my first isometric-view game thing was link's awakening. i was 8 or 9 when i played it, and i associated that style with 'rpgs' for a pretty long time. my first actual rpg was pokemon. i got it for my 13th birthday before pokemon was really a thing, and i was insanely addicted to it. but i still didn't know what the genre was until a couple years later when i bought a super nintendo.
i had played chrono trigger and earthbound prior to requesting final fantasy 3 (vi) as a christmas gift, and i had also played super mario rpg in 2000, so by then i was pretty familiar with the genre, and looking for the best it had to offer. my parents had to go around to various funcolands/gamestops before they found a used copy. i also remember they got sweet-talked into a magazine subscription, and i think that's how i wound up getting game informer for the first time. i can only imagine them cluelessly walking into these busy stores during the holiday season and reading the handwritten list i'd given them. it must have been a huge pain in the ass. i also know it was very expensive- around the price of a new game, so $60, i believe. maybe less. regardless, i was very thankful for them that they went through the trouble and actually found it. i know that it couldn't have been easy, and they were pretty proud that they were able to locate it at all.
the game itself really impressed me. i was so engrossed in the story and the visuals and just how long everything took. it's been over 13 years since i've played it, and it's become one of those memories i don't want to tarnish with a replay, so i've since kept my game boy advance copy of the game sealed.
in 2002, my sister and i were watching an episode of extended play where they reviewed final fantasy x. it resulted in the very impulsive decision to purchase a ps2 right then and there. she had just had her birthday and i had stored up some money or had some left over from christmas, so we split the cost. at that time neither of us had a dvd player, and we never had a psone either, so it was a really great value even at $300. we bought final fantasy x, and final fantasy vii. i played them in that order. ffx became one of my favorite games of my rpg-playing days. i recall even staying home 'sick' just to finish playing it.
as for final fantasy vii, i never really liked it, or grew to like it. i still don't like it. there's not much for me to say about it, but i am glad i at least gave it a chance and played it the whole way through.
later that year i got my driver's license and was able to make frequent stops at game stores. earlier, i had bought final fantasy tactics and tried my damnedest to beat that thing, but never could. but i did go on a buying frenzy of psone rpgs including vagrant story, lunar, and chrono cross- not that i ever played many of them. final fantasy viii was the first game i ever purchased having driven to a game store myself though. it was a celebratory thing, and i think i paid $15 for a really cruddy cracked case containing the game, but i didn't care. and i wound up enjoying it a lot more than i thought i would. maybe it was the expectation that it would be so bad when ffvii was supposed to be so good, but i liked it quite a bit.
during the summer, i painted the fence in my grandma's backyard. she was always paying her youngest grandkids even though we never asked for money. it was something she did out of gratitude, even until my mid-20s, just a year before she died, despite my parents telling her not to give us cash anymore and for us not to accept it. not that i ever did chores to get paid- i loved her and had good memories of growing up in that house, and i wanted to keep it looking nice. but it was really hard to refuse when she was literally putting a twenty dollar bill in my hand and telling me to take it because 'it's only green.' anyway, i filled up the car at $2 a gallon and then went to circuit city and bought a brand new copy of final fantasy ix the day i was paid for painting the fence. and that's a very old-fashioned sentence.
final fantasy ix was really great. i felt it captured the lighthearted spirit of something like chrono trigger instead of harkening back to final fantasy vi, but it definitely was the most fun i had with a playstation final fantasy at that point.
i remember when final fantasy xi came out, and it was an online game. i mean, online games were a thing, but numbering the online game as though it was a proper entry in the series was really going to mess up the nice collection of final fantasy games i had going on. i had also made sure to purchase final fantasy origins, final fantasy anthology, and final fantasy chronicles. i played origins for a little bit, but never made it too far into final fantasy i, although i made it much further than i did when i purchased the ds final fantasy iii- a game i had anticipated based on its consideration as one of the better games in the series, and at least the best of the nes era. i don't think i ever made it beyond the tutorial dungeon.
as for final fantasy iv, i did play it on the gba. i thought it was pretty stupid, especially with the convoluted ways characters leave and reenter the party. i made it to the lunar whale in 13 hours and was too underpowered and had gone beyond the point of no return, so i stopped playing it and i've never gone back.
my final final fantasy was final fantasy xii. it was a game i shelved after about ten hours of messing around and desperately trying to like it. it wasn't until sometime in 2007 that i gave it another chance and fell in love with the exploration and battle system. ffvi, ffix, and ffxii are still my favorites in the series.
since then, i've basically stopped keeping up. i still don't consider the online entries 'proper,' (i know) and i've decided not to play ffxiii based on the impressions i've heard. ffxv originally being ff versus xiii, and nomura's involvement don't inspire me with a lot of confidence, but i'll keep an eye out for it. especially if the ps4 is affordable by the time the game is out.
my current apathy towards final fantasy also started right around the time i was no longer interested in rpgs or anime in general. there was a period in 2006 where i was still playing and watching all sorts of things, and it seemed to drop off almost immediately the following year. i think i simply was excited to try a new thing, and from 2000-2006 had absorbed a lot of entertainment i hadn't before and was starting to become a lot more discerning in my tastes.