The A-Z of the PS1

Here’s one PS1 game for each game in the A-Z that shows just how brilliant the console truly was.

 

#0-9 – 007: Tomorrow Never Dies

One of the issues about the alphabet is that you forget about the numbers, but if there’s a 007 game in the library, you’re golden, aye?

Now, 007: Tomorrow Never Dies had a lot to live up to compared to its predecessor, and we mean both the video game and the films, but Tomorrow Never Dies on the PS1 probably did the smartest thing possible by trying to be as little like Goldeneye as it could be. Unfortunately though, it took them so long to finish Tomorrow Never Dies on PS1 that it launched the same month as The World Is Not Enough. Wild.

The game itself follows the plot of the film, albeit with more shootouts and stealth segments sprinkled throughout, along with the occasional enjoyable set piece. Sure, it might not be better than Goldeneye, but for an A-Z of the PS1, you could have worse starts than 007: Tomorrow Never Dies.

 

A – Air Combat

What is it with Namco starting a series only to give it a new name after that first entry? Look how Soul Edge/Blade turned into Soulcalibur, and Ace Combat followed the same pattern with the original game actually being called Air Combat. To be honest, Air Combat is a bit more of an accurate description of an aerial dogfighting simulator, but it’s just not as cool, is it? Still, you should definitely check out Air Combat to see how this landmark series made its start.

A sort of halfway point between realistic simulation and arcadey nonsense, players control a variety of real-life fighter jets throughout a great single-player campaign. A huge range of levels and objectives, plus the ability to fill out your hangar of planes by earning money, makes Air Combat quite deep and rewarding to play. And hey, if you enjoy it, Ace Combat 2 is even better.

 

B – Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain

Quick spoiler for later on, Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver isn’t on this list, just because it’s really difficult trying to limit the PS1 library to just one game per letter and both L and S have some of their own bangers. Good news for you Nosgoth sickos though, as that means B is completely cleared up to celebrate the beginning of the entire Legacy of Kain series: Blood Omen. If you want an action RPG that makes Diablo look like a nice sunny day out at the beach, Blood Omen is your next favourite slice of dark fantasy.

The first installment in the grand gothic opera that is Legacy Of Kain, Blood Omen follows a freshly turned vampire in Kain as he tries to get revenge on the powers that cursed him, but what if being a super powerful undead creature of the night is actually pretty sick? That’s one hell of an internal conflict.

 

C – Crash Bandicoot

It couldn’t be anything else for the letter C on PS1 than Crash Bandicoot, could it really? Well….maybe Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but Alucard didn’t make jorts cool.

Without a doubt the most recognisable platformer on the entire console, Crash Bandicoot launched both Naughty Dog and the orangey-red marsupial into a household name practically overnight, and while the follow-up releases upped the ante on gimmicks, Crash 1 feels like a brilliant mix of challenging and fun. The fun might stop for a while when you hit the High Road, until you learn how to tightrope walk anyway, but this platformer still holds up.

The start of Crash’s eternal battle with Dr Neo Cortex, Crash Bandicoot 1 has you platforming through dozens of increasingly difficult levels, jumping on crates and dodging hazards while hoping your cortisol levels don’t spike too high. All three PS1 Crash games are fantastic, and Crash Nitro Kart is a lot of fun too, so you’ve got a tonne of entertainment with just C alone.

 

D – Dino Crisis

Capcom might have found their golden goose when it comes to survival horror games, considering we have Resident Evil: Requiem which released this year and there’s no signs that the franchise is stopping any time soon. Still, we still think Capcom should pay more respect to their silver swan, Dino Crisis, and by that, we mean more than just shoving ports of those games onto Steam with DRM up the wazoo.

We’d argue that Dino Crisis is as fundamental to the identity of the PS1 as Resident Evil is, as while it might not have been quite as horrific, the thrills and tension of surviving this legally distinct Jurassic Park scenario made for an incredible PS1 game. Capcom are probably too busy remaking Code Veronica to bother with it, but if they ever manage to pull their finger out and do a proper remake of Dino Crisis, we’ll be there day one. We hope everybody else will be too.

 

E – Everybody’s Golf

A benefit we’ve found in undertaking this A-Z constraint is that, for a couple of letters, we had the opportunity to spotlight games that might not be top 50 material, but also are too well known to be hidden gems. Enter Everybody’s Golf, or Hot Shots Golf if you’re from another region. Golf and video games have had a long standing relationship already, but Everybody’s Golf felt like a concerted effort to maximise accessibility and fun without sacrificing challenge.

 

The game that perfected the three click swing method of golf games, Everybody’s Golf was simple: you line up your shot, you tap X to swing, tap again to set your power and tap one last time for accuracy. Depending on your character or gear, you might be able to hit further albeit with a more risky final click, so it becomes a risk/reward scenario across 18 holes. Fantastic stuff.

 

F – Final Fantasy VII

The PS1 is one of the few libraries of games that someone could do an A-Z through its library, and come back with potentially 27 different games that still deserve honouring among the best ever games. Granted, F is a bit easier than most letters, given there’s three different all-timer Final Fantasy games alone, and Final Fantasy VIII is pretty good too. For our money, there’s a reason why Final Fantasy VII is the most iconic one, but IX and Tactics are also phenomenal.

At this point, we probably don’t need to explain Final Fantasy VII to people, but in case this is your first gaming video ever, FF7 follows a group of eco-freedom fighters battling a corrupt corporation, only for things to get weird and emotional almost immediately. Come for the thrilling story, stay for the Chocobo raising mini game, and Barrett. We love Barrett.

 

G – Gran Turismo

G is a hard letter to choose between, and one that’ll have a separate outcome should this video do well and we decide to do the A-Z of the PS2. Essentially, the choice comes down to either Grand Theft Auto or Gran Turismo, and while GTA on the PS1 was fairly beloved, the series really came into its element on the PS2. Meanwhile, Gran Turismo is basically a core pillar of the PS1’s library that deserves to be mentioned here.

Polyphony Digital’s simulation racing masterpiece, Gran Turismo offered hundreds of cars and dozens of tracks to become a proper racing star. It’s a car game for car lovers, with excellent gameplay and great graphics for the time, cementing itself as Sony’s premier racing game series. Gran Turismo 2 is also a worthy alternative, considering it throws mountains of additional content at the formula, but that original game is a purer experience.

 

H – Hogs Of War

Worms might have held the monopoly on the turn-based multiplayer deathmatch genre for the longest time, but that doesn’t mean that the PS1 didn’t offer its own, equally British take on the formula: Hogs of War. We’ll be the first to admit that it’s not the greatest game on the PS1, but it does have voice work by Rik Mayall and we already used Hot Shots Golf through Everybody’s Golf so it’s getting the nod here.

Controlling anthropomorphic pigs during what appears to be the First World War, you engage in a campaign of war against other nations by controlling pigs and having them fire over the weapons against the enemy. It’s silly stuff, but the PS1’s whole identity feels like it’s based on those random and weird games someone you know had in their library that they let you play. For us Brits, we all knew someone with Hogs of War. If you’re American, slap Harmful Park or, erm, Hooters Road Trip in here instead.

 

I – Incredible Crisis

From one sort of obscure pick someone you know might have owned to another, Incredible Crisis is a beacon to the weird ingenuity that was often found among PS1 games. In a way, you could draw a line between the madcap antics of Incredible Crisis to something like Katamari Damacy, in that both focus on showing Japanese culture through the lens of an acid overdose. It’s wild and we love it.

Essentially just a collection of random and weird minigames, Incredible Crisis follows four members of the Tanamatsuri family, the father, mother and two children, as they head home for their grandmother’s birthday. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for those looking for entertainment, everything goes wrong, leading to some hilariously chaotic minigames and cutscenes. It’s not the deepest game we’ve ever mentioned, or even in this video, but sometimes you just need to be dumbfounded by an honest-to-goodness spectacle. Oh, also, International Superstar Soccer is a good shout. What a game.

 

J – JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

Admittedly, J happened to be one of the more difficult letters in the alphabet for the PS1, as while there are a good selection of games, not many of them are really considered “must-play” alongside others mentioned here. We like Jersey Devil as much as the next retro fans, but it’s not perfect. Unfortunately for you guys, we’re defaulting to an old favourite with the PS1 port of a beloved Capcom fighting game, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, just because that’s a goddamn miracle port.

An amalgamation of two versions of JoJo that released in arcades, JJBV for the PS1 included all the recognisable characters you’d expect with only a slight knock on the presentation of the Stands themselves. It’s more about what this “port” gained though, considering Capcom threw in the exclusive Super Story Mode that retold the entire Stardust Crusaders arc, complete with unique levels and gameplay. For fans, it’s unmissable. Everyone else? Consider it a crash course.

 

K – King’s Field

Now, we’ll get the confusion out of the way right now, as just saying King’s Field could refer to the first ever game, a Japan exclusive, or what we know as King’s Field which was actually the sequel. In truth, we’re just devoting K to all the King’s Field games on the PS1, as they all follow roughly the same pattern.

You’re an adventurer, there’s a big spooky area filled with monsters, and you need to kill them, find good gear and actually make it to the end while barely comprehending what the hell is even happening. It’s no wonder these games are precursors to the Souls games.

We’ve mentioned this story in the past, but it bears repeating that King’s Field deserves its place here for how it completely u-turned FromSoftware as a company, as before this, they were a business software company. K here stands for “kool, a new start”. Also, what could be more PS1 than the game that showed us what 3D gaming could do?

 

L – LSD: Dream Emulator

L is another tough one, just because of how many games start with the word “legend”. Between The Legend of Legaia and The Legend of Dragoon, you’ve got two excellent RPGs to choose from already. Throw in Lunar and its sequel and you’ll be hard pressed to find the definitive winner among them. But we don’t want to overdo the RPGs, so we’re going for the alternative pick instead. But if our dreams end up looking anything like the ones depicted in LSD: Dream Emulator, send us to have our brain scanned.

Another shining example of the imagination and ingenuity on offer within the PS1’s library, LSD: Dream Emulator is precisely what it says on the cover. You explore randomly generated dreamscapes, and basically get a bit unsettled as you wander around because the dreams are really weird. It might have been a Japan-only game, but its legacy as a PS1 game is simply undeniable.

 

M – Metal Gear Solid

There couldn’t be any other choice for the letter M than Metal Gear Solid. Marvel Vs Capcom, Medieval and Medal of Honor have all become a core part of the PS1’s identity, sure, but Metal Gear Solid IS the PS1. The PS1 might not have been as successful without the PS1, and it’s proven already that Metal Gear wasn’t as successful before the PS1. The two are intrinsically linked, making Metal Gear Solid an essential part of the PS1’s A-Z list.

The continuation of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, MGS once again follows Solid Snake as he deals with terrorists taking over a remote military base, only to watch hours of cutscenes in between gunfights and stealth sections. It’s absolutely brilliant, and moments like fighting Psycho Mantis and having him read your memory card, counts among the greatest moments in gaming ever. Simply a must play game, no excuses.

 

N – Need For Speed 3: Hot Pursuit

Any Americans will have hit the letter N and thought “finally, it’s time for all the sports games”. Not a bad theory, considering there’s the NFL, the NBA and the NHL, but we’re going for a racing game instead, one that happened to be prolific during the fifth, sixth and seventh generation of consoles. Yeah, it’s Need For Speed, and we’re specifically choosing Hot Pursuit as the best one on PS1 specifically.

You’d think that with a name like Hot Pursuit, this would be the first instance of police chasing within the Need For Speed series, but it wasn’t. However, the AI was massively improved during those pursuits, making for a much more enjoyable experience as you try to escape the long arm of the law. There’s a reason why Need For Speed became the byword for games about street racing, and it’s because of quality games like Hot Pursuit.

 

O – Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssee

Crash Bandicoot might be the most iconic 3D platformer on the PS1, but if you want 2D platforming, you’re looking at Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssee. A puzzle platformer in a similar vein to those old school cinematic platformers like Out Of This World, Oddworld is also filled with absurd and sarcastic humour that’ll ensure you’re entertained throughout, even as you have to stop a bunch of Mudokons from killing themselves on hazards like a bunch of depressed lemmings.

Oddworld follows lead character Abe, a slave at the RuptureFarms meat processing factory, who’s decided that the subjudgation of both him and the rest of the Mudokan people is just not cricket. Time for some liberation. Of course, it helps that Abe overheard someone talking about using the Mudokans for a new product, so let’s get out while the getting’s good. The series has continued on from the PS1, but Oddworld never quite hit the same heights as Abe’s Odyssee. Also, games need more fart button.

 

P – Parasite Eve

Square had already proven their RPG chops for years prior to the release of Parasite Eve, but we think it’s fair to say that Capcom’s Resident Evil had an effect on them. Instead of just releasing another fantasy RPG, they managed to find a way to blend survival horror and active-time battle mechanics with RPG gear and skills. It’s a bit of a wild combination, but that absurd and unique duo is the reason why Parasite Eve has the legacy it does. Why hasn’t Square Enix ported this one to modern platforms? We’ll never know.

The game follows Aya Brea, an NYPD officer trying to stop a woman named Eve as she unleashes a body horror nightmare on New York. People are spontaneously combusting, others are mutating into horrible creatures and orange blobs, it’s like Black Friday sales all over again. Between this and the sequel, you’ve got two examples of the PS1 being a hotbed for wild swings.

 

Q – Quake 2

By all rights, Quake 2 is a game that shouldn’t have worked on the PS1, thanks to the technical limitations compared to PC. In fact, Quake 2 couldn’t exist on the PS1, at least in its completed form, so it was left to software team Hammerhead to turn id Software masterpiece of a shooter into a competent console FPS. Somehow, they managed to knock it out of the park, with some minor concessions of course. Still, it’s a miracle of a port.

While Quake 1 never launched on the PS1, Quake showed Sony fans what they’d been missing out on all this time. The continuation of humanity’s war against the Strogg, Quake 2 offered a bunch of new weapons, loads of new power-ups and more action-packed levels. This is still a sterling example of developer ingenuity on the PS1, meaning we simply have no choice but to include it. Also, Q is a tough letter. Obviously.

 

R – Resident Evil

Now we’re entering a three letter streak of games where the answer is pretty obvious. R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, Rayman, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 and even Rugrats In Paris: The Movie are all worthy contenders for the letter R, but it was always going to be Resident Evil. Capcom’s game might not have been the first ever example of a survival horror game, considering it was heavily inspired by Capcom’s own Sweet Home, but the genre simply wouldn’t be the same without it, or its awful Director’s Cut Basement music.

The game that kickstarted a franchise still going strong today, Resident Evil sees a group of special forces trapped in a remote mansion, only for the mansion to be filled with zombies, zombie dogs and other monstrous creatures. Of course, once you’re done with RE1, you’ve got 2 and 3 to enjoy too.

 

S – Silent Hill

S is another letter that’s pretty competitive, but if you’re really honest with yourself, the answer is clear. Syphon Filter would be a worthy alternative, along with Soul Blade and both Spider-Man games, but no. The answer is Silent Hill. If Capcom pioneered the survival horror genre with Resident Evil, Konami decided to reinvent the wheel by offering an experience for those in the world who just feel like there isn’t enough suffering and misery in the world.

A grim story with awkward and clumsy combat that’s designed to make you feel a lack of control and fear, Silent Hill is a masterclass in making the player feel uncomfortable. Playing as Harry Mason, you arrive in Silent Hill after a car crash hoping to find your adoptive daughter, only to find mutants, an “otherworld” and weird cults. This isn’t a fun game by any means, but for any true horror fan, this is a necessary piece of media.

 

T – Tekken 3

The final in this impromptu trilogy of competitive but obvious letters, T could’ve gone to games like Twisted Metal, Tomba, Tail Concerto, Tenchu or Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. All of those games alone deserve to be considered among the best PS1 games of all-time, but if you want the best of the best, Tekken 3’s sales are simply too impressive to be denied.

The dictionary definition of a near perfect arcade port, Tekken 3 manages to retain the excellent, 60 fps 3D fighting of the arcades on your home console, only now with two additional hidden characters, more unique moves for Anna and two brand new modes. This was the definitive Tekken release, and everyone knew it. If you didn’t own Tekken 3, you simply weren’t PS1’ing correctly, which is why some still consider this to be the franchise’s best.

 

U – Um Jammer Lammy

Now, this is where we have to issue a late apology. You might have noticed during the letter P section that we gave it to Parasite Eve, when chill guy PaRappa The Rapper was just standing right there. Now we’ve reached the part of the alphabet where this whole A-Z idea starts getting a bit hairy, in comes underappreciated PaRappa spin-off/follow-up Um Jammer Lammy to ensure that we don’t forget about PaRappa The Rapper the way Sony has.

Instead of being about rap music, Um Jammer Lammy follows a guitar playing lamb as she struggles to find her confidence before her band MilkCan’s first big performance the following night. In classic, silly PS1 game fashion though, Lammy is waylaid by a series of wild events that force them to find the confidence within themselves. It’s cool, fun, and you unlock PaRappa as a hidden character. Now, apology accepted?

 

V – Vagrant Story

Despite its advanced place in the alphabet, V is a decently competitive letter for this PS1 A-Z. Between Valkyrie Profile, Vib-Ribbon and V-Rally, you’ve got some good contenders among the rest of these games. Still, the correct answer is another Square game that we’re shocked they haven’t ported to every platform under the sun at this point, which is Vagrant Story. Seriously, if Square put Parasite Eve and Vagrant Story together in some kind of HD PS1 Classic port bundle, they’d sell millions. Probably.

Set in Ivalice, the background for both Final Fantasy Tactics and FFXII, Vagrant Story follows Ashley Riot as he travels to the ruined city of Leá Monde to investigate the link between a cult and a murdered Duke. A duke he was framed for murdering, by the way. Time to dive into this daunting dungeon and find some answers, while making some sick equipment and listening to Shakespearean dialogue along the way.

 

W – Wipeout

The depths of the PS1’s library are so vast that even when we get to W, there’s still a good few contenders that deserve at least a passing mention. WWF SmackDown 2: Know Your Role is a multiplayer all-star, while Warcraft 2: The Dark Saga managed to effectively bring strategy gameplay to console. Despite that though, this is another obvious answer, because who grew up with a PS1 and didn’t at least play a few laps of Wipeout?

Psygnosis’ crown jewel, this antigravity racing game introduced the world to racing at impossible speeds while listening to the best British drum and bass anthems of all-time. It’s a difficult racer, sure, but the graphics, presentation and gameplay are practically unmatched. Three races into Wipeout, you’ll either emerge battered and broken or you’ll be dancing along to Firestarter by The Prodigy while looking like Wheels from Spaced. There is no in between.

 

X – Xenogears

Now we’ve really reached the most difficult portion of the alphabet, because the rules tend to be that if you don’t care about X-Men, you’re screwed. Thankfully for us, Xenogears exists, offering players one of the most ambitious and frankly convoluted plots in RPGs. I mean, the game was so ambitious that in order for it to make a deadline, the majority of the back half of the game is told through cutscenes. That might not sound like much now, post 70 minutes of MGS4 ending cutscenes and the like, but back then? Unheard of.

The game itself follows protagonist Fei Fong Wong and a steadily growing group of ragtag adventurers as they try to overthrow a fascist regime, only to find a veritable tidal wave of mystery and intrigue about the nature of the world. Imagine your average rebel plot, only for it to include mountains of psychology, philosophy and religion, and you’re about there. It’s wild.

 

Y – Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories

If nobody got me during this whole alphabet project, I know that Yu-Gi-Oh got me. Without it, Y would’ve had to have gone to something like Yakiniku Bugyou, a Japan-only promotional tie-in to the very real Gyu-Kaku restaurant chain, where you have to serve barbecued meat to paying customers. Nah, instead let’s focus on a digital version of a children’s card game, as Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories might just be the best iteration of Egyptian card battling there’s ever been.

Loosely based on the anime and manga that we all know and love, Forbidden Memories focuses more on the Pharaoh and his time in Egypt rather than modern day, though we still get some classic Yugi duelling too. It’s the same card game you know from the anime but probably never played in real life, and we love it. At least with this version, we’re not priced out of buying cards by opportunistic tosspots.

 

Z – Zero Divide 2

Look, you expected that Z would be a difficult one, and we’re not going to sit here and tell you that Zero Divide is the forgotten sleeper pick for greatest fighting game of all time. It’s decent enough, and its sequel is a huge improvement on the formula with new characters, mechanics and more, but it’s overshadowed by the fact that it launched so soon after Tekken 3. If your 3D fighting game isn’t perfect and it has to contend with Tekken 3? Yeah, no wonder Zero Divide 2 got overshadowed.

A Virtua Fighter-esque fighting game with more ground physics, Zero Divide 2 sees robots beating the motor oil out of each other for our amusement. Alongside new characters, walled arenas and even breakable armour pieces for every character, Zero Divide 2 upped the performance to hit a smooth 60fps, which is an impressive achievement in and of itself.

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