I remember a few from various stages of my life (born 1984).
Seeing the demo footage of Sonic 2 in Woolworths and thinking the leaves falling down in Aquatic Ruin zone was so cool and advanced.
The original Sega arcade of Virtua Racing with the moving cars completely blew me away.
I remember my uncle loading up Cannon Fodder on his Amiga, and a REAL song with REAL music came out, along with REAL photos. I was amazed haha.
A few years on I remember a PlayStation demo disc having promo footage of the first Gran Turismo and it looked so real to me, I watched it over and over. The first Driver on PS1 looked absolutely amazing to me also.
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Stepping out of the sewers in Oblivion for the first time. Nothing has really captured that feeling since.
Everything about Metroid Prime. Incredible soundtrack, gorgeous scenery, interesting wildlife, challenging bosses/puzzles, and so so so much lore. It’s still probably my all time favorite game. Can’t wait for Prime 4 to come out!
Actually making it to level -1 in SMB after finding out how to do it from the TV show Video Game Power. I needed my NES Advantage to do it reliably, but it blew my mind to learn it was legit.
Pitfall on Atari 2600
Becaise I’m old, I guess. Pacman, too, but pitfall seemed more advanced.
UT2004
Boomer take, but going from NES to the SNES and seeing the advances in sprites and animations in Nintendo games like Donkey Kong Country, Link to the Past, Yoshi’s Island, and Super Metroid was really mind blowing.
Also seeing the early days of more cinematic approaches to storytelling in SquareSoft games like FF IV, VI, and Chrono Trigger. Those really forshadowed how games would mature into a serious storytelling medium for me. FF IV’s opening scene on the airship and the music is still burned into my brain.
The transition to 3D the following generation was also insanely impressive obviously, but none of those games have aged half as well as the 32 bit era.
EverQuest, playing a 3d online fantasy game with some sim elements with other people, was something very new and felt like the future. Limiting fast travel to specific places and classes made the world feel huge. Stumbling across the weird stuff like giant chess boards or a whole underwater dungeon made it feel unique.
The beginning of Link to the Past, with the rain, thunder and lightning. LttP took it to another level coming from NES games and even most PC games at the time, setting a mood and atmosphere I had never experienced in gaming before.
Loading into World of War craft for the first time back in 2005 is probably the biggest.
Seeing all the people running around and doing their thing was incredible. It made me super excited to go explore the world.
The first time I saw gameplay footage of the original Doom, I thought it looked almost photorealistic. I must’ve been like 6 or 7 at the time.
Getting into Hyrule field for the first time in Ocarina of Time after being stuck in the forest for months or years. I got promptly destroyed by a pineapple.
I don’t remember much from my childhood, but that stuck with me.
For me it was the jump to 3D in the 32 bit era. We already had some games in 3D prior to that, but with the arrival of Playstation and Saturn the landscape changed forever.
Biggest for me would be going online with the Dreamcast. At home I was online with the DC before we had a PC so used it quite a lot.
I probably spent to much time on Dreamarena chat rooms and playing PSO with randoms.
Final Fantasy X blew my mind in pretty much every way possible. Never had I seen such amazing graphics, heard such great video game music, been immersed in such a gripping story in a game.
Honestly I think I may have been chasing that high ever since.
I came here to say the same thing, first game I played with full voice acting. I was blown away, and the graphics compared to everything else to that point we’re outstanding. Nothing has topped FFX.
