PS1 TOP 10 LIST

[Ardea]

I saw the PS2 top 10 list that got posted, but I was more of a GameCube player during that era. I think the top 10 GameCube games are fairly well agreed upon (with minor variations) due to the relatively small number of games released for that console. So I decided to share my personal top 10 for the PS1. I know that many people will balk at the fact that I haven't included any FF games. That's because to this day, I have never played any of them. Number 1 is number 1 for a reason, but the rest are in no particular order, as I suck at ranking things.

1. Tekken 3 - People love to meme about "it still holds up today!" with old games, but I really think Tekken 3 does.
2. Spyro The Dragon - Great visuals, great soundtrack, challenging enough gameplay but still beatable for me as a kid.
3. Crash Bandicoot Warped - I only played this Crash game as a kid, but I've since played the others as an adult and still think Warped is the best of the trilogy. Never really played CTR or CB.
4. Tarzan - Fairly basic platformer, but I enjoyed it.
5. Tomb Raider II - First played it on PC, and the PC version is better, but this era of Tomb Raider games were epic. Controls didn't age well though.
6. Spider-Man 2000 - Impressive open-world feeling game for the time. Difficulty scaling was done really well; 6 year old me could finish the game on kid mode, adult me can finish the game on hard mode with enough of a challenge to still make it fun.
7. Oddworld - Abe's Oddysee - It's weird what scares you as a kid. The tiger in Tomb Raider II used to terrify me, and this game in general just really creeped me out. As an adult, it's hard to see why. It's a great game.
8. Ace Combat 3 - Electrosphere - I loved Flight Simulator as a kid, and this game was tricky at the time but great fun. Sometimes I'd just fly around, as flying like that was a novelty. As an adult, I've played the full, fleshed out Japanese version (translated) and love it even more.
9. V-Rally II - The only racing game I had, but I was lucky enough to have a MadCatz steering wheel and pedals. So it was amazing fun for me as a child.
10. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 - The soundtrack alone. Probably the game that got me skateboarding in the first place.

Note: I was a child when I had this console. So I never got to play more adult games. As an adult though, I have played many great games on my modded console. I particularly love the Persona games and I've had fun with LSD Dream Emulator.

I'd love to see some of your favourites, if you're struggling to come up with a top 10 list then please feel free to share any hidden gems or personal favourites.

 

[Svind]

The thread I've been waiting for.

PSX is my favorite console of all time, some due to nostalgia and some because of the great games it has. I can talk about the games on this console and the console itself forever but I'll try to keep it as short as possible. I know people will put your Silent Hills, Metal Gear Solids and the rest of the better known games here later on in the thread so I'll try to keep my list to lesser known games so that people who don't know about them may look and maybe even play & enjoy them. Not in any particular order after the first.

1. Ridge Racer: Not Type 4, the first one. One of my favorite games of all time and my favorite PSX game period. It's not the best racer on the console for many due to its shortcomings (limited and samey cars, only one track, not the best graphics compared to others on the console) but I love it. Such a fun game with a great soundtrack, and it's a really fun game to master and speedrun. It has one of the hardest bosses in all of gaming period, seriously, the game's over 30 years old and you'll still see people saying they cannot beat the devil car in discussions. Funny thing is I don't even have any nostalgia for this game, as I first played it when I was in university.
2. Vib-Ribbon: When people think about PSX rhythm games they think of Parappa and Um Lammer Jammy (and for good reason) but I do recommend everyone to check out Vib-Ribbon too. I love the simplistic black&white graphics, and the idea of using your own music for a rhythm game and doing this on a PSX is great. I'm not sure how this would work on an emulator, but I'm sure there's a way.
3. Pepsiman: I mean yeah it's an adware, and yeah it's very basic but it's still funny and fun to play. Not much else to say about this one honestly, it's just a funny game.
4. Densha De Go!: It's a train simulator, it's incredibly cozy, it's all japanese but you don't need to know a lick of Japanese to play it because a train simulator on the PSX only has like, 4 buttons. Here's a guide.
5. Neverhood: It's a point and click game with beautiful claymation art, a very unique soundtrack and an interesting world. One of my favorite point & clicks on any platform. Originally JP only, but an EN patch exists. I'll be honest though, you might want to play this one on PC since it's the only non-exclusive one here and loading times will be better. If you're using an emulator, it shouldn't be much of a problem though.
6. Ape Escape: I was checking "best of" lists while typing this out just to make sure I didn't break my original premise of talking about lesser known games and I was sure this would be up there with crash and whatnot but, apparently, it's not. It's strange, I thought this game was popular. In any case, it's a great game if you've never heard of it. It's peak PSX with everything it has, the designs, the graphics, the music, literally everything.
7. iS: Internal Section: It's a great 3D shoot-em-up, kind of trippy visuals, nice soundtrack and great gameplay. Originally JP only, but an EN patch exists.
8. Incredible Crisis: Wacky collection of mini-games played through an over-arching silly story. It's funny, fun and not so long so you can just sit down, play and finish it. I love the art-style of this one.
9. Sheep Raider: Its cousins (the Bugs Bunny games) are all well known, but not a lot of people talk about Sheep Raider. You play as Ralph Wolf (No, he's not Wile E. Coyote, he's an entirely different character and a better one) and try to steal sheep. It's a nice stealth game with nice graphics.
10. Dark Stalkers 3: CAPCOM might've forgotten about it, I've not.

And for some rapid fire stuff that I've not played yet but have them burned so that I can do so soon. These are all JP exclusives with EN patches available;

• King's Field (JP ver., US ver. is actually King's Field II) & Baroque: Interesting looking RPGs.
• Mizzurna Falls: Twin peaks style mystery game.
• Racing Lagoon: Street racing RPG in which instead of battles you do races.

 

[Ardea]

The thread I've been waiting for.

PSX is my favorite console of all time, some due to nostalgia and some because of the great games it has. I can talk about the games on this console and the console itself forever but I'll try to keep it as short as possible. I know people will put your Silent Hills, Metal Gear Solids and the rest of the better known games here later on in the thread so I'll try to keep my list to lesser known games so that people who don't know about them may look and maybe even play & enjoy them. Not in any particular order after the first.

1. Ridge Racer: Not Type 4, the first one. One of my favorite games of all time and my favorite PSX game period. It's not the best racer on the console for many due to its shortcomings (limited and samey cars, only one track, not the best graphics compared to others on the console) but I love it. Such a fun game with a great soundtrack, and it's a really fun game to master and speedrun. It has one of the hardest bosses in all of gaming period, seriously, the game's over 30 years old and you'll still see people saying they cannot beat the devil car in discussions. Funny thing is I don't even have any nostalgia for this game, as I first played it when I was in university.
2. Vib-Ribbon: When people think about PSX rhythm games they think of Parappa and Um Lammer Jammy (and for good reason) but I do recommend everyone to check out Vib-Ribbon too. I love the simplistic black&white graphics, and the idea of using your own music for a rhythm game and doing this on a PSX is great. I'm not sure how this would work on an emulator, but I'm sure there's a way.
3. Pepsiman: I mean yeah it's an adware, and yeah it's very basic but it's still funny and fun to play. Not much else to say about this one honestly, it's just a funny game.
4. Densha De Go!: It's a train simulator, it's incredibly cozy, it's all japanese but you don't need to know a lick of Japanese to play it because a train simulator on the PSX only has like, 4 buttons. Here's a guide.
5. Neverhood: It's a point and click game with beautiful claymation art, a very unique soundtrack and an interesting world. One of my favorite point & clicks on any platform. Originally JP only, but an EN patch exists. I'll be honest though, you might want to play this one on PC since it's the only non-exclusive one here and loading times will be better. If you're using an emulator, it shouldn't be much of a problem though.
6. Ape Escape: I was checking "best of" lists while typing this out just to make sure I didn't break my original premise of talking about lesser known games and I was sure this would be up there with crash and whatnot but, apparently, it's not. It's strange, I thought this game was popular. In any case, it's a great game if you've never heard of it. It's peak PSX with everything it has, the designs, the graphics, the music, literally everything.
7. iS: Internal Section: It's a great 3D shoot-em-up, kind of trippy visuals, nice soundtrack and great gameplay. Originally JP only, but an EN patch exists.
8. Incredible Crisis: Wacky collection of mini-games played through an over-arching silly story. It's funny, fun and not so long so you can just sit down, play and finish it. I love the art-style of this one.
9. Sheep Raider: Its cousins (the Bugs Bunny games) are all well known, but not a lot of people talk about Sheep Raider. You play as Ralph Wolf (No, he's not Wile E. Coyote, he's an entirely different character and a better one) and try to steal sheep. It's a nice stealth game with nice graphics.
10. Dark Stalkers 3: CAPCOM might've forgotten about it, I've not.

And for some rapid fire stuff that I've not played yet but have them burned so that I can do so soon. These are all JP exclusives with EN patches available;

• King's Field (JP ver., US ver. is actually King's Field II) & Baroque: Interesting looking RPGs.
• Mizzurna Falls: Twin peaks style mystery game.
• Racing Lagoon: Street racing RPG in which instead of battles you do races.

This is a wonderful contribution, thank you for sharing. I am surprised, I had not heard of many of these games, even though I have a small collection of what I consider to be "hidden gems". Did you ever play Kula World? That game is great and based on what you've said here I think you'd enjoy it.

 

[Svind]

This is a wonderful contribution, thank you for sharing.

Thank you for the thread.

I am surprised, I had not heard of many of these games, even though I have a small collection of what I consider to be "hidden gems".

I'm pretty much a huge PSX nerd, I've literally went through lists of all games released on the PSX, looked at their gameplay and noted ones that looked interesting down to play. My bane of existence is not knowing Japanese because there are a lot of JP exclusives on this console but lately fan translations have been increasing, so I'm thankful to that.

Did you ever play Kula World? That game is great and based on what you've said here I think you'd enjoy it.

I'm normally not big on marble platformers, that's why I frankly haven't paid this one much attention, but I'll download it and give it a shot, thank you for the recommendation!