Playing sequels first

Have you ever played the second or third or such game in a series before the original? And I don't mean in series like Final Fantasy, but series where the games are connected, like Suikoden.

I played the Suikoden games in this order: III-IV-I-V-II.

Now I'm playing the some Atelier games. The order of these games is Rorona-Totori-Meruru. I played Meruru first about a year ago and just finished up Totori.

Now I'm going to play Meruru again because I always love going back over a game like that to see what I understand more. Like when I played Suikoden II and was like "OHMYGOSH LOOK ITS MINI TUTA", or being able to see what stuff it is people were talking about in the later games. So I'm interested in seeing how different the game looks now that I understand some back story more

How about you guys? Ever play a series out of order? Do you like going back to the later games with a fresh perspective after playing an earlier installment?

I played Silent Hill 3, Silent Hill: The Room, Silent Hill 2, and then Silent Hill.

I hate playing games out of order when I can help it. It really bugged me that I played Mass Effect 2 before ME1 but at the time I didn't have a system that could play the first one and there were no signs that it would come out for it. I also really wanted to play Suikoden II but decided to get my feet wet with the original even though it's not as acclaimed.

Right now I'm debating on whether to skip Dragon Age 2 to get to DA: Inquisition.

If I can help it, I won't play them out of order. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

I played Metal Gear Solid 3 before any of the others.

Plenty of times. I was introduced to a lot of franchises through their second game: Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Road Rash, Crash Bandicoot, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, X-Men 2 Clone Wars, so on and so forth. I also played Metal Gear Solid before the first two games, and Skyrim was my introduction into TES.

Street Fighter, yes. I think a lot of people played II before the first, if they even ever played the first one.

Castlevania, I saw II first, played III first, and played the Metroidvania ones before I played the first one.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

I hate playing games out of order when I can help it

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Originally Posted by Shauna

If I can help it, I won't play them out of order. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

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Sums it up for me pretty well

Edit: I will admit this sort of ruins the experience sometimes, when there's a game I want to play, but I feel compelled to play its predecessor first, and it turns out to be an inferior game, and kinda ruins my desire to dig into the sequel :/

So I highly suggest people don't feel too compelled to be this way and just enjoy what they want to enjoy. If you want to know what happened previously, watch a YouTube LP or read a synopsis. Don't torture yourself for the sake of gaming xD

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

Plenty of times. I was introduced to a lot of franchises through their second game: Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Road Rash, Crash Bandicoot, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, X-Men 2 Clone Wars, so on and so forth. I also played Metal Gear Solid before the first two games, and Skyrim was my introduction into TES.

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Oh yeah the SNES/Genesis generation was Big for series with tons of sequels, you could pretty much start anywhere. I know I played the second Sonic, Shining Force and Streets of Rage before the first entries.

More recently I played FEAR 2 and Killzone 2 before their first entries. The only positive of going back to try Killzone 1 was that it made me appreciate what an enormous leap the second game was. The first was an instance of a team's vision being absolutely crippled by the hardware.

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Originally Posted by Bolivar

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Originally Posted by ToriJ

Plenty of times. I was introduced to a lot of franchises through their second game: Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Road Rash, Crash Bandicoot, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, X-Men 2 Clone Wars, so on and so forth. I also played Metal Gear Solid before the first two games, and Skyrim was my introduction into TES.

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Oh yeah the SNES/Genesis generation was Big for series with tons of sequels, you could pretty much start anywhere. I know I played the second Sonic, Shining Force and Streets of Rage before the first entries.

More recently I played FEAR 2 and Killzone 2 before their first entries. The only positive of going back to try Killzone 1 was that it made me appreciate what an enormous leap the second game was. The first was an instance of a team's vision being absolutely crippled by the hardware.

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I started off with Sonic 3. I can't for the life of me remember which Streets of Rage game I played first. It was either 1 or 2.

I played Shadow Hearts: Covenant before I even knew there was just Shadow Hearts! Best game in the trilogy, in my opinion.

I played Mega Man 2 before the original. This was back when there were literally only two Mega Man games. I also played the second Syphon Filter before the original. I had no idea what was going on with most of the plot, but those were some fun games.

I think most people were introduced to Fallout through #3. I know I played Persona 3 Portable before any other game in the Megami Tensei line. And it was not really a good place to start. I'm honestly having trouble thinking of other series I did this in

Secret of Mana? Earthbound? I am not sure those even count. Maybe I just lucked out or something

I played Assassin's Creed II first because I watched my friend play the first game and it looked like the most boring game ever.

I did play Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory first out of that series. And Shin Megami Tensei 2 first. Atelier Meruru was also my first PS3 Atelier game. Atelier Iris 2 was my first PS2 Atelier game.

I played Uncharted 2 and then 3 before going back to 1. I don't think this was horrendous though. You could play all three of these games individually and not necessarily need to know what went on before.

This is literally the worst thing anyone can do, at least if the story between them is connected. I can understand playing games out of order if they don't have strong story connections, but if they do, nope.

I usually try to play games in order if the stories are connected. If not, then it really doesn't matter.

Here's a wrinkle to the question. What about a series where you haven't played the games yet, and the next sequel is actually a prequel. Depression Moon's post reminded me of that.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

I played Metal Gear Solid 3 before any of the others.

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Sure he played Metal Gear 3 first, but canonically he played the first one in the story.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

This is literally the worst thing anyone can do, at least if the story between them is connected. I can understand playing games out of order if they don't have strong story connections, but if they do, nope.

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Story? What's that? I play for gameplay.

Well obviously most of the Final Fantasies aren't connected so I played those out of order. They're not really sequels though, right? I can understand why people skipped right to AC II. AC I was a pile of trout which is disappointing because The Crusades were far more interesting of a time than the Italian Renaissance imo.

Playing MEI before MEII is sacrilege. That game needs to play in order otherwise your choices in MEI are just arbitrary.

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Originally Posted by Polnareff

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Originally Posted by Mirage

This is literally the worst thing anyone can do, at least if the story between them is connected. I can understand playing games out of order if they don't have strong story connections, but if they do, nope.

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Story? What's that? I play for gameplay.

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I play them for both!

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Originally Posted by Shiny

Well obviously most of the Final Fantasies aren't connected so I played those out of order. They're not really sequels though, right? I can understand why people skipped right to AC II. AC I was a pile of trout which is disappointing because The Crusades were far more interesting of a time than the Italian Renaissance imo.

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I really hope they remake that game. I really enjoyed the setting and characters and plot. But damn that monotonous gameplay