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[manueldelalas]

The Lufia series.

Start with Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals on SNES (in Europe simply known as Lufia), which is the first game in the continuity.

And then ignore everything else

This is a good one, although it does have it's problems.

The good things about this is that Lufia 1 is a mediocre jRPG (but still competent and fun to play, although you'll hate your life at the end with battles every 2 steps...), while Lufia 2 is a true classic.
Lufia 1 starts with the ending of 2 (gameplay and everything), so if you play 1 first, you'll be spoiled of the ending in 2.

The problem here is that the first game established the ending of the second game, so while the second game was bigger, it had to end with the four party characters 1 put there. You'll have many main characters leave your party for dumb reasons because of this, and stuff like that. Also, your main character has a dumb hair style, because he had that hairstyle in the first game; it's weird to play a jRPG with a non-spiky-haired protagonist.

Lufia 3 is a game that has A LOT going for it, the dialogue is hilarious (and VERY self aware, something I love about VGs), the battle system is genius, quick and very fun; but they had to put random dungeons in there. So after 50 floors of forest, you have to enter a 60 floor tower and then go into a 70 floor cave; all levels different, all the same, and dozens of them.

I would love a remake of Lufia 3, everything the same, but for the developers to do dungeons like 2; and instead of praying that the computer decides to put the treasure chest with something meaningful, you have to visit dungeons only once.

There is a DS remake of Lufia 2, but this remakes only maintains the story; they even changed the genre, so while the game is a competent ARPG, just play it for curiosity.

There is a Lufia game on the GBA, but I haven't played it,

It's also worth noting that Lufia 2, as great as it is, haven't aged all that well. The puzzles are still great, but it suffers from it's progression. To reach other towns you'll have to travel either through a cave, bridge or sea. Caves will usually be locked with a key (which someone has in town but doesn't want to give you because he lost his ring at the top of the tower east that is overrun by monsters...), bridges will be usually broken (so you have to go to the forest and find that special kind of wood being guarded by a huge beast) and the sea is inaccessible because there is no wind or whatever stupid reason and you have to defeat the witch at the top of some lighthouse to return the seas to normal... crap like that, ALL THE TIME. So be prepared for that if you plan to play this game; it's a very long game.

There is a monster breeding mini game, you can find hidden monsters (there are 7 IIRC) and put them in your party, although you can't directly control them, and they'll evolve and help you. This was great.

 

[Mexen]

This is a good one, although it does have it's problems.

The good things about this is that Lufia 1 is a mediocre jRPG (but still competent and fun to play, although you'll hate your life at the end with battles every 2 steps...), while Lufia 2 is a true classic.
Lufia 1 starts with the ending of 2 (gameplay and everything), so if you play 1 first, you'll be spoiled of the ending in 2.

The problem here is that the first game established the ending of the second game, so while the second game was bigger, it had to end with the four party characters 1 put there. You'll have many main characters leave your party for dumb reasons because of this, and stuff like that. Also, your main character has a dumb hair style, because he had that hairstyle in the first game; it's weird to play a jRPG with a non-spiky-haired protagonist.

Lufia 3 is a game that has A LOT going for it, the dialogue is hilarious (and VERY self aware, something I love about VGs), the battle system is genius, quick and very fun; but they had to put random dungeons in there. So after 50 floors of forest, you have to enter a 60 floor tower and then go into a 70 floor cave; all levels different, all the same, and dozens of them.

I would love a remake of Lufia 3, everything the same, but for the developers to do dungeons like 2; and instead of praying that the computer decides to put the treasure chest with something meaningful, you have to visit dungeons only once.

There is a DS remake of Lufia 2, but this remakes only maintains the story; they even changed the genre, so while the game is a competent ARPG, just play it for curiosity.

There is a Lufia game on the GBA, but I haven't played it,

It's also worth noting that Lufia 2, as great as it is, haven't aged all that well. The puzzles are still great, but it suffers from it's progression. To reach other towns you'll have to travel either through a cave, bridge or sea. Caves will usually be locked with a key (which someone has in town but doesn't want to give you because he lost his ring at the top of the tower east that is overrun by monsters...), bridges will be usually broken (so you have to go to the forest and find that special kind of wood being guarded by a huge beast) and the sea is inaccessible because there is no wind or whatever stupid reason and you have to defeat the witch at the top of some lighthouse to return the seas to normal... crap like that, ALL THE TIME. So be prepared for that if you plan to play this game; it's a very long game.

There is a monster breeding mini game, you can find hidden monsters (there are 7 IIRC) and put them in your party, although you can't directly control them, and they'll evolve and help you. This was great.

Holy shit!

 

[SerTapTap]

Play all the Mega Man games before playing the Mega Man X games.

Then hit the Zero games, the Legends games, and all the other series's chronologically (if you're a masochist)

There's nothing masochistic about playing the zx series they're great and asking with Legends it's the only series without a bad game

 

[hank_tree]

I've got nothing against stories beginning in medias res. All I'm saying is that re-experiencing the tale in chronological order might lead to greater appreciation of certain aspects of the story that weren't obvious during the original experience.

That said, aside from the Professor Layton series, I suppose the cases in the Phoenix Wright games would also work well played out of release order.

What I was saying is that for the first time through people should play them in release order.

If you are playing them again after that, then you can play them in any order you please .