• Super Mario Bros 3 - A friend came over just as I was about to defeat the final boss and he saw me defeat him  
  

• Castlevania - I had always died fighting the Grim Reaper (boss of lvl 5, there's 6 lvls) and when he starts to throw the third thing that follows me around it's normally gameover. I had always played in a very technical way and never went allout spamming attacks. So when the Reaper throwed the third thing I thought it was hopeless and just spammed crosses (had the 3x bonus so could have 3 crosses away simultanously) and just as I jumped and was going to die from landing at one of his damn projectiles HE DIED!!!   I was shocked!   I had finally defeated the Grim Reaper!!!

• Heroes of Might & Magic 2 - The first thing I come to think of when I think about Heroes 2 is the high fantasy atmosphere. It was in a campaign map standing on the grass (so the grasstheme played) and the Ogre and his axe guarding a mine moved a little as did the Orc Chieftain with his crossbow guarding another mine. You have to hear the theme and see some wandering monsters to understand what I mean. Another great memory of this game was in Archibalds campaign mission 7 I guess where you have to destroy a peasant rebellion. The wandering monsters are LEGIONS of PEASANTS(!) (Ph34r th3m!!). I (of course) choosed Necromancer as starting bonus and Corlagon (the lvl 5 hero you start with) started collecting Skeletons. In the big battle against 10 Titans and some other Wizard creatures I had over 3000 Skeletons (heeheehee ). The Titans went first and the Wizard casted Mirror Image on them (Mirrorimaged units do the same damage as the original but dies of anything. 100 Skeletons died when the Titans throwed lightning at me. Then it was the mirrorimaged units turn. Another 100 Skeletons died. Still had over 3000 though                                  Used my vampires to kill the mirrorimaged Titans and casted Haste on the Skeletons so they would cross the battlefield in 2 turns. I don't remember what the Titans fired at but it doesn't matter, it was my turn again (with 29xx Skeletons left) and I knew that one swipe from my Skeleton legion would destroy 50.000 gold and 20 gems worth of Titans!   I took some deep breaths while laughing gleefully a bit for myself.

....Warmed up my fingers and slowly put my hand on the mouse again. Checked where the borders of target on the Titans went and put the cursor on its chest. Laughed a bit for myself, took another deep breath and clicked the button. The hasted Skeletons quickly went up to the Titans and hit them with the sword doing around 8000 damage. The Titans AAARRRGGHed and fell into dust on the battlefield. The enemy Wizard shook his head (heroes do that when they lose a powerful stack). The map was won at this point. Just had to mop up some. When I captured the Wizard town they had like 15 Titans waiting to be recruited(!)

http://www.mobygames.com/game/playroom/cover-art/gameCoverId,141912/

Shut up!

So many to pick from!

Possible Spoilers ahead.

I'd say, the most memorable would have to be in FFVII when you-know-who stabs you-know-her-name at the end of the first disc. Didn't see it coming, and boy was I very much . That theme music still gets me to this day.

After that, Homeworld - the unveiling of the mothership and the burning of Kharak. The music, the graphics, everything; every time I hear 'Adagio for strings' that's what I think of. Burnt into my memory, no pun intended.

I've got two:

1)  I had my trusty Apple II+.   I blew a whole summer playing nothing but Wizardry I.  I got two of my friends hooked on it with me, and pretty soon "Katino", "Kadalto", Mahalito", and "Tiltowait" became household words.   Katino was our code word for farting (that was the name of the spell that put everyone to sleep).  I cheered out loud when I finally found Werdna once and for all.

2)  When I was 7 years old, we didn't have disk drives.   We loaded the game, "Sink the Bismarck" from a cassette tape.  8kB, took 2 minutes to load, and we paid like $17 for it.  There was no such thing as "compiling" back then--commercial software was written in BASIC, and all you had to do was type "list" and all the source code was right there.  After I had won the game enough times, I decided to hack into the game and give myself 12 turrets.   I was 7.   You figure out what a kid will grow up to be when he's hacking games at age 7.

Anyone else play Pharoah or any of the other Impression city-building games? I ate those things up.

The most interesting thing about all these posts(not that you guys dont have interesting nostalgia) is that most of these key memories were formulated when everyone was but wee lads/lasses. I guess since life has set in, such fond memories cannot once again find room within our cluttered minds next to these childhood gamergasms.

My most nostalgic memory...HMMM. This is a toughy. Okay, TWO fondest memories.

1. Just about EVERYTHING from "Skies of Arcadia: Legends". This is the magical adventure that Michael Jackson sings of in his song "Childhood".

2. Beating Pokemon Crystal. Crystal is undeniably, irrefutably, unquestionably, the best pokemon game to date. I still remember seeing Red(Ash) at the end of the game. I knew that oddly generic sprite, it had to be no other than the black haired hero of my childhood anime fantasies. Nothing feels better than beating your favorite cartoon character at a good 'ol match of pokemanz.

Final fantasy 7 put me in heaven.....

Yes I loved Pharoah! Great game and best of the Impressioins games IMO. Still take it out for a spin from time to time.

Original SimCity.

I remember so many games that I "liked" on the C64.  (that's right, a C, not an N) But I was so young, if it had this movie character or that movie character I HAD to play it.  Robocop being fairly notable.  Impossibly hard for the four year old behind the controls... or maybe I was five.  Captain Zzap stands out as well, a wonderful game.