Play first one?

[Hypna]

Should I play the first one first? Or can I jump into this game with out knowing any story context?

[Kain]

I bought the first one recently. Played for a bit. I don't know if you need to have played the first but the little I did I liked. It feels janky at first, but it isn't the game just have it's out movement and shooting feel. Speedy but somewhat with a sluggish momentum.

It's a strange way to define it. But im enjoying it.

[ＫＵＷＡＢＡＲＡ桑]

I was playing with what I think what was a dying 750w PSU (it actually popped a day later after I finished Beyond), and a cpu that had really old crusty thermal paste. My experience with the 1st game was either extremely crash heavy or flatout making my PC overheat.

I'm on a 3700x/2080 and in comparison the second game was leagues better improvement in stability. No crashes or overheats at any point. It's hard to say these issues were because of spaghetti Unreal Engine coding by a amateur indie dev or my overheating/PSU issue or both because you know, Unreal Engine isn't pretty sometimes.

I haven't tried replaying it with my new parts though but I think it's still worth checking out. It's just about as short as Beyond so you can finish it in a single sitting or about 6 hours.

There's a few callbacks to the first one but I don't think you're missing too much because there's nearly not as much text lore present compared to the second game, which I think was by design originally as the dev put it in a interview somewhere. The first game is more of a mystery and Beyond vaguely reveals the greater picture. The original is riddled with grammar and spelling errors (since it's a JP dev it's apparent his English wasn't all that good back then) but the dev has come a long way since it; I hope they consider remaking it along the lines of Beyond some day.

[BoilingHotSoup]

It's kind of a small detail, but...

The experience of reaching 7-S will definitely fly over your head if you hadn't played og Citadel before Beyond. Especially when you take a very good look at the memorial of Lysander.

Then there's the heavy implication that Esqa was the child of the Martyr and Tycho.
Pretty much confirmed by the dev via their tweet.

As others had said it's not absolutely important to play in sequence. If go right for the sequel, you won't miss too many important bits to understand it's main story. It's still going to be a great experience, but I can already imagine it won't be quite the full experience.

[JimmyKaz]

i am not a boomer shooter guy. but i like the second one more cause feel like there are more QoL stuff. also always seeing martyr on screen is nice.

[KingofChaos]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von BoilingHotSoup:

It's kind of a small detail, but...

The experience of reaching 7-S will definitely fly over your head if you hadn't played og Citadel before Beyond. Especially when you take a very good look at the memorial of Lysander.

Then there's the heavy implication that Esqa was the child of the Martyr and Tycho.
Pretty much confirmed by the dev via their tweet.

As others had said it's not absolutely important to play in sequence. If go right for the sequel, you won't miss too many important bits to understand it's main story. It's still going to be a great experience, but I can already imagine it won't be quite the full experience.

Would you happen to have a link to that tweet? I'm pretty interested in reading that tbh!

[Byrdn]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von KingofChaos:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von BoilingHotSoup:

Then there's the heavy implication that Esqa was the child of the Martyr and Tycho.
Pretty much confirmed by the dev via their tweet.

Would you happen to have a link to that tweet? I'm pretty interested in reading that tbh!
:aos2sham:

If you're still looking for it:
https://x.com/citadeldev/status/1778831501368733730

[Tortus]

Honestly you can go further. Bungie's Marathon trilogy is free on Steam.

They're kind of a pain in the ass to play (use a walkthrough the instant you feel yourself getting frustrated, the game demands it), but there's A LOT of Citadel DNA there.

And this isn't necessarily a *before Citadel* recommendation. You can go back and appreciate how much Doekuramori obviously loves these games if you have CItadel in mind while playing them.

Marathon is built like a series of world-puzzles. That's the primary challenge and game experience. The Citadel games are everything *else* that makes up Marathon raised to the forefront. Aesthetics, science fiction, and shooting things. Bungie themselves also dropped world-puzzles with Halo, but went 3D at the same time.

Thought of this way the Citadel games are a cool development on Bungie's own creative tradition. Developing the secondary elements of Marathon into its own class of experience.

And as for Citadel in Beyond Citadel. If you're one to appreciate the *mood* of games, Beyond Citadel is notably a bit different to the first game in a fashion I consider very deliberate. The first game is heavier, more severe and desperate. While Beyond Citadel is far lighter. I won't say more than that.

I'm personally super-interested in doekuramori as an artist and interpret his work as art. Meaning I want all of it and I want to place it in as informed a context as I can. I want to know what he was playing to think of this. I follow him on twitter and read the stuff he says. I saw him tweeting about Robocop, then I found a reference to that movie in the game's description of a two-legged walker-robot (ED209 homage).