Are there games you are glad you gave a second chance?

If so, what are they? And why?

I'll start off.

I'm replaying The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and wow is this game beautiful. I'm on summer break right now, so I actually have time to sit and enjoy this game. Maybe because I rushed through it originally I didn't appreciate it so much, but man this game is gorgeous.

From the soundtrack to the artstyle to the facial expressions, I actually feel for the characters in this game. Sure the silent realms are my least favorite part of the game, but the game is so gorgeous I can really forgive this flaw.

I actually think that the motion controls work really well for this game. Although at first I was skeptical of "the waggle", I'm really glad Nintendo did this game as well as it was done.

I also ask this so maybe I can appreciate another game this summer and see if there's any other gems I missed out on.

Bioshock. It took 3 tries before I warmed up to the series.

Dark Souls

I initially purchased the game on the 360 and took it back after being unable to pass the huge demon near the tower. I liked the concept, the art, the graphics, gameplay...pretty much everything...the difficulty was infuriating though.

A few months later the PC version came out and was on sale for $20 so figured I'd give it another shot, this time taking a bit more care in how I played. Worked out much better this time, beat the game a few times through NG+. Glad I gave it a second shot, ended up being one of my favorite games of all time.

The Witcher 1. I got the original(Red) release and I thought it was crap. After the Enhanced Edition patch came out, I gave it another chance. Glad I did, because it's great.

Dead Island. Bought it. Really couldn't get into it. The store has a 7 day return policy, and my brother convinced me to not return it yet, and give it another go because he was digging it.

I did give it another a go, and I loved the game. Glad I didn't get rid off it.

DMC 5. I didn't think I would like the reboot, so I skipped it and I got it free with PSN+ and played it and enjoyed it.

Crusader Kings 2. First time I played it got overwhelmed a little because I just jumped straight in without reading any instructions or tutorials and stopped. Played EU3 and then went back to CK2 and it became one of my all time fav and most played games of all time.

Bayonetta is one I guess I'd consider. Played it for quite a few levels originally on 360 and really didn't like it so I got rid of it. Then I played DmC and enjoyed it so I wanted to give Bayonetta another shot. Picked up Bayonetta 2 on Wii U and started with the first game. I still haven't beaten it but I find it's an alright game.

Destiny is maybe the latest one. Didn't care for the "alpha" that PS4 users got as it seemed rather empty so I didn't plan to pick it up. Ended up getting it sometime later and was going through solo and still felt the same. Started playing it with a friend and it got better. We stopped playing for a while and just played it this past weekend and had a hell of a time with it. I plan to play it more now that I'm finding I'm enjoying it.

Super Metroid. I was very young and wanted a straight forward shooter like Contra. Hated metroid, though it was slow and clunky. I was dumb :p

Dark Souls.

One of my favorite games of all time now.

The first time I tried RE4 I didn't like the controls at all, and couldn't get past the first village with the chainsaw guy. I then read some reviews and was like, hey this game got A LOT of high scores, maybe I should try it again.

I was young then, and I've learned over the years to not play games based on the score they receive. But I still read many reviews to learn about the game before I buy.

Deus Ex Human Revolution. Didn't care for it and decided to give it another shot and turns out it's in my top 5 games of all time.

I tried this game three times and never found that love for it. :P

Not really a "proud" one at all for me, but...

Twilight Princess. When we first got it for the GameCube, despite it being fun, I thought it was the most disappointing Zelda title ever released. Tried to do another playthrough of it to see if I'm missing anything, on both GameCube and Wii (got the PAL version of the latter) and... nope. Still not a great Zelda title and an insult to the GameCube (as it was the last major first party title for it) in the end.

A legit one that I'm proud of? The Naruto UN series. I hated the first one with a passion, but the third one was fantastic in comparison (as in, it's a much better game). They lost it with the fourth UN though (with a third person action mode worse than MK Deception and Armageddon's put together).

Persona 4.

Hated it the first time I played it. It's now my favorite game of all time.

The first Phantasy Star on the Master System. It was my first JRPG and after paying like 80 bucks for the game and playing for about an hour I thought WTF is this crap and laid off playing it for a while but since I paid so much for it and couldn't return it I forced myself to play and try to get my monies worth. Well, it turned out I finished it complete and it was epic and one of my fondest VG memories, the rest is history.

Same here , but i just went in this game not thinking that its a DMC game , just a hack'n'slash

Bloodborne.

The offensive focus just took me too far out of my comfort zone. I belong to a group known as TA (Turtlers Anonymous) and believe in defense first.

I was strongly considering selling it, but then I got a Madman's Wisdom and the creepy "Love Doll" allowed me to upgrade my stats. The whole game opened up for me after that and I never looked back. I just beat Rom. I still don't understand how the Chalice Dungeons work though.

How far did you get?

Maaaaan, you quit on that early. I was a huge turtler too but with the increased speeds of everything, it was a pretty easy adjustment to make. Part of it you gotta take advantage of them i-frames.

Also, lol at beating Rom, because the game goes downhill from there.

@Boddicker: Procedurally generated dungeons. You activate them to the tombstone at the left in the Hunter's Dream, by using materials you get. You need chalices, and some specific consumables, all of which are quite hard to miss. Each dungeon opens up the next one upon completion (though on your first play through, they may still be gated by your story progression).

@Blabadon: Yeah, everything after Rom is shit. It's surprising just how much of a steep decline it is.

Like I said, the level design is still cool. There's a lot of space to move around in and those post-ROM areas still have their own sense of progression. It's just their integration with the game's design that's the stinker.

Except Y*******, **** that place entirely.

@Blabadon: They replace good game design and difficulty with tedium. It's what I'd expect from a cheap knock off, not from From's own game.

@Blabadon Yeah, I'm picking up on that. Yahargul is kicking my ass!!! Time to go back to the Nightmare Frontier and trying to beat the boss of Cainhurst Castle.

@charizard1605 Thanks. I just googled it. They should really explain what shit does better in BB. I never would have figured out you can jump and how to get out of holds if I didn't read it on the net. There really should have been messengers for that.

I got quite a few hours in. I want to say five - seven. It was a few years ago when I played it so I don't exactly remember. But the gunplay didn't feel right, I didn't enjoy the stealth and everything just felt off in the game to me. Loved the music in it though, and if I ever get the urge to go back to it I have it through PS+.

Final Fantasy I.

The first time I played it, I just more or less trudged around the starting city and learned to hate the fact I would 'miss' automatically for targeting the wrong creature. It was especially brutal when there were a lot of enemies on screen or if a random set of three madponys attacked. I then managed to wander to the first castle and it seemed like everything would poison me. Having dumped all money into spells which were expensive as all hell and weapons/armor, it was like it seemed I wasn't supposed to go on there or something. I just wandered around trying to find anywhere else to go and there was nothing. That, and the Black Belt seemed to whiff on EVERYTHING with the nunchuks but hit like a little bitch with the staff. I think I played the game for maybe an hour or so and just gave up. Couldn't figure out the damn point. The way magic counted down seemed too constricting and potions were expensive. I felt like it was going nowhere.

After a few months, I randomly decided to give it another whirl. After all, it was a birthday present and at the time, videogames were real expensive and seeing all the different monsters on the back of the fold-out map made me really want to see what the game was all about. Man, once I figured out the objective of the first area was to run in and merc Garland, it was like that first "oh snap" moment I experienced in a videogame. Complete with the fanfare and exposition when crossing the first bridge to the next portion of the continent. Truly brilliant and gave me a sense of satisfaction that needed repeating. From that point on, I went in and kicked the pirates asses and the rest is history. The game was a real joy!

Professor Layton. At first I thought it was too much like work but I went back because I heard how much better the second and third games got and ended up loving the puzzles.

morrowind

I stopped playing after the first hour or so because i didn't pay attention to what was going on with the story. After afew days i went back and just started walking around aimlessly till i got to the next town and killed a random NPC and was locked up because i had no gold . After that the game owned my soul

No More Heroes. I couldn't stand the shit over world, painfully tedious side missions and clunky, unpolished nature of it, so i canned the game after about an hour. I gave it another chance and i managed to finish it in a weekend. Yeah, all those flaws are still there, but the brilliant boss fights which are also memorable because of how good they're written, unique atmosphere, fun combat, fun writing and an awesome protagonist made it all worth playing. It's a great game, as a whole. Both No More Heroes and its sequel are great experiences that i am glad to have played.

KOTOR. I hated the turn based gameplay, but I gave it two or three more chances, and I eventually ended up loving it.

Decided to give the Gran Turismo series another try, and I am enjoying 5 so far. Also Oblivion, I didn't care much for it when I first tried it years ago, and when I started playing it again a while ago, I did enjoy the time I spent with it (around 20 hours).

Where do you mean? Like specifically?

@bobrossperm: Both the Nightmare areas, and Yahargul

Plenty... In recent memory.

Divinity: Original Sin... Extremely hard to get into. Kept coming back to it after hearing praise and glad that I did. I didn't give up and finally started to scratch the surface after 8 hours of running around in town, not knowing what to do. Ended up being my GOTY.

Dragon Age: Origins... Played it back then, couldn't get into it... Came back after few years and I loved it. One of the best games of last gen.

World in Conflict... Thought it is not as good as other RTS like Starcraft or Company of Heroes, so left it despite it having very impressive storytelling. Changed my mind, came back to it and embraced its different gameplay mechanics than other RTS games. Ended up being in my list of one of the greatest games ever made.... also extremely overlooked. Now I think it is close to Starcraft 2 and better than Company of Heroes.

Yeah I thought so. I agree with Yahargul. It's just not fun and you can't explore without dying from an overload of shitty spawning enemies. Takes what makes the game fun away. But the second nightmare area is good once you kill the motherbrain. I also like the showdown with micolash and wet nurse. And Gehrman is an excellent fight. It would be a stretch to say the whole game post Rom is shit. Bar the unseen village and frenzy enemies, it's good. Though I hate the first Nightmare area where you fight amygdala. But at the same time, the Lovecraftian setting is much more pronounced. You confront the great ones, you discover more of the twisted shit.

The problem with the Nightmare levels is that they didn't balance difficulty with fun very well. They think making you walk through poison lakes will make it more fun and challanging, it just makes it frustraiting. They think the frenzy brains somehow enrich the gaming experience but they make it a chore since 9 times out of 10 you will be sprinting right by them to get somewhere and all it does is run down your blood vials. Which perhaps was their intent, I don't know, but it's crap all the same.

I know what you mean, but I thought some of the encounters towards the end of the game were really good. Even if getting to them was a pain in some cases. The One Reborn though was remarkably shit.

@bobrossperm: I actually found the final two bosses remarkably easy and trivialized (I mean Gernham and Moon Presence). They honestly don't take a lot.

I think Nightmare of Mensis might have been a good area, but two things completely drag it down- the frenzy brains, as you said, and also the bell ringing woman.

That said, I did forget, I loved the Lecture Building. Although that was like, five minutes long.

I fought Gehrman at a level 99 and I was getting my ass handed to me time and time again. Moon Presence I agree though. Push over. For the final final boss, he is noticably weaker than Gehrman.

But that aside, I found the Gehrman fight itself to be enjoyable regardless of difficulty (which I found quite difficult at first). The setting and music too was perfect in that part.

i hated resident evil 4 at first. i thought the controls were too clumsy and sluggish, and was about to quit.

@bobrossperm: What was your build and what weapon/form were you using?

Gotta agree about the music and setting, and just how it all plays out.

Probably the Ys series, Bumper based combat really turned me off until I grasped it. Not to mention the fantastic remakes, some of the best action rpg's out there.

Bioshock. Its still a shitty game but it payed off once I played through the vastly superior Bioshock Infinite.

The STALKER games. Tried them a few times but finally got into Call of Pripyat and it was pretty cool.

Lone survivor, saw cleaver and axe. He kept closing in on me and I couldn't read him for quite awhile so his attacks done me some damage.

@bobrossperm: Ah. I just switched to Ludwig's Blade in its light form, and strung a multi hit combo multiple times after shooting at him first (which leads to the briefest of stunlocks on him). That, and exploiting my iframes on dodges really helped.

I found parrying was a nightmare with him. This all was like a month ago and now I'm pretty familiar with everything in the game. Still have trouble with Ebertia and Blood Starved Beast oddly, but apart from that, I'm sound.

A couple just recently actually.

I bought Arkham City on PS3 a couple of years back, played it for a few hours and stopped. Just got bored with it. Picked it up on Steam the other day for 5 bucks and tore through it. Pretty decent game... way the **** shorter than I expected, but still worth a play.

Dark Souls is another one and I'm really glad I gave this one another go. Again, I had it on PS3 initially... the performance just killed it tbh. I loved the game, but not enough to put up with the bullshit on the technical end. Picked it up for PC a few months back along with DSFix and ****, it's one of the best games I've played in recent years.

@bobrossperm: Blood Starved Beast and Vicar Amelia were nightmares for me lol. Almost made me quit the game.

In general, I am better with humanoid enemies than with beast form ones, though I'm pretty good with the latter too, all said and done.

I can't think of a game I gave a second chance. Plenty I've replayed, but usually because I like them. Most games I play I actually beat, and if I quit on a game it's because I'm fucking hating that game.

And yeah, Dark Souls. I didn't hate it at first, mind you, but I couldn't get anything done properly.

One day, around Christmas, I got really drunk. I popped in the game, Aris called me on Skype. Whatchu doing, all that. Playing Dark Souls. It's tough. Aris went full walkthrough. He taught me so much, and he loved hearing about my progress. I remember that fire beast from Demon's Souls killing me. He was laughing. 2 days later I talked to him again. I had beaten Demon's Souls. He couldn't believe it.

Yeah, Aris helped me get on my way in Dark Souls. He really did.

Have you killed Ebertia Daughter of the Cosmos yet? Optional boss, but it's probably the most brutally difficult boss in the game. Can't stand it.

@bobrossperm: I have not. I'm sort of burned out on the game right now, might try it later.