Games you had no interest in, but after playing it has become one of your favorite games

[Squarehard]

Is there a game that you just did not want to try out, but eventually gave it a shot others kept recommending it to you or other reasons, but just surprisingly enjoyed the game in the end?

Another way to phrase it is a sleeper game, but definitely a game you just didn't really ever think you'd want to or actually play.

 

[cwhazzoo]

Persona.

 

[HardRojo]

Guacamelee when it first came out. Everyone was talking about it and the memes, but I didn't try it until a year later I think and fell absolutely in love with it.

 

[Bxrz]

Hollow Knight

 

[Vexii]

Overwatch. I thought the beta was absolute garbage, but after getting one of the promo discs for the PS4 version from work it became probably my most played game of all time

 

[mingo]

The ones that came to mind were Persona 4 Golden, Dishonored and Sleeping Dogs. I knew nothing about those games before they came out, but saw some glowing reviews. They are some of the best games I've played.

 

[ShroudOfFate]

Fire Emblem. I've always shied away from TRPGs but Three Houses adding social stuff akin to Persona made me give it a shot and it's now one of my favorite series

 

[AwwBubbles]

Yakuza and more recently Demon' Souls.

 

[dipship31]

Slay the Spire, usually hate card games

 

[DailyCalmSpirit]

Demon's Souls back in 2009.

Thought it looked fuckin awful, but, all the hubbub got me to try it.

Top 10 material for me, now.

 

[Litigator]

Persona 5 and Days Gone.

 

[Aerial51]

Resident Evil, i didn't like Horror and now it's one of my favourite Franchises.

 

[Fiery Phoenix]

The Fallout series.

 

[stn]

KOTOR, way back in the day. I wasn't a fan of turn-based RPG's back then, and I bought it randomly only because I saw my friend play it briefly. Its now in my top 10 ever, and now I love turn-based RPG's.

 

[dedhead54]

Yakuza 0

Went from no interest to one of my favorite games I played that year.

 

[gitrektali]

Slay the Spire. I still hate it, but also love it

 

[Kwigo]

Yakuza

Played 3 back then on PS3 and didn't understand why it was considered a niche cult classic.
Fast forward to Yakuza zero, thought I'd gave it a try and by now I've played all mainline games + judgement. It's in my top 3 favourite franchises now.

 

[TheChungusAmongUs]

Persona 4 Golden

I just wanted a game for my Vita and reviews were good, ended up being one of my favorite games of all time

 

[Blackthorn]

Prey (the Arkane one).

Didn't seem to make much of a splash critically and word of mouth was mixed but my faith in Arkane was rewarded when I finally got around to it last year.

My favourite immersive sim since...nah, fuck it, it is my favourite immersive sim. It felt old in all the best ways, but I guess its failure to make itself feel new put people off.

Definitely the game that ranks high in my favourites that feels most out of line with popular opinion, though I know this community has always had a soft spot for it.

Given how much praise is still heaped on BioShock it's wild to me that a game so much better than BioShock in all but art design isn't recommended more. "BioShock, but better!" should be such an easy sell, too.

 

[Deleted member 13188]

Yo-kai watch! It's gonna be huuuuge!

Seriously tho, Yo-kai watch isn't bad at all. Level 5 fans should try it.

 

[Zodzilla]

I am not an RPG fan, so when I initially played Mass Effect, I got to the Citidel and stopped playing there.

At some point half a year later, I was compelled to play it again from the start and was really drawn into the story. On second blush, that game and universe fiercely hooked me and the sequel roped me in even more.

Love those games. Still not an RPG fan.

 

[Hakimy]

Batman Arkham City cus i was under the impression that all super heroes games suck..... Until I tried this one and was blown away.

 

[GamerJM]

Persona 4 wasn't exactly this but I had a like several year journey for the series to become something I really cared about. I first learned about it in 2007 when Persona 3 came out but I grouped it in with Atelier and Nippon Ichi games as B-tier JRPGs that were being released on a dead console. In 2010 the series caught on within some forums I went on with more people watching the Giant Bomb Persona 4 endurance run and Persona 3 Portable releasing, but the series put me off due to its time-sensitive mechanics. In early 2012 I fell in love with the series' music when someone in a forum thread posted some of it, and ended up buying Persona 3 Portable later that year when I found it for cheap. I actually don't like P3 that much, Tartarus is extremely tedious and the game is just worse than 4/5 in almost every way to me. Later that year I decided to give Persona 4 Arena a shot because I liked BlazBlue and the gameplay I watched made it seem like a more accessible version of that. I fell in love with the characters in story mode, so much so that by the end of the year I decided I had to pick up a cheap PS2 and a copy of 4 despite being lukewarm on 3 so I could play it. Then I slowly fell in love with the game over a really slow playthrough that took me years because the PS2 was home while I was at college. In retrospect, the games are completely up my alley in every way other than the time mechanic. But I was dismissive of them for years because of that and because they seemed low budget due to being post-Wii/360/PS3 PS2 games from a smaller developer.

Another one would have been DDR back in the day. I thought it was a silly dance game for families and pre-teens, only for people who can dance IRL. The sort of thing Just Dance actually is. I didn't expect it to be an immaculately deep and satisfying game that cuts video games down into their bare essence of timing inputs. I fell in love when I caught a local top player playing at an arcade and dreamed of being as good as he was. I spent the next two years going out of my way to go to public places that had DDR cabs so I could play.

I also had a kind of weird experience with the original Fire Emblem on GBA. I was hyped as hell because I loved Roy in Melee, so I asked for it for Christmas the year it came out. I had an older cousin who had bought it and said it was awful, he saw my Christmas list and said it was a nice list of games aside from FE. He gave me his copy to try and my expectations were lowered because of how negative his opinion of it was. Within days it became like a top 5 all-time game for me and I was completely baffled at his opinion. Apparently he just didn't like permadeath.

 

[Boy]

Persona 5. I'm not into animie rpgs. But i checked it out to see what the hype was, and i ended up really liking it.

 

[linnus]

Animal Crossing. I thought it was just more of DS shovelware for kids.

 

[Skade]

Xcom.

Never thought i'd like this kind of strategic games. Now i have 2000h divided between Enemy Unkown and Xcom 2.

 

[Gabriel Hall]

FFXIV for me. It kept me sane when the stay-at-home orders came in from my work and my school, and it gave me another way to socialize with both my online friends and the immunocompromised friends I haven't been able to see since March. The story ended up being exactly what I wanted out of a "found family" fantasy RPG: characters who live and grow across multiple major storylines, whose unresolved turmoils and regrets don't pay off until much much later; an alternating cast of supporting characters who continuously breathe new life into existing political and personal dynamics; and a silent protagonist who is surprisingly animated and boasts a unique personality of their own, separate from the dialogue choices the game gives me.

And, as an action game fan, I like that the late-game bosses actively discourage reacting to enemy attacks and instead reward anticipating and predicting them long before they take place. As a DMC and KH fan primarily, it's a new approach to action games that I haven't encountered before and it's quite thrilling.

 

[Phendrift]

Metal Gear Solid.

As an inexperienced gamer playing Brawl, Snake looked like a dude straight out of a boring, bland, grey and brown military game like COD that I just had no interest in.

Never did I think it'd be one of my favorite game series with insanely creative bosses and level design years later.

 

[Black_Stride]

Call of Duty 4.
I loved COD 2 didnt feel COD3 and then COD4 was all modern and shit.
Nah I dont think this is for me.
A couple months later.
Playing COD competitively.

KOTOR.
Legit the game that got me to actually like Star Wars lore.
I watched the originals and thought they were okay not great not amazing, just okay scifi shit.
KOTOR came around and now im a Star Wars fanatic.

Warcraft III.
Im not a high fantasy guy....the cover has an orc....I hate orcs.
Now my favorite RTS sharing the throne with Dawn of War.

Halo: Combat Evolved
If it didnt come with my Xbox I dont think I would have played this game....like at all.

The Punisher
Not one of my favorites but dev a 9/10 game that surprised me to death.
During the era of licesned games absolutely sucking here comes the punisher and actually amazing game that stood out in that generation.

 

[Tortahegesztő]

Resident Evil 7.
I wasn't realy expecting anything from it, but the demo got me hooked for good and the game was awesome as well.
Before that I only played through RE 4 on the PS2 from that series.

Mass Effect 2. I just finished Gears 1 and I wanted to play another cover shooter an it look like one at first glance....I got a lot more than I signed up for.

 

[catpurrcat]

From games, souls etc.

I whined about these being too difficult for years. Finally took the free time during Covid to actually learn them. Especially Demons Souls Remake as the 60fps and FAST loading makes dying-and-trying way less annoying.

Embracing the difficulty now.

 

[DarkTom]

Beyond Good and Evil.

A friend had lended me its hacked Xbox.
I played some games only basing my choice on their name. I liked the name and played the game almost to completion. There was only one hour of gameplay to beat it when I gave the console back. Though I thought there was more, game is quite short and ending is abrupt.

Anyway I played through it several years later, on my own Xbox, and it's one of my favorite game ever.

 

[Reformed Individual]

Trails in the Sky series. I had played Cold Steel and really enjoyed it, then when I saw there was more in the series, I looked them up. The pixelly graphics instantly turned me off, but then it went on Steam Winter Sale in 2019 and I bought the 3 games. Absolutely loved them to the point they're some of my favourite JRPGs of all time now.

 

[Ostinatto]

wow back in the day

 

[Diogo Arez]

Resident Evil, tried REmake in 2016 and didn't like it that much, tried the RE2 demo several times and still nothing.
Then out of a sudden(literally one day I woke up and it happened) in early 2020 I started watching RE videos and such and I gave REmake another try, loved it so much I immediately pre ordered a RE2 and 3 bundle. RE2 is now one of my favorite games ever, RE3 is meh but it was enjoyable enough.

 

[EarlGreyHot]

Resident Evil 2 Remake.

I thought I didn't like horror games but I LOVED it.

 

[Adder7806]

Rainbow Six Siege

Ending up being my favorite game of last gen

 

[fanboy]

Demon's souls remake and Yakuza

 

[Belvedere]

Death Stranding epitomizes this for me.

I was a bit worried about a completely unhinged Kojima title and was so surprised by the whole experience.

It was such a relaxing, slow burn of a game that was more rewarding in its community mechanics than I ever imagined. I went in completely blind which I think made it even mode impactful.

 

[Why would you do that?]

I guess the best example of this for me would be Metal Gear Solid V.

I played and beat MGS1 and 2 and thought they were alright, but MGS3 quickly bored/annoyed me, and I hated the way MGS4 looked. I really wasn't invested in the series at all. So I didn't even know MGS V was coming out at all until the day before it released.

I also happened to have just built a new PC in 2015. I only had PS3/360 era games on Steam, and I was looking to buy a game that would better push my system. I went on Steam and saw MGS V was coming out in a few hours, and if I pre-ordered it I would get Ground Zeroes right now for free. So I thought "Hmm... I really don't know if I'll like this game at all" but after looking at the trailers and debating it, I just decided to cautiously buy it.


And it turns out, game's amazing. It's easily my favorite stealth game, and probably my favorite 3rd person shooter. I'm very glad I decided to buy it, basically on a whim.

 

[Indelible]

Immortals Fenyx Rising, had no desire to play it but it ended up being one of my favorite games from last year.

 

[NoalleGospell]

Resident Evil, i didn't like Horror and now it's one of my favourite Franchises.

Click to shrink...

Exactly this, bought RE2make late december 2019 at a whim and then spent the next couple of months playing through most of the main series before RE3make came out(which I loved too).

 

[Dogui]

I was really young, like 11 years old. There was a Dracula adventure game on PS1 that my cousin had and i liked it a lot.

The PS1 era in Brazil were like 99,999% all about piracy. Actual original games were almost a legend where i lived, so we bought pirated games with dubious covers at best.

So, there was a Dracula something game on the cover, i thought it was the Dracula Adventure game my cousing had, but i was wrong. It was a 2D game, had snes like graphics, i was like "Wtf is this garbage?", and before trading it out, i decided to play the game for some minutes anyway. It eventually grew on me and nowadays i like it a lot more than that Dracula adventure.

Yeah, the game was Symphony of the Night lmao.

Aside that crazy event, i don't think i ever played any game i wasn't interested in.

 

[evrythngwastakn]

Persona 3. The premise sounds insane and dumb in that way so much anime makes my eyes roll back especially hard. But it just clicked. I loved every second of it. And 4. And (still) 5.

 

[squeakywheel]

yakuza like a dragon. wasnt expecting much but Ichinis an amazing protagonist. love this game.

 

[blacktout]

Yoshi's Island. I was a petulant, obnoxious little kid and I remember being furious that I got it for my birthday instead of the SNES port of Doom (which my parents thought was too violent). I remember saying some shit like "but it's a game for babies!" (presumably because of Baby Mario). After actually playing it, it became (and maybe still is) my favorite 2D platformer ever.

And now I can play both it and Doom on my Switch, so I guess every story has a happy ending eventually.

 

[Deleted member 49438]

After seeing bits & pieces of my brother play Mass Effect (aka mostly seeing him talking to people on his ship/the citadel) I told him I couldn't play a game with so little "gameplay" (I was young & dumb). Over the past year or two though I decided to give them a go with him alongside as my "tour guide" so to speak, and really enjoyed the trilogy overall. Led to us doing the same thing for Dragon Age (another of his favorite franchises), which is now one of my favorite franchises. Glad I saw the light haha

 

[Jakten]

The whole Danganronpa series, seemed like it was going to be dumb anime trope crap and I thought the art was kinda crappy back when everyone was readnig the Something Awful lets play. Then I eventually played the first one after the 3rd game came out and I was so wrong. It IS anime trope crap but in the best way possible and it's very aware of what its doing. I can see the charm of all of it now, some of my favorite games of all time.

 

[jakomocha]

Risk of Rain 2. Didn't think I liked rogue likes much until playing it and super enjoying it

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Resident Evil VII. 5 put me off the series for a long time but eventually I tried the demo and was intrigued. I bought the game and then proceeded to fall in love.