My favorite games 2025

Apparently 2025 was a good year for gaming, I wouldn't know that though because I barely touched any modern games this year. I play so few games at launch that I couldn't even write a top 5 if I restricted this list to just the games that came out this year, and so just like last year, this is not a list of the best games released in 2025, it's merely the best games I played last year. 

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All the games listed here are something I've already talked about on Bluesky, so if you follow me there this list might not surprise you very much but I still had a lot of fun looking back on everything I played this year, and I hope you have fun reading what I've written.

#10 Dragon Ruins (2024, PC)

 

Dragon Ruins is a dungeon crawling microgame for tired people, it is not a complex game nor is it long. It strips dungeon crawler gameplay to its bare essentials: there is no story, the dungeon is only one floor, battles are all automated and the graphics are black and white wireframe. But it is strangely compelling in its simplicity.

Dragon Ruins plays like a typical DRPG: you make a party of 4 characters from different classes and you move through the dungeon with grid based movement in first person perspective. Random encounters happen as you're exploring the dungeon but they all happen automatically in the background as you're walking around the dungeon, there is no strategy involved in the battles as they are simply about whoever has the highest numbers.

As a big fan of complex CBT RPGs Dragon Ruins is not a game that appeals to me on paper, yet I must commend it for how well it manages to capture the appeal of dungeon crawler RPGs with its simple gameplay and short runtime. Obviously it is nowhere near the level of something like Etrian Odyssey, and if I had played any real DRPGs this year Dragon Ruins would only get an honorable mention. But Dragon Ruins gave me a quick scratch for the DRPG itch I had been feeling, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is also feeling the same without wanting to dedicate 50 hours to hardcore dungeon crawling.

Though I wish the game had some kind of results screen at the end telling you how many in-game days it took you to defeat the dragon, how many times you died and other such fun stats. Instead the game immediately loops to NG+ and because of that I think beating the game doesn't give you the feeling of satisfaction it should.

#9 Sakura Wars (1996, Sega Saturn) 

 

I already wrote a lengthy blog post about Sakura Wars earlier this year and you should read that to understand my full thoughts on the game and why I rate it so highly despite its apparent issues. But in short Sakura Wars is a hybrid strategy game and a dating simulator with impeccable style. Its gameplay is a very basic SRPG and though I enjoyed the story, it is nothing revolutionary either. But that gameplay and story are presented with such style that I can't help but be impressed by it. Its presentation for even minor scenes is incredible, and as soon as I started the game I was in love with it just from how good this game looks.

Sakura Wars is a spectacle, it commits to its theater aesthetic so hard that its presentation alone is enough to carry it even through some of its weaker aspects. It's a game that appeals to me on a personal level and left an unforgettable impression on me.

 

#8 Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (2022, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X and PC)

 

This following segment is copy pasted straight from the Backloggd review I wrote so you should skip it if you've already read it there 

Stranger of Paradise is one of the most insane games I've ever played. Gameplay-wise I believe it's a straightforward Nioh clone (I have not played Nioh though so I could be wrong), which is a lot like Dark Souls except much more fast paced and encourages a more aggressive playstyle. The gameplay is fun and I don't have many complaints about it. I only played its main story though so I have no idea what the higher difficulties or the post game are like. But while the gameplay is fun, it is not the reason you should play Stranger of Paradise. The real reason you should play it is the story.

On the surface SoP is a strange reimagining of Final Fantasy 1 that replaces the silent Heroes of Light with an angry man who seemingly has no personality other than wanting to kill Chaos. And if there is one thing you likely know about SoP it's all the memes about Jack and Chaos. Jack is a baffling main character who has no interest in anything other than killing Chaos. He is brash, over confident, rude and violent, he feels like an 80s American action movie protagonist thrown into a JRPG and the sheer contrast between Jack and everything else in the story is hilarious.

And yet, Stranger of Paradise does not feel like a parody. Despite its absurdity the story is sincere. I do not wish say more than this because Stranger of Paradise is something you should experience as blind as possible, but the story goes far beyond being just Final Fantasy 1 with a funny protagonist. And because Jack refuses to listen to any characters explaining the story, the player instead has to seek out the story through log books hidden throughout the world (and occasional flashbacks shown after boss battles). And through these log books the player will see Square and Team Ninja have cooked up something truly insane with this plot. A story so insane it would never work as a new IP and only as this strange reimagining of the first Final Fantasy.

Stranger of Paradise is a game I can't believe even exists, I don't think any fan would ask for a game like this nor do I understand how anyone at Square greenlit it. But I am so glad this game exists because it gave the kind of insanity I could've never even imagined myself.

Though if you want your Final Fantasy stories to be less insane you might not find as much enjoyment from this story as I did.

 

#7 Breath of Fire III (1997, PlayStation and PSP)

  

I played Breath of Fire 2 back in January. I had heard many good things about BoF2 over the years so I was very excited finally experience it myself. But while it certainly had a lot of interesting ideas and was an improvement over the first game, BoF2 never really grabbed me nor did it have much of an impact on me. After how much praise I had heard for it over the years, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed with it, even though it was by no means a bad game. But even if I found BoF2 disappointing, I decided to give BoF3 a try 6 months later with modest expectations.

Breath of Fire 3 is a very unusual sequel, after BoF 1 and 2 had you travel across the whole world fighting evil empires and churches, as is often the case in JRPGs, BoF3 feels very unambitious and is instead a very small scale adventure that only takes place within a single country with no world ending threats to be found. The focus on BoF3's story is almost entirely on making the player endeared on the main cast rather than telling some epic narrative. 

Breath of Fire 3 feels very much like Grandia or Trails in the Sky (both games I love dearly) with the way it takes a long time for the plot to get going in favor of the game being about kids going on fun adventures until they eventually get tangled up in something more serious. Even as the story gets serious, the scale doesn't go beyond a single country's borders. The villains you meet throughout the story do not matter on a worldwide scale, even in the endgame the story isn't about saving the world from some great evil, it's about finding closure to the protagonist's arc. 

If you're looking for hype moments or epic battles in your RPGs then BoF3 is not the game for you, but if you're like me and have already played 100 RPGs that are all about saving the world from a great evil, BoF3 is a refreshing change of pace. Its colorful visuals and smooth music create a comfortable atmosphere that had me hooked from the very beginning in ways BoF1 or 2 never did and it's a game I'm going to be thinking of for a long time.

What holds BoF3 back from being one of my all time favorites though is that its gameplay isn't particularly good. It's mostly just standard turn based fare that doesn't have anything outright wrong with it, but it is also not exciting in the slightest. Combine that with a high encounter rate and dungeon design that has you running back and forth for puzzles, and you have a game that often feels tedious rather than challenging.

 

#6 The Adventure of Little Ralph (1999, PlayStation) 

 

 

Little Ralph was the biggest surprise of the year for me. It is a 2D platformer I picked on a whim because I wanted something short and sweet between bigger RPGs, but it blew me away. It is an incredibly well polished platformer with combat mechanics that feel like an evolution of Zelda 2, just with a much bigger focus on platforming. The game is extremely easy to pick up and play for a quick session, while being difficult without feeling unfair. 

Besides being a platformer Little Ralph also has a side mode that turns it into a fighting game, and a surprisingly well made fighting game at that. This mode is used for certain boss battles and is also available as a 2 player versus mode after you beat the game. I don't know why the developers would put such a mode into a platformer, but I do respect the effort.

The only real negative I have about Little Ralph is its story, which is just nonsense. Of course a 2D platformer doesn't need a story to be good but I think having no story at all might have been better than Little Ralph's weird attempts at humour that didn't land for me (or maybe the fan translation is bad). 

But if you have even a slight interest in combat focused 2D platformers you ought to give Little Ralph a try, you can't go wrong with it. 

 

#5 Octopath Traveler 0 (2025, every modern platform and PC) 

 

 

Octopath 2 was my favorite game I played in 2024, so I had very high expectations for 0. In fact I originally wanted to write this blog post in December so I could've published it before the year ended, but I had to delay writing this post until 2026 purely because Octopath 0 took me almost 100 hours and I couldn't finish it before January. But even early in the game I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with this list if I didn't get to include the latest Octopath here, so I had to wait until finishing OT0 before writing this list.  

0 feels familiar to anyone who's played the first two games but it brings big changes to Octopath's formula. There are no longer 8 protagonists with 8 distinct stories, instead you play as a customisable player avatar. There are still multiple stories you can do in a (mostly) nonlinear order, but instead of your avatar being the protagonist in any of these stories, it feels like you're simply observing other people's stories from the side. 

The battle system has also been reworked so you now have 8 characters during combat: 4 in the front and 4 in the back, and you can freely swap between the rows whenever you want. The increase in character roster means your characters are no longer as versatile as the ones from 1 and 2 (sub classes are also no longer a thing) but the increased party size allows you to pull off techniques that would've never been possible before, and with over 30 playable characters you have so many different party compositions you can use to deal with any situation. The possibilities with OT0's battle system feel endless.

Unfortunately however this has a disastrous effect on the game's difficulty and balance. Unless you're intentionally holding back, the game simply has no challenge whatsoever once you get far enough and have access to all the broken skills, equipment and characters. There are many ways to break the game but the boss the battles never feel like they are designed around the player's broken abilities. And though it is really fun to find the most broken skill combinations in a game, when you're doing that for 100 hours the lack of challenge simply starts to feel stale and I started to wish the game would throw some real CBT at me, but even in the final story it never delivered on that.

Still outside of combat, 0 offers everything I loved about Octopath 1 and 2. The nonlinear exploration is great and the bite sized stories are still good. The stories of 0 also have a stronger continuity than the ones from 1 and 2, and the way they tie into Octopath 1's story feels natural and not like cheap fanservice (though the inclusion of Octopath 1's cast as recruitable characters does feel like cheap fanservice even if they do not play any role in the story)

But I think the best part of 0's story is its central theme: greed. A lot of RPGs depict greed as simply a desire to have money, but Octopath 0 goes further than that by presenting greed as the greatest source of all human evil and dividing it into three aspects: wealth, power and fame. All of the stories in in Octopath 0 feature villains motivated by a desire for either wealth, power or fame, and it is also the ordinary people's desire for wealth, power and fame why these villains' evil is not questioned. It feels the most prominent with the initial three villains: Herminia, Tytos and Auguste, as any one of them could have been heroes but their greed for more wealth, more power and more fame is what lead them to a path of evil where they're willing to commit any number of atrocities to satiate their greed.

 

#4 Fate/Hollow Ataraxia (2005, PC, Vita and Switch)

I'm not very vocal about being a Fate fan but it is a franchise that's been dear to me ever since I watched Studio Deen's adaptation of Fate/Stay Night as a teenager. Over the years I have fallen off from actively following Fate because the franchise is so big, but ever since I was a teenager there was one Fate story I wanted to experience more than any other: Stay Night's direct sequel Hollow Ataraxia, which never received an anime adaptation of any kind.

There was a fan translation for the VN but I had heard it was low quality and so I had given up hope that I'd ever get to experience Hollow Ataraxia. Until one day an official localisation for both Stay Night and Hollow Ataraxia was announced out of nowhere. I skipped on reading Stay Night's official localisation as I had already read its fan translation (although I bought it on Steam just to support the official release) but when Hollow Ataraxia was dropped on Steam I bought it immediately and proceeded to do nothing but read it until I had reached 100% completion.

Yet Hollow Ataraxia is not some epic sequel to Stay Night that doubles down on all of Stay Nights hype and chuuni moments to resolve all the loose threads of Stay Night's plot. Instead Hollow Ataraxia is almost entirely slice of life and takes place in an alternative timeline where nobody died during Stay Night's events and everyone is friends now. There's even fun mini games you can play with all your favorite characters. 

It is an extremely bizarre direction to take Stay Night's sequel, but even in this peaceful alternative world Hollow Ataraxia brings closure to Stay Night's events and also develops its cast in ways they never could've been developed when they were enemies. But this peaceful world is too perfect. Though the story is mostly slice of life, there is a constant darkness behind this peace. You know this peace is unnatural, you know this perfect world shouldn't exist. 

And I think that is Hollow Ataraxia's beauty. It gives you this perfect world that you wish could go on forever, that you wish was how Stay Night's story had ended. But no matter how much fun you have here, you know you need to let go of this perfect world eventually because this is not how the story should go...

 

#3 Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (1999, Super Nintendo Entertainment System) 

I don't remember if I've ever played another game that made me suffer like Thracia 776 did. It is a game that feels like a cruel joke, every aspect of it designed to make the player suffer as much as possible. It is not simply a difficult game, it is a relentlessly difficult game that never pulls back its punches and keeps beating you no matter how much you beg for mercy. It is a game made for insane people who do not want to have fun when playing video games.

Yet no matter how much Thracia 776 made me suffer, it also gave me a catharsis that's unlike any other game I've ever played. Overcoming Thracia 776's challenges requires you to be flexible with your strategies and use every resource at your disposal, you can not approach it like a standard Fire Emblem game and instead you often need to think outside of the box to find the optimal strategy.

There are three key ways in which Thracia 776 is different from every other Fire Emblem game.

1: Your units all have a fatigue level. Using one unit too many times makes them fatigued and you can't deploy them for the next mission.
2: Staves have an unlimited range for all spells. Whether its healing your own units or causing ailments such as sleep or silence on your enemies, there is no limit to where and how you're using staves. 
3: You can capture enemies instead of killing them, which lets you steal all the items in their inventory. 

None of these three mechanics were brought back in future Fire Emblem games, but these three mechanics are Thracia 776's cornerstone. When you need to worry about fatigue you can't simply rely on your favorite units for every situation. With staves having unlimited range you can actually build your strategies around status ailments. And you always need to consider if an enemy should be killed or if it's worth trying to capture them and steal their gear, especially since this is not just a way to stock up on items for free, it is often the only way for you to get new items and weapons because money is extremely scarce in Thracia 776 and shops are few and far between.

But what truly makes Thracia 776 such a special game is its story, or rather how its story and gameplay intertwine. Thracia 776 is a game where you are the underdog. You lead a band of guerillas against a powerful empire with far greater armies and resources than your small band of rebels, and the game's intense difficulty makes it feel like you truly are going against impossible odds in this war. But each time the protagonist celebrates his small victories, you are celebrating alongside him because you had to work hard to earn even the smallest victories. That is the catharsis Thracia 776 offers to it players.

It is a difficult game, a very very difficult game. But there really is no other game like Thracia 776 and after finishing it I've been left yearning for another game that could give me the same feeling. 

#2 Dragon Quest VII (2000, PlayStation) 

 

It's been about 4 years since I played Dragon Quest VI and during those 4 years I've often thought about playing Dragon Quest VII, but the one thing I always hear about it is how unbearably long it is and that's what kept me from giving it a try. But in 2025 I finally stopped being afraid of its length and started Dragon Quest VII.

The stories about Dragon Quest VII's length are not exaggerated, it is so long that when I was halfway through the game Square Enix announced a remake of the game where one of the main selling points was that they've made it shorter. But despite also being 100 hours long Dragon Quest VII never gave me that same feeling I got from Octopath 0 where I started to feel bored with the game near the end. That's not to say every hour of Dragon Quest VII is meaningful (I spent quite a lot of time grinding job levels) but it was constantly offering something new and I never started to feel fatigued with the gameplay despite how simple it was.

However despite its length Dragon Quest VII is surprisingly light on story. 

Hundreds of years ago god and the demon lord fought a great war that ended in their mutual defeat and the destruction of the whole world. Now the people have forgotten all about god and the demon lord, and all the remaining humans live on a small peaceful island. One day the protagonist and his friends discover a portal to the era when god and the demon lord fought, the era when the world was still more than just one island. And from there they start helping the people of the past overcome the demon lord's terror. Each time you help a town in the past, that part of the world gets restored in the present world as well. 

The past world is full of misery but each time you save a town in the past, you get to see how it now thrives in the present. Even when you can't save everyone in the past and a town's story has a tragic ending, you get to see how the town's inhabitants have moved on from their past tragedy in the present and now embrace a more hopeful future. Other times the present is the tragic one instead, as you worked so hard to save everyone in the past, yet in the present the people have twisted the truth of the past for selfish reasons.

This is what Dragon Quest VII is about. There is very little "main story" in the game and instead each town you save is a small story arc of its own. The arcs vary greatly in length and tone, and though almost none of them contribute anything to any wider narrative I would not remove a single one of them, each town is an important part of the journey.

Playing Dragon Quest VII very much feels like you're watching a long running anime with the way its arcs are structured. Because of the arc structure it's also easy to take a break from the game for a while without being afraid you end up getting lost with the story. And with how long this game is, you should take at least a few breaks from it. This is not a game you should try to rush or marathon. 

DQ7 is a game about stopping to smell the roses. Take your time and speak with every NPC you see, also go backtrack and talk to NPCs you don't see. It is always worth it to hear what people have to say about each situation because like other DQ games, VII expects you to talk to NPCs to get hints on where you should go next. But that's not the only reason you should talk to everyone you see. Nearly every hint of the overarching story is hidden in NPC dialogue, bookshelves or signs. If you want to get invested in the overarching story connecting the arcs together, you're going to have to look for that story yourself, it is not handed out to you.

And once you eventually reach the endgame where the story is finally about god and the demon lord instead of self contained arcs, it isn't actually anything particularly amazing. If you go into Dragon Quest VII expecting an amazing story, you will be disappointed. The main story does not go much deeper than god is good and demon lord is bad. But it doesn't need to go deeper than that because Dragon Quest VII is not about its main story, it is entirely about the journey. And it is one of the best journeys I've ever had. 

DQ7 is about all the places you see and all the people you meet. The more you take your time exploring the world and talking to people, the more invested you get in this world on a human level. In the end you do not want to defeat the demon lord because because god is good and the demon lord is bad, you want to defeat the demon lord because this game has made you truly care about its world and people. No matter how long Dragon Quest VII is, if you engage with everything it has to offer the game will reward your time commitment. And that is why Dragon Quest VII is a beautiful game.

 

Honorable mentions

If I wanted to, I could've filled this entire list with Fire Emblem games. I got really into Fire Emblem in 2025 and playing old Fire Emblem games was one of my favorite things in 2025. But the list would've felt really repetitive if I had featured several Fire Emblem games so I decided to limit it to only Thracia 776, because it was the Fire Emblem game that had the biggest impact on me. In addition to Fire Emblem I'd also like to shout out TearRing Saga and Vestaria Saga, Shouzou Kaga's two Fire Emblem-like games that I also left out of the list because it would be no different than having multiple Fire Emblem games here. But while both of those games are very derivative of Fire Emblem's style and do not have much identity of their own, both of them are incredible games that every Fire Emblem fan should play.

Another game I would like to highlight is 2025's new mobile game Stella Sora. I don't actually want to recommend a gacha game no matter how much I enjoy it, which is why Stella Sora is only getting an honorable mention and not a full spot. But Stella Sora is a game that has quickly endeared me with its strange world. It is a world where fantasy mixes with modern technology and corporations mix with churches. It looks utopian with its colorful visuals and cute girls, yet under the surface it is no doubt dystopian. Its story is still in its early phases as the game is only 2 months old, but I can't wait to see how it develops after the main story's most recent cliffhanger.

 

#1 Berwick Saga: Lazberia Chronicle Chapter 174 (2005, PlayStation 2)

This should not come as a surprise to anyone who follows me as I have been raving about Berwick Saga throughout the year. I declared it one of the top 5 best games I've ever played, and just like Sakura Wars, I wrote a lengthy blog post explaining my love towards the game. I do not think anything I write here can effectively convey just how good Berwick Saga is, nor do I think even my dedicated blog post can explain just how much of an impact it had on me. 

Berwick Saga is another game created by Shouzou Kaga. But unlike TearRing or Vestaria, which are straightforward Fire Emblem clones, Berwick Saga is a full evolution of Fire Emblem that not even real Fire Emblem games have managed to accomplish. Berwick Saga not only stands proud next to all the real Fire Emblem games, it surpasses every one of them.

Berwick Saga tells the story of a grand war between two nations that has lasted for centuries, yet the story's focus is not on the war or great heroics. Instead Berwick Saga is a grounded and personal story of a commander who gives everything he has for a country that does not value his efforts. It is a story that's as frustrating as it is beautiful as you struggle against impossible odds, yet those with the power to make a difference in this war only worry about their own political gain.

And much like Thracia 776, Berwick Saga has a difficulty level that matches the stakes of its story. Though not as hard as Thracia 776 thanks to the ability to save in the middle of stages, Berwick Saga will frequently push the player's strategic skills to their absolute limit to convey just how overwhelmingly powerful the opposing army is, to convey just how hopeless this war is. But just like Thracia, you must keep pushing on no matter how difficult it gets. 

Berwick Saga is without a doubt one of the very best games I've played, even after 6 months it is a game I am thinking about constantly and a game I want to replay so I can see more of what it has to offer. Whatever problems I have with the game are incredibly minor compared to how good the rest of the game is.

My favorite games 2024

I don't play many games at launch nowadays, I prefer to play them after all the hype has died down and I can play it at my own pace. As such I did not play many games released in 2024 and this is simply a list of the best games I played in 2024.

Up until now whenever I've written a favorite list at the end of the year I've done it on twitter, but this year I decided to change things up a bit and write it here instead. It's partially because twitter is an awful platform if you want to write anything longer, and a blog post like this allows much more freedom, but the real reason is just because this blog is really empty and I want more activity here,

So without further ado, let's get this list started. Welcome to my top 5 favorite games of 2024

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#5 Evenicle (PC, 2015)

Evenicle is a hard game to talk about because at first glance Evenicle sounds like the most generic porn game ever. But while Evenicle is legitimately a porn game, I assure you it is far from generic. In the world of Evenicle there are two rules all humans must follow: you are not allowed to kill other humans and you are not allowed to have sex with more than one person. Breaking either of these rules will make you lose the Goddess' protection, as well as basically all human rights and be banished from society. There is one workaround however, becoming a knight will allow you to have a second sexual partner, and the more heroic deeds you accomplish the more partners you are allowed to have.

And so the protagonist Aster sets out on a journey across the world to become a great hero and have a harem of wives.

But if thats all Evenicle was it wouldn't be on this list. Yet despite that, I must talk about the sex in Evenicle because it does something I've never seen any other harem story do: all of Aster's wives are treated equally as a family. There is no "will they, won't they" with any of the girls, when Aster fancies someone he marries them on the spot (with consent of course, Aster is a gentleman after all). And more importantly, none of the wives are treated as just a member of his harem, everyone is a part of Aster's family, and instead of the girls fighting each other for Aster's affection, all of Aster's wives also treat each other as family. This gives the whole party an incredible dynamic with each other, because they aren't simply friends or companions, the entire party is one big family and that makes following their adventures across the world incredibly endearing.

I think Evenicle is already worth experiencing just for having one of my favorite casts in any JRPG, but it also hides an incredible story behind its generic premise. While the vast majority of Evenicle's story is simply about Aster marrying more girls by doing heroic deeds and beating one dimensionally evil villains, it all slowly builds up towards an incredible climax that works only because Evenicle is a porn game with a world built around strange rules.

My one big caveat with Evenicle is that while its gameplay is not bad per se, it is also not very exciting either. It has a bog standard turn based battle system that doesn't do anything interesting or unique, and every enemy is just easy enough to not pose a challenge, but still hard enough you can't steamroll all encounters without effort, creating a difficulty balance that's just kind of a pain in the ass.

The other big thing holding me back from reccommending Evenicle is that while Aster is a gentleman who respects all his wives, the same can not be said for other characters who do not respect the rules set by the Goddess. Evenicle has a lot of lovely and wholesome sex, but also a lot of disgusting and depraved sex. It's all an important part of Evenicle's story and worldbuilding though, and while some of the scenes in it were really hard to stomach, I wouldn't want Evenicle without them, because every bit of darkness in its world makes the light shine all the more brilliantly.

#4 Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven (2024, Switch, PS4, PS5 and PC)

Revenge of the Seven is a full 3D remake of the 1993 SNES RPG Romancing SaGa 2. The original Romancing SaGa 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, but it's a game that's far too ambitious for the SNES hardware, and I've always wondered what a modern reimagining of RS2 would look like without the limitations of the SNES hardware. So when Revenge of the Seven was announced earlier this year I was beyond excited to see my dream become a reality.

To my disappointment Revenge of the Seven is not the bold reimagining of Romancing SaGa 2 I was hoping for. My wish was for something similar to Romancing SaGa 1's remake, which changed and added things so much that it is practically a brand new game. Contrast that with Revenge of the Seven, which is simply Romancing SaGa 2 but in 3D.

But despite my disappointment with that aspect, the original Romancing SaGa 2 was an amazing game and this faithful remake is also amazing because of that.

In Romancing SaGa 2 you are the emperor of a country that is under attack by the seven heroes who once saved the world, and have now returned to the human world as monsters to have their vengeance on the ungrateful humans who betrayed them.

How this is reflected in gameplay is what makes Romancing SaGa 2 so cool: there is no set path you need to take across the world, RS2 is a very non-linear game where you can go wherever you want in the world and fight the seven heroes in whatever order you want. However in addition to fighting the seven heroes there is another goal for you: uniting the entire world under your empire, and this is the part where RS2 gets really ambitious and ahead of its time.

Uniting the whole world is too much for one person in a single lifetime, and so sometimes when you annex parts of the world, the game experiences a time skip, after which your emperor has died and you need to choose an heir to carry on the previous emperor's duty. This system is not only super cool as a concept, but it also creates a satisfying gameplay loop where your protagonist is constantly changing, and instead of sticking with just one playstyle (though you can do that if you're boring) you're encouraged to constantly experiment with new builds and classes whenever you need to change your emperor.

There is not much story in Romancing SaGa 2 (most of the story is right at the start of the game and in the heroes' backstories), it's an RPG you play purely for the gameplay, but from a gameplay perspective, as well as its unique premise, this is one of the best RPGs I've ever played (for the optimal experience I highly recommend the classic difficulty mode, even if it seems intimidating).

But it is still a remake of a SNES game, and everything I just said also applies to the original version. Because despite some tweaks to the gameplay to make it more casual and making everything 3D, structurally Revenge of the Seven is more or less the same game as it was on the SNES.

#3 The Legend of Heroes: Kai no Kiseki -Farewell O' Zemuria- (2024, PS4 and PS5)

If you follow me on any social media I'm sure including the latest Trails game on the list comes as no surprise, and I don't think I need to introduce this game or series to you. Trails is my biggest obsession in gaming and I never shut up about it. And while I have some issues with Kai (mainly related to its pacing), it is an incredible game and a reminder on why I love Trails after the previous game (Trails through Daybreak 2) disappointed me.

I'm not sure what I should even say about Kai, it's the 13th entry in a long running series, and if you've never played a Trails game before, Kai is not what you should be looking into, and if you have played Trails games before, you probably don't want to hear me raving about how good Kai is because the game hasn't even been announced for localisation yet.

But trust me when I say Kai is a really damn good game, and you are in for a really good time when it eventually gets released in English. But I also think if Kai was a bit shorter and its pacing wasn't so slow, would've been #2 on my list.

I really can't wait to see what Falcom is cooking for the next game in the series, after Kai I am extremely hyped for the series' future.

#2 Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (1995, Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

The first Lufia is without any exaggeration one of the the worst games I've ever played. It's a game so bad that I eventually turned on cheats to disable random encounters and make my party level 99, because I just wanted it to end as soon as possible. But despite how much I hated Lufia 1, I kept playing it because everyone was saying the same thing: Lufia 2 is so good it makes suffering through Lufia 1 worth it. I was naturally very doubtful of this, how much of an improvement could Lufia 2 really be when the first game has barely anything in its gameplay that I like.

Well you can probably guess this already from Lufia 2's placement on the list, but it is quite possibly the biggest glow up I've ever seen in a video game sequel. You don't actually need to play Lufia 1 to enjoy the second game like I did, as Lufia 2 is a prequel, but their stories are closely related and I think you do get more out of Lufia 2's story if you play the first game before it (that's the only positive thing I'll say about Lufia 1).

But even on its own merits Lufia 2 is an incredible game. The original Lufia was game that copied Dragon Quest very liberally in its gameplay and didn't have any unique or interesting ideas of its own, but what made it so bad was that on top of being a cheap copy of Dragon Quest, the game was also really grindy and the pace of its battles was dreadfully slow. Add on top of that a really high encounter rate and you have recipe for a game that's not enjoyable in the slightest. Lufia 2 still has all the standard turn based mechanics you're used to seeing in JRPGs (though it's not copying Dragon Quest specifically anymore), but the combat moves quickly and its balanced to give just the right amount of challenge. The game also has no random encounters and it's easy to avoid fighting enemies if you're not in the mood for it, ensuring the fights never grow stale like in many other turn based JRPGs.

But in addition to having fun combat, Lufia 2 does what very few other JRPGs do: the level design is good. Lufia 2 puts so much focus on its dungeons I think it's actually a dungeon crawler rather than a standard JRPG. It is simply masquerading as a standard JRPG with its visuals and having an overworld and towns between every dungeon, but make no mistake, this is without a doubt a dungeon crawler, and a really good one at that.

What makes Lufia 2's dungeons so good is that they are full of puzzles, and these aren't ordinary puzzles where you push a couple blocks to open a door (well some of them are, but those are a minority), they are proper brain teasers that will make you think really hard about the solutions. And all of them are built around Lufia 2's mechanics, it doesn't feel like you're stopping to play Lufia 2 to solve some puzzles, instead the puzzles are an extension of Lufia 2's mechanics. You get various tools you use for puzzle solving and it almost feels like a turn based Zelda game (except unlike in Zelda, you use all your tools throughout the game and not just the latest one you obtained in the current dungeon)

In addition to all this Lufia 2 also has an optional dungeon that turns the game into a roguelike game where you start the dungeon at level 1 with no equipment. The dungeon is randomly generated and you need to search chests for new equipment and actively fight enemies to level up, because the enemies keep getting harder and harder as you progress in the dungeon, and you need to keep your party strong to endure the whole dungeon. I must admit I never actually finished this dungeon so I don't know if its final rewards are worth the effort, but as an optional dungeon I think it's a really fun addition to the game, and especially in 1995 when roguelikes weren't so common (especially on consoles) I'm sure it gave Lufia 2 a lot of replay value.

But the final cherry on top of this cake is its story. Lufia 2 isn't very heavy on story, I was actually shocked at how little focus it puts on it until the end. Instead, much like Evenicle, Lufia 2 is a game that puts all of its writing effort into making its party as likeable as possible. Your whole party is very well fleshed out, and the whole world is reactive to your party's actions. It's not the kind of game where your party stays in obscurity until the very end of the game when they defeat the demon king and get declared as heroes who saved the world. It's a game where your party achieves fame and heroics rather early on, and your journey still continues for a few more years after the party has become heroes to the whole world. 

And while the story connecting Lufia 2 with its predecessor gets very little focus in favor of a more character centric narrative, it does have some really emotional moments in its story. And these emotional moments are further amplified if you have played Lufia 1 before it.

Honorable mentions

There are two games I played this year that I'd like to shout out before I talk about my #1. The first is Phantom Brave (2004, PS2). Phantom Brave is a game I would very much like to add to my top 5 list, but I haven't actually finished it. The reason I haven't finished it is because I find it exhaustingly difficult. But aside from the difficulty I love everything about Phantom Brave. Its gameplay has a unique twist to standard SRPG formula that makes it very fun (albeit it is excessively grindy), the music is some of Tenpei Sato's best works, the art is gorgeous and the story is really good (and way darker than I expected from a NIS game made in Disgaea's style). But I still need to see how that story ends before I can say my final judgement on the game, but before I see that end, Phantom Brave gets a preliminary recommendation from me.

The other game I want to shout out is Heaven Burns Red (2024, mobile and PC). I have a hard time getting into live service games, and the only ones that have managed to hold my attention for longer than a month are Granblue Fantasy and Blue Archive. But now Heaven Burns Red is about to be the third game to keep me playing actively for over a month (as I am writing this I have 37 days logged into the game). What I love about HBR is that it never feels intrusive with its live service stuff, once you start the main story you can keep playing without any interruptions as if it's just a regular visual novel (you can even quit in the middle of a story chapter and when you boot the game again it starts from where you left of instead of bringing you to the main menu through several loading screens before you can continue). In fact, while HBR is a very competent RPG even without its story (the battle system is really fun on higher difficulties) all of that can be easily ignored if you just want to experience an incredible visual novel. Aside from having some limitations in its gameplay, it really does not feel like a mobile game at all, and when played on a PC it's easy to forget it even is an RPG designed for mobile phones because it is so easy to ignore all of that as you read through the visual novel portions. And even as a visual novel HBR is so full of personality and charm. I'm still only leaving it as a honorable mention because just like Phantom Brave, I haven't actually finished it yet (not like you can finish a live service game anyway, but I haven't read all the story that is in the game so far) but I am enjoying it just as much as I do Granblue and Blue Archive.

#1 Octopath Traveler II (2023, Switch, PS4, PS5 and PC)

Octopath 2 was one of the first games I played this year, having played it all the way back in January. But even in January I had a feeling nothing else I play this year will top Octopath 2, because this is one of the very best games I have ever played.

Octopath 1 was a flawed game, but despite those flaws I found it very compelling. The game was often frustrating, but I frequently found myself forgiving those frustrations as I fell in love with it. 

But when Octopath 2 was announced I actually wasn't excited, part of the reason I loved Octopath was because there was nothing else like it, and though it certainly could be improved, I felt getting more games in the style would be boring and take away what made Octopath so special. I'd much rather see the team do more new IPs that share some of the same DNA but are wholly unique in their design, like Triangle Strategy. The first game had quite a middling reception, but once Octopath 2 came out everyone started praising it to high heavens, even the people who disliked the first game were singing their praise to the sequel. Despite all the praise I tried to keep my expectations in check and was prepared to think "yeah, this is cool but I prefer the first game".

I was dead wrong.

Octopath 2 is a masterpiece, it continues the first game's gameplay style and structure while ironing out all of the first game's flaws. The basic idea of the game is the same as before, you have 8 different protagonists with 8 different stories, you can pick whoever of the 8 you want as your primary protagonist and then you travel across the world to recruit the other 7 characters and complete their stories in whatever order you want. But Octopath 2 brings some big changes into this formula.

The original Octopath was an extremely formulaic game. Every character had 4 chapters, you completed the chapters in a set order (though you can do each character in whatever order you want) and each chapter follows a very rigid formula where your character arrives in a town, something bad happanes, you go to a dungeon to investigate the bad thing, you fight a boss and then the chapter is over. It's a very repetitive game and this formulaic structure is maybe my biggest issue with the game.

Octopath 2 still has some of that structure present, but it does the best it can to mitigate the repetition. Now some characters allow you to clear their chapters in a non-linear order, some chapters do not feature any battling at all, and there are new dual chapters where two main characters share a story together. 

On top of this, the 8 stories of Octopath 2 are much more interconnected than the first game's. I think the individual stories are actually better in the first game, but in 2 the bigger picture they form is much clearer, and even after clearing just one of the 8 stories you can start coming up with your theories on how all of this is connected, and seeing the bigger picture slowly form as you complete the 8 stories and gather other clues hidden throughout the world is a wonderful feeling.

And speaking of things hidden throughout the world, there are a lot of them. I went out of my way to complete as many side quests as possible and explore every corner of the world, because I had so much fun with this game. I wanted to see everything this game has to offer.

The base gameplay isn't actually that different from the first game, but I found it a lot easier and less grindy this time around (your reserve party members still don't get exp, but I found the difference in exp less of an issue here than in the first game), maybe a bit too easy in some parts as the game didn't really offer that much challenge outside of the optional bosses, but I still had a ton of fun with the battle system. There are some new additions though. There are new advanced classes that significantly alter how each character plays, and each character now has their unique skills that can't be passed on to others even via class change. Another change worth talking about is that the game now has a day and night cycle that sometimes brings significant changes to what you can find in each area and town.

There's a lot more I could talk about Octopath 2, but I'm afraid a lot of it would end up just being "this was good in the first game, but they made it even better in the sequel". I am trying to keep these entries short but I could write a whole blog post about why Octopath 2 is such a special game to me (maybe I will do that if people would like to read it), but it is a game I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who enjoys turn based RPGs. My final playtime for the game ended up being over 100 hours, but even after all that time I never got tired of it.

Because as I already said in the first paragraph: Octopath 2 is one of the very best games I've ever played.