Kupo Cafe Game Awards 2025 Day 4!!

Welcome in, and enjoy our thoughts of this year in gaming~!!

First, a word from the lady who I have been coworking this entire time with, Satone:

I've been trying out these kinds of co-working games lately, but this one is the one that helped me the most. Check it out here, called Chill with You Lo-Fi Story. Bless ups to you, Satone~!!

As we start to wrap up our thoughts on this year in gaming, I hope you dear reader has been enjoying yourself and our thoughts so far~!! Feel free to give us feedback by messaging me, Moguri, in DMs or Discord or even sending it to our manager's email (management@kupo.cafe). With that, enjoy our last gaming thoughts of the year and, if I don't get to say it, have a wonderful New Year~!! Good luck, and bless ups.



Homework Game of the Year Award - The Roottrees are Dead by Evil Trout Inc.

Presented by Andrew

Like last year’s favorite games, A Hand With Many Fingers, this year we have The Roottrees are Dead. A game, that as I was speaking to a friend of mine, something that she described as “Homework-core”. While funny, this description seemed apt as, well, it was definitely giving a homework-style game. I’ve been scouring my memories over the last few weeks over how I stumbled on this, and I want to say it was referenced by Patrick Klepek from Remap Radio, a few months ago.

Nothing says mystery like a shadowy woman.

The Roottrees are Dead’s premise is pretty straightforward: you play as an expert private investigator and are asked to investigate and provide proof of any blood relatives of a recently deceased family. So this basically sounds like a research paper, got it. You have a few tools at your disposal: a big interactive corkboard, access to a computer with a very rudimentary search engine, and internet access.

In order to prove a relative is confirmed, you need a picture, a first and last name, and an occupation. These, like Return of the Obra Dinn, are verified in threes, so you need three complete correct identities to lock in.

The guise of this premise opens after a quick tutorial. Your job is to map the entire Roottree bloodline from the origins of the family-owned company to all of its descendants. Your client, a mysterious, shadowy woman who appears to check on your progress, needs you to confirm the line of succession for the family, and/or confirm if the initial line of succession was even accurate in the first place. In order to accomplish this, you’ll need personal files, memoirs and diaries, as well as newspapers and blogs. The amount of depth required to dig these names and information out is well-written and some of the best “homework” gameplay I’ve seen in a long time.

Note: This simple web sprawls to almost 60 identities all intertwined.

Gameplay is simple, you are given some basic information that serves as a starting point. Luckily enough, as this family has been famous and noteworthy enough to be reported in the public record, there is information floating out there with enough to give you some leads. Some of the basic details are basically gimmes. Pictures, names, and maybe some secondary relationships can be inferred. Where I was enthused is when you start having to look at niche blogs or industry periodicals to sniff out further leads. The internet you have access to does its best to stem dead ends. You don’t have to blindly use a search engine as only specific phrasing may be noted in the surrounding evidence. After solving three identities, great! Here’s a few more, and more and more. By the end you have this intricate web of marriages, kids, divorces and half-siblings, all part of the same dynasty. Some were lawyers, painters, failed pop singers, or even just born. It's a fascinating game that wishes that I could construct something like this for my own family.

Lame name, but decent flavors

For all my homework sickos out there that loves libraries and referencing the actual citations from Wikipedia. This is a game for you. What starts off as a serial mystery builds with intrigue as the saga of this family comes to light. Traditions, expectations, fates, and jealousy begin to arise as you begin to read family members’ thoughts of those around them. Some of them live blessed lives, while others were shunned from the lives they deserved. The Roottrees are Dead creates a wonderful, thoughtful meta-narrative through its multimedia work that immerses the player in the history of this family. I never felt so compelled to strike items off a To-Do list, just like College Me was compelled to write a thoroughly written paper. As much as I hated homework then, even now, I find myself wanting the satisfaction of a topic well-researched, as just knowing is its own reward.

I love you Windows 2000 aesthetic.

5th Annual Genshin Impact Award - Genshin Impact by Hoyoverse and Zoneless Zone Zero by Hoyoverse

Presented by Moguri

We cannot end the Kupo Cafe Game Awards without the only game that has been winning 5 years in a row - Hoyoverse's Genshin Impact! And now with it's release back in 2024, sharing its award-winning title - Hoyoverse's Zenless Zone Zero! Yay!!

Still, the only two games I play daily to this day. And I will be honest: I am burnt out on playing Genshin. At this point, I just clock in, do the bare minimum on my dailies, and I clock out. Timed events?? I'll do them on the weekends as long as it doesn't involve battling. Battle pass?? Haven't bought it, and the past two months, I haven't completed it. Archon Quests?? I'm so behind. What the heck is a Columbina??

2025 Genshin and ZZZ stats from their anniversary event

However, as I was putting together my gallery of in-game screenshots, I couldn't help but to feel nostalgic once more for this game. Although I am not at all motivated to continue on with the Nod Krai (the new world of this patch), I can't help but to be amazed at the scenery and the aesthetics of the new areas introduced through this patch. Compared to the others, it's cold, scrappy yet resourceful, and the small areas of community and gathering make a wonderful contrast. Natlan as a whole and even the story I really did like, and the summer event where they built a whole water park I thought was a cool send-off. So despite me being burnt out at the end of it all, I am still compelled to see the story all the way through. After all, I think I've only really missed 2 days of playing Genshin after all these years. Seeing my friend play it for the first time in a long time and him being in the beginning of Mondstadt and complaining about the gameplay, just brings a tear to my eye thinking about my memories of the game all those years ago. He switched over to WuWa which he likes the gameplay more and objectively I think it's better because it's newer, but Genshin has that place in my heart (and besides I'm too used to it at this point). For ZZZ, it's still a fun game for me even if I do not like this current chapter of Yunkui Summit. The summer event, meeting all of Spook Shack, and the little timed events they throughout were all super memorable to me. The aesthetics all around will always be inspirational and top tier, combining analogue media and sci-fi future tech is so peak.

I can go on and on and on about both Genshin and ZZZ, but to save you some time here is this year's gallery of moments that I wanted to capture. Hope you enjoy, and if you wanna talk more in-depth about my love and hatred of these games hit me up!! Also my ships!! Scaramona Forever!!

Top 10 Manga I Read This Year

Presented by Moguri

As mentioned before, this year I spend a lot of time reading manga in bed on my iPad before I went to bed. While there were many games I could have played, many videos I could have watched, or just spending some time doomscrolling on any social media feed - this year I gravitated towards reading instead. Now that manga is all the more accessible and more series that are coming out localized, I feel like I'm just catching up to trends and what was popular years ago. It honestly reminds me of my pre-teens going to the big bookstore in town Borders (rest in peace) and reading manga in the little nook they had at the back of the store. I'm not going to say I was a real big reader in school, partially because I realized that I couldn't stay focused for long periods of times, but when I discovered graphic novels it opened up a new love for reading. I'm just saying, if you are not a fan of reading, you just haven't found what's right for you.

Anyways, that's enough of that; here are the top 10 manga I read this year, ongoing or completed!! Also, I read more than this, am reading some more, and re-reading old stuff. But here are the 10 I want to share and recommend, loosely ordered as well:

Hirayasumi: Slice of life about a man in his 30's and his cousin starting college at 18, hits too close to home.

I Fell in Love with the Older Girl Next Door: The pursuit of understanding the feelings of your crush as a youth has never been more relatable.

Akane-Banashi: A manga about making an artform your life and the struggles that go along with it to reach the top.

Tune Into the Midnight Heart: It's been a while since I've seen an MC be so cocky and full of himself yet still has humility and works to improve others' lives for an ulterior motive that's not totally bad.

The Bugle Call - Song of War: An amazing world of powers and really cool action scenes.

You and I Are Polar Opposites: Normally, I try to avoid high school romance, but the characters and whole cast are fun and I find myself rooting for certain couples and seeing their interactions together makes me bury my head in a pillow and kick my feet in bed.

Oogami-can Can't Keep It Together: When a supernatural quirk and a closeted pervert meet, it's a unique dynamic that I think went to good and fun places all the way through.

My Lovesick Life as a '90's Otaku: Navigating high school and life with a secret burden has also never been so relatable.

No Longer Allowed in Another World: an isekai I actually like.

You Like Me, Not My Daughter: IT'S GOOD I SWEAR AND NOT ANYTHING WEIRD OK

Manga, still good even in 2025!!



Kupo Cafe Game of the Year 2025 Awards

Sommerkurz's Game of the Year 2025: Umamusume: Pretty Derby by Cygames

Presented by Andrew

Even as I write this, this is a big curveball for me. Even as I was writing most of this list, I was feeling really unsure of what could be my game of the year. I was stuck in two camps. I could go with the “best” game I played this year. Something like The Seance of Blake Manor came to mind. But as much as an impact it had on me, I felt that I hadn’t played enough of it, to be able to write some sort of piece on it. So I re-reviewed my list, and something kept coming up over and over. Umamusume was definitely something I played this year, and something I had strong opinions about.

As someone who hears things through the grapevine, I’ve been aware of what Umamusume is: humanized horse girls that are based on real racing horses that compete in fictionalized versions of real races. I’m enough in the know to not be that surprised. As with a lot of niche-r stuff that comes out of Japan, and more specifically the gacha realm, Umamusume I saw as just another in the long line of gacha games that would ebb and flow with time. I don’t really play gachas myself, I played Girls Frontline 1 in college, and I’ve been known to enjoy Kantai Collection every now again, but I had little interest in playing a mobile game.

Sometime over the late summer, I was bored. And when I’m bored I start to seek new experiences, so jokingly amongst some friends I announced/threatened I would play the game, as feedback from the original JP instance and the Global game were really really positive. And sometimes don’t we want to play a bit of poison? Unsurprisingly, Umamusume is not a poison, but a cure. Something that awakened a more basic urge, it was thrilling. I can say I came in with low expectations. I was entering with an impure heart. But slowly, as the game opened up to me and I met some Umas, I went from playing this ironically to post-ironic and finally sincerely enjoying it for what it offered. The beautiful highs and the bitter lows of horse racing.

Believe in her, as she believes in you.

As Umamusume structures its story not necessarily linearly nor all in place. The game separates its content generally by character in at least two places directly. First is the base career mode scenario; the URA Finale, and secondary being the individual story mode. Both, alongside the short 4-Kona comics and support card scenes, bring out the personalities of each Uma. They all tend to follow themes of self-confidence, camaraderie, self-discipline, and positive work ethics. What is really a great touch is that the writing also considers the real-world careers of the horse they portray. So they mirror major races, challenges, and even shortcomings. It's hard not to feel how, regardless of the outcomes, the writing tries to be sincerely optimistic in its tone. WW2 Some Umas deal with the pressure of having high expectations, and others with the fight to rise above their talented peers to make a name for themselves. With so many characters you find that they each have their cliques of friends and rivals that push an Uma through their story, and you can have relationships grow in the face of competition.

Like a car, speed is all that matters, and Red makes her go faster

Gameplay-wise, Umamusume is similar to what I would describe as a “princess maker” game. Where most of your control over your selected Uma comes from your choice in their inspirations (previous veteran Umas), their support cards (fellow Umas that provided bonuses), and most importantly their training regimens. I am absolutely not an expert and do not have the insight to really break down the intricacies of this system, but you generally train the five stats in the game: Speed, Stamina, Power, Guts, and Wit. Each of these contributes to different aspects of your Umas performance in a race. Alongside this you collect skill points to equip your Uma with skills and perks that both actively and passively activate to provide boosts. But when it comes down to the actual race, you are pretty hands off, you can only watch, and hope.

Gooo!! Run for your life!!

The choice of barring you, the trainer, from having any active participation in the race is what draws a great emotional response from me. After all the decision making, training, and luck you’ve had, it's in your Uma’s hands to perform. You hope, you pray, you despair, and you cheer during those races. This put a spell on me. I grasped at victory. I cursed my Umas for not making 1st place every time and brought out some dangerous thoughts: if my Uma didn’t get first place, was that on my Uma, or was that on me? Did I fail them? No, surely my training was enough, or was it?

It was at this moment I realized the toxicity that came out in junior league sports parents. As your child is a metric in your own success as a parent/trainer. You want them to do well, because you want validation that you made the right choices. This is both a blessing and a curse. Will I someday be a terrible sports dad when I see them choke on the final corner at the Tenno Sho? I don’t know but I’d rather know this now, then later.

I’ve grown quite fond of these horsegirls, and while I’m not a power player min-maxing and grinding every event. I do enjoy watching the races and characters fleshing out with every event. I think what made this my GOTY over others, is that I have thought about, discussed and read more about Umamusume than any other game of this year. While it’s not the most ground breaking game, or the sharpest written. It has a charm that has not only worked on me, but has brought interest in supporting horse racing and the well-being of these horses even through retirement. Umamusume is a lot of things, and some may scoff at its presentation and its premise but its emotional and accessible story has made it to the top of my list this year.

From my desk to yours, thank you for reading this year’s Kupo Talks Game Awards. It was as fun as always. I hope that we can continue this next year, and I hope I can continue to provide some coverage on the many titles that come out in this never-ending cycle.

Thank you to Mog for his never ending patience and openness in letting me have creative control over my selections, and for the effort he puts in to schedule this into his busy schedule for the year.

Have a Happy New Year and keep it sleazy.

All Umas are daughters, except wife-material Air Groove.

Moguri's Game Stats 2025

Before I give you my GOTY, here are my game stats for this year of 2025 according to Steam. I barely touched my Switch or Switch 2, but if you want to keep track, it's Mario Kart World and Groove Coaster: Future Performers with a hint of Kirby Air Ride. Check out my 2025 Steam Replay here~!!

oh yeah I guess I did play a lot of Marvel Rivals this year too lol

List of Games I Wish I Had More Time to Play or Start In 2025

Moguri Game of the Year 2025 - Battle Suit Aces by Trinket Studios

Presented by Moguri

Like my cohort, I had to think a lot about my choice of my personal game of the year. I don't play a lot of triple-A popular titles, so Borderlands 4 or Outer Worlds 2 is out of the picture. Indies you know I love but didn't get to fully play Expedition 33 or Hades II so that's out of the picture. Not even a Silksong. How about a friendslop like PEAK or R.E.P.O.?? Never invited, so never played. The closest I've gotten was Risk of Rain 2.

With all that and my Steam Replay saying I've played over 100 games this year, I feel this year of gaming was me trying out so many things but not so many landing. It parallels my own life too, where in the beginning of the year I felt like a lot happened to where I ended in depression or anxiety or just in deep thought in my life. The middle of the year was a search to find what I truly wanted in life as I was approaching the age of 30, then towards the end of the year I started to feel a bit more confident again.

A common theme with all my writings and awards this year is the idea of memories from the past and nostalgia - a word that I feel has been taken over by modern society as a way to sell things. I mean, have you seen what Taco Bell has been doing with the decades menu and bringing back items from like the 80's?? But to me, my brand, and my aesthetic - nostalgia is an important concept that reminds us of both the fondness of the past and a reflection of who we are now. Perhaps now things have changed for worse or for better, but we cannot make that comparison without having it exist in the first place. Growth and a dash of down-to-earth-ness makes a good formula for understanding oneself, and to find a certain kind of peace within.

What does this have to do with my game of the year pick? This game was one that I didn't really think I would be spending a whole lot of time with, but it proved to me that it had a lot to offer. It reminded me a lot of those Saturday morning cartoons I watched on Cartoon Network and Toonami. Cross that with the anime I watched on those shady sites back then, risking viruses and trojans to a show in three parts. Even the gameplay reminds me of simple flash games combined with when I used to play trading card games with friends. This game just combined my entire childhood, but in a modern twist and fresh new story that, while trope-y and predictable, was so refreshing to read and experience.

Silly side quests are always fun

That game is Battle Suit Aces. If this game had been made twenty years earlier, no doubt it would have gotten a spot on Toonami as an animated series. The premise is simple: you are the captain of a space vessel, the USS Zepher, sent on a task to find the source of an enemy that has been terrorizing the galaxy and destroy it for good. In order to do so, you learn of an ancient race with ancient technology with the same goal as you. It is ancient for a reason, as they have failed to stop the evil and have only left behind clues of their existence. They also left behind their final and strongest weapons - the Suits. And so, as captain, and alongside your small crew of scientists, engineers, ensigns, and fighters, you travel through space and visit planets in search of those treasures, with fights along the way.

We love unions in this household

What really hooked me, aside from everything being voice acted pretty well, were all the people that you meet along the way. What started as a crew of 8 can grow to even more as you meet four different factions whom you can recruit to really flesh out your pool of mech suits you can send out into battle. The more you progress, the more chances you have of completing their side missions, to get to know them better, and to unlock their full potential abilities in-game. The cast and ensemble I think are super dynamic, and I love seeing all the character interactions with each other, from the main crew to all the people you meet. And there are so many. There are 4 main factions you meet, each with 5 potential characters you can unlock once you have enough experience (which you get by sending out and fighting with the troops of those factions, and doing specific missions). You cannot get through everyone in one playthrough because there are only so many missions, which is fine by me as the gameplay is solid enough and pretty fast at times too.

Beggars can't be choosers, as they say

Speaking of the gameplay, some parts that I appreciate about it are that it's fast-paced, it's half strategy and also half luck/improvisation, and there are times where you lose, but it never feels impossible (plus restarting is quick). As I said before, it reminds me of simple flash games where everything is laid out in front of you and doesn't get too flashy or too complex. I've said before that limitations, especially graphical ones, can open up so much to the imagination, which then engages your brain and makes a stronger connection. Add this with sometimes in the right places, the game breaks that normal convention and includes a "cutscene" where characters talk during a story battle and adds to that action. That final battle, and some of the ones before it where people just jump right in - some of the most PEAK I've seen this year in games.

Race again time in a giant mech you found

Cutscenes in this game are done through static images/spritework and sketches of scenes. It's so simple, yet again so effective. In a way, if your writing is good and the voice acting is really good, that's all you need. How they were able to convey scenes like a traumatic and downright abusive experience on a ship to finding out your adoptive gang mother is still up to her old antics to scenes like a beach vacation episode to a mech volleyball competition side quest all in one playthrough is beyond me. But they did it, just like multi-episode arcs in an anime.

Some of those scenes that I really like, from talking inside the ship to these illustration ones - love the sketchy and simple aesthetic
Love this purely platonic relationship they have

Overall, Battle Suit Aces was a game that was well-needed at the time of its release and at the time of my life where I was getting ready to get back into games. Sometimes the universe is like that, I think. But whether you believe in fate or not, this is a game that you can feel the passion and the hard work put into this experience. You can see the influences this game has, and it truly understands what makes them so great so that they can put it into an amazing original work. It's not 100% entirely perfect, but just being able to put that all in a package that starts really well and ends really well - not a lot of people can even come close to that. I enjoyed the story of Captain Heathcliff, I enjoyed the story of every bit of the crew, and I enjoyed the journey and all the side quests into defeating the final baddie of the game. Every character was fantastic in their own right, and while I didn't learn about everyone in my first playthrough, I feel like one day I will come back to this game to see them through.

Simple, yet effective gameplay. Feels good to blow things up. Oh, and this character in particular has an ability where if she destroys an enemy, she gets to hit again resulting in two extra taps. Combine that with multiple lane hits to take down the enemy ship. So satisfying.

With that, Battle Suit Aces wins my game of the year this year. If you love space and mechs and adventure action anime with all its tropes, you will absolutely love this game. Truly a wonderful experience to end 2025, and one that will inspire my own writing and ideas. So bless ups to you, Trinket Studios. While I fell off of your first game, this was a right time right place game for me to where I will never forget it as long as I live.

Patchworks, what a crew.

And now, the Kupo Cafe Game Awards 2025 has come to a close. Thank you for humoring me and my co-host Sommerkurz/Andrew. Even if one person has read through all of our thoughts, that is enough for me. And I hope that you can give at least one of these games a try, or even just add it to your wishlist too. Games are an important medium for me, for us. It's a miracle they even get made in the first place. And with the advent of new technologies arising that prove itself to be bad and detrimental to artists and humanity, I think it's now even more important to not just consume all forms of art, but learn to analyze, critique, and create. Games is a medium where all of that can happen. So whether you create games yourself or just consume them, use them as a base for what you do. There is no better time to create and learn to create, and do it well, then now. You know me, I would love for you to share it, to me, to the world, to yourself.

Happy New Years to all, and hope 2026 will be one of blessings, strength, and good gaming experiences. I will be doing my best, as best as I can, all the way through. Hope you can too.

As always, stay frosty.



Thanks for reading Day 4!! Come back next year for more awards!!

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