My Games of the Year, 2024

2024—my gaming year, at least—had a strange feel to it. With the Switch on end-of-life watch, major releases have been few and far between, but what has arrived in 2024 has been compelling. The following games were those that were most important to me this year.

Balatro

Gaming is endless with Balatro.

Like many, many others, I was hooked by Balatro from the beginning and it hasn’t threatened to let me go since. Never has a game been as replayable as this, quick runs letting you experience a huge variety of upgrades, resulting in wildly different games, every time. My Game of the Year and Most Played Game both go to Balatro.

Animal Well

It’s-a-me, AniMario.

Delivering pixelated adventure perfection, Animal Well is my pick for Best Indie. All those freaky animals, rendered so beautifully, created a hypontic world that played with Metroidvania conventions and taunted players with impossible challenges. I’ll also give it Most Frustrating Experience for the latter, although Nine Sols came a close second.

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Big boss is bad boss.

A more traditional Metroidvania, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was a delight nonetheless. I found the combat took quite a bit of learning, but the satisfaction was well worth it. Definitely my Best Third-Party of 2024.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

And I learned it in post-game, like an idiot.

So, Nintendo didn’t release that much this year, but the latest Zelda game helped offset that as it delivered not only playable Zelda, finally, but also a good old top-down, old-school, dungeons-and-all experience. The echo menu was ridiculous, but that was the only real flaw in a retro love-letter that still pushed boundaries. Echoes of Wisdom was the Best First-Party game in 2024 by a long shot.

Patrick’s Parabox

I hate that feeling that I’m being watched... by myself.

A bit out there, but these are the games I played in 2024. I finally picked this up on sale and loved its thoughtful madness; it’s basically recursive sokoban. Patrick’s Parabox was the Best Puzzler for me.

Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines

Swing low, sweet Chihuahua.

This unassuming indie sequel was my Best Platformer because it delivered classic platforming action, following up on the original by adding a character with unique mechanics and their own stages to flex them in. So much variety and a huge amount of collectables and post-game content, Grapple Dogs had the lot.

Super Mario World

The older I get, the more I look like Mario. This is less a caption, more of a cry for help.

I pretty much have to get sucked back in by a different Mario game each year, and this time round it was the turn of Super Mario World, which I played through at least twice. It still holds up so well, the cape and Yoshi were magnificent additions, and Mario has probably never controlled better than this, although I’m a big fan of Super Mario Wonder too. So SMW takes my Best Retro Mario award.