oh hey I can afford to play more games this year! *monkey's paw curls* Tariffs, you say? Everything costs how much now?
As usual I'll keep this unordered and roughly chronological by acquisition until GOTY season at which point I'll rework it into a proper ranked list.
Not currently in the GB database: Tuna Hake's Underwater; Hopshot; Without a Dawn; Cast n Chill; Word Play; Easy Delivery Co.; Many Nights a Whisper, Blippo+... given the ongoing post-Fandom site/wiki rebuild, there might not be much point to adding these until we're on the other side.
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AhhhHHHhhHHHhhhh, the French- I can't remember who it was on Bluesky who first made the comparison, but Expedition 33 really does feel like the spirit of Lost Odyssey recaptured and recontextualized for a modern audience, and I love it for that. This is very likely my GOTY pick, a top three finalist at minimum, and I'm nowhere close to the end yet.
One of the best games from that 2021/2022 run of brilliant narrative adventures returns, divorced from one single location by a cute lil' ship with eyes set on all kinds of new, smaller spaces to explore. Or, more likely, accidentally demolish via critical failure on a lousy dice roll. Whoops. Expedition 33 (and work hours) (and a self-inflicted film-a-day Letterboxd challenge) has dominated most of my time this year, but I swear I'll finish this when I can.
Pending full release. The original Hades has been one of my favourite games of the last several years. I don't know how I've managed to restrain myself from jumping into Hades 2's early access period this time, but the wait for 1.0 is up in a week, and you know I'll be there for it.
One of the more pleasant unexpected surprises of recent years. TXR was a long-running reliable time-killer for me during the Dreamcast years, so getting a new one fully refreshed for 2025, in early access, reasonably priced, and without adding any of the live-service cruft that's come to plague most other racing franchises... whew! Fantastic. 1.0 launches a week out from this writing, at which point I'll likely start from scratch with a new save and lose myself to the highway for a while... that said, Hades 2 also hits 1.0 on the same day. Ah, well. Nevertheless,
Backlogged. Are you READY FOR SOME FOOTBALLLLLL
I seriously never thought I'd see the day. Suikoden I & II were huge for me once upon a time, and still maintain their importance to this day. And these are damned fine remasters. Just the right amount of visual glow-up in all the places that needed them the most, solid QoL, entirely new localizations, old bugs finally squashed... work, man, some capital-w Work happened to get this done. It's not impossible that Star Leap launches this year, though as neat as it looks it'll be a hard ask for it to leapfrog over this collection come GOTY season.
Pending release. I've had my eye on this one since the initial announcement. Who else out there is doing PS1-era Persona with a kinda-sorta Into The Breach combat system? Day one, DAY ONE.
It's been a good year for non-standard driving games. Getting one that's so non-standard that it's also ostensibly an RPG is just sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik. What's next, a Racing Lagoon remaster?
You ever read a word so much it loses all meaning and just doesn't sound like a word anymore?
I doubt it'll become another Balatro or Word Play, but I am a little scared that it could.
