NPR's Favorite Games of the Year
Plus, checking out the new Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer
It’s finally here — our annual interactive list of NPR’s favorite games! I implore you to cycle through tags as obsessively as I have, zooming from games gargantuan (Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth) to tiny (Home Safety Hotline, Thank Goodness You’re Here!).
I also joined Here & Now host Scott Tong this week to discuss what the year’s surprise hits say about the games industry. I took that opportunity to publish an addendum on WBUR.org, where I disclosed the five most popular games with NPR staff and contributors:
Joint 4th place - Animal Well and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
Each receiving five separate nominations, it’s appropriate that these two indies placed together as they’re both stuffed with obscure mysteries and dazzling puzzles. Graham Rebhun praises Animal Well as having secrets “so deep you could easily fall into them and never come out.” Meanwhile, Allen Walden says Lorelei and the Laser Eyes “will have you feeling like a real detective stumbling on the supernatural.”
3rd place - Helldivers 2
I’m not surprised this megaton multiplayer hit ranked so highly, as it was so popular it crashed the game’s server for weeks after its release. Ben Cart writes, “This cooperative game combines third-person shooter chaos with outrageous satire to create a delightfully challenging game that will have you laughing with and screaming at your friends in equal measure.”
2nd place - Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
2024 featured the usual slate of high-profile remakes, from Persona 3 Reload to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth to Silent Hill 2. But Nintendo’s new edition of tongue-in-cheek RPG Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was by far the most popular among NPR staff, perhaps because it served potent nostalgia. Eliza Redway writes that she “grew up with the GameCube version and adored its clever writing, goofy animation and quirky sidekicks.”
1st place - Balatro
Regina Barber has regaled me many times with her exploits in this brilliant poker roguelike — and she’s far from the only coworker to stop me at HQ to gush about it. Barber summed up the attitudes of legions of staffers best. “Balatro is a deceptively addictive cross between solitaire and five-card stud,” she writes. “At my most obsessed, I started dreaming in Balatro.”
I’ll note that the list skews toward the first half of 2024 (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle didn’t come off embargo soon enough to make our list). It also shouldn’t be mistaken for my personal favorites. The notably absent Unicorn Overlord and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, for example, will doubtless make my Top 20, though I’m unsure where (I save the agony of ranking my choices for the last week of the year).
I’ve also been punching through Nintendo’s latest exercise game. Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer is Dance Dance Revolution for your fists — but “Personal” is the most important word in the title. “Parasocial” would be even more accurate.
The game wants you to jab, sweat, and shop your way into one-sided relationships with its six trainers. I started with Lin, whose pixie-cut silhouette has adorned the series box art for six years. She chirped orders through many a tutorial session, always sure to smile and clap at each milestone (most minutes played in one day, most calories burned in one session, etc.). After running down the basics, she introduced me to five other trainers and the in-game economy.
Each activity rewards you with currency that you can spend on trainer outfits. With the exception of their voices and faces, you can customize everything about them, from skin tone to hair color. It’s Richard Simmons by way of My Dress-Up Darling.
The actual fitness value floats somewhere between Nintendo Switch Sports and Ubisoft’s Just Dance. Joy-Cons capture motion accurately enough for the game to chide you if your punches aren’t up to form or tempo, but it can’t demand the precision or intensity of VR titles like Beat Saber or Superhot. And as seriously as these trainers might push me to take Fitness Boxing, it can’t really replace the gym.
But unlike many exercise apps and motion games — it does have a two-player mode. Real human camaraderie motivates me more than any virtual coach could, and I’m hopeful that the odd Fitness Boxing competition could keep me trim. But if I’m looking to work out while gaming, you’ll still most often find me clutching an Xbox controller while pedaling a stationary bike.
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