Hey what, is it my turn already? Phew, it’s not easy to embark on the Fact’Or exercise this year, because for me, 2024 was perhaps the year of a certain form of acceptance, not without bitterness, that I just didn’t not as much time to devote to video games. I even made a cross on the sacrosanct backlog and removed a ton of games from my Steam wishlist, which is saying…
I still finished 24 games (not counting the Playdate snack games) this year. And rather than list them stupidly, I tried to bring together some of them in categories and a handful of Fact’Or, because it’s also an opportunity to elect my top picks of the year. Besides, let’s be crazy, I’m starting straight away with a Fact’Or!
Fact’Or for sharing with friends: Helldivers 2
I already said it in my test, I am absolutely not a customer of online multiplayer games which I find repetitive and boring as possible. And yet, I had a blast with Helldivers 2. It was an opportunity to replay with friends that I no longer met online, and to have a hard time making decisions that led the entire group at death or on the contrary during these heroic moments which mark the life of a Helldiver and which make us come back again and again. Helldivers 2 is also proof that when you don’t take players for idiots like most current service games which die within 15 days of their release, they are there and know how to remain faithful to you.
For the first catch-all category, I attack with these big AAAs which I have a hard time deciding between. First of all Stellar Blade which kept me quite busy in April. The game of SHIFT UP undeniably has a twist and a crazy charm. I have great memories of it, especially the environments I crossed at the end. It’s also a game that takes pride in what it presents on screen and takes the time to let the player admire it, which is far too rare. I even had a lot of fun with its “Souls but not too much” combat system, completely accessible to those allergic to the genre. In the end, it’s quite an achievement for a studio which had until then only made limited budget gachas and which wanted to make its own Nier. Moreover, the circle has come full circle, since a collaboration with Yoko Taro appeared in the game a few weeks ago.
Still in this category, the little robot from the technical demo included in each PS5 made its comeback in Astro Bot, an adventure which still seemed quite short to me, but intense. In retrospect, I would also have liked a little more difficulty in a title that plays on autopilot. But the pleasure is elsewhere. Between the sound design incredible, the levels of sometimes crazy inventiveness (the mouse level damn it, make a whole game of it!) and the continuous good humor which puts a smile on our lips, it was the right one platformer 3D back to school.
Did The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom finally make me want to spend more than ten minutes on the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom episodes? Still not (damn I don’t want to know, endurance and weapons that break, it’s just no). On the other hand, this little dive into the Zelda style gameplay emerging in top view worked on me immediately. I even found myself trying to catch all the monsters and find the best possible combination in combat. There was indeed Nintendo to transform without distorting its Zelda 2.5D formula and I will resign whenever they want… But still give us a remake de A Link Between Worlds avant.
Fact’Or to everyone’s surprise: MEGATON MUSASHI W: WIRED
Based on the successful anime from the same publisher, the latest Level 5 is not really new, strictly speaking. It’s a repackage of the gacha/grorobo game of the same name that has already been released several times. But it is certainly the best version, because there is no obligation to checkout after purchasing the game. I knew neither the series nor the game and I admit to being very surprised by the quality and content gargantuan of the game. A first part of the story unfolds like a visual novel seen from the side (heavily inspired by the awesome 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim). We direct the hero and his band of friends to the last city in the hands of humanity on an Earth devastated by a mysterious enemy.
After advancing the story, we move on to a second phase of 3D combat aboard robots that are fully customizable using weapons and resources gleaned during the game. The fights are not necessarily very tactical, it is brawler Quite nervous, but it’s super satisfying. Even better, several people can embark on the campaign and a ton of side missions are available in cooperative crossplay PC/PS5/Switch two or three players online. I played the whole game with a friend and I wasn’t bored for a single second. MEGATON MUSASHI W: WIRED is THE great discovery of the year.
We then move on to the series of “I expected nothing and I’m still disappointed”. First on the list is obviously Sunset Hills which has nothing more to show than superb art direction. Tricky English translation, twisted puzzles and the impression of having been fooled by a game that requires you to go to the checkout to see the end of the story. No really, we’ve had much better like this point’n click This year.
He also has a very cute face but Le Vaillant Petit Page is also a pretty damp squib, because beyond his 2D/3D gimmick, there isn’t much to get your teeth into. The game continues the same combat sequences and light puzzles during its very short adventure and allows itself too many approximations in its mini-games.
Finally, the Vessel of Hatred expansion sees Blizzard increasingly mired in the quicksand of the service game. Certainly, the gameplay is nice, but not incredible, and we really feel like we’re wasting our time with the game. And spoiler alert, the story of Diablo IV obviously doesn’t end with the expansion and we feel like we’re going to eat it up for years…
Indigestion Fact’Or of the year: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Being disappointed is one thing, but when it’s too much, it’s too much and you’re not far from having a liver crisis. Tetsuya Nomura had the difficult task of doing better than the Remake episode. Heavy because the first hours in Midgar remained engraved in the memory of the players and this first remake had done a flawless job on the transcription and modernization of the “first CD” of Final Fantasy VII. Nomura had already announced that Rebirth would be the biggest piece of the adventure, but we did not see the real fake open world of the game and its myriad of side quests which all look the same from region to region.
It’s quite simple, Square Enix has ticked almost all the boxes of the distasteful open world with the towers to climb to unlock points of interest, resources to collect everywhere, a traversal quite unpleasant and espers hidden behind the grind of experience. We were also not ready for the lengths in the last third of the game which slowly transformed it into a path of the cross from Cosmo Canyon. There are still some crazy cutscenes, a consistently great soundtrack and an addictive card mini-game. But now I no longer wait for the grand finale like the messiah, but rather like a deliverance.
For the next category, I’m going to talk about all these games that I touched on via their demo and to which I would have liked to devote more time. Penny’s Big Breakaway is the new platformer 3D by Christian Whitehead, best known for Sonic Mania. We direct the young Penny who finds herself chased by all the one-armed cops in the kingdom after having accidentally unseated her emperor. The game asks us to use a yoyo to move from platform to platform. The demo that I tested highlighted a gameplay quite impeccable and a breakneck pace.
Rail Route puts you in the shoes of a trainee switchman who must control rail traffic between increasingly important stations. Learn to manage the tags which will automatically change the lines of direction, add automatons as you progress in a skill tree, calculate and make routes which will allow two trains to cross without problem and continue until ‘to control entire hubs. The demo is extremely exciting and explains the different aspects of gameplay which open to the player via a very effective scripted tutorial. The interface is clean but immediately understandable. And the icing on the cake, the game has opened up to mods via the Steam Workshop. French railway workers are even working to publish track diagrams of certain major stations and hubs.
Quest Master takes the crazy dungeon generator from The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, but goes much, much further. The game adds logic controllers all over the place, weapons, monsters and bossnumerous themes for dungeons and a catalog dedicated to them to navigate between player creations. The artistic direction is Temu-style Zelda, but is very well made. Ditto for the soundtrack and sound effects which show the developers’ love for old-school Zelda. The demo makes you want to immerse yourself in it for hours and I’m impatiently waiting for the early access release which will probably be linked to the release of the game on Switch to jump into it.
I will also be able to include in this category other games that I had on my radar this year, such as Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster which once again proves the talent of Nightdive Studios in terms of remastersthe new masterpiece from Vanillaware’s jack-of-all-trades, Unicorn Overlord which offers, in addition to sublime artistic direction, quite interesting tactical combat and a great adventure. Chicken Police: Into The HIVE! is the sequel to one of my favorites of the visual novel genre with its noir atmosphere and anthropomorphic animals. Finally, the last to join the list is NAIRI: Rising Tide, the sequel to Tower of Shirin which I tested in 2018 on Factor and which seems to advance the story a little more.
Fact’Or 2024 : Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
It is not so much to pay tribute to its talented team, which was unfairly dissolved by Ubisoft after sales considered disappointing, as to praise its qualities which clearly make it one of the masterpieces of the Metroidvania genre. that he finds himself closing my Fact’Or. Released at the very beginning of the year, the game is just killer in all its aspects: platform (even acrobatics to find the collectibles hidden), fights, level designartistic direction, original soundtrack. Not a minute went by in the game without me enjoying it immensely, and I still think about it very often. What’s more, the game is quite long, without ever dragging on and runs like a charm on Switch. All these trappings brought together on a single title, it’s so rare these days that Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is my big favorite for this year 2024!
And because it’s Christmas and at Christmas we give each other gifts, there’s a good chance that I’ll release a few Steam keys in response to the publication of this article on Factor’s Bluesky account in the coming hours. Stay tuned!
