Hello everyone. Hope you have all had a good week, and if you've been celebrating the holidays, have had a chance to unwind and enjoy. Its the last Sunday of the year so let's use this thread to talk about what games we played in 2025, our favorites, least favorites pleasant surprises etc.
Games I played that released this year:
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Elden Ring: Nightreign: This is probably my GOTY, but I didn't play too many games that released in 2025. Anyway, I think a lot of people were rightfully skeptical about Elden Ring Fortnite edition but it's an incredibly fun co-op game. I haven't tried the Deep of Night Mode or the DLC, but thats something I am thinking of picking up when I return home from my holiday vacation
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The Outer Worlds 2: the gameplay is markedly better than the first game, once again proving any movement system in any video game just needs a double jump. A lot of people complained about the lack of skill points you get from leveling up, but I thought it wasnt that big of an issue. One aspect I think they knocked it out the park was with the in game radio stations, they were absolutely fantastic and once i turned them on i never once turned them off. The one area I think it comes up way short of the first game is the companion characters: they simply do not match the energy of the ones from the first game. I look forward to the promised expansions.
-Becoming Saint: i picked this up because I saw Northernlion play it and I thought it looked interesting, but unfortunately there was little meat on its bones. The game bills itself as a rouge-like but there is very little variation between playthroughs. Also the devs suffered a huge aura loss in my eyes when I checked the steam reviews and they were replying to every single review. I liked the art style though. 5.5/10
Stronghold Crusader Definative Edition: 97 Year Old Game Studio Still Makes Crossbowmen The Old Fashioned Way. Stronghold crusder is one of my favorite childhood games (it taught me how the economy works). I actually didn't even know they were releasing a remaster of it until I saw that you could buy it bundled with Becoming Saint. Its the good kind of remaster: fixes longstanding bugs and actually ads some content to the game. I have worked my way through the co-op trail with my brother the past few months and we are eagerly awaiting fresh missions to be added to it.
Games I played this year that releases prior to 2025:
-Balatro: crack cocaine
-Dark Souls 1 and 3: i replayed 1 for the hell of it but I did a SL1 playthrough of 3. Very challenging, very rewarding
-Fallout 4: I began 2025 with a brutal, soul crushing period of unemployment and job hunting. To keep my spirits as low as possible, I did a playthrough of FO4 on survival difficulty. Extremely brutal in the early game, I ending up immediately siding with the Brotherhood so I could get access to vertibird transport early. Became the perfect mixture of fun and challenge once I got good armor and put in enough perks so I didn't die in 1 bullet
LA Noire: my comfort game tbh, shame they had to burn through hundreds of University graduates to make it
Rome Total War: still whips
Mass Effect 1 and 2: Playing Outer Worlds 2 made me want to play more space games, so I fired up the legendary edition for my second playthrough of the trilogy. My first playthrough I did male paragon shepherd, so this time I'm doing female renegade shepherd. They really tried to make the paragon/renegade dichotomy akin to good cop/loose cannon but full renegade means you swing between asshole and psychopath. The conversation you have with Anderson and Udina at the end of ME1 after letting the council die floored me with the renegade dialogue options; you and Udina basically become Darth Vader and Palpatine. Anyway, I will start ME3 when I get back from vacation
Hope everyone has had at least a tolerable 2025, and here's to maybe a better year in 2026!
I really like the Paragon-Renegade in ME1 because it doesn't feel like good-evil like so many dialogue systems did in that time. You could definitely be a renegade and be more of a "we get the job done because the alternative is extinction" type of hero rather than just cartoonishly evil like you ended up in KoTOR for example. Sadly, the sequels basically took the easy way out and made Renegade kind of sadist and evil.
For me, this year I played a few games:
Metaphor: ReFantazio - It was fine. I was hoping with the team behind Persona being free of Persona's focus on high school students, they could do something more mature and interesting. But no, even in a completely made up secondary world, we still are kids saving the universe or whatever. It's fine, but it really didn't feel that that much of a step forward. And the requirement to keep the Persona-like visual novel gameplay with epic fantasy's much bigger scope meant having to invent reasons your character can teleport and other things like that. It just really felt like a mess of different things crammed together. Only recommended for the biggest of Persona fans.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - This game ruled. Everyone that hyped this was correct. From the absolute gut punch of an opening, to the great, Mario RPG-like battle system to the character work (actual adults with actual adult feelings!), it just worked. Rare game that everyone talks about and they were right.
Last Defense Academy - Guilty pleasure. Definitely nice to have Kodaka back in full sicko mode making a visual novel where nothing is sacred. The gameplay is fine, if you like tactics RPG battle systems, you'll find enough to enjoy here. What I found best about this was that almost every gameplay mechanic had in game lore and story attached to it. There's a tendency for mechanics and story to be a little separated (why doesn't Cloud just use a Phoenix Down?) in games, and this game is whip smart about how it makes the two meet. Seeing choices actually matter and all the branching paths to lead to all 100 endings was also well executed.