Better Than Expected

Is there a game that you didn't expect much of but ended up enjoying? Tell us about it.

Digimon Cyber Sleuth games. I thought they would just be regular Digimon games. Plus there was no english dub so that bothered me. BOY HOW WRONG I WAS. EVERYTHING IN BOTH GAMES WERE ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Hacker's Memory even won my personal Game of the Year in 2019.

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. Didn't think much of this one too. Until I played it. SO GOD DAMN GOOD. SO GOD DAMN AMAZING. Had Persona-like mechanics. JUST. FREAKING. GREAT. This won my personal Game of the Year last year.

Pokemon Sword/Shield. Hate was BS. This was the most fun I've had playing a Pokemon game since probably X/Y.

Tales of franchise. Why did I stop playing this? WHY?! It makes me want to go back in time and slap myself. So far only Vesperia has disappointed me.

There's probably more but I'll leave it at this for now and just post more if I think of more.

- Terraria. Sold it as two-dimensional Minecraft with a little more emphasis on combat. Discovered a heavy focus on combat with a variety of interesting weapons and implied classes. Outshone Minecraft's underwhelming combat system (spam-clicking at the time) with ease. Rewarded the player for sculpting arenas to battle bosses. Upgraded those arenas with progression and knowledge too (such as traps, bubbles with honey, and actuators).


- Sword/Shield's Crown Tundra. Expected a weak story and a parade of legendaries. ...Proved correct on both counts. Loved Dynamax Adventures, though. Fixed most of Max Raid's problems. Presents lots of interesting decisions. Heal, held item, or new Pokemon? Do you swap Pokemon now or allow an injured ally to escape? Do you fight a bad matchup now for a Pokemon effective versus the boss later? Is your team prepared for Kyogre, Palkia, and Tapu Fini? Will Coaching be useful for your team?

Factorio - Originally thought this was a tedious game that required rocket science. Now I feel it's a tedious game that requires rocket science but I have a PhD in fireworks so it's less of a struggle.
Also im a master of spaghetti so the entire factory never runs at full efficiency... yea

Age of Mythology - Gotta thank Devalue for this one, forgot how I thought this game would be not as enjoyable cause Age of Empires II was such a good game, but AoM has been it's own fun experience. Although one of the few RTS games I still have no idea what I am doing in.

i thought i wasn't going to like Ys VIII since a) i was completely new to the Ys series and b) i thought the battle system was going to push me away... but i was pleasantly surprised! i was actually engaged with the general story and premise from the beginning all the way to the end, and i wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking to buy it! c:

-New Pokemons Snap - Never played the original. Picked this up not quite sure what to expect tbh. Been loving it. Still grinding for photodex completion atm.

-Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Has a remaster called 'Re-Reckoning' nowadays. The original is not quite a new game. Picked it up randomly on sale on Steam one day. Wasn't expecting a lot out of it, but ended up loving it. It's a really good RPG actually.

Tales of Legendia didn't exactly age well compared to either titles in the Tales series but it was really good for it's time and completely blew my expectations outta the water