RPG's you didn't like intially, but ended up enjoying a lot

[Lady Error]

Divinity: Original Sin - The humor and bright colors kind of put me off initially and I dropped it after about half an hour. Much later I gave it another try and ended up finishing it and enjoying it a lot.

Underrail - The beginning within the station and simple fetch quests were not much fun, but once you get to the actual exploration (and the big city) it becomes awesome.

Baldur's Gate 2 - The first dungeon with bio-experiments kind of put me off, since it felt like a departure from the tone of the first game, but again, once you are outside and can explore, it is absolutely awesome. Same with Planescape: Torment and Fallout 2 really.

Tyranny - Early game in the camps seemed like a slog, but the tone of the game changes significantly over time and becomes much more enjoyable.

Wizards & Warriors - Bought it when it first came out and dropped it after several hours. It seemed disappointing compared to D.W. Bradley's Wizardry 7, eg. no town exploration. Tried it again about 15 years later and this time I found much more to enjoy about it.

On the other hand, some RPG's have a strong beginning, but cannot really keep it up. Examples: Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2.

 

[Mexi]

Baldur's Gate. I played it the first time, and I fucking hated it. I think I got to the part where you meet that hyena-headed creature that wants to eat Dynaheir and quit. I'm honestly quite unsure why I hated it so much. I guess because I transitioned from Fallout to that game or something. Hard to explain, but a year or two later, I held my nose and played through the hate and fucking loved it. I don't know how many times I've beaten it. Steam says I have about 300 hours, but I think that's a conservative estimate as I was playing it on the CD version several times before I bought the EE version. I only played the EE version of BG2, though, because I'm bad about restarting. It took me several years to beat BG2, and I still haven't beaten ToB.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

Divinity 2, the game looked like just one of those generic MMOish ARPGs and even though this statement might hold somewhat true until the end of the game, I still had a lot of fun with its mechanics and just enjoyed its mostly comical writing.

Gothic 2 Gold Edition, I just loved the first Gothic but in this one they just made some some weird scaling stuff with the leveling system which I wasn't and still am not very fond of, but once you start making progress the game becomes really fun.

Fallout New Vegas, at the time I heard there were a lot of mixed reviews on this one compared to Fallout 3, which had mostly positive ratings, so I've just played through Goodsprings and thought the game would be just a slog like its predecessor, but after I decided to play it to the end, it actually ended up becoming my favorite Bethesda-style open world game and my second favorite Fallout.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall, didn't like Shadowrun Returns, its story felt too generic and the characters weren't very interesting, and thought this one would be more of the same, luckily I was wrong, the writing is much better on this one and it manages to be very well paced without feeling like the developers were just throwing walls of texts at you (I'm looking at you Shadowrun: Hong Kong).

 

[Eirinjas]

Gothic - after adapting to the shit controls.
Fallout 1 & 2 - I didn't play them when they came out because the setting and tone put me off at the time, but they are two of my favorite cRPGs now.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Risen 2

 

[Lady Error]

Shadowrun: Dragonfall, didn't like Shadowrun Returns, its story felt too generic and the characters weren't very interesting, and thought this one would be more of the same, luckily I was wron

Definitely this one too. Dragonfall is so good, but a little too short - just like all three Shadowrun games.

 

[octavius]

Ultima V - for some reason I thought the whole world was in the same scale as Iolo's hut, and being anal about mapping back then, I suffered a critical failure on a morale check. Trying it again many years later I found out it's the best of the regular Ultimas.

Disciples of Steel - hated the empty non-menu towns and poor shop UI. But the CRPG Addict raved about it, and when I gave it another try I discovered that the combat and encounter design is top notch.

Gothic - took a few tries to get used to the controls and 3PP. Especially after growing to dislike Morrowind more and more due to its static NPCs and wildlife, I really appreciated the "Radiant AI" when I tried it again quite recently.

Fallout - Ian's "ooops...!" made me rage quit first time.

 

[Eirinjas]

Ultima V - for some reason I thought the whole world was in the same scale as Iolo's hut, and being anal about mapping back then, I suffered a critical failure on a morale check. Trying it again many years later I found out it's the best of the regular Ultimas.

 

[Reina]

Neverwinter Nights II - I hated first part of OC at the beginning and couldn't get past first chapter. Now, after finishing it twice, I'm quite fond of the entire campaign, despite some derpy parts.

 

[Piotrovitz]

DA:O - after reading constantly what a slog deep roads and fade are, and the amounts of trashmobs, I decided not to touch it with a ten-foot pole.

Then, having nothing else to play, I installed it one day and surprisingly enjoyed it. Even on highest difficulty the trashfights didn't bother me much, as DW rogue was melting everything in seconds. There's tons of wasted potential, like mage fights and ability to one shot every caster in the game with the that blood magic spell, but overall I thought it was a decent game, for what it was. Maybe I just needed something simple and mind-numbing at the time, coming straight after playing underrail, AoD and battle brothers.

 

[Elwro]

Gothic. HOW THE FUCK DO I EVEN MOVE IN THIS GAME AND HIT OPPONENTS -> oh boy, how nicely designed this game is

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Wizardry I, Gothic, Pool of Radiance.

 

[Jvegi]

BG2, despite loving the first one.

Most good games I dropped because I was too lazy to give them a fair shake, not because I thought they were bad.

 

[Storyfag]

PFK. I liked the concept from the start, but execution seemed a bit off. Fortunately that impression changed sometime during the Troll Trouble.

 

[felipepepe]

Gothic - Those controls are really hard to get used to when coming from games like Morrowind.

Planescape: Torment - Morgue is cool, but Sigil is pretty overwhelming and all that combat until Pharod is GARBAGE.

Wizardry 8 - I LOVED the first dungeon, but took several tries (and some mods) to get past Arnika Road and all those respawning encounters in the city.

 

[Xamenos]

Icewind Dale: Coming from Baldur's Gate and especially Torment I didn't like the lack of NPC companions and how sparse the story was. It took me years to retry and appreciate what it offered.
Gothic: I, too, got filtered initially.
Neverwinter Nights: Man, was it different to what I was expecting. Took me a while before I got past the changes in the ruleset, the lack of a party and the lackluster campaign.
Neverwinter Nights 2: I still think the main campaign has some infuriating parts, but Mask of the Betrayer makes it all worth it.
Geneforce and Avernum: The concept was great. First impression was awful. I don't remember what came over me, years later, and I gave them another chance, but I'm glad I did.

 

[Funposter]

Took me a couple of tries to finally get into VTMB and Deus Ex for whatever reason. Sometimes you just need to be in the right mood to play a game and it finally clicks.

 

[Elwro]

Fallout 2. The Arroyo bit was shit...

 

[Joggerino]

Risen 1 i think. With Divine Divinity i went from "it's ok" to "it's amazing"

 

[Gregz]

Diablo II

Divine Divinity

 

[Grunker]

Planescape: Torment. Beyond the initial mystery, the beginning is actually fairly weak. For me, the game really picks up speed after you return to Pharod with the sphere, and it took me a few tries at first before I got that far and became enthralled with the game.

 

[Ysaye]

Just recently I have returned to Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession after trying a year ago but quickly stopped playing it 20 minutes in (not including character generation). Whilst I beat Menzoberranzan some 20 years earlier, this game one year ago felt like I was just staring at a very pixellated mess madly clicking the left mouse button on my mouse pad on the laptop and gaining no sense of fun whatsoever. I started playing two weeks ago, and whilst I am not going to boast that I am enjoying it a lot, I am still playing it and about half to two thirds through.

 

[Gargaune]

The Temple of Elemental Evil - Surviving the Moathouse is a challenge for the party. Surviving Hommlet is a challenge for the player. And the UI had me frothing at the mouth, but once I got to my party around level 4 and reached the Temple itself, I was hooked on incline.

 

[Grunker]

^so true

 

[Dodo1610]

POE: thought it was too boring until I discovered the joy of Swayer approved min-maxing
Alpha Protocol: took me about 3 attempts to finally finish the opening chapters due to the horrific gameplay.