Two initially jump to mind for me.
Outer Wilds took me three attempts to get into, but when it did…wow. Its a game that I is definitely more than the sum of it’s parts, and one that I’d argue is genuinely beautiful in it’s story and how it tells that story.
That said, once you’ve worked out the games mystery; it’s story, it’s tricks, timing and logistics, I wonder how more pull the game would have.
Return of the Obra Dinn is a game that I spend a lot of my time thinking about. The music, the atmosphere and of course, the games moment to moment gameplay.
Those puzzles will likely (hopefully) melt from my mind at some point, but even then I fear that initial sense of excitement and intrigue will be lost.
As much as I plan on going back to it at some point, I’m not sure a game of it’s nature is all that well suited to additional playthroughs unfortunately.
I have to go back to the first game I was ever hooked on, and that was soldier of fortune II.
My buddies were all playing quake and unreal tournament… And I wanted something that was more modern and realistic. I picked up sof2 on a whim and played it a little bit. I was still fairly young and didn’t understand online multi-player. It was this thought that it was very involved and clumsy, and could be a pain. One night I went to the multiplayer tab, which generated a list of servers. I double clicked on one and the game started to load. I remember being blown away! “Is that it?! Am I really loading in to play other real people?!”
I was instantly hooked. That whole experience was really something.
I know, it probably sounds lame to the younger people here… But growing up, the internet didn’t exist… At least until I was about 8.