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[List thread] Games you gave 2nd chances. (OR: MGS rocks).

C

Chrono

Banned
edit: nm this thread was mostly about MGS and I didn't see Slurpy's topic so this is somewhat redundant. Sorry. :p
 
I got Vagrant Story in the summer of 2000 at its release and liked it, but gave up on it after a few days, due to frustration and wanting to play other games. The next summer, I decided to give it another go, and what a great game it was. While I always liked the graphics, story (what I knew) and atmosphere, I finally fully overcame the hurdle the weapon creation/management presented. After that I was entranced.

Way back in the day, as a kid, one of the first NES games I owned was Rygar, and boy was it hard. I played it for a while, then forgot about it until about five years or so later, and thought I'd give it another shot, and I actually finished it multiple times. I really don't remember much about it now, but I remember the last boss (Ligar) and I think my game glitched up sometimes when fighting him.

I also did that with the original Double Dragon, and the first Castlevania.

EDIT: Well, crap. :P
 
i gave ICO like 12 chances and it pretty much sucked each time.


Great art

Terrible gameplay terrible combat ONE LONG ESCORT MISSION FILLED WITH BLOCK PUZZLES!

ugh im sorry no matter how great the atmosphere is i will not play a game that has such crap gameplay.
 
Chrono said:
LOL you replied the same time I edited the topic asking for a lock/delete. :lol
Click to expand...

Dude, you deleted a huge post. I thought your topic was distinct enough, but oh well. :)
 
Games I gave a second chance?

Metal Gear Solid 2 (First played when I bought the PS2. Didn't like it. Tried it again after TTS. It was good)

ICO (exact same as the above)

Fire Emblem (VII) (Ended up playing it again in January 2004 after buying it in November 2003. I was playing Disgaea, and FE seemed to be a VERY slow game in comparison. Love it, though).

Mario & Luigi (Boring on both tries)

Metroid Prime (see M&L)

Jak II (somewhat frustrating and a huge letdown when I first played it. Stopped a bit to check out R&C:GC. Fans of the game urged me to finish it. Have had a vendetta against it ever since)
 
I gave MGS2 a second chance after TTS. Wow, good game.

Being my first RE, I gave CV a second chance and loved it.

Oh, and Genma Onimusha (after not liking the PS2 one).
 
Ancestor_of_Erdrick said:
Dude, you deleted a huge post. I thought your topic was distinct enough, but oh well. :)
Click to expand...

I typed everything again since this thread seems to be alive. :p


Ok here's my list:



MGS – controls never felt natural + I didn’t like the camera so I always quit. I tried the game a few days ago and it was easier to get into than MGS3. It was good, then just frustrating (psycho mantis and the switching controller thing was really annoying). After fighting mantis though the game just got better and better – as I got used to the controls. By the time I’m fighting liquid snake in the Metal Gear Rex my mind has made a complete 180. This game is simply awesome. Final score: A- (minus for control).

God of War – I only played 15 minutes and got sick of the button mashing. Almost traded it in, then learned a new attack… which was cool. I continued the game and now it’s one of my favorite PS2 games ever. It’s about the whole package and not just the fighting system really. Just going from one beautiful environment to another and wreaking havoc. Good stuff.


My problem is that I quit pretty fast. Or you can say I’m a wimp. I got another copy of ZOE3 (I traded it in the first one) and plan to play it again. It was the same reason I quit it the first time – didn’t get the controls down and kept dying. When I did use my weapons correctly it was awesome so I’m starting a new game.

Also, SRPGs. I stopped playing FF: Tactics and Fire Emblim pretty fast. Tactics because of the long, long tutorial and FE because it was too easy. Yeah I know itÂ’s only the first few missions but I pulled out the cart and thought SRPGs arenÂ’t my thing. I got a new copy of FF: Tactics and will order Fire emblem after finishing Tactics. I don't know if I'll like them, never really played an SRPG for long, but at least this time I won't quit after 15 minutes heh.

I think it was mainly because I got back into gaming after Ocarina of Time/Mario 64 that I expect fluid controls and great fun from the very beginning but now that IÂ’m playing more games itÂ’s pretty obvious that I should stick with them past the learning curve first.
 
Chrono said:
Tactics because of the long, long tutorial and FE because it was too easy.
Click to expand...
Are you sure you got that in the right order? FFTA has a short tutorial (long intro) and FE has a long tutorial (which is a little easy) but the game in later leves is pretty damn hard if you don't want to lose any units.
 
MGS3 has had a couple of tries.
I'm playing it at the moment, and enjoying it a lot more now, but i'd still contest it has a few problems. Might quit and just get Subsistence.

PN03 - i HATED. but then went back to playing it one saturday when i was bored and played it start to finish and loved it. Going back to Killer 7 and hoping for a similar experience.

Ninja Gaiden.
I just suck too much. Will try again.
 
Jive Turkey said:
Are you sure you got that in the right order? FFTA has a short tutorial (long intro) and FE has a long tutorial (which is a little easy) but the game in later leves is pretty damn hard if you don't want to lose any units.
Click to expand...

Oh I'm talking about FF: Tactics on PSX. And I'm not sure about fire emblem, like I said I didn't play much. Maybe 20-30 minutes.
 
Chrono said:
Oh I'm talking about FF: Tactics on PSX. And I'm not sure about fire emblem, like I said I didn't play much. Maybe 20-30 minutes.
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Ah...I'm a tard and just added "advance" there. FFT on PSX had a long and boring tutorial but the game is worth it. Yeah play past the first 10 missions of Fire Emblem (hand-holding tutorial with a lot of story) and you'll get the good stuff.
 
DCharlie said:
MGS3 has had a couple of tries.
I'm playing it at the moment, and enjoying it a lot more now, but i'd still contest it has a few problems. Might quit and just get Subsistence.
Click to expand...

Same here. Still have yet to beat the game and I got it at launch. Considering just waiting for Subsistence as well. Meanwhile I've already started playing through RE4 yet again.

PN03 - i HATED. but then went back to playing it one saturday when i was bored and played it start to finish and loved it. Going back to Killer 7 and hoping for a similar experience.
Click to expand...

PN03 needs more love. Such a fun game.
 
DCharlie said:
PN03 - i HATED. but then went back to playing it one saturday when i was bored and played it start to finish and loved it. Going back to Killer 7 and hoping for a similar experience.
Click to expand...

Killer7 gets better every time I play it, not just because the controls feel more natural as time goes on, but also because the story keeps getting deeper and deeper.
 
I gave MGS like a fifth chance and finally beat it recently. Still cannot stand it. I just don't see what anyone could like about it. It's got a terrible, cheesy, cliche-ridden story with terrible characters and writing, mostly awful stealth gameplay when not playing one of the many boring bosses or mini-games, and annoying controls (like the crawling, and automatically turning away from walls I'm trying to face).

I kept playing and playing, expecting some kind of justification for the praise, but it never came. Only more flawed gameplay (pointless backtracking, shitty AI, fetch quests) and cinematics. Years after its release, I still can't even begin to explain the praise. Maybe people just like Rambo-type characters and ridiculous terrorist plots?
 
KOTOR

Last time I made it to Dantooine and just gave up, but now I have proceeded much further than before


Lufia Ruins of Lore

I didn't like it at first period, so I figured I would try again, maybe I would be able to take it...nope, still the same trash as before
 
ICO - just read Kabuki Wak's post above for the reason.

MGS series - I tried to play them, but they are too slow paced and boringly dull. And those codecs, god those codecs. Luckily though, my brother liked them enough to play through, so I just watched him play them.
 
Dragmire said:
I gave MGS like a fifth chance and finally beat it recently. Still cannot stand it. I just don't see what anyone could like about it. It's got a terrible, cheesy, cliche-ridden story with terrible characters and writing, mostly awful stealth gameplay when not playing one of the many boring bosses or mini-games, and annoying controls (like the crawling, and automatically turning away from walls I'm trying to face).

I kept playing and playing, expecting some kind of justification for the praise, but it never came. Only more flawed gameplay (pointless backtracking, shitty AI, fetch quests) and cinematics. Years after its release, I still can't even begin to explain the praise. Maybe people just like Rambo-type characters and ridiculous terrorist plots?
Click to expand...

I don't like the stealth-action genre that MGS is now considered to fit into, but I beat MGS multiple times and loved it every single time. My feelings are so completely opposite yours on every single point, I don't think we could fully reconcile even if we argued about it for a month...
 
Dragmire said:
I gave MGS like a fifth chance and finally beat it recently. Still cannot stand it. I just don't see what anyone could like about it. It's got a terrible, cheesy, cliche-ridden story with terrible characters and writing, mostly awful stealth gameplay when not playing one of the many boring bosses or mini-games, and annoying controls (like the crawling, and automatically turning away from walls I'm trying to face).

I kept playing and playing, expecting some kind of justification for the praise, but it never came. Only more flawed gameplay (pointless backtracking, shitty AI, fetch quests) and cinematics. Years after its release, I still can't even begin to explain the praise. Maybe people just like Rambo-type characters and ridiculous terrorist plots?
Click to expand...

*shrug* I find the story fun, and I STILL get all goosebumpy when I hide in a locker from a patrol or something.
MGS and MGS2 are two of my top games, but I'm still trying to get into MGS3. Such a disappointment it has been.
 
The only recent one that comes to mind is Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I can't remember why I put it down originally, but I recently picked it up and finally played 'er through.
 
Vagrant Story - although I cheated my way through the puzzles using a guidebook.

Metal Gear Solid - tried PS1 version, failed. Retried it as Twin Snakes on GC, does that count? :-D

...and hopefully this is next:
Metal Gear Solid 3 - when Subsistence comes out. Will the full 3D camera help me? Or will I succumb into just watching Disc 3 and take the easy way out?
 
Castlevania Circle of the Moon.

Started playing. Liked it. Then got to a boss with two huge dinosuar looking things. Got my ass raped. Gave up, 2 months later (aka, yesterday) picked it up again, beat them.

Played for a solid 3 hours, and now I'm stuck at Camilia, bitch is hard ...HELP ME!!!
 
Is Subsistence in English? I've been hoping for a Japanese release of the English version, but I couldn't find anything about English on the website.
 
Ocarina of Time - I played this casually on a few occasions before it really grabbed a hold of me. I never got around to finishing it until after the GC port was released. It's now one of my favourite games.

Majora's Mask - This is the only 3D Zelda that has no effect on me whatsoever. Aside from a few nice superficial touches, the game is just bland. I've given it several goes, but it just does nothing for me.

Doom 3 - When I first played this at my brother's I was not really impressed with the gameplay. When I got a new computer and downloaded the demo, and played it with the sound up and the setting cranked I was absolutely floored. I keep a list of door codes on my desk at all times.
 
C- Warrior said:
Castlevania Circle of the Moon.

Started playing. Liked it. Then got to a boss with two huge dinosuar looking things. Got my ass raped. Gave up, 2 months later (aka, yesterday) picked it up again, beat them.

Played for a solid 3 hours, and now I'm stuck at Camilia, bitch is hard ...HELP ME!!!
Click to expand...
I assume you're speaking of the Zombie Dragons? Those bastards gave me quite a bit of trouble, but I beat them before too long. I was even missing a few critical cards and was pretty underleveled. Camilia was a cakewalk though because I found a few good cards and got to a decent level. The Zombie Dragon was the only boss that gave me any real trouble. Great game though.

If you want to get past her using a "cheap" method, you can just stand on the highest platform and turn on a shield that encircles you. She'll take damage as she flies under you, but you will never be hurt. Of course, I'm not recommending this method, it's only if you get too frustrated. ;)
 
Xenosaga Ep. 1: Der Wille zur Macht.

Tried it once and quit after 5 hours due to absolute boreness.
Tried it a second time and quit after 10 hours because of the most boring combat system ever (ok, metal dungeon is worse)
Tried it a third time (mainly because I thought the characters are pretty cool) and quit after 20 hours because the game sucks.

I'm thinking about trying it a fourth time.
 
Ironclad_Ninja said:
I assume you're speaking of the Zombie Dragons? Those bastards gave me quite a bit of trouble, but I beat them before too long. I was even missing a few critical cards and was pretty underleveled. Camilia was a cakewalk though because I found a few good cards and got to a decent level. The Zombie Dragon was the only boss that gave me any real trouble. Great game though.

If you want to get past her using a "cheap" method, you can just stand on the highest platform and turn on a shield that encircles you. She'll take damage as she flies under you, but you will never be hurt. Of course, I'm not recommending this method, it's only if you get too frustrated. ;)
Click to expand...

I picked up on this as well (DMC3 trained me to find strategy man, you know this >_<) but I figured that'd take -insanely- long.

Stand on the highest one, crouch and press and hold the attack button. Yeah, I only do 5 hp of damage and I believe I connect 13 for total damage of 65 hp.

I have the Cross Special Item. With just 6 hearts (and a decent throw) I can take off roughly 200 HP off that bitch.

Problem is, I have only 6 hearts, and the area I'm in has -no- candles of any sort (it's the sewage 'handle switch' area).

So I just decided to backtrack to an area that can give me some hearts, store up on a lot of hearts with around 200 and come back.

Actually, Circle of the Moon is a lot like DMC3. It's pretty damn hard, save points are far from each other (comparitive to Aria and Symphony) and the game punishes you bad for some mistakes.

I.e, getting hit while you're 'iced' by an enemy. OUCH >_< Regardless, because of this, I love this, my favorite GBA Castlevania by far.

EDIT: By talking about this, I just realized at how the chances of Curse of Darkness coming to my liking is extremely rare. It's one of those things where I 'get' a lot of people might like, but all the elements that have me hooked on Circle of the Moon right now were practically non-existant with Lament, and I don't have enough blind faith in me to think IGA and team can make such a turn-around with COD.
 
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

I played the first and loved it, and after I finished it I found myself craving more. I ran out, bought the sequal, and started playing, but after beating the first boss (three worms), I just couldn't stand it anymore. I don't know why, the world just seemed so dark and ugly I guess. Playing it depressed the hell out of me. I tried playing it a couple more times after giving up on it, but to no avail. I eventualy just traded it in for Advance Wars: Dual Strike.
 
MGS: Twin Snakes. I started my MGS career with MGS2, which I loved... crazy cool story, and at least Snake wasn't leaping through the air kicking missiles out of the sky. Twin Snakes remake made me cringe with its soul-sucking ridiculous-ass cut-scenes, ninjas (so over the top I expected them to yell out the name of their attacks like Dragon Ball Z/Yu-Gi-Oh), but the Sniper Wolf/Psycho Mantis cuts pulled me through. Gave it a second chance, suffered through it, and felt glad that MGS2/MGS3 were what they were.
 
Super Mario 2: Bored the crap outta me when I first played it as part of Super Mario All Stars on the SNES. Bought it with the GBA at launch and finished it with mild enjoyment.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies: got it in a post Xmas sale - got bored after an hour and put it away. Picked it up again a few weeks ago and now towards the end of Chapter 3 (scene 29 or 30 I think I'm up to) it has started to get challenging and I'm really enjoying it. I think they just spent way too many levels babying you through the mechanics of how to play and introducing all the challenge rules. The amount of criticism this game receives is unjustified. I'd rate it above Super Mario 2 for example. Could have been much better if they ramped the difficulty up earlier in the game.

Shenmue: Hadn't even gotten to the guy in the shop who reads your chinese letter before I got sick of all the wandering about and waiting for things to happen. Put it down for a year then picked it up again and played it constantly until I finished it. Something just clicked for me with the game. Great game.

Games usually get a second chance from me when I have played all my favorite games to death and have no money for a new one or when I get a craving to play a specific genre and already have a game in that genre that I haven't played much.
 
I gave several games a second chance.
Metal Gear Solid: boring, every time I played it I felt bored, so I will not give it another chance ^^ (too much story for me and I hate stealth)
Metroid Prime: at first I felt terribly lost due to the giant world, but when I tried it a second time, I became totally adicted to it =)
Donkey Kong Country: Didn't like it at first, because I played Yoshis Island before it and Yoshi is just so much better ^^. But when I tried it again, later, it was very fun
Yoshis Story: played through it in 2 days, was very frustated, played it again and tried to get all honey melons. It's worth it, because the level get quiete funny in their later parts and so I like it at least a bit
Zelda 2: I thought WTF at first and totally hated it, but when I tried it a second time and wasn't expecting a real Zelda anymore, it became fun.
Super Mario Bros 2 US: Same as Zelda 2
Croc: This is strange, when I played through it when it was new, I liked it, but if I want to play it today I'm bored ;(
Crash Bandicoot: I played Super Mario 64 first so I found this to be crap, but when I played it again, later, it was quiete fun (even if it didn't match Mario at all ^^)
Spyro: I gave it at least 4 chances, but I think it's one of the most overrated games ever
Ratchet&Clank: I played it and thought WTF how bad is THIS? I played it again and thought WTF how bad is THIS? It didn't get any better ;(
Rayman 1: I didn't like it first time I played it, but I had very much fun playing it again after I finished Rayman 2.
 
Countless PC RPGs.

I can't believe so many people had played MGS2 as their first Metal Gear Solid title.

Need to go back to Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter, Vagrant Story and the like. But I never find time.
 
recently: Lost in Blue. After popping it in for 5 minutes I was ready to return it. Picked it back up on Friday and played it throughout the weekend.
 
Hitman: Contracts. I loved Hitman 2, but for some reason Contracts irritated me. Levels were too dark, the trial-and-error gameplay was pissing me off, and I just couldn't get into it. I set it aside for ages, until I got caught up with a bunch of other games. At that point, I decided to give it one more shot, and if it didn't work out, I'd trade it in. This time, everything somehow clicked, and I recaptured the same feeling I got from Hitman 2. I suspect part of it was that when I first played the game, I was feeling the pressure of more than a dozen games in my backlog and just had no patience for retrying levels. The other part was that on my second try I dropped my usual stinginess regarding using items, and enjoyed a lot more flexibility in how I approached each mission. At any rate, now I'm eagerly looking forward to the next installment. :)
 
Final Fantasy Tactics: I'd never really been into strategy rpgs, so when I decided to try it out, I kept approaching it like a regular rpg, which just doesn't work. I got frustrated and put it away. Picked it back up after a year, and it all just clicked with me.

Quake 2: I was initially disappointed that they moved from the medieval/sci-fi look they had going with the first game, and i didn't want to like it. Add to that the fact that the game was inhumanly dark, and i said fuck it. Later on when i installed it again, I found a workaround to fix the darkness, and I liked the game enough to play all the way through in one day. One incredibly long day.
 
Final Fantasy VII - Basically the first RPG I bothered to try out. The first time I played it I was like "Man, this game never ends!". I can't even remember if I even got past the first disc or not. Some friends in high school kept talking about the game so I figured I'd give it another go and ended up with one of the best Playstation game memories.

Final Fantasy VIII - When I played it the first time I didn't like anything about it, but kept going because I wanted to see if I'd begin to enjoy the story as much as the one in FF7. So I suffered through mediocre music, horrible framerate, long ass battle animations etc. for quite some time. Better games came along and I eventually forgot about it. A couple of years later I picked it up again and it was just as bad as I remember. I will never touch that game again.

ICO - For some reason my save files for this game kept disappearing, so I must have started over at least three times. I want to like it for the atmosphere, since I'm a sucker for that, but thanks to other games I've come to hate escort missions. They are the anti-fun of gaming.

Edit: Sorry about that
 
Zerodoppler said:
Final Fantasy VII - Basically the first RPG I bothered to try out. The first time I played it I was like "Man, this game never ends!". I can't even remember if I even got past the first disc or not. Some friends in high school kept talking about the game so I figured I'd give it another go and ended up with one of the best Playstation game memories.

Final Fantasy VII - When I played it the first time I didn't like anything about it, but kept going because I wanted to see if I'd begin to enjoy the story as much as the one in FF7. So I suffered through mediocre music, horrible framerate, long ass battle animations etc. for quite some time. Better games came along and I eventually forgot about it. A couple of years later I picked it up again and it was just as bad as I remember. I will never touch that game again.

ICO - For some reason my save files for this game kept disappearing, so I must have started over at least three times. I want to like it for the atmosphere, since I'm a sucker for that, but thanks to other games I've come to hate escort missions. They are the anti-fun of gaming.
Click to expand...


You, uh, have Final Fantasy 7 listed twice. I take it you mean 8 or 9?
 
Metal Gear Solid 3

I tried the demo, which sucked so incredibly much that I didn't pre-order, though I'd intended to.

Then it got rave reviews, and people on boards (like here) won't shut up about how it's the best game of this gen, etc, etc. So I got it from Gamefly and gave it another try.

After about an hour with it, I thought it was the biggest pile of dogshit I've ever played from Konami. The defining moment, I think, was early on, when a crocodile that was a good 6 feet away from me snapped at thin air and somehow bit me and knocked me down. So I got up, walked over to it, and killed it by waving my knife around in the air 3 feet over its head. The MGS game physics simply do NOT work on anything other than flat walls and cylindrical hit boxes.

I don't know, maybe I need to borrow a save from after the shitty beginning part is over, or something.

BTW, Metal Gear Solid is one of my favorite games, and 2, although disappointing, was still far better than most games. So I may even give 3 another go with Subsistence.
 
Ocarina of Time is the only one that comes to mind. I held out on buying either a N64 or a Playstation for a very long time, and OOT was eventually the game that convinced me to get a Playstation. I tried OOT at a friend's house for a while, but I didn't like what they had done with Zelda by moving it to 3D, and I hated the camera and controls. I tried playing through it a couple more times over the years but could never stand the game long enough to finish it. Eventually I preordered Wind Waker and got the bonus OOT disc, and actually finished the game on the Cube. It ended up being a pretty great game overall, and I'm glad I finally played through it, but I still hate the camera and controls.
 
SolidSnakex said:
Technically, the game hasn't even started at that point.
Click to expand...

Hence this sentence: "I don't know, maybe I need to borrow a save from after the shitty beginning part is over, or something."

But I'm not in a big rush to try. I shouldn't have to skip parts to get to the good stuff. The beginning of a game should be good enough to draw you in, not so bad that it drives you away from an (apparantly) otherwise good game.
 
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