The Jane Awards 2025
Promise to write more as a new years resolution, I said! It'll be so easy, I said! Spoke too soon cos now I'm faced with the dreaded blank page and waffling to start filling it, but hey - these are indeed words, words I can segway into the start of my first proper bit of writing in a while, so let's do that:
My memory is, unfortunately, quite uniquely terrible - across nearly all aspects of life (many can testify to this, sorry to all the many out there) but especially for remembering what I've watched and played over the space of year. Probably not ideal for a blogpost like this!
Thankfully, not everything gets the short end of the stick (otherwise this would be a very short first post) and the most interesting bits firmly stand out in my brain - some for being best in class, some for taking up a sizeable portion of my time, and others just for being Experiences™. What better way to honour them and see the year out than with proudly awarding them their dues? Also like, Jane rhymes with Game, I'm doing a Game Awards parody with the title, hope that makes sense cheers.
Best anime of the summer, and every summer henceforth: CITY the Animation
If you love animation as a medium, even just a little bit, you absolutely should watch CITY... but not now. In around 6 or 7 months.
This is a show visually and tonally defined by its summery-ness - the bright blue skies, bold block colouring throughout like one of those carpets every cool kid had with a town layout on (but less car-propaganda-y), there's nothing else that quite looks like it. That alone would be enough to call it one hell of a looker, but the animation pulls out every stop to show off whenever it can - even if you don't watch the full run for some reason, episode 5 is one of the most mindblowing 25-ish minutes of animation I've watched in as long as I can remember and a must-see for anyone and everyone with a pulse.
It's hard to really summarise what actually happens in CITY - not because of spoilers or anything, just that there's so much going on around every corner, completely disparate segments colliding when you'd least expect. Not every segment hits immediately (looking at you, Mr Bummer's mangaka) but when it all starts meshing together you're left with something really special. I don't usually rewatch series on a yearly basis, but for CITY I'll be very happy to break that trend.
Best cinema experience that had absolutely nothing else after it of the year: Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning-
Me and Mona managed to snag tickets to the UK premiere at the BFI IMAX (biggest cinema screen in the UK apparently?! fair bit bigger than the telly at home at least) and before the screening they had a few folks involved in distribution come up and say a few words - most notably one of em was a Bandai Namco rep, waxing lyrical about how GQuuuuuuX was "the perfect introduction for new fans to Gundam". I thought Witch from Mercury (my first Gundam a couple years back!) and Iron-Blooded Orphans were supposed to be that but fair play, I started off the year finishing Turn A and very quickly afterwards binging all of 0079, both of which I found incredible - the more people brought into the fold, the better!
...the lights went down, the screen lit up and Beginning started with a full 1:1 recreation of Gundam 0079's intro narration sequence, gang.
GQuuuuuuX as a whole is very firmly aimed at 0079 sickos (affectionate) for better or worse, but Beginning pretty much leans entirely towards the better side of things - n intriguing new spin on 0079's starting episode that very quickly veers off into its own direction, blending something old, something new but mostly something Char. Coming hot off the heels of watching 0079 for the first time definitely helped cos it really does give a lotta wiggle room for theories and then some - me and Mona's bus journey home afterwards was spent speculating over what could come next, what was being hinted towards (including one very brief character mention that sent the audience audibly gasping), the possibilities the new path being crafted here could hold....
...then the series was confirmed to only have twelve episodes (four of which were compiled into Beginning, so we'd technically already seen a third of the show). And then the last few episodes happened. Hhhhhhhuh.
But still, we're not here to think about that - we're here to think about Beginning! And Beginning's an experience I'll never forget in the cinema, one I'll always treasure and then some.
Best Mark Curran of the year: G-Saviour
Talking of Gundam films I watched with Mona in '25 that I'll always treasure - did you know that by seeing this before 0079, this was technically my first foray into Gundam's Universal Century? It's true! This was canon to the UC at one point!
The best way I can describe G-Saviour is like the Doctor Who TV movie from '96 but if it was twice as ambitious with half the budget, a comparison that possibly feels more niche that it should be - military costumes are borrowed from Starship Troopers, one of the closing outdoor locations is very clearly just outside a big greenhouse, it all very much feels like a team biting off a fair bit more than they can chew. But man, they were going all-in on that bite - thematically it's a lot closer to Gundam's overarching anti-war themes than you'd expect from something like this, and when they properly go all-in on the mobile suit fights by the end they're pretty damn good for a TV movie budget with early CG!
And of course, who could forget the iconic Marky Mark Curran after which this award is named after - our main protagonist for the film and a fascinating specimen. He cucks his fiancée and it directly results in an act of war that kills six people!! Paul McGann's doc couldn't pull that off could he, game set and match ey.
Best in-between-games game of the year: Sonic Racing Crossworlds
You know when you're not currently going through a big ol lengthy game (despite having a backlog the size of a small country) and you've got time to kill, or even when you *are* working through a big ol lengthy game and need a lil break to kick back with some comfort food for a bit? A few Mariokart 8 DX races here, a wee Fortnite sesh there, that kinda thing? Well, you can shove all those aside firmly in the bin for there's a new ruler in charge... and this time Blaze the Cat is in it.
I almost slightly regret naming this category the way I did cos it doesn't do Crossworlds justice - most notably the main gimmick of crossworlding on lap two of every race, which is secretly an incredibly good bit of game design? It adds variety to the usual three-act structure but unlike its closest competitor Mariokart World (yes, it had to come up at some point) simply plopping a preset interval route between tracks, here there's extra incentive to pushing forwards into first place early and choosing which track you're heading to for lap 2. As an added bonus it solves the age-old issue of repeatedly getting the same ruddy track multiple times online too - thanks to lap 2 being constantly in flux, every race in Crossworlds feels unique and I don't think I'll tire of it in a looooooong time. What can I say, 135 hours and counting don't lie!
My only complaint is that Tangle & Whisper are scheduled to be released in February and not immediately right this second, a sleight against me and all the world's lesbians, harumph. If only there was a game I could put in this list that instead had more immediate lesbians than I initially expected, wouldn't that be somethi-
Best WELL, TALKING OF LESBIANS THEN game of the year: Pokemon Legends Z-A
I was admittedly fairly out of the loop during the runup to Z-A's release - I'm a very casual Pokemon fan all things considered, moreso into the actual creatures proper (I've got a mountain of plushies and badges and bits to testify) than the games they came from. Initially the plan was to wait it out until a sale before chrimbo, but the reviews started trickling out a few days before launch and they were... pretty damn good? To the point where it looked *very* firmly up my street? At that point I looked up prices and Argos somehow had it decently cheap so bosh, that was that the day after release. And yeah, it really is pretty damn good!
I've seen some folks not too wild about the whole game being set in the Definitely-Not-Paris locales of Lumiose City, but as a Londoner (close enough to Paris, right?) I ruddy love urban exploration so it's both metaphorically and quite literally up my street - and even above it too thanks to the rooftop exploration. Another big thing that got me good was the sheer amount of outfit customisation available - always love avatar creators and playing dress-up with em (to the point where it had a non-zero impact on me working out gender realisations™) and this one's a real chonker, with plenty of boutiques chock-full of different styles to mix-and-match. Paired with the photo mode, it's practically a mini fashion shoot game that happens to also have Pokemon in for a bit.
But what this game has, moreso than Pokemon and photoshoots? Very, very good yuri.
And not just a singular yuri either! Streamer-type Canari and number one yearner of all time (half her lines are "Canari....<3" I'm not even joking) Gwynn are an extremely cute couple, spending a fair few plot beat around together. Very wholesome stuff! We do indeed love to see it.
...on the complete other side of the coin, the extremely potent toxic yuri that is upper class elite Jacinthe and her punk-turned-forcefemmed-maid Lebanne trying (and failing) to give the impression she's not into it will absolutely be ground zero for the next generation of trans gals that are bottoms (and I should know!!) in like a decade or two's time. Unlike me, who didn't see the need to wait a decade or two and has already bought a Lebanne acrylic charm for her ita bag. I am So very normal about Lebanne I swear, pinkie promise.
Best 7/10 game of the year: Harvestella
Those of you who've been following me on bluesky would've seen this coming a mile out, but yes - this is finally the time I get to gush a bit about what was very nearly my game of the year until it was clinched at the very last minute (more on that later, spoilers).
During the latter years of the Switch 1's lifespan I didn't really keep up with a lot of new releases, so when the Switch 2 dropped I decided it was good enough a time as any to finally catch up with what I'd missed... at least, what was affordable that I'd missed, since first party stuff rarely goes below thirty quid here. Sorted through my wishlists, did a bit of CEX trading-in and ended up grabbing a fair bunch to play - including a neat lil action-RPG called Harvestella, which took my eye in a past Ninty Direct but had passed me by at release. Pretty neato!
...and then, just like that, it firmly hooked me for like two months straight. Oops?
You'd think off the cuff that an action-RPG that's also half chill farming sim wouldn't mesh together particularly well but it all ties together tighter than you'd expect, each element complimenting the other. Monsters don't drop cash here, so if you need dough you've gotta get your hands dirty in the field and flog your wares (in a suspiciously stardew-valley-like dropoff box) for moolah, which you can then use towards better seeds unique to the season which in turn gives better crops for selling and cooking in meals and elixrs to use when you're out and about adventuring. It can take a bit of adjusting-to at first, but once you're into the time-management rhythm it all flows incredibly naturally.
Since you've gotta be back home tucked into bed every night to tend to your crops the next morning, instead of going on a sprawling worldwide journey you're mostly hopping between the nearby four settlements (each themed after a different season) to solve the mystery of mystery crop-killing phenomenon "Quietus" - which also doubles as how your farm's crops are forcibly reset every season. And it's the smaller-scale of the map that serves as Harvestella's secret greatest strength, as focusing in on these four towns and their day-to-day in a world barely clinging on leads to quite possibly some of the best quest writing I've experienced in a game in ages.
In the main story of spring-themed town Nemea, dragons have been repeatedly kidnapping women - the threat's thwarted and all of them have returned home except one, so her husband's worried sick and tasks you with finding her for a sidequest. It's only after searching through ruins with no luck that you get back into town and find out that no, she's actually completely fine, she just doesn't want to go home cos she thinks he sucks and wants a divorce. In another sidequest, one of the Omens (mysterious steampunk-robot people) is a researcher trying to find a cure for an unknown illness that's long plagued villages year-on-year and has you searching out ingredients for their next batch of medicine... which in the end doesn't work, as it turns out the unknown illness is hayfever. There's countless lil stories like this dotted around every corner, and they're always a delight - I didn't even get round to all of em in the end and I feel sad that I didn't! That never happens for me!
Beyond all else though, my favourite bit of storytelling in the game is the sizable character quest for party member Dianthus, an Omen trying her best to make sense of the heart through helping townspeople with their worries and problems. It's all a bit of a laff for the first few townspeople, but then you both meet up with Emily - a budding poet grappling with an uncurable terminal illness, not much longer left for her. Dianthus immediately jumps into action to try and find a cure with her Omens knowledge, to no avail - but Emily has made peace with this. She instead requests Dianthus' help with her dream of writing a poem to share with the world when she's gone and be remembered by - a poem about Dianthus. From here the two bond closely, sharing more about their lives to eachother long into the evening.
The last time you see Emily she's finished her poem, but she's also in the final stages of her illness - only just about able to meet the two of you outdoors. But she's changed her mind, she no longer desires to share her poem with the world... she only wishes to share it with Dianthus, as something special for just the two of them.
You don't get to read Emily's poem to her. The game never shares this with you, for it simply isn't yours to read. And in return Dianthus pledges to create something of her very own, following in her now absent footsteps:
Emily.
Wherever you are in that beautiful sky,
please watch over me.
This quest broke me when I experienced it earlier in the year - hell, summarising it here's gotten me teary-eyed revisiting it. This is the true power of a 7/10 game, a flawed but beautiful thing - and sure, this thing does have its fair share of weird lil flaws! The actual action-RPG combat, for example, kinda just isn't very good! But man, when the right 7/10 game resonates with you it's like reuniting with a lost sibling you never knew you had, it just hits right. Harvestella may not be for everyone, but this is my 7/10 gem and it would be rude for me to not share it with the world - or like Emily, with only you, the reader of this post. You deserve it.
Honourable mentions of the year
Before we get into the defacto top dog of the list, there's a fair bit more I played and watched throughout the year - haven't got as much to say about em compared to some of the other entries on this list, but I reckon they still deserve a quick spotlight too!
Once Upon a Katamari: It's just more Katamari innit - which is great, cos I love Katamari! But that also makes it hard to write about since its simply more of a very good thing, hence why here it resides. Shoutout to skyscraper(s), one of the best songs I've heard in a game all year.
Sonic Unleashed (via Unleashed Recompiled): I think I finally get why people rave about how good Unleashed is now? But more than anything christ this fanmade PC port is better than every official Sonic PC port by a country mile, slightly insane how well it runs on my PC that sometimes struggles with more than a few youtube tabs open at once.
The Dark Crystal: A pretty decent story carried by some of the most gorgeous craftmanship and puppetry I've ever seen in a movie, feels like it was made via pure magic. Also "and then he died! :D" is an all-timer of a vocal stim frankly.
DELTARUNE, Chapters 3 & 4: God, tricky Toby and his team are extremely good at making games aren't they? Hesitated on giving it a full section here cos it is only two chapters of a work in progress game but once the full thing's out you goddamn bet it's a shoo-in for another year's Jane Awards.
Pokemon Snap: Popped it on as a whim when going through the Switch's N64 collection and ended up playing through the full thing - very zen lil game, packed full of charm. Also grabbed New Snap shortly afterwards which was neat for a bit, but didn't quite have that same shonky N64 magic - I'll prolly get back to it eventually though! Maybe!
And finally, what you've all probably maybe been waiting for (and which you may or may not have seen coming given how I've been raving about it recently):
Game of the year: UNBEATABLE
Unfortunately for videogames, sometimes as a medium they can prove to be very *very* tiring to keep up with in the grand scheme of things. I didn't directly watch the Game Awards this year but the play-by-play of it slathered my timelines and aside from a few moments here and there, it really did give the most shallow, depressing look at the future of Gaming™ possible. I'm sure somebody, somewhere, most likely in an executive's boardroom would've been invigorated by the premiere of twenty billion new gritty realistic AAA live service games - but I very much was not. Perhaps this was what subconsciously pointed me in the direction of UNBEATABLE, but whatever the cause I decided to give it a fair punt since I had some Playstation voucher dosh to spare - and now? I think maybe, just maybe, I've fallen back in love with games again.
UNBEATABLE (yes the team insists you type it as either all caps or no caps) is a game that not only wears its heart on its sleeve, but also its ire towards fascism on its knuckledusters that it uses to beat the shit outta cops (which you will do a lot, and it is always satisfying as hell). A seemingly common opinion I've seen floating around is that the starting couple chapters are too slow, but I'd disagree cos it does a very good job of making you witness a first-hand demonstration of the shittiness of these specific cops too - dragging you in headfirst so that by the time you're outta their grasp (via some of the most incredible setpieces I've seen in a game all year), you'll wanna head straight back in and finish the job, guitar and mic in hand.
...oh right, I should prolly mention by now this is a rhythm game if you didn't already know. Surprise!
My sense of rhythm isn't amazing but between Fortnite Festival (which I've now firmly dropped, Potter collab means in tae bin it goes) and Miku Project DIVA MegaMix I've gradually been getting some practice in this year - in terms of both style and gameplay though, by god UNBEATABLE easily trounces both for me. The basics are on paper easier than most - you only need two buttons, one for the upper lane and another for the lower lane - but when it ramps up it really ruddy ramps up and hitting higher rankings (via the included Arcade mode) is incredibly satisfying as a result. It also helps that the soundtrack is back-to-back absolute tunes, easily some of the best vocal themes I've heard in a game in a looooooong time - it's hard to link my proper faves as they're heavily spoilery, but No Signal is a spoiler-free one I've been rotating a lot in my head recently and Sleeping In is very much a "oh she just like me fr!!" kinda jam.
On the subject of spoilers, there's so goddamn much in UNBEATABLE I could talk about forever that I've regrettably gotta restrain myself here a fair bit - I can't recommend enough going in blind. Just when you think you've got a rough idea of where things are going, it pulls the rug clean out from under you and goes from being a really great game about one thing to an incredible game that tackles multiple hard-hitting themes all at once and nails a home run with every single one, a jackhammer straight to my heart each time.
One of the themes that especially hit me hardest was how much you can change as a person over 7 years - with all the everything that's happened over the last 7 years (god if it could all stop happening for a bit that'd be grand) I'm sure pretty much anyone can relate, but for me the wombo-combo of both starting my very first office job and being pre-gender realisations meant I was practically unrecognisable as I am now. I've only just recently managed to get my staff ID updated and seeing the old pre-transition photo side-by-side with my new one is a very strange but uplifting sensation - they're both still me to some degree, but in very different ways. It's a feeling that can be hard to put into words sometimes (god knows I'm struggling here), but UNBEATABLE manages with incredible ease - this isn't even a game about gender, but christ did it really hit close to home for me. Its games like this that get me thinking, if I've already changed so much for the better in just seven short years then I can't wait to see what another seven holds - and then another seven, and then another, and many more beyond.
People always describe life as a rollercoaster for some reason but instead I think it's a painting, albeit one that's continuously a work in progresss - every emotion, every experience, everything that shapes you a brush stroke across the canvas. Sometimes you have to paint over sections, sometimes you have to take a step back and rethink the composition - and sometimes you'll even find someone incredible to share that joy of painting with. But as long as you're still thinking and breathing, your painting will never be quite finished - there will always be more to add. It's why we as people sympathise and connect so strongly with human-made art, for we ourselves are art.
All of this is the true power of any creative medium, and despite the valiant attempts of Geoff's Game Awards to persuade me otherwise I'm so glad UNBEATABLE was a perfect kick up the arse to remind me that oh right, yeah, videogames really can do all that sometimes. A properly incredible game to cap off a year of so many incredible things, both in this article and in my life in general (shoutouts to Mona <3).
Here's to 2026!
