As I've mentioned before, Digital Foundry's John Linneman has sort of similar taste to mine, in the sense that he's continuously leaping between old games and new. That said, I'd have a difficult time putting together a list like this-- nothing I've played in 2018 really leaps out to me as being worthy of any kind of special praise.

For fun, I sorted my reviews in the database, in descending order. This the closest I can come up with to a "best new (for me) games I've played in the past year":

1. Knuckles' Chaotix - 32X, 1995
2. Daytona USA - Saturn, 1995
3. Sonic Chaos - Game Gear, 1993
4. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Switch, 2018
5. Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 - Windows, 2018

It's all sort of a reach though; other than maybe the first two-- and possibly the third-- I don't how many of these games I'll still be interested in playing even a year from now, much less twenty or thirty years later, like I still do so many other titles from the 80s and 90s.

Some of the games on Linneman's list-- like the icon-strewn "I'd rather be directing a movie but I'm not talented enough" open world releases, such as "Spiderman"-- give me a headache just by catching a glimpse of their maps. Mega Man 11 is more up my alley, but that series has never really "clicked" with me; I didn't play them as kids (didn't own an NES), so there's no "nostalgia factor" for me with them either.

One game I should try is the new "Monster World" release, although I'm not a big fan of the vector-lookalike, "Flash"-style, "look ma, no pixels!" art direction that's so common in 2d games these days.