I've got a few mixed feelings about the Playstation. If I only got one console from that generation then yeah, I'd go Playstation. The library of games was vast and there are so many classic games and definitely enough unique titles that the console is a must have.
I played dozens of RPGs/ARPGs/Tacticl RPGs on the platform during its lifespan. In fact, I'm sure that's what I mostly used it for. I played everything Square and Enix had to offer as well as the less common games like Azure Skies, Thousand Arms, and Jade Cocoon. From some of the very best in the genre (Dragon Quest 7, FF7, BoF3) to some of the very worst (Beyond the Beyond) I played every RPG I could get my hands on. Finally, these games were coming out stateside in droves. Rather than every game in the genre being set in the middle ages you'd have games like Front Mission, Star Ocean 2, or Parasite Eve that would actually have some variety in the genre. One thing that I especially enjoyed about the PS era RPGs was the pre-rendered backgrounds with 3D characters/objects/paths placed on top. I thought that a lot of them looked very classy and would seemlessly cut to CG FMV based on the same environments that the pre-rendered backgrounds were from. All in all, I feel it was a great time to be into RPGs.
After RPGs, I think I enjoyed survival horror games the most. I realize it wasn't exactly a brand new genre on the PS but I never played any until then. Between Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Galerians, and a few others I would enjoy playing these a lot. Generally I wouldn't buy these but instead rent them once or twice as there wasn't That much content to see. It felt like this genre was a reasonable solution to the problem of controlling a 3D camera that many 3D games were having at the time. Rather than having a camera that's kinda wonky, make the game intentionally have obscured camera angles and leave you without good knowledge of what's in every corner.
Another nice thing about the Playstation: games just expected you to have a memory card. Renting games was better than ever during this era. You could save every game and always return back to your game. You never had to worry about some jerk saving over your game anymore.
With all that said, what could the reason for my mixed feelings be?!? I feel that console generation was still too early for 3D games. Between the low resolution textures and the low polygon count I by and large find most of the library displeasing to look at. Hardware wise I prefer the Saturn. I feel like the best looking games on the system had copious usage of 2D rather than 3D and rather than playing stuff like the neutered Playstation port of Xmen vs Street Fighter with no tagging on PS1 you could play the excellent Saturn port. Looking back, I still wish that the Saturn had received more love in the states and that Sega had used better judgement/leadership at the time.
Yes, there are some excellent 2D games on the PS. Symphony of the Night and Megaman X4 specifically stand out here. Off the top of my head I also enjoyed Lowmax, Odd World, Silhouette Mirage. On the other hand there are some excellent 3D games on the platform too, despite the current hardware limitations. Metal Gear Solid, Spyro, Soul Blade, and Ghost in the Shell were some of my favorites. But man, I really feel that the extra power of the (then) modern systems could have been much better spent on making really badass 2D stuff than on what most 3D games were. I think a fair comparison here is Playstation to 3D is like Atari 2600 to 2D. Yeah, there's some fun stuff but a whole lot of this generation is nonsense like Bubsy 3D where devs just seemed to be banging their heads against a wall trying to figure out how to make this fancy 3D stuff fun and enjoyable. There are a lot of growing pains with the advent of 3D gaming and the PS is full of games demonstrating that fact.
Oh, and I don't like the controller. Not the original, not the Dual Shock, and not any descendant of the Dual Shock.
