Based solely on what was released that year, though I'll sheepishly admit I played several of these games within the last two years...2010 - Xenoblade Chronicles - The best original RPG on the Wii, this game was the highlight of the year and for the Wii in general for me. Fantastic game and I'm happy it's getting an HD remaster cause it could both use it, and I want more people to play it.2011 - Dark Souls - I was very late to the party on this one, but once I played it, I got hooked hard. Fantastic game that spawned probably one of the influential franchises of the last decade. It's honestly the most important game of the decade from a historical standpoint. 2012 - Journey - This was a slow year, but then this gem popped up to show us why the indie scene took off this decade. Great game and I'm still waiting for thatgamecompany to create a worthy follow up.2013 - Shin Megami Tensei IV - This year marked getting a 3DS for the first time as an anniversary gift from my GF. This was also a fantastic game to cut my teeth with on the 3DS as well. Great and underappreciated entry in the series. Its funny how we'll likely not see SMTV until the 2020s, continuing the series trend of having a mainline entry released once a decade.2014 - Dark Souls II - This was honestly a really slow year when I was going through the release lists. While certainly not the worst for me, I was happy to find an old friend here. DS2 gets a lot of flak from the fanbase, but its honestly a solid game that tried to be bigger and better than the colossal first entry. The fact it still boasts the most active and well respected PvP of the series is a testament to how it did get some things right.2015 - Bloodborne - This was actually a pretty stellar year in terms of releases, MGSV, Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Soma, New Tomb Raider. Still, I'm a fan boy and my favorite of the Souls-Like games was released this year. Bloodborne is such a fantastic game and my favorite From Software game to date. 2016 - Dark Souls 3 - I never realized how quickly From Software churned out these titles. DS3 marked the end of a franchise for this decade and what a way to end the series. I go back and forth between this and DS1 as my favorite of the Dark Souls series. 2017 - Persona 5 - I laugh that Google forgot to list this game in their quick viewer. This was probably my most anticipated game of the decade and it did not disappoint. It made turn based combat cool again and was infectiously stylish.


2018 - Secret of Mana - 2018 was probably one of the worst years for me gaming wise. Now granted, I do have the allegedly fantastic DQXI, but I haven't played it yet. So Secret of Mana kind of wins this by default despite being the worst entry on this list from a technical perspective. Still, I'm impressed how well the core game holds up and happy the game did well enough to convince SE to reinvest in the Mana franchise again. So win-win for me.
2019 - Death Stranding - This was another slow year for me where it seems like everything interesting came out towards the end. Death Stranding has been one of the kookiest mysteries in gaming ever since it was announced four years prior with the craziest trailers to confound the internet. I'm still not finished with it yet, but it has been a blast for me.