The five best main menus of all time can be found by playing many video games. The main menu features a great deal of things that prepares a player for their overall experience before playing the video game. Much like a cover of a book, the main menu represents the style, art, tone, and delivery of the entire video game. The main menu is dynamic and interesting to grab the player’s attention immediately.
Jet Force Gemini has one of the best main menus of all time from start to finish of the video game. The music subtly begins while displaying the corporation logos and dignitaries with a soft build up, then explodes the player into a crescendo! The theme is epic and forceful to make you feel encouraged and ready to play.
After the crescendo begins, the main menu transitions to a playable character running in a loop. Once the player starts the game and progress through the story, the main menu changes with a different background. The background is a relevant environment or place within the story that the player is currently tackling to complete. If the player has acquired a new team member, the main menu will add the team member into the running loop cycle.
By the end of Jet Force Gemini, all playable characters will enter a walking animation at the final area of the video game. The dynamic changes that occur within the main menu are all empowering and intriguing. The transitions and music make the player want to see the next main menu screen each time they return to the video game.
Many people love art and have a passion to view art in their own way. However, Xenoblade Chronicles’ main menu is one of the best artistic main menus of all time that anyone can enjoy. The video game immediately loads the main menu with a picturesque scene of a field with rolling hills. In the center, a strange red sword-like device is slightly tilted and placed into the ground. The grass sways gently within the wind and the clouds in the background shift silently in the sky.
Then a soft but beautiful theme plays and captures the attention of the player. As the song continues, the scenery transitions from daytime to evening. The theme is synchronized harmoniously with the times of day, until eventually the nighttime arrives with something special.
The sword-like device begins to glow within the dark night giving a soft luminescent light. By the time the song ends, the next morning within the scene appears and the glow of the sword-like device stops. The entire dynamic loop is breathtaking and absolutely captivating from start to finish.
One of the best main menus of all time that captures the setting and feeling of a video game is Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 has several main menu backgrounds that change each time the video game is started. There is no music that plays; the only sounds that the player hears are the ambient noises and sound effects within the video game.
The sound effects that the player hears range from idle communication chatter from futuristic cops that patrol the dystopian streets or a helicopter that zooms by overhead. The ambient noises range from a creek full of insects chirping or fire crackling from something burning in the distance. Each setting that the video game main menu loads are significant areas that the player will experience, giving a sense of foreboding or excitement.
Half-Life 2 does an incredible job giving the player a sense of surrealism as well. The main menu screens make each scene feel real or realistic. The art style and sound design capture and dynamically make a player feel they are stepping into something that could be real.
The Last of Us Part I recently came out June 19, 2020, however the video game is a remaster from the original The Last of Us from June 14, 2013. The main menu for both the original and remaster are mostly the same. Once the main menu loads, a scene of a window with overgrown foliage in an evening setting appears.
The window is captivating, with the soft light from the evening sun peering into a very dark room. The window is the center of attention and the subtle swaying white drapes from the sides give the scene a nice touch. However, upon examining the window closely, the player can see that the glass is destroyed or misplaced. The attention to detail and removed window panes from the artistic scene give the player the sense of foreboding.
While the main menu dynamically animates itself, another element plays in the background. A soft but dark and eerie menu theme plays, which is complimented by the ambient noises made from outside the window. Overall, the artistic, mood setting, and delivery from the main menu is a true work of art.
Super Mario 64 is one of the best main menus of all time. Period. When the game is booted, the player is immediately given the name of the game and a voice line. After a few seconds, the player is then presented a disembodied floating head of the main character that says hello. All the while, the main theme of the video game plays in the background.
If the player moves their joystick, they can interact with the character’s face by pressing and holding a button. While holding the button down, the player can drag the character’s nose, ears, eyelids, and other facial features. After letting go of the button they are holding, the character’s facial feature returns to the original position in a goofy manner.
The amount of time of this soft but playful dynamic feature is endless and timeless. The ingenuity of the concept to toy around with a character’s face is ingenious for all ages. The engagement rate for someone looking for a fun and good time in a video game surely begins with Super Mario 64.
The most important and overlooked point from all of these main menus is the UI. Before even pressing a single start button, the main menus tell the player to press a button. This concept of telling the player, with the most minimal text on the screen as possible, to press a button before anything is to capture them immediately.
Each video game mentioned was unique and different when they first arrived to the consumer market. The style, art, tone, and delivery of the entire video game must come forward in the main menu. That is why these are the five best main menus of all time.
The name “Pondersaur” means “words with a roar” alluding to the creature’s distinct communication.
