Have you ever caught up with a series before playing its newest release?

It's hard enough to find time for games to begin with, but what about franchises you want to get into before the new game comes out? I've been thinking about this a lot lately when it comes to Kingdom Hearts. I've only played the original. Should I bother trying to play the other ones? Is it worth it, SW? Have you played games in a series before playing the newest release?

Nope. If there's a franchise I haven't played before but the latest entry gets my interest, I have never had the incentive to go play the originals before playing the new entry.

I feel like games in general have shit continuity from one entry to the next; franchises generally designed, take more into account in gathering new audiences, not streaming people along a continuous or cohesive narrative for it to matter.

I'm guessing KH3 will have a Yakuza style summary to catch up people new to the series.

And no, I just jump blindly in the middle of a series and then decide if i'm going to play the old games.

Replaying the Metro games right now before Exodus comes out. Metro 2033 still holds up well for a last gen title...

Nope... I usually just avoid the series after missing the first title. Chances are if it was something I'd be interested in I would have played the original anyways.

I did that with Ace Attorney and Yakuza, where I basically played the whole series to get ready for Spirit of Justice and Y6. I'm also thinking about doing the same with Kingdom Hearts, but every time that I've tried to play the first game, I quit only a couple of hours in.

No

I always say I will, but I rarely do.

Yeah, i did it with the God of war series

Phantasy Star.

Which is good, because II and III are nowhere near the same quality.

Assassins Creed comes to mind. Other then that... not that I can really think of. Mostly due to the fact that any game that interests me I pretty much just get on launch day or very close to it though.. lol

This. I plan to do this as well.

Also, when Black Mesa Releases I'll be playing through all the Half Life games again.

There are some occasions where I don't play franchises in order. But, I still consider it catching up.

Franchises whose games I played in the following order:

STALKER: Call of Pripyat, Call of Chernobyl, Shadow of Chernobyl, and later Clear Sky

Fallout: FO4, FO3, New Vegas

Metro: Last Light, 2033

Uncharted: UC3, UC2, UC1

Killzone: KZ3, KZ2

No I rarely do that because I feel it overexposes me to the game/franchise and also due to time constraints. I'll usually try to find a story summary of past games if I have to, that is what I did with the Witcher 3 since I had never played a Witcher game before.

With online-heavy/gameplay-driven games its different, because I play online competitively a lot so usually I like to brush up on my skills leading up to a games' release of a sequel, I might definitely get acquainted with the game series before its newest entry drops and Im already in a good mindset and practiced sufficiently to do fairly well in the new game. Like with fighters, shooters or racers I do that sometimes.

I'm thinking of getting Kingdom Hearts and I most definitely will not play any past games, but I might read up on them or watch a YouTube summary video, good enough for me. I just want to know the gist of the past story, the main highlights/events, I dont need to know all the details.

I played Deus Ex 1 for the first time in the anticipation of Human Revolution. end up becoming my fav game of all time.

I already replayed through all Half life and both Metro games earlier this year because exodus was about to release this year fall.

I played both series so many times that im just sick and them. especially Half life 2 I completed it like 20 times almost.

I've done that with Mass Effect. But it's tough to do. Because you may get burned out on the series before you get to that final part... PLUS the internet spoils the story if you're not careful so you will be limiting internet exposure for quite some time.

I have found it to be of tremendous value when it comes to criticizing and comparing the different parts of the series. I have played all 3 Metroid Prime games in a row and as such have formed a slightly different opinion on the sequels than others. It shows you more clearly the through-line of a series and the changes they made, direction they head into. The reasons why things have changed and how that makes sense if you just played the previous entries.

And it's funny to see how people's reactions to those changes can be so... cautious. Probably driven by a desire to have more of the same and the fear of losing that. (Of course if you play the 3 in row you are less concerned about that.) The MP series in particular is cool to play in a row because you'll appreciate how the series evolves in a way that is lost on the people who didn't. MP3 has set up a clear idea of what MP4 would be like, and I am super excited about it.

I did this for mgs4. Bought the ps2 collection, absolutely worth it. I've played most of the kingdom heart games but may need to replay some and dream drop distance to get ready.

I tried to do it for KH series but I had almost zero fun playing KH1. I think it mostly has to do with the way it aged. The obscure fetch quests, tough camera controls and basic combat was all-in-all too annoying for me. I did love seeing what worlds they included. Because I did not know beforehand what worlds were included in the KH series.

Yes. I play a lot of rpgs, which tend to have long periods between games. So its not too hard. I also played MGS 1-3 in a few month period before 5 came out. Only reason i didnt play 4 is just too much MGS at one time.

@KungfuKitten: agreed I'd replay kingdom hearts 2 and birth by sleep, watch 356/2 and force myself to finish dream drop distance. Finally finish it off with playing that solo part with my favorite character Aqua.

Not typically. The last time I did, I finish the Uncharted series before playing 4. Was able to do that via the remastered edition "Nathan Drake Collection".

I say I will but it usually doesn't happen. I really want to do that with Kindom Hearts, but since I already played all of the games before I would much rather play new games.

In November the only thing I'm getting is Spyro so I might be able to.

I did with the Witcher. I played 2 on 360 but had a friend build a PC for me in 2014 and then played the first and carried into the second in prep for Witcher 3. Glad I did

I did for BioShock.

I've actually been doing that for every game for like 3 years. There was only a few franchises I actually kept up on with each new release.

I beat entire KH franchise for KH3. RDR1 for RDR2. VC1 for VC4. Metro Redux for Exodus. Megaman 1-6 and working, for 11. Yeah some of these didn't require it for story, but its just become a habit.

Gonna play gameboy Tetris before Tetris Effect comes out.

I just played through Gears 1/2/3 so now I'm ready to play 4. People have told me that Judgement is garbage though so I'm not sure if I'm going to play it or not.

Yes. I bought MGS2 in 2006 and MGS3 in 2007 in anticipation of MGS4.

Doubt this would happen again though, been gaming and coming to sites like this one for a pretty long time and I would venture that any sequel that gets announced - I'd probably be familiar with the previous games and would've gotten around to em at some point if I had interest.

However if I happen to enjoy the new entry, I could be tempted to try the previous games in the series.