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Hello-hello! It's time for the Lair's GOTY awards!

It just occurred to me that I didn't finish that many games in 2024. There was so much turbulence in my life that the whole year seems kind of like a blur. But that's okay! There are years when I get to play a lot of games, and years when I need to focus on something else.

However! I still played some, and I am here to tell you all about the games I enjoyed the most this year.

Before we start, let's go through some disclaimers:

• All games I mention in this video were fully completed. I try my best to never give my opinion on a game that I haven't finished because there are games that start off great and end up being a mess.
• It's a list of games that I played this year. They weren't necessarily released in 2024.
• I don't think I'll spoil anything major about any game but just to be safe check the table of contents, and if you don't want to know anything about one game or another because you intend to play it yourself, just skip the section.

Let's go!

Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon

Cereza and the Lost Demon came completely out of the blue: there was a hidden demo in Bayonetta 3 that I missed, so the news about a new game in the Bayonetta series surprised me. While watching the trailer I had a hard time understanding what the place of this game would be in the franchise. We all know Bayonetta games with their spectacular, sometimes ridiculously thick action, its over-the-top protagonist, and that's why the spin-off with much milder overall tone seemed a little out of place.

I am here to tell you that Cereza is a fantastic game that I would recommend to both those who have already played Bayonetta games, and to those who have yet to play them.

I kind of regret not writing a separate essay on Cereza even though I wanted to. The most remarkable thing about this game is that it is a uniformly good experience. It is not overly exciting — and then partly boring, it is just consistently good on every level. I often chose to play Cereza instead of some other game because I knew that my playing session would be great. And it was, every single time. It is visually perfect, the controls are great; it carries a reassuring message for kids and adults alike while telling a heartwarming story about a budding witch and a newborn demon possessing her cat plushy.

I love all Bayonetta games, but Cereza and the Lost Demon has a special place in my heart. I highly recommend picking it up whether or not you have played any other game of the series. Even if you're not going to play the main Bayonetta entries — you're in for a treat.

Dredge

Dredge is an adventure game where you play as a new fisherman for the town of Little Marrow, and you need to catch and sell fish to pay for your boat that the mayor loaned you. At the same time, you get entangled in an eldritch mystery and need to explore the whole archipelago to solve it.

I found Dredge to be very relaxing. The game, in my opinion, lacks challenge as there is no penalty for not fishing, and all the boat upgrades are fairly cheap. However, the foreboding atmosphere supported by incredible art is what I played it for. The sense of imminent discovery that might or might not be the ancient gods, or otherworldly corruption, was present throughout. Dredge mechanics are fairly simple but solid and work very well together. It is also incredibly smart about its scale, as it expands dramatically the more advanced boat you build but comes to an end before it shrinks to a dot.

Dredge inspires curiosity and gives you that exploration itch that leads you to sail to every rock barely sticking above water in case there is some eldritch treasure. I played it on PC, but I imagine it to also be a great Switch game.

Crypt Custodian

I still rely on Steam Festivals to bring me demos of amazing games that I will play when they release, and Crypt Custodian was one such game. I absolutely loved the demo, picked it up on release and had a great time.

The game tells a story of Pluto, a cat who passed away and instead of going to the Palace to enjoy his afterlife, was condemned to sweep the wilderness of the purgatory forever, cleaning up trash. Crypt Custodian is a great pocket-sized metroidvania that touches on the themes of death, grief, and passing of pets. Because of that, it was kind of hard for me to play, but as a game developed by a single person — it is simply superb. The controls are tight, boss battles are fun, and the many trinkets allow you to try out a few different builds and superpowers to see what fits your playstyle. During the course of the game, you meet other charming ghosts who were also denied passage to the Palace and got stuck; together you hatch a plan to infiltrate the Palace anyway and seize its most incredible treasure. As to what that treasure is, I won't tell you. You'll have to go and see for yourself.

Cat Quest III

Whenever I play a Cat Quest game, I am worried I won't be able to spell English words afterwards. I've been playing Cat Quest games since 2017, and this franchise has proven to be nothing but reliable. Every time I know for a fact that if I start playing Cat Quest, I am going to have a consistently good time. Getting used to all the puns took time, but by the time I reached Cat Quest III I could even add some myself.

Cat Quest III is great. I like how the developers added much more variety to dungeons. I was worried that the ship battles would be annoying, but they are not. I could still get my ass handed to me if I got too careless, but because I did all the side quests and challenges that were of interest to me, I just annihilated the final boss in about three seconds, which is also a kind of signature Cat Quest progression path. Cat Quest III is beautiful, challenging, funny, and, in my opinion, a step up compared to Cat Quest II, just as Cat Quest II was a step up compared to Cat Quest. Most importantly, as a true Cat Quest game, it doesn't outstay its welcome. You jump in, have a good time for a few hours, and watch the credits roll.

If you haven't played a Cat Quest game, I highly recommend them. Start with the first two — they cost peanuts on Steam — because there might or might not be some meta narrative involved...

Hades II Early Access

Hades II was released in Early Access this year, and oh boy I played a lot. If you've been following me for a while, you know that I don't play roguelikes — unless it's Hades. I literally just say it like that, "I don't play roguelikes, unless it's Hades". Hades was my game of the year in 2020, and when Supergiant announced they were making a sequel — and they had never done that before — I was over the moon.

Melinoe is a fantastic protagonist that is so different from Zagreus, but every bit just as cool. For a player like me, who was heavily invested into the story and characters in Hades, rather than getting a great build, Hades II is as perfect a sequel as there could be. A new cast of characters, new boons, new areas, new art — and REnewED art for the recurring folks — I love it all. Meeting characters that were only mentioned or implied in the original Hades — like Eris — is what I am here for. I love Melinoe's witchy playstyle and cool new weapons with aspects that influence your run in a major way. I love having ridiculous wacky builds like The Great Poseidon's Beach Ball build that almost defeated that new boss from the last big content patch. I love gifting nectar to everyone. I also love that Hades II has no Elysium because Elysium sucked.

If you loved the original Hades, there is no question whether or not you should try the sequel. But then again, I am probably an unreliable advisor in this matter since the main reason I love playing Hades is story and characters.

I can't wait to play the 1.0.

NAIAD

I don't really remember how I discovered Naiad, but I am glad I did! Developed by a solo dev, Naiad is a beautiful minimalist adventure where you play as a little newborn Naiad, a water nymph. You go downstream through 16 different areas until you reach the sea.

You can swim through Naiad in a blink, but it's not what it was made for. It is absolutely choke full of secrets, puzzles and little interactions. You can reunite ducklings with their mama duck, sing to birds and guide them to their nests, have a bunch of frogs follow you and then arrange themselves on lily pads, revealing a secret passage. You can sing along with a human boy playing guitar and help people grow tomatoes. There is also a mysterious voice from a dark, dark cave beckoning you...

I highly recommend Naiad. It is crafted with a lot of love and attention to detail; it's a great game to unwind and chill, swim with the fish and observe nature. But it is also a great game to explore and discover.

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition

My friend recommended Xenoblade Chronicles to me YEARS ago. And I was like yeah, one day. And then he sent it to me. I remember getting a message from a post service being like, "Hey, we have a package for you!" And I was like, "Hey, but I am not expecting any packages..." It turned out to be Xenoblade Chronicles. A couple more years passed by, and I finally got to play it.

Now, I am definitely not a JRPG person in a sense that I haven't really played JRPGs. I am interested, but all of them are a hundred hours long, and it's intimidating. The whole auto-fighting mechanic in Xenoblade broke my brain. So, I don't need to press buttons to attack, I only need to press buttons to attack with abilities? Weird...

I couldn't get a hang of it for a while, and at some point, I switched to the lowest difficulty, and honestly, it was the best decision. I was very interested in Xenoblade's main story and much less interested in fighting and side quests. Don't get me wrong, some side quests were fun, but most of them were fetch quests or gathering quests, and I skipped a lot of those.

Xenoblade Chronicles is a grand open-world adventure in a curious setting: the game takes place on the bodies of two sleeping titans, Bionis and Mechonis, with two corresponding nations, Homs and Mechons, being at war. You play as Shulk, a young man who accidentally found out that he can wield the legendary Monado — the sword said to belong to the titan Bionis. It is a story of friendship, love, perseverance and humanity. I am so happy that I played it, even though the combat system was a touch weird to me, and I am looking forward to playing other Xenoblade Chronicles.

Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon

Literally the unlikeliest game to appear on this list — Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon. Mecha media inspires zero emotions in me; I'd never played an Armored Core game before, but I still chose to play AC6. Why? Masaru Yamamura, that's why. He was heavily involved with Sekiro — and we all know how I feel about Sekiro — and he directed Armored Core 6.

Honestly, I never expected to care so much about metal suits of armor. I even made peace with the fact that I had to play through the darn thing 3 times to get all the endings, characters and lore, and I do not like replaying games. But here I did 3 playthroughs back to back to back like there was no tomorrow. It was insane.

Armored Core 6 is great fun. Also, heartbreaking, but still — great fun. Build your ridiculous mech, skate around, fire from all guns, but complete the objective. It's just a job, 621. Or is it?

Harold Halibut

Harold Halibut is, undoubtedly, one of the brightest highlights of my gaming year. I don't really know why I picked it up in the first place: I successfully missed every single demo opportunity; but there was just something that called to me. This game tells a story of people aboard FEDORA I — an ark ship that crashed on an oceanic planet. Some Fedorans have come to terms with the fact that they will never see the stars again; others still have hope of FEDORA I continuing its interstellar voyage.

While Harold Halibut is mostly just walking around and talking to people with an occasional simple puzzle thrown in, I found it to be an amazing, one of a kind experience. Last year, I felt the same about Pentiment. Which, in fairness, was also just walking around and talking to people.

Harold Halibut explores what it means to be a human. Harold was born and raised on Fedora, but never felt like he truly belonged there. The game portrays this feeling of wanting desperately to belong somewhere but not even being sure where this place is really well. It explores the meaning of "home", genuine human connection and the struggle to continue living, hoping and laughing in less than ideal circumstances. Not to mention that Harold Halibut is beautifully handcrafted and sculpted, so it's just a joy to look at.

I treated Harold Halibut a little bit like a movie, just playing for an hour or so every evening before going to sleep. It is slow, but for a reason. I have a separate video of Harold Halibut if you'd like to learn more about the game in a spoiler-free way.

Nine Sols

Oh, Nine Sols! Sekiro, but murderous cats. Initially I was really skeptical about it: an action-platformer built around Sekiro-inspired combat that is focused on deflects. It just sounded too good to be true. I've tried so many games that claimed to be Sekiro-inspired, and did not really like any of them, except for Lies of P.

Nine Sols, however, blew my mind. Yes, the combat system required some learning and getting used to, exactly like it does in Sekiro. But once you get the hang of it — it's a brutal, rhythmic spectacle that makes your blood boil. Hesitation is defeat; as soon as you start panic dashing around or mashing buttons, you're done. By the end of the game, I decided to stop attacking bosses and just deflect their attacks, building their Internal Damage, and then stick a talisman on them and turn it into real damage. I went for the true ending, and I must say, the final boss took me DAYS, and I swear, every attempt was genuine fun. I love bossfights where you need to learn the patterns and respond to them accordingly; that is why I love Hollow Knight and Sekiro so much. Prevailing not because it was a lucky day, but because I learned and didn't panic, was pure joy.

Nine Sols is beautiful, stylish, has a bunch of great characters and lore that you can sink your teeth into if you care. You don't need to have any pre-existing mythological or philosophical knowledge, the game is pretty self-contained, but it helps if you do have some. Yi, the protagonist of Nine Sols, is more of an antihero, and I genuinely missed playing such a character.

For the longest time, Nine Sols was my game of the year pick. I cannot recommend this game enough. I have a video on it, so feel free to check it out to learn more.

Metaphor: ReFantazio

Remember how I said that I am not a JRPG person? Well, that changed in 2024 because my Game of the Year is Metaphor: ReFantazio.

It took me 5 years or so to muster the courage to play Xenoblade Chronicles, but I jumped into Metaphor immediately when it released. I'd never heard about it before; I never played Persona, or Shin Megami Tensei, and even though I knew about Atlus, I had zero experience with their games. On a podcast that I listen to, Metaphor was pitched as this weird game about a fantasy kingdom that started a democratic election for the next king after the murder of the previous one, and you're in the race; but not for yourself, but for the presumed-dead Prince who is sleeping eternally under a death curse. Your job is to figure out how to lift the curse, and in the meantime win the crown to then present it to your best childhood buddy the Prince, who is also the rightful heir to the throne. Oh, and there is also modern-day Japan somewhere in there; the opening of the game is literally about Tokyo.

It sounded so weird and bizarre that I went to see the trailer. Didn't understand a thing except that the Japanese voice cast was legendary. But it piqued my interest enough for me to just leave whatever I was doing and playing and jump right in.

Metaphor is everything I ever wanted in a videogame. Everything. What surprised me the most is that everything you do in this game is pure content. There are no boring or annoying parts that you need to get through to get to the juicy bit. The entire game is the juicy bit. The things that kind of annoy me the most in JRPGs, which are filler fights and traversal time, are fully taken care of. It is so comfortable to play that you can just immerse yourself in the story and enjoy your time.

I adore every single companion in Metaphor; I think that their stories and their personal growth are not something we often see in videogame character writing. They do change significantly throughout the adventure, and it's not just words. Metaphor has a powerful message on anxiety, which I could relate to very much, and, funnily enough, it's a status ailment in the game. I also found the main antagonist, Rui, to be one of the best I've seen in recent years because you spend quite a lot of time with him or observing him, so he is not just a cardboard villain because the game needs one. You can actually talk to him and find out his motivation and his view of the world.

Art slaps. Music slaps. The battle theme of Metaphor is the literal chief priest of the Myojouji Temple chanting in Esperanto before the choir hits; I don't think you can be cooler than that.

You know, I get tired of playing games. Even the games that I love. But I never got tired of playing Metaphor. Not once. I always ended my gaming session because I needed to get something done, or it was late. I just could not stop playing it, because it felt like Metaphor was made specifically for me. The only other time I felt like this was in 2002, when I played Neverwinter Nights for the first time and fell in love with RPGs forever. I enjoyed everything about Metaphor: from epic battles to quieter moments of contemplation, from travelling the kingdom and making new friends to facing dangers and feeling like it was over, and the evil will prevail.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is the best game I played in 2024. I urge you to try it, even if you think you're not a JRPG type. I wasn't. Metaphor has a free demo that is like 8 hours long; that's enough to make up your mind. I love it, and I still think about it almost every day.

Conclusion

This year I might have tried a whole bunch of games, but I didn't finish that many of them, and in my case it's a good thing. I've been working on not finishing games that I don't really like in the last few years, and I think I am getting better at it. 2024 was still full of truly amazing games that I highly, highly recommend, and they are all on this list.

I am very interested in your game of the year. I don't care if it was actually released this year; just something you played in 2024 and genuinely enjoyed. I'll be writing down all your recommendations. Also, if you're familiar with other Atlus games, with Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, what would you recommend? I'd like to play more Atlus games, but I am a little lost and could use your help.

There is a sister video up on my Patreon page about games that I abandoned, didn't enjoy or regret playing. As usual, stay tuned here and on the Lair's YouTube channel not to miss out on anything.

Thank you very much for your time. And Happy New Year! Take care.