We all have that moment in a game where it hits, you know you are in for an amazing ride. Sometimes it happens when you think you are getting to the end esp when the game tells you it is, only to find out, no it's just beginning.

What are some of your favorite moments when a game opens up?


As just a couple examples for me personally.

Grandia when you have spent hours exploring, grinding and going town to town, dungeon to dungeon. The game keeps talking about the edge of the world! Then you arrive at this wall that is insurmountable. You climb and climb, kill enemy after enemy for what feels like hours (it's not). Your party has to camp out on it a few times. Climbing this thing is a full-on trek in itself. Then after what seems like an eternity you reach the top and look out to the horizon and what do we see? Not the end, but a new beginning. The moment is so awesome accompanied by this music.




Xenoblade Chronicles. 2 Sequels later we are used to the massive scale of these games but that first time leaving what was already a big area of Colony 9 through a cave-like dungeon and as soon as you exit you get this wonderful image of the end goal. The Mechonis. You turn around and see  Bionis Leg of Gaur Plains. When you first see it almost feels overwhelming. It's just the first area and you can explore and discover for hours. The scale makes you feel small and insignificant despite the fact you hold the fate of the world literally in your hands.

I loved the opening to TP. Exploring Orden (ino people go on about the opening tutorials part of the game but I loved it), then when I walked out of the forest into Hyrule field for the first time with detailed (2006) graphics my hype-meter exploded! XD. I played the Wind Waker and finished it and also had the Zelda Collection too (which includes Zelda 1, 2, OOT, MM).

Eventhough I had a SNES and N64, I never had any of the Zelda games until the windwaker in 2003. Then when I saw the E3 2004 Zelda trailer, I was hyped from that moment.

So the Hype in twilight Princess was perfect and it made walking into that field one of the most remember-able experiences in a game. There is a tonne of other games I want to mention, a few are:

• Mario 64 (castle interior/exterior)
• Banjo-Kazooie (Tick-Tock Woods, Loved the 4 different seasons, that level felt like a game in itself XD)
• Zelda Wind Waker (All of the game)
• Fallout 3 (All the Game, particularly walking towards that green island miles into the distance, the one with the dying tree)
• Red Dead Redemption (All of the Game, particularly Racing to Mexico for the first time on horseback)
• Bioshock Infinite (The Views throughout the game)
• Minecraft (getting dropped into the world for the first time as night soon falls)
• Resident Evil 1 (All the camera views throughout the game, exploring the mansion particularly the GC remake)
• Resident Evil 2 (just starting out in an open city with zombies next to you)
• Resident Evil 4 (Village)
• Dead Island (it's amazing from the start, then you get the car and the game becomes even more immersive)
• Xenoblade Chronicles X (Every polygon and texture pixel in the World including the water and sky)

I guess Final Fantasy 3 would be a good example
You can see the world map and the size, but only to realize that is only a small section of the real world

The Wind Waker would be a personal favourite. Starting off on a small island and when you first set sail in Windfall, the world truly opens up

Ok. I have a better idea for tomorrow, but I might just stick with this, even though it looks like a sarcastic post:

Marian getting punched in the stomach in the Double Dragon intro ( arcade edition ). I was about 12 years old when I initially saw this, and it blew my fucking mind. I was laughing so hard ( and continued to do so as the first levels unfolded ). I had never seen anything like this in a game up to that point. It was a whole new level of violence, and it was conveyed through state-of-the-art graphics and sound. Guy, flanked by thugs, saunters up to a woman, and delivers a 5 knuckle shillelagh to the breadbasket. Ooooof! She falls down, then the guy who punched her picks her up and slings her over his shoulder. Marian's also drawn pretty sexily, with revealing clothing, and as she's carried off screen her underwear is quite visible. It added to the newness of it all. Much more "adult" content than I was accustomed to. So for me, it hit the ground running. I know it's a cheap example, but I'm coasting on fumes right now.

Shenmue. This game was mind-blowing when it came out. The graphics and detail of the world were insane(still impressive to me). You walk out that house the first time and hear that snow crunch under your feet and hear this very serine calming music.

Easy FFXIII for me. The moment it opens up, it does so with a bang. You'll enter that wide green field and see those giant tortoises in the distance. Turns out you can even fight them! Then it turns out you can be dust in half a second. That moment was just awesome. Probably made even better by the incessant railroading before.

Resetera !

Taking the Master Sword out of it's pedestal and then finding out there's an even bigger game with adult Link to play then you are played as a child in Ocarina of Time.

wut?

This blew my mind too and was the thing instantly came to mind as I read the title of your thread. I was overwhelmed by this scale of freedom that just dropped on me.

Besides that, I should mention Kid Icarus: Uprising. You reach chapter 9 and it is named 'Medusa's Final Battle' and Medusa was shown so far as your main enemy and was known to be it in the original, so I thought the game was ending. This was supported by credits start rolling. While the credits roll Palutena and Pit keep on chatting like they always do and then Hades joins in. Pit asks who he is and Hades says he is the real boss of the Underworld and Palutena cheerily confirms that. The credits end and the game continues. For a LOT more chapters.