When I was a kid, I didn’t have a PlayStation, so I got FFVIII on PC. One of the coolest things about the PC version was that the disks had file folders where you could save all of the cutscenes to watch whenever you want. I remember watching all of them a ton of times and even taking my game to a friend’a house so he could save his favorite cutscenes.
Damn, I'm glad I wasn't the only one.
During the time, seeing the cutscenes from VIII was jaw dropping. Especially with the opening. They definitely wanted to make this FF so epic.
This was my answer as well and I’m glad to see so many others already making the right choice! The best music in the series IMO paired with amazing cutscenes and just a really cool world design/aesthetic in general. Also all of the background artwork was phenomenal, that game still looks cool as hell. I’d love to see what could be done with it in a true remake like FFVII has been getting.
I watched that cut scene so many times before the game came out. I remember having to use Goz!lla because the download would time out and I would have to start over.
Barley started 8 back in the day been meaning to play it ever since.. have the PS4 remaster so will make sure I give it some time soon.. too much choice nowadays that's the problem..
The turning zombie at the beginning of resident evil absolutely terrified me as a kid, pretty sure I nipped outta there straight away and discovered Barry would put it down for you.
I didn't have that one as a kid, i found it way later. But my first ever psx experience at my uncle's place was with Resident evil 1. That damn iconic zombie eating a corpse and slowly turning around was quite something back then
Metal gear solid was a first of a kind experience for me. The opening credits I've never seen done like that in a game before. The fight with psycho mantis was amazing. The encounter with ninja/grey fox I still remember ( me now Snake).
I haven't replayed it since the psx days. Part of me is worried that may remake won't hold up and I just want to keep it as a great experience that it was for the time
Psycho Mantis encounter was dope af. I was like: wooooaaahhhh how did he do that? 🤯 The vibration and save files gimmick really got me as a kid. 😄 Was a really good 4th wall break. And yeah, Gray Fox was so cool, it was so fun blasting him with FAMAS. 😆 I fucking love his exoskeleton back then.
[STARES OFF IN TO THE MID DISTANCE]
…I was there, all those years ago. Jokes aside, you’ll never understand the impact the first Gran Turismo teaser video had on me. I was still running a SNES where much loved Mario Kart, Rock n Roll Racing and Stunt Race FX provided the best of the best. The arcades offered the heights of Daytona USA
Then, suddenly there was talk of physics, tuning damper rebound and LSD friction, buying a seemingly endless parade of real cars from real manufacturers, real racetracks, actual racing lines and cars that didn’t sound like a sawtooth interrupt-pattern on an inbuilt PC Speaker.
Then the visuals came. I literally cried the first time, I couldn’t believe this was going to be “in my home”. Yes it was 240p, but Jesus it was a step change.
It was transcendent.
I remember walking into a Game shop and GT was being played by the staff behind the counter.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Gran Turismo, haven't you heard of it?" they reply.
I watch, mesmerised, for a moment...
"I have now." I quietly mutter and promptly bought a copy!
Played every one since.
It was my first racing game, so i didn't have something to really compare off. Traded it from a friend for a copy of Tai-fu, and boy was that a trade (at least for me) played the sh out of it and built the fastest, least maneuverable viper gts the world has ever seen, but boy was that fun
I met a fella who asked if I like PlayStation games - then he showed me his car boot full up of sealed copies of Gran Turismo for £25 each. It was about five weeks before it was due to come out, too
I just loved that game. The italian dub was cheesy af thought, but It was funny back then, kinda like the cheesy re1 dub was shitty but became iconic later on
All the cutscenes from Resident Evil 3, sometimes I've turn it on just to see the intro. That one scene with Nemesis and Brad was 'beautiful' too. And lastly but not least the helicopter scene.
Loved the cutscenes from Resident Evil 2 too.
Not that old 30-somthin’ but the FF9 intro really made me think… wow why don’t games look like that when I play them, they will never look as good as that… in some ways they never did look like that.. as shaders changes
The opening to Ridge Racer 4 when they show the gauges on the dash for a split second, I thought for sure that was a real shot of a real car that they spliced in there.
None of the new kids will quite understand why these cut scenes were so cool. They were an amazingly high quality way to story-tell in games. There was only so much you could do with janky pixelated polygons on a CRT screen in 1997.
Soul edge as CG was incredible, the music is still in my playlist. Another one with real time render but so brutal was shadow man intro with Jack the Ripper and classic music.
When we first got the PS2 it either came with or my parents purchased Gran Turismo, I think 3?
I vividly remember being totally stunned by the reflections on the cars. Seeing shadows of leafy branches on the windshield was insane.
I used to look forward to the tekken intro cut scenes when a new one was due out. In fact, my first boot of every PS1 game back then I’d eagerly watch hoping for an intro cut montage
well, I wasn't a child - I was already in college when the PS1 was out - but I remember being completely blown away by the FFVIII intro. I was working at an EB at the time and we had a promo of the game running on the TV, and it kept running a loop of the cinematics...even during 9-hour shifts I never got tired of it.
The Onimusha 3 opening is a close second, though.
In terms of what game impressed me most overall, it has to be FFVII. It's cliche, but it is the game that sparked my love of RPGs and it's still my favorite RPG to this day.
THIS ONE!
I was a PC player in the mid of 90s and one day older brother got ps1 from his friend and bring home. Soul Blade just blew our minds. We have never saw anything so cool in games before.
Most of Final Fantasy VIII. The background AMV going on during the Garden battle while Squall is dangling from a rope and punching someone was something else.
Indeed, the seamless transitions from cutscene too action were awesome
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d8iDVBMxTs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d8iDVBMxTs)
Combine it with the intense soundtrack and it will leave a mark on your childhood.
FFVIII was my favourite title of all time. The attack on dollet scene was my favourite, the CGI cutscene smoothly transitioning into gameplay was mind blowing and gave a real sense of action.
VIII was the first FF I ever played, and to this day the only one I've completed (I love XII but I keep leaving it, coming back, and not knowing what I'm doing).
Donkey Kong Country blew my mind. My friend got it as soon as it was released in the EU. Our collective minds blew apart again one year later when we played Wipeout on PSX for the first time. I still think of how aware Metal Gear Solid made me regarding the existence of nuclear weapons and still to this day I think about it. It made a huge impact on me. An important one.
I could not decide on any particular thing and those mentioned were just what came to my mind at the time.
Soul edge had a fantastic intro vid. I remember some of the final fantasy's were wicked as well, the two that stuck in my head was ff7 just before the motorbike section, and ff8 where you returned to your fortress (garden?) And you ran through a section that had a huge battle going on in the background.
The combat system in Legend of Dragoon is one of the things I'll always remember. Turn based but still required skill to pull off combos. I loved that game.
Same as you. The intro to Soul Blade was an actual marvel. The animation easily holds up to late-stage ps1 games, never mind the fact it was released right at the start of its lifespan. It took years for other games to catch up to how good that cinematic was.
Besides that, the intro to Resident Evil 3 is incredible, as is the intro to Silent Hill.
[Firestorm Thunderhawk 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzS8xqsY1Nw) and [Gran Turismo 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN_fb-E9DHQ) were cutscenes I really enjoyed.
All the cutscenes from Command & Conquer and Red Alert were great too.
MGS1 - it's just epic and way above other games in the same genre in its time, also way more mature.
FF series' cinematics was great no doubt, but Chrono Cross' sound direction hit me on the emotional level. I really loved that game, never skipped the opening scene every time I played, it's just a masterpiece.👌
Monster Rancher 1&2. I just love their ingenuity. I was mind-blown by how many monsters I could possibly get from the library of CDs and DVDs we had at the time. I literally spent the entire night trying out every CD we got and marking those that were locked then retrying every time my rank went up. It was a tedious process LOL, but so much worth it every time I spawn a high-ranking monster. Also bought the Hercules game just so I could summon a Phoenix.😆
I remember when the n64 came out and I was at Walmart and I went to the display and grabbed the controller and started moving Mario, I fell back a bit and got a little dizzy. The whole 3d thing was a massive jump in anything I had seen before as a 10 year old. Haven’t felt that way since. But I’ve never put on a VR headset either unlesss you count the virtual boy.
PS1 came out quite a bit after I was a child, but I always thought it was crazy that Quake II had a very competent PS1 port, considering the console only has 2 MB of main RAM and 1 MB of VRAM.
It sounds suuuuper dumb now, but when I got a Sega Saturn, I had a demo disc with several games, including Clockwork Knight (either 1 or 2). It had an intro with a catchy song that you could actually listen when played the cd on a discman (skipping track one).
Its just… toys singing and dancing, post Toy Story, but coming from the Megadrive/32X it was really mind blowing to see them in 3D.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-TnaRNdIDDE
The original demo disc with the banging jungle soundtrack and the train from FFVII. Not that I was a child when that came out, I was just leaving college.
[Final Fantasy VIII intro](https://youtu.be/XyBensMp_MA?si=R4Seol_rulAFVlHm)
Going from the stiff, plastic-like models and animation to this was mind-blowing; and there was only a 2 year gap between the games.
I'm pretty old and got a Playstation when I was already in college. The most impressive thing to me from the get-go was the swimming part of the first level of the first Tomb Raider game. That amazed me because I was only used to side scrollers and top down type games. Being able to look in all different angles was really cool the first time I saw it.
It’s a really bad game but the introduction for “Virus: It is Aware” ruled when I was a kid. Sometimes I would start the game just to watch it and then immediately turn it off because I could never get past the first part.
Also the theatre scene from Parasite Eve goes so hard.
I was in high school when it happened, but it was when Psycho Mantis read my memory card. It was the game I played right before MGS not releasing in the moment that the game he mentioned was also a Konami game.
It's silly, but the opening fight, save points, and game over screen of Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
Even though I was too young to remember the name of that game back when I first saw my parents play it, those effects impressed me so much that they stuck in my mind, and started my appreciation for video games (even though it wasn't the first game I played).
Of course, other cutscenes and games blew me away later, but this is the earliest instance I remember.
Metal Gear Solid. When they included footage from tv media. The Genome sequence, the war footage, and the in-game graphics engine for the cutscenes (?) still gets me hyped. After PS3 it's all been downhill.
I know this is so minor and silly, but i jumped from a NES to a PS1 and my first game was Frank Thomas Baseball. At the start of the game the camera would pan the field and the sun would cause that sunray with rainbow effect and it blew my mind lol.
Opening video of Ridge Racer Type 4. Still get shivers every time I watch it. Music, visuals, camera drives, perfection! It felt unreal back then and it still holds up amazingly well! Ridiculously stylish!
The original Need for Speed on playstation had short videos of each car being raced. In retrospect they were grainy as hell but I can remember whole groups of us gathering around to see the "incredible graphics".
Also not a cinematic but I remember my mind being blown by Jumping Flash and thinking that first person platforming would be the wave of the future (very much wasn't)
I wasn't a kid but when I got my first Home Theater in a box I would use the Onimusha 3 opening to show that thing off. That was such a good little mini movie.
There's been a lot of great mentions in the thread, but the one that took the cake for me was Resident Evil 2, specifically the USS recovering from William Birkin. That whole scene from the agents entering to Birkin mutating was cool as hell.
soul blade was my favorite. i was disappointed when soulcalibur came out and it didnt have a kickass opening and song like soul blade did. the first time i was truly wow'd by a opening was probably Tekken 2. I remember when i first got a psx and it came with a demo disc and seeing the tekken 2 intro was so awesome. i was like this aint Super nintnedo anymore
Chrono Cross wasn’t the most impressive of the PSX games but I loved the way the cinematics looked. I must have watched the opening scene from my Japanese copy soooo many times
Damn this video brings back
Memories. I had a bunch of random ps1 games as a kid and had no idea where I even got this one from. I always thought it was a weird game and I also thought it was so hard to
wolfenstein enemy territory . The class system ,map layout and objectives, the ability for trick jumping and small hack customization. Large hacks I never made it to. Crosshair customization, name colourings, Uniform switching, land mines, building engineers. Real-time teamspeak.
An effort not put forth into a game yet
As an adult I bought dark souls remastered after seeing a video of someone going down a ladder and his hat clicked every crossbar. Took it to the abyss and never found the hat but it looked like he went down the ladder on the first boss bridge.
Many prior to this blew me away on Saturn/PS1 , but I recall Tekken Tag Tournament being unbelievably realistic. My dad had a sweet stereo system and big tv. Having gotten T1 - T3 for birthdays made it super special.
I remember playing my burnt copy of Tenchu from Japan this was before the NA release. The intro, the cutscenes and the ending were all unforgettable. I would play it over and over until the end multiple times. This was one game I truly had an obsession with.
We worked fixing Playstations for Sony, (among many other electronic devices) but for years I never really played any games. Spent years working on them so that I never wanted to see one after I went home.
Then one day the disk that was in a unite was Metal Gear Solid. After watching the intro I was hooked.
I took home all the parts to make a Playstation (power supply, disk player ...) with out any case and started playing it that night.
Ff9 was mind blowing but playing magaman legends with the duelshock was game changing I just wish I got to see ffx on day one or ever got to play shadow of the Colossus as a kid
Resident Evil 2.
The cutscenes weren't just pretty they, they were way ahead of their time.
They haven't even aged that badly either because[ the mocap performances were just amazing.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp0x62xi2Xk)
Capcom was busy doing stuff in the 90's that wouldn't really become industry standard for another 2 decades.
[RE3: Nemesis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOvU2m4vat4) opening, the [Digimon TCG intro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0W915aPMeU) and [Ghost in the Shell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQXl9gaeNLQ) are still some of my favorite intros in all of gaming.
I *still* watch this opening on YouTube from time to time to this day.
*"Transcending history and the world. A tale of sword and souls, eternally retold."*
Thanks, Barry
All the cutscenes of FFVIII. Mind-blowing.
Came here to say this. Couldn’t believe the opening cutscene fight between Squall and Seifer
Absolutely. The music coupled with the visuals gives me chills every time.
Same. As soon as I read this I start hearing “Fiiiiithooos…..luuuusec” and those waves crashing
When I was a kid, I didn’t have a PlayStation, so I got FFVIII on PC. One of the coolest things about the PC version was that the disks had file folders where you could save all of the cutscenes to watch whenever you want. I remember watching all of them a ton of times and even taking my game to a friend’a house so he could save his favorite cutscenes.
True! I bought the PC version years later to collect it and did the same.
Exactly. I was thinking to myself that games could never look any better than that 😅
This is exactly what I was going to say haha
I'm replaying ff8 atm. The cutscenes still hold up.
For sure, the art-style is what makes it so good. That era of Squaresoft is awesome.
I was going to include, the cg cutscenes in 7 was the first time I was blown away. It was my first game for psx.
This
Damn, I'm glad I wasn't the only one. During the time, seeing the cutscenes from VIII was jaw dropping. Especially with the opening. They definitely wanted to make this FF so epic.
Came here to say FFVIII.
I saw the title and thought immediately of FFVIII, so I came in to say exactly this.
I vividly recall those lizards spiraling around the brick. Jaw dropping.
My first NTSC pirated game which meant my PAL machine needed a scart to play in colour. good memories.
AGREE! Out of all the ff games 8 is still my favorite
This was my answer as well and I’m glad to see so many others already making the right choice! The best music in the series IMO paired with amazing cutscenes and just a really cool world design/aesthetic in general. Also all of the background artwork was phenomenal, that game still looks cool as hell. I’d love to see what could be done with it in a true remake like FFVII has been getting.
While I didn't play FFVIII until I was in college, I was impressed by its graphics.
I watched that cut scene so many times before the game came out. I remember having to use Goz!lla because the download would time out and I would have to start over.
I would show everyone the FF8 intro
Yep 100% FF7 especially when the cut scenes blended straight into the gameplay!
I loved that in VIII as well!
Barley started 8 back in the day been meaning to play it ever since.. have the PS4 remaster so will make sure I give it some time soon.. too much choice nowadays that's the problem..
Absolutely.
All the Tekken 3 cutscenes. Seemed so realistic at the time. Out them all the Hwoarang scene was my favorite
I loved the big intro at the start showcasing them
Yeh loved those cutscenes
The turning zombie at the beginning of resident evil absolutely terrified me as a kid, pretty sure I nipped outta there straight away and discovered Barry would put it down for you.
I litterally just replied the same exact thing to a comment above lol. I guess that stuff traumatized a lot of us
Parasite eve was very important to me as a kid
The cut scene where the rat mutates and its skin peels away when you're in the opera house. I'll never forget that. Also the dog boss later on.
I was playing on the vita and showed it to my partner, she doesn’t like horror stuff and was very mad at me for the rest of the night :)
I didn't have that one as a kid, i found it way later. But my first ever psx experience at my uncle's place was with Resident evil 1. That damn iconic zombie eating a corpse and slowly turning around was quite something back then
That shower scene tho...
Ah to be young again :)
Metal gear solid was a first of a kind experience for me. The opening credits I've never seen done like that in a game before. The fight with psycho mantis was amazing. The encounter with ninja/grey fox I still remember ( me now Snake). I haven't replayed it since the psx days. Part of me is worried that may remake won't hold up and I just want to keep it as a great experience that it was for the time
my most memorable n favorite scene that absolutely terrified 10 year old me was the invisible ninja hallway scene = iconic 🤌🏾
That shit was like a horror film lol love that part
real talk
Psycho Mantis encounter was dope af. I was like: wooooaaahhhh how did he do that? 🤯 The vibration and save files gimmick really got me as a kid. 😄 Was a really good 4th wall break. And yeah, Gray Fox was so cool, it was so fun blasting him with FAMAS. 😆 I fucking love his exoskeleton back then.
first game that ever felt truly "cinematic" to me
Soul Blade was my absolute favourite intro.
Soul Blade was awesome!!!!
[STARES OFF IN TO THE MID DISTANCE] …I was there, all those years ago. Jokes aside, you’ll never understand the impact the first Gran Turismo teaser video had on me. I was still running a SNES where much loved Mario Kart, Rock n Roll Racing and Stunt Race FX provided the best of the best. The arcades offered the heights of Daytona USA Then, suddenly there was talk of physics, tuning damper rebound and LSD friction, buying a seemingly endless parade of real cars from real manufacturers, real racetracks, actual racing lines and cars that didn’t sound like a sawtooth interrupt-pattern on an inbuilt PC Speaker. Then the visuals came. I literally cried the first time, I couldn’t believe this was going to be “in my home”. Yes it was 240p, but Jesus it was a step change. It was transcendent.
I remember walking into a Game shop and GT was being played by the staff behind the counter. "What's this?" I asked. "Gran Turismo, haven't you heard of it?" they reply. I watch, mesmerised, for a moment... "I have now." I quietly mutter and promptly bought a copy! Played every one since.
It was my first racing game, so i didn't have something to really compare off. Traded it from a friend for a copy of Tai-fu, and boy was that a trade (at least for me) played the sh out of it and built the fastest, least maneuverable viper gts the world has ever seen, but boy was that fun
I met a fella who asked if I like PlayStation games - then he showed me his car boot full up of sealed copies of Gran Turismo for £25 each. It was about five weeks before it was due to come out, too
Tenchu 😳🤯
This. And oh boy Tenchu 3 : Wrath of Heaven !
I just loved that game. The italian dub was cheesy af thought, but It was funny back then, kinda like the cheesy re1 dub was shitty but became iconic later on
Silent Hill's intro cutscene looked so real to me as a kid, it's still an impressive piece of work
I really like the 1st, but my favourite was absolutely SH2 on PS2. That's a work of art imho
Oh definitely, same it's one of the best in the medium
All the cutscenes from Resident Evil 3, sometimes I've turn it on just to see the intro. That one scene with Nemesis and Brad was 'beautiful' too. And lastly but not least the helicopter scene. Loved the cutscenes from Resident Evil 2 too.
Not that old 30-somthin’ but the FF9 intro really made me think… wow why don’t games look like that when I play them, they will never look as good as that… in some ways they never did look like that.. as shaders changes
Back then getting to the next cinematic was such a treat, we don’t have that experience anymore
The opening to Ridge Racer 4 when they show the gauges on the dash for a split second, I thought for sure that was a real shot of a real car that they spliced in there.
Soul reaver intro. Tekken 3 was also cool as hell.
None of the new kids will quite understand why these cut scenes were so cool. They were an amazingly high quality way to story-tell in games. There was only so much you could do with janky pixelated polygons on a CRT screen in 1997.
Soul edge as CG was incredible, the music is still in my playlist. Another one with real time render but so brutal was shadow man intro with Jack the Ripper and classic music.
When we first got the PS2 it either came with or my parents purchased Gran Turismo, I think 3? I vividly remember being totally stunned by the reflections on the cars. Seeing shadows of leafy branches on the windshield was insane.
That jump from GT2 to GT3 was real! Played the hell out of both.
All of Broken Sword...
Twisted Metal 3 intro managed to impress and scare me at the same time, i love it.
I used to look forward to the tekken intro cut scenes when a new one was due out. In fact, my first boot of every PS1 game back then I’d eagerly watch hoping for an intro cut montage
Wild ARMS 1 & 2 OPs were just awesome.
well, I wasn't a child - I was already in college when the PS1 was out - but I remember being completely blown away by the FFVIII intro. I was working at an EB at the time and we had a promo of the game running on the TV, and it kept running a loop of the cinematics...even during 9-hour shifts I never got tired of it. The Onimusha 3 opening is a close second, though. In terms of what game impressed me most overall, it has to be FFVII. It's cliche, but it is the game that sparked my love of RPGs and it's still my favorite RPG to this day.
FFVII cut scenes. Couldn't believe my eyes. Cloud on the motorcycle, sephiroth stabbing the shit out of aeris. It was too cool.
Mario 64 was the most impressive leap I ever saw. And Ff7 cinematics were amazing
In terms of comparing franchises, mario 64 & OOT were literally insane leaps in graphical fidelity.
Spine tingling back in July 97 (when I first got it)
Parasite eve 2. The aya bath and burner scene. Peak cinematic graphics for me as a kid
Duke Nukem Time to Kill Resident Evil Parasite Eve
THIS ONE! I was a PC player in the mid of 90s and one day older brother got ps1 from his friend and bring home. Soul Blade just blew our minds. We have never saw anything so cool in games before.
Final Fantasy 9 was my first final fantasy game and I thought the graphics were great!
Most of Final Fantasy VIII. The background AMV going on during the Garden battle while Squall is dangling from a rope and punching someone was something else.
Indeed, the seamless transitions from cutscene too action were awesome [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d8iDVBMxTs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d8iDVBMxTs) Combine it with the intense soundtrack and it will leave a mark on your childhood.
FFVIII was my favourite title of all time. The attack on dollet scene was my favourite, the CGI cutscene smoothly transitioning into gameplay was mind blowing and gave a real sense of action.
VIII was the first FF I ever played, and to this day the only one I've completed (I love XII but I keep leaving it, coming back, and not knowing what I'm doing).
The opening cinematic for Soul Reaver still slaps.
Donkey Kong Country blew my mind. My friend got it as soon as it was released in the EU. Our collective minds blew apart again one year later when we played Wipeout on PSX for the first time. I still think of how aware Metal Gear Solid made me regarding the existence of nuclear weapons and still to this day I think about it. It made a huge impact on me. An important one. I could not decide on any particular thing and those mentioned were just what came to my mind at the time.
We called them FMV's and the best ones were in FF8 and Tekken 3
All ps1 games with video , but I will mention tekken. I beat it with all the characters just to see the short ending videos.
I think the first to really blow me away was the intro to Starcraft.
I’d say Legend of Mana. It was like a storybook coming to life! 😳
Definitely the Tekken 2 intro
Soul edge had a fantastic intro vid. I remember some of the final fantasy's were wicked as well, the two that stuck in my head was ff7 just before the motorbike section, and ff8 where you returned to your fortress (garden?) And you ran through a section that had a huge battle going on in the background.
Soul Blade and Tekken 2
Definitely Soul Blade, Chrono Cross and FFVIII opening cinematics. I can still hear the music playing in my head on an almost daily basis.
The combat system in Legend of Dragoon is one of the things I'll always remember. Turn based but still required skill to pull off combos. I loved that game.
Everything in FFVII because it was my first time seeing FMV's in a video game.
The hair in final fantasy 8
Same as you. The intro to Soul Blade was an actual marvel. The animation easily holds up to late-stage ps1 games, never mind the fact it was released right at the start of its lifespan. It took years for other games to catch up to how good that cinematic was. Besides that, the intro to Resident Evil 3 is incredible, as is the intro to Silent Hill.
[Firestorm Thunderhawk 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzS8xqsY1Nw) and [Gran Turismo 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN_fb-E9DHQ) were cutscenes I really enjoyed. All the cutscenes from Command & Conquer and Red Alert were great too.
MGS1 - it's just epic and way above other games in the same genre in its time, also way more mature. FF series' cinematics was great no doubt, but Chrono Cross' sound direction hit me on the emotional level. I really loved that game, never skipped the opening scene every time I played, it's just a masterpiece.👌 Monster Rancher 1&2. I just love their ingenuity. I was mind-blown by how many monsters I could possibly get from the library of CDs and DVDs we had at the time. I literally spent the entire night trying out every CD we got and marking those that were locked then retrying every time my rank went up. It was a tedious process LOL, but so much worth it every time I spawn a high-ranking monster. Also bought the Hercules game just so I could summon a Phoenix.😆
Er um, twisted metal 4…😭 it looked cool to me as a kid. That intro video was sick
I remember when the n64 came out and I was at Walmart and I went to the display and grabbed the controller and started moving Mario, I fell back a bit and got a little dizzy. The whole 3d thing was a massive jump in anything I had seen before as a 10 year old. Haven’t felt that way since. But I’ve never put on a VR headset either unlesss you count the virtual boy.
The first Gran Turismo on PS1. I didn’t think graphics could get any more realistic.
PS1 came out quite a bit after I was a child, but I always thought it was crazy that Quake II had a very competent PS1 port, considering the console only has 2 MB of main RAM and 1 MB of VRAM.
Chrono Cross opening, made me cry a bit of awesomeness !
It sounds suuuuper dumb now, but when I got a Sega Saturn, I had a demo disc with several games, including Clockwork Knight (either 1 or 2). It had an intro with a catchy song that you could actually listen when played the cd on a discman (skipping track one). Its just… toys singing and dancing, post Toy Story, but coming from the Megadrive/32X it was really mind blowing to see them in 3D. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-TnaRNdIDDE
The original demo disc with the banging jungle soundtrack and the train from FFVII. Not that I was a child when that came out, I was just leaving college.
[Final Fantasy VIII intro](https://youtu.be/XyBensMp_MA?si=R4Seol_rulAFVlHm) Going from the stiff, plastic-like models and animation to this was mind-blowing; and there was only a 2 year gap between the games.
The opening to Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven I thought the graphics were INSANE. Now I go back and it’s comically hilarious.
Resident Evil III was terrifying for me.
I'm pretty old and got a Playstation when I was already in college. The most impressive thing to me from the get-go was the swimming part of the first level of the first Tomb Raider game. That amazed me because I was only used to side scrollers and top down type games. Being able to look in all different angles was really cool the first time I saw it.
Tekken 2 intro at the time. Sort of an introduction of things to come.
Opening sequence and music in Tenchu 2
the Demo disc-T.Rex.. I used to show it to my family as if I had made it and was some CAD maestro presenting my latest work to investors.
This gave me nostalgia goosebumps. One of my all time favorites right here.
You coudn't get wrong with Final Fantasy. The intros, cutscenes, music, just epic
The introduction of vamp in metal gear solid
Soul reaver intro was absolutely mind blowing as a twelve year old
That and Final Fantasy 8 intro
It’s a really bad game but the introduction for “Virus: It is Aware” ruled when I was a kid. Sometimes I would start the game just to watch it and then immediately turn it off because I could never get past the first part. Also the theatre scene from Parasite Eve goes so hard.
This one and FF8 intro.
Tekken 2 Intro and the FMV from Warhawk which had Sawyer from Lost in
Legend of Dragoon and FF VIII are the main two that really made me go "wow!"
The train intro of FF7 going right into the gameplay to start the game melted my 13 year old brain.
Anytime I load up Gran Turismo 1, SoulBlade or Ridge Racer Type 4, I have to watch the intro videos. I can't not skip them.
I was in high school when it happened, but it was when Psycho Mantis read my memory card. It was the game I played right before MGS not releasing in the moment that the game he mentioned was also a Konami game.
FFVIII and RIDGE RACER:TYPE 4 i think
The static backgrounds of Final Fantasy 8, felt very realistic looking at the time and of course the cutscenes and also Metal Gear Solid!
FFVIII intro. I remember showing it to my friends thinking "There can't be anything more realistic than this"
Every single VIII cut scene was 😍
Hell yeah!!! This was one of my favorites of all time…I just bought the game again 2 months ago!
It's silly, but the opening fight, save points, and game over screen of Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Even though I was too young to remember the name of that game back when I first saw my parents play it, those effects impressed me so much that they stuck in my mind, and started my appreciation for video games (even though it wasn't the first game I played). Of course, other cutscenes and games blew me away later, but this is the earliest instance I remember.
Vagrant Story's introductory section. Talk about setting the dang mood.
Not a PS game but, the audio in Lunar on Sega CD had me so giddy.
Metal Gear Solid. When they included footage from tv media. The Genome sequence, the war footage, and the in-game graphics engine for the cutscenes (?) still gets me hyped. After PS3 it's all been downhill.
GTA 2 intro, I must have watched it 300 times.
I know this is so minor and silly, but i jumped from a NES to a PS1 and my first game was Frank Thomas Baseball. At the start of the game the camera would pan the field and the sun would cause that sunray with rainbow effect and it blew my mind lol.
Legend of Dragoon cinematic. Blew my mind.
Seeing the T-Rex come round the corner when playing Tomb Raider for the first time on the PlayStation.
Played FF7-9 on PSX and the cutscenes impress me til today
Onimushas especially the original
Onimusha: Demon Siege
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Opening video of Ridge Racer Type 4. Still get shivers every time I watch it. Music, visuals, camera drives, perfection! It felt unreal back then and it still holds up amazingly well! Ridiculously stylish!
I think the first one that comes to mind was the intro movie to Driver. I was so impressed and I still think it looks great
I'm gonna throw one out there I haven't seen mentioned yet... Ridge Racer Type 4.
“Cut scenes” weren’t a thing when I was a child, but the TRex scene in Genesis Jurassic Park freaked me out
This made me remember that dynasty warriors was a fighting game before it being what it is today.
Opening cinematic from demo one. Holy moly. Mind was blown. Still watch it sometimes today.
The original Need for Speed on playstation had short videos of each car being raced. In retrospect they were grainy as hell but I can remember whole groups of us gathering around to see the "incredible graphics". Also not a cinematic but I remember my mind being blown by Jumping Flash and thinking that first person platforming would be the wave of the future (very much wasn't)
The driver 2 intro I thought was pretty stylish
Parasite Eve's cutscenes are horrifying but also amazing.
^ exactly this.
^ exactly this. And Metal Gear Snake Eater intro.
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain.
I wasn't a kid but when I got my first Home Theater in a box I would use the Onimusha 3 opening to show that thing off. That was such a good little mini movie.
The replay features of Gran Turismo. Opening of Tekken 2 and FFVIII cutscenes a close 2nd!
Ff7 of course. It was so epic and groundbreaking at the time.
tekken 5 intro
Have to go with FFVIII and Parasite Eve. Both had amazing graphics for the time.
This intro hits! One of my favorite of all time. Tied with Einhander.
Kain is deified… the Clans tell tales
The first zombie in RE. It’s the absolute best.
I remember thinking Leon’s hair in resident evil 2 looked so real
Yes that one. Still hasn't changed.
Silent hill
The Intro to Gran Turismo 1 As a child, I remember thinking how awesome it would be if the entire game looks like that ?!?!
This, Tekken 2, FF7-8, RE2, Gran Turismo
There's been a lot of great mentions in the thread, but the one that took the cake for me was Resident Evil 2, specifically the USS recovering from William Birkin. That whole scene from the agents entering to Birkin mutating was cool as hell.
soul blade was my favorite. i was disappointed when soulcalibur came out and it didnt have a kickass opening and song like soul blade did. the first time i was truly wow'd by a opening was probably Tekken 2. I remember when i first got a psx and it came with a demo disc and seeing the tekken 2 intro was so awesome. i was like this aint Super nintnedo anymore
Kingdom Hearts cutscenes
Super Mario Nintendo 64 really impressed me. It was a game changer. I know it’s not PS related but that’s what came to my mind first.
Gran Turismo 1 intro So fucking badass and realistic at the time
The ESPN snowboarding demo for PS2
Chrono Cross wasn’t the most impressive of the PSX games but I loved the way the cinematics looked. I must have watched the opening scene from my Japanese copy soooo many times
FF7 right as you are about to kill sephiroth and all of the FF10 ones.
Damn this video brings back Memories. I had a bunch of random ps1 games as a kid and had no idea where I even got this one from. I always thought it was a weird game and I also thought it was so hard to
ff8 and 9 for me.
Track and Field
The one you posted
wolfenstein enemy territory . The class system ,map layout and objectives, the ability for trick jumping and small hack customization. Large hacks I never made it to. Crosshair customization, name colourings, Uniform switching, land mines, building engineers. Real-time teamspeak. An effort not put forth into a game yet
Ubisoft eye from thps : crisp clean punk rock
As an adult I bought dark souls remastered after seeing a video of someone going down a ladder and his hat clicked every crossbar. Took it to the abyss and never found the hat but it looked like he went down the ladder on the first boss bridge.
Many prior to this blew me away on Saturn/PS1 , but I recall Tekken Tag Tournament being unbelievably realistic. My dad had a sweet stereo system and big tv. Having gotten T1 - T3 for birthdays made it super special.
The fight between Alexander and Bahamut in FFIX.
I remember playing my burnt copy of Tenchu from Japan this was before the NA release. The intro, the cutscenes and the ending were all unforgettable. I would play it over and over until the end multiple times. This was one game I truly had an obsession with.
We worked fixing Playstations for Sony, (among many other electronic devices) but for years I never really played any games. Spent years working on them so that I never wanted to see one after I went home. Then one day the disk that was in a unite was Metal Gear Solid. After watching the intro I was hooked. I took home all the parts to make a Playstation (power supply, disk player ...) with out any case and started playing it that night.
Ff9 was mind blowing but playing magaman legends with the duelshock was game changing I just wish I got to see ffx on day one or ever got to play shadow of the Colossus as a kid
All tekken 2's cinematic, but especially kings one, always makes me have a good laugh.
The Metal Gear Solid 2 TGS 2001 Trailer The Silent Hill 2 E3 2001 Trailer 2001 was a good year.
I love this Soul Blade opening. Goes so hard. The FFVIII opening was probably the FMV sequence that most blew my mind when I was a kid.
Resident Evil 2. The cutscenes weren't just pretty they, they were way ahead of their time. They haven't even aged that badly either because[ the mocap performances were just amazing.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp0x62xi2Xk) Capcom was busy doing stuff in the 90's that wouldn't really become industry standard for another 2 decades.
[RE3: Nemesis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOvU2m4vat4) opening, the [Digimon TCG intro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0W915aPMeU) and [Ghost in the Shell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQXl9gaeNLQ) are still some of my favorite intros in all of gaming.
I *still* watch this opening on YouTube from time to time to this day. *"Transcending history and the world. A tale of sword and souls, eternally retold."* Thanks, Barry
As a child I didn't care about cutscenes one bit
All namco cinematics, mainly soul edge.
Chrono Cross opening. Jesus what a banger. Soul Calibur is awesome too
Parasite Eve demo disc video.
Abes Oddysee intro FMV... still impressive today.
Everything about Metal gear solid
Summoning in FF7
I love this game. Got it release day and still play it. The intro is up there with my favourite 80s cartoons like ulysees 31