Better late than never, right? After taking more time than usual to ponder my 2025 in gaming (read: I spent my summer break thinking about literally anything other than work), these were the games I kept thinking about, long after I played them.
I don’t think there’s a strong, obvious connective tissue between my favourite games of 2025. Nor was there in my picks of 2024, now that I think of it. Generally speaking, I don’t stick to any one genre; I just follow my interest and see where it goes. It usually leads to something bright and colourful, the human embodiment of a shiny object-seeking magpie that I am, to be honest.
Despite my best efforts, some of the big games recognised at The Game Awards never quite grabbed me. Death Stranding 2 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 had their moments in between bouts of frustration, while Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 didn’t fully grab me in the time I spent with it.
Looking back at 2025, my favourite games rarely took themselves too seriously. They were earnest and fun, much like the bond between a gorilla and his showtune-singing companion, or the unlikely friendship between a yakuza and a sentient mascot in the shape of a dismembered pinky finger.
Donkey Kong Bananza
I love Donkey Kong. I also love 3D platformers. Put that simple equation in your calculator, and I was destined to love Donkey Kong Bananza, right? Well, sure, but I don’t want my predisposition to get in the way of how wonderful Bananza is.
One of the flagship titles for the new Nintendo Switch 2, Donkey Kong Bananza delights as a technical showcase for the new hardware. It also earns its place among the ever-growing pantheon of Nintendo’s all-time great games.
Expressive and tactile, Bananza lets you loose in vibrant sandboxes of destruction as one of gaming’s most beloved characters. To be a big goofy gorilla causing mayhem: that’s all I’ve ever wanted in life.
Blue Prince
Blue Prince — or ‘Print Wars’, as my Mum calls it — is exhilarating and infuriating, often at the same time. Think Betrayal at the House on the Hill, but much grander in scale, with the constant hum of political intrigue in the background.
Your goal? Find the rumoured room 46 in your great uncle’s mansion to claim your inheritance. It sounds simple enough, except that the mansion’s layout changes every day.
Instead of knowing what’s on the other side of a door, you draft several blueprints and choose which room you’ll walk into. Some rooms are filled with boons, like mysterious keys, while others tax you with negative effects, pushing you further away from room 46 — if it even exists.
Blue Prince‘s randomised nature often throws curveballs your way, sometimes grinding your progress to a frustrating halt. Quickly, though, you learn how to use its systems, eking out something of value, even when the odds are against you.
It’s all worth it when, after days of pondering a puzzle, a notebook in hand filled with what looks like the scribblings of a madman, you finally make a breakthrough. Only to discover how much deeper Blue Prince‘s conspiracies go. And so begins the cycle anew.
The Séance of Blake Manor
If you like a good whodunnit, do I have the game for you. Rooted in Irish mythology and customs, The Séance of Blake Manor makes every decision count, with a clever time-based system that encourages you to quickly adapt to the game’s logic.
Spooky without being terrifying, Séance tasks you with investigating suspects over the disappearance of a young woman. As Declan Ward, the detective with razor-sharp cheekbones, you don’t even know who hired you. All that you know is that from the moment you set foot into Blake Manor, there are strange forces at play.
Finding out what, exactly, is a terrific time.
Pokemon Legends: Z-A
I described Pokémon Legends: Z-A as the mixed martial arts of Pokémon games, a statement I stand behind. It’s fast, scrappy, and doesn’t let you take a moment to breathe. Sometimes literally: a petite Pokémon taking a Hydro Pump to the face is slapstick comedy at its finest.
Recent Pokémon games have attracted myriad criticisms, ranging from a lack of visual fidelity to stagnant design. Legends: Z-A smartly narrowed its scope to a single location, emphasising the revamped real-time combat and a charming cast of characters.
Regardless of whether or not real-time battles turn out to be a one-time dalliance for the series, this was the most I’ve enjoyed the moment-to-moment action of a Pokémon game in years.
Hollow Knight: Silksong
They did it. They actually bloody did it. Adelaide’s own Team Cherry defied years of built-up expectations and stuck the landing with Hollow Knight: Silksong. Bigger, tougher, and more expressive, Silksong will be hailed as an Australian game development success story for years to come.
I could wax lyrical about Hornet’s terrific character design, the sprawling levels, and Christopher Larkin’s beautifully melancholy soundtrack. But the moment seared into my brain is the fight against a boss known as the First Sinner. It triggered a flow state that felt like a meticulously choreographed dance. Upon beating the boss, all I wanted to do was relive it over and over again.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is filled with those moments. Every act of overcoming adversity feels like a reward in itself.
Promise Mascot Agency
Ah, yes, the morbid yet strangely serene game about sentient Japanese mascots and the looming Yakuza threat. Promise Mascot Agency really does defy any straightforward explanation.
Come for the hilarious business management mini-games, stay for the heartwarming tales of the people who care about their run-down regional town.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Shadows is the most I’ve enjoyed an Assassin’s Creed game in years. Deftly balancing stealth and all-out action in a beautiful Japanese setting, Assassin’s Creed Shadows did a lot right. Sure, it still leans heavily on some arbitrary RPG elements, but I loved Naoe and Yasuke’s stories enough to see past some of the gameplay friction.
Ball X Pit
Ball X Pit tickled my brain in all the right ways. Taking Breakout‘s simple brick-breaking gameplay, then adding roguelike progression and town-building elements, this is a dangerously good time sink of a game.
Hades 2
I’ve played Hades 2 all the way through Early Access, seeing how its story played with the concept of what was an in-progress game throughout its active development.
Did it stick the landing upon its full release? Not entirely, but it was one heck of a journey getting to the destination.
Just like the first game, Hades 2 is a brilliant dungeon-crawler that only gets better the more you play. And damn, Darren Korb smashed it out of the park with the soundtrack once again.
Monster Train 2
It’s like Monster Train, but with a 2 on the end, and a lot more cards to master. You’d think that after years of roguelike deckbuilding games, the genre would feel a bit stale by now. Nope. Monster Train 2 is one of the greats, just like its predecessor.
Rift of the Necrodancer
Rhythm games live or die based on the quality of their soundtracks. Rift of the Necrodancer has an impeccably dancey setlist of original tunes that keeps you coming back for more.
It’s not a mere Guitar Hero imitation, either. Necrodancer challenges you with an assortment of foes who don’t just go away when you press the correct button with the right timing. Each enemy reacts differently; some only go down after multiple inputs, while others are pushed back, making them a future problem.
I thought I was pretty good at this game. Then I turned the difficulty up a notch and fell apart the moment I had to contend with off-beat notes.
Mario Kart World
Nintendo’s first big crack at an open-world racing game, Mario Kart World, is a road-tripping delight. With a higher skill ceiling than ever before, and some of the best tracks in the entire series, this was a smart Nintendo Switch 2 launch title.
Of everything Mario Kart World does well, Knockout Tour drifts into first place. An endurance race mode across multiple tracks that gradually eliminates the slowest racers, it’s up there with the tensest I’ve felt during a multiplayer session.
If there’s one thing that helped cement just how good Mario Kart World is, it was this deliriously fun speedrun at Awesome Games Done Quick. Streamer Helix13_ proved once and for all that World is actually a 3D platformer in disguise.
I do have one complaint, however: give Donkey Kong more outfits, Nintendo. The king deserves the best.
Kirby Air Riders
I was baffled that Nintendo decided to bring out a sequel to a niche GameCube game just months after Mario Kart World. Even more surprising was how much I enjoyed Kirby Air Riders.
Beyond the cutesy aesthetic of Kirby and his eccentric mates is a fast-paced racer with more depth than meets the eye. Each vehicle tangibly changes the way you race, as does your character selection, to a greater extent than most arcade racing games.
The Drifter
The Drifter occupies rare territory: it’s an Australian-made game set in Australia that doesn’t lean on Australiana tropes or references. It just happens to star a fella with a harsh Aussie accent caught up in a grand sci-fi conspiracy.
There are parts of The Drifter that conjure fond memories of Ghost Trick, in that it mixes a point-and-click interface with some clever real-time puzzles. It also tells a ripper of a yarn that keeps you guessing all the way until the end.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy
If pressed to assign a ‘game of the year’, I would most likely give the nod to The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. One of the most ambitious games I’ve ever played, this expansive visual novel-tactics hybrid has a mind-boggling 100 endings to experience based on your choices.
That in isolation might not mean much, but the sheer scope of each diverging storyline is a herculean feat from developer Too Kyo Games. From the minds behind the Danganronpa and Zero Escape series, Last Defense Academy is equally as twist-laden, but it’s much tighter in execution, despite being much bigger than its creators’ previous games.
Not just a distraction from the plot, the grid-based tactics gameplay matches the intensity of Last Defense Academy‘s storytelling. I didn’t expect protecting a mysterious militaristic school with a bunch of super-powered high schoolers would have gripped me so much, but here we are.
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