I'm not talking the first time you played Mario Bros and thought "Wow, this game is hella fun". I mean the first time you were so absorbed by a game's world, story, characters or whatever that it had a profound emotional or intellectual impact on you.
For me it would probably be Link's Awakening. As predicatable as it seems looking back, the end-game revelation that the entire island (and the entire game) was just a dream was mind blowing. Realizing that none of the people and places from the game were actually REAL--that Link had just been exploring a labyrinthian dream--shocked me. I think I actually almost teared up at the end sequence, where Link wakes up floating in the ocean and it plays a reprise of the Windfish's Song.
For the record, I was 8 when I beat it.
Crusty VGchartz old timer who sporadically returns & posts. Let's debate nebulous shit and expand our perpectives. Or whatever.
