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.
Oh, this one’s easy: Subnautica.
Definitely Subnautica. It doesn’t matter how many times I play it, there’s still the twitchy dread. I imagine if I could play it for the first time, but in VR, I would never have finished it and there’d be a hole in the wall where I threw the controller.
I didn’t find all the parts to the Cyclops on my first play until I was like an hour away from finishing the game. So months later I played it again, so that I could find the Cyclops sooner. Definitely didn’t feel as magical the second time around, even with my shiny new sub.