Unofficial trilogies
So this list doesn't get visually confusing please keep it in grid mode, and also I added LAIRs to keep it looking nice and to properly seperate the trilogies. Suggestions appreciated
These games weren't meant to be a trilogy but end up making surprisingly good ones
These games weren't meant to be a trilogy but end up making surprisingly good ones
85 Games
The most obvious pick for this, probably. By the end of Kingdom Hearts II, literally every plot thread has been concluded and it is genuinely an incredibly satisfying ending for the series. Certainly a much better ending than III was. Kingdom Hearts I started with the trio wanting to go on an adventure together and the rest of this trilogy is them trying to get all together again to go on that adventure they wanted to, and Kingdom Hearts II ends with the beginning of that journey. (Ignore that that journey turned out to be Dream Drop Distance, otherwise this ending gets a lot worse.)
The "back to basics" Square Enix rpgs from recent times. And they're actually very good. If you can ignore the tedium that sometimes infests Dungeon Encounters, Voice of Cards' short length, and Octopath Travaler having what is probably the worst story ever told in any video game I've ever played. Dungeon Encounters is a very fun romp through what is literally the most bare-bones an rpg can possibly get, and it's great. Just, bring your own music, this game sounds like ass so hard. Ocopath is fun, but you're gonna have to deal with some bad overall game design and a truly terrible story, but it is quite fun to wander around the world and explore, as well as build your party up the way you want to, there's a lot of fun to be had if you skip every cutscene. Voice of Cards, however, is a nearly perfect game in my opinion. Really its only shortcoming that there's not enough of it, which is probably the best complaint to give to something. It's sequels are also quite good, as well as the mini prequel to this game that is its demo. How these three work together is showing what it means to be an rpg in the modern era. A very hard question to answer. Turn-based rpgs have fallen by the wayside these last two decades from a natural evolution in the medium which got rid of rpgs biggest quality: that they could tell stories in a more direct and open way than any other genre. Rpgs often didn't need to care about their gameplay too much, as the main draw to the genre for years was its story, which would almost always be conveyed in cutscenes and text-boxes. I an world where even AAA companies are willing to make visual novels and adventure games, which do that whole shtick better than rpgs, they've had a bit of an identity crisis for a while now. These games all embody different aspects of the classical rpg. Dungeon Encounters shows us that the combat of the turn-based rpg has merit on its own and Octopath shows us that the exploration and adventure of this genre has merot of its own. Neither of the games needed captivating cutscenes or well-written dialogue to hide their gameplay with. And Voice of Cards shows that rpgs don't need the deep combat or wanderlust that's associated with the either to make its story compelling. This games are statements that the traditional turn-based jrpg isn't a relic of its time, that every aspect of it works on a fundamental level. That's why so many other genres use it as a foundation, not because it's overly simplistic, but because it's elegantly simplistic.
You can substitute any of the Voice of Cards games here, honestly. Although probably not the third one. Idk, I've never played it.
You can substitute the sequel here, but the fact it's well written will muddy the fact that this game is meant to show how fun purely exploring a world is in a jrpg.
Obviously you should play the two Great Ace Attorney games in order, but you also should play Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney first. It's the prototype for a lot of The Great Ace Attorney, and also one of the greatest games ever made beside.
Time will tell if this is a dumb idea, but I think you can really see a strong line of progression from these three games. These three games which by and large are all trying to do the same thing, but with very different ideas on how to achieve it. It helps that FF Tactics was copying Let Us Cling Together a whole lot and Triangle Strategy was copying FF Tactics a whole lot.
In it you also will see a streamlining process occur. Tactics Ogre is a lot more complex for a lack of a better word than FF Tactics, and the same is true for Traingle Strategy. It isn't really a good or bad thing, it's mostly just interesting how this one basic idea was sort of purified into what Triangle Strategy is.
In it you also will see a streamlining process occur. Tactics Ogre is a lot more complex for a lack of a better word than FF Tactics, and the same is true for Traingle Strategy. It isn't really a good or bad thing, it's mostly just interesting how this one basic idea was sort of purified into what Triangle Strategy is.
I know the standard third pick for this "trilogy" is usually Pandora's Tower, but I think that that's only because not a lot of people have played Valhalla Knights. It's a lot closer to Xenoblade and Last Story than Pandora's Tower is.
Experience the three biggest and most popular Final Fantasy games in a row and you'll almost figure out why they're the most popular. There's definitely something within them that's unique to them and only them. Although, to be fair, none of these are my favorite Final Fantasy games, but I found myself liking them more when I played them like this.
Thracia 776 is really Tearring 0 more so than Fire Emblem 5, if that's even a point you can make. It feels a lot better than going from Thracia to Binding Blade, I can tell you that much. This trilogy lets you experience the refining of the srpg into something bigger and grander than the last entry, sort of like the opposite of the Tactics Ogre, FFT, Triangle Strategy trilogy, which kept streamlining the srpg to something super simple and fun.
Experience the same story through multiple perspectives in order to fully piece together what has transpired.
A really good spinoff mario series that re-envisions the world as that of an rpg which has a heavy emphasis on platforming and charming wacky characters and plotlines that were destroyed by a terrible 4th entry that spelled the end of the series ever being good again (or even existing).
ditto
You'll get it once you play all of them.
The main reason I made this list. These are three games that are half on-rails shooter and half 3d person action platformers where the platforming is pretty sparse and also sucks. And all three of them have a cast of characters that are supposed to be very endearing to the audience, and that is the case and the main selling point for Kid Icarus Uprising and Drakengard 3, but not the case for Star Fox: Assault. Star Fox: Assault isn't very good, honestly.
This is a lot like the Tearring trilogy. I'm very upset that I couldn't have all 3 4s, but these are a very fun experience if you play them back to back. You get to experience the refining of the same basic gameplay to something truly special.
Very charming low-poly 90s platformers that have a very goofy and cute aesthetic, where a lot of the fun comes from exploring environments and just basking in the game's charm and fun voice acting.
(Suggested by Cyborc)
The Build Engine trilogy. These are the three most popular build engine games. And used to be considered the three best ones pretty universally until Ion Fury came out. They're all really fast fps games with light platforming elements with protagonists that can't stop quipping no matter how hard they try.
The Build Engine trilogy. These are the three most popular build engine games. And used to be considered the three best ones pretty universally until Ion Fury came out. They're all really fast fps games with light platforming elements with protagonists that can't stop quipping no matter how hard they try.
The Doom engine trilogy. These games are arguably the most faced paced of all the fps games on this list, or at least they feel the fastest. Although you may still end up finding these games lacking in comparison to build engine games, they're all still very fun in their own right. Although they feel more like a history assignment whenever you play them at this point.
Thus ends this trilogy of trilogies. The Wolfenstein 3D engine was the first fps engine ever, and as such none of the games on it are particularly captivating or fun. Honestly we live in a worse off timeline for having gotten the fast-paced Wolfenstein 3D over the initially planned stealth game imo. Anyway these games are all fun for about an hour each and then you realize that they're all like 300% longer than they should be because they run out of things to do pretty early in the game.
5 Comments
@Cyborc thanks, I'm genuinely shocked I forgot that one. I play a lot of Duke 3d and Blood, I guess I don't think of them as a trilogy though bc i played shadow warrior once and hated it lul
lmao fair, can replace it with tekwar or whatever if you have to
nah. it would be weird to recommend people play like, duke 3d, blood, and then redneck rampage. i think shadow warrior works best as the last third of the build engine trilogy, even if i don't like it
LAIR!
Cyborc
1 year ago
also Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood might be a nice fit as they're often put together as the "build engine trilogy"