While I try to be civil and maintain respectful professional relationships, I’m not afraid to call game companies on their BS when they mess up. While I don’t take joy in crapping on someone else’s hard work, I believe it’s important to point out when a developer or publisher does poorly, in hopes that they can improve in their future efforts. Here are the games that failed spectacularly in one area or another this year.
Note: You can listen to a podcast where Jenn and I discuss these awards! Check it out here!
- Worst Monetization / Scam
- Most Overrated
- Laziest Copycat
- Worst Port / Remake
- Most Overpriced
- The “Who asked for this!?” Award
- The “Why is this taking so much space on my memory card!?” Award
- Most Disappointing
- Nintendo’s Biggest Blunder
- Worst Hardware
- Worst Game
- Additional Commentary!
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Worst Monetization / Scam
Crossout Legends – All of this year’s contenders for this award use gross monetization, but in Crossout Legends this monetization injects a pay-to-win element that ruins what was otherwise a genuinely fun game. If the game’s online wasn’t virtually abandoned (gee, wonder why), I could easily see players getting trounced by those who poured money into powering up their own personalized death machine. It defeats the entire point of the game if your ingenuity and creativity making your own vehicle can be trumped by someone with more cash than you. The real winning move here is not to play at all.
Runners-Up:
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Most Overrated
Shujinkou (90) – Shujinkou is a good game, but a flawed one. Its RPG gameplay and educational Japanese-learning elements are too loosely-connected, there are nasty difficulty spikes, the economy is woefully stingy, and for at least the first five hours of the game, the gameplay is flat and repetitive with little to distinguish characters from each other in combat. None of these issues changes that Shujinkou is still a good game! But it is absolutely not one of the best games of the year, as the game’s Metacritic score would have you believe.
Runners-Up:
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector (90)
The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- (85)
Heretic + Hexen (86)
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Laziest Copycat
Myside Reality – Shovelware “developers” have been making shameless copies of other games for years, and this year this comes in the form of Myside Reality, which is not only a shameless copy of the PC game Miside, and not only is it one of noticeably low quality, but it is one that is completely broken, and unplayable past one point early on. If you copy someone else’s homework and can’t even be bothered to get all the way through the paper, you’re basically begging to get a failing grade from the teacher. Wish granted, Myside Reality.
Runners-Up:
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Worst Port / Remake
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition (Nintendo Switch 2) – Let’s go through all the reasons this is a lousy port, shall we? First, if you want to upgrade to this version from the Nintendo Switch version, you need to buy the overpriced and underbaked Anniversary Edition expansion. Second, this thing is over 50GB, the largest version of the game on modern platforms, even bigger than PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions, and this is on a platform where space is at a premium. Third, this release doesn’t have feature parity with other versions of the game, lacking the full creator club and mod support of other versions. Fourth, while the graphics are improved, they’re still ugly and dated-looking. Fifth, this release introduces more bugs into the game, including an input lag glitch that needed to be patched post-launch, as well as a glitchy water issue. Sixth, no mouse mode support. Skyrim is still one of my favorite games of all-time, but it deserved so much better than this on Nintendo Switch 2.
Runners-Up:
Super Mario Party: Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV
Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & The Envisioned Land
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Most Overpriced
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour ($10) – A $10 game doesn’t seem like it should be considered the most overpriced game of the year, but once you place it in context, it’s hard to see this as anything more than pure greed. It’s coming in the midst of an already-pricy launch for Nintendo Switch 2, when people are suffering due to the poor economy. It’s also not even really a game, it’s a tech demo, or as some have put it, a glorified instruction manual. It’s literally called a “Welcome Tour”, for goodness sake! How Nintendo thought it would make sense to charge for this instead of including it with the Nintendo Switch is just mind-boggling. What’s more, if we want a comparison, we have only to look to the PlayStation 5 and its absolutely stellar Astro’s Play Room, a game that came free with that console and that is arguably one of its greatest games. That Nintendo could charge for this snoozefest of a “game” while Sony gives Astro away for free really makes Nintendo look even greedier than they already do.
Runners-Up:
Flydigi Apex 4 PC Controller ($160)
Mario Kart World ($80)
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD ($60)
Motorbikes Pro 2025 ($13)
Hogtie ($13)
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The “Who asked for this!?” Award
Ai Tycoon – Idle games are already pretty niche. “A game where you don’t actually play it” sounds pretty bad from the outside looking in. But Ai tycoon doesn’t even bother making its scarce interactive elements engaging. Quite the opposite, you’ll be harassed with an endless stream of pop-up windows with inane, pointless questions every few seconds. Seriously, someone working on this game said to themselves at one point “you know what would make this Idle Game better? Endlessly harassing the player with pop-up windows!”. Because surely that’s what people want, to be reminded of one of the worst parts of the early days of the internet.
Runners-Up:
Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles
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The “Why is this taking so much space on my memory card!?” Award
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition (Nintendo Switch 2) (53.1GB) – I already mentioned this above, but come on. This is literally the most bloated version of the game, even more so than what’s on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. On a platform where space is at a premium. And what’s more, the game still looks dated and ugly, far worse than multiple games that take up far less space.
Runners-Up:
Wander Hero (1.55GB)
Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army (12.8GB)
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Most Disappointing
Super Mario Party Jamboree: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV – Super Mario Party Jamboree was a game that I celebrated last year on Nintendo Switch. In my opinion, it is the greatest game in the Mario Party series, pairing great minigames with fun game boards, solid graphics, and superb features like the new “Pro Mode” that removes much of the randomness from the game. For the paid expansion on Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo apparently decided to fence off the great features of that game from the new features of this one. Want to play with the new minigames? Say goodbye to Pro Mode. At launch, you couldn’t even play with the graphical improvements in the original game! What’s more, the new content… well, it’s mostly all bad. The mouse mode minigames are fun, but there aren’t many of them. And the camera and microphone stuff is pretty much all garbage. What a way to take one of the greatest successes from last year and somehow turn it into a dismal failure this year.
Runners-Up:
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition (Nintendo Switch 2)
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Nintendo’s Biggest Blunder
Nintendo update making third-party docks unusable – Given the absurd price that Nintendo’s own dock for the Nintendo Switch 2 is selling for, cash-strapped gamers desperately looked elsewhere for ess-expensive alternatives, and multiple third-parties stepped up to offer solutions. Then, Nintendo updated the Nintendo Switch 2, and “unintentionally” made these third-party docks unusable with Nintendo Switch 2. With Nintendo’s prices this year already looking a lot like price-gouging, this seemed like a particularly sleazy thing to do, and it didn’t just hurt third-party accessory companies, it hurt Nintendo’s own players.
Runners-Up:
Nintendo updates EULA terms to force arbitration and prevent class-action lawsuits
Nintendo not giving credit to the creators of the original Donkey Kong Country Returns in Donkey Kong Country Returns HD
Nintendo Switch 2 Game Key Cards
Mario Kart World priced at $80, becoming the first major release at that price by a first-party game company
Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games priced as high as $90
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Worst Hardware
Machenike G3V2 Bluetooth Controller – When you spend $40-$50 on a new controller, you have certain basic expectations. One of those is that the controller will, you know, work. The G3V2 couldn’t even pass that low bar for me, refusing to so much as hold a charge and crashing my Nintendo Switch while hooked up wired. It’s difficult to get much worse than that.
Runners-Up:
Heatfun Switch 2 Controller Charging Dock
GuliKit Elves 2 Bluetooth Game Controller
Huijutchen Gaming Controller Mouse (L/R)
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Worst Game
Myside Reality – As I mentioned before, Myside Reality shamelessly copies another game, does so poorly, and then fails to even be playable past a short ways into the game. The laziness on display here is staggering, and the contempt for players is… er, contemptible. More than any other game on Nintendo Switch in 2025, Myside Reality is one to avoid at all costs. Do not reward this disgusting behavior.
Runners-Up:
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Additional Commentary!
Just going to comment on the categories I feel like I have more to add.
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Most Overrated
If you’re not aware, the head creator of Shujinkou had a discussion with me in the comments in regards to my review of that game. During that discussion, he argued, quite reasonably, that he felt that I hadn’t spent enough time with the game to give it fair shake. I make it a point to let people know that I rarely play games to completion before review, I only play them until I feel like I’ve gotten a good feel for what the game has to offer. But, I concede that it’s always possible for a game to improve at some later point. It’s rare, but it can happen.
Because of this, and because this game has been so well-loved by other critics, I dove back into the game to give it another try. I reasoned that if my opinion changed before the end of the year, I could give this game a re-review with a more complete assessment. My additional time with the game didn’t improve my opinion of the game, though. In fact, I only found more things to dislike about it. After five hours of pushing myself to play a game that I wasn’t enjoying, that wasn’t getting better, and that kept making me want to play other, better games instead, I had to give up. I take the view that no one should be expected to play a game for five hours before it starts getting good, and in my opinion, after five hours this game hadn’t improved at all.
I wouldn’t go back and alter my review of the game to give it a worse review, I feel my original assessment stands, and Shujinkou is still, despite everything, a good game. However, it is a highly a flawed game, and this extra time with the game only cemented my opinion that this game is highly overrated.
Oh, and so are Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector , The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy- , and Heretic + Hexen. All good games, but none of them deserving of the level of praise they received, in my opinion.
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Nintendo’s Biggest Blunder
Other news stories I could have included but that didn’t make the cut:
Metroid Prime 4 locks music player behind $30 Amiibo (or 100% completion, after which the music player is pointless)
Nintendo announces Pokemon Legends Z-A DLC before the game is even released
Nintendo patents character-summoning mechanics in games
The Nintendo Switch gets a price hike
Mario Kart World update removes the ability to randomly select traditional 3-lap races
Nintendo forbids charity speed running event RTA from including its games.
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That’s all for today! to keep up with all of the eShopperReviews 2025 Game Awards, be sure to check back at the Awards’ Start Page, which I’ll be updating throughout the week!
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