Trails in the Sky, the first one. I bounced off the game not once, but twice. I liked the combat, but it felt like all I was doing was quests from the guild's notice board, so I quit. But then I kept seeing TitS (heh) on various "Best of" lists, so I was like "FINE. I'll try to push through one last time". And then it clicked and I pretty much marathoned the entire trilogy.

The first game is good, buuuut I still feel like it's the weakest in the Trilogy. Story-wise, you get to the good stuff way, way later in the game. Everything that comes before is world building. And it's good, too. You get to see how the world works, how different regions of Liberl (the country you're in) operate and you also get a small glimpse of Zemurian politics (Zemuria being the name of the continent Liberl is on). This also gets vastly expanded upon in the second game.

I'm glad I tried it, because the writing is great, the music is incredible and I really dig the combat. If anyone wants to try it, definitely do. Just know that the first game is a slow burn. Worry not, though. Once the plot starts picking up steam, it doesn't stop.

Mass Effect. Played the first one and couldn't get off Eden Prime cause of the shitty starting rifle and the OG game's idea of weapon stability.

Played Mass Effect 2 years later and beat it in a week, just absolutely loved the whole thing. Went back and played the first one after that to get the whole story. Then waited for ME3 to come out.

I still hate the way weapons work in the original ME1 but I pushed through, not surprised it turned people off of the game though.

I have two very different kinds of games I did this with.

The first was Undertale, didn't really get into it at first and stopped playing it around half way through. However after I watched someone else beat the game I got a lot more into it and finally beat all the main endings. Really liked the story and it quickly became one of my favorites after that.

The other is the Crusader Kings games. I got one of them when I was pretty young through a humble bundle and did not understand how it worked at all. Then near the end of highschool I finally tried them again along with playing Stellaris and thats when I was finally able to figure out how to play them and got super into a lot of Paradox's games.

Mount & Blade

There's a cheat that puts the game into slowmo, and it was the first game that pretty much let you dive into an army of soldiers and take them all down with melee combat. It was glorious.

Plus there was a cheat that would let you teleport, so sometimes your enemies would go rally an army against you, and you could literally teleport behind them and take them on the hills.

Glorious game.

Witcher 3

Was overwhelmed with most of the game mechanics.

Dwarf fortress I was always into it conceptually and think that all the under the hood simulation stuff is rad as hell and its fascinating how emergent narrative arises from such complexity.

Also love kruggsmash's videos, the bastards a legend. He's what got me into it.

But pre steam release I just could not get into actually playing it. Even with tile sets and such. I tried, I really did. But the horrid UI and high amounts of game ending bugs were just too much.

The steam release was the only game I've truly been hyped for in my adult life. I was giddy like a kid and got it the SECOND it released, and finally fell in love with PLAYING the game and not just hearing about it. Its so fun building up a fortress and getting invested in your little dwarves well being, hidden surprises they put in to spice things up. Every month there's an update, even if is just a small peacemeal to let us know things are happening and adventure mode is coming along.

After playing for a while and learning enough to know how much you dont know, you can feel the limitless passion and raw intelligence that is the foundation for the insanely rich systems you work with. It feels like a living world in your computer. The closet thing to true technological magic I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with.

Etrian Odyssey

I tried the demo for the fourth one and just didn't really like or get it. A couple years later Atlus announced Persona Q (which has mostly the same gameplay as Etrian Odyssey) so, I decided to give the demo another try and it just clicked this time. I have no idea why I didn't like it the first time around.

The binding of Isaac. I played about 10 hours of the flash version. 10 years later my friend gifted me afterbirth and repentance and I've played almost 1000 hours

The Witcher 2. I died so many goddamn times in the intro scene, rage quit, came back years later and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Pokémon Unite

I tried it early on but I felt it lacked the maturity and depth of playing a more serious and in-depth MOBA like League of Legends. I played a lot of Pokémon games throughout the years but it just paled compared to how fulfilling the long-form games and lore of Leagues went.

Turns out I’m a dad now and these shorter, punchier games are both perfect for me and somehow more fulfilling. On top of that they added complexity with Boost Medallions without breaking the game with them. It makes the setup more cerebral because you lose stats as well as gain.

I'm currently playing through Shadowrun : Hong Kong and really enjoying it. I'm not sure why I bounced off the first time, I played and enjoyed Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun Returns but Hong Kong just did not click with me the first two times I tried

Horizon Zero Dawn. The first time I played it I could not get into the tutorial, just felt so bland. Then years later I tried it again, pushed through the tutorial, and it's now my all time favorite video game series.