Top 10 Video Game Franchises

As much as fans clamor for new IPs and fewer sequels, there's no doubt that long-standing franchises form the foundation of the video game industry. Mario, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo, Call of Duty -- these are the game that are most coveted, these are the games that sell tens of millions of copies.

The purpose of this blog post is to rank the very best of these franchises. There is no precise formula to the ranking of the following list. Credit was given for total number of "recommended" games in a given franchise, the number of four-star games, and the number of games in the top three percent. I promise to revisit this list a year from now to see how things have changed.

But for now, these are the ten franchises most worthy of inclusion on such a prestigious list. All ten have provided consistence excellence for several years. Six of the ten series have at least one game in my all-time top ten games list; one series has two games.

Let's begin with a hugely popular, but also hugely criticized series: Call of Duty. It's become fashionable to dump on Call of Duty, even as its sales reach never-before-seen levels. Some self-described "hardcore" gamers dislike its "casual" appeal, but part of what makes Call of Duty so great is its accessibility. Almost anyone can learn the rules of Call of Duty, a military first-person shooter. Call of Duty owes a lot to Medal of Honor, which shares many of the same themes, mechanics, and mission structures. But Call of Duty made itself unique by telling war stories from several different vantage points. For example, in the first Call of Duty game, players control soldiers from the American, British, and Russian armies during World War II. This same format has been used in the Modern Warfare sub-series of Call of Duty, which took the franchise out of World War II and into the present.

Developers: Infinity Ward, Treyarch
Best game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

All modern stealth action games owe something to Metal Gear, which popularized the sub-genre. Yet none of the games that followed -- Splinter Cell, Hitman -- have ever surpassed Metal Gear in quality. And the reason is simple: Hideo Kojima, who designed the very first game in the series and directed the big hits that succeeded it. Kojima is a genius, second only to Miyamoto in game design, and his signature series is Metal Gear. The game which defines the series is Metal Gear Solid, which debuted in 1998 on Playstation. In MGS, Kojima brought cinematic storytelling in video games to new heights -- the game unfolds like a Hollywood blockbuster. Kojima refined this formula in several sequels, always ensuring that cinematics, however prevalent in his games, never overshadowed gameplay.

Developers: Konami, Kojima Productions
Best game: Metal Gear Solid

What would first-person shooters be like without Halo? They wouldn't be as good, and they wouldn't be so popular on consoles. The first Halo game was a revolution: it helped Microsoft gain a foothold in the console market; it moved first-person shooters away from computers and onto consoles; and it introduced into the genre new mechanics that have been copied again and again. It's the best first-person shooter ever made. All the Halo sequels are excellent too, stacked with stellar production values, engaging single-player campaigns, and addictive multiplayer options. All in all, Halo is the best shooting series of all time.

Developers: Bungie, 343 Industries
Best game: Halo: Combat Evolved

Known as Biohazard in Japan, Resident Evil is the survival-horror franchise par excellence. It more or less invented the sub-genre in 1996. Resident Evil games can be neatly divided into two categories: the survival-horror games before 2005 in which players were underpowered and under-equipped; and the action-horror games after 2005. In the middle is Resident Evil 4, the best of the series and the game that reinvented the Resident Evil formula. It's a transcendent, brilliant action-adventure game that stands among the best games produced, but it's legacy is somewhat controversial. Resident Evil games became much more action-oriented after Resident Evil 4; it was only in 2012 with Resident Evil: Revelations that Capcom recaptured the sense of isolation and dread that defined the series in its early years.

Developer: Capcom
Best game: Resident Evil 4

So Capcom owns the best survival-horror franchise. But it also owns the best fighting franchise: Street Fighter. Apart from the premiere game, which is a total dud, the series has provided several great and near-great titles. The most important game in the series is Street Fighter II, which incidentally is one of the most important games ever made. It revivified the arcade industry, influenced a generation of fighting games, and paved the way for competitive multiplayer in video games. It was succeeded by Super Street Fighter II, the best of the series, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which is still played in competitive tournaments twenty years later.

Developer: Capcom
Best game: Super Street Fighter II

Created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy is an evergreen role-playing game franchise beloved by many. Unlike some popular RPG franchises, games in the Final Fantasy series rarely follow the same characters or storyline. Typically each game introduces new worlds, new heroes, and new storylines, but retains the same overall structure that makes the series so enduring. Although the games after it improved upon the Final Fantasy formula, Final Fantasy II for the SNES went a long way toward introducing dramatic storytelling into role-playing games. Its successors -- notably Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy VII -- built upon that foundation in order to weave moving, powerful stories into the series' addictive, challenging gameplay.

Developer: Square Enix
Best game: Final Fantasy III (SNES)

Like Resident Evil, Castlevania can be broken up into two phases: the period between 1986 and 1995, and the years after 1997. Whereas the first generation of Castlevania titles had been action platform games -- and good ones at that -- the generation that began after 1997 became something else entirely: a cross between action-adventure and role-playing game. The seminal game was Symphony of the Night, a Playstation game that changed forever the Castlevania formula. Instead of straightforward levels that focused on action and platforming, the series moved close to the Metroid formula: exploration, weapon upgrades, inventory management. The series also adopted role-playing elements. Heroes now had hit points and attributes like strength and defense, and could increase them by defeating enemies. This influenced an entire generation of Castlevania games, deemed "Metroidvania" because of the similarities to Nintendo's action-adventure franchise.

Developer: Konami, MercurySteam, Kojima Productions
Best game: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Speaking of Metroid...here it is at number three. Be warned: if you're not a fan of Nintendo IPs, you're not going to like the rest of this list. Metroid might not be as popular or famous as Super Mario, Pokemon, and The Legend of Zelda, but it's a terrific franchise nonetheless. It's also an influential franchise. The first Metroid game was one of the first video games to employ a password system that allowed players to retrieve their progress. It also introduced a new level of exploration and backtracking to action platform games. Lastly -- spoiler alert! -- it revolved around a female protagonist. Since that premiere game, the series has evolved to become a top-tier franchise, with two games worthy of mention among the greatest of all time: Super Metroid (1994) and Metroid Prime (2002). What makes the series so special is its atmosphere and mood -- empty, claustrophobic, alien -- its rich mythology, and its heroine -- a strong, independent, honorable woman, fighting alone in the darkness of space.

Developer: Nintendo R&D1, Retro Studios, Team Ninja
Best game: Super Metroid.

What can be said about Super Mario? The first game in the series is probably the most important piece of video game software ever made, a title that resurrected an industry on the brink of collapse and made Japan the epicenter of the video game world. Almost thirty years later, the series is still the best platform franchise around. What's most remarkable about Super Mario is that it dominates both 2D and 3D platform games: Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy are two of the best and most groundbreaking 3D platform games; Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and, more recently, New Super Mario Bros., are some of the very best 2D platform games. Even when the series strays from the formula -- e.g., Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Land -- the results are outstanding.

Developer: Nintendo EAD
Best game: Super Mario 64

Of all the many video game franchises in the world, The Legend of Zelda is the greatest. It's been the standard-bearer for non-linear action-adventure since 1986. The first game, The Legend of Zelda, changed video games forever by including a battery inside the cartridge that allowed players to save gave files. This opened up new possibilities for game designers; games could be bigger and longer, and didn't need to be completed in a single sitting. The series moved from 2D to 3D in 1998 with Ocarina of Time, generally considered the best video game ever made. It's successors -- Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword -- are critically acclaimed. The series is constantly retooling and reinventing itself, introducing new mechanics and gameplay features that keep The Legend of Zelda fresh after 25 years.

Developers: Nintendo EAD, Capcom
Best game: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time