This topic has been traveling around the various blogs I follow this week. Krikket, Naithin, Paeroka,  and Roger have all shared their favorite series.

When thinking about series there are two that jumped out immediately to me: Pokemon and Monster Hunter. But for the reamiaing three, I really had to think about it. Games in a series were not coming to my mind mostly because I was thinking in terms of 1,2,3, ect. I haven’t played many games with that kind of numbering other than Borderlands. Borderlands is far from my favorite game let alone series. Then I realized, a lot of game series don’t have a numbering scheme. You might say this should have dawned on me when I identified Pokemon and Monster Hunter as a favorite series…..

Pokemon

I have nothing but good memories associated with Pokemon. Growing up it was THE game to play an THE show to watch. Friends, family, neighbor kids, we all came together to trade, battle, and brag to each other about our pokemon. Years later I still enjoy the series. I’ve picked up every mainline game and have beaten each one at least once. Except for Pokemon Sun, I own it but have yet to play through it. I’m not one to grind much post game but I love running through the campaign and beating all the gym leaders.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

I like the way Pokemon Mysetery dungeon takes a familiar IP and does something completely different with it. Instead of being about humans collecting pokemon and battling them, it’s about pokemon collecting pokemon and battling them!

Actually, it’s more of a rouge-lite dungeon crawler where pokemon aren’t nameless wildlife but actual characters. The writing has always been super questionable…more so than the mainline games but the gameplay is something I find very unique. I still have to finish the newly remastered version I own on the switch.

Monster Hunter

In 2018 Monster Hunter: World released and took the gaming world by storm. But let me tell you, I’ve been hunting monsters since the PSP was a popular handheld. And yes, the control scheme was horrible with only one joystick!

Since then I’ve played all the Monster Hunter games I can get my hands on. I have never finished on in its entirety but I’ve put hundreds of hours into these things with friends over the years.

Tales Of Series

I’ve played one and a half games in this series but I can tell you that I’ll be playing at least 2 more. That’s because there’s only 4 currently available on Steam. I love the mix of a flashy combat system and fantastic characters. What I enjoy most, at least in the games I’ve played, has their own goals and fairly deep backstory. Plus, each one plays completely different in combat which spices things up on grindy parts. I probably have an extreme bias as well because I’m currently in the middle of one of these games.

Guild Wars

The original Guild Wars was the one. It took up all of my time for 4 years of high school. It was the only thing I played. I roped all of my friends into it which only made it more enjoyable. Skip ahead to 2012 when Guild Wars 2 released. I was in college and had only a laptop with an integrated graphics card. I ran Guild Wars 2 on the absolute lowest settings and got a solid 15 fps. But I stilled played the hell out of it. I’ve tried to revisit it multiple times but it never really struck me the same way the original did. I still love the world, the characters, and the lore and I’ll gladly play the next thing that comes out for this IP if it ever does.