My Gaming Year In Review (2024)

Nintendo’s Year-in-Review just dropped which means it’s time for me, as is tradition, to recap all the games I finished in 2024!

Between teaching classes, lessons, concerts, gigs and travel (and general self care), I have to be very careful about how I budget my time for gaming. Yet, despite having what I thought was an even busier schedule, I managed to take on 11 (relatively substantial) pieces of interactive media. Last year, I only finished 6.

So, let’s dive in! Here’s what I played for the past 12 months along with a few of my thoughts. What did YOU play this year? What were your favorites?

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Celeste

The year was off to an incredible start when my winter break included this masterpiece of a game. Celeste has a perfect, winter-y vibe as our main character faces the isolated climb of the mountain in front of her – a metaphor for the conflict that lies within her.

Tight controls, precise platforming, and music that fit the mood, I made the most of my time away from my work, cozying up under blankets while I journeyed toward the summit. Easily one of the best games of the year!

9/10

Metroid Prime Remastered

22 years after the game’s original release on Gamecube, I got to spend my February and March finally playing Metroid Prime for the first time.

A number of reasons prevented me from playing this game previously: I never owned a GameCube, the Wii port was hard to find, and to tell the truth, I’m not really a fan of FPS games on consoles. The remaster updated these controls slightly, and that was very attractive to me.

Overall, I thought the game was fine. There were some issues with platforming where it was hard to judge my jumps. Backtracking also became pretty long winded as there weren’t enough warp points to quickly get me to where I wanted to go. But, I did like the feeling of progression and discovery while exploring the depths of Tallon IV. Still, I’d rather play one of the 2D entries in the series.

7.5/10

Pocky and Rocky Reshrined

Pocky and Rocky for the SNES was a game that we rented a few times, and it held my attention well enough. The “reshrined” version seemed appealing for the nostalgia alone, and I do enjoy the arcade sort of gameplay that’s offered. The physical copy even came with stickers!

My favorite part of the new game was the addition of two new characters, each with their own special sets of abilities. However, I found it a little silly that the two-player mode, the most fun aspect of a Pocky and Rocky adventure, had to be unlocked by beating it in single-player mode. Still, fun was had.

6.5/10

Alba

Ever dream of wandering around a tropical island and taking pictures of local wildlife? Alba is the game for you!

Okay, so maybe I’m not the proper age demographic for this game, but it was a completely calming experience. In the first few hours, I helped rescue a beached dolphin before being shipping off to the tropical wonderland of Secarral. From that point on, it was my mission to save a defunct wildlife refuge from a greedy real-estate mogul who wanted to replace it with a luxury hotel. All the while, I captured shots of the island animals and searched especially for a mysterious Iberian lynx.

After I finished this game, I found myself wanting to pull out my own phone to get some pics of animals in my area. It certainly made me pay more attention to nature!

7/10

Hollow Knight

Another deeply lauded game by my friends, Hollow Knight sent me to the realm of Hallownest where I sought to break the kingdom free from a deadly infection. The maze-like pathways made easier to navigate by parchment from a humming mapmaker and upgrades from colorful shopkeepers, I loved the atmosphere and characters that inhabited this world.

I only managed to complete the “easy” ending, which is quite a feat in itself. But, to go any further requires a level of dedication and precision that I wasn’t ready to undertake. Perhaps someday I’ll come back to it to see what else the game has to offer – maybe with the help of a strategy guide.

8.5/10

Dragon Quest II

When Nintendo showcased the Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, I knew I wanted to play it. I had one problem, though. I’ve never played Dragon Quest II!

In fact, I haven’t played most of the Dragon Quest games save for the very first entry, a game I distinctly remember playing every morning before 5th grade and may likely be the first RPG I ever finished (it was a gift from my aunt one Christmas).

In any case, to prep for DQ3, I needed to beat DQ2 – and it was on sale! (Okay, I know it doesn’t really matter what order you do). Internet chatter told me that it’s the least-liked in the series. However, I’m an old pro who knows that there’s nothing too hard if you just do a little grinding.

And that’s what I did. My only hang up was when I did some extensive exploring one day that led to a town where my second character became cursed and bedridden. I couldn’t allow this, and it would have been too challenging to find the cure normally, so I loaded up an old save and continued on my way, avoiding the trigger to lose my character.

With the game tucked safely behind me. I’m ready for the new remake!

5.5/10

Crypt Stalker

Taking advantage of another sale, it was hard to pass up this new adventure clearly calling back to games like Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden.

I liked that the game had two distinct modes: “console” which played like an 8-bit NES classic, and “handheld” which looked like something from the Game Boy era.

It’s a short game, it feels good, and had just enough challenge to keep me interested. Enough said!

6.5/10

Final Fantasy V (Pixel Remaster)

Very excited about this one! Final Fantasy V was an elusive entry in the FF series being one of the few titles to skip a North American release. I stumbled across it while I was in high school when I was exploring the world of emulators. But, I only made it a few hours in before I moved on to another activity.

The FF Pixel Remasters were a day-one purchase for me, and they were the perfect excuse to finish the games that had slipped through my fingers previously. I’d say that FF5 fits in snuggly with the rest of the 16-bit era entries. I can rank it easily behind my two other favorites: 4 then 6. I loved the return of the job system (originally from FF3), and I found myself digging deep into some strategies that helped optimize my character customizations.

It may not have as iconic of a villain as the rest of the more modern games, but it’s certainly the best game out there where you fight an evil tree.

8.5/10

Final Fantasy II (Pixel Remaster)

Upon finishing FF5, I immediately started on my next conquest: Final Fantasy II!

I watched an old roommate in college play bits and pieces of this game on the Final Fantasy Origins collection for PS1. My one takeaway then was that if you want to do well, you have to spend hours hitting yourself (you level up skills by using them!). The Pixel Remaster made this super easy with an auto-battle feature that took away all the hard work. Many of my grinding sessions were done passively while I simultaneously watched TV.

The story and characters here were… not memorable in the slightest. I did like, though, the implementation of having to “remember” key phrases to help progress the plot. And, it’s pretty wild (rose) that your party literally ends up in Hell for their final confrontation.

5.5/10

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (100%)

Finally, a normal Zelda game! And it’s… just okay. Many folks really loved Echoes of Wisdom, and some even thought it should earn “Game of the Year.” I, however, found it be incredibly repetitive with so much unused potential.

While the game returned to its roots in offering more linear dungeons, it tried to capture an open-world feel by allowing our main protagonist, this time Zelda, the ability to summon “echoes,” copies of monsters or objects. Designers of the game proudly proclaimed to us that there would be hundreds of “echoes” that players could utilize in their arsenal. But, I found that I really only cycled between a handful of the same types: beds to create bridges and high-level creatures to do all my fighting.

This means that our main hero, known for being a total badass in games like Ocarina of Time (where she appears as the ninja Sheik), Windwaker (where she leads a group of pirates), and Breath of the Wild (where she uses her magic to keep Ganon at bay for 100 years), can now only 1. Not speak 2. Stand in a corner and watch monsters fight for her 3. Jump on furniture. I didn’t even talk about how she handles in Hyrule Warriors or Super Smash Bros.

To push this ridiculousness even further, the developers gave her a power where she can temporarily TURN INTO LINK, making her uniqueness completely irrelevant.

I did play this game to 100% completion, but only because I felt motivated to collect everything in my evenings after a long day of work (a somewhat cathartic activity). I’m hoping Nintendo’s next LoZ entry will be even more of a return to tradition that stays away from the open-world aspects (I’d also accept a remaster of Adventure of Link!).

6.5/10

Super R-Type

Going out with a random one… I was browsing the SNES catalog on Nintendo Switch Online one night when I came across Super R-Type. In terms of space shooters, I consider this game to be the little brother to Gradius III. It *looks* like a cool, hi-tech flying game, but it’s more or less underdeveloped with a massively horrendous difficulty spike.

Like other games of this style, if you get hit once, you’re dead and you start over with no power ups. When I died on the first boss and it sent me back to the very beginning of the stage, I knew that this game didn’t play fair. So, I didn’t either. I abused save states to an obsessive degree.

I’m not sure how anyone was ever able to finish this game normally. If you were one of the few who did, you have my sincerest congrats. I’ll stick with Gradius.

5/10

Just started:

Outer Wilds

To be continued:

NieR Automata

Purchased but not yet played:

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake

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Thanks for stopping by to read my post! Have you played any of these games? What games did you best this year? What are you looking forward to in 2025? Leave me reply and let me know your thoughts!

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