RE: The very first game you ever bought?

The Gold Box D&D games were awesome for their time and I think they were generally well reviewed. There were some other great fantasy RPG series from that time as well like the Bard's Tale series and the Ultima series. I loved the later Baldur's Gate series as well. The Gold Box games (and Baldur's Gate which was really the spiritual successor anyway) let you have an entire party of characters which was nice. I don't know if there are any more modern computer RPGs that let you do that. You didn't have to have a C64 to play the Gold Box games though you did have to have a computer. I think they were available for the Apple II and PC (DOS) as well. Pool of Radiance even came out on the NES though I don't think any of the other Gold Box games did.