1. EarthBound
I don’t think EarthBound was the first RPG I played, but it was definitely one of the first I owned and the first one I remember sinking my teeth into. I saved up a considerable amount of money to buy it and pored over the strategy guide whenever I wasn’t near my SNES. I try not to hold every RPG to the standard that EarthBound set, but it was a high bar and struck a chord at such an important age it’s hard not to. My love and appreciation of humor, writing, exploration, video game music, and hope all stem from my love of EarthBound. I don’t think I’d be writing today — let alone about RPGs — if it wasn’t for the profound impact EarthBound had on me as a child. I play EarthBound regularly and still feel a great sense of relief when I see the text box say, “The war against Giygas is over.”
2. Persona 4 Golden
Nanako help me, I love a good murder mystery. I received a PlayStation Vita for Valentine’s Day in 2015, and my first purchase was Persona 4 Golden. My partner at the time said she thought she lost me for a month because I was so hooked on it. Though I played Persona 4 Golden later in life, I hadn’t considered its effect on me until now. I think it’s incredible how Persona 4 Golden makes you feel like you’re part of the investigation team. I felt like I was solving a mystery with a group of friends, not simply playing a video game. I fell in love with the cast, as two-dimensional as they can be, and truly felt for the first time in a long time that it was the journey, not the destination, I was excited about.
3. Shin Megami Tensei
Another late-in-life entry and a play on a whim, but after Persona 4 Golden I wanted to investigate the parent series. I played the entirety of Shin Megami Tensei on an emulator on my phone with the Aeon Genesis translation. Immediately amazed by how much they could do on an older system, Shin Megami Tensei reminded me why I was so impressed with EarthBound. Many games just head straight for the linear story path, and while they give you openings here and there, they never truly feel open. Shin Megami Tensei and EarthBound excel at introducing a deal of player freedom that simply doesn’t exist in many older RPGs. While I think Shin Megami Tensei II is the better game, Shin Megami Tensei kicked off a lifelong love of this series and one I’m proud to love.
4. Yakuza Kiwami
I played Yakuza Kiwami when the prevailing opinion surrounding Yakuza was that it was just “Japanese Grand Theft Auto.” I wasn’t really sure I’d be into it, but Wes Iliff convinced me to play it for the first time. I was overwhelmed (in a good way) with all the systems at play and things to do in Kamurocho. One minute, I was beating up gangsters; the next, I was slot car racing, hitting up the batting cages, buying dog food, and back to beating up gangsters. Yakuza also introduced me to a game I now love, Mahjong. I played Yakuza Kiwami on the PlayStation 4, and it’s currently one of my rarest platinum trophies. Kiwami started my interest in Japanese culture, broadened my personal concept of an RPG, and introduced me to actually liking minigames in RPGs.
5. Dragon Age: Origins
I remember the day Dragon Age: Origins released because it was the day I got laid off from my first professional job. I remember feeling awful about being let go and getting home to see that Dragon Age: Origins had downloaded while I was gone. My life took an interesting turn the following year, but I always appreciated Dragon Age: Origins being there to soften the blow. I struggled to play through some of the older D&D titles by BioWare (something I’ve since rectified), and Mass Effect was such a smash hit. I even purchased the novel Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne in anticipation of the game, and boy, did that just get me more excited. BioWare really had a way with cohorts talking with one another, and I loved every minute of my Warden’s adventure through Ferelden.
Non-RPG 1: Team Fortress 2
I doubt anyone at RPGFan even knows this, but in another life, I used to run a pretty popular Team Fortress 2 community called Couch Athletics. I paid for a couple of servers, and the hook was that all-talk was on. You could speak to the enemy team over voice if you wanted, which was good for community building. We set up community events and eventually started a website. A lot of bad came from it, but a lot of good as well. I learned many lessons from running that community, and it even reignited a love of writing about video games that I thought I had lost. Team Fortress 2 itself had a profound effect on me, as I was a big fan of Team Fortress Classic. And quite frankly, Team Fortress 2 kind of kicked off the hero shooter genre. But it’ll always have a place in my heart because of the community I ran.
Non-RPG 2: Command & Conquer
Usually when I bring up Command & Conquer, people talk about Red Alert 2 or Generals, but I’m talking about the 1995 PC game with the Global Defense Initiative and the Brotherhood of Nod at each other’s throats. Before I started playing a bunch of shooters online, I played Command & Conquer over Westwood Online and would regularly chart on the leaderboard. Of course, back then, we had dial-up, so I had to play at odd times so I could use the phone line, but when I was playing, it was like the rest of the world didn’t exist. I thought the single-player was pretty good, too, although I learned recently from the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection that it was actually pretty bad, and it featured a very graphic cutscene that I was maybe too young to see. But I credit the absurdity of the narrative as one of the reasons I love RPGs so much.
