Games that truly surprised you.

[kr1kit]

A few of us have been discussing Days Gone in the PS4 section and it got me thinking about games that completely surprised me by how good they were compared to what I thought it would be going into it. I don't know if this topic has done before but I don't recall ever seeing one.


Days Gone got extremely luke-warm/mediocre reviews upon launch, with a lot of people calling it a disappointment. The majority of reviews stated that it had a very generic feel to it, a bland story with no interesting characters or development, just another run of the mill open world games. Those reviews were enough to put me off from buying it at launch, but the game still interested me so I waited until there was a sale and picked it up when it was 30% off. I started it up and wasn't expecting much, but I liked the idea of riding around on a motorcycle killing zombies so I figured it would at least offer me a couple hours of entertainment with that...

Hoooooooooooooooly chit was I wrong.

Over the two weeks I dumped over 50 hours into the game(fortunate combination of a shoulder injury and the gf being out of town at her moms for a week), I couldn't put my controller down. The campaign was long and interesting, the characters were great and some of them certainly had solid character development over the story arch. There were moments where I was biting my tongue because I thought someone I liked was going to die, and there were quite a few hit you right in the feels moments. The gun play was decent but could have been better and there were a few annoying elements but overall it's the most fun I've had with a game in a long time. To me, Days Gone outshines Red Dead Redemption 2 by a mile in terms of my favorite open world PS4 game.

So this was another lesson for me in that you shouldn't always trust reviewers, even reviewers that you do like like ACG who said the game was mediocre, because you never know what will surprise you.


Has anyone else been totally surprised by a game they thought was going to suck/be mediocre but they actually loved?

[Anachron]

Games that truly surpised me:

Space Invaders - Holy crap, video games can be more that lines and a dot to hit back and forth?

Super Mario Bros. - What do you mean video games can have graphics and sound this good?

Super Mario Bros. 3 - You can get in the $%*& shoe?

[rectifryer]

Dying light fukking completely caught me off guard. It was better action/rpg mechanics than ac4 Black flag and an open world zombie game. Still play it. Pubg was another in the last 5 years.

Other than that, things get a bit nostalgic. The original ps1 metal gear solid is still the best single player gaming experience I've ever had.

[supup]

Before i played horizon i was like robot dinosaurs ok that looks stupid. But a friend recommended it highly, and turns out it had a super interesting science fiction story line. Ended up liking it a lot

[Aristotelian]

Xenogears. I never believed that..way back on the Playstation, an RPG would be put out that was so bleak, graphically so but with essays of dialogue and context too.

[Paul Kreul]

The 7th Guest- Creepy, & challenging
Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion
Grand Theft Auto-Vice City-Best soundtrack ever

[phillipsanchez]

Before i played horizon i was like robot dinosaurs ok that looks stupid. But a friend recommended it highly, and turns out it had a super interesting science fiction story line. Ended up liking it a lot

This game surprised me with how boring and unlikeable the characters were.
Ruined the story for me which actually had an alright plot.

[Cyllosis]

Honorable Mention - Yakuza 0

I had always looked at the Yakuza series the way many Western gamers do: Japanese Grand Theft Auto. Further, I had heard that the games had no English dub on FB2Mate, something that has kept me aways from many shows and movies over the years. I didn't have much interest. Yet, as the games continued to release and get large amounts of praise, I started to wonder if they were worth my time. Eventually, a close friend of mine was able to convince me to make the jump, and I'm glad that he did. Yakuza is much more than the GTA stereotype that gets thrown its way.

To begin, the story and characters were really great. It was actually worth pushing through and reading subtitles for hours on end. No, I can't understand Japanese, but I can appreciate the voice acting enough to understand that the people who are voicing the characters are doing a great job. I don't think the game would work very well if it was translated to English, either. The gameplay was great too, focusing entirely on fun melee combat instead of being the gun-heavy game I had pictured in my head. The skill trees were deep, there were tons of funny side quests to do and there were plenty of quirky activities like karaoke, phone clubs and dancing. Yakuza 0 was a really good game, and I plan to play the other games in the series as each remaster releases.

[SuperGuitarDude]

Resident Evil 2 Remake

Didn't think Capcom would have the cajones to go full fan service like that. The game was made by people who actually give a chit about the Resident Evil series and it shows.

The original Wild Arms took me by surprise back when I first played it. It has an amazing far east meets wild west soundtrack, a decent story and overall fun gameplay. I still play it for the nostalgia factor + item duplication is so incredibly easy to pull off that I discovered how it was done by accident, once upon a time.

Spoiler!

Love how the ending is basically the trio deciding to go on another journey with an awesome song playing in the background, unlike other RPGs where the story just sort of ends and it shows a typical "where are they now?" scene.

Now this makes me want to go on an epic adventure in real life.

[MilkforBrains]

Mass Effect 1 blew my socks off. Never asked for it, just got it as a stocking filler.

Banjo-Kazooie was amazing. I was a Dreamcast snob and thought it was some dumb N64 game but it's amazing.

[Anachron]

Resident Evil 2 Remake

Didn't think Capcom would have the cajones to go full fan service like that. The game was made by people who actually give a chit about the Resident Evil series and it shows.

The original Wild Arms took me by surprise back when I first played it. It has an amazing far east meets wild west soundtrack, a decent story and overall fun gameplay. I still play it for the nostalgia factor + item duplication is so incredibly easy to pull off that I discovered how it was done by accident, once upon a time.

Spoiler!

Love how the ending is basically the trio deciding to go on another journey with an awesome song playing in the background, unlike other RPGs where the story just sort of ends and it shows a typical "where are they now?" scene.

Now this makes me want to go on an epic adventure in real life.

Is Wild Arms the one where you could duplicate a ton of goat dolls and be basically unbeatable?

[Wamrage76]

Among the sleep from 2014, an adventure packed horror game where you are a toddler.
I have to give the creators of this game credit, it's pretty creative.

As for old school games - From dusk till dawn(2001), i know they ruin nearly every game based on a movie but here they did a pretty good job.

[KilaByte]

Sleeping Dogs

[Heych1995]

So much this. Yakuza 0 had me crying like a little B*tch by the end. Inspired me to get my first tattoo as well.

of a dragon

[Halfway]

This game surprised me with how boring and unlikeable the characters were.
Ruined the story for me which actually had an alright plot.

Yeah, the facial mocap in the cut scenes didn't help make them any more likeable either

HZD was an amazing game experience but I didn't care about a single character in that game

[E-Go]

Mass Effect 1 blew my socks off. Never asked for it, just got it as a stocking filler.

Banjo-Kazooie was amazing. I was a Dreamcast snob and thought it was some dumb N64 game but it's amazing.

Dragon Age Origins was like that for me, unfortunately it along with ME went waaaaayyyyy down hill, each follow up was worse and worse

[ChelshireCat]

The Raven
Alien Isolation
The Fall


I thought those three would be crap but they are all brilliant!

The Raven because the art style and character didn’t look like it suited my tastes at all. It is really good!

Alien Isolation because Alien Colonial Marines wasn’t the best and reviewers gave it a low score before release. One of my favourites now though!

The Fall was a ‘failed’ indy game, but when it went on PS store sale, it actually turned into a success. Avidly awaiting The Fall 3 now.

[maori-rap]

Condemned (Xbox360) - I bought it for cheap on a whim not really knowing what it was about. WOW, turned out to be one the creepiest and scariest games I've played. Brilliant game with a real dark and gritty atmosphere.

Clive Barker's Jericho - Whilst the gameplay was basically broken, I do love the story and level design. This game needs a proper remake with fixed gameplay. Could have been SO much more.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine - I rented this for the easy 1000G. But it is actually a brilliant game. The way you make old Logan fly around the screen dismembering and decapitating people is fun as hell.

[mgftp]

As far as reviews and how good I though a game was, Hellblade would be my surprise of the generation. Amazing game.

Before i played horizon i was like robot dinosaurs ok that looks stupid. But a friend recommended it highly, and turns out it had a super interesting science fiction story line. Ended up liking it a lot

^ so much this, robot dinosaurs had me like no thanks Jeff then finally got the game after I heard enough people jerking it after playing and loved it myself. My love was all gameplay and performance though, I thought the story concept was cool but execution was complete garbage.... That gameplay though...

[propreffered7]

I remember being a kid and our mom got us xbox the first christmas it came out. Not sure we even knew there was a new game system, but back then halo was not known at all and came for free with the system.

Halo

[gbullock32]

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

It's what Fable 3 should have been.

[everblue]

Witcher 3 and Dragon Age: Origins. Didn't realize I was about to play the greatest RPG of the decade when I had first started these two games. The character development is unforgettable and my feels were obliterated by the end of each game

[Zackad]

Xbox remake of Conker's Bad Fur Day, believe it was called live and reloaded

the campaign was basically an updated graphics clone, but the multiplayer fukin blew me away. spent hours playing that game, solo and with my brother.

[TyGuy505]

Legend of Heroes series specifically Trails in the Sky SC, Zero no Kiseki, and Ao no Kiseki. I went into this series blind. I had no clue what it was about, which game to start with, if they were connected or not.

Played Trails of Cold Steel 1 and 2 (take place after Sky and concurrently with Crossbell) liked both. Played Trails in the Sky FC right after and loved it. Had all three from steam sales. After finishing FC immediately bought SC and played it (you pretty much have to). Holy chit one of the best rpgs I’ve ever played. Estelle is easily the goat female rpg lead and up there with the best male leads. This game is up there with rpgs like ff vi VII Chrono Trigger etc. Trails in the Sky 3rd was ok. More of a dungeon crawler but it wraps up a lot of loose ends for Sky characters and sets up the Crossbell and Cold Steel games.

Played through the fan translations of the Crossbell dualogy recently and those two are by far my favorite in the series. The ending sequence in zero is ridiculous and the whole second half of ao is nonstop action. Any jrpg fan should play this series it’s incredible. Cold Steel 3 comes out in English in September and 4 will probably come out fall 2020 (both already out in Japan). The first game might start out kind of boring in each one but the last third the plot really picks up in all three arcs. Then the second game in each one is nonstop action (although the first 1/4 of ao starts a little slow because it’s the only one that doesn’t start immediately after the first game ends)

[dcbone30]

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

It's what Fable 3 should have been.

This and Dragons Dogma. DD was kinda out of the blue, but was the GOAT next to Dark Souls. The fact you could climb up the monsters was super appealing to me, even if it was a little clunky.

[2RDEYE]

divinity original sin 2 didn't expect i would be playing one of the top 3 greatest isometric rpgs ever. the amount of flexibility you can do in that game was ****ing astonishing. the ways you could do things.

[Lastro]

spec ops: the line. the story blew me the phuq away. one of the most memorable games i've ever played.

divinity original sin 2 didn't expect i would be playing one of the top 3 greatest isometric rpgs ever. the amount of flexibility you can do in that game was ****ing astonishing. the ways you could do things.

would you recommend that game to players who do not play many games of that genre and jrpgs?

i find it intriguing but i'm hesitant

[2RDEYE]

would you recommend that game to players who do not play many games of that genre and jrpgs?

i find it intriguing but i'm hesitant

absolutely. it's an entirely different beast of its genre. i would not recommend any of the obsidian games, i found them terrible except for KOTOR, neverwinter nights was ok, but divinity original sin 2 i would absolutely recommend.

larian studios knows how to innovate properly.

[kr1kit]

As far as reviews and how good I though a game was, Hellblade would be my surprise of the generation. Amazing game.

That's been a game sitting on my list for a long time that I've never played but always wanted to. I just got it in this months Humble Bundle subscription so I guess it's finally time to try it out.

[SuperGuitarDude]

Is Wild Arms the one where you could duplicate a ton of goat dolls and be basically unbeatable?

It's the one where you duplicate a bunch of apples to get 999 in each stat.
Not really sure how the goat doll thing works, as I've only ever done the max stats method, lol.