Role-playing games (RPG) are pretty much games in which you play the role of the main “hero” of the story. You can control the attributes and skills of your character, through different customization options. You select what kind of equipment your characters wear, and the different types of people you want in your group.

You follow a linear story, fighting enemies, gaining experience and getting stronger. All this to reach a goal: It could be to save a princess, or even save the world from destruction.

In short, any game in which you “Level Up!” and learn new abilities.

Easily my favorite video game genre, RPGs has taken up countless hours of my time. I can end up playing an RPG and not realize that 5 hours has just gone by and that I haven’t eaten dinner yet.

RPGs are not the type of games you can pick up and put down at anytime. They rule over your playing time by the use of “Save Points”. You either play until you find a place to save your game, or until you clear a dungeon and can save at the world map.

My first experience playing an RPG was during my SNES days. I got Super Ninja Boy as a birthday present (don’t remember from who) in 1993. It was a 1-2 player Action RPG game, so I played with my younger cousin. My gaming experience at this time was mostly Action and Fighting games. My RPG experience: Zero.

Whenever you get into a battle, it turned into a side-scroller (kind of like Fight Fight or Streets of Rage), where you can jump around, punch and kick enemies. I was used to playing these type of games, and my young self thought this was pretty cool, plus the main characters were ninjas, which is always a good thing.

Well we enter the first dungeon, walk 3 steps: Battle. Walk another 3 steps: Battle. WTF!? Why do we keep going into battles? “Don’t touch the walls, last time you touched the wall we went into a battle.” “WTF?! Did you touch the wall?” This was our first experience with Random Battles.

Our solution: Spend all our money on Escape Leaf- an item which allows you to escape from battle (for when the option ‘run’ fails). “Yay now we can just find our way through this maze and get to the bad guy!”.

We finally reached the first Boss. The boss fights are in standard RPG turn-based combat. “Uh… we just pick ‘Fight’ and just watch them fight? I don’t get it.” “Wow that guy just killed us in 3 hits! WTF this game sucks!”.

If only I knew what “leveling up” and “upgrading equipment” was back then. I didn’t play an RPG for awhile after this incident. I didn’t pick up another RPG until: Final Fantasy IX.

Vivi: The character that started me down the Mage path.

I think the game came out during my freshman year of college, and it occupied a good deal of my time. I also knew more about how to play RPGs this time. I leveled up, I geared up, I learned new abilites, and I beat the game.

My friend then told me, if I liked Final Fantasy IX, then I would love Final Fantasy VII. So I tried it, and loved every minute of it. I was instantly hooked and play for hours. It had a very good story, and really cool character. An instant favorite for many many people, me included.

Jon: “I don’t think you should level Aries too much”
Me: “Why?! She is my best healer! Get out of my face!”
Jon: “…”

2 days later…

Me: “Oooh…” *tear* “Why can’t they use a Phoenix-Down?”
Jon: “Cinematic Death”
Me: “I hate Cinematic Deaths” T_T

After Final Fantasy IX and VII, I was hooked into RPG. I went back and played Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, and pretty much played any new RPGs from then on. Why not Final Fantasy VIII? Argh… I’ll explain that later in another post maybe.

TaruTaru Mages: Short, cute, and deadly!

Then Final Fantasy XI came out. Uh oh, my first journey into the MMORPG world. I bought the game with my friend and leveled up together. I made a TaruTaru named Hachiroku, Black Mage of course, and began my life in Vana’diel.

This game caused me to stop sleeping my required 8 hours of sleep. I woke up, showered, ate, went to class, came back, ate, homework/study (maybe), showered, started playing. I would play until like 2am, then that was when the Japanese players I played with would log on, then I would play with them until the sun came out. I would power nap, then repeat. I played Final Fantasy XI for two expansions before most of the players I played with stopped playing.

Then World of Warcraft came out.

/shrug

Sure, why not?