Games Beaten 2025

[SyedDanishAnwar]

I have only beaten Final Fantasy VII Rebirth this year due to busy schedule. This year I dont intend to play a lot of games and give myself a bit of mental break from games.

I hope to resume and buy and finish dozens of games next year similar to the esp. the previous two years.

[Markies]

Markies' Games Beat List Of 2025!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***

1. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)
2. Mario Party 4 (GCN)
***3. The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2)***
***4. Pokemon Snap (N64)***
***5. Dead Or Alive (PS1)***
6. Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
7. Pokemon Blue (GBC)
8. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
***9. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (NSW)***
***10. Sonic The Hedgehog (GEN)***
***11. The New Tetris (N64)***
12. Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA)



I beat Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls on the GameBoy Advence this evening!

Final Fantasy is my favorite series of all time, so I will play any version of the series whenever I get a chance. So, the big selling point of playing GBA games were to be able to play through all of the Advance remakes that came to the system. It took me a while, but I finally tracked down a copy of Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls. I was a little hesitant in playing it though because of the time investment of playing them back to back. Well, I was looking for a long GBA game to play and it surprisingly looked to be the shortest of the games I own, so I decided to replay Final Fantasy I & II on the GBA.

I will just come out and say it: These are by far the best versions of Final Fantasy I & II I have ever played. I haven't played the Pixel Remasters, but if you are going to play the first two games in the series, I would highly recommend the GBA versions. The quality of life improvements they have made on both games are absolutely wonderful. In fact, Final Fantasy I only took me three sittings to beat the game. After the initial towns with their grinding, I sped through the game in one long sitting. The levels were quicker, the gil was more abundant, everything was cheaper and the monsters just seemed so much easier. I waltzed through the final dungeon and I almost did the same thing in Final Fantasy II. Granted, the game has several more dungeons. In fact, there are way too many dungeons in Final Fantasy II and not enough shops selling better stuff. I ran into the wall at the final dungeon, but after an hour of grinding, I was stomping everything by the end including the final boss. With improved graphics and sound along with a nicer leveling system in Final Fantasy II, this is the ultimate package. They took older games and just made them so much better. I will always have nostalgia for the NES versions, but these are the best ones to play going forward without a shadow of a doubt.

Overall, I enjoyed every moment of Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls on the GameBoy Advance. Obviously, these games are important, but these improvements make the game so much more enjoyable for a modern audience. All they did was add a little polish and tweak some things to make them so much playable. If you have never played either game or enjoy both of them, I would highly suggest playing the GBA version. They are absolutely fantastic!

[REPO Man]

Wouldn't that technically count as two games? Like how the Spyro: Reignited Trilogy would count as three.

Or am I being pedantic and need to shut my fucking gob?

Either way, congrats.

[REPO Man]

Beat Wolfenstein: The New Order for PS4 again, this time on a higher difficulty level.

[Flake]

January
- Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamer Edition (Xbox Series)
- Megaman: Power Battle (Evercade Alpha)
- Megaman (Switch)
- Megaman 2 (Switch)
- Samurai Shodown (1993) (Switch)

February
- Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (Xbox Series)

March
- Tales of Symphonia Remaster (Xbox Series)
- Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (Switch)

Not a lot of updates since January but that's due to focusing on some very long games.

Back in 2022, I finally played through Cyberpunk 2077 after the 1.5 performance patch came out. I liked it but...that was about it. The gameplay was hohum. It didn't feel like there was a lot you could do to make combat interesting. The world did not seem to interact with you much. I finally played the 2.1 patch with the Phantom Liberty DLC and it really is a brand new game. I was so immersed that I did almost everything. Every mission. Every skirmish. Every NCPD job. Every gig. I almost never 100% games but I came really close here. Nearly every ending. Every apartment. I actually stopped playing games for about a week after I finished because I was kind of bummed to leave Night City behind.

Finishing Tales of Symphonia felt like redeeming myself. I had the Gamecube original back in 2003 and made it 40 hours in before I gave up. It always bothered me. I picked up the Xbox Series version of the remastered edition and fixed that issue. The game definitely shows its age. It's clunky in some areas. It punishes you for favoring any character except the main protag, discouraging you from using the rest of the characters in the party (and their moves and play styles) because you might have that character disappear for PLOT right before a tough fight, often taking good equipment with them. Then, at the end, the story was just... okay. There's a lot of hand waving to make the plot come together. Threads introduced in the beginning that seemed like real mysteries were resolved in mundane, pedantic ways or just forgotten. I'm glad I finally returned to Tales of Symphonia but I think I'll not come back for a 3rd bite of the apple.

Lastly, "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse". This game is really hard but fortunately my courage and save states saw me through. I love this game, I really do but wow, it's hard.

[Markies]

Markies' Games Beat List Of 2025!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***

1. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)
2. Mario Party 4 (GCN)
***3. The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2)***
***4. Pokemon Snap (N64)***
***5. Dead Or Alive (PS1)***
6. Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
7. Pokemon Blue (GBC)
8. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
***9. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (NSW)***
***10. Sonic The Hedgehog (GEN)***
***11. The New Tetris (N64)***
12. Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA)
13. Yoshi (NES)



I completed Yoshi on the Nintendo Entertainment System this evening!

As I go deeper into my NES Wishlist, I am noticing that I keep running into rather difficult games. Whatever genre it is, I know that the console has many mean games waiting for me to play them. So, every now and then, I like to find and play something that gives me a little respite. And that is why I picked up Yoshi in 2023. I knew it would be a very simple and not too difficult game that I could get for extremely cheap, so I figured I would give it a shot. Plus, I had tried Yoshi's Cookie recently and I really enjoyed that one, so I wanted to get to that one as well. And so, after playing through Final Fantasy I & II, I needed a much smaller game to play before I delved into my next longer game. So, I decided to pop in Yoshi for an evening and play a simple little puzzle game.

The most surprising fact about Yoshi is that the game was developed by GameFreak, the people that would eventually make the Pokemon series. They would make these smaller titles as they earned Nintendo's favor for the backing of Pokemon. And honestly, that is the most interesting aspect to the game. It is a single screen Puzzle game where enemies fall from the ceiling. If you match two of them, they disappear. Or, if you connect a bottom Yoshi egg and a top Yoshi egg, they combine to eat all the enemies and everything disappears to create a Yoshi. Once the screen is clear, the stage ends and you move onto the next one. That really is it. It is a very simple game.

Unfortunately, it almost feels a little too simple. Unlike other games like Dr. Mario or Tetris, there is not enough nuance in the game to add to the depth. There are only two ways to defeat enemies, so you are stuck praying to the RNG God's to left you finish the level. Also, once you play the game for 15 minutes, you really have seen it all. There isn't much depth and there are hardly any frills to the game. It is a simple and bare bones, which makes sense cause apparently this game was made in like 6 months.

Overall, Yoshi isn't a terrible game, but it isn't a great one either. It satisfied that simple and easy NES game itch that I had and I was glad to have played it. This is not a game that you are going to put hundreds of hours into or pull down from the shelf often or say it is one of your favorite games of all time. It's a simple game to add to your shelf that was fun for the brief moment I played it.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

First twelve:

1. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Cynically, in the modern chapters, this game even admits that it's a commercially pedestrian blockbuster. It depicts history wrongly all the time, so there's little value in that. Purely as a game, it's mostly the same as the previous games, which means gameplay is automatic and shallow, while you hoover up symbols on your map. The only thing going for it would be the ship battles, which while sluggish and imprecise, are still somewhat novel and explosive. In about forty hours of play time, I think I had about an hour of fun being a pirate.
4/10

2. Minecraft
I was extremely pleasantly surprised at how much respect the game had for the player's ingenuity. The tutorial is merely some pages you can find in the options menu. You have minutes to set up a safe haven, preferably with a bed and torches, with little to no instructions. Dying halves your experience points and leaves all your gear scattered about. Although randomly generated, there's always a feeling you might find something unique. The final boss is a treat, being open ended and seemingly insurmountable at first. There's a lot of random stuff that can set you back a couple of hours back, which keeps the challenge honest and respectful. However, it is still a game about crafting, meaning half the time you'll be doing busywork and clicking around in menus.
8/10

3. Street Fighter 6
Link combos now have a three frame buffer, while the super meter(s) allow many alterations to your moves. Competitively, this means you'll spend less time practicing the same combos over and over, and instead practicing reading different situations. With less neutral and much more creativity, this makes Street Fighter more like the other anime fighters. Which while a good thing, makes me wonder why this should be played at all. The answer is the masses: the single player mode is a poor man's Yakuza, but nevertheless will feed the tournament scene with plenty of folks confident enough they'll want to compete.
8/10

4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Is this a recruitment ad for the US Army? The production values are very impressive. Obviously, the game propels you forward, set piece to set piece, always giving you blockbuster flare. Occasionally, precision and strategy is required, and everything falls apart. Perhaps the lack of clarity and random nature of the enemies is realistic, but it does not make the challenge engaging. Luckily, it's over within a couple of hours. I hear the multiplayer was popular. Perhaps, but I doubt there's a reason to play this over Counter Strike or Quake.
3/10

5. Felvidek
A brisk 'Japanese' RPG instead located in Hungary, as its name implies. It delights in its historic background, where the church is at odds with cultists, and the monarchy at odds with the peasantry. The combat might just be barely strategic enough to keep the fights interesting, but this leaves more headspace for the eccentric narrative. Both silly and serious themes are explored, with intriguing writing and distinctive artistry. It's no Disco Elysium or Undertale, but if you want more in the same vein, a must play.
7/10

6. Blazing Lazers
Hectic and sharp, this is everything you could hope a 16-bit shmup can be. At times there might be too much going on, while you're bomb attack is too slow, but otherwise the difficulty is mostly fair. Space Megaforce has more interesting weapon choices, and MUSHA has more pizazz, but this one is still almost as good and definitely a step up from earlier Zanac/Aleste games.
7/10

7. Company of Heroes
On paper this sounds like any other RTS, but this one has a bombast to it that makes everything feel urgent, hence its popular appeal. The campaign benefits from high production values, enhancing the historic significance of the battles. There's an extra emphasis on controlling many different parts of the map for resources, and less on building structures, making skirmishes action packed. Still, I'd recommend only trying out single player, as CoH3 and SC2 have better competitive scenes.
8/10

8. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
The amount of personality is commendable, but that's really all this 'game' has to offer. You can't help but feel like half the time you're just doing mundane tasks. And for what? Happy emotes and the occasional joke? Perhaps being able to show off your creativity with online friends. Fundamentally, this genre is flawed due to being in a medium that limits expression to moving things around and making extremely simple dialogue choices. Still, picked up at the right time in small bursts, there's no denying it's a charming experience. And for what it's worth, there is more to see and do than in the prequels.
6/10

9. Shatterhand
The risk/reward element of short ranged attacks works better in Zelda II and Ninja Gaiden due to them having defensive options. Shatterhand relies a lot on speed and brute strength, which is exciting, but also tense. The upgrades are awkward to yield and keeping them around is even harder. There's a lot of potential here: think Mega Man with fists and body extensions. And while the execution is polished on a surface level, the combat is too frustrating to make it a classic.
5/10

10. CyberPunk 2077
Amazingly ambitious, just seeing the effort put into this is a marvel. Goes beyond the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher III in almost every way, and thankfully, also in terms of gameplay and emergency. Unfortunately, the whole thing buckles under its own weight, as it's clear that the design process was hacked into parts for delegation. So don't expect level design as bold and organic as in Deus Ex, and systems working as well together. But there's still a lot to toy around with, and often enough make a choice with emotional weight.
8/10

11. Wario Land 4
Despite being the third iteration as a costume-based puzzle platformer, design is still rather tame and in stark contrast with the its exuberant personality. Some of the later levels dare the player to think twice, but never are you allowed to attempt things creatively. Still, it's a highly saccharine trip and you can't help but feel glee as Wario plows through ancient ruins with reckless abandon. Great bosses, too!
7/10

12. SUGAR (Jen Simpkins)
This interaction fiction is so short, it borders on being poetry. No matter, every second is gripping, as is every branch in the narrative. We already knew she was a talented writer as editor of Edge. I can only hope Jen's talents make it into other games. And you get to be a sex worker that eats the rich, indeed a very wholesome topic.
7/10

13. Earthbound
The best parts are when it subverts genre conventions, but rarely does it subvert gaming conventions. This tragically leaves the experience emotionally bound to 90's Japanese role playing games. Which in turn might ironically create its charm: it's yet another go at one of these, only this time everything's a bit different, making it both familiar and odd at the same time. The overworld portions are memorable, the combat isn't.
6/10

14. Venba
The cooking is surprisingly involving, as the meals have an existential weight to them. The cut-scenes between them are just barely long enough to get you interested in the next family conundrum. In the end, it's a bittersweet tale you can almost smell at times. And yes, you unlock a cook book at the end to add these recipes to your own memories.
7/10

15. Mario Kart 8
Now with more pizazz!! Luigi's Death Stare(tm) will never get old. And all the Nintendo characters having political alignments is hilarious. Toadette for life. /raisefist
7/10

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2025 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
* indicates a repeat

1. Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii)
2. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
3. Battlefield: Hardline (PS3)
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3)
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (PS3)
6. Dead Nation (PS3)
7. Kileak, The Blood 2: Reason in Madness (PS1)
8. Paro Wars (PS1)
9. in Stars and Time (Steam)
10. Tetris Battle Gaiden (SFC)
11. Super Tetris 3 (SFC)
12. Battlefield 4 (PS3)
13. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3)
14. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3)
15. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (PS4)
16. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PS4)
17. Call of Duty: WWII (PS4)
18. Resistance 3 (PS3)
19. Tearaway: Unfolded (PS4)
20. Grow Home (PS4)
21. Grow Up (PS4)
22. Ratchet & Clank (2016) (PS4)
23. Dark Sector (Steam)
24. Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (N64)
25. Multi-Racing Championship (N64)
26. Super Smash Bros. (N64)
27. Puyo Puyo Sun 64 (N64)
28. Shin Nippon Pro Wrestling: Toukon Road - Brave Spirits (N64)
29. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 6 (N64)
30. Let's Smash (N64)
31. Mario Tennis 64 (N64)
32. Ucchannanchan no Honō no Challenger: Denryū Iraira Bō (N64)
33. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 4 (N64)
34. FIFA: Road to the World Cup 98 (N64)
35. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 2000 (N64)
36. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 5 (N64)
37. Time and Eternity (PS3)

38. Pokemon Red (GB)

I got this English copy of Pokemon Red from a friend who gifted me all of her childhood GameBoy stuff last year (thank you again, Lily! <3 ), and it has been TAUNTING me with its presence ever since XD. I was really in the mood for an RPG with less reading that I could just sorta dump my attention into in a more shallow way after all the reading in Time and Eternity, and this was the perfect fit for that. I finally had a team I wanted to use, and (the most important part) a naming scheme too! I (Goku) took my Dragon Ball-themed team of Charizard (Gohan), Nidoqueen (Bulma), Raichu (Krillin), Exeggutor (Chiaotzu), Vaporeon (Piccolo), and Snorlax (Yajirobe) to defeat the Champion (Vegeta) in about 20 hours over two days playing real hardware via my Super GameBoy. All that said, I have reviewed gen 1 Pokemon twice in the past several years, so I'm not gonna do my normal big review here (you can look at my reviews of Pokemon Green from 2021 or Pokemon Yellow from 2023 if you really wanna know my in-depth thoughts about these games).

Verdict: Recommended. I still really like Pokemon gen 1! It's got a lot of issues in terms of too many types and not enough Pokemon or moves, but it's all executed so well regardless that it just doesn't matter. Especially for an RPG on the original GameBoy (a system with admittedly no shortage of heavy-hitter RPGs despite the hardware), this is an amazingly well executed project despite the grand scale of its ambitions. There are a lot of rough mechanical edges to push through if you're more used to modern Pokemon quality of life features, but if that isn't enough to push you away, this game is still as fun as it ever was as far as I'm concerned~.

----

39. Dr. Mario 64 (N64)

This is a game that I have owned in the past but never played enough to see the credits (despite how relatively easy that is to do). What pushed me to finally do it (despite it having come to Switch Online recently <w> ) was watching a Youtuber I like attempt to beat it. He was struggling so much with it that I just had to try it out myself and confirm if it really was THAT difficult. Given that it took me like 40 minutes to beat the story mode with only one death the whole time (against the final boss), I've certainly answered that question XD. Regardless, I did enjoy my time with it. It took me about 40 minutes to beat the story mode with Dr. Mario via the Switch Online service (without save states), and then I played around in the classic mode for another half an hour or so.

Despite being an old puzzle game, this game does have a story mode with a story! Dr. Mario goes around helping cure everyone all day, but his power is not without envy! Wario wants to steal Dr. Mario's megavitamins to sell for massive cash, but the evil Mad Scienstein steals them first! Dr. Mario and Wario have to chase after Scienstein and battle every enemy they come across in the process. It's hardly anything deep or terribly interesting (or all that funny either, at least compared to something like the character you see in something like the contemporary Puyo Puyo story modes), but it's more than good enough an excuse for the puzzle battles at hand.

Those puzzle battles themselves are something I'm mixed about. Dr. Mario has a pretty divided opinion online, but I'm definitely in the camp that likes it more than I don't like it. That said, the whole "match 4 colors to clear viruses until all the viruses are gone" type of gameplay is clearly much better done in single player than it is in 2+ player versus modes. Doing chains by clearing several viruses at a time or with several motions of falling pills puts junk blocks onto your opponent's side in the form of sets of random half-pill blocks falling from the top of their board. This is definitely the best solution you could've come up with for this kind of mode, but I don't think it's very fun given how Dr. Mario usually plays. Dr. Mario is already a game so much about avoiding and fixing your own mistakes that someone else throwing junk at you can make it truly impossible to win if you get an unlucky enough pill drop. Even junk blocks from a simple chain early on can give you an unrecoverable death blow if it falls in the right place, and that feels really bad as a multiplayer mode. I don't think it's unenjoyable, but it's definitely not about to overthrow the other competitive falling-block puzzle games out there any time soon.

Despite all that, I do still think this game has a lot of upsides. it controls very well, and it has a nice amount of content too. Sure, getting perfect runs of storymode (never dying) to unlock the extra characters is a bit of a nightmare, but this game does still have other multiplayer modes whose implementations I like a lot. It's got various multiplayer modes other than the single-player score attack modes (such as one about who can destroy the flashing viruses on their board before the other), and it provides some nice variety. You can also play with up to 4 players at once, and what I like most about that is that, unlike any other puzzle game I'm aware of on the N64, when you die against more than one other person, you can keep playing! You get a practice board not part of the competition to play around with until your buddies are done with their contest. It's hardly something that turns this into a must-have killer app for the console, of course, but I do still appreciate the move to make it so you have other stuff to do after dying other than just waiting for your buddies to be done.

The aesthetics of the game are quite nice too. The storybook style of the cutscenes in story mode are very fun and entertainingly portrayed. The 2D art in general is very nice, and there's never any issue in readability even when the boards are smaller due to playing with 4 people at once. The enemies you fight against are just about all characters from Wario Land 3, and even if they're not original to this game, it's fun to see them be all silly and weird in the story mode and such outside of the confines of their original game. The music is also very nice, and this has some nice funky remixes of old Dr. Mario tracks along with some new ones to boot.

Verdict: Recommended. While it's not the best falling-block puzzle game out there, Dr. Mario is still good fun, and this is a great way to play it. The ability to do 4 player versus may not be as appealing here as it would be in Puyo Puyo Party on the N64, but it's still a fun way to pass the time with friends if you're into this kind of game and looking for something different. Especially now that it can easily be played online with buddies via the Switch Online service, there's' never been a better time to check this game out. It's a great version of Dr. Mario, and if that's something you're up for, it's hard to go wrong with this one~

[prfsnl_gmr]

I’m playing some longer games, and I am dreadfully behind on reviews! Here’s an update:

1. Mega Man (DOS)
2. Mega Man III: The Robots Are Revolting (DOS)
3. Teslagrad 2 (Switch)
4. Metal Slug 5 (Neo Geo)
5. Ufouria: The Saga 2 (Switch)
6. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch)
7. The Bounty Huntress (Switch)
8. Wide Ocean Big Jacket (Switch)
9. Haunted Castle Revisited (Switch)

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is pretty great. It stars Princess Zelda and uses the same aesthetic style as the Link’s Awakening remake (which is great because I was very worried for a very long time we wouldn’t get another LoZ game in the same style). Interestingly, though, it borrows a lot of gameplay elements from Tears of the Kingdom. That is, the world is almost completely open from the game’s start, and Princess Zelda’s ability to confront enemies and obstacles directly is very limited. Rather, she creates copies of objects she encounters throughout her journey, including enemies, and uses those to engage in combat, solve puzzles, and overcome obstacles. She can replicate dozens, if not hundreds of objects, which allows you to overcome obstacles creatively, and the game lets you play however you’d like. My only complaint is that the game is looooooong, and each area follows the same story beats (i.e., helps these guys, help these other guys, go to a dungeon, wash, rinse, repeat). Otherwise, I loved it and can’t recommend it highly enough.

The Bounty Huntress is, arguably, the worst metroidvania I’ve ever played. To be fair, the game is created by only a couple of people, costs only $1.99 on the Switch, and has, in places, some good sprite work. Still, it borrows very directly from Dark Souls and SotN, and suffers badly in comparison. It also has a lot of technical issues, contains generic music, uses simple background sprites, and is designed pretty poorly with one segment toward the end consisting of a series of one-way passages demonstrate particular disdain for the player’s time and patience. The difficulty spikes and dips wildly, and there’s a tremendous amount of backtracking for no good reason. Not recommended.

Wide Ocean Big Jacket is a cozy game about going on a camping trip. It has a fun, low-poly art style and a laid back vibe. Nothing much happens, and you can beat the game in 60-90 minutes. This sort of game is not my thing, but admittedly, this is a particularly good example of the genre. I look back on it fondly, and if cozy games are your thing, I can’t recommend this highly enough to you.

Haunted Castle Revisted is a remake of Haunted Castle included as a bonus feature in the Castlevania Dominus Collection. The original Haunted Castle is pretty terrible, but just as they did with Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth, M2 has transformed another one of the worst games in the series to a pretty stellar classic-vania game. The game now consists of six well-designed and not-at-all-boring stages. The graphics, while still somewhat faithful to the coin-op original, look great; the music still rocks; the game controls well; and the game is now drastically less frustrating. My only complaint is that the game is very easy, and I 1cc’ed it on my first attempt. Accordingly, while it probably wouldn’t work as a stand-alone release, it’s a pretty amazing bonus feature and a must for Castlevania completionists.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

I beat Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls on the GameBoy Advence this evening!

Would you say it's better than Final Fantasy: Ultra Champion Edition?