Wow! Sorry it took me a bit to get back to this. I knew this conversation would be a point of contention for many but I had no idea.

I think the most interesting thing I've seen in this thread is the confusion over what counts as "mainstream entertainment". For me, Mario is considerably mainstream because he is not only popular within the gaming community, but with your average "consumer" as well. I also must apologize for not defining the specific sub-genre within the genre I was talking about. I was really interested to see which turn-based RPG really got people to take notice. Honestly, looking back you could trace this back to Phantasy Star 1, but again, that game received praise from a still fledgling (when compared with the mid-90s or today), gaming community.

As far as I know (and again, I'm no analyst), FFVII was the first turn-based JRPG to reach an excess of over 9 million sales. Much more than Diablo's 2.5 million. I'm also not doubting the success of western influences like Richard Garriott who lives in a castle and (last I heard), went to space as a tourist on account of his astronaut pedigree. I'm just saying that the people who were buying into what was considered "popular" in the mid-late 90s, we're not playing a ton of RPGs before FFVII came out.

Thanks to everyone who's added to this. It's made for incredibly interesting reading.