I had been a video game player for a long time, dating back to the Atari 2600 days. The summer before I was to enter 7th grade I stayed at my friend's Dan house. He had a game called Final Fantasy and it was like a a new door was opened to me. Here was this game where you gained experience and your characters progressed. And combat was about tactical thinking and resource management vs. pure reflex and controller skill.
Needless to say, I bought the game a short time later and beat it over the course of a few months. I have fond memories of the game and I've even played a couple of the remakes and enjoyed them a lot. The remakes are a lot better as the spells actually work like they're supposed to and it removes some of the clunky parts of the original.
My love of the genre was born after finishing the game. I went and sought out any games I could find that were RPGs. Thankfully, NES games weren't considered collectible at the time so it was a matter of going to the local video game shop and lucking into some old NES RPGs. The internet wasn't a big thing yet so I had to rely on Nintendo Power back issues to figure out what the worthwhile RPGs were.
I remember that I quickly came into possession of Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy II (better known as IV), Ultima Quest of the Avatar and several others I probably can't remember. Thankfully, I got in at the right time as the next few years saw the releases of Final Fantasy III (VI), Lufia II, Earthbound, Ogre Battle, Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG.
My fandom waned as the PSX and PS2 eras progressed. The games all started trying to be 100 hour epics and I found myself getting caught up in side quests and never actually finishing the game. I still haven't beaten Final Fantasy VII because of trying to breed the stupid Chocobo to get the Knights of the Round materia.
Thankfully there were still PC games like Diablo 2 to keep me going during this time frame.
As the 360 era dawned, games like Mass Effect and the Bio Ware games seemed to draw me back in. I finished Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc. It's hard to find the time to put into 40-60 hour games though. That's really more of a hindrance to my love of the genre currently than anything else.
This is probably my top 10 favorites though:
1. Chrono Trigger
2. Final Fantasy VI
3. Mario RPG
4. Earthbound
5. Planescape Torment
6. Diablo 2
7. Phantasy Star IV
8. Knights of the Old Republic
9. Dragon Warrior IV
10. Dragon Age Origins
You'll have to thank my older cousin Tim who had a game at his house "with an axe and a sword on it" that he said I couldn't play. So naturally I did and loved it. Then I finally got an NES and bought it as my first game and the rest for me is history.
ReplyDeleteAll time fav RPG for me.