RPGamer’s My First RPG
Instead of asking the RPGamer staff what the RPG turned them into an RPGamer, I decided to ask a more straightforward question: What was your first RPG? Sometimes the first game we play in a genre can stick out for different reasons, good or bad. Some of the memories shared here are of fond holiday memories with family, others look at shared experiences amongst friends, and some of our stories look at the frustrations of not truly understanding what an RPG is. Was your first RPG experience a good one? Did it almost turn you off from the genre? These are the stories we are sharing in this feature, and we’d love to know in the comments or on our Discord what your first RPG memory was.
Dragon Warrior
Matt Masem
In 1990, Nintendo was looking to offload a boatload of extra Dragon Warrior cartidges, a game they printed far more copies of than they sold. They offered the game for free with a subscription to their magazine, Nintendo Power. Mainly just excited for a free game on the cheap, I mentioned it to my parents and grandparents, but never got a definitive answer. A couple of months later, I opened a box containing the game and a few Nintendo Power issues that my grandmother had sent to her house to surprise me on Christmas Day. Without even having played a moment of the game, I was so excited, fitting for the start of my RPG fandom.
That copy of Dragon Warrior was played over and over and over until I’d memorized every item, every spell, every location for everything in the game. I was in middle school, falling deeply in love with the little blue Slimes, the amazingly beneficial Gold Golems, the turn-based combat, and the world exploration. It was my first game with a battery backup and save feature, and I was simply enraptured with every aspect of the experience. While my friends would move on the next year to the SNES, I was captivated by three more entries in the Dragon Warrior series and the first Final Fantasy on my NES. Turn-based JRPGs sunk their hooks into me with those titles and captivate me still to this day.
Final Fantasy
Sam Wachter
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at my Nonna’s house. At the time, my uncle was still living with her, and he owned a NES with a small collection of games. My personal favourite to play was Skate or Die, which I probably shouldn’t have been playing given the content, but it was the early 90s and my parents didn’t seem to care. There was one game in the pile that vexed me — Final Fantasy. Every time I booted the game up, I was asked to select the starting jobs and name the characters (which is where my love of using names like Bum and Booger came from), and figure out where to go from there. I was little, had no concept of direction, was still learning how to read, and therefore found the game very challenging. I would go into battle without fully comprehending what my attacks and skills did, and get livid when a game over would cross my screen.
When I say livid, I mean controller-throwing mad.
Final Fantasy made me miserable. No matter how hard I tried, I struggled to grasp the concepts. It wasn’t until my reading level improved that I started to make progress, and with the help of my mom guiding me, we built fond memories of working through the game each time we went to my Nonna’s house. While this was the first RPG I had ever played, I will say it was not the game that made me an RPGamer, as that would come along years later with Chrono Trigger. I have since finished Final Fantasy, the RPG that haunted my childhood, and I can say that being older and having more reading comprehension absolutely made a difference in my enjoyment. I’m glad that even though I had a miserable start with RPGs, it never stopped me from exploring the genre further.
Ryan Radcliff
It’s funny looking back at my first RPG ever, because quite frankly, I didn’t like it. Back in the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System, I was not yet privy to the world of role-playing games. I was a young, rambunctious kid who actually preferred to play outside rather than sit in front of a TV and play games all day long (yet). I was a late adopter of the NES actually — the cool kids at school were talking about Super Mario Bros, and I needed to get with the program. My parents bought me the system and some games, and I recall one game I was unfamiliar with.
My dad had gone out and bought me Final Fantasy. The box was black, and the back displayed ugly-looking characters I didn’t recognize. Upon booting the game up, I just didn’t get it. I would walk around and get beaten up by enemies, and there was little in the way of a guide to help me out. Perhaps I judged it too prematurely, but I recoiled at the game and demanded (I was a brat) that my dad go out and get me Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was an equally if not more difficult game in hindsight!
I did not touch another RPG until my step-brother brought over Final Fantasy II on the SNES, and that is where my love for the genre truly took off. I look back at the original Final Fantasy, which I have reconciled with and properly played through many a time since, with a sheepish feeling welling up inside me. I wish I had a better understanding of the game to properly appreciate it at the time, but I am glad I can replay it these days all the same.
Pokémon Colosseum & Final Fantasy VIII
Jordan McClain
Having been enamored with the PlayStations and Nintendo 64s I’d seen around friends’ houses as a very young child, I wanted to experience the magic of video games myself beyond my rudimentary Game Boy and copy of Tetris. And so, for my seventh birthday in 2005, my mom bought me a Nintendo GameCube and a copy of Pokémon Colosseum. Having only ever seen Pokémon Fire Red or Sapphire on the playground in passing, my game looked, played, and felt significantly more impressive. While it introduced me to the bare-basics of RPGs per type-effectiveness, levels, and turn-based battling, I noticed going forward that the handheld games were a more formulaic and significantly less strategic, with fewer double battles. I loved the little creatures and collecting them, but the joy of skill swapping a Slaking was few and far between.
Years later, and craving bigger experiences, a friend mentioned the term “RPG” in reference to Pokémon, and after some conversation, the Final Fantasy series came up as a good entry point into the wider RPG-scape. Having an underutilized PlayStation 2, I made my way to Goodwill Electronics with the little pocket change I had and purchased the first game of the series I found, Final Fantasy VIII. Almost immediately, I understood what all the hype was about – the crazy prerendered cutscenes, the character customization, stats, the summons, and so forth – all for a game that was, at this point, twelve years old. Color me surprised when I found out this game was considered by many to be the series’ low point. From there, I found myself running through the entire series and then many other RPGs, finding amazing and even greater adventures along the way and building an appreciation for what remains my favorite genre to this day. While Pokémon Colosseum was the first initial stepping stone, Final Fantasy VIII was the game that helped me hit the ground running and made me into an RPGamer.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Pascal Tekaia
Before Final Fantasy VI, before Chrono Trigger, there was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. True, it wasn’t the first Zelda title I’d ever played (I fondly remember the days of perusing my Nintendo magazines for strategies and tips for the 8-bit duology), but it was the first one that truly, unequivocally mesmerized me. It was the moment I knew that the SNES had truly arrived, and that it was something special indeed. To this day, no other game on the console is as special to me as A Link to the Past.
Coming from the 8-bit NES, narrative in games was a luxury I didn’t often see, not until I started getting into far more serious RPGs as the console’s life cycle went on. But at the time, nothing could have prepared me for the spell that was cast on me the evening my stepdad brought A Link to the Past home. The SNES was all mine, bought and paid for with my own money, so that made LttP mine by default. Minutes later, I beheld for the first time the gorgeous sight of that 3D Triforce floating onto the screen, followed by an epic fanfare as pixel-art Hyrule Castle faded in. To this day, it’s one of the first games that comes to mind when I get nostalgic about pixel and sprite graphics.
From an epic main menu screen, we are thrown right into a moody, atmospheric opening that perfectly sets the stage and the stakes for the adventure to come. The kingdom is in trouble, the king has been killed, and the princess is imprisoned in the castle’s dungeon. And on a stormy night, young Link is awoken by a desperate telepathic cry for help, only to find his uncle, sword and shield in hand, racing off into the night. It’s a deeper and more intriguing narrative delivered within the first two to three minutes than any game I’d ever played up to that point. Only minutes later, I’d braved the storm, secretly infiltrated the castle dungeons, and found my uncle as he lay dying, mortally wounded by some malignant force infesting the castle and its dungeon. And the only way forward was to go deeper, to face whatever dark forces were here, and experience the adventure of a lifetime.
Pokémon Red Version & Phantasy Star Online
Cassandra Ramos
Early in my gaming career, I mostly played platformers and the odd puzzle game. This would change in 1998, when I heard kids in school talk about something called “Pokémon.” I finally asked a friend about it and she excitedly told me about the Pokémon anime series, and a little about the Game Boy game and trading card game, though she hadn’t played either. She thought I would like the anime, so I decided to give it a try. I ended up liking the anime so much, and based on what some other friends and classmates said, I thought I would like to play the Game Boy game too. I eventually received Pokémon Red version as a birthday gift and started to play it right away. I named the player character “Ash” because I had no imagination, and distinctly remember being inside a house and not being able to figure out how to exit. My sister asked to try it out, and I handed the Game Boy to her. Sure enough, the eight-year-old girl stepped on that rectangle and exited the house. Being twelve at the time, I felt embarrassed. I don’t know how long we played for as we passed the Game Boy between us, but I imagine it was for a while, picking Charmander as the starter and catching Pokémon.
Pokémon Red was a considerably different experience compared to Super Mario Land or Kirby’s Dream Land. There weren’t enemies to stomp on or inhale. Instead, battles were turn-based, Pokémon could learn a limited number of moves, and they would grow stronger by gaining experience points. There were multiple types, moves, items, and of course, the 151 Pokémon themselves. Many NPCs sometimes said boring things, but often said things about the game world and the Pokémon that lived there. I wasn’t just playing a game, I was exploring a world. There was also some depth to training and raising Pokémon, although for that first playthrough, I largely ignored it. Instead, I used my Charmander, which quickly evolved to Charmeleon, and then Charizard, for almost every trainer and wild Pokémon battle. I thought my Charizard was the best ever, as it could even beat Water and Rock-types (note that this Charizard was at least 10 levels higher than its opponents). In the end, though, my awesome Charizard could not win against Mewtwo, and I had foolishly used the Master Ball to catch Abra. I would replay Pokémon Red a few times, learn how to raise more than just one Pokémon, and use a balanced team with multiple types. I absolutely loved Pokémon and spent so many hours on it that I went well past the time clock’s limit of 255 hours. As much as I enjoyed the Red version, though, I don’t recall learning it was an RPG until a few years later. I would eventually move on to Pokémon Gold and later Crystal. I may have learned the Pokémon games were RPGs with the release of Paper Mario, which I loved dearly, too, and would replay it all the time. Yet, as much as I enjoyed these RPGs, they didn’t spark in me a desire to check out other games in the genre.
It would take a few years later, maybe in 2002, when a different game would spur me on to check out other RPGs. I watched a trailer for Phantasy Star Online: Episodes I & II, which was to be released on the Nintendo GameCube. This trailer utterly blew me away. It looked so pretty to me, so interesting, and most captivating of all, the video was set to a beautiful vocal song. I had yet to experience a video game with a vocal song, and it just blew my mind. I had to get the game and learn more about it. Later that year or in early 2003, I bought the game and fell in love with it. I became enamored with the action combat system, the areas to explore, the monsters and bosses to slay, the weapons and other items to collect and try, and even the music. I also enjoyed piecing together the game’s story from the side quests and the logs Red Ring Rico and Healthcliff Flowen left behind. Phantasy Star Online showed me just how in-depth and amazing RPGs could be, and from there I wanted to experience more. I checked out the earlier games in the Phantasy Star series, and despite their ages, I enjoyed them. PSO awakened the RPGamer in me. RPGs became, and remain, my favorite genre of video game.
Final Fantasy VI
Robert Sinclair
Like many my age, my journey in RPGs began on the SNES. I watched my brother play some of Final Fantasy II (which was actually IV because of naming shenanigans I wouldn’t learn about for a solid decade), but I honestly lost interest quickly. However, my brother borrowed Final Fantasy III (Final Fantasy VI because shenanigans again), and I decided to actually try it out for myself. Boy, did it ever feel better than playing Tetris and Kirby on my Game Boy!
I felt like this was a game that rewarded me for learning to read well. I loved the characters, particularly Shadow, Edgar, and Sabin, who would be the staples of my team whenever possible. I never really clued in how much I enjoyed the music until I got to the opera section and realized I was listening to something on a whole other level from what I’ve experienced. It felt like it actually had emotional depth, unlike the NES and Game Boy games I had played previously.
If you’re ever going to find a game that introduces you to RPGs, it’s hard to overstate how phenomenal Final Fantasy VI is. It blew me away and showed me that video games can be more than just time-wasters and actually make you feel real feelings. I’m super thankful that I had such a great game be my first foray into the genre.
We hope you enjoyed walking down memory lane with the RPGamer staff. Let us know in the comments below, or on social media, what your memories of your first RPGs are!
I’m sure nobody cares but being older my games selection was a bit wider.
My first true RPG that made me love the genre was Curse of the Azure Bonds on PC. I loved playing AD&D with my friends and we’d make crazy campaigns that would take weeks to get through. Upon seeing Curse of the Azure Bonds I loved the fact the system did all the crazy number crunching and dice rolling. Plus, you could just load up your game (slowly) and continue on without your friends being present.
I was terrible at the game and restarted dozens of times always getting stuck in the same locations and it became a bit of a legend with my friends. Every time I restarted a new party of characters which were always almost exactly the same, I used the same character names (and have been for nearly 40 years) and the party leader character would get a sequential number placed behind his name and by the time I finally finished the game “Roland” had made it to “Roland 48”.
As a continuing life-long gag, every time I start any game that has at least three or more party members, I continue the numbering game and now “Roland” is somewhere around “Roland 238”.
My first rpg was Breath of Fire for the SNES. That was back when you could still rent games at the grocery store, and I repeatedly rented it out at my local Tom Thumb, fighting against overwritten saves until I finally finished it a year later, lol. To this day, rather than Final Fantasy, it is my early experiences with Breath of Fire that inform my standards for the standard turn-based JRPG.
While it was Chrono Trigger that later sparked my complete and utter addiction to the genre, Breath of Fire holds a special place in my heart. I mean, how could I not love turning into a dragon?
My first was an Ultima knockoff called Questron, on the Commodore 64. It,fantasy novels and my parents being D&D players cemented me as an RPG fan from an early age (about 5).