When I first saw details about Expedition 33, I figured that I would love this game. Then the reviews came out and they were all glowing...and when I finally sat down to play it, this game had me hooked from beginning to end. My only gripe is that I feel like the story goes off the rails a hair by the end...but the positive side of that is that the parts of the story that I thought were unnecessary are also the parts that make it possible for sequels to be made down the road...so, I suppose I can deal with it. Complaint aside, Expedition 33 is one of my favorite games to come out in the last several years and one that I know I'll be returning to on and off down the road.

Like a lot of folks, I'm always a sucker for a Mario Kart game. Add in some open-world exploration and item collecting and you're pretty much guaranteed to have me hooked for a while. While I would have liked more tracks to race on (without DLC, which I'm sure is coming later) aimlessly driving around in the open world between each track is still fun enough to keep me coming back for more...even when I'm not doing anything productive in-game.

No, I'm Not a Human was recommended to me by a gal at work when she found out that I was playing random horror-themed PC games for Halloween. I wound up falling in love with it. It's essentially a visual novel with minor gameplay elements, but it hooked me enough where I've played through it multiple times. I reckon this'll be one I return to on and off for the next few years 'til I see it all.

As a fan of fighting games, I wasn't too surprised that I enjoyed Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves...I was, however, surprised at how long I played it. I picked it up on sale during the summer, but I would've gladly paid full price had I known how much time I'd be putting into this one. While I wouldn't put it in my "Top Fighting Games of All-Time," it was still a solid, fun fighter that I enjoyed quite a bit.

I'm smitten with Katamari Damacy. I play through one or more games in the series at least once a year every year. This year, we finally got a brand new game in the series. It's not flawless - the power-ups feel like they were thrown in, rather than being needed for anything, and I seem to get "stuck" on things WAY more often in this game than I have in previous games...but the new concept of time travel allows us to roll new items up while in new environments. There's enough pros here to combat the cons, and well...it's a Katamari game, so I was going to probably like it anyway.

I kept hearing negative things about Starfield, so I played it...and maybe I waited long enough for bugs and such to be fixed, but I never experienced a lot of the issues that I had heard people complaining about. The game crashed maybe 3 or 4 times randomly across 100+ hours that I put into it. I did also find a bug that caused a consistant crash...but once I pinpointed what caused it, it wasn't difficult to avoid it and it had zero effect on how I played the game. That stuff aside, this was the most ambitious game that Bethesda has ever put out, with so many planets to land on, so many different ways to play, and so many things to do. With so much to do, I'm at about 125 hours into my playthrough...and I still haven't reached the end yet. If you're a fan of the Elder Scrolls or Fallout games, but want to experience that kind of gameplay in a space environment, then Starfield will be right up your alley.

When Persona 4 came out, I was obsessed with it, playing through it, and Persona 4 Golden, probably at least a dozen times combined. Since then, I've almost forgotten how much I loved Persona 3, which I'd probably beaten 5 or 6 times across all of its variations. Well, add another one to that total this year. I still prefer Persona 4 overall...but Persona 3 is still an excellent game. I remember, back when it initially released, not beng sure if I'd like the gameplay, which sounded repetitive, and was a departure from the previous games in the Persona series, which I was a big fan of...but it all worked out in the end. I haven't played the Persona 3 remake yet, but if it's half as good as the originals were, I'm sure I'll love it.

R4 is my favorite racing game of all-time. This year I revisited it early in the year so I could review it for the website. While I didn't unlock absolutely everything this year (I did back when this was released) I did find myself playing through this game multiple times in 2025 just so I could have fun sliding through the tracks and listening to the awesome soundtrack again. I'm not sure if a racing game will ever top this one in my eyes...and even if one does, I'm not sure if I'll ever spend as much time with it as I have with this game.

I had started Lost Odyssey back when it was released...and I had gotten to disc 2 before moving on to other games. This year, I saw it through to the end and loved every minute of it. If you're a fan of the Playstation One-era Final Fantasy games, and was told that this was an unreleased Final Fantasy game, you probably would belive it if you hadn't heard of this game before. Everything feels like a non-Final Fantasy Final Fantasy game....and that's a good thing. If you're a fan of older, turn-based RPGs, then I definitely recommend giving Lost Odyssey a try.

Updating my website, I revisited Superman this year...and I was reminded about how blown away I am by this game. It came out before Adventure did, and has much deeper gameplay...including a subway system that allows you to travel to another part of the city. The only flaw that I think it has is that unless you know what to do going in, it just seems like a weird game where you can fly around as Superman. In contrast, Adventure is much easier to figure out what you need to do without the aid of a manual. Still, Superman was very impressive for its time and well worth checking out if you'd like to play one of the more ambitious early home console games.