Most memorable first levels

[shoes23]

Medal of Honor Frontline - Storming the beach for the first time was simply amazing. I was just getting into the PS2 at this point and this game absolutely sold me on the next generation of gaming. Explosions, bullets whizzing by, soldiers yelling for help, this level became one of my instant favorites.

Battletoads- Great graphics, and an innovative boss fight (with a camera angle through his eyes). It even had the secret warp 10 feet from the beginning of the stage.

[Jorpho]

I think Donkey Kong would be one of the most memorable 1st levels for anyone, even non-gamers.

Indeed, Donkey Kong stomping up and down on the top tier to shake all the girders into place has a lot of charm. A pity it was lacking from the home versions. (For years, those two tall ladders next to Pauline were a complete mystery!)

[hayabusa_fmw]

Walking in Shenmue for the first time , (PRICELESS)

still to this date i feel Free when i check this game & know such masterpeice existed ^^

[kainemaxwell]

Without a doubt the winner is...

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire for N64.

The first level was the snowspeeder fight where you had to take down the AT-AT's on Hoth. It was incredible for the time (1996) and would later be fleshed out into the Rogue Squadron games. The rest of the game was mediocre to downright wretched. Talk about a tease.

HELL YEAH!! Main reason why I held off on selling SotE for a long time was because that was my favorite level.

[Iron Draggon]

I'm gonna have to say Assault Suit Leynos 2... it's notorious for being a hard as hell game, but I really think the first boss is the hardest boss in the game, so that's prolly why it has that reputation... first impressions are everything...

anyhow, after I finally learned how to beat the first boss, the rest of them didn't seem so hard to beat, so the first level is really intense... but even after you learn how to beat that boss, it's still intense every time you fight him, cause even when you know what you're doing, he can still kick your ass unexpectedly... it makes for a great battle every time, and ends up being a great way to begin a game... cause after you've played it all the way through, you know that once you beat the first boss, it's all downhill from there... it makes the game fall a little flat because of that, but the rest of the game is still filled with plenty of excitement and intensity... and playing the game all the way through involves fighting that boss again with even more firepower in his arsenal... it's one of those games with about a half dozen or so different levels, and you have to go through each one twice to complete the game... and the second time through, everything is twice as hard to beat as it was the first time through... which also helps to keep the fighting intense and exciting all the way through the game, even though half of it is just fighting the same stuff all over again, at a higher difficulty...

you also have the ab ility to increase the difficulty, which makes the fighting absolutely insane at times... definitely not a good idea for the new recruit, but once you're a seasoned ASL2 war veteran, you'll be cranking up the difficulty all the way up, just to enjoy some really intense battles... I found myself doing this after completing the game and not even caring how far I got... I just wanted to kick some ass, and the game totally rocks for that...

it's also worth mentioning that I don't think I've really actually completed the whole game yet... but I'm at a point where I have no clue how to advance any further... this could be due to the language barrier, since all the story text in the game is all in Japanese, but it could also be that I'm just missing something... or maybe I really have completed it, but I'm not sure I have...

so how can you beat a game like that? replay value in spades, and every time you play it, you know the very first thing you have to do is kick that first badass boss's ass... and you have to fight your way to him too... which also isn't very easy, and you can easily fail to even reach him for a chance at him at times... again even when you know what you're doing... you just can't beat that... having to fight your ass off for every inch you advance...

I'd also recommend giving Target Earth a try for a similar experience if you don't have a Saturn and a way to play import games on it, but you do have a Genesis... Target Earth was known as Assault Suit Leynos in Japan, so ASL2 is actually Target Earth 2, which very unfortunately was never translated into English... why on earth not, I have no idea, other than the bludnering corporate arrogance of Sega of America at the time... they purposefully failed to translate many of the best titles from Japan as the Saturn tried its best to fight the new bully on the block, the PS1... in fact, they fucked up so many opportunities to turn the tables on Sony, one has to wonder if they didn't just kill the Saturn off early on purpose, because they knew that the Dreamcast would be increasing the stakes against Sony before Sony could get the PS2 ready for battle... everybody had heard all the rumors about the Katana/Black Belt project, and as a result, we western Saturn owners got screwed... roally screwed out of games like ASL2... I would almost kill for a translation of the story in ASL 2, just so I might be able to pick up some clues from it and find out what the hell I'm supposed to do next, if I haven't completed the game... there's bound to be more to it hidden in the story... I know that's the case with Target Earth, so it's bound to apply to ASL2 also...

[Little Samson]

A lot of good ones here...

I really like the first level in Jungle Strike, for the Sega Genesis. What other game lets you fly around and blow up the White House/other national monuments in the first level? A source of great amusement for me and my brothers before we figured out what we were actually supposed to be doing.

[Steempy]

I'd have to nominate a few:

Medal of Honour Rising Sun on PS2

The opening stage has you on one of the ships attacked during Pearl Harbour.. incredibly cinematic, and I was just amazed the first time I played it. Very immersive.

Mickey's Wild Adventure on PS1

I'm not sure if this came out in the US or not, but it was an early PAL release - the opening stage is based on Steamboat Willie, and as such starts out in black and white before proceeding into full colour. Cool effect, and very much like you were interacting directly with a cartoon world - at least that's how it felt at the time. I wouldn't really want to go back and spoil the memories now.

X-Men 2 on Genesis

Turn the cartridge on and it's straight into the game - no screwing around with menus or intros or tutorials or "press start" or whatever. I didn't like the game much, but I admired it for that alone.

Impossible Mission

Not really a first level per-se, but hearing the Commodore 64 say "Come now, a visitor.. stay a while, stay forever!" the first time when you start a game was awesome.

[RegSNES]

Mega Man X. That highway stage is PIMP! The music, the huge insect helicopters you destroy, the (futile) battle against Vile, and Zero blasting off Vile's arm to save X. Freaking epic!!!

Contra III. The whole "OH NOESS!!!!!11 ALIENS HAVE INVADED" vibe really hit home thanks to the background graphics. And that plane swooping in and bombing the level midway through was dope. Oh and the boss at the end? Awesome! Man, I feel like playing this game now!!

[Sniderman]

Hmmm... The first thing that popped into my head where there was a momentary "whoa" moment was the day I booted up my Sega CD for the first time.

You see - I bought it on release day and it was the first disc-based ANYTHING I had ever seen. That includes computers. So, I hooked it up to the Genesis, popped in Sewer Shark, and - instead of 16-bit pixels - I got a movie of a HoleHawg zipped across the screen and blowing up with full orchestral soundtrack. I just stared at the movie-like graphics.

"whoa"

Gameplay not withstanding, that was an amazing first level as it was the first time I had cross over into "reallife" type gameplay.

[Streetball 21]

I'd have to say Goldeneye for the N64. I was so overwhelmed by the first level, I kept playing it over and over. Nothing better than sniping guards across the dam.