Best opening area/level to a game

Gonna throw Super Mario Bros 1-1 into the mix.

In terms of how it teaches the player what to do without making it explicit, it's as good as any first level I can imagine.

PostRe: Best opening area/level to a game by **mic** » Sun Dec 08, 2019 6:30 pm

Dead Space 3: not even the best in series by a long shot, but the straight-jacket opening looked and played great. One of many nice touches.

SM64: mostly down to the revelation of analogue control, but the castle exterior was a playground in itself.

RE7: Mia

Parksey wrote:
Peter Crisp wrote:The opening level of Halo: CE is an obvious choice for me as the ship is small and yet well fleshed out enough to give a sense of the ship being huge and having sections for a large crew. Yeah, it's not The Enterprise but that's because it's a pure combat ship and it looks the part. It does a good job of starting the story and even has a couple of decent choke point battles.

It may not be overly creative but it's memorable and that's what the series needed from an opening section.

I actually disagree with this, and I think it's quite a bad opening level and that the second (appropriately called "Halo" if I remember rightly) is so much better. The first is a linear, corridor shooter in the Doom mold.

The second, is a wide open space, with various approaches open to the player. I think you might even get some objectives you can do in any order. You get a few more enemy types (I think Ghosts and Hunters appear) and, crucially, you get vehicles.

I don't feel strongly one way or the other about the opening mission but if anything, its linearity enhances the impact of walking out of the escape pod onto Halo.

MGS2 - Tanker
This was the first to come to mind for me. It intentionally sets the stage for a sequel that's almost too good to be true before slapping you in the face later.

Bloodborne - Central Yharnam
I've finished the game twice, the last time being 1-2 years ago, and I could probably still draw a map of this area and its enemy placement from memory. Later story revelations add to its creepiness as well when you realise what you couldn't see in the beginning.

Silent Hill 2 - Forest Trail
I love the opening 20 minutes or so before you actually reach the town. You're given a brief introduction to the protagonist and his motivations for being there, and meet Angela too, but it's the long trail you're forced to walk that makes it special. The occasional camera angle is framed as though you're being watched amidst strange noises somewhere in the forest and you can barely see beyond a few feet in front of you due to the fog. The path is just long enough that you feel like you've gone too far to turn back without making the mistake of boring you and it's all backed up by an unsettling yet oddly relaxing ambient track.

+1 for BotW but Duke Nukem 3D also springs to mind, great first level.

Banjo-Kazooie - Spiral Mountain
Relatively unspectacular in consideration of what was to follow it, but it plays its role perfectly. The player is introduced to the key characters, the trademark humour, the theme tune that will take on different guises throughout and the basic moveset with plenty of areas to practice.

And one slightly out of left-field...

Perfect Dark - Carrington Institute
At the time I thought this was genius and I still do now. PD sure was innovative, providing the player with a training ground to learn to use the devices, weapons and the level itself which will come in very handy later in the game when it is the stage of the Skedar invasion. Not something you tended to get with FPS games at the time, nor since.

Link to the Past. gooseberry fools strawberry floated.

Harry Ellis wrote: Perfect Dark - Carrington Institute
At the time I thought this was genius and I still do now. PD sure was innovative, providing the player with a training ground to learn to use the devices, weapons and the level itself which will come in very handy later in the game when it is the stage of the Skedar invasion. Not something you tended to get with FPS games at the time, nor since.

Isn't that the second level?

Edit: thinking of the Carrington Villa

Medal of Honor: Frontline

I really liked the opening to Astral Chain the way the action kicks in along with the great intro theme. I dropped the game about halfway through but that opening section really had me pumped, shame it never reached that level for me after that.

Half life. End of discussion.

Have thought about this a bit more...

The opening section of Bioshock is fantastic, especially if you go in knowing absolutely nothing about the game. From starting on the plane to the first glimpse of Rapture, which wasn't really like anything I'd played before, I was instantly absorbed and wanted to find out what the strawberry float was going on.

The Last of Us has a pretty memorable opening but I suppose it's not really the level that's great and more the introduction from a story perspective.

Goldeneye's opening stage immediately springs to mind.

The Hoth battle opening stage of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire was also excellent (although the rest of the game was fairly poor).

Might be a boring answer but Shadow of the Colossus. That first impression you get from walking out of the building and having the light blind you before getting to see this giant sprawling land. It's quiet, it's mysterious and almost strangely frightening. But you have Agro and a magical sword that guides you, instantly giving a sense of direction after being overwhelmed from the sights.
The lead up to the first Colossi is also crafted in a smart way, with the small section you climb through that gives a natural feel for the controls and boosting your confidence. Only to encounter the first towering beast that defies all odds and your expectations, thinking there's no way you can beat this thing. But when you do it's a feeling like no other and moment that stays with you forever. Can't forget to mention the phenomenal music which ties it all together either. I'd call that once heck of an opening personally.

Super Mario 64 - the area outside the castle

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Shenmue

Exploring Dobuita was like nothing else I had experienced before. It still amazes me that this game is pre PS2.

The Great Plateau is the obvious one for me, introduces you to the mechancics, give you a little taste of the freedom the game can offer and its only when you leave it do you realise the scale of the whole game.

The Great Plateau was on average better than the rest of BOTW because it was still an open sandbox but the player was more restricted without the paraglider. The paraglider is excellent, but it also trivialised most instances of player vs terrain.

MGSV: Ground Zeroes, if I can count it, is a fantastic opening to MGSV: The Phantom Pain. Like the Great Plateau it's actually better - even if the game mechanics are ever so slightly less polished and not all are present.

SMB 1-1 is a very good shout. The initial Goomba, mushroom and block placement is pretty much perfect for teaching the basics of the game, as has been well documented.

Fallout: New Vegas with Goodsprings is a very well made quest and a perfect microcosm of the world-affecting choices you'll make throughout the rest of the game, so I think that deserves being considered also. Completely different, but I still really like Fallout 3's opening too...

Yep, The Great Plateau is great but the wider game quickly loses the balance that the opening provides.

Best opening area/level to a game

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