first impressions count: How important is a good opening?

If I was dating Persona 5 I’d have never made it past the 3rd date. While yes the first date was fun enough its all downhill from there. Why are you telling me I'm tired and need to go to bed? Why cant I go out after dark? Why’s Pitbull trying to get me arrested? These are just some of the questions going on in my head as I’m left angered and confused. I find it hard to ignore these red flags and so we part ways. But if I’d have just stuck it out a little longer I would have seen a completely different side to them, we just need to get to know each other better. I’m speaking metaphorically… of course, but you get the idea. First impressions count.

Although Persona 5 was not a game I personally bounced off of, there are plenty of games that I have found that to be the case. Whether that be due to slow or overwhelming opening segments, poorly explained mechanics or excessive law dumps. I’ve had plenty of ‘one night stands’ with entire franchises such as Zelda, Mass effect and Metal Gear due to their slow opening hours. That’s not to say these are bad games, far from it. They reward players tenfold for sticking with them as they go on. Either layering new mechanics or story developments to hook the player, which is great, providing you have the patience.

That’s also not to say a great opening can mean guaranteed success. I was thoroughly underwhelmed by the Spiderman sequel but that opening. Wow. Or even Ryse son of rome, leading your army into battle was something that had rarely been seen on that scale in games up until then and it left a great first impression but sadly it didn’t have the gameplay depth to maintain the runtime.

A famous troupe of games can also be taking away your powers after the tutorial, leaving you to build back up from nothing. While this can be used to good effect in games such as Metroid or Castlevania, the opening of Star wars: Force unleashed uses this almost to its detriment. A reverse Persona 5 shall we say, putting their best foot forward, after an amazing first date you think they could be the one. You start the game as Darth Vader in the absolute peak of his powers, tearing it up at will. You feel powerful and it plays amazing until it is over as soon as it begins and you play as the games protagonist, a complete unknown. This is not the person you fell in love with. Unfortunately that’s as good as it gets and the whole time you are just left wishing to go back to how things were.

So what makes a good opening? There is more than just a single answer so let me explain my workings. I’d like to cover the ones that I think are genius in terms of a game design level and then I’ll move onto a few personal picks. If we’re going back to the beginning then we should start with the grandfather of games, Level 1-1 of Super Mario bros. While initially simple on the eye, this is arguably one of the most perfect levels ever created. It explains everything you need to know about the game without technically explaining anything at all. I suggest watching people smarter than me break this down but in essence, every block, every item, every enemy has a purpose. They have expected your every move and in turn, you finish the level knowing how to tackle the rest of the game. You need to remember that while simple now, this was a revolutionary game and people hadn’t played much else like it so everything needed to be explained. This was an age where manuals were almost essential reading before you played but Mario bros tore it up and showed you in its own way. That’s not to say the manual isn’t useful. It does tell you the haunted tale that the spirit of a toad is trapped in every block you punch…. those poor toads, gone but not forgotten.

So if Nintendo laid the groundwork for environmental design then who perfected it? My answer undoubtedly is Valve. Take Portal for example, a revolutionary and completely unique puzzle game. The game starts off ambiguously, dropping you in with little to no context. You walk around your starting cubicle and the basic controls are displayed to the side of the screen but not in an intrusive way. The portal shows up and you tentatively walk towards it and this is where the genius shows. You see yourself walking through via the other side of the portal. This is describing how the mechanics work better than any tutorial ever could. From this groundwork, you then build on it in the subsequent test chambers, integrating new elements without overwhelming the player. It is at this point when you are introduced to our dry but somehow loveable antagonist Glados. It’s an all round perfect opener

Then you’ve also got some of my personal favourites as well. Firstly you have the emotional gut punch of The last of us. Stepping into the shoes of Joel’s daughter we piece together what is happening from contextual clues such as phone lines being cut and explosions in the distance. The car ride into the town takes away player control and makes us realise how far out of their depth our characters are. This all culminates in reaching the border and the devastating conclusion. The incredible mo-cap and voice acting from the pair really makes us wonder how we got so emotionally invested in characters we met only mere minutes ago.

I’d also be remise if I didn’t include a spinoff to a game series I mentioned earlier, that being Metal gear rising: Revengeance. This was also a main piece of inspiration from creating this post in the first place. Whilst the main series has been accused of meandering and slow starts, this game takes absolutely no time in getting into the action. Usually a metal gear is proposed to be something unstoppable in this series, a weapon of mass destruction. Well in this game you cant even get 5 minutes in before Raiden is caught tossing one around like he’s playing catch with his father. It perfectly manages the power fantasy, completely flipping the script on what this series is known for. Letting you cut at will without making you so overpowered it makes things boring. It feels amazing to slow time, slicing your blade in every possible direction, ripping soldiers in two like they were made of paper and ripping out their guts for a tasty upgrade. I must also praise it for giving you control at almost all times. For a franchise known for long cutscenes this game keeps things concise and lets you explore grand spectacle through both gameplay and quick time events. Although often derided in games I think they do ultimately work well here. Mashing buttons as you furiously slash you blade or play hopscotch across a barrage of missiles the game really doesn’t allow you a second of breathing room. This culminates in a thrilling train chase before you get your ass handed to you by one of the games antagonists, failing your mission in the process. It really is in my opinion a perfect opening level.

So as we come to our conclusion we go back to the question, how important is a good opening? Well the obvious answer is that it certainly helps. The ratio of bad games with good openings is infinitely smaller than those that cant even manage a good opening in the first place. Even those games can have a cult status such as the previously mentioned Star wars. I do however find the games that recover from a rocky start are usually the kinds of games you spend hours and hours with. Think of the bad opening as a flavour you don’t like the taste of, it becomes more palatable the more you dilute it. When you’ve finished a 100 hour RPG that bitter taste in your mouth has been almost entirely washed away by the many more hours of amazing content. So next time you boot up a game and are immediately disappointed you have to weigh up if the juice is worth the squeeze because sometimes it absolutely can be. Mamma didn’t raise no quitter after all right?