Great Gaming Concepts

[Loony BoB]

StarCraft introducing key groups. You could select a group of units and lock them to a key so that that when you press that key they all become selected. A great move for real-time stratagy.

Didn't Warcraft 2 and/or Dune 2 have that?

[Erdrick Holmes]

I think WC1 had that first.

[edczxcvbnm]

You couldn't set them to a key though. You could select more than one unit but you could not set them to a key. I am not sure about Dune 2.

[Necronopticous]

Maybe the SNES Romancing SaGa 1~3, but SaGa Frontier and Unlimited SaGa are just...bleh, they don't deserve the plastic they're burnt onto, sure they TRIED to be innovative, but it was just a horrible failure, and I don't think even those few things could have saved them.

Well I liked them all, but that's beside the point, the concepts were solid and great.

[Lindy]

Romancing's concept of playing a multitude of characters, passing through the ages, where at each stage of the game, what you did set out events for your character's future descendants WAS genius.

Especially storing and saving good items and equipment so that your future characters could make use of them.

[MecaKane]

Siren. Seeing through the monster's eyes is fantastically cool. Hard game though. :-x

Also, Omikron. For having David Bowie in it.
Also the mix of Adventure, FPS, and Fighting games it.
Oh, and being able to take over other people's bodies when you die.

Phantasy Star, oh wow. Science fiction in an RPG, I'm sure no one would of thought of that without Sega.

[Lindy]

If you're gonna talk about taking over people's bodies, then Messiah really has to be mentioned.

Nothing better than possessing a whore in order to get close to a Policeman in order to possess him, and then shooting said whore in the head repeatedly with your new found gun.

[MecaKane]

Oh right, I remember hearing of that game! :O
Looked pretty neat too, I should look it up!

[Erdrick Holmes]

I'm sure Sci fi/fantasy themed RPGs would have come much later if it weren't for PS.

[XxSephirothxX]

In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time, the ability to assign three items to the C buttons was extremely useful and a great gameplay mechanic, and Z-Targeting was extremely useful for fighting in a 3D environment. I have no idea if any other game did this first, but it was still extremely well implemented.

[Madame Adequate]

Virtua Cop. It was the first 3D lightgun game (As far as I'm aware), and that aside, it provided me with a horrific amount of gameplay. I mean ok, you can't complete with the Seeburg Ray-O-Lite, but nonetheless it was pretty groundbreaking. A strong case for my getting a Saturn.

I can't wait for Omicron 2. The first one was awesome enough, if flawed. 2 has a chance to be one of the biggest games out there.

Jumping flash! First 3D platformer I ever played, and to this day one of the best.

Poy-poy. Like many party games it has a simple premise (In this case you throw heavy/sharp/explosive things at your opponents until only one is left standing.), and this is executed with something better than most other offerings have short of SSBM.

[Cless]

Joe's VFX powers in Viewtiful Joe were very cool, especially bullet time. And I do know that bullet time has been done before, but it has not been implemented as well as it has in this game. Slowing down time to punch bullets back at enemies is insane! Also the way his VFX powers were used to solve puzzles was cool as well.

In Ico, I felt the hand holding was a very important part of the game and a novel idea to boot.

In Disgaea, the ability to lift up a long line of your characters and then throw them to reach high or far places was a great gameplay mechanic.

[Polnareff]

Well, let's see.

Mega Man was pretty innovative for its time; there were no other games at the time where you could take the boss' weapons, at least not that I know of. This mechanic was well done and made the gameplay deep.

Street Fighter was the first game to use the standard fireball/dragon punch/spinning piledriver commands, and they worked well. They paved the way for other fighters to use the motions in their games.

Sweet Home was probably the first survival horror title that ever came out, but it never came out here, so Alone in the Dark was regarded as the first survival horror game. SH played sorta like the Resident Evils of today, what with the puzzles and all.

I'd also have to agree with whoever said that Sega's games are almost always innovative in some way.

[DK]

Poy-poy. Like many party games it has a simple premise (In this case you throw heavy/sharp/explosive things at your opponents until only one is left standing.), and this is executed with something better than most other offerings have short of SSBM.

Oh man, Poy Poy was the greatest multiplayer game ever. I wish they'd bring one out for PS2.

[DMKA]

"EVO: The Search for Eden" I think it was called...it was an SNES game and I've never played anything else like it...I can't even explain it...it's just too different.