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Top Ten Games I played in 2025 10. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - Despite my gripes with the oil-and-water mixture of half-life style linear storytelling and Prime-style storytelling, Metroid Prime 4 is actually really fun when you don't have a billion dipshits in your ear telling you how much it sucks! It maybe helps that MY favorite Prime game is Hunters. As long as this one has a fun back half, I'll be spoken for. 9. Bits & Bops - While not as meaty (as of current date) as other Rhythm Heaven-ish games, I cannot emphasize enough how much a combination of charm and pitch-perfect laser-precise controls does for B&B. Actual magic went into the latency system, I swear. The music is good, the minigames are fun, the presentation and characters are all adorable. A VERY good snack-sized weekend game. 8. Mosa Lina - A progress-less, save-less, aggressive-random roguelike "immersive sim" 2D platformer. Not only is it an amazing game to turn on for an hour and toy with, completely free from any larger goals or stress, it's also THE single most pitch-perfect co-op puzzle game since Portal 2. I would probably have had even more fun with it if I'd gone in blinder than I had. 7. Star of Providence - Extremely fun shmup with a ton of meat on its bones! There's just enough variety in the roguelike elements to make trying again feel like a worthwhile endeavor, and this is probably the most satisfying a twin-stick shooter is going to feel outside of Nuclear Throne. Thankfully, SoP has a lower skill floor than NT. The limited palette is good, the secrets are satisfying, the story is...there! This is definitely "comfort food" for shmup enjoyers. 6. Muramasa: The Demon Blade: Genroku Legends - Despite emulator troubles causing graphical glitches and an inability to dodge-roll properly, Muramasa is still the best hack-and-slash ever made, and I was overjoyed to finish the Vita DLCs this year. Kamitani's writing style and the art lends a ton of charm to each silly little side-story, and they let you play through the WHOLE game with each of the DLC characters if you'd like. Vanillaware games are truly indulgent on the postgame content~. Here's hoping they free this one from Vita Jail. 5. Deltarune (Chapters 3 & 4) - This is 2/7ths of a videogame, and it's still one of the strongest experiences of the year. Like following a webcomic artist and watching their style and writing improve, Toby Fox's ragtag team stretches their game-making muscles in new and astonishing ways with each new chapter. Somehow winning the subversive JRPG arms race despite other games releasing much, much faster than it. 4. Rhythm Doctor - The actual best Rhythm Game of 2025. Rhythm Doctor truly takes advantage of its simple, one-button gameplay, proving flexible and innovative LONG past the point where a lesser game would have kicked up its heels and rolled credits. Takes advantage of the fact that it's a Rhythm game to create ludonarrative around music and the player's inputs, takes advantage of the fact it's a computer game to create audio-visual spectacles that are mesmerizing AND purposeful. Don't sleep on this one. Or Else! 3. Hollow Knight: Silksong - The BestTroidvania of 2025. There's so much here, and all of it is so tightly wound and well-thought out. Team Cherry are masters of their craft, and the only thing more fun than doing little challenge runs to see how far one can push oneself is how much the game can still, after 200 hours, still prove a match for an experienced player. Modding it is also super fun, too, by the way. Hornet takes her rightful place in the pantheon of Souls and Metroidvania protagonists, like she's been there the whole time. 2. Rain World: The Watcher - I already liked Rain World and double-loved Downpour. A survival game managed to make me seriously consider my existential place in the universe and taught mindfulness in a meaningful way... and The Watcher did it all again, even better! Replayable, mysterious, chock full of new fascinating things to ponder over and be hunted by. The new story is also pitch-perfect, reflecting a melancholia for one's lost innocence and youth, cycles of self-destruction and loneliness, and letting the player sit with simulated grief in a way that feels heartbreaking and real. This team is truly something special. 1. Corru.Observer - It would be one thing if Corru.Observer merely had the most interesting art style of the year. Or the most likeable characters. Or the most interesting worldbuilding and sci-fi. Or the best twists and iterations of simple gameplay within an adventure game/VN format. To be all of those things, AND a game that makes one reflect on empathy, disease, what it means to be alien, or alive, dissecting extremely complex questions of existentialism and the nature of thought with the same playful ease with which it elicits cackling laughter or aching tragedy. And it's a browser game, and free. Somehow, controlling a videogame with a scroll wheel, a mouse, and keyboard made parts of Corru feel more immersive, the web page becoming a part of the diegetic experience, all without resorting to easy "meta" twists. It's also got a bitchin' roguelike in there as a SIDE mode, and it's not even done yet! I'm confident that this is going to be the gift that keeps on giving for a good while yet, so play Corru!! You literally don't have to spend any money to play it (though you should give corru works money by buying merch because holy hell do they deserve it.) BSTRD and Geli are my blorbos. Honorable Mentions: A. Spelunky 2 - I'd probably need to play Spelunky 1 before I seriously give the whole "actually trying to beat Spelunky 2 and understand its secrets" thing. B. Environmental Station Alpha - Played/Started, got decently far in but did NOT beat it. I'd heard there was some ARG-type stuff in the late game, but it took too long to reach any kind of point where I felt like the moveset started to cohere into something interesting. C. Sea of Stars: Throes of the Watchmaker - Oh Sabotage Studios? Why do you keep releasing games and DLCs that read like extremely thinly coded trans allegories? Why is your author self-insert's monologue about masking and self-expression? Why is the plot of this DLC about taking a man to a notary so his deadname can cause him no more grief? 8/10 Was nice to revisit SoS. D. Dreams of Aether - Fun little Wario-Ware-like. The Final Level tied everything together in a cool way! The RoA crew does GREAT work consistently. E. Super Lesbian Animal RPG - Started but didn't get very far. The humor (in the writing at least) didn't click for me so much. F. Decline's Drops - It's a billion times better than You Are Peter Shorts, but there's nowhere near enough of the beat-em-up part in this Subspace-Emissary inspired platformer. G. OFF (Remake) - Most of the way through. I expect it to stick the landing, and if it does, it'll easily slot in nicely over... #9. H. R.E.P.O - I should probably play Lethal Company at some point for comparison, but REPO's waddly, physics-based 'friendhorror' is extremely fun. Quite personable and expressive! I. Golf With Your Friends - It's like 4D Golf, but instead of Brain Expansion it's Getting Mad At Your Asshat Friends. 6/10 Didn't Get a Chance to Play: J. Unbeatable - Too many rhythm games this year! Also this one apparently released in a state where it was a little too easy to softlock the game accidentally. Waiting on a patch or two. K. Rift of the Necrodancer - I have no excuse except that I'm not ready to kill my fingers on another Necrodancer game yet. L. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code - Switch Jail, then it released multiplatform with DLCs (which were apparently not good) M. Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy - This is apparently the fattiest and meatiest steak of a tactics/VN game there is. N. Slay the Princess Pristine Cut - I need to see the added content, since the original version was one of the best Visual Novels of 2023. O. Great God Grove - One of those "Save it for a special occasion" type games that I know is going to become one of those "I've played it and won't be able to shut up about it" so I'm postponing giving myself a new brain worm. P. Nine Sols - My brain only had room for one Soulstroidvania this year, sorry. Gotta try this one and BO: Path of the Lotus at some point. Q. Cassette Beasts - This and Beastieball are on the backlog, for sure. R. Pokemon Legends ZA - I downloaded it the same day Prime 4 came out. Leave me alone!