1993: Despite some of the design choices made with this one, I do really like Sonic CD. Plus it's one of my favorite soundtracks of all time (The Japanese one, obv.)

Honorable mentions to Mega Man X, a close 2nd, and Phantasy Star IV, another strong contender for me.

1994: Aside from another Sonic game that came out a few years later, this is my most played Sonic game. And I was OBSESSED with this game for a long time as a child.

1994 was a great year, so a few shoutouts to games that could have been in this slot:
Super Metroid
Doom II
Final Fantasy VI

1995: Not a ton of games I've played/loved from 1995. It wasn't a very hard choice though. While I do like Megaman X3's grungy music and challenge, Chrono Trigger is simply one of the best JRPGs of all time.

1996: One of my favorite games EVER. It's hard to believe how many weekends I spent just playing this with my neighbor, beating it over and over and over and over.

Do I really think this game is better than Mario 64? ...Probably not, but I cannot understate how obsessed I was with this game, even compared to one of the greatest platformers ever made.

1997: The game that put the Vania in Metroidvania. This game fucking rocks, the exploration, the sound, the spritework, the special abilities, and an unlockable character for replayability.

Other high up here is Final Fantasy Tactics.

1998: A bit predictable, yes. And a shock from me considering how hard I am on this game sometimes. But even I can't deny the sheer scope and majesty of this title. Every other Zelda game WISHES it was OoT, that's how powerful this game is.

1998 had Half-Life, and even Sonic Adventure somehow. As cool as they are, I had to give it to Zelda.

1999: This game was such a huge deal for me, and for a lot of people. It really felt like 'Pokemon Red/Blue But Better.' A really powerful game on the Gameboy, and a game that everybody I knew played and loved.

Crazy Taxi was a serious contender, here, and so was Street Fighter III 3rd Strike. While I love those games a ton, they just can't match the importance of Pokemon GSC.

2000: It's Deus Ex. 'Nuff said.

2001: Only a few games on this list can compete for "Favorite Video Game of All Time." This is one of them. I'm still blown away sometimes at how cool this game was when it came out. I will probably die on the hill that no sequel in history improved on the original quite like this game did.

I almost feel a little bad Sonic Adventure 2 couldn't take this slot, since I played that game a ton, and I do truly love it. But Melee was such a big deal not just for me, but for millions of people.

2002: Maybe a little bit cheating... PSO came out a few years prior to this... But compared tho the original DC game and Ver. 2, this game basically doubled the content, and put it on a console I actually owned. I'd consider it enough of an expansion that it deserves to be it's own game- But anyway, this is one of if not the first online experiences I had with a game, and along with the PC port that game 2 years later, it's one of my favorite games of all time.

2003: Really phenomenal GBA game. Art, gameplay, music, and for a Mario game an enjoyable story. Highly recommend.

2004: How TF did this come out in 2004? I remember playing it in highschool one weekend, and felt like my life had changed forever. THIS is a video game.

Teams of dozens of people, working together, couldn't capture the same magic that this game had if they tried. It's such a pure expression that you could only get from one passionate artist. Short, sweet, charming, and most importantly, it's fun.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door was a solid choice for this year as well, as well as a non-special edition version of a certain game...

2005: This may be cheating, the REAL DMC3 came out a year earlier... But when people play DMC3, this is the version they want to play. It's one of if not the best hack and slash action game ever made. It brought us the spunky version of Dante we know and love, and it's just got suck cool ass weapons it's impossible not to love it.

2006: I just freaking love this game. A weird title that dropped in the phase between the 6th and 7th console generations. A quintessential Saladcore game, really hyperactive and silly, cool music, funny ass cutscenes, and just hard enough to be a challenge, without it feeling like a torture device.

2007: 2007 was a great year for gaming! It was also the year that this piece of shit came out, a game that drained so much of my life it's partially responsible for me almost not graduating highschool. It's also where I met a lot of my best friends. All that aside, it's a remarkably fun game, depending on what time period you played it in, and it had a cool community.

2008: I feel bad and stupid putting this here... Brawl? As funky as this game was at times, it was one of the really important releases from that time, and I am pretty sure I ended up playing it way more than Melee. I didn't play a lot of games that came out at the time, so this has to go here.
I will say, the modding scene has created some of the best mods of all time, like Project M and Brawl-.

2009: A really fun, really challenging, insanely stylish action game. It has its flaws, but the positives are so extremely blinding I can barely think of them when I reminisce on this banger of a game.

2010: My favorite game in the franchise, it felt kind of like a refreshing reboot. Everything was all new, no falling back on old faves. The music was so exciting and fun compared to Diamond/Pearl. This and the sequel were the last Pokemon games that felt like they were trying to be cool, rather than cute.

2011: The Dark Souls of the Dark Souls series. This game is like a cultural icon now, and a gamer rite of passage. It's also just a really freaking cool came. Hard, but not impossible. A really cool multiplayer element, though Demon's Souls did it first. An interconnected map of varied environments that somehow stack on top of each other cleanly. Just one of the greatest games ever made.

2012: I have to include this. Why? I spent thousand of hours wasting my life to please this dumbass game. I truly believe few people enjoyed this game the way I did... Which is to say a really specific love/hate relationship. Above all though, the character creator was wild.

It's a tragically flawed MMO, with the late US release and major overhaul with New Genesis exacerbating all its issues, but at its core is a game that someone like me adores.

2013: The music, the gameplay, the spectacle... Everyone could probably tell just by looking at 10 seconds of gameplay that I love this game.

2014: For some reason I thought this came out in 2015. Guess not! And lucky for this game, that means it gets to be on the list. Feels weird seeing it here, but I did really love this game when I first played it.
There was a drought of good 2D Sonic games, I had given up hope on ever finding something that could match Sonic 3. This game really took me by surprise, not just giving me a speedy, wide-open platformer like a Sonic game, but in a few cases even improved it.

2015: The game that got me into the franchise... A franchise I played through right away, waiting for it to recapture what I felt playing this game. When I first played Yakuza 0, I knew it was going to be one of those games... One of the ones that would embed itself in my brain, lurking around back there for the rest of my life.

Sorry Bloodborne, I wanted to put you here but this game really changed my life.
Undertale, you tried your best but you can't compete with this Sega nonsense.

2016: While it isn't a certified classic like the first game, and while it had a lot of wacky weapon arts thrown in there, this game is right up there with DS1 and Bloodborne, a really solid, good, fun game that I just loved playing. The DLC is phenomenal, too.

2017: A perfect 2D Sonic game that really recaptures the physics and level design of S3&K. I just wish there was a sequel, it's got plenty of levels for a Sonic game, but it left me hungering for MORE.

2018: Another Smash Game, but there wasn't that many games I played that year, and let's not kid ourselves, this is a good game. Even if it sucked, the sheer size of the roster would make me want to play it. But it doesn't suck, it's tons of fun.

2019: The Devil May Cry Game we've been waiting for since DMC4 dropped in 2008, and we were not disappointed. It satisfied me in just about every facet, barring maybe the bland level design, which in an action game like this is a point I'm easily willing to forgive. It only got better with the Vergil DLC.
I remember being worried when I saw the trailer, Nero's new haircut and his robot arm didn't quite sit right with me at first... But the music got my heart racing, and when I finally got my hands on the game all those worries were totally wiped out.

2020: The great Covid unification game... For 2020 being the dreaded covid-19 year, there were actually a bunch of great games to come out. Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Hades, and some other stuff I never played. This game though, was like a godsend, giving people some sense of social interaction, as well as a prime time waster while they were trapped in their home.

2021: Okay, I'm going to be blunt. I really didn't play much of anything that came out this year. This was also when we were REALLY feeling the effects of the quarantine.

2022: Once again, haven't been playing many new games lately. This one got me by surprise though, it was a really fun, hilarious game to play, and it even had co-op! And not like, afterthought co-op that you usually get these days, you could do nearly the whole campaign with a friend or two. The DLC was challenging, too!

This game had the misfortune of being released at the same time as Elden Ring. I feel lucky that I was experienced it on a whim, deciding to try it out with a friend.

2023: Goofy, and really fun platformer game. You can feel the passion that went into the animations and artwork. This was a game I followed for years before it finally came out, and it was a delight to play. Replaying levels to get S ranks or even P ranks is a thrill!