This was suggested on a Discord server I was on, and it proved to be more fun than I expected! How it works is to list a favourite game released within the year, for every year since the one you were born in. Some years are so much more harder than the others, and it was quite, uh, interesting to have an internal GotY debate, like, 20 times in a row. I will skip years I don't feel strongly about any game, and also include close runners-up in the description.
1993: This is one of my most favourite adventure games ever! It's a fun cartoon point-and-click romp that I honestly treasure more than other comedy adventure games. Also one of the games that got me into the genre in the first place!
1994: I'll be honest and say that I've never actually finished this game, but wow does this game go. I like to joke that Final Fantasy VI has more intriguing plot development in the first thirty minutes than in the entirety of Final Fantasy XIII. It's funny, because it's true!
1995: Okay, here's another one I never finished. I played quite far into it, but my save file was corrupted beyond repair! It shows how much this game owns, that this nevertheless is still one of the best JRPG's I've ever played.
1996: I don't actually remember much of this game, but I remember it being super fun! My vague memories of it include: Mario flashing the peace sign onto the camera as an attack move; Bowser being the coolest JRPG party member ever; Geno knowing magic or something I dunno.
Runner-up: Kirby Super Star
1997: I gotta say... this game sucks to play. But who can hate it! The songs and the art style are just so catchy and fun! I still sometimes sing the Cheep Cheep stage in the shower.
Runner-up: Tomba!
1998: Martial arts... Giant mechs... JRPG. It's got everything I want. I also have fond memories of using the Gameshark on this game, so that I can punch giant mechs with powerful kung fu all the time.
1999: explaining how much I love this game, despite barely remembering anything about it, would probably require me writing a dedicated long blog post on it. Just listening to the music soundtrack gets me extremely emotional. This is the best Shimomura soundtrack, IMHO.
Runners-up: Um Jammer Lammy (i.e. the actually good PaRappa game); Guardian's Crusade; Revelations: The Demon Slayer (GBC)
2000: The Sims is great. End of story.
2001: This pretty much destroyed my mind, and my life. The bit with the Colonel freaking out is probably the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. I actually turned off my PS2 when it told me to, because I was absolutely terrified. Thanks, Kojima.
2002: I hate how stupidly complicated lore that spawned out of this series, but I also genuinely love it.
2003: This is the best Zelda game ever made. I even loved the Triforce hunting. Fight me if you dare.
2004: This might be the best Star Wars fiction ever made. It elevated the ideas in both the Star Wars movie franchise and the original Knights of the Old Republic game to a level that I don't believe any of them reached. It also might be my most favourite CRPG story I've ever seen. Thank God for the people who have put the effort into making the Restoration Mods and re-releasing everything on Steam.
Runner-up: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
2005: Oh boy, 2005 is a very contentious year for me. This was a fantastic year for handheld games, and I had trouble picking a favourite out of all these wonderful games.
I ended up with Trauma Center, because it was weirdly a game that pushed the envelope I had formed in my mind of the potential of games. I believe this to be one of the best action games ever conceived. Never in a million years would I have thought of a touchscreen-based action game based around near-future sci-fi surgical procedures, and it is so, so good.
Runners-up: Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan; Mario Tennis: Power Tour; Mario Kart DS
2006: Oblivion really got me into serious PC gaming, for various reasons. One was that it was the first game that my PC was simply too underpowered for. That was my gateway to the wonderful world of PC hardware, and also to the Bethesda games modding scene. Oldblivion is a term that you might be familiar with, and that sort of stuff was really fun to learn about and try out. I'm such a mod junkie now, that I keep buying these games just for the modding community.
2007: I think Portal is a perfect game. It's always been really hard for me to try to explain why I think so. Where do I even start? It is simply one of the most well-crafted games I have ever played in my life. Enough said!
2008: My first time playing this was confusing, to say the least. What a weird, and uncompromising game! I feel like the older I get, the more I could appreciate what this game is. Even to this day, there's still almost nothing quite like it. (side note: except that Breath of the Wild has been considered by some to be The True Far Cry 2-2? I relaly should get on that game.)
Runners-up: Rhythm Heaven; Braid
2009: This is easily one of the funniest games I've ever played, and one of the earliest small freeware games that I played and loved. I was so fascinated that such a small thing could communicate ideas on both comedy and interaction design so efficiently!
Runner-up: Demon's Souls; Picross 3D
2010: This game is damn cool. I can't really encapsulate my feelings on it in a more meaningful way. It's just cool and fun, okay?
(Aside: I accidentally made a Chow Yun-fat look-alike playing this game, which is pretty fun and cool.)
2011: This (and Demon's Souls) is another game that could probably have its own blog post about. I just love it very much.
Runner-up: SpaceChem
2012: A very emotional audiovisual multiplayer experience... Like Portal, this is one of the most well-crafted game I have ever experienced.
2013: It doesn't have a game page on Giant Bomb, but this year goes to Anne Hathaway: Erotic Mouthscape.
It's a favourite Twine of mine, for various reasons. I'm just going to let you guess what those reasons are, instead of having to explain myself...
Runner-up: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
2014: Playing Velvet Sundown during its heyday might be the most bizarrely fun game experience I've had. This game has such potential, but I don't think anybody (not the developers, and definitely not me) ever understood what that potential was, and how one would fully realise it.
Runner-up: 80 Days
2015: Sorry, but again, it would take me way too much time to explain what is it about NecroDancer that I love to bits. I will just leave it by saying that I think this is the best rhythm game ever created, by far.
2016: I don't know if I have it in me to explain this one yet! At the very, very least, it is a beautifully made puzzle game.
2017: I don't mean it lightly when I say that this is an important game. A really fantastic and thoughtful game about humanity and its theoretical legacy.
Runner up: Night in the Woods
