What is something that's surprisingly good?

[Billy D Williams]

After the insistence of my best friend I recently started watching the show Arrow, and let me just say WOW. This is a really good show. I mean seriously, it is just a good, fun, and well written show and I am officially hooked and can't recommend it more to the members of the Escapist community. But what was even more apparent to me than my enjoyment of the show was how surprised I was that I enjoyed it. I went into this thinking 'OK, its a show on the CW, its made by DC and doesn't involve Christopher Nolan, lets just get this over with' and I was completely wrong, and this got me thinking about what shows/movies/books/bands/games/etc. that you guys have experienced where you were blown away by how much better they appeared to be? It doesn't even have to be something well liked, if you enjoyed say Twilight go ahead and be proud of that shit, anything where you just were surprised you liked it.

 

[Kolby Jack]

After the insistence of my best friend I recently started watching the show Arrow, and let me just say WOW. This is a really good show. I mean seriously, it is just a good, fun, and well written show and I am officially hooked and can't recommend it more to the members of the Escapist community. But what was even more apparent to me than my enjoyment of the show was how surprised I was that I enjoyed it. I went into this thinking 'OK, its a show on the CW, its made by DC and doesn't involve Christopher Nolan, lets just get this over with' and I was completely wrong, and this got me thinking about what shows/movies/books/bands/games/etc. that you guys have experienced where you were blown away by how much better they appeared to be? It doesn't even have to be something well liked, if you enjoyed say Twilight go ahead and be proud of that shit, anything where you just were surprised you liked it.

I ain't watching Arrow until I hear that Black Canary becomes Black Canary. She's my favorite female superhero. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like the show will be taking that route, so whatever.

In the age of the internet, it's hard to find anything that is "surprisingly" good. Almost everything has its niche audience now.

Something that I personally expected to not like but then thought was good though? Hmmmm. Well, I pretty quickly wrote off Young Justice when I first saw the commercials for it. "Who is that blonde girl?" "When was Aqualad black?" "The art style is weird." "It'll never be as good as Teen Titans or Justice League."

WHOAH, was I wrong. It's now easily what I consider to be the greatest animated representation of the DC universe ever made. It far surpasses the old DCAU and it CRUSHES Teen Titans. So of course it got cancelled.

*sigh*

 

[Olas]

I think most people would agree with me when I say Thor: The Dark World was surprisingly good. Maybe if you liked the first one you wouldn't be as surprised as I was. For once I actually liked Loki as much as everyone else does, and they also made Thor himself into a character with at least a little bit of depth. So, ya.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

There's a bar I went to called Hopscotch in Fullerton (California) that has the most amazing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I've ever eaten.

My friends and I went there, one of them ordered it purely by accident, and when it came we all passed it around the table with each person going "oh my god, this is amazing. This has no business being so amazing" and the next person saying "what? It's pb&j, it can't be that good" and then having the same reaction when they tried it.

 

[Dirge Eterna]

My wife picked up a Chicken pot pie from KFC, I know not the 1st thing that springs to mind there. It was actually really good, much better than I thought it would be. About on par with one from a sit down restaurant like Coco's or Marie Callenders. But it was a lot cheaper, I know they all come from a factory frozen and thawed at the restaurant but fuck it we still ate it all and wanted more.

On another chicken note, the fried chicken at Knotts Berry Farms if freaking fantastic! First time we went I was like dude its amusement park food how good can it be? I was so wrong, it was moist, juicy and delicious. We have went back to the park just for the food, luckily the main restaurant is outside the park so you don't have to pay admission to go.

Might as well go for the chicken hat trick. I tried chicken and waffles for the first time when I moved out to California a few years ago. The idea sounded weird but since we went to a Roscoe's it was amazing. Its way too good to eat and way to bad for you to go too often. We go once a month or so, thinking about dipping fried chicken in gravy or waffle syrup makes my mouth water.

 

[Saelune]

For games, the Dead Island games and Dishonored come to mind.

For books, Cat's Cradle. Read it in summer school for English, and with the help of a GOOD teacher, I learned to love this book and now Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite author.

For movies, Perks of Being a Wallflower. My favorite movie that always brings me to tears. I saw it in a tiny theater with just my friend. The otherwise empty theater made the experience more personal since no one was there to ruin it and I could react without being in public.

As for bands, well, theres too many to bother listing. But some are Bloc Party, Biffy Clyro, Ladytron, and Two Door Cinema Club.

OH, and Denny's Seasoned fries. Yum.

 

[shrekfan246]

For movies, Perks of Being a Wallflower. My favorite movie that always brings me to tears. I saw it in a tiny theater with just my friend. The otherwise empty theater made the experience more personal since no one was there to ruin it and I could react without being in public.

Yeah, that was pretty good.

OT: Unoriginal answer: A Song of Ice and Fire. I mean, you'd figure the series would be at least decent if it were adapted into an HBO television series, but I had pretty low expectations going in what with all of the raving people had done over the TV series, because generally speaking the more people constantly bring one thing up over and over again, the less I'll want to be exposed to it. But I bought a boxed set of the first four ASoIaF books plus the hardcover of A Dance With Dragons and am currently on A Feast For Crows, and it's certainly surprisingly good. The more "realistic" Medieval aspect of 'nobody is safe' keeps it rather tense, and aside from the grand overarching plot-line about the war for the Iron Throne there's no real set adventure or anything, which means that practically anything can happen.

More original but perhaps still unoriginal answers: Deadpool and Lollipop Chainsaw. All right, so they don't have the deepest or most fluid combat systems, they're exceedingly short and very straight-forward in how the levels progress, but honestly, unlike something like Devil May Cry, this is a situation where I think the writing very much helps prop up the gameplay. Devil May Cry (especially 3) has a fair amount of cheese that can potentially keep it amusing, but the gameplay is really how the game lives or dies. With Deadpool and Lollipop Chainsaw, I don't see the same amount of potential replay value, but playing through the stories to see how crazy everything gets still makes them worth it in my opinion.

Oh, here we go, I've got one!

Sonic Generations. Now, granted, Sonic games had already trended toward being good again already with Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors, but Generations was definitely surprisingly good in comparison, if a bit short.

Annnnd

Digimon Tamers (aka Season 3). I made a few posts about this in the past few days already, but it bears repeating just how much better season 3 of the Digimon anime is compared to the first two seasons (at least the English dub).

 

[Von Dean]

the new block in MTG (or certainly the 1st set in it) i'm finding it to be surprisingly good.
Also the Horus Heresy series,just started reading them and i didn't expect them to be as well written as they are

 

[StriderShinryu]

For movies, 21 Jump Street. It really doesn't seem like it should work but I loved it. Probably one of my favourite movies from the past few years.

For food, a peanut butter and banana topped burger. There's a gourmet burger place near where I live and it has a menu of literally over a hundred burger varieties. I tried the peanut butter and banana topped burger on a whim and found it to be a very nice burger that I would definitely order again. The only thing missing was a little extra sweetness, but that could easily be remedied by adding a little of the right BBQ sauce and had nothing to do with what outwardly seems the objectionable part of the burger.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus

I'd given up hope this series would ever be good again, but damn, did Insomniac prove they still got. It's about 1/3 the length of a normal R&C game, but it's jam packed with goodness. The weapons are fun again, and the enemies are fun to shoot again.

 

[Billy D Williams]

For movies, 21 Jump Street. It really doesn't seem like it should work but I loved it. Probably one of my favourite movies from the past few years.

Ohhh that's a good choice, too. Granted I had moderate hopes for that movie going in but I never dreamed it would be as good as it was. I've seen it like 4 times and still laugh my ass off with it.

 

[EyeReaper]

I'll say the anime "Mysterious Girlfriend X" Too bad it's pretty much impossible to recommend to someone and have them take it seriously.
"Yeah, It's about a high school student who falls in love with a girl after licking her drool off her desk and becoming addicted to it!" Hell, I'll throw Katawa Shoujo too, and Hatoful Boyfriend. For games about dating cripples and pigeons, they are much better than any expectations

 

[Andy Shandy]

I'd agree with you on Arrow, OP. Saw it while browsing Netflix, thought "Eh, why not" and gave a shot, and now I love it.

 

[moggett88]

Well, it's not any of the things outlined in the OP, but honey and cheese on toast is surprisingly good...

 

[pilouuuu]

Anime:

- Fairy Tail: I thought it was a silly comedy animated series at first. I was worried it was something similar to Dragon Ball Z, which I hate with passion. After a few episodes I was completely hooked. It's incredibly funny, surprising, emotional, cool, amazing and has great characters. It is simply epic!

- Monster. I had no expectations whatsoever with this. After the first episode I loved it! Mysterious, mesmerizing and unique. Great characters and story. The guy who created this is a genius!

Music:

- Epica: It is the best thing ever. Metal meets classical music with a gorgeous lead singer and a growling guy. The band deserves its name.

Movies:

- Thor The Dark World: I have to totally agree on this one. I went to the cinema because, well, it's a Marvel movie. I thought the first one was OK and this should be an OK movie. This is totally amazing! My favourite Marvel movie second to The Avengers. Incredibly funny, with cool actions, likeable characters. I would define it like Star Wars meets Thor and I love it!

And yes, OP, Arrow is great. A million times better than Smallville and much more entertaining than both Man of Steel and Nolan's Batman. Pure fun! A bit Twilight-y at times with the romance, but it doesn't bother me much.

Games: more than games, let me mention something that most developers don't get right most of the time and two games that showed how to make them.

- Portal 2: simply amazing ending. Touching, artistic and awesome.
- Stanley Parable: is it a game? Maybe it's more like an interactive experience. Some possible small SPOILERS for game mechanics ahead: But one lesson it shows developers is how decisions in games can lead to interactivity and consequence all the time, thus creating multiple endings that make sense. Wow, even RPGs that are supposed to be about player input can't get endings as well as this game. Or whatever it is. An unique and eye-opening experience.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Attack on Titan. I heard the original concept of humans fighting giant humans and come on, it's not the most inspiring concept in theory is it? I tried the first episode and it's fucking great

The artstyle is unique and powerful, the animation is some of the best I have ever seen and the themes and implementation are really interesting. Not to mention the characters and voice acting. Oh and the opening is the best opening I have ever seen and is the new Guile's Theme. It works with everything



Humans get destroyed when it comes to any of our conventional warfare, fighting them on the ground is mass suicide. We had to invent an entirely new form of combat to even stand a chance at killing any of them. As well as looking cool, the 3D grapple midair grapple hooks are also a symbol of how hard it is to kill Titans and how far we've fallen.

Humans aren't at their best when flying through the air yet that is precisely the only way to kill Titans. One mistake and you die, either from a Titan blindsiding you, or one simply catching you in mid flight or even losing concentration and slamming yourself into a wall.

 

[Nouw]

Skrillex. I know, I know, it's silly to take into consideration what the general public have to say about pop music but it's still hard to not let the hate get to you and somehow influence your opinion. After listening to a few of his songs I came to realize that he's good at what he does. He makes catchy songs and is a pretty good producer as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Fox12]

The best example I can think of is UP.

Entering the theater: "A movie about an old man who flies around in a rainbow colored house with balloons? Please, shoot me now. I'd rather gouge out my eyes, Oedipus Rex style."

Ten minutes later: *crying like a baby*

Also FF7, which became my favorite game.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I know few people won't agree with me, but Assassin's Creed Revelations was much better than I expected. I came off of Brotherhood hating it with a passion, I had little fun with that game whatsoever. Yet Revelations actually hooked me in with its setting, the story was decent, and the Altair segments were very interesting. I should point out, I got a new copy for only 10 dollars, but even so I had lots of fun with it.

Now that being said, it's not an amazing game by any means, but I was surprised by how much I ended up liking it.

I suppose the Pokemon anime movies. The animation is well done, they can deal with slightly more interesting subjects besides "let's catch some Pokemon!" You can tell a lot of work is put into those movies compared to the show, and they are fun to watch for the most part.

 

[FalloutJack]

'Kay, I've got one.

So, one day my girlfriend asks me if I would watch Stargate SG-1, which I had stated that it is not my 'cup of tea'. Not outright hate, but it didn't seem on the surface like it was for me. However, because I'm open-minded and love her very much, I decided to look into it. Well, given that I'm a writer, and have watched/read enough sci-fi to get a damn good perspective on what's really good or really shitty and all points in between, I can safely say that the series is not bad. It's still not my favorite, but it's entertaining enough that I would be interested in the plot and laugh at the funny parts. Seriously, golfing into a wormhole. Priceless. That's my reasonable account of SG-1. Some parts I can't take seriously, but I'm rating it higher than Galactica.