Favorite Video Game Franchise?

[lenguy]

Pretty straightforward question, I want to know what are your favorite gaming franchises,and why? Which franchise has you coming back every time, for every installment? So lets begin.

What is your favorite video game franchise and why?. My first initial pick was to go to Halo, I've enjoy every single installment, some more than others but I rethought my pick. I've decided to overturn my original pick and ultimately decided to go with The Legend of Zelda.

No video game franchise currently out there has the ability to capture my imagination more. It always brings out the little kid in me. I've always like exploring,just venturing out and discovering things. The Legend of Zelda allows me to do these things, only in a virtual world.

From the sheer scope of the game,to the wide array of items to be found. All the way to the temple and dungeons even to the world of Hyrule itself. Every little detail comes together and always seems to make a high quality game that you can sink endless amount of hours into and still keep coming back. Even after you've beaten the game there is still plenty of things to be done. Sometimes the most enjoyable thing is to just explore,go from place to place and see what you can find.

Every game seems to work a very similar concept every time but it always work. They all feel very familiar but yet every time I pop in a new Zelda game the experience feels familiar yet fresh. There is always just so much content packed into any one of these games that you know when ever you seen a Zelda title on the shelf, you know you are going to get one hell of an adventure.

Favorite game in the franchise? I actually really like Twilight Princess,the entire game was just massive. I mean walking from one end of Hyrule field to the other would take a honest amount of time. I loved the story,I loved the items(ball and chain FTW) and love almost everything about it. Even still, I hold Ocarina of Time on a very high pedestal. It was the first Zelda to be feature in 3 dimensions ushering in a new and exciting era for the franchise and to me, everything was done perfectly. The controls,the story, just the game itself was a masterpiece. It was such a pure experience that no game I've played before or since has given me such an undiluted everlasting emotion every time I play it. Everything about the game is wonderful and I never get bored of it. A timeless classic that every gamer should play, even if they are generations apart.

Least favorite game in the franchise. Now, I might take some heat for this but as much as I love the franchise, Majora's Mask would be my least favorite. Now that doesn't mean I consider it a shitty game, which its not. I just feel it tried to hard to raise the bar OoT set. I thought the story was ridiculous and even as a kid I couldn't buy into it. On top of that, I really..really disliked the 3 day time frame, it went by way to quickly. I get that it gave a sense of urgency but it just felt like the game was trying to rush me and I don't like being rushed,especially in a Zelda game. Just a number of aspects and qualities about the game that turn me off. Once I beat it I really didn't have much of a desire to play it again, I was ready to move on.

So I asked these three questions.

Which is your favorite video game franchise and why?

Which is your favorite in the franchise? Why?

Which is your least favorite? Why?

Now this is where you answer, so sound off below!

 

[Lee]

Which is your favorite video game franchise and why?


It's either Zelda or Mario but I'll answer with Mario. Why? For over 25 years the main platform series has brought quality game after quality game. There's a reason why DS sales jumped through the roof after New Super Mario Bros DS, that Wii sales jumped after New Super Mario Bros Wii and 3DS sales jumped after SM3DLand. The games are easy to pick up but difficult to master, think back to SMB1 and how easy it is to get to world 8 due to the cheats. How hard is it to do every level though? They have something for everyone.

Which is your favorite in the franchise? Why?

Suoer Mario Galaxy 2. Now most will say World or 3 or something similar but Galaxy takes the brilliant 3D elements of 64 and then throws in some added craziness. It builds off Galaxy but gives us more levels and less repeating. Oh and a world map.

Which is your least favorite? Why?

Super Mario Sunshine. Decent game, but nowhere near as good as the others. I blame FLUDD.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

What is your favorite video game franchise and why?

This is a no brainer for me I got to go with Mario. I love Zelda, don't get me wrong but for my taste the Mario franchise has made the greatest games of all time and perfectly encompass everything a video game should be, easy to pick up and play, difficulty gets gradually harder and is unbelievably addicting. The simplicity and depth of Mario games just cant be matched.

Which is your favorite in the franchise? Why?

Either Galaxy 2 or World. I was completely enamoured with both games and I couldn't put either down until everything was found, all secret levels, all special worlds, all 242 stars EVERYTHING. I also feel in a 2D and 3D sense the gameplay was perfected in these 2 games especially Galaxy 2. It seemed like every minor thing wrong with Galaxy was fixed, especially the camera angles and the imaginitive levels and the inclusion of yoshi sealed the deal for me. These aren't just my favorite games of the series, they are my favorite games of all time.


Which is your least favorite game in the franchise? Why?

Mario Sunshine. I thought it was a good game but compared to the company of the other great games in the franchise this one is easily the worst, for myself it stuck out like the black sheep of the franchise.

 

[J.J.]

Metal Gear series. Been a big fan of it since Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid goes down as one of my all-time favorite video games - it definitely was ahead of its time storyline wise. This series has 20 years of life and still going. I don't have a least favorite.

 

[Cracka Jack]

Lee already answered with my favorite, Mario, on all three questions no less, so I'll go with a backup.

What is your favorite video game franchise and why?

Besides the aforementioned mushroom-gobbling plumber, my favorite franchise would be The Legend of Zelda. It's a series whose games are always polished as well as possible in terms of graphics, storytelling, and especially gameplay, where I know I'll get the absolute best out of each installment. Having a non-linear story through the series gives the developers the freedom to try new things with each installment. Each game has its own tone and feel, which I can totally appreciate.

Favorite game in the franchise?

Ocarina of Time. Many, like Lee, will say ALttP is better, and perhaps it is, but I have an attachment to Ocarina that puts it above almost every game I've played. It was the first game as big as it is that I had ever played, and getting lost in that world was a whole new experience for me as a young one. I still make sure to play it through every year or so, just because I enjoy it so much. It feels like a game that does everything right.

Least favorite game in the franchise?

I haven't played them all (Wind Waker), so I'll have to go off of what I have experience with. While it gets a lot of praise for doing something different, I never liked Majora's Mask as much as the others. The whole "do stuff in a couple days" thing felt like a big constraint on me as a player, that I didn't have time to explore and get lost in the game like I'd like to, instead making sure to stop what I'm doing, get back to town, and put my Rupees in the bank before it's too late. The masks were interesting, but took away from the classic Zelda gameplay I expect. So basically, it's a good game with some specific design choices that have always bothered me.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I am not a huge gamer so I don't have the experience of playing any of the Zelda, Metal Gear, Tomb Raider franchises and have barely played any of the Mario games, other than the originals and the more recent Wii efforts.

My favourite franchise would have to be Grand Theft Auto.

To see the series develop from the original with its very basic, top-down graphics (which were appalling even for that time) to the incredibly detailed living world of GTA4 has been a joy to behold.

The amount of depth in the later games- such as the mini-games, extra side-stories and how everything ties together is incredible and I expect the next incarnation of the game to be even better. You can spend hours playing the game and not even attempting a single main mission, the possibilities are almost endless.

Favourite game

It would have to be Vice City. The epic soundtrack, the fact Ray Liotta, Jenna Jameson and Danny Dyer were in as voices, the Scarface-esque mansion, the cool 80s cars....pretty much everything on this game was perfect.

I loved the storyline, and VC was a huge jump forward from GTA III, which was an even bigger jump from the top-down views of the first few editions.

Least favourite game

GTA 2. It just wasn't that good. I much preferred the original, and the GTA: London add on pack set in the 1960s. GTA 2 just bored me, and seemed a step back from the earlier games. I hardly played it after I had bought it.

 

[Davi323]

Which is your favorite video game franchise and why?

Ten years ago, I would have said Zelda...but my interests in video games has definitely shifted since then. Now, I would have to say that my favorite franchise is NCAA Football. I love football in general, and have a slight preference for college over the NFL. While both the NCAA and Madden franchises share a lot of similarities, designed by the same company, with many of the same features, I think the NCAA version gives me more satisfaction overall. I just have more fun in Campus Legend and Dynasty mode in NCAA Football than I do in NFL Superstar and Franchise mode in Madden.

Which is your favorite in the franchise? Why?

I don't have either a PS3 or XBox 360, so I can only comment on the versions that are available for the PS2. Among those, I think I like NCAA Football 09 the best. Between the features and ease of gameplay, I think it gets it just about right.

Which is your least favorite? Why?

NCAA Football 03. The cover had Joey Harrington on it, and just thinking about that reminds me how he was such an epic fail as the Detroit Lions QB. As a lifelong Lions fan, that leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The game itself was adequate, I just loathe the cover.

 

[Dagger Dias]

My favorite video game franchise, which should come to no surprise to anyone, is Final Fantasy. My fandom stretches back to the days of Final Fantasy 1 on the NES. I was too young to understand how great it really was at the time, but had fun playing it. I have been playing the games my entire life, as the series is only a year younger than me. Even though the series has declined in quality I will continue to play the games out of loyal fanboyism. There are enough good games such as 10 and 13 among the crop of newer ones to keep me sticking around despite feeling reluctant to pick up new titles. Some of the best moments of my life have involved playing Final Fantasy games and I've followed the series this far, why stop now? I have come close a couple of times, but I got reminded each time that it's my faorite series for a reason. They have great stories, memorable characters, beautiful soundtracks, and (other than FF2 and FFX2) are enjoyable to play.

My first experiences with this series was playing FF1 on my friend's NES when both of us were too young to fully understand it, but I liked it a lot and I wanted my own copy. I never made it much further than the first temple until a couple of years later. Then heard another Final Fantasy was coming out on the SNES, and that of course was Final Fantasy 4 (mistranslated as Final Fantasy 2) which is one of my two favorites in the series alongside Final Fantasy 7. FF4 was where my fanboyism and love for turn based RPG's truly took off. A large part of why 4 and 7 are my favorites is due to nostalgia. I loved those games so much and playing through them again each time always reminds me of how awesome they were the first time through. While FF4 gave birth to my FF fanboyism, FF7 took it even further. I was blown away by how awesome it was. The cut-scenes, the soundtrack, the character development, and the innovative materia system all caught my eye in a way no other game has been able to live up to. It truly set the standard for every RPG that followed and I could not get enough of it.

Then we have my LEAST favorite in the series. The worst Final Fantasy game is none other than Final Fantasy 2. Not the one with Cecil on the SNES, but the REAL Final Fantasy 2, on the NES released only in Japan with a remake a few years later on the PSX outside of Japan. That game was just awful. It had a nice little story and it was cool how the 4th party member changed, which was a departure from the party in FF1 which was set in stone the entire game. The GAMEPLAY is what destroyed that game. They eliminated the EXP system in exchange for an idiotic system where you had to get beaten up in order to get more Health Points, use up all your Magic Points in order to get any more of those, and so forth. Weapons and magic had to be used an insane amount of times to become more powerful. Each attack/casting gave it one point. 100 levelled it up. You had to repeat this process for 9+ levels, for EACH spell/weapon and for EACH character!!!!Maxing out was damn near impossible and advancing was frustrating. Each time a new 4th character joined, you had to sit and get them caught up to the main 3. Then we have the difficulty. It was an absolute nightmare at the end of the game. I'd rather gouge out my eyes than play through that one again. I hate that game and very few good things came from it. FFX-2 is also pretty bad, with Rikku () and her outfits being basically the only good thing about that game.

 

[Shadowcat]

Mine would be Uncharted. It truly transcends what video games are capable of. The storylines, the graphics, the gameeplay, it all looks like it came straight out of a Hollywood movie. I expect the same for "The Last Of Us" game that Naughty Dog is making.

 

[Mr. HD]

Which is your favorite video game franchise and why?

Never had a chance to play Grand Theft Auto, Zelda, or even Mario like most people said. I don't have a good memory of The Tomb Raider Games. The only Sonic The Hedehog Game I remember playing and liking is Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast. The last great Call of Duty Game is Modern Warfare 2 IMO. Black Ops and World at War and MW3...meh. I would've thrown in Uncharted, but I think they need at least one more game. I was borderlined between Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy.

That being said, my favorite Game Franchise at the moment is Kingdom Hearts and here's why. Other than Final Fantasy, I don't think I've ever seen a stretch of games that is so storyline driven, with so many characters, and intertwined plot storylines that make up the overall series and not to mention all the sub-games that serve as different spinoffs that eventually tie into the overall major plot of the story. It's really superb the knowledge and time it took to make a story this Massive. From the gameplay, character development, the story, the Disney Themed Worlds and that beautiful, beautiful soundtrack.

It first came out and I was blown away. The mechanics had a good flow to it, the boss fights were fun and challenging, the story made you care about everybody that was involved because they had a deeper meaning than you thought. The worlds you visited were their own, they didn't follow any movie storylines, they put Sora and Co. in that moment and the way everything flowed, the overall feel to the worlds you visited and the anticipation of that boss fight adds to it as well. It's one of those games that I can play over and over again and not get tired of it. In fact, I've played and beaten it like 5 times.

What I think sets it on par, and maybe even above Final Fantasy is that Final Fantasy benefits from new characters for each game, but Kingdom Hearts keeps the same characters and expands on the story and looks deeper into the character to keep the story fresh and people interested. Final Fantasy has quite a cult following, so I'll give them that. Give Kingdom Hearts time. By the time KH III rolls around, people will begin to take notice.


Which is your favorite in the franchise? Why?

Without question, it's KH1. That set the tone for this Franchise. If KH1 didn't do as good as it did, we wouldn't have all these spinoff and sub-games and such a HUGE storyline and so many events and unanswered questions leading up to KH III.

What I liked about KH is the battle system and how it was free play, or whatever it's called. There was no taking turns, you could avoid hits, strike and move and on the off chance the Boss came with a few cronies, Donald and Goofy keep them in check, while you tackle the Big Baddie. The story was so well written. The Heartless, Princess of Hearts, Light vs Darkness, the Keyblade, the story of Sora, Riku, and Kairi, the Disney Villains; everything that made this game so well and so playable so many times and made you want to see how everything unfolded which added more anticipation to the boss fights.

The only game so far in this series that has matched the overall feel that is KH1 is Birth By Sleep. That game went back to the basics and threw in a bit of the new style and had a perfect balance.


Which is your least favorite? Why?

KH2. Although, the story got more complex and more interesting, 2 HUGE things threw me off.

1) The battle mechanics. I don't know what it was. But the gameplay seemed faster and more button mash-ish than KH1 which made the game far too easy for its own good. It was still good, but I think it took away the fun. They did make the system more flawed. You couldn't Heal as often as you could in KH1, they took away Summons that could make heal you and made them all powerful,

2) The Worlds. What made the worlds in KH1 so good to me, is that it stayed true to their story, they didn't try to follow the movie exactly which is what killed me. The Mulan World, Pirates of the Carribean, Halloween Town, Olympus Coliseum. I didn't like how they followed the movie plot and didn't make their own plot, but that's just me. At times, it focused more on the movie, than the actual overall story at times.

I feel as if they tried to go above and beyond the Call of Duty and it...well it didn't flop, but it didn't live up to expectations that most people thought. It advanced the story and opened more questions, but overall meh.



Kingdom Hearts is slowly becoming one of the next great Game Franchises. It doesn't get talked about a lot as it should because the game seems too kid-like for some, but they need to open their mind and revel in what a Masterpiece KH has truly become since 2002.