I am having a crazy amount of fun doing top ten lists for some of my favorite consoles, so here goes another one! I had to acknowledge in my last two lists for the DS and the PS2 that they're pretty shallow consoles, or at least that my experience with them is pretty shallow. I do think that there are probably 5 other games on each console that could have fit on my top ten lists for each, but I'm only one man with a limited budget and even more limited time to experience all that each console has to offer, so sue me. On the other hand, the PS1 is a console that is insanely deep, and even though I haven't experienced a ton of the system's library, I managed to put together a top ten list that has ten games that I REALLY love. So here goes! Same rules as usual, no ports, or Chrono Trigger would be number 1 on too many lists to count.
Caveat-I have never played through to completion, or even far enough to fairly evaluate, any of the following games:
Metal Gear Solid
Any Resident Evil game
Silent Hill
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Chrono Cross
Either Gran Turismo
Any Spyro game
Parasite Eve
Either of the Suikoden games
Any Tomb Raider games
Star Ocean: The Second Evolution
Grandia
Spider-Man
Honorable Mentions:
The Legend of Dragoon-very ambitious and fun, but inferior to the Final Fantasy triad across the board.
Battle Arena Toshinden-this game really opened up my eyes to the capabilities of 3D fighters, even if it's not nearly the game Tekken is, or even Virtua Fighter. I think of it as the forerunner to brilliant games like Soulcalibur.
Tekken and Tekken 2-There was really only one spot available on the top ten for a fighter, and you'll notice which of the trilogy is missing here.
Final Fantasy Chronicles-My true number 2 that doesn't fit the requirements. It completely captured my JRPG loving heart and broadened my horizons past Pokemon. God bless this collection of masterpieces. I spent SO much time with these two discs.
Final Fantasy Anthology-This was my first legal chance to try out Final Fantasy V, and also features my two favorite 2D Final Fantasy games (by a mile).
And now for the real top ten.
10. Twisted Metal 2
What is Super Mario Kart's battle mode was like, way more adult and stuff? Twelve year old me was SOLD!
9. Final Fantasy VIII
This is the one game of the three main Final Fantasy games on the console that I did not own in high school, meaning that I don't have nearly the nostalgic attachment to it that I do the other two. When I finally got to it, I decided that it didn't have the mad genius or fantastic character customization of its predecessor, nor the graphical and storytelling prowess of its successor. But this may just be my nostalgia speaking, as its truly a great game.
8. Crash Bandicoot 3
This is the best of the Crash Trilogy, and it's still really fun today.
7. Final Fantasy IX
This game, along with Final Fantasy X, represents Final Fantasy's peak storytelling powers. It also is, unfortunately, a nadir for character customization since Final Fantasy IV, which is really why I strongly prefer other Final Fantasy titles like Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy X. But it's the story that sticks with me, and finds that I really can't drop it any lower than this. You could even convince me to move it up two spots or so.
6. Tekken 3
My friend and I had so much fun playing Tekken 3 against each other back in the day. It was the culmination of 32 bit 3D fighting games, and it laid the groundwork nicely for the hyper-complex 3D fighting titles to come, along with Soulcalibur and Dead or Alive. But Tekken is my favorite of the three by a comfortable margin.
5. Xenogears
This is the most seriously flawed game of any on this list. It features an -extraordinarily dense- (Xenogears fans will get this) story that may or may not be due to the challenge of translating so much text. The entire second disc is a testament to Squaresoft running out of money to complete the game properly. This game is a bit like (I would imagine) proposing to a new friend that they attend an orgy with you, you'd need to have some intel before proposing such a thing. So, I rarely lead gaming conversations with people about my love for Xenogears, but if I know that you love mecha anime and Final Fantasy, it's going to come up pretty quick. It features an incredible turn-based battle system with 2D sprite person to person combat using complex combos that gradually unlock other combos as you progress in strength, but an entirely separate combat system for when you jump into your baller mechs to wreck a bigger kind of face. It has characters that will always live in the pantheon of JRPG lore forever for me (here's looking at you, Citan and Billy), and the game hearkens back to a day when JRPGs were still a bit of a hidden and unpolished secret. I adore this game, warts and all.
4. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
While I love every game from 10-5, this is where the list switches to must have games. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is a work of superlative genius, taking a classic property and updating enough to totally change the concept, while retaining just enough of the classic elements to keep it recognizable. It's an achievement a bit like Super Mario 64 or Final Fantasy VII, but certainly on a less grandiose scale. If you've never played this one before, go grab one of the several ports, as the PS1 version is very expensive, and enjoy a few days of adventures with Alucard.
3. Final Fantasy Tactics
Man, this is a really bad cover. But that's almost everything bad I could say about this game! Also, the story is a bit incomprehensible. But this game thrives on character building and tactical gameplay, and the game gets a 10/10 on both counts. Your characters are YOUR characters, and you make them how you want them. This game, its GBA sequel, Fire Emblem, and Fire Emblem Awakening are the four must play games in this genre, and you absolutely must experience them.
2. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
Sometimes, a game comes around and shows a lot of promise, but takes a lot of swings and misses, needing a sequel to get everything right, like Mass Effect. Other times, a game comes out and is surpassingly brilliant, and produces a wave of imitators and sequels that all just rearrange the elements a tiny bit, and are only capable of modest improvements. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is precisely that kind of game. Sure, the manualing was a great addition in the sequel, but I've honestly never even played that game seriously. I don't even own it. If I did, and I'd played it through, I'm sure it would appear on this list too, and maybe even higher than this game. But I spent so much time playing this game in high school that the courses are all indelibly etched in my memory, along with the location of all of the skill points, secret tapes, and S-K-A-T-E letters. It's an immersive and accessible concept, and is just flat out fun. Go play it!
1. Final Fantasy VII
Why don't you just call this list four Final Fantasy games and 6 very good other games TRO? Or why don't you just call it five Squaresoft games and 5 very other good games TRO? Guilty as charged! I love 90's Squaresoft (the run for Squaresoft from Final Fantasy IV to Final Fantasy X is pretty unparalleled in video game history for innovation and quality in a single series), and no game epitomizes that love for me quite like Final Fantasy VII, my personal favorite in the series. It took a 2D franchise and updated it to 3D, incorporating cinematics into the game like nothing had ever done before, and had the coolest characters and story I'd ever seen in a video game at that time. Sure, the graphics have aged poorly, and it's probably the worst looking game on this list. But the character development mechanics were nearly perfect, the world and story were completely immersive, the soundtrack is incredible, and it just oozes "cool" out of every pore. It's a touchstone in JRPG history, and is one of a holy trilogy of genre changers including Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy IV, and this, that completely changed the way we thought about role playing games in the future. Every modern RPG owes something to Final Fantasy VII, and there's a reason we keep talking about it in the modern day. If you're one of the few that hasn't played it, there's no better time than now.
Well, now I need to think pretty hard about my next list. It needs to be a system that I can go ten deep in with games I enjoy, and also one in which I've played a pretty significant portion of the library. I'm leaning towards black and white Game Boy, 3DS, or maybe the N64 next. Check back soon for another What I'm Playing in the near future, too.
-TRO
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