Best of 2024: Mayo’s Top 3 Games of the Year

The year 2024 hasn’t been a particularly good year for human history. Layoffs continued to strike at the core of the gaming industry, continuing the troubling trend that seemed to really hit the ground running in 2023. Sony, Microsoft, and Ubisoft all had major reductions in their workforce, closing studios outright or merging them into other, more commercially successful ones. Then, on top of that, America decided to re-elect a mentally unstable old man back into the highest position of power in the land. Despite all the hardships that continue to plague the industry at large, developers (the humans responsible for all the goodness) continued to pump out banger after banger, leaving me a great deal of choices to wade through. I always try to focus on the positive in life, so here we go with my personal best of the year, starting with:

When Elden Ring was released back in early 2022 (my eventual GOTY), I made it my mission to take on the challenge of finishing a Souls game. I had made attempts in the past with titles such as Dark Souls and Bloodborne, but never really made it that far due to the extreme challenge and cat-like reflexes needed to endure the pain that was held within. I was intent on changing that. After 100+ hours, my tarnished avatar finally finished his journey. It was an amazing experience finally overcoming that hurdle and I really didn’t want my experience to end, so I was eagerly awaiting the hope of possible DLC. Two years later, developer FromSoftware and creator Hidetaka Miyazaki decided to release a single piece of additional story content that ultimately ended up on the same level as the epic base game. Shadow of the Erdtree is a 40+ hour expansion that introduces two new skill upgrade items (Scadutree Fragments + Revered Spirit Ashes), additional weapons, armor and an entirely new expansive map to explore. We also got a slew of memorable new boss fights that are on par with what was presented in the main game, such as Messmer the Impaler (snakes, fire and spears, oh my), Bayle the Dread (an oversized dragon with a missing foot) and Promised Consort Radahn/Radahn Consort of Miquella, the two phase final boss of the DLC and probably one of the most insane and brutal battles I have ever been apart of in a video game (and you know I recorded that battle on my PS5 once I finally DID beat it). Now, if this is as good as the main game, which was my GOTY for 2022, why is SOTE only a mere runner-up this year? Simply put, it’s still only a DLC for a larger base game. Despite being a relatively beefy game in terms of playtime and expertly made just like every other title from this famed developer, I felt like I had to relegate it to this position, giving space to other games which I felt needed their time in the sun.

I have always been a big advocator of the Metroidvania game. Combining the exploration/non-linear nature and backtracking aspects of a Metroid game with the epic boss battles, varied power-ups and platforming skills of a Castlevania title, the genre has created such iconic titles as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Hollow Night, Ori and the Blind Forest and Axiom Verge. When publisher Ubisoft and developer Ubisoft Montpellier announced the newest entry in the Prince of Persia franchise would be a 2.5D Metroidvania adventure, I was finally excited for a game in this long running series (I had not played any entries previously for a significant amount of time). When January came around and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was released, I was excited but at the same time trepidatious as I haven’t been the biggest fan of Ubisoft’s output in the past few years (I never got really into Assassin’s Creed or their other various open-world titles). After spending 35+ hours with The Lost Crown, I was ecstatic that it easily exceeded my expectations. The Lost Crown puts you in the shoes of Sargon, a young member of a warrior clan that keeps the peace, named The Immortals. Sargon and his companions travel to the cursed city of Mount Qaf as they attempt to rescue the kidnapped Prince Ghassan. As the story progresses, double and triple crosses abound, and Sargon must battle friends, foes and mystical beings to restore order and save the world at large. I had pure, unadulterated fun with my journey through the treacherous landscape of Mount Qaf. Smooth and responsive controls, intense boss battles, great upgrade structure/skill trees and slick and seamless traversal between various sections of the map. It all worked in such divine unity that it made me wonder why it took them so long to usher the franchise into this type of game. Even the small DLC that released a few months ago, Mask of Darkness, ended up being an excellent and horror-centric extension, with a whole new environment to explore, complete with a dreamlike new atmosphere and an intense final boss battle that took me a few tries to overcome. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is just great gaming at its core, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

When Final Fantasy VII Remake was released in early 2020, it was a minor miracle that it turned out as good as it did. Kicking into full production at some point on or around 2015, the game went through a troubled path to the finish line, running into multiple development and direction issues initially – most of the production was handled by studios outside of publisher Square Enix – before finally being taken in-house around late 2017 and given to internal studio Creative Business Unit I. It ended up taking an extra few years to really polish it up, an understandable thought process as this title had a LOT riding on it. When FFVII Remake got sent out into the world in April 2020, I immediately fell in love. I am a huge fan of the original 1997 version and was thrilled on how they reimagined and expanded the mythos of the OG game through the end of the Midgar section, in what would be the first part of this new redux trilogy. To say I was excited for the 2nd part of this remake project, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, is an understatement. A few short years later (and a much smoother production history, only taking four years to get the next game out), FFVII Rebirth was released on February 29th. I got me a physical copy of the game (Best Buy pre-order hype! – I also own the physical version of FFVII Remake) and I dived right in. After I was done with my journey, my conclusion is that Rebirth fucking rules. The continuing travels of Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barrett and Red XIII as they traverse across various new regions on their mission to stop Sephiroth and save the world was everything I hoped it to be. The glee across my face as we came to parts I remember vividly in the original game, such as Cosmo Canyon, the Corel Region and THE GOLD SAUCER (!!!), was impossible to deny. Rebirth delivers a satisfying and dense main campaign, but what this chapter does better than Remake was the massive abundance of side missions that litter the entire open world landscape with very rewarding results in terms of story content and weapons/items/etc. Just to give a general overview of how much bigger Rebirth is, I put in around 45-50 hours with Remake, but I ended my run at over 100+ hours for Rebirth. Rebirth is everything that was amazing about Remake but amped up to 11. Great performances (Briana White and Britt Baron as Aerith and Tifa respectively absolutely KILLED it), amazing graphical enhancements, stunningly detailed landscapes, and an amazing cliffhanger of an ending (yes, THAT amazing and heartbreaking moment that everyone knows does come to fruition….albeit with some slight deviations and leaves me with more questions than answers) for the inevitable third part that will be released in the (hopefully) not too distant future. On an important side note, Sephiroth is an absolute thirst trap of a man, and I have real doubts I am up to the challenge of stopping him. I may want to join his cause after he flashes that stare at me.

Most AAA games today made by developers not named Nintendo consist of large, open-world environments that have a million side quests, an epic and occasionally heart wrenching main objective and realistic graphics and sound design that make you feel like this is a real, living, breathing world. And, honestly, it can get exhausting sometimes. Any game can take a heavy emotional toll on the player, especially with titles such as The Last of Us or Hellblade, and it doesn’t help when real life itself continues to be a thing that can appear to be working against you at every turn. Sometimes, you just want a fun GAME, one of no nonsense or higher aspirations than being just pure fun, 20 or so hours of pure bliss, something that gives off good vibes for days. Playstation and developer Team Asobi came through like gangbusters on Sept 26th with the highly anticipated release of their excellent platformer and jolly celebration of 30 years of Playstation, Astro Bot. Man oh man do I LOVE this game. A little cute robot on a mission to rebuild his spaceship and rescue all his little adorable robot friends from a crazy space alien is just fully serene. The adventure consists of six worlds, each including a variety of levels, speed run boards and a massive boss battle waiting at the end. Each of your robot pals is outfitted to represent all the amazing Playstation titles that have come since the PS1 launched back in mid-90’s. Resident Evil, Metal Gear, Ape Escape, The Team ICO games (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian) and many more are spread across this vast and beautifully realized wonderland of joy and glee. The graphics are flawless with imaginative level design, ingenious and varied gameplay mechanics and a wonderful use and understanding of colors and visual design that just screams imagination. Sound and music design is topflight, with the score delivering amazing beats and tunes while every intricate environmental sound is created with love, detail and finesse. Controls are second to none. If you die or can’t pass a level in this game, the blame is on your skills, not the programming. That’s how solid and on point the feeling of playing Astro Bot feels. The integration of the PS5’s Dualsense specific features are used to their best in Astro Bot (as has been the case with the prior Team Asobi game, the free PS5 pack in title Astro’s Playroom). Once I was done with the game, found all the missing bots and obtained all the trophies (Platinum trophy hype!), I was in heaven and all I wanted to do was jump back in and play again from scratch. Astro Bot = Good Vibes, and that was just what I needed this year, and that is why it is my GOTY for 2024. Don’t hesitate. Buy it now.

Eric Mayo

Horror Lover / Resident Evil Fanatic

While Evil Dead 2 is my first horror love, my cozy horror that I always return to is the Friday the 13th franchise, though I am known to thrown on Tremors or even Malignant at a moment’s notice for some good old absurd fun. However, first and foremost, my most loved piece of horror anything was, is and always will be the Resident Evil series. Wesker for life!