Best Game Opening...

[JohnCrichton]

Shenmue II
My first import game. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=d7IdaF--epg)
The music and the camera gliding in to meet Ryo as he arrives in China. No game opening has met its match in giving me the feeling that I'm coming back home from a very long time away. Beautiful, subtle, and just loving. From the merchant at the dock wishing you good fortune, to the arm wrestling match... right to the QTE of you getting your bag stolen.
That's the best opening to a game I've ever experienced.
Other honorable mentions are Guaridan Heroes (http://youtube.com/watch?v=XnkAuydAZHs), Final Fantasy VIII (http://youtube.com/watch?v=_pZ2ibvZb2Q), and the first video game that had me stand in absolute awe of it's glory...Final Fantasy VII (http://youtube.com/watch?v=dTkvKyl6ens).
Heh... I also know for sure I watched the opening movie to Skies of Arcadia (http://youtube.com/watch?v=hXlEOHnNv5U) more than once. This game made me proud to have a Dreamcast.

[R-Taco]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6lAaJDUu5Ok

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, for it's sheer style and badassness.

[Bubblegum Girl]

Chrono Trigger(Playstation) (http://youtube.com/watch?v=hOmgIZZuI68)

[Chad Bonin]

I loved the Smash Bros Brawl opening. Epic.

[Classic Speedy]

Frogger: Well-directed little video with Frogger hopping his way through a bunch of new environments to a catchy remix of the Frogger theme.

Gex: Enter the Gecko: "It's gonna be deja OUCH all over again."

Gran Turismo 3: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Awo1JqMkFY) Set to Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way", we see almost three minutes of racing footage, which at times looks frighteningly real.

Guilty Gear XX Reload: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkJnLjILq_Y) Beautiful anime-style animation by J.C. Staff.

Madden 2001: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHqwTHg_Deg) "The Mad in the Game" rap set to football clips. Better than it sounds.

Mortal Kombat Armageddon: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcAylFKpeb8) The mass amount of fighters trying to battle their way to the top of the pyramid is kinda funny, in its own way.

PaRappa the Rapper: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOfzEu_OqE4) Jet Baby.

PaRappa the Rapper 2: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yCKuTA4PTY) Movie cinema villain escapes the screen and terrorizes the theater, only to discover it's PaRappa's dream. Also contains massive amounts of noodles.

Primal Rage: Who will rule the new Urth?

Ridge Racer Type 4: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMZ872rsa90) Reiko Nagase on the highway, picked up by one of the racing cars (mid-race, mind you) when her high heels break.

Soul Calibur II: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2rVKU6sdpk) Good showcase for all the fighters, with lots of fast and furious fights.

Super Street Fighter II: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP_KqVosGsM) Ryu throwing a Hadoken at the screen. How cool is that?

Tekken 2 (PS1): (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVFnXKpiH5M) Like Soul Calibur II, it's a good look at the fighters. I also loved Heihachi climbing the mountain at the beginning and having an evil, vengeful look in his eyes.

Wipeout 3: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_toocCgdTk) Rewind of a craft explosion from opponent fire. Very cool.

[River26]

Final Fantasy VIII

- It had gamers thinking that they were flying through a bed of flowers (for the first part). Then the scene switched to a climactic battle with Squall and Seifer. Even for PSOne, it had one of the best cinematic opening scenes for an RPG game.

Others being The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Final Fantasy XII, which had a Lord of the Rings tone to it.

[Jin Kazama]

The Metal Gear Solid games come to mind. One's cool underwater thing and Two's bridge-in-the-rain.

Mario 64 was neat, how you got sort of a reality-tv vibe with the camera panning from around to the pipe.

[Sonic_Eclipse]

the opening for Sonic Adventure is probably my favorite opening, I almost never skip it when I play the game. "Open Your Heart" rocks!

[Punisher]

Bioshock's (http://youtube.com/watch?v=EBV4juasvxk) has become my personal favorite, but Eternal Darkness (http://youtube.com/watch?v=EzSQdEwiGA0), Sonic Adventure (http://youtube.com/watch?v=E71YqXXQoUU), and Banjo Kazooie (http://youtube.com/watch?v=vm_yAwnbyIg) all have awesome opening videos as well.

[WolfieKiwi]

Rayman 2: The Great Escape: I loved this opening. The music just keeps building up. (I had the Dreamcast version, so the intro text was all voiced.)

Resident Evil (& Remake): Nothing beats a video game opening more than live action cheesy cosplay. And the remade opening was obviously better. I'll probably never forget seeing it for the first time and how awed me and my brother were at the changes they made.

Metal Gear Solid: It's the introduction that's begging to be made into a movie. No wait, they're already planning one, I think... >_>

Soul Calibur (DC): The flashing images and the beat to the music always pumps the player with energy. (Plus there's an extra feature to edit the opening sequence)

Banjo Kazooie: The opening sequence that annoyed anyone, and yet deep down, they were humming the tune.

--EDIT--

Tales of Symphonia: The animated scenes were great. And even though the music wasn't from the original Japanese game, it still set the mood right.

Phoenix Wright: Justice For All:The opening sequence to case 1. Nuff said.

[SSJ Jake]

Here are some of my favorites:

Warioware Inc.: Mega Micro Games- After seeing how popular a video game (Pyoro to be exact) had become, Wario decides to make his own game company (as well as his own video game) with the help of his friends. Pure genius.

Dragon Ball Z: Sparking!- Gotta love the intense FMV along with We Gotta Power playing in the background. Shame they replaced We Gotta Power with the usual kind of crap that often replaces any original Japanese music in DBZ.

Conker's Bad Fur Day- Conker cuts the N64 logo in half with a chainsaw and replaces it with the Rareware logo. Dark, but oddly enough, funny in its own way.

Donkey Kong 64- Okay, the DK Rap sucked. Still, the fact that Rare was able to have the word "hell" said and it somehow got passed the American censors is hilarious. Shame they replaced it with "heck" in the SSBM version.

[Tanooki]

super smash bros melee: awesome(song + visuals) = win

[Novapocalypse]

The Legend of Zelda:Ocarina of Time-Come on,not any action,but seeing Link riding Epona across Hyrule field with the burning logo coming up was awsome.

Sonic Adventure-Open Your Heart.......an awsome video to go with It......This was insanely awsome!

Crash Bandicoot 2:Cortex Stikes Back-What?I liked seeing Crah come through space with the cool upbeat BGM playing.

[Bat Bruce]

Onimusha 3

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gNNqHxiEuTQ

[Captain Highwind]

The first opening to Wild Arms 2.

Tales of the Abyss, particularly for Bump of Chicken.

The Final Fantasy III DS opening's pretty gorgeous. Wonder what FFIV's will look like.

And eventually, I wonder what FFVI DS' opening will look like (FYI, there is an operatic trailer for the PS version floating around somewhere that uses a remake of the original opera BGM, and it is mighty damn gorgeous.)

The opening scene to Crisis Core has some corny dialogue, but the music's cool.

[Tenku]

Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3: The bridge scene and the HALOing out of the plane. Two Words: Bad Ass.

Katamari Damacy: It's so colorful and happy.

the Beatmania IIDX (10th Style and Up): Even though it's just 30 seconds, it manages to draw you in and it excites me everytime.

[Juu-kuchi]

Tekken 5 (PS2) - The bad ass intro with Heihachi and Kazuya fighting JACK-bots, then the sung intro with all the characters at play? Awesome.
Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 (PS2) - Super Robot pwnage as Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Gundam SEED, Gunbuster, face off against the Buff Clan.
Super Mario RPG (SNES) - C'mon, the opening revealing all five characters with some of that awesome music? It was great.
Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (N64) - Kageyama Hironobu.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 - GO FOR BROKE! TRIUMPH OR DIE!
Street Fighter Alpha 2 - Ditto.

[Dudley]

For me, I'd pick Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, and SSB Melee, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, cuz I like the cool line-up of characters and the music.

[Simpler Simon]

The newer James Bond games. Instead of watching some generic intro movie, you get tossed into the action before you even have a chance to hit the main menu.

The recent Mortal Kombat games have all had solid intro movies...they even killed Liu Kang in the opening of Deadly Alliance to 'reboot' the franchise.

[FightingDreamer]

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance-A wicked CG intro sets the stage for some superhero butt-kickin' mayhem.
Ditto on Soul Calibur II, the Kingdom Hearts games, and Smash Bros Melee.

[Anyone00]

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnd0qg4I_MM)
Starcraft: Broodwar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFIJK2XdkPU)
Diablo II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kPXdtz_c4)
Fallout (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkBNKa2KXZE)

[Lord Dalek]

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEcqLrvIZko) - Great graphics and music make this intro an 8-bit classic

Street Fighter II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CqVrtDpIrU) - This is a bit obligatory, but seriously, its just fricken awesome.

Blazing Star (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcKAAnTZFhA) - or... Ten years later the Neo-Geo still kicks ass.

Phantasy Star IV (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keqSU-plrs8) - The greatest intro to the greatest game on the greatest system of all time.

[Conekiller]

You are all wrong, the winner of this title goes to TECH ROMANCER!

:D

[Shawn Hopkins]

I was really impressed by the opening cinema in Soul Blade for the PSX. I haven't played it in about 10 years, but I remember there's a part where it shows Mitsurugi as a farmer cutting down wheat then transitions to him as a samurai cutting down dudes the same way with a katana.

[Desensitized]

Grandia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kel1loIYjpM)
Rival Schools (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLxFJ_wi5NQ)
Soul Blade (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqFjUfUcDs8)
Earthbound (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3dIWyvNoxM)
Wild ARMs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISSAZrUU9aU)

Come on, that Soul Blade intro proves it would've made an awesome series. Grandia feels like the intro to an epic anime, Rival Schools is just awesome, Earthbound shows you right off the bat it's gonna be weird and Wild ARMs has the single best RPG theme ever.

[danreyes1]

Super Smash Bros. Melee, Soul Caliber II (Gamecube edition), Baten Kaitos, Chrono Trigger (original SNES version), and Chrono Cross.

[Conan-san]

Disgaea 2 Opening (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50ioT1VEQ24) : Eh, I'm a sucker for the "Jewish Violin" stylings of Disgaea...

[Captain Highwind]

You know every time I look at that Wild Arms I intro, there's always something new I see. It just disturbs me a little that it's so quiet. o_o

So that's the theme song to Grandia. I've heard that song everywhere but never could place it.

[GWOtaku]

The one for Kingdom Hearts II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f55QflfoFlc) is awesome, its a great song.

I also started playing Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and that opening (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGUIDgWCj20) was rather cool. Nice CG and artwork, and generally the whole thing comes off as pretty epic.

[Juu-kuchi]

Oh my I can't believe I forgot these.

-Rising Zan: Samurai Gunman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnSnGUb43QM)[/URL]
-Gundam Climax UC (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnSnGUb43QM)[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4GYTY388Uw"]

[Luna]

The one for Kingdom Hearts II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f55QflfoFlc) is awesome, its a great song.

I love the animation/characters shown in the KHII opening,but I like the opening song in the original Kingdom Hearts better ( "Simple and Clean" )

I also liked Okami's opening....which explained the story of the white wolf....

[danreyes1]

Oh yeah, another one: Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Love the bagpipe part.

[Cortez2301]

"dead to rights":That opening is alot better than the game itself.Great action and cool graphics.

"Batman Vengeance":Classic opening.

The Metal gear games:I don't need to beck this up.

"Gun":IT just set the whole tone for the game.

"Super Smash bros melee":It is just plain fun.

"Medal of honour frontline":Its the same one as "Saving Private Ryan".

[Vermunium]

Chrono Cross (http://youtube.com/watch?v=1B97Ir8Q7e0) = Best Game opening evar. It still gives me goosebumps when I watch it, and I've been watching it for seven years.

[R-Taco]

Oh my I can't believe I forgot these.

-Rising Zan: Samurai Gunman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnSnGUb43QM)
-Gundam Climax UC (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4GYTY388Uw)

D'oh! How could I forget about Rising Zan?

[Captain Highwind]

Chrono Cross looks awesome. I will be buying it.