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Moments when you realized a game was special

Dishonored-Golden-Cat-Gameplay.jpg



At first I had trouble getting into Dishonored, but midway
House of Pleasure and starting The Royal Physicia
n (mission 3 and 4), it completely opened up and I started to love it.
 
Camping in various locations in Red Dead Redemption once id picked a gorgeous sunrise location. Pure delight just waiting for sunset.

Yep RDR is legend.
 
Skyrim - coming across the first village
Fallout 3 - the whole intro and then leaving the Vault. Absolutely amazing. One of the BEST moments in gaming
Bioshock - seeing Rapture for the first time
LBP - playing the beta. Was magical
DX: HR - walking around Sarif for the first time. Then going onto the streets... What topped that was seing the second city.......
 
Many MGS moments fit this bill so I won't delve into that. So I'll just say MGS Franchise: The Thread. Jk. Here are a few.

Golden Sun 1 & 2 when I realised Djinn combos affected summons.

P3P when I realised just how many Personas (personae? Lol) there actually were.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution when I got the stealth camo ability
sorry, GAF, I call invisibility abilities stealth camo in every game.
And when I finally figured out hacking.

FF XII (I know a lot GAFfers hate this game, but I love it)- when I mastered the gambit system, the entire game changed for me.
 
The moment the Sega logo booted up the first time I played Panzer Saga chills went up my spine like nothing ever before, and sadly, nothing ever since :(

...Although Phantom Dust came close ;)
 
Enco said:
Skyrim - coming across the first village
Fallout 3 - the whole intro and then leaving the Vault. Absolutely amazing. One of the BEST moments in gaming
Bioshock - seeing Rapture for the first time
LBP - playing the beta. Was magical
DX: HR - walking around Sarif for the first time. Then going onto the streets... What topped that was seing the second city.......
Click to expand...

Skyrim and Fallout 3's beginnings I kind of took for granted, but looking back on it, it was pretty special the first time around.
 
First time I arrived in both Rapture and Columbia.
In Fallout 3 when you live the vault for the first time...
TLOU prologue, of course....
 
When I literally couldn't stop playing ICO. I was maybe 2 hours in and said to myself: "Yep, it's gonna be one of those games that are more of an experience than a game." And what an experience it was.
 
I thought Braid was a damn good game when I played it, but believe it transcended the format with the final puzzle at the finale.

Same with Fez when I had to pull out a notebook.
 
I think it was in Assassins Creed 2 where at the end of the tutorial you jump off into the water with your uncle? Then the music plays as the title comes up. That was when I was like this game is gonna be something special (:
 
I remember as a kid poo pooing Metal Gear Solid when my older brother first got it and watching him play the VR tutorial levels thinking it's just some dumb action game. And then I came home from school one day and he was in the middle of fighting Sniper Wolf in the snow and then THAT cutscene that followed...seeing atmosphere and emotion made me want to play it myself. I instantly became a fan of the series... until I saw the ending of MGS4 :l
 
Stumbling out of the cave and seeing the whole island and washed up boat with the upbeat music playing, then the somber key plays and Lara just... sighs.

From that moment, Tomb Raider 2013 sucked me in.

Damn, I love that game. I'll never get the hate.

tombraider4.jpg
 
i don't remember exactly what moment it was, but the first few encounters with the Shivans in FreeSpace are amazing. They're basically the Reapers from Mass Effect done right.
 
001-C in Wonderful 101.

As an odd one: Labrys' story mode in Persona 4 Arena. It not only made the game's story mode worth existing, but it retroactively made Persona 3 even better.

As personal special moment I'll never forget: Me and my companion had played over half of Journey's campaign together, and after reaching the end, just before walking to the light, we stopped to appreciate the moment. Then s/he started running around seemingly aimlessly, until it hit me: S/he was drawing hearts to the sand.
What an unforgettable experience.
 
Oh and Silent Hill 2, I thought I was just playing a creepy game until I saw the video tape scene and the staircase scene that followed shortly after and the emotions came rushing in. I remember feeling deeply disturbed after realizing what was going on in the video tape. And then it all connected with the one line Angela says on that staircase: "For me it's always like this." I felt so sorry for her and I realized how deep the game really was.
 
Came in to say Ori and the Blind Forest :-). Both beginning and ending made me shed a tear.

The Last of Us. I expected a generic action game till I completed the prologue. Blew my socks off and I knew I was going to experience something magic.

Edit: beating the first boss of Dark Souls. I was overwhelmed.
 
Kind of a weird one, but:

DragonRealms - Years after I played it.

DragonRealms was a MUD (that's a text-based MMORPG, for the younger people), and it was extremely unique. It was also one of the first RPGs I played though, and it took years of playing other games and learning all the cliches and conventions before I looked back and realized that Dragonrealms broke almost every one of them.

Since I can't post screenshots:
Health - No (visible) HP, body parts would suffer anything from abrasions and flesh wounds to being completely severed.
Classes - The obvious fighter class wore lighter armor than the offensive mage class, and the trader class could get caravans and trade commodities.
Healing - The Empath class would transfer your wounds to themselves, and then heal themselves.
Experience - Skill gains were neither instant nor random. Using a skill would put you in a learning state, and using it more would increase the rate that you learned. However, it was also possible to use something too much and reach a point where you can't process anything more, so you would need to take a break to let everything sink in.
Death - Permadeath existed, but you could pray to your favorite god and complete trials to gain favors, allowing you to revive.

The company's first graphical RPG was one of the ultimate pieces of vaporware.
 
When I got a N64 for my birthday in '97 and played Mario 64 for the first time and a little later, having a similar moment with OoT. It was astounding that I started playing games on a ZX Spectrum just over ten years prior, and now tech had evolved so rapidly my favourite Nintendo games had gone 3d.

Also:

When I emerged from the opening dungeon in Oblivion.

When a friend and I finished the co-op missions in Portal 2. Solving the final puzzle is still my greatest online gaming experience.

Most recently, Bloodborne. Everything about it, I could not put it down. Instant classic.
 
In Xenoblade when
the Mechon attack Colony 9
I knew it was going to be an amazing game.

In Dark Souls when I arrived to Anor Londo. I really enjoyed the game before but I was amazed by how gorgeous it was, and Ornstein and Smough were a blast to fight.
 
Most recently... when the Alien dropped down into medical and for the first time I observed the fucker wasn't patrolling a set path after all. It felt like there was something loose in the rooms and corridors with me vs a simple AI I could easily figure out and dodge simply by learning an easy pathway it followed every time.

Also first time I turned the corner in P.T. and saw something I really didn't want to get closer to.
 
Fallout 3 - opening the vault door for the first time. Stepping out in to the world, your characters eyes taking a few seconds to adjust to the light, then seeing how big the place was.
 
While browsing some random forum I found this artwork about a game that Mistwalker would be releasing in the future:
d73f8390b5a54a03dcb5f93ea5f8db43.jpg
Click to expand...

Then, strangely drawn towards the art, I started looking for information about the game, I even set that artwork as my wallpaper, but ended up forgetting about the game, specially it's name.

Then one day, whilst I was taking a walk with a friend we decided to enter some random store, and found this lone brand-new CE in the Wii games section. "The last story", it read.

I picked it up on the spur of the moment, since the art style seemed familiar, and I wanted a game to play during the holidays. Once I opened it, extremely hyped up without knowing why... there it was, the soundtrack's cover had that same artwork as my desktop's wallpaper.

I was half expecting it, to be honest, but damn, I knew I was in for a ride, and when I reached that point in the story, I had no more doubts.
zael-and-calista-stargazer-tower.jpg
Click to expand...
 
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