So, I'm quite interested in anything that make people change their mind.

Created a forum thread a while back discussing games that you previously liked a lot but now do not enjoy as much. I thought we could explore the other side of the same thing. Games that you now like that you had a different view on initially.

Punch out!!

When I first tried this boxing game I did not like it at all. I punched and punched but got nowhere besides beating the first opponent. It was first when I revisited the game years later that I finally got it. The game is not so much a boxing game it is is a pattern recognition game. Now it is one of my all time favorite games and one of the top 3 games on NES. This change of mindset I think have more to do with maturity of the mind of button-mashing child than anything else. 

Super Smash Bros Melee

This was the first game in the smash series that I played, in a store at a demo station. I did not have a Gamecube and none of my friend did, mostly since they did not think it was cool like the PS2. But I did have a PC with an N64 emulator, so me and my best friend played smash 64 on the computer. Spent countless hours me as Mario and him as DK. Two years or so after the GC released me and my brothers put our savings into buying a Gamecube with a few popular games, one of them Melee. 

I did not like Melee at all. It was so stupidly fast, everything was small and very chaotic. The original game on 64 was chaotic for sure, but it did not give me the feel of frustration Melee did. Played very little smash on the cube and when I did it was Giant mode, since at least then I could actually see my character. Continued playing smash 64 instead. 

Then one day a small gaming association we had in the small town we lived in decided to have a small Melee tournament. I did not want to be dead last and even less not join in at all, so I started to give it a serious go. Soon I got used to the smaller size, I stated to follow the faster game play and before I knew it I grew a love for the chaotic style. Of course lost to my baby brother the first match of the tournament anyway finishing dead last.

Today I still think Melee is the most responsive game in the series and to me by far the most enjoyable fighting game to watch competitive play of. Smash ultimate as to me surpassed it as a better game overall (much due to the ridiculous amount of content) but the hours spent in a couch with this gem is surpassed only by Mario Kart Double Dash!!. It is strange of the fast paced game play, that initially kept me from playing at all, is now the thing I miss the most in all of the sequels.

I will probably add a few more examples in the thread as they come to mind. 

What are some games that you now enjoy or respect but had an initial dislike for?

Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX.

I played VII and then VIII due to my local video game rental company having them. Both of these games let you pick as any officer available for the time and play as them whether they be a grunt or an amazing warlord or a ruler. Well IX came out and followed the old games and only allowed you to pick rulers. I thought this was stupid and missed being able to play as anybody.

Eventually I kept giving IX some more playtime, and now it is my favorite in the series. It has interesting strategies involved when compared to the other games in the series, and the most important thing is how to use your vassals, whether it be for domestic or external issues.

Witcher 3. Did not enjoy my first play of a few hours, went back to it later and loved it with over 100 hours played.

Ocarina of Time. Didn't play it back in the day only tried it a lot later but the 20fps in that game is mindblowing. I just can't play a game like that, only got a couple of hours in. Then when it came to 3DS I managed to play and love it on that at a more respectable framerate.

Sounds crazy but Metroid Prime. Did not like it back in the day but I am blown away with it today. Went from not my thing to one of my favorites.

Back in the day, I got Valkyrie Profile 2, not really knowing what to expect. Went through not really much but a decent amount of the game but got stuck in a dungeon/area. The game seemed to suddenly spike in difficulty it felt like. So I stopped playing, exchanged it in.

Years later, I got a craving and bought it again for like £5. But before getting to where I got stuck last time I actually looked up what I was meant to do/how to play, apparently I'd missed the entire point of the Einherjar, I was just playing with the standard characters. I got one who was strong and worked well with my party. I understood the gameplay elements better and got past the area I got stuck at last time. This helped me get hooked as it drew me in to a different game mechanic I wasn't using and helped me get to the goods of the overall story.

And I'm glad I did, the story in the game ended up being one of the better RPGs I played. It's a shame it took so long to get a new game in the series and the latest one was just another action RPG. Would love a remake or HD version of VP2.

A lot of Bethesda and Final Fantasy games actually Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls 4, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy XV. All 4 of those games I started, stopped playing for more than a year, eventually gave them another shot and enjoyed them enough to beat them. Final Fantasy VII, I didn't own a PS1 so I played it years later on a lcd tv where the graphics looked quite bad, so I struggled playing through it the first time.

For me, it was Prey from Arkane. I loved the original Prey from 2006 and was PISSED when the sequel was cancelled. I decided to give the reboot a try when it launched in 2017 since I was a fan of the Dishonored games. After the opening segment, I was out. It was nothing like the Prey that I loved.

It wasn't until lockdown in 2020 that I decided to give the game another try after reading so many comments about how great the game actually is as its own thing. Played it to completion. Game is an immersive sim masterpiece! Probably my favorite game from Arkane.

Days Gone. Bought it on Steam, absolutely hated it, refunded it. It went on sale, I bought it again, played it, still thought it was dogshit, but I couldn't refund at that point, so I didn't play it for a long time, up until recently I decided to give it another shot and fell absolutely in love with the game. The story was ass, but man, I enjoyed everything else the game had to offer. Took 3 times before I ended up liking it.

Well, growing up playing Final Fantasy as a kid I decided to get Dragon Quest VIII for the FFXII demo disc. I popped DQ in for a second and after the first battle I was like "eh, this looks lame". At the time I also HATED the Akira Toriyama art style. I then proceeded to play the FFXII demo. A few days later I decided to give it another shot and to my surprise it ended up being a masterpiece of a game. It's now my favorite game of all time and Toriyama's art style grew on me and now I freaking love it. That then led to my love of Dragon Ball as well. If it weren't for that FFXII demo disc I wonder if I would have ever given DQ a chance.

Final Fantasy VII- First time trying it, just did not click with me and may have been trying to see where the hype was. I put it down and didn't touch the game for years. I later bought it on Switch on sale. Gave it a shot but said to myself ignore everything I ever heard. Play it in a vaccuum. Ended up LOVING it.

Dragon's Dogma- I played the demo before release and wasn't a fan. When it released on PS4 I got it and ended up enjoying it a lot. I think it was just a game that didn't demo well.

MDK2- I initially tried it on a Dreamcast demo disc 20 some years ago. The controls were so confusing. A couple years ago I found it cheap and picked it up. The controls take getting used to but once you do the game was really fun on DC.