Dragon's Dogma II is all rough edges - intended and otherwise. But as I marched through to its true ending, I came to navigate those the way I can navigate my parents' house in the dark. Sometimes I still stub my toe, but I not only understand all its intricacies but love them. I don't love DD2 despite its flaws, I love DD2 because of them. The game is janky, there are plenty of glitches, the story is weird, and half the time that I completed an objective or reached a goal, I felt like I broke something along the way. But I liked playing in that space and pushing it, figuring out how the game works and embracing where I, and it, fell short.

It doesn't feel like DD2 is a game full of oversights, it just feels like it's a beautifully game-y and authentic creation that has none of the polish that makes a lot of AAA games feel way too smooth. Whenever I had to fight against the controls when scaling a boss or wrestle with the camera, whenever I had to try and find a seemingly despawned NPC, I was intrigued by how I felt like I could see the game's gears turning, like I could see where their teeth didn't quite mesh. This is very subjective but to me I felt like a lot of the hiccups actually helped make the game feel more playable. Like I, and the developers at Capcom alike, would be surprised both intentionally and unintentionally around each corner.

Much has been made about the game's friction, and I think what works most for me about DD2 in this regard is just how dispassionately it treated me as a player. I could screw up questlines if I wanted to (and I did), I could get bodied by an enemy in one brutal hit (and I did several times). It really made the adventure's stakes feel higher, and I think that's part of why the jank was appealing here.

I specifically want to call attention to the geography - I loved how natural it felt. The idea of dispassionate design feels really clear here too, I don't have the typically game-y tools to bend the environment to my will, and it wasn't designed for the sake of convenience. It really felt like Capcom made a fantasy world with little care for how annoyingly tall its mountains would be, how frustratingly wide its rivers would be, how many times I'd get confused and have to consult my map, how many times I'd have to reroute when nature impeded my way. To me these are all positives. It all feels very organic.

Also the combat just rocks. I was playing as a thief and at a certain point DD2 just turned into an open-world character action game. I maxed this vocation out and just stuck with it - curating a set of weapon abilities that let me play this almost like Devil May Cry (Itsuno is one of the greatest to ever do it). Scaling massive bosses is just a perfect mechanic and idea, by the way. Despite the enemy density being way too high in some places I never got tired of the combat because it's just so much fun.

Ultimately, DD2 just let me explore at my own pace, dip into the main quest whenever I felt ready, and generally craft my own adventure, which I greatly appreciate. I felt a Breath of the Wild level of agency here, and that's a hard sentiment to recapture. Highest praise I can give DD2: I will definitely be starting a New Game+ sometime soon, and I never do that. Absolute highlight of 2024.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is among the most premium-feeling games that I've ever played. The level of polish and production value per-square-inch is peerless. But perhaps the key to Wonder's success, and why it stands as perhaps the quintessential (in all reality unimpeachable) model for ideal AAA game development: the development team had no time pressure.

We've learned that thousands of level concepts were iterated on, but only the absolute best made the final, 10-12 hour adventure. A lean 10-12 hours. Everything here is essential. And ceaselessly replayable. This game was developed in the context of creative luxury that no seldom few across the industry are afforded. And it shows.

You can't go two minutes in Super Mario Bros. Wonder without being delighted by a new idea, a one-off gimmick polished so well that you'd expect a full game to be built around it. With time on its side, Nintendo crafted the platformer of dreams.

And there is doubtlessly a dreamlike quality to the landscapes of Wonder that defy traditional logic but instead define their own. Few games better illustrate Nintendo's trailblazing, perennial creativity than this.

While it seemed impossible to do, my previous favorite Mario platformer, Super Mario Galaxy, has been unseated. Wonder now commands that coveted first-place slot. It commands the same in my ranking of the Switch's library too - it's by far and away my number one title on the system.

A triumph and monument to Nintendo creativity, I can think of few games in the history of the medium which have prompted such joy within me. I'm floored by Super Mario Bros. Wonder and have no plans to stop reveling in it anytime soon. I might have completed every level, found every Wonder Seed, snagged every Purple Coin... but I just want more. I never want to leave this zany world. For my taste, games really do not get better than this.

Beating the final boss of Dark Souls 3 was the most bittersweet feeling I've had playing video games.

This year I played and beat Every Soulsbourne Game starting with Demon Souls and it played out almost like one giant epic to me. And this game was that book closing.

People dismiss this game as a retread of the previous games but I never once felt like it wasn't warranted. Coming back to this place that so many adventures had taken place felt right to end the adventure. It's almost like one last Hurrah, playing the hits, it's that final stop on the long journey. I loved seeing characters and areas from previous souls games because I think they earned it.

Getting back to Anor Londo fucking ruled, they made you happy to see the archers, the worst enemies of all time, and that in itself is impressive. This game was fromsoft taking 7 years of learned experience and crafting the penultimate Souls game.

Now This is in no way my favorite but it's the best souls game there is. It looks stunning every area is awe-inspiring there isn't a bad monster design and the world feels so lived in. There's a lot of things to take for granted in this series but stopping and taking the time I just never wanted to leave this world.

The combat feels tighter than ever, the weapon variety, while numbers-wise is inferior to Dark Souls 2, every weapon here felt unique, and it felt like they had so much fun putting heart and soul into every single one of them.

While some people think that this is the easiest souls game and that it's frankly very easy to soar through it, which it is, in hindsight, it's just that I played so many souls that you belong in that world now. You learned the rules that they put in place and this is you showing them you know what you are doing.

There isn't the mystery of the previous games because it's the final chapter. You are supposed to know by now, but you need to prove it to them.

Dark Souls 3 is the book closing on a perfect series. I never get the arguing between which is the best and worst game. It's like choosing a favorite family member. I love them all, and I wouldn't change a thing about them.