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What RPGs you hated at first that ended up being enjoyable?

Angriph

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Jan 22, 2012
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Madrid
I wanted to start a thread with more positive vibes than the one of the worst rpg you spent most hours on. So my question is this:

What RPGs you initially felt very negative towards but ended up growing fond of? What did you realize that changed your opinion? Was it a matter of your own perspective or did it have redeememing qualities you weren't aware of at the start? How many hours did you need to sink in before you reached the tipping point?

In my case it would be DOS2 and Kingmaker.

I first played 20 hours of a blind run of DOS2 and absolutely hated it for its systems and tone. Some weeks ago I was bored and played it from start to end and I quite liked it at the end. Moreover, the more I think about it now that I have finished it, the more I like it while remembering things such as Lohse's curse or Fane's backstory. I found the color and music relaxing and the character stories cute if a bit simple. What allowed me to enjoy it this second time around was researching the systems more to plan my characters in advance.

For Kingmaker I started it at release and when I arrived to act 3 and got bombarded by kingdom events I was like "wtf is this" and quit. About 6 months later I approached it with more expertise and patience and it became one of my favorite games ever.

Writing this I realized that my issue with both games was not knowing enough of the inner workings of their systems (in Kingmaker case for example not knowing that I should do the main quests first) and becoming frustrated by doing a blind run without much prior analysis. So my lesson learned is to approach RPGs whose complexity level is in accordance with energy I have at the time.

So, how is it for you?
 

Pink Eye

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Chalice 2. No game has come close to being such a technical nightmare to play - besides Bloodlines and Dark Sun. Chalice 2, in its early days, would crash so much, plus it had bugs, plus you had to wait for patches to continue a run. It was excruciating to me. I legitimately thought maybe I was wasting my time. I'd constantly replay encounters over and over, trying to figure out what would cause a crash. When I couldn't figure the problem. I'd break out candles and ol' ouija board (which I'd use only for super important instances where I needed my dead grandma's advice on - like if cleric girl at store actually was flirting with me or it was just small talk); pleading to my grandma to tell me what item or combination of things I did that'd make my game crash. Sometimes it'd be because of way I sat on chair. So I'd flipped body upside down with head on bottom chair doing some hindu shit. Other times, I'd strip down and yell out while running buttnaked down boulevard like an evangelist satanist.

Anyways constant crashing and bugs nearly put me off. After I powered through it. I realized this is the best game.
 
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Jan 14, 2018
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Codex Year of the Donut
didn't hate it but I played Atom RPG in early access and didn't get very far, played it again much later and loved it. Like a game made by people who played classic Fallouts then were cryogenically frozen so they never experienced any other games inbetween.

could have been all the patches it received inbetween, I guess.
 

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
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Strap Yourselves In
I didn't exactly hate Grimoire the first time I played it, but it was a rather painful experience considering the way the inventory worked back then, etc.

The second time I played it, and got much further in it, was much better. Having a broader understanding of its classes and the approach one has to take to the game to make steady progress helped a lot.
 
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Arcanum. I was frustrated playing it pretty much from beginning until end, but when the credits rolled I felt like I had just played the best RPG ever.

Was a unique experience, to say the least.
 

Butter

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This is RPG Codex. You're not supposed to change your opinion as you get more experience with a game.

But honestly, I don't think I've ever done a 180 like that on anything. At most I can say there are games I bounced off a few times before they finally clicked (Deus Ex, Arcanum, M&M 6).
 

perfectslumbers

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Joined
Oct 24, 2021
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Probably Morrowind. The beginning of the game for me was spent slowly waddling around while I got assailed by Dark Brotherhood assassins each rest and had to kite them in circles slowly tickling their hp with fireballs. Eventually my curiosity as to the lore behind Kirkbrides Facebook cult couldn't be abated so I did a playthrough over a week. Honestly the game never got any more fun but the events of it were so interesting that I enjoyed it a lot anyway. Probably the only RPG I've played that's way more fun to think about than to play.
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
I thought I'd hate oblivion considering how much everyone shits on it but it was alright. Didn't finish it because I got bored due to the oblivion portals, but enjoyed it significantly more than skyrim.
I played it with a bunch of mods that altered the level system and changed level scaling though, so...
 

Glop_dweller

Prophet
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
1,161
Fallout. I came to Fallout from Baldur's Gate, and honestly wondered if I had made a mistake in buying the game... that is until my PC emerged from the vault cave, and had later explored Shady Sands and Vault 15.
 

Daemongar

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Codex Year of the Donut
Wizardry 8. Everyone bitched about that road with the random encounters, the time of the fights, the difficulty of the fights, etc, etc. It made me come to a certain frame of thought. Why do I play games? Do I play them to complete them and tell everyone about them? Or do I play a game to enjoy it, kill some time, and mitigate depression?

If you read the reviews of Wizardry 8, you'd think that it was a slog and there were horrible parts with long, impossible combat. If you let that go, and approach it as a startling tactical rpg with party composure and balance a key component of the game, well, I could play this game for another 100 hours. There were some really amazing moments in the game, and it was a worthy ending to the Wizardry franchise.

You can't approach Wiz 8 with a walkthrough on your lap, waiting for combat to end before you can further advance the story.
 

Dodo1610

Arcane
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May 3, 2018
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Germany
Probably The Witcher 2007. Played the game at launch when it was an incoherent broken mess.
Years later I played the enhanced edition and even though I didn't particularly enjoy the beginning I continued and fell in love with it during the Vizima questline.

I even had a similar experience with its sequel but there it took me a whole second playthrough where I explored more to realise that it's a pretty good game.
 
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Joined
Sep 26, 2022
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I think New Vegas? I remember playing at first and just roaming around. I stepped into Powder Ganger controlled jail and saw how janky enemy AI was, how you could headshot NPCs at point blank range with a shotgun and it didn't do anything, and then I just proceeded to quit the game. I returned to it like a year, or two later and I enjoyed it - albeit with mods. Not just for the story, but I started to like the gameplay as well. It takes some getting used to after playing lots of shooters. I think New Vegas is a lot better if you use VATS a lot, and kind of play it like an isometric turn based RPG if that makes sense.
 

__scribbles__

Educated
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Jul 5, 2022
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The Void
I hated Fallout 2 when I first played it years ago. Combat felt harder yet less interesting than Fallout 1's, there were a ton of sidequests but none really grabbed my attention, and some pop-culture references felt very out of place.
However, I've been replaying the game recently and am enjoying it so far. The quests have a lot more to them than I remembered, combat was a lot deeper than 1, though I prefer 1's individual encounters, and the game is generally a lot funnier than I remembered.

how you could headshot NPCs at point blank range with a shotgun and it didn't do anything
The damage that each shot makes is determined by how many pellets hit their target. Damage per pellet is usually very low in the early game, and even with very low DT, it doesn't do much. This mechanic also leads to a very weird situation for shotguns where they're borderline useless for the majority of the early game until you take Shotgun Surgeon at level 6, where they become some of the strongest weapons in the entire game.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
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Messages
2,476
Hate is a harsh word, but for a while I didn't really like MM6's difficulty and viewed it as inferior to the other two games of its era.
 

GloomFrost

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
993
Location
Northern wastes
Alpha Protocol. For the first couple of hours it just looked like a very low budget "polish shooter" with ME dialogue wheel. But boy oh boy was I wrong. Turned out to be one of the best story-fag RPGs ever. Completed it maybe a dozen times and every sing time (I do mean every single one) I managed to discover something new.
 

Lady Error

█▓▒░ ░▒▓█
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Vatnik
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Strap Yourselves In
Divinity: Original Sin

Was put off at first by the humor and the bright colors, but it turned out to be an excellent game.

Wizards & Warriors

Didn't like it when it came out and stopped early on, but many years later I really enjoyed it.
 

Gargaune

Magister
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,136
The Temple of Elemental Evil. Hommlet made me want to kill myself, Lareth made me want to kill the devs, and Nulb made me wish I'd killed myself back in Hommlet. And then it got good. Really, really good.
 

Carceri

Arcane
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Jul 3, 2007
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Transylvania
Arcanum.
It ran like crap on the PC I had at that time, borderline unplayable. The combat was wtf, couldn't get past it.
After some time, I decided to give it another chance for some reason. I don't remember anymore when exactly, and how, but something suddenly clicked. It clicked really hard because, to this day, it is one of my favorite rpgs.
 

0sacred

poop retainer
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Codex Year of the Donut
Wizards & Warriors

Didn't like it when it came out and stopped early on, but many years later I really enjoyed it.

This. I thought the class changing shenanigans and the training for money ruined the character system, but at second glance the game is superbly balanced (if you know what you're doing, so not balanced in the modern retarded sense). The stat points for money thing is still not my favorite thing about the game, and it usually makes games go to shit when included, but W&W is a fine, probably even a great game.


I also hated NWN when it came out. I didn't appreciate the depth of 3rd Edition D&D and everything else about the game seemed to be shit. This was on release with only the OC to play. I totally came around on NWN later, and now it's one of my favorite games.
 

Ysaye

Arbiter
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May 27, 2018
Messages
771
Location
Australia
When I first played Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession I was annoyed by the combat (mind you I was playing on a laptop only a touchpad rather than a mouse) and the graphics (What is with the barracked walls on the way to Borovia?). Came back later though and really enjoyed it.
 

Deadyawn

Learned
Joined
Dec 1, 2019
Messages
108
Location
Argentina
Neverwinter Nights 2. Gameplay. Story. It's just so fucking DULL.

Now I've grown an appreciation for the main campaign since I'm certain that, at least for me, it made Mask a lot more enjoyable. Being a stranger in a strange land works much better when you've just spent tens of hours neck deep in MUNDANE.
 

Pink Eye

Monk
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Space Refrigerator
I'm very into cock and ball torture
When I first played Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession I was annoyed by the combat (mind you I was playing on a laptop only a touchpad rather than a mouse) and the graphics (What is with the barracked walls on the way to Borovia?). Came back later though and really enjoyed it.
Glad you enjoyed it! When I first played it I had troubles getting used to the combat too - also first area had constant respawning enemies that pissed me off. However, once you punch through it's an awesome experience!
 

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