Video Game Blog 045: The 2024 Video Game Year in Review
Welcome to the fourth annual Video Game Year in Review post! This is my final post of the year, where I reflect and talk about the fun games I played over the course of the year. I will also post my annual list of games that I wanted to finish this year and see how I did. I’ll tell you now that I generally do terribly at my list, because I tend to get distracted easily. This year I went lighter on it, with only 24 games. How did I do? Read on, friends, and you’ll soon find out.
I figured I’d make this a bit of a longer post like I did last year. I played a lot of games and not all of them ended up getting their own posts. Although I did end up with many more video game posts than I planned. One of the reasons for that was the surprise series of retro game reviews I started. This was due to the Duo-R that Cocoashade gifted me for my birthday.
So far I have tried and written about eight games in three posts. Including two of the strangest shooter games I’ve seen and some distinctly anime and tokusatsu games. I have two of my next three games picked out, so you can expect at least one more entry into this series in the next year.
I started off the year strong by finishing off a few games I wanted to get off my list. The first of these was the Switch remake for Super Mario RPG, a classic game from my teen years. I did everything I could on this game, including both battles against the secret Final Fantasy-inspired boss Culex. That battle was very challenging, especially the rematch, even though I had taken the time to max my characters and stockpile items. Just like many optional RPG bosses, it took a lot of planning and strategy, but was very satisfying to finally complete. I enjoyed revisiting this game and feel like the developers did a great job remaking it. It made me want to replay the Paper Mario games, though.
The next game I tackled was Super Mario Wonder, which I did a post about last year. I did forget to get a screenshot of it, so here’s another one from Super Mario RPG.
I had so much fun with Super Mario Wonder and I do count this as my favorite Mario game of all time. I wanted to get 100% on it, but didn’t quite get there. After the game you unlock a secret level to earn the final badge, and that level is BRUTAL. It’s called the Final-Final Test Badge Marathon, where you go through several phases with various badges from the game equipped automatically. The tricky part is that you have to get through all of it in one go. If you die, you start over from the beginning. There are, however, two checkpoint flags that you can reach, but if you leave the level at any time without reaching the end flag, you have to start over from the beginning again.
I tried this level for about an hour before giving up. Sadly, this leaves me one badge, one Wonder Seed (or two?), three Flower Coins, and one flagpole away from mastering the game. I know I can win it with enough practice and time, but now is not the time. Since I loved this game so much I know I’ll want to play it all the way through again someday, so that will be the time that I buckle down and beat the Final-Final Test.
The next game I tried to complete was Yoshi’s Crafted World, which is one I wrote about last year. I completed the last few levels and even managed the Boss Challenges and the secret boss. I could not, however, manage the Boss Challenges on the final level, Kamek Kerfuffle. To do that you have to complete it within 2’50”00 without taking any damage or causing any platforms to fall. I tried, I really did. It grates at me that I couldn’t do it, but I finally had to surrender, just as I did with Super Mario Wonder. The Bowser Boss Challenge took me long enough, but it was fun to finally complete it. The Kamek challenges were getting too frustrating. I have learned in my advanced years that when a game stops being fun it’s time to put it away. I wish I had learned that lesson years ago.
The next game I worked on was The Quarry, a cool horror game with a branching story based on your choices. If you recall in the post I had played it twice, getting different ending combinations. On my first run I lost some people and saved some people. My second run I dubbed my “asshole run“ where I chose every negative option and played more recklessly. On that run four counselors survived.
Playing that second time and thinking over the choices, I thought of a plan on how to get the trophy for making sure everyone dies. Despite needing to focus on other games, I played it again and used my various strategies to kill every counselor. That playthrough and the notes I took during it spurred me to try a fourth playthrough where I finally managed to save everyone that it is possible to save. Although there are more trophies to earn, I decided to stop there. I’m sure I’ll revisit it some day, but for now I’m content with what I managed to accomplish in the game.
Next I went back to Devious Dungeon 2, grinding to level up enough and finish the game. Where the first one was fairly easy, the sequel increased the difficulty, especially by the end. Even with my advanced levels and buying all the weapons, armor, potions, and trinkets in the game, it still took me many tries to get through the last area. I had planned on playing two more times, completing the game as each class, but with how long it took me to complete one playthrough, I prudently decided to set the game aside and move on.
And finally, I went back to Super Mario Party to complete the single player mode. I was doing this to unlock the last couple of characters and earn the gems to finish the game. This was, to date, my favorite Mario Party game and I have a lot of fun playing with Cocoashade. It’s a nice way to start off our weekends now and then, playing the maximum number of levels and trying to beat the CPU characters and see how many stars we can get. The single player mode was pretty cool and I did like the addition of gems to earn to trigger the ending.
I really enjoyed Super Mario Party. It was a great entry into the franchise. I didn’t stop there, though. I’m taking Cocoa through all of the games in the series. We still need to play 1-3, 5-7, and 10. Over the years we’ve done all the boards on 4, 8, All Stars, and now Part 9.
We completed Mario Party 9 this year and it was, by far, our least favorite. In that one you all hang out in a vehicle and collect mini stars as you follow a mostly-linear path. The shake up to the formula was fine. The part we disliked about it was the fact that very little skill was needed in the gameplay and minigames. This installment was way too luck-focused, and so that took a lot of fun out of it for us. The single player mode was frustrating and time-intensive, but I managed to get through it eventually to unlock the last two characters and the final board. Thankfully, that also earn me enough points to buy the bonus board. After playing every board once, we put the game away in my “finished games” cupboard and don’t plan to pick it up again.
I have a feeling 10 may be like that too. Sadly, we haven’t had a chance to find out, though. Once we finished the last two boards on Mario Party 9 (the one positive I could list is that the games were super short) we were all set to try 10 out. But I learned that the third party Wiimote I bought to use for my second player is only compatible with Wii games. The Wii U doesn’t see it as a valid controller. So I’m borrowing a genuine Nintendo Wiimote from one of my brothers and we plan to race through Part 10, good or bad, so we can get to the better installments.
Speaking of, I was gifted Super Mario Party Jamboree for Christmas, and the night before I wrote this, Cocoa and I played the first board. So far I’m loving it. The only confusion is that four characters I like to play as are present. I started off the series playing as Donkey Kong. When he was no longer available, I played as others like Boo, Koopa, and Goomba. The first game of Jamboree we played, I chose Boo for old times sake but the game randomly chose DK and Goomba to play against us as CPU players. At the start of the game I kept forgetting which character I was in minigames.
Minor disorientation aside, we’re going to have many evening’s fun playing through that game. There are way more boards than in Super Mario Party, fun new mechanics, and several throwback minigames from previous installments that I have already practiced a ton. They really did a good job with this one, and it’s been a blast already, even though we just started playing it.
As you may know from my previous posts, I have played a lot of Pokémon over the last few years. I’m almost fully caught up on the franchise so far. This year I did play less Pokémon, and did not start a new game. (Although I do have Legends Arceus and New Pokémon Snap to get through. Next year? Next year.) Oh, and also a couple of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and Pokken Tournament. I decided with the other games on my list and my packed schedule, I wouldn’t have time to get through a full game. So instead I wrapped up my play of Pokémon Scarlet and the DLC.
As I wrote about in the final installment of my Pokémon Binge post, I went through and finished the Pokédex on the two DLC packs, as well as played through the Epilogue. A friend helped me get the Raid Paradox Pokémon, which was nice. So although I didn’t play as much Pokémon this year, I did still basically complete Scarlet and Violet.
Now I need to get back to collecting all the Gigantamax Pokémon in Sword and Shield. That’s gonna take so many Max Mushrooms. I’m dreading it.
Since we’re on the subject of Pokémon, I did start playing Pokémon Quest this year. This is a cute little game that I check in on every day. I did play it quite a bit, but mostly I just have time to check on my daily Pokémon visitor and grab my tickets. It’s a cute little game and all the Pokémon are cube-shaped.
After wrapping up these games, I was in the mood for more RPGs. I decided to start my replay of Final Fantasy IX. I’ve been replaying all the Final Fantasy games and working my way to the games I haven’t played yet. I never finished Part 12 or played any of the single-player games after that, although I own them.
I am playing the Switch version of Final Fantasy IX this time through. I’m really having fun playing this game again. It’s got a lot of charm and cool mechanics. I doubt I’ll do absolutely everything like I did for FF8, but I do want to complete the story.
I started off going through this game pretty fast, especially since this year the schedule for my day job shifted against my wishes so now we close four hours early. This did have the side effect of allowing me a few hours every night to play games. When I’m not working on my blog, of course. Getting shifted 4 1/2 hours earlier in the evening means I lost 4 1/2 productive morning hours. But when I get enough done, I managed to squeeze in an hour or two of gaming before bed, so that’s been nice. When this schedule shift hit, my first thought was that this would be the perfect time to play through an RPG or two.
Sadly, I didn’t complete FF9 this year. I managed to get distracted by other games, but I have put in maybe about ten hours so far, so it shouldn’t take me too long to finish.
Speaking of RPGs, long-time readers will recognize this game from the past several game lists. I have been trying to get around to finishing Dragon Quest V literally for decades. Although I love this game and I have fun with it, for various reasons I have never completed it. Usually because of my short-attention span and all the distracting glittery things that exist in our world.
I was really determined that 2024 would be the year that I finally complete it. In 2023 I got through a lot of preliminary grinding and finished the time-consuming and repetitive gambling portion. To my credit, I did make it through several chapters this year, taking my hero from childhood to teenage slave, to newlywed, to statue and then to fatherhood. Now I’m racing to the end and for a time it looked like I was really going to win the game. But then distraction hit, as it inevitably does. I haven’t loaded the game up in months and as the year quickly came to a close, I had to admit defeat once more.
So now let’s talk about distractions, the games that were not on my list. One game I played a bit was Little Kitty, Big City. I didn’t finish it, but I wrote a post reviewing it. I plan to finish this game up next year. It’s a cute game, but the mechanics are a little wonky.
There were several other games I played for varying amounts of time. I did a few levels in Peggle Nights, another game that’s hung around on my list for too long. I started playing the first Kirby game on the Switch NES emulator. I had fun with that one, but haven’t gotten all the way through it.
I played a lot of games on my 3DS, but can’t get decent screenshots for that. I mainly played Picross games, but I also played some Theatrhythm, some Mario Kart 7 and a bit of Super Smash Bros for 3DS. I was thinking about restarting my island on Animal Crossing New Leaf, which I lost when my last SD card died, but I was having trouble with the A button, a problem that now prevents me from trying more Smash. I hope to fix the button myself, but I do have a repair shop in town to turn to if I fail. We’ll see how that goes.
I didn’t think to get screenshots of some of the other games, so here’s another shot of Kirby that I liked.
Thanks to a YouTuber that I watch now and then, I got hooked on Spyro games again and ended up playing straight through Part 2 and Part 3 on the Reignited Trilogy. I also tracked down a couple of the later games and started playing Part 4 a bit. I worked on my Criminal Case games and casually played some Mario Kart 7 and 8, but not to the amount that I played Smash. (More on that soon.)
And as long as we’re talking about unexpected games that took time off my game list, I should mention the cool indie developer I discovered which added to my collection of puzzle games. This year I bought up every game released on Switch from Score Studios and spent a lot of time playing through puzzles. I positively flew through Piczle Cross Adventure.
I was so taken with these games that I ended up writing two glowing posts reviewing / gushing about them. In the first post I covered three of the games, and followed that up with a second post talking about the other four I bought.
Between the two posts I pretty much covered everything I need to with these games, so it will be awhile before I do another post. The next game in the Piczle series is coming out soon, and it’s based off the Rune Factory franchise. It looks like it’ll be great. Anyway, I got 100% on Piczle Cross Adventure and Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons, so here’s the part where I brag.
These are great games and I highly recommend them for puzzle fans. The nonograms are solid, the gameplay and options finely-tuned, and the games themselves have a lot of charm. I ended up playing all 7 games quite a bit. I’ve found Piczle Lines to be a great game to put on while listening to podcasts since I have become completely incapable of ever doing one thing at a time. Plus there are enough puzzles in it that I will be working on it for years to come.
Those weren’t the only puzzle games I played this year. I played through a few of the Jupiter Picross games, including the one above, a licensed cross-over with Kemona Friends, a very odd anime that I started watching but never finished. (My follow through problems extend to TV shows, as you could probably guess.) I have a ton of the Picross e games loaded on my 3DS and also bought the huge Picross S+ which rereleases them all as one game on the Switch. I’m trying to get through all of them on my 3DS before turning to the big compilation. But I also have the whole Picross S series (9 games so far) and have only finished one of those since I keep playing the licensed crossover games. I have also been replaying Pokémon Picross and am nearly done with that. Last time I played it I got through story mode but didn’t get all the achievements or do any of the Alt World stuff. This time I’m aiming to 100% it. I typically play a level of Picross e and then a couple levels of Pokémon Picross every workday.
Although much of my year was taken up with puzzles, not all of it was. A lot of time was spent this year on Just Dance, my favorite exercise addiction. (At least until I get into Fitness Boxing 3.) I managed to get through three whole installments and wrote posts for all of them: Just Dance 2023, Just Dance 2024, and Just Dance 2025. It was quite the journey, with high highs and low lows.
I’m also writing a massive lore post for the franchise, and so have been replaying the routines on each of the previous installments to take notes and new screenshots. I am almost through all of them at the time of this writing, but I doubt I’ll have time to get the lore post out in 2025. I did manage to get through five or six of these previous games over the course of the year, as a part of my near-daily exercise routine.
One other Just Dance note, I mentioned in the most recent post that there was a massive 15-song playlist up for the 15th anniversary of Just Dance. I was busy finishing my post, so I planned on waiting for the following weekend to go through that, hoping to post the screenshot of my completion and score of it for this post. Sadly, the list was only up for about a week, so I didn’t get the chance to play it before it was pulled. That was pretty disappointing. Disappointing is a good word for Just Dance 2025 altogether, so I may not get JD2026 in time to do a post next year.
Speaking of binging games… I played a Silent Hill game for my annual Halloween post, as I do every year. But I didn’t stop there. I actually played two— Silent Hill: A Short Message, and Silent Hill 2 Remake. A Short Message only took me a couple of days, but work got in the way, so I didn’t get through it in one sitting like I had hoped. It is one of those games you could finish all in one sitting if you have the time to devote to it.
Although I had way too many posts scheduled for the Halloween season, I did manage to play through Silent Hill 2 twice, getting two different endings and several trophies. I had so much fun with this game that it was a real struggle to resist doing a third playthrough immediately. I managed to hold off, but I will return to this game several times in the coming years. (Hopefully not when I have a full docket of posts to finish on a strict deadline.)
Another series I binged this year was Super Smash Bros. I also wrote a post about the first three games. (Although I will revisit Brawl in my next Smash post, since I’d only just started playing it when I wrote the first post.) So last year was all about Mario Kart… I knew this year would be the year I played a lot of Smash. I really followed through on this goal, finishing up Melee in the course of a couple of weeks, playing all the way through Brawl, and starting on the Wii U and 3DS installments.
I am not good at the Smash games but I have a lot of fun with them. I consider the games “done” when I have unlocked all the characters (a feat I failed at in Part 1), have completed as many Events as I can, and have played through Classic and All-Stars with every character. This is going to take me a great deal of time for Wii U, but more on that when I write the post.
Buntown Corner: And no Video Game Year in Review would be complete without a visit to Buntown! Yes, I’m still playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons every single day. I will keep playing it as long as Cocoashade does. This was a big year for me in Buntown. For one thing I completed everything in the Happy Home Paradise DLC… I know I said last time that I finished it, but I had only gotten far enough for the DJ KK rave and ending credits. I still needed to reach top level and expand all the facilities.
But the big thing is that I finally finished my Nook Miles stamp cards!
This was a huge undertaking, but the parts I had the most trouble with was visiting other people’s islands and inviting them to visit me. My family and friends long ago moved on to other games and I missed my window. A friend agreed to help me knock those milestones out one evening, so that helped greatly. (The same friend who helped me with the raid Pokémon.)
After that, it was just clean up. I visited the Kappa island every day to harvest materials and make furniture and tools out of them. (Breaking my flimsy tools in the process, since that was another milestone.) I caught a ton of bugs and polished off my final diving milestone. I helped the villagers every time they asked. And the most time-consuming one— I caught 5000 fish. All in all, it took me four years and four months to finish all the Nook Miles.
I wanted to again include a montage of scenes from my year of Animal Crossing in this post. But this time I actually have four montages! The first are some of the houses I designed as I finished off Happy Home Paradise.
The DLC was a lot of fun. I mainly made houses for our permanent villagers and any rabbits or penguins I found on the beach. I designed 40 houses, unlocked everything I could get, and expanded all my facilities, so I consider this portion done. (Unless, that is, I somehow missed building a house for any bunnies or penguins.)
The second montage are some villager moments.
We have our permanent villagers that will never be evicted or allowed to leave (we’re holding them prisoner, basically) and we have one rotating villager to make new friends and get through the Amiibo cards my brother gave us a couple of years ago. Currently we have Cephalobot, but he’s about due to be swapped out.
And now for some random moments I captured.
The final montage is our Halloween fun. Cocoashade did a surprise photo shoot inspired by Silent Hill where she dressed as one of the spooky nurses. I had a couple of surprises for her too.
Hooray for Animal Cross: New Horizons, the game that just keeps on giving! I still play every day, but mostly it’s just to get my beach recipe, see what the villagers are crafting, and give Cocoa gifts. I know I still have some missing recipes that I need to root out. But everything else is pretty much done. Despite that, I’m not ready to say goodbye to Buntown.
Having my friend help me on my Nook Miles tasks spurred him into getting back into the game. Watching me play every day hooked Cocoa all over again. One of my favorite things in life is inspiring others to enjoy the things I love. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I enjoy things that much more when I can share them with those I care about.
We’ve come to the part of the post where we look at my annual Game List. The crossed-off titles are the ones I actually managed to complete.
Game List 2024
Yoshi’s Crafted World (Switch)
Super Mario Bros Wonder (Switch)
Super Mario RPG (Switch)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii U)
Final Fantasy IX (Switch)
Dragon Quest V (iOS)
Super Smash Bros Melee (GameCube)
Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)
Mario Kart Double Dash! (GameCube)
Pokemon Picross (3DS)
Picross e2 (3DS)
Picross S1 (Switch)
South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense (XBox 360)
Sonic and Knuckles (XBox 360)
Final Fantasy Theatrhym: Curtain Call (3DS)
Spider-Man 2 (PS5)
Shadows Over Loathing (Switch)
Devious Dungeon 2 (Switch)
Criminal Case: Travel In Time (iOS)
Criminal Case: Supernatural Investigations (iOS)
Peggle Nights (PC)
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (3DS)
Just Dance 2023
Just Dance 2024
I completed 12 out of 24 games. A straight 50%. I purposely made a shorter list because I know I get distracted. But I still ended up doing about the same as last year. Speaking of distractions, I also finished: Super Mario Party, Mario Party 9, Just Dance 2025, Piczle Cross Adventure, Picross e3, Kemona Friends Picross, Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Silent Hill: A Short Message, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, and Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon (both from the Reignited Trilogy). And I basically can cross Animal Crossing: New Horizons off since I was aiming to finish the DLC and the Nook Miles milestones. So that’s another 12 games there.
Where did I go wrong? About like usual, I would say… getting distracted and playing games that weren’t on my list. I also didn’t count on the Duo-R and dipping into a whole new area of retro gaming. I did a lot of zoning out with puzzles and Smash. Things got too busy for me to focus on the longer, more involved games like the RPGs or Super Mario Galaxy 2. (I played that one a bit, though, along with making progress on the South Park game.) I needed games I could play casually to unwind that wouldn’t be too involved, so I leaned more into puzzles and grinding on Smash games. But still, 24 games in one year is really good, considering how busy I was. And I had fun, which is the most important part.
So, even though I again failed at my list, I still completed 24 games. This isn’t counting two playthroughs of the Quarry, which was on last year’s list, and two playthroughs of Silent Hill 2. I got heavily distracted by Super Smash Bros and puzzle games. But I also started playing my Duo-R games and I did manage to cross a few things off my list so I can be more focused next year. It occurs to me that usually on these lists, if I count the games I manage to cross off as well as the extra unlisted games, I pretty much do same number of games on the list. Oops. Well, I guess that just goes to show the list is doable with a little more planning and focus.
I think I have my 2025 Game List finalized, but can still tweak it over the next couple of days. So far there are 28 games on it. It sounds like I’m setting myself up for failure here with a longer list, but some of them are in varying stages of completion already. Even though it’s a massive list, I left myself some room to add games spontaneously according to my whims as I do every year. (Just fewer of them, fingers crossed.)
My 2025 list is mainly focused on crossing off the games that have lingered for the last few lists, plus a bunch of Picross games and the upcoming Piczle game. The ones that will take the most time are the two RPGs (FF9 and DQ5) and the two Pokémon games (Legends Arceus and New Pokémon Snap). Shadows Over Loathing probably will take up some time too, seeing as how I played the first game three times in a row. (It was a surprisingly big game, so this one likely will be too.) Everything that is uncrossed on the list above is on there, excluding Spider-Man 2, since I know I won’t have time for that yet. The big thing is that I swear I will finally, finally finish Dragon Quest V. It’s a priority.
I am determined this year to finish the entire list and try to not add in a bunch of extra games. We’ll meet back here this time next year to see how I did.
Gaming has always been a passion for me, a way to unwind and have fun, destress after a rough day, or just to reward myself for a hard day’s work. My Game List is a way to help keep me focused and give me a sense of accomplishment and progression through my ever-growing game library. Getting to share my experiences and thoughts about those games adds another level of joy to the experience, and I’m grateful for that.
Thank you so much for joining me for another Video Game Year In Review! These are fun posts and I’m going to keep doing them. It’s a nice way to look back and finish off my year of blogging on a high note. I hope you all have been enjoying these posts too.
I appreciate all of you and wants to thank you again for sharing 2024 with me. Here’s to a good 2025, the expansion of the SoraRabbit Hole to video, and of course, more gaming. Have fun everyone, and never forget to celebrate the things that make you happy.