My 2025 Games of the Year

My 2025 Top 5 Games of the Year!

Can you believe it’s going to be 2026 tomorrow? I can’t and I’m both ready and not ready. For most of the year I actually thought this list was going to be easy, as like I said when I reflected on my backlog progress I barely got to 30 completed games, but when I went to decide which games I loved the most it was difficult to decide. Well technically I had four games that were definitely making my list, but that fifth one? Yeah it was tough. Especially since one of the contenders would have made it to my Top 5 Favorite Games Games I Played in 2025…if I didn’t play the console port.

1. If you don’t remember the rules I have for my list, here they are:
2. It had to be games I completed (though endless games do get a pass if I played any)
3. It had to be released in 2025
4. The release date for the version I played counts as its release date for my list (if I played the console port that came out this year, it counts as releasing this year even if it released on PC last year)
5. This is a strict Top 5 list (no runner ups or ties!).

With all that said, let’s dive into my personal Top 5 Games of the Year in no particular order:

Wanderstop

|Review|

Wanderstop is the one game on this list that game out the first half of 2025, and pretty early in the year, but man did I know back in March that this was going to be on my GOTY list. And, fast forward to now, it was the first game that popped into my mind. This game came at the perfect time for me, as it actually did calm me down and put my mind at ease, and I really enjoyed the gameplay and storyline. You know a game is really good when you wish there was more, but at the same time think the game ended at the perfect time. I loved damn near everything about Wanderstop, there were of course some elements I didn’t like, and it was a game that just kept giving with all the optional little things that the game leaves for you to discover yourself (and while some are told to you later on, the game is so delightful you most likely will experiment and discover it before it tells you about it). Now did I put the game’s wonderfully emotional and impactful narrative to my own life? *Remembers how stressed I got due to how busy I ended up getting for months.* Not really. But, I did end up taking a break from reading and reviewing otome visual novels. So it was a little bit of a win and now I’m ready to dive back into the otome world.

Tiny Bookshop

|Review|

This was a game that I loved the premise of when I learned about the game, loved the demo, and was so excited when it got a release date. As you can see, I loved it so much that it made it to this list. This game could have easily been pretty basic as it’s about the player deciding to pack everything up, move to a quiet seaside town, and make your trusty trailer into a tiny bookshop. However, this game is absolutely jam packed with content. The game fleshes out Bookstonbury and its residents really well through various ways that I honestly wasn’t expecting. Like how the town changes over time as you complete the various storylines and how it genuinely feels like you’re slowly integrating into the community. The writing is so delightful here and I loved every story character here. And the gameplay. It’s admittedly repetitive, simple on the surface, and can be a bit annoying at times; but it has some surprising depth to it, I liked the decisions made to gamify selling books, and I really enjoyed the gameplay. I enjoyed the game so much I did absolutely everything. I described Tiny Bookshop as a game that seems like it’s a shallow puddle, but surprises you with how deep it is when you jump in, and I still stand by that.

Shuten Order

|Review|

Shuten Order is definitely the game here that is the odd one out in a sense that I was not enjoying the beginning of the game. I had a very rough start with Shuten Order, so rough I would have dropped the game normally and I wrote a long rant about the prologue. However, the game gets way better after the prologue, way way better so much that well it landed as one of my top 2025 games. This is very much a game you just have to let it simmer as everything builds up to an absolutely spectacular conclusion (albeit one that was a bit too drawn out) where everything connects, plays on what you expected, and makes sense. It was also so fun trying to guess what was really happening based on what you learn and if one of their goals was writing a story that encourages players to make predictions it definitely succeeded. I also really loved most of the characters here (main and side characters) and I really liked how the various routes were handled. I had my own list of things I didn’t like, overall and route specific, but I overall loved my time with this game. I really enjoyed most of the routes here, the writing gets really good once you get passed the prologue, like I mentioned before I really liked the characters here, I liked how each route took inspiration from different genres and how they handled it (which I personally didn’t mind weren’t fleshed out as much as I’ve seen others were expecting), I really appreciated how the religious cult aspect was handled, they absolutely nailed it with the visuals and soundtrack, and I had fun also trying to figure out what the intended route order possibly was. I really hope that more people play this game and give it a chance past the prologue as I really do think it’s a fantastic and damn near perfect visual novel.

Consume Me

|Review|

Consume Me was probably the game I was most looking forward to after I played its demo and you have no idea how excited I was when the release date was announced. And how excited I was when I had my hands on the full game. I had high expectations for Consume Me and the game absolutely knocked it out of the park. Everything about the game was so perfect and I really enjoyed playing the game. I could honestly go on and on about everything that I loved about Consume Me. I will say though that I absolutely loved the visuals and how the game uses sound and a little bit of animation to bring everything to life. I have so many screenshots of the game which I never really got around to sifting through and posting. I do understand the disappointment some people had towards the end of the game, as even I think there was just something missing, but I really love how disordered eating ended up being handled here and the ending was just so beautiful. This is a game that not everyone would be able to handle, but if you are able to it’s really rewarding and worth playing through.

Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved

|Review|

I absolutely loved Detective Instinct. Considering how much I gushed about this game, it’s not surprising that it landed on this list. This was another game that I played the demo of, loved it, and patiently anticipated the full release. I loved this game way more than I was expecting, the mystery was so intriguing, I loved the writing and how the story unraveled, and overall the game does everything it can right. You can also really tell that the developers loved the mystery adventure visual novel genre from the get go and they did really well in taking inspirations from their favorite games or movies and at the same time making it their own unique story. I really hope that we see more games from the developers as this was an amazing game.

Last year I had a pattern of being impressed with the 2024 horror games that I played and this year the pattern clearly are games that I enjoyed the demos of and fully delivered in its full release.