Video Games in 2024
02 Jan 2025I received a lot of positive feedback to my 2023 end of year wrap up on games and other media. While 2024 wasn’t as prolific for me, there were still many solid games. Here are some of the key video game experiences I had in 2024.
Kingdom Two Crowns
This pixel art side-scrolling game has incredibly simply controls (left/right direction and one button) but somehow contains an engaging real-time-strategy game. You move around and spend coins at contextual prompts to build walls, recruit subjects, and assign jobs… all to prepare for the monsters that strike in the night. It totally works. Despite the fact that game also doesn’t directly teach you how to play it; it mostly trusts that you’ll experiment with the simple verbs it offers and that everything will work out. Which is mostly true. This is an easy game to recommend on pretty much any platform (including mobile, although I played it on Xbox and Switch). Interestingly it comes in a variety of mostly-aesthetic variants, so you can play it as classic castle, Norse, shogun, 80’s kids on bikes, or Greek mythology. It also works really well as 2 player local co-op, as you can work together to defend the two edges of your kingdom.
Balatro
Back in 2017 Slay the Spire hit the scene and brought together the deckbuilding and roguelike genres. Since then there have been many games to follow in its footsteps (Monster Train, Griftlands, Inscryption, and Cobalt Core, to name some I’ve played). I’ve enjoyed every entry in this genre that I’ve tried. This year we got Balatro, which instead of delving into the fantasy/sci-fi elements of those other games is just… poker. But poker were you’re cheating real hard and can never lose. By leaning into the more widely understood backbone of poker Balatro is more accessible. And it layers its gameplay crazy and “let’s go to combo town” vibe on that framework. I played it on Switch but I hear the cool kids have moved to the mobile version so they can have Balatro in their pocket all the time.
Octopath Traveler II
This year at PAX my daughter took a renewed interest in classic consoles and video game history, which led me to bringing out the NES and SNES mini classic consoles. One thing led to another, and I’m revisiting some JRPG classics including a full run of Final Fantasy 1 and 4. That left me wondering what modern expressions of the JRPG genre were out there, which in turn led to Octopath Traveler II, conveniently on GamePass. I absolutely love the look of this game, with its blend of classic character sprites and modern techniques like depth of field, particle effects, and dynamic lighting. The story is that of 8 different characters, each with their own individual story arc and you have freedom to move between these as you like. The combat has great tension of tactical decisions with its vulnerability/break mechanic and the rhythm of spending boost points for big flashy turns. It’s a really nostalgic yet modern JRPG, which is a bit of nice interest but absolutely something I was looking for.
Played on Xbox GamePass
Prince of Persia: the Lost Crown
I do so love a good metroidvania. This one follows in the legacy of recent games like Hollow Knight and Ori, with many modern trimmings. For example it has an amulet system like the charms of Hollow Knight to let you customize a build of interesting upgrades, but here you can spend currency to improve each one. In each area you find a person who can sell you a map and later locations of hidden upgrades, letting you explore the unknown at first, but not waste time later in with fruitless searching. Overall it’s not as difficult as Hollow Knight (no significant currency loss on death, for example)… unless you take on the many optional platforming sequences that are brutal even to experienced hands like mine. The presentation is solid, with vibrant colors and cool cinematic moments. The combat is kinetic and deep, not letting you entirely get by mashing buttons; good use of parry and combos get you much better results. The rate of exploration is fast, letting you feel like you’re running through and racing against time… until you get the hankering to slow down and scrub for all those little secrets and power up. The Lost Crown also is the first Prince of Persia game in a long time to invoke the vibes of the excellent Sands of Time, playing with time manipulation and a storybook quality. This is a solid game that I saved for winter break so I could really dig into it.
Played on Xbox
Rogue Legacy 2
In last year’s wrap-up I mentioned I had just started Rogue Legacy 2 while on holiday break. Well I kept with it and got significantly deeper. It’s a bit of a roguelite metroidvania, which is to say you have many runs of a randomized environment with some amount of incremental progression (roguelite) but progress to those areas is gated on traversal abilities (metroidvania). You definitely get a consistent sense of small progress here as you can spend coin on upgrading your castle for various bonuses. Each run is randomized by a choice of descendants, each with quirks that make them more powerful or less powerful (in trade for gold bonuses). And during each run there’s an interesting risk/reward tradeoffs of trading health for upgrades. I found it very enjoyable, until I hit a key milestone, ran into the next very tough boss, couldn’t decide between grinding out more bonuses or learning the boss’ patterns, set the game down and forgot to come back to it. But my time with it was good.
Played on Xbox GamePass
Dungeons of Hinterberg
In this game you’ve traveled to a Bavarian-esque vacation destination that specializes in monster slaying and dungeon running (“Enjoy your slay!” say the local staff). In the evenings after your adventure you can spend time with various people in the village to build relationships (and get mechanical bonuses for doing so). It’s got a mix of 3rd person action melee and Zelda-like puzzle solving. All wrapped in pleasant cell shaded package.
Played on Xbox
And the Rest
Here are some other games that are worth a little mention.
- Cobalt Core: This game is another deckbuilding roguelite, but with you piloting a spaceship going through 1:1 ship battles. Positioning matters, where you can line up shots to specific weak points or dodge incoming missiles. You seed your deck of possible actions by choosing your crew (and unlocking alternate crew with new mechanics by succeeding in runs). It’s cute in its presentation and I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with it so far, but it didn’t exactly create the crazy addictive draw of something like Balatro.
- Steamworld Dig 2: Digging through sand and earth in a video game readily evokes the likes of Dig Dug or Super Mario 2, but for some the best match for this one to me is a little indie XBLA game Miner Dig Deep. Just like that, Steamworld Dig has you increasingly delve into the earth, mining resources that let you buy upgrades to get deeper and more lucrative gains. Except this one looks a lot better. And tries to squeeze in a plot, but I was much more satisfied by the simple digging loop. Which is limited by how much lantern light you have… until you buy an upgrade that removes that mechanic and with it all of the tension. You do get a sweet grappling hook for navigation at some point though which is really great. I wandered off from this game at some point when it strayed too far from the simple digging roots, but it was fun until then.