Awesome games you almost missed out on -- but got lucky.

What games have you played that you almost passed on—either due to lack of time, interest, or money—but somehow fell into and wound up loving?

On my end, there's:

1. Chrono Trigger: In freshman year of high school, and buddy and I made a pact to try our first RP Gs ever and then swap them. I chose to play Secret Of Evermore and he chose to play Chrono Trigger. However, somehow his mom wound up buying him the wrong game by mistake, and I wound up playing Chrono Trigger. ...And if you can't tell by my name, I became a fanatic for life.

2. Mass Effect: A few years ago, I really never had any interest in Mass Effect at first. I'd vaguely heard of it, but it just looked like a generic shooter to me. Luckily, a friend of mine owed me some money, but was too broke to pay. So, he offered to pay off his balance by giving me games that he no longer wanted—one of which was You-Know-What.

3. Tales Of Symphonia: Between 2002 and 2004, there was a huge drought of high-profile RP Gs. I was going through withdrawal. So, I decided to look up some obscure upcoming RPG titles in a magazine, and I saw Tales Of Symphonia. I had played one game in the series before, so I knew it was pretty cool. I gave the game a try, and I've been a fan of the Tales Series ever since.

edited 30th Nov '10 1:11:51 PM by KingZeal

Rock Band 1. $179 price point, but decided "ah well. lemme at it."

Ico. My parents got it for me when they got me a PS 2 for Christmas way back on the advice from a sales rep. I would have never ever even thought to look at it. Damn I got lucky.

Tales Of The Abyss. I thought I missed my chance at finding this, until I just recently found it at my local gamestop. Awesome.

Gotcha Force. Saw it in a Nintendo Power, thought it looked really cool. Went on Gamefaqs, and found that it was apparently really rare. Saddened, I forgot about it, until it just happened to show up in my local Gamestop.

Rune Factory Frontier. This was in my period where I was one of "those" Nintendo fans that only stuck to first-party offerings. But it was such a good thing I got it before it stopped being on shelves.

Shadow Hearts 3. Didn't feel motivated enough to buy from the Internet, but a copy showed up at a local electronics dealer for $20.

^^^ Gotcha Force is rare? That's... disappointing. If it really is, that might mean I may have difficulty getting it! And it'd be extra bad because I saw it in a store a while ago and passed on it because I didn't want to spend the extra money at the time (since I went to buy something else). It's more or less the only Gamecube game I have any desire to play. Though, it's not too bad. I've played it more than enough before, I just don't own my own copy.

edited 30th Nov '10 2:05:50 PM by DYRE

I used to have an aversion to First-Person Shooter games until I got the Orange Box on Christmas once. I have changed my mind since.

In the same vein, I never understood Real-Time Strategy games until I once saw a walkthrough for Red Alert 2. Cut to now, where I appreciate the genre.

Red Dead Redemption: My friend wanted to borrow a Nunchuck for the Wii, so he let me borrow a 360 game. Of the choices, I only vaugely knew RDR, so I chose that. It was an awesome game.

I bought Mass Effect 1 in the steam sale last Christmas, but never really got into it. Then, early this fall, my internet connection crapped out on me, so I decided to catch up on some games I never got around to playing proper. Shortly thereafter, I got the I Remember Me mission, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Ogre Battle 64 - the U.S. publishing was handled by Atlus, who tend to make tiny tiny runs of their clever games (and other people's games, too, in cases like this one where they publish for someone else). It was a huge pain to acquire - in fact, I didn't grab a copy until the Gamecube had already released - but oh, MAN, was it worth it.

Mass Effect, I didn't own a 360 when it first came out so I never heard about it. Then I just happened to notice it at Blockbusters (and it was on the bottom shelf no less) and thought it looked interesting.

Now? It's easily one of my favourite games.

edited 30th Nov '10 4:21:07 PM by Bowyn

Fallout 3 and Mass Effect. All the buzz over both got me interested, Mass Effect when all of the gaming magazines I was reading always had an article about the upcoming sequel (and reading its page on a spur-of-the-moment decision), and Fallout because after I saw a review of it in Zero Punctuation, I started becoming interested.

edited 30th Nov '10 4:26:01 PM by theLibrarian

Etrian Odyssey. Couldn't find the games locally; then one weekend happened to visit a little gaming store and found copies of both the second game and Lux Pain for cheap. The former promptly became one of my favorite games, and led to preordering the third.

I also got the original PSX run of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure back when it first came out. Almost didn't buy it, but figured it was cheap enough to give a shot... and ended up really liking it.

Cubivore: Survivial of the Fittest - Saw it years after it came out at Gamestop, decided to pick it up. Not really the best game, but certainly not the worst, and it's so weird and hilarious that I really enjoyed it for the plot alone.

Shadow Of The Colossus - Same kinda story... saw it right after I bought my PS 2 last year, had heard vague good things, and it's now one of my all-time favourites.

One day I just wandered into a gamestop thinking about looking for a new game for my gamecube. Just so happened it was the day that Tales Of Symphonia came out, and they just so happened to have 1 box left. I'd never even heard of the game before, but I figured, ahh what the hell it looks interesting, and I havn't played an RPG is ages (being a gamecube owner). Thank god I did get that, such a good game.

Much more recently, the steam sales that they just had, I decided to buy a few games, I think I ended up getting like 12 games for 20$. Among them was Recettear I have spent pretty much all of my free time sense playing that game, CAPITALISM HO!

Pokemon Redand Blue- My reaction after my brother got me this for christmas when I was seven was pretty much: "I TOLD YOU I WANTED CRASH BANICOOT YOU IDIOT!!!"

Today, I'm really glad he did.

Metroid Prime 3: This is more like almost missing out on a great series, but I skipped over this one when it was first released, I was more focused on saving up for Super Mario Galaxy anyway at the time. When the local library started to stock games, I noticed this one in the bin and wanted to play it, and managed to rent it for a week. I was automatically sucked into it, and I gladly reserved the Trilogy compilation and bought Super Metroid on the VC, and I've been a fan ever since.

edited 1st Dec '10 10:07:01 AM by MrW

Gotcha Force for me too. When I saw two ads for it over two months of Nintendo Power, I thought they were over advertising...

I believe there is nothing more incorrect than that statement.

Chibi Robo.

Sister: "We should get this. It looks fun and cute."

Me: "I dunno. I've heard... vague-ish good things, but I'm not sure."

Sister: "Awww, c'mon! He's a cute little robot! How do you say no?"

Me: "Ah, alright. Only for you, sis."

Me, later: "OHMYGOD THIS GAME IS SO ADORABLE AND HILARIOUS AND WEIRD and holy cow, SAD! Wasn't expecting that."

Mischief Makers: I used to rent it every now and again because I couldn't find a copy in stores, and I loved that game to death.

A few years later, I found a copy on Amazon for dirt cheap in excellent condition. Couldn't pass it up.

Tales Of The Abyss for me to. When me and my roommates decided to go down to Chicago for spring break I found it in a used game store.

Other gems I stumbled upon were most of the Ace Attorney series and Wild Arms 3.

The Legend Of Zelda series: my cousin got me Links Awakening to distract me from Pokemon Red And Blue, and things progressed from there.

Pokemon. I was a hater, mainly due to Pikachu in Super Smash Bros, until I actually played the Blue.

Eternal Darkness, didn't pay it no attention when it came out.