Topic: Share Your Personal GOTY 2024

@Th3solution That's a really good question. I can't say I could follow much of the story. I really liked the art and world design but it felt like some areas were deliberately trimmed down and should have been more expansive. The car may have spoiled some of the game, it felt like they were going for a road movie kind of feel but if it were on-foot only or mounted then maybe the world would have felt like more of a central character, instead of just a background. No offense to any Final Fantasy fans, I probably started off on the wrong one. Compared to some games I'd almost call it a cosy experience, except for that puzzle dungeon that went on forever. Persona on the other hand was all kinds of amazing, it too went on and on but with each passing day I kept being drawn further into the world and into the characters.

This has been a very strong year for games for me and my ‘game of the year’ is essentially a 3 way tie, all 3 of which offer something different but represent some of the best of what gaming offers.

Astro Bot : Polished to a sheen, brilliantly balanced and impeccably presented, Astro Bot is pretty much a perfect game. It has brought both myself and my family hours of joy, and rises above its gimmicks to deliver a legitimate all ages experience bursting with imagination and an infectiously earnest celebratory spirit.

Metaphor ReFantazio : The two things that have rocked my socks off with this one are its incredibly intelligent script and the way in which every single thing you do feeds into the overarching experience, marrying its systems and narrative into a beautifully cohesive, politically charged examination of philosophical idealism.

Silent Hill 2 : By far the most immersive game I played this year, and a brilliantly realized retelling of a stone cold classic. In a cinematic sense, the visual storytelling here remains leagues ahead of almost anything else I’ve ever played. The audio is best in class, where even a ‘did I hear that’ whimper can haunt the mind. The gameplay is appropriately simple yet entirely effective as the catalyst for bringing this to a modern audience. Luke Roberts deserves a special mention for his inspired take on James Sunderland. Just incredible. If pressed for a personal favourite on the year, this would be my pick.

Rounding out my top 10 would be:

Prince of Persia : The Lost Crown
Neva
Unicorn Overlord
Hi-Fi Rush
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Rise of the Ronin
Stellar Blade
Planet of Lana

As an aside, I played a lot of DLC this year, and my hypothetical DLC award would go to either Shadow of the Erdtree or Seperate Ways.

I'm curious... Is gaming the one activity you and your brother do together @LavenderShroud hence why you don't play many games otherwise or are you just not that big of a gamer?

Either way it's an interesting list... Never thought I'd see someone put a Neptunia game as their number 1 of the year.

And hey if you played Pokémon Yellow for the first time this year I'd say it more then counts as your own personal game of 2024 long as you enjoyed it who cares when it released!

Mine's a... Very eclectic mix of games to put it mildly.

If I could I would put BGIII's first act at number 1 (I'm waiting til I'm fully recovered to resume playing and carry on from Act 2's beginning).

Also not putting Persona 3 Reload in this list as it is a very faithful remake of a PS2 title and Persona 3 is one of my favourite games of all time. There's no contest.

Astro's Playroom would also easily top this list but... I already have enough platformers on here as it is and everyone knows how good this is. I wanna highlight some more obscure games.

Anyway here's my list of my top ten games that I played this year regardless of when they actually released.

10. Superliminal

A perspective based, walking sim/puzzle game? (I dunno what you'd class it as). If I'd bought it I might've felt a little differently but as a PS Plus extra game and 3 or so hour long palette cleanser between bigger games? Yeah I enjoyed it and the perspective stuff was quite a unique gimmick.

8. Gravity Rush Remastered & Gravity Rush 2.

Much as I grumbled about Gravity Rush Remastered when I played it, I did enjoy my time with it (Helped I didn't have to rush through it towards the end like I did with GR2 thanks to my PS Plus sub running out). It very much relies on it's unique gravity shifting mechanic, world and atmosphere rather then telling a compelling or cohesive story though (And it's not even that long of a game).

GR2 meanwhile did a lot of things I wanted it as a sequel to do... Still had some rather odd quirks though in setting up it's story and retconned a lot of things from GR1. I also found the combat a bit more frustrating, especially against it's huge set piece bosses.

But both games were a good time and Kat is just a wonderful protagonist through and through. I absolutely adore her and hope the rumours of an animated film, series or even a remaster of GR2 are true. After watching the two GR2 animated shorts I would totally be on board for this. More Kat please.

7. Inscryption

I will say I think the first act is the strongest act and it sorta lost itself from the incredible atmosphere and fun card game as it progressed but I still think about it every now and again.

6. Tinykin

A really neat 3D collectathon platformer (With all the characters being 2D sprites) with some light Pikmin mechanics. It was just pure fun honestly. Would happily play a sequel if it came about.

5. Sly Raccoon

Finally played it for the first time this year. The oft forgotten of the holy trinity that was the Sony PS2 platformers. (Jak, Ratchet and this for the uninitiated)

It's admitedly the weakest of the three for me but I still really enjoyed it and am looking forward to playing it's sequels which I hear wildly differ from it's simple level based structure.

4. Lost Ruins

This is a metroidvania and the first game I played this year. I don't know what to say really other then I just enjoyed my time with it, so much so that I got all three endings and plan on replaying it sometime next year with the additional modes I unlocked.

3. God Of War (2018)

I've only played two titles in the series. GoWIII and this... And there's no competition between them. GoW 2018 is miles ahead for me in terms of enjoyment.

I think I prefer Horizon ZD over this as my AAA Sony blockbuster first party titles but.... Surprisingly not by much. It finally humanised Kratos for me and I really enjoyed the journey.

2. Mass Effect 1

To be honest I just realised both my number 1 and 2 slots are filled by sci-fi games despite not being a huge fan of the genre. I never expected I would rate this game that highly either but... It surprised me.

Aside from most of the awfully designed side missions that send you to the same 4 or so bases (Even if they're on different planets) I had a surprisingly good time with it and thought it actually lived up to it's general praise.

I'm still mad I can't date Tali as Femshep though...

1. Gnosia

It's not a perfect game (Not by a long shot) but... It's the one game I started this year (Besides BGIII) and simply couldn't put down. One of the only games I got the platinum for. The artstyle is simply sublime that really makes the unique cast of characters stand out and I enjoyed the overall story & mystery.

It being a visual novel with a very basic gameplay loop your mileage will vary greatly on it.

@Jimmer-jammer You played a lot of new releases this year! Of your list, Astro Bot will probably be the first one I’ll get to, and then either RotR, Rebirth, or SH2. My backlog is so big that I might not get to any of them soon though! 😄

@HallowMoonshadow That is indeed an eclectic list! But interesting to read, for sure. The one that really jumps out to me (besides BG3 which I already have on my “To Do List” for 2025) is Gnosia. That’s very high praise for a lesser known game. I think I had heard about it but hadn’t given it much thought and I’ll definitely now keep an eye out for a sale or PS+ inclusion of the game. A good VN is nice to have in the library for when the mood strikes.

Also, what’s your plan in playing GoW Ragnarok and Mass Effect 2? I have both on my list to get to, hopefully this year depending how things go, so was wondering if we might end up playing them in proximity.

Ralizah was the one who had got me into trying Gnosia from a review he wrote ages ago in the review thread @Th3solution and admitedly it was mostly due to the artstyle alone. I loved Raqio's design in particular.

From what I understand it was a late cycle Vita game, then got ported to switch a few years back and only got ported to PS4/5 last Christmas I believe? And there's going to be an anime adaptation now apparently?

As for your question... Despite liking GoW 2018 quite I'm in no rush at all to play Ragnarok, it'll happen whenever I get round it (Probably 6 years from now or something knowing me ).

Mass Effect 2 though? I can see myself playing that next year for sure. I need to get back to BGIII first when I'm feeling better and I'd like to get round to actually starting Stellar Blade but otherwise I haven't got any plans in particular aside from purchasing Astrobot.

@HallowMoonshadow A little bit of both. I don’t play games a whole lot myself. I have an Xbox 360 I only played twice and haven’t touched in two years. I spend a lot of time with my brother though. He’s highly autistic, so I mostly just do whatever he is into. Lately we play games a little bit, but mostly just watch TV, a few months ago he was very into Lego so I did that with him. We also play cards on occasion. And yeah, I definitely loved Pokémon Yellow the most this year. Learning how to use glitches or sequence break was very satisfying.

@HallowMoonshadow Between BG3, Stellar Blade, and Astro Bot, you’ve got your hands full for a couple months. I’ve got several lined up as well to start the year. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll pick back up with my Renegade FemShep this year.

Aww that's really sweet @LavenderShroud and warms my heart. Good on you for being such a nice sister, looking out for your bro and joining in on his hobbies and games even if they aren't necessarily your thing.

Sorry I'll reign in my motherly instincts from embarrassing you too much

And that certainly sounds fun using sequence breaking and glitches... I never managed to do much in Blue myself besides the infamous (and incredibly easy easy to pull off) Missingno.

Mine are:

1. Indiana Jones And The Great Circle
The crazy people at MachineGames pulled it off with one of the best "licensed" games. Great characters. Terrific voice acting. Brilliant level design. Loads of humour. Excellent gameplay.

2. Prince Of Persia The Lost Crown
This is the type of game that Ubisoft should make more of. Brilliant Metroidvania gameplay with excellent platforming and puzzles.

3. Another Crab's Treasure
One of the best Souls-like title to come out. Even has an easy-to-understand story and excellent cast of characters. Love the art style. The Shell system is brilliant.

@SingleStooge Great to see PoP in your list. I sometimes wonder if a later release in the year might have bolstered PoP's narrative around 'GOTY' discussions in Nov/Dec... and if the early 2024 release hurt it somewhat?

I know sales weren't great, but I agree that it was a breath of fresh air - from Ubisoft of all places (!). In my top 10 for sure from 2024, and so many great QoL features in the MV genre (in game map photos for eg., so aid backtracking)

Did you play Nine Sols? If you enjoy MVs and Souls-style games, it is really great...like a 2D Sekiro

It's not my GOTY24, but I really enjoyed the overlooked Robocop: Rogue City.

Enemies are just cut and paste, and reminded me a lot of Time Crisis/Virtual Cop, but it's a damn satisfying game - The shooting feels and sounds fantastic, and while it won't win any awards for graphics, something about it, aesthetically, looks great; especially walking around the little Detroit hub.

Just a nice little satisfying game, with a lot of fan service. I'm glad it got made.

Well, my GOTY from its release all the way until December was Dragon’s Dogma 2, but then Stalker 2 released. While the game had its fair share of bugs, being as it was my first game in the franchise and unaware of what to fully expect, I was absolutely blown away. I spent 165 hours - the longest I’ve put in a game in years, and wasn’t even remotely burned out. It is one of the most immersive games I’ve ever played. In fact, after beating it, I decided to play the first game in the series, Shadow of Chernobyl on PS5 and will be wrapping up the platinum trophy tonight or tomorrow.

@TheIdleCritic That game is great! I got the platinum for it and had a blast doing so. It felt like a genuine RoboCop game, from the dialogue, humor, police drama, and 80s violence. Have you played Terminator Resistance? That game is great as well, and I think made by the same developer.

@CJD87 I don't think the early release affected it's chances for GoTY or sales. Look at Elden Ring for example. Was released in Feb 2022 and won GoTY. FF7 Rebirth released late Feb 2024 and was GoTY contender. What possibly affected sales was that many gamers considered its 2D asthetic as "not worth considering" and expected a 3D PoP game. Why? Many sidescollers are great games.

As for Nine Sols. Yes I've delved into it and don't like it. I'm playing that via Xbox Gamepass. What annoys me is I get lost frequently. The hacking minigames are horrible, especially the ones that is in three sections and the bloody timer is way too fast, and cannot continue. I gave up on it after numerous attempts at a hacking minigame after defeating Guamong on the far Western part. If the developer put in an Accessability Section in the menu and give an option to slow down the timer, then I can continue.