Your first game that introduced you to the franchise or publisher you adore?

[henrymidfields]

So what was your first game or media spinoff episode that aroused your interest to a game franchise or publisher?

Here's my list:

• Atlus: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE - It was actually a good thing that this game didn't have the grimdark story of SMT proper, as I wouldn't have bothered checking out the Persona 3-5 franchise otherwise, and I would also have missed out on the Vanillaware games and Radiant Historia too. I'm really happy that this has got a remake - and I hope there would be more people who would get into the Persona series and other Atlus games through TMS like I did.
• Vanillaware: Through playing my next Atlus game, Persona 4, and looking at the titles for more games, and trying out Oboro Muramasa. (For those unaware, Atlus also publishes Vanillaware games.)
• Pokemon: The US-localised Pokemon Anime (Episodes 11-12, to be exact) that my friends from San Francisco watched since 1999.
• Fire Emblem: Binding Blade
• Final Fantasy: Final Fantasy X with a PS2 in my former host family's home in Adelaide.
• Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - I won't be playing the remake, however.

Edited September 5, 2019 by henrymidfields

[Fabulously Olivier]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Literally bought it for the box art. It remains one of my top 5 games of all time (Guild Wars 1, Path of Radiance/Three Houses, Persona 5, and The Witcher 3). I still haven't decided if I prefer PoR or TH; they are so close for that number 2 & 3 slot.

 

Persona 5

I had my doubts about the social simulation side of the game, but I ended up absolutely loving it. This game oozes style and creativity, and it solidified Atlus as one of my trusted developers.

 

Guild Wars: Factions

As I was unwilling to pay a subscription fee, Guild Wars' box price immediately appealed to me. And I have never been happier to try a new game. Guild Wars 1 was a design masterpiece. It had a profound respect for the intelligence, convenience, and creativity of its players, quite unlike any other MMO before or since. It is, in my opinion, the greatest online game ever made; but unfortunately no other game has ever attempted to follow its design principles - not even its casualized disappointment of a sequel.

[Ertrick36]

1 hour ago, henrymidfields said:

Vanillaware: Through playing my next Atlus game, Persona 4, and looking at the titles for more games, and trying out Oboro.

ヽﾉヽﾉヽﾉ

You know I had to do it to 'em

 

Anyway, I'll list franchises/companies which I only got into through sequels/spin-offs/other such follow-ups or other media, as I think that's more interesting than "I played the first game in the series and liked it :p".

• Nintendo - The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time: The first game I remember being exposed to, or maybe the first game I remember having a memorable experience with.  It was the fact that I was watching my sister control a human on the TV that enthralled me with the idea of games - the idea of taking control of what's happening on-screen.  And naturally, that lead to me expanding beyond Zelda and getting into other Nintendo games like Mario, Metroid, Smash, and various others.
• Fire Emblem - Awakening: I've told this story at times, but the first time I ever played Awakening I had absolutely no prior impressions on it; I only knew it was the franchise that gave us Marth, Roy, and Ike (well, and at that point I think I also knew of Lucina and Robin via Smash).  But when I played it for the first time, I was captivated.  The idea originally was my sister got me two games I asked for and two games of her choosing for the 3DS (since I was getting it for Christmas).  The games I asked for were Super Smash Bros and Tomodachi Life.  I expected I'd sink most of my time into Smash, spend a bit more time with Tomodachi, and maybe try out FE a bit since my sister told me it played like Valkyria Chronicles (I loved that game).  In the end, the time records would be inversed; I sunk a crap ton of time in FE (still play Awakening to this day on occasion), played Tomodachi for quite a bit, and barely sunk all that much time into Smash.  I couldn't be gladder to be wrong in my assumptions.
• Fallout - Fallout 3: Admittedly there aren't many games in this franchise, but I've delved into more than half of them.  My first memory of Fallout 3 was when I was at a friend's house; they had Fallout 3 booted up and they were raring to cause some havoc with a Fat Man while wearing a hazmat suit.  We took turns dropping mini-nukes in Rivet City and generally being a nuisance in the game.  But after that, I didn't think much on the game until I actually got my hands on it.  I remembered that fun little time and thought "hey, this seems like it'll be cool".  Now here I am, having played the first game all the way through, the second one part way, the third to completion, New Vegas to total completion (by that, I mean completing the main story and all DLCs), and Fallout 4.  Probably won't touch 76, though.
• The Elder Scrolls - Oblivion: Technically I think I saw my friends playing Morrowind before I got my hands on Oblivion, but I barely remember much from that other than that they somehow managed to kill one of the Balmora guards despite being poorly outfitted and spec'd.  I got into Oblivion after Fallout 3, and I don't really remember too much from my first experience aside from it being my first Elder Scrolls game.  But it seemed to have left some impression on me, as I've gone on to play Morrowind and Skyrim as well.  Also, I can no longer play Oblivion without the Xenogears soundtrack modded in; it's just so goddamn good, and it somehow seems to fit really well.
• Soul Calibur - 2: Never played the first SC, but I've played every other numbered game in the franchise, as well as Soul Edge.  As annoying as some fans can be about it, there's a reason SC2 is commonly referred to as the best entry in the series.  Some would attribute this to Link's guest appearance, but I think the game on its own is still a pretty damn fun 3D fighting game.  From SC2, I pretty much played the series in order - first 3, then 4, then 5, and lastly 6.  Only exception is Soul Edge, which I played after 6.  IMO, I liked 3 and 6 more than 4 and 5.
• Dragon Ball - Budokai Tenkaichi 2: I know, I know, Dragon Ball's primarily a manga and anime.  However, one cannot deny its massive presence in the gaming market as well - people have cherished memories of the Budokai games, the Legacy of Goku games, and various other Dragon Ball games out there, not to mention the splash more recent games such as Xenoverse and FighterZ have made (I recently learned the former's second entry reached 10 million copies sold, which is astounding).  And the first game I played wasn't even the most popular of the Budokai Tenkaichi games.  But as a dude who barely watches anime, Budokai Tenkaichi 2 was my gateway into actually exploring Dragon Ball proper.  I remember immediately taking to Trunks because he had a sword and swords are awesome.
• Metal Gear Solid - 4 Guns of the Patriots: Here's the thing... I technically first played MGS1, but it was only the demo and I barely got into it at all (I was stuck in the cavern area because I was too scared to confront the guards).  So eventually when my brother and I started being allowed to play more "mature" games, we got our hands on MGS4 because Smash Bros. Brawl somewhat advertised it through trophies.  Before I got too deep into it, I watched some video that recapped all the events from the previous games.  But the funny thing is I barely actually retained much of that because after MGS1, the stories become an absolute mess and crap gets retconned all the time.  But despite it being a messy story, I still loved it for the story - loved the essence of the struggles of war that the series strove to capture.  And now I can't tell you how many hours I've sunk into the franchise.
• Saints Row - The Third: I got into this because of a misinterpretation of one of the opening cutscenes.  Specifically, the ad where Pierce was getting beaten up by a gang of ruffians, but then when he drank a can of Saints Flo from the heavens, he became super-powered and one-punched the ruffians into next week.  That made me think the characters all had super powers for some reason, and I thought it'd basically be GTA meets super hero fantasy.  Ironically, the one game in the series that actually did have super powers was probably my least favorite (don't hate it, but I just had more fun with the others), while the least ridiculous one I played, SR2, ended up being my favorite.
• GTA - IV: Speaking of GTA, I remember this introduction to the series rather vividly.  It was my birthday (I believe it was the 15th B-day) and one of my best friends got me Grand Theft Auto IV for that special day.  Now, I don't know about you, but in my community GTA had a... reputation.  Literally the only thing I'd hear about is... hiring services from working women and then killing them to get your money back.  I thought that sounded kinda lame - that's the only fun thing to do in that game?  And since it was rated M and it had that reputation, I didn't even know if I was allowed to play it (I talk about "being allowed", but my parents were actually pretty lax about things).  I asked my parents, they said it'd be fine, I played it, and now I hate that student who said the only fun thing to do in the game was kill prostitutes because there's so much more than that to the GTA games.
• Resident Evil - Outbreak File #2: This one's always been an odd one for me.  Firstly, the first RE game I played was the remake of the first game in Gamecube.  But I barely got into that because of the damn crimson heads.  Secondly, it wasn't only a spin-off, but also a sequel to the first of a small spin-off series.  Thirdly, it was meant to be an online game, but I played it entirely offline.  And lastly, this has had a more lasting impression on me than the actual main RE games.  Maybe it's the fact that, unlike most of the series, the characters you play as are mostly civilians.  I mean, in RE1 you play STARS members, in RE2 you play as a rookie cop and the sister of a STARS member, in RE3 you play as one of the protagonists in RE1, and after that the characters are basically well-trained super agents.  In Outbreak, you get eight characters; a disgruntled cop who failed his STARS exams, a rent-a-cop Vietnam vet with a loving family, a subway agent who loves crossword puzzles, a plumber (who's implied to have a shady past), a physician that hikes a lot, a waitress with a box for storing herbs for whatever reason, a reporter with an attitude, and an Asian-American schoolgirl with amnesia hiding a dark past.  I liked this diversity in the roster, and that many of them didn't really have combat training.  But regardless, OB FIle 2 was my entry point, and I've played much of the series up to 4 afterwards.

[Armagon]

Xeno/Monolith Soft: So back in 2015, there was this little thing called the New Nintendo 3DS and there was also this neat little game called Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, which was a port of the original Wii game. Go back a year earlier and the protagonist of said game, Shulk, was added into Super Smash Bros. 4. Natrually, i was curious so Xenoblade Chronicles 3D was not only my introduction to the Xeno series but Monolith Soft in general. And boy, i fell in love. Flashforward to now, and i've played every Xeno game except Xenoblade Chronicles X. Xeno's a huge part of my life as you can probably tell and, this may be biased, but ever since Xenoblade Chronicles released in 2010 on the Wii, Monolith Soft has been the king of the JRPG industry. And look now, Xenoblade Chronicles is getting a definitive edition.

[EricaofRenais]

The legend of Zelda The Minnish Cap was my first Zelda game and it got me hooked, it started a love of a series.

Fire emblem Sacred Stone: I liked the box art so I bought it, the rest is history.

Bayonetta 2 was what got me in to Platinum Games fabulous stuff and if it is made by them I will give the game a try.

SMT IV is what got me into the SMT series because of the $30 offer Nintendo did when it came out and I have been playing SMT ever since.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Smash Brawl introduced me into Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn which introduced me into Fire Emblem as a whole. 

Edited September 5, 2019 by Lysithea

[Reality]

Wizardry 8 - Started one heck of a binge into CRPG history - I do have the unpopular opinion putting the best Greenberg games > Bradley games, but Wiz 8 is my favorite despite feauturing neither of the core designers.

Puyo Puyo GBA - Played it for possibly hundreds of hours, got me into better puyo games (Puyo GBA's pointblocks and hardblocks kind of reduce difficulty)

Colony Wars - Got me to play all 3 CW games, and then to follow the publisher Psygnosis around, then to play the separate Descent/Freespace franchises.

[Yexin]

when i want to start playing a certain series, i usually try to start it with the first title, mostly if said series focuses a lot on the story aspect, but...

 

Fire Emblem:

SSB Brawl made me know the series, while an italian youtuber's Blazing Sword let's play made me want to actually get to play it

 

Inazuma Eleven:

A series I personally love, probably quite unknown in the US because soccer isn't very popular there and also because its english voice acting is pure garbage, and I can't wait for Ares to be released: it's actually been the anime what introduced me to the series, but i bought the first title immediately after

 

Pokemon:

when i was at elementary school, a friend of mine lend me its copy of fire red, and i absolutely fell in love with it, and well, i kept following the series ever since (don't know why honestly, maybe it's pure nostalgia), while also playing the gb/gbc games

 

Trails Series:

again, another friend of mine told me to play the series, but he forgot to tell me that it didn't start with Cold Steel (i doubt he knew that, at the time), but yeah, i started with Cold Steel and then CS2, and recently played Sky FC and SC, i have yet to play the 3rd and the crossbell arc before CS3

[Vince777]

Been playing anything  Kotaro Uchikoshi makes ever since playing Zero Escape.

He's got another game coming this month too. 🙂

[Sire]

Warcraft 2 - While I have played the original Warcraft, most of my time was spent playing Warcraft 2 making custom maps and playing them when I was a kid. I loved Blizzard games and went on to also play some Starcraft (Diablo was okay, but did not really interest me at the time). // When Warcraft 3 came out, that game mostly became my life for a very long time, until I was introduced to the wider world of PC Gaming through Steam (otherwise, I was always a Nintendo kid).
Sadly, ever since Blizzard merged with Activision, the company has been going downhill and I am trying not to support them. Alas, it seems I've been sucked back into the void that is WoW Classic...

Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones - I told this story a couple times on the forums. This is around Brawl's release I and thought Lyn looked pretty. So I did some research to figure out what game she was from, found out it was Fire Emblem, and decided to give it a try. When I went to my local game store, there didn't have Blazing Sword, so I got Sacred Stones instead. The rest is history.

Samurai Warriors: Chronicles - My desired 3DS Launch Title. They didn't seem to have it in my local area, so I Ghost Recon ended up being my first 3DS title. I did manage to pick up Samurai Warriors Chronicles when I was in New York for a class trip as a friend bought it for me.
I absolutely loved the game despite the limitations of the 3DS system. I went on to play Samurai Warriors 3 on the Wii, Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper on the Wii U, Hyrule Warriors, and Fire Emblem Warriors. I would like to play other Warrior games, but it seems they mainly focus on the Playstation systems which I do not have (and given recent Sony censorship policies, probably won't get anyways). Also, I hear their PC ports suck.

Super Mario 64 - While I did have the original Super Mario Bros on the NES, Super Mario 64 was the first Mario Game I really played and fell in love with (I missed out on the SNES as I mainly went into gaming from the N64 era onward). SM64 has been discussed to death of how awesome it is, so I'll just leave it at that.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

13 hours ago, Sire said:

Warcraft 2 - While I have played the original Warcraft, most of my time was spent playing Warcraft 2 making custom maps and playing them when I was a kid. I loved Blizzard games and went on to also play some Starcraft (Diablo was okay, but did not really interest me at the time). // When Warcraft 3 came out, that game mostly became my life for a very long time, until I was introduced to the wider world of PC Gaming through Steam (otherwise, I was always a Nintendo kid).
Sadly, ever since Blizzard merged with Activision, the company has been going downhill and I am trying not to support them. Alas, it seems I've been sucked back into the void that is WoW Classic...

Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones - I told this story a couple times on the forums. This is around Brawl's release I and thought Lyn looked pretty. So I did some research to figure out what game she was from, found out it was Fire Emblem, and decided to give it a try. When I went to my local game store, there didn't have Blazing Sword, so I got Sacred Stones instead. The rest is history.

Samurai Warriors: Chronicles - My desired 3DS Launch Title. They didn't seem to have it in my local area, so I Ghost Recon ended up being my first 3DS title. I did manage to pick up Samurai Warriors Chronicles when I was in New York for a class trip as a friend bought it for me.
I absolutely loved the game despite the limitations of the 3DS system. I went on to play Samurai Warriors 3 on the Wii, Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper on the Wii U, Hyrule Warriors, and Fire Emblem Warriors. I would like to play other Warrior games, but it seems they mainly focus on the Playstation systems which I do not have (and given recent Sony censorship policies, probably won't get anyways). Also, I hear their PC ports suck. 

Super Mario 64 - While I did have the original Super Mario Bros on the NES, Super Mario 64 was the first Mario Game I really played and fell in love with (I missed out on the SNES as I mainly went into gaming from the N64 era onward). SM64 has been discussed to death of how awesome it is, so I'll just leave it at that.

DW8 is generally considered one of the better DW games and the steam version is ok, do give a look

 

have you played Chronicles 3? Its E Shop only. im currently saving for it actually

 

Anyway

 

DW4 introduced me to KOEI and the Musou games are some of the most mindless fun i had in all my gaming experience

 

Megaman 8 was what properly introduces me to Capcom, but i didn't become a huge fan of their work until my cousin come back overseas who was better than us at games and showcases how to properly play Megaman X games, and Megaman Battle Network. We ended up having a playthrough of most of the series together. To date, the BN and SF are some of my top video game favorites only topped by

Atlus with Etrian Odyssey. My intro to Atlus was Persona, which introduces me to SMT, my first game was Demikids, and then i saw EO, went into SJ and the rest is history. I didn't exactly play all EO games in the series but the ones i played (3, 5, Nexus, U1, U2) are all really fun games.

and finally SRWJ was my first proper experience actually playing Banpresto's flagship SRW games. It feels like a dream to think that SRW nowadays comes with english translation, but back in the day the english translation of J was the gateway for some fans of the series

 

 

Theres a couple others but those are the standout ones

[DragonFlames]

10 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

have you played Chronicles 3? Its E Shop only. im currently saving for it actually

It's fantastic! Definitely worth your time if you're a fan of the franchise. It does have some problems, though those didn't hamper my enjoyment too much.
Wait, haven't we talked about it before?

---

Here are some games that introduced me to franchises I adore:

Nights of Azure to... well, Nights of Azure. And Gust in general. So far, Gust hasn't disappointed me with its games. Nights of Azure and Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon are both fantastic (desperately hoping for a Nights of Azure 3 somewhere down the line), Atelier Sophie introduced me to the Atelier franchise, which I also like, Atelier Lulua was amazing, I'm currently playing through the Arland trilogy starting with Atelier Rorona, and there is another game from them on my radar: Blue Reflection, which I have no clue what it even is, but it looks great. And there is also Atelier Ryza coming out in the near future.

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The MIllenium Girl introduced me to Etrian Odyssey, which I absolutely adore (Untold 2 is the best one along with Nexus, in my opinion) and was my first ever Atlus game. Since then, I have played Shin Megami Tensei IV, Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse, Persona 5, Stella Glow and Conception II (the latter two were only published by Atlus, not developed; still count for me) and loved all of them. The only Atlus games I've played and didn't like too much compared to other entries were Persona 4 Golden, Etrian Odyssey IV, and Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey Redux.

Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World was my first ever Tales game. Every Tales game I've played, I adored (except Graces f and the original Symphonia) to the point where I couldn't even rank them if I tried. My current favorite is Tales of Berseria, and I admit that I am more than a little hyped for Tales of Arise.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1 was my first Neptunia game and... well, look at my profile picture. That should tell you enough. Needless to say, I absolutely fell in love with the games and especially the characters. My favorite game in this franchise is Megadimension Neptunia VII, which is also my current absolute favorite game.

Hyrule Warriors was my true first introduction to Warriors gameplay (i.e. the first Warriors game I owned myself, I played Samurai Warriors 3 at a friend's house and loved it). Since then, I have played Fire Emblem Warriors, Warriors All-Stars, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, Samurai Warriors 4, Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends, Samurai Warriors Chronicles 3, and Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires. My favorite game in this franchise is Warriors All-Stars, which is also the first game I got the Platinum Trophy for. Funnily enough, Warriors All-Stars was also the game that ultimately convinced me to look into the Atelier franchise. It has Sophie, the titular character of Atelier Sophie, as a playable character and I liked her enough that I wanted to give her home game a shot, and... well, here we are. Another fun fact is that it was the presence of my two favorite characters from Nights of Azure (Arnice and Christophorus) that convinced me to get Warriors All-Stars in the first place.

Pokémon Blue was my first ever Pokémon game AND my first ever video game. It still holds a place in my heart, as does the entire franchise, even if I have jumped ship since Gen VII.

Lastly, there is of course my introduction to the reason I am here (a.k.a. the Fire Emblem franchise), which is Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn.

[Shinehollow]

Fallout New Vegas was my first Fallout game and my favourite in the series. Fallout 3 is my second favourite, so I'm excited for the GNR plaza DLC from the Creation Club if it means a chance of Three Dog. 

Devil May Cry 4 got me into Devil May Cry and technically Resident Evil, since I obsessed over it to the point I learned pretty much every bit of lore of the series which of course was supposed to be Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil 6 was my first real RE game and my favourite partly because Helena is hot.

FE7 got me into Fire Emblem because I didn't have Awakening at the time. I realized I preferred FE8 like years later, though.

 

[know_naim]

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey  (NDS) - that's a biggie for me. Before Strange Journey i never knew SMT was so awesome. Yeah, I played Persona 3 and other Atlus games before but that one gave me a proper first MegaTen experience and what followed was a real craze for everything Megami Tensei. By the end of the '00s most of Atlus' offering was out on PS3, so I ended up playing the Digital Devil Saga, early Persona's and the Raidou games on that. On top of that Atlus' NDS output has been stellar. Definitely been a big fan since then and am very excited to see what they'll do next.   

Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PSP) - to Falcom in general. Have never been a big fan of the classic first to games apart from the ost, so Felghana caught me by surprise and was definitely a sleeper hit. BOOM, PlayStation Portable became my Falcom machine with sooo much Trails and Ys goodness. That Brandish remake probably noone even remembers is sublime. 

 

[dragonlordsd]

I'm surprised that there are so many people who only recently got into Atlus and SMT, they've been great for a long, long time. In fact, as far as I know, there has never been an SMT game that was actually "bad", just ones that are "better" and "worse".

The game that first got me into SMT, weirdly enough, was Devil Survivor for the DS. Still the best SMT game in terms of gameplay, in my opinion, but then I discovered Nocturne, Strange Journey, and the rest of the main series, loved those, and then played the Persona games, which were also great.

YS: The Oath in Felghana was my first YS game, on the pc. I absolutely loved it, and have been a huge Falcom fan ever since, though I really feel like the trails series has been in decline with Cold Steel. Hopefully that'll turn around.

 

[Rapier]

Trails in the Sky FC. Excellent game with an excellent translation, and turns out the other games are also excellent games with excellent translations. Arguably my favorite RPG of all time.

Mega Man X4, because I completely skipped the NES/SNES and it was one of my first PS1 games. I still like it enough to consider it one of the best X series games up to date, and it introduced me to Mega Man as a whole.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Another of these cases where the localization is excellent, despite the amount of japanese cultural references. The game also made me open my eyes to interactive visual novels with puzzle elements.

Zero Escape: 999 / Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors was pretty much my first "proper" VN and I loved the narrative and characters. I still regret it didn't sell as well as I hoped it would, and VLR (the sequel) didn't get enough good sales. At least Uchikoshi is back with new, non Zero Escape games.

Crusader Kings 2 the Game of Thrones simulator introduced me to Paradox's Grand Strategy Games, which I love to this day, although CK2 remains my favorite (maybe of all time, because I have 1k hours in it already).

Fire Emblem 7, not for being an excellent game but for getting me into the series and inspiring me to try other FE games. It remains one of my favorite series of all time.

Bloodborne was the game that properly got me into Souls-like game design and gameplay. I had played DS1-3 before, but I never felt like progressing much in these games. This game made me see the strengths in Souls-like games and inspired me to get back to it.

[Maddie]

Atlus - the Persona 5 anime made me really grow attached to the cast and I bought a PS4 to play Persona 5. Absolutely loved it and ended up playing the entir franchise including spin offs multiple times in the span of a few months. Also started getting into SMT with Nocturne but haven't yet played others yet but plan on playing SMTIV and playing 1-2 if I love that game too.

Fire Emblem - I was interested in the franchise because of smash so I played Path of Radiance and fell in love with the franchise.

Final Fantasy - Played FFVII on my PS4 because it was being sold for cheap and I absolutely loved it.

Danganronpa - One of my friends begged me constantly to play the games so I did when I saw the 1/2 collection on the PS store and it was amazing.

LOZ - LOZ OOT 3D

Xenoblade - Xenoblade 3D and Xenoblade 2. I'm going to be playing Xenogears soon as it looks like a video game version of Evangelion.

Pokemon - Been playing the games since I was 6 and still love the franchise.

 

[vanguard333]

My List:

The Legend of Zelda: The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition for the GameCube. It came with the GameCube, I played it (I was about five, maybe) and I really enjoyed Ocarina of Time. I didn't enjoy the original or Adventure of Link, and I found Majora's Mask confusing and nightmarish (again; I was five). But, I grew to really enjoy The Legend of Zelda. 

Fire Emblem: Technically Super Smash Bros. Melee, as that game introduced me to the Fire Emblem franchise. My brother and I grew interested in the series, and we found Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Up until then, my favourite game of all time had been Ocarina of Time. After Path of Radiance, I had a new favourite, and it continues to be my personal favourite game to this day. 

1 hour ago, Edegard1902 said:

Fire Emblem - I was interested in the franchise because of smash so I played Path of Radiance and fell in love with the franchise.

Hey; same here! That's really cool. Was it Melee or Brawl?

Valkyria Chronicles: I had no idea the series existed until I saw the reveal of Valkyria Chronicles 4 at the E3. The moment I saw that trailer though, I was interested: a tactical RPG set in a fantasy version of WW2 with an emotionally-driven story? Sign me up, and I normally don't like games with guns. I got it, I played it, and oh my gosh; the game is good. I've been looking at getting Valkyria Chronicles Remastered, but I wouldn't have time to play it. 

Super Smash Bros.: Melee. I first played it at a friend's house. It was fun. Eventually, my family found it, we played it, and we really enjoyed it. 

Pokémon: I'm not as big a fan of this series as I am of the other ones above, but I have really enjoyed the series. The first game that I played, and my first Pokémon game, are two different things. I first played my brother's Pokémon Fire Red. When Diamond/Pearl released, I got Diamond, and that became my first Pokémon game. 

Super Mario (3D): Sunshine. I have vague memories of my brother playing a friend's copy of Super Mario 64, but I never played it until the DS remake. The first Mario game I played was Sunshine, and I really liked it, though I didn't get very far in it. Though, that may have been for the best, as I have heard that the early game's the best part and that there are clear signs of the game having been rushed near the end. 

[MagicCanonBalls]

Dynasty warriors 5 - It was the first game I played on PS2. I know it's the same thing every installment but damn it's addictive. Probably my favorite gaming franchise ever. I am kinda sad the my computer can't support Orochi Warriors 3. One day hopefully.

Trails in the sky FC- I think this is the first JRPG where I actually most of the sidequests (I missed one in the early chapter), and then kept playing the next game ever since.

Fire Emblem 12 - Got curious about tactical rpg and the description of this game stated it has avatar creation with multiple classes selection. After FEH I started to go on FEH sub for more news, then lead me to the main sub. From there I discovered Smash & Kirby series from all the memes. 

Pokemon Black/White- I watched the anime once in a while if I caught them on TV but never played any of the game until BW came around. 

Mass effect- Introduce me to dragon age as well. I still remember needing chinese translation to understand the dialogue, up till when ME3 came out and I can keep up with the subtitles. Also Kaidan and Fenris helped me to accept my own sexuality.  This sounds silly but I romanced Morrigan and Ashley to convince myself & another friend who played both series that I wasn't gay. 

 

[avensis]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. So much memories ! This game made me dream for more than 200 hours of play, at least! The scenario is not boring, on the contrary, how many times have I been able to click on "New Party" just after finishing the final chapter ?!
 

Edited December 11, 2020 by avensis

[vanguard333]

On 10/2/2019 at 9:56 AM, avensis said:

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. So much memories ! This game made me dream for more than 200 hours of play, at least! The scenario is not boring, on the contrary, how many times have I been able to click on "New Party" just after finishing the final chapter ?!

Same. Not only was Path of Radiance my first FE game, but it's definitely the one that I've replayed the most. 

[Jenneta]

Pokemon: I never was interested much in Pokemon originally, but one faithful day someone left Pokemon Platinum at my Grandmother's house and she asked if I wanted it, so I said "sure" and took it home. Eventually I popped it into my DS, messed around with it some and fell in love. ❤️ Though it's not entirely because of nostalgia, Platinum is still my favorite Pokemon game to this day (as well as just Sinnoh and Team Galactic in general to be honest.)

Fire Emblem: I was downloading some demos to play on my 3ds one boring afternoon, and came across Awakening-I really enjoyed the looks of the graphics, so I checked it out and fell in love. As soon as I could, I bought Awakening and have since then been a Fire Emblem fanatic. ❤️ Awakening was replaced by SOV as my favorite, but I'm still absolutely in love with Awakening and replay it relatively often.

[Lord_Brand]

For me, probably either Donkey Kong Country for Rareware or Spyro for Insomniac Games.

[Perkilator]

Square Enix--Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance; This is an unpopular opinion, but I adored DDD as a game ever since I got the demo on the original 3DS back in Q1 2013. Since then, I've adored Kingdom Hearts as a franchise for its unique gameplay and its (mostly) unique takes on Disney movies.

SNK--Real Bout Fatal Fury Special; Despite me knowing next to nothing about how to play a fighting game, Real Bout Special is a great way for me to let loose and wail on my opponents neat and fluidly.

Nintendo--Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia; My love for Fire Emblem started here. And it shows, because when I first came onto this forum, Echoes was the first game I had the courage to invest myself into, and so I had no clue what I was talking about when I was talking about my wishes for a hypothetical FE16. Since then, I've decided to do more research with the series on how it's supposed to work, and I've been a casually diehard fan since.

[Lyn]

Legend of Zelda- Ocarina of Time. I played the N64 version a lot. Enjoyed exploring, and the music was excellent.

Harvest Moon- Friends of Mineral Town. One of the first games I got with my GBA. (It got me into farming simulation games too.)

Edited December 20, 2019 by Lyn