Getting Involved With The RPG Video Game Genre For The First Time.
 

I recently had a great conversation with one of my best friends. We were talking about how we got involved with RPG Gaming for the first time. It came up when my friend was getting ready to put his final fantasy I hack on an actual NES game cartridge.

I thought about it for a while and it was actually by accident I got into RPG Games. The First RPG game I ever played was actually Dragon Warrior back in 1990. I was only 10 years old at the time, and majority of the games I had played for my NES were mainly side scrollers. What really peaked my interest for Dragon Warrior is when I seen the commercial for Dragon Warrior on TV.

Here is the actual commercial:

YouTube Video

I asked my dad if he ever seen the game at the local video game store to rent it for me over the weekend. When I first played it I didn't get very far. As soon as I started to fight some of the skeleton monsters I found the game way too hard and I swore to myself I would never play a game like that again.

Fast forward a few months and I had a subscription to Nintendo Power and one of the magazines I got the Nintendo Power Strategy Guide For Final Fantasy. This is a picture of the actual magazine.

http://collector.5gigs.com/goodies/pics/ff1nessg.jpg

As soon as I seen this guide and started to read through it I was automatically addicted to it. Unfortunately during that time to find a copy of final fantasy in a town of only 3000 people was next to near impossible. I never had a chance to play the game in itself until 1992, when I went to see my aunt. I only had a weekend to play it and I only got as far as the marsh cave. I never actually had a chance to own my own copy of the game and beat it until 1996.

Between 1992 and 1996 I was already involved into rpg gaming. Even though we didn't have a great library. I already had played Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, Breath Of Fire and action RPG's such as Soul Blazer and Actraiser. Through those games and finally playing/finishing the first final fantasy after 6 years of its original release really satisfied and flourished my interest toward RPG's in general.

So to members of the Gamingforce community how did you get involved with the RPG Gaming for the first time.

The year: 1990

The setting: Little Deni's friend's living room

The Dramatis Personae: Little Deni, Little Deni's Friend, An NES, an old TV with knobs for channel changing.

Little Deni sits, transfixed, his Gretzky-esque hockey mullet in rapt attention at a group of a fighter, a monk, a white mage and a black mage walking across a bridge. The screen flashes. The story unfolds.

Little Deni is addicted.

Little Deni ran out and made his mom buy him a copy of it as soon as he saw it played. Or he tried. It didn't work. Little Deni was the tender age of 7, and it's the precise reason he got a paper route. He needed a Nintendo and he needed Final Fantasy. And goddamnit, he got it. And such was born a love affair with a genre. At 7, Little Deni was reading Tolkien and McAffrey and all sorts of pulp fantasy. And here were playable versions of that. He was taken.

So I cut my teeth on Final Fantasy and the Light Warriors. This love affair continued through the SNES. Games like Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Earthbound, Lufia II, Legend of Zelda: LttP, Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy IV, and of course Final Fantasy VI... there were others, as well... they were bread and water. Sure, I played other video game genres. I loved Super Metroid, I loved Joe and Mac, and Super Adventure Island... but RPGs were my love affair. There were more to come. Dark Wizard on the Sega CD, Shining Force and Phantasy Star on the Genesis, Dragon Force, Shining Force III and an almost countless number on the Saturn... I still collect them, of course. Tons sitting on my shelf, a fine collection. Even OCD Skills would admit to that.

My dad got me into them with Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, though as the years went on he lost interest in the genre as they got less about gameplay and more about storylines. (He was never fond of the Japanese RPG plots I suppose; can't truly blame him for the most part)

I remember after school for a long while we would play Zelda 1,2 (not rpgs, I know) and then Dragon quest 1~4, followed up by Final Fantasy 1 and 4. After that point I was pretty much playing them on my own entirely, as he lost interest in the genre after FF4; though he still was interested enough in Zelda and a few others that we played around together sometimes.

I remember last year I finally got him to play OOT and Majora's Mask because of the bonus disc that came out for the gamecube. Couldn't get him to try much past those, though.

I don't remember how old I was exactly, as I didn't play them right when they came out (well, I did try DQ4 and FF4 right when they came out, but not the others) but I was pretty young. I still remember those times fondly cause outside of that me and my father never really had a lot in common, so those were the only times we ever really spent any quality time together. Hard to believe it's been so long. :(

I got a free copy of Dragon Warrior with my subscription to Nintendo Power (was a subscriber since issue 2). I don't even know how young I was at the time, but I thought the game was fantastic and eagerly looked forward to any other game like that I could find.

I don't remember hitting another RPG until my brother borrowed Final Fantasy 2 from one of his friends, and I watched him nonstop. Pretty much from them until the PS2 generation, RPGs were my favorite genre (nowadays I feel they're too drawn out and unimaginative to be worth the time they take).

A little embarrassingly for me my first RPG experience was Chrono Trigger. Now it's not embarassing the fact it was Chrono Trigger, but the reason behind me hiring it from that video store. Now my video store used to stock PAL games and NTSC games for hire, which was unusual, but that always had it clearly displayed on the box. Now my friend had a US SNES, no it was no problem for us to be able to play these games.

So back to the embarrassing part, we were browsing for games to hire. At this time I would have been 11 or 12, the N64 had already come out so we weren't really into hiring SNES games anymore. We had picked up Wave Race and we were walking to the front counter when I spotted something. Something that looked like a DragonBall Z game.

The rest is history. After I hired it I asked the owner if he could order in a copy for me so I could haver it at home, I borrowed my friends SNES (he moved away I still have it :eagletear:) and played the game like no tomorrow. I also bought Terranigma, cause the video store guy said it was made by the same people.

When I had a PSX I tried to get into Final Fantasy and the like, but they sucked.

Unbeknownst to me at the time (I must've been between 7 and 9; I was born in 1983), my first RPG was Willow on the NES. But I didn't truly get into the genre until the SNES, when I discovered Secret of Mana. The ad/poster in a magazine caught my attention very easily. It looked something like this, of course:

http://www.4colorrebellion.net/media...et_of_mana.jpg

Anyways, the game had a big impact on me. If you saw that intro sequence with Fear of the Angels playing back in the day, you'd understand why too. I think it was probably the first time that I found a game 'beautiful' as well as moving on an emotional level. From there, I was pretty much hooked on the genre. I would soon play Breath of Fire, Breath of Fire II, Ogre Battle, Illusion of Gaia, Lufia, Lufia II, Final Fantasy II/IV, Final Fantasy III/VI, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Evermore, and Super Mario RPG before jumping into the 32-bit era.

My first RPG was also Dragon Warrior. Oh no, not the NES version, but the Game Boy Color remake of the first two games. I played many more portable games back when I was a child (since I couldn't really convince my parents to buy me a console), so, I had to wait a good while for my classic RPG experince.

Free Dragon Warrior game with Nintendo Power. Back in the days of being poor and young, a free game was something you didn't pass up no matter how shitty it was (no, not even that copy of Castlequest my aunt got me). As it was...I happened to like DW quite a bit. And it led to FF1...Which led to FF2/4, which officially hooked me to RPG's (at least up until recently).

I wasn't really aware of the SNES during my childhood, sadly. Some of the SNES RPGs would've been awesome to grow up with. :( Rather, I got a PSX as soon as I could. My first RPG experience was either Final Fantasy VIII or Suikoden II, the latter clearly being the better game. Funny how I have much stronger nostalgic ties with Suikoden II than I do with FFVIII. After that I got FFVII which I didn't enjoy. I played it again recently and still, nothing. Contrarily, I got Suikoden I after I played Suikoden II and that was really when I fell in love with Suikoden. Then III came along...*shudder*

Suikoden ftw. ^.^ I'm proud to be labeled a Suikoden fanboy, really...

Super Mario RPG. I didn't even know what the "RPG" in the title meant, but I liked the TV ads. As a person with rather poor reflexes, the turn-based play appealed to me, and it was virtually the first console game that I was able to beat. The music inspired me to take my first tentative steps into the game music world as well, by downloading cheap tinny MIDIs of the game's themes.

I noticed other games by the same developer on the rental joint's shelves, and the fever took hold from there.

My dad brought home an Atari PC, not sure of the model. Which had several floppy disks that contained several genres of games. Mudpies, Spy Hunter, The Black Cauldron, Pac-Man, Asteroids... all sorts of what I would consider cheap, old school arcade games. And on one of those disks was Ultima: Exodus. The file that was saved actually had a high level party that had a ship that could obliterate any enemy on the map with a press of the space bar... until it ran out of shots.

I was between 6 and 8 if memory serves me correctly and I couldn't quite figure out the mechanics of the game, though it had several quirky little print outs that my dad brought back from work. They described the world and even what was necessary to cast certain spells in the game... rather, how to casts spells quite literally. Actual ingredients, usual organs of creatures I could neither pronounce the name or identify with my then current knowledge. But the verbal picture of fantasy was what broke through to me in those little printouts, though my eureka with the game would never really come. The "instructions" would have belonged in something like a fantasy novel, as nothing ever clearly described how to play the game.

I deleted the save file and decided to try and make my own party. I chose all warriors/fighters, because when I did get into a random battle in the first save file, I saw that they were the most powerful. Playing through the game, I was told to find the king and talk to him. I noticed that you could fight anyone in Ultima: Exodus via a command in the pop-up menu of options. I decided that it was time for a regime change.

The king promptly annihilated my well-meaning group of revolutionaries, each attempt I would make to dethrone him only left me defeated more swiftly than the previous effort.

After deciding the monarchy wasn't that bad, I tried a few attempts to possibly reduce the tyrannical city and palace guard contingent, each attempt met with various levels of "You wanna be the guy? Maybe when you're older", I gave up on Ultima: Exodus.

My understanding of RPGs at that time was summed up as the following: If you hold a stone to your breast and chant "I-vag-llorum", you'd be granted protection against evil. If you save over a save file at the end of an RPG, chances are you have to start over again with people who don't have an awesome ship that shoots red pixels of death... but you'll still have the no-direction of a game that could let you try to overthrow the kingdom if you so desired it.

I'd play other RPGs, Final Fantasy 1 on the NES, Dragon Warrior... but the only thing that ever stuck was when 1995 hit and then I saw advertisements for Chrono Trigger. I was smitten. The very idea of it was subversive to me at the time, every other setting was some kind of fantasy romp and my mind could only be wow'd by the world presented and leaked little by little in magazine previews.

I played and fell in love with Chrono Trigger like many folks.

RPGs just really haven't been the same since, save for a few pleasant exceptions. But isn't that how it always goes?

Ah man, this takes me back.

My first brush with RPGs was with my cousin actually. They're about 5 years older than me, and back when I was maybe 7 or 8, I'd go to their house since they had an SNES and what I now know is a disk loader emulator for the SNES which allowed you to play what I now know as ROMS. (Back then, I had no idea. I just knew games were on a disk and you had to load the disks into the SNES.)

Anyways, one of these said games was Final Fantasy VI. Obviously, I never got to play since I had two cousins, and if they did do 2-player (which was rare), it was usually the other playing. But I really didn't care, because just watching it was fun. Another game at roughly the same time that caught my interest was what I later found out to be Fire Emblem 4: Seisen no Keifu (or Geneology of the Holy War is the English subtitle, I believe), which again, I never got to play, but was happy and having fun just watching them play.

At home, I didn't have an SNES (or any other console for that matter) but all I had was a computer. A few months later, my other cousins came down from New Jersey to visit. They're also about 6 or 7 years older than me, and they then introduced me to the world of emulation and ROMS (namely, for the Genesis and the SNES.) At the time, the Genesis didn't interest me much, but I immediately went online to find Final Fantasy VI, downloading at 3.5KB/s on a 56k modem (those were the days) and enjoyed every minute of it.

The rest is history. After Final Fantasy VI, there was Final Fantasy VII (for the PC) which my cousins bought. I eventually borrowed that from them as well, enjoying the game at a chugging 20 frames per second. When the PSX finally hit, Final Fantasy became an all-time favorite franchise, not only with VII, VIII and IX, but more importantly, I, II, IV, V, VI, and the dark horse, Tactics, which incidentally, was what introduced me to strategy RPGs (or at least the first I actually played), and since then, I have never turned back. I LOVE Strategy RPGs.

As a random note, other franchises followed slowly as I wouldn't check out other RPGs unless I was recommended one. This brings in the Mana series (starting with Seiken Densetsu 3 and then Legend of Mana), Tales series (starting with Tales of Phantasia), and Fire Emblem series (one that I had forgotten about until 2 years ago) to name a few. But now I check out most RPGs as they come out, most of them being pretty fun. (Admittedly, I never got into the Chrono series....maybe a visit to that series is in order...)

This only applies to JRPGs, apparently, as I haven't played too many Western RPGs that I liked. The exception to this would be Fallout and Fallout 2.

I does seem like the three-peat of Secret of Mana ('93), Final Fantasy VI ('94), and Chrono Trigger ('95) was something special that will never be repeated again.

We live in hope, Megavolt.

Vengeance is mine, by the way.

Back in 1988, my first was Dragon Warrior as well. My second was FF1, too.

Through the twenty years I have immensely enjoyed all Dragon Warrior games and love half of the FF games and dislike the other half for some reason or another.

I met the Shining Force series in 1994 and love it.

I consider myself a classic gamer of RPGs. I like classic ones where you have to keep grinding until you become powerful. It really makes me feel like I've earned it.

My favorites are, in no order:

FF1, 4, 7
Shining Force 3, CD
Super Mario RPG
Lunar Silver Star & Eternal Blue (SEGA CD versions)
Dragon Quest 3, 8

With pretty much 20 years of experience, my conclusion is that Final Fantasy IV is the best game of all time. I am so psyched for the DS remake.

The storyline starts out pretty powerfully and keeps you going to the very end. The ending itself is very full and complete as well. Along the way there is emotion, a coherent plot, and some fun.

The gameplay is perfectly balanced where each character is of a different class. They each have important abilities so that all 5 people in battle must work together in a smart way to win (rather than have characters that all have the same spells and are less unique). It also has some very creative bosses -- especially for 1991. You have to defeat them in different ways, such as using wall in different ways, etc.

I doubt anything will beat it anytime soon.

First RPG I ever played was Robotrek for the SNES. I remember my brother and I didn't get very far because we would avoid the random encounters and as a result, had incredibly weak party members.

YouTube Video

It's a really quirky little number. The lighthearted slapstick is rad, at least.

I think the first RPG game that I played was FFIV, but it might have been something else as I can't remember that very clearly.

My father who's been interested in computers since I was a small kid had heard of that you could emulate SNES games on the computer back in 1995 or 96. We had a SNES of our own with many games, but the thought of being able to play things for FREE at the time was amazing (it's not like that many RPGs came to Europe anyways so I wouldn't have had the chance to play them if I didn't emulate). So I got an emulator and downloaded any games I could find with cool titles on our 56k modem (Oh boy I loved those times) :D I saw this game called Final Fantasy IV, and man, it had one of coolest titles I had heard of and could understand at the time so I just had to try it out.

I started the game, and I got all hyper just by seeing the airships and stuff and Cecil kicking ass in the first monster encounters. I didn't understand much English back then since I was 6-7 years old (I'm Swedish), but I sat down with a dictionary and practically learned English on my own by playing all these different RPG games, translating every word that I didn't understand.

I didn't finish the games I played at the time since I still couldn't understand everything but the more games I played the further I got in them and the more I understood of the battle systems.

The first RPG I finished must have been Chrono Trigger, if I remember it right. This game was like magic to me, and I couldn't let go of it. Even when having crazy headaches I couldn't stop playing this game. I got so engrossed in the game that I could barely hear my mom screaming for me when it was time for dinner. She had to pull away me from the computer every time :D

My first RPG was, similar to many other here, Final Fantasy I.

I was at my uncle's house, and I was watching him play it. I was pretty young, and was intrigued by the gameplay. I had never seen an RPG before, and on my Nintendo at home I only had a few games. I remember owning Mario, Mario 3, and Tetris. Beyond that, I had only rented a game here and there.

Anyway, the 'random battles' looked fun, as well as being able to freely wander around the map from town to town. After he had been playing for a while, I saw him go to an inn, and then go to turn off the Nintendo. I immediately freaked out, saying something like "WHAT you've been playing for like 3 hours and did all that, and you're just going to turn it OFF?"

He just laughed and explained that the inn lets him 'save' the game and go back to it later. I was impressed. [And wished games like Mario 3 had that feature, heh.] So after he was done, I started up my own game. Eventually the NES was basically 'phased out' by SNES, so I got my hands on their Final Fantasy cart, and still own it today. :D

Ooh, good topic.

Even though I owned an NES beforehand, my first experience with RPGs wouldn't be until the SNES era. I'd frequently watch my older cousin play FFIV and FF Mystic Quest, and was completely taken in by the fact that there was this on-going story throughout the whole thing. To compare it to the only thing I could relate it to then, it was like a cartoon you could play. I decided right there that I was going to own an RPG of my own, and it had to be one my cousin didn't already have so we could swap at some point. I couldn't make up my mind at first, until a chance trip with my mom to Sears brought me in contact with Breath of Fire.

"From the makers of Final Fantasy!"

We all know Capcom made it, but Square published it, meaning they got the right to slap their logo on the front and call it their own. Did this crafty advertising work on me? Boy, did it ever! That and fact that I could apparently control a fish-man, an ox, and a snake-woman in addition to the sword-wielding hero. Not even FFIV had that. What would follow was a crash-course in item management, turn-based battles, and saving that would lead to many, many deaths and re-starts. But I pressed on, and it payed off when I got to transform into a dragon for the first time and melt some enemy face. The whole thing was pretty special, and if I laud over any BoF game in my posts, this is often why.

Granted, some of us were pretty fortunate to grow up with the NES/SNES stuff, but you didn't miss the boat entirely. Suikoden II and FFVIII are still classics no matter how you slice it, but what matters most is that they're special to you. We all had those games, the ones our grandparents fished out of the bargain bins or mis-read the label and bought Fantasia instead of Final Fantasy, stuff we wouldn't buy ourselves in broad daylight, but good or bad, they were no less a part of our past.

I'll tell you a story that sorta relates to this. Back in 1993 I picked up a copy of some gaming mag at a grocery store. I don't know which one exactly, but they had a multi-page spread on a certain game called Lunar: The Silver Star. I was spell-bound, it was like a Disney film put to pixels, with animated visuals and CD sound, the whole gamut. I knew I had to play it, experience it, right then. But, the sad truth was, I already owned an SNES and a Genesis, and my mom and dad weren't about to shell out another small fortune to by me an add-on just so I could play the game. I was heart-broken, but I put it behind me when a bunch of good stuff starting coming out for the systems I had. Eventually, I got to play it, and it was great, but I wouldn't trade it for what I did get instead. Who knows, maybe I wouldn't have gotten to play BoF, or even Chrono Trigger had that little plan come to pass. Hold close to what you did get. Besides, you could've done a lot worse.

Nall, I was so waiting for you to answer this thread. I'm actually surprised to find you only started out in the SNES era, I had you pegged as a FF I/DQ kid.

Also, I am saddened that for once, I must disagree with you. FF VIII was a classic? Perhaps a classic example of how not to write a story. The music, however? Beautiful.

My experience was hilarious. I had a game genie and noticed that Final Fantasy had basically more codes than any other game. So I asked for the game, and asked for the game, and asked for the game and finally got it for Christmas. It was definitely a good thing that the game came with it's own game guide as I had no idea what I was doing and while there were a LOT of codes, there was still that nasty 3 code limit (although why I didn't just not use the infinite gold code once I got what I needed I'll never know).

After that was Dragon Warrior where i learned the age-old art of leveling up to clear an area. There was this one slime in some abandoned city where I would get my butt handed to me each time. So then I would begin leveling, and kept trying each time I leveled upl. I think at level 18 I finally beat the slime or whatever it was. I also beat the game, although it was quite hilarous at the end where you are given the choice of having half the world only to get "Art thou sure?" if you said Yes.

I can agree with that. The 32-bit era has plenty of good RPGs anyways. One thing that I can't stand however is the PS1 RPG fan who looks down on pre-PS1 RPGs as having inferior stories and therefore being inferior RPGs. I honestly think that most of the people who feel that way do so out of ignorance and fear. I think they feel that way for the simple reason that they aren't able to play many of the good 16-bit RPGs beyond FFIV, V, VI, and Chrono Trigger. For me, the cutoff point for an RPG being too dated might be with the first Dragon Quest. Obviously some of those early RPGs are a bit barebones, but the third Dragon Quest is still a good game despite being 8-bit and so certainly the various 16-bit classics still hold up.

Yeah, I think FFVIII is too love or hate to be considered a classic. Suikoden II is easier to accept as being worthy of the distinction.

The story, not so much - Dawnson's Creek with swords, but I give the game props for having probably the best 3D and cinematics at the time, a decent challenge factor, and, like you said, good music. I know some people are pretty attached to it, even if it exemplifies what we now know as The New Square, which is more like a soap opera and less like a rock opera than the originals. It's the FF people love to hate, but I think it was sorta important for the genre that it existed. On a personal scale it ranks pretty low, but, classic or not, a ton of people played it, so it has name value if nothing else. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to give undue praise to the game that it doesn't deserve, I'm just saying it was there and had presence in a big way. Suikoden II was superior in just about every way, and even if it didn't make nearly as huge of a splash, it was still beloved, and that's what I was trying to reconcile Muzza with.

And I can't tell you why I never played RPGs on the NES; I honestly don't know. DQ was really impressive to me, same with FFI, I remember that, but I didn't know anyone who actually owned them, nor do I remember seeing them in stores or anything and just had to have them. Guess I was more into platformers back then, but boy did that change! So no, I wasn't an FFI kid, but I did hop on the FFII (as we knew it) train, so I guess I wasn't too far off.


I didn't play the third until a few years after it came out, but it's still my favorite of the series by far, and probably one of the best RPGs on the NES. This, I would say, is a classic.

My story is a crazy one. I didn't show up at the RPG scene for a long time. Sure, I'd been into adventure games on the surface level (sup Zelda?), but it was a while before I came into contact with features like levelling up, turn-based battle systems, intricate storylines, memorable characters, and the like. While I consider my encounter with the genre as something close to haphazard, I'm grateful that it happened.

Think I was nine or ten years old at the time, so this would take us back to 1999/2000. Now, being a pubescent kid with an unhealthy addiction to all things Dragonball Z (it was as if I gained testosterone bonuses just by watching it), I spent a ridiculous amount of time plundering the internet at dialup speeds for information on the show, spending a heck of a lot of time in fan forums and such. Sometimes, I'd kill time by playing DBZ-related games on the official FUNimation website. Suddenly, they released a game that was really good! You could play as any of the main characters and if you chose one with Saiyan blood you could even go Super Saiyan and put Frieza in his place!! WOW! Too bad my mom spent ridiculous amounts of time on the phone... She kept telling me to get off the internet because she was expecting calls. Apparently, I was using the phone line a little too often to satiate my rabid fanboyism.

Of course, this was no good. I'd found a new addiction, and by god I'd take any means necessary to ensure my own entertainment. How else would I kill time while waiting for the "next exciting episode"? I thought to myself that there had to be some way to play this game without connecting to the internet, and so one day I did a quick googly query for something along the lines of "dragonball z downloadable games". The result was a website with a subtle cobalt hue - it offered downloads of various Dragonball related roms that required use of an emulator. These were mostly generic SNES-era Dragonball Z fighting games (admittedly, there was one called Hyper Dimension which had some pretty sweet graphics). Anyway, amongst them was a gem: Chrono Trigger. According to the website, this game was "designed" by Toriyama and acclaimed by many. I decided to try it out.

Needless to say, I fell in love. With time, mind you. Embarassingly, my first playthrough saw the characters named with respect to DBZ - Crono was "Trunk" (the 's' wouldn't fit! :(), Lucca was "Bulma", etc. By the time I completed the game, I couldn't believe I was previously wasting my time with that Dragonball trash. After all, these games actually had a storyline that progressed! Character development! Plot twists! Since this run-in with an unexpected but totally magical guest of a game, I've always had a soft spot for games that can tell a good story, no matter how arduous the gameplay may be. (Not that Chrono Trigger was tedious at all.) Went on to emulate other gems in the genre, and I've still got some SNES RPGs that I want to get through some day.

All right, I can't argue with that logic. FF VIII did have gorgeous FMVs and the music was beautiful. However, I will forever hold that the entire cast being from the same orphanage ranks as one of the single worst plot twists in the history of video games. I literally set down my controller, turned off the game and didn't touch it for years. The bad character development and lame story was bad enough, but that was the last straw. Later, when I finally cowboy'd up and gave it another shot, I closed my eyes and hammered the ok button to get through that pile of crap scene, I soon came to the scene where you go to outer space and have to save Rinoa and I set down my controller, turned it off, and haven't gone back to it since.

I've noticed something. Almost everyone I meet who claims to like FF VIII are people of, at best, suspect intelligence. At worst, borderline retarded. You called it Dawson's Creek with swords, and it's a good analogy. People who like FF VIII are the kinds of people who like that and the Gilmore Girls. Depth replaced by whining. Ugh.

I think it was pretty hard not to fall in love with Cecil. That opening scene with the Red Wings theme playing is like crack. I still go back to it from time to time.

I can't remember the first RPG I ever played, but it was probably something like Shining Force II for the Megadrive, or Landstalker, or something. Both games were fun, although I liked Landstalker miles over SFII, and never bothered to finish either of them. The first RPG which I actually bothered to complete was FFVII, which was very good, although highly overrated now. I like the game, I just don't like the fanbase, or:

Assumptions made by people who try categorizing people by their preference of role playing game, for that matter.

Yeah, see, I highlighted the important bit there, Orson. I'm not categorizing people based on their preference of role playing game. I'm pointing out a correlation between people I meet who like the game and are, you know, socially awkward retards. But yeah, clearly what I said was that everyone who likes FF VIII is an idiot. "A lot of people I meet who like FF VIII are also idiots" clearly equals "everyone who prefers FF VIII must be dumb."

Please don't try talking to the grown ups until you can learn to read and comprehend.

Good hustle, Orson.

When I was a kid, I had a friend who lived down the street that I traded games with a couple times. At one point, I acquired Dragon Warrior from him. Pretty much everything I owned up until that point had been platformers. I quite enjoyed it, though I did find it a bit slow paced. I liked that I could explore a huge world, interact with characters, cast spells, and the like. But I didn't really seek out any other RPGs, because I hadn't thought about it as a genre. Had I seen another Dragon Warrior game, or known there was more than one for the NES, I would've begged for it.

But, as it was, I didn't play another RPG for years. I learned about the genre from gaming magazines, but never felt strong urges to seek it out. Not until Mario RPG came out, with me being a 12-year old Mario fanboy, did I try another RPG. And that got me pretty hooked on them for a while.

Oddly enough, I didn't try any Final Fantasy games until Final Fantasy 8 came out. And I didn't like FF8 that much then, and I certainly don't like it now. But most of all, I'm amazed I even gave any other games in the series a shot, because by all means, I should've been so turned off by that monstrosity that I would never touch another FF game again. But, I've discovered some actual good games in the series, and I'm glad I gave them a shot.

I think that might have something to do with their experience with Final Fantasy VIII!

Or it might have something to do with a certain personality type being predisposed to liking the shitty game! OMG! Guyz! People who liek gay teenage melodramas mite lieks FF VIII? Holy fuck, what a stretch.

Orson, I don't know why you even keep trying. You've been a failure since the first moment you hit this board.

How.. mature. That would be categorizing, yes yes, I can see it now. Just because you've met a bunch of so-called "socially awkward" individuals who just happen to like FFVIII, doesn't mean anything. It's a personal experience. I'm sure there's other socially awkward people out there, met or not, that don't like FFVIII.

Saying that someone with a certain personality might like a game is retarded, and I'm sure there's people with all kinds of personalities that do and don't like FFVIII. You just haven't met them (oh my god I need to bold to emphasize on something since I have such a bad comprehension of reading) yet.

I'd say get new friends or something but you're probably just going to meet more socially awkward retards.

They're not my friends. They're people I've met. See, those of us that have a real life meet lots of people, and not all of them are our friends. Especially not when they are, as I've stated, socially awkward retards. Though even they have the advantage of not looking like a cartoon pig.

Also, yes, that's what I said. People I've met are like this. I didn't say all people are like this. I said there was a correlation within the people I've met. So again, reading comprehension, Orson. Learn it. Use it.

You always get so butthurt whenever anyone slags on a game you like. Get over it.

Ignore lix, Deni. It's a scientific fact that people who consider FFVIII the best one are idiots who have even less capacity for long-term memory than Squall does.

It kind of explains some things, like how Elixir keeps fighting every fight like it was his first on the internet.

I dunno, do you guys count action based stuff? Because that'd probably be either Zelda that came bundled with my NES or the SMS' Golden Axe Warrior (Sega sure didn't hide their inspiration for this game!) at my mates place. Then along came uh, Landstalker and Secret of Mana (this, Super Bomberman and Street Racer made the combined forces of our pocket money towards a multitap a very EROTIC WISE decision yes yes). It was a pretty rare thing for an RPG to get a PAL release, let alone wash up on our shores. First turn based RPG I played was probably Mystic Quest Legend. I remember it pissing me off so much, I bet I had a cry over it. :eagletear:

Also Deni, Elixir, I love you both, and I'm aware this is the RPG section and all, but the pointless draaaaaama raaaage!

posted before I saw your reply, sorry infernal

Yes, that's a personal experience, and it doesn't have something to do with FFVIII.

It doesn't make the game bad, or good, or anything.

For the record, I don't like FFVIII at all. I bought the game, tried to get into it a bunch of times, and I even made it just past the part where you have to beat some giant enemy that what'shisface is using against you while holding Rinoa captive. The game looks ugly as hell now, I dunno how I bothered with it or why I used to marvel at the GF summons. I never finished it, and I never cared of it. I won't go back to it.

Anyway, point missed like fuck. Knowing people who are of a certain type has nothing to do with the game, or any game, and isn't related to FFVIII whatsoever. It's all just you throwing off assumptions and it's just a coincidence that the people you know happen to like the game. It doesn't mean anything. But it's obviously intriguing enough of a life experience to post about it on the internet.

And just because you don't like the game, doesn't mean everyone else dislikes it too. I don't honestly care for the game, as I've stated previously, but what you iplied wes everyone who happens to like the game is doing something wrong, based on the people you've met having crap personalities and just happen to like the game as well.

Furthermore, I don't think anyone cares about little tidbits of Life With Deni that're vaguely related to a game. Oh, hey guys, I have a bunch of friends who are all morons and absolutely drool over Crackdown, the game sucks. Because they're morons.

I never said it did. I said people I've met who really like the game tend to be idiots. You're the one getting all bent out of shape over it, Orson.

No, what I implied was that it had shitty character development and a bad narrative. So they like something with bad character development and a bad narrative. Which has nothing to do with people I've met, you retard. And everything to do with the game being ass. But please, keep arguing. I'm getting a good laugh out of your fat ass being so reformed as to pick fights over something I never even said.

"It's a stupid game. Pretty much everyone I meet who likes it is an idiot."

"NOT EVERYONE WHO LIKES FF VIII IS AN IDIOT."

"No, I never said that."

"NOT EVERYONE WHO LIKES FF VIII IS AN IDIOT."

Etc.

You're basing this on the fact that pretty much everyone here hates you and wants nothing to do with any opinion you have. I'd shed a tear for you, but I'm too busy laughing.

Settle down, butthurt. You're embarrassing yourself.

Hahaha, you can express as much angry nerd rage for a game I don't like, as much as you like, porky. And you can justify your bashing as much as you want, I don't care. Post #35 pretty much sums it up and could be written again considering I think you skimmed through it too quickly. A mod's told us to stop, so do so.

That was so cute, the way you basically just paraphrased exactly what I'd said to you and thought no one would notice.

I'm fairly young so my first experience with rpgs started around the playstation and gameboy colour eras. I might have played an rpg on an snes at a friend's house but i simply can't remember. but the first rpg i owned was probably pokemon red/blue for gameboy. it's didn't have much of a story, but i really liked the leveling up thing since i've only played platformers and puzzle games before. so pokemon got me into the whole genre and i discovered legend of legaia, played it and got even more interested. Then my friends showed me FFVII, i bought it and i've been a fan of the series ever since.

Hmm...

It was this sound. See attachment.

I was among the rare few that missed hit titles like of Final Fantasy and Zelda. I started my rpg rampage from Dragon (Warrior)Quest series. I think its because my rental video store was one of those niche stores that carried decent titles but the likes of FF and Zelda were always rented out. I really miss that Two-Day Video store.

After DQ, I went on to play other nes gems like Legend of the Ghost Lion, Gargoyle's Quest II, Faria, Crystalis and Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom!

Me, I always liked fantasy oriented worlds and I soon found out that as a gamer you can usually can only get your fantasy fix in RPGs. I started out with Free Dragon Warrior from Nintendo Power, Final Fantasy, and pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons. I played many other NES RPGs such as Ultima and Crystalis, but none of them really felt as fun as Dragon Warrior, not saying Final Fantasy because we only got 1 for the NES over here as opposed to 4 Dragon Warriors.

SNES era, I think I really played almost every major RPG except Earthbound(Don't kill me). I loved most of them except Robotrek and Illusion of Gaia since I was so horribly lost in those. I remember hitting a point in Robotrek where my robots were all maxed out and I was lost and was getting my butt kicked.

I've liked virtually every Final Fantasy before FF8. I played FF8 when a friend got it for me for my birthday. I got to some point in the second disc and quit out of boredom. Seriously the only things I liked about that game were Shiva and the track "Man with a Machine Gun".

I actually haven't played many PS2 RPGs, but that's partially due to the fact that I'm a recovering MMORPG addict.

Well, at the risk of inciting Deniwrath, Final Fantasy VIII is the reason i'm still playing RPGs today.

Way back in the day a friend of mine exposed me to Chrono Trigger. From there i thought i might play that game, and i did. I rented it countless times, along with one other that i found, Super Mario RPG. Unfortunately, after i was done, i didn't have any recomendations or anything from anyone (cause that friend moved to BC).

After a while some friends of mine started playing more RPGs, and the first one i saw them play was Final Fantasy VIII. From there i knew i really wanted to play RPGs again, and haven't looked back since. FFVIII has always been one of my favourites most likely for sentimental reasons, and because i do generally enjoy it when i play though it.

I was also one of the lucky people who got to play Dragon Warrior thanks to a subscription to Nintendo Power. I recall I didn't understand much of what was going on when I first played it. I was five and living in a french community at the time, so I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that I didn't get much of what was being said. I do recall that when the first Final Fantasy came out, I thought it looked so cool after seeing my cousin play it that I asked my parents for it as a birthday present and pretty learned to read english while playing it.

From then on, I was hooked and played any RPG I could get my hands on: Crystalis, The Magic of Scherezade, D&D: Pool of Radiance, DW II,III,IV, Ultima, Wizardry and a bunch of others are all games I recall playing and for the most part enjoying before I went on to the SNES. I also remember we got a PC around that time and I played a bunch of PC RPGs though I couldn't recall their names for the life of me.

The game I have the fondest memory of though (besides FFI) has got to be Breath of Fire I. I had asked my parents for it on my tenth birthday and I promised to put my allowance money aside to pay for part of it. Now, we had to order the game through a Sears department store and it took longer to arrive than it was supposed to, so I remember getting it a week or two after my birthday. How sweet it was to finally play that game...

In my observation, every thread Deni posts on turns into a flame war between Deni and [insert name of innocent poster who did absolutely nothing except post a viewpoint which just happened to differ from Deni's]. If anyone should be banned...

Anyways, my first RPG was tragically FFVII (tragic because I missed out on the majority of the SNES era, due to me coming to videogames a little late). But not tragic because I was instantly hooked. And get this: it was for the PC. I never owned a Playstation. My SECOND RPG was Super Mario RPG because I realized I loved them. My third was FFVIII (PC), fourth FFIX (after I acquired a PS2), fifth Chrono Trigger, and from there it blossomed into a lovely boquet of RPG sex.

Right, because I'm the one who made the snide, backbiting comment that started that. I'm sure the world waits through the pregnant pause prior to the weighing in on board politics from the cheezeman.

Also, that's the most random movement through RPGs I've ever seen. How did you go from PC FF VII to Super Mario RPG? Where was the connection?

Have to agree with the Cheezeman up there; I can't think of anyone else who needs some time away from the forums to sit and learn how to interact with others respectfully more urgently than Denicalis does.

As far as RPGs go, my first was FF1. I actually bought the Nintendo Power guide at a garage sale before I'd ever played the game on a whim, and when I was about eight years old a store in town was going out of business and I found FF1 brand new there for eight bucks, so I scooped it up and never looked back.

if Zelda and Secret of Mana don't count, my first RPG would be 7th Saga. It was fun and I am hella nostalgic for it. I saved my pennies and asked my father to buy me Mana, but he got confused and got me Final Fantasy VI instead. After that I rented every RPG I could get my hands on.

Yeah, it really is a random connection. It must've been because I loved Mario games and owned all of them except the RPG one because I had no idea if I would like it or not. Then, when I found out I liked FFVII, it was time to try it out!

As for the comments, I don't really think you need to be "banned," I mean it's not really even my place because I'm not a mod, but I think you should take a step back sometimes. Regardless of whether you start the arguments, they do seem to flock to you, would you not agree? While we ARE on the internet, I'd rather not see namecalling on an RPG thread.

Well, it's a hell of a good second choice. One of the best ever made.

I was actually really surprised and it quickly became my favorite game at the time. Still own the SNES cartridge to this day. Just wish I had gotten into RPGs while Chrono was still available for under $100... had to settle for emulators. Same for FFVI and SoM. Those golden years just sneaked by me. :eagletear:

I remember the first time I played Mario RPG. I bought the game because at the time, I was subscribed to Nintendo Power and the rave reviews sounded pretty awesome. I think it was the first game I ever stayed up all night, and even into the next day, playing. After moving to Winnipeg, I eagerly awaited the release of the N64 but instead found myself eagerly devouring all the RPGs that I had not yet played on SNES. Earthbound, Secret of Evermore, Illusion of Gaia (didn't get far in this one) Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger. I was hooked.

When I saw FF VII for PS and played a bit of it, I bought a Playstation and played through several of the better games for the system including Xenogears, Wild Arms, and Final Fantasy Tactics.

You should try Final Fantasy 4 as well. You remember that hidden boss in Mario RPG, Culax or whatever his name was? The boss music from that fight is the boss music in FF4. Just a random thing you might not have known.

For once I'm on the side of the people who hate FF8.

Blehhhhhh. Magazines? Orphanages? Draws?

I didn't hate it but I agree. I don't know what the heck they were thinking. In fact, I didn't believe the orphanage thing when I first learned of it and thought there would be some other plot twist to make it better. But then, as Deni said earlier, the space scene occurred and I suddenly realized they were serious about all of it.
Best final battle music of the series though. It really needs an orchestral/techno rendition. And the opening was epic. And at least the CGI was consistent with the other art that time around. It was a huge graphical improvement in every way.

Oh, VIII has some of the best music of the entire series. No doubt. I loved the beginning of this game. The Garden was great, the military concept was fun, but then they let Squall develop as a character, and it all went down hill from there for me. I actually didn't mind the battle system. I was fine with drawing magic and junctioning it to stats. I dug a lot of stuff about VIII, but I just can't get past those twists. They're absolutely heinous.

Kinda hard to like an RPG when the plot sucks lol.

I wonder what the kids these days are being introduced to the genre with. WoW? FFXII?

Oh, wait, it's probably Kingdom Hearts. Kids are growing up on Kingdom Hearts... I feel for them (but it was kinda fun).

By the way, anyone really get into Xenosaga?

Colonel Skills, currently of The Dutchman fame, is madly in love with Xenosaga. God knows why. But he'll explain it to you in a way that doesn't make you hate him.

Turns out he's actually VG.

Wait, that would make you hate him. :(

Oh what the FUCK. That was just uncalled for.

You can PM me if you need any plot elements or anything explained or elaborated upon.

I must say I didn't like the military concept in FF8 because I like medieval stuff more. I did love drawing Ultimas though :)

It seems that way indeed, but I think a bit of that is the nostalgia factor and some of us might be a little jaded when it comes to rpgs now a days.

As for my rpg introduction: I believe the first rpg I experienced was Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Awful start, I know. My brothers and I went over to our neighbor's house all the time and I played it there. The game didn't leave much of an impression on me or made me want to start playing games more often, even though we had our own consoles. I usually just watched my bros play games, but one day my younger brother rented FF6 and it was all over from there. After that came Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and EARTHBOUND. Listening to the music from Earthbound still makes me want to cry big bitch tears. ♥

Anyway, the only statement I don't agree with Denicalis about FF8 is drawing magic. What a horribly tedious and potentially broken system that was. FF8 would have been completely awesome if it had been about Laguna and his crew.

I'd recommend Lufia 2 for SNES. This game is often overlooked as it was released at a time when there were far better RPGs littering the market, but this is still a gem worth discovering, IMO.
I find the actual gameplay to be truly great among SNES rpgs, though the story leaves much to be desired and is full of holes. Also, the character development is... non-existent . Still, the puzzles and battles are for the most part fairly challenging and fun with the IP system. There is decent party customization, tons of secrets and the game will give the noggin a lot of exercise on the puzzle solving. For SNES dungeon crawlers and experience grinders, this game is tops.

I have reason to believe you didn't read one post in this entire thread Rainman. Do something to prove me wrong.

Reading through this thread..there is a lot of RPGs that came out back then that I never even knew were RPGs. I started with Super Mario RPG(not sure if I can count Zelda 1). And I didn't really get into it until FF7. After that game, role playing games were all I wanted to buy and all I wanted to talk about. I'm still that way today. 70% of my library is RPGs. My favorite is still Suikoden II and that was the second one I bought after FF7. Too bad..my copy is no longer working.

My first experiences at RPGs were at a friend's house who had all the latest and greatest video games. I sat there and watched him play A Link to the Past. He wouldn't let me play for whatever reason I can't remember but I do know that the opening sequence with the rain and thunderstorm entranced me. I had never seen anything like that before in a video game.

A few years later he had another RPG out, this one was Earthbound. I wanted to play but he told me it was too hard for me. After that, I believe I finally got a SNES, late bloomer, and I rented Final Fantasy II because it looked interesting. I got home, popped it in and I was severely disappointed with it. I kept getting into invisible fights and I didn't like the turn based combat system. I thought it was completely dumb so I promptly returned the game.

Flashforward a bit more and I'm browsing through an EGM and I come across an article on Earthbound. I was entranced by it and really enjoyed the graphics of it. I convinced my mom to get it for me, I was in the eighth grade I believe. Sure it was a bit hard but I certainly enjoyed it.

Thanks to that game I later got into Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III (VI), Link to the Past, Super Mario RPG and many, many others. One of my favorite memories is when I first played Chrono Trigger. I rented it from this start up video rental place called Video Update. They had a ton of video games that Blockbuster didn't have plus their games came with the instruction manuals. I popped in Chrono Trigger, a dust storm was brewing outside, and I started playing. I was enthralled by the music, graphics, story, combat, everything! But I had to turn it off yet, for some reason I didn't know how to save. I was in the overworld and didn't think to look in the menu and select save. I had to return the game shortly after. A fantastic game though, and I borrowed it from a friend years later and played it extensively at my grandma's during the summer while our house was getting remodeled.

I agree with you about that. everything was fine until that whole--"we were here together at an important time of our lives, but we forgot..." WTF?! Talk about contrived. (Although "Max Steel" paid homage to the game's Fisherman's Horizon crash scene--kind of funny...)

Anyway--on topic.

Does "Lord of the Rings" for the SNES count as RPG? If it does, then that and Link to the Past are the two games that got me hooked into the genre. Unfortunately, I didn't finish LotR because it had some weird glitch, but I was hooked. I've played LttP, OoT, Majora's Mask, and Four Sword Adventures, and LttP remains my favorite. I didn't discover Final Fantasy until VII, when it was recommended to me by a friend after I got my PSX.

Now, the weirdest introduction to a game series has to by mine to Suikoden. No referrals, no watching people play, and no reviews. I saw the cover art for the game, picked it up, and thought--"Wow--based on Chinese legend. I'm going to get this." And the rest is history.

I am intrigued by how many people in the thread started with the free Dragon Warrior + Nintendo Power deal. Unfortunately, as the only game I bothered with for NES, given my age, was the given Mario Bros + Duck Hunt package, I had to wait until the SNES period to savour the sweet, sweet fruits of the RPG genre.

It was pretty much a random rental from the local movie place, Jumbo Video. I had already saturated myself with random fighters such as World Heroes 2, Art of Fighting, Street Fighter 2 and such so I wanted to change it up a bit. I think as late as Grade 4 or 5, I got Final Fantasy VI because it had a cute white creature (now known to be a moogle) on the front. The front was simple and elegant, while the back was amply gorgeous.

I remember puzzling over the manual and how long it was. Taking in all that info for the first time, which would eventually become standard rpg fare knowledge one day, was a lot! I brought it over to a friend's place after I thought I understood it and remember saying about how "hard it was to get used to, but how good it was after you get used to it." I happily pressed A on Fight over and over, using Runic whenever magic was cast.

In addition, the rental copy had a save file at the last save point and everyone was maxed out and learned and had everything, but at the time I was confused. Shortly afterwards, the rest is history and I went on a binge, retroactively progressing to Final Fantasy IV. Steadily building and coming across treasures such as SMRPG and Secret of Mana, both of which I admittedly rented a minimum of...5 times each ^_^; Earthbound and Breath of Fire also come to mind.


On a side note:
The interesting part was through rental copies, I had goals to aspire to, since they'd come along with the experiences of everyone who's played them. People would usually have final save points which were mostly good. They'd be stupid sometimes (Earthbound - Ness in Magicant with no other weapon other than the Gutsy Bat ;_; ). They'd be well off most of the time (Secret of Mana - Kakarra Desert, Super Mario RPG - Valentina's Castle). Sometimes they'd be hilarious (Earthbound - Ness Special = PSI Sex Omega!)

The first RPG that I ever played was the original Final Fantasy, when I was about 4 or 5 years old. My parents had a NES and a few games, and one of the games they played a lot of was, actually, FF. They'll never let me forget this because of how protective I am of my save files, but I used to play their save files, get their characters horribly dead/lost/broke, and then save. I even have a vivid memory of "beating the final boss", which was, in all actuality, taking my dad's end of the game save file and beating the boss with his super powered characters.

Prior to getting into RPGs, all I was ever interested in were first-party Nintendo games and PC shooters. I played the original FF on NES at the house of one of my brother's friends around age five, declared it bunk, and went back to Super Mario World.

I played FFVI/III three years later and loved it to death. Earthbound came shortly afterwards. Smash Bros came out and none of my friends knew who Ness was.

Time passes. I discover emulation around age twelve and storm through every Snezz arr pee gee I can find.