I was born in 1983 and the NES released in North America in 1986, and the first video games I remember playing were NES games. It is the system that got me into gaming. The games that I first remember playing were the original Super Mario Bros. and the original Legend of Zelda. The first time I literally picked up a controller and played a game was Super Mario Bros. I was just a little kid and I was watching my aunt and my brother and a childhood friend taking turns playing Super Mario Bros. They convinced me to try playing the game, but I had a hard time with the game. I wasn't good at it and kept dieing. In short time, my parents bought an NES and I was hooked on playing video games, though. I had an original GameBoy back in the days I was playing the NES regularly, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, too.
I remember playing some games on an Apple computer in those days, too. I don't remember the names of any of them, except for one. I wish I could find those games to play on emulators. I should try looking for them sometime.
Also, Dragon Warrior on NES was my first JRPG (it is Dragon Quest I, but for a time Dragon Quest was Dragon Warrior in the United States). I hated Dragon Warrior. I'd wander around, read text, open up a menu to open doors and to go up and down stairs, I'd stumble around for a fun part (the fights), and then when I would get in a fight I'd die most times. I could barely beat a slime.
Not too many years later, I got Final Fantasy II (Final Fantasy IV) on the SNES and I ended up loving it. I beat it when I was a kid and it made me a JRPG fan. I loved Final Fantasy III (Final Fantasy VI), too.