So, I just started Birth By Sleep and just randomly picked to play as Aqua first purely by just flipping a coin basically. I just beat Cinderella world, but just read somewhere that apparently Aqua is the worst person to start out with for story based reasons. I don't care too much about if the gameplay is worse/better for whatever character, or if it's harder or something, but just purely for story reasons, will it really affect me too badly to play her story first? I'm assuming it shouldn't really since you're given a choice in the first place with who to start out with.

Edited December 26, 201410 yr by Jeremy Rosenblum

it doesn't really matter, but Terra Ventus Aqua is the ideal order. Aqua's story is almost always the final part of each world, plus she's the one you play as in the Final Story, so it makes the transition smoother

You're supposed to go Terra, Ventus, Aqua. This is straight from Nomura. His reasoning being if you play Ventus first and then Terra you might feel like you're going slowly when you're playing Terra. And yeah, it makes a lot more sense.

Then why is their even a choice in the first place? If the order is really that important for the story than you should just automatically start as Terra. I really don't feel like restarting the game at this point so I'll just finish up Aqua. I don't really care about Terra being slow compared to the others, and I'll just deal with the spoilers from Aqua's story about them.

I always play Aqua, Ventus, Terra. I found it more fun to play backwards and try to piece the story together as I went along, but it doesn't really matter.

Well, there's nothing wrong with playing as Aqua first, so you should keep playing through Aqua's story.  Personally, I've always played through the game in the Terra, Ventus and Aqua order, but as I said, there's nothing wrong with playing as Aqua first.

If you alternate between them it's not so bad. But basically Aqua's story starts after the others, and ends after theirs as well, so it depends on how much a kick you get out of dramatic irony.