For me it was noita. I'm not having much time for it nowadays, but I was in the middle of a "godrun" last time I've played, mainly focusing on killing the most bosses. When I've first dropped it I just managed to get to Kolmi once (and died soon after killing it) and spent most of my runs in the mountain (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Factorio and Minecraft. Which is now my top played games of all.timr. Probably 8000 hours each

At first I didn't know how to play, no good tutorial and just sat there for years tell something somewhere reminded me and I decided to actually look up the wiki and look up guides and now I'm addicted.

Rimworld. Played it really early into development and it was just confusing the hell out of me. Picked it back up about 4 months later and fell in love. 12,500 hours later...

Stardew Valley and Dark Souls.

Dark Souls.

Just couldn't get into it at all. Hated the loss of stuff when dying. Hated the clunky combat.

Then I played Bloodborne which for some reason clicked. It's probably the health regen for more aggressive play that got me more into that one.

There I learned the main progress wasn't levels, but shortcuts and knowledge.

After that I went back to DS and found it much easier. Plus you can cheese most enemies by shuffling to get behind them and stabbing them in the back.

The original Rogue Legacy.

Deep Rock Galactic. When I first played it I got bad motion sickness but later on (after a PC upgrade) I tried it again and was able to get into it without it being intolerable (although it still can trigger motion sickness sometime).

Hollow Knight. It should've been love at first sight genre-wise, but for some reason I dropped it within the first 20 minutes the first time around and hadn't felt the pull to come back, but after learning about the impending Silksong release date I gave it another shot and I was hooked. Finished it in 2 weeks (which is super speedy for me, I have a job and a family lol)

fallout new vegas. I had enough of immersive sims or RPGs when I went into it, and had some costume problem that got rid of a long amount of progress. Gave up. Went back to it last year and played it for a few months, fantastic.

The first dark souls. Wasn't in the right head space and hadn't yet accepted its lessons of "dying doesn't matter" and "you don't have to find everything".

Now it's one of my favorite franchises.

Dragon Quest 9. When I tried it when it was released on the Nintendo DS, I didn't like the low-res 3D graphics, and I hated the rotatable camera.

I preferred 2D pixel art or pre-rendered graphics for my JRPG at the time.

Tried it again 15 years later, now I love it. The graphics has unique charm, the rotatable camera isn’t required. The gameplay is amazing! It improved upon my previously favourite entry DQ3. The job system is fun.

SOMA

Tomb Raider, the original one. Everything I hated about it as a kid when it was new, twenty years later those exact same features made me love it.

Dr. Mario. Never really clicked with me back in the day, I was more into Puyo Puyo, Panel de Pon, and Meteos.

But when 64 came to NSO, someone I knew kept talking it up as the best in the series, so I gave it another shot.

It's interesting because it plays out so differently from any other puzzle game I've played. Dr. Mario was the first puzzle game to have a proper* versus mode (Tetris doesn't count because garbage on the bottom means there is no true interaction with the opponent, don't @ me), and it experimented with a different style of garbage from what was seen a year later in Puyo Puyo, and then every game influenced by Puyo Puyo.

In Dr. Mario, no matter how big your chain is, garbage is hard capped at four little pebbles. Building anything bigger than a four-chain actually wastes material since you can't deal more damage. So your attacks aren't able to take much space from the opponent, and almost never threaten to kill.

However, Dr. Mario's garbage has a rather unusual property: the comically slow animation that the opponent has to sit through before they can act again. Rather than attacking space, you attack time. Back-to-back-to-back two-chains can keep the opponent stunlocked for extended periods, it's okizeme in a puzzle game.

The name of the game is efficiency, rather than building up one strong attack you're trying to convert your board into as many two-chains as possible. It's a really cool style that I wish more games had explored, no matter how much I love Puyo Puyo's big dopamine chains I also love seeing more variety in the genre, and this is a design space that feels underexplored.

After months of grinding, I finally 1CC'd V-Hard earlier this month.

Bloodborne. Played a little, couldn't figure it out, my bro bought me DS3, I played that a little and couldn't figure it out, went back to Bloodborne once I realized it and DS3 were both made by From Software (I was literally like what happened to those kick ass Armored Core games). Still couldn't figure it out, went back to DS3, beat it like 3 times, went back to Bloodborne, got the BFS Ludwig's holy blade, beat it, then logged like 1400 hours on that sumbitch. Was my primary covid game, found some cool people to coop with, favorite game of all time.

I think I technically logged slightly more hours in destiny 2 during covid lockdowns, but like, its destiny 2, I hated every minute (honestly it was cool when I had cool people to play with.

Still fire it up once a year around Halloween

Warframe.

Before they streamlined the prologue section the game had very little clarification in terms of setting and context.

Kept trying and putting it down a few times because a friend insisted it got better.

Then once I made it through the prologue it started to click and I've put in close to 10k hours since. Been playing for more than 10 years now.

I play it in bursts. Maybe 3 months a year. Keeps it fresh every time I play it.

Outer Wilds. Could not control the ship or myself on the jet pack. Now it's one of my favorite games of all time.

I am working through the Trails in the Sky series right now.

I finished FC (the original, not the remake) and it was just okay. It didn't really click in mjy head tbh and I wasn't sure why there was so much hype.

But I just finished SC, the 2nd chapter, and something just clicked about halfway through this game. And now I'm fully invested in this series.

So not quite the same game, but it's the same series and I think the story for this series is all interconnected so it's kind of just one giant game/story. But yeah, it didn't really click for me until the 2nd game.

Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XI

Final Fantasy Tactics. It was very hard for kid me. Very fun game later on.

Blasphemous. I played it for a few hours and thought it was punishing and couldn’t see why people liked it. I remember typing “Is Blasphemous supposed to be fun?” into a search because I just didn’t get it. Then I learned that while the game is open world like, I did not go to the easiest area first. But I cut my teeth on the real challenge and had so much fun that once I beat it I did a new game plus run with one of the special modifiers on and fully completed the game again immediately.

At the top of my head:

• Breath of Fire 3
• Shin Megami Tensei
• Final Fantasy V & VI
• Metroid Zero Mission

Salt and Sanctuary.

Rocket League. I got to be a beta tester on PS4, and the initial skill curve and lack of free time made me quit after about an hour.

Came back to it couple of years later, and have since racked up 2000+ hours.

Can't say I have. Either I like it or I don't and I move on. There are so many games out there that it's tough to try something again which didn't have a good experience. Ain't got time for that.

Started Control and set it down. Came back randomly weeks later. Decided it is one of my favorite games of all time.

Kessen.

I played it for a few hours and hated it and so I returned it. But for some reason I kept thinking about it. Like it's stuck in my craw somehow. So like a week or two later I went back and bought it again. Then I loved it. Absolutely adore that game.

Skies of Arcadia

Vampire Survivors. Great game, bunch of dlc (lookin at u, free balatro crossover), and way more depth than is at first apparent. Honestly can't say enough about how good it gets when you just give it a chance.