1995 - Chrono Trigger
It's the fucking peak of jRPGs. What can I say about this game that hasn't already been said? Like, I really don't know what to say about this game that you couldn't already predict me saying.
Instead of talking about the game as a whole, let's talk a li'l about the characters. It'd be silly for me to try and pick favorites: they are all my favorites and I love them all. Even the ones I rarely use, I still have a deep and abiding love. Sonic talks about Chrono Trigger Our boy Sonic says it here: one of the things that's so cool about this game is that every character is unique and interesting and lovable in their own ways. For just a minute, I wanna focus on Frog and Magus.
I pick these two because I think they're an interesting pair inside of the game. If you're not familiar, Frog is a knight and Magus is the evil wizard who cursed him to be a frog. He also killed his best friend and threatens the kingdom Frog intends to protect. Yet, they are kind of mirrors or foils to one another, narratively.
Frog is the kind and sometimes goofy knight who partially struggles with his own guilt and self-worth. The best friend of the chosen knight, Cyrus, he always felt himself inadequate to him--something Cyrus reminded him wasn't true. But Frog as a child was a kind soul who didn't want to hurt anyone, which prevented him from joining the knights of Guardia, choosing instead to be his friend's squire. When they obtain the legendary sword and challenge Magus, his friend is killed and he is left cursed. He becomes disconsolate and questions his own self-worth, blaming his cowardice. For much of the game, he is interested in slaying Magus and claiming vengeance for his lost friend.
Magus is the trope of a villain who ultimately becomes your friend--if you wish (side note: has anyone managed to hit this trope as well as Toriyama?). But what we have learned by this time is that Magus is actually a time traveler himself. Coming from a time when magic was more prevalent, he was flung into the time of Frog, where he was raised by monsters to be their king, more or less. During this time, his singular goal is to summon the game's big bad who is ultimately responsible for the death of his beloved sister. Hence, we learn that everything Magus does is in service of this goal. Like Frog, he is interested in gaining vengeance as a way of reconciling the loss of a loved one.
But they differ in that Frog is allowed to overcome his desire for vengeance. When you are given the option, you may fight him or have him join you. If you fight him, you can even have it be a one on one duel with Frog, which is, if we're being totally honest, raw as hell. But, you can also choose the path of acceptance--have him join the party and have Frog reconcile with the loss of his friends. To take this further, Frog's endgame side quest involves putting the spirit of his best friend, Cyrus, to rest. Doing this unlocks the full power of the Masamune as the brothers are so inspired by this.
By contrast, there is no timeline or reality in which Magus gives up his quest to save his sister. Even in the best endings of the game, it's shown that Magus never gives up on this. And in the DS remake, an extra boss has him encounter Schala, who tells him that he cannot save her. Rather than deal with it, he considers that he wishes to obliterate his own existence and appears in 600 A.D. with no memory of who he is, only a vague understanding that he must seek something, cementing his inability to ever get over this loss.
I could easily gush about the rest of the party, but I'll kind of cut myself short here. Again, it's just hard to talk about this game because it's so integral to me. I think Lady Emily in her video about Plastic Beach said something to the effect of "Yeah, it's Demon Days, it's one of my favorite albums and it's hard for me to think of what else I could say about it beyond how influential it was to me" and that's about how I think of Chrono Trigger.
ETA: I'm not the first to note this relationship between Frog and Magus(how could I be?), but I did come upon this realization on my own. If you want a longer discussion of the idea, check this out: Mirrored Foil: Frog and Magus