It’s time for our annual countdown to award the very best games this year had to offer. Over the next ten days, we’ll count down our top ten games of 2024.
As always, the votes of each Press Start team member, weighted from #10 through to #1, were collated to compile our collective very best for the year that was. Games worthy of one’s top spot would be awarded a maximum of 10 points and the values would descend to their tenth selection, which would receive a single point.
And people say it’s best to keep politics out of video games. To think of the countless titles that would never have come to fruition were it not for the thoughts that fuelled them, it’s a long list, and it’s one that includes Metaphor: ReFantazio. It’s a magnificent, high-fantasy ATLUS role-playing game that leaves the schoolyards of Persona behind to create something undeniably fresh.
A number of its systems are a bit of a grabbag of past ATLUS ideas, however the combat being as malleable as it is was a strength of the game. It’s easy to pick up for someone who has never put meaningful hours into a Persona, however it has an unassuming, strategic depth that becomes evident as you continue unlocking Archetypes and get into the nitty-gritty of the combat.
Through its rather heady narrative, the game explores ideas of prejudice, forcing change through action, and breaking anxiety’s stronghold by embracing ego.
It achieves all of this through a diverse cast of characters, and perhaps the writing we’ve seen from those involved. In its effort to tell a somewhat realistically grounded story, Metaphor draws on the ideological clashes and cults of personality we experience in real-world politics, which proves to be a sobering brushstroke against the game’s beautiful backdrop.
Buy Metaphor ReFantazio On Amazon
In our review, Harry scored Metaphor: ReFantazio a 9 out of 10 stating:
“Metaphor: ReFantazio is another banger RPG from ATLUS. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel that Shin Megami Tensei and Persona have established as the studios bread and butter, but it iterates on them in unique ways with an undeniably fresh setting. It’s hard not to applaud ATLUS for embracing something so tonally different from what they’re known for nowadays.”
On the review aggregator Metacritic, Metaphor: ReFantazio is resting at an average of 94.
Congratulations to Studio Zero and ATLUS for earning a place on our top ten for 2024.
Game of the Year 2024
#10 – Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
#9 – The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
#8 – Helldivers 2
#7 – Animal Well
#6 – Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
#5 – Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
#4 – Metaphor: ReFantazio
