Favorite surprise moments in gaming?

[NanoSoft]

Hey gamers!

I wonder what are your favorite surprise moments in gaming?

An example I will use to launch this OP is in Metal Slug 1. Right in the last mission, after you get off the boat and back on-foot, the Assault Theme plays for the remainder of the game. Feels like such an epic tone-shift that the tides have fallen in the favor of the heroes as you go off to defeat the final boss. Never ever gets old and makes me believe that's the reason the Assault Theme survived into future sequels of Metal Slug. So what say you? What are your favorite surprise moments in gaming?

 

[ATenderLad]

In the vein of your Metal Slug example, the time I discovered Dolphin Blue was *real* and it rocks

 

[NanoSoft]

In the vein of your Metal Slug example, the time I discovered Dolphin Blue was *real* and it rocks

View attachment 6092

You reminded me of that! I ought to play it sometime

 

[VampireLord1024]

Maybe seeing the Cabbit rise out of the water in Saints Row 2 when you follow those one arrows out in the water.

 

[bjork]

Mine is from The Witness but it's like a major spoiler

Spoiler

you play through the game and it's just doing mazes at these yellow panels around the world. But on top of the mountain, there's a panel maze and then if you look down below, there's a river in the same shape as that maze. You can highlight the river and complete it as a puzzle, which then is marked off on one of the many black monoliths around the island, which are used to track the other environmental puzzles in the game. I forget how many more there are, maybe like 100? But a lot of them require lining up the perspective and then highlighting the round/start point of a maze, whether it's in the stairway of an altar, the flowers in the field, or even the clouds in the sky. It's possible to play the entire game without ever seeing this, and it really makes you look at the game world in a completely new way once you know that there ARE puzzles in the structures and stuff in the world, but you don't know where they exactly are.

So cool

 

[Cris_Agev]

These two.
First jump scare in my gaming career

First betrayal

I guess this moment too, I really thought everything was going to be ok; I was a kid, a naive one...

Oh I just remembered, some month ago I played for the first time Ar Tonelico 1; that game baited me with ending a couple of times, I really liked that game. I mention this because I always try to guess in my mind how things will go in terms of the story/script. So I really like when a game or any media presenting a story surprise me with something I did not expect.

 

[Cu-Neo]

Mine was that moment in KOTOR 1 where they Reveal the "secret" Identity of Darth Revan.

Also another one would be "Would you Kindly"

And my personal favorite. Assasins Creed 3: When Haytham recruits Charles Lee to the "order" and you discover in which side you were playing the whole prologue.

 

[Karnik]

I wonder what are your favorite surprise moments in gaming?

Alas, when I am immersed in the game and suddenly have to interrupt due to the urgent need to go to to drop a .

 

[Bonkers225]

Sephiroth diving from above and shattering millions of hearts. You know what scene.

Realizing a certain part in Lunar 2 where you thought it was end of the game, was not the end.

Running into the spike right at the beginning in Sonic CD(Before Metal Sonic goes through it with Amy). Good trolling.

 

[JustLooking123]

My favorite surprise was in Shining Force 2!

Spoiler: Plot Twist

After the earthquake, they said chasms were appearing on the ground, and the castle was about to fall, so everyone got aboard the ship!
At that moment, I thought the whole castle might be destroyed due to the earthquake and chasms...
But what happened was beyond my imagination!
The whole CONTINENT got destroyed before my eyes!!!

Also, guys! make sure to use SPOILER tags!!!
The danger of the thread being Banned is real!!!

 

[Somnia]

The Final Fantasy Versus XIII into the title card shattering to reveal it as being renamed FFXV is forever the most "scream my fucking head off" moment in terms of video games.

As far as actual in-game stuff goes I have a ton, but one of my favorites is in Ghosthunter for the PS2, near the end of the swamp level. You are exploring this dingy dungeon below a house and it is this incredible liminal space that to this day still blows my mind. The way it plays with expectations and specific moments like stepping through the painting above the piano (iykyk) blew me away and it amazes me ho win the 21 years since that game, so few have tried and succeeded at accomplishing that that part of that level was doing on a technical level. That game has tons of issues, but Sony Cambridge really showcased their technical wizardy at several points in that game. It also has an amazing fake ending that is just way too badass to spoil even if the gameplay segment that follows is incredibly lame. If they had tightened up the gameplay it would probably be considered one of the greatest games ever made.