Games of the Year, 2025 Edition
Usually I try to limit myself to games that actually came out in [year] for the GOTY list, but we're gonna have to bend that rule this time since otherwise my list would consist of Expedition 33, DK Bananza, Daybreak 2, Prime 4, and a couple indie games like Urban Myth Dissolution Center. Not a particularly compelling list, regardless of whether or not I really liked any of those games! So, I'm making the executive decision to allow 2024 games as well - that drastically opens up my options this year for both games I played and games I actually enjoyed.
That said, I was a surprisingly busy boy this year with 26 games on the list (and one or two more that are really, really close to being finished) - almost double last year's total of 14, though most of this year's games were a lot shorter than 2024's list. If I cut it down to just "full size" games (with a little wiggle room on that definition), I only had 10 games this year, but that would eliminate a lot of my favorite experiences, most notably Honorable Mention #2. It's been a weird year! I wouldn't say that I was disappointed by most of the big releases, but I can definitely say that nothing made me go crazy the same way as like, the Tsukihime remake or Nintendo dropping a new goddamn Famicom Detective Club game did last year - and the one big game that I did really enjoy was actually from 2024 anyway lol.
Also: we should also note that I am nothing if not a contrarian, so you'll only find one of the heavy hitters from this year on my list. I have negative amounts of interest in either Hollow Knight game, and the word "roguelike" causes my eyes to roll out of the back of my head at the best of times. I don't care how good Hades' music is or how engrossing the puzzles of Blue Prince are, I simply do not have any love for anything in that general design space.
Honorable Mention - Ys X: Nordics
I wish I enjoyed Ys X more than I did - a refrain you're going to hear a lot on this list, even with the inclusion of 2024 games. When it sticks to dry land, it is phenomenal, easily the best the series has been mechanically since the days of Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin. The duo combat is great, I enjoyed the speed and power stances, and if it spent more time letting you cut loose, it would easily be the best game in the series since Ys 8. Unfortunately, you spend way too much time sailing, in a boat that moves too slowly, has shitty handling, and godawful combat that they make you do way too much for how well it works. Plus, the plot is a bit of a mess - and that's to say nothing of Proud Nordics, the game's Persona 5 Royal-esque re-release coming up in a couple months that adds in a new major island and story segment. As it is, Ys X is a 7/10 that could have easily been a 9/10 with fairly minimal tweaks, but the 7/10 that you DO get absolutely whips ass. I just wish there was more of it.
Honorable Mention: of the Devil
I can't actually include this on the list, on account of only having the first two (of five) episodes out this year, but what a way to make a goddamn entrance. of the Devil takes the Ace Attorney formula, sets it in a way-too-close-to-home cyberpunk future with mountains of incisive political commentary before giving it a healthy dose of neon and gambling aesthetics. The writing is sharp and on point, with the protagonist, Morgan, never feeling like the butt of a joke in the way that Ace Attorney has a bad habit of making Phoenix come off. It also does a great job of balancing the back and forth between Morgan and Prosecutor Rockford, and while it does occasionally fall victim to the "three steps ahead of the game" logic that all AA-likes are wont to do, it's easily the best implementation of "courtroom" gameplay I've seen in a very long time. It's heartfelt and earnest, deeply cynical about the world we live in, and a fantastic time all around. Try the demo (which is really just the prologue case and is actually required reading), you'll be glad you did if you have any appreciation for the games on this side of the genre.
5. Donkey Kong Bananza
Another game that I wished I liked more than I did, although this one is less about the quality of the game than what the game itself does. Bananza, made by the Mario Odyssey team on the Mario Odyssey engine, is clearly following in that game's footsteps - Mario gave you an open level playground with a billion objectives to find at your own pace, and so too does Bananza, if not in quite the same way. Where they differ, however, is in their mechanical focus: though his game is far more open than most of the series, Odyssey is still a platformer at its heart. DK is...not. Though it does feature a fair amount of platforming, Bananza is not a platformer - Bananza is a game about breaking shit. The terrain deformation and destruction is what's really at the heart of Bananza, and while it is well done, I simply do not care about that mechanic, and the focus it gets takes away from my enjoyment of the other things that the game does well.
That said, I still had a lot of fun with it, at least for most of the playthrough. It's always funny to stumble onto a golden banana buried in a cave somewhere, and then punch your way out only to find the NPC that was supposed to lead you to it in the first place. The game has a good variety of biomes to work through, and the bananza transformations do an adequate job of filling in for the animal buddies of old. Hell, the game as a whole is really a big love letter to Rare-era DK, and that's something that will always put a smile on my face. And yes, the game's finale is incredible and is almost worth the price of admission by itself. It may not have been the game I wanted it to be, but it's hard to argue that Bananza isn't a quality experience, nor did that stop me from appreciating it for what it was, even if I am left pining for what could have been.
4. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
LatLE is such a weird game that I almost don't even know where to begin. Simogo's 2024 classic is a Resident Evil game that trades combat for puzzles and arthouse cred, essentially acting like a 12-hour long escape room. As the eponymous Lorelei Weiss, you wander the hotel solving puzzles and occasionally run into director Renzo Nero, an auteur (at best) and a weirdo who is actively placing you in danger (at worst).
The vibes here are off the charts - the game is visually striking, mostly monochrome with the occasional splash of pink and/or red, and it does an excellent job of accentuating the "weird" feeling that the hotel gives off. The puzzles themselves are mostly pretty good, though they do lean a little too heavily on mazes, and there is very little justification for why you are doing these puzzles beyond for the sake of doing them. Eventually, it does all come together in what proves to be a wild finale, but I wouldn't blame anyone who feels like they don't really get what's going on, because I sure didn't for like 80% of its runtime. That said, I did really enjoy playing through the game, even if I was ready for it to be done about an hour or two before it actually wrapped up.
3. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
Prime 4 is rough around the edges, make no mistake. It bears a lot of scars that come from its long and protracted development time, and it makes some decisions that hardcore Metroid fans are unlikely to appreciate. While I do think a lot of the hate is overblown, it is undeniable that it leads with its weakest writing in the form of Myles Mackenzie, and the desert overworld doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
Still, when Prime 4 decides to be a Prime game, it hits like almost nothing else. The game's art direction is gorgeous, from the jungles of Fury Green to the rolling storms of Volt Forge. Ice Belt does an excellent job playing with horror tropes and is easily the most atmospheric of the five main areas, and the game's music is fantastic across the board. While the game's plot is largely a rehash of Prime 1 (with "Phazon" hastily crossed out and written over with "Green Energy"), it neatly combines some of Prime 2's design philosophy with Prime 3's level design to create an almost pre-BotW Zelda-esque type of game, and one that I really enjoyed for what it is. Now, would I want a Prime 5 in this mold? No, I would infinitely prefer that we get something closer to Prime 1 or 2. But that ship seems to have sailed between Corruption and Beyond, so I'll take what I can get. I'm frankly just glad to have seen it release at all.
2. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Make no mistake, I certainly have my quibbles with this game and the critical landscape surrounding it. The praise it gets for "saving" a genre is well over the top and frankly a joke - JRPGs were alive and well before E33 released, and they'll be just fine afterwards.
But none of that discourse has anything to do with the game itself, and it is indeed one of the best RPGs to release in quite a while. The combat is fine, and the picto system is a fun way to put together your own broken build of choice. The game looks great, with vibrant coral reefs next to blood, war torn battlefields with neither somehow looking out of place. The music is fantastic, probably the standout of the entire package, and it's hard to believe it all came from a guy they just found on a website somewhere. And the story...well, most of the story is pretty good. I count myself among the group that liked Act 1 and 2 a lot more than Act 3 (for several reasons), but the actual dialogue and performances by the voice actors is very well done. None of the things I dislike about the game are backbreaking - indeed, it's one of the coolest, prettiest 8/10 games that I've played in a long time. But putting on a pedestal and calling it a savior of the genre does a disservice to both it and the myriad of games that it is blatantly pulling from.
1. Trails through Daybreak
I really enjoy the Trails series, but even my patience was starting to wear thin after the one-two punch of Cold Steel 3/4 and Reverie. Thankfully, Daybreak is my favorite kind of Trails game - the setup game that takes us to a new part of the world, introduces a new cast of characters, and generally lets us chill and breathe a bit before it ratchets up the stakes. And Daybreak is a damn good one of those - Van Arkride is an excellent lead character, and the gang of fuckups that he slowly brings under his wing are all delightful. The plot is mostly self-contained, without ending on a massive cliffhanger and does a pretty good job of actually telling its own story without just being "THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR THE NEXT GAME" for 60 hours. And the combat has been thoughtfully overhauled to include real-time action combat for mopping up weak foes, while maintaining the series' generally excellent turn-based combat for boss fights and everything else important.
It's not perfect by any means; the action combat is half-baked and needs a few more options that won't come until Daybreak 2 and/or Horizon, turn-based combat is easily broken by S-craft spam, and I could really have done without them constantly teasing a Van and Agnes relationship (especially with Elaine being right there). But on the whole, I really, really enjoyed it and it rebuilt my trust in the franchise...for now, anyway. I'm not thrilled about a lot of the stuff they did in Daybreak 2, but everyone says Horizon is excellent, so I'm looking forward to that in a couple weeks.