This happened to me with three games:

• Hollow Knight
• Steamworld Heist
• Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

In each case the game just didn’t gel with me on the initial play, even if I could objectively tell it was a quality game.

Currently playing through Stranger of Paradise again now. I think I expected a more traditionally “Final Fantasy” game my first time through and dropped it at 10 hours. Started fresh recently and am tearing past where I was and playing it enthusiastically now, it’s a lot of fun.

I’ve played some souls-like games in the interim which helped with the general gameplay loop and control scheme. Also have upgraded hardware since my first run, which makes a big difference as the game was previously a shimmery mess full of slowdowns.