Firstly, thank you Rarity for this thread. It is always one of my mostest favourite and it takes a lot of effort to create and run, so thank you! I love this tradition and hope Games keeps it going forever more!

For me, 2024 in gaming was excellent. Better than last year? You betcha! Every year in video gaming after the first year you began is better than the last because there are always new games coming out and no one here has played every single game in existence. There will always be games, and there will always be game players to enjoy them. 🙂 Blessed hobby!

I have had a grand year, my fourth with a set schedule that has been keeping me playing and finishing video games. They all must be ranked, though and all deserve a little time to shine.

So what were the toppest?

Honourable Mention
Elden Ring: Showers of the Erdtree

It is my own personal policy of not including DLC in my top ten. You cannot play this DLC without going some way into the main game, so it would feel a bit cheeky to include it. If it were a standalone thing, I might approach it differently.

Not to say it is bad. No way. This is an incredible addition to an already godlike base game. Elden Ring is my favourite Fromsoft game not called Sekiro. This DLC is essentially an entire third of Elden Ring added seamlessly into the main game. It is varied and expansive and just more good Elden Ring fun. Some zones are stunning to look at and play through – I dig the Abyss the most, especially the Boss and dungeon.

I had a great, great time all the way up to the final boss. This was just a bit too much for me and In genuinely felt incapable of succeeding, which was a thought I had last had when playing against Guardian Ape. I think I am getting on a bit age wise and the amount of visuals on the screen meant I was struggling to see anything and react at the appropriate time.

However, despite taking roughly five hours I did eventually triumph, and I was elated at doing so. Since I completed it, they did do a bit of retuning on the boss, so perhaps had I waited for the patches I would feel differently. I still would not have placed it in the main list, though.

The Runners Up:

21: Pokemon Scarlet
A fairly jolly time was had here! Learned lots about Pokemon, caught tons of new friends, and had a lot of fun going through gyms and star badges and all sorts. I can see why these became popular. It has also led to me watching the Indigo League series! I do wish to go back and try some of the earlier ones as well – I have been informed they are also a ton of fun.

20: A Short Hike
This was very much a nice little couple of hours game to play in between two bigguns and it really satisfied me. I sort of messed up near the end by accidentally dive bombing into the sea, so I lost a little amount of dénouement – but a short hike back up and performed it properly and it was awesome.

19: Super Mario World: Yoshi’s Island
I cannot believe how tough this game is. Good grief. It is great for certain, but oh man, does it like to be cheeky on many occasions. Getting poochy the dog to move where you want to had my eyes spinning in my head like some kind of slot machine. The music utterly whips though, and I felt like laughing when it synced up to my failures.

18: The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
Should this be as high as it is?
To be honest, I was going to put it even higher. This was a baffling example of video gaming and as someone without the knowledge of the Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien extended universe it had nothing to desecrate.

It comprised of a plot that did not make sense, characters referred to as descriptions without names (Candleman is epic), controlled poorly and was just as full of bugs as you had no doubt heard. Somehow, though. Somehow, I had fun. I think because it was being streamed, meant we could laugh at everything happening and not happening. Extremely ridiculous, but occasionally very beautiful in places (the mountains and caves at the beginning did look great).

I do not recommend this for regular play.

17: Lies of P
One of the most competent Fromlikes I have ever played (Surge 1 is still my gold standard). It might seem like Bloodborne at first glance, but is nothing of the sort. It is adapting the fairy tale of Pinnocchio but corrupted just enough to keep you on your toes trying to figure out how these characters are in such a story.

It has a really excellent combat system that asks enough of you to never get complacement but once it clicks you feel very powerful. Breaking the opponents weapons with your own parries is a superb addition.

There were a couple of bosses that I really felt I had no chance with (Green Meanie and the final boss) due to the visuals and how much was happening on screen, but the second last boss, who is fought on the bridge of a castle in the rain, was a one on one affair that I spent about three hours practicing and learning and when I won it was perfect. After seeing the end I am inordinately excited for where they are going.

16: Super Mario Odyssey
Is this the second best 3D Mario? It might be! Tons of content, seriously, so so so much to do and while collecting moons is similar to deku nuts from Breath of the Wild, Mario is such a joy to control and play that you do not care. You just want to play and play and play. The balloon grabbing whips, the music and art style is classically Mario and as always with them, in the A tier. This is a great package and I always would like another.

15: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Oh do I love puzzow games! This was a relaxing delight. Just a good time with little dioramas exploring and figuring out how to find the coins, the stars and the little HeeHoo man. I attempted the final challenge and good grief. That might be one of the hardest and I am not sure I can succeed, but at least I had a go!

14: Grim Fandango
An utter classic and thoroughly epic adventure game. I have got Monkey Island 1 and 3 and Sam N Max under my belt so I know the kind of humour to expect, and it did not disappoint in the slightest. There were so many laugh out loud lines, enhanced so much by excellent voice acting. It took me a while to get round to it (multiple decades) and was utterly worth it.

13: Metroid Prime: Remastered
Super good! Metroid Dread is one of the best Castleroids and it turns out they do not need to be 2D to whip. This did not age at all and it felt as though I was playing a modern game. This really makes me wish for 2 and 3 to come out so I can give them a go as well!

12: Thank Goodness You’re Here
100% accurate Yorkshire simulator.

11: The Legend of Zelda: TikTok
This is one of the best Zelda games ever made and so much of the time I thought ‘How is this possible on the switch?’ A technical marvel that builds upon and improves every single detail from Breath of the Wild.

The mechanics alone are astounding, and robust, and rock solid in performance. Then, of course, there is the open world, that has somehow been reworked without feeling as though you are simply playing Breath of the Wild 2. It was a magnificent time of exploration, and shrine solving and movement. Probably one of the all time best final bosses.

I also seriously dug the storyline and the various cutscenes of it were excellent, emotional and resonating.
I was amazed at so much of the game, so much of the time that I can honestly say it stands alongside Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess as the best of the best.

The Top Ten:

10: Pentiment

Ropekid should be tremendously proud of himself and his team for making this game. It is unlike so many things out there and focuses on a time period that I last thought about when doing History in primary school (we Brits do cover these kind of time zone, but too briefly).

Truly soul searching and attention grabbing, you are pulled into a mystery with no real definitive answers except those you determine along the way. There are moments where the grey nature of the truth makes you confront your own biases and asks you to pick what you believe the truth to be. A lot like another game I played this year, this one relies on you to be the arbiter of morality and judgement rather than a scoring system like so many other games before it.

The art style is gorgeous and fitting and the whole package has so much effort that I cannot help but be enthralled.

Just wish I could recall who the Druckers were! 😉

09: Astrobot

I did not recognise about 90% of the fun cosplay bots. It did not matter.

Everything about this game is a love letter designed for the Sony franchises of new and old. It takes the 3D platforming genre and makes a fully joyous experience in every facet. Astrobot controls beautifully, presents a great challenge (and even added Speed Running levels to battle against friends) cooked up a wicked soundtrack, and has a distinct visual design that captures every Sony it possibly could.

This won the GOTY at Geoff Keighly’s video game pay per view, and if you want to play a game that is nothing more than just a great time of everything without the more modern trappings of videogames, then this is a grand choice.

08: Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations

The first two games I played last year, and this one was tremendously early on at the start. It is easily the best of the three because of that final case.

It feels the most complete package of the three and it goes ALL out at the very end with twists, revelations, characters, events and lawyering. It was a rocking time and I loved it to bits.

You can bet I will be continuing with this series! Edgeworth remains the best.

07: Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster

This felt more like the later Final Fantasies I had played. They were really starting to get into the groove of what I love from an FF. This was a bare bones story with very little character, but it did not matter. It was cool to play a FF game from the NES with such ambitions – the job system rocked so much.

I lost my mind at the second map reveal. Did not realise that kind of thing was possible back then! Just a great serious of moments, battles, and fun. I am aware that IV onwards is the start of something truly special and this whetted my appetite for all of them big time.

06: The Case of the Golden Idol

Surprising entry, as I only played and completed it in the last week. This is a puzzow game for the ages. Not too complex, a truly unique and wonderful mechanic in solving the vignettes, and thoroughly engaging. I am playing Rise as soon as possible. This kind of inventiveness should to be encouraged! I want games that require your brain to be firing, rather than your guns.

05: Undertale

I cannot get the music from this game out of my head. One of the greatest sound tracks from a video game, it just leaves me in awe. I have a fifteen minute extended version of ‘Another Medium’ that I added to my writing playlist. Just lovely to have on in the background while writing things like this post.

The game is so confident and different, the characters so wacky and grounded, the relationships between them so silly and believable, and all they are is simplistically drawn MSPaint creations. The strength of the brilliance lies in the defying of convention, while also clearly kowtowing to it. To know what the player will instinctively do and reward those that went outside the box.

It is also deeply funny and deeply touching. I get why it has such a huge fandom and regardless of how they act, this is a game that deserves to be big and loved.

04: Disco Elysium

This nearly did not make it into my top ten and I need to explain why.

This is probably the toughest game I have ever played. Not from a mechanical difficulty standpoint, but from a mental position. It was dour, oppressive, drab, miserable, horrifying and exhausting. I struggled in ways I feel I had not before. Every dialogue choice felt important and potentially world ending. Every bit more of backstory I learned threw me further into worry. I took every dice roll I got regardless of the outcome and this game broke me a number of times.

I felt stupid and dumb at not understanding the nuance, the sarcasm, the sometimes blatant things being said. It made me feel small and incapable and incompetent. I did laugh at some points but I was never having fun.

And maybe that is the point.

Maybe this is what our main character was feeling the whole time. Maybe I tapped into his state of mind.

The world of Disco Elysium is not one that I would call positive or hopeful. Some characters do have hope, but the overarching atmosphere is one of malaise and depression and it permeated me throughout my play. I needed all the energy I could before each session and I ended most of them in pieces. The second last one in particular where you have the dream about Dora utterly broke me and made me question if I was a good partner to my wife. I spent the next half hour hugging her as a crying wreck.

This game has been in the general top ten of this thread for three of the last four years and is beloved, and genuinely I could not see it myself. I thought I was the problem and I think I am. I think the way my brain operates is at a completely different wavelength. I approached the final session with trepidation and sadness. I wanted to know how it ended, but I was not sure I could do it.

When a story lands the ending, it can change my entire perspective, and the ending I got was the perfect, nay only, way it could possibly have ended. It made that struggle matter, it made my certainty correct and it rewarded my perseverance.

I can never play it again. I cannot take the thought of having to go through everything a second time knowing what I know. I feel rewarded for getting through it, but to redo events would feel like doing a disservice to Kim and the rest of the cast.

Just like real life, I made the choices I made and sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not but ultimately I grew as a person.

03: Tunic

Apologies, but I am going to spoil this entry because much like Outer Wilds, this is a game that you should go into blind. If you think a FromLike, but isometric and starring a fox, kind of game seems intriguing, then please give it a go. I seriously highly rate this.
For everyone else who has played it or never plans to please read on.

Tunic was an 8/10 for me. Good, little tough, but fine. Nothing special.

Then you die.

Then your ghost has to fight five separate challenges and I thought “oh man, the combat was something I was struggling with and now I have less power than before!” and I died time and time again. It was starting to be a bit more frustrating than fun and I thought, again, that maybe I just was not good enough.

Eventually, I succeeded and got another part of the manual and read it and my jaw dropped.

Tunic was NOT just an isometric hack and slash starring a cute fox, it was a full on puzzow game with mechanics and world states that mattered based on your knowledge. Much like Outer Wilds, the game was the way it always was, what changed was you. The manual became SO much more than a weirdly written collectathon, it actually had held secrets and puzzows the entire time. It told me that the world was full of little secrets, and movements.

This instantly bumped the game up to an 11/10. It is so unusual for a game to be able to keep its truth hidden in plain sight and for the reveal to hit so hard, but it did. I then became obsessed with figuring out all the little things I had missed, I went for every manual page and even made a little headway into translating the language. I did as much as I could and filled a ton of notebook pages with bizarre line drawings. Getting the last page of the manual, and uncovering every last little nook and cranny, including the beta world, was a grand achievement and at this point I had basically no need to perform the combat any more.

I appreciated the puzzow half so so so much because I was occasionally struggling with the combat side. This was an experience I would love to have again and again and again. After The Witness and Outer Wilds I did not expect it to happen again so soon but it did!

I adore it and I adore what it did and it is easily third on the list for this reason.

ZIP ZAP ZIP ZAP!

02: Tren

Growing up my parents and family and friends did not really know what to get me in the ways of toys. I think I was a confusing child. I mostly kept to myself, read lots, did not apply myself at school and was constantly day dreaming. As such, they found I could be kept quiet with construction type systems.

I got bought lego regular, construxt, k’nex, lego teknic, megabloks, wooden blocks, sticklebrix and the list goes on. I had boxes and boxes and would spend my free time sat on my own making things and following plans and creating stuff. I once recreated the phone booth from Bill and Ted for my action figures. I built my own version of the Delorean with a hoverboard as well, again for my action figures. Most proud I was, was making the Aluminium Mallard from Space Quest III out of lego with all bits working.

My favourite, most favourite, was my brio collection. I had SO much brio and spent so many hours crafting intricate tracks with crossings and trying to use every single piece in my collection without duplicating. I made tracks that had high speed lines and twisty curves, tracks that would scale terrain and go under chairs and desks, and I especially loved tracks that would rest on top of each other, so trains would almost meet. I transported myself to these worlds full of construction every single day and the memories linked to them are my happiest.

As you grow older, your parents take those toys and they get rid of them. It happens. They do not ask for your input, you just enter your room to find stuff gone and are told you have outgrown them, despite what you might think about it.

I never stopped loving my brio and would wish to have it back every day. I stopped bringing it up vocally after being told it was for babies and stuck with just imagining being a grown up with a job who could afford to buy their own, until time took the idea from me and I ended up living in places where it would not have been feasible to have any. It was just a sweet memory from an easier time.

Then BeanpolePeckerwood told me about TReN and wrote one of the greatest entries in this thread’s history last year. It is here and that entry stuck inside me. It reminded me of my own childhood, my own time playing with my toy trains and my own outlandish tracks.
I played TReN this year and it was like I time travelled backwards to my younger age.

I was that weird kid again who would day dream of being a conductor and making sure all passengers made it to their destinations. The kid who got to figure out the best routes between old trainer station and jug of lemonade squash. The kid who needed to get that school tie off the track before an unfortunate derailing would occur.

TReN is free if you own Dreams, and if you have had PSPlus in the last few years then it was given out for free also. It is a loving recreation of those interesting and incredible tracks you would come up with as a kid, but in the form of a simple puzzle game. Get your TReN from a to b with the occasional challenge in the way.

All tracks are gloriously fun and deliciously devious, with some requiring timing and precision to traverse, and never, at any point, is the core feeling of being that kid lost. This game was more than a game for me. This was a pipeline into a core feeling that I had not experienced for many decades. This was about unlocking an aspect of myself I had allowed to be buried by the daily grind of work and bills.

This was pure and lovely and perfect.

For Christmas this year, my wife got me 100 pieces of brio and I started building tracks again.

It was everything I could have ever wanted.

01: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

How do I convey how I feel about Rebirth and not make it hyperbole?

This is not just my Game of the Year, this is now my favourite game of all time. This knocked Portal 2, a game that had been my number 1 since 2011, a game I champion all the time, that I have gifted to tens of people, into the second spot so resolutely and absolutely that it almost feels like an inevitability.

I am not a Final Fantasy VII original superfan though I like it a ton. Since I played it, I played VIII, IX, X, X-2, FF1, FF2 and FF3, and four of those I prefer over it. I think VIII might be the greatest mechanically, end dungeon and card game, with X having some of the absolute greatest character interaction and music, and IX having the greatest ending beat and most consistently great moments, and X-2 having Yuna, Rikku and Paine in position.

Those four I would take over VII original all the time. (With VIII being my absolute favourite).

We are not talking about the original however, we are talking about how it resonates with me.

FFVIIremake was my GOTY in 2021. I could not believe how much depth, how much extra oomph the opening of Midgar was given and how much they made me care about the cast. The voice acting, the music, the new combat, the whole package was a phenomenal achievement that got me playing RPGs from Japan and loving them. It changed my whole video gaming landscape and it ended on a cliffhanger.

I was hyped for FFVIIremake part 2. Stupidly hyped and I had to tell myself time and time again to temper my expectations. If I was not careful I knew I could build up a game in my head in the between years that would be excessive and grand and never compete with the reality of what they would actually release.

The actual team who made it must have known as well. FFVIIremake was never a definite hit – sure people wanted it, but would they get what they wanted? Would it do justice to their own ideas of a remake that had been percolating since 1997?
That is succeeded so well meant the anticipation for the game was skyhigh, and all the while in my mind I kept saying ‘knock it down, lower your hype, just be excited, there is no way it can live up to whatever is brewing in here, it just cannot.’

Basically I was wrong.

It did not just live up to my own stupendously high hype, it blasted past and hit every star on the way out into the universe. FFVIIrebirth is literally everything I love about video games in a single package, with my favourite cast of characters acting their hearts out, with moments of pure joy and moments of crushing heartache, and moments of surprise, and moments of incredible beauty and tenderness.

FFVIIrebirth has everything.

It has the best soundtrack ever. Just hours of music that riff and build on known classic themes along with brand new additions for moments you might hear for only 40 seconds. For example, there is a powerful track called Hollow from FFVIIRemake that is new and one of my all timers. FFVIIrebirth has a new instrumental version of it that only plays in a small area on the first part of the map. It is fantastic! I went to see it performed live at the Albert Hall this year and it was hands down one of the all time days in my life. I wanted to hear four pieces of musical specifically and I got to hear three and all of them blew me away.

Speaking of the map, the size of this game is out of this world. When I first saw the size of FFVII original I was shocked. This game managed to do that to me three separate times. There is SO much of it and it was still never enough. Always leave them wanting more, they say, and boy do I want more. Every location is packed full of visual beauty and detail and looks exactly how you ‘remember’ VII original to be in your memory. I was told about Gold Saucer being this amazing pleasure city in the sky before I reached it in VII original and it was cool. FFVIIrebirth’s gold saucer is exactly the grandiose display of opulence and adventure your mind created, and then it goes even harder than that.

The combat is the slickest it has ever been and when you learn exactly how to pull off those powerful combinations and choices, it looks so flashy and fluid you would think you have accidentally tuned in to a Wuxia stage. I chose a certain trio for a lot of the fights because I just loved the synergy between them all and their fighting stances, but the fact that there is not one weak character out of the lot is a triumph. You get to have the party split up and form randoms trios, duos and solos at various points and at every stage you can feel comfortable that if you know what you are doing you can have fun.

There are so many mini games, oh my word are there, and I had a blast playing them. Particular standouts are: Run Wild, Pirate’s Rampage, Glide de Chocobo, Chocobo Racing, and the Piano Playing (which is a wholly involved instrument that people can play real songs on!)

Possibly the greatest mini game of all time however?

Queen’s Blood.

Not just a card game in a Final Fantasy game (you wanna play some triple triad?) but a full on side quest and incredible break of levity midway through the game, Queen’s Blood is something that upon finishing the game I have returned to again and again just because the way it works is so entertaining. And the music for it whips (the orchestra at the Albert Hall played it so bombastically, so over the top as it is, you could not help but beam and clap and just melt).

Every single thing is operating at 150% and it comes together as a game that I never thought would exist. It wants you to know it understands the importance of the game it is recreating and that they will never give it less than it deserves.

The game shines most of all in the cast and the way they work through the story. The story is definitely different and also the way you half remember it. It has important beats that we have seen before and important beats that are brand new, and at every point the ensemble feels real in the way they talk to each other and make choices and act. These are people I would want to spend every hour of my time with, and they are simply a load of eco terrorists bumbling around trying to find some answers.

The spectacle on display throughout the various plot beats hits from moment one. It never lets up and I spent the whole of my 140 hour play through glued to it. There are a few moments that have stuck in my mind and I think about every day since I finished 8 months ago and they still make me tear up in both sadness and wonder. [Spoiler]The opera scene, with Aerith singing after the fun dramatisation during Gold Saucer, is truly gorgeous. As is the ferris wheel moment. (That one was perfect for me.). Also the way Aerith’s Theme turns into Jenova Tenacity is haunting)

The ending was perfect.

I was not expecting a fifty five minute non stop action packed fight to end the game, but they delivered on every conceivable emotion that the original instilled. The event, the music, the various timeliness, the resolution, the drained feeling I had. They left me with so many more questions, a sense of pure defeat, but also a feeling of hope and anticipation.

They nailed it.

This game should be impossible. A truly perfect game for me should not exist, and I sit here having played it and experienced it. I wanted more. It was excessive, and huge, and stuffed with so much and I wanted more. I am not ready to leave these characters behind. I am not ready to leave the world of Remake and Rebirth behind.

But I have to. I have to wait again. No idea how long for, but I will be patient and I will try to temper my even larger than before hype for part 3.

This is the greatest of all time.

This is THE game.

This is my number 1.

Not just this year, but forever.