I've been playing games for a fair amount of time now, and quite a few series/franchises stand out as ones I've had so much fun with, I can't stop playing them and I continue to hope more games will come out so I can keep enjoying the series as much as I have.
These are only a hand full of them, but they're the ones that really count for me.
Mega Man, my first love, many of my friends simply don't "get" what I like so much about it.
When I was young, playing it on my NES (started with Megaman 2), I had the time of my life. The music was amazing, but more on that later. I felt like the game was a real challenge, something I wanted to master -- it never felt cheap, you could always find a way around a problem by learning it's patterns, be it a stage or an enemy/boss. It's always fair, there's some cheap shots, but they should only kill you once or twice before you can move on.
The music though, this may be the one thing that'll never change the way I feel about this series. Ever since I heard it, they were so catchy -- I wanted to make my own music. I've practiced since I was like 8 years old with silly pre-programmed loop programs and when I was old enough to understand how to create my own stuff, I went on to FL Studio/Fruity Loops (at the time) and really got into the groove. Since then, maybe 12 years ago, 24 now, I've really grown fond of making music and still love doing it, and Megaman has always been my first and foremost inspiration.
I can't thank this series enough, all of them (Classic, X, MMBN, etc) for so many fun years. Here's hoping to Megaman Legends 3 and Mega Man 11.
There's something to be said about Castlevania, and it's that this series sure has evolved from back when it started on the NES. At least, you know, mostly the DS games and obviously since Symphony of the Night.
For several reasons this series mirrors my feelings for the Mega Man franchise pretty well; Excellent platforming, outstanding music, great challenge, awesome bosses and there's some pretty nice stories there to be found as well.
If there's two franchises I couldn't live without, it's these two.
I received my PS2 on a christmas eve. The game that came with it was called Resident Evil Code Veronica X. Inside was a demo which was titled "Devil May Cry".
I thought it sounded really bad-ass, so I popped it in and next thing I know, it's 3 hours and 7 playthroughs later; I was addicted.
The amount of fun I had swinging people into the air and unloading Ebony & Ivory into them, unmatched at the time. It felt so cool to do that, hop on after them, and slash them some more. The music, again, was really inspiring with it's Gothic-rock electronica type of music.
When I finally bought the game, the boss fights were amazing. The battles with Nelo Angelo are for sure the ones that I'll remember the most. Devil May Cry 2 may have been a let down on so many levels, but the third and fourth installments, I still play a lot to this day.
I love the challenge in these games too, I can't tell you the amount of times I've died on all Dante Must Die modes from the games, but it was so much fun getting through them all.
There's something surreal about this one, and it's pretty much that it messes with your head. Hell, I remember playing the first one as a little dude and practically screaming for my life when that body fell out of the locker in the hell version of the school.
Silent Hill 2, however, is where the fonder memories are at. That game was a mindscrew from start to finish, Pyramid Head was a badass and the ending literally blew me away. Never saw that coming.
Too bad recently the series has hit somewhat of a slope in terms of quality, but if Shattered Memories is a sign of things to come, things will probably look better in the near future.
There was a time when I saw all these kinds of crazy flash videos with pretty detailed looking sprites, and them yelling things like `OBJECTION!´ into people's faces. I thought, "Hey, this looks awesome."
Problem was, I could never find these games in this country. I looked everywhere to no avail, then realized the DS was region free and imported the first one. Love at first sight, for sure. The gameplay may not be all that meaty per-se, since it is mainly text based - but there is still a lot to do and see, but the main thing that took me was the ABSURD story-lines that may even contain more out-of-this-world plot twists than the Metal Gear series.
The characters are awesome, I still await the return of Phoenix Wright (properly) someday, and even though Edgeworth's outing was a good one, I still want to point my finger at someone and be ridiculed about my absurdly large forehead.
