Yakuza 0 was a 2015 game.

The funny thing is that I am not even sure which 1991 game that established a genre you are referring to.  There are arguably 3 in that poll.  And yes Zelda still won, lol.

But it was 2017 in the West. Most people on this forum live in the West so holding games like Persona 5 to Japanese dates when most didn't play it until it's also 2017 release date. There should be a regional distinction.

Ill stick with DS3. The highs in that game is just so great.

Sid Meier's Civilization, 4X genre. Honestly, not seeing any other game in 1991 poll being credited for spearheading a genre, other than CIV.

Street Fighter 2 established the fighting game as a genre.  It wasn't the first fighting game, but it was the first fighting game that really mattered.  Fighting games as a genre exploded in popularity after Street Fighter 2.

Final Fantasy IV established the story based JPRG as a genre, although only in the west.  In Japan, they would have played DQ 3 & 4 first, but outside of Japan, most RPG fans at the time experienced Final Fantasy IV as the first JRPG with a heavy narrative.

EDIT: Come to think of it Eye of the Beholder may qualify too.  It was an early Real Time, First Person Dungeon Crawler.  Not sure if they did it first or one of the Might and Magic games though.

From a cultural importance and for the phenomenon it was, Pokemon GO is the objective GOTY. But it goes against so many metrics of what people usually consider GOTY lol.

Anywoo, mine that year was ... Kirby: Planet Robobot. It's the pinnacle of 2D Kirby modern design, having one of the best rosters of abilities, an excellent techno/sci-fi aesthetics, soundtrack that sounds like any other in the series.

I know today people would want to direct people to The Forgotten Land first as it's 3D but Planet Robobot is the better Kirby experience personally.

Honestly, I consider it on the same pedestal of the 2D platformer genre as Super Mario 3, World, DKC 2/Tropical Freeze.
Kinda sad it got released such in a low key manner by Nintendo at the time towards the end years of the 3DS.

Hm, I don't know - I'd say that SF2 revitalized the genre - I grew up with Yie Are Kung Fu, The Way of the Exploding Fist, International Karate and similar games...SF2 was important in revitalizing and revolutionizing the genre, but I wouldn't say it established it.

Can't really comment on FFIV - JRPGs were already established genre by that time.

Eye of the Beholder is continuation of what Dungeon Master did 3 years before it. Actually, I remember Dungeon Master at the time was much more "oh wow" moment than Eye of Beholder in 1991, although being overall better game.

CIV was actually "my mind is blown" moment, especially if one has never been anywhere near boardgames, and not many were 4X to start with at that time.

It kind of depends on what you mean by "establish".  I consider Doom and Super Mario Bros to have established their respective genres even if they weren't the first FPS or 2D platformer.

The 2016 Game of the Year is Doom and the runner up is Dark Souls III.

Turns out that the write-in game took the prize this year.  The PC and PS4 versions only have a Metacritic score of 85.  This isn't bad, but it usually doesn't put a game in the Game of the Year range.  Looks like critics may have underrated Doom (2016).

Final Fantasy XV for me