2025 Gamer Reviews

I wrote reviews of these games as I finished them on BlueSky, but in combination with the limited character count plus evolving opinions over the course of the year, what I’ve written here is an edited version of what I originally published.

This year, I’ve added descriptive brand genres, like “tactical espionage action” or “after-death school adventure” (these are real brands from real published games) to each entry. Hopefully this helps people get a quick one-line description of what the game is actually about instead of needing to look them up individually.

I also started using a rating system this year! But instead of just being normal and assigning each game a straight number score, I’m adding and subtracting and multiplying and dividing the score like some sort of arithmetic freak. The four types of score modifiers are:
+1 (liked)
-1 (disliked)
*1 (liked but with an asterisk)
/1 (disliked but divisive)

Ultimately the net score is pretty much meaningless other than as a general barometer for my attitude towards the game as a whole. I don’t really know what the possible min/max of this scale could end up being, but based on my attempts this year I think I would have difficulty ever rating a game above +3.

Roll For The Galaxy

Sci-fi dicebuilder, actually a board game and not a video game

A dice-based sequel to Race For The Galaxy. I stopped enjoying these Dominion-esque resource gatherers cause there always ends up being some unfun OP combo or synergy. If the game doesn’t offer enough counterplay mechanics, as Roll For The Galaxy does, play patterns end up pretty shallow (-). Since players take turns simultaneously in this game, if you’re behind on resources you get to spend most of the time watching everybody else jerking themselves off trying to go “off” with their combo (/).

It’s fun enough for me to pretend to enjoy playing it though.

Net Score: -2

Wuthering Waves 2.x

Gacha game (-5)

They added a Flight traversal mechanic in the new continent for this story arc, and added very few guardrails in terms of where you aren’t allowed to fly and how long you can remain airborne.

Consequently, you have very little incentive to actually explore the open world, because you can just fly over any designed interaction to the next point of interest. I think the developers consider this a design mistake, as Flight is actually being disabled in the new zones in 3.0.

I actually consider this a huge loss for the next major version update, though. Flight allowed setpiece designers to go hog wild with verticality in the 2.x maps. The world is populated with all sorts of towering architecture and landmasses that you can travel up, around and through. I actually spent a lot of time just flying around the map soaking in all the pretty landscapes and skyscapes and seascapes everywhere.

After retroactively adding the ability to fly in the 1.x maps, the contrast in how flat the zones not designed for Flight are is stark.

Net Score: -5

Demon Tides (demo)

“Expressive platformer”

I started the first game (Demon Turf) in January but flushed it because it felt awful to play. You’d think “Mario 64 but you have an airdash” would be a winning formula but nope!

Tides gives you a boosted dash straight off the bat so it’s already better (+)

Net Score: +1

of the Devil

Cyberpunk gambling lawyergame

of the Devil and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney both give compelling evidence that having competent defense attorneys would spell disaster for the legal system

Cyberpunk dystopia is a well-trodden setting these days, but I really like how OTD handles the genre. The writing in the first two episodes really fleshes out familiar sci-fi concepts (bionic augmentation and AI personhood) to forge a unique and compelling identity for itself (+). Between the setting and characters, this is the first indie Phoenix Wright-like I’ve played that actually nails the format (+).

That’s not to say the game is flawless; the game gets a little self-indulgent in tropes at times, and one particular scene meant to be a tearjerker for neuroatypical individuals felt overly maudlin instead. I also found the ending to Episode 1 comparatively weak to the rest of the game, both in terms of the culprit’s motivation to commit murder as well as the decisive evidence used to pin them down. But compared to what this game does well, these are ultimately small nits, and I hope OTD will earn its flowers among the greater gaming community in the years to come.

Net Score: +2

Metro Gravity

Rhythm gravity metroidvania

The demo for this was super promising (+), but the rest of the game just does not hold up. The grappling hook is a super early unlock, so traversal, which should always be a gating factor in a metroidvania, quickly becomes trivial (/). As a result, progress functionally becomes locked behind “upgrades” that act more like keys to unlock doors.

I also found the puzzling/rhythm combat to ratchet up in difficulty in a way that’s frustrating and not rewarding (/). The game shows video tutorials for how to use key items on the environment, but also doesn’t mention that it has more than just those interactions? As a result I got stuck in several places because I didn’t realize I could use a key item in my inventory on some object. That might be a skill issue though??

Net Score: -1

Shape of Dreams (demo)

MOBA roguelike

I don’t really do roguelikes, but I still have a large PSO-shaped hole in my heart…

This isn’t it though. Nice aesthetic and technically competent (+), but I can’t imagine myself running this over and over (-). Maybe it’d be more fun with coop, but for how long?

Net Score: 0

Tetris the Grand Master 4: Absolute Eye

Tetris that makes good at tetris..?

With the addition of the x.1 modes, this is now the best TGM game to recommend by sheer virtue of accessibility and presentation (+). Asuka and Konoha are very cool additions to the game (*) and I believe will eventually become TGM4’s legacy as time goes on.

In terms of coherent vision and skill measuring though, MAN is this game a complete mess. Previous TGM games offered granular and progressive feedback over your progress towards attaining Gm rank. This game, though? Master Normal mode just gives you an opaque “Six of Nine” rating at the end of your run, so you have no idea what exact weaknesses in your gameplay you need to work on (-).

Rounds Master mode is the result of TGM frame timings approaching the human limit in terms of perceptibility – rather than finding ways to test you on stacking speed or cleanliness, it throws a hodgepodge of gimmicks at you instead. I described the mechanics to somebody who hadn’t played TGM before, and he replied, “oh so it’s an MMO raid?” which I think is a perfect descriptor of the mode (/).

Net Score: 0

Valdis Story: Abyssal City

Action RPG metroidvania

I actually started this back in 2014 but dropped it less than an hour in cause I got the bright idea to play it on stick (bad idea, the control scheme doesn’t lend itself well to an eight-button layout)

Felt like picking it up again on controller this year cause I thought Wendigo Blue looked cool… and discovered that for some reason dashing uses a hadouken command input

Net Score: +1 (I liked the combat)

Gunfire Reborn

Furry roguelite FPS

Has the same issue as every other roguelite where the metaprogression treadmill is the only thing keeping any given run from feeling like a waste of time (/).

The core gameplay itself is… fine? but only after getting to the later branches of the skill tree (+).

This game probably would have saved itself another point, but after buying the game after the free weekend performance absolutely TANKED for no apparent reason (-). Fuckin’ Unity.

Net Score: -1

SANABI

Cyberpunk grappling hook platformer

The last third of the game has you play through the past areas again, but with your full set of abilities, and it’s really fun to flow state everywhere chaining grapples and boosting off of enemy kills (+).

Game is kinda simple without all the unlocks though :(

Net Score: +1

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir (flushed)

This might be outing myself as a scrub but the menuing to use items and plant consumables drove me up the wall. Apparently it made more sense in the original game whereas the faster pace of the remaster makes it less suitable? Oh well

Net Score: No Rating