What game (or series) did you think you'd hate but ended up liking?

Gamer Bhoy 89

I think this was a question asked on Twitter somewhere, and I only thought to ask it here because yesterday I impulsively bought Age of Empires 2 DE, and I've never been the biggest AOE fan - often finding the first one incredibly boring, buying AOE3 and finding it equally boring, and only dabbling in the original version of AOE2 for the same reason, but I found myself stuck on this one for 9 hours yesterday before I checked the time. It finally clicked. And I couldn't stop playing.

Very addictive game. Playing more of it today

La Bamba

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

I think this was a question asked on Twitter somewhere, and I only thought to ask it here because yesterday I impulsively bought Age of Empires 2 DE, and I've never been the biggest AOE fan - often finding the first one incredibly boring, buying AOE3 and finding it equally boring, and only dabbling in the original version of AOE2 for the same reason, but I found myself stuck on this one for 9 hours yesterday before I checked the time. It finally clicked. And I couldn't stop playing.

Very addictive game. Playing more of it today

I downloaded AOE3 off steam a few weeks ago myself (including the War Chief and Asian Dynasty Expansions), for a 15 year old game it's gameplay holds up incredibly well! The campaign missions could be a bit repetitive but I have really been enjoying the skirmish feature where you select your map and opponents!


A slightly left field choice for a game that really surprised me was the Godfather Blackhand Edition on the Wii. It was one fo the few games that I felt adapted to the Wii console very well! I must dig it out again!

Stone Deaf 4evr

Dark Souls, the talk of its difficulty was legendary, I only gave it a shot when I got it free through Games with Gold.
safe to say, I'd never played anything like it, and went on to play them all apart from Sekiro.

Retr0gamer

Final Fantasy 12.

Hated it at release. Tried to critical path it and it was just so frustrating.

Tried the recent rerelease and took my time with it. Ended up doing all the side quests and super bosses and loved it.

Lesson learned: Don't rush games.

Mr.Fantastic

God of war Ps4. Saw it on a few ads on the tele and thought it looked graphically great but was never a fan of the originals, always thought they were poor DMC clones.

My then new housemate moved in and gave me a lend of it, absolutely loved it. Was not without its faults but I really just did enjoy it for what it was a decent story driven game and I liked the shake up of the combat.

Penn

Have never been a fan of racing sims. Can generally only stomach racing games if there's some form of weapons, smashing, or dare I say it, something fun to actually do. And I don't care about how realistic the cars look or anything like that.

But back in the day there was almost nothing more relaxing to me than doing a 50-lap race for an hour or so in a Dodge Viper in Gran Turismo.

pasta-solo

I'd say Dragon Quest XI S on Switch. It'd been a while since I played a JRPG and the while I love the idea of them, the actual gameplay always felt stale and stuck in the past. But thanks to the very generous demo on the eshop, I gave this a go, loved every minute of it and bought the full game. Will definitely keep an eye on the next game in the series.

ERG89

Life is Strange season 1, a bit cheesy and clearly written from the perspective of someone who's knowledge of American high schools isn't first hand but I really enjoyed that first playthrough and Life Before the Storm.

corcaigh07

Definitely Advance Wars for me, I’m not into turn based games usually and no desire to play war games either.

The series is well overdue a reboot on Switch.

The Phantom Pain

Add me to the Life is Strange camp. A pleasant surprise, indeed, when it's a game you can very easily make fun of at first glance.
Also, Destiny 2. I played through the campaign and thought it was quite good but I was not prepared for the level of addiction in the endgame. I'm dreading the new expansion because I know I'll play nothing else if I start. It's the gold standard for looter shooters IMO.

quokula

The Yakuza series went from something I had no interest in to being probably my favourite game series of the last few years.

I had always ignored it, I had some vague idea that it was a beat em up game, in the same category as something like god of war which is a genre I never got into as I hate learning combos and just button bash, and I also heard it was a bit like GTA except you can’t drive which sounds really boring. I was aware it got generally good reviews but I had it in the same camp as things like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry in my head, two games I’ve never played but I assume I’d bounce off them like I did with GoW.

But something possessed me to try Yakuza 6 on a whim a couple of years ago and nothing prepared me for the story and characters and the location and the side quests that make it so endearing. I went and played the entire series over the last couple of years since then.

Danonino.

The division.

Was pretty much forced to play it by friends. A Tom Clancy grey and brown looter shooter... sounds like utter trash.

Absolutely loved the story and setting and got sucked in completely. Platinumed the first game and jumped straight into 2 on release. The recent Warlords Of New York expansion refreshed my love for the series. When it gets things right it’s stunning.

Retr0gamer

quokula wrote: »

The Yakuza series went from something I had no interest in to being probably my favourite game series of the last few years.

I had always ignored it, I had some vague idea that it was a beat em up game, in the same category as something like god of war which is a genre I never got into as I hate learning combos and just button bash, and I also heard it was a bit like GTA except you can’t drive which sounds really boring. I was aware it got generally good reviews but I had it in the same camp as things like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry in my head, two games I’ve never played but I assume I’d bounce off them like I did with GoW.

But something possessed me to try Yakuza 6 on a whim a couple of years ago and nothing prepared me for the story and characters and the location and the side quests that make it so endearing. I went and played the entire series over the last couple of years since then.

Yakuza is basically a JRPG with a brawler battle system. I mean it even has random battles but disguises them well.

BeerWolf

God of War, was never particularly keen on the gameplay style of the series but gave the one on PS4 a try -- awesome game that, mainly due to the gearing system... I'm a fan of RPGs. Not played previous installments though.

keithkk16

Mass Effect Andromeda

I loved the original trilogy, but when Andromeda came out it had so many bad reviews that I didn't bother buying it, then 2 years later I seen it on the PS Store for 8 euro and was like why not I'll give it a go at that price. Now I'm almost a 100 hours into it and still loving it

Penn

quokula wrote: »

The Yakuza series went from something I had no interest in to being probably my favourite game series of the last few years.

I had always ignored it, I had some vague idea that it was a beat em up game, in the same category as something like god of war which is a genre I never got into as I hate learning combos and just button bash, and I also heard it was a bit like GTA except you can’t drive which sounds really boring. I was aware it got generally good reviews but I had it in the same camp as things like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry in my head, two games I’ve never played but I assume I’d bounce off them like I did with GoW.

But something possessed me to try Yakuza 6 on a whim a couple of years ago and nothing prepared me for the story and characters and the location and the side quests that make it so endearing. I went and played the entire series over the last couple of years since then.

Yeah, Yakuza is a great shout. Took a punt on the Y6 and Y0 bundle and absolutely loved Y0. Incredible game and not the type I'd normally ever play. Y1K was pretty good too. Still have Y2K and Y6 in my library but I find it's a series I can't play too often because the games can be so similar, so needed to take a break. Might try out Y2K later in the summer.

Arcadeheroes

Half Life 2 : Never heard of the game till the orange box came out but had a friend of a friend telling me it was an amazing game so I decided to buy it and try it for myself . I didnt like it when I first played it and even after my 2nd , 3rd , 4th playthrough It still could never hold my attention anymore than an hour .

It was not till I was bored with nothing to play I said I would try it one last time and all of a sudden I was hooked from start to finish .


Horizon Zero Dawn: First time playing HZD I was really enjoying the game , I was in awe by the Animal robot designs and fighting big mechanical beast. but after around 10 hours I just dropped the game and lost interest.

I tried months later to try to get back into it but I found it very boring.
It was not till I decided to skip the dialouge trees and all those conversations cutscenes, HZD went from being a 7/10 game to an 8.5/10 for me .

Escape From Tarkov.

I bought it around 2 years ago and couldn't for the life of me get into it. It's brutal at the start. You need to have friends playing it to be taught how it works. Every quest needs to be googled. There's no indication that ammo type is incredibly important. If you manage to get over the initial hump, there's a very rewarding and intense game loop. There's nothing quite like it in fact. Wasn't until last Christmas until I stuck with it. Eventually had to give it a break as it was all I was doing all day every day for weeks.

Sephiroth_dude

Uncharted, I loved 4 and lost legacy, haven't any of the others but I will.

McFly85

Persona. Had heard very little about the games previous to Persona 5, and the description of the game put me off, but the glowing reviews convinced me to try it and I loved every minute of it, easily sinking 100+ hours into it, and have since gone through P4 on the vita with P5 Royal installed and in the backlog(it’ll be there for a while though as I’m getting destroyed in Bloodborne at the minute!)

CoD Modern Warfare.

I played MW 12 odd years ago like most others did at the time, I continued to buy the series but it was a big slide from there and I gave up by Black Ops.

I hadn't played a CoD game since the new consoles came out, was just heavy into BF or other tactical shooters.

I was half interested in it based on what I was hearing. Warzone going F2P offered me a chance to test to mechanics out and I swiftly purchased the full game and play it daily.

Retr0gamer

McFly85 wrote: »

Persona. Had heard very little about the games previous to Persona 5, and the description of the game put me off, but the glowing reviews convinced me to try it and I loved every minute of it, easily sinking 100+ hours into it, and have since gone through P4 on the vita with P5 Royal installed and in the backlog(it’ll be there for a while though as I’m getting destroyed in Bloodborne at the minute!)

I was the same with Persona and I love JRPGs. I skipped Persona 3 and only got into Persona when Persona 4 was out a while and a friend of mine was raving about it. Picked up Persona 4 and 3 at the same time and fell in love with Persona 3.

I read all the glowing reviews of Persona 3 and all I read was about a game with randomly generated dungeons and dating sim elements in between. It was two things I normally hate in games. And it was from a weird japanese RPG series that had one release in Europe before it. And that release was Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, a game that was reviewed unfairly on release as people didn't understand it because it was difficult (I've finally played it recently for the first time and it's one of the best RPGs ever made). Glad I gave it a go as it and the From souls games are the two best RPGs of the last 15 years.

Mr.Fantastic

corcaigh07 wrote: »

Definitely Advance Wars for me, I’m not into turn based games usually and no desire to play war games either.

The series is well overdue a reboot on Switch.

These games were my my childhood, did you play the kinda of gritty one on the DS dark alliance or something?

corcaigh07

Mr.Fantastic wrote: »

These games were my my childhood, did you play the kinda of gritty one on the DS dark alliance or something?

Yep Days of Ruin, not as cheery but still the same core game. I know that game had online gameplay but on Switch (with 16:9 widescreen also), it would be one of the best games on the system.

Mr.Fantastic

corcaigh07 wrote: »

Yep Days of Ruin, not as cheery but still the same core game. I know that game had online gameplay but on Switch (with 16:9 widescreen also), it would be one of the best games on the system.

Thats it days of ruin loved that one also, yeah defo think it would look great on the switch sure if they brought over Phoenix wright, you never know.

Retr0gamer

It's unfortunate that it probably won't happen. With Fire emblem after taking off as a major franchise for Nintendo Intelligent Systems will be focused on that series instead of a 'Wars' game.

It's not too bad as Fire Emblem is basically advance wars with rpg elements but advance wars had elements like the multiplayer that fire emblem doesn't replicate.

johnny_ultimate

Most recently, probably Disco Elysium. I didn’t grow up with western RPGs so isometric games of its ilk are still a bit alien to me. Also don’t tend to be a fan of menu-heavy RPG number crunching*.

Thankfully Disco Elysium was far more welcoming than I expected. It helps that it completely avoids the combat that tends to turn me of other similar games. Instead, there’s a purity to how everything plays out - it allows the writing, characters and world-building to take centre stage, while being full of moments of humour and warmth. It tackles some of the most thorough political and philosophical content of any video game with a light touch, and is never far away from a wildly imaginative set piece or absurdist character moment. One of the great video games of recent times, and immediately accessible and compact in the way many of its inspirations are complex and sprawling.

*on the subject of number-crunching, also have a soft spot for the Disgaea games and the endless levelling grind. I hate even minimal grinding in most games, so find it very strange how deep I got into Disgaea 4 when the main appeal was purely driving those numbers ever higher.

Retr0gamer

I think where Disgaea succeeds is gamifying levelling up. In that breaking the game to level up faster and faster to ridiculous levels is part of the fun rather than just grinding out the same EXP from enemies.

Mr.Fantastic

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It's unfortunate that it probably won't happen. With Fire emblem after taking off as a major franchise for Nintendo Intelligent Systems will be focused on that series instead of a 'Wars' game.

It's not too bad as Fire Emblem is basically advance wars with rpg elements but advance wars had elements like the multiplayer that fire emblem doesn't replicate.

Suppose they have focused in on Fire Emblem. Three houses was amazing, such a timesink. Completed it three times, three different paths and dlc

quokula

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Yakuza is basically a JRPG with a brawler battle system. I mean it even has random battles but disguises them well.

Yeah and I love JRPGs so this is how it won me over. I'm excited about Yakuza 7's new battle system.

Homelander

Overwatch on PC. Resisted requests from my housemate to play it for probably a year, wrote it off as one of those weird fantasy/cartoon Blizzard games that I had no interest in.

Two years later I have about 1,000 hours logged.

Honorable mention: Advance Wars 2 on Gameboy Advance, expected to hate it but ended up so hooked I wasted half a holiday abroad holed up in a dark room playing it. I literally bought a Nintendo DS just for Dual Strike and Days of Ruin, never even bought another game for the system.

If they announced a new Advance Wars for Switch I would literally buy the console just for that.