I can think of no better way to kick off The Bonus World’s Game of the Year extravaganza than by talking about games that explicitly did not release this calendar year. I’ve played a lot of stuff this year and not all of it came out in 2024, let alone this century, so I’d like to highlight some of them here.
Aside from the Honorable Mention below, this list is in no particular order. All of these games are excellent, and some of them will even get their due elsewhere.
Honorable Mention – Chants of Sennaar
I am 100% certain that you will be hearing me talk about Chants of Sennaar in some other list this year, so I won’t harp on it too much right now. This is an incredible puzzle game focused on decoding and translating languages. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever played and I cannot recommend it enough.
The Case of the Golden Idol
2024 was the year that I truly fell in love with puzzle-solving games, and The Case of the Golden Idol is one of the main reasons why. It is a game about deductive reasoning that requires you to really take in your environment, identifying who and what is in each scene along with the context of those elements.
What really clicked with me in hindsight is how The Case of the Golden Idol was both presented and played. It’s a unique spin on traditional point-and-click adventure games that I described in more detail back in the October Spotlight:
It isn’t clear who or what you play as in The Case of the Golden Idol, but you inhabit some sort of third party spectator who arrives at the moment of, or shortly after a grizzly murder has taken place. Through a point-and-click interface, you explore each heinous tableau, rooting around pockets, cupboards, and trashcans for pieces of information that can steer you towards identifying who people are, who was present, and what motives existed. At the end of each level you input your assumptions into a Mad-Libs-styled notepad, filling out the story with its key figures, items and whatever other relevant information is needed.
I don’t want to spoil anything because the story is kind of the whole game, so you’ll have to forgive the vague platitudes. But trust me when I say that The Case of the Golden Idol is a remarkable puzzler in the same vein as another beloved deduction-based game, The Return of the Obra Din. Maybe keep a notebook handy though, you’ll probably need it.
Super Mario World
It only took me three decades, but on some idle Tuesday in March I finally whipped Bowser’s ass on my own instead of relying on my older sister to do it for me. I genuinely forgot how much of this game we would skip on a regular basis, usually opting for the Star Road route directly to Bowser’s soon-to-be graveside. I think I put it quite eloquently when I said:
I stomped all of his children’s collective asses and then stomped his too. It was the first time I had ever personally beaten Super Mario World, and it was absolutely worth the 3 or 4 hours it took. Playing it on the Switch was a nice bonus too because I was able to make use of save states and the rewind feature a few times. Put an asterisk next to my accomplishment if you need to, but I could not care less. I beat Super Mario World and killed Bowser and his whole family. I am a hero.
Mamma-mia, this game is a masterpiece.
Baldur’s Gate 3
They said it couldn’t be done. They said there was no way he could find a way to give Baldur’s Gate 3 some sort of award a year after it was released. Not only did this absolute gem of a game win last year’s GOTY (spoilers I guess?), but apparently I honored it back in 2020 when it was still in early access. Who knew?
But that’s how fantastic this game is. I still think about it fondly, months after finally uninstalling it, freeing up the 6 petabytes worth of data it occupied. I’ve said my piece about this game over and over again, and I’ve also lauded it as the game that finally made me like CRPGs, which in retrospect isn’t really true.
Since being swept up in its splendor and eventually moving on, I’ve tried other games of its ilk. I think I’ve come to the realization that I still don’t like this genre of game. I don’t have the patience for any of these games. I don’t want to drink the right potions, or spec out my characters to make a cohesive team composition, or attempt to set up some wild chain reaction of events I know isn’t going to work because I planned it. I just don’t enjoy that stuff.
But in Baldur’s Gate 3 and only in Baldur’s Gate 3, I fucking love doing that stuff. I see people creaming their jeans over Path of Exile, Pillars of Eternity and the Divinity games, and I’m real happy for them, but I just want to play this game with these characters, and this story with its writing, and not engage with this genre in any other form until its inevitable sequel.
Whether it’s a lack of patience or general lack of brain power, I do not enjoy these kinds of games — EXCEPT for Baldur’s Gate 3, which is one of the best video games of all time.
That’s day one of Game of the Year in the books. Come back tomorrow for another list of games. Consider subscribing to The Bonus World so you can get an email updating you whenever we publish something new.
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