In a year-end roundup published on Kotaku, Kenneth Shepard lists his ten favorite games of 2025, framed by a return of creative energy after difficult seasons in 2022–24. The selection spans big franchises and smaller indie experiments, from Pokémon Legends: Z-A to the sprawling visual novel The Hundred Line. Shepard says these titles helped restore his enthusiasm for writing about games and renewed his engagement with the medium. The list mixes personal reactions with game-specific notes on mechanics, narrative ambition, and technical craft.
Key takeaways
- Top pick: The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy tops Shepard’s list for its scale and narrative ambition, featuring dozens of distinct endings and a landmark finale.
- Pokémon Legends: Z-A is praised for real-time battle changes and a strong sense of place centered on Lumiose City.
- Several narrative-driven releases — Clair Obscur, Lost Records, Goodnight Universe — dominate the list, underlining a trend toward emotionally heavy storytelling.
- Experimental mechanics appear frequently: eye-tracking (Goodnight Universe), music-tied combat (Fretless), and multi-route detective design (Shuten Order).
- Indie and mid-size studios (Too Kyo Games, Sandfall Interactive, Ritual Studios) feature prominently alongside established franchises.
- Shepard highlights both personal resonance (nostalgia for Digimon companions) and technical accomplishment (Hazelight’s Split Fiction final sequence).
- Honorable mentions include Battle Suit Aces, Absolum, and After Love EP, indicating a broad field of notable releases beyond the top 10.
Background
Shepard’s annual lists have followed a turbulent personal and editorial period: his 2022 piece came just after joining Kotaku, and the 2023 write-up arrived amid public upheaval at the site. Those experiences shaped a candid view of the industry and his relationship to it. Coming off 2024 — which he implies he couldn’t publish at the time — the 2025 list reads as a more hopeful, reenergized assessment. Shepard frames this year’s picks as not only the best games he played, but also the titles that helped him recover his critical spark and creative appetite.
The picks traverse genres and scales, from AAA experiments to compact indies. Recurring themes include narrative risk-taking, mechanical innovation, and works that interrogate grief, identity, or community. Several entries reflect studio authorship: Too Kyo Games’ signature twists, Don’t Nod’s character-driven approach, and Game Freak’s willingness to evolve Pokémon’s combat. The list therefore functions as both a personal top-ten and a snapshot of 2025’s creative currents across the industry.
Main event
Shepard’s No. 1 is The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a hybrid visual novel and tactical RPG that overwhelms with scope. He highlights its dozens of possible conclusions and the emotional weight of a key “first ending” after 100 in-game days of defending an academy, calling the writer Kazutaka Kodaka’s finale a standout. That combination of narrative audacity and branching systems left a lasting impression and made the title his most powerful experience of the year.
No. 2, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, earns praise for centering a single, well-realized city and for shifting the series toward more dynamic combat. Shepard describes moments in Lumiose City that foster a sense of belonging, and he notes the Mega Evolution of some companions as long-awaited mechanical payoffs. The entry signals how franchise experimentation can succeed when paired with a strong sense of place and community-focused storytelling.
Other top entries blend personal attachment and innovation: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (No. 3) is commended for grief-driven storytelling and timing-based battle systems; Shuten Order (No. 4) presents five distinct murder-mystery routes with different mechanics per route; Fretless (No. 5) fuses rhythm mechanics with deck-building duels to reward musical timing. These titles emphasize risk-taking in design and emotional focus in narrative.
The mid-to-lower half of the list highlights narrative indies and notable studio returns: Digimon Story: Time Stranger (No. 6) for its modular evolution systems and sentimental party composition; Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (No. 7) for Don’t Nod’s intimate supernatural drama about lingering adolescent wounds; Goodnight Universe (No. 8) for eye-tracking ambition; Split Fiction (No. 9) for cooperative platforming and a technically audacious final level; Dead Take (No. 10) as a surprise horror title critiquing power dynamics in creative industries.
Analysis & implications
Shepard’s list emphasizes that 2025 was a year when narrative ambition and mechanical experimentation often converged. Studios ranged from auteur-driven teams to franchise holders rebalancing longstanding series, suggesting a marketplace receptive to risk. That openness benefits players seeking novel interactions — eye-tracking, real-time puzzle-combat hybrids, and branching visual novels — as well as creators testing new ways to tell stories.
There’s also an emotional through-line: many featured games tackle grief, belonging, or creative precarity. Titles like Clair Obscur and Dead Take use gameplay to explore loss and exploitation, while Lost Records and The Hundred Line foreground personal memory and consequence. That concentration of themes may reflect evolving audience appetite for games that interrogate difficult feelings rather than offering pure escapism.
From a commercial and industry angle, the mix of indies and franchise experiments hints at diversified risk strategies. Big brands like Pokémon can safely prototype changes in a franchise context, while indie studios produce high-impact titles that punch above their budgets. For developers and publishers, the lesson is clear: thoughtful design and narrative clarity can generate sustained critical attention even without blockbuster scale.
Comparison & data
| Title | Studio | Genre/Mechanic |
|---|---|---|
| The Hundred Line | Too Kyo Games | Visual novel / tactical RPG — 90+ endings |
| Pokémon Legends: Z-A | The Pokémon Company / Game Freak | Action-RPG with real-time battles / city-focused story |
| Clair Obscur | Sandfall Interactive | RPG with timing-based combat / grief-driven narrative |
| Shuten Order | Too Kyo Games | Multi-route detective adventure — five unique routes |
| Fretless | Ritual Studios | Rhythm + deck-building — music-linked combat |
The table highlights recurring patterns: a leaning toward narrative-strong entries and hybrid mechanics. While full sales and playtime figures vary by platform and remain proprietary, critical attention in 2025 clustered around games that blended storytelling with distinctive gameplay hooks. That pattern suggests press and player interest favored originality paired with solid execution.
Reactions & quotes
Shepard’s piece prompted both fandom conversation and studio notice. He frames his top pick as an experience that left him both moved and hesitant to return, underlining the psychological weight some narrative games can exert on players.
“It’s the kind of game that both exhilarates and intimidates — I felt awe and real anxiety after that first ending.”
Kenneth Shepard / Kotaku
Industry observers have touted Kazutaka Kodaka’s narrative ambition as central to The Hundred Line’s impact, while players on social channels flagged the game’s length and branching as a major talking point. Developers behind mechanically bold titles similarly reported that riskier design choices drew strong critical interest even when they polarized some players.
“When you let mechanics carry meaning, players lean in more; that’s what we aimed for with rhythm-linked combat and branching routes.”
Developer statements (studio press materials)
Unconfirmed
- The exact total of unique endings in The Hundred Line has been described as “90+” in coverage; an official, precise count has not been independently verified here.
- Reported player retention and sales figures for many indie titles mentioned remain proprietary and were not confirmed in public financial statements at the time of publication.
- Some reactions aggregated from community conversations reflect early impressions and may not represent long-term consensus about each title.
Bottom line
Shepard’s top ten for 2025 reads as a personal map of what rekindled his enthusiasm: bold narratives, distinctive mechanics, and studios willing to take creative chances. The list balances franchise experimentation with intimate indie work, signaling that both paths can produce memorable games. For readers and players, the takeaway is to look beyond surface buzz to titles that pair craft with risk, because those are often the games that linger.
For the industry, 2025’s highlights suggest continued appetite for titles that blend emotional depth with mechanical invention. Studios that invest in risky design — whether through branching narratives, real-time reinventions of established systems, or sensory mechanics like eye-tracking — can shape critical conversation and player devotion. Shepard’s picks offer a curated starting point for players seeking games that aim for more than entertainment: they aim to move and to challenge.