The 2025 Moosies Video Game Awards Part 1.

Another year has come and gone, and another year that felt like it went by even faster than all the ones before it. Back here again, trying to sum up the last year in video games, knowing that's a subject I could write a whole essay on, just as much as it's something I don't want to touch at all. So, I'm not going to sugarcoat. 2025 was a bad year for video games.

Now, that's not me saying the video games were bad, I can think of at least ten more than good enough for a list, and a BUNCH of others I wish I played, but haven't gotten around to yet. It was a bad year in the sense that the already precarious industry around games feels like it is on the verge of collapsing in on itself. Studios closing, publishers being consumed whole, and worst of all people losing their jobs. This has become the norm over the last handful of years and it simply isn't getting better.

On top of all that, now there's a bigger push than ever for the use of “generative AI” in game creation, and I'm just sick of it! I don't even like calling it “AI,” because it's not! It's Slop! It's garbage! It's... I don't have the words to properly convey how it makes me feel while maintaining my usual professionalism, so let me go at this from another direction.

Video games are art. Art. They're projects of passion that come from people who pour their hearts and souls into what they create. Artists, writers, animators, musicians, voice actors, level designers, sound designers, game mechanic designers, the people who work on actual AI (as in the what controls non-player characters and the like), even coders. I can't possibly list every single role that goes into making a video game, but you get the point. These people do things every day of their lives that the Slop generating machines could never do in a thousand years. They're creative, and they create, not regurgitate.

Anyone who thinks that any of those roles could be replaced with a machine is either out of their mind, or so consumed with greed and so lacking in basic human decency that they shouldn't be let anywhere near any art form. People who look at art created by people for other people to enrich their lives, and see only dollar signs. People like that are the reason why the Industry of Video Games is in the dire place it is today, and if any sort of collapse does come to pass, it will be their fault and their fault alone.

Writing this made me feel genuinely depressed, so I'm going to refocus on what I'm supposed to be here for in the first place: The Moosies! My yearly awards extravaganza, where I go into exhausting detail about why I arbitrarily ranked ten games in the order I did, while giving out silly awards to other games that didn't quite make the cut.

Except this year... I certainly have enough games for a top ten, but not really enough to fill out those other spaces. At least if we're only looking at games that actually released in 2025. So, those gaps will be filled with...well, not much. But still some stuff! While this is still big enough to split The Moosies into two parts, it's definitely a bit lesser than previous years. Still a lot more than most people write, so don't complain!

To head off anyone wondering why a specific game isn't mentioned here, know that I did not have the means, or the time to play every game I wanted to. In particular, I bought Hades II and Ball x Pit literally one week before hitting publish on this, so those two obviously I didn't have the time to properly evaluate. Also, Sword of the Sea I did play, and while I enjoyed it (it's visually beautiful), I forgot to write anything about it. Oops.

Here's a list of specific games that are potentially up my alley in one way or another, and might seem like conspicuous absences:

Ghost of Yōtei, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Deltarune Chapters 3 & 4, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Silent Hill f, Split Fiction, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, Ninja Gaiden 4, that other Ninja Gaiden game (and the Shinobi one while I'm at it), Baby Steps, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, Eternal Strands, REMATCH (what if Rocket League had people instead of cars?), RoboCop Rogue City: Unfinished Business, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (PS5 version), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl (PS5 version), Avowed (I think no PS5 version?), Doom the Dark Ages (not particularly interested in this one but listed because I've enjoyed the previous ones), Sonic Racing Crossworlds (it has Ichiban, Joker Persona 5, and Hatsune Miku, so I'm sure I'll play it eventually), Mario Kart World (I bought a Switch 2 but not the Mario Kart bundle, and I ain't paying $80 for Mario Kart), Mafia: The Old Country, Kirby Air Riders, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Hell is Us, Cronos: The New Dawn, Slime Rancher 2 (full release out of early access), The Outer Worlds 2 (I dunno if this one is supposed to be good, and frankly I didn't like the first one that much, but I'm listing it here anyway), and I'm sure umpteen other games I've never heard of but would enjoy if I knew of them and had the opportunity. Probably mostly Steam/itch games. Maybe if the Steam Machine is affordable I can start playing more games of that ilk.

I went through the list of video games from 2025 on Wikipedia, and this is what I ended up with. I probably could cut a bunch of those, but the longer the list became the funnier it was to me.

Also, as much as I have really tried to stop doing the “Todd Howard Presents the Most Disappointing Game of the Year” bit and only focus on things I actually like, I do have to mention one more game. Since it is a Life is Strange-like, I played Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. It's pretty bad. No awards for that.

And I'm aware these weren't 2025 games, but please know 1000x Resist is on my list of games to get to eventually, trust me. That, and despite it being on PS+, literally installed to my SSD, I still have not played Lies of P. Soon! I promise! Well, in 2026. Hopefully.

Enough lollygagging, time for the awards! Without further ado...

10. Most Puzzling Game of the Year: Blue Prince.

If it was not for the fact that I did genuinely enjoy most of my time with this game, I could just as easily say it was the most frustrating game of the year. This is a game so deep with mystery and puzzles that I know, even though I saw credits, put twenty hours into it, I only scratched the surface. There is so much more to this game that I will never see because I don't think I could bring myself to ever step back into that manor again. Ever walk through those endless doors and unceasing rooms again.

But I also keep thinking about this game, months and months later. Those hallways, those empty rooms with doors leading to rooms leading to doors, leading to rooms, they haunt me. Blue Prince isn't actually a horror game, but it may as well be. No zombies lurking these halls like in Resident Evil, no deep seated traumas made manifest like Silent Hill, no Beached Things still tied to this Earth like Death Stranding.

The only horror is that of dealing with Euclidean Geometry, and having to start a new day because I put a room with the door on the wrong side, blocking myself in. For as fascinating as combining this sort of puzzle solving with needing to place the rooms, and the rogue-like-lite structure, it infuriated me. More than any other game I've played in years, I found myself pushed right up to the edge of giving up. “One more run,” I'd say, and then, somehow, miraculously, I'd make a breakthrough. Another discovery, whether it was a new room, item, or clue, but something would draw me in, keep me going for another day or two. Real life days, in this case.

It's hard to sum up my feelings on Blue Prince. I kind of love this game because it's not quite like anything else. Yet I never want to play it again. I can't stop thinking about those rooms, those doors... But I never want to open another ever again.

So, it's Number Ten on my list. Not the most prestigious spot, but I knew it had to be here regardless.

Blue Prince also wins:

• Roomiest game of the year.

• Euclidean Geometry of the year.

• “Phoenix Down” moment of the year (blue prints).

• Most frustrating game I couldn't stop playing until I finished it of the year.

Game that didn't quite make the cut: Monster Hunter Wilds.

Every year there's always at least one game that I did like, but it doesn't quite make the cut. This year, it's Monster Hunter Wilds. The thing with this game is, like World before it, at its best it's a ton of fun. It feels great, the monsters have really cool designs and are fun to fight. Enough of the armor and weapons look cool enough to fit my needs, and there's a lot of technical improvements over World. No more loading between camp and the open world, and even when the game does have to load, they're fast loads now!

The problem is the game just didn't hold my attention. I kept playing World for weeks and weeks, maybe even months after release, whereas Wilds...I kinda ran out of desire to keep hunting after a bit. Why? Honestly, the game was too easy. I didn't have any drive to work for better gear because I didn't feel like I needed it. I didn't have any sort of super hard monster to work my way toward fighting, and (most of) my friends fell off the game really quick too, so we moved on.

It's got a great core, and I'd like to go back to it at some point, but we haven't reached that point yet. Certainly didn't help that Capcom fumbled the post-release content so badly. Too little, with too long of gaps between. Especially baffling considering they handled the post-release of World a lot better, at least so far as I can remember.

Assuming they do a big DLC like Iceborne, hopefully that'll be the moment Wilds really comes into its own. I mean, a bummer that it'll take a $40 expansion to make this $70 game work long term, but that's video games!

At least the Palicos are still cute, as are the new Seikrets. Big rideable dino bird friends.

9. Game so good I kept playing it even after it crashed and deleted my save: The Rogue Prince of Persia.

Sometimes a game is so good you keep playing it even when it feels like the game doesn't want you to, huh? Genuinely! When I started playing it, I was having a lot of fun. It feels great, the story was good enough to at least hold my attention, it looks nice, and the rogue-like-lite-ness of it had a good loop.

Played about five or six hours, really enjoying it, when the game suddenly crashed during the extravagant “you died” screen (there's particle effects). Now, if I had known what was about to happen, and remembered how cloud saves work on PS5, I could have saved my save, and not run into any more issues. But...I didn't! So I turned the game back on, and it went straight into the new game/fresh save sequence. And when I tried to see if I could get an old save off the cloud...it had already uploaded this new one in its place.

In that moment, my feeling was, “well I guess I'm never playing this game again!” And I didn't...for a few days. But I kept thinking I should go back...so eventually I did. This time armed with the knowledge that crashes are possible, I took some precautions. Turned off automatic save uploads, meaning I'd have to make sure to do it manually, but at least now I had more control. Also, I made sure to copy in game after each run, to give myself a little more redundancy. Doing that, and uploading my save after each full session with the game, I felt confident that I could overcome any more technical issues.

Which all turned out to be unnecessary because the game never crashed again! Obviously this is the ideal outcome, but it did make me feel like I was being paranoid. Also, despite losing about six hours of progress toward unlocks and the story, with the knowledge and skills I'd attained in that time, I was able to get back to where I was in less than half the time. That felt good! So, all that aside, what is it about this particular Prince of Persia that's so fun?

Most of it comes down to the feel of the game. There's a flow to it that is absolutely incredible, and it's worth playing if only for that. The Prince of Persia series has always been about movement, so it's kind of the most important thing to nail here. Honestly, one of the strengths of the franchise is that each new interpretation is willing to do its own thing, and not rely on iteration, so Rogue feels very different from last year's Lost Crown, which was very different from the 2008 reboot, which was different from the Sands of Time trilogy, etc.

The biggest thing that leaped out to me with Rogue Prince, and this is something I don't think I've seen in any other game, is that you can wall run on the backgrounds. In this sidescrolling game, it actually matters if there is a wall in the forefront of the background (is that an oxymoron?). He can't wall run forever, but it's enough to help cross gaps, or get to otherwise out of reach platforms or other objects above. Not only that but it helps maintain momentum, which ties into that flow I mentioned earlier. Part of that is just an element of player skill, getting used to how the levels work and the objects and obstacles flow with each other, but the Prince moves and jumps so much faster after the momentum meter is maxed!

This game feels great from the outset (though I did remap some controls, but that's what options are for), but it feels even greater when he's really zooming. Leap up to a pole, time the jump perfectly to blast off, run along a wall, leap down and slam into an enemy, but keep running, dashing over spikes, dodging enemies, it's fantastic.

So far as the time part of Prince of Persia, here it's just the premise for the rogue-like-lite structure. No rewinding time, slow motion, or any of that in the game part of this game. It could have been neat to try to incorporate something like that in, but I think the game as is works, so perhaps meddling with time would only have detracted from the core experience.

And being a rogue-like-lite, it's far more dependent on procedural generation, and repeating things than Lost Crown, but that just serves to make it feel like its own game (despite its Dead Cells roots being very obvious). Overall I think that stuff works, but if I had to pick between the two the entirely bespoke and focused nature of Lost Crown still appeals to me more. Those optional challenges in that game were so tremendously brutal, I still shudder to think about climbing up that mountain! In a good way, mind you, but sheesh.

A lot of games in this genre feel like they're meant to be played, and replayed forever. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there still playing Spelunky, or Binding of Isaac. I...don't think Rogue Prince is really meant to have that much replay value, I certainly didn't play too much after reaching the end of the story (which there is a narrative conclusion). But I enjoyed my time with it!

It might not be a timeless classic, but The Rogue Prince of Persia is a great game, and one that I think is well worth being on a top ten list. Also, yes, I know, it was an early access game in 2024, but 2025 was the full release, so that's what I'm counting. Listen, the way things are going, I may end up having to incorporate older games into the top ten in future years.

The Rogue Prince of Persia also wins:

• Rogue-like-lite of the year.

• Wall running of the year.

• Kicking enemies into spikes of the year.

• Momentum meter of the year.

• Parkour of the year.

8. Shlooter of the Year: Borderlands 4.

Borderlands, back, and better than ever? Honestly? I think so! This series always had a special place in my heart if not as literally the first looter shooter, then at least the first one I played. Destiny may have been the one to eat up the majority of my time over the years, and Warframe may be the one that gobbles that time these days, but Borderlands beat them to the punch!

I know, it's not really a fair comparison, because even Borderlands 4 isn't going for exactly the same thing. I'm sure Gearbox Software would be more than happy if I kept playing Borderlands 4 every week, and bought all the DLC, but this isn't that sort of perpetual forever game. There's certainly stuff to be repeated after finishing the campaign, and honestly there's still stuff that I would like to go back and do, but it was refreshing to play this sort of game again.

A game with a loot chase but one designed to be finished and moved on from. What a novel idea! How about a game long enough to have some good meat on its bones, but not so long it takes half the year to finish? Who'd have thunk it??

In all seriousness, Borderlands as a franchise has really had its ups and downs. The first game felt new and exciting at the time, then 2 played better in most ways, but the story and writing were obnoxious. Pre-Sequel, I'm the sort of sicko that actually liked that better than 2, so that was the previous high water mark for me. Tales From the Borderlands is weird to include because it's a different sort of game, but still my favorite of the Telltale games. Then 3... 3 was fun to play, but the story all but unbearable, and definitely too long for its own good. Wonderlands was...fine, but far from wonderful. Didn't spend much time with it.

4...derlands, on the other Border-hands, I think is actually my new favorite of the bunch. I could go on and on about the different gameplay systems, new concepts (weapons that are combinations of different manufacturers with combined perks), the mostly seamless open world (there's corridors to hide loading screens between the major areas), or how good the new characters are. But honestly...it's kind of the writing and the story that set this one apart from the rest.

It's...good? Like, not just Borderlands good, good without needing a qualifier. The main characters are charming, and funny. There are jokes! That made me laugh! And my friend who I was playing it with. One bit in particular we both thought was funnier than the entirety of Borderlands 3. There are compelling characters in this game with their own arcs that aren't necessarily vital to the main A Plot, but add to the overall Story of this game. And it even does a great job of making the player characters feel like they're contributing to the story. I don't mean that they do things, I mean they converse with the other characters. ON TOP OF THAT, it even does a good job of changing up which character is the one talking if you're in co-op. I'm not sure exactly how it determines who talks, I think for a lot of side stuff it depends on who gets there first, but I don't think that was always the case?

But also, let's be real here, the combat is still the most important thing, and thankfully it's a ton of fun. I've only played Amon so far, but even just in his skill trees there's a lot of variety in how to build him. I focused on trying to make him tanky, with his big energy shield, and creating another big shield to (at least initially) block damage. Just blocking damage gets boring though, so how about throwing that shield around, bouncing it between enemies like Captain America? Plus it lights enemies on fire! And what if that other shield was a circle, but inside the circle froze enemies, and outside lit them on fire? (It might be the other way around, it's been a bit since I played).

I could have gone down the route of throwing energy spears, or whipping chains around, but I was really happy with my build. Definitely not the most powerful “meta” build or whatever, but I had fun! And that's what matters.

Same thing with the weapons, I don't know what the actual best combos of manufacturers, perks, and damage types are, but I had fun with them. Part of the appeal of Borderlands has always been that it's goofy and silly, so of course I enjoy when bullets ricochet around, causing explosions all over the place. Not all of them I end up loving, guns that you throw out as a grenade instead of reloading always sounds more fun on paper than in practice, for example. But when the game randomly assembles so many different weapons, there's always a bit of excitement to see what the next one will be. Even though a lot of them are very similar.

The changes to grenades are cool too. Now they're “ordnance,” and included in that slot are things like rocket launchers, and other heavy weapons. Instead of using a finite ammo that you refill with pickups, they recharge after use. Makes me a lot more inclined to pull out a ridiculous giant gun in the middle of combat, especially when my character has skills that play off doing damage with them.

I should probably just move on, before this devolves too deep into explaining mechanics. The point being, aside from a few technical shortcomings (that have hopefully been patched out?), I really don't have any issues with this game. They finally did the thing, and made a genuinely great Borderlands game. It's a ton of fun, the story was enjoyable, and absolutely one of my top ten games of the year. If anything I wish it could be higher, but that's how these things go!

Also, I love the height differences in the playable characters. Amon is so comically tall compared to everyone else, and I got a lot of enjoyment from that.

Borderlands 4 also wins:

• Procedural loot of the year.

• Co-op campaign of the year.

• Most surprisingly funny game of the year.

• Biggest height differences in player characters of the year.

• Captain America shield bouncing of the year.

Live Service Games Update.

Everyone's favorite part of the Moosies, where I fit in something about games that I just can't stop playing. Of course, I say that when very conspicuously, there is a certain absence that I shall NOT mention by name, because I stopped! I got out! I'm free!

Instead, something about the games I do continue to play!

Helldivers II.

In 2024, this game had a bit of a roller coaster effect. It started strong, and my friends and I loved it, but fell off because the balance changes were very much of the “no fun” variety. Still, they turned it around by the end of the year, and I'm happy to report it had no such dips in 2025!

That's not to say we didn't take breaks from it, but those breaks were because we had other things to do, not because of the game itself. In addition to keeping the overall balance fun, there were some good events across the year. Notably repelling a full scale invasion of Super Earth itself, which introduced a new level type (Mega City), and the introduction of caves on Terminid (bug) planets. If you thought the bugs were brutal out on open land, try going into dark tunnels! Never mind the Hive Lords, sand worms so massive my jaw literally dropped the first time I saw one rise out of the sand. I was right next to it, and couldn't tilt the camera high enough to see the top of it! The first time we managed to kill one as a team was a really fun moment too.

So, in other words, Helldivers II is in a really solid place. I wish it ran better, but at least the game feels like it earns its framerate drops. And there's only so much that can be asked of a game engine that doesn't receive official support from its original creators anymore, sadly.

Marvel Rivals.

Definitely picked up how much I played this over the year. Not really ever on my own (or rather, with randos), but with a friend. Playing mostly matches against bots, but we do it just for fun, rather than trying to really be competitive. The bots put up a decent fight on Hard, at least. Not much to say, just that it's a fun game! And I'm glad that they managed to go a full year without making some baffling change to the game, or the balance that ruins it. They're certainly on track to keep this game worth playing longer than Overwatch was, so here's hoping! I would also say, if you keep up with the events, even playing casually like me, the game is fairly generous with giving free skins or currency to get skins. Not spent a dime on the game, and I've gotten some stuff!

Warframe.

Ah, Warframe, the big one. Going by hour count, this was the game I spent the most time with in 2025, and well deserved. Unlike its competitor that I won't name, Digital Extremes seems to almost exclusively make the right choices at every turn, and the game benefits from it. Almost as if it's made by people who actually play and love the game itself, who care about both it and the game's audience! What a concept!

Warframe just had its biggest update of the year: The Old Peace. Not as big as 2024's 1999, but certainly pretty good in the story department. And with it came the fourth new Warframe added in 2025: Uriel. The devil frame, his demonic minions fly around messing with enemies, and one of his abilities lets him Bullet Jump forever! Or, at least as long as the skill's duration, but it's pretty long.

Still, my favorite 2025 Warframe was Temple. The glam rocker with a living, flame spewing guitar (named Lizzie) and a time it to the beat mechanic that I really dig. They rock! And of course I need to mention Oraxia the spider queen, and the humble mushroom boy Nokko. His idle animation where he spins around with his sister (fellow Warframe Yareli) is adorable.

I know Warframe is far from perfect, there's definitely things about the core feel of the game that I wish were tighter, a little weightier. There's so much cruft built up around the edges that the game can feel like it's collapsing under its own weight at times, and so much content remains relevant that I can only imagine how impenetrable it seems to a newcomer. Partly because it felt impenetrable when I penetrated it, years ago!

But it's fun. It's a great game to spend time goofing around with friends in, and a good game to play while working through podcasts. I'm happy to say it's my new “Ole Reliable.” And unlike a certain other, now unreliable, I think I'll actually be able to keep relying on it!

Here's to another year of Warframe, and hoping those wacky Canadians at DE keep up the great work.

Fortnite.

Listen, this game is dumb, I don't have anything meaningful to say. It's the sort of thing where I keep wanting to never spend money on it again (I haven't since Miku was added), and really only play it to goof around with friends. Hey, it's stupid, it's funny, and there's fun to be had.

But know it's on the knife's edge and I will cut it out if they go too far.

7. Parisian Holiday of the Year: Pokémon Legends Z-A.

Pokémon! They're back! But did they ever go away? Don't worry about that. Anyway, of course after I had such a delightful time with my Poké-Pals in Lumiose City this game was going to be on my top ten. Just a question of where on the list, and I'll be honest, I'm a little sad I couldn't find a way to get it much higher than this.

At the end of the day, it was kind of the game shooting itself in the foot with how cheap some aspects of it feel that held it back. How plain so much of the city feels if you look too close, and the complete and utter lack of voice acting is so out of place given how well these games sell, and how popular Pokémon is as a multi-media juggernaut. The anime has had good voice acting since the 90s! On the flip side, I know I've said before that basically anything would be better than the complete silence from these characters...but I need to take that back. After recent events with a certain game I won't give the dignity of mentioning by name, and an anime dub using Slop-Generated voices...

I can say with confidence that I prefer the awkward silence over that Slop. Please, no one let Game Freak know about this stuff, we can't let them ruin Pokémon with that!

That's out of the way, so let me get to why I like this game so much. It's just a pleasant game. For many people out there, “cozy” games have gotten really popular over the years. I've never really taken to many of them (I feel like Slime Rancher is the only exception), in large part because most of these so-called “cozy” games are some combination of farming and small business simulators. I don't really have any interest in either of those things!

To me, the type of “cozy” game I want is something more like Pokémon Legends Z-A. A game where I can stroll around a walkable city with my Feraligatr Homer, stopping by cafés to waste away the afternoon with my Umbreon Umberto, just admiring the view. Taking a few pics not because I can do anything with them, but because it's fun. And to help remember the good times with my animal friends.

Of course I can't forget to mention the fashion! Game Freak knew their game in anime Paris had to have good fashion, and they delivered. Not only is there a pretty wide array of different styles to pick from, none of it is gender locked, which I greatly appreciate. Yes, most of the clothing is fairly gender neutral in its design anyway, but I respect any game that doesn't put such arbitrary limits on who can wear what. Specifically when they let you put more feminine clothes (like skirts) on masculine characters, but do it without it feeling like a joke, or creepy. It's like the old saying, boys will be girls! That's how it goes, right?

French Femboy Fashion... C'est magnifique! Pairs well with my Sylveon Eevelyn!

For the game part to match the cozy, getting into Pokémon battle royale bouts is more my speed than farming crops. As relaxing and cozy as taking a morning stroll or spending an afternoon at a café can be, fighting my way through a Battle Zone in the dead of night is tense and exciting! The thrill of getting the jump on an opponent is only matched by slipping up, and needing to recover when they get the opening hit on me. Combine that with the new real-time combat, the fact that positioning genuinely matters, and it leads to a lot of edge of my seat battles.

Yes, really! Maybe it's because I haven't spent the past twenty plus years playing every Pokémon game, maybe it's because I'm bad at remembering all the match-ups, or maybe it's because I intentionally tried not to over-level my Pokémon... But this game can get tough. Not as hard as I remember Legends Arceus being, if I'm honest, but there were definitely a decent number of story fights that took me multiple attempts. Sometimes just a matter of me making better decisions in the fight, but a lot of the time I had to reexamine my team, and even with the match-ups in my favor, it wasn't always a sure thing.

Never mind the Wild Zones, which take the peaceful parks of Lumiose and turn them into deadly battlefields! Okay, not deadly, but the wild Pokémon have no mercy. They see a sixteen year old trainer creeping up on them and retaliate with fireballs and Hyper Beams. They have tasted human blood before and they want to taste it again!

Or maybe they just like to fight, who can say?

The story and characters were all pretty good too. Taunie, Naveen, and Lida were all good friends to my player character, as was AZ and the various battle rivals I fought and befriended along the way. Nothing amazing, but good enough to keep me wanting to see more. And, I'll say, good enough that I want to see what's in the expansion (both story and game play, I mean). Which I know has been out for a while as of when I publish this, but you know how these things go.

I guess what I'm getting at, with why I liked this game so much, is it really appeals to two different fantasies. One is the obvious fantasy of being in the Pokémon world. Having all these adorable and cool Pokémon pals, getting into incredible battles, and unearthing a millennium spanning story about an ancient super weapon (genuinely what the plot is about). Whether it's from playing Blue as a kid, or watching so much of the anime back then, this world has long been one that ignited my imagination.

That other fantasy, well it's just having a chance to live in a better world. Living in a walkable city that's both filled with beautiful old architecture, but also modernized to meet the needs of both humans and Pokémon. A world where people are free to express themselves however they want, and where just about any conflict or disagreement can be solved with a fun Pokémon battle!

Not that it's a world free from issues, if the unhinged dialog from NPCs is any indication, but hey. Nothing's perfect! Except maybe the soundtrack, that's incredible. And so dynamic, it changes instrumentation as you walk around the city!

Okay, moving on now.

Pokémon Legends Z-A also wins:

• Animal companions of the year.

• Battle Royale of the year.

• Most dynamic soundtrack of the year.

• Fashion simulator of the year.

• Femboy simulator of the year.

• Wildest, most unhinged, most profound, and most deranged NPC dialog of the year.

• Fist bumps of the year.

• Overzealous friend/rival of the year: Taunie.

• Fashion designer of the year: Naveen.

• Dancer of the year: Lida.

• Tallest/Oldest man of the year: AZ.

• Detective of the year: Emma.

• Legitimate Businessman of the year: Corbeau.

• Cutest real time photo mode of the year.

• Cafés of the year.

• Anime Paris of the year.

6. Hawaiian Holiday of the Year: Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

Ahoy! It be the pirating adventure of the year, it be! Avast me timbers!

Ahem.

I know I am a sucker for the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series, so I'm very much in the position where they need to release multiple stinkers in a row before I'll stop playing them. Take everything I have to say with a grain of salt because I know that while I certainly do criticize the bad ones, and there are definitely some stinkers in this series, know that I am in deep on this franchise in a way that makes me very partial to it.

That said, I really liked this one! It's ridiculous, and at times very stupid, but in the fun way! In continuing the trend of the world of Like a Dragon becoming more and more cartoonish with each release, Pirate Yakuza establishes not only that piracy is rampant in the waters around scenic Hawai'i, but that they exclusively use olde timey sailing ships! Washed ashore on a remote island and with plot convenient amnesia, fan favorite Goro Majima finally gets to be the sole lead of his own game. Why was he in Hawai'i? To oversee the disposal of nuclear waste that a cult was stockpiling in Infinite Wealth, naturally.

Again, I know that the particulars of how this franchise handles its storytelling, both in the main narrative, and its sillier side stuff is tuned to my wavelength, so me saying the story is good is going to make some people roll their eyes. But it is! It's emotional! Not story of the year, not by a long shot, but I think it's an overall better narrative than Infinite Wealth had the year before, if only because it doesn't run out of steam two thirds of the way in.

And the pirate ship combat was honestly more fleshed out than I was expecting. Yes, in a very real way it is kind of just the same thing Assassin's Creed III and IV did over a decade ago, only with sillier options like laser cannons. But for a gimmick that probably won't return in another game (at least not to this extent), I think it's really fleshed out for Like a Dragon. It's fun!

Sure, it's repetitive, but that's this series. Part of how RGG gets the games out at the clip they do is reusing stuff, whether that's combat animations, or just general quest structures. I'm sure that would be a negative to a lot of people, but it's kind of...reassuring to me? Or...reliable?

Let me put it this way. To a lot of people, their comfort games are “cozy games.” They go do their farming in Stardew, or manage a small business or whatever. For me? The comfort games are Yakuza. I want to be strolling down the weirdly detailed alleys that RGG creates, getting into gang fights. I want to be doing the stupidest side quests imaginable, and utterly baffled by the unhinged things put into these games. That, to me, is comfort gaming. I just prefer to do a Heat Action where Majima swings around his ship shooting a single shot pistol about seven times in a row over gardening.

It's good to have an old reliable that I know exactly what I'm getting when I sign up for it. There will be some unique minigames, some gimmicks they only use in one game, or maybe get tossed back in for another, but otherwise it's kind of the same thing again and again. It's comforting. And, yes, I realize my personal hypocrisy for saying I don't want to play a small business management sim when I will then turn around and happily spend hours managing a small business as a minigame in Like a Dragon. I think of that as the same way I think of fishing. No interest in playing a dedicated fishing game, but I will spend a weird amount of time fishing in something like Red Dead Redemption II, or Final Fantasy XV. Or even in Yakuza!

So, that's where I'm at with this series. They're my comfort games.

Which...isn't to say I just mindlessly buy all of them at launch. I'm well aware of the controversy around the remake of 3, and it casting someone (for legal reasons I will say) “accused” of sexual assault. It's particularly egregious considering the number of times Kiryu and other Yakuza protagonists have gone out of their way to protect people from crimes like that. Never mind how Pierre Taki's likeness and voice were cut from Judgment, after release in Japan over drug use. Which I think was a huge over-reaction to something not that bad, but that's neither here nor there. Also not me saying I'll never play it, if it hits PS+ or something I probably will, but I ain't spending seventy of me golden pirate doubloons on that. I replayed 3 via the remaster a couple years ago, and that's a very good version of that game. Play that instead.

Anyway, I had a great time with Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. Not the best in the series, and to some extent I may have even put it higher on this list than it might deserve. Went back and forth between it and Legends Z-A, but ultimately went with Pirate Yakuza because it has voice acting. Genuinely, that was the deciding factor. But it's a comfort game for me, and in this day and age there's nothing wrong with celebrating that sort of thing.

Here's to hoping that Stranger than Heaven, and the next main Like a Dragon can actually tell a good story from start to finish. Also that former Yakuza director Nagoshi starting a new studio to make Gang of Dragon basically the same thing is good too! Good time to be a fan of this very particular type of game.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii also wins:

• Swashbuckling of the year.

• KEITH of the year.

• Finisher moves of the year.

• Tiger of the year: Goro.

• Old console inside a video game of the year.

• Minigames of the year.

• Waving of the year.

• Opening credits of the year.

• Ship combat/sailing of the year.

• BEAR of the year.

• Madlantis of the year.

• Big Pineapple of the year.

• Karaoke of the year.

• Kart racing of the year (I mean not really if you include the actual kart racers, but I didn't play any of them).

• Ultimate Treasure: The Friends we made along the way of the year.

• Funniest game of the year.

• End credits rap of the year.

• Most inexplicable and deranged live action video of the year.

And that is it for Part One of the 2025 Moosies! Thank you for reading, and tune in soon for Part Two!