Games I Finished in April 2025

Now that I’m up and running with my blog again, I want to start posting monthly updates about my gaming progress. This month, I’m just going to discuss and rank the titles I’ve finished, but going forward, I’ll also discuss what I’ve made significant progress in or games that I decided to outright drop.

In April, I finished three games. This isn’t a huge number, but one of them was a lengthy title and the other two weren’t exactly short experiences, so I’m satisfied with what I accomplished. Before I get into the list, though, I cannot stress enough that I primarily review media based on personal enjoyment rather than objective quality. While a game that’s objectively good probably isn’t going to be called the “worst game I’ve ever played”, I am very aware that in this particular month, the worst title is “objectively” much better than the other two. At the end of the day, though, I just didn’t enjoy it.

Now that I’ve given my disclaimer that basically explains how I have really bad taste in games, let’s get started with the list!

3. Blue Prince

Blue Prince is the reason I’ve been dreading writing this post. I fully understand why people love it, and I even recommended it to my mom because I know she loves games like Myst and Riven. It’s one of the most unique gaming experiences I’ve ever had, mixing the puzzle and roguelike genres into something truly new and refreshing. Unfortunately, games are supposed to be fun, and I simply hated playing this one.

I like both puzzle and roguelike games, but the combination did not work for me at all. I’m very straightforward in my thinking when it comes to games. I want to singularly focus on one task at a time, and when I’m ready to complete the task, I want to complete it then and there. This doesn’t really work with Blue Prince. In order to get the most out of this title, I needed to try and juggle many puzzle solutions all at once because the roguelike elements made it so even if I had the solution for puzzle A in my head, it may take me hours to see the correct combination of items or rooms that I need to actually enact that solution. Fundamentally, this doesn’t work with my brain and I found it frustrating that I had all the pieces in my head for the thing I wanted to do, but the game just wasn’t letting me do it.

After a while, I decided to just brute force my way through, run after run, focused singularly on trying to roll the credits. This is not the way anyone should play the game, but I really wanted to see the ending, and if I didn’t wrap it up quickly, I was going to get burned out and never finish. Now that I’m done, I’ve been watching videos of people with a lot more patience than myself solve the endgame puzzles and I am having way more fun observing others solve this mansion-shaped puzzle box than doing it myself.

I wish so badly that I loved Blue Prince, but the roguelike elements made the experience too frustrating to ever engage deeply enough with the game’s mechanics. There’s a contradiction at the heart of my opinion on this game. If this title didn’t have the roguelike mechanics, or they were significantly toned-down, I would love it so much more on a personal level. At the same time, this would be firmly at odds with the vision the developers had, and honestly, I do think the game would be objectively worse with toned-down randomness. It’s doing something unique as it currently is, and I respect it. In fact, I even recommend people give it a try and support the developers. Unique games like this push the industry forward, even when they aren’t always for me. Still, in spite of everything nice I have to say about Blue Prince, I’m really glad I’m done and I’m never touching it again.

2. Saints Row (Reboot)

Partway through trying to finish Blue Prince, I got frustrated and decided that I needed to be simultaneously playing a game that is the exact opposite experience. I wanted to turn my brain off and have absolutely no thoughts, so the Saints Row reboot that I never got around to when it first launched seemed like the perfect fit for my needs.

I know this game got pretty miserable reviews when it first came out, and I’m honestly not going to defend it much here. It feels like playing something straight out of the 360 and PS3 era, with bugs, crashes, and messy visuals. The story and characters were also all over the place tonally and left me simply moving the plot forward to check a box and get the mission completion rewards. Honestly, I still don’t know if the writing in this was supposed to be taken seriously or as satire, but it failed regardless of which way I try to read it. All around, this game probably shouldn’t have seen the light of day.

With all of those complaints, why is this higher than Blue Prince? It’s pretty simple: I had a lot more fun playing Saints Row. For all of its flaws, it was simply enjoyable to play. The minigames and main quest missions were as ridiculous and over-the-top as ever, and the customization options allowed me to have a lot of fun playing dress-up with my protagonist. This really is the opposite of Blue Prince, a game I hated but would recommend everyone try. I loved my experience with Saints Row, but I don’t believe you should touch it unless you have a lot of nostalgia for 360-era open worlds.

1. Pokémon Violet

I put off playing Pokémon Violet for years for a few reasons. First of all, my only experience with the franchise previously was my playthrough of Shield, which I hated. After finishing it, I suspected that my lack of childhood connection would likely mean this franchise would never work for me. Secondly, the general consensus amongst fans seemed to be that this was the worst Pokémon to date. Over Christmas vacation, though, I wanted something super relaxing to play and decided to pick it up on a whim. Now, eighty or so hours later, playing it in small doses between other titles, I can honestly say that I’m sad I didn’t pick it up sooner.

I think Violet has an unfortunate reputation. The performance is terrible, and I won’t defend this aspect of the game. It runs like a slideshow at times, especially in a few specific areas of the open world that I tried to avoid as much as possible. That said, to me, that was the only real flaw of this title. It had a fun story, adorable critters to catch and collect, and an entire open world that I found myself wandering aimlessly for dozens of hours at a time, utterly entranced by all of the things that I could see and do.

Maybe this is because I have no major nostalgic ties to the Pokemon franchise. I’m totally open to believing this is a factor in my enjoyment, but I really don’t understand the dislike. If nothing else, I now believe Fuecoco is the best starter Pokémon of all time, and I now want every single plush of him ever created. Overall, I’m already incredibly excited for the performance patch on Switch 2 to come out so I can play it again, possibly in co-op with my husband.

Wrap-Up

That’s my April in gaming wrapped up! Three games isn’t a lot, but I’m pretty happy with the variety that I got out of my gaming from the month. In May, I’m hoping to have at least two more pretty large titles wrapped up, so stay tuned.

What did you play in April? Let me know in the comments below.