- Chrono Trigger : First one I played, had no idea what an RPG was, no idea the genre existed, I bought it because it has Toriyama's art on it. I thought it was a Zelda game when I started playing, then had no idea what the heck was going on on my first battle.
Game was in japanese but thankfully I had a magazine with a walkthrought / guide of the game.
Then I wanted to play more RPGs, which led to
- Breath of Fire 2 : not as good looking as chrono, I was wondering "where are the cool looking techniques ??", but I still absolutely loved it.
Managing your village was super fun.
- FF6
- FF7
- Wild Arms 4 : absolutely love the cast, especially Raquel, the combat system (even though it's not super well executed), and even though it doesn't have the "grandiose" feel of most RPGs, it was really a great adventure.
Gotta play Wild Arms 5
- Shadow Hearts : horror style RPG. The first of a great series.
- Dragon Quest 8 : First DQ I played, still my favorite. I loved that a modern (back then
) RPG has such simples mechanics and story but was super engaging. I love the cast.
- Radiant Historia : RPG with some kind of time travel element and puzze like combat. In my top 5 RPGs of all time.
I'm probably be like "oh sh.t I forgot about that one, how could I ??" in a couple minutes.