Want to try out a rpg. What's a first timer to try

[TEKTORO]

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest or Child of Light.

[SpaceBooger]

Not sure if Sega CD games work on an everdrive, but if so I recommend Lunar.
Lunar was my first RPG (played Dragon Warrior and FF for one stitting before Lunar). It's simple, great characters, story, dialog and fun.

[Sano]

My suggestion for SNES is Lufia & The Fortress of Doom

God no, Lufia 2 is much better for a first timer (and since it's a prequel you don't lose any story). Lufia & The Fortress of Doom has too many holdovers from the NES era.

I'll agree with that. Lufia II is the better of the two; plus you dont lose any background information since it is a prequal.

[pierrot]

It's my personal belief that anyone new to the genre of JRPGs should start by playing Megami Tensei for the original Famicom--or whatever; Dragon Quest, I guess.

[Exhuminator]

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

This remains the best answer.

Chrono Trigger is a great JRPG. But it's not indicative of the genre overall, and will set the bar a tad high from there on in.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Not sure if Sega CD games work on an everdrive, but if so I recommend Lunar.
Lunar was my first RPG (played Dragon Warrior and FF for one stitting before Lunar). It's simple, great characters, story, dialog and fun.

Is that the same one as the "Silver Story Complete" one that's on PS1 is? That was one of the hardest games I've ever played. Considering the age I was when I played it, it's very possible I just played it wrong, but it seemed like you were teetering on being one shot through the whole thing.

I do commend the choice of Chrono Trigger though. Great choice.

On the subject of King's Field, I do intend to pick up the first one one of these days, beacuse JapanGameStock has it for like $6. I'll just chuck it in the cart and then get brutally murdered by it when it arrives Xp (it's also humorously mis-catagorized as just "King," even though the cover says, in English, "King's Field.")

[KalessinDB]

Well I'm late to the party and mas has already made his decision, but +1 on FFMQ considering it was designed to be Final Fantasy for Dummies. Fun game, if a bit disappointing once you're used to other, more complex FF's.

I think my first (or at least, the first that I really dove into) was FF7, but at that point they've gotten complex enough that if you want to really dig into it and get all/most of the secrets, you need a guide or a friend who's played it before or you can permanently miss stuff and never be able to get it (I'm looking at you, Ramuh materia!)

SNES was really the golden era of 2d JRPGs... you could basically print out a list of Squaresoft games from the era and throw a dart and not go wrong.

[SpaceBooger]

Not sure if Sega CD games work on an everdrive, but if so I recommend Lunar.
Lunar was my first RPG (played Dragon Warrior and FF for one stitting before Lunar). It's simple, great characters, story, dialog and fun.

Is that the same one as the "Silver Story Complete" one that's on PS1 is? That was one of the hardest games I've ever played. Considering the age I was when I played it, it's very possible I just played it wrong, but it seemed like you were teetering on being one shot through the whole thing.

Same game but different. The story is almost the same - the difference is the enemies are not view-able and battles are traditional jrpg random encounters. The game is also easier, to me, since the enemy strength is not scaled and directly tied to your character's level. The PS1 version took grinding and leveling up out as a strategy to beat harder bosses.

[Exhuminator]

On the subject of King's Field, I do intend to pick up the first one one of these days

That's a fantastic decision. The original King's Field is a bit simpler than later entries, and is not a bad place to start. Well, other than the fact that it's the most graphically primitive of the bunch. But that won't bother a true gamer like yourself.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I actually disagree with the Mystic Quest picks. It's an experimental game and not really representative of the genre. Sure, it's easy, but so is Kirby's Epic Yarn - and I certainly wouldn't recommend that as a "first platformer."

I will agree that the biggest flaw of Chrono Trigger is the fact that most other RPGs played after will pale in comparison.

No offensive to anyone here, but I never understood the Lunar hype. Perhaps this is simply because I didn't play it when it was new. It's a slow game with uninteresting enemy and dungeon designs. The most striking aspects are the visuals/cutscenes and voice-acting ("oh Aleeeex") but those don't make up for the serious flaws in gameplay. Most of the notable late-era SNES RPGs are much better than Lunar games on SCD/PSX.