Dragon Warrior (NES, 1989)

The NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) era of gaming was a time of experimentation and invention.  Great games were being made one after another, and game developers were creating exciting new ways to play them.  Many of the gameplay features that we take for granted nowadays were pioneered then.  Enter Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest in Japan).  This late 80's RPG (Role Playing Game) was inspired by predecessors such as Ultima and Dungeons & Dragons, but took everything that made those games clunky and complicated and streamlined them.  It is considered by many to be the first modern RPG.
Dragon Warrior told the epic adventure of, well, YOU.  YOU are the descendant of the legendary hero, Erdrick, who rid the world of evil ages ago.  Now a new evil is threatening the land, one called the Dragonlord, and it is your destiny to defeat him and protect the kingdom once again.  Along the way you must (well, more like should) rescue a princess, and recover Erdrick's ancient artifacts, all necessary in the final showdown with the Dragonlord.
The developers wanted to make a game that retained the depth of  RPGs of the day but simplified everything that made those games impossible to play (in retrospect).  The old games had menus that were more confusing to navigate than MS-DOS.  Dragon Warrior has a simple menu with easy-to-navigate sub-menus.  The old games had battle systems which were difficult to understand.  Dragon Warrior has one-on-one battles with only four commands.  The old games made collecting items, armor, and weapons, as well as leveling up a chore.  Dragon Warrior handles this far better.  You fight monsters, gain experience and gold, level up after gaining so much experience points, and buy what you need at shops.
This is where Dragon Warrior shows some of its faults though.  As much as I would love to say this game has aged like fine wine, I should more accurately say it has aged like a banana.  As time goes on, its rotten spots become more obvious.  In Dragon Warrior, there is a huge emphasis on battling mindlessly in order to gain XP and level up.  This is known as "grinding".  I was discussing retro RPGs with a friend, and this is how I described playing the game:  "You grind to level up and get better weapons and armor, so you can fight tougher monsters and grind faster.  The game is a never-ending quest to find more sufficient ways of grinding."  It is because of this that I cannot recommend the game to anyone but those with a lot of patience and understanding of the old-school.
Don't get me wrong though, the game is still fun.  The game improves itself as you progress, as you gain new spells, reach new areas, and find that you are able to fight better and faster.  It gives the genuine sense that you are on a long and perilous journey.  It has a classic aesthetic of European painting that keeps it from looking too dated, and characters and enemies are well drawn.  This game created the staples of the RPG genre that found their way into other classics such as Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, and Mother.  The series is still going strong, and this first entry will remain as one of the most important games ever created.