Clearing Star Fox 64 with the good/true ending for the first time ever was an indescribable feeling.
Me and my cousin played FFXI starting in the beta. I got the game for free at official launch and we played for a long time. But the greatest moment of gaming excitement is when we got the peacock charm drop from a super rare NM. I’m pretty sure it was the rarest, most valuable item in the game at the time. The NM was deep in a maze, and had a huge spawn window. I think it was something like an IRL week or something, and even if you managed to tag it from the countless other players camping it, you still had a very low chance of the drop.
I spent the night at my cousins one weekend and we went to bed one night after camping it for hours and left our characters logged in at the spawn point so we could check the combat logs to see if anyone got it while we were asleep. When I woke up, it had not spawned, but my cousin had already got up and left the cave. I was surprisingly alone in that room for the first time ever. No other players. After about 30 minutes, it spawns. I’m alone, and not strong enough to kill it by myself. My cousin somehow managed to make it from Jueno to the maze (like at least a 10 minute run) before anyone else showed up, and we got the kill and the drop.
We were literally screaming and high fiving so hard that his step mom thought we had won the lottery or something.
We both put it on at least once just to say we had, and sold it for more money than we’d ever imagined. We then bought the best gear for our characters and felt like gods.
Never even made it to max level, but holy crap nothing has ever come close to that level of excitement in or out of a game.
I still play ffxi to this day and I fully remember moments like that. Good nostalgia but I’m also glad they don’t make games like that anymore. FFXI itself has been modernized to remove this kind of grind and is still getting new content updates. You should check it out again.
Me and that same cousin got together and played it again 3 or 4 years back and got to 99. The grind at max level is just too strong to keep my interest. He, however, got into the ffxi horizon fan server that’s pretty much exactly like original XI, but with some QOL additions and an added hardcore mode. He got summoner to level 75 in hardcore mode and died like 2 days later. You don’t lose your character, but there are some cool items you get from hitting certain level milestones that you do lose. One of which was a ring with a teleport spell on it that had unlimited charges and only like a 20 minute cool down that you get st 75. It also does a server wide announcement when a hardcore character that high dies, so everyone was messaging him. He got super bummed and quit.
Just a small thing… I must have played Civ II for hundreds and hundreds of hours as a kid. Then one day a large civilization in civil disorder had its capital taken and one half of the empire seceded as a brand new civilization. I yelped… one of those joyful wtaf moments…
“Rock 'N Stone!”
For Karl!
Playing Left4Dead2 versus with 8 friends, running my own custom ‘Random’ mod. That game was so great to play matches in with the right people - and very fun to code sourcemod plugins for as well.
A recent one that comes to mind is playing 4 player Bopl Battle with some buddies and just laughing our asses off.
That is so good to play with my kids. Another in a similar vein is Spider Heck.
Beating most any “hard” video game is always a great feeling just due to the sheer hours that go into it. In some cases, you have to develop the memory and skill to do the whole thing in one sitting. I can’t count how many from the NES era fit this criteria. Top of that list are: Contra, Bionic Commando, and most Zelda and Mega Man games.
The best one happened in the middle of my Dark Souls play-through. I kept having to quit playing after short sessions, as skill and vigor checks kept wrecking me. This lead to anger and rage that just made it impossible to proceed. Once I made the connection that I could concentrate more and flow through combat more easily while calm, I changed tactics to calming my own mind and keeping it that way. The game just “opened up” after that. From there on, it was much more about meditation and breathing than equipment and leveling - skills I now carry with me everywhere. DS literally made me a calmer and more resilient person.
Subspace (now known as Continuum) circa 1998 via 56k modem - mine repping a 2k+ bounty 5-person turret in Chaos Zone West
Such adrenaline and joy 😂
Getting powerleveled by a high leveled player on Turf Battles at Tiaz.
My most recent was playing Saints Row 4 horrible pc port. The Enter the Dominatrix dlc was awfully hilarious. Seeing that they didn’t have enough money to do everything they wanted and seeing actual story boards in my game was great. Also the character commentary was fun. The thing that the said was too crazy for Saints Row was definitely true and did not expect.
I’ve probably played an uncomfortable amount of FF7 to most. During covid, I recently became single so I decided to find some like-minded discord communities to pass that time. I met someone who was streaming FF7. I hopped into the stream and kicked it off with explaining how to get a golden chocobo to reach the final red materia. We’re married now and have a dog :D
thats fun
Staying up all night playing GoldenEye.
I mean…you just described large portions of 1997 and 1998. On the weekend.
Some houses had a rule. No oddjob. I had a different rule. You’re oddjob. It was no fun if it was an even fight. I needed a handicap to make it harder.
thats one of the most badass statements ive ever read
1v1 where you’re expecting Oddjob is a lot different than 4P deathmatch where one guy is Oddjob. That’s where it’s a real dick move cause he’ll catch you by surprise.
Still, though. Respect.
24 hour Civ 5 marathon with beer and the boys in my college days.
…well. What happened???
It was just amazing to hang out and focus on playing a game deeply for 24 straight hours with my two closest friends. Can’t recall otherwise being so pleased with how I spent my time.
Meeting my wife on Elder Scrolls Online has got to be number one, but we didn’t even play the game very long to be honest lol.
I play games with my wife every now and then and it’s great. I wouldn’t say regularly but every few months we’ll play something like State of Decay 2 or Astroneer and get really in to it for a week.
I met my wife playing Rock Band. It was definitely a top gaming moment. But I didn’t realize at the time what it would lead to eventually.
Oh for sure, us either. We were guild mates for a while, then friends, then partners! The process took years.
I didn’t think anyone did.
Playing Halo co-op with my wife.
I also choose playing with this guy’s wife.
