Everybody's Top 10 Games Of 2024 (And Your Turn To Vote For GOTY!)

Hey everybody! As we're rolling out MinnMax's collective Game of the Year debates in the main podcast feed (reminder that you can unlock all of them now at the $10 tier), we wanted to share everybody's Top 10 games of 2024. The nine of us try our best to represent the year, but we can barely scratch the surface for games released. So to help paint a more accurate picture of this year in gaming, we reached out to friends of the show who appeared on MinnMax content in 2024 to get their lists as well. Unlike The Two Tens (MinnMax's collective ranking, coming up over the next two weeks in the main podcast feed), these lists from friends don't have rules. They can list whatever they want and as many things as they want.

But before we get to all of the lists, here's an opportunity to create the ULTIMATE ranking of the best games of 2024. Thanks to the mods in the Discord, you can fill out this Google Form and add your ranking to the collective community hive-mind. We'll be reading the community's "objective" list on The MinnMax Show on January 9th, 2025.

• For the purpose of this poll: Early access titles, expansion passes, new DLC, remasters and remakes, etc are all eligible.

• You don't have to enter 10 games, just fill out as many as you can with your own current ranking.

• Edit your response as many times as you like. As long as the submission window is open you can use the same link to edit your response. Reorder, add, or remove as much as you like.

• The poll closes on Monday, January 6, 2025 at 9pm.

Submit your personal picks right here - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScVHWMMMyDqy6qnV_H5rCtYwMogqPDbP9bxWPjwQkB4GWp_aQ/viewform

Okay, now here are all of our personal lists. Enjoy!

Jeff Marchiafava - Cohort
- Follow on Twitter here

1. UFO 50

2. Balatro

3. Diceomancer

4. Shogun Showdown

5. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

6. Dragons Dogma 2

7. The Rise of the Golden Idol

8. Ballionaire

9. Metal Slug Tactics

10. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Haley MacLean - Cohort/Community Manager
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Metaphor Re:Fantanzio

2. Astrobot

3. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

4. 1000X Resist

5. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

6. Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth

7. Dragon's Dogma 2

8. Indika

9. Minishoot' Adventures

10. Thank Goodness You're Here

Kyle Hilliard - Cohort
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Astro Bot

2. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

3. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

4. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess

5. Metaphor ReFantazio

6. Minishoot’ Adventures

7. Stellar Blade

8. Batman: Arkham Shadow

9. Silent Hill 2

10. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Leo Vader - Cohort
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. The Finals

2. Indika

3. Wild Bastards

4. UFO 50

5. Thank Goodness You’re Here

6. Pacific Drive

7. Shogun Showdown

8. Echo Point Nova

9. Dungeons of Hinterberg

10. 1000x Resist

Jacob Geller - Cohort
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Astro Bot

2. 1000xResist

3. Balatro

4. Nine Sols

5. Metaphor: ReFantazio

6. Mouthwashing

7. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

8. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

9. Slitterhead

10. Helldivers 2

Sarah Podzorski - Cohort
- Follow on Bluesky here

0. Fields of Mistria

1. Infinity Nikki

2. Mouthwashing

3. Manor Lords

4. The Rise of the Golden Idol

5. 1000xResist

6. Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree

7. Crow Country

8. Arctic Eggs

9. Metaphor Refantazio

10. Dragons Dogma 2

Ben Hanson - Cohort
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

2. Astro Bot

3. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

4. Astro Duel 2

5. Minishoot' Adventures

6. Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth

7. Tetris Forever

8. UFO 50

9. Mouthwashing

10. World of Goo 2

Janet Garcia - Cohort
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Astro Bot

2. Metaphor: ReFantazio

3. Balatro

4. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

5. 1000xResist

6. Animal Well

7. Cryptmaster

8. Grunn

9. Arco

10. Helldivers 2

Kelsey Lewin - Cohort
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. 1000x Resist

2. Helldivers 2

3. Balatro

4. Astrobot

5. Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth

6. Metaphor: Refantazio

7. UFO 50

8. Starstruck: Hands of Time

9. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess

10. Infinity Nikki

Charles Harte
- MinnMax Video Editor
- Created Flight Simulator and Monster Hunter travelogues, starred in the Summer Game Fest travelogue, DMd our Dungeons and Dragons game, The Deepest Dive for Mirror's Edge, edited the MinnMax Best Ofs all year, Max Settings, hosted Death Row Snacks for New Show Plus, appeared on The MinnMax Show
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Astro Bot

2. Balatro

3. Metaphor: ReFantazio

4. Arco

5. 1000xResist

6. Dragon’s Dogma 2

7. Hades 2 (Early Access)

8. Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit

9. Beastieball (Early Access)

10. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Ana Diaz
- Culture Writer at Polygon, Former MinnMax Cohort
- Follow on Bluesky here

(I don’t put betas/alpha on my list so no Fields of Mistria or Hades 2)

1. Metaphor: ReFantazio

2. Astro Bot

3. Infinity Nikki

4. Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth

5. 1000 x Resist

6. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

7. Balatro

8. Webfishing

9. Dress to Impress

10.Flock

Suriel Vazquez
- Narrative Lead at Big Blue Sky Games working on Merchants of Rosewall , Former MinnMax Cohort
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

2. 1000xRESIST

3. Balatro

4. Arco

5. Dota 2: Crownfall

6. Helldivers 2

7. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

8. Dragon's Dogma 2

9. Penny's Big Breakaway

10. I didn't play the other ones. Merchants of Rosewall available March 2025 wishlist on Steam today!

Michael Huber 
- Easy Allies cohost
- Hosted Trivia Tower, appeared on New Show Plus and The MinnMax Show, and filled in for Jeff Marchiafava during his paternity leave.
- Follow on Bluesky here

These are in no particular order, follow Easy Allies for his final list.

Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Dragons Dogma 2

Balatro

Stellar Blade

Silent Hill 2

Prince of Persia:The Lost Crown

Astro Bot

Black Myth Wukong

Indiana Jones and The Great Circle

Kyle Bosman - Top 5 Dumb Games
- Delayed Input creator, Twitch Streamer
- Appeared on Trivia Tower with Michael Huber
- Follow on Bluesky here

There are games we play that are hard to recommend to friends but we enjoy in our own private stupid time. These dumb games aren’t as well-designed or artful as our front-facing favorites, but they’re still appreciated.

5. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Sometimes it’s funny to watch a comedian bomb uncontrollably; playing this game is kind of like that. I know it doesn’t make sense but I really did love doing triple jumps and air dashes as a gun-loving King Shark.

4. Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble

A brand-new Monkey Ball game came out this year, a true-blue sequel with thoughtful new mechanics, and I think a lot of us just forgot about it. Maybe it just hits that particular balance between Must-See Good and Must-See Bad where it goes unnoticed. But an unremarkable Monkey Ball game is still a really good time comparatively.

3. Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO

There’s just something nice about how nuts this game is. The roster is irresponsibly large. It’s competitively broken but I think we’d all prefer it that way. You get to play out alternate storylines to see what would happen if Vegeta won all his fights. (Mostly nothing changes) All this game ever promised is dumb Dragon Ball fun, and that’s kind of all you could ask for.

2. Metaphor: ReFantazio

If you can overlook all its faults this game is actually pretty fun.

1. SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game

A true embodiment of the joyful spirit of dumb games. Since Patrick would be the kind of guy to wander around and perform all these wonky/flimsy physics-based tasks in whatever order he chooses, it’s almost a perfect alignment of cartoon character and game design. Brilliantly dumb.

Grant
- Ben's old friend
- Appeared on The Deepest Dive for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

 1. UFO 50

2. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

3. Astrobot

4. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

5. Balatro

6. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

7. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

8. Silent Hill 2 Remake

9. Animal Well

10. Nine Sols

Ronnie
- Ben's old friend
- Appeared on The Deepest Dive for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and failing to play Crow Country

1. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

2. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Nerdtree

3. Age of Mythology Retold

4. Silent Hill 2

5. Animal Well

6. DOOM Eternal

7. Tiny Glade

8. Against the Storm

9. Intelligent Qube

10. Star Ocean 2: Second Story R (Demo)

Haley De Boom
- Generous community member
- Appeared on The MinnMax Show and Bonus Pod

1. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

2. Dragon Age: The Veilguard

3. 1000xRESIST

4. Metaphor: ReFantazio

5. Control

6. Hades II

7. Astro Bot

8. Dragon’s Dogma 2

9. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak

10. Rocksmith 2014

Ross "The Star Wars Guy" Pfund
- Appeared on The Deepest Dive for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Max Spoilers
- Follow on Twitter here

1. Animal Well

2. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

3. Minishoot’ Adventures

4. Balatro

5. Nine Sols

6. Astro Bot

7. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

8. Rise of the Golden Idol

9. Star Wars Outlaws

10. Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition

Matt Helgeson
- Host of CrossFade, MinnMax's dormant music podcast
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. The Reds, Pinks, and Purples – This is Adult Art School

2. Roc Marciano – Marciology

3. La Luz – News of the Universe

4. Neil Young – Archives Vol. III

5. Kendrick Lamar – GNX

6. Sharp Pins – Radio DDR

7. Yuasa-Exide – Information and Culture

8. LL Cool J – The FORCE

9. Dallas Orbiter – Spaceman Things

10. FAXED – Grotesque Rescue

Jason Dafnis
- Cohost of of CrossFade, MinnMax's dormant music podcast

- Follow on Bluesky here

"Jason's Favorite Medias Things He Consumed in 2024"

- Game: "Boku no Natsuyasumi 2" by Millennium Kitchen (2002)

- Book: "The Memory Police" by Yōko Ogawa (1994)

- Album: "Rong Weicknes" by Fievel Is Glauque (2024)

- Game: "Felvidek" by Jozef Pavelka and Vlado Ganaj (2024)

- Album: "The Gloss" by Cola (2024)

- Movie: "Exhuma" by Jang Jae-Hyun (2024)

- Album: "Champion" by Pom Poko (2024)

- Movie: "Conclave" by Edward Berger (2024)

- Album: "No Name" by Jack White (2024)

- Game: "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle" by MachineGames (2024)

Jeff Cork
- Publicist at Tara Bruno PR and FIFTYcc
- Appeared on the Thanksgiving joke-a-thon
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. The Binding of Isaac

2. Astro Bot

3. Balatro

4.  Dragon's Dogma II

5. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

6.  Thank Goodness You're Here

7. Stellar Blade

8. Star Wars Outlaws

9. No Man's Sky

10. EDF 6

Jill Grodt
- Founder of The Indie Informer
- Appeared on our GDC and Summer Game Fest travelogues
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Neva

2. Nine Sols

3. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

4. Balatro

5. Magical Delicacy

6. Grunn

7. The Rise of the Golden Idol

8. Animal Well

9. UFO 50

10. Mouthwashing

Alex Van Aken
- Founder of Viewport: Inside Look At Video Games
- Hosted The Deepest Dive for Mirror's Edge and the Game Informer office goodbye
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Balatro

2. Animal Well

3. Astro Bot

4. Thank Goodness You’re Here

5. The Finals

Marcus Stewart
- Video game writer/critic, Twitch streamer
- Appeared on The MinnMax Show
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Balatro

2. Astro Bot

3. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

4. 1000xResist

5. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

6. Animal Well

7. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

8. Stellar Blade

9. Indika

10. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Charles McGregor
- Game developer currently working at Strange Scaffold on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. UFO 50

2. Fortnite Festival

3. Marvel Rivals

4. Baldur's Gate 3

5. Deadlock

6. Star Wars Outlaws

7. Foamstars

8. Black Myth: Wukong

9. Frogun Encore

10. Indiana Jones: The Great Circle

EllieJoyPanic
- Twitch streamer
- Appeared on The MinnMax Show
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

2. Ghost of Tsushima

3. Return of the Obra Dinn

4. Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin

5. Laysara: Summit Kingdom

6. Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

7. Stardew Valley (1.6)

Honourable mention as always to my beloved Bloodborne and Dorfromantik, which probably have more play hours than anything else this year!

Kate Sánchez
- Editor-In-Chief of But Why Tho
- Appeared on The MinnMax Show, Disney Land travelogue
- Follow on Bluesky here

1. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (since it was Dec last year and got looked over)

2. Path of Exile 2

4. Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

5. Mouthwashing

6. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

7. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

8. Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero

9. Tekken 8

10. Arco

Mike Minotti
- Managing editor at GamesBeat, weird guy at Giant Bomb
- Appeared on Disney Land travelogue
- Follow on Bluesky here

I love old games! And while I’m more than happy to use emulators or original hardware to check out the classics, I’m glad when new compilations, remasters, remakes, and ports give me an excuse to play oldies on modern hardware.

Below are my 10 favorite such games this year. Note that I’m not including remakes that are so extensive that feel like new games, so no Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Persona 3 Reload, or Silent HIll 2 here (although those are all super good times).

10. Epic Mickey Rebrushed

I’m one of those dreaded Disney Adults that they talk about in the news. Still, the original Epic Mickey didn’t hit as much as I wanted. This remaster is much better. It turns out that the game is more fun without all of those Wii gimmicks.

9. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

Castlevania Dominus Collection finally saved three excellent games from DS purgatory, and I had a blast playing through all of them this year. Order of Ecclesia is the most challenging of the lot, and it has a more unique structure than the typical Metroidvania formula that the others more closely follow.

8. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

Portrait of Ruin’s main gimmick has you swapping between two characters, one that focuses on weapons and another who specializes in magic. It also features some of my favorite boss fights in the series.

7. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Dawn of Sorrow is the one that most closely resembles Symphony of the Night and, unsurprisingly, is my favorite of the bunch. But all three really are fantastic. I’m glad that Dominus Collection makes these gems so accessible now.

6. Beyond Good & Evil

Ubisoft is in something of a downward spiral at the moment, but I do have to give credit to the team behind this year’s remaster of Beyond Good & Evil. It’s partly a testament to the original that it still holds up so well, but the game definitely looks and feels better than ever now.

5. Rocket Knight Adventures

Speaking of compilations of old Konami games, Rocket Knight Adventures: Re-Sparked is a retro collection that I’m guessing fewer of you have played this year. But you should! These are some of the finest 16-bit action-platformers that you’ll find. The original Rocket Knight Adventures is easily my favorite, it’s such a fast-paced and exciting ride.

4. Braid

Braid also got a great remaster this year. Honestly, the original already looked and played so well that I didn’t think it needed much updating, but this new release adds some thoughtful changes to the audio and visuals.

3. Marvel vs. Capcom 2

Man, I love the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection that came out this year. It has a bunch of great games, but Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is easily my favorite. I played so much of it on the Dreamcast back in the day, and it’s a dream to have access to the game on modern machines with smooth online matchmaking.

2. Dragon Quest III HD-2D

I’ve been a fan of the HD-2D trend, and none of them have looked better than this. Even without the visual upgrades, Dragon Quest III is just such a pure JRPG experience. If you haven’t checked the series out before, this is a great place to start.

1. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Mario has been in a bunch of great RPGs, but this faithful remake of the GameCube classic now has me convinced that The Thousand-Year Door is the best of the bunch. It’s witty, charming, has an amazing cast of memorable characters, and an incredibly satisfying combat system. In a year full of great RPGs, this stands among any of the new releases from 2024.

MinnMax's Discord Mods - Help thank them in the comments!

Ian T Clark

1. Final Fantasy 7 Remake

2. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

3. Stellar Blade

4. The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered

5. Helldivers 2

6. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered

7. The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom

8. Astro Bot

9. Persona 3 Reload

10. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Neill Smith

1. ELDEN RING: Shadow of the Erdtree

2. Vampire Survivors: Ode to Castlevania

3. Valheim – Ashlands

4. Balatro

5. Horizon Forbidden West (PC)

6. Enshrouded

7.. Thank Goodness You're Here!

8. Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred

9. Age of Mythology: Retold

10. Helldivers 2

Interrota

1. Silent Hill 2

2. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

3. Xenogears (holy crap what a game)

4. Persona 4 Golden

5. In Sound Mind

6. Far Cry 5

7. Bloodstained Ritual of the Night

8. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

9. Spyro 2 Ripto’s Rage

SgtGrumbles

1. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

2. Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree

3. 1000xResist

4. Unicorn Overlord

5. Still Wakes The Deep

6. Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth

7. Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom

8. Mouthwashing

9. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

10. Helldivers 2

Honorable 2019 mention: Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order

As always, thanks for supporting MinnMax on Patreon at any tier. This is all possible because of your direct support and help spreading the word about what we're doing.