Author's Note: The first rule of Game of the Year on Giant Bomb is that there are no rules. That sentiment has guided some of the site's most memorable discussions, awards, and GOTY-related moments, and I have always tried to embody that ethos in my yearly superlatives. For those of you who may be new, rather than do a standard top-ten list or a traditional gaming-themed awards show, I've always opted for a "multimedia extravaganza." Anime, movies, television shows, athletics, wrestling, AND video games all get pitted in the same end-of-the-year arena, and I try to get to the bottom of which ones from the crop really stood out to me, both positively and negatively.

For time's sake and to avoid running afoul of the character and image limits in user articles, I'll break my multimedia extravaganza into two parts: one this week and another next week.

Fan Translation I Am Most Grateful Happened: Sakura Wars 2

The quest to get some version of Sakura Wars 2: Thou Shalt Not Die into the English-speaking world has been a long and arduous one. The game itself is a mix of genres, blending tactical RPG and dating sim mechanics with visual novel gameplay and pacing. Nonetheless, it's a seminal work in the Sega Saturn's library and one that has seen countless ports, though none have ever received a sustained localization effort for Western audiences. There was a port in Taiwan and mainland China in 2001, and even a Russian port in 2008. Sony apparently blocked the PSP port from getting a non-Japanese release, and Sega itself has long doubted that any attempt to bring the game to North America or Western Europe would prove financially fruitful, especially after Sakura Wars (2019) sold anemically outside Japan. In the world of video games, I like to abide by the adage "never tell me the odds." Still, with Sakura Wars 2, unless someone in the upper echelons at Sega decided to cash a blank check, I have long accepted that a proper port was never going to happen.

However, that's the beauty of the fan translation community! It doesn't matter how big or small a game's script might be, as long as you aren't in any hurry, a fan translation team will eventually glom onto an unlocalized legend in the retro gaming hobby, like Sakura Wars 2. Fun fact: one of the leads behind Sakura Wars 2's fan translation, which dates back to 2021, is bowloflentils, a recurring figure in the Giant Bomb community. Nonetheless, now that the game unofficially has English subtitles, I can better appreciate the whole craft and care that went into Sakura Wars 2. The FMV sequences come from the old 90s guard at Production I.G., and the character designs are masterworks by Kōsuke Fujishima and Hidenori Matsubara, both better known for Oh My Goddess!, with the former also being the principal figure behind You're Under Arrest! Finally, you really don't "get" why and how any Sakura Wars game works as well as it does, despite its odd mish-mash of gameplay elements, until you really get into the groove with one of the games, and that's doubly the case with this one. It's a complete delight to play, and it speaks volumes about the initial technical ambitions Sega had for the Saturn before the wheels fully came off the console amid the PlayStation's growing dominance.

Runner-up: Ancient Roman

It's one thing to dedicate hundreds of hours to making a loving tribute to a legendary game that never got its time to shine outside Japan; it's another to devote a similar amount of time to one of the worst RPGs ever made. Ancient Roman is a comically incompetent video game that looks dated, especially given that it came out in 1998. The characters and worlds seem better suited for a PS1 launch window title, and yet, this game somehow released a whole year after Final Fantasy VII. And the game's bones are just rotten to the core. The power balance is out of whack, and the difficulty drops like a rock once you acquire a handful of special character abilities. And now you can play it in English, though this translation is a bit more "comical" than the previous effort I mentioned. That aside, there's something truly comforting knowing that all parts of gaming, not just the carefully crafted diamonds or crystals, are getting some love from the fan translation community. I say leave no stone unturned!

Most Entirely Justified Hostile Internet Reception: One-Punch Man Season 3

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It's been a while since the internet decided to universally gang up on a singular anime to rake over the coals with not even the whiff of a defense from contrarian review circles. No one, and I mean no one, has come to the defense of One-Punch Man's third season, and that's a real rarity in the anime community. The last show to come to mind that accomplished this feat is the second season of The Promised Neverland, and there are a ton of parallels between that show and the third season of One-Punch Man. Both had messy manga volumes to adapt, significant changes in production budgets, shifting animation studios in charge of key animation and art assets, and sky-high fan expectations for how the story would continue after the previous seasons received near-universal praise and acclaim. And both were widely reviled, and upon their near-unanimous rejection, it's almost impossible to imagine any attempt to save face with a subsequent season. There's a sliver of a chance with One-Punch Man, but I think this well is dry, and after all the negativity, everyone involved probably wants to move on. I regret having to mention this next point, but the director of the show's third season completely deleted their social media presence due to the deluge of hate they were getting.

There's not a lot I can add to the mix about the third season of One-Punch Man. I will say, it takes a solid three episodes before it hits you that you're watching a shadow of what was once one of the best anime in the world. The first two episodes are far from perfect, but the drop in animation quality doesn't really go full "mask off" until the third episode, where whole frames don't have their perspective properly adjusted. Look at the screenshot I included above and notice how the kids running away are about the same size as the character walking into frame on a hill, even though the latter is supposed to be yards further away in the background. The flashy fights that practically defined the previous two seasons are predominantly muddy messes with blurry cityscapes that repeat across multiple sequences, and in a year where you can watch Dandadan, Solo Leveling, or Kaiju No. 8, One-Punch Man's cookie-cutter battles and cloudy scuffles don't even tread water in an incredibly crowded field in 2025. And think, not ten years ago, many of us were here saying that the show felt like a complete breath of fresh air in the superhero entertainment genre. Fuck me, how the mighty truly have fallen.

Runner-up: Kardashian's Hulu Show All's Fair

The career of Ryan Murphy feels destined for a YouTube essayist to do a thorough deep dive. The man is a modern John Hughes in that he has a handful of quality productions to his name (i.e., Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story, and Pose) while also being the driving force behind some absolute trash (i.e., 9-1-1, Monster, and Eat Pray Love). All's Fair obviously falls in the latter camp, and all you need to know about what makes it so bad is the show's pitch. All's Fair stars Kim Kardashian as a lawyer at a firm specializing in divorce proceedings. She breathlessly spouts case law while also being at the center of the most typical relationship squabbles, the most expected love trysts, and all of your usual workplace alliances and cliques. It's a vanity piece that was immediately dubbed the worst television series ever made, a distinction I can't wholly deny is warranted, yet it's still getting a second season.

Best Styyyyyyyyyyle: Urban Myth Dissolution Center

Every year, I find a way to include a visual novel in my proper GOTY list that no one else on the Giant Bomb moderation team has on theirs, thus skewing our team GOTY list ever so slightly. To highlight, two years back, I crowned Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo as my personal Game of the Year in 2023, which certainly cocked some eyebrows. While Urban Myth Dissolution Center didn't take the top slot on my list this year, it does court my "Best Styyyyyyyyyyle" award despite some steep competition. Honestly, I am a sucker for pixel art, and Urban Myth Dissolution Center has some incredibly expressive, detailed pixel art that made all my synapses explode. The splash screens and cinematics are also stellar, with the game's monochromatic art style breaking from time to time to make way for dramatic moments that are absolutely exquisite. Yes, the game forces you to scroll through text messages and fake social media websites to track down clues one too many times, but when you are basking in murder scenes or new locales, Urban Myth Dissolution Center makes an unmistakable impression thanks to its unrelenting sense of style. Even if you are a visual novel skeptic, I strongly recommend you check out Urban Myth Dissolution Center because, much like Paranormasight, it feels like a genuine buried treasure.

Runner-up: Lumines Arise

I know, I know, it's a real SHOCKER to hear someone call a Tetsuya Mizuguchi-led game project "stylish" and "visually stunning." Like 2018's Tetris Effect, Lumines Arise has an adrenaline-inducing pace that marries perfectly with environmental and level shifts interlaced with electronic and synthetic music. When you're able to match each level's desired pace and stack up combos to initiate those transitions, the game is a synesthesia-inspired delight. What I will mark the game down slightly for is its major legibility problem: many of its monochromatic patterns and color schemes pose visual issues. Likewise, I find the need to time-block drops in Lumines far less tactile and viscerally pleasing than rapidly playing pieces in Tetris. Nonetheless, when the game works, it's simply gorgeous.

Biggest Wasted Potential: John Cena's Heel Turn And 2025 Retirement Tour

Man, remember when John Cena turned heel? Elimination Chamber (2025) was just nine months ago, and yet it feels like eons since John Cena hit Cody Rhodes with a low blow before clobbering him with a Rolex. It was a big deal because it signalled that WWE would be ending Cena's career as a heel, or villain, rather than a face, or "good guy." And at the time, it was a risky but exhilarating prospect. Even people outside wrestling fandom were talking about Cena, formerly the biggest face in English-speaking wrestling, being a villain and doing dastardly things. It made perfect sense, given that it was the lone viable storyline to give Cena, after the man had carried the industry for the better part of twenty years. After his performance as Peacemaker in the DC Extended Universe, it seemed like WWE was going to take advantage of Cena's charisma. Well, besides asking him to smile directly at the camera while throwing neon-colored t-shirts at children. He was FINALLY going to be a bad guy, and Cena was going to relish in doing things people have been asking him to do for ages. It was going to be great!

And then either Cena or someone in creative got cold feet, pulled back on the edge for heel Cena, and pivoted the whole storyline to have Gunther go over Cena so that Gunther would look like a monster heel. I don't know about you, but I cannot think of a more limp-wristed, weak sauce way to end the career of one of the most important wrestlers in the entire industry than this, and I like Gunther. Every time we got so much as a hint of heel Cena going dark or finally cracking, WWE's writing either threw random warm bodies for him to squash with little pomp or circumstance, or neutered the whole thing so it was as impactful as a wet towel. I know it's normal to be negative about anything associated with WWE, what with it being a company run by people who associate with a fascist and have made deals with a government that murders journalists, but John Cena deserved so much better than this. Yes, Cena went over talent when it didn't make sense. Trust me, I remember when he cashed in on Rey Mysterio and the whole fiasco with The Nexus. However, even with those black marks on his record, Cena deserved to get a fully realized storyline with him going heel instead of the slapdash shotgunned bullshit he got in 2025.

Runner-up: Every Non-CoD Game Released by Microsoft in 2025

I really don't want to jump on the "lol, Microsoft sucks" train, but it's hard not to this year. However, when you stop and look at what they released this year, it's hard not to say they released or published more good games than Sony and at least tied Nintendo, the year the latter successfully launched a new console. In terms of sheer video game publishing, Xbox had a tremendous last twelve months, but has that stopped their console hardware division from shitting its guts out, or have they improved their marketing or ground game for anything that isn't Call of Duty? NOPE! Outer Worlds 2, Keeper, Ninja Gaiden 4, Tony Hawk 3+4, Doom The Dark Ages, the Oblivion Remake, South of Midnight, and Avowed all came and went, and not only didn't they move the needle on Xbox's hardware fortunes, but the fact that that many quality games from them came out and no one talked about it speaks volumes to how disasterous their push to get people to invest in Game Pass has been. Do people on Game Pass really connect the games they play on it to the Xbox brand? The question practically answers itself.

Worst Puzzle I Encountered: The Organ Stuff in 9: The Last Resort

Robert De Niro's, and that's not a typo, 9: The Last Resort is a game steeped in legend, myth, and plenty of apocrypha. It's in the lowest levels of the adventure game iceberg, so to speak, and the sales pitch for the game is pure 1990s insanity. After founding Tribeca Productions, the production outfit that De Niro would someday use to spearhead the Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro's original aspiration was to create a film wing that would let him greenlight screenplays and productions he feared would make the average studio executives bristle. Somewhere along the way, he and his producing partner, Jane Rosenthal, decided to approve a video game project titled 9: The Last Resort. The two of them fell in love with the game's concept and even agreed to pay Hollywood-scale voice-acting rates to secure celebrities and well-established voice talent to generate as much buzz as possible. The game turned out to be a considerable loss leader for De Niro, and after 9's failure, he completely shut down his company's entire game division. However, a tale of production woe isn't what gets this game my top distinction for the most bullshit puzzle I experienced this year. No, for that we need to look at the game's infamous organ puzzle.

For those not in the "know," this puzzle is notorious among classic adventure game enthusiasts. The game itself is widely considered one of the most challenging arthouse adventure games out there, with Blue Ice, a game that still has yet to be completely "solved," only a few steps above it. Part of the issue stems from the fact that every instance of the game is randomly generated, and there are inputs, codes, and objects that are entirely different between playthroughs or saves. That might not sound too bad, considering that other adventure games have employed similar design strategies to prevent players from simply following a walkthrough to see everything. However, things come to a head in 9 when you reach the game's last act, when you need to memorize symbols that relate to keys on an organ, and the cipher for those symbols depends on your game's seed. In fact, you literally need to draw a piano keyboard and map those symbols onto that drawing. Throughout the game, you'll find scraps of paper that clue you into what each symbol means, but there's no in-game journal, so you need to jot everything down in your notes. On top of that, the sheet music for every song you need to play on the organ is presented as a math equation using a bespoke, unique numbering system not seen anywhere else in the world of 9: The Last Resort. Everything you play on the organ not only needs to be painstakingly decoded using a cipher that differs between playthroughs, but it also requires an understanding of advanced linear algebra. I almost completed the game, but I unfortunately encountered a glitch that plagued early releases and, in my case, made it impossible to complete. There's also an awful gallery shooting minigame, but I wouldn't call that a puzzle.  

Runner-up: The Blue Hexagon in Jewels of the Oracle

Jewels of the Oracle is a game I feel better about if it just had more to it than a singular hub world where you interact with one of twenty-four puzzles, with little in the way of narrative framing. Some of those puzzles weren't absolute horseshit. Now, to the game's defense, it has two difficulty settings, one being easy and the other being "expert." The swings between those difficulties are incredibly wonky, with some puzzles having no difference between the two and others where the expert version is a thousand times harder. One of those is a jigsaw puzzle you need to complete where the pieces are only visible when you click and hold them; otherwise, they flip to show their blank backsides. But that blind jigsaw puzzle pales in comparison to the blue hexagon, where you need to adjust panels to display a series of symbols in a specific order. That order is determined by examining faded murals in the room where the puzzle exists, and the order of the panels on the hexagon is randomized with every attempt. You change the panels by playing around with gears that flip one to three panels. However, the real kicker is that the designers made one panel controlled by only one lever. Doing some math, 46,656 possible seeds exist, but some of those seeds are impossible to reach the intended solution, and you don't know that until after you've spent hours trying to flip things on the hexagon. That's simply awful.

Best Old Game I Discovered For The First Time In 2025: Parasite Eve

Growing up, I had heard of Parasite Eve and avoided it because of its reputation for having slight horror elements. As a kid, I was a complete whimp when it came to spooky stuff. I avoided anything with even an ounce of gore, so for decades, I avoided the game and nodded my head whenever someone mentioned it alongside Final Fantasy IX as a real highlight from Square's PS1-era library. This year, I finally decided to take the plunge, and goodness was I wrong to avoid this game for as long as I did. The combat is straightforward and highly rewarding, and the simple level and gameplay structure really cuts out the fat that plagues a lot of fifth-generation RPGs on the PS1 that I find loathsome. You really are moving from one action set piece to another, with only a few breaks to catch your breath at the police station in between. While the story does delve into science-fiction technobabble a bit too much, Aya Brea still shines as a great protagonist, and the small but memorable cast around her also radiates at times. And JESUS CHRIST was Square on something when they spent gobs of money to put in all of the fully rendered 3D cutscenes in this game. It feels like they're showing off for the sake of it, and it's just glorious.

If there's anything I could say as criticism against the game, it's the Chrysler Building. The structure of the floors being randomized instances of previous enemy encounters isn't fun, and there's little in the way of theatrics, until the very end. That aside, it's a quick, snappy, and sometimes graphic game that you can't imagine modern Square Enix ever making. And given how The Third Birthday went down, I'm not sure you'd want the current leads at Square Enix delving into the Parasite Eve well ever again. The second game has its fair share of defenders, but I'm not one of them. Gutting the turn-based tactical combat to make a shameless Resident Evil clone still doesn't sit well with me. At best, maybe Square Enix will give the original game the Remake treatment, but considering how niche Parasite Eve feels when compared to Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, that seems inconceivable. But what I can say is that OG Parasite Eve is an absolute banger!

Runner-up: The Last Story

You want to know what sounds great these days, given my advancing age? An RPG with a fully realized story, fun and rewarding combat, and clocks in under thirty hours. That sounds absolutely peachy in this day and age. The Last Story is one such game and still stands as one of Hironobu Sakaguchi's most criminally underrated games. Sure, The Last Story was a critical and commercial success at the time of its release, but it is odd to me that virtually no one, even in the RPG enthusiast circle, talks about this game anymore. The story is far from original, but the gameplay is where The Last Story really shines. The tactical combat and gradual character progression fit the game's up-tempo pace. It's stiff in some regards by today's standards, but overall, it is one of the best combat systems I have seen in a while.

Help, I'm Trapped In Sisyphean Torment Award: My Optimism For Ferrari's F1 Team

Oh boy. For context, I got hooked on F1 thanks to Michael Schumacher. Whether it be sports, racing, or wrestling, I've always been the type of person who roots for the bad guy. And man, was Michael Schumacher a glorious villain. If you pissed him off, he was more than willing to crash his car into you or even punch you in the face, but behind that moustache twirling was an actual athlete who was the indisputable best at what they aspired to do. So, ever since those glory days of having the Marlboro logo emblazoned on F1 cars, I've always been a Ferrari fan at heart, and boy, has that been rough the last twenty years. Still, this season at first felt like things would be different. Ferrari's F1 team mixed things up with management, the company signed Lewis Hamilton to a long-term racing deal, and Charles Leclerc's development showed a ton of promise, especially by the end of last season. Sure, McLaren was the rising star, and they were clear front-runners to win the Constructors' Championship. Nevertheless, Ferrari was pegged to at least keep things competitive, especially after Red Bull imploded before this season started, with Horner out and Adrian Newey jumping ship to Aston Martin. That obviously meant Ferrari was on the up and up, riiiiiiight???

Nope. The car is still a work in progress, Hamilton's regression is unfolding far faster than anyone could have anticipated, Ferrari's pits are still an atrocity, and their team principal continues to fuck up strategies as if his life depended on it. On top of that, with the significant car rule changes coming in 2026, Ferrari looks worse off than anyone could have imagined. Leclerc graced the podium just seven times, and Hamilton didn't so much as have a whiff of it. Worse, Mercedes finished second in the Constructors' Championship, and Red Bull even usurped Ferrari for third despite having only one driver who was comfortable operating their car all season. The double DQ AND the TWO double retirements this season were the cherry on top of the shit sundae, but the real kicker is the rise of Carlos Sainz in Williams. Yes, Sainz had a rough start, and it seems like Williams still doesn't have a car that isn't prone to shitting itself every two races, but you still see the bones of a respectable mid-pack team at Williams with Sainz leading the charge. Leclerc was always Ferrari's favored son. Still, if Sainz continues to flourish following the "big fish, small pond" model we have seen before, the Hamilton signing is going to continue to bite Ferrari in the ass for years to come.

Runner-up: Being A Sacramento Kings Fan

Unlike Ferrari's F1 team, I had zero expectations for the Sacramento Kings. I knew this team was cooked the minute I saw them sign Dennis Schröder as a floor spacer alongside Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan. When I saw that signing, my first reaction was: "Yeah, this seems like a disaster," and I was proven right within two weeks. But I still had hope that things would at least avoid an outright dumpster fire, and yet that's where the team stands as of the publication of this article. The team is one of the worst in the NBA and is lurching, kicking, and screaming towards another rebuild. After drafting DeAaron Fox and Tyrese Haliburton, and giving fans like me hope during the peak of the Beam Team era, things are back to square one. However, with the owner still in place and only a few upper-management changes since the last proper rebuild, there is no sign that things will go any better this time around. Welcome to Sacramento, or I should say, welcome to "Basketball Hell."

Thing I Would Have Enjoyed More If There Was Less Of It: The Combat In Silent Hill f

I want to preface this entry by saying that I like Silent Hill f. I was enthralled by the game's story and equally impressed by its ensemble of characters. I respect the narrative's overall metaphor, its use of Silent Hill's spirit as a concept, and the game's multiple endings, which provide additional contexts and lenses for further perspectives. It has an incredible sense of atmosphere and is something you utterly owe yourself to play at least two to three times. My issue with the game, and it's why it narrowly missed my GOTY list, is that the game does not earn the amount of time you engage with its combat. The early comparisons with Souls or From titles by some reviewers were entirely unwarranted because, for the most part, you're murdering everything in front of you with no sense of difficulty until you butt up against the game's boss encounters. And unlike your typical soulslike, there's not a ton of variety to the combat, with you employing the same moves and combos to lurch from one location to another. Then the game gets hard, and even though it gets "easier" with each subsequent playthrough, it doesn't get easy enough.

What drove me up the wall the most was how much the game nudges you to play it more than once, and yet how little it does to make the actual act of replaying it fun. That you're still slumming it against the same generic encounters in the same tried and true locations just rubbed me the wrong way. At some point, I got fed up with it and decided to switch to the game's Cinematic Mode to speed things up. But even then, sure, you can skip levels like the school after your first playthrough, but with there being special notes that are absolutely worth tracking down scattered about, I still was checking everything at least twice with each playthrough. Which, practically speaking, meant I was also encountering almost every battle with every single ending. I eventually got into a groove with the combat as I neared the penultimate ending. However, even then, I still didn't find the combat itself and the game's resource economy interesting. It was just the same ol' same ol'. Again, the story is heart-stopping and captivating; I wish playing it wasn't a slog or so repetitive.

Runner-up: Legend Of Legaia's Combat

Before the site reboot, one of the most successful blogs I wrote on Giant Bomb in 2025 related to a retrospective on Legend of Lagaia, a largely forgotten B-tier RPG on the PS1. As I learned while writing blogs for the game and streaming it, people love overlooked PS1-era RPGs, and the more obscure, the better. However, my overall takeaway from the game hasn't changed: Legend of Legaia's combat is interesting at first blush, but not enough to sustain a 30+ hour RPG. The fighting game-inspired combo system is fun at the start and near the end when you are organically exploring combat synergies with different inputs. Unfortunately, there's a real awkward middle phase where you feel like you're stuck repeating the same combos with characters that fail to progress noticeably, and the other mechanics are in stasis. Nonetheless, the heart of the combat is more than decent, but there's no denying that if the game were ten hours shorter, the entire experience would be miles better.

Worst Thing I Saw To The Very End When I Should Have Quit Far Earlier: Final Fantasy Type-0

For long-time Giant Bomb users, rest assured, I will return to penning mega blogs about Final Fantasy games. My 2025 Final Fantasy "projects" revolved around two games in the much-loved RPG series. The first, Final Fantasy IV, or Final Fantasy II if you're old and not Japanese, is a proverbial legend and established much of the series' identity, as well as its narrative and gameplay hallmarks. The other game was Final Fantasy Type-0. Look, I take some wild swings in what I play in my free time. Now, let's not beat around the bush. Type-0 is a bad game. I'd even hazard to call it one of the most unplayable games to bear the franchise's namesake. The motion blur whenever you're trying to do even the most basic actions is overwhelming, the game looks like absolute trash even with its HD "remaster," and the characters are all the worst anime cookie-cutter characters to have ever graced the Final Fantasy series. So, it isn't good. In fact, it's really, really bad, but I knew that going in, and that's not the reason why this game wins my award.

While I knew the game wasn't good, I wasn't prepared for how long Type-0 took to roll credits. The game has a long, drawn-out, and empty overworld that is awful to explore, even when you get the game's airship, and the mission structure between the story segments pads things out to an excruciating degree. Your choices during the game's downtime boil down to chatting with NPCs or party members and usually having nothing to show for it, or taking on missions that are often leagues above the difficulty of the main story and needing to get more involved with the game's awful action combat. And despite initially being a portable game for the PSP, it's still a 30+ hour video game with a final dungeon and a boss gauntlet to boot! But where Type-0 really goes one step above your normal turd sandwich is when you finish the game, and it offers you a New Game+ option. Sounds normal, right? Well, here's the catch. You need to play New Game+ for the story to actually make sense because there are whole parts and swaths of the story that don't have any context until you play the game a second time—for example, knowing who the true puppet master is driving the entire plot of the story? That's locked behind New Game+! Why does the initial villain turn to the dark side? Knowing the answer to that question is also locked behind New Game+! And then there are entire characters and party members whose backgrounds and storylines don't present themselves AT ALL unless you play the game a second time! And before you ask, your second playthrough lets you keep some of your progress from your first playthrough. Unfortunately, you have to play all of the missions in the same environments, with the same goals and enemy encounters, with the same characters, but with just a few additional cutscenes thrown in here and there to break up the tedium. It's absolutely criminal stuff if you ask me!

Runner-up: Monster: The Ed Gein Story (Netflix)

Netflix's Monster anthology series has always been divisive. The Jeffrey Dahmer series, which started this "franchise," felt like true crime exploitation on steroids. It uncomfortably re-enacted archival footage of Dahmer's prosecution, which is incredibly icky, but at the very least had some stellar performances. The Ed Gein series has all of those problems, none of the upside, and some new issues to boot! For whatever reason, Monster: The Ed Gein Story has meta commentary from actors playing fake and real people being interviewed for a fake in-universe documentary. That's right, a series about an actual serial killer took a note from The Office, and it's the most artificial glad-handing garbage you'll ever see. That's because the meta commentary attempts to discuss society's obsession with true crime and how Gein's murder rampage, and its unrelenting coverage on US news channels, influenced Hollywood and pop culture. The actual effect is that it comes across as a shameless way for Monster to deflect the criticism that it is exploitative schlock and try to blame it on society instead. It's not the worst thing I saw in 2025, and at the very least, it's only eight episodes long, but it's an entirely groan-inducing, unfun streaming experience from top to bottom.

Biggest Menace: Bakushin On The Fucking Jukebox

She's on the goddamn jukebox almost every single time I boot the game up, and I don't think I have gone a single session playing Umamusume: Pretty Derby without having to listen to her say her name in song form at least three goddamn times. And before you call bullshit, everyone who has played Umamusume has had the same thing happen to them. It was funny the first five times, and now I'm just sick of it. I also hate how the leitmotif for her theme song is repeated for a handful of other horse girls. You can turn off the jukebox entirely, but the hub area sounds completely sterile without any background music. Plus, am I going to deny Haru Urara singing her version of "If You're Happy and You Know It?" Furthermore, Bakushin is one of my most consistent winners across a variety of track types. So much so that I fully support studding her in the world of Umamusume. Therefore, I have zero desire to remove her from my rotation entirely. For now, I guess I'll just have to scare Bakushin into not annoying me by taking her on a tour of the local glue factory, so she remembers to stay the fuck away from the jukebox.

Runner-up: Banandium Chips In Donkey Kong Bananza

So, I preface this by saying that you can have an entirely peachy time playing Donkey Kong Bananza without 100%-ing it. That's a much better way to approach the game than having to interact with the Banandium Chips, which will cause you to farm purple scorpions or complete all the game's challenge rooms. The latter of those aren't impossible, but some of them are real pains in the ass if you haven't already done your homework in mopping up your upgrades and other main campaign-based promotions. What I really was not a fan of is how much of your time is spent on genuine grinding to use one in-game currency to spend on another one. It's just annoying busy work if you ask me. Oddly, Nintendo always seems to have these sorts of in-game systems that block 100%-ing their games, and, to their defense, there's something nostalgic about it. But that doesn't stop the Banandium Chips from being an absolute menace.