Kupo Cafe Game Awards 2025 Day 1!!
Welcome in, and enjoy our thoughts of this year in gaming~!!
First, a word from our guest in the rotating chair - Andrew:
Greetings! Welcome again to the first of many essays/reviews for this forsaken year that has been 2025. I want to preface that this year has been a difficult one for me, not only personally (I got engaged!) but also to find time to play some new video games. I want to thank my constant anchor of a friend Mog. Who has been unbelievably patient with me and invites me back every year to be able write and share some thoughts as a fellow gaming enthusiast.
As alluded, this year was a real pain for me to really be gaming as much as I have in past years, so the list, while not the most extensive, is as comprehensive as it can be. I really only played a handful of new games, not including updates to my old standbys. Every year new games come out, and my backlog keeps getting bigger and bigger. I was hoping to finally take on my great white whale game this year, 428: Shibuya Scramble but alas, time comes for us all, and I wasn’t able to find the metal within myself to start on that project.
Nevertheless, thank you for continuing to support this yearly endeavour, and let’s get into some games!
Obligatory Card Game Award - Starvaders by Pengonauts
Presented by Moguri
It seems that every year more and more games involving cards pops up, and every time I give a try it all seems like clones of other card games to the point where I'm like "I should just play the original". Something though clicked with Starvaders. Perhaps it's the art style with its bold lines and shading, almost like a comic book. Perhaps it's a combination of both grid tactics and ability cards. Perhaps it's the multiple characters with multiple play styles combined with the mysterious and open story that you'll get the answers for the more you beat runs.
Who knows. But what I do know is that Starvaders is, for me, my "pick up and play" game on the Steam Deck and when I'm looking for something to do on my computer for about 10 minutes or less. It's easy to get into, easy to understand, challenging yet rewarding, and ultimately just a fun time if you like these kinds of games. Lots of content too.
As a person who doesn't like a lot of card games, this one has been my favorite this year. Highly recommend you give it a try!
7th Annual OneShot Award for Best Final Twist - The Darkest Files by Paintbucket Games
Presented by Andrew
The Darkest Files is an investigative deduction game that focuses on the judicial reforms that occurred in post-war West Germany after the fall of the Nazi regime, specifically seeking justice in the aftermath of the Holocaust. This narrative takes the circumstances of its setting earnestly and presents its narrative with the respect that is necessary given the material. While I do not have the credentials to provide the historical background that this period of time would require, the game provides this great service in its informative exposition. But to be brief, The Darkest Files’s narrative is that of young lawyer Esther Katz as she investigates cold-case murders that occurred in the last few months of World War II. In all honesty, I do not recall when I first heard about this game, but I somehow was so impressed by its premise and art style that I supported it on Kickstarter in 2024, and then I got to wait for a bit, patiently waiting for the full release date.
The Darkest Files is short, averaging around 10hrs and consists of two cases, with the second case being a little longer than the first. The cases follow similar procedures: Esther is assigned a case file, you gather archival documents related to the case, you interview the related parties, hone a thesis, and then present your prosecution case in court. Occasionally, documents will continue to come in between interviews, or certain parties are only able to interview right before going to court. As I mentioned in last year’s review of A Hand With Many Fingers, I love reading documents, even as a hobby, so going through legal papers and historical evidence and pictures is fascinating, and Darkest Files does a great job in its scenario writing that compels me to re-read and notate points of interest. Aside from reading documentation, Esther will interview witnesses about the murder. This begins with simple questioning in a conference room but moves on to visualize their testimony in 1st person visualizations of the crime scene itself.
In these environments, you’re locked into scenes to let the most critical exposition be told, but in between those scenes you are allowed to roam the environment to pose additional questions and gather further evidence. Occasionally, you are able to interrupt the witnesses to confirm statements or clear up inconsistencies. These roaming sections are where most of the game happens: looking for clues, gathering context, and immersing yourself in the situation. It can be a little tedious at times to have to look at every single object in a room to feel complete, but to the critical path this is technically optional. As I was playing, I know I have a tendency to want to read/look at everything, believing that even a sliver of further detail will be beneficial. Though when one proceeds to the court cases, you are just reviewing things you already know. I would not say it is particularly in-depth, I did play this on the recommended normal difficulty, and the developers do offer extensive accessibility options. But I think that most of the questions that are posed about the case can be answered pretty easily with the initial exposition and a little bit of reading comprehension.
What gives more weight to the story is the fact that the cases are based on real events. The people, with names changed, were real. Not only did people suffer under the oppression of the Nazi ideology, but also at the expense of petty rivalries and bureaucracy that took advantage of the vulnerability of the oppressed. It’s in the throes of this point that the game surprised me with one of my favourite final twists that I’ve read all year. While a small detail in context, it was an exemplary example of the writing that this team really excels at. I don’t really want to expand on this further, but it's a great twist amongst great writing.
While it is difficult to describe a game about the Holocaust as “fun and entertaining”. I found the Darkest Files informative, well-written, and thoughtful. I enjoyed the stylistic presentation, especially with the use of blues and oranges that help give a moody atmosphere to the very ‘50s setting. Overall, the material makes this a more delicate recommendation than a general one. For someone who is already informed or interested in this period of history, especially given the current circumstances here in the United States, this is a fantastic learning experience from a unique point of view. In all, I’m glad that games like this continue to be made, and I look forward to seeing what this team will develop next.
Punchayourbuns Award - Absolum by Dotemu, Guard Crush Games, and Supamonks
Presented by Moguri
I still remember the first real beat-em-up I've played found on a SEGA port collection on the GBA, filled with the classics you know and love or in my case the games I never got to experience until then. Echo the Dolphin, so confusing and honestly made me very afraid of the ocean for a while. Sonic Pinball, fun until the panic music starts and the moments you walk around in that game were a strange one for me. It's no Pokemon Pinball, that's for sure. Then the last game of the collection: Golden Axe. Up until then, I've been playing things like RPGs and Mario Tennis, which the GBA version is more like an RPG in itself. So seeing the whole Nordic aesthetic combined with the simple yet full-of-depth style of gameplay was so cool and unique to me. Though, as a youthful gamer without the knowledge that I have now, it was insanely frustrating at times. Getting hit by the most avoidable things, health items being so sparse, and bosses that seem so unfair - Golden Axe was also my first rage game. I know in arcades or games back then that modeled themselves after arcades that this design was on purpose to take your quarters or take your precious time and attention. But I didn't know that back then. Yet, somehow, I felt determined to beat it.
When I saw this game pop up on my feed and all the screenshots, I definitely wanted to give it a try. Booting it up for the first time, it was like that scene from Ratatouille where the critic eats the food and gets transported back to his childhood. I've played more beat-em-ups after my time with Golden Sun, but this was the first one of them that made me really feel that connection.
Absolum is a beat-em-up that combines the standard style of gameplay with roguelike elements like run-based resets and getting a random choice of abilities per run. There's also paths you can choose, bits of side-quests here and there, unlocking progression with currency you take to your home base, and four characters with unique special abilities and fight styles.
Overall, it's such a solid game that I feel balances the run-based elements well so it doesn't feel frustrating all the time. The gameplay adds its depth by mixing in different ways to parry or avoid attacks in a skillful manner and then giving you abilities to reward you based on those different aspects of its combat system. Of course, I still get those same frustrations I got back in Golden Axe - rare health items, getting hit by the dumbest things, and bosses being so tough. But nowadays it feels possible to beat that and the entire game. Persistence is key, and Absolum makes me feel that if I can just get better and dodging, if I can just get better at using my skills, then I can finally complete a run. Hasn't happened yet, but I want to make it happen. To prove it to myself, you know?
Anyways, if anyone wants to be my duo then hit me up.
Luck is a Skill, and Boy am I Bad Award - Dice Gambit by Chromatic Ink
Presented by Moguri
As a picky fan of tactics games, this year sure has been a year for tactics games. You got your grid-based, some hex-based, a few card-based, a bit of real-time, a smidge of run-based rogue-likes, a dash of storied narrative ones. Too many to track, and for me too many to just glaze over and say "not for me".
My peak is and always will be XCOM. A loose but clear overall narrative and goal, with troops that are customizable and a combat focused on strategy, knowledge, and being clutch. This, for me, gets my creative juices flowing with narratives I can create myself and the game helps push things along for all the headcanons I have with my troops. In a way, it's like a good tabletop session between myself and these computer systems that make up the game.
This is a high standard for any game, let alone a tactics game, to achieve. But it's what I personally want and what speaks to me. Which is why I have so many hours on XCOM 1 and 2. So when a game scratches that itch for me, you know I'll be all over it.
Dice Gambit is a game that combines hex-based movement, class-based abilities and combat, strategic luck management, and a kind of family-raising mechanic, all wrapped in a stylish art style and a story with truly insane people trying to save their city they call home.
I've always liked dice and luck as a mechanic in games and how games implement them. To see if the game gives you freebies and cook the books as one would say, or if it's brutally honest and painfully fair. Dice Gambit, to me, felt fair. And brutal. And so many times painful. At times, I just wanted to start over on a new save now that I have more knowledge. But I kept trucking on my doomed save to the point where I just had to stop. It became so difficult and at times I felt like it wasn't my fault but rather the game itself. So I gave my feedback, and eventually after I had stopped playing they did a bunch of balance patches.
I say all this yet still decided to give this game an award because it left so much of an impression on my. Whereas a game like Darkest Dungeon where after a while it gets so depressing the more you lose, Dice Gambit I think both embody a kind of positive sadistic-ness, almost in a way optimistic to where despite everything I felt I wanted to continue, for my in-game family bloodline. There's a clear purpose and a clear drive that made me want to push my luck to see if I can make it through or not. The story and the style overall really does add to this feeling, and I definitely want to give the updated balances a try once more.
Dice Gambit is a unique game of its kind and while it's not 100% perfect or even 100% for everyone, it's a good challenge I think and worth a shot if you like the tactics genre. My recommendation though - don't take the dice rolls seriously, otherwise the rage will kick in.
Gross Guys of the Year Award - Labyrinth of the Demon King by J.R. Hudepohl, Published by Top Hat Studios
Presented by Andrew
Labyrinth of the Demon King was one of those sleeper recommendations that I didn’t really have on my radar besides the one note that I picked up from a podcast. As an avid listener and supporter of Remap Radio, guest/friend of the show, Renata Price, mentions semi-offhandedly in an episode this year that there are some really good “gross guys” in this game. Out of curiosity, I looked up what she had mentioned, eyed that it was on Stream for like $15 dollars and I was already semi-committed to playing this. I was intrigued by the crunchy PS1 aesthetic and heard that it wasn’t too long.
I have mentioned this in previous writings, but I am actually not into horror as a genre in general. I don’t really like horror films, and the majority of horror games I will pass by. But sometimes under the right circumstances, usually once a year, one horror, or at least horror adjacent title will end up on my GOTY list. Does this mean I secretly love horror? Probably not, but I do have a selective taste for it. Like previous year’s Conscript, or Signalis and Alan Wake 2, my interests in the genre have always been geared more towards survival horror, which Labyrinth of the Demon King (LTDK) sort of is. I don’t like being scared; it stresses me out, but I do love the feeling of empowerment or overcoming obstacles, which is what draws me to these types of games.
Labyrinth of the Demon King sets up a very simple narrative and sticks to a pretty predictable path. You are a lowly ashigaru, a foot soldier, in your lord’s army, the rest of the army is slaughtered and you seek revenge against those who did it: the Demon King. You awake in a forest and come to follow an eerie beacon into a cave and wake up in a cursed land with the Demon King’s castle in front of you. After some light exposition, you have a goal: face and defeat all of the Guardians of the Labyrinth and fight the Demon King. Like I said, straightforward, nothing particularly ground-breaking, but otherwise easy to follow and there is little room for misunderstanding.
The world you awake in imposes an air of loneliness, for the first scenes in the game don't amount to much contact with anyone. You move through forests, wander the remains of the castle’s outer building without anyone to talk to, it is, in its own ways, eerie but pretty peaceful. For a while, I wish there were more pronounced sections of the game like this, as the game does a very unappreciated job of setting its tone and setting well. The one person you talk to, a maiden, gives you the speech that you shouldn’t be here, typical, but we must push forward deep into the castle.
Once inside, armed with only a rusty katana, do you find the denizens of the castles, crusty and gross guys with ramshackle weapons that are as eager to fight you as they are each other. Now, there was a second thing that Renata Price mentioned in her description of this game, that is your character plays pretty terribly. After a short optional tutorial, getting to fight a real enemy becomes a real test of trial and error. Your character is painfully slow, has a long wind-up to hit, and you have no real block ability, only a parry. Learning the rhythm of combat becomes the most significant challenge here. Most enemies have the same toolset as you have, light and strong attacks, a parry (whose window is pretty generous), and a kick. Like the Souls series, everything costs stamina, and stamina management is the name of the game, as that becomes the most limiting factor in combat. While your attacks are pretty slow and the enemy can absolutely parry you, they also telegraph their attacks pretty well so learning how enemies fight is worthwhile. Once you get confident, I found the combat to be enjoyable and at certain points pretty easy once you get the rhythm. Or you can forgo that and just strong attack your way through their guard and stunlock them into a bloody pulp.
LTDK offers a surprising variety of weapons, swords, clubs, spears, and ranged. All melee weapons are divided by the types of damage they do, slash or blunt. There is a bit of nuance to this as there is a small, but thought-through move list that visualizes what attacks with a weapon do what type of damage, which can be very helpful. Ranged weapons, on the other hand seem to do a unique form of damage.
I can not understate how good the ranged weapons are in the game, the bow and the tanegashima. You find both probably within the first third of the game, and while limited by arrows and ammunition, these are devastating weapons. Most enemies are easy enough to take on with normal weapons, but boss fights, who absorb more damage and are more difficult to parry requiring you to take more damage may require extra firepower. After attempting the first boss, and unsurprisingly dying very quickly. I realized that I had a bow, a quiver full of arrows and the desire to progress quickly. At this moment, the use of the bow and later the gun made sense to me, these are not normal weapons, these were my boss-killers. No jokes, I don’t really think I fought any boss fairly. I just stood at range and shot them, and they died, and I felt great. Not even agonized haunts have any protection against gunpowder flying steel. While some may call this trivialization of a challenge I was charmed by the fact that I could gun bosses down with east. The damage these weapons cause, if you come in fully equipped is enough to end the fight quickly. Is it unbalanced? Sure, but it's also a lot of fun.
As mentioned, this is a horror game, and alone, even with the power of gun on my side, I would sometimes not want to boot up the game. But seeing that on my own was making very little progress, I invited Mog to be my navigator while I played this. I believe him being on a call and being able to chit-chat while I pushed through raised this game from what would be maybe a strong 7-7.5 to a 8.5. Having someone to backseat or just commentate over playing helped me not be so nervous and just play the game for what it was. At certain points, he goaded me to “just run it”, and we sprinted and leaped through the level to get past problem areas. Games are always a lot more fun when you have a friend.
In closing, is Labyrinth of the Demon King breaking into a new era of horror games? No, but it is a great callback to PS1 titles like King’s Field and Onimusha, I enjoyed the tricks it played, and there is some great atmosphere. In the end, is that not what people want from horror games? You go to some messed-up locations, you get chased around by some malevolent entity, and you fight some real gross guys. Truly a game of this year.
I Love Chore Games, Charlie Award - Discounty by Crinkle Cut Games, Published by PQube
Presented by Moguri
When I was working on the anime food truck, they had a new hire working alongside me who had been trying to break the ice with me. We ended up talking about what video games we have been playing recently, with her being some MMORPG, probably FFXIV. When it came for my turn to respond, introverted me had too many options to choose from as I was a college kid with a bunch of free time outside of school and chose to be indoors on the internet. The initial internal dialogue choices that I had to quickly decide: do I lie (and appear "normal") or do I tell her the truth? At that time I vividly remember testing out the gyroscopes of my newly-purchased Stream Controller, and what better way to do that with a non-racing vehicle game European Truck Simulator 2.
Sometimes I'm like "you know what, let's give it a shot" and told her a bit of my current obsession at the time. Her response? A short, simple "oh". The look on her face was one of confusion with a hint of “this guy’s a freak”.
I didn't see her again. Mostly because I got promoted to line cook from prep. I also vowed never to share my non-normie gaming power level with anyone else ever since the incident. Now you, dear reader, gets to know about them.
Discounty is a game where you run a grocery store, stocking items and ringing up customers by typing prices into the register. A style of game I call a "chore game". You also mop up messes made my customers, design the storefront and buy upgrades that can increase a shelf's storage or attractiveness, and buy upgrades that can make your life way easier. To some, it sounds boring. To me, it is bliss and peaceful. The way you have all this hustle and bustle and panic for a few minutes that feels like eternity, then getting back that calmness once everyone leaves - no better feeling than making it all the way through. Repeat that loop so many times and it's pure dopamine. For me, at least.
The narrative is what really got me to stay for the long run. You basically are the nephew who was looking for a job and your aunt invited you to take over her grocery store. When you come in, you discover that the grocery store is a corporate chain grocery store that has basically shut down the local one in this small, quaint little town where everyone knows each other. At first, this grocery store was in everyone's good graces. But your aunt wanted to expand, so she tore down (with permission) the beloved yet abandoned tea store next to it. And now everyone's pissed. You, as the nephew and store manager, are now caught in the middle of it. And now, you have to deal with it. Normal and legal ways will take too long. So, a "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" in a small town works pretty well to get back in the graces of everyone. You start taking in some local product, some of which you do not need to worry about where they got them or how they are produced. You start doing quests like dumping hauls and a little breaking and entering. You even help prevent a curse against a farmer's sheep.
It's a weird, wacky, yet funny and honest game. It's not 100% perfect as an entire game, but what it does and sets out to be is certainly commendable. At the end of the day, I had a lot of fun beating this game. There is more content they added now, but I haven't touched it. The ending of the game leads me to believe that there will be even more. The ending wasn't the greatest for me. But it's all about the journey, right?
i don't know about you but this is peak gameplay to me pic.twitter.com/uWonMINNg3
— Moguri @ It's Christmas, and we're in Tartarus (@MogKnight) August 22, 2025