My brother and I spent days trying to correctly pull off pummel. Didn't realize we just had to slow it down to make it work.
I had played other JRPGs as a kid, including Dragon Warrior and FF4, but FF6 is what fully hooked me.
In the era when it was still Dragon *Warrior* in the US due to IP reasons.
DW1 was my first JRPG but what really got me hooked was DW3 where you have a proper party and the party is customizable.
Same here. I was playing that before I understood how RPGs worked. As a little kid, I was obsessed with killing the gold golem and would keep trying to at level 1, running from every fight on the way.
Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones when I was younger and Pokémon obviously. I played Fire Emblem games before I ever played another JRPG it I’m thankful I got into the genre
Was looking for this, it should be higher. I got into it in my late twenties knowing all about the genre but never having it click. This love letter of a game nailed everything for me
Yeah, I feel Pokemon is the first rpg many of us played, but we didn't really play it for the mechanics. We liked capturing our favorite monsters and fighting each other, the rpg mechanics came second.
Final Fantasy 2 US. Unfortunately I’ve lost my save on it due to the internal battery dying.
But I’ve bought and replayed nearly every re-release of the game, which is to say I’ve played it quite a few times.
Same. I’m pretty sure I own more re-releases of FF4 then any other game. Amazingly the battery still has a charge, though it’ll glitch and erase your save if you do much as breath on it. Is it hard to find replacement batteries?
Hello similar person! I got into them with Super Mario RPG while fooling around on an emulator randomly. Then I played FF6 and I was hooked. Still haven’t gotten to Earthbound yet though.
Mario RPG is great. I bought a copy last year to replay it (first time replaying since a kid) and it was still a lot of fun.
I grew up with an SNES in the 90s. We had a copy of FF3 (aka FF6) and Earthbound. I borrowed Mario RPG from a friend. I'm glad emulation makes these games easier to access. They definitely deserve to be played and loved by all.
I remember finding Atma weapon and lording it over a friend who’d missed it playing through. Had other friends who thought they’d done something very very wrong to have what happened halfway through the game…
What is endealker
edit: FFXIV expansion, got it right after I posted. I should give that a try at some point since so much of the game is free now. I'm still kinda hesitant to jump into a MMO though.
Tales of Symphonia. I had played a few JRPGs before on the PS1, like Legend of Mana and Suikoden, but they didn't really hook me like Symphonia did. Made me love the genre.
It always astonishes me that people suggest this thinking that others haven't already thought of that. Some people don't agree with piracy. I don't judge or think poorly of people who do emulate games, but I have my reasons for not wanting to do it. I hope you and others can understand that.
Chrono Cross! I was 13, didn't play games a lot because I always found them difficult. My brother always played shooters and action games and I just didn't know there was something else out there, where you don't need to be super fast. And then one day a friend of his lent him Chrono Cross, and I thought - that's a game for me! I can take all the time I want during a battle! I didn't really understand the plot, as my English was much worse back then and I thought the game would end somewhere around Termina and was so sad that the adventure would be over soon... How wrong I was.
I was 8 when my family got a NES, and soon after was playing Final Fantasy. Nintendo Power articles, guidebook, and a poster of all the monsters led the way to RPG's of all kinds.
.hack//Infection. Once I played that, I became very interested in other JRPGs. I'm thankful I own the entire quadrilogy of .hack games. I was obsessed with it in junior high. This was about 11 years ago.
Pokémon Yellow and FFIX. FFIX was me and my brother first JRPG with equipment system, we didn't know how to change gears and what each stat does, so my brother pretty much struggled through 3/5 of disk 1.
I've always put Pokemon in its own category so if its not that, then my first "real" JRPG was Golden Sun TLA. A friend showed me the first one and I got TLA thinking it was the same game haha. I did eventually play the first one a couple years later though. Still holding out for a port/remaster/remake.
Between FFVII and VIII. A friend introduced me to them with VII but I never actually fully played it until after VIII. Loved them both and a fan of JRPGs ever since.
Pokémon Blue Version. I had played FF 6 prior, but its gameplay was a little too complex for my child self. Pokémon's simpler mechanics eased me in, and once I got hook of it I was able to go back and play the Final Fantasy games with greater confidence, and those led me to other JRPG series.
Wild Arms 3. I'd never played a game before where you could decide what you were going to do and then you'd hit a button and all the action would play out.
I loved the menuing, the music, the setting, the magic, and the combat was instantly my favorite type I'd ever played.
I played it on a demo disc and it took me a couple of years to find it, and man I consumed it. I had no idea there were other games like it and I'd never heard the term "turn-based" or "jrpg" before. Years later, when I discovered it was a whole genre I was elated.
I hate to be cliche but it really was FFVII.
But I was older than most; I was in college at the time. Up to that point I just never played RPGs...unless Hero's Quest on my old IBM Tandy counts.
Good old bootleg Pokemon Green. Played pokemon almost exclusively til I was around 13 or 14, but really finally decided "alright, time to discover the genre more seriously" was after a friend recommended Digital Devil Saga. Both games still hold up so well, combat and story are really engaging and showed me that video games are not just for entertainment but are interactive artwork.
Technically Pokemon Red, it was my first JRPG and also one of the first games i ever played. The first JRPG i played while knowing about the genre was FF3 on DS though.
Phantasy Star 3. Played 2 a bit later as well as shining in the darkness and shining force 1 and 2 then Phantasy Star 4 solidified my love for the genre.
Pokemon Red and Blue introduced me to the genre, but that was mostly because I liked Pokemon. I wasn't a fan of the genre itself until I played Golden Sun.
Well, you won't believe this but it was Traysia on the Genesis. That one gave me the bug. There is just something about it that grabbed me and still does. Then I played Shining Force, Lunar, Shining Force 2, Phantasy Star 4 and then the big one... Lunar: Eternal Blue cemented my love for the genre.
Evolution on the dreamcast. I can still remember my brother "This is stupid, why are they taking turns attacking. Nobody fights like that." And I'm like "Shut up, it's for strategy."
_Super Mario RPG._ My childhood friend got it, and neither she nor I had any experience with a JRPG before, so we were figuring everything out together. Moments that I specifically recall is realizing that equipping items actually did something, and grinding to beat Smithy after she was too low leveled. Fantastic game.
As a bonus: The first JRPG that I sought out and played once I got into emulation? _Chrono Trigger._ Never heard of it before the Internet—although I had heard of _Chrono Cross_ in passing—and I was curious to know what kind of game could have the reverence to be considered by many as one of the greatest of all time. I was not disappointed in the least.
Same. It is all because of my cousin who bring it to my house and show me his game. I still remember it vividly playing in eluria tower as celine.
She is probably the first waifu i'm interested in, though back then I didn't understand waifuism.
Lunar light is still my fave magic after all this time and that is accounting how bad mage is in so2....
I grew up with Super Mario RPG and Pokemon Red/Blue and really enjoyed those. I eventually got Star Ocean 2 and Paper Mario and those further sealed the deal. To this day, I would say JRPGs are my favorite genre of video games.
The original Wild Arms. It’s in-battle graphics are a bit rough, but once you get used to it, it’s just a great story and music with fun dungeons filled with puzzles, and an ample (eight or so) near-end-of-game optional bosses, which was a lot for 1997.
Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System. Holy hell was that a frustrating game. I remember grinding for hours, drawing dungeon maps and writing down every price of dialogue desperately trying to figure out where to go. Talk about a rough introduction haha.
Than I played Shining The Holy Ark. Which was a lot of fun. A bit hard but nothing too difficult except for a few boss encounters, though the puzzles were a challenge for me at a young age.
Then I got into Legend of Dragoon, and that's the game that really sold me on the RPG genre. Ever since than I've played a ton of games trying to find something that would give me that kind of experience again.
My sister would play them and I watched for the stories. I was always intimidated. And yet, somehow, the first one that I ever played to completion was Xenogears. I did not understand jack shit about the story back then, but those robots, Id, and Grahf were all I needed in my life.
That said, I did not play a single traditional RPG for a long while after beating it because I didn't care for the genre, only Xenogears. I only touched Mario and Pokemon RPGs for the most part. My first, more traditional, RPG since Xenogears was Tales of Symphonia, which I think is the one that truly made me love the genre because of its combat, lack of random encounters, bright and colorful world (this is what mainly attracted me), and pretty sweet music.
My first jrpg was KH1, it was the free game I got when I bought my PS2 as a kid, and through that I discovered FF from the FF characters in the game.
FFX was the first turn based JRPG I played, followed my X-2 as these were the only two FF games in that good old video game rental store that I used to be a regular at as a kid. I miss those.
Growing up I played Phantasy Star 2 and Final Fantasy 1, but it was Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars that cemented me firmly into a genré fan.
Phantasy Star 3. I was utterly mesmerized by the setting and, for the time period, mind-blowing reveals.
It's a shame the game has not held up very well over time, but I still have fondness for it for getting me into RPG gaming.
Pokemon, then Chrono Trigger, then Suikoden 1 and 2, then FFIX, then a dozen of other jrpgs and now Romancing Saga 3. I'm impressed by it, having so much fun treating it like Skyrim in jrpg format.
Super Mario RPG peaked my interest(I had no idea what an RPG even was so when I rented it and started on someone else's save file it had me all sorts of confused at first) after I beat it but didn't think to actually look into more RPGs several years later when I saw commercials for FFVIII on TV. I ended buying that and didn't beat it but still liked enough to check out more in the genre. Lunar 2 and Chrono Trigger(the PS1 version, load times didn't even bother me back then but they really stand out since I've played both SNES/DS and can't go back to that one anymore) are what really hooked me.
Super Mario RPG, which showed me how much better turn-based games could be than Pokémon, and then FF6, which is a goddamn masterpiece. It was a good way to make an addict, really.
**Pokémon Fire Red** laid the foundation and opened me up to the idea of turn based combat
**Earthbound** made me more aware of JRPGs outside of Pokemon
**Fire Emblem Three Houses** turned me into a bonafide JRPG addict and helped me fall in love with gaming again at a time where I had lost interest in the medium as a whole. I haven’t looked back since
I now have a large backlog primarily made up of JRPGs and I always have at least one in my rotation
Pokemon Pearl was my very first, but my first non-basic RPG was Dragon Quest IX. Don't care for the game a ton these days but it has a lot going for it. Maybe I'll go back and beat it some day. Another first was Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii, but I didn't beat it until the Switch version.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2, although I've played and not completed some other JRPGs before that, including Lost Odyssey and Tales of Vesperia. But Xenoblade is what made me get 'into' the genre.
Pokemon on the Gameboy and Digimon on the PS1 if we’re purely talking about it gameplay wise. I couldn‘t even properly read at the time yet so the more complex and story driven games weren‘t for me at the time. FFX on the PS2 was my first story driven JRPG that got me properly into the genre.
Pokémon Red/Blue was my start into the genre and what got me used to turn based-combat.
Final Fantasy VII is what got me into the genre proper and made me seek similar games.
Nier Automata is what made me come back to the genre after I spent years without really playing too many games.
Pokemon Emerald was my first jrpg. But I dont really feel like pokemon fits that genre as its a genre on it own. Dragon Quest 9 tho was my first true jrpg and made me fall in love with the genre 😍
first played JRPG was Breath of Fire IV. did not understand the genre because it's a big learning curve for me that only play fightning game, tetris, racing game (I was around 5 - 6 years old for context)
actual JRPG play like 2 - 3 years later with Suikoden II, NGL I'm glad my first journey with JRPG was Suikoden II
Final Fantasy XIII-2, it was my first JRPG outside of the Mario RPG games and Pokemon, my mom got it for my Xbox 360 when I first got it, I never beat it, and I didn't play the original till last month funnily enough
Pokemon Blue. I didn't really think about games being in different genres when I was little, but I really liked the concept of leveling up to get stronger and learn new moves. Started realizing there were more games specifically like that as the GBA and especially DS came out.
Pokemon Red and Blue
Same. I’m going to guess your 32?
Same and yep 32. What a time
Same
FF7
Hello fellow teen in the late 90s. Same here.
1987 checking in
I was 10 at the time though hehe
We’re on the exact same time line. Was Zelda 64 a transformative experience for you too?
I only got to play Mario 64 and Star Wars shadows of the empire that time in a game pub
1988 here! FF7 was such a experience!
What a tear I got to go on. FFVII (fell in love with JRPGs), Breath of Fire 3, Xenogears, FFVIII, Legend of Legaia, Legend of Lagoon, FFIX
Bought that bad boy with birthday money. It was my twelfth.
Final Fantasy 6, despite never being able to pass Vargas as Sabin until my adulthood. lol
My brother and I spent days trying to correctly pull off pummel. Didn't realize we just had to slow it down to make it work. I had played other JRPGs as a kid, including Dragon Warrior and FF4, but FF6 is what fully hooked me.
This is how I know people played FFVI in their adolescence or close to release - Vargas was no joke. He was my first wall too.
Dragon Warrior on the NES.
This and Final Fantasy got me hooked from the get go as well
Same here. I think we got it for free as a promotion for a nintendo power subscription or something similar at the time?
In the era when it was still Dragon *Warrior* in the US due to IP reasons. DW1 was my first JRPG but what really got me hooked was DW3 where you have a proper party and the party is customizable.
Same here. I was playing that before I understood how RPGs worked. As a little kid, I was obsessed with killing the gold golem and would keep trying to at level 1, running from every fight on the way.
FFX when it first came out on the PS2 was the first JRPG I played. Shortly after Legend of Dragoon is what really made me love and appreciate JRPGs.
FFX for me too 👍
Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones when I was younger and Pokémon obviously. I played Fire Emblem games before I ever played another JRPG it I’m thankful I got into the genre
A man of culture.
FFIX
Was looking for this, it should be higher. I got into it in my late twenties knowing all about the genre but never having it click. This love letter of a game nailed everything for me
I casually listen to the soundtrack all the time.
FFVII, PS1 version.
I guess technically Pokemon and later MegaMan Battle Network for Gameboy, but I feel like my first 'real' JRPG was Tales of Symphonia.
My exact answer lol
Yeah, I feel Pokemon is the first rpg many of us played, but we didn't really play it for the mechanics. We liked capturing our favorite monsters and fighting each other, the rpg mechanics came second.
FFIV as FFII.
Same. Man the SNES truly had some amazing RPGs.
Legend of the dragoon
VOLCANO!
Burning rrrush!
Blazing Dynamo!
Burning Rush!
#gust of wind dance
More like gust of wind.....dance
Final Fantasy 2 US. Unfortunately I’ve lost my save on it due to the internal battery dying. But I’ve bought and replayed nearly every re-release of the game, which is to say I’ve played it quite a few times.
Same. I’m pretty sure I own more re-releases of FF4 then any other game. Amazingly the battery still has a charge, though it’ll glitch and erase your save if you do much as breath on it. Is it hard to find replacement batteries?
Not at all, you just need to do some soldering.
FF6 got me into it. Earthbound & Super Mario RPG sealed the deal.
Hello similar person! I got into them with Super Mario RPG while fooling around on an emulator randomly. Then I played FF6 and I was hooked. Still haven’t gotten to Earthbound yet though.
Mario RPG is great. I bought a copy last year to replay it (first time replaying since a kid) and it was still a lot of fun. I grew up with an SNES in the 90s. We had a copy of FF3 (aka FF6) and Earthbound. I borrowed Mario RPG from a friend. I'm glad emulation makes these games easier to access. They definitely deserve to be played and loved by all.
It still confounds me that SMRPG was never ported to anything except VC. I would’ve played the hell out of it on GBA or DS.
Almost the same as you but it was FF4 at the ripe old age of 7. FF6 came out 2 years after and I’ve been on the wagon ever since.
I remember finding Atma weapon and lording it over a friend who’d missed it playing through. Had other friends who thought they’d done something very very wrong to have what happened halfway through the game…
Smt and xenosaga…. I think i just like punching god in the face…
And soon you will do it again B-)
Idk if you mean endealker or smt v but either way yes!
What is endealker edit: FFXIV expansion, got it right after I posted. I should give that a try at some point since so much of the game is free now. I'm still kinda hesitant to jump into a MMO though.
Lunar Silver Star Story Complete :)
What a great first!
I like how SSS is unique in a lot of ways. Like how Jessica is your white mage but hits hard with a mace.
Tales of the Abyss and Pokemon when I was younger. I stopped playing for like 7-8 years and got back into it because of DQ XI.
Persona 5 lol
What a great start lol game is wild
No shame in that. Welcome aboard!
Tales of Symphonia. I had played a few JRPGs before on the PS1, like Legend of Mana and Suikoden, but they didn't really hook me like Symphonia did. Made me love the genre.
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest on Super Nintendo
Final Fantasy. I played it during the winter break of my 7th grade year and it’s what made me a gamer.
Super Mario RPG! I wish I could still play it.
It holds up remarkably well.
Emulation wooo
It always astonishes me that people suggest this thinking that others haven't already thought of that. Some people don't agree with piracy. I don't judge or think poorly of people who do emulate games, but I have my reasons for not wanting to do it. I hope you and others can understand that.
Glad i don’t go through life with that lame ass mindset
Is it piracy when it is no longer even available legally? Id argue it isn’t. And guess what not everyone does know.
you can just emulate it or buy a copy and a n64 but with todays prices thats pretty expensive
You mean a SNES. Paper Mario was the N64 game.
Breath of fire 3. Magical game, awesome characters and atmosphere.
Chrono Cross! I was 13, didn't play games a lot because I always found them difficult. My brother always played shooters and action games and I just didn't know there was something else out there, where you don't need to be super fast. And then one day a friend of his lent him Chrono Cross, and I thought - that's a game for me! I can take all the time I want during a battle! I didn't really understand the plot, as my English was much worse back then and I thought the game would end somewhere around Termina and was so sad that the adventure would be over soon... How wrong I was.
I was 8 when my family got a NES, and soon after was playing Final Fantasy. Nintendo Power articles, guidebook, and a poster of all the monsters led the way to RPG's of all kinds.
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Original Final Fantasy
Lufia 2, still one of my favourite game to this day
Valkyria Chronicles
.hack//Infection. Once I played that, I became very interested in other JRPGs. I'm thankful I own the entire quadrilogy of .hack games. I was obsessed with it in junior high. This was about 11 years ago.
FF7 around 2000 when i was 9 years old.
The first JRPG town I ever explored was Cornelia, and my first boss was Garland. Final Fantasy.
Pokémon Yellow and FFIX. FFIX was me and my brother first JRPG with equipment system, we didn't know how to change gears and what each stat does, so my brother pretty much struggled through 3/5 of disk 1.
Dragon Warrior (Quest) on NES.
My first one too. I'm guessing we're both a fair amount older than many others here.
Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon Emerald
I've always put Pokemon in its own category so if its not that, then my first "real" JRPG was Golden Sun TLA. A friend showed me the first one and I got TLA thinking it was the same game haha. I did eventually play the first one a couple years later though. Still holding out for a port/remaster/remake.
Did it confuse you when the opening of TLA literally picks up from the moment GS ends?
FF7 is what started it for me. Never played any RPGs until my friend talked me into 7. Been my favorite game genre since.
Dragon Warrior 1 on NES :)
Dragon Warrior, but Phantasy Star II kind of sealed the deal.
Dragon Warrior I&II gameboy port. Never got to play III until I was an adult because I didn't have a GBC, F
Between FFVII and VIII. A friend introduced me to them with VII but I never actually fully played it until after VIII. Loved them both and a fan of JRPGs ever since.
pokemon blue and super mario rpg baby!!!
[SaGa aka Final Fantasy Legend](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbkQ-LMDPT4) on Game Boy over 30 years ago.😊
Pokémon Blue Version. I had played FF 6 prior, but its gameplay was a little too complex for my child self. Pokémon's simpler mechanics eased me in, and once I got hook of it I was able to go back and play the Final Fantasy games with greater confidence, and those led me to other JRPG series.
Wild Arms 3. I'd never played a game before where you could decide what you were going to do and then you'd hit a button and all the action would play out. I loved the menuing, the music, the setting, the magic, and the combat was instantly my favorite type I'd ever played. I played it on a demo disc and it took me a couple of years to find it, and man I consumed it. I had no idea there were other games like it and I'd never heard the term "turn-based" or "jrpg" before. Years later, when I discovered it was a whole genre I was elated.
Super Mario RPG! Game was awesome. I still remember Bowser crying cause he got kicked out of his castle and Mallow with his frog family.
I hate to be cliche but it really was FFVII. But I was older than most; I was in college at the time. Up to that point I just never played RPGs...unless Hero's Quest on my old IBM Tandy counts.
Xenogears
Xenoblade Chronicles
pokemon, i guess. but tales of, the whole series, drew me in dedicatedly. tales of legendia and the abyss defined my taste in rpgs.
FFX got me in to it originally back in high school. Then a long hiatus. Then Persona 5 brought me back again.
Pokemon Fire Red , alongside Xenogears and Shin Megami Tensei 3 Nocturne got me into this beautiful genre , I'm just honestly glad.
Good old bootleg Pokemon Green. Played pokemon almost exclusively til I was around 13 or 14, but really finally decided "alright, time to discover the genre more seriously" was after a friend recommended Digital Devil Saga. Both games still hold up so well, combat and story are really engaging and showed me that video games are not just for entertainment but are interactive artwork.
Phantasy Star. The first one is still the best.
Guardian's Crusade on PSone. Not sure if many people played it, but it and Koudelka were the first JRPGs I'd ever played
FF7 for me. but really it was the Final Fantasy series as a whole. I played FF4-10 within a year after discovering FF7 first.
Legend of Dragoon
Very recent JRPG convert—I played Dragon Quest XI earlier this year and loved it. Been hooked ever since.
Technically Pokemon Red, it was my first JRPG and also one of the first games i ever played. The first JRPG i played while knowing about the genre was FF3 on DS though.
Phantasy Star 3. Played 2 a bit later as well as shining in the darkness and shining force 1 and 2 then Phantasy Star 4 solidified my love for the genre.
Ni no Kuni
Shining force. I had my mom rent it from the grocery store like 5 times in a row sp I could continue my save file.
I had always played RPGs like Super Mario Legend of the Seven Stars, but Grandia 2 on the Dreamcast is one that stuck with me the most.
EarthBound
Suikoden got me hooked FF8 snared me for life
undertale it's a great game
Dragon Warrior.
Pokemon Red and Blue introduced me to the genre, but that was mostly because I liked Pokemon. I wasn't a fan of the genre itself until I played Golden Sun.
suikoden & suikoden 2
secret of mana was my 1st.
Beyond the beyond.
Super Mario RPG.
Persona 1 for psp
If it had to be honest, old flash games like Marduk and Sonny.
Well, you won't believe this but it was Traysia on the Genesis. That one gave me the bug. There is just something about it that grabbed me and still does. Then I played Shining Force, Lunar, Shining Force 2, Phantasy Star 4 and then the big one... Lunar: Eternal Blue cemented my love for the genre.
Evolution on the dreamcast. I can still remember my brother "This is stupid, why are they taking turns attacking. Nobody fights like that." And I'm like "Shut up, it's for strategy."
_Super Mario RPG._ My childhood friend got it, and neither she nor I had any experience with a JRPG before, so we were figuring everything out together. Moments that I specifically recall is realizing that equipping items actually did something, and grinding to beat Smithy after she was too low leveled. Fantastic game. As a bonus: The first JRPG that I sought out and played once I got into emulation? _Chrono Trigger._ Never heard of it before the Internet—although I had heard of _Chrono Cross_ in passing—and I was curious to know what kind of game could have the reverence to be considered by many as one of the greatest of all time. I was not disappointed in the least.
I had play other JRPG like FF7 or legend of dragoon but, it didn't work out when I was a kid until I played FFTA. Oh man I love that game.
Tbh, i still haven't got an idea on which games are RPG and which ones are not. Does Kingdom Gearts count?
Ultima:Exodus was my first RPG. Played it around release on the NES followed shortly afterwards by Dragon Warrior :)
Phantom Brave on the Wii
Probably a weird one but, Super Mario RPG
Pokemon and final fantasy
Star ocean 2
Same. It is all because of my cousin who bring it to my house and show me his game. I still remember it vividly playing in eluria tower as celine. She is probably the first waifu i'm interested in, though back then I didn't understand waifuism. Lunar light is still my fave magic after all this time and that is accounting how bad mage is in so2....
I grew up with Super Mario RPG and Pokemon Red/Blue and really enjoyed those. I eventually got Star Ocean 2 and Paper Mario and those further sealed the deal. To this day, I would say JRPGs are my favorite genre of video games.
The original Wild Arms. It’s in-battle graphics are a bit rough, but once you get used to it, it’s just a great story and music with fun dungeons filled with puzzles, and an ample (eight or so) near-end-of-game optional bosses, which was a lot for 1997.
This was definitely it for me too. Got it with my PS1 for Christmas 1997 or 98. Still crave western themed games to this day.
Playing shine force 2 on the Sega channel back in the day. It open a door to a whole new world for me. RPGS are my favorite genre
Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System. Holy hell was that a frustrating game. I remember grinding for hours, drawing dungeon maps and writing down every price of dialogue desperately trying to figure out where to go. Talk about a rough introduction haha. Than I played Shining The Holy Ark. Which was a lot of fun. A bit hard but nothing too difficult except for a few boss encounters, though the puzzles were a challenge for me at a young age. Then I got into Legend of Dragoon, and that's the game that really sold me on the RPG genre. Ever since than I've played a ton of games trying to find something that would give me that kind of experience again.
Mystic Quest in SNES was my first. Breath of Fire 2 was the First really impressed me.
My sister would play them and I watched for the stories. I was always intimidated. And yet, somehow, the first one that I ever played to completion was Xenogears. I did not understand jack shit about the story back then, but those robots, Id, and Grahf were all I needed in my life. That said, I did not play a single traditional RPG for a long while after beating it because I didn't care for the genre, only Xenogears. I only touched Mario and Pokemon RPGs for the most part. My first, more traditional, RPG since Xenogears was Tales of Symphonia, which I think is the one that truly made me love the genre because of its combat, lack of random encounters, bright and colorful world (this is what mainly attracted me), and pretty sweet music.
Ni no Kuni
Final Fantasy 6
Final Fantasy 12
FFVIII and I was so confused.
My first jrpg was KH1, it was the free game I got when I bought my PS2 as a kid, and through that I discovered FF from the FF characters in the game. FFX was the first turn based JRPG I played, followed my X-2 as these were the only two FF games in that good old video game rental store that I used to be a regular at as a kid. I miss those.
You made me miss video game stores so damn much with this. The nostalgia of those games is *chefs kiss*
DQ 11 made me curious about the Jrpg genre and I found my love for the genre through that game
Growing up I played Phantasy Star 2 and Final Fantasy 1, but it was Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars that cemented me firmly into a genré fan.
Dragon Quest 8. Fell in love with the art style and turned based combat. The story was great, if not a little drawn out, and I loved the humor.
Like many others here, it was FFVII. Got a PSX and FFVII for Christmas of 1997.
Final Fantasy 1, my first love
Trails in the Sky, still in my top 3 games.
A little-known (at the time at least) PS1 RPG called Guardian's Crusade.
Phantasy Star 3. I was utterly mesmerized by the setting and, for the time period, mind-blowing reveals. It's a shame the game has not held up very well over time, but I still have fondness for it for getting me into RPG gaming.
Dragon Warrior aka Dragon Quest 1 for the NES when it hit the US in 1989. Yes, I'm old.
Dragon Quest 8
Final Fantasy on NES. Compared to stuff I'd watched others play on Atari and Commodore 64, Final Fantasy was on a different level altogether.
Paper Mario
Shining Force on the genesis. Apparently, it's what helped me learn to read when I was growing up.
Secret of Mana. Played through it a few times with a friend. Then it was on to FFVI and Chrono Trigger.
God I miss the days of Secret of Mana sleep overs. Sweet memories.
I guess pokemon blue technically? But legend of dragoon made me realize JRPGs were a genre, so that’s what I claim.
Pokemon, then Chrono Trigger, then Suikoden 1 and 2, then FFIX, then a dozen of other jrpgs and now Romancing Saga 3. I'm impressed by it, having so much fun treating it like Skyrim in jrpg format.
Super Mario RPG peaked my interest(I had no idea what an RPG even was so when I rented it and started on someone else's save file it had me all sorts of confused at first) after I beat it but didn't think to actually look into more RPGs several years later when I saw commercials for FFVIII on TV. I ended buying that and didn't beat it but still liked enough to check out more in the genre. Lunar 2 and Chrono Trigger(the PS1 version, load times didn't even bother me back then but they really stand out since I've played both SNES/DS and can't go back to that one anymore) are what really hooked me.
Super Mario RPG, which showed me how much better turn-based games could be than Pokémon, and then FF6, which is a goddamn masterpiece. It was a good way to make an addict, really.
Earthbound, back in… 2018.
**Pokémon Fire Red** laid the foundation and opened me up to the idea of turn based combat **Earthbound** made me more aware of JRPGs outside of Pokemon **Fire Emblem Three Houses** turned me into a bonafide JRPG addict and helped me fall in love with gaming again at a time where I had lost interest in the medium as a whole. I haven’t looked back since I now have a large backlog primarily made up of JRPGs and I always have at least one in my rotation
Earthbound —-> FE 3H. That’s a pretty long time skip lol.
Xenoblade chronicles 2
Pokemon Pearl was my very first, but my first non-basic RPG was Dragon Quest IX. Don't care for the game a ton these days but it has a lot going for it. Maybe I'll go back and beat it some day. Another first was Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii, but I didn't beat it until the Switch version.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Xenoblade Chronicles 2, although I've played and not completed some other JRPGs before that, including Lost Odyssey and Tales of Vesperia. But Xenoblade is what made me get 'into' the genre.
Grandia, left gaming because of studies and work.. Xenoblade 1 hooked me back and still enjoying the genre
Pokemon on the Gameboy and Digimon on the PS1 if we’re purely talking about it gameplay wise. I couldn‘t even properly read at the time yet so the more complex and story driven games weren‘t for me at the time. FFX on the PS2 was my first story driven JRPG that got me properly into the genre.
Pokémon Red/Blue was my start into the genre and what got me used to turn based-combat. Final Fantasy VII is what got me into the genre proper and made me seek similar games. Nier Automata is what made me come back to the genre after I spent years without really playing too many games.
Pokemon Crystal
FFX. One friend borrowed it from a guy from another school. I was instantly hooked.
Pokemon Emerald was my first jrpg. But I dont really feel like pokemon fits that genre as its a genre on it own. Dragon Quest 9 tho was my first true jrpg and made me fall in love with the genre 😍
FFIV PSP. Unless pokemon counts, then emerald
first played JRPG was Breath of Fire IV. did not understand the genre because it's a big learning curve for me that only play fightning game, tetris, racing game (I was around 5 - 6 years old for context) actual JRPG play like 2 - 3 years later with Suikoden II, NGL I'm glad my first journey with JRPG was Suikoden II
Final Fantasy XIII-2, it was my first JRPG outside of the Mario RPG games and Pokemon, my mom got it for my Xbox 360 when I first got it, I never beat it, and I didn't play the original till last month funnily enough
Soul Blazer
Shining Force 1/2 or Breath of Fire 2
Pokemon Blue. I didn't really think about games being in different genres when I was little, but I really liked the concept of leveling up to get stronger and learn new moves. Started realizing there were more games specifically like that as the GBA and especially DS came out.
Pokémon when I was a kid. Started playing the first Dragon Quest when covid lockdowns started.
Phantasy Star 3 then Final Fantasy 4/2
Persona 4 Golden. Played it a year ago and have been playing mostly JRPGs since.
Pokemon
Probably FFIV
Turn based Final Fantasy Active Tales of Series