It can be fun to discuss and rank videogames in the scope of a year’s releases, but also a bit arbitrary. After all, the reality is that I’m never able to play (let alone finish) every new release that I’d like to in one year. Rather, I’m usually balancing old games from my backlog and unfinished releases from the previous year with the current year’s new hotness.
So, I accounted for all of the above in the list below. The result ranks some of this year’s standouts (that I actually had time to finish) alongside older games that made a lasting impression on my 2025.
5. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector – Best Game Made by Pretty Much One Person
Sorry, Toby Fox, but if you wanted this spot, you should have released all of Deltarune this year, you lazy dog (I joke! I joke! Please take your time).
Deltarune, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Hades II aren’t this year’s only indie classic follow-ups that expanded on their predecessors in surprising and meaningful ways. With Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, Gareth Damien Martin remolded the first game’s solitary survival gameplay loop into a crew-packed yet still thematically grounded sci-fi adventure. The result is something that feels simultaneously familiar and distinct from what came before, featuring some of the best writing, companions, and tense dice rolling you’ll find in an RPG this year. At a time where we’re starting to get numerous “Disco-likes”(oh god I’m gonna throw up), Citizen Sleeper hits that mark of tabletop-inspired design while having an identity that feels entirely its own.
I already wrote at length about this game, but I just want to emphasize one point again: don’t be thrown off by the VN-like interface; this is an RPG that deserves the attention of more RPG fans.
4. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – Best RPG from 2024 that I finished in 2025
I got so distracted admiring the handiwork behind Final Fantasy VII Rebirth as I was playing it that my frustrations were diluted in pure joy. Turns out I don’t hate generic open-world design when the world is one I want to explore every nook and cranny of anyways. Nostalgia’s a hell of a drug, and Rebirth was one of the best strains of it I ever injected into my gamer veins.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Remake and how its expanding of the original’s Midgar section more often felt like bloat than enhancement. Rebirth’s reimagining of the original’s overworld, towns, companions, combat, and (some) minigames kept me in a near-constant state of awe and absorption. There’s plenty of filler, too, but I was able to engage with what I cared about and ignore the rest without much friction. I was still utterly exhausted by the end, but in the same way I would be after gorging on a 5-star buffet of my favorite foods.
3. Hollow Knight: Silksong – Best Game Outside Our Coverage
If the powers that be won’t let me write about Silksong anywhere else on this godforsaken site (I joke! I joke!), you better believe I’m giving it a shoutout here.
Silksong is often a transcendent gaming experience. I’m either transcending physical reality through Pharloom’s immaculate world design and expressive lore, or transcending my ego as I am reduced to nothingness by tedious flying enemies that feel like they’re gaslighting me. By crafting a world that feels so antagonistically indifferent to the player at every turn, Team Cherry is integrating difficulty and worldbuilding with such success that I’m inclined to defend it even as I feel the criticisms levied against it are completely fair… Wait. Is that a sign of an abusive relationship?
Silksong is pleasure. Silksong is pain. I hate Silksong until I love it again.
2. Dragon Warrior VII – Best Retro Game that I Finished (for the First Time) in 2025
You read that right, the original North American title of and last appearance of the Warrior moniker, Dragon Quest VII is also the last mainline entry in the series I had left to play (other than the elusive DQX), and I think it’s perfect that it ended up that way. Where some players find tedium in this game’s epic length and deliberately languid pacing, I found a singular luxuriousness that I was primed to appreciate.
Maybe it was audacious for Yuji Horii and his team to write over 70,000 pages of Japanese text for this game’s script and expect players to bask in ever-evolving NPC dialogues for the sake of it. But, for those that do, Dragon Quest VII offers an RPG world that feels more alive and dynamic than almost any other. Spread across these dialogues are some of the most charming and empathetic representations of ordinary humanity you can find in any work of fiction.
Pair all that with the best version of DQ’s vocation system, and I happily surrendered 100+ hours of my life to this beautiful game. While I’m no doubt hyped for the aesthetic and quality-of-life revamps of the upcoming remake, its revisions to the original’s content mean it can only be an alternative to the original—not a replacement.
1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – My Favorite Game Ever?!
A hell of a thing happened when the credits were rolling on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I turned to my wife, tears streaming down both of our faces, and said, “I think that was my favorite game ever.” By that point, what I had experienced over the past few dozen hours came together into such a masterfully cohesive whole that I had no notes. Just pure catharsis.
That doesn’t feel like an entirely fresh take now, considering the enormous imprint this game has left on players and the industry since its release, but that doesn’t make my initial playthrough and all the emotion it churned within me any less personal. And that is the mark of truly great art. I experienced a creative work that appealed to my tastes and spoke so profoundly to me, alongside thousands of players who felt the same.
