white for common, green for uncommon, blue for rare, purple for very rare, orange for epic
Diablo is the first I remember. So is there something older than 1998?
Online searches also indicate that Diablo II was the first to do this.
Hmm, doesn’t Magic: The Gathering (the card game) do that? Not the same genre, and originally a physical card game, but several years earlier…
I remember it from Diablo. Magic the gathering never did that back then.