Hello and welcome, it's that time of year again, and I am here to look back and reflect on every video game I played this year. It has been quite the year, I ended up playing more games than I initially thought, so I have much to talk about. In fact, I have so much to say that I decided to separate this list into not two, but three parts. So, without further ado, please enjoy my ranking of the 14 games I played this year, in order of least favorite to favorite:
2025 has been a special year for Toby Fox fans like myself. It was the 10th anniversary for Undertale, and the for the occasion Mr. Fox and fangamer ran one of the best celebratory streams I've ever seen, complete with amazing merch, sets that changed, and new content and insight into this magical game. Everyone that loves the game to death like me came together to remember how special this game is.
As if that wasn't enough, 2025 also saw the release of not one but two chapters of the Undertale sequel Deltarune. There's a high chance this is the only time that happens, and with so much content to consume and discuss, the deltarune fandom has gone absolutely crazy since then, with tons of theories and speculation abound.
With these two events coalescing, it has been a magical time. Tons of younger newer gamers have played Undertale for the first time, allowing us to relive our first experiences. Additionally, many have decided to finally play all of Deltarune for the first time, providing further enjoyment in seeing how newcomers find not just the third and fourth chapters, but the first and second as well. It has been wonderful.
With all this going on, I cannot help but reflect on these games that mean so much to me. Undertale is one of my favorite games of all time, and I can see Deltarune being similar by the time it finishes. There's just something magical about the way Toby Fox makes games.
This got me thinking, what is it about these games that makes them so special? Why are they so beloved, what is at the core of this magic? In this analysis, I aim to propose my own theory, based off of a common piece of praise I have heard for these games, something I don't often hear when praising a game: that they make you want to create a game.
After 9 years of the series' absence, the Mario & Luigi series is back on the Switch with its sixth installment: Mario & Luigi: Brothership. It marks a thrilling conclusion to what could be called the revival of the Mario RPGs. Remakes of the beloved Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door showed a renewed interest in the series, and now, with a brand new Mario & Luigi title, it feels as if the Mario RPGs are back.
But this isn't about the Mario RPGs, this is about one game, and one game alone. After spending months playing through it, with a final playtime over 45 hours, I have completed Mario & Luigi Brothership. It has been wonderful to play a new Mario & Luigi, and I have had so many thoughts swirling through my mind since I first started it. So, let's get into it, how did this long awaited installment fare, how does it compare to previous titles, and what do I think of it overall? Head on below for my spoiler free review of the game:
Hello, and welcome to the second part in my ranking of the 15 video games I played in 2024. If you've gone through the first part (which can be found here if you haven't) then you know how this is going, so let's just continue on.
In September of 2020, Genshin Impact was released to the world. It would go down as one of the most important games that year. It was huge all around the world, much more than any Chinese or gacha game had ever been. If you were into video games around its release, you knew its impact. Everyone was talking about it, it was a phenomenon I hadn't seen since the Pokemon Go spectacle of 2016. For many, myself included, it was their first gacha game.
Now, nearly 4 years after its release, Genshin Impact is still one of the highest grossing mobile games in the world. Its parent company Mihoyo is now known worldwide, where before it was unknown outside of China. Mihoyo's next games: Honkai Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero, have also made splashes thanks to the market Genshin created, and it's likely we will continue hearing about these big budget gacha games for a long time. We also finally have the first non Mihoyo gacha to find success within the Genshin audience: Wuthering Waves. The gacha game space created by Genshin has changed a lot in these four years, as has its players.
I got into Genshin Impact around its launch, and since then, gacha games have been a consistent part of my life. I played Genshin for approximately two and a half years. Afterwards I jumped into Honkai: Star Rail, which I played consistently for a little over a year. Finally, I've spent the past month or two playing Wuthering Waves and Zenless Zone Zero.
Yet, as I prepare to move into the next chapter of my life, I've decided I am going to end my time with these games, at least for the forseeable future. They are simply too time consuming for the life I will be living.
With all that said, I thought it would be fun to look back on my time with these gacha games. Remember the good times, the bad, and how everything changed when these games hit the market. Head on down below for a fun story on the four years I spent playing gacha games.
