I recently watched an episode of the Kit and Krysta Podcast where they and Ben Starr gave their own versions of this list and it really got me to think about what I would include in mine, so I decided to spend some time narrowing down my own. Here's what I got!
These are presented in no particular order, because I don't really believe I have any meaningful way to "rank" these games against one another.

This game, in its original incarnation, was the first ROM hack I ever played. I'd never tried to emulate a game before, I didn't know how it worked and I was fairly intimidated by it. But Midnight Sun seemed so cool to me at the time that I still put in the effort to figure it out.
I was very little; in the end, it's nothing actually difficult or impressive, but Midnight Sun was what prompted me to try, despite my fear and ineptitude, and that is important enough to me. This snowballed into me growing to learn more and more English and discovering how ROM hacks are made and, therefore, a lot of computer science concepts as a whole. It all absolutely played a part in shaping my interests and steering me in a new direction that I'd never even known was possible for me.

As a story, its characters also mean a lot to me in general. I think there's always been something very special about them; perhaps it is a combination of me being trans, autistic and having had a difficult upbringing, but I could always relate to Fa and Shiori both, and the writing goes to great lengths in order to convey the full extent of how the two of them really feel about themselves and the world around them, as well as what their coping mechanisms are, keeping themselves at a distance from others.
It's stuck with me til now and it probably always will.

This is a bit of an odd one, perhaps, but it is here for very specific reasons.
I was gifted Pokémon Moon for my birthday by my classmates in school—I actually would've preferred Sun instead, but Moon is what they picked out for me and I was very glad that they had thought to do that for me at all.
I tried playing it, but the game wasn't hooking me as much as I'd have hoped... I got two or three islands in before I unconsciously put it aside in favor of other things that interested me more at the time.

Later that year, however, I met some friends who turned my life around completely. It was at the same time that I'd realized I was not straight and that I was able to finally get away from a complicated living situation, as well. It all sort of fell into place.
Those friends I'd met became my whole life for that summer and a long time thereafter. We spent all day talking to one another, and I finally felt free to really be myself around others. They understood me and accepted me and it was everything I could have possibly asked for at the time. I'm extremely glad I could meet them and love them dearly even now—Pokémon, and more specifically Sun & Moon, became one of the main mediums for us to hang out and interact even when we were not going out together, and this was what pushed me to continue playing the game and see it to completion.
I know Alola's generation was contentious for many fans, but to me, this shaped my entire experience with the game and I have only fond memories of it as a result. I spent hundreds of hours rediscovering my love for Pokémon and battling, all thanks to my wonderful friends. I don't think anything will ever quite be able to match that experience for me, which is why I cherish it so dearly.

Moreover, while Sun & Moon's story is far from perfect, its final section became something very meaningful to me, too. Lillie's journey resonated with me deeply; it was cathartic to see it play out in-game and it gave me a lot of hope. Likewise, I grew very fond of many other characters in Alola, as well, to the point where it's likely my favorite generation to this day.

If I could, I'd really pick the whole series for this, but that feels like a slight cop-out, so I forced myself to narrow it down to the essentials. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 honestly deserves to be here just as much as 2, but I picked 2 because of the massive personal impact it had on me.

For a year or so after the Switch released, I was not able to play any new videogames, as we didn't have the money to purchase an entirely new console, and I had to shift my focus elsewhere. In that year, a very close family member of mine passed away, leaving behind a giant void in my life. After the end of a really difficult school year, I had earned myself my first reward in a very long time: my Switch, alongside a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
I debated what I wanted my first game to be, since I knew I would have to stick with it for a very long time, but I chose to give Xenoblade another shot, since 1 and X had long been deeply important games to me by then. I wasn't really "online" at the time, so I'd barely watched the reveal trailer for the game and not much else. I went into it almost completely blind, with very few expectations beyond what my prior experiences with Xenoblade had set as a frame of reference.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 didn't quite hook me at first, but what I saw at the end of Chapter 1 convinced me that it was completely worth sticking with it regardless and see it through to the end. And I am so fucking glad that I did.
It ended up being the perfect game at the perfect time in my life. Turns out, I'd not quite gotten over that loss just yet, and 2 happened to be there for me at just the right time to help me process the grief. I was struggling with thoughts about our mortality, our legacy, our memory... I'd honestly grown quite pessimistic and jaded in that year, too. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 pulled me out of that hole and reassured me it'd all be okay.
It definitely still hurt. God, it fucking hurt so much. But, once again, it became a cathartic experience for me. It spoke to me on such a personal level that it far exceeded both 1 and X, which had already become part of my identity at the time—I would never have expected that to happen, especially not from a game I'd picked up with so few expectations at all.

Its influence has stuck with me since. Honestly, there is a moderate chance I may not be alive here today if not for what that game was able to do for me. It's thanks to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 that I could really become so close with Amy^[1], and that completely turned my life around. I think that says enough already.

I was unsure whether to have 999 for this one instead, but I chose to go with Virtue's Last Reward. Zero Escape was my childhood pick of "visual novel series about pseudoscience and mysteries to obsess over." I feel that I couldn't quite do the game justice right now, as it's been a very long time since I last replayed it in full, so I may be a bit brief, but here's what I'll say about it.

Its entire cast (yes, even Dio, somehow) has become one of my favorites in any work of fiction I've experienced. I love that these characters are all so fundamentally... human. They deceive; they hurt others; they are malicious; distrustful; they are warm; they are kind... they are all multi-faceted and you are shown both their best and worst sides throughout the entire game. I think my stand-out favorites might be Tenmyouji, Alice and Luna, but it's almost a running gag for me at this point that, whenever I play VLR with a friend and a new character is introduced, I go: "Hey, that's my favorite character!"—which is not even a lie, mind you, because they really all are, to some extent.
Zero Escape as a whole has definitely also shaped some of my more... let's say, "fringe" tastes and interests, as well as my sense of humor. I think most people could probably identify me as a Zero Escape fan without much difficulty, and that's for a reason. That's not even accounting for the damn name of my website, I mean. There's a reason I picked crashkeys, after all.

VLR is also a game that makes extremely interesting use of its mechanics for the sake of conveying a particular feeling to players. A lot of people complain that it feels repetitive, confusing, almost like a labyrinth—I do understand and share that sentiment, but it is by design and I just think that's so cool. They really threw me for a loop with this one.
I think the only game to come close to what VLR does for me is Your Turn To Die. I'd argue both are similar in their overall message, in fact. "Humanity" is one of the concepts at the core of both. Consider this my pitch for the two of them, then.

Shocker. I know.
I debated whether to pick Episode I for this spot, as it's the one that am the most fond of, among the three, because of its really subtle storytelling that only appreciates in value the more you revisit it with the added context from future games and other supplementary material.
However, Episode III is the definitive embodiment of all of "Xeno"'s values; values which made me fall in love with the series, present in all its games. Episode III is, to me, the place where they are felt at their strongest, alongside Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and its additional scenario, Future Redeemed.

There is genuinely so much I could say about Xenosaga and so many aspects of it. I will stick to quoting my one best pitch for it that I gave a friend of mine some time ago, as I think it best encapsulates all of the reasons it struck such a deep chord with me.

I also experienced the entire series with my wife, from start to finish.
I don't think I have to say much more than that. That probably conveys enough.

It feels weird for this to be the only official Fire Emblem game on the list, but I chose it over all others for a variety of reasons.
I've defended Engage's story and characters to death, so I don't think that bears repeating here. I find that most other Fire Emblem fans I see online have a very reductive view on it, polarized to either extreme, in a way that, to me, often misses the point.
I chose Engage because I think it matches the overall theme of many other games in this list (can you tell what kind of stories I like yet?). I also associate it with a specific time of my life; I have a lot of fond memories discussing the game with close friends, playing the finale together with them. It felt like a huge achievement and I was so happy to be joined by so many of them. That sort of thing does not happen often, so I was very glad people were willing to take aside the time to hang out with me at a symbolic moment in one of my favorite games of 2023.

I'll spare some words for the DLC campaign, the Fell Xenologue. Nil and Nel quickly became some of my favorite characters in the entire series, and I think that, if you can appreciate them and what they're about, you already have a very good grasp on my taste in fictional characters. Perhaps it's a bit cheesy to say, but some of their support conversations in the main game cut really deep for me. I've had some really bad days where I was starting to spiral down some very dangerous thought patterns, but thinking back to Nil and Nel and rewatching some of their dialogue was enough to pull be back. I think Engage would already earn its spot here on that basis alone.

Finally, the game as a whole is a good representative for the entire series. It brings together a lot from past entries and celebrates its legacy in a way that gives me a lot of joy. There's more Fire Emblem games than would even fit on this list to begin with, so Engage will do just fine for that.

This was one of the games I played exactly as I was coming to terms with my gender identity.
I don't think it can be overstated just how impactful the experience of meeting Shiki Misaki in that context was. It felt like every new in-game day was its own giant block of cement being paradropped straight onto my clueless egg head. And, more generally, being a closeted neurodivergent teen at the very beginning of a pandemic and with a lot of personal baggage yet to process, TWEWY helped me develop a new, more positive outlook on life and other people. It really is true that this game is extremely effective at getting its intended message across to its target audience.

Some time after I beat the original game, a sequel was announced and released. It felt like the universe personally patting me on the back—while NEO may not have been as influential of a game as its prequel could be, it still led me to a new community of friends I still speak with to this day. Nagi's Kinlist did a lot for me back when NEO released, and it uniquely enriched my experience with both games, to the point where I simply cannot view them the same way as before, anymore. TWEWY became an excuse for me to finally grow close to a lot of people I'd only barely been able to speak to until then—these are people who are still my dear friends today. To everyone in the Aquarium, even if we may have not met through TWEWY directly, please know that it was this experience that allowed me to be here today at all.

It's just a wonderful game out there, man. I don't know what else to add.

Silly to say given the point of the list, but this one is 100% self-indulgence. ASG is not a very well-known game, nor is it one I've been able to share with too many people in my life. But it is the game I most closely associate with one of the single most important people in my life now, and the connection I could establish with faer through it is enough for me.

I replayed the first game recently this year and it was an absolute blast. It is far from perfect, there's a lot of things to dislike about it, but it never fails to make me bawl like a baby by the end, somehow. It has a way of resonating with me very intensely, and that's enough.
GV, Joule and Lumen's relationship means so much to me, and I have never been able to stop thinking about Asimov ever since I first beat this game. It is very simple, yet it still left a mark with me through the right people at the right time.

I should mention that I also associate it very closely with some of the first online friends I ever had, other than just Mimi. If not for them, I definitely wouldn't have stuck around on Twitter or ever made my way over here, at all. I haven't spoken to Yara and Adrian in many years now, but I know they're doing fine and I'm sure they've made a lot of progress since then. I still owe them both a lot for what they did for me, and I'll always be grateful to them for it. I doubt they'd see ever see this, but, I wanted to immortalize it in writing somewhere. That's all.

I haven't played an Ace Attorney game since Spirits of Justice came out, and it's been so long since then. It's somewhat scary that so much time has passed, because it really doesn't feel like it, to me.
I chose Investigations for this list because it was my first-ever Ace Attorney game and I have a somewhat funny story around it.

When I was very little, I got really into Professor Layton for a while. My family wanted to buy me more "detective"-type games, so when they saw something with "INVESTIGATIONS" in the title while shopping for a Christmas gift to give me, they did not think twice before buying it.
However, at the time, I was a very very dumb dumb kid who barely knew a lick of English yet, and my family failed to notice that AAI was not available in a language I could natively understand. I remember being so excited to try it out, starting it for the first time and... whoops. It's all English. I could make out a few words, but really no more than that. I was a bit bummed out about it, and we later looked into returning the game, but the return period had already passed by then, so we were just kind of stuck with it. Investigations would therefore continue to sit in my library for many years to come.

Eventually, through a certain Let's Player I used to watch on Youtube, I discovered not only Fire Emblem but also a very interesting series of games called "Ace Attorney." I'd already long forgotten about AAI by then, mind you. But the videos were in my language, as the original trilogy and AJAA had all received official localizations in my territory, so I had no issue following along. Of course, AA1 case 2 introduces Edgeworth for the first time in the series, and that (as well as when first seeing Gumshoe) was when I realized—Wait a minute, I know these people! After a bit, I remembered where I knew them from. I tried playing Investigations again, and while I'd made some progress since the previous time I tried, I still couldn't quite understand the dialogue. Still, this felt like a very funny twist of fate to me, and I really loved what I was seeing of AA1, so I stuck with that Let's Play all the way until the end.

That whole experience, alongside what I mentioned with Midnight Sun before, is what eventually sparked me to try my hand at making my own Ace Attorney fangames. Records of this are still on the internet, but they're somewhat embarrassing, so I definitely won't tell you where to find them. Still, that forced me to exist in community spaces where English was the primary language, writing my games in English and getting English feedback from people. It was at this point that I finally learned enough to play AAI, and it was this experience that propelled my English knowledge way past what would have been reasonable for a kid at that age to have.
Now, couple that with the game development concepts I learned in the process, as I familiarized myself with Attorney Online and Pywright, and you can clearly see how it set me up so I could reach the point I'm at today... If not for my English knowledge, I would have never found an online community I could belong to, and I would have never met some of the most influential people in my whole life—not even some of my IRL friends!

I have a lot of love for Investigations' cast and story, even though I know it's somewhat contentious among Ace Attorney fans (and, honestly, overshadowed by how AAI2 seemingly is. I have yet to play it, which is probably a crime given what I've just said about its prequel, but hey. There's a time and place for everything!).
The last thing I'll say is very simple: Shih-na is extremely hot. I've no doubt that she awakened something in me as a kid before I ever knew it.

There's many games that could have taken this spot, but I chose Bravely Default over the alternatives because it represents a very unique combination of things important to me.
I first discovered the game when it was shown off on a Nintendo Direct for the 3DS. It seemed really cool, and I played a ton of the free demo for it, but I unfortunately never played it directly because I only had access to so many games every year, and I chose to purchase Omega Ruby over it when given the chance.
However, I still experienced the game in its entirety through a Let's Play of it around the same time I found out about Midnight Sun. In fact, the Youtuber who indirectly led me to Alfred Kamon and Midnight Sun was the very same person LP-ing Bravely Default! Funny how that worked out.

Anyways, the game was just about the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life by then. There's something so special about Default's world, its sidequests, its job system, its main party... I'd have a lot to say about it, but I think that would warrant its own very long post. But these were all the things that kept me hooked as a kid, even though I did not get to experience them first-hand.

Many years later, this game came back into my life when I recommended it to Mimi. At first, fae bounced off of it fairly quickly, but the second time we tried to play it together, it completely overtook us. Getting to replay it then, I was able to reevaluate a lot about it, and it quickly became clear just how much Agnès meant to me as a character. The entire game is structured around teaching her how important her own voice is, and how she should push to affirm her beliefs with others, no matter how difficult or scary it may be to do so. The main twist of the game is a major test of her ability to open up to and rely on others without feeling obscenely guilty for it, and for her to hold strong in the face of what is essentially her abuser.
Mimi and I both share a very deep love for this game now, and it means so much to me that I was able to nurture it together with bun—this is not something that happens often, which is why it is so special. Bravely Default is as much a reminder of my childhood as it is a symbol of my relationship to Amy, and it absolutely belongs on this list for it.

I never got around to playing Bravely Second as a kid, despite knowing about it, but I had my chance to experience it for the first time right after both Mimi and I finished Bravely Default. I love that game perhaps even more than I do Default, and I view it as the ideal videogame sequel. It is far from perfect, but acknowledging it can't be perfect is part of its identity, and I can say that playing its ending with Mimi was a surreal experience. It felt entirely tailor-made for us.
For that, both games will always have a place in my heart.

There are far too many games I'd love to include in the main list, but I tried my best to narrow it down to just ten of them.
Here's the remaining ones I deemed most worthy of mention, though:

If you know me, you probably already know why many of these are extremely special to me. I think I've said enough for the main ten and I'd like to leave these games for some other time, but suffice it to say that they are as meaningful to me as the rest—some in different ways than others, but meaningful nonetheless.
That's all!