Zelda does a good job of this. You don't usually "miss out" on the lore, because they tend to explain a bit as things go on. Sure, you'd miss the easter eggs placed in the game for fans of older titles, but you also wouldn't know any different. For example, in Breath of the Wild, a dilapidated farm is present in the main field, and this is a reference to the farm in Ocarina of Time where you find Epona, your horse. If you didn't play that earlier game, it would just seem like scenery to you. But you wouldn't actually miss out on anything. So the makers of the Zelda titles do a good job striking a balance between providing nods to earlier titles while also being welcoming to new players.
And they're pointing up, not forward. It can see forward, but in the same way as you can see beside you