Tales of Phantasia. I was like 12 or so, saw it in a store for GBA, and was vaguely curious about it, but figured it was going to be some cheesy low quality game. I had no idea about the series' pedigree. My mom saw that I was staring at it and falsely assumed I was interested in it, and got it as a surprise. I certainly didn't expect it as she never does that because she usually gets bad games, but I was surprised and acted happy and grateful too. I was grateful actually, since I had nothing to play at the time and this allowed me to satisfy my curiosity for free. I was absolutely shocked at how good it was. Maybe it was that I was 12 and had only played a dozen or so RPGs at that point, but the twists surprised me and I got attached to the world and characters. I became an instant fan of the Tales of series and feel silly for ever doubting it, but to be fair I was a kid and there wasn't much internet at the time so it's understandable.

Oh shit, I forgot this was basically my introduction to Metroid! My dad introduced me to it and I doubted it because it was an FPS and had heard nothing about Metroid before or any of the buzz about Prime. I'll never doubt his taste in games again, as it went on to become one of my top 10 favorite games and Metroid became one of my favorite series.

I've been at this for a while, and could probably site a better example, but I'm gonna be lazy..

and go with a recent game: Rogue Legacy. Still need to go for the nasty plat. Maybe.

Oooo. Alien Front Online, Dreamcast. Blew my expectations out of the water.

But what if all my time is spent trying out new things I know I will love?

A friend gave be final fantasy tactics because he had two copies. The first time I played it, I fell asleep.

I've played thru it half a dozen times, now. In fact, I may dust it off and play it again!

I only buy games when I think I'll love them.

In recent years, Hitman (Love Hitman, hated Absolution ) and Battlefield V

Red dead redemption - I haven't seen anything about this game and I don't like the western genre, but boy oh boy did I love this game
The Witcher 3- it looked really good. But becoming my favourite game of all time? Didn't imagine that would happen
Don't Starve - I'm generally not into these types of games but it was amazing
Infamous second son. I didn't like infamous 1 one bit, but second son looked really good so I broke down and bought it, loved it.

Such a good game! Delita is an asshole!

This year, it was Detroit Become Human. I played the demo at a friend´s house, felt just ok to me. But then I played a few chapters of the complete game... I was hooked.

Other games are: The Ace Attorney series; SMT Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers; Fast Racing Neo.