Video Games/Awesome

"WITH WHAT, YOUR BARE HANDS?

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE JUST VANQUISHED A DRAGON WITH YOUR BARE HANDS (UNBELIEVABLE, ISN'T IT?)"

- Interactive Fiction game Colossal Cave

Let us tell you about some of the awesome things that we've seen in video games. Hopefully, they might inspire you to pick up the games and play them yourself.

You know the drill...when adding examples, mark spoilers where appropriate.

Please move series with many examples to their own page.

Subtropes include:


 * Awesome
 * Awesome
 * Awesome

Examples:


 * Ace Combat
 * Ace Attorney
 * Ace Attorney Investigations Miles Edgeworth
 * Agarest Senki
 * Alan Wake
 * Alice Madness Returns
 * Ar Tonelico 2
 * Assassin's Creed
 * Assassin's Creed II
 * Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
 * Assassin's Creed Revelations
 * Asuras Wrath
 * Batman Arkham Asylum
 * Batman Arkham City
 * Bayonetta
 * Battlefield 3
 * Binary Domain
 * Bioshock
 * Bio Shock Infinite
 * Breath of Fire IV
 * Bully
 * Call of Duty
 * Carmageddon
 * Castle Crashers
 * Catherine
 * Chaos Rings
 * Chrono Cross
 * City of Heroes
 * Colossal Cave
 * Command and Conquer
 * Corpse Party
 * Dantes Inferno
 * Dead Rising
 * Dead Rising 2
 * Dead Space
 * Deus Ex Human Revolution
 * Devil May Cry
 * Disgaea series
 * Doom
 * Dragon Age
 * Dragon Age II
 * Dragon Fable
 * Duke Nukem Forever
 * Dwarf Fortress
 * Dynasty Warriors Gundam
 * The Elder Scrolls
 * The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
 * The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
 * Endless Frontier
 * Epic Mickey
 * Exit Fate
 * Fahrenheit
 * Fate Stay Night
 * Fate Hollow Ataraxia
 * Fallout
 * Fallout 1
 * Fallout 2
 * Fallout 3
 * Fallout New Vegas
 * Final Fantasy
 * Final Fantasy I
 * Final Fantasy II
 * Final Fantasy III
 * Final Fantasy IV
 * Final Fantasy IV the After Years
 * Final Fantasy V
 * Final Fantasy VI
 * Final Fantasy VII
 * Crisis Core
 * Final Fantasy VIII
 * Final Fantasy IX
 * Final Fantasy X
 * Final Fantasy X 2
 * Final Fantasy XII
 * Final Fantasy XIII
 * Final Fantasy XIII-2
 * Dissidia Final Fantasy
 * Fire Emblem
 * The Force Unleashed
 * Gears of War
 * Ghost Trick
 * God of War
 * Goldeneye
 * Grim Fandango
 * Guild Wars
 * Guilty Gear
 * Half-Life
 * Halo
 * Heavy Rain
 * Hitman series
 * In Famous
 * Iji
 * Jak and Daxter
 * Jazz Jackrabbit
 * Just Cause
 * Katawa Shoujo
 * Kid Icarus Uprising
 * Kingdom Hearts
 * Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep
 * Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning
 * King's Quest
 * Kirby
 * LA Noire
 * La Pucelle
 * League of Legends
 * The Longest Journey
 * The Legend of Zelda
 * Zelda II the Adventure of Link
 * The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past
 * The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening
 * The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time
 * The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask
 * The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games
 * The Legend of Zelda Four Swords
 * The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker
 * The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
 * The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass
 * The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks
 * The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword
 * Legend of Dragoon
 * Left 4 Dead
 * Legacy of Kain
 * Lego Adaptation Game
 * Live a Live
 * Lost Planet
 * Marathon
 * Mario and Sonic At The Olympic Games
 * Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter
 * Marvel vs. Capcom 2
 * Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate Of Two Worlds
 * Mass Effect
 * Mega Man
 * Metal Gear
 * Metroid
 * Metroid Other M
 * Metroid Prime
 * Minecraft
 * Mitadake High
 * Monkey Island
 * Escape From Monkey Island
 * Tales of Monkey Island
 * Monster Hunter
 * Monster Rancher
 * Morenatsu
 * Mortal Kombat
 * Mortal Kombat Deception
 * Mortal Kombat 9
 * Mother
 * Myth
 * Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2
 * Nehrim
 * Nelson Tethers Puzzle Agent
 * Neverwinter Nights
 * Neverwinter Nights 2
 * Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors
 * Ninja Gaiden
 * Paper Mario
 * Parasite Eve
 * Persona 4
 * Awesome
 * Hey You, Pikachu!
 * Awesome
 * Awesome
 * Pokémon Colosseum
 * Awesome
 * Portal
 * Portal 2
 * Professor Layton and The Curious Village
 * Prototype
 * Prototype 2
 * Ratchet and Clank
 * Red Dead Redemption
 * Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare
 * Resident Evil
 * Runescape
 * Saints Row series
 * Sam & Max
 * Sanitarium
 * Sengoku Basara
 * Sengoku Rance
 * Shin Megami Tensei
 * Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri
 * The Simpsons Game
 * Skies of Arcadia
 * Skylanders Spyros Adventure
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Sonic the Hedgehog 1
 * Sonic the Hedgehog 2
 * Sonic the Hedgehog CD
 * Sonic 3 and Knuckles
 * Sonic Adventure
 * Sonic Adventure 2
 * Sonic Battle
 * Sonic Heroes
 * Shadow the Hedgehog
 * Sonic the Hedgehog 2006
 * Sonic Storybook Series
 * Sonic Unleashed
 * Sonic The Hedgehog 4
 * Sonic Colors
 * Sonic Generations
 * Splatterhouse
 * Splinter Cell
 * Spore
 * Spyro the Dragon
 * STALKER
 * Starcraft
 * Starcraft II
 * Star FOX
 * Star Wars
 * Star Wars the Old Republic
 * Street Fighter
 * Suikoden
 * Suikoden III
 * Super Mario Bros
 * Mario and Luigi Bowsers Inside Story
 * Super Mario 3D Land
 * Super Robot Wars
 * Super Robot Wars Z
 * Super Smash Bros
 * Tales of the Abyss
 * Tales Series
 * Tatsunokovs Capcom
 * Team Fortress 2
 * Transformers
 * Tron Evolution
 * Tsukihime
 * Ultimate Spider-Man
 * Umineko no Naku Koro Ni
 * Unreal
 * Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines
 * Warcraft
 * World of Warcraft
 * Warhammer 40000
 * Wario Ware
 * Wild Arms
 * Wild Arms 1
 * Wing Commander
 * The Witcher
 * Wolfenstein
 * The World Ends With You
 * Xenogears
 * Xenosaga
 * Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction
 * Zack and Wiki Quest For Barbaros Treasure

Advertising
Its not often that a games advertising could be considered to be a true Crowning Moment of Awesome, but there isn't a doubt in any gamers mind that these are every bit as awesome as any other moment on this page.
 * On the 15th of September, Sony put out a call on its site, asking for people to tell them, in their own words, why they were the ultimate Playstation gamer. They didn't give much more info beyond saying it would have something to do with a new campaign. A dozen or so winners were selected. The first was then contacted about his collection and habits. On October 5th, we saw all the characters Micheal had helped over his years as a gamer, thanking him one by one.

Baldur's Gate
"Jon Irenicus: I cannot be caged. I cannot be controlled. Understand this as you die, ever pathetic, ever fools!"
 * In Baldur's Gate 2: The Shadows of Amn The moment when Big Bad Jon Irenicus . If you haven't played the game, then you won't understand how tempting it is to just write "Anything he does" as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome, but that's the one that stands out the most. Here, have a link

"Minsc: I grow tired of shouting battlecries when fighting this mage. Boo will finish his eyeballs once and for all, so he DOES NOT rise again! EVIL! Meet my sword. SWORD! MEET! EVIL!"
 * Of course, he's not the only person to get a Crowning Moment.

"Jan Jansen: Whoa! This place looks just like... it reminds me of.. this is just like that time I... hm. I don't think anything like this has ever happened to me before..."
 * The first time that Aerie started using the battle cry "This will hurt you a lot more than me!" Incidentally, she was armed with the Crom Faer at the time.
 * At the end of the game gets a CMOA when it manages to make the ever talkative Jan Jansen admit that "I've Never Seen Anything Like This Before":

"Sarevok: "I live! Flesh and blood and bone! I AM ALIVE! HAHAHAHAHA! I swore I would scratch and crawl my way back into the world of the living, and I have DONE IT!""
 * Sarevok (the Big Bad of the first game) is so badass that even being killed - TWICE - couldn't stop him. He returns in Throne of Bhaal as a playable character, and doesn't even suffer from Good Is Dumb.

""Ok, I've just about had my FILL of riddle asking, quest assigning, insult throwing, pun hurling, hostage taking, iron mongering, smart arsed fools, freaks, and felons that continually test my will, mettle, strength, intelligence, and most of all, patience! If you've got a straight answer ANYWHERE in that bent little head of yours, I want to hear it pretty damn quick or I'm going to take a large blunt object roughly the size of Elminster AND his hat, and stuff it lengthwise into a crevice of your being so seldom seen that even the denizens of the nine hells themselves wouldn't touch it with a twenty-foot rusty halberd! Have I MADE myself perfectly CLEAR?!""
 * The protagonist gets one of their own (or can) in the first Baldur's Gate game, it is very satisfying after being the errand boy or girl of the entire Sword Coast all the way from level one up to the XP cap to be able to tell of a random NPC as follows:

""I came to hell to help my friend! Who helps you, Irenicus? Demons? You're going to die alone and you know it!""
 * Also, sweet little innocent Aerie telling off Big Bad Irenicus in Baldur's Gate II:

""Poor little gnome. My heart bleeds. Yours will too." "Fine, I'll do all the actual work. As usual." "We all know this is going to end in violence. Let's just cut right to the good stuff." That part when asked by Elvish general if you fled Drows, you can answer that no, you left them broken, you did not "flee"."
 * Also, the protagonist has some Badass quotes, by courtesy of wikiquote:


 * Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal let you witness your character raised to Champion's League of awesome, for example, having vampires attacking you only to have a Rousing Speech.
 * During the party's infiltration of a Drow city,

Castlevania
"Shanoa:"
 * Dawn of Sorrow has a few of these.
 * After Dmitrii spontaneously dies during his battle with Soma, and his soul is absorbed by Soma,
 * When Soma meets Dario Bossi for their second fight. Dario has fused with a powerful fire demon to become insanely powerful. Soma tells him "I will show you why you can't be the new dark lord." He then proceeds to  . Owned.
 * Of course, there's also the worst ending, where
 * From Order of Ecclesia. In the Lighthouse level Shanoa is chased all the way to the top of the lighthouse by a giant crab that just won't die. There's nothing at the top but a big elevator and, of course, nowhere left to run. So what does she do? Jump in the elevator and toss a one-liner. The elevator then proceeds to drop down to the bottom, taking the crab with it, with massive amounts of blood spraying in all directions before finally crushing the boss into paste. Considering this is one of the more annoying bosses for new players, this probably got a bit of a HELL YEAH.
 * Play Albus mode and he throws a one-liner of his own when he flips the switch.
 * Shanoa got her real CMOA upon reaching :


 * Especially considering everything that happened before.
 * Then, from Aria of Sorrow: If you have a certain set of souls equipped when you fight Graham (the final boss), the powers Graham was trying to harness !! Then you get to fight.
 * Portrait of Ruin. You walk into 13th Street. A train comes at you at top speed? Do you run? Yes.

Paper Mario
"Rebbi: THOU ART TOAST!"
 * Seeing Dry Dry Ruins come out of the ground for the first time.
 * Also the launch of the Big Cannon.
 * Plus what's not awesome about fighting a mech in a high tech base on the moon?
 * Defeating The Master at full power in the first game. The Crowning Music of Awesome that accompanies it makes it even better.
 * The climax of Keelhaul Key.  Now that is how you finish a chapter!
 * In Chapter 7-4 of Super Paper Mario, Rebbi arrives with a brigade of Nimbis to help Mario and co. get past massive squadron of Skellobits and Skellobombers.

Rock Band

 * In Rock Band, whenever you beat a Solo Tour or get into the Hall of Fame, you and your band get your own crowning moment of awesome in a giant fireworks show. This is made all the more sweet if you just beat the likes of Green Grass and High Tides or Run to the Hills on Expert. Especially Run to the Hills -- "The only way to light up a stage is with a big-ass gong!"
 * This pales in comparison Rock Band's predecessor, Guitar Hero, where, after defeating Bark at the Moon's blistering last solo, the lights dim, the chanting begins, and your avatar ascends into the air in a Pillar of ROCK.
 * Guitar Hero II and III were pretty good as well--in the former, after you beat Free Bird, you're abducted by a neon-lit UFO, which flies into distant space leaving a constellation that reads, "LIVE AND LET ROCK", and in the latter, you defeat Satan (aka Lou) in a rock-off to a metal version of The Devil Went Down to Georgia featuring no less than 26 guitar solos, causing him to be sucked into a chasm of swirling souls; your band escapes Hell on flying motorcycles with bat wings. And just when you thought you were done, you see a loading screen appear that reads "Good Luck". The credits begin to roll, a note highway appears, and Through the Fire and Flames, by Dragon Force (video game), begins to play.
 * Harmonix snagging the Beatles from right under Activision's nose counts as an epic CMOA, especially considering the Beatles have yet to enter even ITUNES! Source.
 * No. It was all MTV, really, not Harmonix (which, though an impressive feat without a doubt, is not that awesome). That said, look at the staff listing of Harmonix on their Wiki entry. If you recognize even one name from that listing (and no doubt you will), you'll understand how significant and amazing this staff is. If there's such a thing as a Crowning Recruitment of Awesome, this is it.

Shadow Hearts
": "My soul has been revived. The age of Mankind is coming to an end. Joy... sadness... desire... all of it is finished now. I will usher in a glorious new future." Yuri: "Before you do, can I ask a favour?" Yuri: "I wish you'd shove it. You know where."
 * Yuri gets one right at his introduction in Shadow Hearts 1. As he followed Bacon, he had his arm sliced off by the minion the man had used to slaughter an entire train of Japanese Soldiers. Without a blink, he immediately catches the imp, crushed it in his hand before reattaching his fallen arm back on.
 * And that when he and Alice stopped in Monster Town - it wasn't because of Plot-induced stupidity you would see in other games, they knew it was a trap, but decided to head in, intending to kick some ass before going to bed.
 * Yuri is made of Crowning Moments of Awesome. My personal favourite is this exchange from Covenant between him and a Big Bad god of destruction on the verge of destroying the world:
 * "What do you wish, human?"


 * And let's not forget this (spoilerish) scene from SHII: Yuri manage to have a Heroic BSOD a Kick the Dog moment and a CMOA in the SAME scene. And, come on, a Japanese game where we see a  You can hardly make something better than that.
 * Rasputin doing the arms-spread fall off the edge of the Russian Palace and landing on his armoured zeppelin/airship, and smugly flying away. Only for Yuri, watching from below, to just smirk and

Street Fighter

 * This is quite possibly one of the most awesome fights ever fought in Street Fighter III (here's a lower quality version of the whole match).
 * For people not familiar with SF3, here is a quick briefing: Ken (the dude, played here by the legendary Daigo Umehara) has very little health at the beginning and it drops to nigh zero after a few seconds. Then Chun-Li (the girl, played by Justin Wong) starts her super attack, kicking the opponent about a dozen and a half times in a very close succession. The rules are simple: if Ken gets hit at all, even blocking, he loses. What he does is parry every single one of her eighteen lightning fast attacks (which, by itself, is nearly impossible - he has to press forward just as she strikes, and the timing is ridiculously unforgiving) and jumps just before the last one so he is in position to start his own super attack and take her down for the win. The crowd went absolutely wild.
 * The timing actually isn't that unforgiving. The awesomeness actually comes from the emotional aspect of a complete situation reversal: When Chun Li gets in a kick at 0:21 of the 57 second clip, everyone suspects the match is essentially over. Ken has no health, and so the next blow Chun Li deals will kill Ken, even if Ken blocks (because blocking reduces damage, but does not completely negate it, and Ken is at such a low health level, that even the reduced damage would be enough to kill him). Then, at 0:27, we see the tell-tale blue flash of a super. This is where you expect the match to end with Chun Li winning. Ken parries the first blow (parrying completely negates damage to 0). Okay, fine, parrying the first blow is pretty easy, and you figure it's a desperation move, because really, Ken has no other options, but he's just delaying the inevitable. Ken parries the next blow, and the one after that. Wow, the guy playing Ken is pretty good. And the next, and the next. This is when it finally sinks into your mind that Ken might actually be able to go all the way (this when you hear the cheering suddenly jump up really loud). He just keeps parrying and parrying. When he parries the final blow in the air at 0:32, your heart is racing, because he actually managed to parry the whole attack sequence. Ken survived. That was unthinkable. He did it. But this is only the beginning. Ken then lands with two kicks, follow by his own blue flash, indicating that he is starting his super. And when this happens, your eyes suddenly dart up to check Chun Li's life bar. Could it be? Is it possible that Ken might actually kill Chun Li with this super? And indeed, her health bar is around 5%, and the super connected. That's it. Chun Li is dead. Ken did it. It is with this realization that the roar of the crowd transforms into a feverish pitch.
 * What adds to the defeat, is that if you notice the score above the life meters, Ken has about 28,000 points when the video starts, while Chun-Li has 100,000. The cool part is that with all the technicals, combo kicks, and the Super finish that Ken performed, the final score is Chun-Li:107,000 ; Ken:107,500
 * Along a similar vein, this. Not only did he parry the move, he did a 720 motion in the middle of it. Sweet.
 * Most every ending of Alpha 3 gives your character a chance at a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Unfortunately, most of them aren't canon, but that doesn't really detract from watching E. Honda defeat Bison with one Sumo Torpedo or watching Charlie kill Bison twice, then shoot him down in his plane and nuke him when he still won't die after that.
 * The best example is Zangief destroying Bison's power source by repeatedly piledriving E. Honda into it.
 * Street Fighter IV features Gouken, and he demonstrates how powerful he really is now with his "Power of Nothingness" in his and Akuma's endings by firstly, taking Ryu's Shinkuu Hadouken with no damage and not even blocking, and secondly, stopping the Raging Demon dead in its tracks without even moving with his back turned. Yes, you heard me right. Dodging and surviving the Shun Goku Satsu is one thing, but Gouken stopped it without even moving. With his back turned.
 * Gen did nearly the same thing and at least a year earlier to boot. The officially stated trick to beating the Shun Goku Satsu is emptying one's mind of all thoughts and feelings. Granted, this is still something only absolute masters can do, people in the realm of power Gen, Gouken and Oro occupy.
 * More of a crowning moment of awesome for all of fighting games, but without Street Fighter, it would have never existed. Ode to the 2-Hit Combo is a magnificent, heartfelt love letter to the entire genre and all of its fans, and turned a combo video into a work of art.

Interactive Fiction

 * At the climax of Spider and Web, the player must escape from certain death while strapped in an immobilizing chair. To do this requires unraveling  and triumphantly completing it. It's like being Light Yagami in that moment where it all clicked together.
 * The antagonist gets a CMOA if you fail to solve this puzzle. He figures it out instead, and kills you.
 * You can play Slouching Towards Bedlam by the standard rules, picking up everything, asking everybody about everything, and so on.  Getting the other endings requires that you not so much "play by the rules" as "burn up the gameboard and dance on its ashes",
 * All Things Devours has only one puzzle, arguably. But given all the time travel, planning, and paradox avoidance you need to pull it off, finally saving the world is most definitely a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
 * For all its weaknesses, Heroine's Mantle delivered on awesome. Scenes that would be crowning moments in less insanely Badass games - like fighting gun-toting mooks on a slippery rooftop in your underwear - are minor early-game sequences here.
 * Example 1: How do you signal an airplane to land in a blizzard? Easy. With  that's how.
 * Example 2: You duel to the death with laser cutlasses. You try to steer a torpedo away from an ocean liner filled with innocent passengers. You do both of these things simultaneously.
 * In Varicella, it is possible to manipulate things so that Broken Bird Princess Charlotte has a chance to confront War Minister Wehrkeit, the man who drove her to the asylum by killing her fiancee just as they were about to be married. She gives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that, while appropriately disturbing, is very satisfying.

Other
"Eddie: Start making an "O" shape with your mouth so you can talk about the humanity!"
 * Any time Eddie performs the Bring It On Home solo in Brutal Legend.

"* splunch!* Eddie: DECAPITATIO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-ON!! 's head ROCKETS off"
 * Or the fight against.


 * Donkey Kong Country 2: DK breaks free of his ropes, then gives Kaptain K. Rool a HUGE uppercut, throwing him smashing through the window of the Flying Krock and sending him plummeting down Crocodile Isle and into the sea. At which point he is attacked by sharks (and survives for the true final battle in the center of Crocodile Isle).
 * Speaking of DKC, the end of the intro screen in the first game gives Cranky one. Let's just say it involves TNT in close proximity to his grandson.
 * Making a fool out of K. Rool. That is all.
 * In Donkey Kong Country Returns, ]]

"Glitch: Gimmie that chip, or I'll unscrew your head and empty my oil reserves in your optics!"
 * In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force, Chumley talking about how momma koalas sometimes feed their own kids their feces, as an insane, WTF quotient of just how obsessed with koalas he is.
 * Part of the gameplay in Real Time Strategy series Warlords Battlecry. When you hear the words "That was a heroic effort!" it means that your hero just killed a whole lot of stuff singlehandedly and you receive an Experience bonus.
 * Breath of Fire II: The party encounters the Big Bad, who incapacitates Ryu, traps the current party in crystals, and shatters the crystals, captives and all, one at a time while taunting Ryu with speeches about each one. After some player input, Ryu breaks the spell, and then runs seemingly forever, not even bothering to weave through massive explosions, and runs right up to the guy and takes his sword to the man's face, all without stopping. Cue the final boss fight.
 * In Breath of Fire IV, the group faces a soldier who summons a very powerful boss, which proceeds to wipe the floor with the entire team while barely getting scratched itself. But when it takes out Ryu, he immediately gets back up and transforms into the game's ultimate dragon. He then goes completely berserk and singlehandedly destroys the boss in two turns.
 * Banjo-Kazooie. One word.  
 * Every moment in Metal Arms: Glitch in the System where Glitch uses the Control Tether to hack in and take over enemy robots to blast the crap out of enemies. Also, this quote from him which pays homage to Full Metal Jacket:

"Derek:"
 * Metal Wolf Chaos has a bunch of these. One of the most insane is when a massive tank drives towards President Michael Wilson, he merely grabs hold of the front, picks it up and performs a Giant Swing while shouting How do you like me now?!
 * Not to mention "Suck my missile punch!".
 * While the above entries were indeed Moments of Awesome, there can really be no serious argument against the fact that Michael's Crowning Moment of Awesome was when
 * Actually,
 * In the ending of Shining Force, the main character, who until now has been a Heroic Mime, when the whole place starts to collapse. He says, "I can't get free, but you won't die with me!", and casts his Egress spell.
 * The espionage mission towards the end of Free Space 2, where you and your wingman are scoping out the Shivan staging area in a pair of captured fighters. The instant the mission starts, your wingman is screaming in your ears: "DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! Hit your burners, pilot!!" Turns out, you've just jumped out of subspace right in front of a five-kilometer-long juggernaut that's on it's way in.
 * Anything that involves Commander Snipes (the aforementioned wingman) is pure gold. Like the second GTVI mission where you're both in deep cover as NTF pilots escorting a secret cargo to a rondezvous, only to slaughter the other NTF pilots so GTVI can steal it. If you pull it off without losing your jamming cover, Snipes wryly notes "We're pushing our luck here, but what the hell." He then proceeds to wait for the NTF cruiser you were supposed to hand the cargo to, chews out the captain for not getting there sooner and pins the whole debacle and the loss of the fighters he killed on the cruiser's crew. And it works!
 * The Shivans themselves get a huge CMOA at the end of the second game, when they obliterate a star system in the span of a few seconds...
 * Trilby has a number throughout the Chzo Mythos series, but what takes the cake is at the end of Trilby's Notes when he.
 * Yeah,  Funnily enough,
 * Each of the main characters of Beyond Good and Evil has their own distinct Crowning Moment of Awesome:
 * Jade, being the main character and all, has several--like beating up a fully-armed guard with only a stick, but the awesome-est comes in the very end, when she . Hell yeah.
 * Double H initially comes off as rather... special, but he proves himself to be more competent than he looks when, before a boss, he comes sliding down an air vent, does a flip, breaks through a grate, falls five or six meters to a ten-point landing on his feet, and proceeds to help you pound the boss into oblivion. Sweet.
 * And Pey'j? The amusing pig-man whose main talent is whipping up weird gadgets? . DUDE.
 * Secundo el Major Screwup Magnifico, otherwise serving as a holographic AI of Jade's S.A.C., also gets one in the endgame when he saves the day by.
 * In Contact for the DS, after Talk about Fourth Wall breakage.
 * And even after the ending credits, on The Professor's end, he It almost makes up for him
 * Mint:
 * Also, Mochi, everyone's favorite Space-Dog-Who-Wants-to-be-a-Space-Cat, gets his own moment when he . Mochi runs through some beautifully-painted backgrounds, and makes it in time, too, saving Terry with much awesomeness.
 * Trauma Center has one of these in the first Alethia mission in Under the Knife 2. As Alethia is sapping energy from the patient in a last-ditch attempt to save itself, Derek is cutting away its lifelines (literally) one by one. Every time one is cut, he and Angie say a line about all the suffering GUILT has caused around the world, and how it's the end of Delphi's madness.
 * And then there's the defeat of Savato in Under the Knife and Second Opinion:

"Salem: Hey Tyse, who's you're favorite rapper in the Wu-Tang clan? Rios: What? Salem: A lot of people say its the RZA, but I gotta like Ghostface Killah... oh wait, I haven't heard the new U-God album yet. Have you heard that shit? Rios: Salem, we just got framed into killing a US senator, our jobs and our lives are at stake, and you're asking me this shit now?! Salem: Easy, bro. You cope your way, I talk Wu-Tang. Rios: You're gonna have to cope with my foot up your ass in a minute"
 * I honestly think that I always found that specific moment awesome.
 * Though there's all manner of awesome in Army of Two, the real CMOA comes in the mission to China, where Salem and Rios end up in a running gunbattle with the entire Chinese army.
 * To make it funnier, Rios is taking it seriously and slightly panicky, and them Salem actually starts asking about Wu Tang Clan (IN THE MIDDLE OF A FRIGGIN GUNFIGHT). Salem took the whole situation like it was nothing:

"Bentusi: We... are... not... monsters... Fleet Command: Aren't you? Look around! Look what you've done to our fleet! All because we dared to get in your way. Look at yourselves: the aloof and mighty Bentusi! Slaughtering those who asked for your help! You're worse than the Beast! AT LEAST THE BEAST DOESN'T PRETEND TO BE RIGHTEOUS!!!"
 * The first time you fire the XGS Gravity Cannon in Project Sylpheed, after saving up to buy it, is a CMOA for the weapon itself, especially if you charge it up to full power first!
 * Jade Empire, people! Kicking Death's Hand's arse? Saving a bunch of slaves? Alternately, killing a bunch of slaves? Discovering one of your party IS A GOD? Destroying an entire Lotus Assassin fortress? Come on!
 * Master Li gets two: Early in the game he utterly destroys a ship with a single leaping punch. Later in the game, he.
 * The Open Palm resolution to "Trap[ping] you in doubt" before the final showdown. Your Nakama lends you their strength to help out, but it's not quite enough and you're still trapped until . The little 'That all you got' smirk you give  afterward is just the icing on the cake.
 * Just as fun is the scene when Emperor Sun knocks out everyone in the room, then turns around and starts ranting about his unbeatable power while your character casually stands back up and brushes himself (or herself) off and then proceeds to beat the Emperor's ass through the floor.
 * Guitar Hero - the FCs of implausibly hard bonus songs Jordan and Through The Fire And Flames.
 * For those who aren't familiar with the terminology, FC is short for "Full Combo" and refers to completing a song with 100% notes hit, without hitting any extra strums anywhere in the song--literally a perfect run.
 * Software Studios and Electric Dreams Software, for pulling off a fully playable, fully coloured, perfectly fluid conversion of R-Type and it's Amazing Technicolor Battlefield - on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a machine with less memory than that used by the average Word document (48K), a slower processor than most washing machines (3.2MHz), and computing's most hilariously finicky display layout.
 * From Drakengard there's Caim who, in one of the endings, after fighting long and hard against every Empire soldier he came across, He promptly does so, and the roars of thousands of dragons outside shake the chamber. Barely even dwelling on his previous act, he readies his sword and rushes out, even giving a slightly psychotic smile.
 * Dead Rising has Frank West, at the end of  Epicly. He deserved it.
 * And Sean gets one as his death scene. The sword stabbed through the altar thing falls over, just as he asks for his "god's" power... And it goes right through his eye - an eye is the very symbol of his cult. If that isn't Death by Irony, I don't know what is. It's also incredibly awesome.
 * Dead Rising 2 has plenty. Particularly when Chuck faces down the man behind the outbreak in Fortune City, . After a brutal fist fight in which the odds are stacked against Chuck, he knocks   down but before he can finish him is blasted off his feet by a missile from   extraction plane. The agent sends up a skyhook and taunts Chuck, but when  . Chuck was right:.
 * The Dead Rising 2 DLC "Case West" has a moment that is the absolute embodiment of this trope. Frank West and Chuck Greene are in the main Phenotrans production facility trying to uncover evidence of the pharmaceutical company's involvement in the outbreak. A lockdown is preventing them from getting to a certain so they have to destroy a generator. After getting the components they need and rigging a bomb on the generator (with a ridiculously short timer, for some reason), they sprint out of the room and are sent sprawling by the explosion. Frank and Chuck slowly pick themselves up off the floor, turn to look back at the burning room, and simultaneously go for a high-five.
 * Jennifer from Rule of Rose is a cast-iron coward, shy, nervous and completely incapable of standing up for herself. Sheâ€™s the main character in a survival horror game yet she closes her eyes when sheâ€™s attacking, forcing the player to line her up precisely before sheâ€™ll hit anything. When we finally find out the Big Bad is, and that said girl has just she has a five second Heroic BSOD before  About time Jennifer!
 * The player at the end of Homeworld. You end up beating off at least 6 enemy fleets (which use actual tactics--like attacking at the same time from multiple directions) with at least 7 Heavy Cruisers and 50 capital ships between them, bash through the Emperor's defenses, and finally blow the Emperor's ship to smithereens. Even more impressive when you consider the player commands the last remnants of their civilization, is fighting a galaxy-spanning empire, and started off with almost nothing.
 * The single crowning moment in that mission comes as a constant flow of enemy reinforcements begins to overwhelm you... until the most recent arrivals turn out to be a fleet of rebels who immediately spearhead a charge right through the Emperor's forces, dying while clearing a path for your own final attack. Barber's Adagio for Strings plays through it all - the same song that plays when the Mothership was first launched, and when discovering that your world had been firebombed into lifelessness in the third mission. Retribution was never so awesome.
 * Homeworld Cataclysm. The Bentusi are so scared of the Beast that they're trying to flee the galaxy. Problem is, the Somtaaw need their help to get the Kuun-Lan's Siege Cannon operational. To get their point across, the Somtaaw destroy the hyperspace gate the Bentusi were trying to escape through... which results in half a dozen Bentusi ships coming out of hyperspace and descending upon the Somtaaw fleet into a Curb Stomp Battle of epic proportions. Then Somtaaw Fleet Command calls them out on it in such an epic way that the Bentusi actually back off from the sheer humiliation. The whole thing can be seen here but the best moment of the whole scene deserves to be recorded here:

"Fleet Command: Republican Fleet, this is the Kiith Somtaaw Warship Kuun-Lan. Will try to send help while you regroup. Naggarok: So, the miners are now warriors?"
 * The start of the final mission has another good example. Throughout the game, Fleet Command always identifies the Kuun-Lan as what it is: basically a huge refinery and construction ship. Except throughout the game you have been slowly upgrading bits of it, improving its defenses and strapping a huge cannon to the side of it. Then the final mission comes

It's about then that you realise that you've pretty much rebuilt the lumbering mining ship into an immensely powerful battleship... ": (flying down from the sky) The Psychonauts have a word for people who turn on their own. blows some of 's into his face, making him ."
 * Psychonauts: Right in the middle of The Milkman Conspiracy, if you're captured the agents ask Raz "What is the purpose of the goggles?" Much later, the Den Mother screams to Raz "Now I shall pluck out your eyes!" Raz responds: "Hah! You can't! That is the purpose of the goggles!"
 * gets his in the showdown with the Big Bad leading up to the last level:
 * Ha! I don't need the Psychonauts anymore! I'm making my own army! Got a word for that?
 * Yeah. Gesundheit!

"The Kid: Wait! Former grandfather The Guy! You killed him! The Guy: As you will now try to kill me, or be killed yourself! The Kid: NO! I WANNA BE THE GUY!"
 * This whole scene is made even more awesome by the fact that
 * The Dev Team in Hunter the Reckoning: Wayward. The party has to break into an old prison with solid steel doors to advance in the story. The dev team made it so the party would do it, in a School bus with monster truck tires and HEAVY METAL BLASTING ON THE STEREO. The only it could have been even more awesome? If it was revealed that the Badass Preacher Esteban Cortez, was driving the Bus.
 * Another Dev team moment of Awesome. In Pre Va a gundam like game. You have a jump jet back. The Second Mission in the game? A fully 3-D space battle complete with your troop carrier firing air support. Worth the 9.95 you spend on it.
 * "Make The Moon" in Katamari Damacy. Slowly but surely, the Prince has been rolling up nice-sized katamari for his dad, the King of All Cosmos, and he's managed to make ones capable of rolling up vehicles and small buildings. Then, as the main theme swells in an extended version, everything gets pushed into high gear as you start rolling up land masses, clouds, and even the god of lightning. Bonus points if you can understand the lyrics, which start taling about picking up things like t-shirts, and eventually progress to all of the large things the Prince picks up, and yet implying even more to grab (the last lines of the last verse, "Katamatte.. Katamatte!" roughly translate to "I'm rolling on").
 * These get progressively more insane the further the franchise goes: Me & My Katamari lets you start from a 5cm. katamari and end with rolling up entire continents in its final level...and then there's the final stage We Love Katamari, where the player is tasked with using the Earth to roll up the entire galaxy, including the sun.
 * Ni GHTS Into Dreams: the final level, Twin Seeds. As with all the other levels, you walk forwards to merge with the flying acrobat Ni GHTS and begin the stage proper. But what's this? The villain won't let you! You're thrown backwards a huge distance and land on a tiny platform. With nowhere to go, you make a leap of faith to the bottomless pit below...
 * This is more or less recreated in the sequel (of sorts), Ni GHTS: Journey of Dreams - the final level of that game, Bellbridge, is also a CMoA, complete with your character flying under their own power, and the game's main theme playing. However, it gets a second one halfway through, better if you're playing as Helen:
 * Every Ratchet and Clank game has a CMOA when you can finally afford to buy (or are able to assemble) that games version of the RYNO.
 * On that note, Megaman Legends when you can finally assemble that arm-mounted howitzer.
 * There's also that bit in the second game when you have to assault Thugs 4 Less HQ. There's a bridge, filled with tanks and thugs loaded for bear, followed by a series of buildings with another tank, two helicopters, and even more thugs, topped off by and all you've got is an armour shop, a weapons shop, and a few crates. They don't stand a chance.
 * Drill Dozer has you go through an entire game using a drilling mechanic, and for the final boss fight,
 * Anytime the enemy Fountain gets destroyed in Defense Of Ancients is one for the team responsible. Given that most Heroes cap out at about 6000 to 7000 hp, even with all item slots dedicated to the best health items, whereas the Fountain has 50,000 hp and ridiculous DPS, it is truly a feat to be proud of, even if it is completely optional.
 * The finale of Chibi-Robo!, which not only perfectly connects and explains all the bizarre, seemingly-disconnected elements of the plot, but pits your character, a tiny, four-inch tall robot with only a low-powered sonic blaster used mainly to remove stickers, against a  Yet, against all odds, you manage to prevail-not only physically, but in your main, ongoing goal to make people happy and restore harmony to easily the most fucked-up family ever.
 * The only moment that could possible hope to match is . You would think a robot just walking upstairs and outside isn't what you'd call awesome. You'd be dead wrong.
 * Odin Sphere has a moment for pretty much every main character, but the one that easily sticks out is in the Prelude of the Armageddon book:
 * The NES version of Bionic Commando has Adolf Hitler / Master D's . Yes, even in the American version. Even better is the same scene in the remake, which has the scene rendered in three dimensions.
 * Additionally, after Rad Spencer escaped from the enemy base in the end, he realises that he left behind Super Joe, who was the entire reason he went on his mission. He runs back into the base, the commander starts getting impatient... Then the island explodes, and a helicopter emerges from the explosion, revealing that both Rad and Joe made it out safe and sound.
 * Warhammer Online has one severely awesome trailer and this seems as good as anywhere to put it:https://web.archive.org/web/20120626102753/http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/flash/WAR_cinematic_08.html
 * Xenogears contains several, but one of the most noticeable involves the villain,
 * The last mission of Metal Slug 3, wherein, after apparently killing the leader of the rebellion you're fighting, it unexpectedly turns out to be a Mars Person in a disguise, who promptly kidnaps the player character and escapes into space in a UFO (that has the real rebel leader strapped to its side). You then take the role of one of the other player characters, team up with the enemy army, and blast off into space to initiate a massive assault against the Mars People that is inarguably the longest level in the entire series.
 * In the very first Armored Core game, one of the later missions has you running up the barrel of a Kill Sat. As its preparing to fire. Dodging energy bursts as you go. All of this to prevent The End of the World as We Know It (again). Watch it Here!
 * The mission immediately after that, which is the last mission, is also pretty cool.
 * Snatcher has one for the sequence in which Gillian's car was sabotaged and is rapidly running towards certain doom. Random pulls a Big Damn Heroes by racing along side the car, first catching Metal Gear (no, not that kind), the music swelling as Random berates Gillian for cowardiance, Metal Gear counting down the time frame Gill has to jump out, then it passes and the car goes over. A cut shot revealed that Gillian jumped at the very last second, and is now hanging onto the rearend of the motorbike.
 * Wario getting a planet in the best ending of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3.
 * In the ending of Wario Land The Shake Dimension,
 * How many VG heroes can say they've smashed YouTube to pieces? Wario can.
 * World in Conflict: The previous coward Bannon gets his when he sacrifices himself to bind an overwhelming sovjet force in place for a tactical nuke.
 * The entire Pine Valley mission qualifies for nearly everyone at different parts of the mission. The first cutscene has the resident Colonel Badass, Colonel Sawyer, calmly continue to give his briefing as everyone around him ducks for cover from both a sniper and the multitude of shells landing amongst them. After taking the town of Pine Valley, you find yourself surrounded on three sides by the vastly superior - not to mention recently reinforced - Soviet forces and pushed up against the fourth side (the Ocean). The only support is a long way out or bogged down trying to get to you. You, and your AI allies, hole up in the center of town to make your last stand. After several minutes of ever escalating combat with the nearly endless Soviet forces, all looks lost....until out of the smoke and dust appears the USS Missouri, guns (and patriotic music!) blaring as they calmly request that you give them target coordinates. Needless to say, the last stand turns into an absolute victory as the Missouri's guns pound the Reds into dust and your previously bogged down support un-bogs itself and rushes to your aid.
 * Time Hollow for the DS has one at the end of chapter five. The Big Bad The protagonist's solution?
 * Any player completing I Wanna Be the Guy. The internet salutes you. Heck, beating a screen in that game is a CMOA.
 * Thank you, but hold the applause. I have yet to beat Very Hard.
 * This . Make no mistake, and I mean this literally (honest to god literally!), this is one of the most impressive achievements in the history of gaming.
 * As for actual moments within the game, there are a few, most doubling as Crowning Moment of Funny:
 * The reenactment of the famous scene from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night... complete with.
 * THE FREAKING MOON falling out of the sky to try to crush you. Multiple times.
 * Jumping off a ledge, catching on fire as you fall through three screens, then landing in a tiny pool of water completely unharmed.
 * Jumping into the Vic Viper for an Unexpected Shmup Level in the final stage.
 * The exchange between The Guy and The Kid is full of awesome, but particularly in The Kid's epic Title Drop:

"Lin: I guess you're right. * Gunshot SFX*"
 * Also, The Kid's Badass Boast: "I have bested fruit, spike and moon!"
 * And during that battle, The Guy's dual CMoA/CMoF line: "Yes, I did have sex with your mother!"
 * Critical Mass, a turn-based, top-down space shooter, is rife with this. Nothing makes you feel quite as much like a Badass as dodging entire salvos of missiles fired by ships more expensive than your entire squadron, making a sharp turn around an asteroid, and shoving a few Yamato Missiles up its unshielded tailpipe.
 * Max Payne has many, most of the defined by the player. For huge awesomes in the narrative sense, there's Max taking on the murderous Trio, who he describes as vicious mad dogs that would hang the heads of their enemies on the fence outside the Punchinello manor if they could. Cops wouldn't touch the Trio. Max utterly destroys them. Then, later in the first game, Max goes up against Big Bad Nicole Horne and her impressively large group of well-armed, well-trained mercenaries. He kills them all, but Horne manages to escape to her helicopter, which is waiting for the wind of a blizzard to die down so that it can use a minigun to rip Max to shreds. Max responds by dropping a radio tower on the helicopter, smashing it into the helipad, which breaks and plummets a good fifty storeys before crushing the helicopter and killing Horne.
 * Even More Awesome since Max knows Alfred Woden's going to pull major Inner Circle strings to get him cleared of the built-up charges, smirking while he's in the back of a cruiser hand-cuffed and being hauled away.
 * Legend of Legaia 2, Duel Saga, the moment where you meet the big bad for the very first time. No name as of yet, just 'the man with the golden eyes.' He's going to take a valuable MacGuffin from your village and thus cause it to die, and so you take sword in hand and engage. The guy just stands there, he lets you throw everything you have at him and with every single blow you land, HE DOESN'T MOVE ONE FUCKING MILLIMETER. It's like you're not even THERE. After this show of badassery, the inevitable autolose sequence is actually something of a letdown.
 * In Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin, Smug Snake Waylon claims that Wide-Eyed Idealist Will only helps people because it makes him feel important, and that at least he is honest about doing what he does for personal gain. Will responds that he might be right, in that he does it because he wants to, just like Waylon likes to "fly around and act like a jerk" because he wants too, but if he saves even one life, it is worth it. This prompts Waylon to call him a "little sack of crap". This marks a clear moment in Will's Character Development, and of course, he got The Dragon to call him a little sack of crap.
 * Lin receives one of her own after defeating Admiral Greyfield in battle, while confronting him. He surrenders out of desperation, and claims that as he is now a prisoner of war, if she kills him out of revenge, she will be the same as him (as their original rebellion was caused by this same crime). Her response?


 * Caulder of all people gets one, when he gives a 'vaccine' to the Mayor after he sells out all of his people to Caulder and attempts a Heel Face Turn. The awesome part?
 * Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising packs a number in:
 * Tanks!!!: Grit explaining to Adder that yes, he isn't particularly loyal to Blue Moon and yes, he doesn't care much about what land belongs to which country. But the destruction of cities and killing of civilians is unforgivable. The player as Grit then proceeds to completely cream Adder's ass from a situation where Adder believed that he had Grit cornered (protip: do not fight the ranged unit specialist on a map full of chokepoints).
 * Navy vs. Air: Drake shrugging off defeating Hawke's air force with his navy as "nothing you or Jess couldn't do. I'm nothing special" when AW2 navies are severely underpowered compared with air forces.
 * Duty and Honour: Kanbei sending his army in to in rescue several cities that are under threat from Black Hole, despite the dangers of the laser cannons that guard the route to them.
 * Great Sea Battle: For being an epically long and hard mission with a satisfying climax.
 * In Penny Arcade Adventures it's Ann-Claire Forthwith who gets the first shot at the Crowning Moment of Awesome, when she
 * Battle Moon Wars gives one hell of a CMoA to Kohaku from Tsukihime, when she not only survives but tanks a blast from Gilgamesh's Enuma Elish in Act 4. Keep in mind that this is an attack which rips apart time and space, and by all rights should have atomized her.
 * Wait, that's not all! Play up to Stage 50 when the Nasuverse army confronts the true enemy they've been fighting all along. Haruna delivers a speech so awe-inspiring and legendary that  Then the stage's background music picks up. Manly Tears were shed.
 * Tales of Destiny 2. Finish the game twice, then on the third play through... do Judas' final Hi-Ougi. After much awesome monologue, he BREAKS HIS MASK, and does Massive Damage with said Hi-Ougi, as it IS the most damaging Physical Hi-Ougi of the game... creamed with awesome sauce.
 * The cutscene in Brigandine when White Wolf of Norgard Vaynard teams up with Brangien to drive of someone super powerful like Cador, which involves Vaynard freezing himself to freeze Cador, then use that time to have Brangien take one accurate shot to Cador's eye, which they use to retreat. Gets more awesome in the Grand Edition when it's animated with anime cutscenes.
 * Valkyria Chronicles, in the prelude to Mission 4: Operation Cloudburst. Yes. Welkin Gunther just drove his tank through a river, Oregon Trail-style, and all he had to do to make it happen was watch how the grass grew in the shallow parts and ask Isara to waterproof it. Being a nature lover sure comes in handy, and the surprise attack gave the imperial soldiers on watch one hell of a spooking.
 * Making your squad mates into heroes is also fun. On the mission where you, Ted, one of the scouts, saved the entire right flank, personally medvacing three soldiers, came back to the field after being murderized by three empire mooks and then destroyed most of the heat sinks BY HIMSELF and then everyone went home for tea and medals. All hail Ted, Hero of Galbardia.
 * Nothing feels quite as awesome as shooting the One-Winged Angel-ed Big Bad in the face with a full force of Shocktroopers led by none other than Vyse. Vyse, the Legend of Arcadia and Gallia.
 * Myst: Exile. The Ameteria age consists of three oddball puzzles that you have to solve for no good reason (much like all Myst puzzles, really), followed by another one that makes even less sense. And then you finish off the age in what is indisputably the greatest cutscene ever (Your Mileage May Vary does not apply), riding in a ball (in first person perspective) literally through all of the puzzles you just solved. No other puzzle in video game history has had such a rewarding conclusion.
 * Spire is a CMOA for Atrus and the Torus Age is one for Katran.
 * In one scene in Myst: The Book of Ti'ana, Ti'ana is a prisoner of Veovis and A'Gaeris.
 * King Ahlsendar's homecoming and defeat of the Judges of Yahvo cult.
 * The ending of Irrational Games' Freedom Force, where is a Tear Jerker.
 * The ending of Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich, where Alchemiss realizes the only way to permanently stop  Entropy is to  . It's only marred by the fact that the cliffhanger at the very end will stay unresolved.
 * Yoriko Anno of Forbidden Siren has one of these. After spending the game going from a frightened, somewhat whiny character to one who gradually toughens up, she has a moment in the ending where,.
 * Spoiler-laden entry coming up: Two of the playable characters in the game are a little girl (who can't even be close to an enemy without causing a Nonstandard Game Over) and her teacher, who is very protective of her. Well,.
 * Kai of Heavenly Sword has one of these towards the end of the game. After going from a childlike, cheery (yet still very deadly) girl to becoming scared out of her wits due to a traumatic repressed memory coming back to haunt her, and then being
 * King Bohan deserves a mention for when he attempts to make an inspirational Big Bad speech to his troops before the final big battle and mentions that he's certain Nariko intends to bite off his genitals.
 * This scene in Gundam Musou (Dynasty Warriors Gundam), with Domon Kasshu performing the "Undefeated of the East" speech with Puru and Zechs.
 * And earlier, Puru imitates Domon by summoning her Quebley Mk II just like he does his Gundam.
 * In Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2, there is an immensely satisfying scene that involves Master Asia giving a verbal and physical smackdown to SEED's Kira Yamato. When fellow SEED protagonist Athrun tries to interfere, Domon drops in quite literally to block him off. Then the two G Gundam character promptly engage in dramatic posing, ending with Master Asia demanding that Kira and Athrun SHOWS HIM THEIR SKILLS.


 * Lost Magic plays the Squishy Wizard rather well in its story, and justifies it, giving you Monster Allies. However, if the right Sadistic Choice was taken, you can get a powerful upgrade to your spellcasting, which allows you to call for the "[Element] Dance" spells, in which Isaac charges his wand with elemental energy, rushes up to an enemy and beats the shit out of them.
 * In Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis, Roxis's . But in case you might confuse this with simply being a jerk,  . Also, say what you will about Mana-Khemia's English voice acting (which has been criticised by some), but some would say it increased the awesomeness of the scene.
 * Being an open-ended space combat/trade sim, X3: Reunion has ample opportunities for do-it-yourself awesome. For example, taking on M3+ class superfighters (which are arguably gamebreakers and for good reason) in a little M4 class standard fighter. For those unfamiliar with the game, it's about like an X-wing taking on a Star Destroyer that can maneuver like a TIE Fighter--no magic-bullet special attacks here, just pure dogfighting.
 * M4s can be armed with medium guns that are fairly decent at killing heavy fighters; the only real problem are their rear turrets, which most M4s can resist for long enough to get the kill. Try taking out M3+ s with M5 scout ships. Enemy lands a few lucky shots, you die. Enemy fires you a missile, you die. Enemy turret tracks you for more than a second, you die. Oh, and your light guns are barely enough to nibble at the other's shields, so good luck with that. But: managing to land enough subsequent missile hits to blow the heavy out of space? Awesome. Managing to do just enough damage to cause him to eject without destroying the ship, netting you a damaged, stripped-down hull that's worth several times the fully equipped one you're flying? Awesome squared.
 * Jumping in an enemy sector with a fleet of destroyers and blasting the hell out of everything in sight = priceless awesome. Also framerate killer, but mostly awesome.
 * The Expansion Pack, X3: Terran Conflict, had a bug at release that caused Xenon invasions to spawn literally thousands of ships. Taking one of the new M6+ (the bigger, badder, shooty-er version of a M3+ ) up against 50 M2 Battleships (which have GUNS bigger than a M3+ ) -- along with entire armadas of M4/M3+ /M6/M6+ s and winning? Awesome.
 * Playing freemode in the custom starts can be considered CMOA-worthy as well. Starting out with literally no money, a crappy M4 with 1 gun, and brass balls; flying into a Pirate sector; flying out with 1 or 2 mostly broken M3s; then using that to bankroll your way into an international trading empire? Also awesome.
 * Pretty much possible in any trading game, such as Wing Commander Privateer, Tradewinds: Legends, and Taipei constantly. Meet pirate ship. Beat pirate ship. Loot contraband. Sell. (Since you're so weak and feeble, even if you're caught the fines are usually pretty small. Just keep trying til ya get a successful sale, then brutally stomp everyone else.) On Sid Meier's Pirates, pick swordfighting or navigation, run around recruiting crewmen, then make your very first capture a frigate or royal sloop. (You can also pick dancing so you earn the swordfighting boosts from the governor's daughters as you wander around recruiting.) A little bit of fighting skill goes a surprisingly long way on merchanting games!
 * In Sly Cooper 2, shortly  Bentley   and that's a great way to start off level 4.
 * Though Bentley has a second. His first and only boss fight against  using his own equipment against him. Too bad it's after the log rolling event.
 * Discworld. Shout after me: "Dragon! DRAGON! DRAGON!" I don't care what you think, this part of the intro was awesome in spades.
 * Mirror's Edge features the parkour ninja cops that are rather good at chasing you down and beating you up in close range. However, if you can maneuver around them and disarm them from behind, you are treated to Faith chopping in the victim's larynx and turning his stungun on himself, causing him to convulse painfully into a heap.
 * Killing in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer was quite awesome, doubly so because . The most evil ending might also count, since.
 * This may seem a bit lame compared to the others on this page, but if your character is female, the first time you talk to Bishop he tells you that he doesn't want a prostitute right now and you should go back to the brothel. One of the possible responses is "Great idea. I'll say hi to your mother while I'm there, shall I?"
 * There's another in the original Neverwinter Nights: the fight with . Unless you bring along Linu, who just uses "Harm" and ends the battle in two seconds. And then there's the grand finale against.
 * And don't forget Hordes Of The Underdark. You can order the 2nd most powerful devil in the multiverse to drop dead!
 * This one is more a Crowning Moment of Funny, but ordering the devil in charge of the ice quarry to be good for the rest of his days might count.
 * Earth Defense Force 2017 }}  is so unabashedly over the top with its AT-AT like megawalker to its Independence Day-esque saucers and mothership, but blowing up a Hector just down the street, only to see one of its brothers emerging from the huge fiery smoke, guns blazing and bearing down on you, is pretty damn epic.
 * Ninja Gaiden - That is all. Most notably, in Ninja Gaiden II, in Chapter 11 shortly before fighting Genshin, a certain someone shows up in a cutscene, face obscured and slicing Spider Clan ninja to pieces in one quick movement, and then proceeds to hand you two rice balls.
 * On that same note, beating any of the NES games definitely counts. Bonus points if you do it on an actual console.
 * Don't forget the fact that the second fight against Genshin made the friggin Air station THEY WERE FIGHTING IN split in two, BETWEEN THEM!
 * In Romancing SaGa 3 there are several CMOA.
 * In Muse's Dream if she is in your party, at the end of the battle with the Dream Devil, he will try and trick Muse by transforming into her father, but she looks beyond that and delivers the final blow. Better if she is using a weapons class that has not sparked a technique, or a class where a technique hasn't been learned, often it will be a high level technique; especially if she unleashes Dragon Inferno (Fists) as the finishing move.
 * In the Divine tower, when chasing Maximus, your allies either are stuck operating switches or fall into traps; when you reach Maximus and fight him alone, gradually your allies return to assist you.
 * Fighting Byunei while riding Gwayne (Dragon) and using the Twin Spike ability.
 * The War Minigame in the later segments of it.
 * Tomb Raider: Underworld - Near the end of the game, you acquire  -- and you actually get to use it. The next level has you running around on a boat wreaking absolute havoc on the enemies,   and sending them flying through the air. The icing on the cake is the fact that Lara Croft is a sophisticated British gal, slaughtering people with   freaking  . (Of course, this does lend credence to the idea that Lara is not exactly an ideal heroine, in addition to the fact that she also brutally kills animals that don't even seem to be doing anything to her in pursuit of treasures that she doesn't necessarily have any more of a right to than her enemies... but it doesn't make it any less awesome.)


 * GUN. Protagonist Colton has tracked down a sunken boat on which a safe containing a MacGuffin was in, utilizing shifting water levels to find it. He has his companion Sopay open the safe, only for dragon Reed, who was responsible for the circumstances that ended up killing your adopted father, as well as slitting the throat of your potential love interest, to show up, aim a gun at you, and thank you for saving him the trouble of opening the safe himself. Colton's response?  Not the best or most memorable game, but that moment ruled.
 * Speaking of GUN, "You were."
 * Crimson Skies. "Listen, sister, Errol Flynn pretends to be me, not the other way around!"
 * Lock's Quest. Lock is an Archineer, someone who builds defences between enemy waves and uses them to get the advantage in combat. As a trainee, armed with a wrench and with less that half of a professional's skillset, he comes face-to-face with the Big Bad, backed up by a powerful boss and a handful of specialized Mooks. The battle-hardened professional soldiers escorting Lock panic and run. Lock's response? "Right here, right now. Let's do this."
 * Emma Honeywell's last stand in The Last Remnant. Watch it here and see for yourself.
 * Hearts of Iron II allows players to create their own in droves. Try defeating Nazi Germany as Poland in 1939.
 * It's possible to beat Germany as Poland in 1937 if you know what you're doing.
 * In Gradius Gaiden's final stage, the first midboss, Booster Core, doesn't explode right away like most other bosses do when you defeat it. Instead, it starts to slowly dismantle, your ship starts to slow down, Booster Core continues flying at full speed past your ship and off the right side of the screen, and a few seconds later, you hear a satisfying "KABOOOOOOM", a white flash, and pieces of the boss go flying back in your direction. A few seconds later, you begin the next part of the stage, wtih this playing in the background.
 * In the obscure Gradius title "Nemesis II/Gradius: The Interstellar Assault", the game begins with a large ship destroying several friendly freighters and chasing a rather helpless Vic Viper into an asteroid. Prior to the final battle of the game, Vic Viper chases the Big Bad responsible for it through a graveyard of similar freighters, after said boss has lost his base, forces, and everything else to the eponymous starfighter. It's a revenge made even sweeter if you happen to have lasers and a few options.
 * Gitaroo Man. The cutscene before the final song. FULL. STOP.
 * Don't when U-1  The part where   was most awesome and doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
 * Completing one of GHOST Squad's Hand-to-Hand Combat scenes yields a cutscene of your character beating the ever-loving shit out of his opponent. Perhaps notable is Mission 3's first Hand-to-Hand scene, in which your character punches a Mook in the nuts.

"Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of Time, and I can tell you they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm. You may wonder who I really am, and why I say this. Come and I will tell you a tale like none you have ever heard."
 * Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: Like other 4X games, it's mostly up to the player to come up with their own personal crowning moments of awesome. Some of the secret projects have cool (and creepy) movies with them. But of particular note is the Voice of Planet project, the second to last project in the technological victory squence.  It's 45 seconds of awesomeness.
 * To the single-digit number of people who have attained Grand Master rank on Tetris the Grand Master 3 - Terror-Instinct: Congratulations.
 * Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy had many CMoAs, but one sticks out and lends itself into a heartwarming moment as well: In the ending of Two Thrones, after, Farah, who has been suspicious of the Prince knowing her  , finally calls him out on it. The Prince's response, bringing the story full circle:

"Cole: Ho ho, yes! Fry, you bastards!"
 * During Lunar 2, Lemina proves to be an annoying character throughout, useful only for the additional combat stats she brings to the party. Then she reverses it all and makes the player love her in one stroke, calling an annoying villain (the most powerful mage in the world) an "Oversized Fecal Factory".
 * Hiro gets his own a little later. When being asked sincerely if Lucia (a woman from another world with immense magic powers) is The Destroyer, his flippant answer is "Only once a month."
 * Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean had an awesome one at the turning point of Kalas's character . Granted, the party has to beat it into him first, but when the Big Bad starts threatening him to obey or else suffer the consequences, and starts using everyone's power to fuel the rebirth of the god, and orders him to slay his former friends...Kalas finally decides he's had enough: he reaches over his shoulder, to the wing that his Face Heel Turn gave him, and bodily rips it off through sheer force of will, cementing his return to the forces of good and his place among the pantheon of badass RPG protagonists.
 * Everything I love is right here!
 * Guild Wars: Eye of The North has Kilroy's Punch-Out Extravaganza, a quest where you slip on a pair of Brass-Knuckles, and raid an enemy Dwarf base to beat the day-lights out of Irontoe, a Stone Summit Boss. The fact that you're beating up practically a small army of Dwarves that are using Swords and Bows with Brass Knuckles and winning, is extremely satisfying, and unbelievably fun.
 * One of the last things we'll ever remember from Duke Nukem is him flipping off a giant spaceship.
 * Attacking the Pirate Ship while riding a rocket in Rayman 2 was pretty badass.
 * From Origins, Rayman being created, especially the way he poses.
 * Given all the awesome things you're capable of in In Famous, it's far too easy to just call Cole a walking CMoA. Then you get the Lightning Storm ability. And then you whip it out for the first time. Two words: Kill Sat. That, my friends, is what pure awesometanium looks like. Cole's commentary following the second half of that mission only adds to the awesomey goodness.

"JC Denton: "Well, since that makes you my new boss, take a good look at. Consider that my resignation. I don't have time to write a letter.""
 * Cole can, among other things, throw around enough lightning to make Emperor Palpatine jealous, scale buildings as quickly as a spider, and grind on powerlines. Alex Mercer may be able to beat him in a fight, but damned if Cole isn't just as awesome.
 * The final battle, Cole vs. Kessler. Lightning god versus lightning god? Yes please.
 * True, it's All There in the Manual, but in Donkey Kong Land, Cranky Kong gets an awesome moment by setting off the plot: He calls K. Rool himself so he can have the baddies steal Donkey Kong's banana hoard all over again. Why? To settle a bet he tricked DK and Diddy into regarding whether or not they could have a sucessful adventure like DKC on the limited Gameboy hardware.
 * Somehow Sony UK managed to put together a piece of advertising that pulled one of these. The goosebump-inducing "double-life" ad for the original PlayStation tried to sell the value of gaming culture to viewers, to great success.
 * Mercenaries 2. Steal a Crocodile Gunboat belonging to the VZ (the main enemy faction). Stay in 'disguise' until you're near a beach absolutely packed with VZ troops and machine guns. Beep the horn (thereby breaking the disguise), and blast the beach with gunfire, rocket fire, or whatever, until your ship starts flaming from too much damage. Gun it towards the beach, hit the closest heavy machine gun with your ship, leave the ship just before the thing blows up, and proceed to clear away the remaining soldiers. Bad. Ass.
 * From the original Mercenaries, the Ace missions were spectacular.
 * Deus Ex. JC Denton escapes from Bad Guy HQ and still spares the time to tell The Dragon what a corrupt asshole he is. Badass, party of one, your table is ready.

": "You take another step forward and here I am again, like your own reflection in a hall of mirrors." JC Denton: "That makes me one ugly son of a bitch.""
 * Also, after managing to avert an enemy atomic strike by capturing the silo just before its ICBM launches, does Denton chalk up this victory and call it a day like his allies suggest? Hell no. Denton retargets the missile himself to wipe the Big Bad's surface defenses off the map, has his chopper pilot drop him off right at ground zero, and enters the Big Bad's underground lair through the nuked wreckage!
 * When you get to Area 51, JC's response is one of the coolest things ever.

""I'm Back.""
 * Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. The setting: Plaza del Ã�ngel. The situation: Captain Mitchell and his Ghosts pinned down in the smoking remains of the US Embassy, defending the gaggle of surviving dignitaries and the "nuclear football" from a seemingly endless onslaught of insurgent forces. The threat: is that a stolen Abrams tank in your radar? Is that its cannon rotating directly towards you? Cue the telltale whirl of rotor blades. Cue the tank vaporizing. Cue the Gunship Rescue.
 * Prototype is freaking awesome normally. But after  Alex reveals TWO new forms (both of which are probably the most powerful forms available in the game) and just says to himself.

"Cortex: PLAYTIME IS OVER! VICTOR! MORITZ! BACK IN YOUR CAGE!"
 * Also, the entire first level. The entire game is a flashback, the first level is after all of this happens, when Alex has complete control over all of his powers. EVERYTHING DIES.
 * On the last level on the Air Craft Carrier, the CMOA comes from the bridge crew, who despite knowing there is a nuke onboard their ship, tells the rest of the crew to abandon station, and they'll remain at their stations until the end. Now that is dedication to their duty.
 * You can do a karate kick on a helicopter. You can elbow drop a helicopter. You can throw cars at helicopters. You can throw tanks at helicopters. You can throw people at helicopters. You can throw other helicopters at helicopters.
 * You can also use the whip thingie to fly from helicopter to helicopter. See how many you can get before you have to touch the ground. Race your friends!
 * Grabbing an enemy soldier, running to the very top of the Empire State Building, and powerbombing him all the way down to street level.
 * You can't forget The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, the game that Prototype is a Spiritual Successor of. In one of the mid-level boss battles, you Your opponent is a twelve-story-tall Super Robot, backed up by as many tanks as the army can muster. In what is quite possibly the game's Crowning Boss of Awesome, you beat the robots by hammer-throwing their own tanks into it.
 * In the Crash Bandicoot series, his CMOA comes in Warped where, after you beat the fourth boss, Crash gets a bazooka. Admittedly, it fires fruit instead of missles, but it pretty much kills every enemy in the game, excluding bosses, and makes it a lot easier to get through some of the tougher areas.
 * Speaking of the Crash Bandicoot series, the final confrontation in Crash Twinsanity gives us a moment in which your respect for Cortex might (temporarily) shoot through the roof, thanks to the voice acting.

"Uka Uka: This time... this time the great UKA UKA WILL MAKE SURE YOU DO IT RIGHT!"
 * Another great moment in Warped is where we first meet Uka Uka talking with Cortex. Up to this point, Cortex had been the Big Bad but Uka Uka makes him cower with fear immediately. Uka Uka's last line in the speech is particularly awesome thanks to voice acting.

"Jason: These bastards are planning to invade San Francisco! Now, best-case scenario, I stop them cold. Worst-case scenario, I delay them long enough for you and whatever cavalry you can come up with to come in here and finish the job! Claire: Are you sure? Jason: No, I'm not sure! Now get out of here before I have a chance to think about it!"
 * In the first Splatterhouse game, Rick is forced to kill a monster that's inhabited his girlfriend Jennifer's body. In the second game, he finds out that her soul can be saved and she can be brought back to life...but only if he can bring it back from the depths of Hell itself. So what does Rick do? He goes through a second possessed mansion to reach a gateway to Hell, uses said gateway to travel to Hell, frees Jennifer's soul from the monsters guarding it, and reemerges from Hell to defeat the latest incarnation of the Evil One and bring Jennifer back to life. HE LITERALLY WENT THROUGH HELL TO GET HIS GIRLFRIEND BACK. Now that's love.
 * In Fable 2, Reaver is a complete jackass. But, he shows his power as the Hero of Skill when you're running through his smuggler caves. While telling you that you can tell your grandchildren about "the great Reaver", you enter another chamber, only to find that it's full of enemies. Before you can do anything, Reaver headshots each one with little effort, and says that "you can tell your grandchildren about that too, if they believe you."
 * After the grief he gave you at several points during the game, watching Jacques beat the crap out of Ranmaru Mori with his BARE HANDS in Onimusha 3 is very satisfying indeed.
 * Yume Miru Kusuri, the end of Aeka's scenario. Kouhei is pinned down by Kyoka and three other girls with tasers and a knife, and he's being forced to watch Gaito beat up and rape Aeka... After that happens, Kouhei points out that he's perfectly aware that Kyoka would just try to get revenge later, and he, until Aeka stops him... All while "To the World of Dreams" plays.
 * Shadow Complex, the fantastic downloadable game on Xbox Live Arcade, gives its protagonist a moment near the end of the game. Up 'til this point, Jason seems like a guy thrown into the middle of things and is only fighting to get out and go home. Yet when he rescues Claire and takes her back to their jeep, he insists that she drive away and call for help, and leave him to deal with the villains himself.


 * He, of course, stops them cold.

"Marona:"
 * The entire commercial for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash Up, seen here.
 * In Phantom Brave, Marona manages to complete another job, . When ready to collect her reward, the elder refuses to pay (Like much of her customers up to this point) through some misguided loophole and goes off on her for being a greedy Chroma. When, he starts causing trouble for this village, causing the elder to go back on what he said and promises to pay Marona if she were to take care of . Her response?

"Restriction 666 released! Dimensional interference field deployed! Now engaging the Idea Engine! It's time I showed you...the TRUE...power of the Azure!"
 * The announcement that the 360 port of Mushihime-sama Futari, a Japan-only Bullet Hell Shoot'Em Up infamously known for its True Final Boss, is going to be free-for-next-xbox-360-game region-free. Cave cares about its overseas fanbase after all.
 * Uncharted 2: Nathan is fighting some sort of Yeti creature and can't win. What does Tenzin do? He jumps on the Yeti's back and stabs it to death with his knife several times. For the rest of the game, my friends and I remarked that any problem that came up, we should let Tenzin handle it.
 * Nate's battle with Lazarevic, definetly.
 * The Godfather: The Game: The first time you take over a warehouse for the Corleones, marking your rise to a new level of competence. Then followed by the first time you milk a six-digit figure out of a racket boss. There's also the part where you and Sonny charge in a car through a trainyard with barrels exploding along the way. Memorable.
 * LEGO Rock Band: Lego Iggy Pop? Good. Lego David Bowie? Cool. Lego Freddie Mercury? Awesome.
 * The Yakuza games tend to be realistic when it comes to fighting. That is, except THAT level in the second one where Sega went "fuck it." So some high-rank yakuza kidnapped Haruka and dared Kazuma to rescue her. Bad idea. Kazuma arrives at the bad guy's castle... Which opens up for letting a golden replica takes its place. Then, Kazuma climbs up the castle, avoiding traps and beating up samurais and ninjas bare fisted, then with a fixed machine gun. And finally, he ends up beating up two feral tigers with his bare hands, finishing them by punching their skulls so hard he cracks them as the beasts were trying to jump on him. Holy. Shit.
 * The G ending of The House of the Dead 4, in which
 * Each of the six bodyguards in Yo-Jin-Bo has two potential Crowning Moments depending on which path you take through the game: one in which they face down and defeat, and one in which they defeat . Of particular note:
 * Cute little Yo in Mon-Mon's path.
 * Bo . And, once he's been pushed far enough past his usual distaste for bloodshed,.
 * Ittosai doesn't kill himself, but he makes up for it by being the only one of the six who's not fazed for a moment by, as well as being the only one of the six who manages to.
 * In the DS Spaceship RPG Infinite Space, Niall Eremon, commander of a huge Lugovalian starship fleet,, finds himself facing him 10 years later with the game's voiced theme song playing in the background during all the battle, is one of the most epic CMOA in all of history.
 * A rather minor one compared to the event above, but the Great Escape sequence in the beginning of Act 2 can qualify. Especially when Yuri shot through the plasma storm of the planet, revealing it was man-made all along.
 * In the trailer for the upcomming videogame Vanquish, there are two notable CMoAs:
 * The charater dashes to cover, runs up the wall and kicks an enemy on top of the wall so hard that he goes flying off.
 * At the end, the character is attacked by a Humongous Mecha. After dodging a Macross Missile Massacre, he jumps over it, catches a missile larger than he is, and turns it 180 to slam it into the launcher.
 * Just tell me that after so many tries, so many practice, so many deaths and bombs, just tell me that beating ANY Touhou in lunatic wasn't on of the most awesome things ever. I fucking DARE you
 * The BlazBlue series has plenty of crowning moments, one line from Continuum Shift stands out:


 * Bang Shishigami taking on in mortal combat while the whole place is collapsing into a singularity around them.
 * In Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Fayt awakening to his power... and blasting a Vendeeni ship out of the sky with a huge beam of energy. Keep in mind that Fayt is, for all intents and purposes, a 19-year-old boy, and he just destroyed a huge battle cruiser that several high-class ships couldn't damage. With ONE attack.
 * If you manage to beat Albel the first time you fight him, the resulting cutscene is both CMoA and CMoF, as Cliff (and the rest, but mainly Cliff) openly mock how weak Albel is, right in front of him, as he lies there glaring at them but too injured to do anything. It's a serious "Owned." moment.
 * The rescue scene later on in the game is a CMoA for whoever rescued you, though Albel's is probably the most stylish.
 * Vexx confronting Dark Yabu is awesome enough, but if you do the right things, you can make Vexx flip Dark Yabu off in the cutscene.
 * The ending to Vexx is also awesome through and through. Unlike some other games I could mention, all the torture of the game is well worth it to see that ending.
 * Raiding the final dungeon in Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals when Maxim's team charges headlong at Doom Castle in their blimp-like airship.
 * Every virtuaroid's ending in the first Virtual On game, especially Raiden's and Fei-Yen's. Just watching Raiden nuking the lunar cannon's core with its giant laser beams feels cool, and Fei-Yen blowing a kiss to the core...? Hmm~!!
 * Even the twisted arcade Carn Evil gets one in the final battle with  and  . The Big Bad getting knocked off his feet and shredded by his airship's propellers is something that should be mentioned here.
 * The Demoscene game .kkrieger is a gorgeous looking 3D game with graphics only slightly below Doom 3's (with dynamic shadows and all) provding about 30 minutes of gameplay. Its size is 96 KB. That's right, less than this very HTML page not counting the images, which is, at the time of writing, ~104 KB. Tell me that's not awesome.