10th September 2010, 8:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 11th September 2010, 12:49 AM by A Black Falcon.)
Respond to something darnit, this took quite a while. :)
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M-Z
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MDK, Medievil II, Mega Man X6, Metal Gear Solid, Mobile Light Force, N2O: Nitrous Oxide, Norse By Norse West: The Return of the Lost Vikings, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Pandemonium, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Project Overkill, Punky Skunk, R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, Rival Schools: United by Fate, Rollcage: Limited Edition, Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire, Saga Frontier, Sheep, Shooter Space Shot, Shooter Starfighter Sanvein, Silent Hill, Sol Divide, Soul Blade, Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels, Star Ocean: The Second Story, Street Racer, Strikers 1945, Super Bubble Pop, Tekken 3, Tempest X3: An Inter-Galactic Battle Zone, Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, Tetris Plus, Threads of Fate, Tiger Shark, TNN Motorsports Hardcore 4X4, Total Eclipse Turbo, Um Jammer Lammy, Vandal Hearts, Warhawk, Wild 9, WipEout, WipEout XL, WipEout 3, Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
MDK
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A port of the PC 3d action game of the same name. The graphics aren't as good as the PC version of course, and definitely are questionable and gamepad controls are not as good as mouse and keyboard, but still, it's pretty good, as it's a competent port of a good game. Good art design, lots of fun and varied shooting action, jumping, puzzles, and more. I like MDK2 better than the first game, the first one isn't nearly as funny as the second and it has less variety too, but the first MDK is still a pretty good game.
MediEvil II
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I've owned this one for a long time, but quit early on and never have gone back. I didn't like it that much at the beginning, and didn't keep going. The graphics are your usual PSX 3d bad, and the gameplay's average to subpar.
Mega Man X6
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Mega Man X6 is too hard. That is the main thing I get from the game, it's too hard. The game was clearly a rushed production, releasing less than a year after X5 and late in the Playstation's life. The story is the worst of any Mega Man X game up to that point, and the difficulty level was jacked up again; X5 was hard enough, but this goes too far. Only Mega Man 9, the Mega Man Zero series, and Mega Man & Base compare to X6 in difficulty, as far as Mega Man games go. The levels are varied and interesting though, and the gimmicks in the various stages are unique and different. There's some pretty cool stuff here, and it's great to see another 2d Playstation game because it actually has good graphics. It's just too hard. I haven't even gotten to the Sigma levels.
Metal Gear Solid
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Haven't played this yet, but I know based on what I've played of the second one I'm sure the volume of cutscenes will quite annoy me.
Mobile Light Force
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"Mobile Light Force" is actually Gunbird, a good 2d vertical scrolling shmup from Psikyo. It was butchered in localization and is much worse than the Japanese Playstation or Saturn versions, but the core game is still here and is fun. Still, the major alterations, the removal of the entire story and the removal of high score saving, hurt the game a lot. Really, import the Saturn version, or play the English-language rom, if you want to understand the endings. If you just want to play the core game though, this is there. The levels themselves, at least, haven't been changed, and hte actual game is great Psikyo (Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters people, before they formed Psikyo) shooting action. It's hard but great fun as you try (and fail) to dodge the screens full of bullets. I like 16-bit style shmups better than this bullet-hell-ish stuff, but still, Psikyo shmups are great, even if I'm pretty bad at them.
N2O: Nitrous Oxide
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N2O is a 3d tube shooter. It was somewhat inspired by Tempest 2000, but it's nowhere near as good as that classic. I was hoping for this game to be good, but I just don't like it very much. I haven't played this game as much as maybe I should, but I find it somewhat boring and not as fun as it seems it should be. The game's speed is somewhat slow, so you don't feel like you're going really fast. On the other hand, it is sometimes too fast, because the enemies can zip past you and kill you. The balance just isn't that great. Honestly, a static setup like Tempest 2000 probably would have been a better idea. I do like the graphics though, the game has a great, moving "psychedelic" look to it, obviously T2k inspired. There's two player multiplayer too. It's just... not fun enough, and feels slow. Play T2k (or Tempest X3) instead.
Norse By Norsewest: The Return of the Lost Vikings
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Norse By Norsewest is a PC/PSX/Saturn port of Blizzard's The Lost Vikings 2 for the SNES. Unlike the ports of The Lost Vikings to the PC, Genesis, etc., Blizzard didn't make this one internally, unfortunately. The ports are 2d, with prerendered characters on drawn backdrops. Somehow, the graphics, while good, just don't have the same style as the original game's, or LV2 on the SNES either. The PSX version here doesn't have some of the flaws of the PC version (that version had no gamepad support, ridiculously, and a few other problems), but still, somehow it's just not the same... though part of that is the original TLV2, TLV2 just isn't as good as the first Lost Vikings. I don't like how the characters are given too many overlapping powers now. In the first game, the whole point of the game was that the three characters each had different, and complimentary, abilities, and that you'd have to use all three heavily in order to get through. In the second game though, everyone has some kind of jump, a bunch of characters can attack, Baleog has a hard-to-use grappling hook instead of the bow, and more. It's just not anywhere near as good, the pure puzzle nature of the original game is heavily watered down with more generic platforming action. The two new characters are the worst offenders, but the three orignals, as I said, were changed too much too. The game's not terrible though, it's a decent to good 2d platformer with some puzzles and character switching, and it is fun. The humor is back too, and is even funnier thanks to all the voice acting in this version that the SNES didn't have -- some of the jokes in this game are pretty good. "That said 'Do Not Touch', not 'Doughnuts'!"
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
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Oddworld is another 2d platformer on the Playstation, but it's a different one from most of the others. It's from the Out of this World, Flashback, or Blackthorne school of platformers, but it's somewhat different from any of those games. Oddworld is a bit more open-ended, and much more (often dark) comedy-centric, than any of those. The concept, of Abe the Mudokon, a humanoid creature who needs to escape from villanous tycoons who are planning on killing his whole race in order to use them as flavoring for a soda. It's good stuff, and Abe is a good character. In the game, you solve puzzles, avoid or defeat enemies in a very Flashback or Blackthorne manner, and rescue other Mudokons. The game uses a system called Gamespeak, where Abe can 'talk' to the other Mudokons to give them orders, ask them things, etc. I've never really liked Gamespeak, though; it's got five or six commands and is kind of confusing, and I just never gave it the time that it'd take to really get used to using it. Overall, Oddworld is a good game, but be prepared to spend some time learning how to properly play it.
Pandemonium
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Pandemonium is a 2.5d platformer, which means polygon graphics with 2d gameplay. It's got nice graphics for early-gen Playstation 3d, good cartoonish art design, fun graphics, and a lot of challenging platforming. That last point is the game's downside too, though, as Pandemonium is simply far too hard. I've never been able to get very far in Pandemonium; I don't know if I've even beaten the third or fourth level, actually. You only have two hit points before you die, and health-ups are not common. The levels are long and full of obstacles, enemies, traps, and tricky jumps, and the result is a ridiculous difficulty level. It's too bad, because apart from the difficulty, I like this game a lot -- the game looks nice, is fun to play, and has a decent soundtrack. I just wish it was a little easier. The password-only saving is kind of lame, too.
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
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Persona 2 is an Japanese RPG with a modern day theme. Specifically, it's a grind-heavy game with a dark story set in the Shin Megami Tensei universe, where demons frequently enter the human world causing havoc. It's the sequel to Persona 2: Innocent Sin, a game not released outside of Japan (though now it does have a fan translation patch for the game, I believe), so part of the backstory is lost. The US did get Persona 1 (as Persona: Revelations for the PS1), but not the first part of Persona 2. As for this game though, it's a little unique in starring a 20-something woman, not a teenage boy like usual for a JRPG. This is because it is a sequel, and in the first game the characters were teenagers (and you played as a boy, though this girl was a character in the game). That's cool, it's a little different from other JRPGs, Personas 3 and 4 included, where you play as high school students. The game has 3d environments with 2d sprite characters, and looks decently good. However, the game has some major problems that make it, for me, absolutely no fun at all. First, it's a grind-focused game. In SMT games, you grind, and then you grind some more, and then you grind some more. I just do not find dozens of hours of repetitive, identical battles at all fun, and so I can't enjoy this game. I want to be strong enough to fight the boss when I reach them, I don't want to have to wander around levelling for an hour every time just because. That kind of thing gets me to quit playing games, and that's exactly what happened here.
Also, I find the game a little disturbing. In the battle system, you have the choice of either talking to your demon enemies or fighting them. If you talk to them, you can, if you choose the right dialog options, convince the demons to leave and go home. Each type of monster says different things and requires different dialog options to convince. Honestly, this was my favorite thing about the game. Talking to the monsters and convincing them to leave was much more fun than the standard repetitive battles. However, you can't do this much, because if you convince an enemy to leave, you get no XP. Needless to say, you need lots of that to deal with the mountain of grind, so you usually just have to fight the enemies. My problem was though, the characters never have any kind of moral issue about this. I mean, it's normal in RPGs to kill all kinds of baddies, sure, and then have the characters return to being normal nieve 14 year olds afterwards... but you usually can't convince enemies to leave like you can here. If I don't have to fight them, why should I? They're not all irredeemably evil... but no, the entire concept isn't even mentioned. Oh well, I think this was just me. :)
Project Overkill
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This game is a not too well known early Playstation game with isometric 2d graphics. The gameplay reminds me the most of the Crusader games, No Remorse or No Regret. You run around, collect ammo, solve simple puzzles, kill enemies, and die a lot from the high difficulty level. Ammo is quite limited, so don't waste it! You really don't want to run out, you're a sitting duck if you do. This is a pretty good game, though. It doesn't have the depth of the PC Crusader games, but nor did the console Crusader game, so it's about even probably. The controls definitely do take some getting used to, as is common with isometric games, but once you get used to it it works. There are several playable characters and plenty of game to get through, too. This definitely isn't the greatest game around, the graphics are decent but nothing amazing and the gameplay can be frustrating, but it's interesting enough to probably be worth a look. The controls really will take a while to get used to though, they're somewhat odd and clumsy. Stick with it and learn the game, conserve your ammo, and use the map!
Punky Skunk
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Punky Skunk is a very SNES-ish 2d platformer with a garish early '90s color scheme and an animal mascot hero. But wait, don't leave, it's actually decent. :) The game does have saving on the map between levels, but other than that and the CD audio, it'd be easy to mistake this for a 16-bit game, from the not very next-gen 2d artwork -- Punky Skunk is no competition for Rayman, graphically -- to the Sonic-inspired "cool" anthropomorphic skunk hero. The game, though, is good. It's not very long, and isn't that hard either, but while it lasts the game is good, solid 2d platforming fun. In Japan the character was just supposed to be cute, not "tough" as the 'Punky' name suggests; they tried to make him cool by giving him the name Punky Skunk, but the saccharine cuteness of the actual game is unaltered. If you like cute, fun mascot platformers, though, this one's probably worth looking up, because it's a fun game. Punky has various costumes he puts on in different levels, so in one level he's in a bright pink rollerblading costume, then in the next a neon green flight suit or something like that. Yes, this game is very early '90s. It's simple, but fun, and I like it.
R4: Ridge Racer Type 4
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The fourth game in the Ridge Racer series, R4 is popular among Playstation fans, but I don't like it so much. The graphics aren't as good as Ridge Racer 64's, and the gameplay is classic Ridge Racer, which means extreme frustration as you try to catch up to that guy in first who you might, if you race nearly perfectly, catch on the last turn. This game has more content than the previous games in the series, with more tracks, more cars, a real campaign mode, and more, but the gameplay is what matters, and I just don't like Ridge Racer's style that much. R4's is a little better than RR64's auto-drifting, but not by much. It's still Ridge Racer, and I still don't find it that fun. There is 2 player splitscreen.
The Ridge Racer Turbo Disc is a bonus disc that came with the game that includes a demo of the original Ridge Racer for PSX, and a 60 fps version of it as well showing what they could do with the Playstation now. This really shows how ridiculously limited in content RR was, it's got about 1 1/3 tracks and that's all apart for mirror and reverse modes. This disc's version is even more limited, because there is only one other car on the track; at least in the original release you had a full field of opponents. Maybe they couldn't hold up the 60 fps with more than one other car? Whatever the reason, it's kind of lame. Also, there's still no multiplayer. The best thing on this disc was definitely the Klonoa demo. Heck, that was probably the best thing in the whole package, R4 included.
Rival Schools: United By Fate
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Rival Schools is a 3d fighting game from Capcom. I haven't played it a huge amount, but from what I have, I think that it's mediocre and not as good as I was hoping based on the pretty cool packaging. It's not awful, but I just don't find it that fun. The game's kind of slow, the graphics are ugly, the gameplay thoroughly mediocre... games like this are why 2d fighting games were so, so much better that generation, really. For a 3d fighting game that gen this isn't THAT bad, I guess, but I don't like this very much. The pacing, moves, speed, game flow... somehow it just doesn't work, compared to, say, a 2d Street Fighter or Darkstalkers game. C-grade stuff, maybe. Why is this two discs with two different save files, again? They're not that different...
Rollcage
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Rollcage is a racing game from Psygnosis. It's a fantastic game, maybe even better than their great Wipeout series, and really is a series that I wish would come back. I first played the demo of Rollcage on the PC, and bought Rollcage Stage II for PC back when it came out, so I haven't bought the second one on PSX, but I did get this one because I don't own it for PC, and it was a good decision, as this game is great. Great, challenging gameplay, great graphics, variety, style, music... Rollcage has it all. There really isn't anything negative to say, except that the sequel is even better. Getting used to Rollcage's handling takes time, because it's very tricky and you spin out with barely a tap, and can drive on walls and ceilings as well, but don't give up because it's that handling that makes Rollcage what it is. I wouldn't want it to be any different. It does make the games hard, but it also makes them great. You do get used to the handling eventually. Oh yeah, and the flashy weapon effects are fun too, and the weapons themselves varied and useful. Stuff like driving on walls and ceilings is awesome, and Rollcage cars do with no problem. :) I would strongly recommend the Rollcage games, they're some of the futuristic racing genre's best.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire
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Port of the strategy game released on many platforms. I really haven't played this much. Very deep and complicated, if I ever get around to giving it some time I'm sure I'll love it, because I do like strategy games a lot.
SaGa Frontier
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Saga Frontier is a JRPG, and part of the SaGa series, which has always had mixed popularity at best. The game is 2d, with decent but not great rendered backgrounds and sprites. As usual with SaGa, the game is somewhat nonlinear, there are many sidequests, and you have a bunch of playable characters. I haven't played this one much, but it seems good.
Sheep
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Sheep is a puzzle game, port of the PC game of the same name. It's a top-down 2d game where you, well, herd sheep. There are several characters to choose from, including a rocker version of Bo Peep. The sheep are actually aliens you see, but still stupid and easily misled, much like Lemmings. Lemmings was an obvious major inspiration here, which is fine considering how great a game Lemmings is. Sheep isn't quite up to Lemmings' level of quality, as the budget just wasn't there and the puzzles get frustrating sometimes due to how difficult herding your sheep in the correct way can sometimes be, but overall it's a good puzzle game with some amusing graphics and challenging and (usually :)) fun gameplay.
Shooter: Space Shot
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Space Shot is a very low budget shmup. The game has 2.5d graphics and anime-style prerendered CG cutscenes, in Japanese with English subtitles. The designers tried to put some depth in the game system, but it's not needed to actually beat the game -- just basic moving and shooting will do fine for that. It's only in the trial mode, or whatever it's called, that some of that comes out. Graphics are budget, as you'd expect. The story is generic anime stuff. The three characters are all male, I think, but with one of them I can't quite tell (the manual says he's male, but who knows). The shooting action is okay, but nothing great. So yeah, this isn't a great game. It's not that awful either, though, just a product of its budget. For something that I don't think was over $10 new, it's not that bad. It won't hold your interest much longer than it takes to play through once, though.
Shooter: Starfighter Sanvein
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Sanvein is a pretty good and unique game. While also part of the same budget line as Space Shot above, this is a very different game, and much more interesting. Sanvein is an arena shooter, pretty much. You control a spaceship, as expected, flying through space. Except instead of just flying up or right, when starting you are presented with a hex grid. You start from one point, and the goal is to defeat all of the boss enemies, which are on specific hexes of the grid. The rest of the hexes have generic, weaker enemies in them. Each battle is a single-screen affair where you and the enemies fly around, trying to destroy eachother. The uniqueness comes from two things: first, you have a time limit which only increases when you beat bosses, so you do not get time back that you spend playing non-boss hexes. Second, however, your weapon power in any given hex depends on the number of adjacent hexes you have beaten, and bosses are tough enough that greater weapon power is often advisable. Also, you don't get game over for dying, but lose time instead. So you need to deal with beating as many hexes around a boss as you can before your time runs out and you get game over. It's an interesting system. The graphics, which are 2.5d, are average at best, but the visual style of the menus and interface is pretty cool. Sanvein is an interesting game that's worth checking out.
Silent Hill
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I haven't played this. I keep buying survival horror games, but rarely actually play them... I have survival horror games for N64, DC, PSX, GC, etc., but haven't actually beaten any... :)
Sol Divide
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Sol Divide is a 2d, side-scrolling fantasy-themed shmup from Psikyo. It's one of their less-regarded games, but as I love fantasy stuff, I do like the game. It's frustrating and you randomly get hit a lot, but the game has good anime-style fantasy graphics and artwork, varied environments, characters, and enemies, and interesting (if a little flawed) game design, with various different spells to collect and use. There are three different playable characters, and the game has some home-exclusive content too, with both the original arcade game and a second, original mode where you have levels, items, and more going through a longer quest. Interesting stuff. Annoying sometimes, as the game is quite hard and isn't the most predictable, pattern-based shmup around, but fun anyway.
However, XS Games completely failed in the localization process. Even though it gets much less attention for it, this game is every bit as horribly mangled as "Mobile Light Force". Perhaps even worse, actually. In that case what was lost were the funny, entertaining stories and endings, some of the character names, high score saving, and the art galleries. Sol Divide is similar -- saving and the story are gone. The endings are intact this time, but they are left in text-only, untranslated Japanese, which is no better, particularly with how all story before that point, with one line excepted (at a point where you can choose two different routes -- the only such point in the arcade game). All the items in Original mode do have their names and item descriptions translated, but that effort was utterly wasted with the game's biggest flaw -- the removal of saving. You see, in the Japanese PSX and Saturn versions, you can save in Original mode at the beginning or at regular checkpoints. When you die you get sent back to the start and lose all of your equipped items, and the Original mode game is long and full of branching paths, so saving is absolutely essential. When you mess up, you can load your save and try that part again, without losing your stuff that will be hard to replace, and without having to start from the beginning of the game again. But... there's no saving in the US version. None at all. This means that when you die, you always lose everything, and get sent back to the very beginning. It's absurd that the game actually shipped like this, and that they'd actually do something so stupid as to remove saving... what in the world were they thinking? I mean, removing the story is one thing, but they utterly ruined a huge part of the game by doing that! Ridiculous. Don't buy this -- import a Japanese copy instead, maybe for Saturn because it's easier to play imports there. You'll have to figure out what items do just by memorization, but at least the game is playable.
Soul Blade
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SoulBlade is a 3d fighting game from Namco. It was pretty popular at the time, and is the first game in the long-running SoulCalibur series, but the first game isn't very good, at least not anymore. The game is slow, has iffy graphics, and is just boring. I have beaten it with a couple of characters and maybe even beaten the adventure mode, but I didn't like it very much, and this is not a game I ever go back and play. It's bland, boring, and not much fun.
Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels
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I've owned this game for years now, but never did play it much... this is definitely something that would be a lot more fun with a PC and a mouse, it's complex and has a lot of buttons. The game is a first-person game, but it's not just a shooter, it has a big strategy component too. Looks interesting, but playing it with a gamepad isn't much fun at all. (Oh yeah, and don't even bother without the manual. The game is complex and there is no tutorial.)
Star Ocean: The 2nd Story
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Star Ocean: The 2nd Story is one of my favorite Playstation games. I admittedly haven't finished it, though I did get to the second disc (of two) so I got well into it. The game has a good anime-style story with many twists and turns along the way, good sprite art and 2d dungeons and towns, a bunch of playable characters, lots of depth in the game design from cooking to the little side scenes with characters to the different paths through the game that lead to many variations on the ending, two playable characters (male or female), and different paths at certain points in the game depending on which character you play as, and more. Combat is action-style and fun, with lots of different abilities and skills on your party members. The game is deep and complex, but not too hard to learn or understand either, the mark of a great game. However, while I haven't gotten far enough in the game for it yet, I have heard that at the end the game suddenly turns into a gigantic grind mountain as the difficulty level suddenly spikes through the roof, which doesn't sound like much fun and is one reason I haven't put more time into the game... still though, great game, one of the system's best RPGs.
Street Racer
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Street Racer is an Ubisoft racing game that was first on the SNES, but also saw Genesis, Game Boy, Playstation, and Saturn versions. The Genesis and GB versions are entirely different, but the PSX and Saturn versions are upgraded versions of the SNES game, which is a pretty good, Mode 7, Mario Kart clone with a 4-player splitscreen mode. The Saturn version is quite superior visually to this Playstation version, but unfortunately didn't get a US release so it's import (Japan or Europe) only. Both the PSX and Saturn versions do have 8 player splitscreen multiplayer with two multitaps, though, which is pretty cool -- it's the only splitscreen racing game on either system with support for more than four players. Even if the Saturn version looks nicer, PSX Street Racer is still a fun game. Gameplay-wise it's still pretty much flat, Mario Kart style, so do not expect Mario Kart 64, but it's a good game. I'm not sure if I actually like it more than the SNES game, because just because it has better graphics doesn't mean the gameplay is better, but it is a quality title for sure either way. Fun game for kart racing fans. Look up the SNES and import Saturn versions too, though.
Strikers 1945
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This game is actually Strikers 1945 II, but as the first one didn't have a Western release, Agetec renamed it to just Strikers 1945. The Strikers 1945 series is a series of shmups clearly descended from Aero Fighters and 1942, and are from Psikyo. As with those games it is a vertical scrolling shooter with 2d graphics and great, classic gameplay. The 2d artwork is great and the game runs very well -- this is definitely some of the better 2d work I've seen on the Playstation. It's short but hard and has lots of replay value, like all the best shmups. The options are similar to the other Psikyo games I have for PSX, Mobile Light Force and Sol Divide, except Agetec didn't completely butcher this port like XS Games did to those two. They didn't remove the high-score saving, most importantly. There's no autosave, so you need to remember to save, but at least the feature is there. This game is great, probably my favorite of the shmups I own for PSX. It was also the first Playstation shmup I bought, the day I bought the system in Jan. '06, and it was a great choice, I haven't seen it very often since. The only removed feature from the US version is Tate mode, for vertical monitors, but overall it's a great game, very highly recommended.
Super Bubble Pop
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Super Bubble Pop is a low-budget puzzle game released on the PSX, GBA, GC, and Xbox. The game got extremely low scores. The basic game is the same on all platforms, but there's only 2-player multiplayer on the GC and Xbox -- the PSX and GBA don't have any, annoyingly. It's a puzzle game, I expect multiplayer. What is here, though, is a cheap looking, but somewhat fun and addictive, puzzle game. The game is sort of 3d, with a polygon character shooting colored bubbles. You move left and right on an isometric plane, and fire towards the arrays of bubbles. The bubbles move towards you slowly in patterns, and they pop when you line up three in a row vertically or horizontally. You can't shoot up though, so you need to pop a bubble below in order to pop a differently colored one above. Making horizontal chains is hard, because as soon as the bubbles move forward from the back wall they start from, when you fire to the left or right of a bubble you'll shoot all the way to the back, and bubbles will stack up, not really allow you to fire again and fill in holes, so to speak. As a result you mostly make vertical columns. It's a little odd, but the simple, classic design works, and despite the abysmal scores this game got, I found myself having fun. It's not a puzzle game you're going to be playing for years, but if you find it cheap it might be worth a thought.
Tekken 3
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I don't really like Tekken. Somehow the game's style just doesn't quite work for me, and I would not rank Tekken that high in my list of the great 3d fighting game franchises. The game looks good, has very short load times, and plays fast and fairly smooth, but somehow I just don't like it that much. The beat 'em up mode was fun, but the main game just isn't my thing. This is a case where a game is obviously good, but I just don't like it thatmuch. This is the only Tekken game I own, I don't want to spend much for games I just don't find all that fun... the game is too fast, matches are over in seconds. I prefer fighting game that are a bit slower, like 2d SNK games or the Street Fighter series.
Tempest X3
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Tempest X3 is the slightly inferior Playstation port of the Jaguar great Tempest 2000, which is the best game on the Jaguar and one of the best games of the entire fifth generation. The CD audio soundtrack is pretty cool, but the gameplay changes, including adding many more levels and increasing the difficulty level through changes like making spikes extremely hard to destroy, do not improve the game. Tempest X3 is still a great game, with good techno music and great psychedelic-style visuals paired with good, classic arcade gameplay, but anyone who's played the Jaguar version knows that the original really is the best. I love this game even so though, I'd put it in the upper tier of my Playstation games for sure. The Jaguar original would rank higher, but this version is still very good. Interplay slightly messed it up in the porting, but enough of the brilliant T2k shooting and flying action is here for this game to still be an amazing experience.
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
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Tenchu is a simple stealth game. It's not little of the depth of a Thief, but for a console game in 1998 did a good job with a stealth system. You're a ninja, so you sneak around killing people from the shadows. Explore the levels, figure out guards' patterns and how to sneak up behind them, and kill them. It's best to avoid getting detected when you can. The game has an okay story, decent to good gameplay, and average 3d graphics. It's definitely got issues, with the sometimes mediocre graphics, with the draw distance, with the controls, and with the simple, pattern-based nature of the gameplay, but it is fun and works. The voice acting deserves special mention, it's in that great zone of games with voice acting so bad that it's good. Some parts of the game are pretty entertaining due to the sometimes iffy script and awful voice acting... :) I actually beat this game, as I said at the top.
Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins
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Tenchu 2 is like Tenchu 1, but with slightly improved graphics, a very, very annoying forced-stealth-only first mission, a skimpier costume for Ayane, and better (and thus worse) voice acting and script. Oh, and the controls were altered. I liked Tenchu 1's controls better. The base gameplay is the same. Tenchu 2 is a decent game, but could have been better. It's okay, but I like the first game more overall. The control change is hard to get used to, the first level is just awful, and it doesn't have the entertainment value the first one's script and voice acting did. It is still good, though, and overall very similar to the first.
Tetris Plus
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Tetris Plus is a puzzle game, obviously. It's a port of the arcade game of the same name and had an Egyptian tomb exploration theme. It includes both a classic Tetris mode and a new puzzle mode where you have to get the professor down to the exit before the slowly dropping ceiling crushes him, by making lines to clear a path for him to drop down. It's simple, with straightforward 2d graphics and not that many options or modes, but it's fun classic Tetris action and plays quite well. I do kind of wish it was Russian themed, though, that fits Tetris best...
Threads of Fate
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Called Dewprism in Japan, the US title is much more serious. I like the Japanese name more. I've finished this game, and it's a fantastic game that is easily one of my favorite games on the Playstation. The game is a platform-action-RPG much like its predecessor Brave Fencer Musashi, but simplified in some ways down to its core. The somewhat confusing timing and day elements of Brave Fencer Musashi are gone, for instance, replaced with a much more straightforward system where time passes as you progress through the game. You get two playable characters, each with a completely different storyline, improved graphics, and lots of great gameplay throughout. Threads of Fate has a narrow focus, not a wide one -- instead of exploring the world, you have one single hub village from which you set out on various missions in the area. You revisit many areas multiple times, taking different routes each time. I really like this design, not every game needs to be about travelling around teh whole world and seeing every country. JRPGs much overdo that theme, really; PC RPGs have been more likely to use this kind of design than Japanese games. They should try it more, it works really well when done right, as it is here. The game is on the short side, but it feels absolutely right, like any more length would just be padding and instead they designed it for the perfect length for the story. The only reason I could possibly complain is because I liked it so much that I wished it'd last longer, but that's much more praise than anything else. It lasts the right amount of time.
Also, there's replay value by playing as the other character, because the two play quite differently. Mint, a very spoiled princess, has a quite funny story about how she was thrown out of her kingdom due to her sister and the royal advisor's scheming. She has a a weakness, you see... :) Now, she wants the ultimate power of the Dewprism (of the JP title) to get revenge and take over the world... whatever exactly the Dewprism is, nobody's quite clear on it, except that it supposedly has great powers. She uses magic spells, and as you progress through the game you gradually get better and better spells. Rue, on the other hand, has a sadder story. He is a boy with no memory, who woke up in the middle of nowhere. He met a woman living there, and he was staying with her, when they were attacked and she was killed. He's trying to figure out who it is and who attacked. He uses a power that allows him to take the form of his enemies, so instead of upgrading in skills you just find stronger enemies as you go along. I find Mint's side much more fun, the entertaining story fits the game better, though there is a definite serious side to the story no matter who you play as, and the magic is more fun than the shapeshifting. The game does a great job of mixing funny and sad or nostalgic moments, and it never feels wrong. Every element of the game is done brilliantly, from the platforming to the stories to the action to the RPG elements to the music. Fun platform jumping, great, memorable bosses, cool dungeons, interesting gameplay mechanics, a good story, and more... Threads of Fate is outstanding.
TigerShark
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TigerShark is an extremely hard 3d undersea combat sim. The graphics are not-very-good-looking earlier Playstation 3d, the d-pad only controls are not good, and the challenge level is immense. It feels like a game that could be pretty fun if I could get into it, as I like futuristic vehicular combat sims like this (it's a bit like a space sim underwater), but the difficulty level makes that hard. The PC version, with joystick controls, would probably be more fun...
TNN Motorsports Hardocre 4x4
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This game is an early PSX racing game. Between the poor 3d graphics and the bland, uninteresting gameplay, I doubt many people today will play it for long. I haven't. It's not the worst thing ever, there just are very few reasons to play it of the very many much better racing games you could be playing instead. Maybe fans of 4x4 truck racing would get a bit more out of it than I can. I prefer hovercars with turbo-jets, myself. :)
Total Eclipse Turbo
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Total Eclipse Turbo is a 3DO port rail shooter. The graphics look about what you'd expect considering that it was originally supposed to be on the 3DO, and the gameplay isn't much above average for the genre. It isn't a bad game -- I like rail shooters, and the game is fun -- but it's clearly early and suffers from some definite flaws, most notably the very close, and distracting, draw distance. You really can't see very far in front of you. Also as usual d-pads are not good control schemes for 3d games... still, it does have a good challenge, some variety of settings and environments, some nice weapons, and some cool challenges, such as when you're going through narrow tunnels. It's okay. It's also definitely a product of its time, though. The game has a sequel, Solar Eclipse for the Saturn, but I haven't played that one yet. That one has more live-action FMV video, yay!
UmJammer Lammy
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Music game where you have to press the buttons in time. Very difficult, I'm utterly horrible at it and can't beat a single level. The graphics are good and the songs funny, but I'm utterly hopeless at this genre.
Vandal Hearts
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Vandal Hearts is a tactical strategy game of the Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics style, but simpler than those games. Vandal Hearts has 3d environments and 2d sprite characters, like FFT. The game is more straightforward than that one, though. I think it's pretty good, it's got enough depth to require definite strategy and thought, but isn't so complex that you feel that you need to play with a guide by you at all times in order to make it worth playing at all, like games like FFT and the Ogre Battle games often seem to be like. It's a good game, a little under the radar but definitely worth checking out.
WarHawk
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WarHawk was considered one of the best early Playstation games in 1995, and I can see why. The game is great, definitely one of the best of the early Playstation lineup along with Wipeout. Warhawk is a 3d flight combat game where you fly a helicopter around, destroying enemies and doing missions in order to save the world. The game has live-action-video FMV cutscenes, which are entertaining enough but not great. They work I guess, but it's the gameplay that really makes this game good. It definitely has aged from 1995, and in visuals and gameplay you can tell that it's an early Playstation game, but the high quality of the game shines through even so and it is still quite fun. The password-only save system is annoying, though, why couldn't it just use the memory card? Still, this is a pretty good game, as long as you keep in mind that it is from 1995.
Wild 9
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Wild 9 is a 2.5d platform-action game from Shiny, the makers of Earthworm Jim. Advertised with the slogan "Torture your enemies!", the game was aimed at an older audience than their past titles, and didn't do as well as Shiny hoped. The game's okay, but not great. The graphics are mediocre polygonal Playstation 3d, which means not that good. Sure, there are hardware limits, but the system can do better. Despite that though the game can be fun. Levels are large and full of enemies and some puzzles, and there are some bike shooting stages to mix up the platforming. It's fun until it starts getting repetitive, which it will eventually, as the game somewhat lacks in variety. Your weapons are definitely entertaining, they focused the advertising on them for a reason -- it's obviously a major focal point of the design, and it works, some of the time -- whacking the enemies around can be amusing for sure. Still though, maybe they should have spent more time on the gameplay, less on the weapons? Also, the "extreme" tone of the game gets annoying fast, as does the main character. Earthworm Jim this guy is not... Overall though, it's at least an okay game and maybe better (graphics aside), and is another decent platform-action game in the Playstation's library. The PSX really doesn't get enough credit for its substantial 2d and 2.5d platformer library, I think...
WipEout
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Wipeout is the original classic, the most influential futuristic racing game since Wipeout years earlier. It helped spark the futuristic racing genre's rapid growth, and the series is still around and great. The original game, though, has some real problems thanks to a few bad design decisions that were improved on with each successive release in the series. On the positive side, Wipeout has very good graphics with some flashy special effects, great track designs, decent controls for a d-pad racing game, and outstanding design, music, and style. However, the game is hard and incredibly unforgiving. For some reason, Psygnosis made it so that when you hit a wall you lose almost all of your speed. This single problem has a massive impact and makes it so that in order to win, which you must if you expect to finish the game, you must be perfect. Memorize the courses exactly. Use your left and right airbrakes at the right time on each turn, and hope you don't mess up. It's just too unforgivingly difficult, and I have never even finished the first, and easier and slower, of the game's two circuits. Also you can't save during a circuit, and in the harder circuit you only go to the last track if you're in first place overall after the first six tracks. You only get three chances at each track to finish in the top three, or it's game over. Brutal. The game has multiplayer, but system link only, lamely.
The game also was ported to PC and Saturn. I'm not sure about the PC version, but in the Saturn version made a critical improvement in speed loss when you hit walls -- instead of your acceleration going to zero as on PSX, on Saturn you just lose a bit of speed. It makes the game incredibly more fun and playable. The Saturn version has worse graphics (the effects particularly look less impressive) and no system link multiplayer, but in gameplay it is vastly superior. The game is a definite classic on any platform, but play it on Saturn if you want to actually have fun and get somewhere.
WipEout XL
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Wipeout XL is probably the most popular of the Playstation Wipeout games, and it is indeed a great game. As with the first game you have to use the d-pad or neGcon/racing wheel, and racing wheels just aren't that great for Wipeout, I've found. The game is easier with d-pad, which means much less precision than an analog stick has, and it does affect how much fun the game is, particularly compared to Wipeout 64, which has very similar graphics, but analog controls and 4-player splitscreen. Wipeout 64 is better than Wipeout XL. On its own though XL is a good game. The graphics are good, better looking than the first game in many ways, and the gameplay is similarly improved. Multiplayer, however, is system link only again.
Also, partway through they throw a nasty change at you -- while the first part of the game has you playing each of the six tracks individually, which was great, after you get first in all of them then you have to play a circuit, all six tracks in one go with no saving. This one's even harder than Wipeout 1's circuit, though, as you only get three tries for the whole thing, not three tries for each track, regenerating once you beat the race. It's just crazy hard at that point, I wish they'd stuck with the design of the first part of the game throughout. It wasn't until Wipeout 64, and then Wipeout 3 after it, that Psygnosis finally stopped it with the circuits, and went to designs where you could save after every race. I just wish they'd started sooner. Still, this game is a true classic, and definitely is something worth playing. Despite its flaws it's a great game.
WipEout 3
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Wipeout 3 has outstanding, high resolution graphics for the PS1, a lot of content, multiple gameplay modes, two player splitscreen, analog support on the dualshock controller so that finally PSX Wipeout has controls about as good as the N64 version, and more. Featureswise it sounds outstanding, and it is. Some of the tracks are very cool looking, and the graphics do impress me for the system. As with all Wipeout games, it's very good at its core. However, gameplay and design wise the game is somewhat disappointing. First, again, the game is insanely hard and technical. This is perhaps the most technical game of all the 5th gen Wipeouts, and that's even including the PSX version of the first game. The courses are narrow, twisting, and require great precision, skill, and memorization to master. The addition of a turbo boost that drains your shields doesn't help either, the game expects you to use it but it makes things harder more than anything. I wish they hadn't put it in, really. The loss of the Quake weapon is also unfortunate, I liked it. The biggest problem with the game, though, is the amount of technical skill it requires to get good at. This is a much, much harder game than Wipeout 64 or Wipeout Fusion, and is definitely harder than XL as well. When it's good Wipeout 3 is very good, but it'll be frustrating and tedious much more of the time.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
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I don't know how to play the Yugioh card game, so I have no idea how to play this because it really gives you no help.
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M-Z
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MDK, Medievil II, Mega Man X6, Metal Gear Solid, Mobile Light Force, N2O: Nitrous Oxide, Norse By Norse West: The Return of the Lost Vikings, Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Pandemonium, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Project Overkill, Punky Skunk, R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, Rival Schools: United by Fate, Rollcage: Limited Edition, Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire, Saga Frontier, Sheep, Shooter Space Shot, Shooter Starfighter Sanvein, Silent Hill, Sol Divide, Soul Blade, Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels, Star Ocean: The Second Story, Street Racer, Strikers 1945, Super Bubble Pop, Tekken 3, Tempest X3: An Inter-Galactic Battle Zone, Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, Tetris Plus, Threads of Fate, Tiger Shark, TNN Motorsports Hardcore 4X4, Total Eclipse Turbo, Um Jammer Lammy, Vandal Hearts, Warhawk, Wild 9, WipEout, WipEout XL, WipEout 3, Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
MDK
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A port of the PC 3d action game of the same name. The graphics aren't as good as the PC version of course, and definitely are questionable and gamepad controls are not as good as mouse and keyboard, but still, it's pretty good, as it's a competent port of a good game. Good art design, lots of fun and varied shooting action, jumping, puzzles, and more. I like MDK2 better than the first game, the first one isn't nearly as funny as the second and it has less variety too, but the first MDK is still a pretty good game.
MediEvil II
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I've owned this one for a long time, but quit early on and never have gone back. I didn't like it that much at the beginning, and didn't keep going. The graphics are your usual PSX 3d bad, and the gameplay's average to subpar.
Mega Man X6
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Mega Man X6 is too hard. That is the main thing I get from the game, it's too hard. The game was clearly a rushed production, releasing less than a year after X5 and late in the Playstation's life. The story is the worst of any Mega Man X game up to that point, and the difficulty level was jacked up again; X5 was hard enough, but this goes too far. Only Mega Man 9, the Mega Man Zero series, and Mega Man & Base compare to X6 in difficulty, as far as Mega Man games go. The levels are varied and interesting though, and the gimmicks in the various stages are unique and different. There's some pretty cool stuff here, and it's great to see another 2d Playstation game because it actually has good graphics. It's just too hard. I haven't even gotten to the Sigma levels.
Metal Gear Solid
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Haven't played this yet, but I know based on what I've played of the second one I'm sure the volume of cutscenes will quite annoy me.
Mobile Light Force
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"Mobile Light Force" is actually Gunbird, a good 2d vertical scrolling shmup from Psikyo. It was butchered in localization and is much worse than the Japanese Playstation or Saturn versions, but the core game is still here and is fun. Still, the major alterations, the removal of the entire story and the removal of high score saving, hurt the game a lot. Really, import the Saturn version, or play the English-language rom, if you want to understand the endings. If you just want to play the core game though, this is there. The levels themselves, at least, haven't been changed, and hte actual game is great Psikyo (Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters people, before they formed Psikyo) shooting action. It's hard but great fun as you try (and fail) to dodge the screens full of bullets. I like 16-bit style shmups better than this bullet-hell-ish stuff, but still, Psikyo shmups are great, even if I'm pretty bad at them.
N2O: Nitrous Oxide
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N2O is a 3d tube shooter. It was somewhat inspired by Tempest 2000, but it's nowhere near as good as that classic. I was hoping for this game to be good, but I just don't like it very much. I haven't played this game as much as maybe I should, but I find it somewhat boring and not as fun as it seems it should be. The game's speed is somewhat slow, so you don't feel like you're going really fast. On the other hand, it is sometimes too fast, because the enemies can zip past you and kill you. The balance just isn't that great. Honestly, a static setup like Tempest 2000 probably would have been a better idea. I do like the graphics though, the game has a great, moving "psychedelic" look to it, obviously T2k inspired. There's two player multiplayer too. It's just... not fun enough, and feels slow. Play T2k (or Tempest X3) instead.
Norse By Norsewest: The Return of the Lost Vikings
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Norse By Norsewest is a PC/PSX/Saturn port of Blizzard's The Lost Vikings 2 for the SNES. Unlike the ports of The Lost Vikings to the PC, Genesis, etc., Blizzard didn't make this one internally, unfortunately. The ports are 2d, with prerendered characters on drawn backdrops. Somehow, the graphics, while good, just don't have the same style as the original game's, or LV2 on the SNES either. The PSX version here doesn't have some of the flaws of the PC version (that version had no gamepad support, ridiculously, and a few other problems), but still, somehow it's just not the same... though part of that is the original TLV2, TLV2 just isn't as good as the first Lost Vikings. I don't like how the characters are given too many overlapping powers now. In the first game, the whole point of the game was that the three characters each had different, and complimentary, abilities, and that you'd have to use all three heavily in order to get through. In the second game though, everyone has some kind of jump, a bunch of characters can attack, Baleog has a hard-to-use grappling hook instead of the bow, and more. It's just not anywhere near as good, the pure puzzle nature of the original game is heavily watered down with more generic platforming action. The two new characters are the worst offenders, but the three orignals, as I said, were changed too much too. The game's not terrible though, it's a decent to good 2d platformer with some puzzles and character switching, and it is fun. The humor is back too, and is even funnier thanks to all the voice acting in this version that the SNES didn't have -- some of the jokes in this game are pretty good. "That said 'Do Not Touch', not 'Doughnuts'!"
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
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Oddworld is another 2d platformer on the Playstation, but it's a different one from most of the others. It's from the Out of this World, Flashback, or Blackthorne school of platformers, but it's somewhat different from any of those games. Oddworld is a bit more open-ended, and much more (often dark) comedy-centric, than any of those. The concept, of Abe the Mudokon, a humanoid creature who needs to escape from villanous tycoons who are planning on killing his whole race in order to use them as flavoring for a soda. It's good stuff, and Abe is a good character. In the game, you solve puzzles, avoid or defeat enemies in a very Flashback or Blackthorne manner, and rescue other Mudokons. The game uses a system called Gamespeak, where Abe can 'talk' to the other Mudokons to give them orders, ask them things, etc. I've never really liked Gamespeak, though; it's got five or six commands and is kind of confusing, and I just never gave it the time that it'd take to really get used to using it. Overall, Oddworld is a good game, but be prepared to spend some time learning how to properly play it.
Pandemonium
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Pandemonium is a 2.5d platformer, which means polygon graphics with 2d gameplay. It's got nice graphics for early-gen Playstation 3d, good cartoonish art design, fun graphics, and a lot of challenging platforming. That last point is the game's downside too, though, as Pandemonium is simply far too hard. I've never been able to get very far in Pandemonium; I don't know if I've even beaten the third or fourth level, actually. You only have two hit points before you die, and health-ups are not common. The levels are long and full of obstacles, enemies, traps, and tricky jumps, and the result is a ridiculous difficulty level. It's too bad, because apart from the difficulty, I like this game a lot -- the game looks nice, is fun to play, and has a decent soundtrack. I just wish it was a little easier. The password-only saving is kind of lame, too.
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
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Persona 2 is an Japanese RPG with a modern day theme. Specifically, it's a grind-heavy game with a dark story set in the Shin Megami Tensei universe, where demons frequently enter the human world causing havoc. It's the sequel to Persona 2: Innocent Sin, a game not released outside of Japan (though now it does have a fan translation patch for the game, I believe), so part of the backstory is lost. The US did get Persona 1 (as Persona: Revelations for the PS1), but not the first part of Persona 2. As for this game though, it's a little unique in starring a 20-something woman, not a teenage boy like usual for a JRPG. This is because it is a sequel, and in the first game the characters were teenagers (and you played as a boy, though this girl was a character in the game). That's cool, it's a little different from other JRPGs, Personas 3 and 4 included, where you play as high school students. The game has 3d environments with 2d sprite characters, and looks decently good. However, the game has some major problems that make it, for me, absolutely no fun at all. First, it's a grind-focused game. In SMT games, you grind, and then you grind some more, and then you grind some more. I just do not find dozens of hours of repetitive, identical battles at all fun, and so I can't enjoy this game. I want to be strong enough to fight the boss when I reach them, I don't want to have to wander around levelling for an hour every time just because. That kind of thing gets me to quit playing games, and that's exactly what happened here.
Also, I find the game a little disturbing. In the battle system, you have the choice of either talking to your demon enemies or fighting them. If you talk to them, you can, if you choose the right dialog options, convince the demons to leave and go home. Each type of monster says different things and requires different dialog options to convince. Honestly, this was my favorite thing about the game. Talking to the monsters and convincing them to leave was much more fun than the standard repetitive battles. However, you can't do this much, because if you convince an enemy to leave, you get no XP. Needless to say, you need lots of that to deal with the mountain of grind, so you usually just have to fight the enemies. My problem was though, the characters never have any kind of moral issue about this. I mean, it's normal in RPGs to kill all kinds of baddies, sure, and then have the characters return to being normal nieve 14 year olds afterwards... but you usually can't convince enemies to leave like you can here. If I don't have to fight them, why should I? They're not all irredeemably evil... but no, the entire concept isn't even mentioned. Oh well, I think this was just me. :)
Project Overkill
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This game is a not too well known early Playstation game with isometric 2d graphics. The gameplay reminds me the most of the Crusader games, No Remorse or No Regret. You run around, collect ammo, solve simple puzzles, kill enemies, and die a lot from the high difficulty level. Ammo is quite limited, so don't waste it! You really don't want to run out, you're a sitting duck if you do. This is a pretty good game, though. It doesn't have the depth of the PC Crusader games, but nor did the console Crusader game, so it's about even probably. The controls definitely do take some getting used to, as is common with isometric games, but once you get used to it it works. There are several playable characters and plenty of game to get through, too. This definitely isn't the greatest game around, the graphics are decent but nothing amazing and the gameplay can be frustrating, but it's interesting enough to probably be worth a look. The controls really will take a while to get used to though, they're somewhat odd and clumsy. Stick with it and learn the game, conserve your ammo, and use the map!
Punky Skunk
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Punky Skunk is a very SNES-ish 2d platformer with a garish early '90s color scheme and an animal mascot hero. But wait, don't leave, it's actually decent. :) The game does have saving on the map between levels, but other than that and the CD audio, it'd be easy to mistake this for a 16-bit game, from the not very next-gen 2d artwork -- Punky Skunk is no competition for Rayman, graphically -- to the Sonic-inspired "cool" anthropomorphic skunk hero. The game, though, is good. It's not very long, and isn't that hard either, but while it lasts the game is good, solid 2d platforming fun. In Japan the character was just supposed to be cute, not "tough" as the 'Punky' name suggests; they tried to make him cool by giving him the name Punky Skunk, but the saccharine cuteness of the actual game is unaltered. If you like cute, fun mascot platformers, though, this one's probably worth looking up, because it's a fun game. Punky has various costumes he puts on in different levels, so in one level he's in a bright pink rollerblading costume, then in the next a neon green flight suit or something like that. Yes, this game is very early '90s. It's simple, but fun, and I like it.
R4: Ridge Racer Type 4
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The fourth game in the Ridge Racer series, R4 is popular among Playstation fans, but I don't like it so much. The graphics aren't as good as Ridge Racer 64's, and the gameplay is classic Ridge Racer, which means extreme frustration as you try to catch up to that guy in first who you might, if you race nearly perfectly, catch on the last turn. This game has more content than the previous games in the series, with more tracks, more cars, a real campaign mode, and more, but the gameplay is what matters, and I just don't like Ridge Racer's style that much. R4's is a little better than RR64's auto-drifting, but not by much. It's still Ridge Racer, and I still don't find it that fun. There is 2 player splitscreen.
The Ridge Racer Turbo Disc is a bonus disc that came with the game that includes a demo of the original Ridge Racer for PSX, and a 60 fps version of it as well showing what they could do with the Playstation now. This really shows how ridiculously limited in content RR was, it's got about 1 1/3 tracks and that's all apart for mirror and reverse modes. This disc's version is even more limited, because there is only one other car on the track; at least in the original release you had a full field of opponents. Maybe they couldn't hold up the 60 fps with more than one other car? Whatever the reason, it's kind of lame. Also, there's still no multiplayer. The best thing on this disc was definitely the Klonoa demo. Heck, that was probably the best thing in the whole package, R4 included.
Rival Schools: United By Fate
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Rival Schools is a 3d fighting game from Capcom. I haven't played it a huge amount, but from what I have, I think that it's mediocre and not as good as I was hoping based on the pretty cool packaging. It's not awful, but I just don't find it that fun. The game's kind of slow, the graphics are ugly, the gameplay thoroughly mediocre... games like this are why 2d fighting games were so, so much better that generation, really. For a 3d fighting game that gen this isn't THAT bad, I guess, but I don't like this very much. The pacing, moves, speed, game flow... somehow it just doesn't work, compared to, say, a 2d Street Fighter or Darkstalkers game. C-grade stuff, maybe. Why is this two discs with two different save files, again? They're not that different...
Rollcage
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Rollcage is a racing game from Psygnosis. It's a fantastic game, maybe even better than their great Wipeout series, and really is a series that I wish would come back. I first played the demo of Rollcage on the PC, and bought Rollcage Stage II for PC back when it came out, so I haven't bought the second one on PSX, but I did get this one because I don't own it for PC, and it was a good decision, as this game is great. Great, challenging gameplay, great graphics, variety, style, music... Rollcage has it all. There really isn't anything negative to say, except that the sequel is even better. Getting used to Rollcage's handling takes time, because it's very tricky and you spin out with barely a tap, and can drive on walls and ceilings as well, but don't give up because it's that handling that makes Rollcage what it is. I wouldn't want it to be any different. It does make the games hard, but it also makes them great. You do get used to the handling eventually. Oh yeah, and the flashy weapon effects are fun too, and the weapons themselves varied and useful. Stuff like driving on walls and ceilings is awesome, and Rollcage cars do with no problem. :) I would strongly recommend the Rollcage games, they're some of the futuristic racing genre's best.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire
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Port of the strategy game released on many platforms. I really haven't played this much. Very deep and complicated, if I ever get around to giving it some time I'm sure I'll love it, because I do like strategy games a lot.
SaGa Frontier
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Saga Frontier is a JRPG, and part of the SaGa series, which has always had mixed popularity at best. The game is 2d, with decent but not great rendered backgrounds and sprites. As usual with SaGa, the game is somewhat nonlinear, there are many sidequests, and you have a bunch of playable characters. I haven't played this one much, but it seems good.
Sheep
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Sheep is a puzzle game, port of the PC game of the same name. It's a top-down 2d game where you, well, herd sheep. There are several characters to choose from, including a rocker version of Bo Peep. The sheep are actually aliens you see, but still stupid and easily misled, much like Lemmings. Lemmings was an obvious major inspiration here, which is fine considering how great a game Lemmings is. Sheep isn't quite up to Lemmings' level of quality, as the budget just wasn't there and the puzzles get frustrating sometimes due to how difficult herding your sheep in the correct way can sometimes be, but overall it's a good puzzle game with some amusing graphics and challenging and (usually :)) fun gameplay.
Shooter: Space Shot
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Space Shot is a very low budget shmup. The game has 2.5d graphics and anime-style prerendered CG cutscenes, in Japanese with English subtitles. The designers tried to put some depth in the game system, but it's not needed to actually beat the game -- just basic moving and shooting will do fine for that. It's only in the trial mode, or whatever it's called, that some of that comes out. Graphics are budget, as you'd expect. The story is generic anime stuff. The three characters are all male, I think, but with one of them I can't quite tell (the manual says he's male, but who knows). The shooting action is okay, but nothing great. So yeah, this isn't a great game. It's not that awful either, though, just a product of its budget. For something that I don't think was over $10 new, it's not that bad. It won't hold your interest much longer than it takes to play through once, though.
Shooter: Starfighter Sanvein
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Sanvein is a pretty good and unique game. While also part of the same budget line as Space Shot above, this is a very different game, and much more interesting. Sanvein is an arena shooter, pretty much. You control a spaceship, as expected, flying through space. Except instead of just flying up or right, when starting you are presented with a hex grid. You start from one point, and the goal is to defeat all of the boss enemies, which are on specific hexes of the grid. The rest of the hexes have generic, weaker enemies in them. Each battle is a single-screen affair where you and the enemies fly around, trying to destroy eachother. The uniqueness comes from two things: first, you have a time limit which only increases when you beat bosses, so you do not get time back that you spend playing non-boss hexes. Second, however, your weapon power in any given hex depends on the number of adjacent hexes you have beaten, and bosses are tough enough that greater weapon power is often advisable. Also, you don't get game over for dying, but lose time instead. So you need to deal with beating as many hexes around a boss as you can before your time runs out and you get game over. It's an interesting system. The graphics, which are 2.5d, are average at best, but the visual style of the menus and interface is pretty cool. Sanvein is an interesting game that's worth checking out.
Silent Hill
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I haven't played this. I keep buying survival horror games, but rarely actually play them... I have survival horror games for N64, DC, PSX, GC, etc., but haven't actually beaten any... :)
Sol Divide
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Sol Divide is a 2d, side-scrolling fantasy-themed shmup from Psikyo. It's one of their less-regarded games, but as I love fantasy stuff, I do like the game. It's frustrating and you randomly get hit a lot, but the game has good anime-style fantasy graphics and artwork, varied environments, characters, and enemies, and interesting (if a little flawed) game design, with various different spells to collect and use. There are three different playable characters, and the game has some home-exclusive content too, with both the original arcade game and a second, original mode where you have levels, items, and more going through a longer quest. Interesting stuff. Annoying sometimes, as the game is quite hard and isn't the most predictable, pattern-based shmup around, but fun anyway.
However, XS Games completely failed in the localization process. Even though it gets much less attention for it, this game is every bit as horribly mangled as "Mobile Light Force". Perhaps even worse, actually. In that case what was lost were the funny, entertaining stories and endings, some of the character names, high score saving, and the art galleries. Sol Divide is similar -- saving and the story are gone. The endings are intact this time, but they are left in text-only, untranslated Japanese, which is no better, particularly with how all story before that point, with one line excepted (at a point where you can choose two different routes -- the only such point in the arcade game). All the items in Original mode do have their names and item descriptions translated, but that effort was utterly wasted with the game's biggest flaw -- the removal of saving. You see, in the Japanese PSX and Saturn versions, you can save in Original mode at the beginning or at regular checkpoints. When you die you get sent back to the start and lose all of your equipped items, and the Original mode game is long and full of branching paths, so saving is absolutely essential. When you mess up, you can load your save and try that part again, without losing your stuff that will be hard to replace, and without having to start from the beginning of the game again. But... there's no saving in the US version. None at all. This means that when you die, you always lose everything, and get sent back to the very beginning. It's absurd that the game actually shipped like this, and that they'd actually do something so stupid as to remove saving... what in the world were they thinking? I mean, removing the story is one thing, but they utterly ruined a huge part of the game by doing that! Ridiculous. Don't buy this -- import a Japanese copy instead, maybe for Saturn because it's easier to play imports there. You'll have to figure out what items do just by memorization, but at least the game is playable.
Soul Blade
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SoulBlade is a 3d fighting game from Namco. It was pretty popular at the time, and is the first game in the long-running SoulCalibur series, but the first game isn't very good, at least not anymore. The game is slow, has iffy graphics, and is just boring. I have beaten it with a couple of characters and maybe even beaten the adventure mode, but I didn't like it very much, and this is not a game I ever go back and play. It's bland, boring, and not much fun.
Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels
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I've owned this game for years now, but never did play it much... this is definitely something that would be a lot more fun with a PC and a mouse, it's complex and has a lot of buttons. The game is a first-person game, but it's not just a shooter, it has a big strategy component too. Looks interesting, but playing it with a gamepad isn't much fun at all. (Oh yeah, and don't even bother without the manual. The game is complex and there is no tutorial.)
Star Ocean: The 2nd Story
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Star Ocean: The 2nd Story is one of my favorite Playstation games. I admittedly haven't finished it, though I did get to the second disc (of two) so I got well into it. The game has a good anime-style story with many twists and turns along the way, good sprite art and 2d dungeons and towns, a bunch of playable characters, lots of depth in the game design from cooking to the little side scenes with characters to the different paths through the game that lead to many variations on the ending, two playable characters (male or female), and different paths at certain points in the game depending on which character you play as, and more. Combat is action-style and fun, with lots of different abilities and skills on your party members. The game is deep and complex, but not too hard to learn or understand either, the mark of a great game. However, while I haven't gotten far enough in the game for it yet, I have heard that at the end the game suddenly turns into a gigantic grind mountain as the difficulty level suddenly spikes through the roof, which doesn't sound like much fun and is one reason I haven't put more time into the game... still though, great game, one of the system's best RPGs.
Street Racer
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Street Racer is an Ubisoft racing game that was first on the SNES, but also saw Genesis, Game Boy, Playstation, and Saturn versions. The Genesis and GB versions are entirely different, but the PSX and Saturn versions are upgraded versions of the SNES game, which is a pretty good, Mode 7, Mario Kart clone with a 4-player splitscreen mode. The Saturn version is quite superior visually to this Playstation version, but unfortunately didn't get a US release so it's import (Japan or Europe) only. Both the PSX and Saturn versions do have 8 player splitscreen multiplayer with two multitaps, though, which is pretty cool -- it's the only splitscreen racing game on either system with support for more than four players. Even if the Saturn version looks nicer, PSX Street Racer is still a fun game. Gameplay-wise it's still pretty much flat, Mario Kart style, so do not expect Mario Kart 64, but it's a good game. I'm not sure if I actually like it more than the SNES game, because just because it has better graphics doesn't mean the gameplay is better, but it is a quality title for sure either way. Fun game for kart racing fans. Look up the SNES and import Saturn versions too, though.
Strikers 1945
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This game is actually Strikers 1945 II, but as the first one didn't have a Western release, Agetec renamed it to just Strikers 1945. The Strikers 1945 series is a series of shmups clearly descended from Aero Fighters and 1942, and are from Psikyo. As with those games it is a vertical scrolling shooter with 2d graphics and great, classic gameplay. The 2d artwork is great and the game runs very well -- this is definitely some of the better 2d work I've seen on the Playstation. It's short but hard and has lots of replay value, like all the best shmups. The options are similar to the other Psikyo games I have for PSX, Mobile Light Force and Sol Divide, except Agetec didn't completely butcher this port like XS Games did to those two. They didn't remove the high-score saving, most importantly. There's no autosave, so you need to remember to save, but at least the feature is there. This game is great, probably my favorite of the shmups I own for PSX. It was also the first Playstation shmup I bought, the day I bought the system in Jan. '06, and it was a great choice, I haven't seen it very often since. The only removed feature from the US version is Tate mode, for vertical monitors, but overall it's a great game, very highly recommended.
Super Bubble Pop
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Super Bubble Pop is a low-budget puzzle game released on the PSX, GBA, GC, and Xbox. The game got extremely low scores. The basic game is the same on all platforms, but there's only 2-player multiplayer on the GC and Xbox -- the PSX and GBA don't have any, annoyingly. It's a puzzle game, I expect multiplayer. What is here, though, is a cheap looking, but somewhat fun and addictive, puzzle game. The game is sort of 3d, with a polygon character shooting colored bubbles. You move left and right on an isometric plane, and fire towards the arrays of bubbles. The bubbles move towards you slowly in patterns, and they pop when you line up three in a row vertically or horizontally. You can't shoot up though, so you need to pop a bubble below in order to pop a differently colored one above. Making horizontal chains is hard, because as soon as the bubbles move forward from the back wall they start from, when you fire to the left or right of a bubble you'll shoot all the way to the back, and bubbles will stack up, not really allow you to fire again and fill in holes, so to speak. As a result you mostly make vertical columns. It's a little odd, but the simple, classic design works, and despite the abysmal scores this game got, I found myself having fun. It's not a puzzle game you're going to be playing for years, but if you find it cheap it might be worth a thought.
Tekken 3
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I don't really like Tekken. Somehow the game's style just doesn't quite work for me, and I would not rank Tekken that high in my list of the great 3d fighting game franchises. The game looks good, has very short load times, and plays fast and fairly smooth, but somehow I just don't like it that much. The beat 'em up mode was fun, but the main game just isn't my thing. This is a case where a game is obviously good, but I just don't like it thatmuch. This is the only Tekken game I own, I don't want to spend much for games I just don't find all that fun... the game is too fast, matches are over in seconds. I prefer fighting game that are a bit slower, like 2d SNK games or the Street Fighter series.
Tempest X3
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Tempest X3 is the slightly inferior Playstation port of the Jaguar great Tempest 2000, which is the best game on the Jaguar and one of the best games of the entire fifth generation. The CD audio soundtrack is pretty cool, but the gameplay changes, including adding many more levels and increasing the difficulty level through changes like making spikes extremely hard to destroy, do not improve the game. Tempest X3 is still a great game, with good techno music and great psychedelic-style visuals paired with good, classic arcade gameplay, but anyone who's played the Jaguar version knows that the original really is the best. I love this game even so though, I'd put it in the upper tier of my Playstation games for sure. The Jaguar original would rank higher, but this version is still very good. Interplay slightly messed it up in the porting, but enough of the brilliant T2k shooting and flying action is here for this game to still be an amazing experience.
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
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Tenchu is a simple stealth game. It's not little of the depth of a Thief, but for a console game in 1998 did a good job with a stealth system. You're a ninja, so you sneak around killing people from the shadows. Explore the levels, figure out guards' patterns and how to sneak up behind them, and kill them. It's best to avoid getting detected when you can. The game has an okay story, decent to good gameplay, and average 3d graphics. It's definitely got issues, with the sometimes mediocre graphics, with the draw distance, with the controls, and with the simple, pattern-based nature of the gameplay, but it is fun and works. The voice acting deserves special mention, it's in that great zone of games with voice acting so bad that it's good. Some parts of the game are pretty entertaining due to the sometimes iffy script and awful voice acting... :) I actually beat this game, as I said at the top.
Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins
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Tenchu 2 is like Tenchu 1, but with slightly improved graphics, a very, very annoying forced-stealth-only first mission, a skimpier costume for Ayane, and better (and thus worse) voice acting and script. Oh, and the controls were altered. I liked Tenchu 1's controls better. The base gameplay is the same. Tenchu 2 is a decent game, but could have been better. It's okay, but I like the first game more overall. The control change is hard to get used to, the first level is just awful, and it doesn't have the entertainment value the first one's script and voice acting did. It is still good, though, and overall very similar to the first.
Tetris Plus
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Tetris Plus is a puzzle game, obviously. It's a port of the arcade game of the same name and had an Egyptian tomb exploration theme. It includes both a classic Tetris mode and a new puzzle mode where you have to get the professor down to the exit before the slowly dropping ceiling crushes him, by making lines to clear a path for him to drop down. It's simple, with straightforward 2d graphics and not that many options or modes, but it's fun classic Tetris action and plays quite well. I do kind of wish it was Russian themed, though, that fits Tetris best...
Threads of Fate
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Called Dewprism in Japan, the US title is much more serious. I like the Japanese name more. I've finished this game, and it's a fantastic game that is easily one of my favorite games on the Playstation. The game is a platform-action-RPG much like its predecessor Brave Fencer Musashi, but simplified in some ways down to its core. The somewhat confusing timing and day elements of Brave Fencer Musashi are gone, for instance, replaced with a much more straightforward system where time passes as you progress through the game. You get two playable characters, each with a completely different storyline, improved graphics, and lots of great gameplay throughout. Threads of Fate has a narrow focus, not a wide one -- instead of exploring the world, you have one single hub village from which you set out on various missions in the area. You revisit many areas multiple times, taking different routes each time. I really like this design, not every game needs to be about travelling around teh whole world and seeing every country. JRPGs much overdo that theme, really; PC RPGs have been more likely to use this kind of design than Japanese games. They should try it more, it works really well when done right, as it is here. The game is on the short side, but it feels absolutely right, like any more length would just be padding and instead they designed it for the perfect length for the story. The only reason I could possibly complain is because I liked it so much that I wished it'd last longer, but that's much more praise than anything else. It lasts the right amount of time.
Also, there's replay value by playing as the other character, because the two play quite differently. Mint, a very spoiled princess, has a quite funny story about how she was thrown out of her kingdom due to her sister and the royal advisor's scheming. She has a a weakness, you see... :) Now, she wants the ultimate power of the Dewprism (of the JP title) to get revenge and take over the world... whatever exactly the Dewprism is, nobody's quite clear on it, except that it supposedly has great powers. She uses magic spells, and as you progress through the game you gradually get better and better spells. Rue, on the other hand, has a sadder story. He is a boy with no memory, who woke up in the middle of nowhere. He met a woman living there, and he was staying with her, when they were attacked and she was killed. He's trying to figure out who it is and who attacked. He uses a power that allows him to take the form of his enemies, so instead of upgrading in skills you just find stronger enemies as you go along. I find Mint's side much more fun, the entertaining story fits the game better, though there is a definite serious side to the story no matter who you play as, and the magic is more fun than the shapeshifting. The game does a great job of mixing funny and sad or nostalgic moments, and it never feels wrong. Every element of the game is done brilliantly, from the platforming to the stories to the action to the RPG elements to the music. Fun platform jumping, great, memorable bosses, cool dungeons, interesting gameplay mechanics, a good story, and more... Threads of Fate is outstanding.
TigerShark
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TigerShark is an extremely hard 3d undersea combat sim. The graphics are not-very-good-looking earlier Playstation 3d, the d-pad only controls are not good, and the challenge level is immense. It feels like a game that could be pretty fun if I could get into it, as I like futuristic vehicular combat sims like this (it's a bit like a space sim underwater), but the difficulty level makes that hard. The PC version, with joystick controls, would probably be more fun...
TNN Motorsports Hardocre 4x4
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This game is an early PSX racing game. Between the poor 3d graphics and the bland, uninteresting gameplay, I doubt many people today will play it for long. I haven't. It's not the worst thing ever, there just are very few reasons to play it of the very many much better racing games you could be playing instead. Maybe fans of 4x4 truck racing would get a bit more out of it than I can. I prefer hovercars with turbo-jets, myself. :)
Total Eclipse Turbo
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Total Eclipse Turbo is a 3DO port rail shooter. The graphics look about what you'd expect considering that it was originally supposed to be on the 3DO, and the gameplay isn't much above average for the genre. It isn't a bad game -- I like rail shooters, and the game is fun -- but it's clearly early and suffers from some definite flaws, most notably the very close, and distracting, draw distance. You really can't see very far in front of you. Also as usual d-pads are not good control schemes for 3d games... still, it does have a good challenge, some variety of settings and environments, some nice weapons, and some cool challenges, such as when you're going through narrow tunnels. It's okay. It's also definitely a product of its time, though. The game has a sequel, Solar Eclipse for the Saturn, but I haven't played that one yet. That one has more live-action FMV video, yay!
UmJammer Lammy
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Music game where you have to press the buttons in time. Very difficult, I'm utterly horrible at it and can't beat a single level. The graphics are good and the songs funny, but I'm utterly hopeless at this genre.
Vandal Hearts
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Vandal Hearts is a tactical strategy game of the Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics style, but simpler than those games. Vandal Hearts has 3d environments and 2d sprite characters, like FFT. The game is more straightforward than that one, though. I think it's pretty good, it's got enough depth to require definite strategy and thought, but isn't so complex that you feel that you need to play with a guide by you at all times in order to make it worth playing at all, like games like FFT and the Ogre Battle games often seem to be like. It's a good game, a little under the radar but definitely worth checking out.
WarHawk
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WarHawk was considered one of the best early Playstation games in 1995, and I can see why. The game is great, definitely one of the best of the early Playstation lineup along with Wipeout. Warhawk is a 3d flight combat game where you fly a helicopter around, destroying enemies and doing missions in order to save the world. The game has live-action-video FMV cutscenes, which are entertaining enough but not great. They work I guess, but it's the gameplay that really makes this game good. It definitely has aged from 1995, and in visuals and gameplay you can tell that it's an early Playstation game, but the high quality of the game shines through even so and it is still quite fun. The password-only save system is annoying, though, why couldn't it just use the memory card? Still, this is a pretty good game, as long as you keep in mind that it is from 1995.
Wild 9
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Wild 9 is a 2.5d platform-action game from Shiny, the makers of Earthworm Jim. Advertised with the slogan "Torture your enemies!", the game was aimed at an older audience than their past titles, and didn't do as well as Shiny hoped. The game's okay, but not great. The graphics are mediocre polygonal Playstation 3d, which means not that good. Sure, there are hardware limits, but the system can do better. Despite that though the game can be fun. Levels are large and full of enemies and some puzzles, and there are some bike shooting stages to mix up the platforming. It's fun until it starts getting repetitive, which it will eventually, as the game somewhat lacks in variety. Your weapons are definitely entertaining, they focused the advertising on them for a reason -- it's obviously a major focal point of the design, and it works, some of the time -- whacking the enemies around can be amusing for sure. Still though, maybe they should have spent more time on the gameplay, less on the weapons? Also, the "extreme" tone of the game gets annoying fast, as does the main character. Earthworm Jim this guy is not... Overall though, it's at least an okay game and maybe better (graphics aside), and is another decent platform-action game in the Playstation's library. The PSX really doesn't get enough credit for its substantial 2d and 2.5d platformer library, I think...
WipEout
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Wipeout is the original classic, the most influential futuristic racing game since Wipeout years earlier. It helped spark the futuristic racing genre's rapid growth, and the series is still around and great. The original game, though, has some real problems thanks to a few bad design decisions that were improved on with each successive release in the series. On the positive side, Wipeout has very good graphics with some flashy special effects, great track designs, decent controls for a d-pad racing game, and outstanding design, music, and style. However, the game is hard and incredibly unforgiving. For some reason, Psygnosis made it so that when you hit a wall you lose almost all of your speed. This single problem has a massive impact and makes it so that in order to win, which you must if you expect to finish the game, you must be perfect. Memorize the courses exactly. Use your left and right airbrakes at the right time on each turn, and hope you don't mess up. It's just too unforgivingly difficult, and I have never even finished the first, and easier and slower, of the game's two circuits. Also you can't save during a circuit, and in the harder circuit you only go to the last track if you're in first place overall after the first six tracks. You only get three chances at each track to finish in the top three, or it's game over. Brutal. The game has multiplayer, but system link only, lamely.
The game also was ported to PC and Saturn. I'm not sure about the PC version, but in the Saturn version made a critical improvement in speed loss when you hit walls -- instead of your acceleration going to zero as on PSX, on Saturn you just lose a bit of speed. It makes the game incredibly more fun and playable. The Saturn version has worse graphics (the effects particularly look less impressive) and no system link multiplayer, but in gameplay it is vastly superior. The game is a definite classic on any platform, but play it on Saturn if you want to actually have fun and get somewhere.
WipEout XL
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Wipeout XL is probably the most popular of the Playstation Wipeout games, and it is indeed a great game. As with the first game you have to use the d-pad or neGcon/racing wheel, and racing wheels just aren't that great for Wipeout, I've found. The game is easier with d-pad, which means much less precision than an analog stick has, and it does affect how much fun the game is, particularly compared to Wipeout 64, which has very similar graphics, but analog controls and 4-player splitscreen. Wipeout 64 is better than Wipeout XL. On its own though XL is a good game. The graphics are good, better looking than the first game in many ways, and the gameplay is similarly improved. Multiplayer, however, is system link only again.
Also, partway through they throw a nasty change at you -- while the first part of the game has you playing each of the six tracks individually, which was great, after you get first in all of them then you have to play a circuit, all six tracks in one go with no saving. This one's even harder than Wipeout 1's circuit, though, as you only get three tries for the whole thing, not three tries for each track, regenerating once you beat the race. It's just crazy hard at that point, I wish they'd stuck with the design of the first part of the game throughout. It wasn't until Wipeout 64, and then Wipeout 3 after it, that Psygnosis finally stopped it with the circuits, and went to designs where you could save after every race. I just wish they'd started sooner. Still, this game is a true classic, and definitely is something worth playing. Despite its flaws it's a great game.
WipEout 3
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Wipeout 3 has outstanding, high resolution graphics for the PS1, a lot of content, multiple gameplay modes, two player splitscreen, analog support on the dualshock controller so that finally PSX Wipeout has controls about as good as the N64 version, and more. Featureswise it sounds outstanding, and it is. Some of the tracks are very cool looking, and the graphics do impress me for the system. As with all Wipeout games, it's very good at its core. However, gameplay and design wise the game is somewhat disappointing. First, again, the game is insanely hard and technical. This is perhaps the most technical game of all the 5th gen Wipeouts, and that's even including the PSX version of the first game. The courses are narrow, twisting, and require great precision, skill, and memorization to master. The addition of a turbo boost that drains your shields doesn't help either, the game expects you to use it but it makes things harder more than anything. I wish they hadn't put it in, really. The loss of the Quake weapon is also unfortunate, I liked it. The biggest problem with the game, though, is the amount of technical skill it requires to get good at. This is a much, much harder game than Wipeout 64 or Wipeout Fusion, and is definitely harder than XL as well. When it's good Wipeout 3 is very good, but it'll be frustrating and tedious much more of the time.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
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I don't know how to play the Yugioh card game, so I have no idea how to play this because it really gives you no help.