What I Played in July 2025

Posted on 2025.08.31

It’s time for another month-in-review! This one’s special because it’s been one year since the first entry of this series! I really like writing these diary-type posts, because it not only allows me to share my gaming experiences with the world, but it also helps myself keep track of my own stuff. I guess the only regret I’ve had with these is how late I’ve been writing them. The idea was that I write them during the month, then post it on the first days of the following month. However, this has extended to me fully writing it and publishing within the last days of the following months. I’ve tried to get myself to write them earlier as intended, but it’s been kind of a losing battle lol. Regardless, I’m here now, still writing these! So without further ado, here are the games that I played in July 2025, in no particular order.

Deltarune

I did a second playthrough of this game, this time going over stuff I missed during my first Chapter 3 and 4 run. First and foremost, I did the Weird Route for the first time (including Chapters 1 and 2), so right off the bat I was getting different stuff from last time. How messed up it is… Anyway, as for stuff I missed from the two new chapters, I defeated the Chapter 3 shadow crystal boss!! I had given up on it during my first run (especially because I missed the key item that makes the fight easier, so I made sure to not miss it this time (and much like Weird Route, what the hell was that?!)). Then for Chapter 4, Weird Route got Even Worse! Yay! But more importantly, I went out of my way to do the shadow crystal boss (which I had completely missed my first time). Defeated it on the second try!! Both of these super bosses were great fights. Anyway, thanks to the Weird Route now I’m even more curious as to what’s gonna happen next. Also also, I did the Switch 2-exclusive stuff and it’s peak. Did the little fight no-hit first try, and the minigames are pretty cool!

Donkey Kong Bananza

Now this? THIS is a Switch 2 game. While Mario Kart World unfortunately didn’t grab my attention as much as I expected, this game absolutely did. This was an incredibly fun experience: the movement is fluid, the physics are insane (they weren’t lying, that terrain do be fully destructible), and the levels are great for exploring. I really like how there’s not only a lot of collectibles, but all of them serve a purpose. Bananas are the main collectible and they’re used to power yourself up via skill tree (and they’re technically optional! It won’t be easy but you can avoid them if you wish), while fossils are used to buy clothes that give you buffs to certain stats (and I like that they’re region-specific! The fossils in a layer can only be used to buy stuff exclusive to that layer). Much like Super Mario Odyssey, it really feels like you’re always building up for something, and that you’re rewarded for exploration regardless of where you go. And not to spoil it, but that finale was spectacular! I love the recontextualization of the world till that point, though I’m torn on whether this was a satisfying end sequence or a shoehorned one. I’m not a DK fan so maybe this isn’t something for me to talk about lmao. I did like how the final cutscene doesn’t play out like you’d expect, it’s a nice lesson that sometimes people have to give space to each other to achieve what’s best for them, and it doesn’t mean that you’re giving up on them (yes I stole this analysis from TADC). All in all, it was a great game, one that I’ll likely continue to play in the future and maybe even 100% it.

Oh, and quick bonus, I played around with DK Artist! I think it’s a neat feature, though I do find some things annoying about it, namely the awful camera and the zoom-based cursor (and I guess the lack of tools in general but maybe the limitations were the point? idk). Despite that, I did my best to create some sculptures with it and I did two things that I’m very proud of! First and most impressive, a sculpture of Marie (Splatoon)’s head! Fun fact, when I first booted up Donkey Kong Bananza, I played the main game for like 2 hours before proceeding to spend the next EIGHT or so hours on DK Artist. And you know what? It was 100% worth it :3. I’m really happy with how it turned out. My next sculpture came after I actually beat the game, and I went with a more humorous pick (since I already did my serious, full-effort pick). Don’t ask why, but I sculpted the DT Cannon Tetris opener. It was a bit of a pain working with squares when you only have a circular cursor but I did my best!

Splatoon 3

No surprises here, my soul is bound to Splatoon anyway. I played more with friends and participated in the Summer Nights Splatfest. Got to take a few pics with my team on the floats, and a dozen times more pics of my gorgeous queen (Summer Nights Marie my beloved…).

Tetris 99

I played more of this game as usual. Something cool I did for the first time was queue up with friends: since lobbies don’t fill up immediately, 2-3 people queuing at the same time gives you a large likelihood of ending up in the same lobby. That was fun! Some other noteworthy things that happened is that I got a 16 KO game and I reached XP level 69. Nice!

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I continued my main save file and made more progress. Mainly, I got all the lightroots in the depths! Apart from that, it’s just been more side quests, Koroks, and exploration. Pretty usual stuff.

Word Play

After being enticed by the demo, I bought the full game! And just like the demo proved, my entire English vocabulary just seems to disappear whenever I play word games. I still managed to have fun with this game (and it feels satisfying to pop a long word), and even got 1 crazy run going that got me 21,000 points in the final round. Overall, I think this game is good even if it’s not top-of-the-top excellent. My main criticisms are that the perks in general feel underpowered, the special rounds just feel kinda pointless, and that the presentation is rather bland. Regardless, if you’re the type to like word games, give this one a shot.

New Super Mario Bros.

I made slightly more progress in this game, though I didn’t even reach World 3. And I probably won’t since now I’m locked into a big commitment that will render my 3DS unusable till I beat it: I wanna get 9999 coins in the minigame Picture Poker. I started the minigame wanting to reach all 9s for fun, but I didn’t know it would be 4 digits instead of 3. I only play for a few mins a day (I’m not insane), so I’ve just been slowly chipping away at it. I still have a long way to go, but I’m determined....

Tetris Effect: Connected

What did you expect?

Tetris The Grand Master 4 -Absolute Eye-

Eh, I didn’t play much of this but I wanted to include it anyway. Like I mentioned last time, I don’t think I really vibe with this game. I’d still try out the other TGM games out of curiosity, to see if it’s this game specifically or the TGM series in general.

Clone Hero

🎶 Ain't it fun? Ain't it fun? Baby, now you're one of us 🎶

Mario Paint

One fun thing that got added to the SNES NSO app was this game!! I’ve been wanting to play this for a long time now and I finally got the chance. My first impressions is that, while this game is a bit more limited than I thought (which I came in fully expecting, like it’s a 1992 SNES game), it also has a lot more stuff than I thought. I think it’s pretty cool! Anyway, limitations breed creativity so I’m sure I can get around a few of those obstacles. I didn’t finish it this month, but I did get started on a drawing featuring my beloved Marie! I also fiddled with the Composer and… having no sharps or flats REALLY sucks unfortunately… Probs not gonna be using this one as much as I wanted to.

NSO Playtest Program

Oh boy, where to start with this one…

I can’t really talk much about this for obvious reasons (and in case it isn’t obvious: this is supposed to be a secret game that Nintendo asked us not to share stuff about), but I can at least talk about my feelings with the game. This… might be one of my favorite games that I’ve played. I participated in the first playtest and thought it was fine, but the improvements and additions in this second round really elevated this experience. That on top of the fact that this time we could register with friends! Getting to mess around with friends and do stuff together made the experience EVEN BETTER. It was simply incredible and it’s a whole lot of fun.

This game is not for everyone; a lot of people have called it confusing, but there’s a type of person that this game really appeals to, and I’m part of the group where the game was REALLY made for me. This is seriously one of the most fun gaming experiences I’ve ever had and will probably be my favorite of the year. I don’t doubt that this game might end up in my top games list whenever it gets a full release. I really hope we get to see this game again, I’d be fine with a 3rd playtest but what I really want is a full release so that everyone can have the chance to see what this game’s all about. Maybe some people will discover they’re part of the group that ended up really loving this game.