I was so glad to read this. I had a very similar experience, especially with combat. I died A LOT at first.

Once I finally wrapped my head around all the rules and mechanics, I loved every minute with the game. 

Probably the PC game Victoria 2.

At the time, I was already a big fan of grand strategy games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Total War, and I’d played Europa Universalis. Victoria 2 had a really wonky and annoying combat system… then I dug into the depth of the economics, internal politics, and social evolution. And I realized that Victoria 2 was really about those things. Now, just shy of 15 years later, it’s one of my favourite and most played games of all time.

Although, I’ve mainly been playing Victoria 3 lately which, much like Crusader Kings 3 vs CK2, fixes a lot of the QOL elements and has a slick modern feel to it, but lacks some of the grit and variety of the earlier game - although, both games have seen a number of additions, yet, despite being newer and having more initial backlash, I think Victoria 3 is a lot closer than CK3 to fully eclipsing its predecessor whilst simultaneously expanding beyond.

Rally games in general tend to be such, prime example Colin McRae 2005.

I was highly suspicious of Sims and it took me a moment to get into Sims 2, but ended spending very much time with it. (Though I still question if Sims qualify as "game".)

First encounters with my alltime favorite game Wing Commander 1 didn't go well because I'm not one to read manuals and was even less so as teen. So... no matter what I'm shooting, the game complains that I'm shooting allies. When I finally figure out navigation, I fly long time from point to point, usually wasting fuel for afterburner to make it bit faster - because I haven't yet realized there's autopilot button. And, being on my cousin's computer, I'm trying to play with joystick... which I hardly ever had before then nor ever since. On related note, when I got my own computer and the game, I probably played a year or more on keyboard before realizing mouse is much better option.

Persona 4: Golden on PS Vita for me.
I heard great things about the game and bought my Vita in part to play P4G. Played for a few hours but was totally confused by the dungeon crawling aspect. Every floor looked the same to me, the game was pretty hard for someone without much JRPG experience and when you died inside a dungeon you lost a lot of progress. I hated it. Gave it another try a year or two after that and got a little further into the game, but again stopped playing.

Then Persona 5 released on Switch and I absolutely loved that game, so I gave P4G another chance when it released on Switch. And what can I say? It turned into one of my favorite games of all time. I loved it, even more than I loved Persona 5. I think I've never felt so close to video game characters my whole life. The game really touched me on an emotional level. Those friends I made in Inaba were... special. It reminded me of my time as a teenager. I like the message it conveys: that it is important to find and then follow your own path through life. I hope it gets a proper remake some day, like P3 will be getting soon.

Totally understand where you're coming from. I played XC2 first and I think if I'd played the first one back on Wii back in the day would've felt exactly the same.

I could also list Xenoblade in a slightly different way: I didn't hate the game but I chose to buy Skyrim over it in early 2012. Looked for a big chunky game I could play during semester break and had to decide between Xenoblade and Skyrim. I ended up buying Skyrim and liked it a lot, but I always just stop playing that game after a while. When I played Xenoblade 1 remake on Switch I realized what I had been missing out on for a decade. 

A few come to mind:


Alien Isolation: I generally don't like first person games (just a personal preference) but I'm a HUGE fan of Alien-related media and horror games. After reading all the hype, I had to give a chance. I'm very glad I did. Even though I was struggling with it at the start, I slowly came to understand it and the way the Alien behaved. Funny thing, I almost always tend to feel like if they let me play a first person game in third person that it would be an improvement but not this time. The limitations of the perspective really enhance the terror of the experience.  

Kingdom Come Deliverance: Another first person game! I'm really into medieval settings and I've never played a "realistic" medieval sim so despite my preferences, I bought it. The first part of the game was a bit of a struggle. I didn't understand much of the combat and the whole experience felt super limited. I began to think I had wasted my money but then the opening, super-scripted part of the story ends and the game lets you free on its world. That's when things clicked for me and I had a really good time. It's not a perfect experience mind you! (using the bow sucks!) but if you give it a chance, you might really enjoy it.


Resident Evil 7: Starting to see a pattern here? I've been a massive RE fan for the longest time (currently going through RE3 again!) but when they announced this game was gonna be in FP, I had some real reservations about playing it. My wife ended up buying it for me so then I really had no choice but to give it a shot lol. Overall, the game is pretty solid. Not in my top 5 in the series and the story has some real issues/plotholes but for the most part, I enjoyed it and I would play it again.

You'd think after these three I'd totally change my mind but I'm still a little hesitant about first person. I just really prefer the third person perspective. Having said that, I've opened my mind to trying stuff in FP if I really dig the concept and the reviews are good!

I played through Spider-Man on PS5 just recently. I wasn't interested in the game, because I'm just not a huge fan of Spider-Man. But since the game gets a lot of praise, I just decided to try it out. I'm still not a huge fan of the story and all that, but I enjoyed the gameplay quite a bit. Theres always something to do and I especially like the flow of the combat. It didn't blow me away but it was a lot better than I thought. I'll probably play the second part when it's on sale or something.

Other than that, I could have never imagined that I would enjoy Euro Truck Simulator 2 as much as I do. I played that game for more than 1.000 hours, even though it's always the same, mindless driving. But I guess that's part of the fascination. I don't know, I can't explain why it is so addicting.

Addicting is also The Binding of Isaac, but for other reasons. This game is so freaking hard that it's a little bit masochistic to play it. But once you get the hang of it, you just want to always try out new item combos and there is so ridiculusly much to discover. I played that game for over a decade and I still enjoy it. Even though at first I thought the game would suck because it looked like a flash game (which it originally was afaik).

Those are just the ones from the top of my head.

I can't think of me that I disliked, and then later I really got into. But I can think of many that didn't grab me for a while. One really good example is Destiny. As a big Halo fan, I was eagerly anticipating Destiny. But, when I bought it, basically I had to force myself to play for the first couple of weeks.

hTen one Saturday morning it just grabbed me. And I played for another thousand hours or so over the next couple of years

bloodborne was my first dark souls game and the fact that you had to grind for blood viles was a horrible design choice if you weren't that good but i kept hearing how great it was finally gave it another chance and fell in love with it. MGS the bad camera angles annoyed me and returned it, kept hearing how great it was wow the game was a mind blowing experience after giving it another chance.

I think part of the reason it works is because most people doesn't approach it with expectatives, we only tried it to know why it was (and still is) so popular. And then, once you try it, you discover that it's a game that sits in a strange middle spot where you have to pay it attention, but not too much, leaving you to just disconnect and relax and maybe even think about other things.

Plus it can also be challenging, making you want to discover every city, drive through every road and try to carry all the possible cargos without any reason other than "why not?".