Some people have their own preferred genre, a type of game they like best. Today’s awards are for those people, who want the best games of their kind to grace that genre this year.
Note: You can listen to a podcast where Jenn and I discuss these awards! Check it out here!
- Best Platformer
- Best Arcade / Party Game
- Best Action Game
- Best Metroidvania
- Best Roguelike
- Best Action-RPG
- Best RPG
- Best Strategy Game
- Best Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel
- Best Puzzle Game
- Best Card/Board/Dice Game
- Best Driving/Racing/Sports Game
- Best Hardware – New for 2024!
- Best Misc. Game
- Additional Commentary!
.
Best Platformer
Sonic X Shadow Generations – While Sonic X Shadow Generations includes a solid remaster of Sonic Generations, that’s not why it wins this award. This release is all about the other, brand new, game that’s included in the package, Shadow Generations. This may well be the best 3D Sonic game ever made, capturing everything that’s great about 3D Sonic games without all the baggage Sonic games often bring with it. The result is a fun, engaging, platformer that’s still fast-paced but not so much that it hinders the gameplay.
Runners-Up:
Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble
.
Best Arcade / Party Game
Super Mario Party: Jamboree – When you’re talking about a Party Game, it’s hard to beat the Mario Party franchise, but it’s even harder when you’re talking about what I feel to be the best game the series has ever had. There were some other excellent games in this category, but they never had a chance when this is what they were up against.
Runners-Up:
Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble
.
Best Action Game
Crypt Stalker – Not one, but two loving tributes to a classic game series, that in some ways are even better than the classic games they’re inspired by. If you’re an old-school Castlevania fan, this game was not to be missed, and if you’re looking for great Action on Nintendo Switch in 2024, I feel like this is definitely a game you’ll want to pick up.
Runners-Up:
Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes
.
Best Metroidvania
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown – There were some strong contenders in the Metroidvania category this year, but Prince of Persia is the one game among them that gets everything right about what it is to be a truly great Metroidvania – great exploration, fun abilities, good platforming, outstanding combat. If you’re a Metroidvania fan looking for the entire package, this game is it.
Runners-Up:
.
Best Roguelike
Balatro – Few games highlight just what’s so great about the Roguelike genre in the way Balatro does. Without its Roguelike elements, this would basically just be a solitaire version of Poker. But add in a deck where you can change or swap out cards for better ones, and a tableau of special Joker cards that add a variety of fun bonuses, and you have a compelling game that will have you coming back over and over again to try and get that one truly great run with an unstoppable deck.
Runners-Up:
.
Best Action-RPG
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom – Action-RPGs tend to reward exploration and taking on major enemies by granting some new piece of equipment or new ability, and Echoes of Wisdom’s echo mechanic takes this concept and turns it on its head, by literally making your reward the enemy themselves, or a piece of that place you just got to. This has the brilliant result of making it all the more sweet whenever you take out a really tough enemy, because that new enemy is now a part of your move set. This inspired mechanic is a large part of what makes The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom the clear choice when it comes to this genre in 2024.
Runners-Up:
Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid
.
Best RPG
Unicorn Overlord – Unicorn Overlord lets players loose on a massive map, with every location holding the promise of new rewards, new allies, a new town to liberate and bring into your fold. And all of this is done with mechanics truly unlike every other game out there today, and much-improved over the Ogre Battle games that inspired it.
Runners-Up:
.
Best Strategy Game
Unicorn Overlord – Yup, it’s both the best RPG and the best Strategy game in 2024! That’s because Unicorn Overlord’s real-time Strategy system is truly original, and massively streamlined over its Ogre Battle inspiration, with players needing to weigh the benefits of having a unit on your frontline compared to using them for support, or having them protect a vulnerable route from stragglers seeking to sneak past you. This plus the wonderful way these elements blend with the RPG elements make this a strategic masterpiece.
Runners-Up:
Fragrant Story and Papaya’s Path
.
Best Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel
Pentiment – The love and care that went into Pentiment is clear right from the onset, not only in how this game is so thoroughly researched with a mind toward authenticity, but also how players are given a wealth of choices to really make their version of the game’s protagonist Andreas their own. And the wonderful presentation definitely helps too. All of this makes Pentiment a superb Graphic Adventure.
Runners-Up:
.
Best Puzzle Game
Animal Well – It says something that Animal Well has layer after layer of puzzles, each appealing to a different type of player, and yet even just having plunged through the topmost layer I was impressed with this game’s cleverness, its restraint, and the wonderful way it gently nudges players toward the answers without spoiling them. And then, once you beat the game, you can keep going to find more secrets… and if you’re the sort of crazy person who likes to pour through game code and decrypt ciphers, you have yet even more puzzles to take on. Yet this game always makes sure to meet players on their level, and never seems to ask more than players than they are capable of. This is a trait that is rare to see in a Puzzle game, and one that is truly admirable.
Runners-Up:
Dungeons of Dreadrock 2 – The Dead King’s Secret
.
Best Card/Board/Dice Game
Balatro – Basing its gameplay on Poker rules makes Balatro ridiculously accessible, to the point where players who haven’t played it may strain to see what’s so special about it. But adding in Roguelike elements transforms this game into something very different and arguably far more than the simple rules that make up its foundation. What’s more, this game strikes an excellent balance between being believable as still having its roots in the Card Game while also clearly adding new elements that could have only been done in a videogame. For so many reasons, this is exactly what you want when trying to create a videogame based on a game derived from a physical media.
Runners-Up:
.
Best Driving/Racing/Sports Game
MLB The Show 24 – It’s probably fair to say that MLB The Show 24 is merely an iterative improvement over the prior year’s game rather than a huge shift to something new. But it makes plenty of small improvements throughout that overall make this a better game. And a better game than one of the best Baseball videogames of all time makes this, in turn, one of the best Baseball videogames of all-time. In my mind that absolutely makes MLB The Show 24 deserving of this honor.
Runners-Up:
.
Best Hardware – New for 2024!
ECHTPower Wireless Switch Controller (ES01) – Three pro-style Nintendo Switch controllers each presented themselves as the absolute best controller in their price range this year. And while the GameSir Tarantula Pro is still probably my pick for best high-end controller on the platform, and the NYXI Master P1 is the best mid-range, neither impressed me as much as the ECHTPower Wireless Switch Controller (ES01), which at only $23 manages to still be one of the absolute best controllers on the Nintendo Switch in any price range, comfortable, with good features, and the absolute best bang for your buck when looking for your next Nintendo Switch controller. While I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these three controllers, ECHTPower’s controller is absolutely my pick for best hardware of 2024.
Runners-Up:
NYXI Master P1 2.4G Wireless PC Controller
GameSir Tarantula Pro Wireless Controller
Ligame Switch Wireless Controller
Donajia Switch Wireless Controller
ECHTPower Wireless Switch Controller (ES03)
.
Best Misc. Game
A Time Traveler’s Guide to Past Delicacies – Is this the “best” Misc. game? That’s tough to say, because this game is just so bizarre that what you think of it is really going to be subjective. But I truly believe it is unquestionably the one game in 2024 that most exemplifies what it is to be a “Misc. Game”, and so that in my mind makes this the most deserving game to win this award.
Runners-Up:
.
Additional Commentary!
Just going to comment on the categories I feel like I have more to add.
Best Platformer
Games that didn’t quite make the cut included Bakeru, Freedom Planet 2, and Spark the Electric Jester 3. Lots of good Sonic-like games this year! And Neva spans both Action and Platformer, but Action was a bit more competitive so it ended up here, and it didn’t win because I don’t think either Action or Platforming were really its biggest strengths.
.
Best Action
Berserk Boy was a verrrry close second place in this one.
.
Best Metroidvania
In any other year, Animal Well or Nine Sols could have easily sailed to victory in this category, but I feel like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown absolutely exemplified what it means to be a Metroidvania this year.
.
Best Roguelike
For me, personally, I think Balatro and Peglin are tied for my favorite Roguelike this year. But I also recognize that Peglin has some prominent flaws I can’t just ignore. Inkulinati and PlateUp were also considered for this category but didn’t quite make it in.
.
Best Action-RPG
This one wasn’t close, though I definitely did enjoy some of the runners-up in this category this year. A few games that were considered but didn’t make the cut were Conscript, Crypt Custodian, and Snufkin: The Melody of Moominvalley.
.
Best RPG
I gotta’ be honest, even though this was a great year for RPGs in general, it was not a great year for RPGs on Nintendo Switch. Unicorn Overlord is the one exception to this, and a truly great game. And Inkulinati is a solid second entry in the genre. Everything else I listed would not have made the cut in a better year for the genre. Oh, and Fragrant Story and Papaya’s Path didn’t get included here because its RPG elements are not very strongly pronounced.
.
Best Strategy Game
Actually a pretty good year for Strategy on Nintendo Switch. I could easily pour hours into any one of the games I included on this list. Heck, I actually did pour hours into Hero’s Hour. Fitting title, I guess.
.
Best Card/Board/Dice Game
It seemed fitting to lump these game types together. When I did so… wow, this amalgamation category was incredibly packed this year. I included Card-en-Ciel over Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! because I felt Card-en-Ciel’s Card Game elements were stronger and a bigger part of the game.
.
Best Driving/Racing/Sports Game
Yeah, had to merge two categories from prior years here. For the record, New Star GP would have won Best Driving/Racing Game.
.
Best Hardware
I didn’t go into this thinking that I would include only controllers, it just ended up that way. There were a lot of good docks this year too, but none that impressed anywhere near as much as these six controllers.
.
Best Misc. Game
I just want to make it clear, I am absolutely not saying A Time Traveler’s Guide to Past Delicacies is better than Stray and Farewell North. I am just saying it is a better representation of a “Misc. Game”.
.
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!
You can now support this content on Patreon! Please click the link to learn more!
eShopperReviews 
Leave a comment