Amazing moments when a game blows wide open

[Segata]

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.

[Gunstar Green]

Reaching Anor Londo in Dark Souls was one of these for me.

[fastbilly1]

Breath of the Wild, after you get the glider.

[samsonlonghair]

I remember the first time I played Ocarina of Time I left Link's home village and caught my first glimpse of the great deku tree. That felt like a really big level to me. After I completed that level I expected another one like it. Instead the game opened up the larger world of Hyrule to me. I had so much space to explore! I know that modern games have maps that dwarf the map of Hyrule from Ocarina of Time. Still though, at the time I first played it, that map of Hyrule seemed enormous to me!

[isiolia]

FFVII when you first leave Midgar (or, similarly, when you finally get to Gran Pulse in XIII ).

[Betagam7]

I remember the first time I played Ocarina of Time I left Link's home village and caught my first glimpse of the great deku tree. That felt like a really big level to me. After I completed that level I expected another one like it. Instead the game opened up the larger world of Hyrule to me. I had so much space to explore! I know that modern games have maps that dwarf the map of Hyrule from Ocarina of Time. Still though, at the time I first played it, that map of Hyrule seemed enormous to me!

Yeah, I feel like a lot of younger gamers won't understand just how awe inspiring Hyrule Field was back in the day.

[noiseredux]

getting out of that first cave in Skyrim.

[fastbilly1]

I remember the first time I played Ocarina of Time I left Link's home village and caught my first glimpse of the great deku tree. That felt like a really big level to me. After I completed that level I expected another one like it. Instead the game opened up the larger world of Hyrule to me. I had so much space to explore! I know that modern games have maps that dwarf the map of Hyrule from Ocarina of Time. Still though, at the time I first played it, that map of Hyrule seemed enormous to me!

No doubt. That first time the owl flew off and you got to see how big the world was it was genre defining. Just like the first time you saw the area around Peach's Castle in Mario 64.

[Reprise]

Man, that moment in Grandia is awesome. It's been years and years since I've played Grandia. 7 years, to be exact, I think... So my memory is really hazy about that game, but that moment really does stick out for me.

[Segata]

That moment you first hear First Step Towards Wars in Ys.




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.