A set of joker cards from Balatro.
list

Best of 2024 (Final Update)

First Published: February 4, 2025

I rolled credits on every game except Metaphor: ReFantazio

Janet Garcia

Janet Garcia

@gameonysus


10. Helldivers 2

Multiplayer? Shooter? Two strikes for me and yet here I am. For Democracy! Helldivers 2 won me over from its tutorial which teaches players how to heal by having them “activate the battle injury simulator:” a machine that quickly stabs the operator in the chest. Shockingly hilarious.

Helldivers 2 takes PvE and makes it fun for everyone regardless of skill level or playstyle. Besides there being different levels of mission difficulties, there’s also the option to end as soon as your main objective is complete or go hunt for more samples to use for upgrades later. This creates another layer of difficulty players can interact with to customize their sessions. The other aspect of Helldivers 2 that makes it approachable is that there’s no need to get meta-obsessed, chase minmaxing, or implement a specific strategy. This is in part because its PvE and in part because your team can have whatever loadout of stratagems they want even if tools get repeated across players. But more than anything, it’s because this is how Helldivers 2 was intentionally designed: fun for casuals and the hardcore alike. 

Helldivers 2 key art. 4 Helldivers standing together on a ledge looking heroic as a cloud of yellow smoke goes off behind them.

Mechanically, Helldivers 2 never takes itself too seriously while still keeping players on their toes with sim elements like increased aim difficulty if you’re shot in the arm and different terrain significantly affecting your maneuverability. It keeps players engaged without fully frustrating them.

I can’t aim a gun to save my life and that doesn’t matter because the other day I got the laser and now I can just beam through everything. As a Splatoon fan, I have a second home in Helldivers 2. 

9. Cryptmaster

​​One of the coolest word games I’ve ever played: Cryptmaster is a dungeon crawler typing game where you fight monsters, guess words, and answer riddles. Its stark black and white artstyle combined with the titular Cryptmaster’s ability to respond to any word you type makes for a wonderfully newstalgic experience. 

It’s worth noting that a voice mode also exists.

The Cryptmaster, and various other NPCs, function like supped-up versions of fortune-telling toys. Every typed (or spoken) word gets a response. Impressively this is all done without the use of Generative AI. Instead, a bunch of voicework and clever implementations have led to a robust set of responses. That’s not to say there aren’t some canned replies, especially if you’re going out of your way to type nonsense, but it’s detailed where it counts. 

Exploration is all in first-person with only the arrow keys to move around. You’re a dead group of adventurers, summoned by the Cryptmaster, making your way up various floors. Your party consists of Joro (warrior), Syn (theif and assassin), Maz (bard), and Nix (sea witch) who — in true video game fashion — have lost their memories. 

Cryptmaster screenshot. Nothing is in front of you but there are blank spaces by everyone's name representing their next ability or piece of background lore.

You’re chasing your memories, an escape, and more importantly letters. These letters are used to unlock more skills for your characters or add background lore to them. Each character constantly has several blank spaces by their name, signifying a mystery word. The word is either an ability or a piece of background lore.

You can input guesses anytime outside of battle with no penalty for incorrect guesses. For instance, Joro starts with 3 blank spaces for his first ability. Can you guess what it is? The answer is “HIT” but if you can’t guess that outright you can collect letters over time. If you get an “H” it will fill the first space, an “I” would fill the second, and so on. And this applies to all characters at once, so if another character has an “I” in their word that space would fill too.

This system provides constant engagement and makes every encounter worthwhile because one way you can collect letters is by fighting enemies. Each enemy has a name consisting of random letters (ex. PWOBB) and the number of letters represents their HP. Combat is real time but you can halt the action by pulling up any characters ability menu: which is increasingly needed as their ability list grows. You also have the option to toggle the combat to turn-based if desired. You attack by typing in the ability (ex. H-I-T-enter). Combat evolves early as fun twists get introduced to the typing frenzy, such as “the enemy will become big if S is entered.” This twist cuts both ways as you may get abilities that do extra damage when used on an enemy with a specific letter in their name. 

Using zap on a gelatinous cube to get rid of its final HP, represented by the final letter in its name falling down as it dies.

Combat isn’t the only way to get letters. Another way is by opening chests and recalling the name of the object inside.

Typing chest when at a chest to open it.

While you can’t see the object you do know how many letters make up the word. The Cryptmaster is there to help and can answer up to 5 questions about the object. Here, you need to type a word that tells the Cryptmaster what to do with the object to help you identify it. The game itself provides some suggestions (i.e look, feel, listen, smell, taste, and remember) but you can come up with your own. Personally, I got a lot of use out of “wear” and “lift.” If you guess the object correctly you’re given the letters of that object, getting you one step closer to unlocking more abilities.

Typing Sniff to the Cryptmaster.

Lastly, riddles play a big role. You can get riddles from skulls stacked on stone pillars, hidden off to the side. You have the option to toggle on hints (for less rewards) but by default you’re only given the riddle and the amount of letters the answer is. For example, one riddle is “It has lakes without water, houses without stones, hills with no height, and graves without bones.” The answer is a 3-letter word. What is it?” 

Skull saying Speak by name and I'm gone. What am I? with the typed answer above it "silence"

Again, there is no penalty for incorrect answers. Here, your reward is souls which function as MP needed to do certain abilities. There are plenty of other ways to get souls if riddles aren’t your strong suit. Admittedly, the riddles are pretty common so they’re less intriguing if you’ve heard them before. This is also how I realized I don’t know any riddles.

And these are just how the systems start off. There are plenty of other fun additions as you continue through the crypt. The voice acting is cheeky and overdramatic. The humor hits. And the character design is delightful and just the right amount of unsettling from rats with super glassy eyeballs to a big toad named Gorro the Moist (fun!... but also, gross!). 

Unfortunately, Cryptmaster does peter out in the final 2 chapters or so. Enemies become a bit spongey which means challenges that limit your attack options go from being interesting to tedious. By the end of the game I was avoiding combat at all costs trying to just get to the end. It’s not enough to offset the good time I had but it definitely adds a negative asterisk to my experience with Cryptmaster. 

Still, if you love word games and riddles this is easily worth your time. What I love most about Cryptmaster is that it invites you to experiment and get creative while testing your word skills. And you don’t have to be a speed demon typist or a Scrabble king to progress because there are plenty of hints, easy letter opportunities, and ways to customize the game.

8. Arco

Arco’s magic is in its fantastic combat system, intriguing anticolonization storyline, and exploration/dialogue system reminiscent of Oregon Trail.

Mixing real-time and turned-based mechanics is on the rise and I am completely here for it. Arco brings its own unique twists to this hybrid take on combat. Like many other turn-based games, it can take several turns for certain attacks to land; but unlike many other turn-based games, you’re watching the attacks unfold in segmented real-time. 

This means when a gun is fired you see the spray of bullets moving toward you. If you’re close enough, they’ll hit you at that moment. Otherwise, you have your next turn to step into a safe position (away from, or in between, the bullets). The pacing feels like a turn-based Super Hot. Or, for those unfamiliar with that hit VR game, the playground game “Red Light Green Light” with red light being when you select the moves and green light being the few moments where the actions start happening, then it repeats. It’s a testament to Arco’s design and challenge that you can preview exactly what an enemy is about to do next (with few exceptions) and still not pick the best combination of moves.

Arco combat in action showing movement selection, projectile dodging, and attack selection.

A fun wrinkle in these fights is sometimes ghosts appear on the battlefield. These ghosts represent your guilt (survivor's guilt or guilt from your choices). They start moving toward you nonstop for a few turns. Since you can’t pause a fight (only restart) this forces you to make decisions hastily or risk taking damage if the ghost touches you. Ghosts add a good level of frustration to fights while appearing infrequently enough to preserve the strategic elements of the game.

Throughout Arco, you meet different groups and see how The Red Company coming in has affected their lives as you seek vengeance for those you’ve lost. This adventure spans three different stories. This wider cast of characters keeps things narratively and mechanically fresh as they each have their own motivations, backgrounds, and movesets. 

Arco skilltree for Itzae

Arco is not-so-secretly a choice-driven narrative game. As you move from screen to screen you can carefully comb over each area to find items and (if you’re unlucky) traps.

Arco's choices. Tizo says "Why Not?" and Zoka replies "for the love of all gods, just don't wave." Choices are wave anyway, just ignore them, and grab arco.

Do you reach your hand into a thorny bush, risking damage, in the hopes of finding lost treasure? Perhaps neither happens but you trigger a fight against a group of rattlesnakes hiding there. When you see a group approach you with pistols on their hip do you ignore them, draw fire, or say hello? After catching up to a suspect, do you torture them to try and get the information you need or rely on your words to succeed? What will you spend your money on: a shovel to see what secrets are buried in the dirt or a hired gun to make combat easier and more interesting? 

Arco characters adventuring across different lands while riding llamas or camels.

With compelling side content, adorable animals, and a cohesive combination of gameplay and story, Arco is something special. It’s a well-made turn-based tactics game with a really varied skill tree, which means there are plenty of ways to change up and build on your go-to plans. 

Also, you can fight the Chupacabra.

7. Grunn

Game so good I had to get all 11 endings. 

Grunn is a short, adventure puzzle game where you’re tasked with gardening a property for the weekend. On its face, it’s a simulation game. But it quickly reveals itself to be a timeloop game with a focus on exploration and some fun surreal/spooky flavoring added to the mix. In fact, I’d urge anyone picking up Grunn for the first time to focus on exploration and leave the gardening for when you run out of leads to follow. 

Grunn screenshot. First-person view of shears cutting grass.

Which brings me to my favorite part of Grunn: the leads.. Throughout the world, there are polaroids to collect. The image is a clue, revealing things like item locations or interactable objects/spaces. One of the first things that happens in the game is the bridge you cross breaks, with one of the planks falling off. An early polaroid you can find shows a plank next to a car. You know how to repair the bridge; now you just have to find the car. When you complete this tiny quest the polaroid is marked as “solved.” Solving the polaroids is the key to discovery and progression. It’s possible to solve polaroids before finding them so Grunn provides a great mix of structure and freedom.

This scavenger hunt format mixed with the multiple endings gives Grunn a strong, continual momentum. Sometimes, you can do things just to do them and sometimes, they lead to something grander. 

One of my favorite parts of Grunn is how simple, yet silly, the logic is. Finding a stove in some ghostly realm suddenly recontextualizes the corn you found outside a random tent. Despite how mundane things seem it’s always exciting to put the pieces together and observe the result because the haunted, strange nature of the world means anything can happen. 

Grunn screenshot. Inside a gas station.

My only gripe with Grunn is it can be hard to remember everything across every run. Specifically, there are some objects that can be purchased and remembering where the coins you found are can be a pain. I circumvented this by taking some notes but, with some exceptions, I feel like if I need to write it down the game should document it for me within its menu. 

Grunn is an exploration puzzle game with the structure I need to thrive. Many compare Grunn to Outer Wilds in its clue-following structure but I hesitate to put their names in the same sentence. For better and worse (depending on your perspective), Grunn is far simpler, far less ambitious, and substantially less intriguing. While that assessment sounds negative I loved Grunn in part for its simplicity. If the comparison must be drawn I would say that Grunn is Outer Wilds for people who don't want to read or leave their property. 

That’s me. 

6. Animal Well

Compelling, creepy, serene. I felt smart, accomplished, but also found myself down in a pit of despair. By the end of my time with Animal Well I was bitter and frustrated by a combination of not being able to figure things out and knowing what I needed to do but struggling to execute it: thus getting caught in repeating things over and over again because some solutions required a lot of precision. Yet the design is, with a few notable exceptions, brilliant. Part Metroidvania, part puzzle platformer, and undeniably fresh. 

Animal Well has some of the most amusing and strange item unlocks I’ve ever seen like a bubble wand to create your own bubbles to jump on and a yo-yo to break spikes, distract animals, and plenty of other surprising usecases. These are just a few item examples, since Animal Well is a game about discovery, I don’t want to give too much away. 

What made this progression system so exciting was the way key items could feel game breaking despite working exactly as it’s supposed to. As a player you feel clever like some traversal Macgyver for, say, bubble wanding your way to the heavens: which takes a lot of finesse since only one bubble can exist at a time. Smart design makes players feel like they’re uniquely smart when really everything is working as intended. And in Animal Well the net of intended design is incredibly vast. It leaves a lot of space to play in.

Animal Well screenshot.

Additionally, Animal Well is just a lovely world to be in even when the animals are trying to kill you. The dark color palette is easy on the eyes and helps key elements pop. Blades of grass and tree tops have almost a neon glow to them and walking through dangling vines has the satisfaction of walking through a beaded curtain (minus the overstimulation of course). The art direction of Animal Well has the same ethos of “we don’t use the big light” interior designers, each hanging candle is like a bespoke lamp, enhancing the atmosphere. I love that Animal Well is a game where you’re a cute little blob with feet occasionally being tormented by animals with alarmingly long necks. And the sound design is just as charming.

My biggest critique is by the end I think it asks too much of the player and the lack of guardrails get progressively more dangerous in terms of frustration. And that it commits the puzzle game sin of having too big of a gap between trying, failing, and trying again. A more comprehensive fast travel system would’ve also gone a long way. Still a great game but puzzle dummies and navigational strugglers beware! Like many metroidvanias, when Animal Well’s walls begin to close in and it comes time to figure things out you may not have the answer and have nowhere left to turn. 

5. 1000xResist

DISCLOSURE: Before release, I did a Let’s Play of Chapter 1 for the development team, Sunset Visitor, to use on their Steam page.

Initially, when I finished 1000xResist I thought it was undoubtedly good but wasn’t in love with it. But as time passed my appreciation for this sci-fi adventure has only grown. The more I unpack it, the more brilliant it becomes. Yet it’s still casually understandable: avoiding the cliche of being confusing in the hopes of being mistaken as deep. 

1000xResist screenshot. Iris holding a sword out saying "did I not give you life?"

As the name suggests, it’s a multiangled look at resistance: examining everything from political unrest to teenage rebellion. But they’re not a series of isolated examples tying back to a big motif; they’re interconnected in a multitude of ways. The simplest, and most spoiler-free, example is that ALLMOTHER (the god/religious figurehead of this society) and Iris (a girl who is immune from the disease that wiped out humanity) are the same person. You play as The Watcher and are learning about her story, via a ritual called communion, as part of your job. Like everyone else in this society, you are a clone of ALLMOTHER/Iris and live to serve her until a secret changes the trajectory of your life. What comes next is an epic unraveling and exploration of faith, politics, class, interpersonal relationships, and revolution. 

Though fully voice-acted, none of the mouths are animated in 1000xResist. Yet it still oozes with visual flair thanks to striking wide shots and thoughtful camera cuts that kept my eyes entertained even during the most straightforward conversations. Despite the cast of 1000xResist being mostly comprised of clones, the main characters are incredibly distinct. They have impeccable, color-coded outfits that perfectly reflect not only their functions but their personalities to the point where I forget they’re carbon copies of each other. 

1000xResist screenshot of principle. She is wearing striking red outfit and most of the area is red except for Watcher (wearing blue) standing in the background. Principle has a text box that says "it seems the sins of our ancient sister grow evermore cunning... seeping into even our brightest."

Another spoiler-free example of why 1000xResist is peak writing is the conversation with the bartender. In the first third of the game you ask the Bartender if they have any hot gossip. You’re then given the option of specifying the kind of gossip you want (spooky, funny, strange, or spicy). You can also just skip this chat entirely. The information you get is immensely detailed, fun, witty, and intriguing. So many other games would’ve let these be cute one liners but 1000xResist takes it further and eventually ties some of these components into the larger story.

1000xResist screenshot, sitting at the bar.

Nothing in this script is wasted.

Perhaps one of 1000xResist’s most impressive feats is its ability to present a main mystery, seemingly conclude it, and then continue with the game adding new mysteries and then typing all of it back to the first plotline. There’s a saying that goes “you can’t see the forest for the trees” but in 1000xResist, you see the forest and the trees and then somehow another forest. 

There are no lore dumps or big exposition moments. Everything fits with how the world functions and characters’ questions feel authentic instead of for the sake of audience understanding. The game does a great job at making you empathize with the main character’s doubt as you work through each mystery and conspiracy theory. 


There are also just a lot of beautiful lines. One of my personal favorites was “To be honest [...] it was hard for me to love you at first. Then after a while it was the only thing I knew how to do.” Just a gutwrenching game beautifully woven together. 

1000xResist is a must-play for narrative fans because even if you're not obsessed with it (same) you will respect the hell out of it and be wildly invested. I will likely be pointing back to it for years to come.

4. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

A platformers paradise, a metroidvania without the messiness, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is one of the best in its genre. Admittedly, I have a bias towards anything that nails hard platforming sections but Lost Crown does so much more than that. While it has a few balancing issues with its bosses and a story that’s textbook fine every moment of moving through this game is superb and it only gets more magical as you unlock additional abilities. 

Prince of Persia lead character kneeing an enemy in the face, knocking them back.

Mechanics that are usually grating for me, such as parrying, are telegraphed so clearly I can finally achieve them. And difficult combat can be tailored to your taste thanks to equippable amuletlets that add buffs or abilities. Plus, on a settings level, there are even more ways to tweak the challenge.

Best of all, it has a feature I am desperate to see every metroidvania adapt: the memory shard system. This lets you press down on the d-pad at any time to basically take a screenshot that gets pinned on that part of the map. So if there’s an area you can’t get to because you don’t have the right ability yet you can easily take note of it via this in-game system. 

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown exists in reference to so many incredible games that came before it (Ori, Celeste, Metroid) yet manages to have its own identity. It has the audacity to put off giving you a double jump for hours on end but I never felt like I was waiting for it. It has the gall to make the hardest optional platforming challenge reward a pair of useless ugly pants and all I did was laugh and keep playing.

You can read my full review here.

3. Balatro


I don't know poker. I am bad at video game card games, especially deck builders. I wince when I see a game will be a rogue-lite/like. And I love Balatro: a poker roguelike deck builder. 

Before I get into why it works let me briefly explain how it works. To win you need to complete 8 Antes which each have 2 Blinds and a Boss Blind (like how a game can have several worlds each with several levels). Each blind has a score you have to hit to win and the boss blind also comes with a trait that modifies the play experience (ex. Discards 2 random cards per hand played).

You have 4 hands and 4 discards that you can use to reach the score. Maybe you have to play all your hands to score enough points, maybe you score it all on the first hand. You also earn money throughout the game. At the end of each round, you get to shop.

This is where the real game begins because to score more points (remember, as the Ante goes up so does the number of points you must score) you’ll need to take advantage of multipliers, raising the power of playing certain hands, etc. This is also where the deckbuilding comes in. For instance, if you’ve leaned into a strategy that makes hearts really powerful maybe you want to add more hearts to your deck to increase your chances of drawing hearts. There are plenty more layers to the game but that’s a general baseline of how it functions. 

Balatro's challenge is in the ever-changing, but always intriguing, variables. What strategy comes across the shop and what do you go with? Maybe you buy a Joker that isn’t that useful on its own but becomes clutch when you level up the right hand or build the right deck. Maybe you don’t and kick yourself later. You’ll start winning big each round with a strategy that is so powerful it feels like you’re breaking the game only to be hit with a Boss Blind that renders your strategy not just useless but actively harmful to your build.

A set of joker cards from Balatro.

What sets Balatro apart from other rogue games to me (a self-proclaimed rogue hater) is it doesn’t feel like I’m grinding to get good or hoping for enough luck to propel me to the end. Balatro makes me feel like a god almost every run and then puts me face to face with the most diabolical Boss Blind I’ve ever seen. But because it feels so fair and different each time I never get mad at the game. I simply throw my hands up like, “you got me!” This isn’t to say it's the only rogue game that finds that magic but it's something many fail — or never attempt — to capture.

As someone who literally forgets which cards are more powerful between the king, queen, and jack, Balatro has the perfect amount of support. You can sort your hand automatically which helps you see what you’re working with. And at any time you can view the run info which tells you how much each hand is worth and what each hand is. Don’t know the different between a Flush and a Full House? Fear not. All that info is available to you. You can even see what cards are left in your deck which can help you be smarter about how you use your discards. 

I was carried to my first win with the help of my Remap friends on stream but even when I’m failing on my own Balatro is fun every time. Its wavy backgrounds, CRT filter options, and single-track OST are hypnotic; its sound design is delectable. And the rush of seeing all your multipliers add up, the flame animation under your score when you’ve won the round, is an unmatched thrill.

The beauty of Balatro is it convinces you that you were totally right there so you can’t help but try again. And a bad run still feels valuable because you can use it to try new strategies and discover more cards which builds toward a more completionist level of game progression. I have literally lost sleep over how good this game is.

2. Metaphor: ReFantazio

Metaphor: ReFantazio’s brilliance comes from its day structure, Archetype combat system (similar to classes/jobs), thoughtful quality of life choices, and intriguing story. All of this makes time fly, justifying its beefy 65 - 100+ hour campaign. 

For those unfamiliar with the format, you have deadlines to main quests that drive the action which is turn-based combat through dungeons. For instance, you might have 12 days to finish a dungeon but the dungeon only takes you 3 days to complete. It’s up to you how you spend your time. If you go into a dungeon you’ll need to rest when you return at night. But if you aren’t in a dungeon you have all day and night to do various activities. Some activities, stores, etc may only be available at night. It’s a fantastic formula that keeps players from burning themselves out on content or getting caught up in repetition. More often than not I wish I had more time which feels ridiculous in a game that’s so long. Essentially, Metaphor: ReFantazio is a mix of combat and casual life sim. It works beautifully because it all feeds into each other.

Main character skating through the streets on a hover sword.

You might listen to a fairy tale from a local to increase your imagination stat, which can open up doors for you later, or talk to a companion to strengthen your bond, unlocking new Archetypes and abilities. Plus, learning more about the world and characters is its own reward in this compelling story.

Metaphor: ReFantazio manages what many games want but few accomplish: it made me care about the lore. Plenty of games have interesting lore if you’re willing to invest into it but few games make me want to invest. Metaphor does this by piece mealing out anecdotes about the world and its characters at a pace that I opt into based on how I spend my day. So suddenly I’m listening to one person talk about their race and religion to increase my tolerance stat and then later I’m meeting someone from that race and making the connection to my earlier conversation. It all happens naturally.

Narratively, Metaphor: ReFantazio is straightforward while fostering curiosity. We need to stop Louis from being king and hopefully save the prince. But the path to success continuously changes in a way that keeps me on my toes, strengthening my connection with these characters because we are all in the same boat of unknowing. 

It’s also an examination of racism, prejudice, and power as you try to build influence and change minds as a member of an extremely marginalized group. And while some may critique elements of this exploration to be surface level, I can point to a number of examples that feel authentic: from a NPC expressing a desire to learn cooking to a Paripus but not wanting to become ostracized at work for doing so to a kid on the street making a fucked up comment to you. The bigotry is wince-inducing and that’s what makes it real.

Main menu UI of Metaphor: ReFantazio

Atlus also seemingly did the impossible; they made a RPG where all the characters are interesting and likable. When you have a party there’s almost always a stinker or two. And if there isn’t, there are annoying side characters you’re forced to interact with. Not here. They even made a fairy that helps you who isn’t obnoxious just to flex on everyone.

A good turn-based combat game is really a puzzle game in disguise. Metaphor exhibits this wonderfully by giving you options for how to approach combat and challenges that don’t have obvious answers. I remember taking on a tough optional dungeon that I barely got through by putting two of the same Archetype into battle. Others accomplished it by using an Archetype I hadn’t even tried yet. 

Combat menu.

As expected, enemies often have specific weaknesses but Metaphor pushes back on players early with some enemies having no weaknesses at all: forcing you to get creative. The mix and match nature of the Archetype system also makes easier combat scenarios valuable. Suddenly they’re a great opportunity to experiment with new Archetype combos or gain Archetype experience for a specific party member (since they level up independently). 

There’s so much to love about the combat from the front line back line system, with more melee damage dealt up front but a stronger defense if you hang back, to the way exploiting a weakness costs only half an action point. And most of all I love how characters play off each other with one of the early examples being Hulkenberg using her passive ability, Guard Duty (unlocked at bond level 2), which allows her to occasionally take a critical hit for the protagonist.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is an epic and engrossing adventure with a combat system that never gets old and a fantasy setting that feels fresh. 

1. Astro Bot

Like all the best video games, there isn’t a singular standout attribute of Astro Bot. Rather, all of them are working together to create something superb. 

Team Asobi takes what makes 3D platformers special — unbridled joy — and explores it from every possible angle. Every design choice can be traced back to this: the invocation of nostalgia, the sensory delight of the DualSense, the saturated colors, the playful animations, the bopping soundtrack, and the inclusion of NPCs and assets for the sake of play rather than progression. It’s all there to put a smile on your face and it’s spectacularly successful. 

Astro Bot (2024) key art.

But Astro Bot is more than a cute, feel-good game. Because the truth is, anyone who is paying attention to this space knows the genre is full of personable, charming, and fun-to-play titles. And sure, Astro Bot pushes that to the umpteenth degree but it’s not the core of its appeal. It’s the most obvious form of its magic but that’s only part of its story. 

Astro Bot is a triumph, in large part, because the character is incredible to control. It’s seemingly the baseline for a good platformer but so many end up slightly off target. The game is easy enough that you might forget just how well tuned it is so the challenge levels are there to remind you. The ability to pull off pixel perfect jumps in 3D is no simple feat yet its here on full display. Not a cheap death in sight; no order too tall for these controls.

The diverse move set supports the fiddling platformer fans love. By default, we’ll jump, punch, and spin at every moment because — if you did your job well — the character is fun to control. You don’t even need a reason to move but Team Asobi always gives you one. These levels are packed with ways to let out that platformer fan energy: like a diving board to jump off, ice rinks to skate around, and a robotic pig to whip around inside a pile of sprinkles for some satisfying, crispy clanks while they fly offscreen. It cannot be overstated how incredible everything feels. 

The pitter-patter of his run is delightful and his hover makes platforming easier because you’re more in control of your landing. His punch makes combat simple because you don’t have to be skilled at jumping to fight and the ability to use it to spin can give you more hang time when making a leap or just provide a bit of dopamine for those old enough to revere Jak and Crash. 

But what was most impressive about Astro Bot was the second I thought all the best parts were behind me (turning into a mouse-sized version of yourself to explore at a new scale) it came up with a new brilliant idea (a day/night switch that flips the level’s orientation). And I don’t know how Team Asobi knew I wanted to vacuum the yolk out of the mini-boss trio of birds, still inside their shells, but I did. I really did. 

Astro Bot as a tiny mouse bot.

The collectathon format shines because Astro Bot has an environment worth exploring and completing these collections provides easter egg surprises and hub world incentives. Finding a bot Psycho Mantis is its own thrill but for me nothing beat getting enough puzzle pieces to unlock Safari Park: an area filled with adorable robot animals that also unlocks photo mode for the game. 

Astro Bot made me feel like a kid at a carnival: constantly in wonder and awe but never overstimulated. It’s one of the best 3D platformers of all time and is my current Game of the Year.