Favorite gaming series

[Ronnie]

Could be a top 1, 5, 10, whatever. Just name some game series you're really fond of. Are any of these series something you'd get a game of on day 1 with confidence?

My favorite series would be Pokémon, Street Fighter, Smash Bros., Gravity Rush, and Senran Kagura. Pokémon and Smash Bros. are the series where I can comfortably pre-order a game day 1.

[Armagon]

My top 5

• #5. The Legend of Zelda
• #4. Super Smash Bros
• #3. Azure Striker Gunvolt
• #2. Xenoblade Chronicles
• #1. Fire Emblem

[Dandy Druid]

My top 5 would probably have to be:

#5 Dynasty Warriors series

#4  Legend of Zelda

#3 Rune Factory

#2 Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons

#1 Fire Emblem

For standalone games that don't really have a series, The Last Story and Little King's Story are some of my faves.

For companies, I really dig how Vanillaware does their games. I'm waiting for more info on 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.

[Slumber]

I'll try to limit these to franchises that have at least 4 entries.

My top 10, in no particular order:

Resident Evil, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, Souls(Including Bloodborne), Mario, Burnout, Ratchet and Clank, Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda.

Dishonorable mentions:

Mass Effect - Would have been up there, but there are a lot about 2 and 3 that I'm not a huge fan of, despite still really liking those games, and Andromeda is a trash fire. Just... absolutely destroyed my interest in the franchise going forward. It makes it hard to go back to those, too, knowing what follows. One of the biggest missteps I've ever seen in AAA gaming.

Devil May Cry - Really like 3 and 4, but 2 is just bad and DmC is all sorts of tasteless, even for a series that didn't really have much in the sense of good taste in the first place. 1's good, but I have a hard time going back to it.

Fallout - Love 2 and New Vegas to bits, but the Bethesda developed ones leave a bad taste in my mouth. They're so... stiff, linear and poorly written, when my love of 2 and NV come from how open and unpredictable they are. Doesn't help that Bethesda has been struggling with how to make RPG mechanics and systems in games pretty much ever since Fallout 3, which is a problem when the franchise is so much an RPG franchise.

Halo - Love 1, 2 and 3, but Reach was a turning point. Wasn't big on Reach's story or multiplayer. 4 had a decent campaign, but probably the worst multiplayer in the franchise. 5 had GREAT multiplayer, but the single player was so dreadful that even with 4 player co-op I had no motivation to finish it. It's a franchise that has struggled to pull me in for the last 3 entries.

Resident Evil nearly made it to the dishonorable mentions. 0 and 6 have some baffling design decisions that make it really hard to enjoy them. And not to mention the five thousand awful spin-offs. But 7 and the Revelations games have done a lot to salvage the Resident Evil series for me in recent years.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Slumber

[Rex Glacies]

Sorry Fire Emblem, but Zelda is and shall always be my one true gaming love. Er, the series. Not the princess.

Second place is Pokemon; though I am kinda falling out of the series by now. I mean, it's still fun, but not as fun as it used to be for some reason.

Next is likely Fire Emblem. Good series. I mean, why would I be on here if I didn't like it?

Forth is Mario. Always fun; though it's more fun with multiple people playing (depending on the games) so I haven't been playing it as much lately.

And then Xenoblade. Awesome series; the only reason it isn't higher is by virtue of there being only 2 games to judge it so far.

I'm not really willing to get a game on day 1 release for any of them save Pokemon, which I've done numerous times.

[Azure Sen]

Top ten because I can't narrow it down. 

Series must have at least three games to qualify as a proper series for me, and generally speaking good titles carry more weight than bad titles do, so if the number of titles I liked in the series is 1:2 to the number of titles I disliked, I'll still count it. Similarly, as long as I've played at least three games I've liked in the series even if I haven't played them all, I'll still count it.

• #10: Danganronpa 
• #9: Romance of the Three Kingdoms/Nobunaga's Ambition
• #8: Resident Evil
• #7: Devil May Cry
• #6: Fire Emblem
• #5: Persona
• #4: Pokémon
• #3: Silent Hill
• #2: Shin Megami Tensei
• #1: Fallout

Honorable mentions: Zelda, Mario, Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, Civilization, Ys, Legend of Heroes, Saints Row, Final Fantasy, Dead Rising, Metal Gear, The Elder Scrolls, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, Soulsbourne

Technically don't qualify but I'll still mention positively: Azure Striker Gunvolt, Dishonored, Half-Minute Hero, Portal, Hatoful Boyfriend

[Slumber]

2 minutes ago, Azure Sen said:

• #10: Danganronpa 
• #9: Romance of the Three Kingdoms/Nobunaga's Ambition
• #8: Resident Evil
• #7: Devil May Cry
• #6: Fire Emblem
• #5: Persona
• #4: Pokémon
• #3: Silent Hill
• #2: Shin Megami Tensei
• #1: Fallout

Hey, that's cheating.

[Azure Sen]

4 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Hey, that's cheating.

Drat, I have been caught.

Honestly, though, I feel like Persona has diverged enough in content, tone and to some extent audience to be considered a separate series, even just counting the post-2 titles. For the record, if I did count them as one large entry, then everything before Persona would move up a rank, and Metal Gear would take the #10 spot.

[Slumber]

Just now, Azure Sen said:

Drat, I have been caught.

Honestly, though, I feel like Persona has diverged enough in content, tone and to some extent audience to be considered a separate series, even just counting the post-2 titles. For the record, if I did count them as one large entry, then everything before Persona would move up a rank, and Metal Gear would take the #10 spot.

5 kinda brought it back to its SMT roots. Which is weird, because it still feels like an evolution of the Persona 3/4 style Persona games. Tonally it's still different, but content and gameplay seem to be going back to SMT proper.

[eclipse]

In no particular order:

1. Several different Bemani series.  I like the music!
2. The Trails series, because it's closer to a novel than anything.
3. Fire Emblem, because I'm a mod here.
4. Still a sucker for Final Fantasy, even if the stories are becoming TOO complicated.
5. Where's the Etrian Odyssey love? 

[Reality]

I guess it's been 2 months since "series that prioritize your backlog" and all the "what would you like sequels for" threads technically apply to one-off games as much as series.

Anyway, uh. I have lots of stuff.

Donkey Kong -Country gets preferential treatment, but I'm not going to lie about  loving  Jungle Beat, 64,  and the Mario vs Donkey Kong puzzle games as well

Rayman-  Few bad entries 2d or 3d, and even a lot of the spin offs are fun. I find that the way that the triggers are used with collapsing levels makes Rayman Origins/Legends much more MP friendly than other modern co-op Platform games.

Twisted Metal- There are lots of TM games with problems, and heck, I prefer rival series Vigilante 8/Second Offense over the 5th gen games. Bu I adore the car-combat sub-genre that the series stands for, and TM: Black, and TM: 2012, ARE the kings of the genre. The developer David Jaffe is a cool guy, and I can be excited for when it comes back.

Mario Kart- I almost defected from Mario Kart. Almost- However I had to go back to it as a survival strategy no one would agree to play MP with me long term to my alternative kart games And at any rate, the series is healthier than it was when I was growing up, and it was no slouch then in the first place! 

MicroMachines- I still consider these games to be pure genius. I'm unusual in that V3 is my favorite, but I still find both the late rV4 and earlier the genesis/SNES games pretty good for translating Super Sprint-esque gameplay into a more creative setting. The only problem is that MM 2017 kind of wrecks my confidence in the series making a comeback... but I think that it at least demonstrates that there is interest in MM, and while a lot of it was bad, that Hungry Hippo race track was at least one moment of pure genius. 

Doom- Doom 2016 has proven that the new id software is not going to do something like Doom 3 or Quake 4 again. However as a series, I prefer Doom because Doom 1 and 2 were better than Quake ever was as a single player experience. Quake 3 is indeed a top tier MP game, but I chose Unreal Tournament growing up for the most part, and Quake Live and it's derivatives have largely crushed hopes in a new Quake- Id software could definitely make a good SP Quake episode, but the lesson to be learned from Quake Live was that the community was not there, and so will probably never be so again aside from specific private community group servers. Doom on the other hand will surely continue to reign hard. 

Mario- I still have and play the physical carts  for pretty much every GB game and all the  GBA-SNES re-releases. But I don't reserve my love for Mario to just 1986 through Super Mario World- I can't imagine parting with the 3D games either. I'm aware that New Super Mario Bros/ Super Mario 3D land, etc get flack from people... but I don't quite get why, I've found them all to be pretty high quality, and only really begrudge them timesinking me from ever getting around to playing all of Archie's 3rd-4th gen obscure platformers. 

Wario- I liked Wario Land 2-4 for the puzzle focus, but honestly Shake it and Wario World were a little disapointing.(moreso the former than the latter) And it's hard to combine Wario Ware and Wario as a franchise the way I can do with Donkey Kong / Donkey Kong Country. I really enjoyed Wario Ware GBA, GCN, DS, Twisted played on GCN's GBA player as god intended because I didn't have a backlit GBA SP yet but I couldn't get into DIY and Smooth Moves at all.  Neverthless, I can imagine Wario Land 5 (for switch) joining the host of good 2d platformers that were all over the wii-wii U, and Warioware recapturing its past glory.

Yoshi- I adore SMW2 Yoshi's Island and Wooly World... I can enjoy Yoshi's Story in short bursts.... but Yoshi's New Island, and that other game make me kind of wary of Yoshi as a platformer series. 

Puyo Puyo- Just because I think that Tsu is perfect doesn't mean that I don't think that the other rulesets are bad- by other puzzle game standards a lot of them are pretty good actually. Of course it's hard to say "I would buy Puyo Puyo" because Sega largely keeps it in Japan and anyway I would probably keep playing it online for competition instead of bothering with a physical game anyway.

Megaman- difficult, between the Anniversary Collection, and the X collection, whenever my thoughts turn to megaman, it is in the context of replaying games rather than looking for the new kid on the block- That said they're damn easy to get back into and when I do it I usuually go through like 4 of them in day. 

Castlevania- see Megaman, although more with Castelvania 3, Rondo, and the GBA games than SotN and its family.

I would say Divinity: Original Sin- but the game's before it are only "spirtually" part of a series- and also crap by comparison anyway. And Divinity 3 is way too far in the future for me to even imagine. Divinity OS and Divinity 2 alone  definitely inspire more loyalty from me than pretty much any other RPG series I can think of no offense to Chrono Trigger, Lufia, Final Fantasy, Grandia, SMT, and especially Wizardry

Then there are games that technically ARE a series, but that I never think of as being such- Lemmings, Bomberman, Star Fox, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Mario Tennis, and Worms come to mind- In cases like these certain games just tower over the others to the point of rendering the other games irrelevant.

There is also tons of small franchises with 2-4 games like Timesplitters, Colony Wars,  aki corp wrestlng, Mr. Driller, Descent, Freespace, MDK, Ape Escape, - but I don't include them as they are games I don't have the optimism to hope sequels from. 

Tony Hawk- Obviously, post Neversoft Tony is... fairly awful. However, it was never like Neversoft had a golden touch that nobody else did- handheld ports of the game held up well, the Sk8te franchise happened, Aggresive Inline, BMX and ATV games quietly took the trick based sports game in a bearable direction in the 6th and 7th gen before sinking in to obscurity due to not having a recognize brand to build a franchise out of.  However, although the license is still in the grip of Activation and whatever studios it chooses to outsource too... Neversoft Employees are supposed to be releasing a feature length documentary in 2018. This probably won't lead to rebirth in a short time frame, but at the very least, the memory of the franchise should inspire other developers once again.

Also anything indie developers Hamumu and Increpare turn out (Most Hamumu games do take place in the shared LoonyVerse, Increpare... well other than their abstraction they aren't really that related to each other)

Loonyland and Supreme were a big part of my pop culture development, and even if I'll admit that they aren't amazing gameplaywise

Increpare on the other hand is a genius- Maybe I went too far blowing my nomination for GOTY 2016 on Stephen's Sausage Roll over Doom, but then again, maybe I didn't!

[Interdimensional Observer]

21 minutes ago, eclipse said:

5. Where's the Etrian Odyssey love? 

I'll give some! Ever notice my two sig badges are EO characters? My very first created character (I think), and the Ronin I've been loving in my EOU Classic team. I might add my old War Magus Lestana (Lester DeRosso + Yulyana from Bravely Default) later or Valma the female Landy (whose name is Val the FE4 Crusader, or Valeria from Suikoden, plus Elma from XCX), or Alveiss (Alphonse Zona Meridia + Weiss his brother from Arc Rise Fantasia), my blue haired male Sovereign later to it.

I got introduced with EO4's demo, cleared it save for superboss no chemicals. I loved it and have now become a fan of the series. 

I've done Classic Expert EOU up to the 29th Floor (I might just have to rely on RNG and resets to petrify those dang Bane Lizards to progress) I've tackled Blizzard King, Wyvern and Manticore, but not yet Alraune or Storm Emperor (Ancient Curse dispels my buffs- not good on a team reliant on Troubadour's buff healing and a Ronin for offense), I decided to PIcnic grind a Medic (and some other chars) just to tackle SE.

EOU2, I'm going to give in and buy the EXP grind tea so I can quickly get to level 60 to make Juggernaut and what will be coming after easier, my team is too suboptimal to fight it in the low 50s. Once I've finished EOU2's 5th Strat (which won't be for a few months due to priorities), I'll get around to EO5. EOU2's multiple save slots will be a boon if I ever choose to do NG+s with alternate teams.

 

Right now, I'll say my top five series are: Fire Emblem, Shin Megami Tensei, Etrian Odyssey, Mario, Zelda (though I'm a notorious non-completer with these). Kirby is almost top five. My top five can and does change, plus I'm tired so I won't say more.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Interdimensional Observer

[DefaultBeep]

All but the top 3 tend to shift around a lot depending on my mood:

• 10: Suguri
• 9: Kirby
• 8: Umihara Kawase
• 7: Guilty Gear
• 6: Castlevania
• 5: F-Zero
• 4: King of Fighters
• 3: Mega Man
• 2: Fire Emblem
• 1: Ys

Ys 100% takes the top spot, though if I could've just put "Falcom games", then I would've. Brandish and Vantage Master are two notable Falcom franchises that I adore, but haven't played more than one game in, so they probably shouldn't count. Likewise, if Cave Story could count as a series, then it would easily take the top spot, but oh well. The only ones that I'd consider to be "must-buys" for every release would be Ys and Fire Emblem, while the others just depend.

[Jedi]

1. Sonic The Hedgehog 
2. Trails In the Sky/of Azure/AO/Of Cold Steel
3. Ogre Battle
4. Castlevania 
5. Shin Megami Tensei 
6. Megaman X 
7. Final Fantasy 
8. Warriors 
9. Smash Bros 
10. Fire Emblem 
 

Edited October 17, 2017 by Jedi

[Ronnie]

12 minutes ago, DefaultBeep said:

 

• 7: Guilty Gear
• 4: King of Fighters

Fight me. I suck.

I can win a mean game of Jab Fighter V though.

[Jedi]

2 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Fight me. I suck.

I can win a mean game of Jab Fighter V though.

I play GG as well, its really fun :P

[DefaultBeep]

13 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Fight me. I suck.

I can win a mean game of Jab Fighter V though.

 

11 minutes ago, Jedi said:

I play GG as well, its really fun :P

Oh trust me, I'm very bad at both Guilty Gear and King of Fighters, but they're definitely a lot of fun. Great music, characters, and art styles for both as well, which helps make them favorites of mine.

[Ronnie]

19 minutes ago, Jedi said:

I play GG as well, its really fun :P

 

7 minutes ago, DefaultBeep said:

 

Oh trust me, I'm very bad at both Guilty Gear and King of Fighters, but they're definitely a lot of fun. Great music, characters, and art styles for both as well, which helps make them favorites of mine.

Great I challenge the both of you. Be prepared for my scrubby Chipp and Jam combos.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Mmm, it's too hard to have a ranked list since so many series I'm interested in have huge blemishes on their resumes. So here's a no particular order list

• Resident Evil
• Fallout
• Fire Emblem
• Legend of Zelda
• God of War
• Dead Rising
• Mega Man (classic)
• Metroid 
• Batman Arkham _______
• Ratchet & Clank
• Super Smash Bros.
• Kirby
• Dark/Demon Souls

Almost made it:

• Borderlands. It's just three games in the span of five years, so it's on the border (heh) of what I'd call a "series". Plus I doubt I would have appreciated these games as much without co-op with friends
• Mass Effect: The Trilogy was just too ambitious to be realized under EA's deadlines and Bioware's rapidly declining talent pool. Haven't played Andromeda, but enough talking heads have talked my ears off about it to know that's not a good start to a new series.
• Bioshock: the first game blew me away, and I'm a defender of 2. However, Infinite did not impress. So liking just the first two, similar games in a series is pretty dubious.

[DisobeyedCargo]

5. Smash bros 

4. Kid Icarus

3. Zelda 

2. Pokemon 

1. Xenoblade Chronicles 

[Harvey]

11 hours ago, Jedi said:

1. Sonic The Hedgehog 

You're a huge Sonic fan?!?!?!?

Anyways for my list

Game franchises that are my absolute favourites ever!

1. Super Mario and Mario games in general: The Super Mario games are a lot of fun to play and are my most favourite platform games. Has amazing short levels, powerups are fun to use and I just love the Mario worlds and characters a lot as they are so memorable and very imaginative. My all time favourite franchise in the end and I am most likely gonna get Super Mario Odyssey.

Oh by the way, the Wario series counts since it technically takes place within the Mario universe.

2. Fire Emblem: When I played Awakening for the first time, I got hooked with the characters and the gameplay. Its now ended up being my favourite RPG series and is honestly the best Tactical RPG series that beats other TRPGs imo.

3. Legend of Zelda: I like the overall series a lot. While I will probably never get the sequel to Phantom Hourglass or Link's Awakening, I still like the other Zelda games enough for me to get the latest ones including Botw. Cryptic puzzles that will strain your brains out, creative worlds and a quest to fulfilll.

4. Kirby: Kirby is also pretty cool with lots of copy abilities and simple to play levels that don't really need a lot of thought unless you want to 100% them. My most favourite is Canvas Curse.

5. Pokemon: I can't seem to really put my finger on it. Not sure if its nostalgia or if I got into the Pokemon anime but for the life of me, I just love Pokemon one way or another. I guess its the Pokemon that I love the best and plus, the most easiest and accessible RPG in my experience which doesn't need so much like defeating bosses like Duma or something.

6. Rhythm Heaven: Now Rhythm Heaven needs a lot of love. I never got myself into rhythm games but Heaven made me get into them and I can't wait to get my hands on future games at this point. Each rhythm game is filled with lots of fun and catchy music. Overall, a solid series.

Game Franchises that I'll pick up anyways despite them being...mixed

1. Sonic the Hedgehog: For some reason, Sonic just ends up being in a mixed bag. You have his classic trilogy, Advance trilogy, Dreamcast series, Sonic CD, Colors, Rush games, Generations, Mania, Game Gear games and even the Neo Geo Pocket game that all are consistently good and then you end up with the shitty games particularly Heroes, Adventure 1(outside of music), Sonic 06, Secret rings, Unleashed, Lost World and Boom of all things and of course the horrendous spin offs that no fan has asked for but SEGA does it anyways. 

I'd easily place him in fourth place and place Kirby over here but the problem is that Kirby as far as I can tell has consistently good games that outweigh the ones that Sonic is stuck with. Who knows? Maybe SEGA will finally come to their senses and just sell of the IP to Nintendo who can make better use of it.

Atleast he admittedly has a great comic series and his games have some of the best music ever composed for whatever reason. I'll still stick with him but I'm more of a Mario fan than I am of a Sonic fan.

2. Ys: Ys is an interesting one. Its basically like Zelda only much harder. I am amazed with Ys overall quality of music and the gameplay is good overall. However, somethings like its art being nearly static, lack of any cutscene animations, pretty much stuck with chibi models of characters(in the top view games atleast) and mediocre localisation just make this here in the section of the list. I understand that Falcom isn't exactly like a lot of other devs that have the budget to do such things at this point but for some reason, Zelda doesn't do a whole lot of this and that does some things like good humor and characterization and for Ys, you get almost none of it besides the main characters and bad guys.

Ys is good as of now but it still needs a lot of improvement for me to make it in my most top favourite.

3. Shantae: Shantae is...alright. I'll admit, Pirates Curse is her best outing as the gameplay is solid everywhere. But then Half genie hero showed up which.....ended up being disappointing. 

I'll still get into the series but for now, I only hope more content is added for Half Genie hero.

4. Mega Man: Mega Man.....how should I say this? His first three games are awesome with 2 and 3 being my most preferred ones. Thing is...it just started going downhill from 4 onwards. I'll admit that I haven't touched a good chunk of his games yet as I just only got the legacy collections 1 and 2 but for now, I'll get into 7, 8, 9 & 10 and see where that goes.

Game Franchises that I will never touch again even after new games come out...sort of

1. Rayman: I will never play another Rayman game after the huge disappointment of Rayman Origins and Legends gave me. Rayman used to be awesome and I will still play the first two games in a heartbeat when I want to and heck even 3 is mostly fun when you think about it. Really it just got downhill when Origins showed up where he ends up acting all clumsy looking which the same goes for practically any character there and how unbalanced Origins and Legends are unlike the first two.

Rayman 2 gave a lot of emotion but Origins and Legends practically destroyed it. Rayman's origins was supposed to be explained in origins but it was never shown and Legends was suppose to explain the legends of Rayman but that didn't happen. And neither of them have good endings that they were suppose to. I'm just not going to get into Rayman at this point..and even then, I'd probably have to deal with using Uplay in any case.

2. Professor Layton: Layton...what happened to you? You used to be awesome having the best games on the DS with the third being my most favourite and even Last Specter was kinda decent. Then you started going downfall with Miracle Mask and Azran Legacies whose plots range from mediocre to downright badly structured not to mention reusing the same puzzles like the previous games lot more despite having some new ones. 

Not only that but then you started going mobile where the spin off that's a simulation game and a game that stars your son? And now you have a game that stars your daughter(btw, how the hell did you end up getting kids in the first place?). Sorry man but you are just no longer a gentlemen and you have given nothing but disappointment to this fan here and I'm just going to ignore your future games until at some point you do get back to your roots.

 

[Magical Glace]

Zelda, Dragon Quest, Fire Emblem, Touhou, and Pokémon, in that order, I guess.

 

[Anacybele]

1. FE - Ever since I played PoR as my first FE game, it's been my fav and no series has come close.

2. Zelda - Been playing since was a kid and while it's had its ups and downs over the years imo, it's always generally been awesome.

3. Mario - Particularly the 3D Mario titles. Always excellent!

4. Smash - Making a bunch of Nintendo characters from various games fight each other? Sign me up!

5. Pokemon - It's fun for what it is. I like collecting a lot of different Pokemon most of all.

[Silverly]

Guess I'll stick to a top 5 for simplicity's sake.

1. Pokemon - Sorry FE, but I've playing this wonderful series for about about 14 years, compared the mere 2 and a half years.

2. Fire Emblem - I still only played 1/5th of the library of games out there, but I'm enjoying the lore and characters of the games of old and look forward to what's to come.

3. Super Smash Bros. - Nintendo all stars duking it out. Nuff said.

4. Super Mario - Consistent gameplay, excellent design, charming characters. What more can you ask for?

5. Sonic the Hedgehog - It's been through some really, really rough times but I still remain an avid fan and this current year looks so kind to the Blue Blur.

[TheKingOfTheDragovians]

1. Zelda

2. Dragon Quest

3. Shin Megami Tensei

4. Final Fantasy

5. Fire Emblem