The RPS Selection Box: Jeremy’s bonus games of the year 2024

2024 was my first full year at RPS, and as a guides writer, it was a year packed with the sort of games that make you roll your sleeves up, wipe sweat from your brow, and stare up at the sky from the trenches, ruminating on what life is like when you aren’t dealing with back-to-back Soulslikes interspersed with gacha games that feature incomprehensible lootbox mechanics.

In between having my mettle tested by the likes of Shadow of the Erdtree, Black Myth: Wukong, and Wuthering Waves, however, there were occasional moments where I got to enjoy smaller, perhaps slightly more relaxing gaming experiences. I’ve highlighted two below, along with one batshite kooky game that didn’t make it on our GOTY list, but won me over nevertheless thanks to its gusto.

An English Haunting

Alice B (RPS in peace!) quite liked An English Haunting when she dove into the demo last April. I enjoyed it as well, and one of us probably would have reviewed the final game, but alas, it slipped through the cracks during a time of staff turnover here in the Treehouse. Well, I’m speaking up after the fact to announce that An English Haunting is a worthy point and click experience that does a lovely job of sending you to 1907 England (and Scotland) to investigate the mysteries of the great beyond. You play a scholar named Professor Patrick Moore who’s all into the spiritualism and séances that gripped the time period, and you’ve got 72 hours to prove the existence of ghosts before the Metapsychic Investigations department at your university shuts down. Egad!

I’m a sucker for Victorian and Edwardian-era stories, so An English Haunting tickles all the parts of me that lust for mysteries in gaslit streets, perferably starring gumshoes in tweed suits. It also gets the side of me that loves horror and wishes that more point-and-click adventure games would dabble in the occult, so if you’re attracted to this same eclectic mix, give this one a go. You can expect great attention to setting, puzzles that don’t stretch the logic of what’s feasible, and even a short sequence where you play as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, who was also busy believing in spirits when he wasn’t devising ways to kill Sherlock.

My only critique of An English Haunting is that the adventure drags in its middle section (the Scottish expedition isn’t as good as it could be), and the overall experience isn’t quite as tight as Postmodern Adventures’ previous work, Nightmare Frames, which was an ode to ’80s slasher horror. (This is only because Nightmare Frames was really damn good and deeply deserves your download if you haven’t already.) But if you stick through to the end, you’ll receive a marvelous finale, along with some of the only jump scares that I’ve ever experienced in a point-and-click.

Dragon’s Dogma 2

I enjoyed the stuffing out of Dragon’s Dogma 2. From a guides writing perspective, it was the first major project that I led amongst our small team, pumping out everything from class guides to a big ol’ walkthrough, which Ollie started and I finished. From a player’s perspective, I simply dig the weirdness on display here, as well as Dragon Dogma 2’s devotion to letting you do just about whatever you can imagine and then live with the results. Such are the consequences of playing in a giant sandbox, Dragon’s Dogma 2 says, now deal with them! I respect that gumption, and I respect the fact that this is a “Capcom ass game,” as it was often described in the work Slack. Whether it’s the memorable Pawn system of AI companions who grow on you as the game progesses, the “climb on the back of this griffon and slash it a billion times as it wiggles Dance Dance Revolution-style” boss fights, or simply the excellent character models of the RE Engine putting in work, this is Capcom throwing all of its paint at the wall to see what sticks, and the end result is more than a little messy, but very fun.

As a devotee of tabletop RPGs, I also admire Dragon’s Dogma 2 for basically acting as the equivalent of a Game Master who is not so much concerned with the plot of their campaign, but rather the goofy story that the players decide to tell along the way. This includes them deciding to use the Unmaking Arrow – which kills anything in a single hit – on a random NPC that they’ve accidentally been romancing because the entire romance system is unexplained and kind of arbitrary. Everyone remembers those kinds of TTRPG nights, and that’s why I remember Dragon’s Dogma 2.

Vampire Survivors: Ode to Castlevania

I discovered Vampire Survivors for the first time this year. I know, a little behind the curve, but my aversion to anything too popular means that I must wait a certain amount of time to check out the latest mainstream obsession. I was pleased to find that I liked Vampire Survivors just fine, and that plowing through hordes of campy Castlevania-as-interpreted-by-Italians enemies as Poppea Pecorina is great fun.

But it wasn’t until the Ode to Castlevania DLC came out this October that I really got into Vampire Survivors, because I love me some Castlevania, and the fact that an inspired-by-Belmont bullet heaven game was now paying tribute to its grandpappy in an unexpected full circle manner was just too good to resist. And gosh darn it, Ode to Castlevania is a joy, and one of the heftiest DLC packages that I’ve ever played. Not only are all your classic characters present and accounted for, including Simon, Trevor, Richter and the other big name Belmonts, but the sheer number of deep cuts stuffed into this package is astounding. Once you “beat” the DLC’s main map, expect to see a plethora of unexpected survivors emerge, like Quincy Morris, who was never in an actual Castlevania game but is instead the father of John Morris from 1994’s Castlevania: Bloodlines/The New Generation, and also technically the same Quincy Morris who was in Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel and helped kill Drac with a Bowie knife while also acting as the cool Texan in Europe. Yes, Bram Stoker’s novel is canon in the Castlevania timeline; go Google it if you want to read up on all of the fantastic shenanigans that encompass official Castlevania lore.

Castlevania’s in an odd place these days where Konami hasn’t made a fully-fledged game since 2014’s Lords of Shadow 2, but has freely loaned the licence out to whoever wants it. And so we have the Netflix show, which has undoubtedly made the series more popular than its ever been. But we also have efforts like this excellent update to Vampire Survivors, which turns the game into the best Castlevania title of the last decade. Don’t wait like I normally do – play it today, especially if you’ve ever been knocked to your death by a Medusa Head!