Checkpoint Gaming’s Games of Not This Year – 2024 Edition

Even though the journalism side of the games industry revolves around what’s new, recent and upcoming, it’s important to remember the past as often as possible. We are currently somewhere in the middle of the Ninth Console Generation, and it’s increasingly becoming easier to play games from older machines today, be it through remakes, remasters, falling back in love with our old consoles, or realising that buying PS1 games through a PS3 or Vita is technically a better offer than PS5’s Game Pass knockoff.

For the fifth consecutive year, here are Checkpoint’s Games Of Not This Year. Our favourite games we played in 2024 that didn’t come out in 2024.

Devil May Cry 3 (released 2005)

Early this year, I successfully managed to sprint through every major Devil May Cry game, which I’d only played one of. I knew the ravages of time wouldn’t be kind to the PS2 trilogy, but I wasn’t expecting how bad the first two would be. The original Devil May Cry is a conceptually fantastic game that has aged like a carton of milk you’ve kept in your fridge since 2001. Devil May Cry 2, conversely, has aged surprisingly well! So well you can perfectly see all its baffling design decisions and what a chore it is to get through. I knew through osmosis that Capcom managed to pull a Goldilocks with the beloved Devil May Cry 3, but I thought its spell had long since faded. I was wrong.

Devil May Cry 3 is more than the sum of its parts, and its parts are ridiculous. Making Dante a cocky young F-boy results in the best version of this character, and setting the whole game in a colourful demonic tower full of varied biomes is genius. The story and writing are excellent and intimate, improving on what the first game tried to do. Even the animation quality still holds up, particularly Joker. I understand why this is considered the high point of the series. If I had discovered Devil May Cry 3 in my youth instead of Final Fantasy X, my taste in video games would’ve gone in a completely different direction.

If you’re curious about how I felt about the rest of the series: DMC4 is ambitious but clearly ran into development issues, I ended up enjoying the story less than DMC2’s. DmC: Devil May Cry (the only one I’d played) is the best game since DMC3, with the most accessible combat and easily the most cohesive story. I would’ve liked DMC5 better if DmC didn’t exist, it’s got three fantastic combat styles but some of the worst dialogue writing I’ve seen in any piece of media. Still worth a play, though.

– Pedro

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (released 2013)

While playing Skull and Bones earlier this year, I became nostalgic for Ubisoft’s other seafaring pirate open-world game, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and decided to boot it up for a replay. Diving back into the adventures of pirate Assassin Edward Kenway, I had a grand old time scaling abandoned ruins and engaging in epic naval battles against enemy garrisons and warships.

Moreso than other Assassin’s Creed games, Black Flag’s fully navigable Carribean seas feel appreciably vast without being frustrating to navigate, and the boost in power you feel when upgrading your ship can’t be beat. With a heartfelt and rollicking pirate narrative, featuring famous faces from the Golden Age of Piracy such as Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet and Jack Rackham, Edward Kenway’s adventures on the high seas remain a standout in Ubisoft’s catalogue of Assassin’s Creed titles, and a game that fully holds up over a decade after its release.

– Tom

Jak 3 (released 2004)

The Jak and Daxter trilogy from Naughty Dog is my childhood summed up in a series of janky-but-beloved PlayStation 2 games. That first game is something special. Its sequels, especially Jak III, are much harder and rougher-edged but just as charming. Jak III is a game I played over and over thousands of times as a kid, but could never beat. Pesky time-restricted missions that are a little too restricting, jobs where you have to escort and protect an NPC with the tiniest health bar in the world… these are affairs you get into (and can’t avoid) in Jack III. Because of that, I never truly conquered Jak III and the Jak and Daxter trilogy. That is until this year.

Jak 3 is a game both hindered and boosted by rose-coloured glasses and nostalgia goggles. Engaging in deadly races with the Sandshark car, firing missiles and machine gun bullets overall is still as joyous as ever. The Dune Hopper vehicle’s leap that soars in the air is a delight. What isn’t a delight is the rubberbanding enemy cars have as they’re seemingly always on your tail and often knock you spiralling and ruining a whole run. Oh yeah, and Daxter’s lewd and poorly aged jokes at women. I want to ring that little rodent by his neck!

If all else, I have finally conquered my white whale in gaming. The game that I forever haven’t been able to beat. I’ve concluded and understand the story of the main series of Jak and Daxter games and feel excellent about doing so.

– Charlie

Final Fantasy IX (released 2000)

I was doing a lot of travel this year, so I needed a fun, long game that I could play on my Switch. Enter Final Fantasy IX. I’ve not played many older Final Fantasy games and this one always stood out to me as a love letter to the earlier games and its medieval setting. It truly does feel like a tribute to the roots of the series. A beautiful and emotional story, with unforgettable characters, and a world brimming with charm.

Vivi’s journey of self-discovery and Zidane’s vulnerability during “You’re Not Alone” are monumental gaming moments. The ability system is clever yet simple, letting you learn skills through gear, adding a layer of strategy to every choice. The world has side quests like Chocobo Hot and Cold or Tetra Master. And the music? Utterly timeless. Nobuo Uematsu’s compositions perfectly capture every mood, from whimsy to heartbreak.

Sure, the battles can feel slow, but honestly, I wouldn’t change much.

– Omi

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 PC (released 2022)

What is there to say about Kingdom Hearts that hasn’t been said? It’s great! But for those who have been living under a rock for over 20 years now, Kingdom Hearts is a series originally released on the PS2 back in 2002. The series is a collaboration between Square Enix (Final Fantasy creators) and the Walt Disney Company. In the first game, you play as Sora, a kid trying to find their friends Riku and Kairi who have gone missing after an attack by the Heartless. You meet Donald and Goofy, who are on their own mission to find King Mickey. The three team up as their goals are aligned.

Travelling to other worlds (these are Disney properties of popular movies) and sealing with keyholes to prevent the inhabitants from becoming one of the Heartless. It’s very basic ‘hero journey’ stuff that we’ve all seen before. But it’s in using popular Disney characters and IPs, along with some Final Fantasy characters and original characters, that make it unique. While I don’t have an attachment to the first game, it’s still one I’ve played before and really enjoyed. Now, Kingdom Hearts 2 is where my love for the series started. I still have my original copy I got for my 13th birthday, and funnily enough, I asked for a Final Fantasy game, and instead I got KH2.

While the series is cheesy as all hell (it’s about the friends we made along the way), it’s one that I hold close to my heart. Whenever I boot it up, it’s like I’m visiting old friends again.

– Missy

Pathologic 2 (released 2019)

Would it be pretentious for me to say that playing Pathologic 2 changed me as a person? Yes. Would it also be true? Absolutely. This game completely shifted my perception of difficulty in video games. It encourages you to make mistakes, to learn, and to die. Everything has a consequence, but if you are patient and careful, most of these consequences can be avoided. Pathologic 2 wants you to play it slow, listen, think things over, and try again and again and again.

While on the surface, Pathologic 2 is just a game about one surgeon struggling to keep his hometown safe when it is stricken by a deadly plague, at its core it is about so so much more than that. The game is really about perseverance even when no matter how hard you try nothing really changes, it’s about theatre and the nature of playing one’s role in a grand design, it’s about being the best person you can even when circumstances make that extremely difficult. Pathologic 2 is difficult to grasp at first, with lots of mechanics and an ever-present time limit, but the moment everything clicks is so fulfilling that it makes the struggle worth it.

– Bree

So there you have it! Our games-of-not-this year. What games did you play and love this year that may or may not have been released in 2024? Let us know!