Jump to content

Starting a new series/franchise...


PleaseHoldOn

What do you do?  

65 members have voted

  1. 1. You're starting a new series, what do you start with?

    • The first game
      59
    • The best game
      6


Recommended Posts

Assuming you have access to all of them (ie. it doesn't span consoles that you might not own)... what do you do?  Start with the first game in the series, or the best game?

 

This is assuming there is a narrative that places value in playing through all of the games.  Unlike say... Final Fantasy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I try playing from the beginning because, like everything, I interact with something for the story. Even shooters which I don't play seriously. 

 

I've only played 2 series out of order,

CoD's Modern Warfare: Started with MW3 because it came with the PS3 and ended up playing this section of CoD backwards playing the first game last. (mainly because I could never find a working copy of the first game)

 

Assassin's Creed: Brother bought Brotherhood because it looked good and after enjoying the game we bought ACII and then we moved on to the first game. Once those 3 were done we started playing in the right order.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why is there no "It depends" option?

 

I've had several franchises where I didn't try the first game at all (Final Fantasy, Disgaea and Persona) and another handful where I've played the games in order (Ratchet & Clank, God of War). It usually depends whether or not the game's story follows the last one and sometimes I'll just look up a summary/playthrough of the previous game to know what's going on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think another spin to the question is do you play them in order of timeline or release?

 

For example God of War goes-Ascension, Chains of Olympus, God of War 1, Ghost of Sparta, God of War 2 and God of War 3

The same goes for the Devil May Cry series as well. DMC3, DMC1, DMC4, and DMC2. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It ultimately depends on the series.

 

Series like Final Fantasy, Saints Row, and Uncharted, there's not much reason to start with the first game. You can, but each game is pretty separate, so why trudge though games you're not interested in(or are just bad) to get to a good one? I mean, honestly, who in their right mind would go back and play the NES Final Fantasy because they think Final Fantasy X looks like fun? Or go back and play Saints Row because Saints Row IV looks fun?

 

Story driven series are another story though. Definitely wouldn't want to start the Mass Effect series with 3, or the Kingdom Hearts series with Chain of Memories.

 

For the most part, I think it's best to start with the best game though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's just not possible to do this with all game series a person buys a lot of games from. Sometimes the first game is not on the system the sequels are on, like how Crysis was. At some point, a person is going to buy the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, whatever game in a series, especially if the developers actually decide to pull the "prequel" card mid series (and after multiple installments have already been made and published), like God of War: Ascension (which I will be taking advantage of in PS+, as GOW had too many installments for me to start getting into the series - overwhelmed).

 

With that said, I try my best to buy the first game in a series before playing a series, thus why I have not played (and obtained it's platinum trophy) Prototype 2, which was offered as a free game for PSPlus.

 

Further thoughts: I mostly do this for character development and connecting story-lines sake. At the same time, this allows me to see if the developers are good game makers, but yeah I mostly do it to see how the character grows, matures, gets better, etc, over the course of the installments, as well as the story and if it adds up from the prequels. This is one of the many reasons why the Jak and Daxter series is my favorite goddamn series - it has done both of these things (as well as get better in gameplay each time) in ALL 3 sequel installments (yes including that spinoff).

Edited by Mar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

See here's the thing. I've not played an AC game I plan to play the whole series. But keep getting told to skip the first game. I usually play all the series if I can. Hell before I started WoW I bought WC 2 and 3 and their expacs and played them before I started WoW. Never could find the original warcraft. Oh well.

 

Do I skip AC 1 or not? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the story of the series spans several games, then I definitely want to start from the beginning for the best possible experience.

 

That being said, however, I also believe that starting somewhere in the middle of a series and then playing them out of order can really open your eyes to how well the narrative/story-telling is executed. From a personal standpoint, take the Zero Escape series. I played Virtue's Last Reward first, and then I went back and played 999. Even though this is a such a heavily story-driven game where almost anything and everything is a spoiler, having played VLR first did not take away anything from 999 and I was still able to be mind-blown in 999. This specific experience (along with the Danganronpa series) has pretty much convinced me that Spike knows what they are doing and are extremely good at their execution in story set-up and story-telling, and at this point I'm willing to throw my money at every Spike game without even thinking twice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

See here's the thing. I've not played an AC game I plan to play the whole series. But keep getting told to skip the first game. I usually play all the series if I can. Hell before I started WoW I bought WC 2 and 3 and their expacs and played them before I started WoW. Never could find the original warcraft. Oh well.

 

Do I skip AC 1 or not? 

 

AC 1 is good for introducing you to the story. Altair, the assassin you play as, kinda fades away after this game. 

If you aren't interested in the story of the present day story then skip it. The game itself is really boring compared to all the others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I usually start with the first game but in certain cases it wasn't possible because the games are on different consoles. Like with The Witcher series, I've never played 1 or 2 but am currently playing 3. It's reminding me why it's best to start with the first game. I'm constantly wondering who certain people are and what's happened. Kinda keen to get the other 2 games.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It ultimately depends on the series.

 

Series like Final Fantasy, Saints Row, and Uncharted, there's not much reason to start with the first game. You can, but each game is pretty separate, so why trudge though games you're not interested in(or are just bad) to get to a good one? I mean, honestly, who in their right mind would go back and play the NES Final Fantasy because they think Final Fantasy X looks like fun? Or go back and play Saints Row because Saints Row IV looks fun?

 

Story driven series are another story though. Definitely wouldn't want to start the Mass Effect series with 3, or the Kingdom Hearts series with Chain of Memories.

 

For the most part, I think it's best to start with the best game though.

 

You mostly had me, but you included Saints Row with Final Fantasy.  I'll assume you never did play the Saints Row series, since from 1 onwards it definitely follows a story, and while it might not be very good, or to everyone's interest, it is there.  I agree about Final Fantasy, while a great series, each game is a separate entity and stories outside of the "insert roman numeral dash 2" are completely unrelated.  But Saints Row follows you as a single character through all 4 games, and you are always the same character, and there's tons and tons of callbacks throughout each game to prior games (especially 4, I mean shit, that game is basically just an homage to the first 3).  Again, the story might not be particularly good, but as someone who's played them all, I can assure you it is there.  Also, Saints Row 2 is the best in the series, so I would definitely recommend playing that if you haven't.

 

In regards to my preferences, I prefer to play from the beginning, but with some series, like Yakuza, I won't be going back so I watched both of the hour long videos for the first 2 games (on 3s disc) to get the backstory, so 3 made more sense, and I'm excited to start 4 someday.  Series like Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed*, and others were all played from the beginning, in proper order.  I played Gran Turismo from the beginning too (will be continuing that legacy with 6 in the near future) and that's spanned 3 consoles.  I got the Sly HD collection and re-played each of those games before I started Thieves in Time.  But even games where the story doesn't carry over I still try to play from the beginning, if possible.  Hell, I even played GTA from the beginning (starting with 2 and playing every game since, but with reading up on the first game to see what it was about once I played and liked the 2nd game).

 

*Side note: I'll use this opportunity to again voice my discontent regarding Ubisoft's decision NOT to add trophies to the first AC game.

Edited by Matto_lsi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...