January of 2026 marks the 5-year anniversary since I began writing for Catholic Game Reviews, so to mark this special occasion I’ve decided to give a little peek behind the curtain and share some of the articles that have defined my portfolio, as well as some reflection on how this project has shaped my vocation as a Catholic. To begin, I’ll waste no time and share the five review articles of mine that have accumulated the most reads as of December 2025 (I specify this because the view counts have undoubtedly shifted the rankings by the time this is released, courtesy of some articles with rapid growth). This will be the longest section, so it felt appropriate to share first. This section will also include some reading recommendations from both myself and other reviewers, to encourage you to check out similar articles you might enjoy if you liked the ones featured here. Afterwards, I’ll move into a reflection on the intersection between my life of Catholic faith and writing video game articles, and talk more about how God worked through this community to set me in the place I feel He has called me to. Lastly, I’ll go over the two non-review articles of mine that have enjoyed even more success than my reviews, and consider what they brought to this journey.
No. 5: Trails of Cold Steel III and IV
Getting right to our first game, my fifth most read review is actually over two connected games: Trails of Cold Steel III and IV. Having written eleven articles and counting for the Trails series, it seems only natural that at least one of them would break the top five. My initial decision to capriciously play Trails of Cold Steel certainly ballooned into one of the most extensive gaming surveys I’ve ever tackled, and even if the overall quality of the games has declined I’m determined to see this grand project to the end. It does have to be asked what it is about Cold Steel III and IV that drew so many clicks though. These games are the second half of a four-game long arc, and the 8th and 9th entries in the series as a whole, so you think more people would be curious about the reviews that begin individual story arcs. Trails in the Sky First and Second Chapter, Trails from Zero, Trails of Cold Steel I and II, Trails Through Daybreak, those sorts of games. I suppose there’s always the possibility that existing fans of the series were curious about my take on this rather controversial arc finale, which has very interesting implications about the demographic that reads this article. I guess it’s nice to know that this article got the eyes of a few Trails fans on Catholic Game Reviews, and if they stuck around then God be blessed for such a gift.
If Trails of Cold Steel III and IV interested you, consider reading my individual reviews of the games featured in the Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection, as well as SpicyFoodHiccups’ coverage of the Final Fantasy series. The Etrian Odyssey reviews are probably the closest I’ve come to a comparable series review project outside of my old series covering Legends of Runeterra’s development, meanwhile Spicy has put a lot of love into his survey of Square Enix’s RPG juggernaut, including some of the most interesting Catholic interpretations of those games that gives the benefit of the doubt where most see a lot of religious cynicism (albeit, not unwarrantedly).
No. 4: Fate/Samurai Remnant
My fourth most read review is none other than Fate/Samurai Remnant, a title from a Japanese series that is only second to Shin Megami Tensei in the level of rage it baits from enthusiasts of history, religion, and mythology. Ironically, that ragebaiting quality is precisely what makes this such a highly read article, as our most read reviews out of the whole site are usually ones which cover games with famously controversial depictions of aforementioned topics (in addition to a few family games which naturally draw views from researching parents). It’s not really the games that everyone more or less already knows are mostly appropriate for Catholics that drive views, it’s the ones that everyone wrings their hands over whether it’s sinful to play them! In any case, Fate/Samurai Remnant might have been a fairly up and down experience for me, but long term it has taken its place as one of the projects I look back upon fondly. The rush of playing through the game and exploring its depictions of Rogue Berserker and Lancer among other interesting topics was a real treat, and having covered other areas of the Fate/ franchise I can confidently say my opinion of the game has even improved over time. The gameplay is probably too repetitive to warrant a full replay, but it’s neat that it managed to age gracefully.
For more context on how my opinion on Samurai Remnant sweetened, be sure to read my recent articles covering Fate/Grand Order, a game whose story directly inspired Samurai Remnant despite the inspiration chapter in question being so offensively tasteless it made Chiemon look like a nuanced character in comparison. If you want to read more Fate/ content in general, I recommend history major Gaius Requiem’s review of Fate/Extella Link.
No. 3: Suzerain + Rizia
The next review on my list is that of Suzerain and its Rizia DLC, which is also the youngest article on this list! My conspiracy theory is that one of my co-writers posted this review to Reddit in order to farm clicks off of the game’s political themes, but I suppose a game about politics has a premise that is more than enticing enough to draw clicks even without that deranged website. In general I have very much been the writer most willing to be openly political wherever I felt the topics are necessary, and I think I’m pretty happy to fill that niche. I know that’s a pretty tough position to put myself in considering Catholics are historically pretty evenly split left and right in my country, but I like to think God is bigger than those differences and that makes sharing these opinions all the more important. Suzerain itself quickly became a surprise regular in my gaming rotation when I first played it, and considering the passion of its fanbase I couldn’t help sharing my experience with the game and bringing it into spiritual reflection. Looking back I’m sure there’s things in the review I might have rephrased or shifted my emphasis around, but for what it is I’m pleased with the end product.
If you like these more mature visual novel style games, you might enjoy reading my review of The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante, which many consider to be the closest alternative to Suzerain despite its many distinct elements. Matt PBnJ Palardy’s coverage of Pentiment is also an easy recommendation here, if you want something more directly related to the Catholic faith.
No. 2: Honkai Star Rail
My runner-up most read game review is none other than Honkai Star Rail, Hoyoverse’s turn-based gacha giant. Over the course of these five years of playing and reviewing video games, no landscape shift was quite as tectonic as the absolute dominance of the eastern gachapon RPG, and I’m glad this one-year case study turned out to be such a big success. There were times where reviewing the game over such a long period took its toll, but I took away from the experience both a popular article and a healthier relationship to live-service gaming in general. Nowhere was this more apparent after I stopped playing the game altogether around patch 3.1, when the story had taken a generational dip in quality and the powercreep controversy just plain made the game not fun to follow anymore. In letting go of the game after the well turned out to be poisoned, however, I found I didn’t feel regret over the time I spend with the game but indeed looked back upon the parts I enjoyed with all the more fondness, especially some of my favorite characters like Argenti, and the Landau and Oak families. These days I will still push myself through live service for the sake of a review I really want to make, but otherwise I’ve thoroughly learned how to manage FOMO and just play these games when I feel like it. Thank you Star Rail, I guess!
For more coverage of gacha games, I did a review of the award-winning smash hit of 2025 Umamusme: Pretty Derby, and Gaius Requiem covered another Hoyoverse game called Zenless Zone Zero.
No. 1: Fabula Ultima
And the title of my most read review article goes to the tabletop roleplaying game Fabula Ultima. This probably comes as quite a shock considering this isn’t even the most mainstream game in my collection of reviews, especially because this isn’t a video game, but in a way I think this article proved itself to be a views hack. Fabula Ultima as a game is just popular enough among tabletop roleplayers (by which I mean 1.5 million dollar Kickstarter levels of popular) that it has a steady stream of curious players looking to find reviews on the game, but the game is indie enough that not every major outlet has given their two cents on the title. All of this, I believe, culminates in my review being perfectly positioned to drive traffic from readers who otherwise wouldn’t find Catholic Game Reviews in their algorithmic recommendations, which is quite the happy accident. I’m certainly not going to complain about that, especially since this is probably my most unique review in that it was done in close collaboration with fellow writers, including a bunch of direct commentary from them. The stage of my life in which this was written was pretty awkward, but getting to find fellowship with other Catholics while playing a neat little indie title like this was a true blessing. Makes me wonder if starting a CGR TTRPG group would be a cool incentive for prospective Patreon backers.
If you enjoy tabletop roleplaying games, you might be interested in reading my review of Household, which has dethroned Fabula Ultima as my absolute favorite game in the genre. Alternatively, you could check out the review of the deeply Catholic game Castigant: Gothic Roleplaying in a Time of Inquisition written by Gaius Requiem. Also I promise I’m not just recommending Gaius over and over because he’s my brother, he just happens to have reviewed a lot of games that line up with the themes of this top five.
Reflecting on CGR From a Faith and Life Perspective
Now that we’ve gotten most of the fun stuff out of the way, allow me to touch on what working on Catholic Game Reviews has meant to me personally and as a Catholic. As a month-to-month project, these reviews serve as a fairly regular form of spiritual admonishment. When it comes time to take my experiences with a game and put them into greater contemplation, I most often find myself writing down lessons and takeaways that I personally struggle living up to in my own life. Perhaps this is a symptom of my personality as someone who has trouble owning his mistakes publicly whilst secretly agonizing over anything less than perfection. Even so, I appreciate that God uses this project to help me stay a little more honest with myself, and I hope that some of the spiritual lessons I brought forward through these reviews helped someone make changes for the better. It’s also been an incredible gift to connect with a community of other Catholics, who’ve given me the courage to try new things, engage with games as a serious art form, and given me fellowship when I needed it most. Between the infinite patience of my editorial peers and the handful of fan mail (both for me specifically and the site as a whole) which has passed through the CGR inbox, you are all very much living proof of God’s Love working in my life. It’s not something I think I can ever repay, but perhaps repayment was never the point.
No discussion of CGR’s impact on my life would be complete, however, without discussing the way this project has actually influenced my vocation. For a long time I felt like a truly useless person who’s only hope of ever being of use to God was to lock myself away in a monastery after college ended. There are relics of this attitude that still remain in some of my articles written around this time. When the time came I did explore the monastic vocation further, but I remember suddenly feeling a great unease about the whole prospect, and a big part of that was having to leave Catholic Game Reviews behind. At first I thought this was just a yearning to keep playing video games, and there’s probably some truth to that, but I also realized that the bonds I’d forged and the readers I’d enriched through CGR weren’t for nothing. I took a chance on seeing where that bond would take me, and sure enough I’ve come to a place in life where I know I’m truly needed to support others on the road to Heaven. It also helped me realized that trying to join a monastery out of a desire to run from your own insecurities was a truly awful way to discern one’s vocation, and though it might still happen one day if I don’t get married, I want to be able to choose that out of love for God rather than hatred of myself. Things aren’t perfect for me obviously, half the time my prayers are accompanied by intensive dryness and most of my spiritual life feels like it’s the Saints trying their absolute hardest to drag me down the righteous path and keep me from doing anything stupid, but at least there’s a sense of place and time I never felt before, and Catholic Game Reviews was a huge part of that. It might be cliche, but God truly works in mysterious ways.
Second Most Read: The Ten Best Characters of Trails’ Cast
To wrap this reflection up with a palette cleanser, I’ve decided to share the two articles of mine which were not reviews, but still managed to break numbers bigger than even my most read review. The first of which is The Ten Best Characters of Trails’ Cast, a top-ten article I wrote as a bonus to my Trails into Reverie review, mostly to commemorate reviewing ten entire games from a single series. The high view count here is assuredly the fault of the top-ten format itself. This is a truly evergreen style of internet content which nobody is fully immune to, so it makes sense that this would draw decent numbers despite being about a relatively niche RPG series. I guess I should consider doing a similar article in the future to capture some extra traffic sometime. In any case, the article itself has managed to age gracefully as I still like all the characters featured in it. Well… with one exception. I recognized that I was being a little risky when I put Swin and Nadia on the list for being the best part about Reverie, but I was at the time confident they would make a return and cement themselves in a game I liked more. Oh how wrong I was. Trails Through Daybreak II is widely considered to be the series’ biggest trainwreck, and while there were other games I disliked more I can safely concur with a lot of that general sentiment. This included of course the fact that they took Swin and Nadia and… did not do them justice at all. In fact they were pretty much made actively worse by that game. Quite the egg on my face in retrospect, but it’s not the end of the world. If I wrote the article today I think they’d be replaced by Princess Klaudia, but I’d certainly have to mull it over.
Most Read: Concerning Gaming’s Depictions of Sin
And my most read article of five years of writing is none other than Concerning Gaming’s Depictions of Sin. You can tell I was still riding the high of my college degree in naming this bad boy in the style of an academic paper, but I’m glad this didn’t stop the article from achieving success. This was basically my “Are Video Games Sinful” article before the site’s collaborative article existed, albeit my article focuses more on the purpose of depicting sin as a part of our narratives, interactive or otherwise. It’s no surprise this article got the number of views that it did, and even if it’s not perfect I’m completely fine with this being the crown jewel of my contributions to CGR. According to one piece of fanmail this article was even brought to a youth group once upon a time, which just goes to show that people resonated with what was offered here. A truly humbling experience for a layperson such as myself.
I would like to thank everyone who has supported Catholic Game Reviews over these many years, my readers who come back to enjoy my articles and the articles of others, and you for reading to the end of this article. I’m far from the top of the leaderboard in terms of lifetime article reads thanks to my consistent selection of obscure topics and the large amount of text and analysis I pack into my work, but I write for the love of the craft and the glory of God, and treasure every reader who has come our way. Life has changed quite a bit in the past half-year for me and my publishing output has started to shift in favor of slightly lower frequency articles covering different games than usual, but I promise to keep doing my very best in providing thoughtful gaming analysis for however many years I can. Hopefully, long enough to cover every mainline Trails game. Thank you so much for watching, God bless you all in this new year, and Ite Ad Joseph!
