RPS Pickbox: Jeremy’s 2024 Bonus Game of the Year

2024 is my first full year at RPS, and as a guide writer, it’s been a year full of games that will have you rolling up your sleeves, wiping the sweat from your brow, looking up at the sky in the trenches, and thinking. What life will be like when you’re no longer faced with those Souls-like games interspersed with gacha games with incomprehensible loot mechanics.
However, while games like Shadow of the Tree, Black Myth: Wukong, and Howling Waves tested my mettle, there were occasionally moments where I could enjoy a smaller, perhaps more relaxing gaming experience. I’ve highlighted two games below, as well as a quirky game that didn’t make our “GOTY” list but won me over due to its enthusiasm.
Haunted UK
Alice B (Quiet RPS!) loved An English Haunting when she tried it out last April. I enjoyed it too, and one of us might review the final game, but alas, it slipped through the cracks during the Treehouse staff turnover. Well, I’ll declare it as a post facto that The Haunting of England is a click-worthy experience that does an excellent job of transporting you to England (and Scotland) in 1907 to investigate the mysteries of faraway places. You play as Professor Patrick Moore, an academic who is passionate about spiritualism and séances of the era, and you have 72 hours to prove the existence of ghosts before your university’s Department of Psychic Investigation closes. oops!
I’m a sucker for Victorian and Edwardian stories, so The Haunting of England left me craving the mysteries of gaslit streets, preferably starring a tweed-suited gumshoe. It also made me love horror and wish more point-and-click adventure games would dabble in the occult, so give it a try if you’re attracted to this eclectic mix. You can expect a strong focus on the setting, puzzles that don’t stretch viable logic, and even a short sequence where you play Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, who’s also busy when he’s not figuring out a way to believe in souls Believe in the soul.
My only criticisms of The Haunting of England are that the adventure drags in the middle (the Scottish adventure isn’t as good as it could have been) and that the overall experience isn’t as tense as its postmodern adventure predecessor, Nightmare Frame. An ode to 80s horror movies. (This is just because Nightmare Framework does Damn it If you haven’t downloaded it yet, it’s very good and worth downloading.
Dragon’s Dogma 2
I really like the content of Dragon’s Dogma 2. , started by Ollie and finished by me. From a player’s perspective, I just dig the weirdness on display here, and Dragon’s Dogma 2’s commitment to letting you do anything you can imagine and then live with the results. These are the consequences of playing in a giant sandbox, Dragon’s Dogma 2 says, face them now! I respect that gumption, and the fact that this is a “Capcom badass game,” as Slack’s work often describes it. Whether it’s the unforgettable AI companion Pawn system (which grows as the game progresses), the “climb on this gryphon’s back and slash it a billion times as it squirms” boss fights, or simply Models for the excellent Character RE engine are being put to work, this is Capcom throwing all the paint at the wall to see what sticks, and the end result is a bit messy, but very fun.
As a fan of tabletop RPGs, I also appreciate Dragon’s Dogma 2 as it’s basically the equivalent of a game master who cares less about the plot of their campaign than the silly stories the player decides to tell along the way . This includes their decision to use the Unmaking Arrow – which can kill anything in one hit – on a random NPC they accidentally fall in love with, since the whole romance system is unexplained and somewhat arbitrary. Everyone remembers those TTRPG nights, that’s why I remember Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Vampire Survivor: Ode to Castlevania
I discovered Vampire Survivor for the first time this year. I know, a little behind the times, but my aversion to anything too trendy means I have to wait a certain amount of time before checking out the latest mainstream obsession. I was delighted to discover that I enjoyed Vampire Survivor, and it was a lot of fun to fight my way through Castlevania enemies interpreted by an Italian as Poppea Pecorina.
But I didn’t really fall in love with Vampire Survivor until the Ode to Castlevania DLC came out in October of this year, because I loved Castlevania and a Belmont-inspired Bullet Haven game is now out This tribute to its granddad comes full circle in an unexpected way that’s just too good to resist. Man, Castlevania is a joy and one of the heaviest DLC packs I’ve ever played. Not only are all the classic characters present and accounted for, including Simon, Trevor, Richter, and other big-name Belmonts, but the number of deep cuts crammed into this package is astounding. Once you “beat” the DLC’s main map, you’ll see a plethora of unexpected survivors appear, such as Quincy Morris, who never played in a real Castlevania game but instead appeared in 1994’s Castlevania John Morris’ father in Castlevania: Bloodlines/The Next Generation, and technically Same Quincy Morris is a character in Bram Stoker’s Dracula novels who helped kill Dracula with a Bowie knife while also playing the role of European Cool Texan. Yes, Bram Stoker’s novel is canon in the Castlevania timeline; if you want to know all the wonderful shenanigans that make up official Castlevania lore, just Google it.
Castlevania is in a weird situation right now, Konami hasn’t made a full-fledged game since 2014’s Lords of Shadow 2, but is lending the license to anyone who wants it for free . So, we have the show on Netflix, which has certainly made the series more popular than ever. But we’ve also done some work, like the excellent updates to Vampire Survivor, to make this the best Castlevania game of the past decade. Don’t wait like I usually do – play it today, especially if you’ve ever been headbutted to death by a Medusa!