What games have truly awed you?

[dunno001]

Hrm... games that actually awed me?

-Super Mario Bros: What do you mean the board can scroll? And have multiple music tracks? A boss? As someone who was raised on the 2600, this was simply amazing to me.

-Dragon Warrior 1: This was my first JRPG, and the size and scope of this game just floored me. How big was it, where was the end? The size of this was quickly eclipsed by Final Fantasy 1, but it was this one that actually did the wow factor for the size of a game.

-Final Fantasy 6: Wait... the boss of the game DID destroy the world? And I have to play in this world? The thought that you don't always get everything you want. This also introduced for me, the actively switching out party members.

-Super Mario 64: Finally... a game that does 3D right, and, to this day, has not been surpassed. And all the new moves given to Mario really made this feel like a complete refresh, and reminded me of what it was like to start gaming anew.

-Revelations: Persona: This game seemed to do dark very well, and best conveyed that good and evil was not such a clear line in gaming. It had a good blend of classic and new, and for me, set the bar for what actually makes a game 'mature.' (Yes, I know that it was rated E at the time, and the PSP remake got a T.)

-Persona 3 FES: I was losing interest in gaming. It was becoming too flashy, too easy, too... well, boring. I remembered seeing praise for Persona 3, on a system that I did not have at the time. (I was late in getting a PS2.) That, with some other games got me to get it, but P3 was out of print. I was told of a "reprint" in one of the Gamestops around here due out in a few months; said reprint was actually for FES. And it made me think again! Something I'd not had to do in gaming for some time. The art of making what I enjoyed about games was not lost in a graphics rush!

-Fragile Dreams: I've always dreamt of being able to explore a place in ruins. But I'm a city person, I like the feeling that there was civilization there at one point. I've looked up several pictures of building from splunkers online for this, and now there was a game that would let me look around?

-Dragon Quest 9: I'm not going to lie, at this point, I'm very jaded against Square-Enix for what they've done to many of my beloved series of yore. But DQ9 has shown me that just by putting in a few silly little things, it'll keep me playing. To date, it has the highest timer on any single playthrough yet; I've beaten the game, sure, but I'm still trying to get those best grottos...

There've also been quite a few other games that have wowed me, and absorbed my soul, (see: Etrian Odyssey), but they didn't really awe me; I'd finish them and be done. Then again, a good chunk of the Atlus catalog does this to me anymore...