I was willing to give many different games a chance. I rented a wide variety of games covering a wide variety of genres. There was one genre I was fascinated with, but initially had difficulty getting into. The role playing game genre. I remember renting Final Fantasy II (the North American release of Final Fantasy IV) thinking it was a game like The Legend of Zelda. How wrong was I. I was so overwhelmed with the game, that I barely got past the beginning of the game. Same with games like Breath of Fire, Secret of Mana, and Chrono Trigger. Despite absolutely sucking at role playing games and being confused by how much you had to remember, I still wanted to play them. When Nintendo Power revealed Super Mario RPG, of course I wanted to try it because it was a Mario game. I didn't know how far I'd get, but I still wanted to play it.

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But upon playing Super Mario RPG, I actually learned fundamental basics about the RPG genre. Level grinding, patience during time based battles, collecting the right items and equipment, side quests, everything about Super Mario RPG was handled so well that it felt like a tutorial for RPG beginners without being too easy. And when I finally did beat Super Mario RPG, I went back to Chrono Trigger, and absolutely fell in love with it. And in the process of playing through Chrono Trigger, I fell in love with the soundtrack, marking the first time video game music stood out to me. I would find myself putting a tape recorder in front of the TV to record the music on cassette so that I could listen to it whenever I wanted. There are plenty of role playing games besides Chrono Trigger that have been influential to my life, and my tastes in video games. But if I hadn't tried to play through Super Mario RPG, I might have never been able to play all those future RPGs that inspired who I am today.