Game of the Year 2025: Little Dinos' Choice

Hey, quit distracting your brother during dinner! (Image Credit: Warp Speed to Nonsense)

Ah, hatchlings. They started the year by catching COVID for the first time (that we know of), then ended the year with a late night ER visit for the Flu. But it wasn’t all illnesses; sometimes there were headbutts to the groin. Kidding aside, it was a year of transitions for them. The oldest went to her first summer camp, then most of her Kindergarten friends were placed in the other classroom of first grade. The youngest changed daycare providers and became more (fiercely) independent, which carried plenty of stress. The kids themselves were nicely insulated from the torrential diarrhea downpour that was 2025, but I was not as patient with them as I would have liked to be thanks to that. Still, they both grew in positive ways, and both are absolutely voracious consumers of books. While video games are not either kid’s favorite activity, they were certainly a part of their year. So without further ado, but with apologies for my annual butchering of this website's formatting, here are the hatchlings’ collective top 10 games of 2025:

10. Jurassic World Evolution 3

"Soppatiss"

I am, as you might have guessed, into dinosaurs. The youngest has also found affinity with our extinct pals, especially with ones that are scary. So when I sat him on my lap to manage a carnivore park in the campaign for this game, then neglected a Carnotaur enough that it broke confinement, he witnessed the predator catch and devour a person. Every time he sees a similar dinosaur, he reminds me that it ate a guy. The dinosaur also got sick from swallowing its victim’s cell phone, which gave him inspiration to play doctor for the dinosaurs. I guess that’s all I can ask as a parent of video games - inspire the kids to play in a way they might not have thought of beforehand. But maybe I should make a park full of herbivores next time.

9. Grounded 2

To be honest, I didn’t witness much of this game; the kids watched my partner play it. Given their demands to see it again anytime the thumbnail is on the screen, I inferred that they like it a lot. I doubt they ever see Honey, I Shrunk The Kids! or any of its ilk, so the idea of a little person shrunk down to make everyday objects gargantuan clearly tickled them in some way. Building houses and other things out of crap on the ground is also primo kid stuff. Maybe by the time the game gets its full release (2027 if I had to guess), the oldest will be able to play co-op. 

8. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

I wouldn’t even rank this one on my personal list, given how closely it hews to the original game. But it came into our lives right as the youngest developed an affinity for spooky scary skeletons. When I found a scroll to summon a friendly skeleton, he wanted me to just look at it until its eventual dissolution. I remade my entire character into a necromancer after that, and he just wanted to see adventures through a bizarrely steep countryside (those road grades can’t be FHWA-compliant) with my bony pal. I tried to avoid combat as much as possible, but it was inevitable. This did force my hand to stop playing it in front of either child eventually, since I didn’t want to inspire some new hitting streak at school. Even though I can’t play it anymore thanks to cancelling Game Pass, I still get the occasional request to boot up “Bolivian”.

7. Dorfromantik (board game)

(Image Credit: Dicebreaker)

This made my 2023 list as an honorable mention thanks to its enjoyable co-op tile placement and legacy elements. My partner started a game of it with the oldest on her stay-up-late nights, and it became a fairly consistent activity throughout the year. She glommed on to the rules very quickly, and even though some of the finer points of strategy still elude her, playing excites her nonetheless. It’s a great activity to decouple from screens or high stimulation, and it’ll be nice to start from scratch once her brother is old enough to play without tossing things everywhere.

6. Hades II

(Image Credit: IGN)

Another game where I was initially nervous was too combat-heavy to play in front of the kids, I eventually relented thanks to not wanting to interrupt a run. It turns out my oldest LOVES the regimented Greek mythology, especially Aphrodite. For kids who run around naked with even the flimsiest pretext, the horniness of this game didn’t faze them one bit. My oldest also loves all of [spoiler] Scylla’s [end spoiler] songs, to the point that I’ll catch her singing the first one softly to herself. My youngest has no idea what’s going on but loves the artwork, and he identifies Melinoe by name. I did eventually turn on God Mode in this game, but the fact that I rolled credits while my son was literally jump-tackling me repeatedly means I completed it on the real highest difficulty level.

5. Minecraft

I witnessed almost none of my daughter’s time with this game, so I asked her to review it for me. She says, “because it’s fun and you can fly.” When pressed for further detail, she eventually replied that she enjoyed “exploring underground” and that she “found a cool, shiny waterfall”. Good enough for this list!

4. Spiritfarer

(Image Credit: IGN)

My partner played this with our oldest in the solid co-op mode, with the little one taking control of the adorable cat. Unfortunately, the only person our children will likely ever call a grandfather passed away in 2025 after a years-long struggle with cancer. If you’ve played Spiritfarer, you can probably guess where this is going. My partner wanted to highlight the connection between Summer’s illness and the one in real life, giving our daughter another way to process the impending grief. In both cases, the loss hit her hard. They stopped playing not long after Summer went through the Everdoor, but I think their time was well spent in this game. It’s a hell of a good crafting game, so maybe she’ll pick it back up when she’s a little older.

3. Mario Kart World

(Image Credit: Dexerto)

There was a time where this was #1 with a bullet on this list. My oldest loved the free roam mode, because she has never played Forza Horizon and doesn’t know any better. Going around collecting new outfits, changing into them, and finding silly things to show us was one of her favorite experiences. Her little brother loved watching every minute of it as well, and he was always impressed by the silly things characters did during a jump. Even if it were their favorite game this year, I would spitefully hold it back from their top entry due to its ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT LOCAL CO-OP RESTRICTIONS. I used the Patrick Klepek workaround of searching for games on the wi-fi and handing them both controllers (or sometimes being the second player), but that wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it should have been. I don’t get any requests to boot this game up anymore, but for a month, this was all the kids wanted to see. Why just a month? Well…

2. Donkey Kong Bananza

DK is good people (Image Credit: Nintendo Everything)

Ohh, banana! The visuals were fun enough for my youngest, but aside from Pauline being a little girl, my oldest was mostly unimpressed. However, once we figured out how she could play as Pauline on the Switch Lite, she wanted to play all the time. One of her favorite activities was finding a soft material and pelting the Fractones with it until they ballooned to monstrous proportions. She really, really enjoyed giving them enormous butts. I think being able to just futz around and shout things apart while I looked for collectibles really scratched an itch for the kid, and all the silly characters kept both hatchlings hooked through the game’s runtime. It’s wild to think that she might grow up associating DK with only excellent 3D platforming, because I still barely believe it happened. 

1. Pokemon Legends: Z-A

She's going to freak out if she ever gets one of these (Image Credit: Reddit, user Lunarkana)

Last year’s Hatchling GOTY was Pokemon Let’s Go: Eevee, which spared us the indignity of naming Bluey: The Videogame as the winner of anything other than Shoddiest Cash-In. After accomplishing all that the game could offer, my oldest moved on to Shining Pearl. The more outdated elements of the game were extremely not her speed, and she lost interest more quickly than I expected. Attempts to get her into Arceus hit a similar wall, though she did enjoy being able to see all the Pokemon roaming around in real time. So right as I was wondering if her Pokemon interest was limited to the one iteration that was geared towards more casual players, Legends: Z-A came out. She has spent more time playing it than all the other games on this list combined. Running around a city with a Pokemon partner and decorating herself in a wide variety of fashions is her dream game. She might love catching alpha Pokemon and cuties a little too much, based on her incredibly disorganized boxes. We’ve had to push her into doing the nighttime Royale more often, since she spends all her cash on the aforementioned fashion. But she is more than capable in winning all but the most challenging battles herself, and she loves telling stories from her time with the game. She also has incredible luck with finding shiny Pokemon, something my partner and I have to learn how to exploit for our benefit gently encourage. The game is certainly not perfect, but for my daughter, it may as well be.

Honorable Mentions: My youngest joined the Monoco fan club, and both kids would request Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 if I was playing the Xbox… My daughter loves Hello Kitty, so naturally she enjoyed Hello Kitty Island Adventure… Both kids laughed hysterically anytime I ran into a rock in Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders… Finally, something about The Witness really struck both their fancies. Maybe they just enjoy Tarkovsky?

Game I Really Wanted My Youngest to Enjoy, Like, At All, But I Guess He Only Cares About Trucks When They’re Huge and in Real Life: Roadcraft. Come on, kid, the crane is doing something cool!

Dishonorable Mention: Me, for killing a chocobo in Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles. That fucker pecked me first!