Game Series You Almost Missed Out On

[Sonictrainer]

When Pokémon first came to the US, I wasn't into it.

I watched one episode of the Anime at a friend's house but didn't think much about it.

But that all changed when my Dad got me a Game Boy Color & a copy of Pokémon Red Version...as a secret Christmas Present. I never asked for it and I didn't know I was getting it.

However, after I received & played this, I've been a fan ever since. If that one event never happened, I don't know if I would be a Pokémon fan today.

Heck, my Username might have been different.

 

Another Series that I might have missed out on is Splatoon. If they never did the Global Testfire, which was basically a free online downloadable demo, I may not have tried it out and said, "Okay, this is fun, I'm get it on Launch".

 

Are there any Game Series that you may have never tried if not for a surprise gift or unexpected circumstance?

[Guest]

Animal Crossing! I wasn't interested in it, but knew of it. About 2 years after it came out (the Gamecube one), it was my 12th birthday, and I didn't really want anything, but my dad brought me to the store and said I could pick out a game. By this point, AC was already a Player's Choice game marked down to $20 so I figured, yeah why not. I knew of it by those creepy commercials for the first game and because one of my friends had it, and I saw him play it for like... 10 seconds lol. It was mostly a random choice though, I had no idea what it really was going into it. I could tell my brother was mad because he wanted me to pick something else but hey, it was my birthday.

Tbh Sonic was an accident for me and my brother. My mom's co-worker was selling her son's used Genesis + a couple games, Sonic 2 being one of them. I think because he wanted money to help get the then-upcoming Saturn, which uh... wonder if he regretted that decision. Anyway, she bought it as a present for us since we were getting old enough to know what video games were, lol.

Other than some other random one-off games I got (games that never got sequels, but I enjoyed them), I can't really think of any other series.

[FReaK]

Kingdom Hearts probably. I got the first one with another game for free back in 2005 or so, I didn't bother with disney stuff anymore back then. Got me by surprise.

[JezMM]

Somehow my wife played through the entirety of Horizon Zero Dawn without me ever paying attention or being remotely interested in it (I mean... Breath of the Wild had just come out).  This put me in an advantangeous position of the game having not being spoiled for when I'd finally play it this year.

I had just finished Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity and since I had looked forward to that game for it's narrative content... which turned out to be very... ugh, Nintendo-quality, big surprise... I was kind of itching for an action game with a really strong narrative.  She recommended I play Horizon and I'm so glad I did.

While it takes a few hours to get going, once it did I enjoyed it so much I pretty much 100%'d it.  While I wish the non-combat gameplay was a bit more involved like Zelda's is, the atmosphere of just being in the game's world made up the difference (I didn't fast-travel anywhere because I didn't want to cheapen it, and I also turned off the quest markers so I had to navigate to them manually using the map to plan a route rather than just blindly following on-screen destination icons without paying attention to the world).

Didn't let me down on the narrative front either, absolutely fantastic story full of both intrigue and heart. Aloy is now one of my favourite video game protagonists of all time and I'm super looking forward to the sequel.

[Salamander]

Castlevania (and to a lesser extent Metroid), which is crazy because that series and its style of gameplay has ended up being majorly my jam.  I'm not sure why exactly it took me so long to take an interest; perhaps because I thought it would be a lot less flamboyant than it actually was?  Whatever the case, the upshot was that I didn't get into the Metroidvania genre until the late DS years, at which point the GBA games had become unobtainable for me - result being that I've never played some of the major IGAvanias.  Do a Castlevania Anniversary Collection 2, Konami!

[Polkadi~☆]

I never knew a single thing about Persona, until my sister started asking me about the fifth game. So I went and got her the game for Christmas the same year it came out, and...

I played it too, out of curiosity. It was a type of game I didn't see often, but the gameplay hooked me in along with everything else about it. After finishing the game, it got me super interested in all things Persona, which I'd have never been otherwise. Even got me into the Shin Megami Tensei series as a whole.

[Tori Himemiya]

There's a lot of games I nearly missed because I hadn't been paying attention to the scene.

I actually got into Monster Hunter through World and I am aware of the previous games so I won't pretend that there wasn't anything before hand. It took me a while to click with what the game was going for but I actually really like the idea of going through a big boss game and planning for everything. I really love these monster designs and the fact they have their unique behaviors to take note of during a hunt. I'm really excited for Rise's release because after playing the demo I had a lot of fun with the doge being able to Tokyo Drift everywhere and the Wirebugs providing so much free movement. Its just so much fun!

I also really love the Yakuza series. I heard from a friend about it once and I dismissed it as a GTA clone which I'm not a fan of in general. But then I heard from word of mouth that it was sillier than it lead on to be. After trying 0 I saw the light. It was one half a serious crime drama and other half just silly fun, sometimes both mixing with each other that its one of the most over the top experiences I've ever had. I really love the world building in this series and the fact there's a lot of things to do to the point where several minigames are very fleshed out. Also Kiryu is a very noble character that he's constantly saving people on a daily basis and he can never hurt an innocent which I feel like helps with the narrative. I don't like open world games since I don't know what to do in them but I really loved how fleshed out they make the cities in the series, making this series the exception for me. I just love how its a story about a man going through life and its tribe and tribulations. In a way this series help me get over getting old because Kiryu becomes an honorary grandfather by the end of the series but he remains the same guy through and through. Its just so good.

And while its been years since I got into it I think its an interesting story. I almost missed out on the Disgaea series. I remember one of my friends mentioning it once during lunchtime one day but later on during my high school years I got depressed and was pretty bad. If my friend would had never mentioned it I would had completely miss it during its heyday, though its more well known now. I'm glad he recommended it to me because I ended up being a more cheerful person because of it. I am glad the series has been successful since then but I'm happy I didn't miss out on it.

[Thrippa]

Dragon Age.  My then-boyfriend gave me Dragon Age: Origins for the PS3 for my first birthday after we met.  He later got Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition, and after we were married, I got him DA:I for the PS4.    However, I only started playing DA this past January.  I've almost Platinumed DA:O, and have most of the DLC done, so I'll be moving into the next game soon.  Ferelden is a very interesting place, but there are some really dark bits of story in there.

[Blue Blood]

Assassin's Creed. I only picked up the game because I had a gift voucher to use and decided to spend it on something popular that I knew nothing about. It was a totally spur of the moment thing, and I fell in love with it. I quickly went out and bought AC2, then ACB and ACR because they were already out, and found that these were some of the most fun I'd had with new games ever. Sure, by ACR I was feeling a bit burnt out and it was feeling a bit repetitive going through all these games in a matter of months, but AC3 was on the way and I was really stoked for that...

Ultimately I thought that AC3 was unenjoyable horse shit and despite people saying that AC4 was much better, I was so turned off by the idea of yet more sailing in the game. AC is a stealthy platformer, not some boating sim. I've not played anything else in the series since, apart from Syndicate which has its share of problems but I still really liked it. The rebooted series from Origins onwards look crazy unappealing to me. Tons of RPG mechanics, XP grinding, sailing out the wazoo... ugh, no thanks. Had I not tried out the series when I did, mere months before AC3 came out, I'd never have given the series a go. And it was just because I felt spontaneous one day that I even tried it.

[batson]

Believe it or not, but, The Legend of Zelda. I was always very aware of the series and it's various games since I have a friend who is hugely into the series, but I never sat down and played one myself untill about 2008 or so when I finally tried The Twilight Princess. After that I went back and played Ocarina of Time (my favorite so far!) and still a few years later A Link to the Past. Most recently I bought and played Breath of the Wild, which, like everyone else says, was really amazing.

The thing about Zelda is that it's really not my genre of games. I'm mostly into platformers and also various fast-paced action games with constant obstacles and never a calm moment (which is why Sonic is the perfect series for me). But the Zelda games that I've played have all been so damn good that I'm willing to take my time with them in a way that I seldom do with those kinds of more slow-paced video games.