Where did it all start?Follow

Wow, I've never seen Gauntlet gameplay that old. The first Gauntlet I played was the arcade version which was later released on Nintendo 64. Played that game for countless hours, finally beating it. It was a lot more fun than that old Gauntlet looked...but I'm sure it was great back in the day. >.>

My first RPG was the original FF on NES. I was 4-5 years old, and my brother would let me "play" by putting me in an item shop and telling me to buy as many tonics as possible. "Just keep pressing A!", to which I excitedly squealed.

So my real first RPG was playing FF3/6 on SNES. It's my favorite from the series by far. Actually, I still have the original cartridge from 94-5 when I played it, and the cart still works! I liked the character backstories a lot, as well as the World of Balance/Ruin split.

All in all, memorable characters + crazy bad guy + good storyline = win.

The Dark Tower holds some of the fondest memories for me as a young gamer. It was a board game but very interactive and in depth for the time.

Commodore 64 had a dungeon crawler type game that required text input to play. The player had to track his own progress on grid paper. There were no graphics to speak of, only text description:

You see a 3 skeleton warriors and 4 rogues, the first skeleton warrior hits you of 10 HP of damage.
You: <blank>

And you had to enter what you wanted to do, run, hit, magic, w/e. You had to type it out, not click on a command, or scroll down to what you wanted to do, there were no menu's. The cartridge came with a big *** book of commands and you either had to look up all of them as different obstacles presented themselves or read/remember them all and even then you generally had to reference the book from time to time. Heaven help you if you lost the book. It's been years and I was very young when I played it but that was the start of my rpg gaming.

Actually if anyone knew the name of the game, or one similar it'd be great to be able to look at it again.

Several years later there was the introduction of the proper dungeon crawler that had the mock 3-d walls you walked down, you still had to track your own progress or you'd easily get lost, but at least you had visual representation of rooms and such. There was also the introduction of graphical representation of enemies, rudimentary as they may have been at least you got to see what was hitting you rather than just imagining it. The player was given proper menus to scroll through and such, to say it was less stressful is an understatement.

Omg I played that, that game was awesome.

Edited, May 30th 2009 10:55am by Bauran

Miracle Warriors for Sega Master System was my first video game RPG. Then moved on to Phantasy Star.

The game that still brings it back for me was Ultima III: Exodus.

I remember playing it and trying to figure out how to remain alive and not die of starvation, how to be effective in combat, and I think it got the first min/max attitude in me when I made really strong single class characters fill a role for the party.

I think the first time I beat the game, I did it with a Fighter, Thief, Cleric, and Wizard party.

My memory's a bit fuzzy, but I think the first RPG I played was FF6 on the SNES.

I don't say Zelda because honestly, Zelda's more of an adventure game than an RPG.

The first RPG I owned, however, was Super Mario RPG. Kick-***, it was, and still is.

I also started on Pen and Paper, in like '84.

The first RPG on a computer? Hmmm...

I remember playing Ultima (the first one, I think. Played it on a Commodore 64 and 128) and loving it.

Oh, and ZORK. Text Based RPGs FTW

I believe my first RPG played was the first original Final Fantasy (it's my brother's). It's that and the first Dragon Warrior. Zelda is action-adventure so I'm not counting that. Didn't beat the original Final Fantasy until almost 20 years after its release, and I'm not sure about the original Dragon Warrior but that game is quite a beast.

If you don't count D&D, then it would be Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior I.

It started for me with Venture. Old arcade game which I think was the earliest true-rpg style game I played. My first console style RPG was final fantasy legend for the original game boy. I was an arcade player foremost, and didn't start home console playing till it came out.

edit: By the way, for all arcade gamers or curious people, The Killer List Of Videogames is the best reference to old coin-ops there is.

Edited, May 30th 2009 1:59pm by Neispace

My first RPG was Lufia & The Fortress of Doom for SNES. I couldn't have been more than 5 or 6. I didn't even know what EXP/Levels were. My brother's older friend had to explain it all to me.

And I still didn't get it until I lost to the first boss. Which is consequently the boss fight in the movie above.

I got into Final Fantasy sometime in 2000 when my friend brought over Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Anthology over to try on my new Playstation.

I liked Anthology better.

Legend of the Red Dragon anyone?

For me it's Faxanadu on the NES, and Might & Magic for Sega which was one of my all time favorite games.


Btw, anyone remember the Sega Channel? That was pure effin win for the time it lasted!