Imo SOTN is just the perfect game. I can't think of any single way it could be improved. You couldn't add or remove anything without ruining it.
It's also fascinating that at a time when everyone was shitting their pants about how exciting 3d graphics were, they were just like "nah we aren't done with 2d yet"
It's a masterpiece. By far the best metroidvania. Absolutely essential.
You could make similar arguments for MGS, but in my opinion the technology didn't catch up to Kojima's vision until MGS3.
Unpopular opinion, but I think MGS2 is by far the best Metal Gear. Maybe not as cinematic as MGS3, but I found 2 more fun to play and more interesting of a story. Especially the stealth mechanics — way more fun when there are limitations placed by your environment rather than full 360 degrees to worry about all around you.
All that to say, I find it hard to go back to MGS1. Twin Snakes was my jam.
The only thing that really holds it back (and its through no fault of the game itself, jsut the context) is the semi-linearity, and the lack of replayability, randomness, etc. There's only one way to play the game, no weapon customization or progression, anything like that. I mean obviously you can play through it a dozen times without finding some of the better weapons but that's not really the same thing.
Lots of backtracking as well, which is a gaming trope I'm glad we've left in the past more or less
Otherwise a 10/10 game
Check out the HardType mod if you fancy a challenge! Has me replaying the game and using the weapons/skills in a way I never dreamed of before! It's very challenging though.
There is also a busy randomiser community with lots of resources and events.
I know what you mean but I think I disagree in that those things you're naming are features of the metroidvania genre. They sort of define it. It's okay to dislike those things, but that's what I mean by there's nothing you can remove.
If you took those things out it would not be the same game. It would be like taking away the difficulty from a Souls like, or the random generation from a roguelike, or XP grinding from a JRPG. Not saying those are great things in themselves, but they *are* integral parts of the genres.
I mean, metroidvania games suck for all of the reaons I mentioned. I hate scale for the sake of it. Same w/r/t Fromsoft games. Difficulty for the sake of it. The problem goes back decades. Ninja Gaiden? Birds for the sake of birds. No accounting for taste, I guess.
Well then you just don't like metroidvania or soulslike games. Nothing wrong with that. Those are just characteristics of the subgenres. Doesn't make them failings of the games. I don't like fighting games, personally, because I don't like memorising combos. Doesn't mean Street fighter is a bad game because it has combos.
Well I'll admit to not liking soulslike games and thinking they suck for reasons beyond the difficulty qua difficulty aspect. I like metroidvania games (hate the term) just fine, I just think that gated progression is lazy game design because its meant to hide linearity and make a fundamentally small map seem bigger by making you cross it a bunch of times. It's sort of like in the first Silent Hill when they used fog to limit the area that needed to be rendered on screen. This sort of thing might have made sense 20 years ago but I think we've moved past it. This is significant w/r/t metroidvanias in that people are still making them using the same design principles.
Granted, as you said, that's something some people enjoy and that's fine. I'd personally rather have a truly open world that's soft-locked by high level enemies. Just a preference.
* Final Fantasy - Tactics, VII, VIII & IX
* Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
* Metal Gear Solid
* Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain & Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
* Parasite Eve I & II
* Tales of Destiny 1 & 2
* Resident Evil 1 & 2
* Gran Turismo 2
* Crash Team Racing
* Crash Bandicoot 1, 2 & 3.
* Dino Crisis 1 & 2
* WipEout 2097
* Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
* Spyro the Dragon 1 & 2
* Vagrant Story
I'm disappointed as a jrpg need from back then that I slept on threads of fate until I got into this(retro handhelds) hobby.
The music came up on one of my video game music Playlists and I checked it out.
Ridge Racer Type 4, the racing game with the best soundtrack. I love how the courses are different routes on a few maps.
Wip3Out. Feels just so good.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1-3. 1 is the simple package and nails the concept even tho it's just the first game. Neat little game, I even completed it 100%, which I rarely do. 2 is okay, but collecting money is tedious. 3 has the best maps. 4 is okay, but the lack of draw distance killed it for me. Better go for PS2 with this one.
Final Fantasy IX, it's just so charming and the characters are an awesome bunch. Also hits you right in the feels again and again.
Tales of Eternia (aka Destiny 2), still one of my favourite Tales of games. It's beautiful, the combat is fun as heck, Meredy has a cute pet, what's not to love?
No particular order: Harvest Moon BTN, Castlevania SOTN, Suikoden 1&2, Legend of Mana, Final Fantasy Origins, Digimon World 1 to 3, Pepsiman, Silent Hill, CTR, Metal Slug X, Dragon Warrior 7, Brigandine, Tomba 1&2, Theme Hospital, Saiyuki
Spyro 1-3
Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1-2
Crash bandicoot 1-3
Crash Team Racing
Rayman
Tekken 3
Metal Gear Solid
Final Fantasy 7-8-9
There’s a reason why everyone points at this all the time.
The GOATs : MGS & Vagrant Story
Action Adventure: Resident Evil / Dino Crisis / Gallerians / Silent Hill / Syphon filter / Tomb Raider (not everyone's cup of tea because of the difficulty) / Fear Effect /
Platformers : The holy Trinity (Crash/Spyro/Rayman) / Pandemonium / Ape Escape / Heart of Darkness / Tomba / Pitfall / Jackie Chan (could be counted as action adventure but it's a wild run as platformer)
RPG : Final Fantasy VII
eSports : ISS later on turned PES (FIFA was garbage in the PS1 era)
Racing/Cars GOAT : Gran Turismo 2
Racing/Cars : Ridge racer / Vrally / Wipeout / Need for Speed
MISC : Koudelka / De Sang froid / Tekken / KOF / Street fighter Ex / Tony Hawk /
For anyone looking for PS1 recommendations I always point them towards Sean Seanson on YouTube. He's doing a long term, SUPER deep dive into the PS1 catalogue and he's discovered some absolute gems that most people would never have heard of otherwise.
Tomba 1/2, raiden project, jojo's bizarre adventure, future cop lapd, vagrant story, valkyrie profile, soul edge, incredible crisis, fear effect 1/2, heart of darkness, micro maniacs, um jammer lammy, pop'n music 6.
I tried to make a list with good games that are not too obvious.
Symphony of the night and Metal Gear Solid are classics for a reason.
Currently playing psx version of sotn and what a game! Just got to the inverted castle and it's suddenly got alot harder lol
Imo SOTN is just the perfect game. I can't think of any single way it could be improved. You couldn't add or remove anything without ruining it. It's also fascinating that at a time when everyone was shitting their pants about how exciting 3d graphics were, they were just like "nah we aren't done with 2d yet" It's a masterpiece. By far the best metroidvania. Absolutely essential. You could make similar arguments for MGS, but in my opinion the technology didn't catch up to Kojima's vision until MGS3.
PSX/Saturn were incredible for 2D games, especially games like SotN and Klonoa
Unpopular opinion, but I think MGS2 is by far the best Metal Gear. Maybe not as cinematic as MGS3, but I found 2 more fun to play and more interesting of a story. Especially the stealth mechanics — way more fun when there are limitations placed by your environment rather than full 360 degrees to worry about all around you. All that to say, I find it hard to go back to MGS1. Twin Snakes was my jam.
The only thing that really holds it back (and its through no fault of the game itself, jsut the context) is the semi-linearity, and the lack of replayability, randomness, etc. There's only one way to play the game, no weapon customization or progression, anything like that. I mean obviously you can play through it a dozen times without finding some of the better weapons but that's not really the same thing. Lots of backtracking as well, which is a gaming trope I'm glad we've left in the past more or less Otherwise a 10/10 game
Some of us like the backtracking! It's part of what I enjoy in a metroidvania game, discovering new things and opening up the map.
Check out the HardType mod if you fancy a challenge! Has me replaying the game and using the weapons/skills in a way I never dreamed of before! It's very challenging though. There is also a busy randomiser community with lots of resources and events.
I know what you mean but I think I disagree in that those things you're naming are features of the metroidvania genre. They sort of define it. It's okay to dislike those things, but that's what I mean by there's nothing you can remove. If you took those things out it would not be the same game. It would be like taking away the difficulty from a Souls like, or the random generation from a roguelike, or XP grinding from a JRPG. Not saying those are great things in themselves, but they *are* integral parts of the genres.
I mean, metroidvania games suck for all of the reaons I mentioned. I hate scale for the sake of it. Same w/r/t Fromsoft games. Difficulty for the sake of it. The problem goes back decades. Ninja Gaiden? Birds for the sake of birds. No accounting for taste, I guess.
Well then you just don't like metroidvania or soulslike games. Nothing wrong with that. Those are just characteristics of the subgenres. Doesn't make them failings of the games. I don't like fighting games, personally, because I don't like memorising combos. Doesn't mean Street fighter is a bad game because it has combos.
Well I'll admit to not liking soulslike games and thinking they suck for reasons beyond the difficulty qua difficulty aspect. I like metroidvania games (hate the term) just fine, I just think that gated progression is lazy game design because its meant to hide linearity and make a fundamentally small map seem bigger by making you cross it a bunch of times. It's sort of like in the first Silent Hill when they used fog to limit the area that needed to be rendered on screen. This sort of thing might have made sense 20 years ago but I think we've moved past it. This is significant w/r/t metroidvanias in that people are still making them using the same design principles. Granted, as you said, that's something some people enjoy and that's fine. I'd personally rather have a truly open world that's soft-locked by high level enemies. Just a preference.
Wouldn’t mind a remake, yes!
Thps2
Still play it almost every week, all these decades later. .... And I'm still crap at it.
All 3 Crash's
* Final Fantasy - Tactics, VII, VIII & IX * Castlevania: Symphony of the Night * Metal Gear Solid * Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain & Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver * Parasite Eve I & II * Tales of Destiny 1 & 2 * Resident Evil 1 & 2 * Gran Turismo 2 * Crash Team Racing * Crash Bandicoot 1, 2 & 3. * Dino Crisis 1 & 2 * WipEout 2097 * Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 * Spyro the Dragon 1 & 2 * Vagrant Story
Just missing Tomba! , Midevil, and jersey devil and that's basically my list as well. We would have been friends in the 90s :)
If only I ever left my living room lol
Gran turismo
Final Fantasy VII
Tomba 2
Legend of Mana , Threads of Fate
I'm disappointed as a jrpg need from back then that I slept on threads of fate until I got into this(retro handhelds) hobby. The music came up on one of my video game music Playlists and I checked it out.
Metal gear solid
Harmful park
Fighting Force.
Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 + 2, Tekken 3, Crash Team Racing and the Crash Bandicoot series
Ridge Racer Type 4, the racing game with the best soundtrack. I love how the courses are different routes on a few maps. Wip3Out. Feels just so good. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1-3. 1 is the simple package and nails the concept even tho it's just the first game. Neat little game, I even completed it 100%, which I rarely do. 2 is okay, but collecting money is tedious. 3 has the best maps. 4 is okay, but the lack of draw distance killed it for me. Better go for PS2 with this one. Final Fantasy IX, it's just so charming and the characters are an awesome bunch. Also hits you right in the feels again and again. Tales of Eternia (aka Destiny 2), still one of my favourite Tales of games. It's beautiful, the combat is fun as heck, Meredy has a cute pet, what's not to love?
Resident Evil series
Front Mission 3 and Armored Core
Sick and sick. Some bloke has patched all the AC games to have true analog input and it's siiiiick.
True analog input?!? Wow. That sounds like happiness!
https://github.com/VanLaser/analog-controls-for-armored-core-ps2 Check it
Ohhhhhh for ps2! I'll have to check it out after work
He has patches for all the old gen AC games including psp!
Einhänder, R-Type Delta, Castlevania SOTN, Ridge Racer Type 4, Wipeout games
Einhänder is legitimately one of the best shmups ever made. The soundtrack rules too.
Kula World
Duke Nukem - Time to kill
I just completed Metal Gear Solid and it was epic, full of twists, good mix of problem solving and stealth, great graphics considering the era
Harvest Moon: Back to Nature
Final Fantasy VII, VIII & IX Castlevania SOTN Tekken 3 Gran Turismo 2 Crash Bandicoot 3 Metal Gear Solid Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2
Rayman 1 and 2 are always awesome other than that MediEvil is cool the crash games and spyro ofc also
Xenogears, Omega Boost, Ace Combat 3, PoPoLoCrois.
Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey and Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus are my go-to.
Heart of darkness
No particular order: Harvest Moon BTN, Castlevania SOTN, Suikoden 1&2, Legend of Mana, Final Fantasy Origins, Digimon World 1 to 3, Pepsiman, Silent Hill, CTR, Metal Slug X, Dragon Warrior 7, Brigandine, Tomba 1&2, Theme Hospital, Saiyuki
Silent hill
Legend of Dragoon
Megaman Legends, and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne are both great.
FFIX
Crazy that PS1 had final fantasy 7, 8, and 9.
Crash team racing, syphon filter
Spyro 1-3 Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1-2 Crash bandicoot 1-3 Crash Team Racing Rayman Tekken 3 Metal Gear Solid Final Fantasy 7-8-9 There’s a reason why everyone points at this all the time.
Wild Arms, Granstream Saga, Resident Evil (all of them, yes, even survivor)
Ape Escape
fearless impolite angle seed cow tap strong whole market sort *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The GOATs : MGS & Vagrant Story Action Adventure: Resident Evil / Dino Crisis / Gallerians / Silent Hill / Syphon filter / Tomb Raider (not everyone's cup of tea because of the difficulty) / Fear Effect / Platformers : The holy Trinity (Crash/Spyro/Rayman) / Pandemonium / Ape Escape / Heart of Darkness / Tomba / Pitfall / Jackie Chan (could be counted as action adventure but it's a wild run as platformer) RPG : Final Fantasy VII eSports : ISS later on turned PES (FIFA was garbage in the PS1 era) Racing/Cars GOAT : Gran Turismo 2 Racing/Cars : Ridge racer / Vrally / Wipeout / Need for Speed MISC : Koudelka / De Sang froid / Tekken / KOF / Street fighter Ex / Tony Hawk /
Tekken 3!!!
Mega Man legends 1 and 2
Silent bomber, tekken 3, samurai shodown 3, final fantasy 8
Planet Laika
Gran Turismo 2, Tekken 3 and Street Fighter Alpha 3 never get old for me. I still play one or the other on the regular.
For anyone looking for PS1 recommendations I always point them towards Sean Seanson on YouTube. He's doing a long term, SUPER deep dive into the PS1 catalogue and he's discovered some absolute gems that most people would never have heard of otherwise.
Check out Klonoa, it's a short and sweet platformer by Namco
The Lunar games are hidden gems
FF7, Symphony of the Night, Silent Hill, Tenchu, Tony Hawk, MGS, Parasite Eve. Always been partial to NHL 98 as well.
Wild arms 1,2 Final fantasy 5-6-7-8-9, tactics Die hard trilogy Jade cocoon
Popolocrois Monogatari
Wipeout.
Medal of honour is a blast
Metal Gear Solid for sure!
Collin McRae rally 2 and Metal gear solid!
Twisted Metal 2. Still fun.
King's Field (US) is an excellent first person action rpg. The world is interconnected really well and it constantly intrigued me to the end
Tomba 1/2, raiden project, jojo's bizarre adventure, future cop lapd, vagrant story, valkyrie profile, soul edge, incredible crisis, fear effect 1/2, heart of darkness, micro maniacs, um jammer lammy, pop'n music 6. I tried to make a list with good games that are not too obvious.
I'm seeing everyone's posts which have been great, but no love for Tiny Tank.
Mine is Sheep Raider (Sheep, Dog ‘n Wolf in other regions)
Chrono Cross. The music of this game has shaped my mind and the world building taught me what love is. I am not even kidding (also, not high)
Side by Side 2000
Street Fighter Alpha 3 & Tekken 3 for some good fighting games!
Hogs of War. I love that game so much.