Nobody's 2025 Top 100 Games: 50-41

50: Witchspring R

There was no universe in which I imagined this weird remake of a mobile RPG ranking above ZTD on my list, but here we are. Witchspring R is really good. Probably specifically because it began life as a Korean mobile RPG, it is incredibly good at providing something interesting to do if only you keep playing for a little longer. It has loads of simple systems that combine to be more than the sum of their parts. Collecting a new summon might just be a matter of casting a spell on an enemy, but doing that might let you win another fight, which could get you the resources to craft new equipment, which will get you points to spend on the stat raising minigames, all of which might let you beat yet another new enemy and access a new area. If you’re used to JRPGs being slow and grindy, this is not that. Provided you’re okay with a whole lot of comic relief, it even has a good story to tell. This was a wonderful surprise.

Previously: Unreleased, although the original may have been playable somewhere

49: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Shadow Tactics is a stealth game, but it’s really an elaborate puzzle box. Every level presents you with a seemingly impossible labyrinth of enemies guarding some objective you need to complete. You start out feeling hopeless, but after enough looking around you’ll eventually find a weak point somewhere you can use to move a little further forward. And then the cycle begins again: you’re stuck until you find some clever trick you can use to go a little further. It’s a simple premise, but one that produces an incredible sense of accomplishment when you’ve finally solved the map three hours later.

Previously: 37. It’s hard for me to get the time for games like this anymore.

48: Impostor Factory

Like the other games in the To the Moon series, Impostor Factory tells a beautiful and emotional story that will leave nary a dry eye in the room. Unlike the other two main games, it is not a very grounded experience. It opens with a And Then There Was One-type murder mystery and ends up going to some truly crazy places that only make sense in the context of the other two games. It’s still masterfully written and absolutely worth playing, but I think it’s so far behind the other two because it’s harder to relate to this content.

Previously: Unreleased

47: A Hat in Time

A Hat in Time is everything I want out of a platformer. In Mario terms, it’s closest to Sunshine in that it’s a bunch of hub worlds with secret entrances to extra levels and a few different starting states depending on which collectible you start the level from. I placed it a bit ahead of Odyssey back at release because I preferred its more focused levels, but the two DLCs elevated it way into its own league. Or they did until this year, anyway. There’s a new king platformer further down.

Previously: 47. The Hat is immovable.

46: Parkitect

Parkitect could not possibly be more direct about its inspirations. It is Roller Coaster Tycoon. The construction UI will be immediately familiar to anyone who knows RCT, and everything else will be only slightly less immediately familiar. And yeah, that’s really all there is to it. Did you like RCT and wish there was a modern version of it with some QoL updates? That is Parkitect. It is very good.

Previously: 46. These roller coasters do not move.

45: Silent Hill 3

I’m not going to write a better description of this game than I did last time:

SH3 stars Heather, who does not have time to be a horror game protagonist. The main villain shows up, and she doesn’t care what her name is. She repeatedly walks away from the poor detective who’s just trying to advance the plot. Heather is very annoyed that Silent Hill keeps trying to pull her in, and she’s not going to check a toilet for any keys. That’s disgusting.

It has its scary moments, but I love it because the core premise of a horror protagonist who just does not care is so good. The haunted house near the end is also amazing.

Previously: 13. Yep, still dealing with the 10-20 weirdness from last time.

44: Pummel Party

If you’re just going by the Steam page, Pummel Party looks like it’s just low budget Mario Party with extra violence. That impression isn’t exactly wrong, but it misses the important point: It’s actually low budget Mario Party with extra violence and really good minigames. There’s none of the “press a button until someone randomly loses” trash here. All the games are skill based, but still chaotic enough to be exciting. The board game layer is kind of an afterthought relative to the games, but it still has room for some creative twists and fun items. Now it even has modding support to create new minigames and boards.

Previously: 71. Mods get most of the credit for that increase

43: Earth Defense Force 4.1: Shadow of New Despair

I wrote EDF4.1 off as a stupid, janky mess for a long time. I was not wrong. It is stupid. It is janky. It is a mess. And yet, it is the best kind of all of those. This is a game in which you will fight giant ants with ridiculous weapons. It won’t take long at all before you are comfortable that the ants are no match for your ridiculous weapons, but then the ants will learn to spit acid, make friends with giant spiders, and so on. Naturally this means that your weapons must become more ridiculous, so you’ll get a mech, then a mech with rockets, then a mech with flamethrowers, and on and on until both sides have become so stupidly over the top that the initial premise of tanks versus ants looks completely grounded. It’s amazing, but it somehow isn’t the best co-op game about shooting giant bugs.

Previously: I would not give this masterpiece the time of day

42: AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative

nirvanA Initiative would probably also have ranked higher without a replay, but it didn’t take anywhere near as big of a hit as ZTD. This one does have a lot of cool foreshadowing to catch when you already know what happens, and it executes some of ZTD’s ideas in a less fragile way. It has a far stronger cast than the first game for its lack of Date, not to mention drastically improving the somnium levels so that they’re not just random trial and error. This is a huge step up for the series, but it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the best Zero Escape games. It has a lot of cool ideas without quite achieving that twist or moment that really sticks with you.

Previously: Unreleased

41: Deep Rock Galactic

Another game about shooting giant bugs. Instead of focusing on ridiculous weapons and explosions like EDF, DRG is all about terrain deformation. If you have an objective that’s 300 meters below you in the cave, you could follow the tunnel network to reach it, but you could also just dig a hole in the floor and hope you don’t fall to your death when you dig through the ceiling of a room below you. This simple idea leads to all sorts of creative problem solving while being attacked by swarms of bugs. Can’t reach a ledge? Dig a staircase. Stuck in a corner? Tunnel to a bigger room. Then there’s the mission and biome variety: the different objective types lead to wildly different gameplay, and changing up the biome can cause all sorts of surprises once you’ve gotten used to your environment.

Previously: I don’t think I had played it yet

Nobody’s 2025 Top 100 Games: 100-91

Nobody’s 2025 Top 100 Games: 90-81

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Nobody’s 2025 Top 100 Games: 50-41

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Nobody’s 2025 Top 100 Games: 10-1