The Dreaded Backlog: 2025 Edition

The games I crossed off my (large and intimidating) backlog this past year. No rankings here... Just chatting about some older things I played and finished in 2025. Some minor awards for old games!

Turns out, old games are pretty good!

I’m back again for another entry in my “end of year lists”!
Hasn’t been too long since the last one, but oh, well.

I played a lot of new video games in 2025. Most of the ones that matter anyway when it comes to the ‘discourse’ or ‘zeitgeist, I think. But I also beat some games that weren’t new. Hell, even some games that were old as hell! This is the spot to talk about those. Here we go, yet again.
Here is some stuff I crossed off the ol’ dreaded backlog this year.
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“Old Game of the Year” (Games I missed in the previous year that I finished this year):

Winner: Persona 3 Reload (Played on PS5)

I platinumed this one!
What a joy this game was. I played it twice all the way through, did all the social links, created and fused every ‘Persona’, beat all the bosses (including the Reaper multiple times, but didn’t beat the secret boss Elizabeth, who is ridiculously tough since you can’t bring your party in to fight her), and got every single trophy in the game. It was my first time playing through Persona 3 in any version, and I adored every single moment of my 100-plus hours with this remake.

It sounds phenomenal (the soundtrack is incredible, featuring some of the best music in the series), looks absolutely incredible aesthetically and artistically, and plays like a dream. The vibes are immaculate here, and while I don’t prefer this to Atlus’ other JRPG offering that came out the same year, in Metaphor: Re Fantazio, it stands side by side with it in many ways, while also elevating everything good about the original game in this lavish and well-rendered remake.

It made my top 10 in 2024, even when I hadn’t finished it, but if I had, it would’ve challenged Metaphor for the top spot on my GOTY end of year list. Not a perfect game… but pretty damn close.
Persona is awesome. Now, can we remake 1 and 2 in this style? I think that would be amazing.
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Runner-up: Star Wars Outlaws (Played on PS5)

I wrote about this game last year! It’s really good! People slept on this one.
I think Star Wars Outlaws is a total banger of a game. The unique setting, the heist-centric plot, and the great side characters give this gem a lot of energy throughout, and I think while it falters in some ways mechanically, the sense of place, the world-building, and the bite-sized open world biomes you explore more than make up for any lacking gameplay. There is a great diversity of classic Star Wars races, creeds, factions, and people here that give this rendition of the 70s retro-sci fi inspired galaxy of the movies a brand new feel while also delivering on proper nostalgic tones. All without being too cloying in the storied brand’s usually harsh tokenism of familiar iconography and rampant, real-world commercialism.
It all just works so well.

This past January, I was able to go on a trip to Disney World with my family, and we were able to go to Hollywood Studios to visit Galaxy’s Edge, and hot on the heels of that, I started this. To say it was transportative is an understatement. Playing Star Wars Outlaws felt like I was back in Galaxy’s Edge, yet again. It’s remarkable the attention to detail put into every corner of the presentation of the game. It’s a shame more people didn’t play it, because Star Wars Outlaws isn’t just a solid time in a galaxy far, far away— it’s one of the best Star Wars games, period, full stop, end of sentence.

Ubisoft can make some good games from time to time. They should keep doing that…
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Backlog Game of the Year (Old-ish Games I Finished that Deserve Recognition)

Winner: DOOM Eternal (Played and Reviewed on PS5)

You know the Drake and Josh meme where they come out of the movie theater with their hair blown back, and mouths agape? Yeah, that’s how playing DOOM: Eternal felt to me after finishing it. That meme is what I looked like after playing through it, and it’s (even more difficult) DLC. DOOM: Eternal is by no means for everyone, but for that small pocket of people that got on its ‘level’, like me, we were rewarded with one of the most intricately designed first-person shooter experiences in gaming. The more I think back on my time with this one, the more fondly I think of it, in hindsight.

I mentioned in my previous post that DOOM: The Dark Ages didn’t stick with me in the ways I wanted it to after I finished it, but that is not the case for DOOM: Eternal, however, where the more I reminisce about it, the more I like it. I wrote a whole review about this, so go read that if you want my full thoughts, but in short— I think it’s a mostly brilliant and frequently frustrating game that thrilled me more than it didn’t. It’s perhaps the most flawed entry of this recent rebooted DOOM series from id Software, but I think it is by far the most interesting of the three if I had to pick.

The version of the super shotgun in the game has a grappling hook attachment on it called a ‘Meathook’. Is that not the most DOOM-coded thing you’ve ever heard??
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Runner-up: Citizen Sleeper (Played on Switch)

One of the better-written games I can remember, Citizen Sleeper is a brilliant game about the perils of a neo-capitalistic society trying to make its living surviving in the vacuum of space. While not perfect, I think the superb narrative weaves in and out of the dynamics of the space colonists’ lives deftly and ably, while not being an overly preachy or didactic exercise in its telling.

Your journey as a sleeper (a digital mind-vessel for a real human working off corporate debt) is filled with enough intrigue, thrills, interesting conversations, and tough moral decisions to keep you engaged for the duration. I put about 10 hours into it on Switch and felt like the game honored my time. It was very worth seeing through, and paced remarkably well for being mostly a choice-based linear narrative.
I saw every ending, did the DLC they added to it post-launch, and finished every lingering main and side story thread hanging throughout my playthrough. Easy to engage with, exciting to read through, Citizen Sleeper is one of the very best narrative games you can play, and while not much can be ‘played’ per se, the experience on the whole was worth seeing through.
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Runner-up: Metroid Prime Remastered (Played on Switch)

Samus Aran. Cool-ass name. Even cooler character.
The anticipation of waiting for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was killing me, so I fired this one up and played through it in a week or so. While I am by no means the biggest fan of this game, I really enjoyed my time with it. I’d played through this once before on the GameCube back in the day, but I couldn’t remember if I had finished it or not.
While some of the old, ‘back-tracky’ design doesn’t completely hold up, the upgrades, the music, and the general vibes of Metroid Prime Remastered are just so evocative of what I really like about the series and video games on the whole. I like sci-fi. I like a moody atmosphere. I LOVE upgrading shit. Who doesn’t? This game has all that and more.

The boss fights are simple, but good, and the enemy encounters, while not being very innovative, are solid pieces to the first-person shooter puzzle. The entire package is just so damn playable. Aside from the minor issues I have with the ‘key hunt’ at the end of this game (very similar to how Wind Waker deals with its final stretch, actually), I think this game is very good. Extremely good. Maybe the best Metroid Prime game, who can say? It’s definitely better than 4… (shots fired…).

It also looks so so soooo good on Switch. It might be the best-looking original Nintendo Switch game, I think. Retro Studios outdid themselves gussying up the original game, and I really hope they finally do what we all want them to, and eventually remaster both the second and third games in the Prime series one day.

They made a fantastic game the first time around, which makes the glaring issues I have with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond seem all the more troubling, given that I played them back to back. That’s one of the most disappointing games I have played this year, by the way.

Deal with it.
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Runner-up: Unpacking (Played on Switch)

This was the last game I finished in 2025!
Unpacking is a puzzle ‘light’ narrative game about the living of everyday life through the lens of transition. You spend your time in this game doing just as the title says, unpacking.

You play as a character putting away their belongings through various stages of life, and each period that you unpack has a small story to tell about what the main character is going through in that particular portion of her life. You’ll unpack your childhood bedroom, complete with all the stuffed animals, kid alarm clocks, school book bags, and random childhood ephemera that fill the space of a simpler time. You see the transition between high school and early adulthood as you unpack your first dorm in college. You even see the interesting mechanics that shake up the regular gameplay, as you try to cram your stuff into another person’s space filled with things of their own, as you move in with a significant other, then vice versa, as you unpack back into your childhood bedroom once again after said relationship has run its course.

These little bits of storytelling are novel, silent, and most brilliantly, all tell the story without saying a single word. It’s so well done. You experience every story beat through the unpacking and placement of everyday household items, and I found the entire experience extremely uplifting by the time I rolled the credits. It’s a personal, bite-sized glimpse into a person’s life, minus the voyeurism that usually comes with this subject matter. The novelty of the format stayed fun throughout the game, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Unpacking isn’t a complex game mechanically, but it is sophisticated in its pioneering of the conveyance of its personal story, and I really dug it. One of the more memorable indie games I’ve played recently. So glad I played it on my Switch, as it was the perfect way to wind down the long winter days, as the calendar turned to a brand new year.
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Runner-up: Lil Gator Game (Played and Reviewed on PlayStation 5)

Another game I reviewed here, Lil Gator Game, is an absolute delight.
I don’t think there has been any game that has so perfectly captured the feeling of early childhood and the act of ‘play’ as this game did. It’s a special little gem of a game.

The core conceit of this game is that you are trying to impress your sister, and to do that, you recruit all your anthropomorphic wilderness friends to create a fun ‘world’ for your Big Sis to explore. It reminded me in the best ways of A Short Hike, especially in its setting, where you travel across a wide mountainous island, making new friends and chatting with old ones to set up the land of make-believe with bits and bobs of juvenile fun.

Lil Gator Game is filled with joy. Not one bit of this game is jaded or pessimistic in any way. It feels like it captures the innocence of childhood better than anything Ican remember, and the feeling of being whisked back to my personal memories of times gone by was a trip. Great game that everyone should check out!
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Runner-up: Mullet Madjack (Played and Reviewed on Xbox Series S)

Damn if this isn’t the most fun I had this year, it’s close.
Mullet MadJack is balls to the wall breackneck action manifest. It’s like Crank on ‘crank’, it’s Kung Fury by way of Super Meat Boy, and Neon White, and every bit of it is awesome. It’s kind of a lot to take in (especially since I played it in one sitting), but also the amount of pure digital video game stimuli you get injected into your ojos is just so delicious.

What a kickass game. I don’t even wanna tell you about it. Just play it. One of the best surprises of my backlog playing last year. After you play it, read my review!
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Retro GOTY (Games Considered Retro I Liked the Most):

Winner: Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening

I’ve decided. This is the best PS2 game of all time. It’s at least my favorite.
Not just that— it’s the best action game of all time. I played Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening for the first time this past year, and when I tell you I loved my time with it, that may well be a gross understatement. I adore this game.

Having said that, it isn’t perfect. The camera is a relic of a bygone era where fixed cameras and authored sights were more in vogue; the difficulty spikes are brutal and often; the controls can take a bit to get used to— but when it all comes together, every facet of this diamond just shines that much brighter. The design, the goofy, larger-than-life characters, and the awesome early 2000s wub-wub butt rock soundtrack bring together this game that feels so of its time, while also feeling fresh, new, and different in the modern era. DMC3 has maybe my favorite choices of both playstyle options and weapon arsenal in an action game, full stop. Since there are so many ways to play it, you feel emboldened to play through it again, and again to attain better ranks per mission with different skillsets, and that feeling made me come back to it over and over.

I beat this game twice, and I still get the hankering to return to it for more playthroughs. Not only that, but after beating the game, you unlock the ability to play as Vergil, Dante’s nemesis and older twin brother, with his own campaign to run through. You also have the Bloody Palace mode, which is basically horde mode in Devil May Cry, and that also has endless ways to engage with it. It’s a lot… and I love it!

There is just so much content in here, I feel like I could play it for hours and hours and not see everything. Capcom is great about making their single-player offerings replayable and engaging through multiple playthroughs of their games, and that DNA continues from this even to their new stuff like the Resident Evil reboot trilogy and their RE2, RE3, and RE4 remakes. I love everything about this game, and will probably be playing it off and on for years to come, I expect.
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Runner-up: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD

What is the best Metal Gear Solid game?
Most folks, if asked, say that this one is. I agree qualitatively, but personally? It’s between MGS2 and MGS4 for me. But I can see where they are coming from, because this game is just sensational. I had this game with my old PS2 fat back in the day, but between the wonky controls, some of the harsh motion blurring in the cutscenes (which kinda made me feel nauseous, not going to lie), and some of the early game stuff being a tad slow for me at the time, I never saw it through in my early teens. While that stuff put me off back then, playing it with the HD re-release on PS5 in the Metal Gear Solid Collection Vol. 1 smoothed out the rougher edges of the original game and fixed some of the odd control issues I had with it in my first attempt. When I heard that Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater was coming as a remake of MGS3, I decided to give the original another go. I am so glad I did.

Coming back to it, I saw it in a whole new light, and I am so glad I finally played it. MGS3 has by far the best cast of villains, the best story, and probably, besides MGS4, has my favorite take on Snake as a character (even if he is Big Boss in this game). The writing is off-beat, odd, and verbose, while not being too cornball to put me off. I love the Cold War era this game depicts, even if the whole affair is more anime-inspired in nature than treating historical fiction, let’s say. It’s alt-history in name only because the whole game is pretty bonkers on a story and lore front. It’s all very Kojima but tempered even more than the usual goofiness his touch usually brings to a serious-ish setting. The tone is consistent in its inconsistency, and you never believe for a second that everyone in the game isn’t playing it all with a straight face. Except for Revolver Ocelot, who may as well be the comic relief, if there ever was one in the series (meowwwww).

The stealth mechanics are at their peak in this game. While not open world and free-form like the spaces you crawl around in MGS5, the survival aspects of MGS3’s game design (like eating, drinking, and curing yourself) all really work in the game’s favor without coming across as too gimmicky. The CQC is also a fun ‘get out of jail free card’ when situations get a little more dicey, when you inevitably get spotted. All of this works in concert to orchestrate a glorious symphony of action and stealth gameplay that I believe thematically to be the peak of the series. While I prefer playing MGS5 more than this game, I think all the parts come together in a better fit here than any other entry. It’s so ahead of its time, too. I marvel just thinking about how people must have felt playing this game in 2004. It’s one of the most sophisticated, well-made games of its era, and that fact shows even upon playing it today.

I played both this and DMC3 back-to-back, and it’s something I will remember for a long time. Playing two of my favorite games of that console generation one after the other is something I will cherish. How lucky are we? So many good games, both new and old, to play at any time. There has never been a better time to play video games! (Shoutout Vinny Caravella, by the way.)

There is no doubt. Kojima has never made a bad game, folks. I stand by that. Argue with a wall!
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Runner-up: Max Payne 2 (Played on Xbox Series S via Backwards Compatibility)

I love Remedy Entertainment. There may be no studio that I vibe with their stuff more than them. Every game they make is so laser-targeted to me and my preferences in games, it’s crazy. The only game of theirs that I haven’t liked in totality is the original Alan Wake. That is objectively a good game, but I just don’t like playing it that much. The controls are a bit lacking for me and what I am looking for in their games. It’s weird too— I actually prefer Alan Wake’s American Nightmare for XBLA more than the original if I were to compare. The gunplay is just better in that entry, I think.
That said, their hit rate for me is really high on the games front. If I had to rank my top 3? Easy.
Alan Wake II.
Control.
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.

When Control came out in 2019, Remedy had a crazy idea: “What if we tie all of our games together narratively, ‘MCU-style’, to link all our games up in one continuous story that we carry through all our games?” It’s genius, really— and it’s worked, too. With each entry, the RCU (Remedy Connected Universe) becomes more elaborate and ornate, filled with deep lore and a shared mythology that each game draws from and adds to, creating a unified history full of incredible characters, jaw-dropping reveals, and amazing truths that keep me coming back to each project they release. It’s incredible what they’ve done so far. The only holdouts of this large-scale idea are Quantum Break, the Microsoft-published time-travel yarn starring Shawn Ashmore (who returns in the RCU as ‘Sheriff Breaker’, wink-wink), and the Max Payne series (referenced throughout the Alan Wake series as the ‘Alex Casey’ character who is basically ‘Max Payne’ in all but name). Rockstar Games owns the publishing and IP rights of the Max Payne series, so that’s the reason that Remedy can’t use the IP in their games directly, unfortunately.

Which is a bummer. I wish they could learn to share. It’d make everything cooler. But that history aside, Max Payne 2 is incredible. I wish it tied into the main Remedy stuff these days (they’re remaking 1 and 2, so fingers crossed there is a chance Rockstar lets them include more things about their connected stuff in those), but even if it doesn’t, every bit of this game is amazing, even almost 23 years after the fact. The best part of this game? How it plays. It feels absolutely incredible to play. The bullet time mechanics return from the first entry, and every single way this game plays is pitch-perfect even today. It’s shocking how well it controls, and how Remedy just nailed it.

The story is fun, the character of Max is well-performed (voiced by Remedy mainstay, the late, great, James McCaffrey, RIP), looks cooler, and sounds cooler in Max Payne 2. Everything about the second one far surpasses the first, and I think the original is great in its own right. There is nothing like the comic-booky Frank Miller-esque style and flair of the Max Payne series in games, and I hope the remakes are just as good. God, I just want to go play 2 again.

What a game, what a series, what a studio.

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Runner-up: FFI (Reviewed and Played on PlayStation 5)

I went back to the past and finally played this. The original Final Fantasy.
I wrote about this game here on this site already this past year (go read that!), so I will be brief. It’s nice have a history lesson, right? It feels sort of like one, at least.

The game is simple, the story is simple, and it isn’t too tough to play with the Pixel Remaster’s quality of life improvements. There is no better way to play the first Final Fantasy, or even any of the other games in the series from I-VI, than in that package, so do yourself a favor and play them that way! It’s nice to play them on modern hardware, and the improvements add to the experience, enhancing each game while not taking away from any aspect of them, either.

I liked my time with the first game. The economy is broken, the combat is repetitive, and there aren’t that many enemies in the game, sure, but seeing how the genre started up between this and the first Dragon Quest, you get to see how everything came to be, and that’s cool.
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Hell of a year for old games! I had a blast digging into my bullshit and playing older games this year, and I can’t wait to see what 2026 brings my way on the old games front. I played a ton of new stuff in 2025, but I am going to endeavor to reach back a bit more in this next year and clear out the backlog a bit. It’s getting a little cluttered in there!
Join me, won’t you?

I have about 2 or 3 more things in the works for this recap of 2025, so keep sticking with me! Next up for me, I will be writing about my favorite games of 2025! I promise that it will be long, drawn out, and full of personal bias!

Thanks for sticking around with me for the duration. Here’s to more time playing video games in 2026.