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[TVexperto]

For me it was when PSP released... it was really magic to hold so much power in your hands...and the amount of amazing IPs and games we got on it

 

[BlackTron]

Sega Dreamcast. The graphics were amazing, the controller with a fucking VMU in it. I wish I could go back in time and appreciate that console even more. It introduced me to online multiplayer and allowed my brother and I to play Phantasy Star Online together, while I was in California, and he was in Colorado.

Came here to say this. I think I put in more gaming hours per day during DC's two years than any other period of my life. Time well spent. I played a lot of games with chunky play times. Grandia II and Skies. PSO obsession which I played with AIM friends. 100 hours on Sonic Adventure. Random other games like Soul Calibur and Rayman 2. Every demo disc. And I was still using N64 and Game Boy as palate cleansers. Gaming on all cylinders back then. Gamecube launch was nice too with Rogue Squadron II and Melee but that just feels like the final cherry on top of Dreamcast. Downhill from there

 

[wvnative]

I'm not sure if I qualify as old, but whatever - I'm probably close enough.

For me, the last generation that felt magical was Gen 6 (DC, PS2, GC, Xbox), because it was a combination of high quality, frequent innovation, and speedy release schedules. Hardware during this era was finally advanced enough to do 3D gaming properly, and developers absolutely delivered on that promise from the start of the gen. Owing to that, you also had games regularly trying new ideas, and AAA devs were still willing to throw crazy shit at the wall to see what would stick. I'd argue it's the last generation where that's been the case, at least to that extent. Development budgets were getting higher, but they weren't so high that complete risk aversion had set in. Maybe the craziest thing about that generation when you look back at it is how rapidly new games came out and still managed to raise the bar higher. You could have yearly good installments of a B-tier franchise back then, and AAA studios didn't take 5 years to pump out a game. That added up to a huge quantity of good games to play. So many that I'm still regularly going back and finding new stuff from that era that I want to check out today.

By Gen 7, the magic was gone. The HD era had consoles that weren't up to the task, so everything ran like shit and lacked polish, and game development took forever. And Japanese studios had no idea how to cope with the modern era, so you basically had dumbed down PC ports and clumsy open-world games for like 7 years and were expected to be happy with it. I do think things have gotten a lot better since then, and game quality is very high right now, but the innovation and risk taking just isn't there like it was back in 'the day'.

Holy shit your my twin. This is exactly how I feel, i'm only 29, but yeah, nothing matches the magic of gen 6, and it isn't just nostalgia, as to this day i still find hidden gems from that era and still have that child like excitement that i had back then when i play them. and even in my early teens, gen 7 was such a sudden and obvious downgrade overall. I FUCKING hated that generation. Although, only in the past recent couple years have I tried to take off my bias against gen 7, and have started to appreciate some of the games we got, we had bangers, they were just different from what gen 6 gave us.

And yeah, I loved the PS4/XB1 gen, and consider it a huge improvement overall from gen 7, but your right, that diversity we had in gen 6 is long gone. I'm constantly looking for games that recapture that, and for me the smaller games are getting there, like robocop and terminator. loved those.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Easily and definitely the 5th.

The jump to 3D, Nintendo revolutionizing gaming with 3D environments and controls done right while PlayStation popularized JRPGs and opened the floodgates to the most incredible variety ever seen in gaming. Graphics making incredible jumps year by year, sports and racing games at their most creative and popular, fighting games arguably at their peak. Retro gaming starting to be an officially recognized thing with the first truly popular collections of old arcades. Game music still being game music.

It never felt so revolutionary ever again. Everything since then has been mostly QoL and technical improvements.

 

[_Ex_]

I'm 44 been playing video games since 1982. The entire 1990s was 100% magic for this medium. It was the apex. I went from playing NES in 1990 to playing Dreamcast in 1999. From 8-bit 2D to 128-bit 3D in less than ten years. Every '90s year was a leap and bound over the next for video games. These days a single console generation lasts ten years, the medium is mired in stagnation.

 

[Business]

It’s difficult for me to put a hard line but it has been progressively losing it that’s for sure. Getting old hasn’t helped either but it’s not just that.

 

[Ogbert]

Not trying to be contrary, but I really do think the Switch is incredible.

Will be cherished by gamers in exactly the same way the SNES and PS1 are.

 

[Crispy Gamer]

The Arcades and the generational jump in sequels plus not knowing a new game was out until you actually walked into the arcade I missed those days but other than that the SNES/Genesis days were special and the og XBOX halo Lan party days just hit different. I wasn't into PlayStation until I saw God of War I couldn't believe what I was seeing so I purchased a PS2 the same day there's just way too many moments to list.

 

[U n i o n 0015]

Dreamcast/PS2.

Dreamcast was just awesome, it was a HUGE jump in graphical quality and image clarity. Plus, it had a ton of fun games on the system.

PS2 took a year to catch its stride but it delivered so many great and unique games. The original model also has the most substantial feeling disc drive ever made; it was just such an experience to open that particular tray, slot in the disc, and watch it slowly go back into the system. And that wonderful bios intro made it feel so classy and upscale.

I'll give an honorable mention to Xbox 360 because playing Gears of War felt like the first next-gen experience of that generation and sold the 360 for me. But for the most part, the gaming experiences since then have just been iterations on the same formulas with just higher resolution graphics.

 

[Neff]

32bit was the peak.

I continued and continue to be amazed by subsequent games and hardware, but that was the time of true magic- the advent of dedicated hardware designed around the third dimension, and the innovation it encouraged/enabled. Nothing else has been close to it imo.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

These days a single console generation lasts ten years, the medium is mired in stagnation.

and hardware has gotten so boringgggg

PS5's claim to fame was an SSD... oh and the controller is two-tone now.

 

[Humdinger]

Mine was the original Xbox and first half of the Xbox 360 era. That was my first real console gaming experience, though, because I was in my late 30s before I got into gaming. So I don't have earlier gens to compare it to.

I recently went back and tried to relive some of those old memories, and it didn't really work. I enjoyed a couple of the games, but there wasn't the "magic" that I expected. Most of the games fell flat for me. They were okay, just not as fun as I imagined they would be.

 

[JohnnyTropics]

I'm 38.

Most magical time for me, was the PS1-N64-DC era.

The magic went away in the PS3 X360 era

Ha.
I'm 39, and the PS3 era was absolutely magical for me.

• Hooking my PS3 up to an HDTV and experiencing Uncharted for the first time.
• The night trophies got patched in, coming home from the bars and firing up Super Stardust HD and hearing that "brrrring" for the first time when I got a bronze.
• Updating my queue on gamefly after reading reviews for a new game I wanted.
• HD remasters becoming "a thing."
• Waiting to see which games from the beginning of the generation would get patched with trophies (Fallout 3.)
• So many Sony exclusive franchises that absolutely blew my tits off with how fun the gameplay was in conjunction with the completionist aspect of earning a platinum (inFamous.) It was like they put extra love into the exclusives.
• All of the little indy games that had so much love and character baked into them (Pixeljunk Monsters.)
• The continuation of legacy series into HD with titles that were so damn good (Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Ratchet and Clank, God of War.)
• E3, where the FF7 remake was announced.
• New IPs for Sony which were so creative and special (Little Big Planet.)
• For Michael! The only commercial that has ever, will ever, or could ever get me choked up:

 

[BouncyFrag]

I gamed on NES and genesis/pc growing up and stopped in college cause I had shit to get done. When I picked gaming up again on the Xbox 360 it was incredible playing Mass Effect, Gears, Oblivion etc for the first time was incredible.

I don’t have much time to game anymore being able to play some Switch in the family room in the evening and maybe some on my big screen when folks are off to bed.

 

[UltimaKilo]

Wii/360/PS3, but it was already diminished. After that, every generation got more stale. The Switch has been an exception.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

PS3 / 360 generation made me quit gaming for the most part.

Overwatch brought me back in. Fortnite brought the magic back.

 

[hinch7]

Early 2000's.. We had so many GOAT games in the span of a few years. Half Life 2, CS Source, UT2003, World of Warcraft. And on the console side PS2 and Xbox classics (Halo), GC, Dreamcast with all the local multiplayer madness.

Just remember booting up Halo and other MP games with friends and playing near enough for whole weekends. Same with WoW, man it was so much fun.

 

[Trilobit]

PS2-era. Nothing has since managed to capture that variety of different genres of games on one console.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Started with NES.

Last one was the 360/PS3. I mean, just look at the games released there an compare them to today. Except the graphics they’re indistinguishable.

 

[King Dazzar]

key moments for me:

• ZX Spectrum and especially Mike Singletons Lords Of Midnight and Doomdarks Revenge
• Amiga CD32 and solely its Xcom version
• PS1 and Ridge Racer
• PC around 2007 with Far Cry 2, Crysis and then Empire Total War in 2009
• Skyrim 2011 and onwards for many years modding etc
• Probably the dualsense controller and PS5 due to adaptive triggers and haptics

There's been other great moments for me, but they are standout moments which made me appreciate the particular time a lot. I seriously think the amount of tech crammed in a dualsense now is amazing.

 

[RAIDEN1]

The 360/PS3 era I would say, You had Outrun revitalised, even AfterBurner, the last great Bond game, the last great Ridge Racer, as well as the last great Tennis game in Top Spin Tennis 4....and you didn't have Konami throwing in the towel when it came to producing a decent football game...

 

[IDKFA]

I dont know how to define magical.

Nothing tops the jump from SNES to Mario 64 / Ocarina / Wave Race.

This.

The jump in graphics from SNES to N64 was fucking mental. From 2D sprites to full 3D. Blew my mind in the late 90s.

I'd probably say the mid 90s to mid 00s were my golden age of gaming. The amount of new franchises and absolute classic games (I'm talking real classics here) released on the N64, PS1, PC, PS2, GC, Dreamcast and OG Xbox in that 10 year period defy belief.

We'll never see a decade in gaming like that again.

 

[RickMasters]

Mid to late 90s. The 32 bit era. The dawn of proper 3D gaming. The arcades were at their peak. Sega Saturn for all my arcade fighting games and a bunch of other gems. My PS1 for ridge racer, Gran Turin’s o, bloody roar and tekken. N64 for Mario 64, Zelda, goldeneye, f zero. Picking up import games from specialist stores. Block busters. Pizza Hut deffo tasted better back in the day.



Oh….. and the music was fucking great! I was playing winner stays on on xmen vs street fighter on Saturn with the 4 meg ram cart…. My friends being utterly blown away by the speed, animation and closeness to the arcade version . Mastering Akira for hours on end on virtual fighter 2…. with some sick hip hop mixtape out of my Jamo speakers , that I bought with money from my first job at HMV ( any tony touch and ron G fans out there?)…. My 37 inch Toshiba CRT with progressive scan… baggy jeans, timberland and Karl kani hoodies. Ah the 90s! The late 90s Really was the best time to be a 16/17/18 year old.

 

[mistuhcahlos]

PS360 with DS/PSP. Countless reasons to own all of the systems, each of them having strengths.

 

[Zannegan]

VR begs to differ.
Besides, "truly magical" is subjective and relative. So I can't "objectively" be wrong.
But I'll admit that I can be wrong, depending on perspective.

On that note, maybe I should've said VR.

I know it has been done before back in the day, but now we have proper VR.
Imo it's the next giant leap for gaming, even though it's niche.

I guess writing people's opinions off as nostalgia could be called objectively untrue, even if, in the main, it's pretty accurate.

I agree that VR does feel like the next "magic" leap forward for gaming. And it may be niche, but so was gaming at the beginning. It hasn't exploded onto the scene like many predicted, but it's also not dying like the skeptics insist. It may yet build a core audience then splinter grow from there, just like gaming as a whole did.

 

[WalletBoy]

53 year old here - I know old man but mine probably is getting the Atari Lynx and playing California Games

 

[Paulxo87]

Hard to say. I am 36 and have been playing for 31 years.

At the age of 5 I got my first Nintendo from funcoland and a ton of used games. I even got through final fantasy at such a young age. Plenty of nostalgia there.

Several years later traded in communion money for the snes I wanted. Got to experience link to the past. Ff16, CT etc. At a young age. This is likely my favorite era I would not trade the memories for any money.

I then moved into the psone era etc and got to experience ff7 and mgs as they released as well.

I'm not gonna keep going on because everyone gets the drift but I'd say being there as a kid to experience the snes era was best. Psone a close second.

 

[XXL]

VR is pretty magical so for me the magic continues. I can't wait to see where this all goes in the next 10 years.

This right here.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Come to think of it, its pretty sick that I was playing on a NES in 1991, and on a Dreamcast in 1999. Its the same timeframe from PS4 launch to PS5.

My golden era is absolutely the PSX era. Being invited to play a Ridge racer sit down demopod was surreal. And this would be soon available to consumers. Playstation was perhaps 5 years tops, but look at its output. I've played 3 mainline FF games on it, a trilogy of Resident evil games, a Tekken trilogy, Gran Turismo, Tony Hawk 2, Driver, Wipeout. And in its twilight year Vagrant Story, Legend of Mana, Chrono Cross. The PSX is for me the best console of all time probably.

 

[dem]

Super Mario 64 was the last moment of awe

 

[Muffdraul]

I'll be 55 in a few weeks and I've been gaming since the original Magnavox Odyssey. I'll admit games hit me as less "magical" over time, but I generally don't think in those terms. From my POV, the gaming scene has always been an ocean of mediocre rip offs with a very small number of truly special gems floating on it, very few and far between.

That said, I knew a long time ago that nothing was ever going to hit me like the day in May 1995 when I got my Sega Saturn. Nothing is ever going to melt my brain like when I went from Super Metroid and Sonic and Knuckles one day, to Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter the next.

 

[IAmRei]

last time? nintendo switch. i was left much of console games in ps3 era. before that, ps2 still had awesome moment. genji blown me away, ff12 graphic back then is eyepopping, and many others. other time is PS1 with lot of RPGs or action adventure or action rpg. it's quite imaginative back then. but sadly in ps3 era, everything is trying to be realistic, which i don't really like.

 

[bender]

There is still a lot of magic left in gaming today but it feels like you have to wade through so much more shit these days. PS2/Cube/Dreamcast/Xbox generation were probably the last magical generation for a lot of reason. It was a time before budgets exploded and I was young enough to have friends who were interested in gaming, not to mention the time to play them.

 

[TexMex]

Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/Gamecube/GBA

PC gaming on fire here too. Peak Blizzard.

Thanks for ruining my day.

 

[ozzrik]

The last truly magical gaming generation ? The sixth gen, especially with Sega Dreamcast at the beginning.

 

[Sojiro]

Easily PS1/N64. The transition from mostly 2D games to 3D was really mind blowing. That time was also my teenage years and being able to work and buy more of my own games also really impacted how I enjoyed the hobby. If I had experienced the Dreamcast at launch I would probably lump that in there too, but I didn't get my hands on one until a a year or so after Sega discontinued it.

 

[Xenon]

360/PS3/PSP

It just felt like developers were more open to new ideas and corporate culture wasn't filly entrenched micromanaging games from concept to completion to soak the most cash from its clients.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Unpopular, but probably the Wii.

I saw that thing pop into every livingroom, in a way that actually reminded me quite a bit of the early NES craze back when I was a kid. My grandparents had one and were playing bowling regularly on it. My sisters and their families each had one, even though they hadn't been much of gamers before. It wasn't a niche product for people who know what E3 is, etc... it was more like seeing Pong in every living room's entertainment center drawer, something universal.

And then the capstone of the entire Mario franchise was released on it, Mario Galaxy. So the core franchises didn't suffer even with the new social game emphasis.

I think that's the last time it felt like gaming had become a fun novelty again. I prefer it when a game system looks like a weird living-room gadget, rather than some kind of multimedia box with subscriptions, movie-like content, etc. Give me gaming as a universal toy, and drop the concept of gaming as one more delivery platform for massive corporate IPs and movie-like games. That's where things took a bad turn.

 

[tr1p1ex]

late 90s to 2005 into the initial wow of the Wii era. pcgaming and Nintendo mostly.

just a lot of new developments in that era. And we still had a lot of variety. And new releases were frequent still.

 

[Hunnybun]

Is this any different from just asking when was the last generation that coincided with your childhood?

I thought the PS4 had loads of fantastic and stunningly beautiful games (compared to what I thought was possible at the time) but I couldn't say I was wonderstruck or anything. I mean, I was in my mid 30s lol.

I think the last game that gave me anything like a sense of wonder/magic was probably the original Halo.

 

[SHA]

5th and 6th generation, specially ps1 and 2 and pc, in ps1 lifetime, I got great games and then at my friend's house, he got different great games, the other one the same, the experience were different, it wasn't finite, we learned from our differences and the experience was unique, the PS2 is basically the same but the games got bigger, better and more unique for different niche markets, it led to more personal experiences than before, pc is a standalone platform and sufficient for personal needs, literally, in the 90s,you are just fine with pc only, the games were really defined by the platform, they were unique and special.

 

[Gp1]

Ps1 era until the early 2000s pc/ps2.

After that i consider that the entire industry became bland and stale with some sparks of brilliance here and there (Dark Souls, RDR 2, Witcher 3 etc.)

Edit. The PSP had its wow moments too.

 

[Tajaz2426]

Any generation for me, really. If it is a magical game I will play it to death and talk and converse with my wife(who doesn’t give a shit) and we will talk about how the game made me feel inside. I do not do emotions well or empathy, so she is my Jiminy Cricket. She explains my feels to me because I am emotionally not there, ever, but sometimes games bring it out in me.

The last game that was that way for me was Bloodborne. I had never played a game from them before and I didn’t know what I was getting into, but as things kept unfolding from the church, the hints, the coffins lining the streets where people were just thrown away to maybe help save themselves, then the whole Fuck you with the Lovecraftian horror.

I platinumed that game straight through without even taking a break with another game and then having to try to figure out and parse a story together and go online and see everyone sharing their opinions on what they thought. I even found essays on the damn game. I was hooked and have been dark soiling ever since.

I don’t play many games anymore because MTX has ruined it for me, but every once in a while I’ll find a little gem and hope it turn into a magical moment like Bloodborne gave me.

Edit: I’ll also say that I’m sure the NES and stuff that came out when I was a young gent was magical as well. However, I was homeless on and off for 19 years of my life till I met my wife and joined the Marine Corps. The PlayStation 2 was the first console I owned so I didn’t know much about gaming growing up.

 

[Naked Lunch]

360 era.
The jump to HD - while not as monumental as Mario 64's leap to 3D - was huge.
Something that seismic shifting wont happen again.

You can already see it - multiple generations since are just retreads of the PS360 era style of games.
If anything, games have somehow gotten worse - with some slight exceptions.

VR aint it either. Not a fan.

 

[Jesb]

RIP to anymore of those. Last one was probably ps3/360 gen. Before that Dreamcast and also the GameCube. It was great to have a powerful Nintendo system, this was the last time a Nintendo console was near the most powerful or close. I don’t expect to ever be blown away by a generation again like before.

 

[s_mirage]

Sixth generation, with flickers of the magic still alive in the seventh.

Modern console hardware is boring, just more PC derived boxes, and while there may be more indie games than ever, there aren't the breadth of titles from major publishers that there once were. On that front, as well as less titles, major publishers are also super risk averse now due to the cost of game production. There are a lot of niche gems in the fifth and sixth generation libraries that simply wouldn't get funded by major publishers these days, and those games go a long way towards what made those generations special.

 

[Iced Arcade]

I have been gaming since the NES launch and I think most gen jumps were amazing minus this gen.... The last gen to this gen feels like faster faster loading last gen (which is still great, just isn't anything magical).


I can't pick one but the seventh was 360/PS3 & PSP/DS and that was such an awesome gen.

 

[OverHeat]

Dreamcast

 

[Pimpbaa]

I dunno maybe ps2 when gta3 came out and the floodgates open and it got great games (and bad). I miss the 16-bit era the most however.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

For me gaming since the early 80s, I'd say every generation was magical in their own way.... graphics, reading game mags and renting games you never heard of before at shops, CD era with 3D and great sound, 360 gen with fully functional online feature set and downloading stuff etc.... EXCEPT the past two gens.

Since 2013, yes the systems are better, the dashboards are faster ad have more features, the graphics are better, you got Dolby Atmos sound, yes the digital deals are pretty good etc.... but it's been more of the same. Incremental boosts. Nothing big and wowwy. The biggest wow moment is probably adding an external HDD and downloading and installing games like it's a PC so you dont have to get up and put in a disc or cartridge.

It's become pretty predictable. One thing to me which sounds good on paper, but it does kill the magic effect is that predictability and standard of quality. Unless you truly get burned buying a junk game, most games now are actually made pretty well. Even indie games. It's not like the NES days of LJN junk and the worst CD-rom cut scene mania games ever on a Pentium. Or getting burned buying a game and you beat it that night ad now you feel ripped off.

But that was one thing that was magical about gaming back then. Rolling the dice and booting up a game yourself or with your bros and seeing if it's awesome on your system or a WTF this plays like dogshit and our family PC can barely run it. Back then when games really advanced a lot and you hear play by play sports announcing it was really cool with limited lines of dialogue and half shitty announcing. Now it's expected to be top notch, tons of lines and you pick it apart expecting perfection.

And for you gamers who really only started gaming when 3D gaming was already a norm missed out on the magic playing Ultima Underworld or Wolfenstein/Doom for the first time in the early 90s. Ya, there were other first person games that came before it (heck every long time gamer has played Wizardry at some point in the 80s), but experiencing AAA games in real time twitchy 3D was awesome.