2023 was one of the best years for my taste in video games, and 2024 has somehow repeated the trick. It’s not all fun and games; the industry is blatantly broken, with thousands upon thousands of layoffs and too many studio closures to count.
I have an even stronger appreciation, then, for all the tremendous achievements that these talented and frequently underappreciated developers have brought into my life. I’ve played dozens of great games this year, but here are my top ten.
Many of my colleagues are writing their own lists this year, and you can check ’em all out at our Game of the Year hub.
The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak
Trails Through Daybreak boasts some impressively emotional side quests, held up by its fantastic lead Van Arkide. Longtime Trails diehards like me are just so dang happy to have finally seen one of the world’s most influential nations, the Calvard Republic, up close and personal.
But while I loved the strategic battle system at launch, I’m no longer quite as enamored with it. Bizarrely hard to parse at times, its relentless nature can be a bit taxing. Trails is all about its writing, though, and in that regard, I’m still plenty satisfied.
The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom
Zelda’s inaugural adventure (no, we’re not counting those CD-i games) brings us a well-realized retread of what is, mostly, the same map of Hyrule that we’ve seen previously in A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds.
But the degree of detail in Echoes of Wisdom’s spin on that map is the game’s beating heart. Hyrule has been meaningfully expanded, and it plays the perfect host to Zelda’s expansive suite of crafting abilities, some of which are brought to battle, others are used for traversal, and many can… sort of accomplish both.
Unicorn Overlord
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is still my favorite Vanillaware game, but Unicorn Overlord is its biggest challenger. In some ways, it serves as a clear spiritual successor to the similarly real-time tactical Ogre Battle games, with large maps filled with enemy units, and customized squads of party members moving together across the battlefield.
I love the in-depth system swords and spells turn-based combat system of preset “if:then” commands reminiscent of Final Fantasy 12’s Gambit system, and I’ve lamented how infrequently it’s popped up in the years since FF12, often replaced in more recent games by AI-fueled party members whose actions are seldom what I wanted them to do.
Tactical Breach Wizards
What first caught my attention for Tactical Breach Wizards wasn’t what the game was, but rather, their detailed explanation of what it isn’t. It’s not a roguelike. It’s more story-driven than XCOM.
I felt weirdly liberated, my expectations firmly in check, only to be blown away by the game’s robust perk-based skills, its thoughtful turn-based battles, and above all, its fun cast of characters. Oh, and you have to increase their confidence stats if you want them to be bolder in their sense of fashion, which is hilarious.
Persona 3 Reload
Persona 4’s rural Inaba is the best setting in a modern Persona game, and Persona 5 is straight-up superb all-around. But Persona 3 still has the best core plot, and dang it, this full-fledged remake reminded me of that at every turn across its zigzagging, revelation-jammed story.
Reload’s improvements to exploration and a more user-friendly suite of combat commands makes the core formula of climbing its massive enigmatic tower, Tartarus, far less tedious. Most of the game’s social links still underwhelm me, but there’s hardly a bland spot across its sizable party (look, Ken isn’t that bad), and there are so many emotional moments that I’m getting all emotional again just thinking about them.
Shiren The Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon Of Serpentcoil Island
You may be more familiar with Pokemon’s Mystery Dungeon games than Shiren’s, but long before players explored a bunch of randomly-generated Zubat-infested forests and caves, they were doing the same thing in demon-infested castles and coastlands.
Shiren the Wanderer’s feudal Japan setting and far more challenging battles have always clicked with me more, and The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island is my new favorite. There’s a lot to treasure in this ninja-themed adventure, but the best bit is its relative nonlinearity. There are so many ways to chart a course across Serpentcoil Island, and enough rewards to merit shaking things up along the way.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge Of The Seven
SaGa games are infamous for their eccentric gameplay mechanics that are seldom explained well in-game; but Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven somehow manages to maintain this complexity while being substantially better at telling players what the heck is going on.
A remake of the original Romancing SaGa 2, Revenge of the Seven retreads an excellent hook: it’s a multigenerational tale in which your protagonist will shift across an imperial lineage. Time passes whenever you choose to tackle a new quest, making every decision you make vital to the bigger picture.
Square Enix essentially dusted off a confusing cult classic and reshaped it so that playing it isn’t a terrifying prospect. The result is one of 2024’s strongest RPGs.
The Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown
The Lost Crown is an instant classic that I’ll revisit for years to come. Fast-paced slash attacks dispatch a variety of tough foes in stylish fashion, and moving from platform to platform via fancy air-dashing reminds me of some of my favorite Mega Man X moments.
The history geek in me has always loved Prince of Persia’s, well, Persian setting, which is brought to life with plenty of the mythology-meets-blatant-fantasy that the series is known for.
Set in a fascinating fantasy world where classism reigns supreme and the next grand ruler will be decided by a giant rock in the sky, Metaphor: ReFantazio combines the familiar with the frankly absurd in a way that turns even that aforementioned rock into something thought-provoking and oddly believable.
Metaphor’s cast is filled with winners, and while Persona’s DNA is writ large across much of its design philosophy, there’s a maturity to these characters. It has a world-weary, yet earnestly hopeful presentation. But for all its themes of tolerance and lofty political ideals, I was blown away by something entirely unexpected; at several pivotal moments, parents mourn the loss of a child. It’s handled so shockingly well that I’ll be thinking about Metaphor: ReFantazio for years to come.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
Square Enix pulled off what many lifelong Final Fantasy fans had begun to suspect was impossible: it brought the vast scope of the series’ PS1 era into the era of splashy and meticulously-detailed high-resolution graphics. No corners were cut in showcasing a large chunk of the original Final Fantasy 7’s world. It is, quite truly, Final Fantasy 7, reborn.
Even more impressive than its jaw-dropping achievement in cross-continental recreation, however, is the new lease on life brought to FF7’s characters. Square hit the nail on the head with every one of them, massively expanding their scripts without missing a beat. The result is an even more iconic gang of lovable misfits, each capable of melancholy seriousness one moment, and unexpected hilarity the next.
Top it off with a battle system that evolves from Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s sterling action-RPG foundation in all the right ways – even more customization, even cooler enemies, even flashier animations – and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth isn’t just my Game of the Year. It might be my current Game of the Decade.
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Why Each Nominee Deserves Game Of The Year
We’re writing a piece every day for each of the six games nominated for the Game Of The Year award. This hub will keep track of them all.