Sonic the Hedgehog 1/Awesome


 * One of the earliest Awesome Moments in the series: In the Green Hill Zone, you come across a pipe-like cave that Sonic automatically spindashes into. You emerge into a checkpoint, spindash into another pipe, and are launched 100 feet into the air into a huge pile of rings! Those kinds of game physics demonstrations in the 16-bit era were hard to come by.
 * In the Final Zone, the final zone, after the boss is defeated, Robotnik attempts to flee in his typical manner, until Sonic hits his hovercraft, destroying it, and have it fall into a pit with Robotnik still inside, essentially leaving him for dead.