ITT : games that exceeded all your expectations

When was the last time a video game blew your mind, destroying all your fears and exceeding all your expectations ?

I think for me it was Metroid Prime 1. I also liked MP2 and 3 but damn the 1st one was built from the ground. When it came out on Gamecube, I was not prepared to face such a piece of work. I was sure that these random Retro Studio guys couldn't capture the soul of a Metroid game in a FPS. I couldn't be more wrong I guess. This game is a masterpiece.

These last days, I think Bully (yeah I did it a bit late, but for me it was much more fun than GTAV for some reason), Dishonored 2, BotW, and Furi, were all far FAR better games than what I was expecting. Not necessarily MP1-tier, but still very good contenders in my heart.

BotW's first hours were pure bliss. Scavenging ganon's castle for loot with 4 hearts and seeing how accessible the area was (even though everyone instakilled me) made me piss rainbows. Of course the magic faded away in time, but it was the first "open world" game in a long time which got my attention for 80-100 hours and enjoyed almost every bit of it.

Breath of the Wild, I guess. It's usually Nintendo because they experiment a lot with their games. Games from other companies are usually "standard" for the lack of a better word, stuff you've seen before.

AM2R. It's a fan game but it has such a premium level of polish. The levels and bosses kept surprising me. Really enthralling action game.
Ico blew me away. The puzzles are so well-balanced. The AI never frustrated me. I actually felt fearful when the AI partner would be attacked while I was in another area. Drop-dead gorgeous atmosphere. The final hour is perfection.

This.

>yfw Torizo's second stage
>yfw Chykka theme plays

The Witness by far

It just astounded me how many layers upon layers the game had. I just found myself continuously peeling them away just to find new things within.

The whole reactor sequence was so unexpected. And honestly it was risky to make a big scripted sequence from scratch but he pulled it off damn well.

Yeah, I feel the same about BotW. It was quite some time since I had the strength to finish an open world game without getting bored. As I see it, BotW is like an extremely ambitious experimentation, but I still see lots of thingsthat could be "improved" into the game. Like they now have a very promising base formula for their next Zelda titles, if they polish or rethink some details.

Completely forgot about Ico and SotC, great games. I wasn't expecting anything from these games since I didn't know a single thing about them, so when a friend lent them to me, it was even more perfect.

I was busy at the time AM2R came out and didn't pay much attention to it, I guess I'll try it then.

Love that jungle setting.

>Played The Witness when it was still new
>Get somewhat far but drop it eventually
>Try to pick it back up a few weeks ago
>Finish the desert area and the town
>Climb the mountain where the lasers intersect
>Realize that during the time I didn't play I've forgotten most mechanics and symbol meanings

Is The Witness hard ? I think I might like the atmosphere of the game, but I suck at puzzles.

I beat it last night and started Richter mode right after. Holy shit why haven't I played this sooner.

Opinions seem very polarized when it comes to the game's difficulty. Some people claim to have little difficulty with the game and others get stuck a lot. Personally I got stuck on more than a few puzzles and asked Sup Forums for hints on a couple of occasions. I have yet to complete it, but I'm guessing finding all secrets and stuff is a major challenge. However, I think the game does a decent job explaining mechanics by slowly easing you into them.

...

I always thought metroid prime was a mediocre game.

PREY!

nothing these days because I overhype myself. I've stopped going to gaming sites and tracking news/development though so hopefully some upcoming ones will exceed my expectations.

There are people who played 2 first

Some people have shit taste. Some people don't like the lord of the rings movies, some people don't like The Beatles. It's okay user, not everyone can have good taste. What's important is to recognize you're neither special nor better for going against common opinion, there are in fact quite a lot of people with shit taste out there just like you.

what plebs...

honestly this

a ton more fun and varied than the previous one

>being this defensive
Damn, I didn't expect people to throw a tantrum from not even negative words about a game.

I feel like Botw is the newest one that blew my mind, I loved Fire Emblem Awakening for the story and same with Earthbound

? I was just stating a fact user. Lot of people say "hey, i dont like x thing", it's essentially shitposting. Don't worry we are all aware that people with shit taste exist and like things everyone else considers to be great, so I'm not sure what the point of your post was to begin with.

Opinions are not facts, user. Sorry.

Well people can have opinions I guess. If you were expecting a pure shooter, I can get why you thought it was mediocre.

The new one or the old one ? Both are surprinsingly good games though

From all the shitposting on here about AM2R, I expected lazy fanmade garbage. Playing it surprised me though, there's some good general QoL additions from previous 2D Metroids and there's a surprising amount of thought put into the bosses and levels.

Do you guys expect Samus Returns to top this? I don't, but I'm still looking forward to playing it. It's just good to know that Metroid is alive again.

I really hope it will be good. Although the game should have use 2D models instead of this 3D (the color tone reminds me a lot of federation force), some things looks nice. They seem to have put some work to the map design, also I kindda like the new counter and the finishing moves on some ennemies. But too be honest I'm not expecting much, so I can't be really disappointed.

how does it compare to pic related

(if you've played it)

To be honest Samus Returns look so radically different I don't know why they had it be a remake instead of a new game.

I hope MercurySteam doesn't pull a Lords of Shadow on this one.

I hope it's at least as good but I'm not holding out for much. Already not a fan of the counter system and the 3D look, but we'll see.

Lords of Shadow 1 was a good game actually. It lost some of the "Castlevania" touch, but for what it was, I really enjoyed it.

Mark of the Ninja
Talos Principle

Dark souls

The World Ends with You for sure.

Most of the mountain puzzles are bad though, just a bunch of puzzle where the image is distorted or obstructed

I can't even beat the first one. Guess I'll have to look up what the black and white symbols mean.

with me?

Is it necessary to get super jump boots
I played it for the first time, it was too overwhelming like there were a lot of points where there 2 doors and you had to choose it was making me too paranoid on first areas i reached a point where i was given a choice to go back to the forest over world or advance i dropped the game there should i try playing it again?

The Beatles ARE shit though, user. For every Eleanor Rigby, there's 5 I Am the Walrus'.

DMC1. I played HD version earlier this year, it was my first DMC game and knowing that it spun off of RE development, I was expecting a somewhat clunky proto-character action game.

Instead, I got a smooth as butter fucking satisfying gothic exlploration ride. It was like an awesome castlevania.

Dragon Quest 8, my man. I actually stopped at the waterfall because I was fucking annoyed at how difficult the early game was and the random encounter fucked my shit up. I stopped playing it for almost a year because I was depressed. Then I got back into it and the game got way more enjoyable after that. One the best game of all time for me.

Persona 5, I already had big expectations for it but once i played it they were clearly met and went further beyond

>that fleshed out Hyrule with 3 new races (including the new Zora)
>that new Sword fight system
>them majestic as fuck bosses
>that horse riding
>them fun side activities
Cliché i know, but no other game blew my mind to shit like OOT did

Sup Forums shat on this so much I expected shit. I got an imperfect, but great game.

Gonna jump on the BOTW train here. Exploring that world was just amazing. I loved getting lost in it.

Also recently played System Shock 2, and it's now one of my favorite games, mainly because of the narrative and sound design. The way Shodan is handled as a character is brilliant, and the audio logs are great, even though the acting isnt. Best part is the glitchiness of Shodan's lines. It's just so fucking good.

Exploration is the main word of Metroid Prime so yeah unfortunately you'll run in a lot of situations like that. And yes the double jump is mandatory.

Though, most of the time, when you have to make a choice between two doors, one of them will usualy lead you either to a shortcut / save / ammo / map room or to a place where you can't do much, coz you don't have the good upgrades yet.

So basically you can do some backtracking if you're nervous to miss something (and you could since some upgrades are really well hidden) but if you're just passing a door and it leads you to place where you can continue walking, it means that you're in the good direction.

you have to backtrack a lot
play it again user

P5 is a massive achievement imo, but you do get to spend so much time with that game that quite a few flaws become very apparent even on the first playthrough.

But the first 30-40 hours was probably the best time I had with vidya in a long time.

Ok i will i was enjoying it a lot and my main reason for dropping it was laggy gameplay on core2duo i was emulating it now i have gotten good pc it can emulate it really nicely.
Ty bros

Never played it, SotN was my first time playing the series and metroidvanias in general. I'll definitely check out more

...

>Interconnected world design like Prime and Dark Souls
>Near perfect pacing
>Perfect difficulty curve
>Best atmosphere
>Varied and memorable locations
>Good puzzles that are fun and clever that never take up too much time
>Insane replayability value
>Brilliant OST
Best GameCube game.

I'll give it a chance but I don't expect much.

I picked up oblivion at a blockbuster with no expectations at all or previous knowledge of the series, and I hadn't heard about it from anywhere, it wasn't bad back then

Should I play System Shock 1 before trying System Shock 2 ? Everyone says it's a great game and since I liked the new Prey I also wanted to give it a try.

This game has so many issues. Uninteresting gigantic open world, terrible boss design, repetitive missions... and yet I like it so much...

>Asked my parents a N64 with Zelda for my birthday because a friend of mine had the game and it seemed awesome.
>Zelda out of stock for my birthday so I got a pack with a N64 + Mario 64. They tell me I'll get Zelda later
>Well let's give Mario 64 a try, he's not a badass green swordsman, and I'm not 6 anymore so I don't expect much from Mario, but hey who knows ?
>The blast.

I think this game explained to me what a 3D game is. And how it is supposed to be. It's brilliant. I remember performing long jump, side jumps everywhere in the green fields before the castle. I swear the game could have been just that and it would already be awesome. 2 weeks later I got Zelda OoT and I'm pretty sure at that exact moment, between Mario 64 and Zelda, I was the happiest child on earth.

>between Mario 64 and Zelda, I was the happiest child on earth.
I can fucking relate to this so much it hurts

>this whole fucking game
sooo fucking good

Good, 1080p / 60fps Matroid Prime sounds cool ! As for myself, I don't know why, but I can't enjoy a game on an emulator. I tried lots of games, and I dropped them all. Maybe it's because all the distractions one can have on a computer I don't know. It's really annoying.

Yea choices also ruin it for me but we have very slow internet so getting a 1gb rom is big deal so i enjoy it to the fullest and after getting good pc i tried a lot of shit but the most happiness i got from was ps2 emulation i really feel satisfied to emulate games probably because i get the feeling that my pc can run a whole batch of games
By pc i am talking about laptop ;_;