Topic: Late Gaming Loves

Everyone who's into video games most likely has that one series that they put off for the longest while, only to play a certain entry in said series and end up absolutely falling in love with the franchise as a whole. So I wanted to pose the question to you guys: what's a series you never really thought much about before giving it a go, only to end up loving it the moment you tried it?

I'll start the proceedings off with one that I still can't believe I'm enjoying as much as I currently am:

Ace Attorney for me as well. I had heard of Phoenix Wright before, but never really considered playing the actual games before. But then the trilogy just popped up on my Steam page and it grabbed my attention. Played the first two cases and fell in love immediately. Since then I have played every single game in the series and love them all, apart from AAI1.

I have a couple myself. I remember I didn't think I would like Animal Crossing because I didn't really like Stardew Valley but then I tried New Horizons with my friend and I ended up enjoying it.

Splatoon is also another one. I didn't really get into Splatoon 2 until after all the splatfests finished. I didn't think I would like it so much but wow I was hooked. I'm glad Splatoon 3 came around so I could finally get to experience more of them lol.

@Vortexeo Similar situation for me. I didn't think I would be into Animal Crossing either, then I thought I'd try out New Leaf. I got it for Christmas 2013, and I pretty much got hooked. Loved that game, and I loved New Horizons as well.

Ratchet & Clank games.
Before that, I still against shooter games due to the existence of adult shooter games with blood and ultra violence that made me really hate and against them.
But after I tried Ratchet & Clank games on PS3 from A Crack in Time as the kid friendly shooter games, I became interested with the games and moreover I have collected all Ratchet & Clank games on PS3 within one year.
My interest with Ratchet & Clank games expanded on PS2, PSP, PS4 and PS5 version.
I have collected almost all of them.

@Fizza Nice to see you enjoying Fire Emblem as much as you do since it's my favourite video game series of all time.
For me I'd probably have to say the Atelier Dusk Trilogy or any Persona game.
A Timer is usually a no-go for me since I love taking my time beating a game but the Dusk trilogy, while giving you a timer, is pretty generous.

Not really a series, but Stardew Valley. Because it wasn't as cute as games like animal crossing I just didn't play it until it was a game trial on Switch a year or two ago. Once I had played it for a few minutes I insta-bought it and played a zillion hours.

For me, it's Shin Megami Tensei/Persona.

I picked up a PSVita back around 2015, mainly for Danganronpa. For a second game I went with Persona 4 Golden, just on a whim. I was immediately hooked on the series from the very start! I started buying up more of the series soon after that, including Shin Megami Tensei.

Sly Cooper PS3 games.
I have these Sly Cooper games on PS3 (Trilogy HD and Thieves of Time).
Before I have PS3 machine, I have no interest at all with those games.
But after I have PS3 machine and as I started to build my PS3 games, I saw some beautiful environment from Thieves of Time from YouTube and the stealth gameplay that I quickly adapted as I have ever playing 3D platformer games.
Before I have interest with Sly Cooper games, I had a mindset about being thief was really not a good idea for my gameplay style as I always like to play as a hero or police to save the world, but after I digging the deep background behind the story of Sly Cooper, they were thief gang to save the world from sinister enemies.
Well, not a bad idea for being thief with a good motivation despite being thief at first place was not a good idea for me.
Also, I grew some compassion for Bentley and Sly to see Bentley got crushed on his legs, paralyzed him so he had to wear modified wheelchair and got broken heart in Thieves in Time and for Sly, I understand his feeling for losing his father because his father got killed by his enemies.
The only minor things I really dislike are the smoking characters since I hate to see peoples smoking with cigarettes on their mouth and I don't like the portraying of Geisha as prostitute place in Thieves in Time.

Oh boy where do I start?
crash bandicoot honestly the only crash bandicoot game I played before the n sane trilogy was that one crossover with Spyro on the gameboy. So when I played the N sane trilogy I really liked the game despite how difficult it was to the point where I got it’s about time.
spyro I apparently had bad luck with the Spyro series. I say this because the only Spyro games I played was enter the dragonfly and shadow legacy. (Though enter the dragonfly WAS the GameCube version so...) and when I played the reignited trilogy I fell in love with the game because of how fun it is. (Despite some bad parts like that freaking dragon boss in the third game.) hopefully we get a new Spyro game like with crash bandicoot.
battle for bikini bottom I did play this game when I was younger but it was the GBA version and not the GameCube version so when I played the remake I saw why so many people liked it because it was a lot of fun. I love collectathons and this is definitely up there as one of the best.
ty the Tasmanian tiger yet another game that was released in my childhood that i never played for some reason (probably because I didn’t know it existed) so I got the remaster of the first 2 games and had a fun time. Hopefully they will release the remaster of the 3rd game so I can get all 4 games in the series.
And that’s it. Yeah I missed out on a lot of games when I was younger (or because I wasn’t born yet when they were released).

I'm not a big fan of strategy games in general, but when I found out about the pikmin games on YouTube, something about them captivated me. I wouldn't try the games until one summer when I decided to buy pikmin 3 for my wii u. And While I liked playing pikmin 3, after beating the game twice (as well as pikmin 2) I found returning to the series a chore, that is until my sister gave me her unused copy of pikmin 3 deluxe one day. It was months before pikmin 4 came out and I beat it 1 day, playing it 6 hours straight!

To say I caught hold of the pikmin bug would be an under statement as when pikmin 4 came out it was always on my mind for a full 2 weeks straight!
Now I've beaten pikmin 4 and now I plan on buying pikmin 1 for my gamecube. I really wish I knew about that series earlier..

Another set of games I didn't get into was zelda because it seemed really hard and it was not something i was into playing. Eventually I picked up Windwaker HD for wii u and a link between worlds. I enjoyed my time with them and am more open to playing other zelda games (not breath of the wild though, too big for me and i still don't know if i will like it). while I'm not a big fan now, I can see why people love the series.

Splatoon 3 is my first Splatoon.

I suppose Doom qualifies. My first Doom game was Doom III. Played the original Doom after that. And then Doom 2016 with the Switch port. Perhaps not my favorite series of first person shooters, but I appreciate its significance.

Doom is probably my answer too. Outside of playing the first levels of the original 20 years ago, I'd never played any more of the series until Doom 2016 in 2020. And after playing through all of the first 2 games, I'm a fan.

Honestly, that is probably the only retro series I've really gotten into for the first time and fully appreciated since I became an adult. It feels like every other major game series either was on Nintendo or got ported to Nintendo after PS1 series exclusivity became irrelevant (literally Crash, Spyro and Sonic all ended up on Nintendo for the first time during the GBA's first year). For that matter, like half of my Switch backlog is retro games in popular series I somehow haven't played yet.

Mine is Pokémon. I never tried the games because I thought I was too old for them and they were for babies. Luckily I realized that line of thinking was idiotic and in reality I just cost myself years of playing some really fun games.

Definitely xenoblade series for me, I did not expect as much as I got from that game, I just thought 2 would be a wifue rpg, and get this, I didnt like rpg all that much sure I love Pokémon but I never really played many other outside of that, and one just looked kinda boring……boy was I so freaking wrong! Two hours, just two hours i was hooked and I clocked in five hours on my first day lol.

Pikmin 3 DELUXE
I don't have any interest with Pikmin games at all before until the announcement of Pikmin 4 and the Pikmin clones by 3rd party developers, somehow it changed my mind slowly and I got intrigued by the gameplay.
After some thought, I decided to get into the game without overthinking too much and actually I could understand the gameplay.
The only thing that suddenly made me frustrated was the final place that was really hard to bring Olimar safe without dealing too much with the metallic liquid creature.
Somebody please tell me the better strategy to bring the Olimar out from Formidable Oak before the time is running out.

For me it’s gotta be Bayonetta, I remember being put off by the seemingly chaotic nature of the gameplay and mature themes, I was sadly one of those people who saw Bayo as an one-note, over sexualized character who only served to appeal to the male gaze, it also didn’t help that my time with Astral Chain hadn’t been enjoyable at all.

Well, a couple years ago I decided to give Astral Chain another go and ended up falling in love with it, which led to me finally caving in and buying the first Bayonetta game.

My God, was I wrong about this series.
The gameplay may seem chaotic but once you get in the zone everything just clicks, Bayo herself is an icon whose risqué attitude is used as a form of empowered, she quickly became one of my favorite gaming characters ever.

I just really love this series now. Even with all the lows it’s hit recently, Bayo continues to be one of a kind.

When the Switch port for NeiR: Automata came out, I had to get it day one. I heard nothing but good things about it and it didn’t disappoint!

A few years back I was trying to figure out what to do with the last $6 I had on my PSN account, and went with PS1 Classic Bloody Roar 2. Enjoyed it more than I expected. It's kind of a mid-tier 3D fighter, but they just don't make 'em like this anymore. Tracked down a copy of BR Primal Fury for GC, and that was even better. Sure, it's no Virtua Fighter, but you can't punch a bunny in Virtua Fighter.