What's your favorite video game franchise?

What is it? And have you got or played all its games?

At one time I would have said Breath of Fire, then it would have been Final Fantasy, when that ceased being the case I would have said Dragon Quest. These days it is probably Elder Scrolls, Saints Row, or The Witcher.

My favorite franchise is probably Halo, I still enjoy the games a ton and play multiplayer for many many hours. I've played Halo 1-4, Reach, ODST, never finished Halo Wars or Spartan Assault.

Second the SMT Persona??franchise, I've most of the games except 1 and 2:Eternal Punishment.

Probably Warcraft, I've played most of them, sick of the mmo now, hope they make Warcraft 4 someday.

Probably the Witcher franchise.The wait for the 3rd is killing me! Easily my most anticipated announced game. Deep lore based on books, as well as great graphics and gameplay (2 more so) makes this franchise an easy choice.

And the Red Dead franchise even though those two games aren't really related apart from the setting, I love/loved them both dearly for different reasons. I like the western setting generally but Read Dead Redemption really nailed what a western game could be.

Tombi/Tomba, old times sake. Still got 'em here, and I'll never part from them!

Ratchet and Clank, not even close. Perfect combination of action, platforming, humor and crazy guns and stuff.

For years it was Final Fantasy but MGS4 pushed that series to the top for me.

Civilization, I guess.

Toss-up between Metal Gear and Mass Effect. Both are outstanding.

Though as a side note, Saints Row is doing some work. Maybe one day.

I guess the Sonic Franchise, and yes, i've played all of the games... often begrudgingly. :P

Street Fighter as well, I eventually played Fighting Street.

Oh, Wait. The Zelda series!

It's funny because I didn't even like the first game, I thought it was boring and corny, but I loved the other two, and think the Mass Effect trilogy successfully built a gaming universe that is bigger than the limitations of the medium, as it plays with people's phantasies. It is so great that when you envision a change in your character, to be fully explored you have to go back to that boring and corny first game, and play it out from then on.

Well maybe Witcher can pull that one better with Witcher 3, but despite Mass Effect 3 shortcomings, it will still be a great challenge.

The Xeno series is my favorite. Yes, even the Xenosaga games are pretty good in my book, just and acquired taste.

SHENMUE.

@bongchilla: Xenosaga is great, Xenogears is boring as hell past the first 10 hours or so.

Vagrant Story is my favorite franchise; can't get let down.

The Legend of Zelda followed closely by Mass Effect.

I bow down to the Shrine of Kojima, and Boktai is really an under rated gem of a series. Using the mechanics of Metal Gear 2 and just really pushing it with a Zelda design. The Sunlight mechanic is fascinating especially when your trying to exploit it and then it catches you. That and Snake is in the game as a Box merchant. Lunar Knights was more Megaman then previous games, I wish they would go back to that series, it's better then Metal Gear.

Historically Final Fantasy i guess. From 1991 to 2006. Anything after that can fuck off.

Today i don't really have a favorite anymore. I get bored of most franchise after the 2nd game.

Easily Metal Gear Solid.

Ace Attorney. There's Persona, Zero Escape and Danganronpa that come after.

There are so many good ones and my opinion always changes after recent playthroughs but if I had to boil it down to a single franchise I'd say Half-Life, because that's the most recent one I've played. TES comes close. BF was definitely up there. Still is I guess. Always been a fan of Tomb Raider and most of my early childhood was dominated by UT. But yeah, HL takes the cake. But who knows what it'll be down the line when it'll inevitably change?

Probably Final Fantasy I suppose. I'm pretty bummed about the current state of the franchise, but there's a solid block of about 5 of those games that I love. Kind of hard to argue with that. Some other favorites are Fire Emblem, Zelda, Tekken, and Pokemon. Persona is creeping up as well, but I haven't played enough of those games to say for sure.

mario - has had allot of really good mindless platformers, that are fun!
zelda - kinda retells the same story but its usually a pretty good one ;)
the "souls" games - are just nuts, if you can invest the time though, they are extremely satisfying

Fire emblem, Pokemon, The Souls games, Persona, Batman Arkham and Uncharted are all just a few of my favorites.

Metal Gear or Souls. I have games in franchises I like more, but those are the only ones without exception. Jak and Daxter could have been it, but I haven't played anything since Jak X, and that was kind of a bummer.

• Final Fantasy
• Sonic The Hedgehog
• Guitar Hero/DJ Hero
• Metal Gear
• Splinter Cell
• Saint's Row
• Silent Hill
• Resident Evil
• Super Mario(2D Games mainly)
• The Legend of Zelda
• Metroid
• Punch Out
• Mortal Kombat
• Burnout (Mainly Takedown & Revenge)
• Phantasy Star
• Ninja Gaiden (minus Sigma & 3)
• Castlevania
• Katamari
• Mega Man
• Batman Arkham
• Shinobi
• Tomb Raider
• Bioshock
• Spiderman Games

I have played every non portable entry of these franchises.

For me, Max Payne is probably the best. Only 3 entries but they are all outstanding games.

For a longer series, I'd say probably Metal Gear Solid. Diminished a bit by how much I dislike playing 2 but otherwise it's great. 1, 3, and 4 in particular are all incredible games.

Shin Megami Tensei/Persona. I love a grindy turn-based rpg. No idea why, but I do. Keeps me busy for awhile with an intense story to along with it.

Mario.

God no. That would be torture. I've played...

The greats: Mario 1 (both versions), The Lost Levels (All-Stars), 3 (both versions), Yoshi's island

The good to okays: The Thousand-Year Door, Super Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, Donkey Kong, Mario Kart 64, NSMB/Wii, Mario World, Mario Party 2

The mediocre: Mario Party 7

And the beginning of Mario Galaxy and a little bit of Mario Kart.

@ezekiel: You don't have to include Mario Party I don't think; though watching random internet people play it is pretty amazing.

Perhaps a bit predictable but I have loved each GTA release from the moment I played GTA on PS1 right through to GTAV. I remember upgrading my Gfx card when GTA3 came out and being utterly blown away :)

Also been a huge Battlefield player owning every release and expansion ever put out. I still have fondest memories of 1942 as there was nothing quite like it at the time, I am having so much fun with BF4 at the moment.

Also have a real soft spot for the WipeOut series, Little Big Planet, Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet & Clank and MLB The Show

Halo. Cuz dat multiplayer. Just my favorite.

I've played all of them except Spartan Assault, cuz eh. I'll probably get it on my phone eventually.

I'm including it because he said franchise instead of series.

Final Fantasy without a doubt. I love everything about the universes they create. I'm drawn into them even at their worst.

Man that's a tough one... Tales of series or Disgaea. I'm just a huge fan of JRPGs.

The Souls Series.

Hmmm... Donkey Kong Country. It's the only one that hasn't had a bad apple so long as you discount any games that don't have Country in the title. Banjo had Nuts which was good but not a Banjo game, Paper Mario had Super and Sticker, Majora's Mask is one game (though Wind Waker is no slouch), and... I don't think anything in the last generation can really measure up to that. Maybe Bioshock? If Fez was a series it'd totally bear mentioning. Sort of odd as in a lot of last generations franchises I only truly love one or two games in each. Like Mass Effect 2 is the only great Mass Effect. I've only played the third and fourth Saints Rows. So yeah. Definitely Donkey Kong Country. Tropical Freeze in stores in 6 days for Wii U.

Halo. There are very few things that can rival my passion for the Halo universe.

I also love Donkey Kong Country, Dead Space, Gears of War, Mario, Banjo-Kazooie, and Battlefield to name a few.

Definitely Final Fantasy. Unlike some people, I really don't mind the more recent games(hell, I'd say XIII is my fourth favorite behind IV, VI, and Tactics) and every single one of them draws me into it in a way few other franchises can. I haven't played every game to say Final Fantasy on it, but I've played every game in the main series and a lot, just not all, of the side games.

Also want to mention Metal Gear and Shin Megami Tensei because I love the hell out of those as well. Japan knows what's up with makin' games.

Metal Gear no doubt, I have finished every game even the spin offs and portable entries. Followed by Yakuza, but have not played 5 or the psp games, have played Kenzan with translated cutscenes though.

Man, franchise? I don't know that there's any one franchise that exists in which I actively like all the games.

Diablo? 2 is my favorite game ever, 1 was great at the time. 3 is 3, no explanation needed (lol).
Warcraft? I love the lore, but I didn't play 1 or 2. 3 was pretty good, and WoW's obviously been fantastic for more years than it hasn't.
Actually, I guess it's Ratchet? I've played all but the most recent mainline game, and it's my favorite PS2 franchise, but there have been a handful of bad spinoffs/handheld games that I either didn't get to play or actively avoided.

I dunno, man. Hard question, not for the typical "I can't narrow it down to just one!" reason, but for the "I don't know that there are any franchises that exist in which I actually like the entire franchise" reason.

SMT/Persona. Not sure if you should bundle them together but meh, I'll do it anyway. For SMT I really enjoy the kind of dark atmosphere and the stories of gods and demons getting into the modern world. The dungeoncrawling and battlesystem, especially in Nocturne and DDS 1 and 2, are hella fun and It's one of the only JRPG-series that I enjoy PLAYING. For Persona it's alot about the characters and story wich are often original and imaginative, and binding it together with Jungian psychology concepts is pretty damn cool. The dungeoncrawling and battle system are more simple than the main SMT-games but are still very enjoyable. The music in both franchises is awesome and Kazuma Kanekos demon designs are rad as hell, Shigenori Soejima being pretty close while still keeping his own style.

I love mass effect too, although that last game wasn't everything I hoped for. It's a great universe, got some great characters and while the main story got pretty generic, it worked. It was best in the first game though when there still was alot of mystery.

I've really enjoyed all of the BioShock games. The original and Infinite are both up there with some of my favourite games. Also, Minerva's Den is one of the best DLCs I've played.

Also, as a side note, I've played and enjoyed all of Nintendo's 2D Zeldas. I suppose that doesn't really count as a franchise as I'm disregarding the 3D Zeldas (which don't do anything for me) and the other Zelda games...

Metroid

Probably Mass Effect ... and Eye of the Beholder. Geeze, that was a while ago.

Outside of the newer titles that was release for the series. My fav will be Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

I've played pretty much all the games for both RE and SH. Both were a pretty aswome series to get into when I was younger. SH beats RE when it comes to scare factor and high tension, and RE always had a good balance of both where it didn't feel overwhelming.

Unfortunately it doesn't count as a franchise... Nintendo forces us to group them together.

Yes! Same here. Witcher 1 is my all time favorite game and the whole franchise is amazing!

The other would be the Mass Effect franchise, but I haven't played any of the DLCs from the first two games, or read any of its related novels/ comics etc.

Probably the Mass Effect series. I don't consider the individual games to of my favourites, but as a trilogy, it's quite good.

Pre-EA Command and Conquer is all that comes to mind. Sadly once EA got their hands on it they drove it straight into the ground. I really loved Dragon Age: Origins, but -EA again- the sequel was so bad I can't really say I love the franchise. From what I have seen of three it looks like they are trying to turn it into the Witcher. So IDK where it's going. I just want more of the first game refined and expanded upon. Why must they go out of their way to make it something else?

My obvious choice would be Halo, love that universe a lot.

Honorable mentions: Warcraft, Splinter Cell, Mass Effect, Age of Empires & Max Payne.