They might not be necessarily your favourites, or you might not consider them best (though on both accounts you might), but what are your Top (insert number) games that formed your gaming taste and made you gamer that you are today?

Starwing (Starfox) on SNES was the first game I ever played, and as such laid the foundation for my life as a gamer with its focus on arcade action and simple but addictive gameplay.

Ocarina of Time was one of the games I got with my N64 in 1998, and set my standards for action adventure games and blockbuster games in general to this day.

- SSBMelee, Pikmin, SFAdventures: games I played a ton growing up.
- Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure: shaped my gaming tastes during late-childhood/early-teenage years.
- BotW, SMOdyssey: completely revolutionized my tastes in gaming.
- Majora’s Mask: brought an end to a three-year-long gaming slump I was stuck in (from the launch of Pokémon SwSh through December 2022).
- TotK: Most played game. Cemented my gaming slump as being a thing of the past. Also helped immensely getting through a rough patch in my life (early college years).

In order of appearance.

Super Mario Bros 3 - Started my gaming life. No game have been as influential for me. My benchmark for any platformer. Short but intense levels. Secrets in abundance. Perfect controls. The first game I remember playing. Probably have played it at least once a year since I was 5 (am currently 38). SMB 3 is always a good time. Most any of the big Mario games could have that effect I think depending on when you started gaming. 

The Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past - Zelda was from the release of this game until the release of BotW my favorite series. The reveal of the Dark World was such a moment. The puzzles going back and forth between the worlds feels like it opened my brain towards new ways of thinking, a feeling only Portal have replicated for me again. Each action adventure with focus on items is compared to this game. And I even consider many of the 3D Zelda games to be a copy of this game instead of the almost equally excellent Ocarina of Time

Heroes of might and Magic II - Turn based strategy had not felt this grand before. Today I Heroes of might and Magic prefer the superior third game, but it was the second heroes of might and magic that sparked the joy of resource handling and careful planning that I like. Later the first western release of Fire Emblem and the Advance Wars games would give my handheld turn based fix. 

Diablo - Going down down down. The first game that got my heart pumping out of fearful excitement. Randomly generated levels and variety in quests and enemies made replays able to surprise again and again. What is generated is what you get, making me want to check every barrel and corner if I missed something. Diablo is responsible for making consequence, that your acts actually feel like they matter, almost a most have in any game for me. No action RPG has yet to live up to that. Diablo still stands. 

Warcraft 3 - I had played several different real time strategy games before like Warcraft 2 and Starcraft. Both of them I sort of prefer for the RTS gameplay. But the custom games of warcraft 3 spawned so many new type of game genres that I love, auto battlers, tower defense, mobas ect. Just massive influence for my gaming taste can be traced to this game. The sound effects of Warcraft 3 is probably my favorite in any game. Units lines are still used by me almost unknowingly every other day and whenever I listen to a music track from the game I get reminded of how great it is, something I did not appreciate enough back when I started to play it. It was also the first PC game I bought. 

Another Code Two Memories - Uncover all secrets for a happier ending. Sparked new life for adventure games for me. The goal is sort of to experience as much of the story as there is. Visited a lot of older adventure games, mainly from Lucas arts, after this one. Sure they had their charm and was very funny at times but only Hotel Dusk and the Ace Attorney games gave me the same feeling of discovering the story.

Resident Evil 4 - I had tried a few games before this where guns was a major part of the gameplay, but this is the first game with that element that I like. The first game with a high recommended age. Another game that really got my blood pumping. Less run away and more action. The gameplay design is so well done that pretty much all parts of the game feel fun to play through. I play this and want to replay it at the same time. Only surpassed by the RE4 remake and sort of matched with the more story-focused the Last of Us. 

The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim - This game pretty much both got me into and killed the game type of choose your own adventure open world thing. One of my least liked type of game after sports and FPS. I liked Skyrim. I liked just going around anywhere, doing anything. Maybe finish a quest here and there. I played it a lot. But open world for me is a sandbox missing what has become my most important part of games I like, consequence. It is less at fault compared to many other games where units respawn all the time, but all games that I think of as "like Skyrim" lack any sense of urgency or that what I do matter. Horizon, Elden Ring, BotW and whatever other game that I put in that category is sorted away for me. I have Skyrim to thank or curse for that. 

OK, since it seems to be quiet around here, I'll go:

The Hobbit ('82) - This was my introduction to "games can be different from arcades". As arcade gamer in those years, this game was very strange for me (played it first on ZX at my friends) - it had text parser, with which you were inputting commands and interacting with world, but under the hood, the world clock was ticking, so some things and NPCs were dynamic. This was my beginning of love for adventure games and adventuring.

Montezuma's Revenge ('84) - Action-adventure/platformer/proto Metroidvania in which you're exploring a pyramid. I loved platforming in Donkey Kong in arcades, and this is game that continued platforming in the direction I preferred, toward exploration/puzzle platformers and Metroidvanias, instead of later more...popular...approaches to platforming.

Elite ('84) - 3D graphics? Check. Open world? Check. Open-ended gameplay? Check. Physics based Space-Sim? Check. Trading with functioning economic engine? Check. This is probably THE game my teenage mind was most blown away, and went on to be one of games that most influenced how I look at and what I expect of the open-ended games.

Theatre Europe or Kampfgruppe ('85) - I'm not sure which one of these two, though I'm pretty certain I played some war strategy before that, but these I remember. as games that made me stop playing chess (which I was really good at) and turning completely to war strategies, which was (and still is)  one of my favourite genres.

Ultima (early 80s) - This is actually representative stand-in for something adjacent (given that it took everything from it) - while I played RPGs on computers, my first exposure to RPGs was through pen&paper RPGs in early 80s. This has pretty much defined how I look at lot of games (not just RPGs), what I expect from RPGs and what I even consider to be an RPG.

EDIT:

Honorable mentions:

Battlezone (1980) - This Atari's arcade cabinet was THE reason I fell in love with first person 3D (which carried on in my later love for Elite) - at the time where everything was sprite based, Atari was very innovative and had quite a few vector based games, with Battlezone, a tank combat arcade "simulator", being their entry into 3D. And while I've spend much more time eventually in their Star Wars cabinet that build upon it, Battlezone has opened my eyes to how different gaming can be from then standard 2D approach.

SimCity (1989) - Game that sort of is not a game, but more of a building project with goals that you set for yourself. I think this was the first game of that type I've played, I loved it and although I fell out of the genre by late 90s/early 00s (I think Pharaoh was last game I've played), the very foundation of that "building something as game" approach goes into multiple other genres and games that are my favourites (Kerbal Space Program being prime example).

Donkey Kong Country: Set new standards for the visual and musical presentation I had experienced in a video game, and one of my first platformers.

Super Mario World: Another one of my earliest platformer experiences, standard setter in terms of pinpoint controls and game feel.

Banjo Kazooie: Also came with my N64 in 1998, blew my mind with its rich detailed 3D worlds and made me a fan of 3D platformers/"collectathons"

Platform Genre - Super Mario All-stars + World, DK Country 3, Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, Space Station: Silicon Valley, Sonic the Hedgehog, Alex Kid in Miracle World, Bubble Bobble, Sonic Adventure.
Survival Horror - Alone in the Dark (Original) Resident Evil 1, 2, 3, 1 remake, 0.
Open World (& pseudo Open World) - Zelda: Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, OoT, MM, Fallout 3 Red Dead Redemption, Infamous 1 & 2, N64 Platformers with overworlds.
AAA - Resident Evil 4, 5, Metal Gear Solid 4, The Last of Us.
JRPG - Terranigma, Tales of Symphonia, FF7 & traditional 3D Zeldas.
Puzzle - Tetris (Gameboy), Kirby's Ghost Trap ('Kirby's Avalanche' in America), The Logical Journey of the Zoombinies, Lemmings.
Simulation - Animal Crossing, The Sims
Metroidvania - Metroid Prime, Also the traditional 3D Zeldas, Resident Evils & N64 Platforms with overworlds.
Creative - Chuchu Rocket, Minecraft, Lemmings.
Strategy - Command and Conquer, Worms, Fire Emblem (GBA).
Party - Warioware Inc (GameCube).
VR - Resident Evil 7, Intruders Hide and seek, Wipeout Omega Collection.
Fighting - Soul Calibur 2, Tekken, Super Smash Bros Melee, Streets of Rage.
Action - Revenge of Shinobi, Castlevania 64, Samurai Jack (GameCube), Devil May Cry 4, Metal Gear Solid Rising: Revengence.
Racing - Carmageddon 64, Star Wars Episode 1/Pod Racer, Various Mario Karts, F-Zero GX, Wipeout Omega Collection.
FPS - Doom.
MMO - Xenimus.
MOBA - League of Legends.
Battle Royale - Kirby Air Ride

I've went on a bit of a tangent... again. I thought it would be easier to list them per genre, but some genres have had a split influence.

Probably mid 80s to early 1990s. Although, I believe that I still have some "formative" years ahead, as my tastes are still developing.

Faxanadu
Super Mario Bros 1 & 3
Sid Meier's Civilization
SimCity
Legend of Zelda 1 & 2
Metroid
Final Fantasy Legend/Saga 2

Gameboy was a big part of my upbringing, when my family travelled (which was often) there was often little for the kids to do except read and stare out windows... or be very disruptive. It was probably as soon as Gameboy came out that they got us all gameboys. So, that's how I one day found myself in a foreign city, in a foreign country, on a foreign continent, up on the 5th or 6th floor of a hotel with this shiny new game: Final Fantasy Legend 2. It might have been the first RPG I ever played, certainly the first one I ever finished... not counting Legend of Zelda 2 or Faxanadu, which I'm sure I finished first.

Faxanadu is more a side scrolling adventure similar to Castlevania 2 in the Xanadu branch of the Dragon Slayer franchise, which also includes the Trails series. For those who played Xenoblade Chronicles, the game is largely similar to Faxanadu where it features two vertical worlds connecting near the top, and they're at war with each other because of control by an ancient evil.

So yeah, I was drawn to open world structured games, sandboxes, and RPG/adventures from very early on.

And the platformers? Those were the top genre of the 8 and 16 bit generations. But declined rapidly in popularity during the 3D era because of slower pacing, reduction to single player focus, and camera problems. As big as 3D platformers were in the PSX and PS2 generations, they were a shadow of what they had been.

Here's my list:

• Cities: Skylines - I've played a lot of Cities: Skylines and Cities: Skylines II along the years now - in fact so much that it's impossible to not mention the first one here. It's a relatively fresh formative game, but it's such a strong effect
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert - I really enjoy strategy games. I don't particularly enjoy real-time strategy games anymore, but regardless, Red Alert is probably the game that really made be interested in strategy games. I guess I must've always had a natural tendency for them, and Red Alert probably just exposed it. Still, I feel like it's worth mentioning.
• Crash Bandicoot 3 - How could a kid see a Crash 3 trailer and not be enticed by it? It was the first Crash game that I got first instead after seeing a Crash 3 trailer, but Crash 3 still gets the credit.
• Dynasty Warriors 2 - I don't like how mindless Dynasty Warriors has become. I used to enjoy the aspect of feeling like a powerful general, a leader of sorts, rather than just a superhero or whatever. Still, that idea lingers in my mind, giving me ideas and making me seek out games that never seem to realize. And I still keep an eye out for all Dynasty Warriors games and some other Warriors games as well.
• Final Fantasy X - I played Final Fantasy VIII first, and it was fun, but it wasn't really formative. Then I encountered Final Fantasy X, and just wow. I'm not sure what to even say.
• Metal Gear Solid - I'm not actually even sure why I learned to like the game in the first place. I guess I must've been stubborn because of the game's reputation, but I'm not sure how much I was actually able to appreciate the stealth gameplay and the story as a kid with flawed understanding of English. Still, I did eventually. My appreciation of stealth and somewhat tactical gameplay probably originates from Metal Gear Solid, and together with Final Fantasy X it probably made be particularly appreciative of games with a particularly notable story element.
• Spear of Destiny - Shooters are great, at least to some extent. My appreciation of them probably comes from this sequel to Wolfenstein 3D. Doom is great too, but I never liked the somewhat floatly controls and the setting/visual design as much.
• Titan Quest - Diablo 2 was great, but Titan Quest was even greater and cemented my interest in the genre and probably RPGs too, at least to an extent. I probably can't attribute all of my strong RPG interest to just Titan Quest and Diablo 2 before it, but Titan Quest is probably the most deserving of a mention for me.

There's also a couple I almost included in my actual list but decided against:

• osu! - Kinda like Cities: Skylines, except it wasn't really formative. I've played it a ridiculous amount, and it has somewhat opened me up to other rhythm games, but it's still essentially the only rhythm game I've played.
• Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory - This is probably the main reason I'm still at all interested in online PvP, despite generally not playing any. I just can't ignore this game, despite it not really having any tangible effect in the end.

Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Sim City, Super Mario Kart, Final Fantasy VII, Zelda: OoT, NHL (SNES), NBA Live, Super Mario 64, Wolfenstein (PC), Donkey Kong Country