Souls Like Strings

The best games I played in 2025, many of which were not released this year.

Honourable Mentions

Slay the Spire, which I put more hours into than Silksong (!?) this year, despite already having hundreds of hours in the Switch version.

Shady Part of Me for baiting me into playing a puzzle game with French voice acting and a cool art style.

Florence for getting me into short indie games with gameplay designed to elicit a specific feeling.

The List

10. Paradise Killer

For the PS1 era vaporwave vibes and charmingly sinister setting.

9. Inscryption

For breaking...

Somehow lives up to its tagline

Why

• Hades was a GOTY contender and this is a noticeable improvement
• Lovable cast of new characters plus some returning favourites
• Melinoe feels very different to Zagreus while keeping the same gameplay concept
• Amazing art, story and soundtrack
• Supergiant is great at making a roguelike that feels like it isn't
• Spectacularly well-handled difficulty curve

Why not

• The sheer amount of great content could be overwhelming in the early midgame

Impressions

Similar to Silksong, this is a godlike sequel. If you liked or were interested in the first...

Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

I'll probably see these very differently in a few years

Two (mostly) cozy books about the escapades of the titular boys in 1840s Missouri. The first is a more lighthearted romp from Tom's POV, while the second picks up soon after the events of the first and follows Huckleberry on quite an adventure down the river.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Much of the first book is spent establishing Tom as the absolute epitome of boyhood through a series of short stories where he...

Team Cherry does it again

Why

• The level of polish explains it taking 7 years
• Crests provide genuinely different playstyles and are all viable
• Every boss was at least memorable, and at least 5 are truly amazing
• Just moving around feels so good once you get a few abilities
• Hornet having a personality & dialogue adds a lot of character
• The sheer amount of content is ridiculous, it took me as long to finish as base Elden Ring
• Somehow, very very little of that content could be considered filler

Why Not

• People saying it's hard...

Florence but sadder

Why

• Nice artsyle/sound design
• Gameplay/story combine to really make you wonder what's going on
• Exactly as long as it needs to be

Why Not

• You don't like these kinds of narrative-heavy games

Impressions

and Roger is another game in the style of Florence, which got me into the genre, though it's definitely a lot darker. I won't spoil too much about the story, but where Florence mostly combined its beautiful art and music to elicit emotional responses, and Roger adds gameplay to the mix in a much bigger way. The...