5 – Slay The Spire – 89
With the recent release of Slay The Spire 2, and the fact that it was unanimously heralded as one of the best games ever made, I don’t think it’s going to take long until it overtakes the original Slay The Spire. However, as of this time, the first game is still ranking better, with a score of 89! A well-deserved top 5 spot in my opinion, Slay the Spire is the roguelike deck-builder that started the whole craze that’s been going on until 2026! The premise is simple: Take one of the available characters and their respective deck, start a randomized run, build a deck by defeating enemies, and take down the Spire. It’s a great game to have permanently installed on your machine and keep yourself busy if you have 30 minutes to spare, or just want to relax and listen to a podcast, while playing something at the same time.
4 – Into The Breach – 90
Now we get into the 90s! How exciting! The first one to reach the true top tier is Into The Breach, a game that came from the same mind who developed one of my all-time favorites, FTL: Faster Than Light. Both games are excellent for precisely the same reasons. Their roguelike core gameplay is highly addictive, and the baseline mechanics for both titles are simple but perfectly nailed down to perfection. Into the Breach is set, most of the time, on an 8-by-8 square grid.
The game gives the player the perfect information on what the enemy is about to do in their turn, and now it’s up to you to decide how to best deal with the challenges. Do you reposition that alien so it attacks another alien? Use your skills to damage multiple targets at once? Do you throw it outside of the board? Do you sacrifice your health to protect the human cities you’re tasked with defending? Do you risk success for bonus objects? I have played Into The Breach to exhaustion, and I cannot recommend it enough. One of my all-time favorites.
3 – Balatro – 90
What do you get if you take the concept of Poker, but instead of playing it against other people, you transform it into another roguelike (quite a trend, in this top 5) deck-builder where your main goal is to play the best hand possible, while combining numbers and suits to create the largest combo possible, to beat the computer’s bind? You get Balatro! Balatro is a game that starts simply enough, and then rapidly becomes a lot more exciting once you realize that you have to break the game, if you want to win, and start creating crazy combos that go from a couple of hundred points to into the thousands (and millions, if you’re better than me!), by adding jokers and powerful card upgrades.
2 – Crusader Kings 3 – 91
Crusader Kings 3 picked up right where Crusader Kings 2 left off and improved on all aspects, and the game’s ever more permanent blend of roleplaying and strategy is the best way for those who wish to experience medieval politicking in a time where the centralized state and rule of law changed as fast as Kings and Queens rose and fell. The constant stream of new DLCs just keeps piling up on this goodness. I even feel sorry for Paradox just thinking that, someday, they’ll have to start working on Crusader Kings 4, and I cannot phantom how they’ll even try and match CK3.
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