15 Games That Were Way Better Than Expected

Here are 15 games that people thought wouldn't be great, but actually turned out to be awesome.

[strayanalog]

I remember the huge negative reaction to Wind Waker because it was deemed "childish looking" and everyone wanted the real (and amazing) Space World 2000 demo. Admittedly, I was off-put at first, but remained on the fence until a demo released. So I drove down to my local On Cue when the moment arrived and saw what not being so judgmental could offer. Now, I consider it one of the very best Zelda games (though I still hate Tingle, that greedy the-world-can-die-until-I-rip- you-off a-hole).

Kingdom Battle: This was without a doubt the best surprise I've had in gaming in at least five years. When it leaked I thought it was interesting, but I wasn't really sold until I gave it some time and research. Glad I did, because the gameplay was terrific, offered good challenge, and the humor was great - not completely hilarious mind you, but it kept me entertained when I least expected it.‎

[naruga]

i completely agree with the article about Last Guardian , Wind Waker and MGr Rising ....though i had no doubt that Ueda with Last guardian will totally deliver ...TLG proved to be a real gem above many decent high rated games...also MGR catched me completely off guard as it was totally different form what Kojima first showed us and its wasa hellof fun and solid game ...At last Wind Waker i was sceptical along many others with its style of graphics but totally ended to be the 2nd best Zelda (together with Twilight Princess) game for my tastes, after BotW

[GhostTurtle]

Dude, I was crushed when I first saw WW. SW2000 demo looked SOO amazing for it's time. The possibilities.... Agree with everything you said. WW is one of the best Zelda games.

[FallenAngel1984]

I can only imagine the wtf thought process people had when Kingdom Hearts was first unveiled at E3 2001.

I’m certain nobody expected it to have the huge success that it received.

[michellelynn0976]

WW is a full fledged classic now and one of the best games ever released.

[theshredded]

Definitely Batman for me and dmc.

[Daisysnow]

I totally agree with doom! It was alot of fun. It could have ended up bad

[Big_Game_Hunters]

DmC was trash. Also if anything the last guardian was one of the most dissapointing ganes this gen. That game is from the makers of SOTC, do you have any idea what kind of expectations people have from a dev like that after a game like SOTC?

[Spikeantestor]

The author of the book The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe said in the forward to it that he wrote it for children and people who were old enough to enjoy childish things. He recognized that we have a tendency, at a certain age, to lose our ability to love things like fairy tales when we think maturity is something more valuable. Once we are comfortable in who we are we can again appreciate childish things. We can also then realize how immature the things we thought made us so adult really were.

Nintendo found themselves the victim of this fact during the GameCube era. Players had been children when they owned an NES but were in thier late teens and early twenty's when Nintendo started selling the GCN. The audience for software was in that strange age where childish things, no matter how good, were considered lesser. As a result, Nintendo, releasing the same great, family-friendly games the same way they always had, lost out to the PS2 and it's promises of maturity.

But it could be argued that the most amazing thing the compny did, the most "Nintendo" thing, was to look at the climate of the times and release into it the most kid-friendly (from a visual perspective) Zelda game they could come up with.

The player base for video games has hit that period of true maturity where they can look at what Nintendo creates with appreciation once again. But it's a testament to the sheer quality of Wind Waker that, even when the company's way of doing things was at it's most unappreciated, the public was still won over by that game.