Now that 2025 is over, it’s time to pick one game for each of my fingers from our latest lap around the sun. You know how this works. It’s the top 10 games of 2025.
A couple of asterisks: I didn’t get time to finish either Silksong or Ghost of Yotei, which seem likely to make the list, and didn’t get around to Anno 117, Pirate Yakuza or Europa Universalis V at all. Maybe they’ll show up in a revisited list in the distant future. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter and The Roottrees are Dead were good enough to make this list, but not new enough.
I included some of the best music of the year at the end.
Honorable Mention: The entire Earth Defense Force series
Precisely zero EDF games released in 2025, but I played all of 1, 2, 4.1, 5, World Brothers, World Brothers 2, a good chunk of 2 Portable and 6, and most of 4.1 more than once. It took me a long time to give this series a chance, but once I did, bug shooting pretty much took over my entire year.
10 Lego Party
Lego Party could not be a more shameless clone of Mario Party. Basically everything substantial about it is directly copied from that series, but this is a solid implementation of the genre and it has the distinct advantages of being $40 and multiplatform against MP’s $70 Switch exclusivity. It won’t change anyone’s life, but it’s a good time and free of MP’s stupid pure luck minigames.
9 Ball x Pit
I had no interest in Ball x Pit when it was first announced because it looked like the kind of game that masks shallow gameplay with flashing lights and dopamine triggers. I ended up giving it a chance after it reviewed well and landed on Gamepass, and while it absolutely is a game with a lot of easy dopamine hits, it’s also shockingly deep for basically being roguelite Breakout. Town building, character combinations, and a huge variety of enemies all work together to make a game that’s endlessly satisfying to play and rewards planning your runs. Some areas are less fun than others and the final few characters are very disappointing, but even so, you can’t really go wrong here.
8 Kabuto Park
Kaubto Park is a silly little game that costs $5 and lasts three hours about catching teams of bugs and using cards to have them do sumo battles. Games this short and simple don’t normally make my Top 10 lists, but Kabuto executes everything perfectly. Catching new bugs and teambuilding stays satisfying for the entire game, and it knows how to end just as it’s reaching the limit of what its simple systems can deliver.
7 Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
Guardians of Azuma takes the Rune Factory formula, moves it to fantasy Japan, adds town building, and expands the combat. It could have been too much to add to a single entry, especially after RF5 was widely panned, but it all comes together in Azuma. You’re going to have to like the town building to enjoy it, though: everything builds off of that system and nothing is very deep without the interactions with your towns.
6 Kirby Air Riders
Kirby Air Riders doesn’t really change anything important about the GameCube original. All the original modes are still here and easily recognizable. When you’re making the first sequel to a twenty year old game with few imitators, though, you don’t need to change much. A tune up to modernize the game and improve its weaker modes was all Air Ride needed to go from a cult classic to a modern one.
5 Galaxy Princess Zorana
Speaking of sequels to games from forever ago, Zorana is a spiritual successor to Long Live the Queen, which was previously my favorite game in the stat-raiser genre. Zorana takes everything that game did well and adds far more freedom of choice as you move around the galaxy to collect enough votes to be elected empress. It’s very much a game for a specific kind of person, and I am that person.
4 Hades II
Hades II was the best-reviewing game of 2025, and although it’s only fourth on my list, I didn’t rate it much lower than everyone else: 3-6 on my list all received 90% scores and their ordering here is somewhat interchangeable. This is another in the set of games that just straightforwardly improve on their prequel. There are no major changes to gameplay, but there are more levels, more varied powers, and a deeper story. It’s hard to imagine anyone liking or disliking only one of these games, and hard to criticize much about it other than a weak ending and a handful of cheap enemies. Scylla sings some of the year’s catchiest tunes, too.
3 Fantasy Life i: The Girl who Steals Time
The original 3DS Fantasy Life was memorable only for how disappointing it was. Being able to have every RPG job description at once was a promising idea, but it delivered only the shallowest interpretation of each of them in a game that quickly lost my attention. So I was a bit skeptical when FLi suddenly shot to near the top of review charts early in the year. It turns out that all that praise is well-deserved. FLi could be accused of being the classic “inch-deep ocean” considering how many simple systems it has, but all the systems work together in a way that captures the “one more turn” feeling from Civilization. Sure, crafting a new hammer isn’t very involved. You just use one of three crafting skills repeatedly until you fill a progress bar. Once you’ve made the hammer, though, it will let you make a better sword that will let you fight a stronger boss that will give you better equipment to make a better saw and cut down a bigger tree that lets you craft another hammer. If that loop appeals, hardly anything has ever done it better.
2 UNBEATABLE
The title of my review for UNBEATABLE comes from a scene in it where two characters discuss how the best works of art sometimes need a bit of dirt on them to feel real. You’re going to need to agree with that sentiment to enjoy the game: it has pacing issues galore and some parts of the main story simply shouldn’t exist. If you view review scores as an average of component parts or as a listing of flaws, you will hate it. But unbeatable is about a cast of characters struggling to figure themselves out, and it’s only fitting that it can’t figure itself out either. As long as you can look past those issues, its story about finding meaning in imperfection is really something special. Make sure to play the 6th chapter, which is only available after the credits and is the best part of the game, as well as the excellent arcade mode.
1 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and Expedition 33 winning awards in 2025.” There’s not much left to be said about this game after it’s already won everyone else’s GotY awards other than that it really is that good. It isn’t as short or as teenager-free as some people who can’t resist putting other JRPGs down would have you believe, but the combat, exploration, music, and especially the story are all absolutely top notch. There was never really any doubt that it’d end the year here.
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I always mean to publish a Top 10 Soundtracks and never quite manage to put the list together, so in lieu of that, I’ll close this post with a few amazing tracks from the year in no particular order: