I grew up WATCHING my three older brothers play Atari, NES, and the SNES. I weep at the memory. They'd never let me touch any of it.
After I turned eleven my youngest older brother, the only one out of the three who was still interested in gaming by then, started letting me take the controller and eff around. I sucked so bad that I really couldn't figure out what to do in that game he let me try. It was Chrono Trigger, a magnificent game I would play later in life, many many times over and loving the hell out of it, but back then the only thing I could do without dying or getting lost was bet on the races at the Millenial Fair(Green Ambler!! No, Steel Runner!!! x_x).
I never got to play CT on the NES, because he sold almost all his stuff on a whim(which he says he wishes he'd never done but he wanted some quick money at the time). I had to wait until it they released the PS version to properly play and beat the game(got all the endings, too). But he did buy a Playstation that he let me and my sister have, and we got absorbed with gaming(mostly rpgs. we had to spend our allowances wisely, and that was our favorite kind).
The first games I ever played and beat were Suikoden I and Final Fantasy VII(on my brother's old copy that he gave us, that had a scratch that'd sometimes make the game stop right after you beat Air Buster :/).
Aaaaah. The memories.