Attending Combo Breaker is the highlight of my year every year. In 2025 I was able to fit Frosty Faustings into my travel budget too. Managed to place 17th in Mystery Bracket both times, and they were very wild bracket runs. I saw Gyakuten Puzzle Bancho and turned to my opponent to utter a sentence no one wants to hear in Mystery: "I'm sorry, I know how to play this game." Also at CB I was able to make it out of pools in Under Night In-Birth II, and it was a hella stacked bracket so I'm pretty happy with that one.
Been focusing more on my mahjong career, attended Riichi Nomi Open and Philadelphia Riichi Open as my first two tournaments. Didn't do so hot though. But of course, when I win it's because I'm skilled, when I lose it was just bad luck.
New arcade opened up near me with modded Maimai, Wacca, and Chunithm cabinets. I told myself I'm never going back to Round 1 again, though R1 does have the new official international Maimai now so I guess that's something. I also got back into Dance Dance Revolution a little, but I'm still not very good.
As for actual new releases, Deltarune is obvious. Kirby Air Riders is a sequel I waited 22 years for, and it was worth the wait. The original is one of my favorite games of all time and I'm blown away by how much higher they raised the bar. Online City Trial is everything childhood me ever dreamed of. And I have to shout out Rhythm Doctor finally exiting Early Access, the final chapter is a wonderful conclusion that gave me a lot of emotions.
Hades II is a fantastic roguelike that sucked me in for weeks.
I got convinced to play Project Zomboid by a couple friends. I get the hype now.
Project Diablo 2 is an excellent revival of LoD with rebalancing, new features, and controller support. So much fun on the deck.
Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii was yet another great addition to the off the rails nonsense that is the Yakuza series.
Yakuza 0 Directors Cut was also a good remaster and English dub. People shit on Yong Yea as Kiryu but I like his performance. Could be because I never played the game in Japanese.
Also spent a lot of time playing Subnautica. An oldie but a goodie, especially with a multiplayer mod.
Yup, this was a good year for gaming.
EDIT: Oh! Can’t forget Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. Pretty fun, challenging but sometimes a bit cheap in the challenges. One optional challenge relied on firing a knife through a narrow gap, but there was no reliable way to line yourself up. And since it was timed and at the very end of the challenge, if you mess up you have to do the whole thing all over again. Other than that, really fun.
Hollow Knight with the release of Silksong I figured I should probably finally play this. Great game and deserves the praise it gets. Didn’t get anywhere near 100% completion on it but I am OK with that
Strangers of Paradise played on PS5. Once I figured out the battle mechanic I fell into a rythem with this game and really liked it. Ended up getting the platinum for it because I wanted to keep playing.
Iron Meat finally got a chance to play this. Really fun if short contra style shooter game. Ticks all the right boxes.
Lately I have been playing some classic games and getting retro achievements for them. Fun way to experience my old favorites again with new challenges. I recently played Zelda LTTP and got all the RAs for it. Some fun challenges for the game
Honorable mentions: Cyber Shadow, Firewatch, Mario & Luigi: Brothership
I got Monster Hunter: Wilds finally, but surprisingly, I have not dropped a lot of time into it despite playing the franchise since the first, with usually 100-250 hours spent on any given title I purchased in the series. TBF, my PS5 controller is in a terrible state right now, forcing me to use K&M, which is genuinely surprising to me that they added support for it in the PS5 to begin with. As far as I know, that is very rare. And while I’m no stranger to K&M, I’ve never used it for Monster Hunter and I just don’t dig it much.
I’d actually have to give my personal GOTY to a game that’s not at all new. I’ve eyed Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous for some time, even though I don’t think I’ve played a traditional CRPG since Planescape: Torment (granted not in 1999, I bought it thru GOG, so it had to be sometime after 2008.) And despite it being a CRPG and me knowing that, I played it via Playstation+ on PS5… with my controller, which still had stick drift at the time but not as bad. I sunk between 200-250 hours into it and I still have not beat the damn thing. I kept remaking my party as I grew more familiar with the game’s system. My last and favorite being subclassing all my regulars to have dinosaur pets. Game went on sale for like 6 or 7 bucks a little while ago so I just went ahead and bought it permanently. I’m sure I’ll revisit it again just like I do Elder Scrolls and Borderlands franchises.
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