5 best video game series of all time

There was a time about five years ago maybe when I started to think that and then I just said to myself that as long as I was getting better at the game I’m playing in a PvP setting, it’s still worth it. There will always be someone better. I actually have gotten a lot better at recognizing my own shortcomings in something like Street Fighter because of it. Professional Gaming has really shown the world how hard it is to be really great at videogames IMO, and in a way that’s a good thing for me and for every arcade junkie who dominated a game or two at the local Space Port.

I mean, my kids are probably going to mop up with me in Smash in December, but I do understand the mechanics of Smash and what it takes to be good because I stuck with it even after they were demolishing me on Wii U. My youngest came in fourth in a local tournament and the other two did well, too. It was neat to see that as bad as I played against them, there were many far worse and that they were pretty good. Stealing some rounds and some matches makes me feel good. :)

They just say it’s cause I spent $5.99 on Bayonetta though. shrug

@triggercut There are a few that aren’t so great, but I’ve been looking at a LOT of that series lately because of investigating a lot of retro on SNES, Game Boy, etc. and I’d say on average it’s remained really high quality if you’re keeping it confined to stuff licensed by The Tetris Company. Certainly I wouldn’t put it top five for me, though I could see where someone could be playing Puyo Puyo Tetris today and be saying, “This series is among my favorites of all-time!”

Tetris 2. Faces…Tris. Welltris. Hatris.

Defense rests.

These are definitely not “my” all time favorites, but probably what i’d consider the most influential.

Mario - Starting with Mario Bros to the various Switch games today. Lots of game type variety but overall a unifying aesthetic and theme… or, maybe, “target demographic”, if that makes sense.
Final Fantasy - The definitive JRPG series, you’re likely to have played at least one if you ever owned a Nintendo in the 90s.
Civilization - The definitive turn-based 4X series, out of which has sprung not only so many knock offs and riffs on the idea, but frankly whole genres (arguably all Paradox games are a kind of spin on the 4X model).
Call of Duty - The definitive console shooter, without which basically console gaming would not even be recognizable, and the game that defined (for better or worse) the early-20s ultra-masculine competitive gamer that still haunts gaming. No, DOOM and QUAKE did it first, but Call of Duty with a console controller democratized violence the way iron weapons did for the bronze age.
Madden or FIFA - I’m not sure which series should take the sports crown; i’m pretty sure Madden was more influential overall, in the sense that FIFA was a spin off of the assets used to make Madden, and not the other way around. But in this matter i’m quite ignorant and could well have it backward!

Alexey loves Hatris!

But yeah, those aren’t the same… it got a lot better after all those though.

There’s a great article on Tetris in Retro Gamer this month if you can snag it before the new issue hits.

Those are all the canon games created by Alexey Pajitnov after Tetris.

Yes, but that’s why I said in my original post up above that I’m a lot more interested in following developers or teams as sometimes the talent involved in sequels is not the same as that involved in the original creations. That works both ways! Alexey wasn’t as good at expanding his idea, although he did work on Tetrisphere I think?

Mine would be:

  1. Resident Evil - Love the horror, zombies, characters, environments, soundtracks etc.
  2. Mass Effect - The story, characters, music, narrative, combat everything was so perfect. Not Andromeda though.
  3. God Of War - Love the story, music and combat especially the new one. Kratos had so much character development. I also really loved the relationship between Kratos and Atreus.
  4. Tomb Raider (2013-18) - Story is good, the animations are really smooth. The locations are also really great.
  5. Darksiders - Really love the artstyle of Darksiders series, the combat is fantastic and the third part looks so cool.

As soon as I created this topic I wanted to write my own but couldn’t because it told me that I had to wait 1 hour for commenting on this topic. I just joined yesterday.

Mario
Zelda
Civilization
Street Fighter
Minecraft

You should play Origins. It’s a really good game. It’s also so much better than Assassins Creed 3, Unity and Syndicate.

It’s on my to-do list (I actually already own it), but I need to wrap up a few things in Unity and play Syndicate first. I still want to go in order.

Fallout games are good. But it just didn’t interest me like other games did.

Nice. Will you play Odyssey too? looks really great.

These are some of my old favorites:

  1. Gold Box series by SSI
  2. Railroad Tycoon series
  3. Civilization series
  4. WarCraft series
  5. Ultima series

Just 5 huh? Oh boy that’s hard… okay, in no particular order:
Mario Bros.
Legend of Zelda
Fire Emblem
Elder Scrolls
Resident Evil

Honourable mentions that could be in the top 5 if you ask again some other day: Halo,
Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Half Life. And maybe Spyro the Dragon.

  1. Ultima
  2. Civilization
  3. Elder Scrolls
  4. Age of Empires
  5. Unreal Tournament

I’ll stipulate stuff like Zelda and Mario… they just weren’t that huge a deal for me personally.

Edit: The more I look at the list the more Age of Empires seems a bit out of place, though it was a good run of 4 good-to-great RTS’s (if we include Age of Mythology). Still I might slot in something else if it comes to me.

Let’s see.

  1. Yakuza - ok, I’m kind of cheating here, since Yakuza 0 is the only one I’ve played so far. But it’s so good that I want to play the whole series, so I guess it counts.

  2. The Legend of Heroes - the kings of world-building. The games - Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel, mostly - are massive, with lots of dialog and text and interesting characters and fun gameplay. And I can’t think of a more likeable pair of protagonists than Estelle and Joshua from Trails in the Sky.

  3. Final Fantasy - ok, so I haven’t played most of the games in the series (it’s a big one and I didn’t have the means to play most of them until not so long ago). I did play X, XIII and XIII-2 to completion (with the latter being my favorite in the series so far), and dabbled in VI, X-2, XII, Lightning Returns (XIII-3) and XV, and if you count the spin-offs, I have played a good bit of Type-0 and World of Final Fantasy. I have IV and VIII and IX in the backlog too, waiting. I’ll get to them eventually.

  4. Assassin’s Creed - I love the original concept, and the original Assassin’s Creed (in its improved PC incarnation) is still one the most memorable gaming moments I ever had. I’ve played most of the games in the series to completion - yes, even 3 - and enjoyed even the ones I never finished (which means every single one after 3). I’ll still buy every main game in the series, though, because I really enjoy it when I’m not tired of it. ;)

  5. The Witcher - The Witcher 1 is one of the most subversive, insightful games I’ve ever played. A fantasy world not made of good and evil, but painful tones of gray; by the end of the game, you don’t know if you saved the world or doomed it by your actions. I love the ambiguity there, which was sadly loosened in the sequels. Still, Witcher 2 does have interesting moments and characters, and 3 is in many ways a masterpiece of technology and storytelling, warts and all.

Honorable mentions to NieR (and the only reason it’s not in the top 5 is that I only played one game in the series, and have no way yet to play the others), Anno, Legend of Zelda, Darksiders (see previous mention), Tales of…, Diablo, XCOM, Mario, Fallout, Mass Effect, Dark Forces/Jedi Knight, and Might & Magic.

I’d give that franchise the nod for “most improved” because oh my god was that first game boring. But the second game is a freakin’ masterpiece that I’ve played through three times. Third one is pretty good too if your idea of improving things is taking a good thing and then multiplying it by ten.

Nice list :)

and no one has even mentioned EUROPA UNIVERSALIS series…every single one was an awesome game