Well, here we are once again, in the twilight hours of 2024. It's been a wild year for me here on the blog. Lots of comics, a few big projects, and just great experiences all around. Despite talking more about shows and comics this year, do remember that this blog started as a video game one. So, as we always do at the end of the year, let's pay tribute to that. I didn't play a fuckton of video games this year, but the ones I did definitely left an impression on me. We're doing the structure just a little differently, as I have categories with multiple games in them. I'm excited, and I hope you're excited, so let's dive right into it with the first one.
THE UNFINISHED
I have a short attention span and juggle lots of things in my day to day life, so I don't get to finish every game I start. Nevertheless, there are a few which impressed me with what little I did get to experience of them, and it would feel wrong not to give them some love on the list, so that's what this part is for.
Romancing SaGa (SFC)
This is not the only game on this list from that mad mastermind Akitoshi Kawazu, as you'll see when we finish this segment. I played that one in the winter, and gave this one a go in the warmer climes of summer as a sort of diametric opposition. From what I played, the vibes are there. It's Kawazu's fourth crack at this, after Final Fantasy II and the SaGa duology on Game Boy, and elements of those games are present. It has the Game Boy game's bitesize structure where a quest and dungeon and enemy to be beat to complete the quest is condensed down into this snappy twenty-minute chunk of game and you can save at any point during it. There's a progression system resembling Final Fantasy II's, but more robust and rewarding. It's just this big open world for you to explore without direction, finding problems and solving them and getting stronger by fighting hordes of random battles. I really would like to finish it, as the bit I played actually gave me pleasant vibes compared to how nightmarish some Kawazu-led joints can be.
UFO 50 (PC)
I'm part of an entire community that went absolutely gonzo bonkers for this game, and it's not hard to see why. 50 entirely distinct and robust faux-retro experiences, each of them with the complexity and depth to be their own game, and even more secretive connective tissue and metanarrative behind the entire macrocosmic scope of it all? What a winner. And then there's me who only played a tenth of them. Oops. I had fun with the 5 I did play, however! To highlight the best of them... Barbuta is an incredible ode to the microcomputer exploratory platformer, and figuring out its secrets to get a clear is an experience that would be worthy of this list all by itself. I enjoyed the arcade action quality of Ninpek as well. Magic Garden is a complex puzzle game, and one that friends have really gone deep into, but it didn't hook me on first play like it did them. I appreciate the craft, though. That leaves 45 more constantly evolving experiences for me to dive into with this one whenever I choose. What a treat for 2025.
Vision Of Mana (PS5)
Surprise! This old fart entered the world of Modern Gameing when they were gifted a PS5 because their friend really wants to play Monster Hunter Wilds with them in 2025. So now I've got that sleek machine sitting next to my TV, and I got this game to play on it. Mana and I have never really gotten along. I did like the original on the Game Boy, but Secret never caught me and Trials Of Mana actively wore me down to quit it with its particular friction. I really was engrossed in Visions Of Mana, though. The combat was fast and frantic yet manageable, the progression intrigued, the vast open world spaces encouraged me to just vibe and explore, and the plot was keeping me captivated. It's got that Tales of Symphonia/Final Fantasy X "religious pilgrimage of self-sacrifice" sort of plotline, and even I have made it to spots where it challenges that and goes to some really shocking places. I am curious to see if it also follows those two games I cited in upending the ancient tradition to make the world a better place, but that's a concern for 2025. Good job, Mana. You made a game I vibed with, so far anyway.
HARDEST GAME OF 2024
Final Fantasy II (Famicom)
How could it be anything other than this here? I chronicled my descent into this game's madness, but the abridged version bears repeating for this blurb. Theorizing that one could actually find challenge with Final Fantasy II, Dr. Frezno Inferno stepped into the Famicom version... and vanished. Wait, no, that's Quantum Leap again. Jokes aside, this game and I entered a particular masochism tango. It was a game where I was not just walking through mazes and winning every encounter that interrupted me, but a tense set of dungeon crawls wherein I was beaten within an inch of my life, the threat of lost progress looming over me at any and every point. I would survive it, and my reward would be a story scene of resisting the evil Empire in which we move one step forward and two steps back. Go down into the next hellhole, fuckhead. I did, and I survived all of this game's bullshit and triumphed over it, bruised and broken but victorious. It did things to my brain, this masocore of a challenge, and for that it gets a medal of honor on this list.
BEST GOLD MASTER SERIES GAMES OF 2024
Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story & Tetris Forever (Switch)
Digital Eclipse has done it again. If you recall, their duology of Atari 50 and The Making Of Karateka were my Games Of The Year for 2023, because of the unique way they mixed game compilation, documentary, and coffee table book into this interactive history lesson about their respective subjects. Here they are in 2024 doing it again, and it's still masterful. The former focuses on the titular Jeff Minter and his titular company Llamasoft, and it's the kind of story you don't usually hear on this side of the pond, of 80's programmers tinkering about with UK microcomputers. The way Minter takes arcade action games of the time and puts his own unique weird spin on them is commendable: Gridrunner is like Centipede on crack, and the ones with llamas and other "beasties" show off his passions and put his stamp on these games. His tinkering with light synthesizers is also incredible, a real impressive use of vibes over gameplay in such early days of gaming. I wish it had gone on longer with his career beyond the 90's, but it's still phenomenal.
Tetris Forever, on the other hand... what is there to say? It's fucking Tetris, it's the perfect video game. The story of its creation and the rights wrangling surrounding it are infamous, and recounted here once more. Where Digital Eclipse shines in telling a secret history is what comes after that, with multiple Tetris variants on Super Famicom that never crossed over here and are back in full HD. Although it's a well-told story and contains like 10 variants of arguably a perfect video game, I have minor grievance. I kind of wish that the Tengen Tetris, or the NES and Game Boy variants from Nintendo were represented. I know the former is highly illegal and the latter is all tied up in rights, and that everything published here is a BPS/Tetris Company property... but it feels like a gap in the history. The "story" also drags a little when it just slaps like three or four Super Tetris variants at you in a row in the 1990s. Despite my complaints, Digital Eclipse has done it again in 2024, and these are spectacular.
THINGS I BEAT FOR THE INTERNET TO SEE LIVE
Alright, back to the categories. I spent a lot of time streaming on Twitch this year, at least once a week for like 45 sessions and then an entire holiday extravaganza. I'll be back at it for 2025, but this section is just to highlight those games and experiences I did finish freshly on my Twitch channel. I did beat games I'd already finished before on there, like Chrono Trigger or Retro Game Challenge, but this section is for games I beat there which I had never finished before.
Soul Blazer (SNES)
This was sort of an on a whim choice when I decided that I wanted my 2024 streams to focus more on longer games, as it's one I started like half a dozen times and never finished. It's a simple enough action RPG dungeon crawl game akin to Zelda, but with that Quintet vibe of restoring the world to its old glories. The bosses were a little bullshit, but the actual gameplay is solid enough for short bursts of time and the plot is surprisingly detailed and poignant. I really had a good time sharing this with my little community, and there were some good clips and funny moments made from it. Time will tell if Illusion of Gaia will show up for 2025, but I guess we'll have to see.
Ratshaker (PC)
My holiday marathon of Frezmas opened with this... whatever the fuck it is. An absolutely fucking bizarre and disturbing game in which the main action verbs are shaking and choking a goddamn rat while a talented VA makes yelling and wheezing noises. It's deeply fucked up, but in an ambiguous and abstract fashion. P.T. with a healthy dose of David Lynch. I'm not sure what in the fuck happened, but I know that I will still hear that fucking rat's screams and elegant accusations of my moral fiber in my deepest nightmares.
Balatro (PC)
I beat this damn thing on my second run ever live, so you're goddamn right I get to put it on the list. but it fucking rules. All the dopamine of poker, mixed with the randomness and progression of a roguelike, and you have one potent video game. Everything about it absolutely rules and it's easy to see how it captivated and addicted so many this year. I had a great time with it on the show, and I can absolutely see how it could suck you in and keep you playing round after round. A real winner. Two pair best hand. Unless you're a gambling goddess who can beat those big blinds with one fucking card, but where would we find any of those?
THE ONE CREDIT CLEAR CORNER
In tandem with those streams, at times I would do offline one credit clears of games. There's a lot of Marvel fighting games made by Capcom that I played on the Saturn, because early 2024 for me was when I got particularly Saturn-brained. I'm claiming partial magical responsibility for invoking that Marvel vs. Capcom collection into the world for how much I poured into those games to get these clears. So, here are some hard game beating accomplishments that I pulled off!
SNK Gals Fighters 1CC (Switch)
I'd played this before 2024, of course, but this was the year I buckled down and got the 1CC in it. I still adore it, as it's just complex enough but also simple enough for me. I got the clear with Shermie, a cool grappler with powerful thighs, and I did it by the skin of my teeth. Very fun one to get, and the one non-Capcom game in this segment. I think I have a preference.
X-Men Vs Street Fighter 1CC (Saturn)
Marvel and Capcom combine for this one! Much like I was saying with SNK Gals Fighters, the 2v2 structure of this one hits the perfect sweet spot of complexity for me. The 3v3 style Capcom would later use for the more popular MvC games was a little too much for my dumb fighting game brain to handle. Regardless, the unlikely duo of Chun-Li and the Juggernaut took the W here without a single loss. Hooray.
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter 1CC (Saturn)
And so we round out the Marvel fighting with this one. More of the same, maybe a little more bullshit in places and a little less so in others. No Juggernaut this time so Chun-Li had to go with the Incredible Hulk. Not much else to say here as I'd rather let the video and the run speak for itself, so check it out just up there. Hulk indeed smash.
Mega Man No Death Clear (NES)
As great as it was to get the 1CC on those fighting games, out of everything in this segment this might be the one I'm most proud of. I love the original Mega Man, and I've always wanted to get this particular clear. It took a bit of research and a lot of work, but by God I learned the thing and pulled off one hell of a run. If you watch any of these, make it this one. I'm particularly pleased with how I handled Fire Man in this one, as there's another exploit people use on him that I could never get to work myself. Happy to have found my alternative. Very pleased with this clear.
GREAT GAMES PALS MADE IN 2024
There's always a spot on my GOTY lists for the best game my pals have made. This year, however, the output of the community was so incredible that I would feel bad singling just one of them out at the expense of the others. So, you all get equal billing here. This is your segment, you talented game designers I can call my pals. Be proud, and enjoy the praises I am about to sing of your creativity.
I'm just going to say it upfront. 2024 was the Year Of The Elf, and Thom Jetstorm4's lovely OC Corris features in three computer games in this segment. All of them are 18+ adventures with stellar game design. They are also lewd as hell. Yes, I played horny elf games this year and put them on my list. Deal with it. If you don't want lewd times with the elf girl, Thom's games in this segment do have the option to make them SFW. With that being said, this first Corris game was specifically saved as my treat for surviving the hell of Final Fantasy II. It's a wonderful little RPG from my friend Thom with just enough length and depth to keep one interested for its short runtime. Like any Corris game, it is lewd as fuck, but at least the option is there to turn it off this time. This was just a really great adventure with an elf making friends and saving the day while also getting railed sometimes, and exactly the kind of stress and anxiety relief I needed after Kawazu's hell.
Our pal Iffy makes her game designer debut with this one, and what a start out of the gate. This was a delightful bite-sized RPG adventure with a real kick to it, as the static enemies and limited healing items in the world made it feel like my pal John Thyer's Facets, but it's easier than that and has a general chuuni feel to it where it's cool as hell. The final boss fight and "cutscene" finale are COOL AS HELL I WON'T SPOIL IT HERE BUT HOLY FUCKING SHIT! It is chuuni as fuck, and that is peak Iffy energy. I can feel my friend's likes and tastes in this one, and it's wonderful to see another voice of creativity being added to this game designer circle. Well done, Iffy. Fingers crossed for another banger from you in 2025.
Another Corris game from Thom, this one a follow-up to the action RPG exploratory platformer Piercing Of Darkmoon Tower from 2022. Remember how I said Thom's Corris RPG from January was my stress relief after Kawazu? This one was out for a while before I got around to it. I loaded it up the day after the election results in the US. I'm not from the country, but with the general mood and worry for my friends below the border, I needed the distraction. Thom delivered in spades. This is another action-platformer-RPG Corris game, exploring a world and fighting monsters and deliberately losing to them in order to see a variety of pornographic pixel art drawings of an elf girl in a predicament. It's super deep and detailed, with two campaigns and multiple difficulties and all that, as feature rich as any new old pixel game. I have yet to play through the storyline with Corris's brother Sirius, but I'm sure it also rules. It's the first Corris game but with more polish and more stuff, and it's rad as hell. An absolutely incredible release with a lot of depth, and a cute elf girl, and it was there for me exactly where I needed. Goddamn. Thanks, Thom.
And we're STILL NOT FUCKING DONE WITH CORRIS, YEAR OF THE ELF BABY! This game dropped at the same time as Berserker Knight, but it is not a Corris game by Thom. Rather, it comes from the Twinblade General and in the form of a TWINE narrative game. It's a Corris game, with all the predicament and bad ends that entails, but the writing and the edge of it are amped up a notch. It's cool to see a new unique voice as a game maker added to the Corris world, and I loved all the effects and trickey used in TWINE to accentuate it. I love that something so simple as "my elf OC who I want to have go on adventures and get into risque predicaments" has become this community-wide polyauthored thing now. I read through the thing in one sitting, and I was absolutely enthralled. Be aware, though, that unlike Thom's Corris games from this year there is no option to turn off the 18+ elements. This is a piece of erotica, and you should heed the warnings in front of it before you dare proceed. We're all adults here, so we can be mature about this. If you're not 18, then don't play it, kid. I don't even know how you got on this blog, but this one's not for you. Maybe when you're older. Anyway, what a capstone to the Year Of The Elf.
Now we move into the merry land of arcade action, with this game from my pal Polly. This may be the most intense arcade game experience I have ever had. It's such a simple little concept, a game where you move your mouse to blow up alien spiders and defend a planet. The action is fast and frantic as the game escalates and gets harder, and it's a heart-pounding frenzy of a game that I could see plonked into the middle of an arcade 40 years ago. Hell, let's go beyond that. This game gave me the biggest adrenaline rush of any arcade game I have ever played. When you get into the fucking zone, moving that mouse around and praying for a bomb as you get swarmed on all sides, it does something to me that no other game has managed to. I got a high score I'm satisfied with, but others have gone even further beyond. I can't imagine doing that, and that's not me talking on a skill level. If I were to be put in the higher speed of play, I think my goddamn heart would explode in my fucking chest from the manic stress of trying to manage at that level. I appreciate Planet Attrition for that, and it's simple but effective and gets my blood pumping in a way that not many arcade games truly can.
GAME OF THE YEAR 2024
Fields Of Mistria (PC)
And so we arrive at the crown champion. I want you to take a look at this. This is my stream playlist for my Monday night shows, and it's 45 videos long. Over a third of that is devoted to this game, and that's what makes it the winner this year. It's a farming simulator game, a la Stardew Valley or Harvest Moon. Stardew Valley took the GOTY slot in 2019, along with Monster Hunter World, for being a fun experience I played with a good friend. Fields Of Mistria is along those lines. I did not play it in co-op, but I did not play it alone. I played it on the stream, with my community of pals. That camraderie and joking around with one another, of showing up every Monday night to watch a blue-haired VTuber dork with a bad bitrate play a farm game and clip any out of pocket thing I said? That's why this is the Game Of The Year.
It helps that the actual game also has wonderful cozy vibes. Just managing a farm and talking to the locals is fun enough, and the game has this shoujo-like aesthetic which appeals to a dingus like me who wrote too many words on Sailor Moon some years ago. I adore everyone in this game, but I especially adored Juniper, the sassy witch who's hot as hell and looks like she could be a Sailor Moon baddie. This game was my home for 16 Monday nights, and it made me feel at home and at peace throughout the last third of 2024. I love it, and it is early access so I know that more will be added in the future. One day I'll come back (especially if they add in marriage, I WILL put a ring on Juniper so help me God) and have even more great experiences, but as it stands my trip to the world of Mistria was the best I took in 2024. Thanks, chat. Hope to see you all back in 2025.
...AND THE REST
We're not quite done yet, as this last section is for games I beat that don't really fit any specific category or segment. They all get included here as they're important experiences I had, and they deserve their time to shine. Hit that spotlight on 'em, and let's see what we've got.
Idol Showdown Next Fes (PC)
With how much I got into those Marvel fighting games, I needed another hit. Enter this thing, a free fighting game featuring Hololive VTubers. I really liked this one! It's quite fun and in-depth, and it has an ease of access that gives the option for Smash-like command inputs for your specials to make them come out easier. I can actually combo halfway decent and I really dig it, and there's still depth to it. I enjoyed maining Hoshimachi Suisei, because us blue-haired VTubers have gotta stand in solidarity, you know?
Shin Megami Tensei (SFC)
Well, fuck me. Another white whale crossed off of the list. This is a game that had intimidated me with its reputation for years, and I finally faced it head-on this summer and beat it. The first few hours are peak pre-apocalypse fiction, the atmosphere of impending doom palpable. The remaining jaunt through the post-apocalypse is pretty good, along with dealing with the factions. It's a game very easily broken, and the heroine has all the tools to do it. What's most interesting about the bleak plot of this game is the flipping motivations between the demons you recruit and the human allies in the game. The demons start hostile but can be negotiated with to be friendly, and the human players start friendly but become radicalized to be hostile if you don't side with them. I took the Neutral route, so there was a lot of YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN THIS IDEOLOGY THAT I HAVE DEVOTED MYSELF TO? MY FRIEND, THERE IS NO MERCY, YOUR LIFE IS NOW FORFEIT! I beat all of them though, every fucked-up faction, and brought about a new age for humanity. What an experience.
Jack Bros (Virtual Boy)
And speaking of SMT... This thing. I did not play this on an unwieldy monstrosity like the Virtual Boy. Rahther, I played it with the Red Viper emulator on 3DS, which used the 3DS's stereoscopic power to make the 3D really pop. I even got to go full Eric Andre and tweak the colors to answer the question "What if it was purple?". Anyway, this is an absolutely solid Gauntlet-like with SMT flavor, just short enough to let you kill 40 minutes or so to play it and just innovative enough for its time that its twin stick nature works. It's a really fun game! The Hard mode is a nice enough spin on things without being too difficult, and I enjoyed this. Probably the best Virtual Boy game? Maybe?
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Dreamcast)
Yeah, even before that fancy Capcom collection came out, I was tinkering with this during my whole Saturn-brained experiences of playing all the other Capcom fighters. 3v3 is a bit complex for me, and many of my match wins ended in time because it just takes my slow ass forever to beat three motherfuckers, but this is one of the most beloved fighting games ever for a reason. Incidentally, I did 1CC this, but it was on my goddamn Anbernic. I have screenshot proof of how close it was up above, but no video proof that this was a 1CC. You're just gonna have to trust me on this one, okay?
Junimo Kart (PC)
This fucking thing. This is a minigame within Stardew Valley, but it also has its own homebrewed browser version and that's what I played and beat. It's a cute little endless runner type of game where you use the mouse to jump, and you just have to get a feel for it and deal with the randomness that comes your way. I beat it pretty quickly. My friend Kat, who was streaming Stardew with her bestie Kris most every Sunday this year, took months to finally beat this shit... and the one run she did it was the one I was AFK for. Motherfucker. Well, at least we're both Junimo Kart champions.
Pokemon Crystal Clear (Game Boy Color)
This one's... interesting. There's a lot to like here, but a lot to dislike. This is a hack of Pokemon Crystal that turns the game into an open world where you can start from anywhere and challenge any gym in any order, levels progressing the more badges you get. Great concept, loved hunting down the particular team I wanted, and love all the little flourishes and conveniences at play... but the endgame was sort of a slog. With no Team Rocket story or anything, you're just sort of roaming around gaining levels until you're strong enough to beat up the next thing. You still have to grind, but you're not even grinding with the illusion of making progress in the world and stopping the bad team. My interest fell off hard in the latter half, I'm afraid, but it's an ambitious idea with a lot of good intent.
Vampire Survivors + Ode To Castlevania (Switch)
This is a real late entry on this list. How late? I only got it five days ago, when I was on vacation with family for Christmas. I was bored in a basement that was not my own, and this was on sale, so for ten bucks I got the base game and the Castlevania DLC. Holy fuck, this thing is addictive as shit. I've played a game in this style before called Holocure, again about the Hololive VTubers, but something about this base version with the Castlevania flavor appeals to me more. I'm still working on unlocking all the Castlevania characters, and haven't even done that much with the original VS characters but this is spectacular. There's a satisfaction in learning item synergies, in levelling your shit up, and just blasting the holy shit out of waves of endless monsters as they try to get you. I feel like this is going to be a perfect vehicle to just make 40 minutes of time melt away in an instant in the future. You got in late, but you earned your spot.
That's all. 2025 looms. We've got some Comics Challenge cleanup to do in January, but beyond that? New horizons and new shows, some of which I have planned and more than likely something I have no idea about will inspire me. That's in the future, so let's say goodbye to the past. Adios, 2024. You certainly were something. At least there were a lot of good computer video games to play. Alright, kids. You have fun on your New Year's parties, and we'll be seeing you in 2025 for all the new shit. Until then, y'all.
Just had to get in about beating it first, huh? Lol
ReplyDeleteJust had to beat it yourself the second I wasn't there, huh? lmao
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