Welcome to part two of Talon Trot’s 2025 in review! In the first part, I looked at the best games I replayed in 2025. This time around, I will look at the gaming category that made up the vast majority of the games I played during the year; new-to-me games.
This is me tackling my backlog! The majority of these are physical copies of retro games I have had sitting on my shelf for a year or four. After I finish one of these I decide if they stay in my collection or get moved into the trade/sell pile. It’s safe to say that the games discussed here have earned their spots in my collection long term.
From obvious classics I never got around to, to games I was only vaguely aware of, this list can come from any era so this list will be appropriately all over the place.
The List
Honorable Mentions
- Pikmin 4 (Switch): Great, massive new entry in the beloved RTS series
- Ridge Racer Type 4 (PS1): Fantastic racing game
- Crash Bandicoot Warped (PS1): Stands right up there with the first two games
- Ratchet & Clank Tools of Destruction (PS3): Great jump to the PS3 for the series
- Final Fantasy IX (PS1): Square’s great send-off for the PS1
- Neva (PS4/5/Switch/Xbox): Wonderful action platforming indie game
- Downhill Domination (PS2): Great arcade, sports, mountain bike racing game
- Stellar Blade (PS5): Amazing combat in this hack-and-slash
5. Sly Cooper Thieves in Time (PS3)
I had heard mixed things about this game but I, clearly, loved it. I will admit that the story is weak, particularly in the cliffhanger ending that will never be resolved and how they treated Bentley. That aside, the gameplay here is my favorite in the series. They cleaned up the minor frustrations in the original trilogy and ended up with a game that plays amazingly well and certainly deserves a follow-up to finish the story.
4. Ratchet & Clank A Crack In Time (PS3)
Another great entry in this series, ho-hum. The biggest wrinkle here are the Clank sections which add some time travel, VCR playback puzzles which both melted my brain but also added a bunch of fun to the game. Elsewhere, this is a standard game in the series which is, clearly, a good thing in my book. The game looks and runs great on the PS3 and is a delight from start to finish.
3. Okami (PS2, Wii)
Okay, before diving in I have to call out that the top three here would all land somewhere in my top 50 games of all time, at least. I loved each of these experiences and had a very tough time ranking them against each other. I would greatly prefer these be 1a, 1b, and 1c, but that doesn’t look as good in a list.
Okami is the way-too-long Zelda-like action adventure game with a wildly unique art style. You control a wolf with a tiny companion riding on your back. Together you fight hordes of monsters who have taken over the land and you do so with a combination of traditional 3D melee action and utilizing your special paintbrush to pull off special attacks. My most relevant impression of this game is that I was still having a blast fighting common enemies at hour 35 of this massive game. You know how difficult it is to come up with a combat system that works over 8 hours? 15? 20? But 35 hours of this is way too much but it absolutely held up for me. The world and story are solid, but the art style and combat are the showstoppers here. I’m already planning my replay, likely through the HD remaster, in anticipation of the recently announced sequel.
2. Resident Evil 3 Nemesis (PS1)
It’s kind of nonsense that I hadn’t played this game until 2025. The original is one of about four games I remember actually beating on the original PS1 in the ‘90s, and I remember what a big step up the sequel was at the time. In short, this game takes the best of those games and fuses them into what is likely my favorite PS1-era Resident Evil game, and possibly my favorite RE game, period. Nemesis follows in RE2’s Tyrant’s footsteps by being an ominous, unbeatable enemy who shows up to torment you throughout the game. The twist here is that Nemesis is ridiculously fast. This aspect is mirrored by this being the first RE game, a series which is designed around the premise of “get the hell out of here as quickly as possible!”, to actually let you move through its world with any sense of speed. They recreated the police station from RE2 here but instead of spending a few hours, you spend about 15 minutes there in RE3. Your goal is to survive and escape, both Nemesis and Racoon City in general.
1. Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (PS3, Xbox 360)
I didn’t know this game existed until recently. I never would have guessed the Metal Gear franchise had a hyper-paced hack-and-slash spinoff and that it would be amazing. But here we are, learning new things in 2025. The greatest trick this game pulls off is by keeping the button input requirements incredibly simple for dummies like me even while the move set expands. Unlock a new attack? Great! Just keep hitting the attack buttons and it’ll pop for you! Such a novel concept. I get easily overwhelmed by too many button combinations to remember in games like this, so MGR’s approach immediately landed for me. Top that off with an initially awkward, but absolutely necessary, parry system which I learned to love and you have the cleanest, most fun combat of this style I’ve ever played. Ridiculously gory sword slashing and ridiculously ridiculous Kojima cutscenes are also here, along with some truly memorable weirdo enemies and bosses. Fast-paced, frantic, non-stop action, fun. You can be in and out of this game in about six hours, but if you get hooked you’ll want to go find all of the optional fights, play on harder difficulty levels, and generally find any excuse you can to return to this perfectly satisfying combat over and over again.
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