Best Video Game Intro/Opening Ever? - THE LAST METROID IS IN CAPTIVITY. THE GALAXY IS AT PEACE.

[sasazuka]

It looks rudimentary now but, if you were a tween or young teen in the late 1980s, the Ninja Gaiden arcade opening was impressively cinematic in an era when most arcade title screens were still just static shots or even just single-colour background screens (often just black) with the title and company name.

Oh, and then there was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game with a whopping twelve seconds of the cartoon theme song sampled, which was like nothing else I'd heard from a (non-Laserdisc-based) videogame at the time.

On the circa-1989 PC front, Sierra introduced its new cinematic opening technology (which I believe they licensed from a Japanese company IIRC) with King's Quest IV: The Peril's of Rosella, which they boasted that they test screened in an actual cinema (in New York?) and it brought a woman in the audience to tears.

Of course, we didn't have a sound card on our IBM PS/2 (yeah, the "original" PS2), so we just heard the music in PC speaker beeps and boops.

 

[Detrogen]

Best ever? Maybe not. But for a sub-par Dynasty Warriors rip-off, this intro always gets me hype.

 

[Guardian G.I.]

I can name plenty of those:

The first Red Alert was already mentioned, but Red Alert 2 was not:

The third game, despite being very derivative, is no slouch as well:

Speaking of Soviet invasion games, World in Conflict's intro is also great:

 

[Piss Clam]

Any game by Psygnosis on the Amiga during the mid-80's, early 90's. They were a decade ahead of anybody else and their opening scenes were pretty awesome.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psygnosis

 

[Overcast]

The narrator is kinda hammy, but I honestly love that. It gives me this image of an old man telling stories to his children.

 

[Slamerella]

Something about this makes me feel really giddy. I got into Street Fighter by getting an old copy of EX3 from a yard sale and got into the series, getting all these other things like old ass netplay games with adhoc connections, when i was too young to understand that word. That main theme of Street Fighter 4 is one of the greatest pieces of Capcom music, to the point that it is reused a lot for Street Fighter material.

A bonus: The song, Indestructible/The Next Door by Exile.

 

[The_Truth]

Not an intro, but the COD MW2 trailer still gives me the chills

 

[MysticMisty]

And since someone already posted the SNES opening to Chrono Trigger here's the animated one they made for the Playstation port (and reused for the Nintendo DS port):

 

[Puukalikka]

 

[Skeletor]

 

[sasazuka]

These aren't nearly as, ahem, thorough as the Gran Turismo 5 intro, but here are a pair of racing game intros that I still find drip with style.

The intros for the first and last games in (for all intents and purposes, despite the name change when it went to Microsoft) the same series, Metropolis Street Racer on Sega Dreamcast and Project Gotham Racing 4 on the XBox 360.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

Cue the phony Mega Man 2 exclusion outrage.

 

[Puukalikka]

Something about this makes me feel really giddy. I got into Street Fighter by getting an old copy of EX3 from a yard sale and got into the series, getting all these other things like old ass netplay games with adhoc connections, when i was too young to understand that word. That main theme of Street Fighter 4 is one of the greatest pieces of Capcom music, to the point that it is reused a lot for Street Fighter material.

Also this

Just beautiful, the game was also fun, but the business practices ruined the game.. also that dodge at 1:20

 

[Nazi vegeta]

It looks rudimentary now but, if you were a tween or young teen in the late 1980s, the Ninja Gaiden arcade opening was impressively cinematic in an era when most arcade title screens were still just static shots or even just single-colour background screens (often just black) with the title and company name.

the OGxbox reboot has a simple, but effective intro too. This is one of my favuorite games all of time, but sadly not many people talk about it anymore:

there's also a japanese dubbed one, but unlike the main game dub, the intro sounds better in english to me.

 

[Whetfahrt Cheesebörger]

Phantasy Star Online (Dreamcast)

Final Fantasy 3 (SNES)

Wild ARMs 3 (PS2)

Tales of Symphonia (GameCube)

Lunar: The Silver Star (Sega CD)

Just off the top of my head.

 

[UnKillFill]

VIII never gets the love it deserves.

 

[Irwin M. Felcher]

Utterly blew my young mind when I first saw it. Zero hyperbole.

 

[UnclePhil]

The way the music goes somber when Ganon seizes the Golden Power, the fanfare that breaks out when the Hero of Time appears to slay him, the music transitioning back into the ominous tones when Ganon returns and the Hero fails to reemerge. This intro does everything right with arrangement and timing.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]