2024 was a pretty fantastic looking year for games, much like 2023, some amazing rpgs and a killer new 3D platformer, new silent hill games and some of the best otome games ever made being thrown in there, development hell games like granblue relink and refantazio finally releasing, wasn't all good, of course the rise of misogyny in the industry, mass layoffs, that shitty fucking monkey game, but i'm not really here to talk about all that, i barely played any new games this year, i'm just here to give shoutouts to all the best games i played this year and to serve as a total reccomendation list for everything i covered more or less plus a highlight reel of every otome game i played this year, starting with the best game i played this year!

game of the year: BUJINGAI: SWORDMASTER.

one of the first games i played this year and also the best, i had just gotten my first real GAMER CHAIR when i started this and it was the first game i played on it so i associate it a lot with that (the chair is bright pink with bunny ears, it's so cool) but the game is just, like it's made for me, almost. it's a DMC inspired hack and slash game with amazing music and GACKT in it, gackt was cool and hot once and here he is very cool and very hot, it has dumb cutscenes and bad voice acting and one of the best OST's of the year, plus the flashiest combat on ps2, one of my favourite games, especially action games, up there with the likes of DMC4SE and sengoku basara 4 sumeragi. it's got flashy parries and amazingly animated wuxia combat, Kowloon inspired levels (plus an amzing snow level and a cool bamboo forrest) and one of the best bosses of the year, a must play and one of the best games i've ever covered.

best replay of the year: DEVIL MAY CRY 4.

the best DMC game, one of the best games on PS3 and the *other* best hack and slash ever made. it gave us nero and lady, the best playing characters in the series, Nero's arm is the best weapon in gaming history and one of the only times i have ever found parrying fun, his gun is amazing and red queen is the coolest sword in the industry, even dante is at maybe his best here with pandora, lucifer and the on the fly style switching they added, lady plays like the ps3 gungrave game we never got, trish has some of the most fun hand to hand combat since godhand and even vergil is a great time, though less so than his 3 incarnation I think. the music is great, the story is my favourite in the series with some of the most fun bosses, nero and kirie have one of the cutest relationships in mainstream games and it has some of the coolest locale's in the series, plus add in things like the best version of bloody palace and the introduction of legendary dark knight mode to turn the game into a musou? the only reason this isn't my GOTY is because this is like my 10th playthrough.

most PS2 game of the year: SEVEN SAMURAI 20XX.

a late year contender that I had briefly considered giving the GOTY to over bujingai, this is a ps2 remake of a movie from the 1950's, giving it a cyberpunk makeover and some of the most fun hack and slash combat on the ps2, it has some of the coolest looking duel wielding in games that's only matched by bujingai, a great OST, some of the wildest names attached to a ps2 game (Ryuichi Sakamoto and mobius), very dumb cutscenes that rival the ps2's best, amazing designs which channel dirge of Cerberus of all things, some of the best towns in the medium and a story good enough to make me cry. the cast of characters is great with many being bosses, which are some of the best in any game I've ever played and some of which are some of the coolest optional bosses on the system. the kind of game that could only have ever happened at this very specific point in time which makes it just fascinating to me, and it's a fantastic hack and slash to boot.

best indie game of the year: SECRET LITTLE HAVEN.

while the aspects of the game that deal with its very specific queer topics were completely lost to me, i found the story about queer discovery via the early fandom and internet to be super heartfelt and emotional and i loved what it had to say about the net being a haven especially for people who may not feel so safe IRL, it felt downright inspiring in some ways for me to try and carve out a haven for myself, throw in some great aesthetics and a nice OST and it makes it one of the games this year that stuck with me the most.

murder on eridanos is the better dlc overall, it takes the noir details that were kind of background set dressing for peril and makes it the focus, it's a murder investigation! you're sent to the resort on eridanos to investigate the star of many of the aetherwave serials you saw mentioned in the basegame and you do this by wandering around with a new investigation gun to help you find clues in the environment and talk to people, it's excellent and by far the best part of the game, it's so good that i desperately want to see a full game like this from obsidian, this is fantastic. it really gave my character, a former beurocrat who specialised in speech and tech skills, a chance to shine with tons of dialogue options that helped open up tons of clues and areas, it felt like it was made for my specced character and i loved it, there was so much for her here, there is some combat for sure in the vineyard and in the games final mission, but most of the content here is just exploring and talking with combat barely being a factor, with the right pathing you could even avoid it wholesale up until the end for the most part, which is neat.