You need an RPG to get through this year

Polygon’s Editor’s Letter is a column by editor-in-chief Chris Plante that reflects on the video game and entertainment industries, their communities, and Polygon itself. New editions appear in the first week of every month.

November is a “Goldilocks” for role-playing games. I’m burned out on horror movies, but not quite ready for Christmas music. I have planned chunks of vacation with no specific plans to fill welcome gaps in the calendar. And the harmonious siren songs of the couch, my favorite blanket and a hot cup of tea can no longer be ignored.

Maybe you recognize it and have already started scrolling through Steam or your favorite console’s storefront for the next great RPG. The challenge, you will notice, is choice.

2024 was a historic year for the genre, with the release of not just one exceptional RPG carefully designed for a particular subset of fans, but many excellent titles, each seeking a unique corner of the gaming audience. We have the awakening of a long-dormant blockbuster franchise, a completely original globe-trotting thriller set against a high-stakes election, and a new version of the most famous RPG of all time. Not to mention the open-world Hawaiian crime drama, with time-consuming parodies of Animal Crossing and Pokémon.

So, not to be prescriptive, I’m using this month’s Editor’s Note to do something fundamental for Polygon: point you, dear readers, to a video game that will make your life richer, however you might define that in these exceptionally unusual times. .

Let’s open with a fastball up the middle. Dragon Age: The Veil Guard is the ultimate mainstream role-playing game. Whether that sounds like high praise or scathing criticism, it will help you decide if it’s for you.

Developed by beloved RPG studio BioWare, The Veil Guard revives a franchise that has been quiet for the past decade Dragon Age: Inquisition won Game of the Year at the 2014 Game Awards. Veil Guard features everything you’d expect from a blockbuster AAA RPG in the year 2024: action-packed battles, flashy graphics that bring out the best of high-end consoles and PCs, and a delightful story full of drama, romance and intrigue.

Veil Guard is the coziest RPG on this list, the kind of game where you can easily escape the problems of the real world while solving the problems of another realm.

Created by many of the designers responsible for the Persona series, Metaphor plays much like its predecessor, albeit with the modern Japanese high school setting swapped for a fantastical world inspired by pre-Tolkien pulp fantasy, Renaissance surrealists like Hieronymus Bosch, and the modern global reckoning with the power and limitations of democracy. No, I’m not kidding.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is Veil Guard‘s opposite. Instead of real-time combat, Studio Zero commits to the turn-based combat of the genre’s past. And the story is unapologetically strange. After the assassination of a king, his ghost returns in the form of a stone face the size of a moon that orchestrates an impromptu election in which the candidates travel the land on land ships with chicken legs and gain support by slaughtering mutated monsters that become Humans named.

But what really sets this game apart from the rest is the politics. What initially seems like a game about race veers toward a thoughtful, complicated, and ultimately uncertain conversation about tribalism. It’s that uncertainty that I appreciated most during my 65 hours with the game. This is the only video game from a major publisher released this year that provides time for lengthy debates on third-line topics such as the mental justifications behind political assassinations, the conflicting relationships between religions and political parties, and the limits of fiction to provoke change .

You’ve probably never played the original Dragon dogmaa ten year old cult game buried under the dual popularity of Skyrim And Dark soulsboth released the year before. No problem; no experience necessary. Dragon dogma 2 More of a reboot than a sequel, it offers the visual flair and quality of life improvements you’d expect from a AAA game from publisher Capcom.

However, the creators were careful not to sand off the rough edges that set Dragon’s Dogma apart from its polished peers. Dragon dogma 2 it feels like you’re in a Dungeons & Dragons adventure in the most literal sense. Instead of traveling quickly from country to country, you’ll be taking tiring hikes that require planning ahead with rations and camping equipment. When you encounter a mythological beast the size of a school bus, the battle is as challenging as you’d expect – with your band of adventurers more likely to be thrown off a cliff than to deliver a heroic, killing blow.

From this set, Dragon dogma 2 is the most divisive and requires the most of the players’ skill, patience, and willingness to fill in the gaps in the story with their imaginations. In return, they receive warm memories of a difficult journey. For some, myself included, that’s more than enough.

Until recently, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was widely considered the frontrunner for Game of the Year at the Game Awards. Despite disappointing sales, the second installment of Square Enix’s reinterpretation of perhaps the most beloved RPG of all time was purchased by critics and millions of fans.

The target audience here is a bit limited, as you’ll need a PlayStation 5 to play the game, and some experience with the source material to appreciate the game. You must have played the original Final fantasy 7 like this game? It helps, although it’s easy to enjoy this adventure after watching a YouTube summary of its predecessor. You gotta play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth if you haven’t played Final Fantasy 7 Remake? That’s a more difficult question. Remake is an excellent game that elegantly sets the stage Rebirth‘s bolder twists. Theoretically you could skip it Remakebut why deprive yourself of that experience?

Until this year, The millennial door was stranded on the Nintendo GameCube, where old copies were sold at exorbitant prices on second-hand markets. Nintendo’s remake for the Nintendo Switch, released in May, gives the game high-definition visuals (so it won’t look blurry on your modern TV), but the real selling point is the ease with which you can play the masterpiece whenever you want, at a reasonable price. costs.

When you visit your local game store, you might be tempted to pick up Nintendo’s new take on the Mario RPG formula instead, Mario & Luigi: Brotherhood. Resist! Newer is not better. In the case of Mario RPGs, they really don’t make them like they used to.

Behold, the everything bagel of role-playing games. Formerly known as Yakuza, the latest installment in the series features massive mini-games that play off games like Animal Crossing; multiple open-world cities spread across Japan and the Hawaiian Islands; battles that paradoxically combine real-time action and turn-based combat; and some of the most life-affirming, inventive and poignant writing in any game this year – regardless of genre.

Like a dragon: infinite wealth is the game I recommend to everyone. And despite its size (I hit the credits after 90 hours and have a lot more to do) and its silliness (this is the only video game on the list with a Pokémon-style mini-game where you collect, train, and battle perverts ), everyone I convince to try the game falls in love.

If you’ve somehow reached the end of this list undecided, let me make that decision for you. Play Like a dragon: infinite wealth.