I had an RPG fan for a friend who tried to get me into his interests. He lent me FFVI and I hated it cause I found the menu based system to be boring from years of growing up on side-scroller beat em ups and Fighting games. I was an arcade brat, if I wasn't dying ever few seconds and trying to make the most of my quarters the game wasn't worth my time.

So he tried another approach and lent me Secret of Mana which was more of the type I played before. The combat was solid but what really got me was the story. I never imagined a game could have a real story attached to it with good characters that went beyond "save X from Z".

I ended up buying his copy of SoM and then asked to borrow VI again and give it a try. I fell in love with the games story which was unlike anything I'd seen at the time. I found FFII(IV) later and my fate was sealed from there.