A favourite game per year since my birth year

A while ago I saw on Bear Blog someone who wrote a blog post with a favourite game at each year since they were born (I don't remember which blog now). I thought that the idea was interesting, and since I've turned 30 this year, I've decided to do this and choose a list with 30 games, but instead of just favourites, I am going to list games that impacted my life (expect a lot of MMORPGs since they were all of my teen years lol), and not necessarily games that I've played in the year they were released; otherwise, the list would be mostly empty.

I think that while the recent years (2019~) I didn't have a lot to choose from, mostly because my pc is old (so these titles may change in the future), in the older years it was hard to pick only one game, so that's why I choose the most impactful game of my life (not my only favourites though). That's the list:

• 1994 - Breath of Fire II [SNES]

I played this in 2013 using Zsnes, and the thing that I liked the most was the anime-like opening (the FFVI opera song is nothing compared to this). But I think that the song was added later by fans since I played on an emulator. Other cool stuff that I like about this game is that the protagonist Nina was a direct descendent of Nina and Ryu of the previous title; it has Katt on it; the houses have bathrooms! (I know that this is just a detail, but I never played a RPG where the houses had bathrooms before lol) and everyone in the party has a sort of transformation that changes their statuses and sprites. I don't remember much about this game, and I wanted to play the rest of the series, so it's on my list to replay soon. 

• 1995 - Chrono Trigger [SNES]

One of the best RPGS to the SNES ever! Also played in the Zsnes around 2009 and replayed in 2020. This game has everything: its story has comedy, romance, betrayal, time travel, dinosaurs, a post-apocalyptic world, magic, a mediaeval world, and more. The OST is amazing, my favourite songs are Yearnings of the Wind, Green Memories, Frog's Theme, Corridor of Time, and Schala's Theme. The pixel art is one of the best of the SNES era and one of my favourites, and in the gameplay, it doesn't have random encounters!

• 1996 - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars [SNES]

The famous Super Mario RPG that got a remake recently, which is unfortunately 3D, and literally the only Mario game that I've finished ever. I played it in 2013, also in Znes, and plan to replay soon. I think that this game doesn't need introductions; for me it's a fierce competitor with Chrono Trigger in the genre comedy (my favourite moment is when Mallow finds out that he isn't a tadpole), one of my top 10 in pixel art of the snes, and an overall cosy game.

• 1997* - Princess Maker 3 [PC]

The original PM3 was released in 1997 in Japan for Playstation and other consoles and never got an official English translation until 2017 when it was released for Steam and renamed as Princess Maker ~Faery Tales Come True~ and received some graphic changes. And even though I played the PC version, I am going to use the original release date. So for the game, it was the first game in the series that I've played (I also played this year, btw) and got me addicted to this series. I really liked how this game doesn't feature the mini-JRPG, the graphics, the animations where your daughter is studying/working, and the background story with her being a fairy. It's also my favourite game in the PM series.

* I am listing the original release date here, but I played the official translation that was released later. 0

• 1998 - Bloody Roar II [PS1]

One of the first games I played on the PS1 ever (probably in 2004~2005), the first game I've played in the series, and the first fighting game that I've played to the end (I remember clearly finishing twice each character's story but didn't save the date). To this day I was never into fighting games, but what I really liked in BRII was that each character had a transformation to a different animal (especially Uriko the half-beast cat) and a cool special power that I knew how to use because otherwise I'd just randomly smash buttons.

• 1999 - Legend of Mana [PS1]

Legend of Mana for me is one of the top 3 on my favourites, a highly nostalgic game that I've played as a kid when I didn't even know English (so I used a lot of printed walkthroughs), the beatable game that I've played and finished the most, my favourite game OST ever, and one of the best RPGs ever created by the industry. LOM is all that ♥ I think that, unfortunately, a lot of people don't recognise it's full potential, so the game is way less popular than it should be.

• 2000 - The Sims [PC]

Ah, The Sims ♥ this game actually changed my life because it had a big influence when I was choosing my College degree course. It is one of my favourite games (on the top 3, alongside LOM) and it's an endless sandbox game where you can add a bunch of CC and play the way you want to. The OST is also amazing, and beyond just listening to it regularly, it influenced me to start listening to jazz. I've first played this game when I was 8 or 9, so it probably had much more influence in my life than I can remember now, but I've talked much more about how I liked this game in my own shrine about The Sims series.

• 2001 - Zoo Tycoon [PC]

Zoo Tycoon is a zoo management game that I've think was heavily influenced by RollerCoaster Tycoon (not listed here). It had two EPs where you can have dinosaurs and marine animals and your zoo and one mini EP with extinct animals, and everything is bundled together in the Ultimate Collection, which I played. The game also features a modding community, and I had in mind writing a small tribute/game guide in this blog soon! Zoo Tycoon is a game that I played as a kid, and I don't even remember how I first played, but I loved that you could build your own zoo, and I'd drawn my own zoo or make one with my plastic animals when I couldn't play the game. I never managed to beat it until this last summer (it was December/January, btw).

• 2002 - Ragnarok Online [PC]

RO was the second MMO I've played ever and the second MMO that I've most played in my teen years. Originally, this game was P2P (pay subscription every month), but they would let you play for 2 weeks for free as a test period, and that was the first time I've played it. I chose the mage class but wanted to change class to dancer later, and I kept bothering players with a pet Isis because I thought that the pet was another player (I was totally clueless lol). Then, when they opened the f2p server (read freemium), I've played for a whole year until I've changed to an Asian private server (AeRO). At that time I barely knew English, and I thought that I was fine and that I could understand everything (jokes on me because I didn't know that the "A" in AeRO was an abbreviation for Asian, and most of the people there actually didn't know English either and were speaking in Filipino). Later I've played on a Brazilian private server named WodRO (Wod was an abbreviation for World of Darkness, which is something that angst-filled teens would totally do!). I tried to replay RO again 3 years ago on private servers, but the game isn't as popular as it used to be, and most of the servers are dead, unfortunately.

• 2003* - Priston Tale [PC]

Priston Tale, or just Priston in Brazil, was a Korean MMO, and I believed it wasn't as popular in the USA as RO was (and still is to some degree) and it was popular in my home country. Priston is a really old 3D MMO; you can't fly, jump, swim, or use mounts in the game, and the character creation is limited to choosing 3 preset faces, and that's it. The graphics can be seen as outdated today, but in 2007, it was sick! And I thought that it had the best graphics ever! I only played on the official server then moved on to another MMO, but I still think that Priston is different from most of the games I've played because: 1- the game didn't have races instead it had two factions, Morians (mostly magic-related classes) and Tempskrons (fighting-related classes), and each faction has 4 gender-blocked classes; 2- The game didn't have a cash shop even though it was f2p; 3- the game wasn't published by a random publishing company in my country instead of the famous Level Up! games.

* Grouvee cites this random date. Now that I've written, I'm not going to change lmao.

• 2004 - The Sims 2 [PC]

The Sims 2 is one of my favourites, the sequel that surpassed the predecessor, and I found it by chance. I still remember when I was a little kid and was browsing the sims stuff on the net when I stumbled upon a site that someone was posting their The Sims' 2 playthrough, and I thought that it was amazing because it was 3D and you could visit your neighbours (I thought you could at first). Then I consistently annoyed my parents to give me a TS2 as a present, and I got one on my 12-year-old birthday in 2006. It turned out that my PC didn't meet the minimum requirements to play it, and I had to wait hours for loading screens, but it didn't prevent me from playing and downloading a bunch of CC to my game (main CAS items).

• 2005 - The Sims 2 [PS2]

The Sims 2 from PS2 was a game that I didn't own but would frequently play with my cousin when I was a kid. I liked how we could control each sim with a controller and play with 2, but it had some problems: the houses were limited to 1 floor only, and if one player wanted to change the sim's appearance on the mirror, the other would have to wait (I also thought that the sims were really fugly). But this game is really nostalgic because I played a lot. I also loved the opening and the in-game radio music, and I loved that it had different levels where you would play (read as different houses that you sim would move). And I remember that my cousin said that we could visit other sims' homes after awhile in the game (but I never played enough for it to happen, so I don't know if it's possible).

• 2006 - Grand Chase [PC]

Grand Chase was a Korean MMO-like that closed its servers in 2015. I probably just started playing it because it was really popular in my country, but I continued playing because I really liked the difference between Grand Chase and the other MMOs I've played (read Priston and RO). In Grand Chase, you would choose a player character, instead of creating one, then go into side-scrolling dungeons with other players. To go in a dungeon, we had to create a room and wait for other players to join, but everything except the dungeons, as the game UI and the in-game maps were only the dungeons (I think that this system was similar to Gunbound, if you ever played it). I remember that people would choose one character to play, but I liked to play with all 3 of them, so I had to constantly suffer to make them gain levels and change classes. I liked how easy it was to form parties for the dungeons and to interact with other people, opposed to normal MMOS (it was also the first time when I met boys online that wouldn't believe that I was a girl playing lol).

• 2007 - Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock [PS2]

I remember when I first played a game of Guitar Hero. It was on my birthday. I was at an arcade; I played it with a guitar console and thought that it was awesome. Later I got the Guitar Hero III (I don't remember why this specifically since I didn't know neither the bands nor the music there lol), but I played it a lot until the point that I would see the in-game screen moving by its own from playing too much and I memorised most of the songs in the game that I could still spot a song that was in the game. I had even bought the in-game songs and played most of them (I don't remember now, but I probably finished the game 100% or got pretty close to it). I also had my own guitar controller that I got as a Christmas' present once. I still own it, but I don't know if it's still working because it's for PS2 only.

• 2008* - Perfect World [PC]

Perfect World is the game that defined my teen years! The game itself is just a 3D Chinese p2w MMO; its graphics are outdated by now, but at the time everyone thought that it was amazing, and I also love the OST and frequently listen to it (the OST also made me like traditional Chinese music). I played the game first on an American private server, then moved to the official server in my country when it was released, and I think that it was the first time that I played a MMO when the game was new and was recently released (the best time to play a MMO, by the way). And I would kinda gain levels alongside the rest of the players (I said kinda because I wasn't that addicted even though I played a lot, and my PC didn't meet the in-game requirements and my Internet was dial-up, so I had a lot of lag). I loved that in the game it had: 1- an advanced customisable character creator (it had a colour wheel for skin/hair/eyes colour and sliders for limbs/boobs/head size, etc., a lot of hairs and more options); 2- complete 3D world (we could rotate the camera to see the sky, the sea, sunsets, and sunrises); 3- we could fly, swim, run, jump, use mounts, and battle with monsters in the air and in the water (also failing from heights and swimming wouldn't give damage to your character); 4- amazing OST and beautiful scenery based on Chinese mythology (that now I love because of this game). I could go on and on talking about this game ♥ but this would make this paragraph too big, so I'm gonna end it here.

*I am listing here the NA release date.

• 2009 - The Sims 3 [PC]

The Sims 3, different from The Sims 2, was a game that I was aware was being made, and I was eagerly waiting for it to be released, though I could only play with it 5 years later because it wouldn't run on my PC (but I would frequently stay up-to-date with the news of new EPs and in-game worlds that were being released). I love this game because it is the perfect sandbox game; it is literally everything that I wanted for in the Sims game series and more that I could have wished for: 1- Open game world (including the ability to visit your neighbours that I wanted); 2- The Create-a-style, CASt tool, and colour wheel; 3- Fairies, mermaids, aliens, witches, futuristic servos (plumbots), horses, and a zillion of pets and collectible items; 4- A zillion of Buy/Build mode items, counting the EPs and EA store items; 5- young adults, traits, adjustable sims' lifespan, swimmable oceans and rivers; and much more that wouldn't fit in this paragraph. I could say that the only flaw in this game is that it was made by EA and has some game breaking bugs (we can fix them with mods, but this isn't the ideal).

• 2010 - Choice of the Vampire [PC/Android]

Choice of the Vampire is a text-only choice your own adventure game, by Choice Games, that you play as a vampire in 1815, USA. The game is free, and you can play it here (it lists as free only the first 2 volumes, and these are what I'm talking about since Choice of the Vampire and Choice of the Vampire: The Fall of Memphis used to be listed as two separate games, as far as I remember). The Choice Games company has a bunch of games like these, and you can even create your own game using their engine and sell it there, but Choice of the Vampire was the first game I played of them, and I really find the story amazing (even though I know nothing of the historical setting). The only problem is that the sequels aren't as good as it (I played The Fall of Memphis and hated it, so I don't even want to play the rest).

• 2011* - Prius Online/Arcane Saga [PC]

Prius was a really cool, underrated South Korean MMO that I found by chance (it was also the first time that I tried to connect to an MMO server and I couldn't because the server had been closed down lol). Later the game was retitled Arcane Saga and rereleased, but I don't know if the NA servers are still up. In Prius we could play as 3 characters, your character that you created in the beginning of the game, a Anima (that was a little fairy, she had her own skills and customisable clothing, hairstyles, and name), and Giga (a kind of golem/mecha-like that I don't know much about because I never got them in my game). The anima was cool because it was kind of like a healer pet that could talk to you (which was awesome because I played as a huntress). The game had 4 races: humans, elf-likes, lons (basically, female is a cat girl and males are more animal-like), and a siren-like, female-only race, and the classes were all gender blocked (male humans were mages and females were gunners, per example), but you could change between two classes at one point (I think it was level 15).

* I am listing the international release date here.

• 2012 - Forge of Empires [Browser]

Forge of Empires is a silly little, idle city-building, game that I got kind of addicted to in 2015 (I also played Elvenar more but couldn't fit it in this list). The gameplay is like a Facebook game, in that you have to wait for x minutes or pay for your buildings to produce things faster, and you can and in-game friends that you can visit their cities and both gain and git presents. The concept is of building the city around the ages, so you start in prehistory and go until the future, but the problem is that the devs probably didn't think this through because you spent too little time in the middle ages and jumped for the present too fast, so the only solution for then to add new content was to keep adding new kinds of future cities (which ruined the experience for me because playing in the past was the charm of it).

• 2013 - ArcheAge [PC]

ArcheAge is a f2p South Korean MMO that had an amazing concept but was killed by their greedy company owners. I played the game a lot with my boyfriend, and I really liked the game, despite being another generic 3D MMO; in fact, I think that the game is so cosy that I am listing it in my comfy games list in a new blog post that I'm writing. In ArcheAge, you can have your own plot of land/house where you can farm and raise animals to be used for crafting, and you can also own ships. But the problem is that all ownable land is paid with real life money, and they were all already occupied by the players of the CBT when the game was released. So I could only farm and raise animals at random parts of the map and hope that no one would steal them.

• 2014 - Banished [PC]

Banished is a city-building/survival game where you build a city in a mediaeval setting for people that were banished from other towns (as the name implies). I played this game in 2015, probably the closest of playing a game in the year that it was released (in this list), and I really liked and played until I got bored with it. I think that I played through all scenarios (if they're called scenarios in this game, I don't remember) and stopped because there wasn't anything new for me to do. It's a flaw that this game is short, but it's also forgivable since it was made by a one-person team.

• 2015 - Style Savvy: Fashion Forward [3DS]

Style Savvy is a series of games where you play as a boutique owner in a mix of simulation, tycoon, and visual-novel like. This was the first game that I played in the Style Savvy series, and after this I played all of them. It's also my favourite in the series since I could also decorate the dollhouse; the story is the best, and the characters are the most charismatic. Also one of the few games that I've finished more than once.

• 2016 - Stardew Valley [PC]

This game has a cult following, so I don't need to introduce it. Another game that I liked and played a lot until I got bored, then I tried playing with mods (I've even created an account on a mod site for this), then I got bored and dropped without finishing and waiting for the grandpa's visit in the 4th year. I think that the game could be better if I could play using the mouse to control my farmer and to decorate my house (instead of having to manually place everything) and without the fishing mini-game (I hated it and even downloaded a mod to remove it lol). But I still love the game's OST and still listen to it to this day.

• 2017 - Style Savvy: Styling Star [3DS]

The last game in the series and my second favourite. The graphics and clothing are understandable the best looking of all the series (and they also removed the sporty brand, which I disliked). There is a nail art salon, and you could design the clothing of 3 different idols; otherwise, I don't remember much of it since it has been a while since I played it (it's probably time to replay it).

• 2018 - Graveyard Keeper [PC]

A weird farming sim where you're isekaied into a mediaeval world and have to work as a graveyard keeper (as the title says), also farm, craft, and steal stuff from dead bodies (!!) I found this game while searching for games similar to Stardew Valley, but unfortunately I couldn't play it too much because it kept turning off my monitor (because of my broken GPU), so I meant to play it when I get a new PC. Surprisingly, the graphics are kinda cute for a game this morbid.

• 2019 - BaBa is You [PC]

BaBa is You is a puzzle indie game with simple graphics where you play as a white animal named BaBa and other characters and solve puzzles pushing/pulling named boxes until you get on the something is win. The game is fun, and I loved the concept. I played consistently until I realised something: the game has a huge flaw. Since it's a puzzle, you can try different solutions for each level, but after awhile in the game, each level has only one solution, the solution that the devs thought was right, and I have to somehow enter their mind to discover it, which is stupid a heck and ruin all the fun of it, and that isn't how puzzles are supposed to work. So I dropped the game, but I am still listing it here because I've got no other game to list (and I also have some fun with it).

• 2020 - KingSim [PC]

KingSim is a choice matters kingdom sim game where you play as the king while trying to equilibrate your resources (army, food, money, etc.) and survive for two weeks (the duration of the game). I thought that this game was surprisingly fun, and the minimalistic pixel art and music are its charming points. The only problem is that the game is short, and after finishing it I could only replay to try different ways to get killed, but, is another game that was made by one person, so it's understandable. I only wished that the game got more popular when it was released so the dev could have added more content to it (compared to another choice matters kingdom sim game that I've played that only pretends to be choice matters and it's mostly a visual novel with fugly minimalistic pixel art).

• 2021 - Unpacking [PC]

Unpacking is a game that I found at random when I was sick back in 2022. It's a really charming game with cute pixel art where you can organise stuff in boxes in their correct places (that's how I saw it). But unfortunately it's a case of selling an "experience" instead of a game, and the game has some silly story or whatever about some woman moving houses (I legit didn't notice until the ending screen), so the game is too short. I have mixed feelings with this game because I really liked the concept of organising a house (I already do this in real life, so having a game about this is amazing), and I wished that the game was in a format similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon where there are different scenarios that you beat instead of the way the game is. I'm still looking for Unpacking clones with this idea but couldn't find anything.

• 2022 - A Castle full of cats [PC]

• 2023 - An Arcade full of cats [PC]

A series of silly little hidden object games (Where's Waldo? style). I already made a review of them on my cat media reviews page.

• 2024 - Ragnarok Origin: Beyond Ragnarok [Android]

Not the best game to list here, but the year didn't end yet and I didn't have any other game to add, so this is it. Ragnarok Origin is another mobile version of Ragnarok Online (I am saying another one because there is a bunch of them). Overall, the 3D models are cute, and the class outfits are loyal to the original game. The OST is good and nostalgic, and there are a lot of quests and stuff to do with groups and guilds, but it suffers the same thing as the other mobile games. Unfortunately, is a gacha game and p2w (this wasn't a problem in other PC MMOs if everyone wasn't so competitive in this game), the UI is horrible and you can barely see anything (and the PC version has the mobile UI), the game plays by itself, it showers you with gifts left and right that you get confused about which is valuable and which is not, and it's a nightmare to use the in-game chat while playing. Aside from this, I've had some fun while playing it.