Games or genres you never thought you'd enjoy but ended up liking

For me it was XCOM: EU with it's meta base building that got me hooked and it's emotional bonding with AI just because the character survived X couple of missions.

Recently God Eater got me with it's run based gameplay, the mentality of just another run ends up being one heck of a time sink.

Mini game-games is the only one I can think of right now. Never liked the idea of them, but after playing a few Mario Partys, WarioWares, Rhythm Heavens and some other stuff, I've noticed they can be quite enjoyable with friends. I'm also not very big on puzzle games, but I freaking love Picross 3D for some reason.

Divinity: Original Sin. Never been a fan of isometric or turn based, but had some fun with that game. Still stranded after the first act though.

I wrote off the Neptunia Series for the longest time because I thought the memes and fanservice were over the top and looked like a quick cash grab budget game. Megadimension Neptunia VII was on a flash sale and I said "what the heck" and picked it up dirt cheap.

I could not have been more wrong about the series. It has a deep combat/crafting/customization system and the classic JRPG turn based action I grew up with. The story was pretty funny and production values above what I expected. The memes are from anime I've watched and video games I've played so the jokes landed pretty well for me. Since then I have bought every game in the franchise whenever a steam/PSN flash sale comes around.

I won't compare it to a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest but it scratches a PS1/PS2 JRPG nostalgia itch.

I remember having a conversation with a friend at one point where I was just shitting all over MOBAs, then about a year later I was playing DOTA2 obsessively.

ARPG's.
I'd always written ARPG's off without trying them, until recently and it turns out I really enjoy these games.

I generally dislike all things turn-based, but XCOM rules

I actually have the same experience with Enemy Unknown. I saw some video's of it and thought it looked dumb. I had a drought at the time and decided to give the demo a shot out of pure desperation. It clicked with me super hard. I should be ashamed of my time played with that series since. 500 hours into EU on 360, 300 into EW, another 300 into EW on PC and... let me check... 392 hours on XCOM 2 so far.

I actually had a similar experience with Dark Souls. Saw it on Giant Bomb, thought it looked kinda cool, but totally did not see how that game was hard. Purchased it purely to say I played and finished it once, loved it and instead ended up finishing it 25+ times. Can't actually tell anymore what my playtime is on 360 for DS, but on PC I have 200 into DSII and almost 100 into DSIII.

There was a time I generally scoffed at all musou-style games, until I had some good experiences with some games and demos for the Xbox 360 (Bladestorm, Ninety Nine Nights, etc). These days I'm a proponent of musou/ARPG/hack n slash type games (and a big fan of Omega Force making modern musou-mashups like Hyrule Warriors), even though I still don't play them very often at all.

@atastyslurpee: I know right, but the execution of the already defined mechanics were so polished...well except for the damn RNG.

@zevvion: I was reluctant on Dark Souls as well but it ended up re-kindling my passion for video games.

I thought grand strategy games (Paradox and whatnot) were the purview of grognards and completely unintelligible to the average human and definitely NOT something I would ever get into. Then I bought Europa Universalis IV as a joke last year and wound up dumping well over a hundred hours in it (plus 60-something hours in Crusader Kings II). Never been so happy to be wrong.

Papers, Please blew me away. I'm glad I didn't disregard it on first impressions of the gameplay.

Yeah I was sure I wasn't going to like Dark Souls. Didn't pick it up until it was down to $5, tried it out and was like "yep, way too hard for me" and put it away. But something kept gnawing at me to try it again. When I finally did I was hooked deep, ended up being one of my favorite games of all time.

Freedom wars has got me liking the Monster hunter style of games. I never thought I'd care about that, but it's actually kind of fun. Might pick up God eater next.

Damned

Great multiplayer game, very slept on. Give it a chance if you have friends to play with, I did not expect to like it because I don't really like horror games that aren't action based but I really enjoyed Damned.

I pretty much dismissed the Assassin's Creed series for the longest time but ended playing a ton of Black Flag. Apparently, I like being a pirate.

In terms genre, I think that's one thing I've always been pretty good about. I like jumping from genre to genre. I think I would've quit gaming a long time ago if I couldn't do that. I pretty much end up deriving enjoyment out of everything I play 'cause of the constant change of pace.

That was really the only one I liked. I tried Assassin Creed 1 & 2, but I was bored & frustrated after 2 hrs with each. I didn't get good vibes form the last two.

The Yakuza games.

Past me: "Heh, this looks like poor man's Batman Arkham combat combined with needless open world fluff that doesn't add to the game. Pass."

Present me playing Yakuza 0: "Holy shit, this is amazing. I got the 50000000 score in Space Harrier Completion Point. The combat is deep for a beat-em-up. The story is incredible. I love the side stuff. Man, I was an idiot!"

Witcher 3. I tried Witcher 2 a few times and wasn't that into it. I didn't have any interest in Witcher 3 leading up to release, but I got it for free with my graphics card, so I decided to give it a try, and loved it.

@shivermetimbers: I'm still on the fence. But UPF and the quick look is tipping me over.

The Witcher 3, after bouncing off Witcher 2 for the 360 in a real hard way.

Now Witcher 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I recently started a playthrough of Witcher 2 to boot. It's a lot better this time around, thankfully.

DOOM, since I hate the theme and all the generic-looking demons-monsters.

I still ended up not being crazy about it, but it definitely was enjoyable and it didn't outstay its welcome.

To be fair, you better like (well acted and produced) cutscenes (there's a LOT of long ones) and Japanese game design that forces the player to get invested in the world and characters to reap all of the benefits. It's not really for everyone. It also has a fair share of content some might call questionable, but thankfully most if not all of that is optional.

Tales of Xillia. Every tales-game that I've tried up til this one i regarded as simply alright. Never got hooked by the story nor the combat. Tried Xillia and got so damn entranced with it for a while. After I played through Millas route i sped through Judes to get all the details I missed. I loved the story, it actually had some good unexpected twists, and the characters were all pretty loveable with my favorite being Milla. I think the ending is simply beautiful and it really struck all the right chords with me. The combat was still pretty "meh" to me, but it didn't stop from enjoying everything else.

Then they made that putrid, cheap, tone-deaf pile of shit Tales of Xillia 2. Fuck that game.

@shivermetimbers: Well, I'm down with the insane amount of story in MGS so another story heavy series would be interesting regarding the current state of MGS.

The world's got a lot of detail and the story is very hokey. The kind of story you only get from a writing staff that gets all their cues from melodramatic soaps. And I dunno if it's a localisation thing but there is just a ton of juvenile insults in this game. Previously, Kiryu had his advancing years made fun of constantly. He's went from "Gramps" to "Junior." Then the series throws something legit adult at you like getting a prostitute's career back on track or a comedy transvestite.

Japan is confused.

Stardew Valley. I didn't like "slow" games like that before that required extensive planning and organization of the future. However, Stardew Valley's charm broke through that wall and started me on a journey to find more like it.

@kindgineer: Great. Game. A really great game.

After that Yakuza 0 Quick Look I became interested in that game. I liked just about everything what I saw. Character designs were great (in some cases in a great terrible way), I liked how it looked a lot, I got really into the vibe of the story and atmosphere, combat looked appropriately awesome and hilarious and that music is real neat for that too.

Stealth. In the heyday of stealth games, I tried out a lot of them. Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, Tenchu. I never got more than a few hours into any of them because I just wanted to gogogo and screw the consequences. I think it might have been Sly Cooper that first taught me how to have fun with stealth mechanics. I've gone back and played a bunch of the old ones and finally get it.

Factorio is my drug and now I've got a hankering.

My biggest surprise within the last few years was probably dishonored. I never had any interest in stealth games but it was on sale for cheap so I jumped in. Now I have probably over 100 hours played.

Original Deus Ex. (I was born when games became about crazy game play and amazing graphics ) So when i finally played Deus Ex for the first time last year it blew me away. I don't know what about it makes it so fun but it is.

I heard Vinny talking about Dark Souls, and thought, "Difficulty for difficulty's sake, no thanks."

When it got down to $5 on the XBL store, I picked it up and thought I'd at least give it a shot.

Those Japanese-developed Killing Big Monsters games (Monster Hunter, Shadow of the Colossus, etc.) never appealed to me. But I've played through Dark Souls about a dozen times, and games in the series are often the only ones that can engage me.

Dota 2... that is all.

Dragon Age: Origins. I like fantasy stuff, but I didn't think I would like the "infinity engine" style rpgs. Bioware nailed it.

The Sims. I was being a snob towards it in my teen years thinking "Fuck Sims! I'm a l33t hardcore gam3r with an Xbaax! PEW! PEW! PEW! CALL OF HALO GEARS!" But now a days since both my tastes and overall feelings about games have shifted over the years, and recently watching a lot of LGR's videos about The Sims games, I bought The Sims 3 last Friday, and it was Sunday morning before I knew it.

Pretty much any top down isometric rpg or strategy game. I had hundreds of hours invested in the first Divinity game, for example.

I love top down isometric RPGs and D:OS had really great combat and crafting mechanics. It lost me a couple of acts in too though because the story for it was so bland. The gameplay mechanisms show good potential though.

For me I might say Overwatch - I've played FPS' my whole life but haven't been too heavily in to online multiplayer FPS (though I'm playing a bit of BF1 now as well). Overwatch with the array of characters is also not really my style of thing but wow, that game is great.