Rocket Propelled Grenades?

No, RolePlaying Games. For people that enjoy them, I find there's an interesting phenomenon - maybe it's the same for almost everything that can be categorized - the first one you play is often remembered fondly, like a "first love".

I'm actually referring to computer/console RPGs right now, but the same probably applies to pen & paper as well (I know I fantasize about running a "perfect" Mage: The Ascension game from time to time, despite how insane I know that could be). For the console RPGs, the biggest offender of first timers is the Final Fantasy series. Along that series you can almost always divide people into three groups based on what their "favorite" is.

It doesn't work out perfectly (to be honest, I probably fell in love the most with FFVIII's story, but it's not a divider), but generally there are the people who prefer either FFVI, FFVII, and FFX. To break this down, FFVI was the last non-3D Final Fantasy, FFVII was the first 3D one (one of the biggest titles for the PS1, and also the first video I ever saw advertised on TV), and FFX was the first one on the PS2 (and also the first with voice acting, however horrendous it could be at times).

I came into the franchise at FFVI, though I thought it was FFIII at the time (until the release of FFVII, the US releases were numbered in order of release - this means we missed out on 3 of the titles for a long time). The things I most remember from it are the opera scene and a line from just before the end boss, "You sound like chapters out of a self-help book!"

Leave comments with your thoughts. I'll probably continue this with a discussion of the same, but among MMORPGs, where I think the same holds true.