Games I played in 2025

Trying new things

I meant to post this before 2025 ended, but as you might be able to tell, I have been getting lazy with blogging.

Titles

Yakuza Kiwami 2

Yakuza Kiwami 2 artwork

The “K” in Kiwami stands for “Korean” (oh god they’re everywhere).

Ever since playing Yakuza 0 last year, I have been on a Yakuza series binge. Yakuza 0 was my GOTY for 2024, and Kiwami 1 was weaker but still a decent game. Kiwami 2 is in the middle; a good bit better than Kiwami 1, but still behind 0.

Kiwami 2 is one of the earlier games to have used a new engine, the Dragon Engine. There are substantial changes compared to the previous engine used by K1 and Y0. Graphics are significantly overhauled; lighting and textures are much better and the world looks more alive. There are environmental interactions such as breakable glass or small items that can become projectiles, an excessive amount of ragdoll physics, and seamless transitions between the world map and combat. Previously, only transitioning into combat would be seamless, exiting combat used a transition. The world map became bigger because lots of building interiors are now explorable, despite the map itself remaining mostly constant. Character models look significantly better, both NPCs and playables.

The new engine also changes combat mechanics. Y0 and K1 used 4 fighting styles, whereas K2 switches to just 1. Everyone feels like a balloon because of excessive ragdoll physics. While adjusting makes it more manageable, I prefer Y0 and K1’s combat where each attack felt brutal and impactful, whereas in K2 everyone feels about as heavy as a balloon.

My biggest complaint about K1 was its weak plot. Considering the story was unmodified straight from the original 2005 game, that makes sense. My biggest problems were the overall flow being quite jumpy, the antagonists weren’t present for 90% of the story, and I couldn’t really get emotionally attached to characters. Things felt like they happened off-screen a lot. K2 was better until the last quarter of the game. The story was fine until midway through, then it steadily got worse. By the time I reached the final boss, everything devolved into a comedy show. I think the writers were trying a little too hard to fish for shocking plot twists and overdid it.

K2 comes with a little bonus content called the ‘Majima Saga’, which functions as a very short epilogue to Y0’s ending. You get to play as Majima in this mode, which means players that started the series with Y0 will likely be excited. However, the mode is very watered down from the main K2 story; combat is much simpler, you can’t play minigames, and there are no substories. The Majima Saga felt like a quickly appended bit to give K2 an extra selling point. It was alright, though I wish it was a little longer and more fully fleshed out.

While my review sounds like it leans to a negative tone, K2 was a pretty fun game overall. It felt like a better version of K1 with a new look and engine, though the underlying weak story from the original Y2 still shows here and there. My biggest concern is that the next title to play is Yakuza 3, which is nicknamed Blockuza 3…

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth artwork

I certainly have mixed thoughts about this title. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (I’ll shorten it to ‘Rebirth’ from now on) is simultaneously fun and boring, satisfying and frustrating, and good looking and ugly.

Rebirth is certainly a “well-made” game. It looks and feels AAA. If you look at the open world and exploration, graphics, gameplay, and music (which is absolutely fantastic), you can sense a lot of effort was put into creating this game. But at the same time, half of the production value just went to make bloated minigames and time-wasting mechanics. A lot of the major NPCs in the game seem to have been snapped into existence with no connection from the original game, or they’re so poorly used that they are instantly forgettable. The open world exploration is extremely boring and repetitive; you repeat the same 5 activities for each part of the world map you unlock. It feels like completing a list of tasks. This game has the worst TAA I’ve ever seen; it makes everything look blurry, ghostly, and boiling (Cloud’s hand textures will literally not stop boiling). The game also doesn’t run well; I had more difficulty running Rebirth at 1440p 60 FPS when Remake ran at 4K 90 FPS.

It also didn’t help that Rebirth was crashing every 1 hour on average for me. Sometimes it was during a 10 minute cutscene, or an intermission between consecutive boss fights with no time to save. The crashing drove me insane. It’s possible that my Intel 13th gen CPU is the source, but I can’t say for sure; the other games I played ran just fine.

The bloat in this game deserves special attention, as a warning to those that are interested in playing. Compared to the original Final Fantasy VII, there’s a lot more “padding” everywhere. In story segments, dungeons are made much bigger. Going from A → B is now A → C → D → B. There are new events or characters that appear between important segments as a transition. In moderate amounts, these are fine. I think that expanding the original game world is great. But Rebirth took it too far. It felt like the game was trying to puff up in size simply to become bigger and maybe justify a higher price tag by saying “hey, look how much stuff there is to do!”.

But the worst part by far is the minigame bloat. If Rebirth cut down its effort spent on making minigames and dumb mechanics, it probably could have been sold at half price and still profit. There’s a piano minigame where you have to use analog sticks, where 8 directions each represent a note. There’s a gliding minigame with clunky physics. You have to lure chicken using sluggish bait and the most frustrating controls I’ve ever experienced. You need to play 4 minigames to change into beachwear, which itself is greatly expanded from a 10 minute segment to a filler chapter. And you can’t skip changing into swimsuits, it’s built into the story. At least Queen’s Blood is a really enjoyable card game, but that’s it.

By the last quarter of the game, you can finally fast travel to wherever you want (until this point, fast travel is somewhat restrictive). When you reach this section, a bunch of new quests and minigames become available. At this point, I could not be bothered to complete a single extra one and just beelined for the final story chapters.

Overall, I have some critical thoughts about Rebirth. The game had its good moments, but it is sparse between large deserts of filler. It’s a well-made game bogged down by poor planners that thought simply making a game bigger would make it better. Your experience will depend on whether you can tolerate what the game throws at you. If you played the original FF VII, brace for a story that has diverged significantly. At this rate, I’m not sure if I will want to bother with the third part in the remake trilogy.

Bayonetta

Bayonetta 1 artwork

This one has been on my backlog for nearly a decade now. Glad I finally got around to tackling this game.

One big thing I learned from playing this game is that I’m really bad at action games. I can’t perform combos for the love of me, missed too many quick time events, and I can’t button mash. I had to lower the difficulty a few chapters in because I was struggling. Unlike Metal Gear Rising from last year though, I was able to clear the game. I feel like if I revisited MGR and cleared it, I would have similar thoughts on how I feel about Bayonetta.

This game is ridiculous in a good way; I spent a lot of time laughing while playing Bayonetta because of how ridiculous it was. Saw the opening cutscenes and laughed. Saw Bayonetta’s insane gait and anterior pelvic tilt and laughed. Saw Bayonetta turn naked to summon demons, pole dance to slaughter angels and laughed. Saw a peaceful town be drowned in a gravity-defying lava tsunami and laughed. Got lost in the plot and laughed because absolutely nothing made sense. Saw what happened to the final boss and laughed.

This game was short and simple, has good action, and is just stupidly ridiculous. Bayonetta’s character design is really quite something special, whacky, and funny. While not exactly my style of game, Bayonetta was extremely refreshing and charming. And as a bonus, the ending credits is a masterpiece.

I’d say just give this game a shot with an open mind and see what you think of it.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion artwork

Activating review mode.

A remaster of the prequel to Final Fantasy VII. After clearing FF VII Rebirth, I was ready to go see the backstory to the main game. Crisis Core was noticeable a step back from what I got used to with Rebirth and Remake. This game originally came out for the PlayStation Portable back in 2007; it’s old. CC got refreshed with better graphics, audio, and combat, but other aspects feel clunky. The game doesn’t look as good as the proper remakes, the soundtrack is mostly forgettable, and story and cutscenes aren’t the best. Pre-rendered CG cutscenes from the original haven’t been remade, so you suddenly switch from high quality visuals to an upscaled 480p pre-rendered CG. CC has been given a fresh coat of paint, but its core (:D) is still from 2007.

This game also is designed somewhat like a mobile game. Because the original game was made for a portable device, there are bite sized “missions” that can be cleared in a few minutes. And there’s probably a hundred of them, or more. They all reuse the same 3 maps and 2 songs, so I couldn’t be bothered to clear more than 10. No gacha at least, this game predates that.

Despite the issues I have, they aren’t as bad as Rebirth’s issues were to that game. Playing CC to experience the prologue to FF VII was worth it, and it was nice to see the references and build up to the main game. I will say that I only recommend buying this game when it’s at least 50% off. I bought it for that discount ($35 CAD before tax), and even then I’m not sure if the game was worth that much.

Review resolved.

Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition

Sleeping Dogs artwork

A pleasantly solid game that I can’t complain about.

Pretty good and serious story. Simple but really fun and smooth combat. Well-designed open world map of Hong Kong that feels alive; I was surprised at how many NPCs could spawn at once. I’d like to one day go visit the real Hong Kong.

And there’s the very cool radio feature when riding vehicles that provides almost unlimited music. In terms of word count, my description for Sleeping Dogs is very minimal. But that doesn’t mean the game is boring or missing things, quite the opposite. It’s hard to explain why, but this game is just really fun while being simple. Despite being over 10 years old, the game holds up really well in lots of aspects. The only things I can complain about are really minute:

I can only dream about a sequel being released one day.

Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds artwork

I’m not normally a person that plays puzzle games, but I got intrigued by the very positive reviews and space theme. My overall thoughts are that this is a solid game, though I personally think it’s a little overhyped; it’s good, but not the best thing in the world.

Outer Wilds made me realize that I’m quite bad with puzzle games. There were a few times where I had to search for hints online, which I discourage if possible. Although to be fair, the puzzles in Outer Wilds are a bit unique; they involve some physics simulations, some platforming, and most importantly: some puzzles are time-sensitive. The main mystery of the game is to figure out why you’re stuck in a time loop, so missing a puzzle might mean you wait for a few minutes for another chance or reset the loop. You’ll see a Solar System that dynamically evolves as time passes, which is something I haven’t seen elsewhere. Some of the puzzles need some creativity to be accessed too, which I might be lacking in.

As someone who’s always been interested in space and physics, seeing a game with good implementation of these was great. There are quantum objects that teleport when not observed, orbital physics that I think are fairly accurate, or heavy usage of Newton’s first law of motion.

I think someone who likes puzzle games will likely really enjoy this game. There’s a lot more to the game, but the most basic rule with this game is to not spoil anything, so I won’t say more.

Stray

Stray artwork

A simple game where you play as a cat. Pretty cute and quite novel. I don’t have much to say about Stray honestly, I thought it was just alright. It’s well crafted and unique, but it just wasn’t my style.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 artwork

A very grateful gift from some great friends, cheers guys. I technically didn’t beat this game until 2025 was over, but I’ll still count it.

Upon booting up E33 for the first time, I was heavily reminded of the Xenoblade series and their start screens. A beautiful main theme that nails the first impression. A simple screen that tells you to press any button. And from there it just kept getting better.

An emotional story that deals with darker emotions and plot development that caught me off guard multiple times. Combat that feels satisfying and can also drive you mad (coincidentally, this was my first time playing a parry-heavy game). Graphically looks good and runs decently well. A stupidly good soundtrack that qualifies for the “$60 soundtrack with a free game” award. Makes me want to learn French.

The most unexpected part about this game is the development team and how efficient they were. They kind of came out of nowhere, and for their first product, delivered a AAA-tier game for $65 CAD that swept game awards. The game feels like it punches so far above its class, and I would not hesitate to buy this game at full price.

If there’s one non-positive point I want to mention, it’s that I think the general sentiment for Expedition 33 is a little overhyped, personally. Make no mistake, I think this is a spectacular game that most people will like. But I wouldn’t go as far as to say this is the game of the decade. To me, Expedition 33 was a greatly satisfying game with nearly no flaw. If you dislike the game, it’s likely because something fundamental doesn’t align with you; maybe it’s turn based combat, precise parrying, or talking golems. One personal wish is that I wish this game supported HDR. It would look fantastic with it.

Oh, and a bonus note. For some reason, the English voice actors were forced to mimic British English but you can tell they aren’t native to that dialect.

Wrap up

My total playtime is quite lower than 2024 and I ended up not playing all of the games I said I would at the end of 2024. Two of the games I said I would play, (1) Atelier Totori, and (2) Stellaris, might be delayed for a while or just scrapped entirely. I realized I need to not play backlogged games just for the sake of clearing the backlog.

For 2026, I have a list of games that I’m much more certain about playing.