An easy choice once more, as Final Fantasy VII is quite high among my all-time favourite games, and while several other titles on the list are great as well, none of them come close to FFVII. My top three would probably be FFVII, Total Annihilation, and Grandia, the latter two being somewhat forgotten gems unfortunately, Grandia in particular rarely gets talked about these days.

Other: Total Annihilation. An awesome RTS, with one of the best soundtracks ever produced for a game.

Other, as usual. Wholololo!!!

My top spot goes to Panzer General II (Panzer General IIID in Germany), a great wargame where you try to conquer the World for Germany, the Allied campaigns in Europe and North Africa from 1941 on or try averting the fall of the Reich after the defeat at Stalingrad, including some ahistorical battles (Invasion of the UK and a landing in Savannah in the US for instance).

Number 2 goes to Imperium Galactica, as pretty unusual 4X game in that it is real-time, you gain higher ranks and thus more possibilities over the time of the story, which also affect the size of the map you can see and act upon, and so on. Hard to play these days as the space battles go way too fast on modern CPUs.

Third spot goes to Dungeon Keeper. A great take on the RTS genre, and the announcer is superbly hammy - and even better in German, surprisingly enough.

Number 4 goes to Diablo. Stay a while and listen to the Butcher calling you fresh meat or read my entry to the game in the previous year's post ^^

Finally for the fifth entry, I elect Tekken 3, probably the best Tekken ever made and Tekken Ball was always a Blast with friends.

Not for everyone. For me for instance, it's even just the third-best RPG of the year after Diablo and Fallout

Damn, 1997 is hard. For me there’s a big grouping of great games of similar quality: SotN, FFVII, GoldenEye, DKR, Tomb Raider II, etc.

I’d also add Abe’s Oddysee and G-Darius to the mix.

In the end, I’ll go with FFVII. But man that’s a tough one.

While Gran Turismo may be best driving game I've played (in overall design), I think I'll have to again go with Other.

But which? Fallout, AoE and GTA started major series.
Monkey Island 3 and Wing Commander: Prophecy are good entries of my favorite series.
Further personal favorites include Outlaws and Sid Meier's Gettysburg!

I'll give it to The Curse of Monkey Island, I feel it's hugely underrated.
(Even through I'll have to say Grim Fandango next year.)

I was worrying about FF7 vs Goldeneye 007, as both were massive games. FF7 I play to this day (literally, I played through the game earlier this summer along with the other PSX FF games. GE007 was like the event of the generation…
Then I see FF Tactics came out that year, and that’s one of those games I haven’t played in a few years (I want it on Switch!). FF Tactics isn’t without its flaws—it has some of the most obnoxious level design with literal progress blockers that are easy to run into, resulting in the need to restart your whole game if you only use one save file. But I think the game strikes a better chord for me than GE007 and FF7. FF7 is one of those games that I think is brilliant a lot of the way, but after about Rocket Town (60-65% through the game). I find my interest in the story and characters takes a nosedive, and I have no interest in the Ancient Temple or City, Mideel, Ninja Town, or the “All is Lost” moment when Cloud becomes an invalid for several hours - I feel they were trying to copy the plot mechanic from Chrono Trigger and I hate those “All is Lost” plot mechanics, but at least in Chrono Trigger it doesn’t deflate the pacing of the story.. FF Tactics, while there are some frustrating moments and even some moments that demand a bit of a grind (depending on your decisions) usually the areas I find painful don’t lose my interest in the story or characters.

So, FF Tactics for me.

PS, I actually love FF Tactics, the story, plotting, characters, and music are all excellent. I also love the Ogre Battle feel of the thing. I love how the game has built in companion material (the encyclopedia) and such. The game has mainly short music tracks, but some excellent ones.

Another great year.

Lot of fantastic sequels, Tomb Raider II, Quake II, Star Wars: Dark Forces II, Riven (Myst II).
P&C adventure gems like Blade Runner and Last Express.
Ultima Online, which put focus on MMORPGs.
Diablo, that single-handedly spawned certain type of aRPGs.
Fallout, my favourite game from that year, which redefined, both mechanically (opting to move away from standard D&D model, replacing it with something much more akin to Call of Cthulhu/Runequest/BRP D100 family of games), thematically and gameplay wise, what CRPGs are and got them closer to their tabletop counterparts when it comes to freedom of choices and how to tackle problems.

But ultimately, another game deserves my vote, for it was a perfect blend between RTS and Civilization, all in a gorgeous looking and sounding package - Age of Empires.

As much as I loved Panzer General, or Allied General even more, or even Pacific General, I have to admit I didn't care much for Panzer General II.

I'm guessing Talon Soft's East Front (and year later West Front) got to do a lot with it, since I found them more involving and evolved than PGII,

I was parallelly also shifting slowly more toward tactical level with Steel Panthers and later with Combat Mission games.

Symphony, easily. Absolute masterpiece.

Bond would be second.