Hello everyone! It’s that time of year again where I run down my top 10 favorite games I played. Before I get started, I just wanted everyone to know that I started my own gaming blog! Maybe a bit old-fashioned but if you’re interested, you can check it out here. If you’re reading this on my blog already, welcome! My blog will be an expansion of these annual top 10 posts. I’m hoping to have weekly and monthly posts as well where I go more in-depth on games I played throughout the year, games I purchased, and how much time/money went into them. For more details, and to read a little about my gaming background, please head over to my intro post here.
This year I “only” managed 56 completions. This continues another downward trend in the number of game completions for me since 2021. I had 448 completions in 2021, 191 in 2022, and 66 in 2023. Thankfully, just because the quantity of the games went down doesn’t mean the quality did! I won four months of PC Game Pass in giveaways this year, so I played Game Pass games almost exclusively from June to October. For those that don’t know, Game Pass is kind of like Netflix for video games. You pay a subscription fee every month and have access to hundreds of games that rotate in and out. It even includes day one releases sometimes. It’s actually crazy good value, I just haven’t subscribed to it because I own enough games to try justifying paying a subscription for even more. I also don’t like feeling rushed to complete games before a subscription runs out. Getting four months for free though allowed me to play a bunch of newer games I wouldn’t’ve played for several years otherwise, and I didn’t even have to buy them! Just like 2022 was the year of Humble Games Collection games (R.I.P.) making top 10, this year is absolutely the year of Game Pass games. So, at the risk of rambling too much longer, here are my top 10 games completed in 2024:
10. Vampires Dawn 3 - The Crimson Realm (62h:30m) - Vampires Dawn is a trilogy of old-school style German RPG Maker games. RPG Maker is a game engine that a lot of indie developers use to make games that typically look like old RPGs from the 90s like Final Fantasy. Since the engine is so widely used by indie devs, there are a ton of lesser-known games that use it and most of them that I’ve played are unfortunately pretty samey and not very good. The Vampires Dawn games are an exception, mostly. While not as good as Theia: The Crimson Eclipse (my third favorite game of last year that utilized the same engine), they’re still a cut above many others. The third game was released in 2021, way later than the first two which came out in the early 2000s and are considered cult classics. You play as a group of vampires who reluctantly team up to stop an evil vampire backed by a shadowy organization of magic users known as the Elras from remaking the world in their image. It is a very bloody game as you can probably imagine, much more violent than most RPG Maker games. One of the main characters Valnar was the protagonist of the first two games, and the other two main characters Alaine and Asgar who were also present in the original games and are now fully playable here. Asgar has always been a secondary antagonist in the series as he wants to wipe out humanity altogether and rule over the world as an all-powerful vampire. Valnar and Alaine’s “daughter” Jayna whom they transformed in the ending of a previous game is the evil vampire trying to take over the world that the main characters must stop. Valnar and Alaine feel responsible as her parents and Asgar sees her as an obstacle on his own quest for world domination. However, it turns out a secret organization known as the Elras were using her as a puppet to drain all the power from the vampires and use a stone tablet (also at the end of the previous game) which basically has the power to grant any wish. There are several endings to this game depending on the choices you make. The first two games are free on the developer’s website here. The sound quality and graphics of this game were leagues better than the first two due to how much newer it is. This game came out 16 years after the second one and it shows. I also enjoyed the combat in this one more than the previous games. It had a much more robust party system with many different spell types and combinations. The big letdown for me was the writing. While a lot of this can be boiled down to the game releasing in German and later translated to English, that can’t excuse everything. The writing was very amateurish, with insults and curse words every other sentence like a child using swears for the first time. It really didn’t do the story justice and had me facepalming through most cutscenes. In a long game like this one, the story must be really strong to motivate a player to overcome repetition enough to get to the end. If I wasn’t so stubborn and hadn’t played the original games, I may not have finished it myself. I still enjoyed my time with it, but not as much as the previous entry in the series. Speaking of which…
9. Vampires Dawn II: Ancient Blood (48h:45m) - Not much more can be said about this game that wasn’t covered by Vampires Dawn 3. This one came out all the way back in 2005. Despite the age, it still showed a significant graphical improvement over the first game released in 2002. It had a much more serious tone compared to the third game, and much improved gameplay mechanics over the first game. It struck just the right balance for me. You also had the ability to overlevel and absolutely destroy any enemies you come across which some people don’t like in RPGs, but I love it. I would say if you are interested in trying the series out but aren’t tolerant of some frankly outdated game design, watch a recap of the first game and try out the second. Again, they’re both free so it doesn’t hurt to try them out.
8. Life Is Strange: True Colors (16h:53m) – This is the fourth in the Life is Strange series of games with a heavy focus on story and mostly walking simulator gameplay. Every Life is Strange game I’ve played has always made my top 10 that year and this was no exception. The stories in these games are phenomenal, and even the graphics are becoming quite impressive compared to the roughness of the original. I will say I was skeptical of the main character’s powers after watching the trailer. Being an empath seemed like a much lamer power than time travel or telekinesis from the previous games. Over the course of the game though, her power set expands to include mind-reading and emotional manipulation which I felt was a great way to really open up the story. It was cool how she was able to see what other people were seeing when they experienced strong emotions, like when she was crawling across a log to save a frightened kid and saw the monsters he was imagining ready to pull him into the raging river below. The game stars Alex Chen, a 21-year-old woman who had been separated from her older brother for eight years after their mom died and dad abandoned them. The game starts with them reuniting after all this time and her brother showing her around the city he’s been living in. Unfortunately, her brother is killed in a supposed freak accident involving the mining company that operates nearby at the end of the first chapter, and she has to grapple with living in a new town after her only connection to the town died while also investigating the mining company for any potential wrongdoing. As with all the Life is Strange games, the story goes in an interesting direction and has a very exciting last chapter with a satisfying conclusion. As this series is mainly story focused, I don’t want to spoil any more than that so if this sounds interesting to you, definitely try it out. I still didn’t like it as much as the first game, but it was a big improvement on the second.
7. Lil Gator Game (6h:8m) – As you can see from my completion time,
this was a much shorter game than the others on my list. That did not
detract from my enjoyment of it. You play as a lil gator (all the characters
are anthropomorphic animals) who goes to the park to play imaginary games
with his friends. He tries to get his big sister to play with him like the
old days but she’s too busy with college work. He thinks if he can make an
island-wide role-playing game with his friends, his sister will see how much
fun they’re having and join in. I won’t spoil any more the story, but it is
fantastic. It’s mostly comedic showing how the kids play together but
sprinkles in just the right amount of sad moments to be truly engaging. If
you care at all about good stories in games, you owe it to yourself to pick
this up.
6. The Messenger (25h:7m) – This was a great 2D platformer game that
came out in 2018 but styled just like a game from the 8-bit era of the 80s
and early 90s. You play as the titular Messenger, a ninja tasked with
delivering a magic scroll across the island to save humanity from a demonic
threat that has taken over most of the world. While the story itself is
mostly serious, a lot of the writing is actually quite goofy. You come
across an otherworldly shopkeeper early on that sells you upgrades but will
be more than happy to talk your ear off if you let him. He also breaks the
fourth wall a lot by saying things like he’s going to tell you a long story
and won’t let you skip dialogue during it or gifting you a rope dart but
lamenting that most players will just call it a grappling hook anyway. The
platforming is satisfying (for the most part, some of the optional
collectibles were a pain to get), the bosses are fun to fight, the music is
catchy, and the story is great. I want to get into spoilers to properly
express my opinion of this game so if you want to play it, you have my
recommendation and can stop reading here. For everyone else who is curious
about my full thoughts, keep reading.
About halfway through the game, you deliver the magic scroll to the robed
figures at the Tower of Time (of which the shopkeeper is a member). Some
time travel shenanigans happen, and the robed figures send you 500 years
into the future where the game goes from 8-bit to 16-bit (think NES to
SNES) and transforms from a simple 2D platformer to a full on metroidvania
experience with a large, interconnected map unlike the linear experience
up to that point. While the initial reveal is REALLY cool, I felt that the
metroidvania elements dragged on for far too long. It’s not helped that I
get lost easily, but traveling back and forth across a huge map to find
all the collectibles really got tedious by the end.
I still overall really enjoyed my time with it, I just felt that the latter
half of the game dragged on for far longer than it needed to. Also, the game
may be connected to another game in my top 10 list 👀
Keep reading if you want to find out more…
5. Starfield (116h) – I’m going to state up front that my #4 and #5
games are going to be somewhat controversial in their placement. I really
struggled on where to put them on this list so in the end I just had to go
with how I felt overall while playing them. I don’t think most people will
say that Starfield is a better game than The Messenger or Lil Gator Game,
and it probably isn’t. I just remember Lil Gator Game being too short and
simplistic to rank higher and getting lost having to look up guides all the
time in the latter half of The Messenger to the point of frustration. I
don’t have these complaints about Starfield. I don’t think there was a
single moment where I was getting annoyed with the game. I was generally
having a good time with it. Not as high highs or low lows if that makes
sense. Starfield is another epic western FPS RPG from Bethesda, the same
people who make Elder Scrolls and Fallout. I admit I have a soft spot for
those games too, and Skyrim is among my favorite games of all time. As the
name suggests, it’s a space-themed RPG where you get your own ship and can
travel to different planets in different solar systems across the universe
to explore. I’m a bit of a space/sci-fi nerd too which puts a bias in
Starfield’s favor. The planets can feel samey after a while and the enemy
variety was lacking by the end, but I genuinely enjoyed the story, some of
the characters, and the hand-crafted cities you visited for some of the
major questlines. I was also so insanely powerful by the end that I was just
ripping through enemies no sweat with a minigun and didn’t even have to
worry about healing. A lot of people will say that a game being this easy is
a letdown and takes out the joy of overcoming a challenge, but as I wrote in
my Vampires Dawn II review, overleveling to the point of absurdity to
achieve that power fantasy at the end of a long RPG is so satisfying to me.
Pick this up if the idea of Fallout in space intrigues you.
4. High on Life (17h:38m) – I can see the pitchforks already on this
one. If this makes me lose all credibility and make you not trust my gaming
opinions ever again, I understand. High on Life is a sci-fi comedy FPS from
Justin Roiland’s former game development studio. Justin Roiland is the guy
behind Rick and Morty, and that style of humor is present throughout the
entire experience. As such, your enjoyment of this game is heavily dependent
on how funny you think Rick and Morty is. If you’re not a fan, you will not
like this game. I haven’t seen Rick and Morty yet, but I’ve seen enough
clips to know his style of humor and I enjoyed them well enough. This game
is not the most technically robust, graphically impressive, or have a deep
story and characters. What it does have though is humor, and I could not
stop laughing at all the jokes and the absurdity of it all. It’s hard to get
comedy right, and I imagine it’s even harder to maintain that comedy for 17
hours, but I think they pulled it off. Like The Messenger, a lot of the
characters also broke the fourth wall and commented on common game
mechanics. One of the boss fights
near the end even has the bad guy trying to pull a Psycho Mantis from
Metal Gear Solid moment by reading your hard drive and talking about games
you’ve played, but then admits he can’t actually read your hard drive and
just assumes you’ve played like 100 hours of Rocket League or something
and gives you an embarrassing achievement so your friends laugh at you. As
a Metal Gear Solid fan, this really got me and helped move this game up as high on the list as it
is. If you’re a fan of Rick and Morty and don’t despise FPS games, you
should pick this up. If you don’t like Rick and Morty because the humor
doesn’t jive with you, stay far away.
3. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (25h:3m) – I am absolutely in love
with my top three games this year. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a big Star
Wars fan. When I saw footage of this game for the first time, I was so
excited that EA was finally making a proper story-based action-adventure
game set in the Star Wars universe and not just another multiplayer
Battlefront game. The only thing I was really worried about was the
difficulty. This game is considered a soulslike which basically means “takes
inspiration from Dark Souls gameplay”. This usually boils down to having
more demanding, precise combat and dropping experience when you die that you
must run back and get but disappears forever if you die again. I’ve never
tried the Dark Souls games solely because they’re marketed as having high
difficulty which is not something I typically gravitate towards. I have
played a couple 2D soulslikes (Titan Souls and Moonscars) that I struggled
with but eventually beat, but I know those are a different beast than 3D.
Thankfully I was able to overcome the difficulty and ended up really liking
the combat. There are also difficulty options to tone it down for a more
standard gaming experience. I played on Jedi Master which is the second
highest difficulty, and I felt it provided a satisfying challenge. For those
with a least a little bit of Star Wars knowledge, this game take place
between Episodes III and IV where most Jedi were wiped out, the Sith took
over the government and transformed the republic into an empire, and any
surviving Jedi have gone on the run or into hiding. One such person is the
main character Cal Kestis who was just a young padawan when he lost his
master to order 66 and spent several years lying low as a scrapper at an
Empire staryard. One day his scrapper friend almost dies falling off a ledge
and Cal uses his force powers to save him which draws the attention of the
Empire thus forcing him to go on the run. Along the way he makes some
unlikely allies, deals some key blows to the Empire, and learns what it
takes to become a Jedi Knight. I thought everything about this game was
great: the graphics, story, characters, combat, sound, everything. Perhaps
even more exciting is that I can now officially say I’ve beaten a 3D
soulslike and feel more confident that I can tackle some of the others in my
backlog. If you like Star Wars and are at least somewhat competent with
third-person action games, I can highly recommend this one.
2. Sea of Stars (53h:19m) – So how do you top a Star Wars game that
has everything a Star Wars fan has been wanting for years? By having an even
better story, even more interesting environments, even bigger cast of great
characters, and a more unique art style. Having turn-based combat helped
too. I love turn-based combat, and I feel like we don’t see that very often
nowadays. This is a fantasy RPG that takes place in a land where magic can
be wielded by solstice warriors which are people born on the day of a
solstice. Our main characters are the lunar magic girl Valere born on the
winter solstice, the solar magic guy Zale born on the summer solstice, and
their best friend Garl who is fiercely loyal and a great cook but has no
magic of his own. You’re tasked by the headmaster of the magic school to
defeat the last Dweller (super powered creations of the big bad guy known as
the Fleshmancer) which will finally bring about eternal peace. I don’t want
to spoil the game too much because it is fantastic and everyone should play
it, but something goes wrong, and a straightforward mission turns into an
epic world-saving adventure full of twists and turns. Did I mention that
this game is also a distant prequel to The Messenger? Because it is, and
finding out the tragic backstory of some of the characters from that game in
this one made the story of The Messenger even better. And if you play this
game and care at all about the characters in it but don’t usually go for all
the collectibles and side quests, I implore you to reconsider for this one.
The True Ending is really something special. If there’s one criticism I can
think of for this game, it’s that the combat can become simple and
repetitive after a while. I did not die a single time in this game. Once you
figure out what the strongest moves are and the best way to go about
preventing enemies from attacking, it becomes relatively easy. Again, some
people will say the lack of overcoming a challenge removes a lot of joy out
of beating a game, but I didn’t mind it. Some of the bosses still required
strategic thinking to overcome, especially in the endgame. Seriously,
everyone who plays video games owes it to themselves to try this one.
I also want to take the time to go over some honorable mentions as well, and there are quite a few here. These were games that I either enjoyed but didn’t quite make the top 10 or games that maybe weren’t for me, but I can acknowledge that they are well made and other will like them more. I tried to keep this section shorter but I played so many good games this year and just had to shout them out. I’ve sorted this list by completion date oldest to newest.
Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery (4h:30m) – This is a trilogy of super short but charming mystery games where you play a frog (again in a world full of anthropomorphic animals) who is sent out to solve ridiculous mysteries such as spooky ghost noises on an island or decorations that have been vandalized right before a parade. The games are kid friendly and there is very little challenge in them. The writing is hilarious, and I was always looking forward to every interaction with the locals. I deemed the games too short and simplistic to make a big enough impression to make my top 10 but I enjoyed them nonetheless. It also made me want to take this picture during my playthrough of an interaction with Frog Detective’s boss that I felt hit a little too close to home:
Amnesia: The Bunker (10h:16m) – The previous Amnesia game Rebirth made my #1 spot back in 2021, so it was disappointing that the new entry didn’t make the top 10 at all. It was also a very different game from its predecessor and one I wasn’t super fond of. This is the fourth in a series of loosely connected horror games. Unlike Rebirth, which was a more linear adventure horror game, The Bunker tried to go for one large map with a sort of metroidvania element where you unlocked different areas using different tools over the course of the game. Instead of a variety of monsters to contend with, there was only one monster chasing you which was a bit lackluster. It also doesn’t help that I get lost easily and it was very easy to get lost in this game. Still, I had some fun playing through it with a friend and can see that it’s a good game, just not the best game for me.
As Dusk Falls (7h:9m) – This is a story-driven game with many decisions creating branching paths similar to Quantic Dream games like Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human. It has a unique art style with 2D characters that looked hand-drawn in 3D environments. Characters can live or die based on your choices so there are several different endings to the story as a result. Unfortunately, I made a lot of poor choices that got characters I liked killed. At the end of each chapter, you can see every branching path the game could’ve taken with the decisions that lead there so you can replay certain chapters to get new endings. As a Game Pass game, I only had time to go through one path, so I had to live with the choices I made for better or worse. One of the coolest features was the ability for up to eight players to play simultaneously by voting on every decision and getting three vetoes per chapter if there was a decision you felt particularly strongly about. This was perfect for playing through with a friend, but with a dark story, I’m not sure how popular it would be at parties. Pick this up if you don’t mind a game that is all story and little gameplay.
Jusant (8h:41m) – This was a cool little climbing game from the original developers of Life is Strange. It is a completely voiceless game that utilizes environmental storytelling with some optional journal entries you can stumble across. You play as someone who has just crossed a large lifeless desert and spends the game climbing a huge mountain in search of where all the water in the world went. You find out over the course of the game that the desert used to be an ocean and some years ago it stopped raining, causing the ocean to gradually dry up. The many people that lived on the mountain decided to either climb up it to capture the sky whales that they believe stole the water for themselves or climb down to cross the desert to see if it rains elsewhere. The gameplay consists of utilizing different grapple points with your trusty rope and managing your stamina to climb higher and higher up the mountain. There was no way to die in this game, so it was all about piecing together how to accomplish each section of the climb while figuring out what happened to the world. I really liked this game and would probably put it at #11 on my list if I were to expand it. Bonus points, you also get to travel with a super cute blobby animal companion☺️
Monument Valley 2 (2h:5m) – A short and sweet puzzle game I got for my phone years ago. I usually don’t vibe with puzzle games because I’m bad at them. The puzzles in this game though were fairly simple, and the art style is gorgeous. The game revolves around perspective and optical illusions. Imagine trying to navigate an M.C. Escher drawing with pretty colors and a bittersweet story and you’re most of the way there.
Katja’s Abyss: Tactics (5h:55m) – An interesting mash-up of Minesweeper and turn-based strategy. I’ve always loved Minesweeper so seeing it expanded into a tactics game with a story and everything was really cool. You can scan the environment to see the numbers that indicate how many mines (or Nodes in this case) are touching that space and mark them accordingly. You also control different units that each have two different forms they can take such as a drill to mine safe areas/dispose of Nodes or a fighter to fight back the alien bugs in the mines but can also turn into an artillery unit to shoot them from a distance. The campaign was only eight levels so it was pretty short but they were all fun. I’ve only seen a couple games using the Minesweeper formula so this one definitely stood out to me. I only hope other developers take the concept and run with it.
Time Bandit (9h:28m) – A politics-heavy idle/stealth game about the evils of the rich and big corporations. Your goal is to sneak time crystals out of your employers’ mining operation and into the hands of the resistance to take back power from the big wigs and stop their exploitation of the common worker. The interesting hook here is that the in-game time corresponds to real-world time so if you play the game at 9PM, the in-game time will also be 9PM and it will be dark out. Your “shift” hours change every day so if you play when you’re off shift, you’ll have to sneak around the heavier robot patrol presence. If you set up your forklift to move a box out of the way to clear a path, it will take 30 real-world minutes to complete. Your energy also drains slowly so you have to send your character to bed for several real-world hours to fully recharge. As a result, the game is only meant to be played for a few minutes at a time and then closed while your tasks complete. Some of the NPCs would make remarks about the time, day of the week, or the weather which made it feel more connected to real life. The game takes heavy inspiration from the first Metal Gear Solid game so if that sounds interesting to you, give it a shot. My biggest gripe was the ending which suddenly cut to a “To be continued” screen just as I felt it was ramping up. Hopefully the story is in fact continued at some point.
And that’s all for my honorable mentions. So many good games! As I said at the beginning, 2022 was the year of playing a ton of great games from the Humble Games collection. 2024 by comparison was the year of playing a ton of great games from Game Pass. #1, 2, 4, 5, and 7, as well as most of the honorable mentions were Game Pass games. Hard to believe how many I was able to beat in the four months I had it 😅 If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on games and have some free time, check out the catalog to see if there’s enough there to warrant trying it out for a bit.
On another note, I’ve been telling myself for years that I’m going to buy a VR headset. I’ve purchased quite a few VR games in anticipation but still haven’t gotten a headset. There still isn’t one out there that does everything I want it to do (wireless, high-res displays, and large FOV mainly). The Quest 3 comes close, and I almost bought one refurbished a couple months ago on sale, but it doesn’t quite have the large FOV and wireless technology I’m looking for. I’m willing to spend more for a better all-around headset but one still doesn’t seem to exist. A fan-made project known as Universal Unreal Engine VR Injector (or UEVR) released into beta at the end of last year. It allows you to turn hundreds if not thousands of flat games made in Unreal Engine 4 or 5 into VR games which is super exciting! As a result, the number of VR games in my backlog has ballooned to 472. This makes me want a VR headset even more now so I may end up settling on whatever the next major release is if it has good reviews. Time will tell…
I checked my top 10 post from last year and saw that my backlog was at
2,164. Don’t worry if you’re on my blog and confused about where my post
from a year ago is. These top 10 posts used to be exclusively on my personal
Facebook page before I decided to branch out. For obvious reasons, I wanted
to put them somewhere else going forward. Anyway, I just checked my backlog
and I’m now at 3,004. I still haven’t achieved beating more games than I acquired, and it’s
possible I never will. One of the reasons I wanted to start up a blog was to
see just how much time and money I put into this hobby to put things in
perspective and hopefully actually reduce my backlog one day. If you read
all of this, first of all, what’s wrong with you!? Second, thank you so
much, I truly appreciate it. Once again, if you want to check out my blog
and aren’t already there, please go to GCTuba's Gaming Adventures. If you want to see all the games in my backlog and the progress I
make on them, please check out my
How Long to Beat page. And if you want to see my current plan for which games I’m planning
to play next, please check out my
upcoming games collection. I’ll see you all next year week!
No comments:
Post a Comment