1. Unlimited Budget of the Year: Wuthering Waves 2.0
Wuthering Waves’ 1.0 content was solid and serviceable when it came to presentation, content, and narrative. The world felt like a remnant, a pocket of civilization clinging to hope and living one day at a time. The Jinzhou landmass was rife with hidden treasures, mutated fauna, and secret areas to discover. Every corner was dripping with potential, and while the main story had its moments, the exploration quests are where the game’s narrative elements shone.
To this day, I remember the awe I felt exploring the Port City of Guixu, where flowers burned and shattered skyscrapers floated in the sky, suspended highways dangled helplessly, and monsters roamed every corner. It felt great to learn the history of a completely optional, tucked-away story that simply starts from allowing players to gaze across the horizon, spot a massive black hole and floating cities, and simply wonder: what the hell is going on over there?
The best part of Wuthering Waves’ 1.0 side content is that it was allowed to get weird, unconventional, and incredibly creative. This mindset carried over to the 1.1 and 1.2 patches, which not only drastically improved on the narrative front, but were bursting at the seams with strange, awe-inspiring, and eye-catching ideas and presentation. The 2.0 patches then took the ball and ran full speed with it.
From the city of Ragunna with its people and monsters coexisting and theatrical troupe ships that feel straight out of Final Fantasy IX to technologically advanced Greco-Roman cities full of gladiators and massive sprawling hunting zones straight out of Monster Hunter Wilds, the world felt bigger and far more interesting than ever. Naturally, so did the narrative, yet the biggest and most impressive piece: each patch and act had a new breath of life.
As someone who loves and plays Final Fantasy XIV, I’m often left wanting when it comes to structure and formula. Wuthering Waves, however, kept me on my toes. Stealthing through dual-character bank heists; taking part in plays to bait out foes; exploring Tears of the Kingdom-scale mega dungeons; working side by side with one of the most sympathetic and engaging villains I’ve seen in years; reliving a figurehead’s shaded past through card games; all of these are just a the widely varied, experimental, and highly effective avenues of storytelling and presentation.
They are a testament to the power of giving your artists free rein, breaking formulas, and allowing the most creative people on the team the chance to get weird. Wuthering Waves’ 2.0 content is easily my favorite game this year, and if the momentum keeps up, it’ll likely keep a spot in my top five in 2026.
2. Atelier of the Year: Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land
New year, new Atelier! That doesn’t rhyme, by the way. Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land was a massive step forward for the series. It took the ever-growing collection of unfinished, limited, and prototype ideas that runs through the entire franchise and turned them into fully realized, inspired, and frankly impressive features. The large open world delivers on Atelier Firis’ attempt and promise of freeform exploration, the kinetic and wildly active battle system marries aggressive offense and highly mobile defensive play of which we saw glimpses in the Secret series, and the resonance-based synthesis system brought back the power of individual components while offering far more control than ever before.
The game is incredibly deep, and while the Atelier Ryza games dabbled with the concept of named on-screen villains, Atelier Yumia brings active conflict back to the forefront with a trash-talking troupe of foes that are incredibly satisfying to rain hell upon. While many Atelier protagonists are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Yumia feels more grounded and realistic, her shimmering hope shining through her anxiety and depression. With a lovable cast of characters, a relatable protagonist, an alchemy system with incredible control, an intense and rewarding battle system, a massive open world to explore, and—of course—a fantastic soundtrack, Atelier Yumia is one of my top games of the year.
3. Shiny .png Gambling Machine of the Year: Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket
I’ve been collecting Pokémon cards since I was a kid, and I fondly remember walking miles with my friends and family up to the local mall and buying as many booster packs as I could with my small yet hard-earned allowance. Tearing open packs and putting them into binders was half the fun, yet I never learned how to actually play the game properly until the Game Boy Color version of Pokémon Trading Card Game hit the Nintendo Switch (which, unsurprisingly, was one of my games of the year last year).
Soon enough, I knew the ins and outs of the game from over twenty years (if not thirty) years ago, and was ready to tackle the newest mobile version: Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket. While the game has many gacha-trappings (which came from trading card games to begin with, ironically), it serves as a fantastic way to relive my childhood without having to fight with scalpers, card pack weighers, and streamers.
For the past year, I’ve been building my collection, sharing cards and making trades with friends, showing off my rare cards, and most importantly: battling. I get so much enjoyment out of creating decks, battling strangers across the world, and trading cards back and forth with distant friends and family that it makes me feel like a kid again.
