Katsono

I’ve had a similar experience with my wife on Dark Souls. I tried making her play multiple games that are considered as accessible and beginner friendly, she didn’t really enjoy them. Then I suggested she tries Dark Souls to get some laughs… surprisingly she got hooked.

Speaking of mods, if you haven’t already played it I highly recommend My House.

Speaking of time mechanics, Touhou Luna Nights is a pretty short metroidvania where you play as a character that can stop time and they really nailed the time stop mechanic. You can use it to avoid the very difficult to dodge attacks from the bosses and they’re an essential strategy to counter some of the attacks, what’s more they allow you to launch a lot of daggers which will only hit when you restart time and that is very satisfying to do. The plateforming also benefited from it, with things such as moving platforms to freeze or climbing on top of the daggers you launch yourself after stopping time.