This topic does bring to mind the intro to Final Fantasy VII, with its view of Midgar and the music reaching a jaw-dropping crescendo in the background. Or Final Fantasy IX, with the airship gliding into view for the first time.
Both of these intros, the first time I saw them, filled me with a sense of wonder and left me absolutely convinced that the game on which I was about to embark was going to be mindblowingly epic in every imaginable sense and then some. In both cases, I was right.
However, when I ask myself what's the best intro I've seen in my life, I find myself coming up with something FAR different.
Many years ago, my gaming life consisted of going over to a friend's house and watch him play the latest games on his state-of-the-art NES console. As some of you might remember, games back then were all about the gameplay. There was no real need for a story. In the case of many games, there WAS no story. The reason WHY Mario was stomping Goombas and fighting a green turtle-dragon was something you picked up from the rumor mill. (This being Norway, none of us could understand the small snippets of English in-game text at the time.)
On the occasions when there WAS a story to speak of, and hence a text-heavy intro sequence to explain it (in English, of course, and 100% skip-proof), we would simply hammer the Start button and shout "Come on, come ON!" at the screen until the gameplay began.
This is why I would like to nominate the intro sequence to Fester's Quest as the best of all time. Here, have a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDdNcfHZUA
I love this intro sequence. It manages, in a matter of seconds, to explain exactly what is going on - and, best of all, it does the job ENTIRELY WITHOUT A WORD OF EXPLAINATION! Aliens are attacking, Fester thinks this sucks, start playing! That's it! You're playing before you knew you were getting bored! For the first time, we got to start playing a new game with a clear idea of what we should be doing, and why! We were as happy as NES-era gamers could be!
It's really a pity that the game otherwise sucked. Bigtime.
