If you have not already listened to this category’s podcast, these are the final results, so this will spoil the course of the discussion on that podcast! Be warned!

The Winner

Virtual Fighter 5 Grand Finals (Combo Breaker 2025)

“Drink!” “Yeah!” “DRINK, DRINK!” “YEAAAAH!” 

These exclamations echo in my ears to this day, and it’s not because of any lingering tinnitus. VF5 at Combo Breaker 2025, which getting a seat for the next top 8 was why were in attendance, became an electric crowd pleaser with some incredible gameplay on display. While we focus on the Grand Finals, so much of that Top 8 was full of little moments along the way, with the FGC old guard clashing against each other and new blood making a statement. Getting to see the likes of Itazan and Fuudo duke it out in VF5, a game with an underground history erupting to new life with the VF5 R.E.V.O., was just awesome.

But that Grand Final was something else: Itazan, the multi-decade legend of the scene taking on the newcomer ChinPanJ, was a battle of experience against youth. The venue itself was a fantastic environment, where in Japanese tournaments are often paired with polite observation and emphatic applause, the tournament scene in the US is one driven by hype. By happenstance, even the characters the players chose played into this. Itazan used Shun, a drunken fist practitioner who gains power with drinks, whereas ChinPanJ used Jacky, the excitable Jeet Kun Do user who is as flashy as he is loud. 

It’s almost poetic, isn’t it? An old man sparring with a young kid, an FCG legend taking on a rising talent, and an old game being enjoyed by a whole new audience. I was merely curious before, but you know I am gonna be there for that tournament’s conclusion at this year’s Combo Breaker to see the next chapter in Virtua Fighter’s story. The incredible thing about the fighting game community is that last part; a community of people who pour their hearts into the games we love, and seeing it in person is healing to the soul. 

-Kyrie

The Runners-Up

Baby’s First Death Trap (Android: Netrunner)

Deckbuilder games are hard to make. It’s easy to make overpowered cards and card combinations, and it’s standard to have a rolling list of banned cards (though that’s as often to push people to buy new cards as it is balance concerns). Part of what keeps me out of games like Yu-Gi-Oh!!, Magic the Gathering, and Pokemon TCG is the frequency with which people discover combos that trivialize parts of the game. They’re aren’t all created equal in this front, I know, but combine it with the buy-in, and I’m really not interested.

Android: Netrunner got my curiosity hearing it get praise from critics like Chia Contreras, then got my attention when I learned it was not a collectible card game. It’s an expandable card game, which means you do not buy booster packs, there is no RNG in what you get, you simply buy entire new sets (for quite reasonable prices!) when you want them. And then I started playing, and look. I’m new here. I am sure I will discover some stuff that’s overpowered. But the balance feels tighter, the synergy feels more fair, but at the same time? The things you can do to people feel more mean.

In a good way! I mean that in a good way. I see your skepticism. I promise I’m not a bad person. Just flip over this card and it may or may not kill you.

-Six

Accidentally Erasing Yourself (Shadow of Memories)

Time travel stories and their conventions usually are held up by the time traveler being intelligent. In H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and stories shaped by its influence, the time traveler is deeply smart, or barring that, clever and quick witted. Eike, the protagonist of Shadow of Memories who is caught in a series of time loops, is, plainly speaking, a huge dumbass. And it is delightful. 

You see though, him being a dumbass is something that is almost exclusively narrative: he is frequently bewildered and flummoxed by things that aren’t reflected in gameplay, except for one beautiful, optional, and missable moment from the beginning. Often in games about time travel, some sort of voice of reason will tell you when your actions would create an irreparable time paradox, or be a failed state that is easy to undo. Not our Eike, though. 

In the beginning of the game, during the decently involved prologue, Eike can find a version of himself snoozing in a cafe in the past. If you walk up to yourself and press the interact button, Eike mindlessly tries to wake himself up… and then both versions of Eike blink out of existence. Game over. Your save file never got a chance to be made, so start over, pal. I think it’s delightful that this game allows you to do some really goofy stuff, and it fits right into the theme and tone of the game that other paradox failstates do not. Eike is an idiot, and that’s just beautiful. 

Reading a Book (Friends of Ringo Ishikawa)

If there’s one lesson The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa tries to impart on the player, it’s this: just because a mechanic exists in the game doesn’t mean you’ll receive a reward for engaging with it, at least in the traditional sense. There are 16 books split between the school library and bookstore, each of which has their own “progress bar” related to their varying lengths. Many of them require several dedicated, in-game days to finish. And what is Ringo’s usual response after finishing each book? “This book is about nothing.”

You might control Ringo’s actions through most of the game, but you don’t impact who he is as a person. For him, reading a book has the same effect as smoking a cigarette, or taking his time when finishing a meal: it kills time, and that’s about it. You can push him to take care of his studies or skip school. You can make him steer clear of fights, or hop into so many bouts that other gang leaders will drop by to ask “What the hell, man?” You can make him do a surprising number of actions, but you can’t affect how he values each of those actions. Even with your hands on the controls, Ringo retains a level of agency you rarely see in an “RPG” with this level of interactivity. It’s one of several reasons why The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa left such an impression on us.

-Jen

Third week, three awards to give! Tune in tomorrow when we award our Best Narrative Moment!

Our art is a commission from GOMA on Bluesky.