Sequels with noob-friendly storylines

[aaron]

Earthworm Jim 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Toejam and Earl: Panic on Funkotron, Road Rash II, Vectorman 2, Streets of Rage 2, Ecco the Dolphin: The Tides of Time, etc.

all very accessible without knowledge of the previous titles in the series.

[casterofdreams]

I agree with Stark, Borderlands 2 is fine to jump into. It barely makes a reference to the previous game. Maybe a one liner here and there but that's about it.

Also Pokemon!

[Stark]

I also think there should be a reason you're playing them out of order. For the two I mentioned there are easy reasons:
- Dark Souls II, most accessible of series
- Borderlands 2, made improvements over 1's gameplay that make it a more enjoyable game

I can think of other examples of games you technically could play out of order, but it's an inferior game, so why would you do that. Like God of War: Ascension. GoW:A is a prequel to the main trilogy and is very stand alone in it's presentation, but it's the worst of the 4 major God of War console releases, so there is no good reason to play it out of order. IMO, you have to have a nostalgia/love of the GoW series to get a good experience out of Ascension.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Virtually all retro RPGs would fit into this category. Plots tend to be only loosely-connected and even the games that are supposed to be strongly-connected lost quite a bit in the translations.

The Heaven and Earth trilogy comes to mind. Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma can all be played independently.

Same goes from the Dragon Slayer games. You don't have to play Legacy of the Wizard to understand Sorcerian and you don't have to play Sorcerian to understand The Legend of Heroes. And so on.

Seiken Densetsu too. Could anyone back in the 90s tell that Secret of Mana was supposed to be a follow-up to Final Fantasy Adventure?

With all that said, I'm a big proponent of playing games in order. Not for the stories necessarily, but to see how the actual game designs and mechanics were changed and evolved (or devolved in the case of something like Final Fantasy) over time.

[Omerta]

^ Yep. Good point. Most 32-bit and lower stuff either has a story that has little to no impact and is more game-play driven or has very little in relation to previous entries as you pointed out.

The fact that most games outside of RPGs generally have some sort of a coherent plot line is more of a product of the last 2-3 generations in I'm thinking. PS360Wii and Xbox-PS2 are also the cheapest and are the easiest to find in the wild in my area (as of today) and are kinda more of what I had in mind. I may have to edit the OP to reflect this and make other clarifications.

[aaron]

So I have Uncharted 3. Never played any of the others. Give it a go?

[darsparx]

Doesn't chrono cross count under this as well? Not to mention the whole Final Fantasy series, and even the tales series too(unless you have titles like X-2 or Tales of Destiny 2(can't remember which tales had a direct sequel))

[Erik_Twice]

I played Thief II: The Metal Age, which is generally seen as being better than Thief: The Dark Project without any issues. There's a character from the original game that comes back but I understood the plot perfectly without knowing who she was.

[dsheinem]

So I have Uncharted 3. Never played any of the others. Give it a go?

Each game is a standalone, but you'll get more out of the story if you played 1 and 2. 2 is the best in the series, so may as well play it before...

[aaron]

So I have Uncharted 3. Never played any of the others. Give it a go?

Each game is a standalone, but you'll get more out of the story if you played 1 and 2. 2 is the best in the series, so may as well play it before...

well, i don't wanna really buy any of the other games just yet. i have 3 and Golden Abyss through PS+ so i figured i'd try them out, just wanted to make sure i'd be ok to play through without being completely lost story-wise. 1 and 2 are dirt cheap so i may pick them up at some point in the future.