The 2025 Croaki Awards

It’s time to celebrate another year here at Croakitoad, celebrating all of the best moments, games and highlights from the entire year of 2025! Thank you all for being a part of another great year with me and having such a fun time getting through brand new game completions, first time completions or just having loads of fun in multiplayer with me across the whole year! It’s time to commemorate all of the best of the best when it comes to the community and what transpired the entire year, so we’re going to award our second annual Croaki Awards for the community right here! If you missed out on the 2024 Croaki Awards, you can find that page right here!

Red Dead Redemption 2
The winner for the second annual game of the year for the Croakitoad community has to be Red Dead Redemption 2. This was a first time playthrough, and the beginning of the game was even hampered by the decision to NOT go for all of the achievements on the Xbox and instead play on the PlayStation 4 instead and have a casual run at it. The story was so rich, that there’s not a whole lot of other games out there that can really match up to it. Following the adventure of Arthur Morgan with all of the cast of characters across the land was definitely an adventure that you’re not likely to forget anytime soon. The community support for the game to watch this first time playthrough was also very rich, and a lot of people seemed to enjoy the cosplay that went on for the duration of the game as well! Some of the other nominees up for game of the year in 2025 were very close, but Red Dead Redemption 2 stands on its own as our grand winner for the Croakitoad community!

Notable Nominees:
Chrono Trigger
Shadow of the Colossus
Pokémon HeartGold
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

ABZÛ
This game absolutely snuck up on me as a huge contender for 2025 Indie Game of the Year! When I had put together my nominees list, I was not even aware of this game at all until I had finally played it in mid December! I played this game on the Xbox and went for all of the achievements and just had an overall very pleasant and cozy time. You can’t really die in this game, and it’s all about exploring the underwater depths and swimming through all of the different shades of colors and checking out the vibrant underwater sealife you’ll come across through the process of the game. Lots of collectibles needed, but it wasn’t that bad at all. This was a really tough category for me to choose from, as there were a lot of really neat indie games I played in 2025, but this last minute creeper wins out just for the sheer feeling of adventure and exploration it gave to me.

Notable Nominees:
Catto’s Post Office
The Last Campfire
Granny: Escape Together
TUNIC
Split Fiction

The King (Pocket Bike Racer)
I know what you are thinking. You definitely didn’t expect the mascot from Burger King to be winning the video game character of the year for 2025. Think about it for a moment, though. Once the Pocket Bike Racer playthrough took place back in February of 2025, the lasting impression that The King put onto the Croakitoad community with all of the Burger King SFX and memes to follow lasted throughout pretty much the rest of the entire year. I can’t think of any one other character that had this lasting impression on the community like the Burger King did after this one unassuming playthrough I did going for all of the achievements on the Xbox 360! Some of the other choices were really hard to make here because they have a bit more concrete backstory to them, but in terms of a lasting impression, the Burger King has made the cut for 2025!

Notable Nominees:
Unown (Pokémon HeartGold)
Robocop (Roboop: Rogue City)
Bing Bong (PEAK)
Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption 2)
Clarence Callahan (Need For Speed: Most Wanted)

Clock Tower: Rewind
This was yet another tough category to choose from, as almost all of the final nominees were such great cases for being my horror game of the year in 2025. Ultimately, it came down to how I thought that Limited Run Games & WayForward brought back an old niche classic like Clock Tower and gave it a lot of extra. From the classic music being reimagined, to a brand new anime style cutscene for a backstory, there was a lot going for the Rewind version. I played this on Halloween night while dressed up as Jill Valentine from Resident Evil, so it holds a special place in my heart for that reason as well. I really enjoy the original Clock Tower and the music is just so iconic to me. The character concept of Scissorman is also really well done and creepy as all get out. This is a great game to play late at night on Halloween with all of the lights out!

Notable Nominees:
Saw
Selene’s Unbearable Night
Post Trauma
Tormented Souls
The Thing: Remastered
Silent Hill f

Driver
Another category with a lot of really satisfying moments for me throughout the year of 2025. Ultimately, it came down to my decision of being able to get through the training parking garage at the very beginning of Driver (for those who know, you know) and then being able to run through the rest of the campaign without utilizing any cheats, save states or anything like that. I was able to beat the game legit, and at the end of the day I am really proud of myself for being able to pull it off. This is considering just how hard some of the levels can be, with unfair RNG police officer spawns blocking your destination and cutting you off. Just the parking lot tutorial level itself caused so many controllers to be thrown and rage quits back in the day, and I was able to get through it in my first ever playthrough of the game and I really enjoyed this moment, even if it was in January of 2025.

Notable Nominees:
PEAK
PowerWash Simulator 2
PREY: Mooncrash DLC
Tomb Raider IV•V•VI Remastered
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Chrono Trigger
This was yet ANOTHER tough decision I had to make and I’ll tell you how I chose Chrono Trigger based on probably the next possible winner in Vice City. Because of the obvious copyright and DMCA issues, my entire playthrough of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was kept fine by constantly keeping the radio stations off. I played the entire game without really checking out much of the music, even if a few songs did slip in from time to time, like our local favorite Japanese Boy by Anika. Unfortunately for Vice City, this makes it a really amazing nominee but not our winner. Anyone who knows anything about Chrono Trigger will know that it has one of the greatest game soundtracks of all time, so it was a worthy contender from the beginning. From Frog’s Theme (duh) and Robo’s Theme; to the iconic opening title jingle, Chrono Trigger delivers on all fronts when it comes to absolutely amazing songs from top to bottom. I had no choice but to deliver the goods to this all-time classic JRPG in the soundtrack department!

Notable Nominees:
Silent Hill f
ABZÛ
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Red Dead Redemption 2
TUNIC
Driver

PEAK
Typical for the Croakitoad community, we played A LOT of multiplayer throughout the year of 2025. We had so many fun and amazing moments and laughs playing a plethora of different games in the year, but I really honestly believe that only one game came along to really get everyone amped up for another community night coming up with the Croakitoad community. Last year’s winner in NASCAR 25 was definitely in the running for a repeat win, but due to the news of the servers closing down three quarters through the year, the races ended prematurely while the peaking kept on keeping on. There were so many fun and hilarious moments from PEAK (many of which included our favorite friend Roxas997), but also included special moments with lots of fun friends across Twitch. PEAK really makes me look forwards to playing again and time and time again with all sorts of friends and the fact that the game is different every single day just makes it that much better! Thanks everybody who joined along with the peaking through the year of 2025!

Notable Nominees:
Dead by Daylight
NASCAR Heat 4
NASCAR 25
R.E.P.O.
The Headliners
Phasmophobia
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7

PowerWash Simulator 2 (w/ Various Croakitoad Community Members)
There’s nothing I love better than a really good and chunky co-operative video game. In fact, I’m a sucker for that kind of game. When PowerWash Simulator 2 was finally released after an anxious year of hearing about it, I was chomping at the bit to jump back in and wash some brand new things I have never washed before alongside my friends in the campaign! In hindsight, I hate that we blasted through it so quickly and it just kind of came and went, but in the moment it was so much fun to relive the game once again like I did back when I played the original game for the first time ever. I had so much hype for this game when I heard about its release and I was so happy to be able to play this all the way through alongside so many different Croakitoad community members at my side!

Notable Nominees:
Split Fiction (w/ JenVonLee)
Granny: Escape Together (w/ Cokesodacan)
Borderlands 4 (w/ Cygnified, Ashterial & Cokesodacan)
Gears of War: Reloaded (w/ Cokesodacan & ClosingSniper)
F.E.A.R. 3 (w/ Ashterial)
Minecraft Dungeons (w/ Celestia1416)

Beating Pokémon HeartGold with an Unown
Even before we even started this playthrough, I told everybody that we were taking an Unown to the Elite 4 and beating the entire game with the Unown as the captain of our Pokémon team. When the time came for the game to finally be played, I left no doubt about who and what I wanted on my Pokémon team from the getgo. It was not expected that I’d find a shiny Graveler and Magikarp along the way as that was completely unplanned, but the Unown was a strategy implemented from the very beginning and we succeeded! I would consider this the moment of the year, as a lot of people thought that it would just be kind of a joke or not be used halfway through the game. However, we took our brave little Unown to the very end and even to the big fight against Trainer Red where Unown actually almost got the winning shot to take him down at the very end of the game! This was a really feel good moment, as it took several streams to make it all the way through the game knowing that Unown was going to be the MVP of the entire run!

Notable Nominees:
Getting all 168 achievements in Tomb Raider IV•V•VI Remastered
Painting a Vaporeon painting for Zazzeris during birthday stream
Hand painting a Charizard figurine for Featsbeatsgames
Beating 700 video games on June 14th, 2025
Team Croakitoad winning the Omega Strikers Tournament at QuakeCon
Raising $1000 in the 2025 St. Jude PLAY LIVE event

The consistency of rage from Roxas997 during multiplayer nights
The fact that this wasn’t even a nominee during last year’s Croaki Awards is a shock to me. However, we couldn’t let this one pass. Despite having to switch WWE 2K25 from PC to Xbox and completely rework the entire roster, or the consistent PC issues I had throughout the year resulting in my having to install a brand new motherboard in my computer, or the constant annoying things I came across in numerous video games, I think we all know that the “Rox Rage” would have to win this award out for the year of 2025. Whether it be drowning in a pit of lava in PEAK, or getting choked out by a ghost in Phasmophobia, there’s a reason why we dub it the Rox Rage, and it’s a real thing. Lately, it seems to pop out a lot while playing PEAK, and for random reasons. We just hope that everybody has got the volume set down low when it comes to Roxas coming in to join for some fun and wholesome multiplayer with the community!

Notable Nominees:
Having to switch Croakitoad Pro Wrestling save data over from PC to Xbox midyear
The constant BSOD and crashing resulting in a brand new motherboard on PC
The constant addition of more and more achievements to Palworld
Ambulance, taxi, vigilante & off-road missions for achievements in GTA: Vice City
The decision for the NASCAR Heat 4 servers to shut down
The disappointing combat system in Silent Hill f

Cokesodacan, Celestia1416, Zazzeris, AzurRayne
They say you can’t run a successful stream without having proper mods and people who serve as the backbone of the streamer to maintain a healthy community and environment for everybody to enjoy, and that’s absolutely true. This year, I give out four awards for Mod/Assistant of the Year at Croakitoad throughout the year of 2025 and all for very different reasons! We can thank Cokesodacan for his ongoing support in helping me in almost all multipurpose things when the stream isn’t live, whether it’s helping run the bot and systems with that, or archive videos and playthroughs and just keeping things in check when it comes to PC issues. Celestia gets recognition this year for being “the quote master,” providing mostly all of the quotes in our database from all very interesting things that randomly come out of my mouth during all of the streams. Zazzeris wins once again for providing assistance and maintenance on the growing library of over 700+ SFX that you all love to use during all of the livestreams. Last but not least, AzurRayne also gets his flowers this year for not only being very hands-on in helping install the new motherboard into the PC towards the end of the year, but also providing some really fun moments in having predictions happen in the Twitch chat during Croakitoad Pro Wrestling. All of the mod and support team at Croakitoad help out and help maintain the community in their own ways, but I really wanted to highlight the pillars of the mod team for the year of 2025 in doing what they do to help maintain, upkeep and support my and all of my streams and make the streams fun and accessible for everyone to enjoy!

Notable Nominees:
Ashterial
Cygnified
Wizardboz12
Razorbackhitman
Puertoricanchipmunk
Featsbeatsgames
Puddleduck_22
Nopeitsnate

!repoman
This was yet another tough category to hand pick one winner from, but we’re going to go ahead and give the win to the old 1990’s WWF wrestler Repo Man! When this became a SFX created by Zazzeris, I had no idea (and probably nobody else did either) that the SFX was going to take off throughout the year like it did. It took a few people to really find the intro and the theme song catchy in the year of 2025 to make things happen and get the ball rolling, resulting in the Repo Man actually showing up to Croakitoad Pro Wrestling and winning the Young Lion’s Championship as a direct result of the SFX becoming as much of a meme that it did in the year of 2025. When has that ever happened? While there were many other very strong contenders, like the neverending supply of Roxas content, people loving to fart around, Paul Bearer reminding us he’s always around and the super catchy “bitches leave” that resulted from the Robocop playthroughs in the middle of the year, we’ve got to give it to the ‘ole Repo Man for the win as the SFX of the year for 2025!

Notable Nominees:
!paul
!roxas
!fart
!bleave
!thelist
!pmonster
!booty
!bag

And that will do it for our 2025 Croakitoad Game of the Year awards for the Twitch channel and content on all platforms! I hope everybody enjoyed our second annual awards presentation and enjoyed remembering some key moments that occurred throughout the 2025 year! 2025 certainly brought a lot of fun and amazing moments whether it be from the single players games I completed, the multiplayer nights we all enjoyed, the birthday and anniversary events we shared together or the outside of streams moments that happened; good and bad. Thank you all for joining me for another year in this fun adventure and I hope you all join me for another one in 2026! We will certainly see what the future holds for Croakitoad and what kind of amazing moments and things we’ll be up to in a brand new year for this awesome gaming community!