My Favorite Games I Played this Year - 2024 Edition

I ended up playing a lot of games this year but this list of games were hands down my favorite experiences for entire year.

It's the last day of the year and, as I'm a games blogger, I figured I would do what literally everyone else does, a games list about my favorite games I've played. Here are the 5 rules.

Rule 1: This is not a numbered list, and it is not limited to games released this year.

Rule 2: This is purely a list of my favorite games that I played this year including games I played before I started posting back in September.

Rule 3: I'm not limiting this to a specific number.

Rule 4: These games are all new to me games.

Rule 5: These have to be whole games, I'm not gonna include any DLC even if I enjoyed it.

Now that I've established the rules, here's my list.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

In my review of Veilguard I expressed how I believe it is the best overall Dragon Age game ever and I stand by that, and intend to post an article about it in the new year. I truly do love it. It has the best combat in the entire series, some amazing companion stories, beautiful environments and music that made me love Thedas even more than I already did, and some of the best side quests in the entire series as well. The game is an amazing experience and I will always cherish the queer and particularly the trans representation. I adored the story being a tale of fighting the odds against the hands of the gods and fate itself (which reminded me of Mass Effect 2 with the fighting against the odds). Even though I had some issues with it and still wish it had more big choices (and that the community was less terrible when it came to the representation), I thought its blend of Bioware greatness with companions that felt real and made me want to always hear what they had to say every time I stopped by the Lighthouse after each mission and the final Mass Effect 2 style Suicide Mission with some amazing Mass Effect 3 assault on Earth mission touches and moments, Bioware showed they're still capable of making an amazing game and Veilguard has me immensely excited for the next Mass Effect when it comes out in like 4 years. As long as the development of that one doesn't get fucked with to chase trends.

Metaphor: Refantazio

Persona is one of my favorite series and Metaphor: Refantazio was able to blend and improve that type of game with an amazing fantasy world that kept me incredibly invested in it and kept me wanting to keep playing. Metaphor always made me want to come back and its amazing blend of political criticism with an examination of systemic injustices and then having amazing depth of a world with magic and dragons and mutant Humans was an amazing experience and one that Im incredibly glad I was able to experience blind. Add in the absolutely amazing combat that let me progress through the dungeons so much faster because of its incredible fusion of real time and turn-based combat and I couldn't have asked for a better game. I loved it and think it has some great advancements in this Persona game type that I desperately hope get put into the next Persona. It also makes me hope that there's a sequel, even if it means waiting even longer between Persona iterations.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Even though Like a Dragon came out back in 2020 and I tried to play it, I just couldn't deal with the difficult combat. So when I played it this year and cheated my way through it, I absolutely fell in love with the world, the story, and the characters. This is one of those games that has so much packed into such a small but dense world that makes me feel like there's always something new around the next corner and honestly, the story took a lot of turns that I did not expect. The game made me want to play more of the Yakuza games and the moment Infinite wealth was on sale I immediately grabbed it because I knew I would enjoy it even though I would likely have to cheat in that one too. This game is so damn good and the story is so compelling in it that I went from not caring about Infinite Wealth, to wanting to play it and experience it. Like a Dragon is an amazing experience and it is solely responsible for getting me into this type of game and I am so thankful I gave it another shot.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell came out back in 2020 and like I said in my review, I missed it. But playing it this year was a lovely experience. After completing it on Thanksgiving I was incredibly happy (or thankful if you want) to have experienced such a journey blind. The queer representation in this game meant the world to me and wasn't filled with people being dicks about peoples identities and gayness. Especially when I was coming off the back of Veilguard which had queer representation but also had a community that was frequently vilifying that very representation due to supposed "bad writing", but Ikenfell was unapologetic about its representation and didn't have any distracting coming out stories, it just insisted you must accept the queer characters through the very reality of the story and the characters never questioning anything. It was an amazing experience and I think it's hard to think of a game that has made me feel as happy about having myself represented in a game. Veilguard is probably the closest just behind Ikenfell. Ikenfell was an amazing experience and it'll stick with me and I will judge many games against the standard it has set in my mind.

Animal Well

I played Animal Well on my Steam Deck and I am incredibly happy that I did. I had some issues with the game, namely with the not being able to consistently predict what part of the screen the Ghost Dog boss came out of, and how some of the Chameleon boss' moves weren't predictable as much as they should have been. But besides that, the game was filled with incredibly interesting moments and an amazing atmosphere. I loved most of the game because of it. Plus, the reason I am glad I played it on my Steam Deck is that it allows you to map button combinations to a single back button so I was able to do the bubble jump much easier because it was just one button instead of two at once. Honestly, the game was a lot of fun, particularly just exploring everything. I didn't finish the entire game, only went to the first ending, but honestly it felt like a satisfying place to end for me. I loved the game even if it wasn't a perfect experience.

Gotham Knights

I didn't expect to like Gotham Knights as much as I did. I read an interesting article here on Substack about it and immediately grabbed it since it was already on sale. The game takes place in a different iteration of Gotham than the Arkham games do but I didn't care, it was such a fun game to play. After replaying the Arkham games earlier this year, I needed a game that had a similar Shtick to it and Gotham Knights delivered. The personality, the twists, the characters, the gameplay, the fact that I was able to play as Batgirl. It was all great, even with the few issues I had with it (some basic gameplay issues, getting distracted with some crafting stuff, and just not enough opportunities for stealth), it was still a great game and I think more people should have played it. Especially when compared to Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League, Knights just shines bright.

Balatro

This one came out of nowhere for the whole industry. To be honest, I didn’t think I'd like it as much as I do. I'm not really a videogame card game person, any of the famous gaming card games I just dont like. Im not into Gwent in Witcher 3 or Pazaak in KoTOR (oh so famous) or Hearthstone and I'm just not a big fan of Deck builders or games revolving around cards, but it being basically poker helped it immensely. When I worked at a library I played poker (without money being attached) with my 4 other coworkers all the time during down time, which was often. I've always enjoyed playing it and the only thing I wish I had in Balatro is bluffing. But the amazing thing about Balatro is that it makes me want to keep playing despite not having that bluffing element. The Joker cards allow for so many stacking of bonuses and effects that I couldn't help but look forward to each time I saw a new Joker. The first day I played it I was playing it all through cooking dinner and pushing further and further into the game and fucking up over and over, but then I went on a pretty crazy run for my first day and I knew right away I was gonna love the game as something to play and chill out too and listen to podcasts with. The game is amazing, you should play it particularly if you like any form of Poker.

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical

The thing I loved most about Stray Gods was that it told a tight story with no room for error. It was amazing, not because it was from developers who used to work at other studios, but because they poured love into the game. It was one of my favorite games this year because I loved every moment. From the start of the game where Grace is in front of the Chorus, to going through the Underworld with Persephone, there wasn't a single moment in whole experience that I didn't like. It had moments of amazing directing and film making techniques that made me love the game that much more. The game deserved far more attention than it garnered and I wish more people played it because it is deserving of some truly high praise, not just from some random game critic on the internet, but from the industry at large.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

This had to be here. I know I had issues with it and all, but it was still an incredibly fun game to experience. Going through Vatican City was particularly enjoyable. I will not soon forget how enjoyable discovering secrets were, how awesome some of the Fieldwork was, how fantastic the Directing was. The game still had flaws, like the inconsistent stealth, the annoying gameplay mechanics in the name of “realism”, and the mythological ending falling flat at first, but those flaws didn't keep me from my enjoyment of the game. It was a great game to end the year with, and I do hope there is a sequel so I can continue to experience more Indiana Jones without the old as fuck Harrison Ford lumbering around the set of a movie.

Helldivers 2

I've been trying to get my friends to play Destiny 2 for years, doing everything I can has never lead them to be at all interested. We've usually just played GTA Online because, well, that's the game they like that has multi-player, but Helldivers 2 did something I had tried to do for years: made my friends want to play a new game with me. I loved Helldivers 2 when it came out and when I recently reinstalled it because of the Illuminate update, I still adored it. It's a game that actually respects your time and your exploration, as opposed to both GTA Online and Destiny 2 which are the opposite. My biggest issue with the game was just that the Randoms would often never do the side objectives and wouldn’t listen to me in the chat (when I type two person door, that means come to my location). But that wasn't the fault of the game, it was the players. I think I will often go back to Helldivers 2 as the game develops, similar to what I used to do with Destiny 2, I just hope my friends will play with me too.

The Conclusion

That’s the list, for me the year was filled with great games, but these 10 were the ones I enjoyed the most. The year in general was mixed but I was able to do so many things this year including starting Cats Controller Corner and finally helping put out a TTRPG that I Produced at Just Roommates Games. 2024 was a good year despite the world issues for trans folk like myself and I'm at least looking forward to playing a bunch of games next year too, even if the rest of the world is gonna be rough. Tomorrow is my review of 1000xResist so Happy New Year, let's hope it's not awful, thank you for subscribing during this year, and I'll see ya tomorrow!

Meow,

Cat