Favorite franchise that *whoops* you've never beaten a game from?

For me it would be the Resident Evil Series. My play history is a pre-internet Resident Evil attempt. A gamecube RE4 quit out of frustration at the castle? Scared $hitless during a RE7 VR play attempt. I've consumed the movies and own about 5 or 6 titles in the franchise that i have actually booted each up (an accomplishment). For you which franchise do you go to bat for but have yet to see the end credits for.

A close second would be a GTA game even though i don't like GTA games. I am super dissapointed by the remaster consenus on the game(s) being poor. I've also not been able to make it through a Lego game. As many as i own from games with gold (10). No Metal Gear either.

At some point in my life I could have put down both The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy as my favourite series that I've never finished a game from, but when I think about it, I've finished A Link To The Past and both FF3 and 4, so I guess I can't have that.

Does not completing a pokedex count as not finishing Pokemon? If it does, I have never finished a single Pokemon game despite playing at least one entry from every generation barring X/Y.

I've tried hard to be a bigger Nintendo fan than I think I really am, as I grew up in that era, but video games weren't really in the budget back then. Since I've gotten older I've had a Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and now a Switch. I have never beaten a single Zelda game and only one Mario game. And I got sucked into the Amiibo hype and have way more than I care to admit.

Dragon Quest. Got 20-30 hours into a handful of them but have actually never beat one. I will at some point, I like the series. Just double dipped on DQXI (sort of.) had the vanilla version but picked up the definitive edition.

I haven't abandoned many games, especially ones that belong to franchises since games that get sequels are usually pretty good, so the closest i can get is Final Fantasy.
The only game in the franchise i've beaten is 13, i have three failed attempts at playing through 7 and i always fall off once i get to the overworld, i played a few hours of 9 back in the day, i got myself into a position in 13-2 where i didn't grind enough and it became impossible to finish the game, but i might call it my favourite because it's pretty simple and the soundtrack is cool.

Just remembered i played a bit of Lightning Returns, it was bad.

I own many Need for Speeds, but have never finished the story mode (When there is a story anyway).

Star Wars games. Put many hours into a wide variety of them, but I don't think I've gotten to the end of a single one.

It seems to be a common one already, but mine was Final Fantasy for years. I'd sunk almost done but couldn't beat the final boss playthroughs into 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, and dabbled in most of the others. Then I decided I should sit down and just do it so after my current playthrough of 6 is finished I will be done! (With the mainline series, minus MMOs.)

So now it's probably Dragon Quest. I have a bunch of them but I only beat 11 and the Builders games, but I will still buy slime merch as a fake fan.

X-Com and Persona. Never had the time to really delve into them.

Many puzzle games. From arcade ones like the Puyo Puyo series, to well complex ones like The Witness. I usually don't have the patience to stick with them long term. I guess one exception is Puzzle Fighter II. I did beat that one. Facing Akuma as the final boss was really fun. I also beat the Neo-Geo arcade puzzle game that's like Puyo Puyo, the name escapes me right now. And I guess racing games, especially now a days. I really enjoy them, but again don't seem to have the patience to finish them long term. Maybe Forza 5 will be the one that gets me back into them.

Harder for me than I thought it would be. At first I thought Mario and Zelda before remembering I definitely finished Mario 64 and Wind Waker. I'm just not sure about Super Mario World or Ocarina of Time due to memory constraints. But I also haven't even played half the games in either franchise, so would it really be appropriate to call them "favorite"?

Otherwise I have a pretty tough time walking away from a thing, especially if I enjoy it enough to consider it a favorite. I see someone say XCOM and I'll steal that for myself I suppose. I really enjoy so much about those games but I can never tell if I'm being too patient or too aggressive and at some point I always wind up discouraged by a full team wipe on some random mission with much higher stakes than anticipated. Perhaps if I grew up on PC and got used to save scumming it'd be one thing but I just can't square myself to do that after decades of save points on console games. Like Abby, I'm a single save file balls to the wall motherfucker and I can't help it.

X-com. Came close but terrible RNG screwed my team on the last level of 2. Was playing iron man cause that's the only way to xcom but with my best team dead, no go on beating it.

I guess I'd say the Souls games. I have to be in a huge crowd of people that try those, like the first X number of hours and then hit some kind of a wall. Never finished one, but I still keep going back to them.

Mega Man. I have beaten Mega Man X games but the furthest I've gotten in the OG series is Wily in MM2 but never could beat him.

Paper Mario. I got to the final boss of Paper Mario and the Thousand Year door which might legit be in my top five games of all time, but I couldn't beat it. I never owned a GameCube myself so I haven't been able to play it in years.

The Legend of Zelda is another one, where I stopped about midway through both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess (on the GameCube) because I wasn't entirely sure about where to go. As can be surmised, I was a kid at the time.

Oh boy.. this is a tough question, simply because if I actually like a series it's probably because I've at least beaten a game or two out of the series. I suppose I would have to say metal gear, because I've really only played the nes and ps1 versions of the games and they seem alright. Of course if I actually play through a whole one I might change my mind on "liking" the series.

I'm going to bend what the OP wants here about a franchise a bit, and say that Bloodborne, a same but different Souls game, had the same virtual effect on me. I hit a wall, and if From had continued with Bloodborne like games instead of Dark Souls, I might have been very well defeated.

And after watching Ben play Sekiro, I am fearful of that game also, even though I spent monies on it.

Trauma Center. Got to the last boss of the first game but could never beat it.

Dragon Age. Love the stories they've told in what I've played, but never actually felt that seeing those stories through was necessary in the way that Mass Effect's story is.

Still looking forward to the next one though since DA:I is probably the one I got the furthest in.

Touhou, and yes before you call me a poser I am complete garbage at Bullet Hells and should make more of an effort to improve. I blame Nico Nico Douga and MADs for getting me into this awful world.

@chamurai: I love Mega Man 2 and Christ it was a challenge. I respect anyone that can breeze through it easily. Still getting to Wily's Castle and hearing that theme felt all the more satisfying after getting my ass handed to me. I love the game so much. Also I definitely wasn't singing Omoide wa Okkusenman at the top of my lungs while getting through Wily's stage.

@noobsauce: THAT'S XCOM BABY

Ah, this is one I missed! I've watched so many other people beat Bloodborne I could swear I've done it but I've never made it up to the Mergo encounter and the Old Hunters DLC is best utilized as an ego suppressant. I haven't touched any of the other games though I've also watched Giant Bomb complete a decent amount of them over the years. I did recently buy Demon's Souls on the Black Friday sale which kinda sounds like maybe it being so foundational to the Souls formula means there are some cracks in the armor when divorced from the mystery of 2009? We'll see!

i guess Mario Kart / Golf? I look at these games and know i would enjoy playing them, but i refuse to buy Nintendo systems because i just think there's better value to be found for me in the gaming market.

I have an almost inhuman compulsion to finish what I start, no matter how badly it's going, so this is a surprisingly tough needle to find in a haystack.

I have at least started all the modern FromSoft games, but have really only beaten Bloodborne and trudged across the finish line with help from a friend of Dark Souls 3.

Baldur's Gate 2 is the only early Bioware/Black Isle I've beaten despite having played most of them at some point.

@nodima: If you can claw your way past the wild chaos of the "Ludvig the Accursed" fight, the Old Hunters DLC gets a lot easier past that point. In terms of the stages and bosses. And I think the Maria fight might actually be the single best fight across all the games for actually achieving a fair fight VS an opponent of your size/moveset.

Pillars of eternity because crpg's are a huge commitment

If I couldn't beat a game from a series that I'd call a "favorite," then the series isn't really a favorite.

@facelessvixen: yeah I guess I understood the question to be more like "of the series in which you've never beaten a game, which is your favorite?" As opposed to "what series do you call your favorite when really you haven't beaten a game in it?" Because I, too, don't think you can consider something your favorite if you haven't found the time to beat it.

@facelessvixen: This used to be true for me, too. Unfortunately my interests are too varied and my time too limited for me to complete everything I'm into. It took me a while to come to this realization after having children. For years I bought games that sat unplayed in my backlog while I attempted to see every nook and cranny of one game before moving on. I eventually concluded that I'd rather experience a wide variety of media than dive deep on just a few. I also started buying fewer games.

@facelessvixen: I wonder what the percentage of people that love souls games have completed souls games. I don't think it's a 1 to 1. Think of it as an unrequited crush. You love it but it doesnt love you back.

i don't really let difficulty or boredom stop me from completing games so i'm really struggling to find a series i can add to this thread

It took some more thinking, but I think I have something that can fit this thread's specific criteria: Monster Hunter. I've put a lot of hours into Freedom Unite and World. When talking about what my favorite franchises are, I can put Monster Hunter in the same conversation as Devil May Cry, Need for Speed, Persona, and Senran Kagura. But I've never finished a Monster Hunter game. I did make it to high rank in World last year, but Cyberpunk 2077 took priority.

I can't speak for other people, but the only Soulsborne game I've beaten was Dark Souls 1; not due the franchises difficulty since I can get though a significant portion of each game without feeling overwhelmed, but due to having varied interests and wanting to play something else after an arbitrary amount of time.