, mantles are slow and constantly happening so it literally feels like you’re spending 20% of a dungeon watching mantles. So, this is a really fun game, and has a great story and characters, as Dragon Age is known for. But, the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. That said, I was pessimistic about this game and it proved me wrong, and now I’m excited to see what will come next now that this new Dragon Age team has experience and feedback to work off of.
7. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth
The one game franchise that is brave enough to move from action combat to turn based RPG combat, and it’s amazing. I genuinely love what they’ve built with their RPG system across the Ichiban games so far. This plot has some holes and issues, but the characters are charming and so lovable that you enjoy going on the journey with them in spite of the plot issues. The gameplay is top tier and has all the iconic staples that you can expect from the Like A Dragon (formerly Yakuza in the west) series.
6. Super Mario Party Jamboree
While this needs about 50 more mini games for the normal 4 player party mode, this is a return to form for Mario Party. 7 boards, which is the most we’ve had in decades, many of which are better. A slightly less generous economy makes decision making a little more relevant, although the economy is still a little too generous. And the mini games that we do have are great, coupled with a great cast of characters to choose from. I would like to see a 50 mini game DLC (add 3 maps while you’re at it and this would be worth $30-40 to me) added and I think this moves up to being one of the best games in the history of the series, which it’s on the edge of already. I would like to see less animation time, there’s so much extra nonsense that really makes the games take longer, and the return of 50 turns which Nintendo is scared of for some reason. I also think an optional mode with character dice blocks like we had in Super Mario Party would be a cool side mode alongside pro mode to give the game even more play options. I would honestly like to see this be the new Mario Kart 8, just give it a ton of support through a season pass and make it the peak experience for the series.
5. Infinity Nikki
Wow, I decided to play this when it came out because my wife was excited for it and I think it’s good to try the things that your partner loves, and I’m so happy I did. This game is amazing, I have a strong distaste for open worlds typically and I really enjoy the exploration of this one. The biggest thing that makes this great, besides gacha being fun, is the movement. I genuinely think this game hurt Dragon Age: The Veilguard a little because it’s movement is so much better. If more games moved as smoothly and quickly as this one did, we’d be in a good era of gaming. As this game gets patches and development and more time to improve, this will only move up my all time rankings, and it’s already doing pretty well.
4. Elden Ring
I have bought this game with DLC twice this year. I 100%ed it on xbox and then rebought it on PC to play with friends because it’s that much fun. I think this is another example of an open world done right. Exploration is fun and engaging, there are rewards everywhere and it makes you feel rewarded for going down the path less traveled, or taking down a strong enemy. I also love the ability to grind for when things feel particularly difficult if you want to, and the fact that there are dozens of viable builds in basically all phases of the game. And the DLC adds even more cool weapons and spells to play around with. That said, I have 2 major critiques. The first is the bosses, which are less unique feeling overall than another game that will be in the next slot, and much easier overall. There are two exceptions, Malenia, who is the perfect example of difficulty done right, the best thing about Fromsoft combat is the dance, the player working through a balance of making good offensive and defensive choices, and Malenia is the peak of this. The other exception is Consort Radahn, who I think is the least fun boss in a Fromsoft game, the balance is too thrown off, and it’s almost all defense on the player end, even the high level speedrunners spend most of this fight dodging and getting little pokes in, I just don’t think that’s enjoyable at all. My other critique is that the DLC is less fun that the base game for me, and I wish the DLC weapons were accessible earlier so that they could be used in the base game more easily.
3. Dark Souls 3
I am so happy I finally buckled down and decided to give this game a real shot. I had started it and not gotten very far because I didn’t think I enjoyed Souls gameplay, but I decided I was going to beat it no matter what because it is so renowned. This is hands down one of the best games ever made. The boss encounters are all so unique and engaging, they have such great designs across the board and far surpass Elden Ring in that regard and in gameplay. The world is incredibly fun to explore and shows exactly what the power of a more linear experience can be compared to the also well executed open world of Elden Ring. I really have no big critiques of this game overall, it’s really solid. But it only gets 3rd on this list because frankly, this was one of the best gaming years I’ve ever had.
2. Stellar Blade
This is a great blend of Dark Souls and The Legend of Zelda in my opinion. While the gameplay is really good, from combat to exploration, to the collecting of power ups and cosmetics, of which there are a ton. The real thing that caught me off guard was how much I loved the plot and world building of Stellar Blade. The drip of information leaves you asking questions and predicting how different holes in your knowledge will be filled in, and it has a bit of a fun investigative vibe where learning new things is fun. I did guess literally everything right in terms of twists, and I still thought it was great. This is aided by there being some great environmental and enemy designs that make the world feel lived in and interesting. The other and biggest standout for me was the music, holy cow the music is incredible in this game. I don’t pay much attention to OSTs but this one stands out, it’s easily the best of the year, and that’s saying something when I have Dark Souls 3, Infinity Nikki, Age of Mythologies Retold, and the number one game of the year which is a set of games with S tier soundtracks for me. Oh, and Eve is definitely up there with Survivor Lara Croft as best female protagonists in gaming.
1. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
Where to start. This game is gorgeous to look at, the first moment you step out of Kalm and into the open map around it, the landscape just takes your breath away. I have never taken so many screenshots in my life across all other games I’ve played compared to this one game alone. Then the gameplay, it’s good, the balance between the characters and all their unique play styles is fantastic. The biggest character issue for me in terms of gameplay was Cait Sith, because he was so much fun I didn’t want to play anybody else. Speaking of the characters, they’re all really good and really well written, designed and voice acted. The biggest surprise to me was actually Yuffie, she had a decent time to shine in Intergrade, but in this game the way she fits in and interacts with the team was so charming and fun, especially in her interactions with Barrett, which often had me laughing. I also think they did a great job with Red XIII’s story arc here. All this said, I do have criticisms here too, the ending of Remake was so fantastic and left a lot of room for the story to change and it was a little too safe and true to the original in a lot of ways. I really hope they lean into and use the multiple dimension thing happening better heading forward. Also the whole Aerith thing was disappointing considering how much it felt like there was room to switch up that whole sequence and make something new and iconic instead of retreading old ground. Oh! Back to the bright side and in regards to Aerith, the song she sings in the Golden Saucer, that sequence is just beautiful.
So, that’s gaming 2024 for me. There was just so much good, so many games I just truly enjoyed playing, and I really felt my passion for gaming swell back this year. 2025 doesn’t currently have as much hype lined up outside of Dynasty Warriors: Origins and Civ 7, both of which are series I am massive fans of, so we’ll see how it goes, but I’m feeling optimistic!
