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Great Games of 2025

by kalos

Games I loved in 2025. Likely includes older games and Game Pass titles.

Missing from the GB database:

  • The Abandoned Planet - Finished and enjoyed it. The art and world design are fantastic. I enjoyed the story, but the voice acting is bad and there's an annoying glitch every time you speak. A lot of the puzzles aren't very interesting and the "three buttons that rotate a subset" puzzle appears often and is usually solved by random clicking before I observed the pattern enough to solve it. There's a journal that I wish acted more like a hint book instead of a required source of information. (It's a hint book for some puzzles and required for others.)
  • Primoridia - Started and enjoying it, but needed hints.

Showing 1-9 of 9 items

The Case of the Golden Idol

1. The Case of the Golden Idol

Played the DLC and really enjoyed it. Still not as much as the original game, but I liked it more than Rise. It's been long enough that I was surprised by any connections to the original game.

The Rise of the Golden Idol

2. The Rise of the Golden Idol

Played through this and didn't enjoy it as much as Case of the Golden Idol -- too many puzzles threw tons of data at you and you had to compare notes. I prefer when I don't need pen and paper, so puzzles where you have to piece together a torn book are okay, but not when I it doesn't put the book together once I've solved it.

Psychonauts 2

3. Psychonauts 2

Finally played it! I enjoyed returning to Raz and the Psychonauts. I intentionally ignored any completion tracking (especially figments and baggage) because I didn't love that grind in the first game, and I'm glad I did! There's some amazing art direction in wildly different levels for the minds of each character and I even enjoyed hunting down some (but not all) of the collectibles. I liked the story and thought it ended really well. Looking forward to watching the documentary.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

4. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Played a lot of this game, but my interest waned around Egypt and stopped playing when I got to Cambodia. I like that Cambodia is totally different and that will likely get me to come back, but the game feels too long with not enough story moving you forward. (ugh open worlds).

The Gunk

5. The Gunk

Played a bunch of this and enjoyed it.

Chants Of Sennaar

6. Chants Of Sennaar

Played some of this and enjoyed it, but it disappeared from Game Pass.

Mars First Logistics

7. Mars First Logistics

Played a bunch of this and enjoyed it.

Blue Prince

8. Blue Prince

Played a bunch of this and I think it's too random instead of designed for fun. A lot is nice about this game -- looks good, interesting concept, unique twist on Betrayal at House on the Hill. But the way the RNG "kills" you by giving you deadends feels bad. I suspect they want you to keep progressing days around Day 10 1 reached something the revealed a new kind of puzzle I could do, but the drip is too slow. I find secrets that give me more steps, but I've never run out of steps. Keys are in short supply and it's too frustrating to continue playing. I made it just outside the Antechamber and discovered (l think) how to enter, but I don't want to slog through begging the RNG for keys to accomplish it.

Stardew Valley

9. Stardew Valley

I finally tried playing this game and while some of the farming interactions are fun, it's all too slow and full of walking around for me to really like it. Not my kind of game.

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