Powerful Gaming Moments (SPOILERS!)

[Greatermaximus]

Moments not mentioned yet and somewhat spoilers this thread encourages but...

The death that Krile in V has to take over.

Beating Trevelyan on Goldeneye.

Fighting Velius in FF Tactics and fighting under Murond Death City.

Beating a strategy building game at a high level like Civilization.

Escaping Midgar under siege and beating Sephiroth.

Personal: The joke the princess tells at the end of Mario 3 that had my brother run down the stairs to tell the whole family.

[I Took the Red Pill]

Chrono Cross: (SPOILER)Battle with Miguel
Suikoden II: (SPOILER)Jowy joining Luca Blight
Kingdom Hearts 2: (SPOILER)Goofy seemingly dies

[Madame Adequate]

Xenogears - Pretty much anytime this song plays.

God yes. Agreed absolutely.

FFVII: When Nanaki learns the truth of Seto's sacrifice, that scene where he howls up at him, oh man. Gets me every time, way more than Aeris does.

FFX: I really, really wasn't expecting to, but I bawww'd at the ending.

Call of Duty 4: You're the US god damn Marines, and you just did a heroic-assed rescue because you don't leave a man behind. Then, the nuke goes off and you spend a level crawling around with no weapons, no enemies, no anything, and at the last minute no help or rescue arrives and you die. For my money, one of the best uses and subversions of gameplay in recent gaming.

Mass Effect: Virmire. Just... Virmire.

[Wolf Kanno]

Chrono Trigger
Crono's Death. As soon as he stood up against Lavos I was thinking "oh man, Crono is going to summon some supper awesome main character powers. This is going to be sweet" And then, bam! Completely blown away by the power of Lavos. I remember just siting staring at the screen for 30 seconds having it sink in.

I agree completely.

Xenogears - Pretty much anytime this song plays.

I strongly agree on both accounts. Xenogears just has so many damn awesome moments.

I also will do a shout out for the ending to P3, it was beatifully done, I also love how in The Answer,(SPOILER) you have to battle you're whole party cause everyone turns on each other over controlling the fate of the main character from P3..

Any of the scenes in P4 that involve the main character interacting with his cousin. She is absolutely adorable and her innocents is heart wrenching (well if I had a heart... )

The Birth of the Three Reasons' Avatars in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne/Lucifer's Call. As well as reaching the end of the Amala Network and setting the game on the course of the True Demon Ending.

The Battle against Garr in Angel Tower in BoFIII as well as the reunion with Teepo in Myria's Space Station.

Mami and Fou Lu from BoFIV

Nina and Bosch's flashbacks in BoFV as well as the ending.

The entire ending sequence of MGS3 starting from when you sneak back into Grozny Grad to plant the C3 explosives.

The death of FOXHOUND and Cyborg Ninja in MGS1

The death of the Metroid in Super Metroid

The last two boss battles in No More Heroes (a giant smurf you to the fourth wall)

Discovering the truth behind St. Ajora and the Glabados Church as well as the ending to Chapter 1 in FFTactics

Death of the Mana tree in Secret of Mana and the whole Mana Fortress.

Albedo's scenes in the Song of Nephilim hell just anytime Albedo shows up in Xenosaga.

The ending to Xenosaga: Pied Pier... Poor Ziggy...

Getting the opportunity to finally beat the out of (SPOILER)Shion in Xenosaga Episode 3 (SPOILER)for being a selfish pain in the ass for three games.

The 2nd week in The World Ends With You

Miguel and the burning orphanage in Crono Cross

The truth about Rue's past in Threads of Fate

The ending to the Jumi Tribe story arc in Legend of Mana

The final battle at Hyrule castle in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Celes' attempted suicide in FFVI as well as the Opera and the games opening.

Vivi battling the Black Waltz and Bahamut vs. Alexander which I still contest is the greatest FMV in the entire FF series.

Cross-examining a Parrot in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Ashton from Star Ocean 2, need I say more?

The 4th dimension twist in Star Ocean III (laughed my ass off)

Discovering Samus Aran is actually a woman in Metroid

Cecil becoming a Paladin in FFIV

Galuf's death in FFV

The opening to FFVII and the Nibelheim flashback

The ending of Disc 1 on FFVIII

The Pharos Lighthouse in XII the whole damn thing

Discovering the "true world" in FFIII

Battling Richter and discovering the Reverse Castle in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

McDohl fighting his dad in Suikoden I

Acquiring McDohl in Suikoden II as well as the siege on Luca Blight

The assassination of the King and Queen in Suikoden V

The death of Zero in MMX1, battling Zero in MMX2, Zero saving X in the ending to X3, Battling Dragoon in X4 as well as the flashback battle between Zero and Sigma. X's final battle with Sigma in X6.

Ico and Shadow of Colossus, both the whole damn game.

Anytime Roxas shows up and plays a central part in Kingdom Hearts.

The truth behind Rudy in Wild ARMS 1 and Ashely meeting the great hero in Wild ARMS 2nd Ignition

The ending to Persona 2:Innocent Sin and then all of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment

Just to name a few...

[Pete for President]

Gray Fox' death in MGS 1.

MGS4: (SPOILER)Old Snake crawling to the final room which makes you buttonbash like a maniac. Epic.

Shadow of the Colossus: (SPOILER)Agro falling off the cliff.

X: (SPOILER)Fighting Seymour for the first time, the crusaders getting obliterated by Sin, the cutscenes right before fighting Yunalesca.

[blackmage_nuke]

KOTOR-That big evil guy we talked about the entire game? He's you. Another great. This moment is fantastic because the signs were there and I guaranteed absoultely smurfing nobody saw it coming.

I saw it coming from the first flashback. "Oh a guy in a mask I bet it turns out to be me" And then once the thought settled in i realised they never reffered to Revan as "he" or "she" so it wasnt that hard to piece together

Now getting Zalbar to kill Mission, that was all kinds of awesome.

MGS - Greyfox's death, Sniper Wolf's death, Psycho Mantis's death
MGS3 - The giant ladder
KH2 - Looks like my summer vacation is...over
Chrono trigger- Crono's death, I always love that one scene in any game where a silent protagonist breaks out of the player's control and does/says what they want (even at times when it's just "..."), this was by far the most unexpected powerful use of that discovery of individuality moment. Also any time frog's theme plays
Suikoden - On that note I wasnt effected heavily when Gremio died but moments after when the main character knelt down and said "........" it got to me.
FFVI- Opera scene, suicide scene
Seiken Densetsu 3 : any of the six opening sections up to and including when "meridian child" plays

[Slothy]

Call of Duty 4: You're the US god damn Marines, and you just did a heroic-assed rescue because you don't leave a man behind. Then, the nuke goes off and you spend a level crawling around with no weapons, no enemies, no anything, and at the last minute no help or rescue arrives and you die. For my money, one of the best uses and subversions of gameplay in recent gaming.

I'm kind of surprised I forgot about that. Have to agree with you on it. Speaking of using gameplay to tell the story, I have to mention the last level of Braid actually. Regardless of whether someone thinks the story up until that point has been somewhat pretentious in it's telling, the way it uses the rewind mechanic to completely subvert everything you thought you knew about the story to that point was utterly brilliant. I'd put it up there with the COD4 example as one of the best examples of using gameplay to tell a story that I can think of. I kind of wish that the rest of the game had told it's story through gameplay that well.

I'll also say that I agree with to much of Wolf Kanno's post to waste the space quoting it.