Favorite three "current" game series

[le geek]

What are your favorite three franchises that still have new games being released? You know, the games that you'll fork over full or near full price on even if the reviews are mixed and you're a cheap retrogaming bastard!

I know there is a similar topic, but this is a little different...
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51517&highlight=favorite+favourite+franchises


Ground rules:
1) There must be at least THREE games released for it to be considered a series.
2) At least ONE game in the series must be current gen (console or portable).
3) Feel free to list honorable mentions, but please keep it down to your top THREE picks.

For me it goes like so:

1) Suikoden - while I've lost interest in Final Fastasy since FF7, Suikoden was there for the rebound. Even though III and IV had their warts, I still love these games.

2) Silent Hill - just when Resident Evil started to get stale, Silent Hill on PSOne showed up and blew it out of the water!
While the PS2 (and Xbox) sequels were not quite as good as the first game (3 being my favorite sequel) I still eagerly await the next one in the series.

3) Legend of Zelda - with a larger "portfolio" of games, I like some Zeldas better than others (my top three out of what I've played: The Legend of Zelda [NES], The Ocarina of Time [N64], Windwaker [CUBE]). However, I am really looking forward to Twilight Princess, it very well could be the best Zelda yet :)

Honorable mentions: Castlevania, Metroid and Wario Ware.

Cheers,
Ben

[Nez]

Resident Evil

Castlevania

The Zelda Series

[CYRiX]

Grand Theft Auto

Bomberman

SMB

[MegaDrive20XX]

DOOM

Street Fighter

Ghosts N Ghosts

Honorable mentions: Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and KOF

[WanganRunner]

Xenogears/Xenosage (I consider this contiguous enough to be a series)

.hack (I am an absolute .hack NUT. I really hope they make an actual MMORPG around it, SO much potential)

Metal Gear - All hail Kojima, Kojima is life

[Joelius]

Final Fantasy
Resident Evil
Ninja Gaiden (not sure if that counts)

[njiska]

Metal Gear Solid
Contra
Dead or Alive

close 4th
Sonic

Honorable mention:
Resident Evil
Silent Hill
Doom
Bomberman
Castlevania

[hezeuschrist]

Wow, what an impossible decision :(

Hrm, well there are only a couple franchises that I instantly pick up and play right when they come out...

1. Final Fantasy
2. Burnout
3. The Legend of Zelda

I'm really, really looking forward to the new zelda and I can't wait for FFXII. It looked fantastic in all its complete CG glory at E3 this year, so hopefully the rest of the cast can make up for the protagonist being another 16 year old douchebag.

[Lothars]

Well it's really hard to decide but I will go with

1.Final Fantasy
Looking forward to FFXII

2. Metal Gear Solid

Really excited about MGS 3 substance and MGS 4 :D

3. Legend of Zelda

especially the super nintendo and gameboy versions :)
though the new one looks really good as well.

[sabre2922]

Hmmm bet nobody can guess what IM going to say LOL

Yep its mister predictable again :evil:

k heres a hint: SILENT HILL BABY! oh wait was that too easy? damn just like my EX GF after a couple beers :drinking:

#1. Silent Hill
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/weblogs/upload/50/20134280014359263fc232a.jpg

#2.Devil May Cry
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/weblogs/upload/50/9315668824359270859366.jpg

#3. Metal Gear Solid
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/weblogs/upload/50/16563541294359277e7b646.jpg

Honerable Mentions:

Resident Evil (actually ties with MGS)
Shenmue
Tiger Woods PGA tour
Metroid (primes gc and zero mission GBA)
GTA

[davepesc]

1) Final Fantasy: Maybe XII will come out someday.

2) Xenosaga: Even though ep.2 was absolutely painful, I'll hold out hope that they can save this one.

3) This space for rent

I hear Disgaea 2 is shaping up to be pretty good. Hopefully I'll be able to add that franchise to the list one day.

[thegreatescape]

In order:

Ace Combat- Ever since playing the first one Ive found it hard to go near simulation type flight sims on PC. Its pure arcade flying bliss!

Ridge Racer- The speed, the style and the music. I love it all!

Gran Turismo- The best racing series ever.

They could pump out a million sequels to those 3 series' and I would still buy them. Looking forward to seeing them on next-gen hardware :-P

[Retsudo]

Tekken- I just love it.
Ace Combat- Same
Doom

[Hokkus]

1. Sonic the Hedgehog
Obvious choice. I grew up playing Sonic. It's in my blood. Oh, yes, I'm blind and stupid fanboy.

2. Phantasy Star
I totally missed the series back in the day, but I bought PS Collection on GBA about half a year ago. And it rocked! Even if those games have dated a bit, they are still awesome (yes, even the third one). Now PS Universe is a must-have for me, regardless how good or bad it will be.

3. The Legend of Zelda
My favorite Nintendo series. No nostalgia bond either. I got into series with Wind Waker. Now I have four of them and I want more.


Oh, now I realised that how poor my childhood was, Sonic seems to be the only game series with which I have strong nostalgia bonds. Damn! :)

[downfall]

Give me the following:

Contra
Zelda
Metroid

and I'm set.

Honorable Mentions:

R-Type
Gradius
Dance Dance Revolution
Sonic
Advance Wars

[Matt-El]

Can I mention Viewtiful Joe? I mean though there are 2 games, there are releases coming soon. If not...


Sonic the Hedgehog


Legend of Zelda



Mega Man. Yeah, wanna start something?

[Biff_McFresh]

Resident Evil
Phantasy Star
Zelda

[sleepycal]

Resident Evil

Harvest Moon

Grand Theft Auto

[dbiersdorf]

1.) Pokemon (not necessarly the spin offs, although I do buy those anyway, it's just whether I like 'em or not)
2.) The Legend of Zelda (it's just a given at this point)
3.) Sonic Adventure titles (no spin offs, no heroes, where's #3 baby!?)

[mr_pollock]

Castlevania

Taiko No Tatsujin

Tactics Ogre / Ogre Battle (Does this count? There's a Tactics Ogre game on the GBA. HAHAH!!!!!)

[jdc]

Let's see.......

1) Doom. It's loud and just so damned much fun.

2) Final Fantasy. I much prefer the latest games to the earlier stuff. 10 and 10-2 were incredible IMO.

3)Ridge Racer. It's modern, hip, great music and great overall style. I love Namco racers.

3.5) :D I have to throw in.......Tomb Raider. Why? Because the series has always had so MUCH damned potential (the idea of raiding tombs could be SO great) and I keep on hoping and praying that one day they'll get it right and do the series justice!!

[Arkaign]

Doom

Might and Magic (some of the recent games have been rough)

Diablo

[Sotenga]

My three favorite game series on Earth, all by Konami, are Castlevania, Contra, and Gradius. They are still going strong, thankfully. I'm still enjoying the hell out of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Neo Contra is attracting both fans of Contra new and old, and goddamn if Gradius V isn't one of the sweetest shmups I've played in the new millenium. :D

[SegaAges]

Tony Hawk

Capcom's VS series

Burnout

Honorable Mentions: Tiger Woods (Don't ask me why, but it is fun), Crazy Taxi (I still count dc as current even if games aren't made for it)

[SegaAges]

1.) Pokemon (not necessarly the spin offs, although I do buy those anyway, it's just whether I like 'em or not)
2.) The Legend of Zelda (it's just a given at this point)
3.) Sonic Adventure titles (no spin offs, no heroes, where's #3 baby!?)

Hey man, there is Shadow the Hedgehog coming out. Hell Yeah!

[Trebuken]

Trying to come up with some new aditions:

1) Donkey Kong (not much into the bongos myself though)
2) Kingdom Hearts (3rd game coming out soon)
3) Lord of the Rings Games

Honorable:
1) Star Wars - doesn't it all count as one series? like Sonic or Mario?
2) X-Men Games
3) Soul Calibur
4) Madden
5) Viewtiful Joe (handheld game coming out makes 3)
6) Gradius of course...

Trebuken

[Rogmeister]

Isn't virtually every series ever created still going? They're still making Sonic games, Medal of Honor, Crash Bandicoot...those have been going on forever. For me...

Mario--I always enjoy the Mario adventure games, even Super Mario Sunshine which most on this board seem to hate.

Dead Or Alive--Fighting...hot babes...mmmmmm....

Metroid--Samus rules

I would've named Crash Bandicoot but he hasn't had a good current-gen game yet...

[roushimsx]

1) Dodonpachi
2) Armored Core (only halfway through Another Age, still have 4 more us-released Armored Core games to go after this)
3) Midway Arcade Treasures (I know, I'm cheating with this one)

Let's break it down!
1 - Dodonpachi is one of the best shmups ever, hands fucking down. Whereas Donpachi started off a little mundane and more oldschoolish before getting manic, Dodonpachi threw the shit into the fan from the get go. Dodonpachi II was a stumbling block, but Daioujou recovered quite nicely and remains one of the best shmups available on the PS2.

2 - I've only recently started playing this series and I'm fucking hooked. I liked watching the presentation evolve through the playstation series and into the PS2 era, from the interface to the cutscenes to the individual mech customizations. Initially it was a glorified third person action game but it's gradually progressed into an incredibly fun mech sim. I especially love the more free-form structure of Armored Core 2: Another Age, and the ability to import your AC from AC1 to Project Phantasma to Master of Arena and then from AC2 to Another Age is just awesome. Shame there weren't more AC2 expansions, because I'm growing quite attached to my MSX2. Looks like Armored Core 3 will have me building the Turbo R :) (notice a trend?)

3 - I know I'm cheating here, but I needed a nice catch-all :) The Midway Arcade Treasues series puts most other retro packs to shame and exposes Namco for the money hungry rehash whores that they really are (anyone else that bought namCollection knows what I'm talking about here :'( ).Excellent assortment of games on each pack and for the most part excellent emulation/simulation of each one (though STUN Runner on PS2 is pretty barftastic). You won't find much better gaming deals than what you get out of these sets.

Other stuff I've really liked in the past:

Metal Gear - Loved 1 and 2. Metal Gear Solid was awesomely awesome...felt like a true sequel to Metal Gear 2 (hell, it was, but i mean it really gave me a warm and fuzzy that I hadn't had since Metal Gear 2), but Metal Gear Solid 2 and Twin Snakes have been bigtime disappointmes to me. I've yet to play Metal Gear Solid 3 because I'm waiting for Sustinance to come out (with PS2 ports of Metal Gear 1 and 2? Fuck yes, please). Bonus for having Rumble Roses chicks in it.

Spyro - Ok, what the fuck happened here? The Playstation series was AWESOME fun, but ever since then it went to shit. Still love to play the first three games...but...yea.. :(

Star Ocean - Probably my favorite series of Console RPGs, despitre the horrible localizations that parts 2 and 3 got when coming to the US. Thank god that:
a) DeJap did the translation on Star Ocean
and
b) DeJap dissolved before they could do their redubbing project for Star Ocean
Tri-Ace is the goodness and it's a shame they never get the love they rightfully deserve, either from the gaming press, the gaming public, or the SquareEnix US branch :(

Sly Cooper - The only reason this didn't go up in the top 3 is because I've yet to play the third game, so it'd be unfair for me to vote on it (without having played at least three games, as per the requirements). Sucker Punch is batting a 1.000 as far as I'm concerned, though. Rocket was awesome and Sly 1 and 2 were both pinnacles of 3d platforming.

Assault Suits * - If you've played Target Earth, Cybernator, or Metal Marines, then you've experienced some of the badassity that this series has to offer.

[towerofsong]

Castlevania

Resident Evil

Final Fantasy

[Trebuken]

roushimsx said:

Spyro - Ok, what the fuck happened here? The Playstation series was AWESOME fun, but ever since then it went to shit. Still love to play the first three games...but...yea..

The first three games were made by Insomniac Games. I believe they decided to move on and then the rights to Spyro were taken up by other developers.

Insomniac went on to do the Ratchet and Clank series...another addition to the great series with three games or more...

Trebuken

[Cryomancer]

Megami Tensei

I'll try any Sonic game most the way through it, and tend to end up buying them eventually.

Oh, and for a technicality, Evil Dead.

[William_the_Saint]

Hitman
Rayman
Oddworld

Good topic.

[Crush Crawfish]

1. Mega Man (OMFG HUGE SURPRISE)
2. Shadow Hearts (So good. So very, very good)
3. Suikoden (Even though 4 kinda sucked)

[tritium]

Tough call really tough...

Sonic Series (I love sonic adventure 2 and sonic heroes)

Final Fantasy (Only b/c chrono trigger/cross doesn thave a current gen sequel)

Soul Calibur (Rivaled only by the Tekken Series)

[evildead2099]

I'd say Zelda, but I haven't touched a Nintendo system in so long...

... So here are my choices:

1) Castlevania

2) Red Faction (there are only 2 games in the series as of yet, but I'm hoping for more)

3) Silent Hill

[stressboy]

Final Fantasy - I will love this series until the day I die.

The Legend of Zelda - need I say more?

Metroid - mmmmmmmmmm

[djbeatmongrel]

Metal Slug
SSX
Guilty Gear

that is all

[unwinddesign]

Ratchet and Clank, Age of Empires, and Final Fantasy.

[FlufflePuff]

Civilization (4 *drool*), Advance Wars, and Dragon Warrior/Quest.

[2Dskillz]

Silent Hill

Castlevania

MarioKart

[Daltone]

Wow, this is actually quite hard. I'm probably going to post this then want to change my list, but offhand I'm going to go with (In no real order)...



Civ. Because Civ has sucked up more hours of my life than I care to count. I didn't find Civ III nearly as addictive as the second installment, but 4 is shaping up nicely from the looks of things.

Doom. Because shooting people in the face is always fun.

Mario. While I'm not the biggest fan of Sunshine all of the other games have a pick up and play appeal that's good for 10 minuites or a couple of hours.




Honourable Mentions -

Knights Of The Old Republic. Both good games, problem is that there are only two of them.

Max Payne. As above.

Broken Sword. I thought that the 3D incarnation lacked the character of the 2D versions. The animations weren't varied enough, voice acting was damn good though.

SI's "Manager" series. All have had waaaaay too much time put into them, despite being little more than glorified spreadsheets. Love it.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Loved them up untill 3. Bought 4 and felt it was a bit of a chore, then got bored.

Hitman. We really need a proper 3rd game. The only thing more fun than shooting people in the face is dressing up then shooting people in the face. Or poisioning them. Or Garotting them. Or whatever.

Zelda. Not gotten around to Wind Waker yet so can't really comment.

And probably about a billion others.

[BydoEmpire]

1. Final Fantasy
2. Resident Evil
3. Phantasy Star

Tough to not have Zelda and Mario in the list, but that's the way it goes.

[goatdan]

1) Headhunter
2) ???
3) ???

I'm not really much of one for series. I loved Headhunter and immediately picked up Headhunter Redemption and have so far loved it. Beyond that, I tried writing down some other ones but kept eliminating them. I don't play many 'series' titles. Of the others that I have:

Sonic got booted because as crazy as some of you will think this is, I have only liked his 3D stuff. And so far, I haven't liked Sonic Heroes at all.

Mario got booted for the opposite reason. I loved his 2D stuff, but didn't care for Mario 64 or Sunshine.

Beyond those, I can't even think of a series of games that I have picked up more than a title for beyond Lord of the Rings, and that should be a technicality because I want to get rid of Return of the King.

I guess I'm just not a very big 'series' player. :(

[Daltone]

1) Headhunter


Headhunter has three games?! :eek 2: Think I've missed something here. Really liked the first two in a B-Movie action sort of way.