With 2025 approaching, let’s take a look at Gamezebo’s Favourite Games of 2024. Each member of the team has picked their top choice, and as you can tell, we like a wide variety of genres!
Curious about our picks for last year? Have a read of our 2023 Games of the Year feature! It was tough for Adele not to pick Baldur’s Gate 3 again…
The Editorial team’s top picks…
Yes, yes, I know this game gets some flack, but in my opinion, it’s unjustified. For everyone who calls it a Nier Automata copy… you’re not wrong but you’re also not right. Stellar Blade does its own thing. Hell, even Nier’s creator, Yoko Taro, worked with Shift Up to add a Nier Automata DLC to the game. Did I buy it? Of course I did.
As a longtime fan of Nier, I had no issue with Stellar Blade replicating parts of it, but I assure you it isn’t a direct copy and paste. To me, they’re both entirely different games.
In Stellar Blade, you play as EVE, a Colony soldier who’s been sent to Earth to save humanity. Battle against the Naytiba, from mobs you come across whilst exploring, to adrenaline-pumping boss fights that spike in difficulty.
Unravel the story, which I can admit isn’t the best, and learn more about your companions, Adam and Lily. It’s not all about the action though, as you can unlock new outfits by collecting blueprints and materials. It takes fighting stylishly to a whole new level, and I love it. This may seem like a faff to some people, but for players like me, it’s one of the main appeals.
As someone who adores customisation in video games, it’s a no-brainer for me. I like switching between outfits and hairstyles depending on what tickles my fancy. And let’s not forget that the game is visually stunning. Each location, especially the abandoned city areas, is a treat to the eyes. Glistening with neon lights, rainfall, and decrepit buildings, everything suits the post-apocalyptic atmosphere perfectly.
The first Otome I ever played was Mystic Messenger in 2017, and I was obsessed with it. So, when Adele recommended Love and Deepspace to me because it reminded her of it, I knew I had to check it out (thanks Adele). I had no idea what it was about, and I was expecting a chatroom-style game where I had to set alarms at 3 am so I didn’t miss them (yes, I was one of those players).
I was blown away by the graphics and art style.
But what surprised me more was the in-depth storyline and battles. There’s a whole system to it! I never expected to have to fight in an Otome. Despite there not being chatrooms, you can ‘text’ the characters and participate in mini-games. However, my personal favourite is spending time with them and interacting with them. All the characters are so unique, and I love the balance between playing the main storyline, and the more wholesome side of simply being with them.
For anyone who’s wondering, I’m a Zayne girl (and I’m here to tell you Adele is a Rafayel and Sylus girl). Love and Deepspace has completely changed the game for Otomes, and I know I’ll be playing it for a long time to come.
If you were to have asked me in January which game I expected would be my pick for 2024, I probably would have said Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. But I played that game, and I didn’t like it.
So what else? Thank Goodness You’re Here is the sort of game I feel I should put forward as my favourite, because it’s original and creative and very funny. But there are two problems with that: 1) Simon the ad guy already bagsied it, and 2) it wasn’t really my favourite game. It wasn’t much of a game at all, if fact. It was a piece of interactive comedy whose gameplay and controls did not get in the way of the jokes.
Balatro? Sure, a clever twist on poker that’s perfect for idling away the odd 20-minute patch of downtime, but not Game of the Year material. That would be like Meal of the Year being won by a bar snack.
So I’m going to have to retreat to my comfort zone of massmarket, action-packed, gratifyingly beautiful AAA games and choose Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. Is it a damning indictment of 2024 that the best game in this writer’s opinion came out in 2017? Maybe. But there’s no denying that Horizon Zero Down is a soaring classic of the open-world action-RPG genre, and the remaster looks brilliant.
Earlier this year, I had the fortunate opportunity to review Potion Permit, hoping to encourage readers like yourself to check it out. And well, if you didn’t read my review, the fact that it was my chosen title for release of the year should speak volumes!
Potion Permit to me was everything Stardew Valley never was. I don’t want to put down another title to hype, but the games have similar aesthetics and core features. I tried to love Stardew Valley and always felt serious FOMO whenever friends detailed their exciting playthroughs knowing that it simply wasn’t for me.
Until Potion Permit. I’ll admit I was hesitant to give a review at first since honesty is key and if I had a Stardew Valley-like experience that would’ve reflected in my piece. However, what I instead discovered was a game I couldn’t quit. I was hooked from the get-go and would eagerly watch the clock, counting down to when I’d finish work and jump in again.
There’s just something so charming and whimsical about Potion Permit: the detailed pixel art, the quaint little village, and the charismatic and diverse NPCs. The game has tons to love and a good amount of freedom to choose what you want to do day-to-day all whilst working towards a narrative.
But wait… it keeps on giving! Minigames, interactions, exploration, upgrades, and of course, medicinal potion brewing. I fear I’ve yapped too much as my GOTY entry is getting bloated and I’ve hardly covered it all. So, I’ll conclude with a final message; you have a loyal dog companion.
Can’t get enough of a good eldritch horror, and if you want a modern title that feels like a classic tale of terror, then The Chinese Room’s newest title, Still Wakes The Deep is a great ride. This very Lovecraftian tale takes place on an isolated oil platform, already an inhospitable place for most people, as it’s overtaken by something that’s as horrific as it is unexplained.
You step into the sturdy workboots of Caz, an electrician stuck in a situation far far above his paygrade as the rig decends into chaos. You must navigate the disintegrating structure, help survivors, and evade the horrible beasties unleashed on the world. It’s extremely atmospheric, and plays into a whole range of fears. Heights, water, tight spaces, horrible incongruous abominations. It’s not just cheap scares, though. Still Wakes The Deep manages to offer surprising emotional… er, depth. I cried before the game was over.
It’s a fairly short game, but there are, I’m sure plenty of people out of there who don’t have time to plough dozens or hundreds of hours into a game to get to the payoff, If you’re one of those people, you can get a very satisfying experience in under ten hours, and I don’t regret a minute of it.
It’s also a Christmas game. In the same way that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. What is it with Christmas and crawling through ventilation ducts?
You know when something feels like it’s been made just for you? Well Slayers X (no I’m not typing out that whole title each time) is that for me. And I say this with the deepest respect, as I doubt many could hack more than a few minutes of playing this.
It’s basically a tribute to slightly shonky old DOS games like Duke Nukem 3D, being an FPS with an immature sense of humour – but considering so many titles have no sense of humour at all nowadays, it’s a massive breath of fresh retro air. If that isn’t too much of a contradiction anyway.
This Switch port is a little dodgy with the framerate sometimes taking a hit, but I enjoyed it all the same. And yes, that typo in the title is deliberate.
An honourable mention to Thank Goodness You’re Here (sorry Rob), which is also deeply amusing – in a very different but very welcome way. Basically I needed games that made me laugh in 2024, and I got two brilliant examples of just that.
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