Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Andy and Barrett's Top 10 Games of 2025 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

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factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Hello gamers, welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for January 15th, 2026. I'm one of your hosts, Andy Cortez, alongside the boss baby. The man who helped me just get citizen sleeper to just soared to greater heights. God. And I, you know what? I didn't get to invite him to the Tim Schaefer dinner. It was really mess up.

It was a fast. There was a lot of things happening, but you got a man who made, you know, some of my favorite games of all time, no big deal. That helped the benefit to me quite a bit. Just like, you know,

that's really what it should be about. Even though I should have so much disdain for you, Andy. I want to give a round of applause to you. Wow. Thank you. I agree. For being the MVP of Game of the Year, every year, really, with your art direction.

You made another killer set, making all of the art directing the hell out of game of the year. every year. Everybody loved your Evangelian inspired set this year including myself, but also being the MVP for unscrewing the top 10 list, which would have had three

ties and a three-way ties. Of course. And it wouldn't not have looked cool in the front desk. It just wouldn't have looked cool. It's not that it doesn't it's not that it looks super uncool. It's just like... It worked. We don't need we just don't need more discourse. You know what I mean?

Enough of that. Too much discourse. Enough of the BS and We're talking about Andy and Barrett's top 10 of 2025. If you're watching live, be a part of the show by super chatting on YouTube.com forward slash kind of funny games. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com slash kind of funny. So thank you to our producers. James Hastings, Carl Jacobs, and Omega Buster.

For now, let's begin with topic of the show. Tots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots. It's been a long time coming. Whole lot of rankings, a whole lot of deliberations just within your own mind. Yep. I don't know how

you went about your sort of like top 10 were you back logging. Were you... Throughout the year, I use an app called GameTrack on my phone. And I just like always

put a list of games of like what I'm playing throughout the year. And then at the end of the year I turn that list to what I played for 2025, and I'd just start whittling it down and then slowly making a top 10 list.

I need more apps like Backlog. If you're, I don't know if you're working on Backlog, if you're out there watching. I would love a... Mobile app. I would love a built-in this or that. The this or that helped me so much with my first top 100 ranking

and going through and being like, do I like Minecraft more than NBA 2K-12. I got you. Yeah, I do. But do I like, you know, uncharted three more than NBA 2K12? I don't think so. That's tough. I don't think so.

So I would like more integrations like that, but I don't even know if that person watches the show. Probably not. Sorry, a shout out to Darkree plays, one of the three people who follows me on GameTrack. I use it for my personal thing, not to have people follow me. Yeah, I think my stuff is private anyway because my list has some embargoed stuff on there. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Got to be careful. Never know who's watching.

Remember to get your super chats in. like, I'm going to ask you a question, are you going to make me happy by playing Citizen Sleeper 1 and 2? Wow. In the year of 2026, let me know in the Super Chats. But let's start with Barrett's number 10. We're going to start with two real top 10 lists for the year. Yeah, yeah, real gamers.

Real gamers. And the way we're doing it like everybody else has been doing it this week, if I have a game that's my number 10, but you have it higher, we'll wait to talk about it until we get to it on your list. list. Right. And so on and so forth. My number 10, Hades 2. Oh, ho. This is Hades 2's first nomination of the era.

It's on my list. Yeah, further off. Further down. We'll talk about that later. Andy, what is your number 10? Well, Baird, you can't talk about a 1 through 10 without the numbers that preceded. So Kevin, if you could roll it If we can get the jib shot Hello everyone It's me

GameSpot's very own Lucy James And I'm here to bring you Andy Cortez's top 11 through 15 games Of the year We talked about this minute It's me Lucy James I'm also on a podcast with Skillup And Jake Baldino

But you could take it from here Andy I'm going to go listen to some 9 inch nails Wow Thank you so much Lucy Everybody give it up for Lucy James. You can clap? Yeah. Thank you, Lucy.

You did great work this year on V. Nice. My number 15 game of the year. Number 15, Metroid Prime 4 Beyond. Wow. Wow. The Amivo.

I like that. Shout out to that guy. Miles. Miles McKenzie. My dude. Millie Mac. Millie Mac. Number 14.

Shinobi Art of Vengees. That was a contender. That was a contender. That was a close one. That was a close one for me as well. That's how it looks like on a switch. Number 13. I said all Halo music.

Blue prints. Wow. Yeah. Blue prints. It's a big one, Kevin. Should have been higher, though. Honestly. Number 12.

Wuchong, fallen feathers. That came out this year. Look at those Crazy Good game If I blurred my eyes It really looks like That right one is just fully out

Yeah Yeah Be covering in a little bit And finally My number 11 game of the year Number 11 Ghost of Yote Yep

Wow Wow Wait no Congratulations to all of the winners That's the different game That's the other Never met the black guy in my place late through. I'm not sure where he was.

Yeah, it was, you know, it was additional content. Andy, what is your number 10? Number 10 for me, dispatch. Nice. Dispatch is higher on my list. Oh, okay, okay, we'll get to that later. There's never been a better time to get to that later. Number nine, Barrett, for you. My number nine is Delta Rune chapters three and four.

always a weird one with Delta. I'm just going to assume that's not on your top 10 list. Number two for me. Whoa. I only played those. Delta Rune is such a weird one whenever it comes out with its new chapters of like, do I count the chapter separately? Do I count them together? Does it feel right even if it's only one new chapter releasing to have it on a top 10 list?

But I think the mindset that I have had with Deltaeroon the last couple of years is to me it's like a whole series in each chapter is like a new entry. Right. Because each chapter is roughly the, like, length of one playthrough of Undertale. And, you know, you're going through into different worlds with your friends to stop this crazy plot from happening. Question from Andy Cortez, number one game journal. No, it's me. Lucy James. How long is a playthrough of Delta Rune?

Well, Delta... I'm sorry, of... Undertale? Undertale. Undertale is about five hours. Okay. If you want to get the, the, like, true pacifist ending, it requires two playthrus, but on that second playthrough, you kind of know what you're doing.

So it's like only another like four or so hours to get like that like, quote unquote, true ending, but a natural playthrough of Undertail is about five hours. And so, yeah, we finally got the next few chapters of Delteroon following Chris and his friends going on these wacky adventures in all of these different. worlds popping up in their hometown that they can transport themselves to where they fight crazy antagonist. Chapter 3 saw your home TV be a game show host where you went through and he really just wanted you to kind of pay attention to him because he missed you and the family watching him all the time back in the day. So he's just like looking to, you know,

spend more time with you and your friends. It's really silly. A friendship. Yeah, and it's like, it has, like, it really sings the highs of, like, the wacky, like, undertale humor that you, you know and love while also just getting, like, really weird and meta, where at some point you can break through into a secret door, and then you're playing, like, in the, like, a back alley, like, this weird, like, GBA version of, like, your character going throughout this world, and you're kind of learning about, like, kind of this bigger mystery going on of what is Chris up to? Where is his older brother? What does this all mean?

And so chapter three really stood out for that. And then chapter four really came back to this idea of you and the player you're controlling being two different entities. If you see this heart on screen, if you're watching the video version, at the very beginning of Delta Room chapter one, it says like, hey, this is you, the little heart. And it's like, what do you look like? And it has you create a character. And once you create that character, it says, screw your character. This is Chris. You're playing as Chris. And the kind of like, one of the big moments of Deltaeroon chapter four is Chris ripping out you from his body so he can regain self-control. And there's this really interesting of like, who is Chris really? What is he doing? What are his motivations? How are they

different from your motivations of what the story you want to tell and what you want to see? And so, you're having to like navigate around this house as the little heart while Chris is up to something and you don't know if that's something bad or something good you're not entirely sure. And you know, you see little clues throughout where when you're controlling Chris and you go up to a piano, you play it badly and someone's like, oh, I thought you were really good at piano. So there's just like this really cool like meta-narrative going on that ends all with a cliffhanger. We've known about this prophecy with these three big heroes that your friend sees the end of, but then she smasses it before you can see it.

And you can tell that there's going to be some heartbreak with these characters in the future. And so, yeah, I really love my time with it. I love whenever a new chapter comes out. And I'm excited for chapter five. And you said the play, so each one of these was about the length of undertail. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's why, you know, as most people know, if anybody watches our content or watches my content, I have a DLC in my, you know, top 10 again this year. Like I did, was it two years ago? Well, last year is Wall Shadow of the Year Tree. Oh, that was last year. Okay, yeah, I just lost what year that was. But yeah, it's like,

if it's chunky enough content that feels fulfilling, it's like I got to recognize this. I'm not going to not recognize it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always just weird because it's like a part of a game, but yeah, I really loved my time. A great reminder that I really love what Toby Fox and company make. Number nine for me,

The Alters. Today is the first nomination for the Alters. And the last nomination for the Alters. And the last one ever. They came out with D.L.C. recently, which is pretty neat. But the Alters is a game that really caught me off guard. It's one that I nominated for the Smilies for Best's biggest surprise or most. Games just kind of came out of nowhere.

Yeah. And it's one that we had seen at certain presentations, and I believe it was in a Steam Next Fest. and I didn't give it a real college try until the game fully came out and mainly until I saw the reviews come out and I said oh dang, maybe this is something I should try out maybe this is something I'd be into but it's a lot of just, it's a lot of genres that I really dig

it's got mystery, it's got stuff that makes you wonder what the hell is going on right now but it's more importantly just a really kind of cool sim your crash land on the planet Matt Damon style in the Marship and it's like, how am I going to get out of here? I can't just survive here alone, but I have all of this technology with me.

I'm going to clone myself. And you're radioing back, and they're like, you've got to clone yourself. You got to figure out a way because you can't survive on your own. You need somebody else who could repair this and somebody who could work that machine and all this shit because all of your crew members are all dead. You crashed and everybody's dead except for you.

So it's a really, really neat adventure, multiplicity style, goofy moments. But the coolest thing about what the altars are is they are altered versions of you. Your time, you end up using a piece of technology and it shows you every big moment in your life. It's like this thing that kind of read your brain waves. It's this thing this technology people are working on. And at different points in your life, you made key decisions that kind of altered you and made you who you are now. playing with the butterfly effect in your own hand.

Right. And so you go, so in order to create clones of yourself, you go back to that thing and you go, damn, what, shit, Andy, when you were 18, you chose to work at Best Buy instead of the AT&T call center. What if, okay, so I'm going to create an altar from the dude who worked at the AT&T call center

who chose that path of life. And now he has a completely different outlook because things changed for him. And so now he is different skill set. Now he's into crack cocaine, you know? Like things changed wildly for him. But it's like every one of these parts of your life will change massively. And it's really cool to see these clones come out and go, yeah, we had a different past.

But these are clones that are like, I've lived a whole life. Like I don't, in their mind, they have lived a whole life somewhere. This isn't like some alternate dimension thing. It's just they are kind of born into this, you know, awful situation. And they're like, what the hell? There's an amazing moment where a guy. essentially is born from this little cloning machine. It's like, why do I have an arm?

I lost my arm in an accident. What the fuck did you do? What have you done? And he's like freaking out. And it's like a really, really like, whoa, kind of awesome moment. And then that story goes crazy places. But while you're doing that, you have to kind of... Bend everybody together and try to be a leader as well.

And sometimes they rebel. Sometimes they're pissed off that they're eating shitty food. And sometimes they're mad that, hey man, I asked. to, you know, I ask if we can install that gym because I'm really into working out. Like, it's... Where's the gym? It's really funny.

It's really funny. There's a lot of, like, really humorous and cute moments, but kind of wrapped around this simulation slash resource management thing. And you're also wondering what the hell's happening in this grandest story. So the all just rocks. Hell yeah. Barrett. Number eight.

My number eight is dispatch. Shout out to dispatch. That was lower on your list, I believe. yeah why didn't I talk about it because we're waiting to talk about it until we oh sure yeah yeah yeah sorry I'm sorry my 11 through 50 really threw me on that was the priority uh yeah dispatch

you know I've talked about it so much with the first three episode review and then the full season review but I just really want to shout out again just how well they're able to do this kind of Guardians of the Galaxy tale something that we've seen over and over again but make it feel a little bit fresh with the office

kind of comedy television show format that we've seen over and over again. And... Yeah, and then the dispatching as well, I think the team being really passionate about, let's not try to shoehorn, you know,

the typical tell-tale walking around, picking up items, gameplay that was shoehorned into every tale-tale game. Let's make a gameplay that makes sense for the story. And I think that besides just it being a weekly release that actually hit its schedule, I think that is another reason why this is such a standout amongst all the kind of like

tail-tale-like games we've seen. Phenomenal comedic writing and I loved how efficient it was and I loved the rhythm of it where you knew, all right, cut scene happened, time for some more dispatch. And it was just a really kind of kept you on schedule and I really dug that. much like Robert Robertson would. Yes, yeah. I would still say like it took a little bit for me to fall in love with it. I think as much as everybody else did.

I think it was probably until, wasn't until like episode four where I was really starting to be bought in with these characters, the story of the world, but then also the flow of gameplay between dispatching and, you know, just making choices as Robert. Shout out to my boy, Royd. Robert. Oh, man. Royd made Alyssa laugh so much with. like the amount of like just like local pigeon talk and her watching every royd seemed to be like

damn they really just let him go off and do whatever he wanted we fucked up royd should have been a preferred partner oh yes oh we messed down that's a big mistake on our part we'll we're actually re-releasing the video on saturday so you get to watch it it won't have any of these fixes though number eight for me the king is watching well did you anything else about dispatcher? It rocks. Yeah. Yeah, dispatch is just,

it's a great time. It, if it weren't for the sharp comedic writing, I don't think I would have stuck with it or liked it as much. It was my North Star. It kind of kept me on track.

I love that. Because I thought the game play was like, B minus, it was good. You know, it wasn't like the greatest thing in the world. And I thought the story was also better than serviceable. I would say it was like a good story,

but it was the dialogue and the relationships that kept me going along. And ultimately, I'm glad that I got the ending that we got the ending that we did because we're gamer. I think it was ultimately the most satisfying to experience. Number eight for me, the King is watching. A game that came out. I don't know anything.

Yeah, apparently so. King is watching. I thought was a game. Oh, that's this game. The game I thought was in early access and was just talking about it on stream. And Chad was like, no, Andy, that's out. I was like, no, man, Lee, I have a strict rule. I'm not going to put from now on, no more early access than my top tens.

And they're like, no, Andy, that game came out. I'm like, no, come on, guys. I'm in the Discord. Stop messing with me. Yeah. And then I looked into it and, you know, it was like, wow, it actually is a full 1.0 release, which makes sense because I've played it for close to 100 hours. And it's such a great time, such an awesome Steam Deck game, even though it's not the perfect Steam Deck game in terms of how controls look.

It's a very kind of keyboard mouse oriented game, but it didn't take a whole lot to get it working great on the steam deck. And this was a gaming pillow and Andy fucking special. You and your gaming pillow. This was me and the gaming pillow laying down, just playing the hell out of the king is watching. It's a rogulight. It is an awesome sort of city builder tower defense,

I guess city defense thing where a bunch of enemies are on the way and you have to be strategic. and how you're setting up your run and the advisors that you're picking and all the advisors have their own certain little perks and this advisor gives you this many currency at the start, but this advisor allows you to start with these sort of troops and maybe this sort of currency.

I don't know, it's just really, really fun. It's so smart the way a lot of the systems intermingle with each other, and that's probably one of my favorite things for, you know, you can put a bunch of little shitty soldier types, that are, I believe that they're, I forget what they're called, but they're just like farmer dudes with pickaxes. They're not strong. They're not doing a whole lot of damage. And it wasn't until I saw that if I want to, if I want to recruit, or not recruit, but if I want to create and get pretty much guts, they call him the black swordsmen, but it's pretty much just guts in the game. Yeah. If I want to have guts on the field, it takes a lot of, like, resources to make him and like, but he has a lot of health, he has a lot of damage. And when he's on the battlefield, all those little, they're called grots. all the little grunt dudes are they double their health and so it's so it's like oh he's like a

truly a big boom this is really cool this is a cool way to kind of get these systems intermingling and then if I want to get this other character then my grunts have even more health and they do more damage so there's just a lot of really cool ways to go about things and it has the it had a thing more importantly that I look for now in rogolites and one thing that hades will forever ruin for roadlights where when you think a run is fucked and you find something new. Just that one thing that gets you a little bit further than you expect. Yeah. And

mainly it's the experimentation. It's the not being afraid to experiment. And when you do experiment, you have fun with the new thing and you go, shit, that's a new thing that I didn't know I would have liked. And now I'm into that sort of system. And that's what kind of Hades has ruined a lot of other roglights for me. So King's watching rocks. Everybody check it out. Barrett. Number seven. Speaking of experimenting during runs and finding fun new builds to play around with, my number seven, Absalom.

Absolume. This is one that I really fell in love with when Alyssa and I went to Hawaii to see some family. And when we had downtime, I finally started this up because you had been hyping it up a little bit before launch. And I was already taken in by the cool art style. kind of like really cool Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic and then, you know, being in the mood for that beat them up, like they say here, beat them up rogue light. But like at that time, I was really anticipating Marvel Cosmic Invasion. And I was like, you know what, I'm just going to boot this up because I'm really in the mood for this. Fantastic beat them up gameplay mixed

with roguelike elements where you're recruiting different characters that you can play as to go off and try to face ultimate evil at the end of your run and you know the new pathways, new builds that kept getting introduced slowly throughout the entire campaign. I was really taken aback by not expecting this game to be as big as it ended up being.

Neat secrets everywhere. Really, cool secrets everywhere. Completely different pathways that I was not expecting. Really cool, fun characters, really interesting world, even not being like the biggest, like, high fantasy like guy, but just really cool world, uh, beat them up rogue like that I, I, I really loved. And the abilities that you find making a build were always fascinating to play around with. Like, there's a, a buildup one where it's kind of like a spark, but you have to make a bunch of like, what is this? Friction? Yeah, like friction. Yeah, like friction.

to like get it to shock a bunch of people. There's a great bubble one that, you know, works so well with beat them up, uh, like gameplay feedback where if you hit somebody, they get caught in a bubble, but then they get hit back into the screen and that does extra damage and they hit the ground.

It's just really, some of the most satisfying gameplay I, I've experienced this year with really cool, uh, systems. And honestly, you know, this one being higher than Hades too,

I think it was just the kind of different flow of a rogue like, uh, and with a gameplay style that I think it's just a bit more my speed that I really adored. And again, Saturday morning cartoon vibes, which, you know, I will never say no to. Yeah, the art style is fantastic. This was 17 on my list. Damn. Really enjoy.

I got to the final boss twice, couldn't beat it. But I think it's like. So satisfying when you do. I still think it's like my favorite beat them up combat easily. Like I, the way, it feels like a fighting game and the way that you can combo and do a bunch of cool shit is awesome. But this is one of those that I, it was the abilities that like brought it back

just a little bit. Oh, okay. I didn't dig like, when you do this, you drop like, you get throwables and it's thorns or, I just, I don't know, I wanted like a little bit more. A little bit of like how tight they are with in terms of what resources you can't have. Yeah. Yeah.

I get that. But the, but everything else is just so freaking. And I, shout out like I was experimenting with everybody. But at the end of the day, I still stuck with the first character that, with the big sword.

I like the little door dude. I love his move said. Andy, what is your number seven? Doom the Dark Ages. Wrong Xbox. Man. This game rules so much. And it's doing what they do best, which is just let's give you in your face crazy action.

It's a cacophony of violence and blood and gore and music. and I think the thing I liked about it the most was the challenge. I would say if you're finding yourself maybe a little bit kind of like you're going through the motions with it, up that difficulty. That made it so much more fun for me. I found, you know, so much fun in the challenge and in the Perry's and trying to deal with massive battlefields with a whole buttload of monsters around you. One thing I love about it is just it's it.

tech six with and them just going off with how amazing their engine looks and the artistry the artistry on display is so crazy good and it's so it's such an efficient game too it doesn't you know require the most to run but it looks really really good and gives you a lot of frames and it's it's kind of like the dream of what a first person shooter should be and it's a game that got better and better yeah it's what like it does yeah exactly and and it's a game that got better and better as it went on. I thought it was around an eight as I was playing, and it was about a nine by the time I finished it.

I really, really enjoyed my time with Doom the Dark Ages. And, yeah, changing the Perry colors was also. I found a lot of enjoying that. Barrett, number six. My number six, the seance of Blake Manor. This was a overwinter break one for me. This came out, I want to say December, maybe late November, and it was one of the best reviewed games of the year.

And I was like, I should check this out. You play as a detective in the late 1800s in Ireland, and you've been summoned to this, to Blake Manor, which has been retrofitted to be kind of this hotel that has gathered a lot of like sorcerers and people who are into like mystic arts type of things that are planning to perform a huge seance on October 31st. A seance past the level of what people expect being able to speak to,

to the dead would actually be like. And so you're summoned here to find this missing woman. And you don't know who you're hired by. And so you come in here and it turns into kind of like, you know, you've got 25 suspects that you're trying to learn about. And, you know, every action you take. So you have roughly, you have like two full days and then like your first kind of like night is like two or three hours just to kind of get your feet wet a little

bit. And your hour count, like the amount of hours you have to solve this main mystery and then all of these other individual mysteries that all kind of convene together, you kind of have a clock that you have to figure it all out by. And every action you take takes up one minute. So if I start a conversation with you to talk about a specific subject, that's your currency? That's your currency. Cool. Cool. To like try to figure it all out. Really well done. Um, A lot of like, just like cool, like historical things to learn about, I think as well. Just like where Ireland was at at the time. And then learning about all of these guests who are, who came from all around the world.

And learning about a lot of their trauma that they're working through and like why they have like found themselves and like trying to be in like the mystic arts and like for their personal reasons. Right. And I thought it was just a really great cool kind of like mystery almost. Carmen San Diego-like type of type of game where you're figuring things out with the clues and facts and it's also kind of creepy you know there's a seance

happening on October 31st so and this this manner is definitely haunted a little bit so you know every time you know every once in a while when you're like I'm going to go to this person's room because I figured something out and I think if I find evidence in the room that'll help me solve like these three mysteries

surrounding you know four different people. You turn a corner and it's like, ah, red, red apparition. It's like, ah, God, and then you turn around, then you turn back and they're gone. You're like, oh, man. But yeah, the Seance of Blake Manor, I truly adored. Really, really fun vibe. And just great writing, great voice acting as well.

I would say it's like 75% voice acted, which you wouldn't expect, like, watching the trailer and stuff. But yeah, yeah, a lot of, highly recommend. especially if you enjoyed games like blueprints this year. Number six for me, Hades 2. Shout out Hades. Shout out to Hades. A game like I mentioned on the big game of the year podcast,

which you can watch right now, a game that I probably played more in 2024. A game that I have, I think, 100-something hours in. finally was able to beat it this year had such a blast with it it's the perfect steam deck game it's probably my

probably my favorite roguide ever for what it's trying to do this sort of top-down ARPG thing that we've seen a lot of we've seen a lot of people try to emulate in the past several years after Hades 1 was so massive but I just really really enjoyed the art style the abilities and the boons

and all that stuff is really what takes it to another level for me, as well as the sort of push and pool design of the card system, the way that the weapons all intermingle, the way that the weapons have extra evolutions of themselves with different neat things to play around with. I didn't even know the weapons were able to do that until much later. Shout out to Creed in the chat. Wow, like this is a really kind of cool system that adds even more a variety of. and diversity to this gameplay.

It's just so damn masterful. And it's an example of what can happen when a studio has a vision and when a studio is in early access and also getting ideas from the fan base and playing something to say, actually that is that we should probably, that is a really neat idea.

And let's expand upon this other idea we had that maybe would have launched underbaked if we just went straight to the market. But it's like, no, we, let's make this kind of thing together. and when it comes out, it's going to be one of the best video games ever. I think this game is awesome. I think it's as low as it is on my list because I don't think the ending was like super awesome. Yeah, it only was number 10 for me.

And I think that's mainly not even just because of the ending. I think the story overall is just kind of okay compared to the emotional stakes of Hades 1. I think it's way less interesting. I think it's a bit more cookie cutter. I think the most interesting it gets is, how do I say? her name. Millenoy? Millenoy.

Her relationship with a certain character that you realize you're going to talk to once you finally complete your first like down route, right? And, but that kind of brings back of like, oh man,

Hades one was really just so interesting. But it's still connected to me being an older brother in that relationship and how they play around with that. I thought was cool. But the reason it's still on my top 10 is everything you said with the gameplay. It was just so fun and addicting, like I said,

on our game of the year overall show, the decision to have both two routes up and down and up having such a different flow with how you're accruing your builds at the very beginning, where you go around this like one area to build up as much as you can. And then, you know, you have less opportunity to do that the closer you get to Olympus. I thought it was really cool in how they play with gameplay stakes to shake up the formula

and the flow of this particular rogue like with Hades, which I did get tired of with Hades one. But with all of these new additions, Millenniways, like moment to moment gameplay combat as well, just clicking with me way more than Zagrius did. Yeah, I still had a hell of a time.

You know, I did all. did all of the completed all the runs that you needed to to get the ending and like the ending didn't even really stand out to me because I was just like so disinterested in the story overall or I was like the whatever I'm weirdly enough me being

primarily a story guy Hades 2 being one of the rare ones where I mess with you but not because of the story right right right well those are our 10 through 6 and you also got to hear my 15 through 11 so check that out if you've got here late

but we'll get to our top five after our word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. The amount of times Mike is signed up for something, forgotten about it after the trial period ends, and then been charged month after month after month, is quite frankly terrifying. He didn't even realize he was paying for SoundCloud for 10 years until Rocket Money helped find and cancel his unwanted subscriptions.

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Howard the Duck joins MCU in review Wednesday, January 28th at 7.30 p.m. at Cobb's Comedy Club for SF Sketch Fest. You can come watch me do all the podcasts within a podcast you love. Andy will be going do do do do do do do do do. Nick will be shopping for paint stirring it but everybody else will be there too for you to come hang out and see all you have to do is go over to Kind of Funny.com slash Sketchfest right now

to get your tickets before they sell out because come and watching a bunch of people talk about a very old Howard the Duck movie is really selling tickets fast. And we're back, Barrett. What is your number five? My number five is unbeatable. Went on a crazy roller coaster with this one.

was anticipating this game along with Tim for the longest time. And I remember when we finally got a review code for this after what felt like a million years, starting up the story mode, playing the first couple of hours and blessing asking me about it. And I replied him, man, I don't think I'm viving with this game. And then having a complete 180 by the end of it, if you don't know, unbeatable, is a primarily rhythm game. the story mode being more of a kind of an adventure game with rhythm elements in it

where you play as beat in a world where music is illegal and you do crime and so there was a kind of I didn't know really what to expect going into this story I thought it was going to be primarily about using music as a way of protest fighting against

you know a fascist regime and that's what it is on like text, but I think the surprising thing about this story is like typically for a lot of stories with this type of subject matter, it's usually a lot of things being used as an allegory to talk about

fascism. Right. But this time around I want to put on like spoiler caps for this so I'll put this on here. Unbeatable started to click for me when I realized that that wasn't really what the story was about and they're using fascism as an allegory to talk about Beat and her personal kind of inner workings of what she is struggling through.

Now, can I interrupt you really quick and ask, is that, did it start to click with you because they're trying to make the story about fascism wasn't quite clicking? No, it's because it was, it wasn't quite clicking in like what they were doing those first, like the first half of the game. It was like,

it was good, but it wasn't like anything blowing me away. And then also the early review build we had as well, just like it wasn't running great. They've had a lot of patches since then. It runs well now. But the thing that really started to click with me is when you realize, and again, this is my interpretation, because the way they present a lot of like big story reveals is,

you know, very artistic, very weird. Beat was actually hit by a car. And everything you've experienced in the story is actually, all in her head. And it's her like kind of coming up with this world subconsciously to unpack what is going on in her real life, which is kind of, you know, her mom who was kind of like this big inspiration for her when it came to music had passed from cancer a few years back. And it's her kind of losing direction with music and feeling like she's in a rut, which causes her to feel like she has lost direction in her life. overall and unpacking how she got there and using this, you know, world in her head to come to

terms with, like, what she needs to, what she needs to do to, like, kind of get herself out of this, like, emotional state. And, you know, I think the story mode is a messy fave. I think the way they tell the story, especially in that first half, all over the place. But I think the emotional highs that they hit for me at the end, like, really hit. And, And, you know, there's a fantastic line that, you know, she's talking to her fictionalized younger self, which is the girl with blue hair. Again, my interpretation, at least. And she's talking about, like, the, you know, processing grief and losing her mom and, you know, how she has tried to kind of block those emotions for so long. And there's one line that ripped my heart out, which was, she was my world and I don't even think about her anymore.

and that kind of being, I think, the core thing that beat is trying to figure out in this game of, like, how she lost her way. And so, yeah, story mode, kind of a mixed bag all over the place, but again, the emotional highs for me, like, really hit. But really the thing I fell in love with is the core gameplay, which I don't think the story mode uses enough of. But thankfully, there is an arcade mode where it is just, you know, your main gameplay is, you know. Doing the rhythm action stuff. Doing the rhythm action stuff, you just have two inputs, your high attack and your low attack, and you have enemies coming from the right side of you, then sometimes the left side of you, and then sometimes they're coming from both directions at the same time, playing along with

like really fun, uh, kind of like garage punk, uh, music that really feels like it's inspired by like, uh, a lot of like underground Japanese, uh, like the underground Japanese music scene, uh, think of like the fully coolie soundtrack for sure, um, that I, I, I, I, I truly adore. I've been saying a couple of times, dial tone, the song from this game, is my favorite song of the year. It's just like speaks to my soul in several ways.

There's barely like any like actual like lyrics to it. It's just like the musicality of it. I just absolutely adore. And the arcade mode I've put like 30 or so hours into it's just, it's so fun. It's so addicting. It scratches that like kind of like, it brings me back to the guitar hero days in a way,

even though, you know, I'm playing it on a controller. And I truly, truly adore that part of the game. I do think it's amazing. And if you're into rhythm games, I think y'all should check it out, especially with its great art style,

great all, like, so pretty. So pretty, great original music. I couldn't recommend it enough. Number five for me, Eldon Ring Night Rain. 30 year in a row, you have Eldon Ring on your game.

Yeah, I mean, let's hope to make it next year if we get a big cool DLC drop because we had one at the end of last year. And I don't know if this game would be as high on my list, if it weren't for that DLC drop. The DLC drop got me,

not only got me back into the game, but got me kind of re-addicted in a big way. And I think I put in probably 40% of my playtime just into the DLC, along with what the rest of the game offers. But it's just such a fun way to play Eldon Ring with friends that doesn't require the kind of annoying, have to have the item to summon in your buddy,

and all of the really kind of obtuse, cryptic ways that From Software does their thing. This was a really nice way to get your friends into the Elder Ring world, get them familiar with the combat, and experience some, like, just super epic, amazing boss fights. I really, really, I think my biggest regret was not getting, was not forcing Bless to get more into this, because I think the

the level of grandeur with a lot of these boss fights would have been a big sort of memorable thing for him and he would have had it in his top 10 at least because some of the boss fights you experience this are

are some of the best in from soft ones Yeah I think you showed me like one of the kind of like phase twos of like one of the final ones and it was like truly insane and the music is unbablyful especially with like the art direction and stuff I saw someone in the chat saying

they might pick up an unbeatable on Steam deck I do not recommend it on Steam Deck, unfortunately. I would recommend. Doesn't run great. Yeah, it doesn't run great. So sick to PC or it's also on consoles as well. But yeah, not great for Steam Deck. Shout to a $10 super chat from Radin.

Raiden, who says birthday tax, technically it's Saturday, but I'll be going away for the weekend. Cheers to the crew. Have a wonderful day, friends. Thank you, Radin. Barrett, what is your number for? Andy, what is your number four? Oh, it's Citizen Sleeper.

Starward Beck. My goodness. What an experience. Best writing you'll experience. You're going to cry. You're going to smile. You're going to feel tension. It's not just reading. You're rolling dice. You're feeling the tension of this one decision you're trying to make. Are you going to free them? Should you, you know, should you really trust that dude who's wanting to be in your crew? He's doing a lot of shady shit. I said no to him. I got to cut. But I didn't cut the, I don't know, man. There's just a lot of amazing stuff in Citizen Sleeper, too. We talked so much about this on the game of the year. show. So if you want to hear more thoughts from Annie and myself gushing about this game, check that out. But then also, the one thing I do want to shout out, it's like, I'm not the biggest, like, D&D campaign type of guy. And the way this game is written and structured, it really felt like, like, almost Baby's first D&D campaign, but written just for you to play around with and not having to get a bunch of friends gathered around to at a specific time and date. And, like, that was really, like, big, like, oh, like, I kind of

get the why people like these type of games and yeah i i shout out octavia asked something that often that i get asked should i play the first before playing this you don't have to but as go to as this is i think citizen sleeper one is even better damn like you have to play citizen sleeper one regardless of whether you play this the ending like the ending of citizen sleeper two like hit me like a ton of bricks. The ending of Citizen Sleeper 1 had me just contemplating life. It is the most

beautiful, oh, depending on the endings you get. Okay. I got an ending that I'm like fuck, I don't ever want to replay this again because like that is my canon ending. And that's what Citizen Sleeper 2 was for me. Like, again vague spoilers, but just the idea of like having to

come to terms with building something beyond yourself and the realities of that truly heartbreaking, existential, but beautiful in its own way that, again, had me crying at 1 a.m. in bed. Barrett, your number three is also on my list. So we're going to move to my number three, which is Liza P, overture, DLC. Andy?

I don't give a dang if it's a DLC. I was going to fuck with you to say I had it higher. Oh, wow. Man, Liza P. Brown 8 Studio, just absolutely killing the game. with the best souls-like you can play out there. It's not even close. It is an amazing experience,

and I think what it does narratively is the most surprising and impressive thing. The game was already super impressive on a narrative and storytelling level. It's not as obtuse as you would expect from a souls-like game, but it's still doing its thing. Don't expect a straight-in-your-face narrative.

But, man, the story here, the side quests here, had me crying, had me tearing up on stream, you know, covering up my tears is on tough as shit, right? But man, the boss fights are amazing. The additions, baddies, all over the place. This game, fucking rocks, man. This game is just, it just made an already

amazing game even better. And I was so salty that the open critic was like an 86. Like, this needs to be a 90 minimum. Like, and I know that that's asking a lot, but shit, this is so goaded. Barrett, your number two? Blueprint.

Shout out of blueprints. We've talked about this for a million hours. Kevin's favorite game of all time for the rest of time. Yeah, I wasn't expecting to fall in love with this game as much as I did. I think it's one of the most fascinating and best designs games I've played in the last few years. Something that feels so, like, comforting about it, but also like unnerving at at the same time going throughout this house, trying to get to this 46th room

and a 45 room house. You're like, how does that even work? How do these rooms move around? This is crazy. And just really satisfying puzzles that, you know, feel like they're all taking you down different paths, but eventually reconvene into your greater goal, which I think is really satisfying and never made a run feel like a waste of time.

You know, there's a couple runs very early on, once you're getting your sea legs right in that first hour, that kind of feel like, what am I doing? But once you get past that hump, I always felt like I was taking something away from this puzzle roguelike game, which just saying that sounds like it shouldn't work, but it really does. And I think it's fascinating.

And I will never forgive the Giant Bomb Crew for putting out the word Metroid Braini because I absolutely hate that term. That's awesome. I love that. What about a Hayslike? That's my favorite one that I created. A what? Hayes like a two-player split screen.

Andy, what's your number two? Number two, Hollow Knight Silk Song. Is on my list. Because that is my game of the year, Hollow Night Silk Song. Another one I did not expect to fall in love with this year, but again, I shouldn't have been surprised.

You can hear me talk way more about it on the game of the year episode from Monday. The one thing I do want to shout out, which I know has been talked about from a few different people throughout the industry and covering this game and talking about this game and pontificating about it is the gameplay and the combat really feeling like a dance

and in ways feeling like a ballet and you learning these fights is less so like, you know, recognizing like when to the perfect time to Perry, but just learning the flow of a rhythm, right? And that really clicked for me for my favorite boss fight of the year, which was Carmelita, the big red aunt lady. And that's where it really like, she's the one who's like singing. And then she comes out.

And that's truly like, that's, I was there for four hours. I know who, yeah, yeah. I know what the fucking lady is. Man, four hours. That's tough, bud. That was like kind of one of the true moments of like, oh, man. Now I understand the flow state of almost like what they were looking out to do in terms of designing this fight combat gameplay,

which I thought is so, so cool. So yeah, Hollow Night Silk Song. It is truly, it's an all-timer for me, not just for this year. It is like, you know, we're now having to start to think about round two of top 100. And like, just Silk Song in and of itself might blow up my entire top 100 there.

I'm excited for that. Yeah, and so. Look to see where that shit goes. Yeah, and yeah, it'll go back to the game of the year podcast. I guess way more about Hollandide Silk Song there, but it really fired on all cylinders in story, lore, characters,

gameplay, world design. It's the total package. It's got no weaknesses. And it's the game that I think ultimately made me put Hades 2 a little bit lower as well. Because by the end of my Hades 2 experience, I'm thinking about any bosses that I truly love. And I just,

I didn't. I liked a lot of them. Yeah. I thought some were kind of boring. But Hollow Night just has those, what you, and maybe that's what kind of draws me into a lot of Souls games. It's like, oh man,

that moment, that experience, that overcoming that challenge is so massive. But yeah, my number one is, of course, Expedition 33. Which is my number three. Another game that I don't think really misses anywhere. And I think that, I think a lot of the discussion between like,

well, you can't just vote for everything. You can't have it in every category for Goaty, but it's like, well, if it's strong in all those categories, and yeah, you can. And for me, it was strong everywhere. I adore this game. I adore the story. I adore the twist and turns.

And we were laughing during the break house. Somebody in the comment said, who was like still overall being nice and was like, thanks for a great show. But they were like, I feel like the crew is kind of pressured into putting it in their top 10 or having it their number one. Like Andy, for example, said that he gave it an 8.5. And then until playing it, then he gave it a 10.

like I feel like he's coming to industry pressure there because everybody else loves it. And I'm like, dude, I spend $120 on a Verso Halloween costume. Like this game skyrocketed to Alzheimer generational type shit. This is like, we're talking LeBron here. We're not talking fucking like, you know, Anthony Davis, like really, really good player. We're talking like this is one that we will remember until the end of time. Yeah. I think it's so strong in everything it does.

and I still haven't played the DLC and I'm really pumped to go back. Neither have I haven't checked that out. I keep forgetting about it. Yeah, this was my number three. I think it's fantastic. Like I said on Game of the Year, I think it's fascinating to have that game come out

six months after metaphor refentazio and weirdly kind of tackle a lot of similar things and being, you know, these turn-based games. I thought it was really cool and really fun to experience. I think, you know, there's a couple of like, little things here and there that like kept it from being like a number one for me. Um, and I like,

the like kind of weird relationship stuff and not even romancing, but just like the building up your party in terms of like, uh, friendship level and stuff. I think presentationally and the flow of all that, uh, was really weird and awkward, uh,

but outside of that just exploring this entire world, uh, fighting really insane, um, post game or late game fights. Uh, I, I really adored.

and learning all the picdos, learning the different flow styles for every single different character that somehow all work and gel so well together to fight assholes like Simon. I still had a fantastic time with. And it was the... I haven't attempted Simon yet.

Oh, it's fun. I haven't gone to yet. You have to do it to get the platinum. This was my one platinum for the year. And with that, at least for me, I don't care what Kabab says in the chat, my entire top 10 list, all games from independent studios.

All bangers. I want a shot. out OMG Alex's comment who said I industry pressure what do you mean Barrett or Greg and Mike got skate into the top 10 thank you everybody for

watching our top 10 we appreciate you shout out to one final super chat from Trevor who says now that we're here how tough was it putting Silk Song over Blueprints Barrett and Andy How Tough was putting Expedition over Silk Song It wasn't tough at all I think Expedition

was always like something's got to beat that yeah for me it wasn't tough it was like even halfway through like finishing act one of silk song i think that was even just then that moment where i was like oh i think this is my game of the year so yeah not tough yeah thank you so much for watching and uh everybody appreciate you all hanging out with us this has been the kind of funny games cast we'll be back with more kind of funny goodness reactions all sorts of fun stuff here in a bit