Is one of the best selling games of all time leading the poll that weird?

Frankly the game is only as much of a "remake" as Metroid Prime Remastered. It reuses the codebase of the original and I'd personally consider it a remaster for that reason even in the graphics are obviously remade. Even some games that describe themselves as remasters like the Spyro Reignited and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy are closer to remakes since they redid all/most of the code from scratch.

I'm surprised.  I would have guessed more GoW love.  

My two fave games from that year are Xenoblade Torna and Fist of the North Star Lost Paradise. I liked Spider-Man. Smash was cool. Octopath is amazing. Just I am 80s anime fan and I love the Yakuza series. So a Yakuza FOTN was always going to win for me. Torna I liked it more than the main game. I loved Xenoblade 2 but Torna goes in some dark places I like.

And hearing this roaming the sands in my buggy along with classic SEGA arcade tunes is just so good.

I tried playing God of War. I couldn't force myself to keep playing after clearing Alfheim. I really, REALLY dislike the over the shoulder camera, the slow movement and stif control over Kratos. This in turn affects the combat very negatively, making it clunky to me.

I fail to see how it was so overwhelmingly well recieved. Does the sequel plays the same?

If you didn't like the first, I don't see how you would like the sequel.  

GOW first and Dead Cells second. Maybe SSBU third, though I'm not a huge fan of platform fighters.

Smash and GoW are currently the top 2 games.  I do think either of these games still has a good shot at winning.

Here are some things to consider with how we are doing things now vs. how Game of the Year awards are normally done.

1)  We are looking at these games 5 years later.  Smash Bros is the most evergreen title in the poll.  Other games may have had a bigger impact in 2018, but looking back, Smash is the possibly the game that has had the biggest impact looking at it five years later.  Smash is also the game from the poll that people are most likely to still be playing in 2023.

2) Normally games released in the last few months of the year are at a big disadvantage for receiving a Game of the Year Award.  Why?  Because fewer people have played the games that were released near the holidays.  One of my pet peeves about normal GOTY awards (such as the Geoff Keighly ones) is they happen too early.  The next Oscars are in March.  That is about the right time for an annual awards show.  If GOTY awards were in February or March then people would have the whole holiday season to play various games before making their decision.  In the case of Smash Bros, it released in December, which put it at a huge disadvantage for receiving awards (including awards in 2019, which is where some awards put it).

Thank you ^^