Cyberpunk and RDR2 both

Dark Souls, took a partner to get me to give it another shot, I've played all souls games since lmao

Tetrisphere

Since the Trails series is continuous, it's what I think of with this sort of thing. I bounced off of and had to nibble at Trails in the Sky over a good while until the third game hooked me. I never would have gotten rolling with that series without pandemic lockdowns.

Now, Trails to Azure is firmly in my top 5 games.

Trails in the Sky, the first one. I bounced off the game not once, but twice. I liked the combat, but it felt like all I was doing was quests from the guild's notice board, so I quit. But then I kept seeing TitS (heh) on various "Best of" lists, so I was like "FINE. I'll try to push through one last time". And then it clicked and I pretty much marathoned the entire trilogy.

The first game is good, buuuut I still feel like it's the weakest in the Trilogy. Story-wise, you get to the good stuff way, way later in the game. Everything that comes before is world building. And it's good, too. You get to see how the world works, how different regions of Liberl (the country you're in) operate and you also get a small glimpse of Zemurian politics (Zemuria being the name of the continent Liberl is on). This also gets vastly expanded upon in the second game.

I'm glad I tried it, because the writing is great, the music is incredible and I really dig the combat. If anyone wants to try it, definitely do. Just know that the first game is a slow burn. Worry not, though. Once the plot starts picking up steam, it doesn't stop.

Mass Effect. Played the first one and couldn't get off Eden Prime cause of the shitty starting rifle and the OG game's idea of weapon stability.

Played Mass Effect 2 years later and beat it in a week, just absolutely loved the whole thing. Went back and played the first one after that to get the whole story. Then waited for ME3 to come out.

I still hate the way weapons work in the original ME1 but I pushed through, not surprised it turned people off of the game though.

Dota 2. First time I played it it was not for me, I only played it to hang out with my friends. Many years later I had an itch for it, so I started playing again. And I haven't stopped. It is an excellent game.

Mount & Blade

There's a cheat that puts the game into slowmo, and it was the first game that pretty much let you dive into an army of soldiers and take them all down with melee combat. It was glorious.

Plus there was a cheat that would let you teleport, so sometimes your enemies would go rally an army against you, and you could literally teleport behind them and take them on the hills.

Glorious game.

Dragon Age: Origins. Not sure why. I was a big fan of Mass Effect already, and of story heavy RPGs in general, but I stopped this one pretty early on and sat on it for several years. Needless to say, it stuck the second time and now I've played it and the other Dragon Age games multiple times.

Crusader Kings II

Witcher 3

Was overwhelmed with most of the game mechanics.

Etrian Odyssey

I tried the demo for the fourth one and just didn't really like or get it. A couple years later Atlus announced Persona Q (which has mostly the same gameplay as Etrian Odyssey) so, I decided to give the demo another try and it just clicked this time. I have no idea why I didn't like it the first time around.

The binding of Isaac. I played about 10 hours of the flash version. 10 years later my friend gifted me afterbirth and repentance and I've played almost 1000 hours

Pokémon Unite

I tried it early on but I felt it lacked the maturity and depth of playing a more serious and in-depth MOBA like League of Legends. I played a lot of Pokémon games throughout the years but it just paled compared to how fulfilling the long-form games and lore of Leagues went.

Turns out I’m a dad now and these shorter, punchier games are both perfect for me and somehow more fulfilling. On top of that they added complexity with Boost Medallions without breaking the game with them. It makes the setup more cerebral because you lose stats as well as gain.

Binding of Isaac

The Witcher 2. I died so many goddamn times in the intro scene, rage quit, came back years later and thoroughly enjoyed it.