Biggest Suprises

[Kaneda]

Rez. I bought it on a whim and it quickly became one of my all-time faves.

[Despair]

Oh Yeah, Rez !!! How could I forget about this one.

[MechDeus]

Cosmic Smash
Valkryie Profile
Burnout
ZOOT (I simply wasn't expecting how incredible it'd end up being)

There have been many others that I've fallen in love with and didn't expect to, but only over time. SFIII:TS and ESP RaDe did not blow me away at first, I only casually played them briefly when I first encountered each, and thought they were decent. Then I actually sat down to learn them and fell desperately in love. Oh, the times we shared, the nights we spent together, learning each other, caressing each other...

[Brisco Bold]

A couple:

Jet Set Radio: wow.

Shenmue II: I'm aware that the original was slightly linear, and slightly boring at times. But I'm a story-whore, so I was gonna buy this regardless. After going through a tumultous X-Mas (the game got delayed, then cancelled, then imported by EB, then delayed again) I finally got it home. Holy shite!

Halo: I didn't really heed the hype, so before I played it, it was just a run of the mill game from Microsoft. Woah.

Fatal Fury Mark of Wolves: I bought this during my, "I'll-buy-anything-cuz-i'ts-on-DC" phase.

Monkey Island (the original)
Castlevania Bloodlines (yeah, I like it. WHAT ABOUT IT!?!)

There are more, but I'm tired.

[AaronChance]

There have been a lot of surprises, especially in my pile of dreamcast imports. The two biggest gems there are definitely Atelier Marie and Doki Doki Heartshaker Remix. The former is a simplistic but very addictive RPG and the latter is a challanging and complex take on mindsweeper. I'd also add the Sakura Taisen series, but somehow even before playing it I knew it would be something special.

Most recent surprise has to be Aggressive Inline for Xbox. It's more fun than any one game has the right to contain. I don't even like Tony Hawk, but AI transcends the extreme sport genre for me.

[Regus]

Contra Hard Corps: When I first played it, I must have shouted "Holy shit, that was great!" at least 5 times in the first level alone.

GTA3: Seeing as I didn't like the previous games, I expect this to suck. Thank god I was wrong.

Red Dog: Packs so much quality into such a small disc.

Fur Fighters: God Machine Valley and the Dinasaur levels are massive.

Soul Reaver 2: The final chapter, and boss battle.

And most recently, Stuntman.

I'm surprised I keep playing this game. I should have thrown it away in a fit of blind rage ages ago, yet I continue to play it.

[johnk_]

most recently, i think it was Record of Lodoss War that had me really suprised.. mostly at the overall quality of the game.. very well done!

[Low]

Metropolis Street Racer- Normally am not a big racing fan, but I must have logged over 150 hours on this after finding it in the bargain bin.

Fur Fighters- Another damn good Bizzarre Creation.

Ghost in the Shell- I expected it to suck bad, instead I got a fresh and addictive tank game.

Silent Bomber- Never heard of it til I played the demo.

lack of Love- Saw two pics of it in Tips and Tricks, gambled on the import and enjoyed it quite a bit.

REZ and Cosmic Smash- OK I did wait for these games and wasn't really shocked by their arrivals. In DC's last year I spent a ton of time checking the quality games still scheduled and I totally missed these two. I first noticed REZ in Kabuki's GG sig and Cosmic Smash through a GG thread.

Winback- Bargain bin fodder, surprisely enjoyable though.

Dragon's Curse, Neutopia- Two simple adventure games that I expected very little from and now consider classics.

*-neo

[Compass]

I agree with a lot of these and am now interested in several others.

Here's a few already mentioned that I second:

Zelda Seasons and Oracles -- Holy crap, I had no idea. I figured yeah, they'll be cool, more zelda goodness. But I had no idea I'd play them back to back in a whirlwind two week gaming frenzy, ignoring all other games 'cause these were just so great.

Koudelka -- Am playing this right now and almost started a new thread for it. This game rules! Got nothing but ho-hum reviews that complained about the battle system. Bah. Battle system is a little slow but fine otherwise. And everything else is awesome. Cool story. Ingenious and very creepy monster designs. Gorgeous CG cutscenes. And for once, some competent voice acting! I'm on Disc 3 and plan to finish tonight or tomorrow as I have the week off and no desire to play anything else. The only reason I was playing this in the first place was to set up the much praised Shadow Hearts. Now I doubt if I'll like SH near as much as Koudelka.

Also:
Vagrant Story
Fatal Frame
Seiklus
ICO
Xenogears (second try)

[Jeremy]

Project Gotham Racing - After not liking MSR all that much, I was hesitant to try this one, but I'm still loving it ten months after buying it.
WWE WrestleMania XIX - After X8 kind of blew, I figured this one follow that trend, amazingly, it ended up being my favorite wrestling game to play.