Games you enjoyed more than you anticipated

One game that comes to mind for me is RAGE on the PS3. The original one. It was a laid back, fun game. I enjoyed the shooting mechanics as well as the characters, setting, and writing. If I recall, the driving mechanics were fun too. Overall, it didn’t take itself too seriously and was the right game for me at the right time. Another game I can think of is Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. Same idea, lighthearted and fun. What about you, SW? What games did you enjoy more than you anticipated?

Guacamelee. I no longer had interest in side-scrollers at that time, but I ended up loving it. The combat was fun, the story/theme was entertaining, and the music was great. I've said it before, but games that make me want a food associated with their theme are winners in my book. Tales of Monkey Island made me want seafood, and Sleeping Dogs made me want Chinese. Sleeping Dogs was another game I didn't expect to like because I'm not a GTA fan. But I loved it.

Subnautica. Never had any interest in the survival games at the time, but this one was great. Awesome audio/music, cool mechanics and upgrades, and scary AF!

Vanquish. I tried the demo and didn't really care for it, but eventually played the full game and that changed my mind.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I played the demo prior to its release and I didn't like it at all. The demo was way too easy. I'm glad I didn't buy into those first impressions because I bought a copy. It wasn't too easy. I'm glad I bought it because otherwise I would've missed out on a great experience.

FF8

Demon Souls (PS3)

Days Gone

Kirby and The Forgotten Land and Lies of P immediately spring to mind. Two fantastic games.

3 that come to mind in the last year or so, is Evil West, Atlas Fallen, and Outriders, funny thing is that they're all AA games.

Lately, Tetris Effect: Connected. It's just Tetris with fancy effects and music, but fun.

Got Terminator Resistance for like $5 on sale after the game received horrible reviews. I mainly got it reminiscing about how I never got to play Skynet back in the day and well why not try Terminator Resistance in its place... well, not only did I like it, I loved it. Played it several times since getting it. I felt guilty getting such a gem so cheap, so I picked up Robocop Rogue City at launch and boy I didn't regret that in the slightest either.

I know the horse is dead, but for this year it's definitely Unicorn Overlord. Expected it to be decent with Atlus and Vanillaware at the reigns, but wasn't expecting a masterpiece. Took me completely off guard.

Prey (2017) was amazing and I didn't expect to love it as much as I did.

The Last Of Us way back in 2013 was the first time I liked a horror game. I'm a bit of a mega fan now.

Hades introduced me to a whole new genre of games. And probably my favorite genre now.

Ori. I just loved this adventure.

RAGE was indeed good. My biggest complaint with it was that it ended, and very abruptly. Which is a pretty good complaint to have I guess, but I feel the game was around half the length it should've been.

RAGE 2 was absolutely terrible. Like.. really, really shit.

Enjoyed Snake Pass more than I thought I would. Bought it just to have something else to play on Switch when it was new, and ended up loving the game. I miss quirky games like these.

Bioshock 2 instantly comes to mind.

Cast your mind back, this thing was lampooned even prior to release. And from a personal standpoint, Bioshock did absolutely nothing for me, felt like a watered down SS2 clone.

For me, it was Mass Effect: Andromeda. I wasn't expecting the game to take off as it did with the original trilogy but the game itself proceeded my expectations. Yes, I like the game, so don't come telling me why.

Ori and the Blind Forest was so damn good, my expectations were low but man, it surpassed my expectations as the game itself was so freaking awesome the first time you play it.

Ori and the Will of the Wisp was ok, it was a step back, I expected more. Moon focused on the combat way too much, Ori wasn't always about fighting, just simple walk projectile gameplay and I didn't like they focus on the melee so much and the story doesn't really hit you like the first game did.

Those are the games that come to my mind I enjoy more than I could anticipated but Ori and the Will of the Wisp...not so much.

The first Crackdown was a SuperSleeper. ;o

It really put the highly addictive Orb hunting Crack (so I've heard lol) in Crackdown. :P

What I am currently playing. Had I played this sooner, would have been a strong GOTY contender for me. I am absolutely loving this game.

In the beginning the game is deceptively simple: you start a sushi restaurant business with your buddies, and you are recruited to be the diver, to catch the sea life that ends up being on a sushi plate at the restaurant. By day you go on these diving excursions and by night you are working a restaurant shift.

There is a very addicting gameplay loop here. For the first time in a long time, I am having a hard time putting a game down despite knowing I should be doing other things through the day. The gameplay loop is very satisfying. In order to run a restaurant you need higher quality fish to catch, and in order to find better fish to catch you need to upgrade your equipment so you can go to deeper depths and have air supply to stay underwater longer. With better fish you make more money to upgrade your equipment to upgrade your restaurant, and it loops back and forth this way.

The game is much more than this gameplay loop, however. There's a laid-back vacation vibe, with frequent story diversions that come up seemingly spontaneous. I don't want to spoil much of this game, but there are frequent events and surprises that unfold and turn into a real sense of adventure.

The characters are all very realized and likeable. None of them feel cliche or by the numbers, and they all have personality and their own character arcs that I am interested in.

All I gotta say when you first start this game you think you know all that Dave the Diver has to offer, and before long you realize this game has many cards up its sleeve and there is much more depth than meets the eye. No pun intended. I really hope more people here check out this game, it is fantastic.

More recently God of war. I played the originals on the PS2 but kinda bounced off them. I have 3 on the PS3 but i dont get too far before getting a bit bored.

I started God of war 2018 (i think it is) and initial impressions were not good. Didn't really like the combat. Enemies just seemed to be very damage spungie. Then there is a section where you need to prompt Atreius a few times to kick down a chain because of a thing he just did...so i'm thinking "oooook it's that kind of game". A bit David Cage. THEN there is a repeating boss fight where you have to whittle down the guys health 3 TIMES!!!!! oooook it's that kind of game. It's going to be a miserable, mopy grind. It will be a pretty grind at least.

But I soldiered on a bit more and, as soon as i hit the lake (and turned down the difficulty a bit), the game really just transformed. Exploring was more enjoyable, it does actually cheer up a good bit and combat improves after getting more skills.

...Also it's soooo pretty! :D.

@jaydan: would have no idea that game would involve sushi lol

Persona 3 FES, I kinda bought it on a whim, but almost everything in it cautivated me, the setting, the gameplay and above all the music, thanks to it my hype for Persona 4 that was already announced went out of the charts.

Seriously, check the game out. SW is seriously missing out on a hidden gem here.

Even IGN calls it one of the best games of the year.

Hogwarts Legacy

Days Gone and Cyberpunk.

Days Gone since I heard nothing but negatively about it. I absolutely loved it.

Cyberpunk because I don't care much for FPS anymore, but gave it a try on the cheap after people were praising it after the DLC.

Necromunda: Hired Gun. I typically don’t enjoy fast twitch shooters like Doom but the upgrade system in this game was addicting and it was a nice balanced difficulty.

@Jendeh: I can relate to Prey.

Kingdoms of amular went into it expecting a fable knock off.

Divinity Original Sin II

Days Gone - after much reflection is my favorite AAA game from PS4 generation

Megadimension Neptunia VII

The Atelier series starting with: Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky

Metal gear rising revengence... I thought it would be a fun hack n slash. Turns out it's one of the best games I've ever played. Gameplay so good it hurts.

you feel physical pain when you play it?

Yes... And it hurts so good.

I re-installed it but have yet to replay it.😔

You promised me.... 😢

I am still alive so there is still time.😏

@Pedro: if you perish I will reverse haunt you.

The most recent one was probably Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Its a great sequel to FF7 and more importantly gameplaywise its one of the best combat system especially in hard mode where u be counter master against everything that moves. Loved it more than expected its definitely in my top 5 games of PS4 era.

Its also linear so the story is told better compared to FF7 Rebirth personally.

@SolidGame_basic: I found Rage slightly dull and boring, but the graphics were very impressive for their time, and the game ran at 60 fps, if I remember correctly. Call of Juarez was really cool. Despite the low review scores, I enjoyed that game.

Damn! Rebirth is worse than Remake?

Story wise, yeah. They fumbled the ending of Rebirth.

High on Life

Saw the trailer and thought it looked super cringe.

Played it on gamepass and had a really good time with it. Fun game, doesn't take itself seriously.