Graphics, music, sound, writing… All of these elements enhance a videogame, but every now and then, a developer manages to deliver in one of these areas in a way that shines through and not only enhances, but elevates the rest of the experience to a whole other level. These awards go to the games that excelled in one of these areas.
Note: You can listen to a podcast where Jenn and I discuss these awards! Check it out here!
- Best Music
- Best Song
- Best Sound Design
- Best Voice Acting
- Best Graphical Style
- Best Graphics
- Best Story
- Best New Character
- Additional Commentary!
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Best Music
Quilts and Cats of Calico by Paweł Górniak – When you make a “cozy game”, one element I think many people overlook is just how vitally important it is to get the music right, to make something that is immediately inviting, warm and welcoming. And I think Quilts and Cats of Calico understood this assignment better than any game of this type I’ve encountered, with a soundtrack that immediately made me feel relaxed and happy, like I was coming home. Plenty of game soundtracks this year brought us phenomenal soundtracks that highlighted the emotion of the story or perfectly encapsulated the world within the game, but Quilts and Cats of Calico’s music made me feel immediately welcome in this game in a way that I was hesitant to leave.
Runners-Up:
Farewell North by John Konsolakis
Neva by Berlinist
1000xResist by Line Katcho and Drew Redman
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord by Winifred Phillips
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom by Hajime Wakai
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Best Song
End Credits (My Heart’s in The Highlands) by John Konsolakis (feat. Siobhan Miller), from Farewell North – Early into Farewell North, players are introduced to the vocal theme My Heart’s in The Highlands, essentially hearing its first verse. This is finally reprised in the game’s ending, and while it was already powerful the first time you heard it, it takes on a greater meaning in the final moments of the song, when Siobhan Miller’s lovely vocals sing the line “farewell to the highlands, farewell to the North”, representing a conclusive parting not only with the homeland in the game’s title, but everything that has come to represent. It’s an emotional moment, and one that is made far more powerful by this song.
Runners-Up:
Opening Theme (Untitled #1 – Vaka) by Sigur Rós, from Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley
Watcher Haunted by Line Katcho and Drew Redman, from 1000xResist
Lord of the Castle by Winifred Phillips, from Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
Hyrule Field Theme by Hajime Wakai, from The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Asa Go Distant by Shane Berry & Igor Simic, from The Cub
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Best Sound Design
Animal Well – It’s always brave when a game chooses to have no soundtrack and let the sound effects do the talking, but it seems particularly so when you’re talking about a game with lo-fi sounds squeezed into a tiny file size. Yet with so little, Animal Well creates a vivid soundscape where every drop of water, every brush against the foliage, and every creature adds to a symphony of sounds to add to the atmosphere of the game’s varied locations, making the game’s locales sound different, and giving the overall game a wonderful signature all of its own.
Runners-Up:
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Best Voice Acting
1000xResist – The high-concept sci-fi plot of 1000xResist could have easily come across as silly or detached, but the heartfelt performances of the incredible voice cast lend everything a weight and sadness that permeates through even the most surreal moments of the game. Through all the strange cult-like citations the characters say to the inflections of simple one-word answers to questions that say so much more than the words themselves ever could, 1000xResist’s voice acting elevates the game’s story and adds a human element to the cold world the game’s characters live in.
Runners-Up:
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut
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Best Graphical Style
Neva – Everything in Neva is a visual feast for the eyes, from a painterly world filled with beautiful color and extremely striking lighting to its amazing, fluid animation. Following in the footsteps of Gris may have been a hard act to follow, but Neva was absolutely up to the task.
Runners-Up:
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Best Graphics
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown – In a year where the Nintendo Switch is showing its age more than ever before, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown stands alone as one game that delivers a truly impressive visual performance that doesn’t seem to be held back in any way by Nintendo’s underpowered hardware. With a large, imaginative world, great character animation, and plenty of detail, this is a game that’s polished from a fine sheen from top to bottom.
Runners-Up:
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Best Story
1000xResist – At first disorienting, and then seemingly following in the footsteps of futuristic utopia-hiding-a-dystopic sci-fi classic stories like Logan’s Run, 1000xResist takes the time to explore the sadness and loneliness that can grow in such a place, and then expands beyond that to explore a different sort of sadness and loneliness as you learn more about this society’s founding figure, and her own story of becoming increasingly distant from her family, dealing with mental illness, and the unique stresses that come with being the child of immigrant parents. Add to this the societal upheaval caused by a global pandemic, and it’s not hard to see how this game’s themes could touch a nerve for its players. Yet despite the extreme sci-fi concepts the game uses, its focus remains squarely on the human side of things. And that makes for an exceptional story.
Runners-Up:
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut
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Best New Character
Captain Coolimbus, from A Time Traveller’s Guide to Past Delicacies – This is such a bizarre game, and much of the reason why is the game’s central character, Captain Coolimbus, who is charismatic, enthusiastic, helpful, has questionable priorities, and extremely questionable morals. On the surface he’s a silly character in a silly game – he’s a sock puppet, for goodness sake! But… something about him seems untrustworthy, creepy, and it’s hard not to wonder what his motives are. The entire time you’re interacting with this cheerful, goofy character is unsettling, which is a juxtaposition that’s truly impressive to see in a character.
Runners-Up:
The Salesman, from Thank Goodness You’re Here!
Andreas, from Pentiment
Iris, from 1000xResist
Lil’, from Lil’ Guardsman
The Princess, from Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut
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Additional Commentary!
Just going to comment on the categories I feel like I have more to add.
Best Music
Every year, I end up playing a lot of games in December, both because of holiday sales and to try to cram in as much as possible before these awards, and it really makes me worry if I may be injecting recency bias into these awards. Both the winner and three runners-up in this category were from games I only played in December, with one more in November I think. Yet despite this, when I go back and listen to the soundtracks of these games… yeah, this seems right to me.
Maybe it seems odd to place a relaxed, cozy soundtrack above epic, cinematic soundtracks like what was in Neva and Farewell North (not to mention numerous other games that didn’t quite make this list like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Nine Sols), or a soundtrack where the composer actually put the effort in to ensure that everything was made using period-appropriate instruments like in Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (which adds a soundtrack to a remake of a game that didn’t even have a soundtrack in the original release!). But then I go back and re-listen to the Quilts and Cats of Calico‘s soundtrack, and I can’t help but smile every time.
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Best Song
For the longest time, there was no question in my mind that Opening Theme (Untitled #1 – Vaka) would win this one. It’s a song that was originally released in 2002, and it’s apparently not even in every version of Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley if YouTube playthroughs are to be believed, but to me it just perfectly set the tone of the game, giving a soft, gentle sadness to the parting of two good friends, and setting the stakes for the beauty players are seeking to preserve and rescue through the course of the game’s events.
However… I realized that I couldn’t help but tear up every time I listened to My Heart’s in The Highlands, thinking of Farewell North‘s powerful ending. And that kinda’ told me everything I needed to know about what song would win this one.
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Best Voice Acting
I decided this year to make this category not about individual performances, but the entire game’s voice acting, because if I didn’t there would just be far too many individual characters I would need to consider, and I just wasn’t sure I’d have time to look into all of that.
I should talk about the inclusion of Neva here, which might seem odd, since the game’s voice acting really just comes from one character, and she largely just says one thing, calling out the name of the game’s titular character, the wolf Neva. However, the voice acting in just those two syllables throughout the game was, I felt, really powerful, and you could tell a lot from the tone and stress in your character’s voice when she called out that name. Is she afraid for Neva’s safety? Desperately looking for Neva? Gently waking Neva up? Relieved to see Neva safe? You learn so much about both of these characters from the tone in these two syllables, and I think that’s well worth a mention here.
Thank Goodness You’re Here! might also seem like an odd pick, as there’s none of the drama and emotion found in the other entries here, even the other comedic game, The Holy Gosh Darn. However, never underestimate just how hard it is to do comedy right, and Thank Goodness You’re Here does comedy so very, very right. Every silly, absurd voice in the game is exactly what this game needs and calls for.
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Best Graphical Style
Wow, there were a lot of games that could have been named in this category. If you didn’t see your choice listed here, it’s not because it was bad, it was because competition was so stiff!
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Best Graphics
Ugh… what a terrible year for this category. There was a long while where I thought nearly every runner-up would have to come with a caveat of “it looks really great, as long as you ignore ____”. Even in the end, I had Farewell North, Expeditions: A MudRunner Game, and Sonic X Shadow Generations round out the list, and each of those games has issues on the Nintendo Switch. Nothing game-breaking, nothing that made the games outright ugly, but certainly noticeable. Stray at least looks great on the Nintendo Switch (it won Best Port/Remake yesterday for a reason), but even then that’s with the understanding that the Nintendo Switch version has some compromises made from other platforms. Mario Party at least looks solid and polished in the way that Mario Party always looks solid and polished, but that’s hardly performing above and beyond, is it?
Thank goodness for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Without it, no matter which game I named as a winner in this category, I couldn’t be entirely satisfied with my choice.
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That’s all for today! to keep up with all of the eShopperReviews 2024 Game Awards, be sure to check back at the Awards’ Start Page, which I’ll be updating throughout the week!
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