The PS1 will probably always be my favorite system.
I owned an Atari 2600, NES, and SNES previously. However, with the SNES, I started to grow bored with gaming. Gaming in that period was kind of shallow, for the most part, with a lot of platformers and brawlers and characters who were just stereotypes. When I couldn't find anything else that engaged me the way FF6 had, I began to drift away from gaming as a hobby. It had always been a secondary way to spend my time, anyway.
Then came FF7 and I just had to have a PS1, even though part of me wanted to be loyal to Nintendo. Turned out to be a fantastic decision.
I couldn't afford to buy many games but, thankfully, renting let me try a lot of new stuff. Gran Turismo, for one, totally blew me away. I can still remember trying to win that first race. I just had to go out and buy it. Then I rented Suikoden and fell in love. So many games that grabbed and engaged my imagination. It was like gaming was truly on the next level for me.
So, yeah, even though I played on other systems, I look at the PS1 as the console that made me really care about gaming.
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