History
Final Fantasy VII is one of the biggest-selling RPGs to date and remains very popular among RPG fans.
The earliest console RPG was Dragonstomper (1982) on the Atari 2600.[1] Later, in 1986, Chunsoft made the NES title Dragon Quest (called Dragon Warrior in North America (the series would retain that name until the 8th game in the series)). This was followed shortly by ports of the computer RPGs Wizardry and Ultima III, as well as a number of Japanese RPGs, such as Phantasy Star (1987) from Sega, and Final Fantasy (1987) from Squaresoft. These games proved popular and spawned their own series of sequels. (The Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series remain popular today, Final Fantasy more so in the West, and Dragon Quest in Japan.)
The original Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy both borrowed heavily from Ultima. For example, leveling up and saving must be done by speaking to the king in Dragon Quest. In order to rest and get healed, the characters must visit the king (Dragon Quest) or stay the night at an inn (Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy). The games are played in a top-down perspective, much like the Ultima games. The combat style in Dragon Quest was borrowed from the Wizardry series of computer role-playing games, and Dragon Quest's medieval setting is also remarkably reminiscent of Ultima.
Dragon Quest did not reach North America until 1989, when it was released as Dragon Warrior, the first NES RPG, and, thus, one of the major influences on early CRPG development. Many early console RPGs were essentially clones of Ultima and various other PC RPGs until the genre came into its own in the following years.