Archive for the ‘Best of 2024’ Category

23 Dec

Best of 2024: Top 10 Game Re-Releases & Expansions

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2024, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

That’s right, last year’s experimental combined list is back for a sophomore appearance. 2024 was hardly the year to drop the double-barrelled concept, sprinkled as it was with plenty of quality remakes, remasters, and expansion content of all flavours to challenge the year’s full-on new releases for quality. This year I can even properly balance the lists at five entries apiece, and I don’t even have Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, Starfield: Shattered Space, Fantasian: Neo Dimension Eastward: Octopia, or Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven on there! What a world.

And here’s the thing: I don’t have Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, either. Yes, I know, I know. I know! I’m disappointed in myself too, but it just turned out to be one in-depth RPG too many; I got back to my 2022 Game of the Year a week or two late thanks to a pretty busy time in my life, and then soon discovered that despite completing the game I hadn’t even entered the optional dungeon required to access the new content, let alone beaten it. On top of that, my co-op partner for a large chunk of the base game had also lost access to his character. My heart sank, I picked up something else, and just couldn’t find the slot to go back to it.

Even without Shadow of the Erdtree, however, this evenly-divided list of ten entries still features no less than six RPGs. Yeah, it was that kind of year.

Just like last time, the first mini-list only includes re-releases that don’t aim to fully “reimagine” their source material; essentially any entry within the first five categories from this article count, while contenders within the last two are saved for the main list at the very end of the year. Parentheses indicate the platform on which I played each entry.

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VR BEST OF 2024 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. Nobody ever agrees with me 100%. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

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RE-RELEASES
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5. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance (PC)

2024 was Sega’s best year for videogame releases in decades, perhaps ever; this is the first of about a dozen mentions the Japanese publishing veteran is going to get in the lists this year, after I already dedicated an entire article to the team’s 2024 efforts, so strap yourselves in.

The original Switch version of SMT V was already a fantastic semi-open-world evolution of a legendary series, but the crisp menus and smooth traversal were crying out for just a little more performance, so this multi-platform release years later is just what the doctor ordered. The neatly-optimised PC version is perfect for Steam Deck play (or indeed for my AyaNeo Air 1S), especially now that you can save the game anywhere – at long last!

But of course that’s not the main reason Atlus released this edition of the game: an entirely new story route transforms the experience for returning players and provides a more colourful challenge for newcomers, following the time-tested Atlus tradition of videogame re-releases that pack in enough new stuff at every level to defy simple categorisation. The game still loves to make you regret going into a fight unprepared, but fresh tools and abilities level the playing field enough that you feel like you can take on whatever nightmare lies around the corner. In any other year, this kind of game would have been the flagship Sega RPG. But this, unfortunately for SMT V:V, was 2024.

4. Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake (NS)

I do not know what delirium-inducing substance has been slipped into the coffee of every single marketing department at every single major Japanese publisher this year, but here’s yet another great JRPG with yet another awful title. Someone at Square Enix was clearly huffing internal jargon fumes, terrified of any possible ambiguity, and looked at only the key art of the FFVII remake team down the hall without actually playing anything.

Luckily, this wonderful revisitation of Japan’s favourite entry from Japan’s favourite RPG series seems to be selling anyway, because it is as close to a warm hug as a JRPG can be for those of us who grew up on turn-based random-battle grinds. Convincing people why the Dragon Quest games are so compelling has been a struggle ever since XI converted me to a series apologist in 2018, but the simplest explanation remains as true for III HD-2D as it was then: the game’s confidence in the strength of its original, very old-school mechanics shines through via some of the most polished presentation in the business.

The Octopath Traveller / Triangle Strategy projects may have introduced and refined that so-called “HD-2D” aesthetic, but it has never looked this colourful or this vibrant before. The series is also clearly over its controversial attitude to stubborn MIDI soundtracks, because the rearranged orchestral score is simply stunning. These significant overhauls work alongside the small ones – like the ability to see your party in between battle turns or the way the menu messages seem to have a voice of their own – to both cushion the game’s more stubborn habits and enhance its time-tested strengths. Bring on the next two awfully-titled entries.

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22 Dec

Best of 2024: Top 5 Disappointments

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2024, Games, Lists, Movies. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

So that was a bit of a turbulent year for entertainment media, huh?

I don’t do an annual “top news stories” list, because year-to-year there’s no guarantee there would be enough to even make one; it would also be kind of difficult to rank their impact when certain headlines seem outwardly positive while so many others skew negative. But wow, it sure would have been fun to tackle one in 2024. By the end of March alone there was already enough content to knock out a solid top five, as the three main videogame console manufacturers had already provided more than enough twists and turns.

For now, the standard disappointments format will have to do, which means only stuff that undercut some form of my own personal expectation counts. Hey, if ain’t broke…

The list is once again a top five this year, so I’ve tried to group each entry into some kind of common trend wherever it makes sense. Let’s get this out of the way.

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VR BEST OF 2024 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. Nobody ever agrees with me 100%. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

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5. This is Getting Ridiculous, Ninty

I just have to squeeze in a really personal whinge here. Even though Nintendo were guilty of moves much more worthy of other people’s disappointment shortlists this year, I’ve been following the company for so long now that nothing really gets my hopes up enough to shatter them these days – except the ongoing absence of the Nintendo Switch successor console in any official capacity throughout 2024.

The death by 1000 cuts started early: all the way back in January those sensational “internal delay” reports broke, suggesting the machine was planned for release this year but was pushed into 2025. Widespread assumptions that the house of Mario wouldn’t have enough games to fill out another year without a “Switch 2” were gradually proven wrong – and definitively so in a stellar June Direct – but even as the year rolled on and the system’s absence proved those January reports more likely every day, all the hype-fuelled YouTube channels and outlets turned their attention to the possibility that at least we’d see an official reveal this year… Right?

But things got real weird in the year’s second half. When Nintendo crammed a Museum Direct AND an unprecedented double-feature Indie World / Partner Showcase into the final week of August, a console reveal in the traditionally blockbuster September seemed almost guaranteed, but instead we got tumbleweeds; even a set of credible hardware photo / render leaks didn’t expedite Nintendo’s plans. Then came the weirdest October in recent memory: a new Nintendo alarm clock, a sort-of-secret online playtest for a mysterious multiplayer game, and a new mobile music streaming app each came out of nowhere and released almost immediately. Nintendo was trolling fans at that point.

I’m usually an absolute glutton for videogame console speculation, but by November I had well and truly checked out. This disappointment was largely self-inflicted, I admit, but whatever chaos was going on behind the scenes, the Big N’s marketing machine well and truly knew what it was doing.

4. The Wrong Kind of Aussie Film Nostalgia

It’s been a little while since living in Australia has felt like an outright disadvantage for active cinema movie-watchers, but 2024 had me feeling like the old days had returned on at least two oddly similar occasions throughout the year. To be fair, the second instance was a bit more worldwide, but it still formed a nasty pattern from my perspective.

Around April, the latest in a weirdly rapid-fire line of pulpy Guy Ritchie action flicks was set to release, and despite the relatively poor reception of his recent work I was still keen to switch my brain off and enjoy the unique brand of banter he so regularly delivers. But after release date listings all over reliable sites mysteriously vanished one day with no explanation, it was weeks until my friends and I were able to get any answers as to why The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was not showing in any cinemas, despite Ritchie’s last effort making its slot on time as expected. Apparently it was a weird Amazon deal that wasn’t made massively public in Australia, and a couple of months later the movie unceremoniously hit streaming services. Just what a silly bombastic WWII movie needed. Yay.

Then in September came something even more drastic: I saw (and enjoyed) trailers for George Clooney and Brad Pitt’s much-hyped Oceans reunion Wolfs more than once in cinemas, and marked its late September release date on the calendar. Just one week before that very release date, chief bankroller Apple announced that the movie would no longer receive a cinematic run at all, going straight to the Apple TV+ streaming service instead to help boost subscribers. In terms of late rug-pulls, I’d never seen anything quite like it, but the gambit appeared to work, resulting in huge early watch numbers. Soon enough a major consequence came to light: director Jon Watts revealed he dropped plans for a sequel as a direct response to that exact big-screen backflip. Tell ’em, Jon.

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21 Dec

Best of 2024 Intro

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2024, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , .

They say the older you get, the quicker the years seem to go by, and usually I’d have to agree. 2024, however, did not go by quickly for me. That was partially because I had some spicy personal stuff going on, partially because the international sport on offer was a ridiculous embarrassment of riches all year long, and partially because I happened to come across this video on the “holiday paradox” right as things were starting to speed up.

But mostly, it was because 2024 had already felt like it had squeezed in several years worth of outlandish videogame news sucker-punches by the end of May, the JRPGs were out in force like it was the 1990s again, worthwhile movies were actually coming from wildly different sources and getting proper coverage in the wake of the blockbuster industry taking a long smoke break, and I went through yet another significant shake-up in my K-Pop / K-R&B listening habits.

It was also a bit of a highlight year for this site, if I do say so myself. I hit my personal goal of publishing a new post every month except February, making it the most prolific year for Vagrant Rant since 2019 – yes, the pandemic made me less productive, go figure – and it would have beaten even that year if Nintendo had just announced the stupid Switch 2. But I’m not bitter about that. Oh wait, no, I am, but more on that tomorrow, when we kick off another year of annual countdowns on Vagrant Rant!

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VR BEST OF 2024 DISCLAIMER

These lists represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting them as I have. My opinion is not fact. Nobody ever agrees with me 100%. Respectful disagreement is most welcome. Please enjoy.

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