No matter when you first came across this game, what were your first impressions like?

As someone who grew up with a NES, Final Fantasy was my first one, but not my first RPG. Aside from a couple of bare bones PC RPGs (with the Dungeons and Dragons licence), Dragon Warrior was played heavily in my household.

I have told this story a couple of times before, so I'll keep it brief. Basically a cousin and I came across the game in a local rental store. Instead of renting it, my Aunt was nice enough to straight up buy the game for my cousin.

Long story short, I remember a time when the original Final Fantasy was very advanced compared to other RPGs that were available to me. The fact that you can choose a party of four alone made me want to run home that evening (slept over at said cousin's house that fateful night) and pester my mom to buy the game for me (which eventually did happen).

Like most players, my cousin got his ass handed to him in the Marsh Caves and ended up having a mini break down when he realized that he was so screwed, that he felt he had to start the whole game over (in retrospect it's not like a lot of time was wasted, but as a kid long games were uncommon so the situation was very distressing).

Anyway, what about yourself?