Games that didn't pull you in right away but you eventually enjoyed

That game right now for me is Deathloop. The beginning felt overtutorialized with a lot of text that I didn't bother reading 😆 the menu is also not very intuitive but now I'm used to it. I feel like the game could've explained itself in a better way. Now that I know what I'm doing I'm really enjoying it. It's fun and addicting and unique. Definitely a very cool and smart game. Maybe too smart lol.

How about you, SW? What games didn't pull you in right away but you eventually enjoyed?

I gave up on Deathloop. Just didn’t click and the AI is stupid. One game that pulled me in was Mario Party. At first I was like, what the heck am I playing. But then I got addicted to the silly funness.

The latest is certainly the mess that is the bf2042 beta. Unplayble mess, but i keep coming back.

Ah, easy one, Gothic.

Controls made by a space alien. Die one hit on pleb enemies in the opening area. All NPCS act like dicks. You're main char looks like a convicted sex offender from some German rock band.

Took about...4-5 tries over a period of years until suddenly went, "ahhhhh, I get it".

Warframe

Tried it a couple of times and never got the appeal but eventually got hooked for quite a while until I got tired of it. Also FFX, my first turn based RPG. Played it quite young and loathed the turn based aspect and random encounters of it but once I got used to it it grabed me for hours and hours on end

I just got the platinum for deathloop today lol ... but to answer the question. Skyrim I didn't like it pretty much whole playthrough and I ended up loving afterwards

Recently Days Gone, Death Stranding and Prey. Death Stranding and Prey I gave up on and came back to try again later and enjoyed them both especially Prey.

In the past Kingpin: Life of Crime took me a few tries to get into but I enjoyed it in the end and I had no time for Rome: Total War until one day I did.

Black & White. Pretty weird and abstract at first, but once you get your head around it, very addictive.

Still no way to play it without original discs.

Trails in the Sky.

Recently? Returnal.

I started playing and grew frustrated with no weapon carryovers or health increases between runs. Thought it was outright cheap and that they needed to level the playing field more. Put my head down and 'got gud', now I can run through Act 1 or 2 in no time.

Another runner up is Total War: 3 Kingdoms. Didn't fully get into the setting right away and thought it would be a reskin of other settings. Was totally wrong. Best diplomacy and espionage system in any of their games. I can't play older versions that don't have the retinue system and RPG light generals. The fact that playing as a different faction can completely change your playstyle helps too, albeit not like War Hammer, but running around as Lu Bu is something to behold given his abilities and being a rolling ball of death that gains traits with every victory.

Fire Emblem Three Houses. Hard to believe I had trouble enjoying it at first, or rather I didn't have much time to dedicate to it the first time I played it.

Now my playtime sits at around 200 hours 🙃

I went through that too.. Three Houses had some rough edges but the core gameplay is fun.

Ye. If it wasn't for Ys probably would never have touched this franchise.

One of the few JRPGs enjoyed.

Rage 2

Arkham Knight. initially didnot liked it due to performance. but it then become my fav open world game of last gen. better than likes of RDR2 and witcher 3.

Deathloop is a great game but if you play it like average FPS then you wont like it. once you realise its more of puzzle game than FPS. I really liked it. even though its not masterpiece and not every game need to be.

Rage 2 is saved by id software because the combat is only good thing and id done it. avalanche drop the huge ball and they are primarily developers. making open world even more blander than far cry.

Distinctly had that experience with Horizon: ZD. Ended up being a top 25 game of last generation.

Death Stranding, similarly. By the time I finished I loved it, but even going back there are frustrations I can’t get past.

Horizon, got it on PS4 back when it launched and never really clicked with me, mostly because of the bland story and terrible control with the controller.

Got it on a sale through epic store later and loved it, just underlining once again that m/k is vastly superior in any kind of 3D shooting game! And yeah the story is pretty good, once you hit the last 10-15 % of the game!🙄🙄

soulsbornes. i don't like dying in games. it's not unusual for me to restart missions if i die, so the souls games were not a good fit at first lol. took some perseverance and letting go of that perfectionist mentality but glad i did because they're some of the best gaming experiences i've had. so looking forward to elden ring

I honestly didn't think I'd spend that much time on a Fire Emblem game after Fates and Awakening but I ended up spending even more time. There's just something about that gameplay and those characters, so addictive.

Persona 5. The first 5-10 hours were pretty uninspiring. I almost quit. Then I entered Kamoshida's castle and quickly became hooked. A couple of hours later I realised I was playing one of the greatest JPRGs ever.

@pmanden: yea Persona games require patience

divinity 2

Bioshock.

That would have to be Meteos (DS). It's a puzzle game in which you use the stylus to move various colored blocks. When you match blocks, they shoot up to the top screen. I thought the game was shallow at first, but the more I played it, the more I fell in love with it. It's definitely a skill based game. To this day, it's my favourite puzzle game of all time.

Trojan, an NES-era game that was published by Capcom in the late 1980s that was based on an arcade game. At first I had problems completing the second stage, but when I learned that are secret areas in the game that gives me powerups, I was able to compete the stage and the game. In fact, through many playthroughs, it was due to the placebo effect of the powerups, that I was able to finish the game without any damage (sometime I rarely able to do in video games).

Actually yea, Phantom Hourglass, heard much shit talk about it. Came off the back of OOT, which is officially "the most game ever",expecting worse.

Pretty dope game. Maximizes absolutely minimal control input playing that shit dragging a chunky ass pen. While something like Witcher 3 has masses of buttons for dis' and dat' yet can't get the fundamentals down. Like "moving forward".

Bioshock, it took 3 tries before I got into the game.

@Pedro: @TheEroica: What took you guys a longer then normal time to get into that game? Just genuinely curious because it had me hooked rather quickly.

Off topic slightly, but it took me till my third playthrough to harvest the little sisters, that was a tough decision for me.

Nowadays probably minecraft. Finally understood why game is quite addicting.

Though a memorable one for me is a classic underrated series called .hack. Played a game on PS2 called .hack/infection or something and dont understand a thing cause its the 3rd entry in the original quadrilogy. Somehow I saw the first game on sale and decided to play it and hooked by the story and ended finishing all the sequel entry and the proper sequel .Hack/G.U

Phantasy Star. When games were $49.99 this new 8 megabit $59.99 super game from Sega was all the rage. I really had no idea what a JRPG was back in those days. From the word go I was so disappointed and was like what's this shyt but because I paid so much and in those days when you opened the game package you bought it, no return.

I persisted and it turned out to be one of my most early memorable VG experience of all time. The rest is history and I had become a big fan of the genre.

100%.

That’s a great example, gonna steal that one! First time I couldn’t finish it. A year or so later I restarted it from the behinning and had a great time. It has it some issues (like relying too much on audiologs for the story), but a very cool universe!

I still have all my .Hack games with the Anime Dvds that came with them. Great games, and very underappreciated. That was the first game I ever played that allowed me to transfer my progress from game to game, and the setting and story where so original for the time. I remember when it released what drew me to it was that it was advertised as a "simulated MMO with no internet connection needed" and at the time, high speed internet was not available in my area, so that's the best I could get with a dial up connection back then.

I believe I was just not in the mind set to play the game.

I couldn't harvest the sisters. Even though I know its a game.

Wait, you harvested the sisters? Shame on you dude. Shame.

@rmiller365: yes! Even labored watching the anime torture cause I loved the games. You got to admit the hero of that show spends a lot of time not doing anything and just brooding/lazying all day lmao. Kite in the original and Haseo in GU, I still remembers them well. I even tried to play the online japan only .Hack online through an emulator lol. Game can be fun with friends but incredibly basic.

It was his third run. What else there for him to do? 😂

I didn't appreciate it as a thinking man's shooter. It was slow pace at first... Once you really start understanding how to use your powers with the environment the game really feels quite wonderful. Matter if fact every time I go back to play it I'm always so impressed by what it does. Feels different than the rest.

Yeah it's a game that almost makes you feel dirty when you play it, like it was made by men's rights activists or something lol.

...but when it clicks, it clicks. One of the more immersive, enjoyable game series. Diamond in the rough, for sure.

Would also add Risen to this list, as that is essentially the Gothic series continued.

The entire From software lineup.

Back when Bloodborne was new, a friend forced me to play it, I played it for 5-6 hours with zero chance of getting out of Yharnam.

Fast forward to 2019 and the same friend forces me to play Sekiro. I spent 5 hours and I couldn't even beat the first mini boss. Had a terrible gaming experience

Dark Souls franchise disgusted me.

But in late 2020 / early 2021 I got a PS5, Demon's Souls and now I have 50-120 hours in all 6 of their games :p

Now I am completely spoiled by the best swordplay combat system in gaming, and everything else feels sub-par and poorly made in comparison. plus every other game is either easy or doesn't know how to balance difficulty (shitty health sponge enemies in GOW on GMG+)

Smash Bros. I absolutely hated the series. Found it way too chaotic and random. Then my friends forced me to continue, and after a while I started "getting it" and I've loved it ever since.

This reminds me of myself, but nobody forced me to try them.

Back in late 2009 when Demon's Souls came out in Asia, i didn't own a ps3 yet (had a 360), so all i saw with my Xbox fanboy goggles are ugly visuals with very dumb animations (the roll looked real stupid to me) and large weeb swords. I remember laughing at people saying that the game is a gem. I thought they were all hipsters praising the game just because barely anyone has even heard of it. Then i got the ps3 very late 2009 and for some reason (maybe because Kevin VanOrd gave it a GOTY and i trusted his opinion... don't remember) decided to buy Demon's, a game i hated on, in very early 2010. And now i don't know wtf i'd be doing without Fromsoft titles, gaming wouldn't be the same.

@hardwenzen: Exactly. I thought all Souls games were clunky, but after playing DS3/BB and especially Sekiro there's no other games with combat as engaging.

Even coming from a huge DMC fan, DMC5 combat doesn't give me the same level of suspense and impact as DS3.

The thing is I don't really like hard games and people kept exaggerating the difficulty. I expected Souls games to be DMD+/GMG+ difficulty but they aren't, they're perfectly fair and balanced.

Final Fantasy VII.

I first heard of it while reading CVG magazine back in '96, and was intrigued as it reminded me of Secret of Mana, the only RPG I had played before. The CGI and battle graphics shown in screenshots also looked amazing. After all the hype, I saved up all my pocket money to get the game on its EU release day in November '97.

When I started playing it, however, I was disappointed. After the amazing CGI intro, you see some strange lego-looking characters appear. I felt so misled, as the strange-looking field character models weren't advertised in the marketing. And then the slow turn-based battles appear, which I didn't like at first.

But after playing for a few hours, I was hooked onto FFVII. And then when I completed it after over 100 hours of play time, FFVII became my favourite game of all time.

@Litchie: I'm a monster, I know. 😢

xD

- Monster Hunter World (My first Monster Hunter game. I bought it off of hype and was impressed with the graphics and the tight combat system but it quickly became repetitive. I put it down for a few months then picked it up and ended up playing online. I never play anything online and am mostly a solo player but Monster Hunter World just feels like it's meant to be played with others. Most fun I've ever had playing online in any game.)

- Trails of Cold Steel (The first game is sooo boring I almost quit but as soon as you hit the ending it pulls you in and you'll be anxiously playing the next game to see what happens next. First game was slow, repetitive, and had terrible pacing, though, in my opinion.)

- The Witcher 3 (I liked it but it was just too bloated. Too many side quests, too many question marks, too much of everything. I think I played for over 200 hours and never beat it. I started from scratch a year later and made sure to be much more focused. Only focusing on the really interesting side quests or things that were important to me. Second time around I managed to beat it in 2-3 weeks then went on to complete the DLC. Really glad I went back. Also had same problem with Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. It's just too much going on sometimes lol)

- One (A super generic run n' gun from the PS1. My Grandma bought it for me but it wasn't really my style of game, especially for how young I was. My Grandma wasn't into any of that stuff so I was really appreciative that she bought me a game in general and decided I was beating it no matter what. Eventually I ended up liking it because I felt challenged whenever I died. I think eventually I beat it in one sitting. I wouldn't recommend lol)

Fallout 4. It took me 3 or 4 attempts to get into it.

Red Dead Redemption 2. It was super slow and I actually stopped playing it early on. Then came back to it when I was bored one day and then it hooked me.