1986, Game of the Year

[Jumpin]

My vote went to Dragon Quest. The original Legend of Zelda and the original Metroid games were important in the field of open world design, Dragon Quest is by far my most played game from this year. While RPGs existed before Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest is the earliest game that really resembles a modern RPG, as primitive as it is.And whether you’re one of these people who likes to use a “JRPG” distinction or not, Dragon Quest heavily influenced all RPGs, and probably a great many games beyond the genre. As I mentioned in earlier threads, Wizardry was also remade in the image of Dragon Quest, and that is likely the version you played - a Japanese remake of Wizardry, as those were localized and published on platforms after the initial launch of the game (on platforms like Apple 2).

The first five Dragon Quest games are brilliant and, IMO, must play games for the most serious RPG fans, as no five games demonstrate the evolution of the genre from its infancy in the mid-1980s, to a mainstream genre by the early 1990s. Final Fantasy 4, Secret of Manan, FF6, Chrono Trigger, and FF7 represent the spearhead of the next phase and growth of the genre following those early Dragon Quest games. By the time of FF7, RPGs were probably the most renowned genre, and one of the most successful.