Normally I do this when the Steam Replay comes out but I still wasn't decided between my top two and I had over 100 hours of playtime in both, so it didn't help me decide.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Here are this year's nominees for my personal Game of the Year:
-Blue Prince
-Dispatch
-Hollow Knight: Silksong
-RAT RUN (Variant Sudoku)
-Rift of the Necrodancer
-Rivals of Aether II
-Sudokuvania: Digits of Despair
Starting off the year I was playing so much Rivals of Aether II ranked but when I moved to a new apartment my internet connection got so much worse and it became really annoying to play a competitive online game, so I stopped. The game is still amazing and I love the free quarterly character drops and I play them in arcade mode when they come out, but no Rivals 2 is not my choice for GotY but once a bit more single-player modes come out I can see myself getting back into it.
I didn't actually play Dispatch, but I have to show it the respect I think it deserves. That game looks amazing. I watched Jacksepticeye's playthrough of it, cuz it's been so long since I've watched a full game playthrough from him, and he actually voiced a character in it. His playthrough was almost exactly what I would've done and he got a good ending too. And it just looks fantastic, like the animation alone made it show up here.
I played a little bit of variant sudoku before this year mostly cuz of the Cracking the Cryptic YouTube channel. But this video: https://youtu.be/4Gs61djPhWU?si=1FaYbozq-JRk9epx got me back into variant sudoku in a major way with the RAT RUN series which was so fun. Then right after that I found Sudokuvania: Digits of Despair which was insanely difficult and so FREAKIN GOOD, I can't wait for it's sequel in 2026. And as amazing as both of those were, they don't really compete with more traditional games. But I had to include them because they were amazing and I think more people should try variant sudoku, it's so much more interesting than classic sudoku.
And since we're talking logic puzzles, Blue Prince is next. I really liked playing it and I also got to talk about my playthrough with multiple people as I was working through it, which made it even better. There was a lot of small annoying things that kinda bugged me as they happened but I still ultimately enjoyed it and came to like it the deeper I went. And I've played so much bad puzzle games this year that in retrospect Blue Prince was even better than I initially gave it credit for at the time. (This is a callout to The Roottrees are Dead, be better.) I still haven't FULLY beaten it but I've gotten so much enjoyment out of it regardless. But no it's not my GotY either...
Which leads me to the final two nominees, the ones I still haven't decided between. There's the obvious choice Hollow Knight: Silksong, everyone's played it and everyone's talked about it. I absolutely loved the art style and while the pacing and difficulty of Act 1 & 3 were kinda fucked to be honest, Act 2 was a practically perfect gaming experience. I kept wanting to go back, I speedran Silksong Any% and it was so fun to play and learn (HiHalls Arena excluded). But I just wish the rest of the experience was as good as its peak, because its peak was basically a masterpiece but then the rest of really completely infuriated me like no game has in a while.
And the dark horse, the one that barely gets mentioned as far as I can tell, that I just adored is Rift of the Necrodancer. An amazing rhythm game that just kept getting better the more I played it. And I kept playing and it kept getting better the more I got better at it. And I'm still playing it and still trying to get better. The soundtrack is incredible and it's making actually enjoy rhythm games and music theory, and it's just a joy to finally enjoy a whole new genre of game cuz I normally have a hard time enjoying rhythm games. It's not quite as grand and incredible as Silksong but there's no down-side it's just awesome.
So yeah even as I'm writing this I'm not quite sure which of those two I wanna pick. Silksong peak higher than maybe any game has but failed in so many ways, and Rift of the Necrodancer made me actually enjoy a rhythm game for once. (I'm being a little hyperbolic for both games, but hey, it helps me compare them.) And I don't wanna do what I did last year and change my mind a month into the next year cuz I'm still actively playing one either. This time I want it to be definite and not question it later, so my ultimate pick is...
Yeah it's 🎉 Silksong! 🎉 Like I really wish I could pick a little indie game that I think more people should play like I usually do but come on it's Silksong. How do you release a game with the expectations of being the sequel to Hollow Knight and actually fucking deliver? That's insanely impressive. What ultimately made me pick it over Rift of the Necrodancer, was the community aspect. So many of my friends and mutuals played Silksong and it was cool talking to them about, and while Rift has been amazing to play and learn, it's been mostly a solo experience for me, and any game that gets me talking to more people about it deserves some love. And this wasn't some bit to push my thoughts and make a longer post, it was genuinely super close and I didn't know who I was gonna pick going into this. So congrats Team Cherry and Silksong, you definitely earned it!
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