Surprise hit games, any favorites? Options

[unitself]

What's a game that totally took you by surprise? One that was cheap or you knew nothing about but you took a chance and ended up having the time of your life.

For example - Soul Reaver for the DC. I picked it up for like $7 one day cause the cover looked cool and I read some article about it saying that it was kinda fun. OMG. It was the best $7 I had ever spent. I ate and drank nothing but Razael for weeks and weeks.

Another one was Shadow Man, again for the DC. Now I know this game wasn't the be-all-end-all if games, but I really really liked it. There was a stage where it literally creeped me and my wife out. There was this sound of a baby crying... over and over and over... it made you feel really bad and gave you a purpose for finding out what the hell was going on!

I guess we can all put PSO on the list too.

[Mute]

Hmmm, this one is a tough one since I've picked up so many titles over the years. I guess one that stands out in my mind is Record of Lodoss War on Dreamcast. I had never played it before but it always caught my eye whenever I tidied up the Dreamcast games section at the gamestore I once worked at. I finally picked it up when it dropped to $19.99. I was more than happy with the game when I began to play through it. At the time, I was big time Diablo II player and the action in RoLW was very similar in style. The storyline was a bit hard to follow at first since I've never actually watched any of the anime. However, the overall gameplay gripped me enough to keep me tied to the game. One of my favorite parts was when Parn and Deedlit joined with you as NPCs. Unforunately, I never did finish the game. At the time I had a dozen other titles I was playing through and devoted less and less time to RoLW. I still have the save file though, so perhaps one day I'll pick it up again and finally finish the sucker. ;P