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.
Same, I think.
I still vividly remember, just a few hours into my first character (orc hunter), when I made it to the Crossroads in the Barrens for the first time. While I was seeing what NPCs were there and starting to pick up quests, a bunch of Alliance PCs turned up and attacked. Word made it back to Orgrimmar and high-level Horde characters started dropping in. As a level 5-ish character, watching all these high-level characters go at each other was so exciting.
I hit one of the Alliance guys with Hunter’s Mark, which turned on PVP for me, and I was almost immediately one-shotted by something I never saw. coming. Worth it though.
Played through a few of the expansions, but nothing quite recaptured the sense of exploration of that vanilla experience.