Asklemmy

Path of Exile for me. I went in blind towards the end of Synthesis league (Q2 2019) and played completely SSF with a homebrew zoo witch. Managed to eventually fight and kill shaper but it was so draining I didn't even want to look at the game again... Til the end of the year when I hopped into the end of Blight league and I've sunk almost 2k hours since

DDR, use to talk mad shit about that game. Can’t remember what happened but I think my uncle bought it for me and then it just clicked. Ended up hanging at the arcade for hours all sweaty getting food court food.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) I thought it was just a gimmick when I first saw a friend play it and the tried it myself later at home and the graphics, the story, the cars, and the gameplay, everything blew me away. I still consider it the best Need for Speed game ever.

Against the Storm. Been on steam for 15 years and it’s my third most played game now. Rimworld and CK3 are the only ones above.

Monster Hunter (I tink it was 4U).

The first time I just didn't Get It(TM) and kept dying to uuuuh I think some scaly raptor doggos. But the damn good music and the monster designs lured me again and I gave it a try and among other things, I learned that the first time I tried I had been wandering into the Hard Mode section of the game, into which you can head at T=0 without warning. I guess that's why I kept dying. Oh well.

That defo taught me to READ THE TEXT of the NPC dialogues and the item and quest descriptions and such. And the game is much better with that.

Hades. I'm not really sure why it didn't grab me the first time...

Residentes Evil. The camera fixed angles were confusing and sometimes I got caught between two different angles in a small space to maneuver.

Bloodborne. I gave up on 3 separate times, even after loving previous Dark Souls games. Gave it a 4th and final try, then didn’t stop until I got the platinum trophy. I don’t know that it’s my favorite souls game, but it left me the most satisfied when I finally finished it. Love that game and wish it would get the same remaster treatment that Demon Souls got.

So many games in here, that I started and apparently need to go back and try again.

Not that I didn't like them, but with limited time, I just couldn't get into them properly.

Mass effect

Tried it twice and thought it was soooo boring. Then one day I figured I'd give it a final go and omg I fell in love with the whole franchise.

Ark

World of Warcraft.

I bought it because a classmate told me about it and we planned to play together, but he had a level 60 character and didn't want to start a new one to level with me. So I played alone for the first 25 levels or so, and quit out of boredom. Then I told my brother about the game and we started again together. That lasted until about halfway through Legion (at least 10 years, with a few breaks ofc), when we both stopped playing. I've been trying to get back into it a few times since then, but it never really clicked again.

League of legends.

Absolutely despised it, thought it was just pointless since progress doesn't really carry over from match to match, so what's the point?

Eventually gave it a go back in 2011 and never got rid of it. Took me a while to get into it too, I'd only play because of my brother and with friends on teamspeak but eventually got reeeeally into it.

These days I don't have time, or at least don't want to invest it, for rankeds or even SR (5x5) so I mostly play ARAMs and some of the riot forge games (LOTRK, song of nunu). Looking forward for the mmo, really love the universe and I loved the TV show too.

The Division 2

The main campaign story is boring, but end game is tons of fun and customization of gear builds.

One of the first video games I owned was FFXII, gifted to me for Christmas after I had finally saved up and bought my own PS2.

I did not understand how to play the game well. Basically kitted out every character as archers, and if I ever struggled (which was frequently) my go-to was to chain mist attacks and use up all my mana at once. I would often sure a lot of time just waiting for mana to regenerate after any had fight. It was slow but worked, until the bomb king boss in the forest. I would finally kill it, and then the thing would revive, and I would have nothing left. Tried and tried until I managed to kill it a second time and it revived again.

I gave up out of frustration. Came back to it a couple years later, a little bit wiser, and found the game much easier when the different characters had different roles and I didn't blow all my mana at the first sign of trouble. The bomb boss was actually a breeze, and I noticed this time that each revival was with fewer hp than before, so it only revived 3 times before it was done for good.

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.

Knights Field series. I never could get into them back in the day, but I've been on a retro kick with my Anbernic and got sucked into them. Ended up putting 20 hours so far into the English translation of the first Japanese KF.

Also, Vagrant Story. Pretty much same scenario where I rented it back in the day and bounced off the combat for not making any sense to me. Tried it recently and really dig it. The combat system is really quite clever once you understand it.

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.

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.

Hotline Miami

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.

Tetrisphere