I never had an advanced console back then so my first srw was 4 on SNES back then in 99~00 period (maybe earlier?). Just as bakAnki this game really got me to "cross the line" from simply being interested in kana-hira-kanji and get my ass on gear and start learning some things; it also got me into a lot of series that I didn't knew before playing.
It's when I finally got a PS2 is that I stopped borrowing games and started to care about getting them for myself