Inspired (re: blatantly stolen) from yokofox's blog, I decided to do my own list.

10. Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-revis

I must warn you that my top ten usually changes from time to time. Anyway, Mana Khemia is a fantastic PS2 RPG from the people who did Atelier Iris. The characters are lovable, the story...takes a long time to get off the ground, and the gameplay is superb. It's a traditional RPG that does everything right. I think the only copy you can get over here is the Special Edition which comes with fantastic music.

9. Team Fortress 2

I'm going to be honest - I'm not comfortable with this game being in my top ten. It's an odd thing to do, put something you don't want to put in your top ten in your top ten, but I felt that it had to be just on principle. See: I got TF2 on launch and since then I have clocked 482.7 hours on this game. That's just over 20 days of straight playing. It's an awesome game, don't get me wrong, but it is entirely defined by it's community as is any other multiplayer. The characters are nicely balanced and it took long enough to have levels that weren't A) completely symmetrical and B) not set in the desert, but without the awesome people who play it it wouldn't be the same.

8. Broken Sword I & II

My point n click addiction wouldn't have been complete without the first two Broken Swords. George Stobbart, a more eloquently spoken MacGuyver, slueths his way across the globe uncovering mysteries and conspiracies that would have any 9/11 conspiracists tin-foil hats spin. Beautifully presented and more logical puzzles (as far as point n clicks usually go) made this game a must have.

7. Grandia

Originally released on the Saturn but later ported to PSone, Grandia is another fantastic RPG (I know this list is dominated by them). The story, characters and a battle system similar to Skies of Arcadia made this game an absolute gem to play. Justin and Feena make a very cute couple, and I almost never say that about a game. It's out on the PSN in Japan, so I'm hoping they'll do the same here too.

6. Pokemon Ruby

Yup, I a Pokemon fan. When I first got a GameBoy the first game I got was Pokemon Yellow, but I feel that Ruby & Sapphire were perfect followers from the old GameBoy games. The graphics were upped and the number of Pokemon increased 3-fold. I think Pokemon really primed me for a life of learning and memorising. I used to be able to remember all 386 Pokemon, where they were most prominant and what moves were best for their strengths/weaknesses. Once you do something like that, learning 208 kanas for Japanese seems like a breeze.

5. Valkyria Chronicles

Most, if not all, games released on the next-gen consoles have felt rather...soulless to me. The focus is more on fancy whizbangs and shafting the single player in favour of cookie-cutter multiplayer mode. Valkyria Chronicles waded in like a Trekkie at a chav convention - completed unafraid to be different. With nary a multiplayer mode in sight, VC effortlessly combined the turn-based strategy of Advance Wars with third person shooting and stuck in a fantastic storyline along with some fantastic characters. Oh, and did I mention it looks absolutely stunning?

4. Sonic 3 & Knuckles

How do you make the greatest platformers of all time better? Why, you shove it on top of the second best, of course!

3. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

The Monkey Island series is without a doubt the most successful series in my eyes. I really don't count the new episodic ones (yet) as I haven't played them (yet) and they weren't made by LucasArts Funny-Clever Department. The series barrage of jokes don't feel forced and come across like the funny guy you know at the pub - laid back and just has a good time making people laugh their socks off.

2. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 & 4

I couldn't decide which Persona I loved the most, so I went with both. I feel that they both balance each other out. Whereas Persona 4 has more charm and better characters, I feel that Persona 3 had a huge leap on the storyline. Both games play out in similar ways - during the day you're at school in a semi-dating sim where you make and progress friendships and during the night (or after school in general) you're exploring an alternate reality infested with monsters. Perhaps one thing that made the game closer to my heart was it's connections with Jungian Psychology.

1. Final Fantasy VII

Possibly one of the most cliched number 1's but it certainly deserves it. FFVII was the game that got me through high school. Until I discovered what "format memory card" meant, I had about 4-5 separate game saves each with around 300 hours invested. I would have different teams and ensure everyone had at least one of the Master Materia's. This game is the pinnacle of gaming, in all honesty. It crammed in more in those three CD-ROMs than any BluRay has shown me. Let's put it this way - the downloaded copy of FFVII I got off the PSN Store is 1.4GBs...the Batman: Arkham Asylum demo is around 1.7GBs and is finished in less than an hour. Nothing has come close to RPG perfection than FFVII has, in my opinion.