RetroGaming

Fuckin Parappa the Rapper, baby

I want to recommend a game that I know wasn't that great, but is lots of fun: Pitball. It's like alien space basketball with gambling. If you like old school sports games with janky controls, give it a shot.

Threadz of Fate. There’s something so charming and comfy about this game with the intertwined dual storyline, the fun combat system, and the great music.

I've seen no love for Chrono Cross yet? Shame.

I wasn’t a PlayStation guy. I quit consoles when the Mega Drive went end of life and I didn’t like what Sony or Nintendo were bringing to the party. But I have played some PS1 and there are a few I always like to put into my retro systems.

Symphony of the Night

Tony Hawk 2

Disney’s Hercules

Blood Omen

Hot Pursuit

Wipeout 2097

Not seeing much love for Wipeout 3: Special Edition (it has double the number of tracks as the standard edition)

Toy Story 2

Final Fantasy VII

Kingsley's Adventure

Gran Turismo 2

Jackie Chan Stuntmaster

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

Rugrats: Search For Reptar

Tomba

Tekken 3

Rayman 2

R4 Ridge Racer

Soul Blade

Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped

Final Fantasy Tactics

Spyro The Dragon

Digimon World 2003

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

Tomb Raider 3

Guardians Crusade

Metal Gear Solid

Crash Team Racing

Spider-Man

Dead Or Alive

Ape Escape

Mega Man Legends

I know you said you didn't want a full list but thought it'd be an interesting exercise for me to do one anyway. If these were the only PS1 games I could play, I'd still be very happy with few that I'd truly miss that's not on here (which would mostly be games from series that I put here, spyro etc.)

There are so many! I haven't seen these mentioned yet.

Future Cop LAPD Jackie Chan Stuntmaster Colin McRae 2.0 Abes Oddysee/Exodus

Aside from the more well-known greats people have already mentioned, I have to nominate Herc's Adventures and MediEvil 1 and 2.

How we haven't seen a new MediEvil game in the age of souls likes baffles me. Souls combat with Dan's goofy comedy in an open, interconnected Gallowmere? Please take my money.

I also wouldn't mind seeing a new game in that style LucasArts used for Herc, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and Ghoul patrol. But with them under the mouse, it's probably as likely as another Monkey Island.

Couple I haven't seen yet:

• Vib-Ribbon, a fun little rhythm game which also allows you to play with your own CDs
• Team Buddies, a really unique action / strategy game that I've never seen replicated. Sort of a proto-MOBA.

Hugo

Metal Gear Solid

Final Fantasy 7 and 9

Resident Evil series

Dino Crisis

Silent Hill

Ape Escape

Intelligent Qube

Grand Theft Auto 2

Uh... I'm gonna have to dig out my CD book from my closet. I still have all the best (IMO) PS1 games and I can't remember them all off the top of my head. It had hella bangers.

I go on with games I didn’t see mentioned:

• Crash Bandicoot 2
• R-Type Delta
• Tekken 3

And a bonus mention:

• Omega Boost. Before Polyphony made Gran Turismo, they made a fun mech shoot em up. Doesn’t deserve to be on any list, but just a fun thing to bring up.

Otherwise, a list is incomplete without:

• Metal Gear Solid
• Gran Turismo
• Final Fantasy VII
• Silent Hill
• Resident Evil
• Tony Hawk Pro Skater
• Wipeout (I prefer 2097)
• Tekken 3

These games are too culturally significant to be left out.

Breath of Fire 3

A classical JRPG. I still like it quite a lot.

Final Fantasy IX, one of the last classical FF experiences. Quite hard though.

Final Fantasy Tactics, a very enjoyable strategy game.

Mega Man Legends, this was one of my favorites but the CD was damaged so I couldn't finish the game.

Besides Metal Gear Solid?

Dino Crisis.

Both Brightis and Love & Destroy are good if you can read Japanese.

Nobody said GTA 2 yet. Lost so many hours to that one. The last top down GTA I think.

Also of course MGS, FFVII, FF Tactics, FFIX, THPS2. DDR konamix was decent. Oh and tekken. I had tekken 2 but I think 3 might've been on PS1 as well. Yoshimitsu was always my favorite and I was stoked when he was put into soul calibur with his moveset intact.

My personal top pick (due to lack of playing psx in a long time) is Devil Dice (also known as XI in Japan if I remember correctly). I personally just play the arcade mode, though, since the other modes aren't as fun in my opinion.

Legend of Legia is my goat PS1 game that rarely gets the love it deserves. I loved the combat/combo system that allowed you to use the end part of one art into the beginning of another art was so awesome. The story was great and the characters were wonderful. It was such a fun unique take on jrpgs of the day

The only one I have that hasn't been mentioned yet is Suikoden II. Gorgeous sprite art, and it's also just a solid game. Ironically, it's getting a remaster very soon which is sure to clean up its biggest weakness (the English localization), though we don't know how the rest of it will shake out.

I consider the fifth gen to be a lost generation for sprite-based games, this is one of those on the console that make the case for an interesting "what could have been" scenario (Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Valkyrie Profile also being sprite-based standouts).

Gex

No one mentioned it yet, so:

Die Hard Trilogy

Grandia.

And Ridge Racer has been mentioned, but I would go with Ridge Racer 4 which is arguably the pinnacle of the series.

Some pretty good stuff already but no one has mentioned Xenogears.

So many RPGs. A few of my favorites.

Final Fantasy VIII - It may be the best looking game on the PS1, and my personal favorite. Unique leveling.

Arc the Lad III - The whole collection is worth it. But the third game had a streamlined polish that is rarely appreciated over the second game of the series.

Parasite Eve - Unique gameplay and weapon upgrading (GUNS). Very adult oriented.

Jade Cocoon - Monster capturing and MERGING. This creates completely new monsters with new stats and appearances. Infinite possibilities.

Honorable mentions: I played these a bit, but never enough to give a full endorsement. But still they are popular picks.

Azure Dreams - Rogue-Lite grid movement monster capture dungeon exploring.

Legend of Dragoon - Timing emphasized attacks. Bad translations.

I feel like the major one for me (that hasn't been listed) is Ape Escape. Growing up i played the (arguably worse) remaster of it for the PSP. Genuinely interesting to play a platformer so different yet so clearly reactionary to Mario 64. And it's also just interesting how they handle the analog sticks in terms of controls

Like many games of the era the controls are frankly janky, but they are just so much fun

Original Spyro trilogy (Gateway to Glimmer first, Year of the Dragon second, Spyro the Dragon third. Although they are all so good it's hard to choose an order.) The first two games were a part of my childhood, I think they both came with the console when my sister and I bought it. £20 second hand from Game with three games I think, we each saved up to pay half. Very cool worlds to run around and explore, especially Treetop Village I think it's called (the supercharge level from Spyro the Dragon). I love these collect-them-all games where you know where everything is - it's very comforting to me. And skateboarding and playing as Sparx in Year of the Dragon still feels special, because it's the one game I didn't own as a kid.

Crash Team Racing is the ultimate carting game IMO. "Start your engines for a Sony Computer Entertainment Europe production! Fasten your seatbelts for another Naughty Dog creation! Bwam bah bah bamp, bah da dam da da da dum". Absolutely iconic loading screens and music. I don't think I've ever beat the campaign mode completely, but it's a lot of fun. Several years since I've played now, which is a bit of a shame. My PlayStation needs to be repaired but no-one near me has the expertise and I didn't want to go inside and make things worse..

Hogs of War was on a demo disc I had and it seemed quite fun, but I never got to experience the full version.

I seem to remember Driver 2 being challenging but cool, but not much else other than those two emotions.

Final shout-out to Worms Armageddon.

Edit: actually, final final shout-out to that boat racing game. Hydro Thunder maybe? I played it at a friend's house then spent years searching for it again in a cool games shop that another friend now owns (never would have guessed that when I was a kid!). I don't think I ever found it though..

Hear me out:

Monsters, Inc. Scream Team.

For a PS1 game it was ahead of its time. Fleshed out 3D levels that are actually navigable, decent camera angles, solid platforming + puzzles, and level revisiting that does not feel excessively repetitive. The difficulty is also not a god-awful sudden cliff like some PS1/2 games of the era. It’s one of the few, maybe the only PS1 game I’ve played multiple times through.

As a plus the soundtrack is banger.

WipEout XL, Spyro 1-3, Crash 1-3, Monster's Inc Scream Team, Crash Team Racing, Frogger 2, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone, JetMoto, Herc's Adventures, Rugrats Search For Reptar, Parappa The Rapper, Ridge Racer, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, The Tomb Raider games, Twisted Metal, Toy Story Racer. There's a lot more but those are some of my favorites.

• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - because it’s literally one of the best games ever made. So good that when it borrowed the Metroid formula pretty much wholesale, they renamed the formula Metroidvania.
• Metal Gear Solid - because it sits in the Goldilocks zone of Kojima-ness. Nutty but not impenetrable.
• Silent Hill - because everyone should know what it’s like for seventeen pixels to make them shit themselves in fear.
• Metal of Honor - because Call of Duty used to be the whippersnapper upstart. Know your roots, son.
• Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 - because there were THPS games with more, but there were never THPS games that were definitively better.
• Resident Evil 2 - because hitting your stride while defining a genre is a beautiful thing.
• Valkyrie Profile - because the world is ending but I really want this mermaid to be happy…
• Fear Effect - because it’s a seven hour game across four CDs but my best friend and I couldn’t put it down until we finished it on day one.
• Vigilante 8 - because they out-Twisted-Metaled Twisted Metal.
• G-Darius - because sometimes you just gotta blast a giant robot fish in the face with a screen-filling laser beam.
• Incredible Crisis - because we all have bad days.
• Tenchu - because Solid Snake shouldn’t be the only one who gets to have fun sneaking around and killing people.
• Rakugaki Showtime - because before there was Smash Bros, there was bashing the Smiley Ball for super moves and launching ICBMs against your foes.

It would be a crime to forget Metal Gear Solid on the list.

Bushido Blade is also fantastic.

Siphon Filter
Parappa the Rapper
Gex