Topic: How important is game continuity to you?

My question is, how important do you consider the continuity of a certain game that exists within a particular franchise? Many games that are released in today's gaming world (particularly Nintendo games) are sequels, prequels, mid-quels, what have you. Most of these games have to consider what events have occurred in previous entries, how characters have changed or evolved, etc. If the newer game had taken liberties with the story that weren't considered "canon", or didn't settle for the limitations that previous entries had established, how would you feel? Does it matter if it is a beloved franchise, or if the series was "your childhood"?

Gaming is unique from movies or books in that in most cases you are driving the main character towards their goals by your own actions. Are you more invested in a game's story because you are experiencing it along with the main character? Perhaps the long development periods of games and the limitations of previous generations have an affect. Star Wars has a long established history on film, and so fans of that universe take the continuity quite seriously. Does an official timeline REALLY make the Legend of Zelda series feel more connected for you, even if the developers of older games had no idea what kind of framework they would be working towards in the future?

I have mixed feelings about the topic. In series like Metal Gear Solid or Halo, I consider the continuity pretty important. The games' stories are a huge part of why they are appealing, and so if huge changes to the story were made to disregard previous story elements or events, it would be upsetting. In contrast to that, some series simply do not take their own stories very seriously. I am talking about series like Metroid, Mortal Kombat, or Legend of Zelda. These are games that DO have a story, and sometimes are quite good, but the focus of the game is not usually on finding out what happens story-wise. Gameplay drives these games, and story is somewhat of an afterthought. If big changes were made to the story or "continuity" of these games, I would be fine with it to an extent. Change is good, and because Gameplay is the focus, that is what I'd really care about.

I like some continuity, but I don't let it bother me and get in the way of having fun.

That's how I feel as well. In any gaming experience, what I am looking for most is having fun. if the story does not contribute in any way to the "fun-ness" of the game, it isn't important to me.

For example, many fans dismissed Metroid: Other M because it messed with the established continuity of the franchise. But in a series like Metroid, do you really think story was very important to the developers in the previous games? I dislike Metroid: Other M because I don't like the gameplay. Sure the story isn't very good, but that really isn't what I care about in a game like that.

I really enjoy continuity. It gives a cinematic feeling to video games. Video games are now simply a name and now can give feelings, and the larger the story, the stronger the community (The Metal Gear franchise is a large example).

As long as it makes slight sense, I'm perfectly fine with a little expansion of a timeline.

I don't particularly care for canon in video games. It's kind of why the Mario franchise is and likely will always be one of my favourites, because it keeps story and continuity to a minimum.

A sequel usually needs minimal-to-no real sense of continuity for gaming and it can easily get in the way of "making a good video game" if you're so obsessed with continuity. That being said, I love the sense of neverending story progression and new details and surprise returns of things from past games from forever ago. Similar reason I got into long running anime and the like, because you grow to love characters who you see for such a long period of time and a sudden return of things from 100s of episodes ago is just awesome.

I love it when there's good continuity in the span of a single video game. If you do a sidequest near the beginning and it turns out to influence something near the end, it makes the game feel cohesive and planned and I have to give the developers and writers a virtual pat on the back.

Cross-game continuity imo is only worth it if you're certain that gamers will play all the involved games. Take the Metal Gear Solid games for example - if you play just one, you're dearly missing out because the games work together. They're also easily available on a single console, so it's not that stressful. Now look at the Kingdom Hearts franchise - to fully understand KH2 you need to have played KH1 and Chain of Memories, while to fully understand 358/2 Days you need in depth knowledge about Nobodies which can only be found by playing Birth By Sleep and KH2. I have a horrible feeling that KH3 will make next to no sense without just about every other game in the series, so you'll need to have a 3DS, a PSP and a PS2 to get the whole story. That, sir, is when continuity goes bad.

great point @Magikarp

It depends how immersive the story is to begin with.

This. In my case it also depends on the particular franchise in question. Like for mainstream Mario games it doesn't really matter while others like Fire Emblem or even Pikmin it does.

I don't care about it at all. I like video games to have minimal story, because I make one up anyway. That being said, I love when things from earlier iterations of a series make a return (e.g., remixed music or an old character revamped as an Easter Egg). I don't know if that's quite continuity, but I do enjoy that.

The only game that deserves, but doesn't need, continuity is Zelda. Thankfully Nintendo gave it, in a very strange plot twist.

Other than that, I don't care too much about continuity, as long as its a fun game. But if there is a storyline in the game that they expand on and it doesn't quite mesh together with the other games, then I think there needs to be continuity somewhere.

I don't mind continuity unless one series for a console keeps going longer and longer while other series (That are also great) get ignored. If there is a related continuity among every game for a game company, than that's good, but if one or two series gets all the attention while others (I don't mean good by sales, I mean good by game quality) are ignored for sometimes a decade, than that's annoying.