Five Games ROBBYDUDE Played That Just So Happened To Come Out In The Year 2025

Another year, another mediocre list of video games that I paid attention to. Not to say these games are mediocre or anything (Okay, one of them actually is) but more so that the list I’m crafting isn’t anything terribly special. The previous list I made for Gamesline dot Net went over 10 beautiful games I wish I played in the year 2023, but THIS year I’d like to talk about some games I actually played — and as an added bonus, they all released in 2025! The only real game missing from this list is Mario Kart World. Actually, wait, let me just start with that while I’m here.

Mario Kart World

During a fiscal year that had more kart racers than sense, the last appetizing meal in the buffet just so happened to be Mario Kart World: an amazing jukebox filled with some of the most beautiful renditions of Mario’s incredible auditory history. When you aren’t reminiscing about how amazing the Sherbet Land track from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is, you’re most likely aimlessly driving around Mario Kart World‘s boring and lifeless open-world map. Sure, it’s filled to the brim with P-Switch challenges that will test your time trial skills against moderately difficult turns or give you a platforming puzzle that will make you wonder if they actually finished the wall-riding mechanic, but besides those and some “Princess Medallions” that you just need to grab a flower to get for 99% of them, there really isn’t much to do besides take a clip of you bouncing back and forth to whatever song is on and posting it on Twitter. Wait, they removed the Share functionality on Switch this year too. Never mind, just drive around the city some more.

Here’s the thing: we’re not stupid, Mario. We saw the mobile game you put out before this one that had double the characters of your previous game’s roster, all with unique outfits and animations. Porting those full-sail over to the Switch 2 and calling it a day doesn’t impress. What DOES impress is the ability to play as a Goomba — that shit is tight. But the fact that we are 6 months removed from the release of this game and there hasn’t been a single update on any future content doesn’t necessarily bode well for a game that could really use some. The Grand Prix mode wasn’t crazy, and the aforementioned open world really could have used some pizazz. Knockout Tour is where I think the game really shines, where you are racing online in a battle-royale-style course, but the 8 rallies that you left us with have a lot to be desired — all we needed was a random button and we’d be set.

I guess what I’m saying is that I want more expensive post-launch DLC filled with recycled content from older games. Where the hell is Kamek.

Umamusume: Pretty Derby

It’s almost impossible to recommend a mobile gacha game to people. As a matter of fact, it’s downright offensive to do so. “I suggest you spend your free time with the horrible reality of gambling addiction and forced sparsity that you can access anywhere at any time from the supercomputer in your pocket.” And I would never do that on a public forum such as the wonderful publication Gamesline dot Net.

Umamusume: Pretty Derby was a game that made me so happy I could cry. It’s a game with such an absolutely absurd concept that takes itself 100% seriously that it’s difficult to believe it’s even real. An alternate world where real-life racehorses are reincarnated as quirky animal girls literally sounds like a joke, but it’s sincere, clever, and historically accurate to the actual real-world statistics of these legendary horses. From the twisted perverts over at Cygames comes something that feels like it doesn’t exist and honestly kind of shouldn’t, but it somehow managed to touch the hearts of trillions of people.

It’s honestly just a Monster Rancher clone — you pump up your horse-girl’s stats in a day-to-day seasonal cycle, hoping that your dice roll is good enough to not cause a failure in training, only to face your horse-girl against other horse-girls in a race around the track. The real reward is the highly original character designs and personalities, all based on their real-life counterpart’s race history and nature towards their riders and fellow equines. There’s a horse-girl in the game named Sakura Bakushin O, a horse who, in real life, was regarded as one of the best short-distance runners of all time during their run from 1992 to 1994. Their history is filled with more losses than wins, but they had a consistent win record in the 1200m-1400m distance races. They won 11 out of the 12 short-distance races they participated in, only coming in 6th place once to another horse named Nishino Flower. In Umamusume: Pretty Derby, Sakura Bakushin O is a class representative who is constantly running at full sprint around the school, constantly shouting her own name. She is airheaded and self-centered but feels like she can be more than her aptitude at short-distance races. During her campaign, you are constantly tricking her into racing shorter and shorter races, which she easily excels in due to her stats as being an all-out sprinting powerhouse with low stamina. There are about a hundred different horse-girls in the game who all have different historically accurate stories and personalities all around the lives of these real-life racehorses. It’s absolutely hilarious.

To a T

YOU DIDN’T BUY THIS GAME, AND NOW KEITA TAKAHASHI IS SAD. IF YOU DIDN’T WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME BECAUSE IT IS SHORT, THEN YOU ARE WEAK-MINDED AND HAVE A BROKEN HEART. SHAME ON YOU.

Word Play

In a world of Balatro-likes and Rouge-ish Puzzlers, I think Word Play is one of the most “slam dunk”s out of either of those. Easiest way to sell it is that it’s Scrabble but with upgrades, and it’s kinda just perfect. Every challenge level I get to or any of the upgrades I find along my playthrough, I just think, “Oh, duh, of course.” — it’s one of those kinds of games. It’s a game that I feel would be absolutely perfect for a mobile device or one of those tablets at Chili’s that you order your food off of. It is easily recognizable and impossible to want to put down once you get a few games in.

This game was made by Mark Brown from the YouTube channel Game Maker’s Toolkit. I have no clue if he will ever read this or if anyone will catch on to what I’m writing, but Mark Brown was the administrator of a forum I went to as a child, and I used to draw funny pictures of him and other members. I feel like I kind of owe it to him for harboring a community of creatives whose reverberations are still being felt in the industry today and for being responsible for a bunch of teenagers who definitely should not have been allowed on the computer during that time. I liked your game, Mark. Thank you for everything.

Donkey Kong Bananza

This game is slop. Pejorative. It’s unfocused, bloated, and completely unintelligible as a platforming game. It’s a game that promises endless freedom of expression in the movement system and then offers you 17 poorly designed levels that basically say, “We didn’t want to actually think of where to put shit, so we threw them around the world randomly — it’s up to player agency to get them in any order!!!!!!!!!!!”. The missions are bland and repetitive, the level objectives are forced and predictable, and the moment-to-moment gameplay and combat feel like you’re wrestling an actual real-life gorilla in order to properly pull off the things it wants you to do. You could surf around the world and find the same enemy type you fought from level 1 and turn into a giant bird and do a rock-catapult move to get above it so you can drop eggs on top of it that you got from the vast upgrade tree and come down doing the Iron Man punch. Or you can hit it with a rock. Like every other enemy in the game. And every solution to every puzzle. And every boss. Just hit shit with the rock you pull out of the ground.

The music is whatever. It’s mostly low-energy ambient tracks that try too hard to be Stickerbrush Symphony. Some of the outliers are the remixed/covered tracks from Donkey Kong’s previous outings, which are few and far between. The most egregious parts of the soundtrack are the fully voice-acted songs that play whenever you use one of your upgrade abilities — and by fully voice-acted, I mean that your sidekick sings in actual gibberish instead of any understandable language. And these songs don’t really change or get any less grating. You’re going to be listening to the same gibberish from the start of the game all the way to the end. Nintendo games really love putting songs with lyrics in their games. I feel like it started with the Latin theme of Smash Bros. Brawl, but it honestly took off with Jump Up, Superstar! from Mario Odyssey. Every Nintendo game that comes out now needs a song with lyrics in it. The gimmick has overstayed its welcome, especially with Nintendo’s track record of some of the most embarrassing voice acting I’ve ever seen in video games. Poorly translated PS2 shit.

Pauline is shit. The whole way through. Just annoying and unnecessary, doesn’t help with the story or progression of the game. She’d be better as a rock. Why isn’t she wearing shoes. Her inclusion completely destroys any semblance we had of a consistent Mario lore. Why isn’t she wearing shoes.

The best part of this game is the last 3 hours. Actually some of the coolest set pieces and music from a platforming game in a very, very long time — way more interesting than anything Odyssey had to offer. But it is short-lived and never spoken of again. This game was just a shame. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat this is not!

Promise Mascot Agency

This might have been the only actual video game I played this year. This game has so much heart and soul woven into every single second of screen time that it instills some kind of inspiration I haven’t felt in a long time. A game with so much style and substance, with over-the-top characters that are so varied and different but fit so neatly together, and an incredibly heartwarming story about self-preservation and protecting your loved ones (in any form they may take) that you can’t help but cheer for it.

Promise Mascot Agency is a game about driving around in a souped-up kei truck. And when it isn’t about crashing your truck-boat-plane into a giant tanuki statue, it’s a visual novel about an ex-yakuza member (voiced by Takaya Kuroda, the voice of Kazuma Kiryu from the Yakuza series!) who took the fall for their family and does everything in their power to make things right. And when it isn’t about a crime-family drama, it’s a mascot managing simulator where you hire cartoon mascots to represent different businesses within a run-down haunted beach town. And when you aren’t desperately trying to minmax one of your employee’s work-life balance, you’re navigating the pseudo-open world to try and find upgrades, characters, cosmetics, bonus scenes, or more opportunities to learn more about the world you inhabit. Did I mention the kei truck? Promise Mascot Agency is a game about driving a souped-up kei truck.

Pinky is just straight up my favorite character from 2025. She’s a mascot who is modeled after a severed finger, who loves social media and drinking, and who hates the government. You can collect different nail designs for her to wear throughout the town, and she changes her outfit depending on if you are flying around or driving through the waves of the ocean. And by the way, she’s real — the mascots are real; they aren’t people in suits. They’re real beings. She has a father who is also a severed finger. And she also has daddy problems with said father. I love Pinky.

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And that’s my list of new games I played in 2025! I hope you enjoyed it and agreed with all of my opinions! If you’re reading this, Scott has not killed me with a spear for being late on my submissFUCK I forgot to talk about R.E.P.O. hold on

R.E.P.O.

I think people should be okay with the term “friendslop”. I find it charming and reflective of the game in question, even if the word ‘slop’ can carry some negative connotations. I think some of the best video games ever fall into this category, and it’s a hilariously perfect descriptor to use. OH SHIT