RPGamer 2025 Awards – Miscellaneous Awards

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Miscellaneous Awards

Michael A. Cunningham Memorial Award »

3D platformers have seen a surprising revival in recent years. Despite this, Nintendo remains the champion of the genre and Donkey Kong Bananza shows precisely why this is the case. Featuring an emphasis on music thanks to Pauline accompanying DK throughout the adventure, it is an audio and visual delight. The game has a heavy focus on destructible environments thanks to the power of the Switch 2. Massive portions of the game’s levels can be destroyed and tunneled through to find power ups and other secrets. This features heavily into the games platforming areas, being able to tear parts of the environment off to use as weapons, or even to ride on to get over patches of lava. Even when not destroying things, Donkey Kong has a fun selection of abilities to get around the world.

With a fun story and tons of references and callbacks to DK’s past, the game is an absolute joy to play. Split into multiple large biomes as players make their way to the center of the earth, each area is rife with collectables. The majority of these are not required, and include costumes for DK and Pauline that not only change their looks, but provide a variety of different gameplay buffs. The game all culminates in one of the best sequences in the entire Donkey Kong series, perhaps in platformers in general. Donkey Kong Bananza is a game not to be missed.

 

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There is not much surprise about the game that was both the most played and most completed by staff this year. Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 not only took RPG fans by storm but was heralded across the video game world. The full level of hype generated from its release ensured that many were drawn into checking it out, and once they did, it got its claws in and rarely let go. While Pokémon Legends: Z-A and Hades II garnered plenty of interest to come second and third, they didn’t come close to emulating Clair Obscur‘s popularity among staff.

 

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Fire Emblem: Three Houses took the RPG world by storm in 2019 with its entertaining narrative and overhauled unit-building systems. Many expected Intelligent Systems would immediately begin working on a direct follow-up or even a sequel. However, instead it produced Fire Emblem Engage, a much more traditional offering that acted as a celebration of the whole series. Now, with Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, the series looks to be moving back towards the innovative direction Three Houses went in, though little about the game is known aside from a single, albeit stellar, trailer. Definitely still running high on much of the goodwill stemming from Three Houses, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave nevertheless stands apart as our Most Anticipated title of 2026.

 

 

by Michael Apps, Alex Fuller, and Ezra Kinnell