We are developing a demo for episode 0 of our Elvana game series, the idea is that each episode follows 1 character (PC) throughout the story, over all each episode is showing a series of events at different stages and from different viewpoints, so piece by piece the overall story arc is put together. Anyway I thought I'd post about it here as my first topic in this section because I'd love your thoughts about this and any advise you might have on achieving this kind of cinematic approach.

Suikoden 3 I think did this once, and to be honest I hated it. It was basically me playing the same series of events repeatedly from the POV of three different characters, they called it Trinity View, the negative side is that all three of the characters were from the three different countries in the game, and it made it very difficult to identify with a "main" character. Since, it kept bouncing you around between playing the three.

But, if the game series goes from different points of view, without intertwining events, at least for the most part, I think it could work.

I know this would take a ton of work.

But you could always start out with a character select type screen and from there you go through a certain persons story-line. Somehow it's a way to get it to work and become familiar with the character. Also something about it to me seems a little to techniqual

It is possible to make this work... but it would either be hit or miss. On one hand if you do it right it could be spectacular, but on the other it could make the game boring and not sensible.

If you are going to do it this way, then I suggest making the different viewpoints add something to the story instead of just retracing the steps of another character in a different way. You want the player to be like "Ohh! So that's why that happened!" and not "Oh. That's happening again?"

Good luck!

Thanks for all the great feedback, I agree with alot of you. As for character select it was an initial idea for a complete game but it doesn't work really for a 3-4 hour episode. Which is a great deal of time to become attached to a character and these characters will be the stars (PC's) of other episodes not just one. Inkscribe you're right, i have no interest in showing a restepping trace. That was one of the faults of Max Payne 2, I want alot of revelation. A great example is the movie Point of View (hope I got the name right, president gets shot, thats the intro so no plot spoilers). Perhaps at certain points they are a part of the same event but its only one part of the story and how these characters are interlinked.

It can be used to great effect.

I have to say that if you do it right, people won't even notice you're repeating yourself.

Which is essentially, what you're going for.

A first person storyline viewpoint from multiple characters retelling the events leading up to the end of said storyline.
I'm sure there's a word for it.
I just don't know it.

This sounds pretty interesting but like Inkscape said make sure not to repeat to much and if you do make sure it is revealing new information. I would be interested to see how you plan to do this in a game as I have never seen it before. Oh and the movie you are thinking of is Vantage Point