How is your PSOne/PS1 gaming going?

[Tanooki]

Wow I must have missed this thread, sweet thanks for waking it up.

I've actually been dabbling in the PSone pond the last few months. A lucky find netted me a really cherry psone, complete, with the bonus of a white memory card and 2nd white controller. Weeks earlier I had found a gray labeled memory card too. Due to that I decided to hold onto the thing if I could get the LCD, and I got lucky and found a deal online to get the boxed up LCD reasonably.

I'm not going to 'collect' for this, but want to game and enjoy it. I've for all but two of the 8 titles I have picked them up locally and it was a measured grab of stuff I once enjoyed and to try a few things out. Castlevania SOTN was the online grab, black label awesome shape for $48 which was a steal. The other was Diablo, disc alone, and due to the dude lying about the shape of it I ended up paying $10 for it.

Locally I grabbed R4 Ridge Racer, Tomba ($55 minty cib), DOOM, Pro Pinball, Blaster Master (to test the PSone initially), and then Warcraft 2. When I got WC2 they had Diablo but the disc was jacked, they let me have the case and manual so I completed it yesterday.

I'm having a lot of fun with the stuff so far. It sits on my work/play-laptop desk on the corner, a good spot with the LCD to have some fun with it. Glad to have those 2 blizzard games too since Diablo is a blast on gamepad, and WC2 I don't have on PC anymore and it's solid. And odd one is Tomba, didn't expect to get that one but grabbed it over the price figuring I'd get out of it if I didn't like it (wasn't a big fan 15 years ago) but it seems better now.

[Tanooki]

I can't be the only one playing the old bird anymore am I? For something that was so game changing and popular to a whole new slew of people who didn't bother before this time or those who bailed on Nintendo it's a dead topic.

I got rid of Blaster Master as I just didn't have the will to bother anymore. I did find C&C locally but put that to bed too as I shortly after found one PC version that still works in 64bit windows so it's toast too. Diablo I eventually found a loose disc and the dude lied his butt off over it, had a hissy fit, and I ended up getting it for a big ebay forced discount of $10 if I recall right and given the wear I had to hand smooth it down but it works. Still staying in PC conversion land I also came across a great copy of Dune 2000 that looks mostly unused (still had the top sticker on it and not sure why but left it there.) Yesterday I found a non re-release clean copy of Medal of Honor for $3 too and it is pretty fun.

Clearly I kept to my word of not going crazy. I think I may go back to half price books a week from tomorrow with their 50% off coupon as they have 3 copies of Vampire Hunter D and I'd like to get that. Then again if the copy at both locations still stands of Saga Frontier 2, 1/2 off like $30 they're asking is even sweeter than half off one half the price.

I had put Warcraft II up on ebay as I just wasn't using it, but oddly it's not selling even if I'm right in middle of the paid copy range so I'm considering pulling it as I still can't find the PC release I know also works still. (Battle Net Edition in the battle chest.) Typically a $30~ game and scum on ebay are trying to BIN it out at $80-100 so it's a patience game.

[Xeogred]

Nah man, I just accidentally excluded this thread when I played Mega Man Legends 1-2 recently and they blew me away. They hold up perfectly.

Was thinking of checking out Blaster Master Blasting Again soon, guess you didn't like it? I remember how much of a budget game that was and came out so late in the PSX's lifespan haha... released brand new at $10. I thought it was pretty cool, but I do remember tons of loading screens. Never beat it back then.

Vampire Hunter D looks pretty cool.

This is my physical PSX backlog:

Brave Fencer Musashi
King's Field
King's Field 2
Saga Frontier
Saga Frontier 2
Threads of Fate

However after loving the Legends games, I got Tron Bonne on PSN and hope to play that soon. I'm going to check out the PS4 digital versions of FF7 and FF9 sometime. But of all the games I own, I want to revisit Vagrant Story. I absolutely loved it, but never finished it. Think I got stuck years ago in some kind of Lost Woods forest type area.

[Sarge]

I still have a lot of RPGs I would like to finish on the system, like Threads of Fate, Brave Fencer Musashi, SaGa Frontier, Thousand Arms, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment... although I end up tapping out pretty quickly these days for whatever reason. I just don't think some of the B-tier stuff aged as well on the 32-bit systems. I've also noticed I don't revisit the PS2 much anymore either. My suspicions are that each successive hardware generation has refined the gameplay of most games that started on the PSX to the point where they're just better experiences all around. Contrast that to the 8- and 16-bit eras, where 2D gaming was king and only with the indie boom come back on the scene. So I play an interesting mix of old-school 2D and brand-spanking new 3D, for the most part.

Another part of it is that I spent a ton of time emulating them instead on the PSP and now the Vita (and sometimes the PS3). The advantage of PSN is that the back catalog of PS Classics is pretty immense; it's even better when you can snag them during a flash sale!

[Xeogred]

I think that could be a complex discussion for me. My PSX and PS2 collections are neck and neck and my biggest next to the SNES. But I've always felt like the PS2 lacks a certain something that I can't really pinpoint. It could be nostalgia for the PSX. And maybe it's purely my bias for earlier JRPG's. The aesthetics of PS2 JRPG's kind of lost me, gone are the beautiful pre-rendered backdrops and awful voice acting became more prominent, my tolerance for game voice acting is pretty high but a lot of stuff from the PS2 era is straight up torture to the ears and unavoidable with the lack of options back then. I feel there's a lot of charm to how alien and low resolution PSX can look in comparison, some PS2 stuff is just... completely bland and dull looking. But then there;s cases like REmake showcasing what the next generation could do with the previous generation. Or better yet the Crash N-Sane Trilogy (though I think old Crash holds up fine too, thanks to fixed camera angles). PS2 finally got better arcade ports and compilations. I've always felt like for years now that some PS2 stuff has aged the worst, somehow. But the fog and low framerate issues of the PSX/N64 is definitely tough to go back to. I dabbled into the Syphon Filter games earlier this year and yeah, I dare anyone to get through those now haha. Tomb Raider I could probably play on PC with the smoothed out textures and sharper image, but the PSX versions definitely look nasty. Mega Man X Command Mission looks amazing, but there's a lot of charm to the inferior looking two Legends games to me. I think it's pretty case by case.

I know what you mean though. I don't expect to love that last slew of PSX stuff I need to check out, of that list I'd say Threads of Fate looks the coolest. But I'm not blindly biased haha. In between some classics there is a lot of bad on both the PSX and PS2 looking back. But my PSX favorites are pretty stacked and I hold them dearly over most PS2 stuff.

At the same time... I kind of think some late gen PS2 era stuff looks better than early gen PS3 era stuff (the brown poopy era!). Metal Gear Solid 2-3 and Silent Hill 2-4 hold up insanely well.

I love how the SNES Classic has gotten more people talking about this sort of thing lately. 8bit is maybe a niche', but everyone universally agrees that 16bit just looks incredible and holds up flawlessly. You can't say that for early 3D. It really is a shame that developers raced to get to 3D back in the 32/64bit era. More sprite based games, pre-rendered background art, and top of the line arcade quality stuff would have been incredible.

[Exhuminator]

I can't be the only one playing the old bird anymore am I?

So far in 2017 I've beaten these PS1 games:

Air Combat
Castlevania Chronicles
Deception III: Dark Delusion
Front Mission Alternative
Jumping Flash!
The Misadventures of Tron Bonne

This is my physical PSX backlog:

Brave Fencer Musashi
King's Field
King's Field 2
Saga Frontier
Saga Frontier 2
Threads of Fate

However after loving the Legends games, I got Tron Bonne on PSN and hope to play that soon. I'm going to check out the PS4 digital versions of FF7 and FF9 sometime. But of all the games I own, I want to revisit Vagrant Story. I absolutely loved it, but never finished it. Think I got stuck years ago in some kind of Lost Woods forest type area.

The bolded games are must plays. You'll probably hate King's Field but at least give it a couple hours. Tron Bonne is super great, but half the game is nothing like Mega Man Legends (I was A-OK with that personally). As for Vagrant Story, all I can say is it's my all time favorite PS1 game. "10/10" masterpiece in my book.

My suspicions are that each successive hardware generation has refined the gameplay of most games that started on the PSX to the point where they're just better experiences all around.

I would agree with this on a technical angle, but not always a game design angle.

I also have buttletons of RPGs I hope to someday beat on PS1/PS2. And on many other systems as well...

[Xeogred]

You don't have to remind me about King's Field, Ex... I know I know.

I've dabbled into them and love the BGM. I'm optimistic about it and Shadow Tower.

Are you saying you like Vagrant Story even above those though? I wonder if Hitoshi Sakitmoto still regards that OST as his greatest work. It's been like a decade since I played it and I still recall so much of the OST (well okay I've been listening to the OST for years now too haha). When I think back to the game itself, I think I can make tons of comparison to the Souls games. But Vagrant Story had the Metroid thing going even stronger with a lot of those underground sections, the atmosphere was incredible. I love FF12 too, but it's no Vagrant Story. Matsuno becoming so low key thesedays is such a shame.




I didn't realize you played Castlevania Chronicles this year. I beat that last year and really enjoyed it, especially the OST.

[Exhuminator]

Are you saying you like Vagrant Story even above those though?

Do I like Vagrant Story more than the PS1 King's Fields and Shadow Tower? Yes.
Vagrant Story is the very best PS1 game I've ever played. It is a masterpiece.

I didn't realize you played Castlevania Chronicles this year.

Well, I beat it back in July. I was self-exiled from Racketboy at that time, so its review (and all my other reviews from June, July, and August) did not get posted in the Games Beaten thread as such.

[Michi]

You don't have to remind me about King's Field, Ex... I know I know.

It's your own fault for invoking the name of King's Field. You know that's his summoning spell.

[alienjesus]

I've been playing some Spyro the Dragon lately. I started it a couple weeks back and then paused it to play through Mario Odyssey.

Honestly, Spyro doesn't hold up very well, and it's even more difficult to enjoy when you play one of the smoothest controlling platform games ever made in between! Thegameplay premise is fine, but the level design is extremely dull, the camera is poorly positioned and hard to control, which makes me frequently run into water and die (made easier by how the water barely even looks like water). The biggest issue though is the fact that it's all d-pad controlled. In a 3D platformer this late in the PS1 library, it feels really rough. I'm not a fan.

I've just started hitting some freezing issues with my disc. If I can't resolve them, I probably won't buy a new one.

On that topic though, are PS1 discs safe to resurface? This is one of those ones that is black underneath.