Best Game In A Game Series

[drgon78]

What do you think is the best(or at least your favorite) game in a game series/franchise?

Ones that come to mind for me are...

Final Fantasy VI
Dragon Quest VIII
Breath of Fire 3
Super Metroid
Super Mario Brothers 3
Castlevania Symphony of The Night
Legend of Zelda
Resident Evil 2
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Mega Man 2

[Voltron]

I'd agree with a lot of that list.

I think Final Fantasy VII and X are fantastic entries, though, and they do deserve the love they get.

Mega Man 2 and Symphony of the Night are candidates for GOAT, in my opinion. Those games just knock it out of the ballpark.

I'd throw Pokemon Gold and Silver in there. Those games were top notch.

Also, I'd change LoZ to OoT. But that's just me.

[drgon78]

What is Oot?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by drgon78

What do you think is the best(or at least your favorite) game in a game series/franchise?

Ones that come to mind for me are...

Final Fantasy VI
Dragon Quest VIII
Breath of Fire 3
Super Metroid
Super Mario Brothers 3
Castlevania Symphony of The Night
Legend of Zelda
Resident Evil 2
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Mega Man 2

I respect that list.

Originally Posted by drgon78

What is Oot?

Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64).

For me...

Final Fantasy IV
Zelda: A Link to the Past
Ultima VII: The Black Gate
Dragon Quest/Warrior... gah... it's between III or IV. So, so good. I'd probably give it to IV.
Super Mario Galaxy
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Now I'll get a little more obscure...

Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom
Leisure Suit Larry II: Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places)
King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow
Police Quest III: The Kindred
Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
Space Quest V: The Spinal Frontier
Emperor: Battle for Dune

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros. 3 (only counting the NES games)

[turtle1237]

For Zelda, I going with common ground and saying a Link to the past was the best game in the series.

[Wildcat]

Sonic 2 is almost always picked as best in franchise or best of the 2D era.

It’s good and all but Sonic and Knuckles could link up and created 1 big game with 3. Even alone it introduced a kind of separate storyline with Knuckles.

I think 2 is only picked because of the spindash and people remember the stages more for whatever reason. Because they might have played it more often?

I do think there should be a separation from 2D to 3D for all major franchises in general. There’s a difference in how they play and a lot are ongoing.

Sonic:
2D S&K
3D Secret Rings - unpopular opinion but I think the gameplay is a cool change up. Black Knight didn’t seem to be able to recreate it. I’ll have to play it again.

Mario:
2D SMB 3
3D Odyssey - I didn’t have a 64 til later on and only tried out the others. This choice might change.

MK:
2D Trilogy
3D Armageddon - have not played the last 2 so this might change too.

I’ll have think about some others.

[turtle1237]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

Sonic 2 is almost always picked as best in franchise or best of the 2D era.

It’s good and all but Sonic and Knuckles could link up and created 1 big game with 3. Even alone it introduced a kind of separate storyline with Knuckles.

I think 2 is only picked because of the spindash and people remember the stages more for whatever reason. Because they might have played it more often?

I do think there should be a separation from 2D to 3D for all major franchises in general. There’s a difference in how they play and a lot are ongoing.

Sonic:
2D S&K
3D Secret Rings - unpopular opinion but I think the gameplay is a cool change up. Black Knight didn’t seem to be able to recreate it. I’ll have to play it again.

Mario:
2D SMB 3
3D Odyssey - I didn’t have a 64 til later on and only tried out the others. This choice might change.

MK:
2D Trilogy
3D Armageddon - have not played the last 2 so this might change too.

I’ll have think about some others.

As for Mortal Kombat, I think its best game has to be MK2. It was when the series was at its highest, and was really going toe to toe with Street Fighter and the King of the Fighters series at the time.

[Wildcat]

I picked Trilogy because it plays as all 3 previous games with every character, feature and option included up til then.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Best Counter-Strike game: 1.6/Condition Zero (Theyy're technically different games, but Condtion Zero is 95% the same game, aside from prettier skins and Bots, so I count them as one).

Best Call of Duty: Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2 (Back when the Original Infinity Ward Staff were making them. World at War and the First two Black Ops games are also fantastic, but I'd give the slight edge to the first two modern warfare games).

Best Pokemon: Crystal (Basically an improved version of Gold/Silver).

Best Smash Bros: Melee.

[Prowler]

This is hard, since I haven't played every single entry of any video game series, but I'll try:

Zelda: A Link to the Past
Mega Man: Mega Man 2
Mario: Hard to say, but I'll go with SMB3
Star Fox: Star Fox 64
Sonic: Sonic Mania
Street Fighter Third Strike
King of Fighters KOF 2002
Civilization Civ IV
Smash Bros.: Ultimate
Mario Kart: MK8 Deluxe
Donkey Kong: DKC2

[turtle1237]

Originally Posted by Prowler

This is hard, since I haven't played every single entry of any video game series, but I'll try:

Zelda: A Link to the Past
Mega Man: Mega Man 2
Mario: Hard to say, but I'll go with SMB3
Star Fox: Star Fox 64
Sonic: Sonic Mania
Street Fighter Third Strike
King of Fighters KOF 2002
Civilization Civ IV
Smash Bros.: Ultimate
Mario Kart: MK8 Deluxe
Donkey Kong: DKC2

How can you put 3rd strike over 2? 2 was so great, there still making "New" Street Fighter 2 games to this very day.

[Redeemer]

can't believe no one has mentioned the TMNT series yet.

TMNT: Manhattan Project is the correct answer of course!

[Andrew NDB]

The only TMNT game worth playing (that I've actually played) is the first one on NES. Not perfect, but they actually tried to do some diverse sh*t there and that was pretty big for a NES game. You can swap out Turtles, you can drive the Turtle Van, you can swim around.

The rest of the Konami games are all like the same game, the same Final Fight clone. Boring.

[turtle1237]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

The only TMNT game worth playing (that I've actually played) is the first one on NES. Not perfect, but they actually tried to do some diverse sh*t there and that was pretty big for a NES game. You can swap out Turtles, you can drive the Turtle Van, you can swim around.

The rest of the Konami games are all like the same game, the same Final Fight clone. Boring.

For me the best Turtles game is the arcade game. And no not that lame Nes version. The real Arcade game, 4 players, double battle with Bebop and Rockstandy, who kills the most foot members gets a kiss from April lol.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by turtle1237

For me the best Turtles game is the arcade game. And no not that lame Nes version. The real Arcade game, 4 players, double battle with Bebop and Rockstandy, who kills the most foot members gets a kiss from April lol.

Sure, that game was great, too. Less great than the first NES game, but great in a different co-op button mashing way. Which is fine, that's fun too, it's just after that arcade game they proceeded to just make the same game 10 times over.

[Leo656]

But they were all fun to play, though, especially with friends. The first TMNT game may have been a lot bigger and more diverse, but it definitely, definitely wasn't fun for every second of the experience like Turtles In Time was, for example.

It's like Final Fantasy VII... great game, love it, but it tried to do too much, in places. They had turn-based combat, but they also had Chocobo racing and snowboarding and Road Rash-style motorcycle combat and even a breeding simulator. Those extra things all added a couple dozen hours to the gameplay (albeit some of them were optional) but they weren't always fun. They added diversity but more than anything they were padding. Definitely not the best part of the game. One could argue they didn't need to bother with some of it. The game may have been even better if it had maintained a tighter focus.

I'm not against respecting a collection of ideas put together with an ultimately mediocre execution, but at the same time there's a lot to be said for a singular idea executed well.

I'unno, I've given the NES game a thousand chances and I've never liked it. It's generally pointless to play as anyone but Donatello, for one thing, except when you have to "sacrifice" someone on purpose just to plow through one of the super-cheap parts and keep playing the damn game. Everyone bitches about the Dam level and the seaweed, but that's not even a big deal. The problem is unless you've got a guide or already spent years running in circles and have every manhole maze memorized, you can easily just spend hours going nowhere and making no progress. It's just a very "anti-player" video game. It isn't what it needed to be for something that was ostensibly aimed at 6-year olds. This is purely anecdotal, but I personally knew not one single kid who had the patience to finish that game or even play halfway through it, and most people I know who did finish it didn't do so until they were pretty much adults (usually using emulators with Save states and cheat codes).

Say what you will about II, III, and Turtles In Time, but that's what people really wanted in a TMNT game. They didn't reinvent the wheel but they perfected a proven formula. They were simple fun, A-to-the-Z. Ask 1000 people who played them what they think of those games, and nobody would say they broke any new ground but every single person would say they were fun games. You would not get such a unanimous reaction in favor of the first NES game. Probably split pretty even.

The most fun I personally had playing a TMNT game was most likely either Turtles in Time or The Manhattan Project, even though Turtles In Time is an incredibly short and easy game. As far as hours of investment along with being a mostly-fun experience, Tournament Fighters for SNES probably offers the most bang for the buck. A person generally won't breeze through it (definitely not on the higher difficulty settings) but it's not incredibly frustrating, nor boring, and it plays way better than most SFII clones. "Best TMNT Game"? I don't know if I'd go that far, but a reasonable case could definitely be made for that one, sure. If someone told me that was their favorite TMNT game I wouldn't argue with them.

Another game I had a ton of fun with, although I definitely think it's got some problems, was the first 2003 series TMNT game, on the Gamecube. A few tweaks and that could've easily been a contender for Best TMNT Game. It's still pretty good, though.

[Andrew NDB]

My thing is... after TMNT II (the game)... they never even tried to do anything different. Did people still like the arcade game model? Sure. Until they didn't. They finally tried something "different" at the end with Tournament Fighters, but that was just simplifying things even further and just cloning Street Fighter (poorly) instead of continuing to clone Final Fight.

[Leo656]

If there's one thing video games based on licensed properties are certainly not known for, it's their commitment to innovation over playing it safe.

Like yeah, II, III and IV were all the same game, but they sold millions of them. Big win for Konami. Big win for most people, really. Say hypothetically that they did something completely different with TMNT III, and it didn't catch on, and the game franchise dies five years earlier than it actually did. That would have been a shame. Why would they risk everything they'd built on an untested "new idea"? No sane person would do that. "But at least they tried to think outside the box"? C'mon. It would've been bad business.

Also, what other video game trends besides beat-'em-ups and fighting games were going on in 1990-1993 worth ripping off/pasting the TMNT characters into? Racing games? JRPGs? It's not like they were going to create an entirely new genre of video game JUST for this licensed cartoon property. There was an outspoken "Official/Unofficial Rule" about licensed games back then across all companies and developers: You make a beat-'em-up, or a platformer, or maaaybe a fighting game, or else your licensed property does not get to have a video game. There really wasn't a lot they could do with it. Seriously.

I could see them maybe adding more platforming elements into the beat-'em-up formula, but that's about it. You have to factor contemporary market trends into these things. The first TMNT game may have been unique, but it wasn't very popular because it didn't give people enough of what they wanted. The Arcade Game did gangbusters, so Konami made a very pragmatic decision to keep doing what worked. One can't even say they went to the well too often, because Turtles In Time is the most fondly-remembered and (I think) did the best overall business, even though one could argue that II and III were overall better games. So it's not like people got sick of it the more it went on, if anything it was just Supply and Demand.

They don't book these things just for you y'know, bruddah. But obviously you're entitled to your opinion, I just think those things weren't reasonable to want or expect in 1991 under the circumstances of the time and I think what happened ultimately worked out the best for everyone.

I mean, there's a game based on the Nick cartoon that's very similar to the first NES game. Not the first one they did, the second one. I think it's called "Danger of the Ooze", or something (can't be assed to go check at the moment). Maybe that would suit you, or at least intrigue you? I thought it was okay, just kind of boring. But it definitely reminded me a LOT of the NES game, with a bit of Metroidvania. Not bad, not great.

Y'know what everyone hated, but treated me fine, was that Out of the Shadows game. Most people swore theirs was glitchy and buggy but mine wasn't like that at all. I thought it was fine. Nothing amazing, but perfectly fine and had a lot of neat ideas. Could've been better with more money behind it.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by turtle1237

How can you put 3rd strike over 2? 2 was so great, there still making "New" Street Fighter 2 games to this very day.

SF2 was definitely more financially successful and left a bigger legacy than 3rd Strike, but 3rd Strike is the best SF game gameplay wise. The reason why SFIII was a commercial failure was because of two factors:

1) 3D fighters and 3D games oin general overtaking 2D fighters in the mid-late 90s.
2) Lack of iconic characters. Chun-Li wasn't even in the vanilla version of SFIII or Second Impact.

Third Strike is very fluid and offers the best online/competitive experience of any other SF game I've played. Shame it doesn't have Cammy, M. Bison, Sagat, Dhalsim or Guile; but it's a great game nonetheless.

SF2 is definitely iconic and the most influential fighting game of all time, but it feels a bit "stiff" and "cheap" compared to Third Strike gameplay wise.