[General Discussion] Getting Involved With The RPG Video Game Genre For The First Time.

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.

Originally Posted by Muzza

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.

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Megavolt

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.

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.