Game of the Year 2024 - Biggest Surprise

Beginning our usual Game of the year articles, the team at Chalgyr thought about all the wild and amazing games played during 2024. Several of the team members found quite a surprise in a number of titles ranging through different genres. As with previous years, we'll cover Nick's biggest surprise first. Valerie has thrown her hat in the ring for our articles this year and we're excited about that. Naturally, Richard, P.Y., and myself all have our picks as well. If you want to know what we have on our lists, keep reading!

Nick:

Metal Slug Tactics 

I don't know what I expected from this. I thought it might have a bit of an identity crisis. From the trailers, the art looked on-point, but the traditionally action-heavy series made its way to turn-based tactics far more effectively than I had expected.

Valerie:

Planet Crafter

Planet Crafter is a game of space survival open world terraforming and crafting game with the buildings like what’s in Subnautica, and other things too. It’s also a game that one could call Subnautica in Space. You’re a prisoner sent to this planet to terraform it for human life. You even get to create life in the form of animals that you have to feed. I had a field day exploring in this game as well as building up my base after figuring out how high the water level reaches in the first lake that is by my base. You are made very aware of your survival in this game with having to feed yourself and drink water. This game surprised me with the ease of play and not a boatload of glitches.

Susan: 

Palia

This year a cozy game surprised me. In a genre that is fairly straight forward in terms of the farming mechanics, romance options, and general level schemes, Palia came out swinging with some awesome quests and cool areas to explore. The cooking mechanic makes you feel like you're actually cooking a meal because of the way it is done. If you are rolling dough, your QTE points will be at the top and the bottom of the cutting board. It's a little hard to explain, but the game does cozy right. Also, each character has a personality of their own, which makes the gameplay experience exciting and dynamic. Plus, you never know if there are hidden chests nearby or quests to find. Heck, I even like the fishing! Basically, Palia surprised the heck out of me and I can't be more impressed with a cozy game. It's my latest addiction because it has it all. 

Richard:

Touhou Mystia's Izakaya

I've always been a fan of Touhou titles, but I have admittedly been a little wary of some of the fangames that diverge from either bullet hell or RPG/metroidvania titles. While restaurant management type deals aren't usually my go to, I must admit that Mystia's Izakaya really drew me in. What I thought would be an hour or so at a time turned into several in a row. While I wasn't expecting it to be bad by any means, it was definitely a lot more fun than I was expecting.

P.Y.

Stellar Blade 

Yes. That game. Now that that is out of the way, what's present here is a solid action adventure RPG with a few twists that maybe you may not see coming until a few minutes before they happen which was appreciated. It's nice to be surprised in good ways. 

While the writing could be a bit weird at times, there's an overall flow to the game that balances wide open areas with horror atmosphere inspired resident evil corridors. And you can't use your sword. Only your guns. Good thing you can go fishing to calm your nerves down. 

I overall enjoyed Stellar Blade and played through for all three endings just to see where things landed for the protagonist and all of those that helped her along the way. I'm looking forward to seeing where the devs go with a sequel as there has been mention of one.