What games were you (years) late to the party on but ended up loving? Did you put it off due to time or money or means or just underestimating/overlooking it or what?

Horizon: Zero Dawn Complete Edition.

I bought it shortly after it came out. I finally played it a few weeks ago. It mostly came down to time. I knew it was open world. I knew I generally like to experience 100% of a game's content. But I've also been extremely busy for a long time. It probably didn't help as well that I expected it to be just really good if not excellent. Instead, it surpassed my expectations in just about every regard to the point where I would argue it's the most impressive game on the PS4, as well as my favorite game on the PS4.

Every tripe AAA title I play lol since I always get them at a sale for $20 or less. Im a budget gamer so im forced to wait a while to play them. One game that quickly comes to mind is Persona 5 which I bought last year on sale but was never on my radar because I thought it was too much of a weebish game that I would never finish but I actually enjoyed it and put 105 hrs into it.

Dark Souls. Got it for my birthday in 2011, but didnt play it until 2014 around the time Dark Souls 2 came out.

I avoided Disney Epic Mickey when it came out in 2010 because of mediocre reviews, which back then I allowed to influence my purchasing choices far too much.

Ended up picking it up in 2013 and loved it to bits; that was my wakeup call to stop putting so much stock in the opinions of reviewers.

Horizon Zero Dawn...put it off for over a year. But was I ever hooked when I finally got to it.

Dark souls for me, too. I tried Demon's Souls back when it came out but kinda fell outta love with the 'franchise' until Bloodborne came out. Back then I was still suffering the late effects of the 7th gen console wars so I was desperate to like anything Sony given that the first year of the PS4 was pretty empty.

Beat it, went back to play Dark souls, and haven't regretted it since. Now Soulsborne are regularly some of my favourite games of all time.

God of War PS4. I just had too many games in my backlog at the time, didn't get around to buying it until it was on sale for I think $15. Loved every minute of it.
Divinity Original Sin 2. Never really heard of the series, or at least don't remember reading about it. Bought it on a whim earlier in the year on PS4 and was sucked into it.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion PS3. Had bought it never got out of the first area killing rats and gave up on it. Got back to it maybe 3 or 4 years later and couldn't put it down.
Earthbound SNES/WII U. Didn't play it until it came out on the WII U eshop, and thought it was fantastic.
Paper Mario 64. No idea why I decided not to play it on the N64, but played it years later on the WII Eshop and it was really impressed with it.

Well, I just finished Suikoden 1 earlier this month.  It's much better than I thought it'd be.  Last year I played Symphony of the Night for the first time.  Back when PS1 was in it's prime I was focused more on PC gaming, so I missed a lot of great PS1 games.

The entire Zelda series.
Wind Waker HD was my first Zelda game during my senior year of high school. After that, I went on a binge and played through every game in the series I could.
The order went like this:
Wind Waker -> Twilight Princess -> Skyward Sword -> Ocarina of Time -> Majora’s Mask -> A Link to the Past -> A Link Between World -> Link’s Awakening -> The Oracle Games -> Minish Cap. All within my senior year.