Games that Surprised You

[lestagio]

What are some games you picked up, not expecting all too much, that turned out to be extremely good? Here's a few of mine...

My reason for making this thread is because of Pizza Tower. I picked it up last week because I like a good platformer, and the artstyle looked nice, and it had good reviews. I also heard it was Wario Land 4 inspired... I didn't ever beat Wario Land 4 (it's on the backlog, hope to get to it soon) but I remember enjoying it from what I did play, so I snagged Pizza Tower for 10 bucks off Steam the other day... And it's my favorite game I've played this year (at least of games I played for the first time). No question. The level design is so great and the themes are so unique, the game is pretty short but has lots of collectibles and things to get that encourage replayability, it has a high skill ceiling, the controls are tight... I literally don't have a single negative thing to say. I've been shooting for 100% now, because it's just the most fun I've had with a game in ages. It's ridiculous and stupid, and it knows it. It's not trying to tell some grand old story, but it does something that many games fail to do these days... FEEL LIKE A DAMN VIDEO GAME!

Animal Well was another that surprised me when I played it. I'm a big fan of Dunkey, and so I picked up the game, but I wasn't expecting it to genuinely be so well done... Yeah he only published the game, but often, anything backed by someone popular on the internet is often not of very good quality. And yet, Animal Well was extremely solid.

Banjo Kazooie I only got around to last year, and it turns out that I'm an absolute IDIOT. I had always seen it as a kids game, and just another 3d platformer. And then I actually played it and it was another one of those that is just beautiful in every way. Even on the N64, it looks pretty damn good, and just feels so tight. It's an expansive game with lots of collectibles but still feels very compact and fun to play.

Celeste also shocked me... I played this a year or two after it came out and it was yet another platformer that I had heard good things about. I was expecting it to be good. BUT then I played it and... it became one of my top games of all time. The control and level design ALONE is perfection, but then the topics and ideas of depression, anxiety, fear... It all hit very close to home for me and just became one of those games that really affected me over anything else, and is now a yearly replay.

I've got PLENTY more that surprised me, but those are just a few. I'm wondering what some of you have found, because maybe it will convince me to pick something up that I underestimated!

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Mine was SkyRoads on DOS.

I got it on a demo compilation and thought it was gonna be a five-minute time-waster... but my older sister and I got extremely addicted to it and couldn't put it down, even though it was merely a Shareware (which has since gone Freeware).

Finding the full version online made us really, really happy... but we had completely outgrown it at that point, which is really sad — and a little infuriating.

 

[Dr.Kisaragi Dr.Kisaragi]

Mine was Dragon Age Origin because I mostly a Jrpg this game open my eyes to crpg and they similar I thought I didn't enjoy but now I do.

 

[Regular Waterfall]

I was really surprised by Tales of XIllia 2, I wasn't expecting too much from a sequel but I was really impressed. It was satisfying paying back debt, and it was one of the first games I had played where my decisions made a difference in how things wrapped up. Was a cool experience, hopefully they remaster that one!

 

[Silver_kas]

Kenshi.
my first impression was like "man this game is ugly asf" and it is, there's no lie, but the real deal is the game design for let you do whatever you want and live your history the way you want, and is really amazing how good it is

 

[lestagio]

Mine was SkyRoads on DOS.

I got it on a demo compilation and thought it was gonna be a five-minute time-waster... but my older sister and I got extremely addicted to it and couldn't put it down, even though it was merely a Shareware (which has since gone Freeware).

Finding the full version online made us really, really happy... but we had completely outgrown it at that point, which is really sad — and a little infuriating.

I wish modern game demos were remotely close to the quality of those sharewares...

Doom, Keen 4, Duke Nukem, Rise of the Triad, Jazz Jackrabbit... These were games you could get tons of time from and they were (practically) free!

Personally, I didn't get many new games as a kid, one or two full games per year till I got a bit older. But I would get that random shareware and play the hell out of it! (Well okay MAYBE I would have my friends rip their games to spare floppies but that's not the point!)

 

[Burzuru Burzuru]

finaly fantasy x making every character you have useful (at least for most of the game) for different situations and allowing you to swap between any of them mid fight. a lot of other rpgs i feel give you like 7 or so party members that are always along for the journey but you only use 3/4 most of time.

riku's story in re:chain of memories didn't let you build the perfect deck like it did with sora's story. you had to play the cards you were dealt. combined with the dark mode, it really made an engaging and interesting experience, imo. it was really my favorite part of that game.

how similar persona 2 (and i assume p1. i haven't played it yet) is to the mainline of smt games. most of the personas you acquire are the same as the demons you encounter. instead of recruiting them and fusing them you convince them to give them tarot cards of their respective arcana, then trade them in to igor to use those same demons as a persona. your party can swap between any of your stock of persona cards at any time and use them. this in effect is very similar to the main smt games, where the player swaps demons from their stock. makes the game feel much closer to the main seires.

 

[Viviana Santos]

I remember seeing this game for the first time and saying, “Wow, this game is fucking ugly!” but after playing it, I realized just how brilliant it is! Cruelty Squad is on the same level as other all-time great Immersive sims such as Deus Ex (2000), Dishonored 1 and 2, System Shock 2, Thief: The Dark Project, Thief II: The Metal Age, and Prey (2017).

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This game is a tough nut to crack but personally I love it! It's really unforgiving if you try to go in guns blazing, but there is tons of ways to go through each of the levels.

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It's kind of like if a tactical shooter and Deus Ex were merged and something went very wrong during the process but it's very fun! The game has tons of systems such as a live stock market (+ organs and fish) that you kind of have to engage with in order to make lots of money and buy some of the more expensive upgrades. There's lots of different guns that really change the way you have to approach levels (for example there is a poison grenade launcher that trivializes one level because the grenade flies in an arch and can go over a certain bullet proof wall).

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For me the best part of the game are the weapons and upgrades. It's a game that really encourages you to replay levels and explore them.

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The first time you play a level maybe you will need to be careful and use stealth to reach your targets, 20h into the game and you will be flying around levels using a radiation gun to kill the same target from outside the room and a sniper rifle to kill the other from the other side of the level.

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Really cool progression and updates. Better tools than any other Immersive sim I've played, as the game doesn't care if some of them are absurd, broken or annoying.

 

[Stare best girl]

Panzer Dragoon Saga

-a god-like OST
-graphics that push Sega Saturn(PS1 will never run this)
-a very fun combat and outside combat, the game is very interactive
-a story that will blow your mind
I can't believe that I ended 2024 with this game