Back in the 16 bit wars... I was a SEGA guy (still do), so I missed a lot of great RPGs on the SNES. Could't afford two consoles, so I was stuck with my Mega Drive and it's great library of SHMUPs
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Late 90s I bought a Game Boy, that was the time when the Pokemon anime first appeared in my country (1999), I had 10 years old. Being the new cool thing to watch, every kid was hook immediately (myself include), so one day I ask in my local video game store if they had a Pokemon game for the Game Boy, I didn't knew at the moment that Pokemon started as a Game Boy game, so they offered me a 21 in 1 pirate bootleg multicart with Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue included.
When I first played the game I remember thinking: "this is awesome! you can go anywhere you want!", I never played an RPG in my life.... so everything was new to me. I loved the game, it was my first RPG and it was so damn fun!
Back then, everyone was a Pokemon fan, you had games, anime, movies, trading cards, toys, all the cool things kids like. So it was like living in a little world of awesome.
To this day, Pokemon Red is my favorite game, if you was ask me why I would say because it's my first RPG. It opened me to a whole new genre that I never experienced before.
Also, my multicart only had the USA versions... so the little english that I happen to know, comes from playing Pokemon Red. I never went to study or anything, I just learn by playing RPGs. That's why my english is soooo shitty