The Vooks Awards 2025 – The Best of Switch, Switch 2, the big news, and surprises of the year
The biggest of years.
Another year gone, a full one at that, with the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, which means for the first time in years we’ve got even more categories to vote in. We’re doing this all in one article, so we can look back and then get ready to move forward.
This year, as always, the team voted for their awards, and we turned it over to you, the readers, as well. We mostly came up with the same picks, but there were some really interesting results.
The first award is actually several awards in one as this game took out multiple awards. So for our Game of The Year, our Switch 2 Game of the Year and our Readers Choice Game of The Year, and Readers Choice Switch 2 Game of the Year is….
We waited a very long time for a new 3D Donkey Kong game, and Nintendo delivered one of the most heartfelt stories of the year with the addition of Pauline. The voting on this one with the team was almost unanimous, with everyone but one picking Bananza.
In our review of the game we said “It’s not flawless, but what they’ve done here is take a character who’s been out in the wild and bring Donkey Kong back home, with Nintendo putting its own stamp on DK in a fresh new way. Like Breath of the Wild and Odyssey, Nintendo has taken a cornerstone character, thrown out most of the rulebook, but kept the soul. Donkey Kong Bananza feels like a blueprint for DK’s future, and a reminder of how ambitious and richly designed Nintendo’s games can be. Bananza is here now, though—and it’s really something special”.
It likely won’t happen, but we’d like to think Nintendo takes this level of production to other games, as Bananza is now the standard by which all other Nintendo games should be measured.
Overall Game of The Year
Our Runner-up: Mario Kart World
Readers Choice Runner-ups: Kirby Air Riders, Hollow Knight Silksong
Switch 2 Game of the Year
Our Runner-up: A six way tie between other titles
Readers Choice Runner-up: Pokémon Legends Z-A
Voting this year was a bit weird, because a lot of games were on both consoles, so our votes for some games were split based on whatever they were played on. The fact that Ball X Pit rose above all the other Switch games to win means it’s a standout. It also managed to rise above a very crowded indie game category pipping both Hades II and Hollow Knight: Silksong by one vote.
Now, being the only person on the team who hasn’t played this game, Luke’s put together some words about the game “BALLxPIT at its core is a simple game, on each run you just bounce balls back against the enemies that drop in before you. Between runs you expand your little village, drawing in new characters, that you can then send on runs. The variety comes from choosing who you play as, the juggler who can throw the balls over the field, or the Cogitator, who makes your decisions for you. With countless upgrades and ever more dangerous foes, no two runs play the same, but the best part, it is simple to understand”.
Switch Game of the Year
Our Runner-up: Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2
Readers Choice Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition
Readers Choice Runner-up: Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2, Hades II
Indie Game of the Year
Our Runner-up: Hollow Knight Silksong, Yooka-Replaylee
Readers Choice Winner: Hollow Knight Silksong
Readers Choice Runner-up: Hades II
Another close one. We had a multi-way tie because literally all of us voted for something different. It wasn’t until the last minute that Blue Prince took the crown. This really speaks to the quality of games released in 2025, not just how many there were, but how many great ones we saw across different genres.
Part mystery, part strategy and part puzzle, each element of Blue Prince would have been ok on its own, but combined they come together to make a game that just grabs on and does not let go. The Manor that you explore constantly shifts rooms each time you venture in and discovering clues and items, will help you progress further in. The goal is simple, you have to discover the mysterious room 46, but as the manor erases your progress each night, you need to think about your choices. Plus, the game uses blueprints to show rooms available to you and its called Blue Prince and who does not love a good pun.
Award darling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took out the readers’ choice award by a long margin, but we’ll have more to say about that game when it inevitably comes to the Switch 2 sometime this year.
Readers Choice Winner: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Readers Choice Runner-up: Blue Prince
Another one where the team was split right down the middle. Hollow Knight: Silksong is, of course, the long-awaited game we have all been waiting for, and with that released, as well as Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, what are we going to make fun of now?
LEGO Party, though, managed to out-Mario Party Mario Party in a lot of ways, without doing everything the same either.
Our Runner-up: Tempopo
Readers Choice Winner: Hollow Knight Silksong
Readers Choice Runner-up: LEGO Party
What if you take Pokémon, hand it to the Dragon Quest Builders 2 team at Koei Tecmo, and throw in splashes of Minecraft and Animal Crossing? You might just have the next big thing.
The cosy game market is massive, and Pokémon is massive, so combining the two makes sense and looks like it could be a lot of fun. We also will not have to wait very long, as it is just three months away.
We are also sure to see more of it soon, with Pokémon Day taking place before its release.
Our runners-up: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Splatoon Raiders, 007 First Light
Readers Choice Winner: Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave
Readers Choice Runner-up: Pokémon Pokopia
This was a tough one, because all the different Nintendo Switch 2 Editions do different things. Some simply have upgraded graphics, some add upgraded graphics that are not really needed alongside new content, and others just bolt on mouse controls.
It was a close one, but Metroid Prime 4: Beyond won out due to improvements not only to resolution, but also framerate, including a 120fps mode, exceptional HDR, and mouse controls. The Switch 2 Editions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were grouped together in our voting, as they essentially add the same upgrades and features, and are free with Nintendo Switch Online.
Our Runner-up: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom
Readers Choice Winner: The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom
Readers Choice Runner-up: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
We’re used to Nintendo doing some crazy crap, but we don’t think anyone expected this. Nintendo this February is releasing a new Virtual Boy — sort of. This “Virtual Boy” lets you dock the Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 into the visor and play games in full 3D. There’s also a cardboard version which is cheaper, which is something you could have seen Nintendo doing, but to make a completely new plastic visor and stand for it is ridiculous (in a good way).
The weirdest thing is, Nintendo had a console that could easily emulate these games and already had a built-in 3D effect, and they promptly did nothing with it for its entire lifespan.
There was a lot of news in 2025, with Switch 2 details and new games announced, but for the second year in a row Nintendo did one of those things that had the whole internet (or at least the Nintendo internet) obsessed for a couple of days.
Nintendo launched an animated trailer for something, sans Pikmin, and didn’t explain it at all. It was also only released initially via the Nintendo Today app, which doesn’t allow, most of the time, sharing or screenshotting content out. An interesting tactic.
We managed to get caps out of the app and it became the most read story on the website for the entire year. Other big stories included the first photos of Link and Zelda in the upcoming live action The Legend of Zelda movie (which also came out via Nintendo Today, the same way as the Pikmin video), and in third place was confirmation that Nintendo Switch 2 Editions won’t have download codes included. This was something we got Nintendo to confirm, and we were the first to do so.
We are sure all the games nominated for Best Score and Music at The Game Awards sound terrific, but there was one game that was not even nominated and absolutely should have been. Mario Kart World’s soundtrack could be dismissed by some as being largely made up of remixes and rearrangements from past Mario Kart games, which may have precluded it from nomination, but have you heard them?
It is hours and hours of fantastic music. There has not been a game since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that has celebrated the music of Nintendo games to this extent, and we would argue it does it even better than Smash. That is not to mention all the fantastic new tracks, which will no doubt be among the songs we hear remixed again in future decades.
