Argyle's 2025 Year-End Wrap-Up
Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2026 9:42 am
My year-end post for 2024 went off the rails, to put it politely. Since I’ve declared 2026 to be “The Year of Getting S@*%$ Done”, I’m taking a different approach this year. I’m doing it all in one post. So starting with the games I played this year, in chronological order…
Inscryption - If I *had* finished my 2024 list, this probably would have been on it since I’m showing that I finished it on Jan 3 of last year - so obviously, I played the majority of it in 2024. But I didn’t, and this game really really deserves to be mentioned. It’s amazing, and just when you think you know what the game is all about it completely changes. VERY meta and trippy, and should be played by everyone.
Carrion - A dumb fun sidesplorer where you play a giant tentacle blob monstrosity who’s trying to break out of a lab. It isn’t perfect - there are some confusing areas where it’s hard to tell where you’re supposed to go next (especially when they want you to backtrack) but it’s so much fun eating scientists that it makes up for any shortcomings. Plus it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Eternal Strands - This is the OTHER indie game released this year by a team made up of ex-UbiSoft employees. A fantastic 3rd person action-aventure game where you gain elemental abilities that you can not only use to affect the environment in very interesting ways, but which you can also combine to come up with really clever abilities. I really loved this one from beginning to end - an easy recommend. Didn’t get near the attention that it deserved.
Rogue Legacy 2 (DNF) - A good follow up to Rogue Legacy, it expands the formula but doesn’t reinvent anything - basically, if you played the first you know what you’re in for. Gets pretty tough in areas, I got a long way in this one but didn’t finish it. Might go back to it & finish it off, we’ll see.
Cyberpunk 2077 (DNF) - I finally got around to this one last year, and after all the patches & updates it turned out to be a pretty good game. I had a lot of fun with it, but had decided I wanted to play the DLC section before finishing the main story, my thinking being “If I finish the main story, I’ll probably put it down & never play the DLC.” Started the DLC, got probably half-way through that & ended up moving to something else. I need to go back to this one at some point, because I really don’t have a lot left and I’m curious to see how it all wraps up.
Revenge of the Savage Planet - Now this was a great sequel. It didn’t reinvent the wheel either, but at the same time it felt much bigger in scope than the original while keeping the same great sense of humor. I love the colorful worlds that are tons of fun to explore and crazy plot that expands on the first and keeps the laughs coming. When I say bigger in scope, I don’t mean bloated - there are multiple planets now which adds variety, but while each feels big they don’t feel gargantuan - they’re big enough. That applies to the game itself as well, it’s just big enough - it lasts as long as it should, then it knows when to end.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (DNF) - The hype for this one is real, even if it’s not my GOTY. Heck, as you can see I didn’t even finish it, although I really want to get back to this one. A very fun turn-based RPG with great graphics and a cool timing-based battle system. I think my only complaint would be that for me, it’s a little TOO depressing. Don’t fire this one up looking for some light-hearted fun.
Little Misfortune - OMG, this game is SO GOOD! Chalk up another one to izzy, as this was a recommendation from him a little while back. And while he said he didn’t enjoy it quite as much as this team’s (team? I think it’s 2 people…) first game, Fran Bow, I have a hard time deciding between the two. The main character in this one is super cute, which really stands in contrast to the rather bleak world she finds herself in. But she’s always super positive about everything that happens, and it’s just incredibly engrossing to see where she’ll end up next. Very short, but it makes every minute count. Much like Fran Bow, my wife and I both played this one & both loved it.
FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time - Level-5 goodness. This game juggles a lot, but manages to tie it all together and make a very fun & addictive experience out of it all. It’s part Dark Cloud, part cozy game, part…iunno…some other top-down dungeon crawler. Experimenting with the different jobs (classes) and completing all the quests & tasks to level them up is so much fun that the forgettable main story really doesn’t even matter. This isn’t quite Dark Cloud 3, but it’s probably the next best thing.
My Friendly Neighborhood - This was a game I played because it popped up on Gamepass and looked like an amusing premise. But honestly, when I started it I fully expected to play for an hour or so and never touch it again. The game is not perfect, but it hits an atmosphere that goes a long way towards making you ignore its flaws. Basically this is Resident Evil with Sesame Street puppets. That results in a unique horror game that is never gory but is very creepy and unnerving in places. It doesn’t rely too heavily on jump scares (this isn’t Five Nights…), it leans more on subverting what you’d expect from a children’s puppet show into something extremely unsettling. I couldn’t put it down, played through this one in around a week’s time if I recall. A very pleasant surprise.
Horace (DNF) - I’m not listing every game I touched this year. There are games I fired up, played for a few minutes or maybe even a couple of hours, and just didn’t get hooked and moved on. Things like Gamepass make that easy (for better or for worse), and listing them all would be exhausting and pointless. So I’m sticking to games I either finished, put significant time into, or…pissed me off. Enter Horace. This game was billed to me as a sidesplorer. It’s not. That’s not the game’s fault, and that alone didn’t make me mad at it. What DID is the fact that the first couple of hours of the game slowly introduce mechanics and situations that paint the game as a puzzle platformer with some really interesting mechanics that could present some great puzzles. Then it takes all that and stuffs it into a fast-paced precision platformer - think Super Meatboy, etc. THAT’S what made me mad. If that’s the game you want to make, make it clear that that’s what it is from the start. Don’t bait & switch me. Sold it, got my money back - good riddance.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe - The Stanley Parable is…fine. The story is…fine. The jokes along the way are amusing, and repeating the loop & picking at the threads to find the different hidden paths is…ok. There’s nothing bad about this game. But IMO there’s also nothing particularly great about it. Once you’ve seen what it has to offer, which takes maybe 5 hours or so - you’re done. There’s no reason to touch it again. If your curious about it, pick it up on the cheap & play it - it’s worth going through for the experience IF you’re curious about its premise, if for no other reason than to see what all the fuss is about. But at the same time, I’m not sure what all the fuss was about.
Elden Ring (Replay) - One of two replays on my list. This game is in my top-3 all-time favorites, along with Xenoblade Chronicles & Symphony of the Night. I played back through the main game & expansion, every major boss, I don’t even know how many hours this time to add to my already super lengthy original playthrough. And I will most likely play through it again in a couple years or so. It’s just an amazing game that has so much to explore - that feels like true exploration, not traveling to map markers. The lore is insanely deep in a way that you always feel like you’re discovering something you didn’t know before. And there are so many different ways to play and approach the game that it always feel fresh. Just talking about it kinda makes me want to play again. Absolutely stunning game - perfection. Disqualified from being my GOTY because it’s a replay, so it’ll have to settle for being one of my 3 GOATs.
Ball x Pit - One of a few Roguelites I played this year, this one combines Arkanoid with an RPG - a very fun combination. In-between rounds of the main game you spend gold to build up a village that in turn unlocks items/new classes/etc and gives you bonuses in the main game. It’s a fun loop, and one I’ll end up going back to - it’s the kind of game you’ll play off & on in-between other games, and it’s easy to put down for a while & come back without having to relearn a lot of nonsense. Comfort game? Yeah, that’s probably what I’d call it.
Ghost of Yōtei - There’s a lot to like about Ghost of Yotei - the combat is a blast, with several different weapons to learn & switch between on the fly. The world is generally fun to explore with interesting side quests. And of course it’s gorgeous. The main issue I had is that it just went on for way too long. This is a 30 hour MAX game stretched to be 60+. By the end, it felt like a bit of a slog, which is a real shame. I was watching a video yesterday and the guy in it said “When I was younger, I wanted a game to test my reflexes - now I want a game that respects my time.” True that.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor - This wins this year’s “mediocre game I spent the most time playing for some inexplicable reason” award. It’s a game in the same vein as Vampire Survivors, but a lot harder and really not as good - mainly due to not having enough variety. It’s…fine. But for some reason, there was a few weeks when I couldn’t put it down. Once I finally did, I forgot about it - only remembered it for this list when I was looking at my log of games played on Exophase. Of all the games I have played in my life, truly, this was…one of them.
Hello Kitty Island Adventure - I have not finished this game either, but I’m not sure there IS an end so I’m not marking it w/ the DNF. I’m still playing it, but since I put over 60 hours into it last year I’m counting it as a 2025 game. This game is a deeper and better take on Animal Crossing. It has zero right to be anywhere near as good as it is. It’s 100% a comfort game, but when I get home fried from work and just want to zone out, this hits the spot. Side-note, this game handles getting stuck in the environment better than any other game I’ve ever played. When you get stuck, you simply stop moving and in about 2 seconds the screen will fade & come back and you’ll be standing in the closest open spot to where you were stuck. They didn’t even HAVE to do that, since you can fast travel from anywhere, but they did and why can’t these so-called AAA games do the same thing?? Hello Kitty’s over here showing up these overly bloated studios.
Clover Pit - Clover Pit is two parts Balatro, one part Inscryption, but with a slot machine instead of cards. The meta game isn’t as mind-twistingly deep as Inscryption, but it’s still there and the inspiration is clear. You unlock charms as you play that affect your luck, the value of the symbols on the slot machine, etc. The game is broken up into rounds, and each round you have a dollar amount goal to reach. Sounds simple, gets complex when you start figuring out the synergies between the different charms. And it’s extremely addictive - I put somewhere in the neighborhood of 112 hours into it to 100% the game. And all of that in a game whose core message is about the evils of gambling.
Control (Replay) - I had sorta wanted to replay this game anyway, but once they showed the trailer for the sequel at the video game awards, I knew I had to. Very glad I did, I’ve enjoyed it at least as much this time as I did the first time, possibly more. Remedy has become one of my favorite devs, they manage to put out unique games with some fantastic lore that really pulls you into their world (I say world singular, since they’ve tied the Alan Wake & Control series together as being in the same world). As DG put it (he started playing Control after I was talking it up to him a few weeks ago), I usually skip or gloss over letters & memos that you find in games, but with this one I want to read everything I get my hands on to get another piece of the puzzle. The selective redacting on the documents you find is icing on the cake. Oh, and the psychic powers you get are incredibly fun to play with too - reminds me of a more advanced Psi Ops, if anyone remembers that PS2 gem. Gonna have to play Alan Wake 2 next.
So that’s it, every game I played in 2025 in chronological order…except for one. The only one I’m ranking, my GOTY. Honestly, as many great games as I played this year, it was still an easy pick.
Blue Prince - Blue Prince was absolutely the most unique, completely absorbing, mind-twistingly addictive game I played all year. A puzzle roguelite *shouldn’t* work, but it absolutely does. My wife and I were both hooked on this one for weeks, swapping notes, trying different weird things, and just trying to figure out what exactly was going on. The credits rolled, and yet we kept playing because that only opens up MORE secrets to discover and riddles to solve. Honestly, I still haven’t solved them all, and I’ll most likely go back to this one - possibly to start all over again. You have never played anything else like this, and for that reason alone everyone should give this game a shot.
Inscryption - If I *had* finished my 2024 list, this probably would have been on it since I’m showing that I finished it on Jan 3 of last year - so obviously, I played the majority of it in 2024. But I didn’t, and this game really really deserves to be mentioned. It’s amazing, and just when you think you know what the game is all about it completely changes. VERY meta and trippy, and should be played by everyone.
Carrion - A dumb fun sidesplorer where you play a giant tentacle blob monstrosity who’s trying to break out of a lab. It isn’t perfect - there are some confusing areas where it’s hard to tell where you’re supposed to go next (especially when they want you to backtrack) but it’s so much fun eating scientists that it makes up for any shortcomings. Plus it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Eternal Strands - This is the OTHER indie game released this year by a team made up of ex-UbiSoft employees. A fantastic 3rd person action-aventure game where you gain elemental abilities that you can not only use to affect the environment in very interesting ways, but which you can also combine to come up with really clever abilities. I really loved this one from beginning to end - an easy recommend. Didn’t get near the attention that it deserved.
Rogue Legacy 2 (DNF) - A good follow up to Rogue Legacy, it expands the formula but doesn’t reinvent anything - basically, if you played the first you know what you’re in for. Gets pretty tough in areas, I got a long way in this one but didn’t finish it. Might go back to it & finish it off, we’ll see.
Cyberpunk 2077 (DNF) - I finally got around to this one last year, and after all the patches & updates it turned out to be a pretty good game. I had a lot of fun with it, but had decided I wanted to play the DLC section before finishing the main story, my thinking being “If I finish the main story, I’ll probably put it down & never play the DLC.” Started the DLC, got probably half-way through that & ended up moving to something else. I need to go back to this one at some point, because I really don’t have a lot left and I’m curious to see how it all wraps up.
Revenge of the Savage Planet - Now this was a great sequel. It didn’t reinvent the wheel either, but at the same time it felt much bigger in scope than the original while keeping the same great sense of humor. I love the colorful worlds that are tons of fun to explore and crazy plot that expands on the first and keeps the laughs coming. When I say bigger in scope, I don’t mean bloated - there are multiple planets now which adds variety, but while each feels big they don’t feel gargantuan - they’re big enough. That applies to the game itself as well, it’s just big enough - it lasts as long as it should, then it knows when to end.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (DNF) - The hype for this one is real, even if it’s not my GOTY. Heck, as you can see I didn’t even finish it, although I really want to get back to this one. A very fun turn-based RPG with great graphics and a cool timing-based battle system. I think my only complaint would be that for me, it’s a little TOO depressing. Don’t fire this one up looking for some light-hearted fun.
Little Misfortune - OMG, this game is SO GOOD! Chalk up another one to izzy, as this was a recommendation from him a little while back. And while he said he didn’t enjoy it quite as much as this team’s (team? I think it’s 2 people…) first game, Fran Bow, I have a hard time deciding between the two. The main character in this one is super cute, which really stands in contrast to the rather bleak world she finds herself in. But she’s always super positive about everything that happens, and it’s just incredibly engrossing to see where she’ll end up next. Very short, but it makes every minute count. Much like Fran Bow, my wife and I both played this one & both loved it.
FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time - Level-5 goodness. This game juggles a lot, but manages to tie it all together and make a very fun & addictive experience out of it all. It’s part Dark Cloud, part cozy game, part…iunno…some other top-down dungeon crawler. Experimenting with the different jobs (classes) and completing all the quests & tasks to level them up is so much fun that the forgettable main story really doesn’t even matter. This isn’t quite Dark Cloud 3, but it’s probably the next best thing.
My Friendly Neighborhood - This was a game I played because it popped up on Gamepass and looked like an amusing premise. But honestly, when I started it I fully expected to play for an hour or so and never touch it again. The game is not perfect, but it hits an atmosphere that goes a long way towards making you ignore its flaws. Basically this is Resident Evil with Sesame Street puppets. That results in a unique horror game that is never gory but is very creepy and unnerving in places. It doesn’t rely too heavily on jump scares (this isn’t Five Nights…), it leans more on subverting what you’d expect from a children’s puppet show into something extremely unsettling. I couldn’t put it down, played through this one in around a week’s time if I recall. A very pleasant surprise.
Horace (DNF) - I’m not listing every game I touched this year. There are games I fired up, played for a few minutes or maybe even a couple of hours, and just didn’t get hooked and moved on. Things like Gamepass make that easy (for better or for worse), and listing them all would be exhausting and pointless. So I’m sticking to games I either finished, put significant time into, or…pissed me off. Enter Horace. This game was billed to me as a sidesplorer. It’s not. That’s not the game’s fault, and that alone didn’t make me mad at it. What DID is the fact that the first couple of hours of the game slowly introduce mechanics and situations that paint the game as a puzzle platformer with some really interesting mechanics that could present some great puzzles. Then it takes all that and stuffs it into a fast-paced precision platformer - think Super Meatboy, etc. THAT’S what made me mad. If that’s the game you want to make, make it clear that that’s what it is from the start. Don’t bait & switch me. Sold it, got my money back - good riddance.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe - The Stanley Parable is…fine. The story is…fine. The jokes along the way are amusing, and repeating the loop & picking at the threads to find the different hidden paths is…ok. There’s nothing bad about this game. But IMO there’s also nothing particularly great about it. Once you’ve seen what it has to offer, which takes maybe 5 hours or so - you’re done. There’s no reason to touch it again. If your curious about it, pick it up on the cheap & play it - it’s worth going through for the experience IF you’re curious about its premise, if for no other reason than to see what all the fuss is about. But at the same time, I’m not sure what all the fuss was about.
Elden Ring (Replay) - One of two replays on my list. This game is in my top-3 all-time favorites, along with Xenoblade Chronicles & Symphony of the Night. I played back through the main game & expansion, every major boss, I don’t even know how many hours this time to add to my already super lengthy original playthrough. And I will most likely play through it again in a couple years or so. It’s just an amazing game that has so much to explore - that feels like true exploration, not traveling to map markers. The lore is insanely deep in a way that you always feel like you’re discovering something you didn’t know before. And there are so many different ways to play and approach the game that it always feel fresh. Just talking about it kinda makes me want to play again. Absolutely stunning game - perfection. Disqualified from being my GOTY because it’s a replay, so it’ll have to settle for being one of my 3 GOATs.
Ball x Pit - One of a few Roguelites I played this year, this one combines Arkanoid with an RPG - a very fun combination. In-between rounds of the main game you spend gold to build up a village that in turn unlocks items/new classes/etc and gives you bonuses in the main game. It’s a fun loop, and one I’ll end up going back to - it’s the kind of game you’ll play off & on in-between other games, and it’s easy to put down for a while & come back without having to relearn a lot of nonsense. Comfort game? Yeah, that’s probably what I’d call it.
Ghost of Yōtei - There’s a lot to like about Ghost of Yotei - the combat is a blast, with several different weapons to learn & switch between on the fly. The world is generally fun to explore with interesting side quests. And of course it’s gorgeous. The main issue I had is that it just went on for way too long. This is a 30 hour MAX game stretched to be 60+. By the end, it felt like a bit of a slog, which is a real shame. I was watching a video yesterday and the guy in it said “When I was younger, I wanted a game to test my reflexes - now I want a game that respects my time.” True that.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor - This wins this year’s “mediocre game I spent the most time playing for some inexplicable reason” award. It’s a game in the same vein as Vampire Survivors, but a lot harder and really not as good - mainly due to not having enough variety. It’s…fine. But for some reason, there was a few weeks when I couldn’t put it down. Once I finally did, I forgot about it - only remembered it for this list when I was looking at my log of games played on Exophase. Of all the games I have played in my life, truly, this was…one of them.
Hello Kitty Island Adventure - I have not finished this game either, but I’m not sure there IS an end so I’m not marking it w/ the DNF. I’m still playing it, but since I put over 60 hours into it last year I’m counting it as a 2025 game. This game is a deeper and better take on Animal Crossing. It has zero right to be anywhere near as good as it is. It’s 100% a comfort game, but when I get home fried from work and just want to zone out, this hits the spot. Side-note, this game handles getting stuck in the environment better than any other game I’ve ever played. When you get stuck, you simply stop moving and in about 2 seconds the screen will fade & come back and you’ll be standing in the closest open spot to where you were stuck. They didn’t even HAVE to do that, since you can fast travel from anywhere, but they did and why can’t these so-called AAA games do the same thing?? Hello Kitty’s over here showing up these overly bloated studios.
Clover Pit - Clover Pit is two parts Balatro, one part Inscryption, but with a slot machine instead of cards. The meta game isn’t as mind-twistingly deep as Inscryption, but it’s still there and the inspiration is clear. You unlock charms as you play that affect your luck, the value of the symbols on the slot machine, etc. The game is broken up into rounds, and each round you have a dollar amount goal to reach. Sounds simple, gets complex when you start figuring out the synergies between the different charms. And it’s extremely addictive - I put somewhere in the neighborhood of 112 hours into it to 100% the game. And all of that in a game whose core message is about the evils of gambling.
Control (Replay) - I had sorta wanted to replay this game anyway, but once they showed the trailer for the sequel at the video game awards, I knew I had to. Very glad I did, I’ve enjoyed it at least as much this time as I did the first time, possibly more. Remedy has become one of my favorite devs, they manage to put out unique games with some fantastic lore that really pulls you into their world (I say world singular, since they’ve tied the Alan Wake & Control series together as being in the same world). As DG put it (he started playing Control after I was talking it up to him a few weeks ago), I usually skip or gloss over letters & memos that you find in games, but with this one I want to read everything I get my hands on to get another piece of the puzzle. The selective redacting on the documents you find is icing on the cake. Oh, and the psychic powers you get are incredibly fun to play with too - reminds me of a more advanced Psi Ops, if anyone remembers that PS2 gem. Gonna have to play Alan Wake 2 next.
So that’s it, every game I played in 2025 in chronological order…except for one. The only one I’m ranking, my GOTY. Honestly, as many great games as I played this year, it was still an easy pick.
