the best games i played in 2025: runner ups
The runner ups! These games didn't hit as hard for me as the top ten for whatever reason, but stuck with me anyway.
Tecmo's Deception: Invitation to Darkness
High swag and very funny, but the actual play is a little silly and is mostly kiting stupid guys into traps and hoping it hits.
Mysterious Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer
OG console roguelike that gets so much right it really reminds you how far the genre's strayed from God.
Elbe
June made this one! The competition is stiff, but this is my favorite thing of hers to date. Ambitious, moody, and funny. Go play it here.
Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
I tried to convince a bunch of people to play this with me but none of them took the bait. I liked what I played of it though! Felt a little saucier than SF6, and honestly, I'm not above the gatchacore character design.
Team Innocent: The Point of No Return
Listen to this song and imagine navigating an elaborately animated horny drawing scaled to inscrutability around 3D renders of empty rooms trying to find keycards. That's basically the experience. I had a pretty good time!
Incredible Crisis
Fun minigame collection, good one to throw on for friends if you want to show them something goofy for a half-hour.
Mystery of the Malign
A methodically paced whodunnit by way of GoldSrc engine-esque aesthetics. Asher turned me onto this one, and described it as feeling "like it would have been some sort of episodic detective game you'd see a new copy of at the checkout counter at officemax" which I think nails both it and its appeal.
STRAFTAT
Finally, some good fucking FPS. Hop-in-hop-out lightning-quick 1v1 deathmatches and nothing but. They really get it!
That's all from me! Tomorrow... the guest lists!!