Board 8 > What game were you most (pleasantly) surprised by?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Mine is probably Nier 1, which I impulse-bought despite the bad reviews because I knew about Drakengard and wanted to see if it would be just as crazy. Ended up being one of my legitimately favorite games ever.

Tales from the Borderlands is also up there. I don't like Borderlands. I'm not a huge fan of the Telltale formula. Somehow, putting those together created gold.

see sig

Spec Ops: The Line. Bought it because I just liked war games and the demo was fun. And was hit with exactly why that can be a bad thing. Top 10 game of all time now.

First one that comes to mind is Wind Waker. Not that I ever expect Zelda gameplay to be bad, but I did not like the graphical change at all at first, upon seeing press releases as a dumb high schooler. Within an hour of playing it though, it totally made sense and soon became my favorite Zelda.

Brave Fencer Musashi

I only bought it to get the FFVIII demo but it turned out to be a really fun game

When Astro Bot got announced, I was going to get it regardless because I love 3D platformers and enjoyed Astro's Playroom for what it was, but leading up to release I was stunned to see reviewers saying that it was GotY-quality, and my hype went through the roof (and tbh I still wasn't prepared for how good it was).

When I first saw the ads for the first Professor Layton, I expected it to be something strictly for children. Like, really young children. Then when I found out what it really was I got intrigued and enjoyed it a lot.

I went into the Uncharted series with moderate expectations and absolutely fell in love, especially by the second game.

Then there have been these little indie eShop type games that really left me feeling good. Unpacking, Letters, and One Night Stand stick out in my memory.

Yakuza series as a whole

I impulse-bought the first Borderlands on release day and had a blast with it.

another is Uncharted 2 after how mediocre the first was

Lacrimosa of DANA stunned me.

Slay the Spire.

Had no idea I'd rack up the hours playing this. Almost have all the achievements now too. It's my go to for just wanting to play something quick for a few minutes.

Radiant Silvergun. I didn't like Ikaruga that just and most shmups feel like games I want to like. RS really felt like it welcomed me in without being too easy and was an awesome experience

Kid Icarus: Uprising is a big one for me. I had heard the horror stories about how it controls, and I was playing it as a rental, so I didn't even have the stand that I thought was expected to be used with it. I ended up enjoying everything about it, including liking the controls enough that I feel like any port couldn't capture the feeling I got from it. Never would have guessed that it would end up my favorite Nintendo game.

Hollow Knight

I wasn't really into Metroidvanias but it was free on PS Plus, looked cool, and had a good reputation so I just impulsively gave it a try. Ended up being a top 5 game for me and now Metroidvania is like my 2nd favorite genre

Phantom Dust.

Released for $20 well before the discount game era. Incredible game thats pure kino

I'm assuming this means I came in with low or no expectations, and had a great time.

A Plague Tale: Requiem
Dishonored II
Renowned Explorers: International Society

The first two are not genres I typically play, but I thought were phenomenal games. The third is an indie game I randomly took a chance on and have gotten almost 300 hours from even though very few seem to have heard of this game.

Monster Hunter: World

Persona 3 (vanilla).

Bought it alongside The Sims 2 Castaways since the brooding anime art looked cool to my teenage self. Didn't know anything about the SMT/MegaTen series.

Didn't play it for months since I played Castaways first. But I loved it a lot and now I've played quite a lot of the modern SMT series.

Persona 5

Never played the series before and bought it just because it came out on my birthday. Turned out to be one of the best games I ever played

First thing that comes to mind is Ys Origin. Had been generally unimpressed by the series before that but it ended up becoming one of my favorites.

junk_funk posted...

Lacrimosa of DANA stunned me.

Came in to say this.

Grand_Kirby posted...

Persona 5

Oh this is a good one too. Despite being a regular on board 8 I was never really interested in even trying Persona 3 or 4, but depending on the day I might say Persona 5 is my favorite game of all time.

Halo honestly

Thought FPS games were just kinda bad up till that point aside from OG Doom being ok (had only played console stuff) so had ZERO interest because I also didn't find the style very appealing either.

And then I actually played it with some friends in system link play multiplayer, got my ass kicked repeatedly cause I was the onlg one who didn't know how to play, and it was like "holy crap this is awesome"

In recent years this hasn't happened too often, but it did with Celeste. An incredible 2D platformer when I expected it to be charming but a bit rote.

Has to be Pyre.

I initially had no interest in it, then I saw there was a talking doggo and I'm like, sure I'll give it a shot.

Top 5 game of all time for me. What an incredible experience that I wish I could relive again for the first time.

Probably is Outer Wilds yeah.

I thought I might like Mass Effect but I didn't think it would draw me in so effectively. 3 in particular had such backlash but I played it and thought it was definitely the best one, and that was surprising too

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on PS2 absolutely ruled

Dragon Quest 6.

I got it after I was rather underwhelmed by my first DQ (9) but goddamn loved it which is what really opened the door to RPGs as a genre for me.

Bayonetta - Even after the good reviews I thought it would be a pervy impenetrable mess yet it turned out great.

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor - Looked so generic, wound up really enjoying it.

Probably Hollow Knight but I'm pleasantly surprised by games fairly often. Comes with the territory of mostly playing indie games, I guess, since I rarely have expectations going in.

A Plague Tale series

Thought they looked neat, but ended up absolutely falling in love with them, especially Requiem

Metroid Prime is the first game to come to mind. My parents bought me it for Christmas as a kid. I had never heard of it, had absolutely no interest in it, thought it looked boring and didn't play it for ages. Wound up adoring it!

Judgement.

I heard basically nothing about it, even from the Yakuza crowd. It was also my first Yakuza game too. Just an absolute blast from beginning to end.

Kingdom Come Deliverance. Even at its extremely janky release it became one of my favorite games.

Which is totally not my way of plugging the sequel in 3 days!

Also MGS to an insane degree. Mostly 1 & 2 in different ways. I like 3 best but at that point I was no longer unprepared.

Astro's playroom is the first thing I think of.

Reg posted...

Dragon Quest 6.

I got it after I was rather underwhelmed by my first DQ (9) but goddamn loved it which is what really opened the door to RPGs as a genre for me.

6 is the one I couldn't finish.

It's seriously uphill from 6 and 9.

I bought Dragon Quest 8 for the FF12 demo.

DQ8 is one of my favorite JRPGs of all time and it introduced me to the entire series.

Astrune academy

Its a cheap little game about magical girls in a school with a lot of weird gacha mechanics. But the story had so many twists and turns it kept me captivated.

Meow1000 posted...

Came in to say this.

Also yes , Ys 8 is a near flawless game.

Minecraft: When it was still in alpha, there was a free weekend. I didn't expect it to be my kind of game, but it got mentioned by the TF2 blog. I gave it a shot and got hooked on it. And then all of my roommates watching me did too.

Outer Wilds: This was actually a game where I had a feeling going in that I'd like it. But I ended up loving it far more than expected. It's in my top 3 games now, easily.

Nier Automata: I think I wound up playing this mainly because a bunch of people on this board were talking about it. Kinda figured it was just some waifu actiongame, but it ended up being much more than that. Reaching the final credits is something that will stick with me forever.

kevwaffles posted...

Kingdom Come Deliverance.

I was pleasantly surprised by this game for about 10 minutes. Then the other game systems said hi.

Celeste is a great mention here that fits perfectly. Had an absolute blast and I only wanted more afterwards.

Astro's Playroom fits as well.

Uncharted too.

azuarc posted...

I was pleasantly surprised by this game for about 10 minutes. Then the other game systems said hi.

Understandable, actually.

KamikazePotato posted...

Mine is probably Nier 1, which I impulse-bought despite the bad reviews because I knew about Drakengard and wanted to see if it would be just as crazy.

Mine was also NieR, but for a different reason- Supra had put out some things on his best VGM list and I was like "damn, this is actually really cool, let me give it a go" because I was new to owning a 360 at the time.

It wound up my favorite game on the console.

Other games:

Bioshock: I knew about the memes and Big Daddy being cute-looking outside of the series, but I wasnt expecting to have a competent shooter that was REALLY CREEPY. It scratched an itch Resident Evil hadn't relieved in its recent years.

Vampire Survivors: I bought it for the Castlevania stuff but the "receive stuff and turn brain off" gameplay loop is surprisingly fun for me.