One game that I never really liked until very recently was Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2. Mario to me had always been the 64/Sunshine/Odyssey sandbox approach— I always found the linear level design (and comparably restrictive movement) of the Galaxy games to always be very unappealing.

I tried to make myself like the Galaxy games by playing through them in 2017 and again in 2018, but they never stuck. Flash forward to 2022, I give the two games a second chance and they really start to grow on me.

Then, in the year of our Lord 2025, upon replaying these two games on NS1, I can comfortably say that these two games sit among my favorite games of all time.

Anybody else have a similar experience to this?

Can't say that I have. If I don't like a game early on, I tend to never like it. But I'm happy to hear you did. I still remember playing Galaxy when it was new. I didn't really care for the motion controls, but its vibe was wonderful, especially Rosalina. Slowly unraveling her backstory... I don't know. It's very enchanting. Very soothing.

In recent memory the only game that I went from hating to liking was Horizon Forbidden West. I strive to 100% my games I start and decided to split HFW into 3 playthrough for the full 100%. Didn’t like it on my first playthrough, hated it on NG+ but then found that I actually really started enjoying it on NG++ ….. I don’t think it comes close to HZD but can honestly say I hit that 100% and ended up having a good time.

TotK, didn't like it all on the tutorial sky island. But pushed through and ended up playing it for over 100 hours.

I’ve more often experienced the opposite: I love a game in my youth, but sort of sour on it upon replaying it years later.

But I’ve definitely warmed to games after disliking them at first. I really struggled with Viewtiful Joe when it first launched on GCN. I couldn’t keep up with it. Then, after a few stops and starts, I finally wrapped my head around the rhythm of combat.

Another one is Zelda II. As a kid I struggled mightily with it. It was too challenging and opaque for me. I replayed it a few years ago and finally “got” it. I still think it’s among the weakest Zelda games, but I now appreciate everything it does well.

Zelda 2 is sort of like Doki-Doki... er... US Mario 2. It says Zelda right there on the label. It's in a gold cart. It features Link and Zelda, the main theme, and even has Ganon laughing at your (constant) miserable deaths. 

But it doesn't feel like Zelda. It feels like a new, quality IP that they slapped the Zelda franchise on, ala SMB2. I think that, more than anything, is why it's the weakest link (yes; fully intended).

Mass effect trilogie,never understood why the game whas soo hyped and loved until i started playing it 4 weeks ago,now almost at the end of ME3..the death of friends feels real.
The joy i had curing the genophage whas great to!

Shepard is a  amazing character.

Believe it or not, my first experience with Metroid Prime was a pretty negative one.

I'd never played a Metroid game before, and kinda expected it to be like Halo or something, so when it hit me with slow paced exploration and puzzles I was like "this is kinda boring" and I lost interest.

Years later, I went back to it with different expectations and more experience as a gamer, and I was blown away.

A Link to the Past.

I absolutely loved the fights with the Ironknuckles in the Palaces, which for the most part I won without losing any hitpoints until the blue ones (who shoot) and the Fokka (because they're effing Fokkas). At the time, I didn't know they weren't normal knights like the ones in LttP, and I loathed the game for a long time for those Knights being total pushovers. Also, I found the Level design somewhat lacking and the overworld size way too small compared to Zelda II. It took me until playing it again on the Virtual Console for a while to change my mind, though I still find it very much inferior to Zelda II.

My first time playing Monster Hunter (Tri on the Wii) wasn't a great experience; I didn't really know what to expect, so when it hits me with very slow, weighty combat, enemies that took could take over 30 minutes to kill, demanding systems management, and such I was initially not sure I liked it.

I'm glad I stuck with it though, because once you get over the initial hurdle, it offers one of the most rewarding experiences in gaming.