The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

This game nearly perfected the problems that RPG games faced in the past, and many elements make it the heart of RPGs today.  The world map was included in this Zelda and, as we all know, the world map is essential to most RPG games.  Not only did it include the world map, but it indicated where you had to go to trek further through the game.  Games today like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion have perfected this technology by pinpointing exact locations and targets, but Zelda made the RPG easier to navigate through and more fun, meaning that the gameplay became less tedious and repetitive from here on out.

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Final Fantasy III

This Final Fantasy volume was the first to allow the gamer the freedom to choose their party and their mission in the same way RPGs today give you a variety of paths to play through the game, and not just one linear road.  The world of Final Fantasy increased greatly, and the number of characters did as well.  The game got bigger and more complex, and the gamer was given more liberty than in any other RPG.  It was also the first in the series to develop a soundtrack that gamers valued just as much as the gameplay; perhaps this game invented more than the casual gamer remembers.

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Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Square making a Mario game?  Are Final Fantasy and Super Mario linked in more ways than most people remember?  This is one of the turning points of Square’s career, where Mario enters an RPG that tries to take on almost a 3D appearance with the use of clever angles.  All of the elements of an RPG are here, with a battle system similar to Final Fantasy, and a story extremely similar to that of Zelda.  You are to, with your team including Princess Peach and Bowser, put seven pieces of the Star Road back together to combat an evil blacksmith who’s terrorizing the Mushroom Kingdom.  Saving the world is always the centerpiece, and there can’t be much said for the story, but Mario makes a fantastic RPG that laid the foundation for later games like Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy. 

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Chrono Trigger

This is one of the few SNES games that still sells for over $50, and there is a reason.  Most younger gamers remember Chrono Cross on Playstation, but Chrono Trigger was a game that didn’t merely require the gamer to put pieces of a puzzle back together.  Over a period of time that ranges from 65,000,000 B.C. to the end of time, Chrono Trigger leads the gamer through an original story with multiple options and choices to be made which affect how the game story plays out.   Simply put, this game brought RPGs even more out of the linear fashion that they’d been stuck in during earlier systems.

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Mortal Kombat II

We all remember this game on the news for the shocking violence, the cutting off of heads, the fatalities, and the brutality that each opponent unleashed upon each other.  This game nearly invented violence in video games, and took it to a level that gained global attention, and concern.  This game actually pushed the ESRB rating system to be put in place in 1994, and for that we must recognize this brutal game.  With a large cast of uniquely designers fighters, this game led you up the latter to defeat one opponent after another, or to battle your friends at home or on the arcade machines.  The series remains successful today on PS3 and 360, but we’ll remember its bloody and unrelenting roots on Genesis and SNES.