One of gaming's most beautiful and longest-lasting pieces of abstract art. The common ancestor to generations of indie games and the progenitor of an entire genre of game that's still going strong to this day.

An exercise in minimalist game design on all fronts both aesthetic and mechanical. Still breathtaking in its scope to this very day, and the inspiration point for many, including Eiji Aonuma, Hidetaki Miyazaki, Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro.

The homework all contemporary survival horror has been copying off of for decades now. Not my personal favorite entry in the series but undeniable in its influence and the tact it has that many of its future spiritual progenies would lack.

One of pop culture's most bizarre JRPGs and an aesthetic marvel of the PS2 era. While you can't trace many influences to Nocturne itself, the SMT series as a whole's influence on the JRPG genre (the popularization of contemporary settings, the monster catching genre, morality systems & multiple endings) is best represented here by its strongest soldier.

The grand-daddy of the relatively niche Character Action Game genre. While not my personal favorite of the series, there is no denying the tight encounter design, gameplay systems & sense of style that would become the blueprint for iiterations to come.

A game that was more popular than Windows 95 in its heyday and altered the history of the DOOM-like FPS genre forever. It needs no introduction nor explanation for its legacy.

Purely indulgent pick admittedly, but NieR is both a scathing deconstruction and loving homage to the JRPG genre and gaming as a whole, and to this day, one of the most touching and heartwrenching instances of meta storytelling. A worthy companion piece to the JRPG genre for those with the experience under their belt.

The "Metroid-" part of the Metroidvania genre, and alongside Symphony of the Night, the blueprint for basically all future entries in the genre. While I'm more partial to the "-vania" part of the equation personally, it would be a disservice to put SotN over the genre's primordial ooze, and one of Nintendo's most mature and interesting franchises.

While more subtle in terms of cultural impact overseas, Yakuza was an unprescedented title at its release as one of the first games to ever portray the yakuza lifestyle, as well as an attempt to capture Japanese culture as accurately as possible with its Shenmue-derived life sim aspects and dedication to recreating the Kabukicho district. A bonafide franchise blockbuster from the land of the rising sun.

Fighting games deserve an entry in the canon despite being a genre for insane people! The platonic ideal of the nebulous "anime fighter", Guilty Gear as a franchise deserves its place in the pantheon for its many refinements of and influence on the subgenre, as well as its brazenly diverse roster of characters from all walks of life by a team of passionate writers. +R being one of the greatest fighting games of all time all on its lonesome doesn't hurt either.