Inscryption, I went in expecting a short card based escape room with a lil bit of meta story. I found so much more, by the end the risk investment was great!

These three jump out at me. I went blind on all three.

• Portal 2 - I genuinely had no idea what it was about when I started, and I certainly did not expect comedy.
• Titanfall 2 - Bought it on release because I wanted a solo FPS game. Amazing. I wish I could experience it for the first time again.
• Spiritfarer - I cried. A lot.

Tainted grail Fall of Avalon.

Deep Rock Galactic. Even after a few years, I still regularly play this one with a group of friends.

Control. I've always had a fondness for SCP-related stuff so when I saw Control on sale for $3 or $4 it was an instant mindless purchase. Bored a few days later I decided to give it a go, and then I went and beat the entire game and the DLC. Great power fantasy, great lore, great voice acting, fun moment to moment gameplay balanced between exploring, upgrading, story beats, and boss fights. Also ties in to their other games like Alan Wake; I haven't played that one, but I've strongly considered it just because of Control and wanting more of that universe.

The Walking Dead (Telltale's version). I expected zombies, and a bit of action and tension from trying to escape them and survive. What I didn't expect was the emotional rollercoaster, and the genuine emotional reaction it got from me. One of the most powerful gaming experiences I've had.

Horizon Zero Dawn - From what I saw from the marketing seemed just odd. Relatively primitive looking humans fighting animal shaped robots. It just looked a bit too gimmicky. Several years after it's initial release I saw that it was on sale and gave it a shot. I was genuinely surprised by the depth of the story. It was much more emotionally impactful than I expected and the story now feels almost prescient.

Subnautica, I thought it was just minecraft under water, which sounded ok. Didn't expect it to have a story, absolutely didn't expect it to have an interesting story. The audio logs had some charming characters, ham and cheese had me cracking up whilst trying not to die. BUT, the exact moment I realized this game was special was the translated message you get after getting your arm poked, suddenly hours of environmental story telling snap into place as you realize what is about to happen. 11/10 would buy again.

Outer wilds, went in blind (as you should) was not disappointed.

Symphony of the Night

I had dismissed it even it originally came out because it wasn't 3D, but it kept coming up on top lists of PSX games and so I decided to give it a try a few years ago. Countless playthroughs later and it's probably one of my too ten games.

There's just so many little details to learn and tons of charm and style. The randomizer means I can replay it again and again and it's still a fresh experience only made better by my knowledge of the game.

Adastra. I am not that into VNs (I prefer actual games with more player agency and this particular VN has basicslly no choices to make; it is purely a story) but this one got me to check out the developer's other VNs and they are all hella good (especially Circles and Echo which actually have multiple story lines based on your choices).

Now I am waiting for the sequel, Khemia, to finish being written. I've played through what there is twice (the first time being before the first chapter was completely rewritten) and I am finding it very hard to be patient and wait for the whole thing.

Talos Principle 2. It’s a solid chamber puzzle game like Portal, but the philosophy audio logs were so good that they shifted my real world views into a less nihilistic place.

God of War 2018. I had never played any of the GOW games and I tried this one on a whim.

I fell in love with it immediately.

Final Fantasy XV

I'm a huge FF fan, but felt there was a dip after the golden era of 7-10. 13 was middling for me, 14 was an MMO which is not my area of interest.

FF15 took a long time to come out. And then we find out that you are manually controlling the main character like a hack'n'slash. It just no longer sparked that joyous wonder.

I waited ages before I got a PS4 and then got the Royal Edition. Slowly as I played it a fell in love with the characters. They are flawed, thrust into a journey they didn't get to choose, and instead of a toxic male fantasy it was a story about brothers, fathers and sons, about love, loss, and sacrifice.

I bawled my eyes out at the ending. The game definitely suffers from feeling like it's not quite a finished product, but the characters are the star of the show.

I do not play VNs, nor am i interested in them (i despise fan service), but i randomly played Katawa Shoujo a long time ago and it was such a sweet little game that i really fell in love with it.
Sometimes, i listen to the music to revisit that world.

The saboteur

Picked it up randomly back in the day with 0 expectations . I loved playing this game. The way it uses black and white to express the despair of ww2 France , slowly transforming to colour as you destroy nazi infrastructure and the tide of the war changes is so satisfying .

Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I don't consider myself a Metroidvania fan at all but both Ori games are so good.

The biggest surprise were the Death Stranding games. I had no idea it would scratch itches I didn't know I had.

Since i follow a lot of big games i normally can figure out what i would like since i am easy to please. I can only think of one game that i picked up that got me hooked and surprised me which was Cat Quest. I probably am thinking about it because im now playing the 3rd one which was free on psn for members.

Ghostwire: Tokyo

I got it free on Epic. I was in a slump without anything I was excited to play so I fired it up. Loved exploring Tokyo. The quests were great. Gameplay was fun. Main story kept me interested. Looked awesome. Was really pleasantly surprised by it.

Botw it was my first zelda game I played, never expected myself to enjoy the game that much.

Vampire Survivors. The premise and gameplay are simple, but it is highly um.. replayable.

Back in the day Morrowind on a Twilight disc. I'm not into fantasy at all, but that game took me for a spin that lasted many years.

BG3. Never played the first two, and I find some games like that have bad writing (like every bit of dialog feeling like it's overstaying it's welcome, being way to chatty and/or dull). I think I saw Cohh playing it (pretty sure that was my introduction to him) and I was blown away by the early access writing and mechanics. I bought the early access right away and was enthralled in it's writing, the plot, the dynamic choices based on class, race, or deity choice, and the music. There used to be a lady sitting next to the waterfall in the grove that had a whole sob story and a music box. Seeing the thralls on the nautiloid and the implications of what it all meant... I was really sad the release was so different. Still very good, but wasn't as good. But as it stands it is one of the few games I've actually completed, and I think it's the only game I've actually completed multiple times. Needless to say I'm very looking forward to Divinity.

Then Expedition 33. When I first saw gameplay I really thought it was just another Persona clone. I thought that due to the menu layout in combat. Day it released, saw some gameplay and decided to take a risk and bought it. Before I even left for the expedition... I already told my friends it was GOTY, it just dethroned KCD2.

X-COM Enemy Unknown weirdly enough. Turn based strategy was not my cup of tea until then. X-COM sucked me in to the point where is go to work, go home, play X-COM until two in the morning, sleep and start the cycle again for about four days.

marvel's midnight suns. the only other turn based game ive played was fallout 1. i just expected something to scratch my superhero video game itch and instead found a new favorite. im on my 2nd playthrough now and still loving it. my favorite "relaxing" game

I played Warframe for about 3 years before I realized it was my favorite game ever. As in I was 12 when I started playing, and at the time, it was just what I had. It wasn't until I got my first personal gaming laptop and began playing on there that I realized how much I liked it, and started engaging in the community more.

JoeAAverage, if you're out there: Thanks, man. It may have seemed like a small gift at the time—especially for an already 3-year player—but now, 11 years in, I still can't be certain that I would've realized how cool of a game I had in my hands had you not gifted me that Limbo set. Limbo may be forgotten by DE, and I may not play him much anymore, but he will always be my favorite frame.

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action

I usually don't have the patience for VNs with minimal gameplay, but the atmosphere, soundtrack and the general mood of the game got me hooked.