Second time around masterpiece....

Greetings.... Happy holidays and all that.

I'm playing the shit out of Skyrim on switch and I can't get enough.... Its optimized so well for the hybrid. Short load times, nice looking in handheld mode (I've never played it in TV mode), never once have I had a technical snafu with any of it. It's just rock solid Skyrim with all the dlc and Zelda swag. It's awesome....

I also own Skyrim on 360, but when I played the game 6 years ago I just didn't like the game. It felt like a giant chore with bad combat. I still sunk several hours in it, but it underwhelmed me in almost every respect. I never finished it and I haven't thought about the game in years.

Its a 6 year old game that I didn't care for when it came out, but now find to be godly... I even enjoy the gameplay as a one handed master sword/hylian shield/dagger/block/stealth build.... In fact Im kind of trampling through the game... Its super enjoyable.

The same thing happened when I played Bioshock. First playthrough was meh... Second was ZOMG!

Do you have a game that seemed underwhelming at first and later became a masterpiece?

To me its usually the other way around I consider the game amazing during the first play through during the hype period then I replay it years later to find it completely mediocre and or boring. Bioshock Infinite being the most recent.

That being said FEAR... My God I replayed that last year and to this day I haven't played a FPS with better AI and gun play. Like why the hell wasn't that taken as a standard?

Skyrim is awesome, glad you've found a way to enjoy it. Elder Scrolls have always been awesome. Even the worst one (of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim - the only ones I've played), Oblivion, was fun.

Only thing that comes to mind right now is Super Smash Bros. Melee on the GameCube. First I hated the game and my friends for forcing me to play it with them. It was the most boring, lame and messy shit I had ever played. I got angry playing it. Then I slowly started to learn how to control, how shit works, what the spawning items do and how to use them, etc. After that, the game became one of my favourite games ever made and I couldn't stop playing.

I'm sure there are more games that I can't think of right now, so I'll just add them later if something pops up.

I'm enjoying a ME3 play through on Mighty X1X, my goodness I'm loving it more than ever and it looks next gen just like my recent play through of Quantum Break, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Halo 3. :D

Gamespot apparently thought Journey was so good, that giving it a GOTY wasn't enough. (my bad I think it was IGN that gave it a GOTY, but Gamespot did re-reviewed it which...)They had to give it a 10 when it re-released on PS4.

I didn't enjoy Shadow of Mordor the first time, but I think that's cos my ex had just finished it and she was 'back seat gaming' and telling me what to do. I retried it again about 6 weeks ago and clocked up over 50 hours on it. Admittedly I lost interest in the DLC very quickly but the main game is awesome. I'm going to get Shadow of War in a few weeks and hopefully continue the trend.

Maybe I'll like The Witcher 3 if I tried it again...

Not really, but. ...skyrim suuuuuccckkkkssss!

Skryrim is great but played it too much already, if I'm going back it's going to be in vr.

@Chutebox: no no... Skyrim used to suck and now, for whatever reason it's insanely good.

The game is kind of what you make it out to be. It's a bit like Dungeons and Dragons. You can't go "DnD sucks, you just take a pen and a paper and listen to some guy talking". You need a little imagination. You need to care about its' world. Not for everyone, but seeing people saying Skyrim sucks just because the melee gameplay isn't deep or that bugs exist doesn't seem fair when such a large amount of the game is awesome. Feels like these people just don't get what's fun with it and should find a straight up action game they'd like instead.

Now, if there was a very similar game out there right now that does things flawlessly that Skyrim isn't very good at, I would see where you're coming from.

@TheEroica: I played the crap outta Skyrim when it first came out. I tried the remaster on the PS4 last year and was very....whelmed. Got about an hour in and haven't touched it since.

Fallout 3. Being a fan of Fallout 1 and 2 (and even Tactics), I was always interested in the game. I tried like 3 times to get into it after hearing how good it was, but always ended up uninstalling it out of frustration with how clunky it was. Then I tried one more time and it just clicked and I ended up loving it and later New Vegas.

I think the problem was I was trying to play it as a shooter, and you really can't do that in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. You can get away with it in FO4, though.

@goodzorr: I think had I completed the game and really saturated myself with it back in the day I'd possibly feel the same way... But it was basically a new game with some things I had remembered doing along the way.

I also think my build has a lot to do with my enjoyment. My first run, I tried being a one handed sword and one handed magic user and it really just kinda sucked. This sneak, shield block, one handed build is righteous though.

Demon's Souls was that game for me way back when it first released. This was a game I was following even during the time there was no North American confirmation for release, but people were importing the game from the countries it released in.

Out of the blue it was announced Demon's Souls was coming out in United States for the PS3 and that was when I lost my shit and eager to finally play the game. Add on top of the bonus that Demon's Souls was GOTY the year it came out, I was beyond excited to get lost in this one.

I received Demon's Souls on Christmas that year, alongside Assassin's Creed 2. I was excited to play both games but Demon's Souls really stood out to me I immediately popped that game in the PS3 over Assassin's Creed 2.

....

....

Damn, I thought, the reviews were not lying, that this game was hard as nails. It was almost truer than I could have imagined, that the game was beyond harder than what I could comprehend at the time. To say the least, my first play at Demon's Souls was basically 3 hours of attempting the first area in the game, and I ended up frustrated and very broken to believe a game I was highly anticipating was actually not going to work out for me because its difficulty wasn't going to permit my progression.

I shelved Demon's Souls in frustration, and luckily having Assassin's Creed 2 in hand, that was my easy fallback to ease my bitterness over the prior game.

I remember it took about two weeks of steady playthrough for me to beat Assassin's Creed 2, and I remember loving the game for its time. In contrast to Demon's Souls, it was a way easier and forgiving game, it was a joy ride to play and it's definitely one of the best in the entire Assassin's Creed series.

Once I beat the game I wondered what was next...should I give Demon's Souls another try? I was very nervous and reluctant cause I was afraid it was just going to spiral me down to the same frustration as before. At this point I had the game shelved about a month since I initially tried, so it took a little painstaking convincing to get myself to try for even one more hour.

Well I did, I started the game new, I changed my class to a sorcerer, and I was already aware of its difficulty it wouldn't catch me off-guard this time.

It took a couple hours of trial-and-error in the first area, but the moment I opened up that gate to the first boss battle, and creating various other shortcuts, that's when the game's progression really started to click with me (opening shortcuts to bypass areas). I played the first boss, the Phalanx one, and I beat it after a couple tries, and the world opened up new paths forward.

When it comes to the online features, reading notes in Demon's Souls was the most effective because it was the most new at the time. I was completely absorbed in this game. I will say it now, and because everyone today disputes which of the Soulsborne games had the best online, and I will tell everyone Demon's Souls did it best the first time and Dark Souls kinda fucked it up and every game after was trying to build off Dark Souls. My testimony is they all should have been like Demon's Souls. I don't think the online for any Soulsborne game has ever been as gratifying and immersive and easier to connect with people than how intuitive it was back in Demon's Souls. I truly miss those days and how engaged its online community was that really contributed to turning Demon's Souls into one of the greatest experiences I've ever had in gaming.

I love the shit out of Dark Souls and that is clearly my favorite Souls game just from a pure game design level, but there were certain features and mechanics only done in Demon's Souls that I wish they carried over to the later games.

But yeah, I can really go on-and-on with Demon's Souls, or any Soulsborne game for that matter. From Software has become my favorite dev because of these games. But the roots of my obsession over these games was a bit rocky at first but damn things made a huge turnaround and look at From Software becoming one of the best devs in the business today.

You aren't fooling anyone, Todd.

@moistcarrot: drats!

Also, it's pronounced, "God" Howard.

Lies!

I want to see what Bethesda can do with current gen hardware. Witcher 3 raised the bar for fantasy RPGs to new heights. Another small scale sandbox like Skyrim won't cut it anymore. I'm hoping to see a bigger, more immersive world with TES 6.

@Litchie: Bud, it's not because I lack any sort of imagination. It's because the piss poor combat completely took me out of it.

Some games I liked more on the 2nd playthrough but I cant really say there was a game I didnt like on the 1st playthrough that I ended up liking on my 2nd... the oposite sadly occurs way more often i.e. liking a game on the 1st playthrough and ending up disliking it on the 2nd

I tried playing Mass Effect on the Xbox and just couldn't get into it but then I played it on PC and loved it so much it received several play throughs.

RE4 (GC) - I was like OMG this is NOT scary, and the 3rd person shoulder view just felt "awkward" when turning. I got my as kicked at the beginning at the village, where the "leather face" chopped me, before the bell rang for bingo time. I couldn't even pass that first encounter with that giant troll monster, and I realize I needed just one shot from an RPG to kill, waste of money, yeah, but it made the game somewhat tolerable. After that I quit. Played the second time through, continued from where I left off, used my RPG tactic against that giant troll, and then I played the whole game through. I was blown away by how amazing this game was, played it so much on Professional, enough to earn me $1million dollars on my inventory to buy me that Thomson Chicago Typwriter and rest was history. I was so in love with this game (still do), I bought the shitty PS2 version. Then the HD version for PS4.

Either trolling or got caught up in sucking Nintendo's ween.

Thought this thread was going to be about Okami, but that would be the 16th remaster.

FFXII- Maybe it was the politically motivated story, or the battle system, or the characters but I really wasn't feeling this game the first time around. I beat it but I didn't really remember it fondly. Then The Zodiac Age came out and omg they improved it so much. The visuals look much cleaner and the fast forward is like a godsend lol. The job system also added a unique extra layer of depth to give you some form of choice for how you want your party set up. I think fast forward option should be included in all JRPG's going forward. First game where I actually enjoyed level grinding lol

Borderlands 2- Got it for like $3 used on PS3. Heard a lot about it. Was disappointed my first time playing and put it down for months. Next time I tried it I was hooked. It's really fun and quirky; just may be an acquired taste for some imo

Skyrim is that game where I can replay it numerous times and find something brand new with the game. I love that game!

To answer the question, I would have to say Mass Effect. Played it the first time and I just couldn’t get into it at all (mainly controls), but my second attempt and I got hooked on that game.

I also found Skyrim to be more enjoyable on Switch. It's so archaic that as a hand held game it's almost... ummmm revolutionary? Nah, but it's more enjoyable.

I'm tempted to re-buy Skyrim on the Switch.

I mean...Bethesda games have been highly mediocre for the past 15 years, and Skyrim was essentially a slapstick comedy when it launched due to the countless bugs...but there is some allure to playing it on a handheld system.

@uninspiredcup: someone somewhere is cashing okami checks again....

@Planeforger: the game runs and looks great on switch. No joke.

Also, in my family we do an hour or so of quiet time in the evening. We curl up on the couch in front of the fire and they read while I Skyrim... Its pretty awesome playing this game on a handheld.

I'm playing in third person Btw. When I played it on 360 I played in first person. I like third person way more.

I did not like the Forza Horizon 3 demo, I can't stand car games with radical dudes in them. But I bought a wheel and pedals recently and tried the demo again. The game became insanely fun and I ended up purchasing, along with forza7! I still can't stand the festival bs and the characters etc.. Thank god there is some classical music in it too, although it's pretty generic stuff. But I'm glad I bought it, some of the off road racing is immense!! The wheel and pedals is a complete game changer, I don't think I would like the game without it.

Also, I once played through the terrible Crysis 3 after smoking a small blunt after being dry for years, and it was the best game ever for a few hours. The game was so intense and the music was amazing. I'll never forget that experience. The night crysis 3 was the best game ever!! Havent played it since.

Very opposite for me with Skyrim loved it back then but can not stand it now days. Maybe the switch does give it some sort of a lift when played as a handheld. The game that I have come to appreciate the more I play is Bloodborne. Initially I went through the motions and run around killing things just to find some sort of combat tactic to enjoy and stick with. Questioning myself why should I care about another one of these not straight forward souls game. There games that are straight forward but quite deep also that i was enjoying at the time. Treated the game as combat is the only satisfying thing about it. Then my other playthrough I went full explore mode. Talked to npcs follow there messed up stories and messed with them in different ways. Read the items and started questioning why are these items in the area I'm playing, started to really discover the plot for myself. Connected the endings and now the game has elevated itself to one of the best games I have ever played.

It's my least favorite TES. I enjoyed it a lot for 20 hours or so, but after that it just lost its magic. I went on to clock in around 85 hours in it, and one day I just stopped, and I haven't been able to drag myself back in to finish it. It's so damn shallow. I can't do it.

@getyeryayasout: lol... Hes definitely a bloke.

@xantufrog:

Yup, I think I got my character to level 7 or 8 and was just like, I've been here. done this already and just quit and never had an urge to go back.

It took me 3 times before I somewhat got into Oblivion. I still think that game sucks overall and is vastly overrated but I did get enjoyment out of 3rd time trying it.

I hated Mass Effect 1 on xbox360. Loved ME2 and ME3 on PS3. Went back to ME1 on PS3 and ended up loving it.

Was not a big fan of Tales of Vesperia the first time around. Now I am replaying it and enjoying it.

Usually if I dislike a game I never play it again.

Skyrim is far from a masterpiece LOL. That game is a buggy mess of mediocre animation, crappy frame-rate and ugliness with bland and one denominational gameplay. Glad you enjoy it, but I have to disagree completely. It was interested when I first played it since I never played Elder Scrolls before, but both Fallout and Elder Scrolls are mediocre as games and RPGs. A masterpiece is Chrono Trigger, FF6 and FF7. Skyrim does not even compare to those 20 plus year old games. Modern games like The Wither 3, Dragon Age: Origins and the masterpiece that is Horizon: Zero Dawn destroy Skyrim easily. Skyrim had a crappy plot, crappy writing and crappy voice acting too. By the life of me I don't know why either Fallout or Elder Scrolls gets so much hype. Dark Cloud 2 was better as well as was Tales of the abyss.

Nothing can top playing with the Sky UI mod.... but Switch skyrim is one of the best ports you can find in video games.

anyone thinking of re-buying Skyrim should buy Elex instead.

its like Skyrim but with depth (and a comparable amount of jank)

I actually got it on sale, given how much crap I gave it for my experience when it first came out, being I thought it was largely regressive in quest design, I'm hoping this edition might make me change my mind if they added more meaningful quest content. Either way, curious to retry it at some point.

I would say the Assaisn Creed Franchise as a whole,,tried 1 and 2 couldnt get into them, never finished them..Played black Flag and Loved it, then I got Platinum on Unity.

I knew Nintendo fans would change their tune about games they previously slagged off. Skyrim was a joke until Nintendo received a port. Same with Doom. It will be the same with LA Noire.

Why would any sane person play modless Skyrim in 2017?

Agreed with Bioshock. Couldn’t get into it the first time I tried. Second time I was completely blown away

God I love it when people realize how good that game is. And pretty much everything you wrote was perfect...except the part about Dark Souls being your favorite :)

I didn't play it twice, but I when I saw Guacamelee all I could think was "Oh great, another side-scroller"...good golly miss molly I was wrong. I loved it!