I decided to post about the stuff I play this year, both to share what I did and also to track what I played. But its a pain to track, so I'm going to pin this thread and add what I played in groups up until my recent game. SO, games I played in 2025 (in progress)!
43. Shadow of the Tomb Raider (PS4)🎮 Finished this and its DLC last night, just in time to clear the way for Silksong. Its fine; I recall a lot of really negative sentiment about it back when it was new? Its definitely the worst game in the modern trilogy and some of the things weren't *wrong*.
Lara is the worst written she's been in 3 games, which is a shame. The plot is... not what I consider above standard. Very predictable and a bit too much suspension of disbelief required, even for me. But the game looks really good. Did some amazing things with PS4 hardware.
What is excellent are the tombs; they're the best in the series by a fair margin. Despite there being too many repeated basic traps, just spike walls and pits galore. Everything outside that is extremely varied and the puzzles were fun to solve, which is primarily what I was here for.
42. Medal of Honor Underground (PS1)🎮 Shocked this one managed to disappoint me so much. The change to Manon as the MC is the one high note this managed. The difficulty curve ending in *extreme bullshit* near the end killed it for me. It sucks because it was pretty enjoyable until the last 2 chs.
Enemy accuracy just increases until its basically 100%. Dudes with SMGs melt you instantly if you're within draw distance. They also start firing before they're rendered on screen. Guns all feel bad? Weapon spread feels fundamentally broken. Just kind of a letdown.
41. Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped(PS1)🎮 Kind of surprised I slammed through this one so fast? Especially given that I got 105%. Guess muscle memory built faster than I expected, but that marks the end of the PS1 trilogy. Think its the best? Variety levels were nice for first run, but sucked for trials.
40. Mystical Ninja starring Goemon (N64)🎮 Solid action adventure for the N64. Mostly enjoyed it, but the camera is rough. It did beat Zelda OoT to market by more than a year though, so it has some excuse. I also strongly suspect a lot of the jokes didn't survive localization. Still had fun though.
39. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (PS1)🎮 Several content creators kind of hyped this one up for me pretty hard. Sadly, its not quite as good as my expectations hoped for. Combat didn't really click, some rooms just don't have environmental stuff to finish vampires with later on, which sucked.
Its also kind of disorienting, there's *way* too many push block puzzles and the performance got pretty dire. Future ports and the remaster fix some of this tho (map, compass). But I didn't get everything so I think I'll revisit the remaster in a year or so to get another perspective of this one.
38. Medal of Honor (PS1)🎮 An old childhood rental I remember being as short as it kinda is. There's replay value in earning all the medals, but kinda not that into it. More forward thinking than I thought, had ok options for dual stick controls. But still kinda janky by modern standards lol.
37. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)🎮 Overall an improvement on the first game. A bit easier, but in a way I feel is less obtuse. New moves are neat, wish the slide was cleaner. Big upgrade is saving the game like a normal person, I hated how Crash 1 handled saving progress.
36. Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (PS1)🎮 I've been meaning to play Soul Reaver, but wanted context of the of this one first. I actually really kind of dug what this game was doing? But boy, its very much a game of its time lol. Load times are *savage*, I'm actually surprised I tolerated them.
It was still compelling enough that I wanted to see where this was going. You are definitely the baddie and the story/world are extremely dark. Combat is pretty primitive and hit boxes are kind of... bad? They're almost always different than what you think, but in a way that's good for you somehow.
Basically everything is voice acted, which is insanely ambitious. However, I cannot hear without my subtitles. So some cutscenes were a struggle. And the voice acting is way better than what I expect for a game of this age.
I actually thought this was some kind of PC port to PS1, but apparently that isn't the case? PS1 is the original release. The PC version on GOG fixes the load times, so I'd recommend going there. Unless you're a mad man that loves playing on original hardware like me 😃
35. Chrono Cross (PS1)🎮 What in the high hell was that?? I'm so confused. I'm sorry, I try real hard not to get too negative about games, they're hard to make and they're someone's favorite. But I really do not think this was good. I'm going to get a bit mean on this one, so be warned.
First, the music rocks. Its one of my favorite sound tracks from the PS1 and the intro has lived in my head rent free since I tried this game way back when. I kind of hate everything else? Losing Toriyama's style was a huge mistake, even if it was due to legal issues.
I can't fucking stand how often you miss in combat. I know that the %s are likely accurate and its just my dumb fleshy meat brain. But missing feels so insanely frustrating in this game, more so than anything I've ever played. It usually just means I have to sit through another 2-3 animations too.
Where the fuck do I start with the plot. I don't think this works. Interviews imply they wanted this to be approachable to people that didn't play Trigger, which is an insane thing to even imply. I have full context and it was still a struggle.
And the pacing is just awful, I just wanted to get to the point for so long. I also feel like this was packed with retcons that severally damage my appreciation for the ending of Trigger. Everything is so fucking dark, I just feel like the people that wrote this just didn't want to even do this.
Then at the very end, they just take all the dangling plot threads and text dump it at the last possible second. Its just this knot of bullshit that I just... cannot comprehend that this made it to shelves. I really hate the story and didn't feel attached to any of the characters, at all.
The number of characters is ambitious, but why bother? No one really gets development and there's so much effort that was clearly put into tech animations. I've never seen something that feels so bloated but at the same time so unfinished and unpolished as Chrono Cross.
I hope no one gets big mad over these complaints, but its so very clear this isn't for me. I knew I wasn't going to be very positive mid-playthrough, but I did not expect it to end this way. I just had to see how this ended, but I kind of wish I hadn't.
34. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)🎮 Yet another platformer child Me thought was too hard. Obviously I was quite wrong and I enjoyed now. The only real issue is the save system is quite annoying. You only get to save after a bonus stage mid-level or after getting a perfect clear. Which... I kind of hated.
It didn't kill it though, just didn't feel intuitive. Ended up going for 100%, despite a bug nearly killing my playthrough on N. Brio. Crashed every time, but advancing my % and saving seemed to fix it? Can't find any info about it online, but was really weird.
33. Spider-Man (2000)(PS1)🎮 If you asked me my opinion on this one before playing this, I would have probably said good or great. I rented it back in the day and had a very positive impression from my childhood. I'm not so much of that opinion anymore after replaying it. Its not terrible, but eh..
There's just a lot of-the-period clunkiness here. I never really figured out the combat? I finished it on normal and damage seemed real high. Some pretty savage Blockbuster filters early too. I'm actually shocked I so vividly recall beating this as a child cause I got low-diff'd pretty regularly.
That said, I do find pre-MCU Marvel stuff nostalgic. It was kind of wild just seeing a bunch of Marvel characters making cameos. The ending cinematic in particular really made me smile. So yeah, mixed bag that leans on not very good.
32. Silent Hill (PS1)🎮 Another classic played. Yeah, its still really good. Models are bit rough, but I actually think they did some really impressive work with the camera angles at certain points, in addition to still feeling pretty tense to traverse the streets. Real impressive stuff.
I guess the only negatives is that its just not as good as its sequel? I played them in reverse orders, so its hard to shake my comparison to SH2, which I think did more interesting things with the setting and story. But its a miracle this even exists, which has to count for a lot.
31. Final Fantasy IX (PS1)🎮 Ended up passing over a lot of optional content in this one. Probably my one lingering regret? But still glad to have this one off my backlog. Characters, visual aesthetics, visual design are all incredible. Forgot how badly I miss a Final Fantasy soundtrack too.
All of the above at easy 10/10 material that I think maintains its appeal. What kinda hurts is that I don't think I really enjoy the ATB system anymore. Everything combat related just seems to take too long. I think its disguising loading? But I really don't know. Combat was the weakest part IMO.
I was also frustrated by the volume of missable quests and items. I've played all the Trails games, which I think has an above average amount of this, but FF9 blows it all away. And its the kind that asks you to drop the story at awkward moments, and go do them now or never.
That's why I ended up skipping most of them. Maybe missed out on some character/plot development? The last character is also a really weird call; why is he even here?? But still, its one of the best games in the series. Modern ports are likely the way to go though.
30. Conscript (PS5)🎮 First game of the year that I kind of think drifts into the kind of not good territory? Its not terrible, but I took some pretty major issues with the pacing and such. Its a solo dev working on it though, so still a better attempt than like 99% of us anyway.
This could be a PS5 issue? But the audio balancing was totally fucked. It was overwhelming low and I had to jack the volume up on my TV to hear things in a game about WW1. Exiting to the PS menu woke the dead. Puzzles were good though, but I really wish I had enabled checkpoints.
Areas are really big and save points are sparse; I lost multiple hours to deaths (to be clear, skill issue). But the amount of walking and re-walking got to me after awhile. I really was hoping it was going to be another Signalis, but kind of a high bar. A lot of other stuff I'd recommend first.
29. Death Stranding Director's Cut (PS5)🎮 OK. So, I'm glad I played this. But boy I kinda get why a lot of people didn't vibe with this. That said, I did enjoy traversal as a game mechanic. And I really enjoyed the story. The ending, in particular, is going to stay with me for a long time.
The only real issue I had was that combat/stealth kinda suck? They aren't unplayable, but building stuff and moving between story beats are the real appeal for me. Looking forward to getting around to the sequel eventually. Boy, that ending dude.
28. The Talos Principle (PS4)🎮 Stunningly good game. I don't want to really talk more about it, since knowing more spoils the experience. Its a puzzle game, its story is very good and you should play the Talos Principle on whatever platform you have available. That's all you should know going in.
5. The Callisto Protocol (PS5) 6. Penny's Big Breakaway (PS5) 7. Silent Hill 2 (PS2) 8. Ender Magnolia (PS5)
9. The Plucky Squire (PS5) 10. SteamWorld Dig (PS4) 11. Tormented Souls (PS5) 12. Trails through Daybreak 2 (PS5)
13. Split Fiction (PC) I totally forgot that I played this one, and don't want to bother figuring out where it should actually go, so it goes here. Incredible game, one that I plan to replay eventually once I convince my brother to give it a shot. Highly recommend this and everything Hazelight.
14. The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe (PS5) Wanted something short after a month of Trails, managed to avoid spoilers for this, so it was next. Its... fine. Its funny but didn't really grab me. Got some endings, but don't feel like combing it for all of them. Stopping here and might revisit.
15. Momodora: Moonlit Farewell (PS5) Finish work for the day, sat down for a third session of this game and binged it until it was done. It is now once again way later than I intended but it was pretty good. The previous one is better I think, but still a rock solid Metroidvania.
16. New Super Lucky's Tale (PS4) Someone on here recommended this game and I got it on an impulse buy. I was hoping it'd be a surprise like Kaze was, but its not quite that quality. Still fun though, but a good example of doing nothing wrong and nothing great.
17. Alone in the Dark (2024) (PS5)🎮 I struggle to call this a good game; combat sucks, stealth is even worse and its still really buggy. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't love everything else. Sometimes you gotta appreciate some bad games to appreciate the best. Ended up getting the plat too.
18. Jak and Daxter 1 (PS2) 🎮 Something from my childhood that I wanted to revisit. Camera is kinda janky, but its really just a product of its time. Still endearing and fun platformer. I feel like the voice performance and animations aged really well too. Fun and short game.
19. Jak II (PS2) 🎮 Had Jak 2 in the backlog and I don't think I ever finished it. Some savage check points (or none) that kept me from rolling credits. Beat it this time, but still kind of negative over all on the whole package. Preferred Jak 1s platformer focus and don't like the open world.
