Opening Narration / Video Games

• The Fallout games always (until the fourth game) began with Ron Perlman's voice saying, "War... War never changes..." followed by some exposition about the nuclear war that leveled America (along with most of the rest of the planet).
• All mainline Pokémon games famously start with (usually) the regional professor providing the player with a brief introduction to Pokémon and the world.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • There's an opening crawl at the beginning of the first game in the series: "Many years ago, Prince Darkness Gannon stole one of the Triforce with Power..."
  • Similar opening narrations appear in other Zelda games, including The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has one in what seems to be storybook form, complete with Hylian text and what appear to be ink illustrations. It recounts the legend of the Hero of Time defeating Ganon and saving the "ancient kingdom."^note That is, the Hyrule seen in Ocarina of Time. Notably, because of the game itself taking place hundreds of years After the End of the ancient kingdom, the details are inaccurate to what actually happened.^note The Hero of Time was an adult (19) when he defeated Ganon, not a young boy as the narration claims.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass includes one put together out of colorful paper cutouts by Niko, and it recounts the story of the prequel, The Wind Waker.
• All the in-game movies in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri are a CG animation or montage, with a background voice reciting something, usually a fictional quote from the faction leaders, sometimes a passage from a book. Also, the opening sequence also features a montage with a narrator at the end, explaining the events that happened before the game.
• The famous opening text from Civilization became an Opening Narration in Civ 4 thanks to Leonard Nimoy.
• Eternal Darkness begins with a narration by Dr. Edward Roivas, whose narrations also precede all in-game chapters save one.
• Most RPGs by Square Enix in the 80s and 90s open with a legend. The most famous are the blue screens in Final Fantasy with Prelude playing. However World of Mana and SaGa also featured this with their themes of "Morning Sun", "Fear of the Angels" and the "Legacy" for SaGa.
• Played with in that it's not opening narrations but Previews of the next episodes, but this is done in Asura's Wrath for those previews.
• Persona 5: After a This Is a Work of Fiction disclaimer, the Big Good of the Persona series, Igor, explains that those who would stand against perversions of the law and other societal corruption are sometimes called "Tricksters", and that you shall take the role of one such Anti-Hero rogue. It's only after this that you take control of the player character to being the game in earnest.
• EarthBound Beginnings has one in plain white text against a black background, telling the story of a "dark shadow" crossing over the small American town of Podunk, as well as the mysterious disappearance of the protagonist's great-grandmother and great-grandfather, George and Maria, 80 years before the game itself begins.
• The little known laserdisc game Laser Grand Prix has one done in English by an obviously Japanese announcer (albeit with a very light accent):
  "Ladies and gentlemen, Taito welcomes you to challenge the race of all time! Insert coin, turn on the ignition, sit back, and get ready for the thrill of high speed racing!"
• Awesomenauts has one during the game's intro theme video.
  "The year 3587. Conflict spans the stars. Huge armies are locked into an enduring stalemate. Only one force can help them now: the Awesomenauts!"
• "Hey, hey, hey! Are you ready to have some fun? I've got some kickin' music, and I'm ready to see you drive! Get those coins out of your pocket, throw them in the machine, and let's get started! Crazy Taxi!"
• Toy Pop has one in Gratuitous English:^note There are also others that appear after every Bonus Round is cleared.
  "Pino and Acha are going to Majyo's castle to save friend."
• Ninja Gaiden (NES):
  Ryu Hayabusa: "With whom did my father have a duel and lose? For what reason did he fight and die? Even I don't know for sure."...
• Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja has another Gratuitous English example:
  "Rampant ninja related crimes these days.. Whitehouse is not the exception..."^note This is exactly how it appears in-game.
• Road Blaster (the laserdisc arcade game by Data East) indirectly does this during the Attract Mode in the form of a radio DJ's broadcast:
  "Hi! How are all you fans out there? Yeah, this is radio D-A-T-A with the hottest hits today! Bright and sunny out there. You all having fun? You all know about the gangs busting up the city? Geez, I wish someone could blast them! Hey, here's some good news for you. You all seen that red supercar running around? Yeah, that's the one. He's our man. Yup, he's blasting them sky high! Hey, red supercar, can hear me out there? The gangs are running wild again. Hurry, man. We need you. We need you fast!
• Reunion (1994) intro is 11 minutes long. It starts with a Raygun Gothic lineart slideshow narrated with a thick Hungarian accent. In the middle it switches to colourful A New Hope-inspired animation of rebels taking over an orbital station, then returns to lineart slideshow.
• Sakura Wars (2019) opens with a brief narration describing the Battle of Tokyo in 1930 along with its aftermath:
  "Tokyo, year 19 of the Taisho era. A wave of unprecedented destruction heralded the Battle of Tokyo. Combat Revue teams from Tokyo, Paris, and New York rose up to oppose evil, and peace was restored... But of all those valiant heroes of humanity... not a single one returned from that battle."
• Medal of Honor: Underground starts with the heroine of the game, French Resistance fighter Manon Batiste, giving a speech over footage of the run-up to World War II and the invasion of France in 1939:
  "The First World War. Victory had been ours but we would soon fail at the peace that followed. Our leaders appeased the growing evil instead of fighting it, sacrificing our future. We vainly reinforced our borders with concrete while we evacuated our children from the cities. There was something terrible brewing with our old enemy, and no one seemed able to stop it. The world was about to find out what happens when an entire nation is swept by madness. What would you do? Surrender? Collaborate? Or resist?"

---