The Best 2025 Games I missed

I beat Unbeatable, Keeper, and more!

I’m officially on parental leave. Retreating from most NPR responsibilities, I’ve fully devoted myself to two things: raising my 5-month-old son and catching up on as many 2025 games I missed as possible!

Unbeatable

Nearly a decade in the making, Unbeatable’s as much a chill visual novel as it is an actiony rhythm game. You play as Beat, a pink-haired punk type, as she stumbles into a one-band rebellion against a regime that’s outlawed music. The story mode took me well over 10 hours to complete, as it careened between boisterous set-pieces and bittersweet slice-of-life meanderings.

It makes sense that one of the game’s co-creators, Andrew Tsai, started dreaming up it in high school. Its main characters, aged 12 to 21, shout defiance over a constant thrum of youthful anxiety and trauma. In Unbeatable, music summons the Silence, creatures that wrecked the world and prompted the formation of HARM (Harmony and Resonance Management), an organization that jails anyone foolhardy enough to pound a drumkit or belt a solo.

Of course, true catharsis doesn’t come from repressing the music-amplified emotions that draw the Silence. Beat has to face these monsters and her personal demons head-on, all while she hangs out with allies and works to dismantle HARM.

Unbeatable’s as rough as a typical underground band’s debut album. Its voice recordings don’t always match its voluminous script. It occasionally displays meta-commentary, like translator’s notes in a fan-subbed anime, which betray a lack of confidence in the dialogue’s ability to communicate nuance. It’s at once overwritten and underexplained — key mysteries remain unresolved by the game’s otherwise spectacular finale.

But Unbeatable rocks. Its soundtrack, fueled by indie duo peak divide, has spun through my head since I finished the game. I’m only a casual rhythm gamer (Hi-Fi Rush and Goodbye Volcano High were my last excursions in the genre), but I never tired of its songs and even indulged in some of its endlessly replayable Arcade Mode. Unbeatable overflows with passion — with the sheer joy of creation — which more than makes up for its awkward pacing and uneven writing.

Keeper

Few studios can match Double Fine for sheer imagination. Keeper, which has players scuttle around as a sentient lighthouse, earns a strong recommendation based on its art and world alone.

The actual puzzle gameplay isn’t as remarkable. While I was sold on the game as a supposedly short experience (it took me roughly six hours) — one of its acts dragged on just a little too long. I got stuck on another challenge because I didn’t quite understand what the game wanted from me.

But Keeper’s still a masterclass in how to subtly guide players through a setting that abounds in funky characters and intriguing history — all without a lick of dialogue. Sparse sentences attached to hidden achievements are the closest it comes to lore. If you’re looking for a visual feast in the lineage of Journey or Abzu, look no further than Keeper.

and Roger

I went into this tiny Japanese game knowing nearly nothing about it and would recommend you do the same. So rather than talk about and Roger’s mysterious story (which concludes brilliantly if perhaps a bit too neatly), I’ll describe its thoughtful design.

and Roger feels like an evolution of Florence, a 30-minute narrative game about a young woman falling in and out of love. While it’s roughly twice as long, and Roger also stretches simple game mechanics to illustrate mental states and tease out a relationship. But it deepens the emotional range from the highs and lows of early adulthood to something far more wrenching. Like Consume Me, it’s also got some surprise (and non-preachy) Christianity!

and Roger is the game I regret missing most before writing last week’s epic Top 25 of 2025 list — it’s minute-for-minute one of the most moving experiences you can have in the medium.

I also finished Many Nights a Whisper, a game that’s half ruminative poem, half slingshot simulator, and which we included in the NPR Games of the Year list I edited. It’s another hour-ish experience I could easily recommend, though I biffed the final shot (long story — I blame the lighting). Bitter as that disappointment was, I respect the game’s commitment to anticlimax, and it’ll stick in my memory for years to come.

Finally, I dropped some hours into three games designed to be played infinitely — the 3D Vampire Survivors-esque Megabonk, the lustrous Lumines Arise (by the makers of the transcendent Tetris Effect), and Q-Up, which sits somewhere between an esports parody and earnest idle game.

Megabonk fits under the “knitting game” moniker I described when writing about Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. While I haven’t felt compelled to play it nonstop, I’ve enjoyed dipping in for a few daily runs.

Q-Up goes further. It’s a second-screen game — something you flick to every few minutes while, say, doing a desk job (not that I have one of those these days!). It’s got so little interaction that it struggles to hold my attention — but I do love its premise. Winning or losing in this competitive multiplayer arena literally comes down to a coin-flip; that’s it. All the characters do, more or less, is effect how many upgrade points you win or lose.

Lumines Arise, on the other hand, taxes my brain and reflexes to my limit. I admire its synesthetic overload, but I just can’t keep up with it. If I end up practicing more and progressing further, I’ll let you all know.

That’s all for today! Parental leave notwithstanding, I remain NPR’s Magic: The Gathering correspondent and will be reporting from the frontlines of Lorwyn Eclipsed next week!