Games I Played in 2025 [2025-???-??]

The following is a list of games I played this year, ordered from least to most favoured, alongside some broad thoughts on each one. This list only covers primarily singleplayer games, and as such will not cover any primarily online multiplayer games.

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There's this very particular tone I like in media that is strangely difficult to find, I'd describe it as simultaneously genuinely cute yet very dark. When done well the two don't just balance each other out, but enhance themselves; horror feels all the more impactful when contrasted with soft warmth, and that warmth gains an extra layer of comfort when it becomes an escape from that darkness. It shouldn't be surprising then that my favourite part of Cult of the Lamb was it's tone.

The adorable art style, cute character designs, and lovely music stop an otherwise extremely dark setting from feeling overly edgy, and it makes for a feeling I don't think I've seen in any other game. You play as the last sacrificial lamb, given a second chance at life by a fallen god on the condition that you build a cult to gain the power required to kill the existing pantheon that doomed you to sacrifice in the first place.

You build this cult in two gameplay loops: a roguelike dungeon crawler which gives you followers and loot to spend in a base-management segment, which in turn gives you upgrades for your crusades. It's kind of like Animal Crossing if instead of picking up rocks and sticks you had to play a round of Hades, ableit in simpler loops than either. The combat is fun and fast, with enough range of weapons, abilities, upgrades, and enemies to stop it from feeling stale, though there isn't much depth to be found here. Most of what you're doing is simply hitting enemies and rolling out of the way of their attacks. I found the base building to leave a little to be desired, there's a lot of micromanaging you can do as you gain more cult members, rituals to complete and buildings to upgrade, but they don't live long and it never really feels like you can grow attached to anything.

If there was one thing I could change about this game, it would be making the days something like twice as long. As it stands, all my daily tasks (a crusade, a sermon, indoctrinations, and some general maintainence) took me more than an in-game day to complete, so I always felt like I was rushing around. Every moment I wasted micromanaging your cult felt like a moment I could have spent crusading to find followers to replace the 3 or so who will inevitably die this week. As a result there was never enough time to really form a bond with anyone or develop my base past "good enough".

Despite my gripes, I think this is a very well made game. It's best played in short bursts (perfect for a Switch or Steam Deck) and the cute style and fluid combat make for a very pleasant game-feel. Even just listening to the Lamb's bell ring as they walk and watching the smug faces they make swinging an axe are enough for me to recommend the game. It's nice.

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This is fucking harrowing. At the time of writing I have completed one of the many routes and it has left me feeling obliterated.

Togainu no Chi markets itself as a BL novel, but the romance is far outweighed by violence, abuse, and gore. The setting is bleak, a near apocalyptic Japan torn apart by the last war, full of young men raised as weapons before being released to their own devices at the war's end, left to stumble aimlessly through life knowing nothing except how to hurt each other. You are Akira, a man falsely accused of murder who is coerced into a near-suicide mission to kill the most powerful man in Toshima, the lawless city once known as Tokyo, which is home to the death game "Igra" which you ultimately participate in.

In terms of presentation it is rough around the edges, which was hard coming to straight from DRAMAtical Murder. The CGs look great but the character portraits are a quite wonky, and the prose is a bit strange for a visual novel, being written entirely in third person and past tense. The music is messy too (and super edgy), but some of the tracks really hit right and I do find my emotions stirring whenever I re-listen to it. It's very clearly a product of its time, but that shouldn't put you off; the spotty exterior covers a fascinating heart.

Structurally, the game is a dating sim, more or less (this is another sign of the times, being made in that period where BL was trying very hard to separate itself from dating sim stereotypes by filling themselves with gore and rape, while still adhering to the same tried and tested formula). There are multiple routes corresponding to major characters, each of which technically contains some sex (consensual or otherwise). From what I can gather each of the routes give their characters depth and development, but of all the choices Rin seemed by far the most obvious to me.

Rin is another boy participating in Igra, unmistakabley cute and surely younger than you, at times being mistaken for a girl. He has a bright and flirty personality, taking amusement in disregarding boundaries and social norms. This care-free nature is quickly shown to be a mask however; Rin harbours severe trust issues and a violent streak, all stemming from a grim secret, which bubbles to the surface whenever the stakes get real. His ambiguity is his most interesting feature, making it often unclear if he's being honest, lying to you, or lying to himself.

Throughout Rin's route you learn of his contradictary nature and troubled past, and gradually see him unravel as Akira makes him question everything he thought about himself. The payoff, which I will not spoil, is cathartic, but at the same time mesmerisingly sad. Only through making himself vulnerable do you see the true depths of his sadness, how cruel and unfair the world has been to what should have been a gentle soul.

I see too much of myself in Rin, mostly the worst parts, and for this reason I struggle to be remotely objective, hours after rolling the credits I was still fluttering in and out of tears. Maybe the sex and violence makes Togainu no Chi emotionally cheap and exploitative, maybe I'm just predisposed to caring too much about a character like this, maybe it's just that well written. Maybe one day I'll come back and find out what the so called "screwdriver ending" entails. Jesus Christ.

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I cannot stop thinking about this game. In trying to summarise my feelings I've gone from loving it to hating it to thinking it's a flawed masterpiece that reaches incredible highs but fails to deliver on so much. I have spent hours trying to gather my thoughts about what works and what doesn't, and at this point I'm forced to admit that at the very least, Room Number 9 is one of the most interesting games I've ever played.

The premise is simple: you and your childhood best friend are on holiday celebrating the end of university when you are both abducted and placed into a social experiment. You are trapped in a hotel room and given a choice of one of two tasks a day, and after ten days you can leave. One task will require your friend to cause physical harm to you, and the other will require you to perform increasingly degrading sexual acts on your friend. Surely a scratch on the arm is preferable to giving your best friend an awkward handjob? But what about a 100x8mm incision? How far are you willing to degrade your friend to save him from the guilt of hurting you? What will you do when you find yourself enjoying something you'd never imagine wanting?

This is one of those games that demands you bring a lot of yourself into it. You really have to place yourself in the positions of the characters, and I think a lot of what you get will depend on your own identity, lived experiences, and trauma. To me, this means the psychological horror angle is extremely compelling, focusing on both the trauma of being a victim and an unwilling perpetrator. This is precisely where I was disappointed, however. Visual novels are defined by their choices, but you only get to choose which tasks your protagonists pick in the last few days, and the ones they do pick are almost always sex. If you want an exploration of pure sadism and masochism, then this probably isn't the game for you. There is MUCH more sex than violence, and the purely violent scenes are pretty tame (bordering on cute if you ask me) and don't leave much of an impact on the characters. The sex also isn't as extreme as the game's description makes it out to be, and there's only a few scenes of it that really unsettled me.

Fortunately, the sex scenes themselves are mostly very good (unusually realistic too), going from awkward to adorable to deeply uncomfortable. Easily the most interesting part of the story is in watching how either character cracks under the increasing intensity, seeing how they begin to view each other differently as they dig deeper. This is perhaps the strongest aspect of the game, capturing that specific feeling of wanting something you know is bad, and of fighting not to give into those desires. The worst endings of the game show you what happens if you let those feelings consume you, the sex stops being exciting and grows dull, then disgusting. I found one ending in particular so disturbing that by the time I was done, even thinking about sex felt gross. It's impressive. It's not all grim though, between the discomfort are glimpses of excitement, and even happiness. These flickers giving you drive and hope that maybe something positive can be salvaged from all the suffering.

While a big appeal of this story is watching two cute boys grow a taste for each other's bodies (whether they want it or not), you shouldn't go in expecting any romance. This also disappointed me at first, but the more I think about it, the more I have to respect the game's intent to deny you the fantasy, these characters are too repressed and too terrified of their feelings to truly accept any uncomfortable emotions they find along their journey, and there are no truly happy endings. It makes sense, I can't imagine anybody coming out of 10 days of terror and forced mutual abuse with a healthy relationship to what it taught them. It took some time for me to see, but the fates of these boys were already sealed at the start of the first day, everything else was just damage control. This game hollows me out.

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[pending]

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DRAMAtical Murder is a visual novel sitting somewhere between the genres of Boys' Love, Mystery Thriller, and Science Fiction. The story begins with a series of disappearances in the slums of a once beautiful island, now ravaged by the corporate interests of a mega-resort for the elite. Halfway through the story the game splits into multiple routes, each offering different perspectives on the setting, the mystery, and the relationship between Aoba and another character. I strongly recommend finishing all routes and endings, as that is the only way to see the true depth of the story and characters.

I was drawn to this game out of a frustration with romantic stories. Being gay I struggle to relate to the overwhelming majority of straight romance in media; it's so fixated on extremely limiting gender roles and the inevitability of marriage and babies, bearing strikingly little resemblance to any relationship I've ever had or wanted. You might think yuri would do something for me, given that my dating habits could almost exclusively be labelled as "lesbian", but it's never stuck. Perhaps the idea of being a cis girl dating other cis girls is simply too alien to me. On the other hand, yaoi serves me something I can understand; I know what it's like to be an effeminate boy, I know how it feels to let the expectations of masculinity crumble before you, I know the intoxicating guilt of lusting after your close friend. I'm basically one estrogen injection apart from Aoba Seragaki, so I gave it a try, immediately bouncing off before returning one year later, then subsequently having one of the most impacting experiences I've ever had with art, let alone games.

I have a lot of positive things to say, so I'll start with the easy stuff: the surface. DRAMAtical Murder has truly brilliant presentation. Each background is lovingly rendered to produce an imaginative and vast yet cohesive cyberpunk world. Detailed writing breathes life into these backdrops; it feels like a real place with real history and culture, where everything is a little fantastical but never outside the realms of possibility. The soundtrack is unfairly good, one of the best I've heard in any video game ever. There are a large number of tracks covering a broad range of tones across the story. My favourites are #2, #3, #6, and #16, their electronic soundscapes hit feelings of excitement and curiosity with some melancholy or even sinister undertones, often at the same time. The game's opening and endings all have full on songs to go with them too, which gives a sweet bonus incentive to see all the bad endings ("MASCULINE DEVIL" and "de SLASH" are my favourites). All the great art and sound is tied together by little flourishes like a really cool UI and good integration of sound effects and motion. Truly nothing has been neglected.

All this is of course a backdrop to the main appeal of the game: characters and story. The characters' designs are bright and punchy, instantly telling you everything you need to know about them, and all matching their great voice actors. I would do despicable things for the ability to design a character as good as our beautiful blue haired protagonist, Aoba Seragaki, and the others aren't far behind. Unlike many visual novel protagonists, Aoba is a fully fleshed out individual with a strong personality and opinions. He is frustrating and charming, with more than enough conviction to create meaningful friction and payoffs with the rest of the cast.

As for that cast, the game mostly focuses on four characters: Koujaku is your childhood friend; a hot-headed womanizer with a gentle side, Noiz is cold and intelligent hacker who acts strangely forward with you, Mink is heartless gang leader with a tragic past, and Clear is a mysterious masked man who seems convinced that you're his master. They're all a little tropey on the surface, but their individual stories quickly reveal great depth and nuance.

I want to keep this review more as a recommendation than as an analysis, so I will not be spoiling any of the routes or endings. That said, the game is divided into five routes (one for each love interest, and a secret one unlocked after completing the others), all of which have a similar structure: halfway through the game you are thrust into a new setting with one character, there you will solve a portion of the story's mystery while getting closer to the love interest. I really like the central mystery, but I'd be lying if I said I was here for anything except the romance.

Each route explores a different perspective of romance, having both Aoba and his love interest face their respective flaws and insecurities (with a strong focus on trust issues) before ultimately accepting their feelings or succumbing to their demons. It is unusually hard to get the good endings, and you need to be paying a lot of attention to everything going on if you want to avoid a harrowing fate for both characters.

To give a taste, one of the most interesting routes explores a character who is numb, physically and mentally, and how cutting yourself away from the world can stop you from loving entirely, making you stop others from loving yourself. Another explores the link between self-pity and deprecation and the desire to have power stripped from you, using the safety of being a video game to let the reader explore some truly extreme subject matter.

Many people I've seen online say this game's story would be great even without the sexual content. These people are cowards and you should not listen to them. There are entire routes that wouldn't even begin to make sense without sex or sexual violence, and many sex scenes are vastly important bonding and developing moments between characters, often they are the single most important scenes within a route. More than just being arousing (and immaculately drawn and described), there is a unique closeness and vulnerability within sensuality that allows DRAMAtical Murder to explore the logical extremes of its ideas, about the thin boundary between pleasure and pain, both powerful sensations that feel euphoric in the right hands and violating in the wrong ones. To remove these ideas would be to destroy the emotional core of this story.

Culturally we understand both sex and violence as powerful forces used in asserting dominance and control, but most audiences will only see the art in physical pain. This game blurs the line, making pleasure out of pain and pain out of pleasure, and by doing so it allows itself to see the art within sex. It is not some disgusting bodily function, something to do in shameful private and never dare to discuss, but one of the most universally important parts of being human, something we harbour extremely deep and complex feelings about. I cherish the value that is placed on sex within DRAMAtical Murder.