Willa's top 10 games of 2025
10. Pokémon Lazarus
Pokémon is the nostalgia game for me, as I imagine it is for many people. Honestly not one but two of my favorite pieces I've ever written have to do with just that. And yet I rarely actually play the series in its current form. Perhaps it's that nostalgia for the childhood era I am familiar with that brought me to ROMhack Lazarus. With its new story, new region, new monsters to catch, all within the style of Pokémon Emerald, what's not to like? But there is so much MORE there. This is a wonderful version of the timeline in which graphics halted in place but Game Freak continued to iterate within those confines. It's wonderful. And if you weren't convinced then just know it has fishing now.
Further watching: The 50 Best Games of 2025 by Brendon Bigley
9. Connect the Dots
Leave it to me to put an itch game jam entry in a top ten list right after a ROMhack. Connect the Dots, however, is no joke. A meta-fictional look at fandom latches on to media and the ways it often gestures towards, but is too scared to lean fully into, queerness and turns it into a bastion of representation and meaning, this is something for everybody who ever shipped a lesbian couple in a tv show that never had a chance. Here's what I wrote in a roundup for AV Club:
"If there was an award for best looking game at the Toxic Yuri VN Jam it would undoubtedly go to Connect the Dots. The visual novel looks like a series of animation cells from an old anime, which is precisely the point. Connect the Dots is a playable fanfiction of Strange Dawn, a slightly obscure show from 2000. This context turns what is already an impressive visual novel into a wonderful piece of meta-fiction. Even if you don’t know anything about Strange Dawn, learning about the show and how Connect the Dots plays with it adds a layer of depth worth engaging in."
Just go play it: Connect the Dots on itch
8. Silent Hill f
Every year there seems to be one AAA game that makes me think "Wow! Sometimes they actually know how to make good things!" This year that was Silent Hill f. Horror has and always will be the genre of women, in that our experience is something horrific in how it is regulated, judged, and perceived by men. Silent Hill f's story of Hinako (Konatsu Kato giving one of the best performances of the year) dealing with these pressures put on women, especially the burden of marriage and the expectation that she destroy her identity and her past self in order to become a man's wife is expertly given terrifying life through the monster and world design of Ebisugaoka. Everything walks the line between beauty and disgust, the two poles women are constantly teetering between in the eyes of a misogynistic world.
Further reading: The Erotic and Grotesque Roots of Silent Hill f by Madeline Blondeau
7. Artis Impact
Here's what I wrote for Into the Spine's roundup this year:
"Artis Impact’s central conflict between humanity and AI is topical, to be sure, but it’s the moral of the story that feels so impactful here (pun not intended). Yes the evil machines will be fought in turn-based encounters typical of RPGS but that isn’t the bulk of what protagonist Akane (and by extension the player) is tasked with. Instead time is largely spent talking with the inhabitants of the world, learning about their lives. In the case of Artis Impact, and perhaps our reality as well, community is the solution to fighting against AI and the corporate evils it perpetuates. We must rely on one another.
There is no machine that can replicate the way people connect. Part of that necessary connection comes in how we make and receive art. To that effect, Artis Impact practices what it preaches. Solo developer Mas’s hard work is on display in the form of a nostalgic pixel art world, frenetic manga-inspired cutscenes, and the immensely detailed NPCs that breathe life into every corner of the game. All that work has one goal: connection. Artis Impact seeks to resonate with the player, connecting the artist to the audience. It succeeds."
Further reading: Artis Impact Wants You To Be Curious by me
6. Cabernet
I'll never not be disappointed that when it comes to vampires in games we basically only get to do some superpowered killing that varies slightly from AAA action norm. Cabernet smartly bucks that trend by zeroing in on what matters most for a vampire: social structure and adhering to societal norms! Cabernet is a wonderful web of relationship management in which the double-edged blade comes in the form of the need to feed. This can only be done on people once they trust you, at which point you may have yourself grown fond of them. It's the vampire equivalent of not naming the livestock lest you get attached. This tendrils out into some beautiful character stories that all tie back to the central conflict of what it means to retain humanity when you are no longer human.
Further reading: Finally, a good vampire video game to sink your teeth into by me
5. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy
The pure hubris of The Hundred Line demands respect. Play thirty hours to roll credits only to be told that the real game begins now. And it works. That's because it's so absurd in its scale. A hundred endings (obviously some more fleshed out than others) is not a joke. It's a dare, an invitation to the player to go down every path in search of more details and ways to view the story. If Danganronpa is constantly tongue-in-cheek bordering on too cringe for its own good, then The Hundred Line is almost its opposite in the earnestness on display so often. I don't know how else to put it. THIS, my friend, is video games.
Further reading: Round and Round, Like a Carousel – The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- Review by Nikolas
4. Of the Devil
I considered keeping Of the Devil off my list. It's episodic and only two episodes are out so far. Why not just wait to give the game its roses when it's complete? Well because Of the Devil is just that fucking good. It's a thrilling twist on Ace Attorney that mechanically draws the dangerous parallel between gambling and the criminal justice system. This cyberpunk world is infested with mesmerizing characters, with the star being pro—or is it an?—tagonist Morgan. She's dangerous, and I can't help but want to be closer to her as she gets giddy at the prospect of unraveling a nearly impossible to win court case in a world dominated by corporations and technology.
Further reading: This Ace Attorney inspired indie raises the stakes by adding a poker influence by me
3. The Séance of Blake Manor
Here's what I wrote for the AV Club's list this year:
"An astounding commitment to detail makes The Séance of Blake Manor a mystery game without equal. Be it the titular setting or the people that inhabit it, there is seemingly no piece of furniture or quirk of character design that is not in service of making the possibilities of investigation seem almost endless. What starts as a single thread for you to follow as private investigator Declan Ward soon unravels into dozens of offshoots that wind back into each other in an unexpected web. Combined with clever (but never too obvious) bread crumbing of clues and a time limit on your investigation, the pace feels perfectly brisk, applying just the right amount of pressure to make you worry you might not be able to put all the pieces together. And while being a superb mystery game is more than enough, that doesn’t paint a full picture of The Séance of Blake Manor. This is, in truth, a story about those in search of revenge, retribution, repentance, and reparations stemming from British imperialism. A haunted Irish estate weighed down by the evils of its inhabitants only serves as the container for a survey of global generational traumas…"
Further reading: The Séance of Blake Manor is the surprise Halloween banger of the year by Giovanni Colantonio
2. Old Skies
Old Skies is, fundamentally, a survey of love. Protagonist Fia Quinn is a detached agent for a company that has the monopoly on time travel as tourism. One downside of this is that it leaves her unchanged by how the timeline shifts, meaning she has no connection to anything "real". A man who dies trying to save the love of his life puts Fia on a trajectory to interrogate what her existence really amounts to and leads her into contact with, amongst other things, a painting that she can't help but be drawn to. Throughout the different periods of New York that Fia visits she sees how little things really change over the years. At the end of time people do what they do for love and Fia eventually learns to risk it all for a chance at that tantalizing sense of true living. It's gorgeous and refuses to leave you once you've finished.
Further reading: This Compelling Time Travel Adventure Is A Must-Play by John Walker
1. Baby Steps
To know Nate, the sad protagonist of Baby Steps, is to hate him. He is detestable in his wallowing. But we must all walk a mile–and climb uncountable steps— in his shoes. To do this, to persevere through the most arduous and finicky controls in search of some catharsis for Nate and player—is to love him. Baby Steps is a game about finding love for our fellow man and ourselves. We are all Nate, we are all detestable, and we are all still deserving of love. Baby Steps is a game that only works because it puts off so many people with its oddball humor combined with grueling walking mechanics that seem tailor made for failure. But within all this is a game that presents truly heartbreaking moments of emotion laid bare.
Further reading: Zoe reviews Baby Steps by Zoe Bloomfield-Rowe