Games games you had to try again after some time to appreciate

[Mersadeon]

So, you all know this. You try a game, it isn't really fun and you forget about it. Months or years later, you decide to give it another chance, and BOOM it works for you!
What were your games and why did it take that time to appreciate them?

The biggest one for me is probably STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl. I had that bug that locked the game to the hardest difficulty without telling me and I was just so angry. I didn't understand how the game could be that hard and frustrating at normal. After about a year I tried it out again and didn't get the bug - and by god did that game grip me.

E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy is a weird one for me. It has such a unique feel, but the first time I played it it weirded me out so much through just plain culture shock that it took me months before I tried it again - and liked it. It's such an odd game that I needed that time to get warmed up to the ideas it had.

 

[Conza]

Amazingly, this happened to me with Mass Effect.

That starting mission was so confusing, and so bad (first half), that I played it, I think two times in a row and gave up thinking 'ergh, this'll be another Xbox shooter for the PC' and I was so wrong, and so glad I came back.

I'm sure there are others as well, but I think you need to let a game get into its groove before you fully judge it.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

The first Thief game. I got it shortly after I built my gaming PC, but it didn't really appeal to me at first. It was a combination of me not being used to dated graphics, and being impatient to work my way around to playing other PC exclusives I'd missed out on over the years. Once I finally got into it, I absolutely loved it. I like that it doesn't give you an array of super powers like heat vision or invisibility. The feats that Garrett is physically capable of are rather reserved by video game standards, so it really takes a lot of skill and patience to get the job done stealthily.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. It wasn't really a problem with the game; rather, it was a problem with my expectations. I had just finished Dragon Age: Origins, and absolutely loved it. I was looking for games similar to it, and several people recommended Oblivion. Needless to say for anyone who's played both games, they aren't terribly similar. After I got over my infatuation with DA:O, I was able to enjoy Oblivion to the fullest.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

The Witcher 2 and Shogun 2.

I had to force myself to invest interest in the game, and to pay attention to what the games were saying.

I did, and I had a lot of fun with both.

 

[TehCookie]

Skyrim, playing a pure mage felt impossible because spells did so little damage and I died so quickly, and melee was soooo boring. Once I started into archery and mixing classes it got a lot more fun.

Second would be Tales of the Abyss, I didn't know about Tales of linear combat system and didn't have the free run ability yet so I was confused and hated it. Then I played Graces which has that lovely sidestep so I learned the combat and Abyss became one of my favorite games.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Deadly Premonition - quit after 30 minutes as every single part of it is awful. But i had nothing else to do so i restarted it and got sucked into the story and quirky characters.

 

[SwimmingRock]

Alpha Protocol seemed like a massive pile of shit the first time I tried it. Neither stealth nor combat really seemed to work as well as I wanted, dialogue options were unclear and clunky and the story was just a big old bag of who gives a shit.

However, after reading about how great it supposedly is from people on this site during several months, I decided to give it another shot and stick it out a bit. Now that I've finished it, I'm pretty confident in saying it's one of the best RPGs ever made. Maybe not one of the best games in the RPG genre, but the amount of options and consequences to your actions makes it feel like you played your unique version of events. I absolutely love that game now and intend to replay it soon.

 

[Varrdy]

Amazingly, this happened to me with Mass Effect.

That starting mission was so confusing, and so bad (first half), that I played it, I think two times in a row and gave up thinking 'ergh, this'll be another Xbox shooter for the PC' and I was so wrong, and so glad I came back.

I'm sure there are others as well, but I think you need to let a game get into its groove before you fully judge it.

You and me both. I played up to the Citadel but just wasn't getting it and so put it back on the shelf. Ages later, I was informed just how much cool shit was yet to come so I went back to it - almost immediately I was sold whereas before I was just thinking: "Meh..."

What a difference a few months make!

 

[Mikeyfell]

Dishonored.
The first time I played it I tried for a nonlethal run and... Dishonored is absolute shit when you're not killing people.
It's a terrible stealth game with crappy level design and it looks ugly.

A year later I picked it back up and started my high chaos murder spree.
Pretty fucking cool.
There's nothing quite so satisfying as a chain of hapless guards following me through a rewired Wall of Light.

And it helped with the moral issues. I mean seriously I'm not going to give the Boyle sister to some creepy sex pervert just for the sake of nonlethality. I have some morals.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

It was Twilight Princess and, Wind Waker for me. It seems like modern Zelda games have been starting slower and, slower...Skyward Sword started out at a crawl too but unlike Skyward Sword, I came back to and came to adore Twilight Waker and, Wind Princess. Phantom Sky-Tracks can suck it though...

I feel like the same thing is happening to me with Metroid Prime and, Resident Evil 4...once I get into those games completely I'll likely get nice and hooked.

 

[JasonKaotic]

Dead Space for me.
I don't even know what happened. I played it once for an hour or so, was bored the whole time, gave up. Tried again a month or so later, got about as far as before, got bored, turned it off. Came back a few months later and suddenly I was enjoying every minute of it.

 

[Weresquirrel]

Okami for me. I bought it at release, as I had just been paid, and I was intrigued by the box art. Played it a little and didn't really get into it. Fast forward to last year and I was going through a bit of an older gaming binge, I'd just replayed Banjo Kazooie, Skies of Arcadia and a few other titles from that age and I noticed the Okami box. I thought I'd give it another go.

It's now resolutely in my Top 10 games of all time.

Spec Ops: The Line also took me a little while to get going. I tried it like, a month after I got it on a Steam Sale. Then played it properly a few months after that. Again, it's now in the Top 10.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I played about the first three hours of Fallout 3 and for whatever reason the game just didn't click with me. So I stopped playing it. As time went on I read all these people talk about how much they loved Fallout 3, how much time they were sinking into Fallout 3, etc. and so I went back and played again, and this time it did click.

I then put in plenty of time into that game, beating it and playing though much, but not all, of the content.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Ocarina of Time is probably the big one for me I played it on release for a few hours thought it looked and played awful and so put it down. When Windwaker came out I finished that game and decided to give the Ocarina version that came with it a go and I enjoyed it mostly, enough to finish it anyway. Its not one of my favourite games but I came to enjoy it.

 

[gorfias]

Skyrim, playing a pure mage felt impossible because spells did so little damage and I died so quickly, and melee was soooo boring. Once I started into archery and mixing classes it got a lot more fun.
.

I have to admit, I put Skyrim down for a long time. Then I started playing with mods and cheats and it was one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

I put Fallout 3 down for a long time. Dull I thought. I tried it again after a few months, got hooked, played about 150 hours and only stopped because my PS3 copy kept crashing (and I'd already beaten the GOTY Edition campaign.) Gets in my top 10 of Gen 7 list.

 

[scorptatious]

Fallout: New Vegas.

Rushed through it once when it came out, didn't think much of it.

Nearly two years later, tried it again and now it's one of my most favorite games. The amount of places to explore, the various kinds of characters you can create, the great story and characters, it was a kickass game.

And this was the unmodded console version, once I eventually build a PC worthy of playing games I'll probably play through it again on there.

 

[Sir Christopher McFarlane]

EarthBound for the SNES. The first time I played it or started playing it, it was the first ROG in first person I had played. Not having attack animations and also not being given the option to run just bored me out of my mind. Then I spent the first half of 2012 playing some Dragon Quest games on the DS. When I went back to EarthBound, I started to like combat and could be comfortable enough to let the game's atmosphere sink in, and I played it four or five times until the end of that year.

The Ocarina of time. I dislike everything I remember playing in the Nintendo 64. When I played the game for the first time back then I was very frustrated with the way the game played. I bought it for the 3DS for some reason and I was truly invested until the end. I don't understand what changed. It was a long time ago.

 

[Jumjummju]

Oddly enough, XCOM: EU.

Played it first on normal, and got most of the way through before finding the game too easy and stopping. A year or so later, and a I had the urge to play it again, this time on Classic.

Now I beat the game twice and am attempting Impossible mode for the 50th time.

Said impossible runs also gave me an irrational fear of tall, lanky men in tuxedos. FRIGGIN INSTADEATH FROM ACROSS THE MAP

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

Clive Barkers Jericho.

I got it as a gift shortly after it came out (I think I may have even asked for it!) and for some reason I just didn't play it. I did the first mission and put it down for years. After a while I picked it up after moving into a new place because I had played my other games to death and I felt bad that I never played it since it was a gift (I always told the relative who gave it to me that I had beaten it and liked it) and I fell in love with it. Finished it in one sitting.

I'm not sure what made me put it down when I first got it but now it is one of my guilty pleasures and I replay it frequently.