[General Discussion] Your most memorable moments in gaming.

I've got a few memories of gaming in general, and of great personal achievements.

1. Buying my Nintendo 64. My parents bought me an NES when I was 3, and an SNES when I was 9, but they later told me video game systems were getting too expensive, so they wouldn't buy me anymore in the future. When the N64 was announced, I really wanted it, but my parents told me to save up for it myself. So I saved up my three dollar a week allowance for one and a half fricking years. And then I finally bought that sucker. (in an unrelated move of ass-hattery on my parents behalf, they turned around and bought my sister a Playstation the next week so she wouldn't feel left out)

2. 1999 was a great year for me and my NES. I pulled out my NES and decided to go through and beat those games that were impossible as a kid. Within a few weeks, I stormed through the following games, all for the first time.
-Super Mario Bros.
-Punch Out
-Solstice
-Metroid
-Castlevania 3
-Double Dragon 2
-TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA FRICKING TURTLES (haven't beat it since, haha) (and god, I was on my last half of a life bar too)

Man, I jumped up and down on my couch in joy so much that year.

3. DDR tournaments. Until DDR, I was never really great at any game which involved competition with others. I could only fare well against predictable computer opponents. But I started with DDR in 2000, before it was really big, and in 2002, I entered a tournament. I lost terribly, but I learned from a few good people, and met some cool people. I started constantly playing with these much better players, and got up to their skill level. By 2004, I was one of the top players in Michigan. I ended up winning a few tournaments and placing high in some others.

4. I moved on from DDR though, and on to IIDX. I was getting tired of it for a few reasons. I was already at the top tier of songs, and whether or not I did better was usually coming down to a matter of one misstep, and I didn't want to keep paying at the arcades for a slim shot at minimal improvements. One of my friends had imported some Beatmania IIDX games, so I played them at his apartment. I was amazed. The difficulty was ramped up so high, even with good DDR skills, I got destroyed by 90% of the songs. It was an incredibly masochistic challenge I was willing to take on. So I bought a Japanese PS2 and imported the games myself. After 3+ years of this game, I still am nowhere near passing some songs and still find fun in the vast improvements I can make. Apart from a few moments of frustration, this series has been a blast to play.

5. The Lunar series is awesome. Especially with what Working Designs did for it. I bought both of the games for the Playstation, and I love them both. They may have been the earliest instances of cutscenes in games for me, and the high quality art/voice acting really impressed me. Add to that the great script that WD put in and all the bonus material, and I was just amazed with the whole thing on every front. The included soundtracks made it even better, for someone like me who loved video game music but hadn't quite come to realize it yet.

6. Kind of similar to the previous one is the Metroid series. Every game has amazed me. The gameplay and atmosphere make for an incredible experience, allowing for a huge world, a lot of exploration, but a lot of fast, intense moments too. And with the added element of time attacking and item collecting that the games have always focused on, and I had reason to keep coming back over and over.

Jam it back in, in the dark.