Game of the Year 2025
The way I do my personal Game of the Year is based on games I finished in the year, not based on whatever was released. That said this year's winner did come out this year and I don't think it's even close. I'll do a reverse order ranking and talk a little bit about each game.
I only finished 17 games this year, I got really slack in the latter half of the year and ended up playing a few different things rather than focus on one. It really didn't help that I've got sucked into playing some free to play games that have been taking up a bunch of time but at least I've been having fun.
17 AURA Hentai Cards
I really feel like I need to justify myself for even playing this game! I have a friend and it's become a bit of an inside joke to share screenshots of stupid adult games between us. Occassionally me and her will stream them and just laugh at how dumb they are. This is one I actually played the whole way through AND got the multiple endings... Was it worth it? Not really.
This game is a deck builder crossed with a visual novel kinda crossed with a dating sim. Oh there's also some slide puzzles thrown in there for some reason. I'm not sure if there's any AI art used in it (the developers have been accused of it for other things I think) but this is the kind of game I think about when I think "AI slop" and I feel like it's only going to get worse. The writing isn't great but I there's some decent art and there's a girl to suit everyone, from mermaids to slime girls. The story involves a ditzy goddess that overslept and let the world come under demon rule. She shows up and ends up giving you the power to learn the abilities of women you sleep with. You also make them fall in love with you via battles. The main character vows to save the world and marry the goddess - this is where the multiple endings come in, you can either side with the goddess or side with the demon queen at the end of the game. Siding with the demon queen gives you a kinda cool demon lord ending I guess.
The gameplay is pretty basic, you unlock new cards as you progress through the game (by sleeping with women) and you can choose to add them into your deck. I managed to find a two card combination early on from the Christmas DLC that basically broke the game and I just breezed through the whole thing. At least it had some pretty good music.
16 Goblin Slayer Another Adventurer: Nightmare Feast
I already wrote a lot about this game and I don't think my thoughts or feelings have changed since then. The game was fine but overall it didn't feel like a Goblin Slayer game to me.
15 Ghostwire Tokyo
I wrote about this one as well (thought not much really). It's a fun game that has very cool atmosphere and a setting I really liked but it started to drag a bit towards the end. There was also only maybe one good boos fight unfortunately.
14 Evil Tonight
One of my favourite movie genres is Italian Giallo. They usually involve a killer stalking their victims with black gloves and are usually set in something like a fashion or ballet school. Evil Tonight is basically a giallo game which is very cool and something I haven't really seen before. It's a survival horror game with a pixel art style. It had some really nice animations and character portraits, the puzzles weren't overly obscure or difficult and it had some really good pacing. The overall story was pretty basic and it only really had one memorable character. Some of the enemies were real bullet sponges but there were some fun boss fights. It really could have done with a map! It's only 3-4 hours long though so well worth a playthrough.
13 Rondo of Swords
I think I'd like to write a longer review of this game because I find this game really interesting but also very frustrating. It's a strategy role playing game but with a really unique battle system but it has some really obtuse mechanics that could be better explained. I found the game to be pretty hard - it actually took me two playthroughs to finish it because in my first playthrough I got to the final boss but just couldn't beat it (but I liked it enough to play through all over again... several years after the first try). I'd say the final boss could be considered unfair and if you haven't done your playthrough right you're definitely going to be stuck. The game has a very interesting art style for the characters which I really liked.
12 Monster Hunter: Wilds
I love Monster Hunter games. I've been nicknamed the Fashion Hunter by a friend because of my love of grinding to get the right look. I know this looks low down on the list but that's because I only ended up playing the single player story and Monster Hunter just doesn't do single player story very well at all. I had a friend I was going to play multiplayer with but her PC couldn't handle the game so I ended up having to go solo. The game looks and plays fantastic so I'm sure it would have been an easy top five for the year if I had done the multiplater. All I gotta say is the kid in the single player was really annoying and it felt like the game would take away control from you a lot.
11 Metro Quester
This was the last game I finished for the year (I had to rejig the ranking to get this in) and I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was. It's kind of a roguelike but not quite. It has a real early PC gaming aesthetic to it that I really liked. The game takes place in a vast underground dungeon that you have to explore. Gameplay is broken up by days based on how much special fuel you have - this fuel slowly drains as you move and through some actions in battle. You also have to collect a certain about of food each week or risk getting a debuff. At first this gave me some anxiety but I never came close to not having enough food. The gameplay systems are fairly simple but there is some depth in the combat as you juggle skill combinations and resources. It felt like the perfect handheld game as you could just pick it up, play a few days and then put it back down.
10 Atomfall
I really enjoyed how British this game was. Atomfall is an open world game that felt dense rather than some sprawling sparse map. The environments were colourful and beautiful. There was nature to explore. It felt like a game where choices you make actually matter. I don't know how many endings there are but it felt like there were a variety of ways to deal with the situation you're in (I don't want to spoil any of the story). The area had a variety of different characters and factions all with their own interests, motivations and goals which I think really adds to its replayability. It also didn't overstay its welcome and kept up a good pace. One disappointing thing was that the combat felt a little undercooked. There wasn't a lot of variety to the weapons and melee combat felt very underwhelming.
9 Pokemon Legends: Z-A
I haven't really played a mainline Pokemon game for a while now but I did play and mostly enjoyed Pokemon Legends Arceus so I was looking forward to picking this up and I wasn't disappointed. I enjoy the experimentation they do in the Legends games and I feel like they're getting close to making the perfect Pokemon game for me. I liked the real time battle system them implemented, though it did at times feel a bit less strategic and a bit more spammy. Having the whole game set in a single city sounds limiting but I think they did a good job with it. I really enjoy these smaller, denser open world games but I would have liked to see a bit more non-battle stuff to do besides sitting for a coffee with you pokemon (which is very cool). The story was... fine I guess. I did like that it was a bit of a sequel to Pokemon X/Y which is definitely one of my favourites. I'm looking forward to seeing how they improve on this one.
8 Final Fantasy 4 (Pixel Remaster)
It's Final Fantasy 4. It's real good. I've previously tried playing through the DS version but I bounced off it pretty deep into the game. It just felt like a bit of a slog to be honest. The pixel remaster version on the other hand just felt fantastic to play. Honestly, I think I preferred the job system from Final Fantasy III but the characters in this game were great and the story had SO MUCH DRAMA (especially some of those late game reveals!).
7 Split Fiction
I love that there's a company out there making these kind of co-op games, they're just really fun to play through with a friend. Personally, I prefer It Takes Two over this one but this was still fantastic. The story in this felt a little meh to me but that gameplay was top notch, just a really great time to spend with a friend.
6 Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club
This game was a real surprise to me. A visual novel... about child murder... FROM NINTENDO? Just wow. I've always wanted to get more into visual novels and this one has hooked me straight into the genre. This game has great art, all the characters looked distinct and interesting. The background were also really great. Emio himself was super creepy looking, especially when you see his face. The writing was very good, I really enjoyed the story. The voice acting was superb. And just... Ayumi-chan. Also one of the characters in the game has super based views on cops that were just chef kiss. One thing I would have liked to see was the ability to make choices that impacted the story direction.
5 Lylat wars
This was is probably a big mix of nostalgia plus the game just being awesome. I remember going over to a friend's house as a kid to play this and spending hours trying to work out what to do to go through the alternate routes in the game. There's a lot of the voice lines that are just permanently burned into my brain and I love it.
4 Shadow Hearts
Shadow Hearts is a fantastic dark PS2 RPG. It has a very interesting combat system and some great characters (the voice of Ash Ketchum voiced two of the main female characters and the voice of Giovanni voiced the male lead!). The story was actually pretty interesting and I really wasn't expecting a Japanese game to write about Japan invading China and framing it as a bad thing. I also kinda dug the little love story between Alice and Yuri, it was kinda cute but I dunno if it really felt earned. Bosses and enemies had really cool designs. The magic and ability system felt a little undercooked, it was often better to just hit things than use a spell outside of healing. I would have liked them to do a bit more with the judgement ring system, hopefully they do in the sequels which I'm looking forward to trying out (I've already started Shadow Hearts 2 and it's great).
3 Koudelka
What a game! This is a PS1 survival horror RPG and it's just fantastic. The game has some great characters with what I thought was good voice acting. The direction of the in engine cutscenes was fantastic, especially the way the characters move about and interact. There's this really nice scene between Koudelka and Edward where they just sit, drink wine and talk. The setting was awesome and it ended up being one big interconnected map which was very cool. Koudelka herself is just such a cool character. Very take no shit girlboss. I played this game after I played Shadow Hearts which I found really cool - Shadow Hearts is actually kind of a sequel to this game as Koudelka shows up in it and you revist the setting from this game. The game did have some weird quirks though. Weapon durability felt kinda dumb with weapons breaking all the time. Magic was super overpowered but there were also so many enemies that would just silence you. This game easily made it into my top 100.
2 Wuchang Fallen Feathers
This game came out of nowhere for me. It showed up on Gamepass and looked interesting so I gave it a try. I had a really love/hate relationship with it for a quite a while... it felt really hard and had some annoying quirks that made it feel unfair but I pushed through and I'm really glad I did. The Chinese setting is fantastic and felt kinda new and refreshing compared to a lot of other Soulslike games. There's an optional boss you can fight in this field of flowers and it's just beautiful. The armour and weapons were very cool, I had a lot of fun playing with fashion in the game. I dunno if I'd say the story is great (I'm not sure any Soulslike game really does a good story) but it had fantastic atmosphere. I gotta say I did find the soundtrack to be pretty underwhelming, I only really noticed it once or twice. I can kinda understand why the game got a bit of hate, as I said earlier the game is hard and I mean HARD. The combat is fast paced and aggressive which unfortunately meant that some bosses gave you very little room to attack or heal. There were a lot of times where I'd die almost instantly after entering a boss room and I came close to quiting so many times. However... once the combat and game clicks with you it really clicks and just becomes really really fun. Instant entry into the top 100 for me.
1 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
I don't think I really possess the words or ability to talk about this game. The music is fantastic. The setting is fantastic. The characters are fantastic. The gameplay is fantastic. The writing is fantastic. It's a beautiful exploration of grief and acceptance. Do yourself a favour and just play it.