I decided to do my top 20 games, briefly write on 20-11, with 10-1 being the main part of this volume, so let’s jump right into it with some honorable mentions, which are mostly games that might have made the top 20, but I didn’t play them enough. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo brings back that classic The Minish Cap on Game Boy Advance feeling, including a fake GBA filter you can put over the game, though sometimes the game feels overly punishing. Peak didn’t hold my attention for long, but when playing with friends, it was a real fun time. Capcom Fighting Collection 2 contains a lot of games I love, but I just didn’t put in a lot of time into it this year. Let’s get into number 20 and beyond.
20. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4
As a kid, I did not play the Tony Hawk games and only played 1+2 starting in November of 2024, so plain and simple, I am bad at this game. I understand what people are saying about the difficulty of getting good at fighting games because this feels similar, but I still enjoyed it a lot. It being a genre I basically never explored before feels so novel, as funny as that sounds. It feels like a game series where, for the longest time, I didn’t get it, and now I get it, although it might be far too late. Music: Good
19. DOOM: The Dark Ages
Alright, I’m going to say it, I miss DOOM Eternal’s platforming. I know people hated but I loved it. This game, I really like the gameplay with the shield and the different fantasy guns and power-ups, but I found the dragon riding kind of annoying. I kind of think they listened to too much of DOOM Eternal’s criticism and almost did a two steps forward, one step back situation. Unlike others, although it is stupid, the story of DOOM with this entry included, I find to be stupid fun. Music: Pretty Good
18. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
People might be mad at this one, but I think this game is the definition of very good, but it is not the perfect RPG people claim it to be. The whole controversy about using AI texture placeholders aside, and the whole fact that it isn’t really an indie game, just based on the game itself, I like a lot of it, but there are design, gameplay, and writing flaws that kept this game lower on the list for me. I’ve seen others say this, and it echoes my sentiments. The more I played this game, the more I disliked it. I think I wanted more Expedition 33 and less Clair Obscur. Music: Incredible, but that one guy’s singing and the heavy guitar actually make that song everyone loves worse, and I’m not afraid to say it.
17. Monster Hunter Wilds
This was my most anticipated game of the year, and with over a hundred hours in it, I can’t say I didn’t have fun. When it came out, I played it non-stop, but then I reached the end of the story and, well, didn’t have a reason to continue, go back, or continue the loop to min-max my character. I can’t speak on the performance because I played it on an underpowered computer and have yet to try it on my new rig yet but I am going to go back eventually. The previous two Monster Hunter games had me returning to them again and again and again. This one, though a lot of fun, is not so much. Music: Alright
16. Blue Prince
Anything I tell you about Blue Prince is too much. You inherit a house and must reach room 46 to keep it. There are all sorts of puzzles to unravel to reach that room as you choose the rooms of the estate to reach the end. Sometimes the RNG of the game comes down to luck, and that can be a bit frustrating, but the puzzles of each room and how they interconnect reveal a story deeper than just inheriting the house. I found it captivating. Music: Mesmerising, great to put out when you’re writing.
15. Possessor(s)
Any and all Metroidvanias were going to have a hard time competing with Silksong in both challenge and style, but this game has it in spades. The game feels generous in what power-ups it gives you right away while keeping it challenging, like Silksong, if you don’t use everything at your disposal. Luca and Rhem’s clashing personalities and growing understanding of each other are a real highlight of the game. The combat and platforming are really cool, but I didn’t expect how much I would find the story engaging. Music: Very Good
14. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
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13. Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake
This probably would have been higher if I had played it sooner and more. Did I play through Dragon Quest I, then move on to II? No, I have ADHD, so I’m bouncing back and forth between the two. Since DQXI was released, it has become one of my favorite game series, and I am ready for more remakes, especially of 4 through 6. Music: It’s fucking Dragon Quest of course it’s great.
12. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
From one dragon to another. All the parts of playing Majima in Infinite Wealth’s Hawaii, I found a lot of fun alongside the Pirate Ship battles that occur. The combat is addictive even when I was maxed out, and I loved looking for more outfits to unlock. At times, though, this game looked like shit, especially its lighting, and the extended cast minus Samoa Joe were kind of annoying. It was all worth it for the final scene of the game, which had me emotional for Like a Dragon 9. Music: Alright
11. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles
Like DQI+II, this would have been in my top ten if I had not gotten it so late and played so little of it, but I am already hooked on this, having never played this game in previous incarnations before. This is my first experience with FFT, but I’m already finding the story better than 16, 15, and 13. Whether it’s better than any others, I’m not far enough into it yet to determine, but I may like it more than 12 and 10. I’m not going to presume, though. I’m going to be playing this a lot in 2026. Music: Great, classic Final Fantasy quality.
10. Kirby Air Riders
It shouldn’t be better than Mario Kart World, but it is, and boy, this game is a lot of fun. It’s a weird game, to sure sure, and I don’t know if I’d recommend it to everyone, but I am having a great time playing it. It can be, at times, overstimulating, but it has that Sakurai touch of gold upon it that’ll keep me coming back next year. The thing is, even when I’m doing poorly in any of the different modes, I feel like I am having fun, which I’m not sure I can say the same for Mario Kart or other similar racers. Sometimes, even better in a video game than the number going up is the feeling of Oh, I’ve unlocked something and you unlock something in this game, doing nearly everything, and there is so much of it. Kirby and Persona share that trait of Oh, let’s go on a mundane adventure, and then at the end, we fight a god. This game is no different. Music: Kirby as fuck, very good.
9. Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O World Stage
Before Street Fighter 4 was even announced, the original Virtua Fighter 5 on Xbox 360 was my first steps back to fighting games. Now, Virtua Fighter is back, baby, and in a way, this remaster of this old ass game is better than a lot of fighting games out right now. It’s still incredible, it still holds up, and they updated it twice on Steam to make it even better, especially when I don’t feel like playing it online. I’m so happy Virtua Fighter is back, and I am going to play much more of this in 2026. Until whatever the next Virtua Fighter game is going to be called comes out, this game will be on my regular fighting game rotation with Street Fighter 6 and Guilty Gear Strive.
8. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance
I have no nostalgia for old Shinobi games because I don’t remember ever playing them. It’s funny because I do have history with Ninja Gaiden and I bounced off NG: Ragebound pretty fast. I picked this up because the art is so beautiful, and stayed because the combat feels like I’m playing Street Fighter, stringing combos together to take out my enemies, unlocking new moves, and new ways to traverse to get through the stages. Joe Musashi, without ever saying a word, is the coolest ninja in 2025. The only downside I found from this game was it was quite easy when it came out, and after playing Hollow Knight Silksong, I found the challenge of this game even less so. Still, I can’t wait for that DLC they have planned. Music: Good to Very Good.
7. Absolum
It was hard to choose between this game and Shinobi, which would be 7 and which would be 8, but ultimately, Absolum brings something new that I’ve never tried before: a rogue beat ‘em up in a fantasy setting, plus it has a frog wizard. Since the Ninja Turtle games of the early ’90s, Streets of Rage, and Maximum Carnage, I have loved beat ‘em ups. Turning a beat ‘em up into a roguelike is such a smart choice, and obviously, this is determined by your own skill level, but I seldom failed a run and felt like I got absolutely nothing out of it. The game’s art is fantastic, the animation is so fluid, and the combat feels like multilayered beyond most beat ‘em ups. The branching paths and sidequests they give you to incentivize you to take those paths are something I hope future beat ‘em ups will emulate, even if they’re not roguelites. I actually really loved the story and the moments of exposition, where you get info about the different places you visit, are so fleshed out, and the reason for the entire run leads up to a really strong finale that felt satisfying while also giving you a reason to get all the way to the end again. Music: Incredible
6. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter
Trails in general has been a series I’ve been hovering over, waiting to dive in, and boy did I actually have the worst timing. After I got my Steam Deck in August 2024, I bought the original Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter but didn’t start playing it until two weeks before the remake came out, without knowing it even existed until it was mentioned on Into the Aether. One day, I’ll return to the original, but I started the remake on day one of release. It’s a slow-paced RPG for sure, but something is charming about it where other slow RPGs can be frustrating, mostly because the pacing feels intentional rather than poorly planned. Despite the complaints, I like Estelle’s dubbed voice, even if I was picturing a more Sailor Jupiter dub voice for her character or a Hilda from Fire Emblem: Three Houses type voice when I briefly played the original. I understand why Trails fans called her Bestelle because I love her character, Joshua, not so much, but he’s growing on me.
The stakes feel low to medium, and from my understanding, it’s the end of the game and chapter two where the stakes get really high, but there is something chill about helping out your neighboring cities, working your way to become a full Bracer with Estelle and Joshua. The rotating extra party members is a fun addition as you travel, giving you different strategies for different areas. All the different systems involved, from the way combat works with different areas of effect and the orbment system for customizing your character’s abilities, are really fun to play around with. Fighting in battles as you travel doesn’t feel like a grind the way the battle system is designed, and I like figuring out what works and what doesn’t, even though the games lend you a hand in what an enemy’s weaknesses are straight away. Music: Three different options, all great.
5. Hades II
It’s more Hades, both to its benefit and to its detriment. The stakes feel higher as you go to war with Cronos to save your family, but the ultimate payoff at the end of that war is wishy-washy as hell. Melinoe is a character I love most of the time, but the way she is written sometimes, as a result of her upbringing, being young, and isolated, she sometimes sounds like a cop or a snitch. She doesn’t quite have the rebellious spirit Zagreus had, and the writing can reflect that both positively and negatively. Going up in this game the first time was such a cool surprise, but the journey to reaching Mount Olympus felt like what I wanted out of a sequel to Hades. I feel like the combat of Hades II is better than Hades, but I still like most of the weapons from the first one more. If they tuned them up somehow and said they were going to add those weapons to this game as a DLC, I’d definitely want to buy that, but the weapons from this game I gravitated towards, like the axe or the dual wands, I may like even more than the ones from the first, but boy, do I miss that shield.
All the gameplay that involves actually traversing up or down feels fine-tuned from the first one, but there is way too much currency that could have been pared down. It feels kind of overkill, but at the same time, what I get from the currency never felt like I was being ripped off or wasting my time. I feel like Hades being released in lockdown helped that game but hurt this one because I played so much Hades, and I’m seeing this sentiment a lot in other places, that this being so similar has me taking a break much sooner than I thought, bringing this down from what I thought it would be on my game of the year list for me. Still, it’s more Hades, and Hades is awesome. Music: Just as Incredible as Hades, if not more so.
4. Tokyo Xtreme Racer
What if a racing game were an RPG? Apparently, this was a Dreamcast game. I wish I knew about it because I would have loved it, but the original developer got back together and decided to make a new one in 2025, which they launched, and I bought in early access. Watching this game develop to 1.0 has been fascinating and fun as different aspects get tweaked, changed, and added. Driving around on this one giant expressway, challenging racers to rise in the ranks in a system that is like a combination of an RPG battle and a fighting game fight, but you’re just racing instead. Learning how to tweak the different cars featured in the game has been a learning experience as someone who knows nothing and, quite frankly, doesn’t care all that much about cars.
All the rivals you fight have cool and endearing names like Deep Green, Golden Beast, Lightning Shift Takuya, Lonely Jackal, Drift Baby, Full Moon Lunatic, and Midnight Cinderella, with different personalities you only get to briefly see through conversations with them. All of them have different shades of obsession with racing on this highway, while some in the parking garage will give you hints on how to race rivals called wanderers. The progression feels mostly good, but the late stages of the game really require nitro, maybe too much, without any way to fill out without finding a parking area or going back to your garage, which can break the flow of the game. Still, I surprisingly liked tuning the different parts of my car and trying to figure out what were the best options. Music: A bit repetitive but all bangers, the kind of music that makes you feel like your car is going faster.
3. Deltarune Chapter 3 and 4
I don’t care that it isn’t the full game yet. Chapter 1 sets up the main characters and general premise, Chapter 2 introduces side characters and expands upon the world, but then Chapter 3 begins with a bombshell reveal that you think is interrupted by a fun premise but underneath that reveal in the beginning is an integral part of that premise that hits you in the climax only for everything to go completely balls to the wall in the finale leading to Chapter 4. It also has sections off the path that you don’t have to do, but give some insight and hints about Kris that had me biting my nails to know more. Music: The Absolute BEST of the Year, in my opinion.
Chapter 4 cranks up the dial, not a touchscreen, on the setting, plot, characters, reveals, music, and, quite frankly, my emotions. Kris, or we controlling Kris, may be the protagonist, but Susie might be the hero of the story. After the ending of Chapter 3, Chapter 4 could have brought the tension back down to earth and done like a next-morning reset of the status quo, but the tension remains high and even exceeds it by the time you reach the end. The way this chapter hooked me with both the story and the gameplay, it was the first time playing this game that I thought “Oh, this might turn out better than Undertale by the end,” or at least that I might fall in love with it more than Undertale. Along with my number one game, this is a game that I could not stop thinking about after I was finished with it, and the only reason I did not replay all of the chapters again before the end of 2025 is that I’m going to do so when Chapter 5 comes out in 2026. Music: Best of the year.
2. Donkey Kong Bananza
I loved Donkey Kong Country on Super Nintendo, and I actually did really love Donkey Kong 64 when it came out originally but I haven’t really given a shit about Donkey Kong since then. He was not a character I liked playing in Mario Kart or Smash Bros, nor was I impressed at all by Donkey Konga or Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. By the time they did Donkey Kong Country Returns and DKC: Tropical Freeze, I was completely checked out of Donkey Kong. This game is pure Nintendo magic for making me care about Donkey Kong again. His new design, along with everything about Bananza, is just pure fun because it is fun to be a big gorilla who can smash nearly everything.
The game is an essential Switch 2 pick-up. It has so much of what I love about gaming in it. Unlockable outfits, number go up, unlockable abilities after number go up, destructible environments, references to older games without soaking in nostalgia too much, nonsense languages and music like a blend of Splatoon and Banjo-Kazooie, and a finale with a reveal that was just unbridled joy for me when it happened. After I beat the final boss, I went back and did it two more times just to experience it again and make sure I loved it as much as I thought I did. The moment and the music that goes with it alone would keep this game in my top ten, but the game was so much fun it was the only thing I wanted to do when it came out. I know when I start a new game, it’ll likely happen again. Music: A central theme of the game, and therefore fantastic.
1. Hollow Knight: Silksong
I haven’t really stopped thinking about Silksong since it came out. If my backlog wasn’t so large with games I know are excellent, I’d easily have two hundred hours in this game before the year ended. When I am playing other games, I’m thinking, if there is even a second of a lull, hey, maybe I’ll stop and play Silksong. They’re not tired of it yet, but my friends are soon going to grow tired of the Silksong fan art being posted in the group chat. I even modded the game on my PC to include a Christmas tree in one of the towns and put Hornet in a Christmas-like dress with a white Santa-like frill and a jingle bell (Thank you, Nexusmods). Even now, as I’m writing this, I’m thinking of stopping to go play it.
Now, when Silksong was announced, I was like, for so long, “Oh, cool, I think Hornet would be cool to play as.” I loved Hollow Knight, and I thought the idea of a sequel or whatever it was going to be considered was simply, you know, neat. When it kept getting delayed, or no news was coming about it, I was really phased. I’ve been on my share of delayed games before; you have no idea what it was like as a kid waiting for when Zelda 64 was finally going to come out after that was delayed multiple times. I was looking forward to it, but I was thinking about it all the time, or anything. It wasn’t until they finally announced the release date two weeks before the game was coming out that the hype hit me all at once, where I made a high-frequency sound that only dogs could probably here.
I’m not going to talk about its difficulty because I won’t be mean about it, but what I have to say might sound a lot meaner than my intention. I will say, I had a much harder time with Hollow Knight than this game, and I think it’s either cause I was picking up what Team Cherry was putting down as far as movement is concerned in combat, or I was so hyper-focused on this game more than any others at the time of release. Each tool and power-up you get in this game feels so satisfying to learn how to use, especially against bosses. There are power-ups I like and use more than others, but I don’t have any that I actively dislike so much that I’m like anticipating replaying the game using the different tools that I don’t tend to favor.
I love the Knight, and in general don’t mind silent protagonists in games, but Hornet is now one of my favorite video game characters thanks to her writing and voice in this game. When she speaks to NPCs, she balances speaking reverently to those who perceive her as younger, being kind to those who are young and naive, while calmly threatening her enemies. Whoever on Team Cherry writes the dialogue of the game makes deliberate diction and syntax that I just can’t get enough of. I know people want Team Cherry to make a different kind of game next time around, and that they’re a small team. However, Hornet is Team Cherry’s Samus Aran for me, and I want her to be the main character of this series, and for it to continue with her exploring new kingdoms. What makes Samus so cool they nailed it in Hornet by being a compassionate but no-nonsense badass.
There is no better way to describe it than I’m likely going to be playing this game in some capacity for the rest of my life. Music: Haunting and Incredible.
Those of my games of the year, I’ve got a little companion piece that is much shorter than this of Games of the Other Year, Games of 2025 I want to play more of, and Games of 2026 I’m looking forward to coming, probably tomorrow, but all this writing about games makes me want to play them instead. 2025, a great year for games.
FourofFiveWits 