6 Iconic Capcom Franchises We Should All Be Thankful For

Monster Hunter

Capcom’s Monster Hunter series has always excelled in giving players a rewarding and satisfying challenge. By playing with up to four other hunters, you can take on huge monsters and wyverns by communicating and working together to hunt and/or kill the beasts.

The vast array of weapon types, equipment, and customization options make every hunt feel different from the last.

Considering that Monster Hunter: World has gone on to sell over 12 million units, there’s no doubt that Capcom has done something great with this online action role-playing series.

When you and your friends are dying in the midst of a fight with a formidable monster, with no more healing items on you, it can give you the most intense feeling ever. Things can get even more stressful if you’re by yourself in the same situation.

We have to thank Capcom for bringing this series of video games into existence. There are only a handful of other games that have attempted to recreate the gameplay loop of MH (God Eater, Freedom Wars) but none have surpassed the beast of a franchise that this is.

Resident Evil

This iconic franchise basically kicked-started survival horror as a genre. Resident Evil introduced us to tank controls, limited ammunition, and an item management system that had us sweating almost as much as the creepy zombies that stalked us.

But one thing the series has always got spot on is its locations. From creepy mansions to gothic police stations to deserted rural villages, Capcom has proved itself a master of designing eerie settings that almost feel like a character itself.

Elsewhere, having to solve multi-tiered puzzles, finding maps, and killing zombies with limited resourced proved to be quite terrifying and more than a little difficult, but that’s what Resident Evil was all about and it made the game stand out from other games at the time.

Moving forward to 2019, Capcom has just released a critically successful remake of Resident Evil 2 and the also excellent Resident Evil not too long ago.

Capcom is bringing its franchise back from the grave after the disaster that was RE6, and showing us that the zombie-genre will never die.

Devil May Cry

Devil May Cry is one of those franchises that just make you feel like a badass whenever you’re playing it. The fast-paced combo-based combat mixed with the rock soundtrack and edgy characters makes this series one that is rad as hell.

Devil May Cry 5 for example, never stops being fun and action-packed between cutscenes and gameplay. Switching between three different characters with totally separate movesets make the game feel like 3 campaigns pushed into one long one.

The first Devil May Cry was originally being developed as a new Resident Evil game, so we have to thank Capcom for realizing their mistakes and put out DMC as its own new franchise.

Mega Man

Oh, Mega Man. How do we even begin to talk about how much impact this 2D side-scroller would make on the gaming industry?

The Blue Bomber’s games allowed you to start your campaign any way that you wanted. There would be a screen with a stage and corresponding boss attached to each one. You can choose to fight them in any order that you wish, but the trick is that every boss has a weakness.

You see, every time you defeated a boss, you would obtain a weapon that’s based around their attacks. These weapons can then be used to take down the other bosses, and having to figure out which weapon worked best was part of the fun.

Let’s not mention that the series has so many different kinds of spin-offs that it’s really hard to keep track. You got Mega Man X, Mega Man Battle Network, Mega Man Star Force… shall I go on?

Some of these franchises such as Mega Man Legends would even go on to become somewhat more popular than the main series, with fans clamoring for a proper sequel what feels like ages.

Thank you Capcom, for bringing the Blue Bomber into my life and the lives of gamers around the world.

Ace Attorney

Capcom’s Ace Attorney throws players into the shoes of a defense attorney named Phoenix Wright.

By working together with his assistant, Maya, both of them have to solve several hard-hitting cases by obtaining evidence, interrogating witnesses, and finding contradictions.

The gameplay loop of walking around the crime scene and talking to key characters (visual novel style) to then going to the courtroom never gets old. The cases range from silly petty crimes to heartbreaking deaths and other tragedies.

Since the start of the series back in 2001, there has been since multiple adaptations in the form of manga, anime, films, and other video game spin-offs that star other attorneys and even Miles Edgeworth (the main prosecutor of the franchise).

After playing through every Ace Attorney game, you will feel as if you can do anything. Want to be a detective, lawyer, or forensic scientist?

Just tell the employer that you’ve played Capcom’s Ace Attorney series all the way through and they will have no choice but to hire you.

We’re not sure when the next game in the series is coming, but we would love to see a new one soon.

Street Fighter

Ryu and Chun-Li, two of the fighters from Capcom’s long-running Street Fighter series, are pretty much household names at this point, and that’s all thanks to Capcom developing one of, if not, the best arcade fighters of all time.

The series has gone to span live-action, manga, and a bunch of other adaptations, and when you look at the sales numbers of the franchise, you can see why Capcom decided to do all of those things for Street Fighter.

Just this year, Capcom revealed that the lifetime sales for the series have surpassed 42 million units, just under Monster Hunter and Resident Evil sales numbers.