So I've received or bought quite a few whole series of games since joining GoG and while it's obvious with some games that you play through them all completely and in order (like the YS RPGs or other RPGs), it becomes less clear with strategy games or city builders.
When a series of games has very similar gameplay (and in many cases each subsequent game is better and more refined than the last) it's hard to know whether all the games are worth playing, or worth finishing...

I've been playing the Anno games (and the Settlers ones to a lesser extent) and I'm wondering how long I should spend on the first game?

I'm worried if I play through them completely by the time I get to the last one I might be a bit bored with the concept. I didn't want to just start with the newest games though, as I imagine it would be more difficult to step back to the old ones if you started with a later one (and what's the point of having all the games if you only play one?), hence playing the first one first.

I'm thinking it might be best to just play each for a few hours (complete a few scenarios, whatever) and then play which ever one I find the most enjoyable (because newest isn't always best).

How does everyone else tackle this? What are your thoughts?

This sounds like a reasonable approach. I'd tend to go with them by release date (this tends to be in numerical order for those series that are numbered, but not always). In order not to get too burned out with the series or genre, I'd toss in a game between each installment in the series that's from a completely different genre.

That's not a bad idea I suppose, but it does mean finding games to play in between as well...

Go with the best of the series, this way you won't get discouraged about the whole thing, and if it is really good you will definitely want to play the rest.

Generally it shouldn't matter which order you play, date of release, timeline, avg review rating, etc.

In cases where the games rely heavily on good story telling and continue a story arc from one game to the next. It's best to play them in order to avoid spoilers.

My issue with this is if I start with the best then the other games will all seem like steps back, and it may put me off playing the others... which kind of defeats the purpose of having them all in the first place.

But I suppose that's looking at it from the point of view of playing them all in a row, if I play through the best first and then come back to the earlier ones at some point in the future the time in between may make it less noticeable.. Yeah, anything with a coherent story gets played in order unless there is a very good reason not to (like the older games are really clunky and hard to play or full of bugs etc.)

But most city builders and strategy games don't have an over arching story line that ties them together, each iteration tends to just slightly improve on the others, which is where my dilemma comes from...

I'm usually "order freak" when it comes to story-driven games. But for others, like strategy, dungeon crawlers, don't know, all kind of game that do not follow a specific plot, i don't really care. I might start with those that are more appreciated.

You came with expiration date, like all of us. Just have fun, play whatever you want, in whatever order you want, otherwise you end up like me, not playing good games, as i save them for last.

How do you determine which one is the best? In the Final Fantasy series, for example, the game that is the most popular is not that good IMO; the earlier games were better (in some cases, *much* better).

Also, note that in some series (the FF series being one example), different games in the series can be quite different, so you can't judge the series from one game.

OK, for cases of games without an arching story, go with the most acclaimed one first, and the newest one. Play them either one after the other or in tandem.

If the most acclaimed one is also the newest one, then add the second best one to the mix. Leave the worst ones for last, and play them from a historical (gaming) perspective.

That's what I would do.

You start at the top, then slowly work your way down.

Yeah, I need to try keep this in mind... I seem to spend more time thinking about what order to play games in than actually playing them (or I just go play something like ToME or FTL because I can't decide what game to start...) Heh, that's a whole other can of worms... I suppose if you've never personally played the games before (and therefore have a favourite) then 'best' is more highest rated or most critically acclaimed..

(also, no matter what anyone says, FF 5 is the best Final Fantasy game, and IMO one of the few really worth playing) It's funny, because that's almost the exact opposite of how I was thinking (oldest and worst first, moving to best)

I would say play them chronologically in the order they were released.

Play the campaign of each game (if they have one that is, there's usually some kind of tutorial at least?) and if you feel "done" with the game, you go to the next one.

I'd infer from this that you don't have a huge backlog? That... doesn't compute. :P

I always try to play games in the proper order. Just makes more sense .

More like not much variety in genres it'd seem.


I was going to suggest the same as GR00T, but you already found it problematic. ;-P