I've made threads like this before, but now it's time for the 2020 edition (applause, applause, applause): what are your favorite video games by year of release?

You can start your list and end it at any year-range you want and you can skip years too if you just can't think of any games you got for that year. For example, if you only really liked games that were released back in the 1990s, you could start your list with your favorite 1990 game and end it with your favorite game from 1999. Alternatively, you could start your list at the turn of the century and skip any years you want, like this:

2000:
2001:
2005:
2007:
2008:
2009:
2013:
2017:
2018:
2020 (so far):

Whatever! We're keeping it loose to encourage maximum participation. The point of this exercise is simply to get to know a little more about each other's gaming preferences. If you don't know a game's year of release, there's always resources like Google and Wikipedia of course, as a reminder. Personally, I will be doing my usual comprehensive list of faves that begins with 1977 releases (the first year from which I own games) and moving up to the present, followed by my favorite games that were released in multiple parts over the course of multiple years. Here goes:

My Favorite Games By Year:

1977: Surround
1978: Adventureland
1979: Adventure
1980: Zork I
1981: Utopia
1982: Zork III
1983: Kangaroo
1984: Girl's Garden
1985: A Mind Forever Voyaging
1986: Leather Goddesses of Phobos
1987: Metroid
1988: Phantasy Star
1989: The Guardian Legend
1990: The Secret of Monkey Island
1991: Out of This World
1992: Alone in the Dark
1993: Secret of Mana
1994: Super Metroid
1995: Chop Suey
1996: Tomb Raider
1997: Tomb Raider II
1998: Magic Knight Rayearth
1999: Drakan: Order of the Flame
2000: The Longest Journey
2001: Ico
2002: Metroid Prime
2003: Beyond Good & Evil
2004: Yume Nikki
2005: Psychonauts
2006: Okami
2007: Portal
2008: Mirror's Edge
2009: Muramasa: The Demon Blade
2010: Heavy Rain
2011: Portal 2
2012: Papo & Yo
2013: Gone Home
2014: This War of Mine
2015: Undertale
2016: Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor
2017: Butterfly Soup
2018: Celeste
2019: Knights and Bikes
2020: The Last of Us Part II

My Favorite Multi-Year Games:

Kentucky Route Zero
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

EDIT: Best Year

2017 for...

Butterfly Soup
What Remains of Edith Finch
Night in the Woods
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Nier: Automata
Cosmic Star Heroine
Persona 5
Sonic Mania
Star Fox 2
Tales of Berseria
Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Horizon Zero Dawn
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
A Hat in Time
Super Mario Odyssey
AND OTHERS!

Ur turn!

Theres a few years where I cant really decide on one, I am also choosing the North American release of the games.

1990: Super Mario Bros 3
1991: Super Mario World and Final Fantasy IV
1992: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
1993: The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening
1994: Final Fantasy VI
1995: Chrono Trigger
1996: Pokemon Red
1997: Final Fantasy VII
1998: Metal Gear Solid
1999: Final Fantasy VIII
2000: Final Fantasy IX
2001: Final Fantasy X
2002: Kingdom Hearts
2003: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
2004: Star Wars: Kotor II and Metal Gear Solid 3
2005: Dragon Quest VIII
2006: Kingdom Hearts II
2007: Mass Effect or Persona 3
2008: Persona 4
2009: Demon's Souls
2010: Nier
2011: Dark Souls
2012: Dragons Dogma
2013: Ni No Kuni
2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition
2015: Bloodborne and The Witcher III
2016: Final Fantasy XV
2017: Persona 5 and Nier: Automata
2018: Dragon Quest XI
2019: Kingdom Hearts III
2020: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Gonna need to do a lot of research. We'll see if I get motivated enough this afternoon .....

I'm down. Gonna go with NA release years even though I'm european, since they're generally the standard.

1990: Super Mario World
1991: A Link to the Past
1992: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
1993: Link’s Awakening
1994: Super Metroid
1995: Chrono Trigger
1996: Super Mario RPG
1997: FF7
1998: Half-Life
1999: System Shock 2
2000: Majora’s Mask
2001: SSBM
2002: Warcraft III
2003: Wind Waker
2004: Tales of Symphonia
2005: Resident Evil 4
2006: Twilight Princess
2007: Super Mario Galaxy
2008: Tales of Vesperia
2009: Borderlands
2010: Starcraft II
2011: Portal 2
2012: Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward
2013: Bioshock Infinite
2014: SSB4
2015: The Witcher 3
2016: Uncharted 4
2017: Persona 5
2018: SSBU
2019: Astral Chain

1990 : mickey castle of illusion
1991: Sonic
1992: Mario Paint
1993: International Open Tennis, Alladdin, Mario all stars
1994: donkey kong country, tintin au tibet, the lion king
1995: worms
1996: Civilisation II
1997: Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Aladdin, Goldeneye
1998: Zelda ocarina of time
1999: Pokemon Red
2000: Final Fantasy IX, shenmue
2001: FFX, Alien vs Predator 2, shadow of memories
2002: Smash bros Melee, Kingdom Hearts
2003: KOTOR, BGE
2004: Fable
2005: KOTOR II
2006: Kingdom Hearts II
2007: Bioshock
2008: Burnout Paradise, DMC4
2009: Uncharted 2, Assassin's Creed II
2010: God of War III, Mass Effect II, Heavy rain
2011: Deus Ex, motorstorm apocalypse, Batman Arkham
2012: max payne 3, the walking dead
2013:the last of Us, AC IV, ni no kuni
2014: Infamous second son
2015: The witcher 3
2016: Persona 5
2017: Horizon Zero Dawn
2018: God of War
2019: plague tale innocence, Luigi's mansion, KHIII
2020: FFVII (didn't play a lot of games)

If i enjoyed a lot of games recently, i can see while making this list that the impact they have on me fall of a cliff year after year. Am i getting old, or the way i play, with only short sessions now, affects my feelings ?
Also very hard to know when the games came out !

1989: Ducktales
1990: Super Mario World
1991: A Link to the Past
1992: Dragon Quest V
1993: Megaman X and Link’s Awakening
1994: Final Fantasy VI 
1995: Chrono Trigger
1996: Super Mario RPG
1997: Final Fantasy 7 and SOTN
1998: Suikoden 2
1999: Age of Empires 2
2000: Final Fantasy IX
2001: Final Fantasy X
2002: Suikoden 3
2003: Pokemon Ruby and Saphire
2004: Metal Gear Solid 3 and Dragon Quest 8
2005: Shadow of the Colossus
2006: Final Fantasy 12 and Suikoden V
2007: Super Mario Galaxy
2008: MGS 4 and Dead Space
2009: Uncharted 2
2010: Castlevania: Lords of shadows
2011: TES: Skyrim
2012: Dragon's Dogma
2013: The Last of Us
2014: Mario Kart 8 
2015: Bloodborne and The Witcher 3 
2016: Uncharted 4
2017: Nier: Automata and Hollow Knight
2018: Monster Hunter World 
2019: Link's Awakening remake and Astral Chain
2020: Final Fantasy VII remake (so far)

Tough on the snes years, I couldnt fit the DKC series and Super Metroid, so many good games in that era. 

Best year: 1995 probably. Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country 2, Dragon Quest VI, Yoshi's island, Suikoden, Megaman X3 and many others. Hard to beat. 

Worst year: 2001 by far. Picked FFX out of a lack of choices. 

Had a skim through wiki to put a list together. Used whatever year they were first released, regardless of region. Apologies for any errors, I've probably been careless.

1990 - Super Mario World
1991 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
1992 - Super Mario Kart
1993 - Doom
1994 - Donkey Kong Country
1995 - Yoshi’s Island
1996 - Tomb Raider
1997 - Tomb Raider II
1998 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
1999 - Resident Evil 3
2000 - Dino Crisis 2
2001 - Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
2002 - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
2003 - Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
2004 - Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
2005 - Resident Evil 4
2006 - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
2007 - Super Mario Galaxy
2008 - Tomb Raider Underworld
2009 - New Super Mario Bros Wii
2010 - Super Mario Galaxy 2

I sort of lose track of things at this point, so then I’ll just dip in with

2015 - Yoshi’s Woolly World
2017 - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Unlike the VGC greatest games event, this one is actually doable for me. I'm going to try to participate, and this post signifies that intent, as well as serving as a reminder. And I will NOT use this space to create my list, instead making a new post for extra VGC points.

Yep, just realized this may be messy. For the last decade or so,  I'm usually playing games from previous years. Take 2020 for example. I have played 23 different games, and not one of them is from this year, ranging from 1982 to 2018. Anyways, glad I could clutter up the thread for nothing.

I did my favorite games of the year, but I also did honorable mentions as well. I guess that's cheating, but there were some years where too many great games would have gone overlooked.

Weirdly, my runners-up list probably looks more interesting, since I'm a fan of games by series. There's an awful lot of Zelda in my GOTY lists, for example.

Damn, dude, glad to see someone else who liked the Infocom games. And there's even a Scott Adams adventure in there! I played all of those too.

And props to Kangaroo. I played that a lot on my Atari computer, and I even got the Arcade Archives version for the Switch that came out last week.