According to our Top 20 Best Games of 2025 list, I’ve mentioned that we’ve actually had a bit of difficulty listing twenty bad games we have reviewed in 2025. As always, there’s the lingering question: maybe we were too lenient this year? Maybe we were lucky to avoid the bad games coming our way, deciding to review something else instead? Or maybe 2025, as crappy of a year it may have been, wasn’t that bad in terms of gaming releases.

Still, we had to tackle some stinkers this year. And we want to forget about them as quickly as possible. For one last time in 2025, let’s mention the twenty games that made our reviewing job actually feel like busy work in 2025:

 

20 – Saborus

It’s not even that Saborus is bad, it’s just so underwhelming for something that should have been wild and potentially offensive in the craziest way. Instead, the gore is fairly banal, the actual gameplay is just picking up and moving things and it simply doesn’t run well on the Nintendo Switch. Had they just stuck to next gen and PCs, this would have been a decent middle title, but the hubris to go after the Switch’s player base was its own undoing. – Oliver Shellding

 

19 – Henry Halfhead

A game with a very interesting premise, even if it not original: possessing objects in order to solve puzzles and move onto the next level. The problem with Henry Halfhead is that it reeks of wasted potential: even if its mechanics work as intended, there’s very little to do, not a lot of experimentation, no stakes, no secrets, nothing. It’s a concept I wish to see a bit more of in the future, but with actual meat and content to back its premise up. – Leo Faria

 

18 – Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour

This was the first game I reviewed on my brand new Switch 2. Hoo boy, what a first impression. This tech demo would have already been beyond lame had it been packed in as a free title, but Nintendo had the audacity to charge half a Silksong for this tremendous waste of time. It’s also really hard to justify its existence, as it is, when Astro’s Playroom exists. – Leo Faria

 

17 – Sunset High

You can only get so far on buzzwords, and Sunset High proved that in a big way. You can say it’s a mashup of this game and that movie, but the delivered product is just a waste of time trying to pretend you’re roleplaying while actually cajoling you to the only ending the developer wants you to discover. When better games exist that can handle the premise with more flair and a better experience, then there’s little incentive to see what happens when Twin Peaks has teenage angst and a Livejournal. – Oliver Shellding

 

16 – Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted

This should have been the easiest twenty dollars to spend on Earth. Take the classic time waster and bring it over without hurting yourself in the process. It’s like the port team rolled a one and critically injured itself by leaving jagged artifacts all over the portraits, having touch and button controls arbitrarily turn off and, inexplicably, chugging. This game ran on Windows XP machines, and you’re saying this is the best you can do for the Nintendo Switch? Shame on you. – Oliver Shellding

 

15 – Shotgun Cop Man

I should have loved it. A hybrid between Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy, Shotgun Cop Man failed to captivate me by being visually obnoxious and confusing in its gameplay. It was also released in tandem with another title, Sacre Bleu, which featured a nearly identical premise and gameplay loop, but vastly better controls. Play that other game instead. – Leo Faria

 

14 – A Dream About Parking Lots

This is a bit heartbreaking, and it might be a bit unfair, but rules are rules. I liked this title’s psychology-driven premise, as I actually like the subject matter, especially when it comes to analyzing dreams and everything else related to psychotherapy. But if you want to make a video game out of it, and one that costs money to begin with, then make it an engaging game. A Dream About Parking Lots is not a fun experience, even if its heart is in the right place. – Leo Faria

 

13 – Front Mission 3: Remake

We could have stopped at two good ports, but we kept drilling until we struck a septic tank. Full of ugly graphics with little to no care and tons of useless side elements, the streamlined combat takes out strategy and planning and turns this PS1 relic into a dumb reminder that nostalgia doesn’t equal quality. – Oliver Shellding

 

12 – Disney Villains Cursed Café

I might not be the most “Disney adult” of Disney adults, but I know my Disney. The charm and feel good of all those movies, especially the ones from my childhood, are important to making Disney what it is. The fact ALL of that was missing from Disney Villains Cursed Café is exactly why it deserves its spot in the bottom of all our reviews for the year. – Aaron Price

 

11 – Steel Seed

Steel Seed has everything that I love: explosive set pieces, stealth-focused gameplay and souls-like combat. Unfortunately, none of these elements work together here. Each part felt undercooked for an experience that I cannot recommend to anyone. – Kyle Nicol

 

10 – Neptunia Riders Vs. Dogoos

It’s basically a given. Every single damn year, there has to be a Hyperdimension Neptunia game developed by Compile Heart and published by Idea Factory in our lists. Neptunia Riders Vs. Dogoos is yet another example of an unfunny, uninteresting, short and lazy spinoff that relies way too much on fanservice to mask how shallow it really is. I don’t get who this is for, and I really struggled to have any kind of fun with it. – Leo Faria

 

9 – Terrifier: The ARTcade Game

A later entry, reviewed just a few days ago, Terrifier: The ARTcade Game is what happens when you take a horror movie franchise known for literally making people vomit in disgust due to its amount of gore, and shoving it into a poorly-made Scott Pilgrim vs. The World clone. – Leo Faria

 

8 – MindsEye

Oh, MindsEye. The belle of ball of all bad games released in 2025. It may not have been the literally worst game we’ve played in 2025, but it surely was the most infamous. It was as bad as all comments and reviews have suggested. The fact its creator went on a sour rampage against everyone criticising it, saying they were all being paid by competitors, deeply offended me. I lambasted it for free, when I could have earned some cash to make the experience less gruesome? C’mon guys, where’s my paycheck? – Leo Faria

 

7 – Breakout Beyond

I remember the first time I ever played Breakout. It was a collection pack I bought for PC out of a bargain bin back in 2008. As much as Breakout Beyond tried to capture the nostalgia, it missed the mark massively. Everything about it feels like something old school fans should love, but somehow it just feels like it has inflated difficulty in place of a fun gameplay loop and a real point to getting better at the game. – Aaron Price

 

6 – Time Flies

There’s always this one artistic-driven game released every year, that one game with little to no interactive appeal or fun factor added to it that, somehow, has the pretentious side of the internet lavishing with borderline philosophical praise. Well, gimme whatever you were drinking, because the only thing I felt whilst playing Time Flies, a game about being a fly with a limited lifespan, was sheer boredom. –  Leo Faria

 

5 – Montezuma’s Revenge: The 40th Anniversary Edition

A buggy, uninspired, and bargain bin-esque remake of the father of all metroidvanias, The 40th Anniversary Edition was so underwhelming that I had more fun playing an emulated ROM of the original game that came bundled with it… and even that wasn’t too fun to begin with. It was a nice reminder that the expression “Montezuma’s Revenge” actually means “diarrhea”. – Leo Faria

 

4 – Storm Lancers

Platforming roguelikes are my jam. I put 100+ hours into Dead Cells when it was still in beta and even more across the full release on multiple consoles. Storm Lancers really tried to capture that same style of gameplay, but missed the mark with poor movement, a lack of variety or interest in the enemies, and overall style. I always like having a roguelike to play at any time, but this isn’t one I’ll find myself returning to without a LOT of optimisation. – Aaron Price

 

3 – The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper

I’m really disappointed that The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper wasn’t released more fully developed. I love the concept of being dropped into a strange world with no exposition dumps, and only your exploration and puzzle solving skills being able to guide you through and make sense of things. I’d love to revisit this game someday when it’s in a more playable state, but as of now it’s more of a frustration than a challenge. – Heidi Hawes

 

2 – Labyrinth of the Demon King

What should have been a really cool, historically driven and lore intense soulslike just fell on its face with design and performance. Utterly devoid of character and hard not by design but by accident, this hack and slash just became pure hack after a matter of (grueling) minutes. – Oliver Shellding

 

1 – Pokémon Friends

Stand before the bank accounts of eighty million shareholders and ask them if integrity matters. Their silence is your answer. Pokémon wants your money, not your love, and they will destroy their public perception if it means they can turn a profit. Legends: Z-A may not have been great, but at least it was a game. Friends is a reskinned edutainment distraction to keep you from discovering that games can be fun and teach you things. If it was a song, it would be a dirge, and if it were a meal, it’d be a war crime. Do. Not. Buy. This. Game. – Oliver Shellding