Games that made you go “wow!”

Or any particular section of a game. The Virtual Boy was very unique for its time (and arguably for many years after), although the library was meager, it had a nice variety and several games made good use of the hardware. Out of all the games, which made you drop your jaw or make you say “wow!”.

One of my first VB games on real hardware was Wario Land. Man, for a 2D game, it had some great 3D effects. It was seriously cool to see Wario’s sprite be given depth, how his hands are separate from his body. While usual gameplay can drown out the 3D effects going on, it’s great to stop occasionally and look at everything going on. So far my favorite level for best 3D effect is… Stage 4 or 5 I think? It has an underwater section where the objects are seen from an angle. It’s a very clever way to draw 3D without any polygons. The effect works really well with the VB’s 3D display.

Teleroboxer is hard to get used to (doesn’t quite have the iconic appeal and gameplay of Mike Tyson’s Punch Out), but it’s essentially a killer app. First person perspective, uses both D-Pads to do different things and it’s genuinely fun. But again it’s pretty hard to figure out an opponent’s weakness at times and the controls are hard to get used to.

And then there’s Bound High… Wow, what a great game. I don’t really notice the 3D much during gameplay, but it’s just so unique and fun… I can’t think of another game that is similar to it. It certainly makes for a better virtual reality game than most other VB games. When I first sat down to play it, I stayed glued to it for like an hour or two and reached world 3. I wish the password would appear when you pause the game. I can’t believe this was never released, what a horrible tragedy. Reminds me of Starfox 2 on SNES.

How about you guys? Any real WOW moments in a VB game?