I am interested in hearing what everyone has been playing in 2025. So, in this thread, I would love to hear your thoughts on every game you started this year.
You don't necessarily have to list EVERY game, but the more the merrier! Feel free to tell how much you love the game, or how much you hate it! You can even explain why and how you got it.
If you just want to give your opinions on a game someone mentioned in here, go ahead!
Also, review scores are welcome.
My review of games I started in 2025:
Games I got on Switch 1: Moonlighter--
This game had me hooked! Rougelite by day, shop sim at night! I enjoy both of those kinds of games, and Moonlighter does them both with amazing pixel art and an upgrade system! 10/10
Games I got on PC: Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove--
I completed Shovel of hope, started Plague of shadows and lost interest for a bit, and came back to it 2 months later to try out King of Cards. KING OF CARDS IS SO GOOD. The card system is so fun and unique, the platforming is simple on paper but is brilliantly used, and the music blesses my ears every time I hear a song from the game. 10/10
Ori and the Blind Forest--
This game is gorgeous. It's like you are controlling a character in a painting. It wasn't my favorite metroidvania, but it was a lot of fun. 9/10
Games I played from NSO: F-Zero GX/SoulCalibur 2--
I don't have too much to say about these. SoulCalibur 2 caught me off gaurd when the camera started shifting 3 dimensionally. F-Zero GX looks good.
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker--
I was wanting to play this game for SO long. I never got the chance too because I never had a gamecube. So out of anything in the switch 2 direct, seeing wind waker was the most exciting. (I was on the floor screaming...) Did it live up to what I thought it might be? Somewhat. (I have only gotten to the earth temple, by the way.) I could write a 5 paragraph essay on my opinions for this game, but I will keep this brief. I love it, but I'm not even close to loving all of it. My biggest issue is that the great sea is empty and way too big. One of my biggest positives is the music. I'm going to keep playing this game but for now, it is an 8/10
Super Mario Strikers--
Really fun. Graphics aren't the best, and there aren't too many things to do, but it is a good time. 8/10
Mario Paint--
This game is so goofy. The smallest pen size is too big, there are only 15 colors, there is a boss battle for some reason, you can't use sharps or flats in the music maker, there are like 8 ways to clear the screen for some reason, it has some really... quirky intros, and you only get one undo at a time. All that said, this game is indescribably special. All the weird quirks like the undo dog, saving robot, and the mosquito fights make this game unlike anything else. The fact that they even let you have a music editor and a lack luster animation tool tells you something about this game. Everything about this game screams childlike whimsy. They let you have a spray paint mode, the paintbrush does a silly dance as it fills the image with color, you click on a bomb every time you want to exit something, and the intro screen when you start the game is so silly and interactive. (Yes, the menu is noteworthy.)
I feel like this game doesn't deserve a review score. It really is its own thing.
Chibi-Robo--
I've only played this game for about an hour, but its quirkiness is second to none. It is so silly, and if I was an 8-year-old right now, I would be playing this game nonstop. I would say that this game makes you feel super free, but you constantly have to stop to read dialogue or charge yourself with an outlet. 7/10 so far.
Games I got on Switch 2: Mario Kart World--
I haven't played this in a while, so I'll try to remember what I thought about it. Probably a 6-8/10.
I love hopping onto walls and I wished it was used a bit more, I wish there was more things in the open world, I like this game, but It's not good enough where I will never return to MK8.
Donkey Kong Bananza--
10/10 game! I NEED to write an essay on how much I love this game. Even a month after release, I can't stop thinking about this game. The ending is the greatest ever, every second of playing feels amazing, everything feels satisfying, it tried with the story and ended up being better than most nintendo games, and the wonder I got when I got to sublevel 100 was insane! It is nearly perfect. It is probably 99/100. I LOVE this game.
Is This seat taken?--
This game is the best game that a game like this could be. It looked really good in the indie world, so I picked it up. I have now 100% it, and it was well worth my time. The gameplay is super fun, and the story is simple but very sweet. I even got a little emotional at the end. Just a silly little $10 game. 9-10/10
Hollow Knight--
I started playing this game today, so I can't say much, but it definitely lives up to the hype. It looks beautiful, and the music is too.
@Tasuki I can see that, but I kind of thought it would be weird to put every game I've played in 2025 in a thread like Games You Recently Beat. So, I figured it would be nice to make a thread for people who would want to do the same. I can understand if you think this one shouldn't exist.
Warning: Spicy opinions like "M&Ms are overrated." may leak from this unit!
2025 isn't over just yet, so I'll write my thoughts on the games I've played for the first time this year as of now. Putting them in the order I played them in.
Shadow Generations - OK, this might be a bit of a hot take, but I'm not a fan of this one. Though mainly because it kind of made me realize that I just don't enjoy the boost gameplay that modern Sonic games have. I just don't like how the controls/physics are, especially when I got to the later levels. I do like the music and graphics at least. But yeah... I wanted to enjoy this one, but it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment for me.
Pikmin 4 - A pretty good game for what it is, but for some reason, I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Maybe it's partially because it's been a long time since I played a Pikmin game, though. I do like the rescuing and treasure hunting, but I don't like the dandori challenges too much. I also ended up getting a little frustrated because of how many of my Pikmin died on me. Maybe Pikmin isn't for me after all... which does make me a little sad because I'm a lifelong Nintendo fan. Oh, well.
Boxboy + Boxgirl - Not much to say about this one. I like the Boxboy games and this one is a solid entry in the series.
Axiom Verge - A really good Metroidvania, and one I'm proud to have finished. Love the exploration and the atmosphere of the game's world. Considering that I played it for the first time in 2025, I'm surprised by how long it's been around. I did play a bit of its sequel, but I feel like the first one is more fun.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus - I'm not a huge Pokemon fan, but I do like this one quite a bit. I got a pair of NSO game vouchers and I used one of them on this game. It's very much like Breath of the Wild, but with Pokemon... I wanted to give this one a shot since I've finished Tears of the Kingdom back in 2024. I put a decent amount of time into this game already and I intend to play more of it.
Okami - What an awesome game! I've heard about this one for a good while, and I finally decided to give it a shot after getting it from the Switch eShop. I do like a good Zelda game, and it does play similarly to that. Love the ancient Japanese art style and music, as well.
Mario Kart World - I'm a huge Mario Kart fan, of course I had to play it. I got it bundled with my Switch 2 last month. While I don't think it's better than Mario Kart 8, I still have a great time with it. I like the new mechanics like the rail grinding, and the new tracks are really solid. Knockout Tour is a lot of fun too, it's essentially a combination of Mario Kart and F-Zero (particularly the rank-out system), and I can really feel the pressure in that mode, lol! I also like the fun costumes you can get for each character. The music is absolutely stellar. It may not be a perfect game by any means, but I think it's still a very good entry in the series.
There's still more games I want to play this year, like Donkey Kong Bananza... and I'll be sure to post my thoughts when I play them.
"Give yourself the gift of being joyfully you."
Favorite game: Super Mario 3D World
AKA MarioVillager92. Ask if you want to be Switch friends with me, but I want to get to know you first. Thanks! ❤️
I only give review scores to games I've finished, but here are the games I beat in 2025 and remembered to score, most of which I also started in 2025 (all on Switch or Switch 2):
Planet of Lana - 8/10. Absolutely lovely puzzle platformer with some surprisingly dark bits and a few jump scares. Slow paced but it's a short game with a pleasant vibe.
Wario Land 3 (GB) - 6/10. GameBoy restricts it in some ways and there were a few very questionable design choices like the day/night cycle but mostly it was just a fairly good Wario Land game.
Kitten Lost Her Box - 7/10. Adorable retro platformer where you are a kitten going through the level to sleep in her box. Short but decent level design and hilarious bosses
Hello Kitty Island Adventure - 8/10 though tempted to change it to 9/10 when I moved over to Switch 2 where it performs much better. Basically Animal Crossing but with more quests and BotW shrines and lava and Hello Kitty and friends and a pretty large map and eventually like 50 islanders rather than 10. And you get to be an animal yourself rather than a boring 'ol human. The game has a shocking amount of plot and lore and is generally very addictive long past finishing the main plotline.
Psycho Dream (SNES) - 6/10. Hilarious slightly janky traditional-castlevania-like but with absurd power-ups and occasional elevator levels where you do almost nothing for some reason. 2 different characters with different abilities which is fun so I actually beat the game several times in different ways. Not the best game but I really enjoyed it.
Squab - 4/10. Fairly standard level-based precision platformer where you are a pigeon. Extremely short and a bit jank but still sorta fun.
Heart of the Woods - 8/10. A lovely haunting modern fantasy romance visual novel. I'm not often into English voice acting but I thought it was excellent in this game.
Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons - 8/10. A really good Picross game with some unusual sized boards and a lot of fairly symmetric pictures which added a whole layer of strategy by predicting the picture rather than only going by the numbers.
A Year of Springs - 8/10. One of the sweetest slice of life visual novels I've read. It's short and has simple but adorable art and does a great job describing a variety of types of interpersonal relationships and the inherent awkwardness that trying to live life as yourself can create.
VALIS III (MEGA DRIVE) - 6/10. Just your basic side scrolling retro action game with a truly absurd plot. Very short experience but pretty fun.
Arcade Archives TETRIS THE ABSOLUTE THE GRAND MASTER 2 PLUS - 7/10. It's Tetris but with absolutely insane deadly ultra fast modes.
Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (SNES) - 8/10. Fundamentally, just a good traditional donkey kong country game. As often happens with me I got close to 100% but there were a couple collectibles which just didn't seem fun to me so I didn't end up seeing the extra levels.
Tetris Forever - 8/10. Absolutely fascinating documentary mixed with playing the various old Tetris games. Unfortunately it wasn't quite complete for intellectual property reasons, but still very interesting. The various versions of Hat-Tris are absurd.
The Mysterious Murasame Castle (NES) - 7/10. Basically 2D Zelda cross ninjas everywhere cross bullet hell. Kind of hard to describe. Some parts are initially unfair but once you understand the patterns you can slaughter everything while dancing between projectiles.
Cat and Ghostly Road - 6/10. An atmospheric point and click adventure with nice visuals where you are a cat journeying into the spirit world to save your master.
.Cat - 3/10. Yes, the period is part of the name. A pixel cat platformer metroidvania-lite which... just isn't very good though I did beat it so I must not have hated my time.
Yoshi (NES) - 5/10. Super silly not all that great falling block puzzle game. But at least it has Yoshi.
Ninja Gaiden (NES) - 6/10. A classic and much easier than its reputation (except one level near the end), but the wall jumping was a little janky, the way items worked wasn't ideal, and some of the level design was questionable (although other parts were very good). Interesting to finally play it but it definitely shows its age.
Note that I'm not quite done with DK Bananza but will likely give it at least a 9/10.
@CobaltFan I like threads like this. There are occasional forum reviews in the 'recently beat' thread, but it's interesting to see a bunch of short reviews all at once like this.
Up until now in 2025 I have beat those games. I have put a tag "First time" to indicate that I have never beaten this game before:
1 - The Witcher 3 (PS5) - First time - It was a nice experience, the graphics and the story. But the controls are really clunky.
2 - Resident Evil 2 Original (N64) All 4 scenarios - First time - masterpiece! And as added bonus the N64 version have analog controls so I did not have to struggle with tank controls
3 - DUSK (Switch) - amazing indie shooter with atmosphere and retro graphics!
4 - Castlevania Curse of Darkness (Steam Deck) - First time - Castlevania is everything that is good in gaming for me! I REALLY enjoyed this one! The crafting mechanics are awesome!
5 - Castlevania Lament of Innocence (Steam Deck) - First time - Good game and loved every minute of it! It is Castlevania after all!
6 - Castlevania 64 (Steam Deck) - First time - I do not know why people hated this CV game. Yes, the platforming can be excruciating at times and yes, the time limit is stupid but underneath the game is worth it!
7 - Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse (Switch) - First time - really had game but absolute masterpiece from the NES era! When I beat it, it was so damn satisfying!
8 - Castlevania Bloodlines (Switch) - First time - NOT as good as Super Castlevania IV but the soundtrack and the protagonists are making this game special!
9 - Resident Evil 1 HD (PS5) - Do i need to say anything? Masterpiece!!!
10 - Castlevania The Adventure (Switch) - First time - It is an ok game. Not great but ok for a playthrough or 2.
11 - Castlevania II Belmont's Revenge (Switch) - First time - HUGE improvement over The Adventure. Still on the harder side.
12 - Resident Evil 2 Remake VR (Meta Quest 3) - First time - One of the best games ever created and in VR is damn horrifying! Especially the RPD ...
13 - Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow (PS5) - Masterpiece!
14 - Castlevania Portrait of Ruin (PS5) - Masterpiece!
15 - Castlevania Order of Ecclesia (PS5) - Masterpiece!
16 - Elden Ring (PS5) - This game will become timeless. I do not know how they can create such a thing ...
@CobaltFan I too like threads like this, and particularly enjoyed reading all of your reviews. You're making me feel bad about Moonlighter - I got it when it first came out, I have it physically and digitally, but I've still never played it. You probably already know this, but Wind Waker HD is a better experience, but I can appreciate the hype to play the og. You've got me really wanting to play DK Bananza, It's This Seat Taken, and King of Cards.
I'm not sure I can contribute much on the way of reviews to this thread, though. Thanks to Switch's pants activity log, I couldn't tell you what I've played this year.
The one game I can remember beating was Blade Chimera. I think I have reviewed it somewhere, but I can't remember what I wrote. Memory suggests I wasn't overly impressed by it. Maybe gave it a 68 or 70. The gameplay was alright, but nothing else about the game really worked for me.
Otherwise, I've been spending too much time earning tickets to unlock missed themes in Tetris 99, and just dossing around in Animal Crossing. Just recently resumed my Tears of the Kingdom save - it just doesn't keep my attention the same way BotW did, due to the world being less appealing and more cluttered. I also need to finish Hollow Knight.
You guys had me at blood and semen.
What better way to celebrate than firing something out of the pipe?
@gcunit Thanks for appreciating my reviews! I also had trouble thinking of all the games I started this year. It took a good 15 minutes just to get the list together. I think I went on for way too long about Mario Paint, but I had to explain my feelings for that game.
Also, I agree with your thoughts on BotW and TotK.
I wish Nintendo put Wind Waker HD on switch, but here's hoping to Twilight Princess HD. (I have that game on the wii, I just haven't done it much because I dislike using the motion controls too much.)
Warning: Spicy opinions like "M&Ms are overrated." may leak from this unit!
I do a thread of my favorite games I played every year at the end of the year already so I'm just gonna put really short reviews here.
-Wario Land 3: Super cool ambitious game that is unfortunately defined by being consistently mildly frustrating, to the point that I think its a lesser game in its series.
-Xenoblade Chornicles: Definitive Edition: Highly appreciated improvements to an all time great game, compared to 2 and X, in hindsight, its just as important that it has great parts that it also has a lack of bad parts. (it being very user friendly was part of its appeal going into it and Definitive Edition goes further with that). Extra story was good enough for what it was.
-Kirby Star Stacker: Fun enough puzzle game I guess but for a lot of it, too easy for its own good (a rare time that's a problem for a Kirby game).
-Nier: Automata: Incredible music with great if not peak Platinum gameplay with story and themes that are...on the verge of being an all timer but I know I have a ways to go so that's still to be determined.
-Marvel vs. Capcom Collection: I am not great at these but of the three games I've played, I've had a lot of fun anyway. All video games could look like this forever and I'd be fine tbh, even great looking 3d games often pale in comparison.
-Sayonara Wild Hearts: Pretty great experience, but I'm considering playing it again since it feels like it could be an all timer but it isn't based on my one playthrough.
-Klonoa 1's latest remake: Is still probably awesome but felt a bit off compared to when I played it on Wii. Unsure if that's more on me or this version of the game.
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