Final Fantasy isn’t continuous. Aside from races, the occasional character name, and some thematic elements, the games are not connected at all. PS2 has two of the best: 10 and 12.
Of the two, 10 is a more traditional turn-based experience with notoriously awful-in-a-good-way voice acting and a very typical FF plot. It’s not really a spoiler to say that you end up killing god. It features some of the most egregiously awful mini games to grace the franchise. And if you want some of the best gear in the game, you will be committing a not -insignificant amount of time to frustrating button mashing.
Square tried a whole bunch of new stuff with 12 including realtime, MMO-like combat and a much smaller and focused narrative that is mostly a side story occurring inside a larger narrative. The voice acting is infinitely better than 10’s, and there are no obnoxious mini games.
They’re both still worth playing. The PC ports don’t add all that much to the games over what you can do with them emulated. In fact, I bet save states make some of the mini game awfulness of 10 better.
Some small niche games that I grew up with, that I am playing again with my Steam Deck:
God Hand - A third person beat em up that is funny, and really good. Full of flavor. Complete flop.
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - A third person shooter with psionic powers used as its main selling point. Good dumb fun on the PS2.
Spyhunter & Spyhunter 2 - A shockingly good reboot of Spyhunter by Midway games, where you have a car that transforms its mode depending on the mission. Part racing game, part spy game.
I-Ninja - A 3d action platformer that has Billy West as the lead, a ninja who accidentally killed his Master and now has to get him back and collect bullshit trinkets. Clearly more “just dumb fun” than anything serious.
007: Nightfire - The best James Bond game ever made. Better than Goldeneye. Plays like its an original movie, with solid gameplay, and I spent as many hours on the local multiplayer as I did with Halo. I didn’t see that, but I wanted to share that I love that game.
Evil Dead A Fistful of Bootstick - Still need to play more to see if it holds up, but its an original story featuring Bruce Campbell voice acting.
Ratchet and Clank is the best, and the story is best experienced in order but the first game is a bit clunky so starting on the second game isn’t the worst idea. I personally started with Up Your Arsenal! then got hooked on the series and backfilled.
SSX Tricky, and any of the NBA or NFL Street games, they’re all gas, no brakes. If you can get someone else to play two player (don’t know how well that works on steam deck emulation), check out Cookies & Cream. It’s one of the more clever two player co-op puzzle games, and it’s one of the first games my wife and I played together when we were first dating.
I’ll recommend Kinetica. It’s a one-of-a-kind racing game where you race through gravity-defying tracks as a person in a kind of iron-man negligee with wheels while listening to old-school techno.
Shadow of the Colossus is one of my favorite games ever, battling entities big enough that you run around on top of them, subtle storytelling, an enormous map for the time it was made, and fairly large even by modern standards.
The Tenchu games are also good: ninja stealth assassination.
Dark Cloud 2 is a kind of fun game. Smack your way through dungeons with a wrench and use the bits to build villages for your allies.
Bloody Roar is a favorite for fighting games. Fight to BIOS energy then transform into a wilder form, like a mole, a bear, etc. and you can kick people through the edges of the arenas into new areas to fight.
Devil May Cry is a classic.
Ratchet and Clank, classic.
Time Splitters is reminiscent of even older games.
Space Station 14. I can’t get enough. Even just sticking to botany, the depth and complexity of what can be achieved feels limitless, let alone botanist+syndicate agent where I can buy “gatfruit” seeds and grow revolvers inside fruit.
Hands down the most fun multiplayer gaming I’ve ever enjoyed.
I’m just being that guy on the internet as usual, but Symphony Of The Night is a PS1 title, not PS2. I’m sure OP can run a PS1 emulator on his her Deck if she wants to, though. It is a great game.
It was released for both then. I have a physical PS2 copy. Not really surprised. They did that with a ton of titles when hopping from one generation of console to the next.
I was not aware it was released in that packaging, but I’m pretty sure that’s still a Playstation 1 disk dressed up in a PS2 style DVD case, meant to be used with the PS2’s backwards compatibility mode. To my knowledge SotN was never rereleased as a native PS2 title and wasn’t rereleased at all until the PSP version. (And then later the Xbox 360 and PS4 as downloadable titles, and also the ghastly mobile phone versions.) If you have a PS1 kicking around you can try it and see, I suppose.
For what it’s worth my copy is the green-stripe “Greatest Hits” reprinting, so what it’s worth is alas not much.
God Hand is a hidden gem, the game is hard tho.
Crash of the Titans
Crash Twinsanity
Black
Midnight Club 3
NFS Underground 2
Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks
Gun
Burnout
Darkwatch (hidden gem too)
There are more but these worth mentioning because they can’t be played without emulation on PC, so it fits well to play on PCSX2.
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Aktywne