Board 8 > What are franchises where you absolutely need to experience it in order?

(+) Yeah! (+)

In another thread, there was discussion about how some of the Marvel movies aren't necessary viewing for other Marvel movies. Some are even standalone enough that you can watch them cold!

But what is the opposite end of that spectrum: what are franchises where you need to read/watch/play it all in order if you want to have a fighting chance at understanding what's going on?

Note that this isn't about stuff that is so overly complicated that you wouldn't even necessarily what's going on even if you DID play/read/watch everything (Kingdom Heaaaaaaaarts).
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Oh I came in wanting to say Kingdom Hearts is actually very manageable to understand if you play them all in order.

Uhhhhh give me some time to think of something else
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Haven't experienced it firsthand but people have said this about Metal Gear a lot
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I felt like it was very convoluted, but I might very well be in the minority on that. I have played every game.
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I think you don't necessarily even need to play every KH game to follow the gist of the plot.

I'd say MGS is something you should probably play in order, at least the first four anyway. After that, who cares.
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Zero Escape.

Edit: Oh, nevermind. Didn't read the last sentence.
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Super Mario Brothers
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Lord of the Rings
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pjbasis posted...

Lord of the Rings

you don't need to experience The Hobbit first to enjoy those though
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The first thing that came to mind is The Wheel of Time.
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the godfather, maybe?
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Arrested Development.

I had a coworker who mentioned he didn't like the series, but admitted he only watched random episodes. Probably why the show didn't do too well.
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Xenosaga?
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but where does resident evil 7 fit in the final zelda timeline
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Not strictly in line with the topic but Star Ocean so you can stop prior to 3 and not have your canon bastardized

Granted I liked 3 and didn't play anything after that to see if they retconned it but I can easily see why people would be pissed about 3's plot changing the world of the earlier games.

Venture Bros. comes to mind. It's mostly episodic and possible to enjoy just catching random episodes, but it's nothing special until you sit down and watch the entire thing in order and you realize it's incredible.
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Every franchise
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