So, in the last year or two I wanted to expend my pretty low number of genres of interest. One day, I came across the game Battle Chef Brigade on steam - a game that's part side scrolling action and part Match 3 (!?).

Now, even with my previous statement considered, I never considered getting into the Match 3 genre. My experience with the genre is MAYBE a few flash games in my early childhood, and the knowledge that Candy Crash exists. So you see, I was not necessarily excited for this part of the game.

But Battle Chef Brigade was different from what I usually played, it was out of my comfort zone. So I said to hell with it, and decided to get it. And it did not excite me, at least not as I hoped. Sure, I knew I'm still at the tutorial phase, and things are usually calmer at this point, but I still did not feel like launching this game again. And the situation stayed like that for quite a while.

A few months later (or maybe even a year?) I remembered this game exists, and decided to give it another try, since I really wanted to love this game. And 20 minutes after I started it again, it hit me - I could not care less about any cutscene, dialog, or even the smallest bit of story. While the performances were solid enough, the lines felt robotic and the story as a whole was a cliché and boring.

Once I started to skip everything that wasn't pure gameplay (while being careful to not skip any tutorial) the game was great! The action and match 3 parts of the gameplay surprisingly complemented each other. The game didn't suddenly become the perfect game, but it was so much more enjoyable just by skipping one part of it!

There are two lessons I learned from this game. One is that a game that I don't enjoy today might still be a game I will enjoy tomorrow (and vice versa, but that seems a bit more obvious), so I shouldn't disqualify games for all eternity. Another is that just because the game is presented as a full package, doesn't mean I have to take it as one. It's ok to skip and ignore parts of a game you don't like, as long as the games allows it, without feeling guilty, or that you are "missing out". Because forcing yourself to experience the parts you don't like will only diminish your enjoyment as a whole.

So, do you have any games that were much more fun the second time around, or games that became more fun once you decided to skip parts of them?