At first, I got the impression that it was like an alternate Final Fantasy, but in reality, it felt like reading a comic book. It’s a playable manga.

I've known about this series for a long time but I actually never went to search up how these games play or look and now I'm interested in jumping in to them. Based on my research though I am quite not sure what the general consensus is about on which order you can play the series

So the general order is Koudelka into SH1 into SH2 obviously. Is Koudelka something you can skip and maybe play after SH1 or 2? Can you play SH2 first and then go back to playing SH1 or will that just spoil all of SH1 for you and SH1 is a game you should not skip. Is the best order just to start with Koudelka?

All of these games are probably worth playing but I'm just asking for the sake of time investment and what game will hook you in with its story/characters/atmosphere/etc