Game Review: 2025 Edition

2025 was a good year for gaming; there were so many excellent games released (even without GTA6). In this post, I wanted to take a look at what games I’ve played this year, especially those that were quite memorable for me. So, as a disclaimer, this is purely my personal opinion as a casual gamer. The games listed aren’t necessarily new releases in 2025, but the ones I played in 2025.

The Platinum

I’m quite a completionist (I think). I love to achieve 100% on a game, as long as I deem it achievable without sweating too much. These are some games that I managed to get 100% completion on this year.

1. Monster Hunter Wilds

One of my favorite franchises. A bit of intermezzo: I started my Steam Account and played PC games way back in 2021. My first game was Monster Hunter World, which I bought at full price, by the way, because I had no idea about Steam Sales back then. But it was all worth it; I spent hundreds of hours on that. Monster Hunter has become my favorite franchise since then. I think it is one of the few games that I would buy on day one without waiting for it to go on sale. Okay, that’s enough intermezzo. Let’s go back to Wilds.

Monster Hunter Wilds is as good as its predecessor, but has improved its QoL a lot. I love how the maps get connected to one another, even though I admit that most of the time, I prefer to fast travel instead. On the maps, they also have this new gimmick involving weather which is quite cool. It changes the ambience, the monsters spawned, and even the environment. The roster is quite vast and unique. It has only one Elder Dragon, which makes it special again after World and Rise overused it. One of the downsides from the roster is how the Alpha monsters weren’t explored enough. On demo day, they literally highlighted this new feature. But oh, there is only one monster that utilizes that. There are also new mechanics being introduced, such as Focus Attack, Wounds, and Secondary Weapons. It’s fun and all; I enjoyed it so much and kept coming back regularly all year when a new update dropped. Oh, and if you happen to see how bad its reviews are, mostly it is about performance on PC. Personally, though, I don’t think it is that bad; it is still playable with a stable 60FPS and looks awesome enough on my potato PC.

2. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

I’ve wanted to give the Final Fantasy franchise a try, and this one has been sitting in my library for quite a while. When FFVII Rebirth released, it piqued my interest, but before that, I thought I needed to finish Remake first. Hence why I finally picked this up and played it this year. As a side note, I haven’t played the original, so this is like my introduction to the franchise. The story, gameplay, graphics, and music in this are so good in my opinion. I really enjoyed it, and I think it is one of the best entry points to the franchise, leading me into the next game on this list, hehe. To platinum this one, it requires a second playthrough on Final Fantasy mode. I don’t usually do a second playthrough on the games I play, but I did it for this one. And oh, the gameplay just got elevated so much on Final Fantasy Mode; it is no longer baby mode. I think one of the downsides of playing this is the fact that I didn’t play the original, which means I have no nostalgia for it unlike others who have played it before. After playing this one, it solidified my resolve to play the next part of the story, Rebirth. Currently, I’m waiting for a bigger sale for that. I’m not in a rush to get it. I think I’ll wait for it to drop to around 50% off.

3. Final Fantasy XVI

Since I enjoyed FFVII Remake so much, I decided to jump into the latest mainline entry. XVI introduces a new take on the summons. Instead of the usual summoning mechanic, the character transforms into one. The character blessed with the ability is called a Dominant, which is a cool name. The “summon” is called an Eikon in this universe—cool as well. One downside is that we are unable to trigger the transformation as we please; it is tied to the story, but the Eikon battles were absolute cinema. Many have said that the story was darker and more mature, and it is very interesting for this series, I’d say. The music is also very good. Another downside I can think of is how repetitive and boring the side-quests are. I also bought the DLCs, and they are very worth it. The DLCs added a nice touch to the story without actually changing the ending at all, and they also add new Eikons, abilities, gear, and more.

4. Games I Picked Up Again to Get 100%

Instead of individual reviews, I’ll just list the games I picked up again to get 100% achievements. I’ve played them before but dropped them even though I was only one or two achievements away from 100%. Mostly because it required a new playthrough.

Dark Souls: Remastered

I picked this one up again after a year. The last piece of the puzzle to 100% was the other ending. So I started New Game Plus; I was already a bit rusty and needed to relearn the mechanics. Even though it was supposed to be the “second” playthrough.

Dark Souls 3

This one has a similar story to the previous one. My last piece of the puzzle to 100% was also the other ending. But, I had an easier time relearning the mechanics for this, since I had already regained the experience from playing the previous one.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

I dropped this back then after getting two endings (there are four). And the reason isn’t actually that I didn’t want to do multiple playthroughs; I already did two. It was because of a funny bug where I was unable to get an achievement. This achievement is especially hard since I needed to restart my playthrough to get it, not from New Game Plus, but rather a fresh one. I didn’t want to do that back then, so I dropped it. I picked it up again after some time, played from the start, relearned the mechanics, and thankfully, the bug didn’t occur for a second time, and I got the missing achievement. I continued till the end to get the other two endings as well as other upgrade-related achievements. But, to be honest, I really enjoyed playing this again for the second time after retiring from the game. Everything felt fresh again.

Memorable Games

1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

I picked this game on a whim because it has a parry mechanic. I gave it a try since it is quite cheap as it is listed in Xbox Game Pass. I was very surprised by how good the game was, especially the music. The story is also very interesting, especially the twist. I don’t usually play turn-based games, but the QTE and parry mechanics make this game enjoyable for me. After this, I also started to explore more of the turn-based genre; I have Metaphor: Refantazio as the next item on my wishlist. The reason I didn’t get 100% on this is because I played it on Xbox Game Pass. I was thinking of buying it later on Steam when it has some huge sale and playing it till 100%.

2. Hollow Knight

Similar to Final Fantasy VII Remake, this one has been sitting in my library for a while, and I picked this up since the sequel is coming. The game was surprisingly very good; the vast map, the gameplay, the story, the music, and the enemy design are all very good. I’m still in awe that it only took 3 developers to make this game. The reason why I didn’t get 100% on this is because of some of the hard challenges it requires, like Steel Soul runs and finishing the game in X hours. I don’t really like that kind of challenge, which is why I dropped this after the endings.

Revisited Game

These games are the ones I revisited when a new update dropped this year. They also happen to be multiplayer games, so I love to play them with my friends.

1. Helldivers 2

I’ve played this game a lot last year, and even managed to get 100% on top of that. This year, a new expansion and update dropped. The reviews for the update were very good, which made me want to play it again. I spent some time playing this one again with my friend after the update, and honestly, it is still as fun as before.

2. Risk of Rain 2

A new expansion was added, and it was the sign to log back in to the game. I’m back playing this game after years to try the new stuff they added. The reviews said this expansion is really good, and the Gearbox team has redeemed themselves after the disastrous previous update. This game has a lot of achievements, and I’m not really eyeing to get 100%; I’m just going to enjoy my “one more run” with my friend which turns into a 3-hour session for this one.