What media "lived up to the hype" for you?

Have you ever seen the DiC dub? I honestly prefer that over the Viz dub.

Final Fantasy X. I just really, really liked this one. It's not a perfect game, but the iconic characters and themes of religion, politics, discrimination, memory, aging, parental trauma, etc. really spoke to me. I WANTED to keep playing, to the point I think the PS5 network claimed I had spent over 80 hours on it? (haha) And it's just a gorgeous game in general, with some of my favorite character designs in any Final Fantasy game.
EDIT: Also once I got the hang of it and was willing to put in the classic RPG grind and seek out chests, I found the Sphere Grid system pretty fun. 

My partner felt the same way! He genuinely likes the game now.

While I can now better appreciate the first Spongebob movie as an epic adventure yarn meant as a solid "series finale," I too like the sequel better in many ways, and have since 2015. 
Glad you liked the newest Pokemon game! I've been meaning to play Arceus Legends but haven't gotten around to it yet. 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_South_Africa_(video_game)

This great freakin' soccer game.

I had always wanted to play a soccer game like this. Always. Every national team, all qualifying modes, lots of venues, etc...

This game wasn't perfect but it had most of what I wanted. 199(!) countries playable, many of them fully licensed and all with real players/likeness. Most of the qualifying rounds were included, there was a good mix of both licensed and fictional stadiums, so many that it felt like you were travelling across the world. There was a career mode, qualifying mode, custom World Cup mode, scenario mode, a cool NASA map to play with, a solid soundtrack with songs I still listen to, and good graphics. Back when the servers were up the Online World Cup/Battle of the Nations modes were insane.

This was the first video game I ever paid for with my hard-earned money as a kid - doing chores and all that stuff for my allowance and saving it up over time. I pre-ordered it off Amazon and I will never forget the day I first played it. Every national team and I could do whatever I wanted with the game. I miss this era of EA games - they had so many bangers and it's a shame what they've become.

I still play this game all the time actually. So many modern sports titles are focus on pay to play/lootbox crap that I have no interest in. What happened to making a game with competent features? What's more crazy is this game is so easy to revisit. I can do a new qualifying campaign with a country I haven't tried yet or do some personal challenge.

RIP Simon Humber the great director of this game.

It goes to show you that games might look pretty but in some ways have gotten worse these days.

It's crazy that games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 76, and No Man's Sky were released practically unfinished and managed to redeem themselves with QoL updates over time. Those games are the exception though; so many buggy games that need day one patches, and we're seeing a negative trend of games just being released in a half-finished state only to be worked on over time (Starfield comes to mind).

I'm nostalgic for 2007-2013. When you got a game, it was complete. If it sucked, you didn't buy it and the studio would shut down or get better with their future product. DLC was only used for additional content for an already complete game or niche features that you didn't need, but were nice to have. I also feel there was way more variety too, and of course no forced multiplayer.