Times where your first exposure wasn't a gateway

[Chevywolf30]

Have you ever been exposed to a franchise before you really got into it? I remember watching Return of the Jedi on tv once, but I didn't really get into Star Wars until a few years later. Similarly, I watched a friend redo the Calamity Ganon fight just for fun years before I got into Zelda.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

actually I have a fond memory of seeing some kids with MTG cards back in the early '00s at a scout camp, and I actually got a booster pack of the expansion Scourge from a friend of mine. I never got into it though because of the age restriction on it, so I stuck to pokemon and yugioh for that time. One of my biggest regrets because getting magic cards for birthdays and christmases from relatives would have set me up for life

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

oh definitely pokemon, I first played pokemon yellow when I was in 2nd ish grade and I hated it, I remember even renting a game once that came w/ a free rental of colosseum, which I only played for like 30 minutes b/c I really didn't care about pokemon

then came 11th grade where b/c of circumstances, I gave pokemon firered a shot, and thus became really into pokemon for a year or two

 

[twilitfalchion]

Monster Hunter, probably. I first tried 4 Ultimate two or three years ago before getting frustrated with how slow everything was and giving up. Tried the Generations Ultimate demo a year or two later and had the same experience. Only when I ended up buying Gen Ultimate on sale did I really take the time to get into it, and I'm the MH fan I am now because of that.

 

[Princess Niki]

For me its Zelda cuz I saw bits of OoT when my neighbor was playing and my cousin had me play the beginning of WW once. But I was in 11th grade when I finally had a chance to play it and get further than the first dungeon. I didn't get to progress till after I graduated cuz my friend lent me her GC with TP which is where my love of the series really formed.

 

[Link&Midna]

I think I had a vauge understanding of what Smash was before I got into it, cause I remember being in the 7th/8th grade and playing Minecraft hunger games, and I would play as different characters in my head and I called it Super Smash Bros. Yet I also have no memories associated with even knowing what Smash was aside from splash text memes until Ultimate came out and everyone at my school got into it, so I don't even think I knew more than the name/the basic concept of it lol.

 

[Fraxinus]

Metroid. My first real exposure to the series was me playing the Prime Hunters demo on the display DS at Target whenever we went to the store and I had a lot of fun playing the demo. But the demo kind of mis-conveyed to me the type of game it was, I think, and I was like 10 and was more into the arcade-type appeal that they had set up for the game in the demo. When I finally decided to get the full version of the game, I was really overwhelmed and confused by how different it was from the display demo and had no idea how to cope with it, and had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I ended up returning the game for another 35 dollar game (which was Mario Kart DS btw and was my gateway to Mario Kart, all thanks to Prime Hunters).

I didn't really get to give Metroid another chance until I was older and more familiar with that type of gameplay, but honestly, I think if I played a 2D Metroid instead of Prime Hunters back then, I probably would've adjusted just fine, because it's would've been more familiar to the other kinds of games I played at that age.

 

[Jimmu]

For me it would be Zelda. I never recall actually playing it myself when I was a kid but a friend of mine had it and I watched them play sometimes when I was very young. After that I didn't actually get into the series until Ocarina of Time 3D came out and I started playing the games then.

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

Probably Monster Hunter. I've played two different Monster Hunter demos. I believe the first was on 3DS, but I've also played the demo for Rise. The clunkiness of the gameplay really just pushed me away. Nothing felt good and I couldn't battle my way past the jank. People keep telling me how good the games are, but I just can't get into them.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

There have been some movies friends thought I'd really like that I just couldn't get into. The Christian Bale Batman movies being a stand out. They tried to make me watch The Dark Knight and I did not care for it, so I didn't go on to watch Batman Begins or The Dark Knight Rises.

Oh yeah, Need for Speed. watched the first one and even though I thought it was ok, I didn't have a compelling feeling to watch any of the numerous sequels.

 

[Link&Midna]

need for speed is a movie?? i have the ps3 game and all i do is hit the cop cars and run

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Pokemon, I'm not into card games, never owned a GB/GBC and I thought the cartoon was (and still is) overly repetitive. I did not start enjoying the franchise until my daughter who loves it, got her first game from a cousin, and I tried it to make sure it worked on my GBA. Then I found out how addictive it was.

 

[Fext]

I was actually kinda following the Hollow Knight Kickstarter in 2014, and was pretty tempted to back the project, but at the time didn't really have an income source to rely on and so ultimately didn't.

Only got back into it in late 2018 or so with the Nintendo Switch port, and fell in love. The game is fantastic, and it just kept exceeding my expectations as I got further and further along. Definitely one of my favorites now, even though there was a four-year gap between me hearing about it and thinking it looked really cool to me actually getting around to picking it up.

 

[ASAP_Slash]

smash and monster hunter for me. I had melee for the gcn when i was a tween and played through all the challenge mode quests, but I didn't have much friends and my competitive spirit was never unlocked. Then later on in high school, I got pwned by my skater friends. I was so heated by that that I went home and googled emulation software for the gamecube. That was right when the dolphin emulator had netplay in it's infancy and from then on I was hooked.

For Monster hunter my brother encouraged me to play MH3u for the 3ds. It had really cool monsters but I started on duel blades and struggled so I never finished the game. MH4u came around and I gave it another shot with my bro, but this time I played charge blade and was beating the crap out of monsters with a KO build. I got hooked and then burned out on MHW where the gatcha system is just... unrealistic (I ended up using nexus mod manager to buy deco's from the shop).

 

[Stitch]

Friday the 13th

The worst, yet most consistent horror franchise. None of them are really that good imo, but also none of them are the worst. Grab a beer and some friends, rng which film you watch, and enjoy the slaughter of boring ass teenagers.