Games You Were Pleasantly Surprised By -

[Jaimas]

I figure I'd give a thread a start since this has been a reoccurring theme this month. Have you ever played a game that caught you by surprise with its quality? I've encountered several this month, most notably Slime Rancher and Axiom Verge.

The former's a pretty good early access game that's ridiculously cute and has a lot of potential. Axiom Verge, meanwhile, is an incredibly deep game with tons of content and though it borrows from earlier games it really stands on its own as far as some of its best ideas working together, and the plot itself caught me off-guard by being surprisingly brilliant.

Which games have you found surprising recently, Kiwis?

 

[WhoWhatWhere]

Deadly Premonition. It started so cheesy that I sort of regretted that I'd spent money on it.

Yea I got over that quickly. Francis York Morgan is an American treasure.

 

[Jaimas]

Deadly Premonition. It started so cheesy that I sort of regretted that I'd spent money on it.

Yea I got over that quickly. Francis York Morgan is an American treasure.

Deadly Premonition is good enough that we have a thread on it. Also @Francis York Morgan is a user here.

 

[Sallet Lad Jim]

First off - Besiege. I first played it like a complete moron, not entirely understand why things I made didn't work, and just getting angry and scrapping them as soon as my elaborate but flawed plans went awry.

Being that I bought it for cheap, I wasn't too mad, but I had at first wished I bought a better game.

Later in the week, I played it again, 'cause I was just mad at things, and I made a machine that was nothing but two blades and two wheels, spinning endlessly and doing surprisingly well - and I realized that I had been taking the game far too seriously originally.



More recently, I got back into World of Warcraft, just trying out the demo, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it cut off most of the bullshit of early on stuff, and actually made the main game quite enjoyable. I'm planning on buying a subscription soon, though not until after I get a few more things I've been saving up for.

 

[Coldgrip]

1995, I had earned some money and decided to to buy myself a game, I thought 'Final Fantasy 3' sounded interesting.

I was not disappointed.

 

[Sable]

Lost kingdoms on the GameCube.

I asked my mum for it years ago specifically 'cause it had a skeleton on the back.

It was pretty cool, ended up getting the sequel.

 

[c-no]

Mount & Blade. At first I was turned off by it but the moment I got my hands on some equipment used by sea raiders, I slowly built my band of soldiers that could rival Griffith's Band of the Hawk. For a game from a Turkish developer that was unknown back then, it was pretty solid.

 

[SpessCaptain]

Shadow of Mordor pleasantly surprised me this week.
I bought LISA on a whim and it's lauched it's madly hot body to me by the great storytelling.

Mount & Blade. At first I was turned off by it but the moment I got my hands on some equipment used by sea raiders, I slowly built my band of soldiers that could rival Griffith's Band of the Hawk. For a game from a Turkish developer that was unknown back then, it was pretty solid.

Oh yes this was me in a nutshell, I got deterred by the bad graphics but I actually got into Warband quite quickly and then overthrew a faction and laughed my sorry head off.

 

[Rihanna Ikari]

Persona 4 - "Oh god why did I buy this overhyped weeb shit" was my initial reaction going through my games a while back. But actually playing it, it's not half-bad.

 

[Coster]

Need For Speed: The Run. It's the best NFS game I've ever played, I ended up playing it for basically three months straight, and it was all because a friend bought it on a whim and let me borrow it.

 

[Bugaboo]

Skylanders when it came out and wasn't shit like everyone had predicted
Also the fact it became hugely popular

 

[Tentai]

Spyro A Hero's Tail. I went backwards. I played Year of the Dragon, then Ripto's Rage, then the original. Then I got the new Legend of Spyro game and decided I needed to get the other Spyro games I had missed. Namely HT and EtD, which were those two weird console games that weren't really advertised much.

I played Enter the Dragonfly before Hero's Tail. If any of you have played Enter the Dragonfly, I'm sure you can guess why I was pleasantly surprised. My one gripe is that it autosaves a lot and if I accidentally turn it off while it autosaves, goodbye hours of work.

 

[Ruin]

Resident Evil 5 and 6 were huge disappointments but I ended up really liking Revelations 2

 

[Pandas Galore]

Drakengard 3.

I went in expecting a lewd crude and rude adventure that made no sense. I made it through the first ending feeling meh then by the end I don't know. Everything comes together after ending C. I dont know why the fuck it takes like 4 playthroughs and max leveling every weapon and getting everything for the game to be good. But it is none the less.

 

[D.Angus]

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn.

I'm not a Final Fantasy fan, and I watched someone play the original FF14 when it launched and was garbage. I had an extra 20 bucks in my steam wallet because my friend gave me a steam card, and I was looking for something to play using my new Graphics Card. I have a weeb friend that likes it, so I would have someone to play with..

I am genially surprised on how good it is. Yeah it has a few problems, like combat being a bit slow for my liking, but I've never really played a Pay-2-play MMO before besides WoW 8 Years ago. After playing shit Free-2-Play games for so long, I'm honestly quite glad I got it and won't mind popping a month's subscription onto it here and there.

 

[XH 502]

When I was but a wee little Alot I only owned handheld systems (because our parents made us choose between handheld or console and my brother and I basically yelled "POKEMON" at them as our answer). However, I'd go over to my friend's house and watch her play Ocarina of Time on her N64 and get jealous cause I wanted to play and she'd never let me because she was a little bitch like that. Eventually 2003 came around and I managed to finally convince my parents that a GameCube would be an amazing thing to have and they relented.

Now being the naive young fool that I was I had no idea how video games worked insofar as that not all games are available for every system. So I went to Toys R Us thinking that I could get a copy of OoT for my GameCube (technically I could have what with the rare port I only acquired later) and just picked the first Zelda game I saw. In the car, however, I noticed that somethings was... wrong. It didn't look right. It looked cartoony and for kids or something. And then I finally put it together and realized it was the wrong fucking game and I was so pissed, but at least it was Zelda so maybe it'd be okay?

Let's just say that I spent the next two months completely absorbed in Wind Waker. I thought it looked stupid, but then it fucking blew me away.

Metroid Prime (which I bought soon afterwards) was also a surprise. I didn't know anything about it, went in blind, and then had the classic "HOLY CRAP I'M A GIRL" moment when I went down the first elevator and realized that Samus' face was clearly a girl's face.

 

[MrRenegadeRooster]

Undertale: Holy shit what an experience from a game with bullet hell. I hate bullet hell but i still adored this game

Making History the Great War: amazingly fun if you can get past the clunky overly complicated interface

Spec Ops the Line: Heart of darkness very well executed in game format, thought it was just gonna be some military shooter, ended up having awesome story.

Xenonauts: I absolutely Love X-COM games, and all X-COM like games but i honestly did not expect much or was impressed with this when i first heard about it. I feel silly about that now, fantastic game

The Banner Saga: Awesome story, fun gameplay, successfully makes things tense with a good illusion of choice, making your decisions matter or at least feel like they do.

 

[c-no]

A few games From Software did in the past:
Shadow Tower, an old PS1 game that played similar to King's Field sans music and with an addition to having weapon and armor durability. It stands out not only for lack of in-game music but also for having monsters with designs that could look unsettling.

King's Field: The Ancient City, a PS2 game and the final King's Field game. The game itself did take a cue from Shadow Tower in having durability but beyond that, it bears no relation to previous games sans the Moonlight Sword (No mention of Guyra or Seath). I spent an entire day playing it from where I left off all the way to the end.

Armored Core: I felt a bit hesitant in playing the first AC due to thinking it might not have any appeal. I was wrong about that. I enjoyed how the game itself doesn't try to make you feel bad in fighting for either corporation since it means that you are a mercenary. What I enjoyed especially (aside from blowing shit up) was the role the corporations had. Best way to sum it up is to think of them as chess pieces in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Lorento]

I'll grant you, I first saw many of the following games in Official Nintendo Magazine, a horrifically biased source that gives way too high ratings to Mario and Zelda games, but I digress.

Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii): Seemed like a standard RPG, reviews were good but I always like to keep on the skeptical side of things. Holy damn was it good. I would also add that the tutorial is not an hour long drag fest, but a five minute fight and a five minute cutscene and then you can play the game proper. Thank goodness this game exists.

Infinite Space (DS): If anyone has heard of this one I will be surprised. It's a space based RPG, where one builds up a fleet of up to five ships while following an epic storyline that involves space pirates. For a DS game, it's one of the best RPGs that I've ever played. Plus it meant that I could pretend to be British Captain Kirk and shout orders in a really over the top way. Tis the way to go.

 

[Keine]

Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn.

I'm not a Final Fantasy fan, and I watched someone play the original FF14 when it launched and was garbage. I had an extra 20 bucks in my steam wallet because my friend gave me a steam card, and I was looking for something to play using my new Graphics Card. I have a weeb friend that likes it, so I would have someone to play with..

I am genially surprised on how good it is. Yeah it has a few problems, like combat being a bit slow for my liking, but I've never really played a Pay-2-play MMO before besides WoW 8 Years ago. After playing shit Free-2-Play games for so long, I'm honestly quite glad I got it and won't mind popping a month's subscription onto it here and there.

I sunk years into FFXI and was floored when I saw screenshots of FFXIV. I ponied up the dough for the collectors edition and man was I left with a bad taste in my mouth.

Then they announced ARR and I was skeptical coming in, but the whole thing surprised me with how polished and playable it was after having spent most of my time with WoW up until then, which I generally considered the shining example of a quality P2P MMO experience.

At the very least, 1.0 gave me legacy status which means I only pay like $10 a month for my sub, and my character has a fancy tattoo on her neck, so that's cool.