I don't know if I can narrow it down to 10 and I don't want to discriminate between the heaps of characters that I really liked. But I'll just slap in some of them (not counting visual novels):
Joel Miller (The Last of Us)
Solid Snake (Metal Gear)
Celes Chere (Final Fantasy 6)
Laguna Loire (Final Fantasy 8)
Alisaie Leveilleur (Final Fantasy 14)
Kaguya Houraisan (Touhou 8)
Eirin Yagokoro (Touhou 8)
Fujiwara no Mokou (Touhou 8)
Saria (Zelda Ocarina of Time)
Yoshimitsu (Tekken)