PS2 games worth playing

[Clockwork Knight]

Did someone mention Bully already? Kinda on the easy side, but very fun. Beating up first-graders and then running from the enraged inspectors never gets old.

Soul Nomad: the World Eaters is from the Disgaea team, and also fun. From what I played of both, SN is somewhat more serious and less grindy, with an emphasis on squads instead of individual units.

-Steambot Chronicles (weird game, but some people really like it, I have a thing for mentioning obscure titles)

I'm playing it now, good fun . The control scheme is weird but you get used to it. There is always something to do, even playing instruments on a street corner to earn cash or playing pool (sometimes I just hang out in the pub instead of progressing the story). The game isn't very hard, the title screen even makes a point of telling you that ("A relaxing adventure!")

You can extort a nun and threaten to throw her out of your house, which she turned into an orphanage while it was abandoned, unless they start to pay you the outrageous rent (you set the value)

Spoiler

except the house isn't yours

Codexian guessing here

I'll also suggest the two games I always mention.

S.L.A.I. - Steel Lancer Arena International (robot fights)

Colosseum: Road to Freedom (somewhat realistic gladiatior fights)

 

[Apollion]

Yeah, despite it somewhat cutesy platform, the game held suprising depth.

I also really liked Colosseum: Road to Freedom, haven't played it in an eternity, but I have recently played the sequal/reamke on the PSP, which is equally fun. I'd deffinately recommend you try Shadow of Rome if you haven't played it, alongside the gladatorial combat (which is far bloodier and more arcady than in road to freedom) there are some really fun "stealth" portions, which are in thesmselves like an entirely different game. Also Gladius (which as I said is a personal favorite), is a great tactical rpg, essentially a Final Fantasy Tactics in a fantasy Rome setting.

 

[Damned Registrations]

SLAI is indeed fun. Though it didn't turn out to be quite the phantom crash sequel I'd hoped for. Wish it had done better so another had been made.

 

[treave]

-Steambot Chronicles (weird game, but some people really like it, I have a thing for mentioning obscure titles)

I'm playing it now, good fun . The control scheme is weird but you get used to it. There is always something to do, even playing instruments on a street corner to earn cash or playing pool (sometimes I just hang out in the pub instead of progressing the story). The game isn't very hard, the title screen even makes a point of telling you that ("A relaxing adventure!")

And you actually get to be the villain.

 

[Jaesun]

-Shadow of Rome (this game is so overlooked, must play title)

Why?

-Gladius (my favorite PS2 game, great overlooked tactical rpg)

Oh fuck yes. I so fucking LOVED that game. Very cool turn based (fights between 2 players) combat. Very enjoyable. Sadly the sales never warranted a second game.. ;_;

 

[Apollion]

-Shadow of Rome (this game is so overlooked, must play title)

Why?

-Gladius (my favorite PS2 game, great overlooked tactical rpg)

Oh fuck yes. I so fucking LOVED that game. Very cool turn based (fights between 2 players) combat. Very enjoyable. Sadly the sales never warranted a second game.. ;_;

I would kill for a PC based sequal, just think what they could build upon, it was admittedly unpolished, but I still to this day don't understand why it didn't fair better.

Edit: Shadow of Rome can be essentially summed up as such.

-Bloody fast paced combat with a feature which rewards you for making particularly bloody and unique kills
-Cool aesthetics
-Decent plot with tons of backstabbing and intrique, its almost like playing the movie Gladiator
-Stealth sections which make for a nice break in the combat sections, keeping them fresh
-Tons of collectibles, and other such rewards for playing well, trying for a gold trophy in each round of the arena is difficult as you have to achieve a high enough "Salvo" score, often enough achieving such a score takes a bit of skill, as some of the salvo techniques are hard to pull off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mxg7Hn8 ... re=related

Here's some gameplay footage, he's not particularly good, but what he is doing is get a high salvo score. In this battle If I remmember correctly one of the salvo requires that you get the boss to knock down a pillar by kicking a stone at it or some such, so it's hack n slash with a touch of complexity.

 

[TripJack]

pretty much everything i know of has been mentioned

Red Faction and RE4 are decent ones that haven't though

 

[Teepo]

More. I want more PS2 game recommendations.


Look what I found. K-1 Kickboxing PS2 game and UFC Ps2 game.

http://snesorama.us/board/showthread.php?t=42440

This one seems to be the most advanced and recent of teh UFC fighting games.

http://snesorama.us/board/showthread.php?t=55136

k-1. This looks like it could be really good. K-1 kickboxing is my favorite boxing company. So good. Also the Pride game has a good fighting engine just no god damn career\story mode.

 

[Dr.Faust]

Shinobido: Way of the Ninja
If you liked the Tenchu games you'll like this. Haven't seen it get much attention anywhere, but it was an okay game in my opinion. There's also some Way of the Samurai-esque C&C regarding who you serve.

The Bouncer
A pretty good beat 'em up. Woudln't really recommend to anyone but people who are fans of the genre, though. The real hook for me in this one was the ability to play nearly every character in the multiplayer. They all have their own movesets which provided many hours of awesome fights. Nowadays I doubt many people have friends who'd be willing to play the offline multiplayer of an old ass beat 'em up with them.

Dark Cloud
A dungeon crawler with a pretty fun town building minigame added on the side. Multiple hours of jap RPG goodness.

Rygar: The Legendary Adventure
An "update" of the arcade Rygar. Doesn't play anything like the arcade game. It's more like a Onimusha/God of War type of game.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The K1 game is good, but somewhat simplistic (either that or there were special moves we didn't know how to execute). I'm not sure how it is in single player, but it's a blast if you have some bros and organize a little tournament.

 

[Apollion]

Here's some more. I'd go into more depth in explaining them but it would take forever and no one likes walls of text. Youtube broskis.

.hack series
.hack//GU series (played the first, never played any of the above, it was pretty crappy)
Chulip (looks quite weird, the goal of the game is to kiss everyone apparantly, but if its weird in an Earthbound sort of way it might be a decent title)
Ephemereal Phantasia (I remmember playing this thing YEARS ago and thinking it was a mess mechanically, but had some very good ideas, typical jrpg with a weird time loop setting in which you repeat the same day/week/whatever repreatedly and accomplish things bit by bit)
Evergrace & Forever Kingdom (decent action rpgs)
Growlanser Generations (I remmember being really annoyed by the feminine characters, especially their voices, but the gameplay reminded me of Arc the Lad, which I love)
King's Field: Ancient City
Magic Pengel (addictive game where you draw you're monster dude and have him battle other freakish doodles)
Mark of Kri, Rise of the Katai (simplistic action games, I bought them at gamestop for 99 cents each)
Metal Saga (try out the translated Metal Max game for the SNES on emulator first, these games are an aquired taste)
Monster Rancher 4 (this is iffy, the best in the series is MR2)
Persona 3 & 4 (I can't stand these games, but they're popular)
Primal (never played, very cheap at gamestop)
Ring of Red (never played)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms & Nobunaga's Ambition Iron Triange (koei strategy games rock, VIII and X are my favorites)
Samurai Western (apparantly a more arcady version of Way of the Samurai, made by the same guys)
Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land (I played this a long time ago and loved it, never have found a copy of it since though)
Yakuza series

Also here's a nice website for "overlooked" gems.

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sony/ps2 ... -ps2-games

 

[Teepo]

Way of the Samurai 2 is really cool it's just that it's really short. Too short. I'm staying out of the way of Tenchu because I suck at stealth games.

I remember Rygar. He has this shield with blades. Yeah. Recomendable? As in it is better then God of War?

I might load up Onimusha again. Either those games were hard or I sucked really bad.

 

[Teepo]

Ah yes, Monster Rancher 4. thanks for remind me. Was playing Monster Rancher 1 a lot before I upgraded my comp.

 

[kaizoku]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

For any future posters (or even the previous ones that can bother editing their posts) I would ask to refrain from posting games that fit in the "ehh... it was ok I guess" category.
There is just too much crap out there and I would just like to filter it. I'm not looking for the "play it if you're bored" type of thing. More like the "you must play this fucking game!".
Did it cause the "holy fuck! this game is awesome!" or the "ok just 5 more minutes.... [3 hours latter...] 5am! fuuuuuu!" or even a simple "heheh... this is so fucking fun" feelings, then it's worth it.
Yeah... I know... the decline... the console papamole... and all that.
But if you could travel back in time and tell your older self which games you should play, would you include it in your list?


@lightbane, could you comment on those games? Even a one liner is better than no description.




On another note, I found this http://vsrecommendedgames.wikia.com/wiki/Playstation_2
Maybe someone spots a lost gem there.

 

[ghostdog]

The ones I've played and liked :

Shadow of the colossus
Shadow Hearts 1
Shin megami tensei: Nocturne
SMT - Persona 4
Dragon Quest V

Xenogears

So is it better than Xenosaga ? Because Xenosaga was supposed to be "a really great game with deep storyline" and its story was full of juvenile moronity with all the worst anime cliches clamped together, while the combat was so ridiculously easy that it bore you to death. It's like someone thought: let's take FFVII and ,like, make the story even more "deep", dude... and like put mechas in there too, and like triple the amount of cutscenes, and make it much more railroaded, yeah, and put in as much dialog as PST but with writing so bad that your eyes will bleed out... and, like, make it really easy because we suck at gameplay balance.





Also, what was the name of that completely weird and crazy game where you played the role of a police officer investigating some murders in a rural town, or something, and it was like a combination of Japanese filtered Twin peaks and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace ?

 

[kaizoku]

For those getting ICO, get the PAL version if you can. It has a few more extras/improvements added to it.

I would also like to know if there are any other games (mentioned here) that have differences in content.


ghostdog, just guessing here but is this the one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_destiny

 

[Renegen]

Xenogears is a million times better than Xenosaga, well I haven't played episode 3 yet.

 

[ghostdog]

ghostdog, just guessing here but is this the one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_destiny

Nope, but you just reminded me that shadow of destiny is a damn good game and it's worth mentioning here, although it has a PC port which is probably better (I've only played the PC port).



Wait I just found it, the game I was thinking of is Deadly Premonition and apparently it's for the xbox and PS3, not the PS2. It's just that the graphics look like they are from the PS2 era, but the game seems rather interesting.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Xenogears/Xenoasaga can be thought of like Diablo 1/2. The original did a much much better job of maintaining appropriate atmosphere. Xenosaga feels too fake, like everything is made of plastic. Environments are too bright and shiny, characters too colourful and upbeat, etc. Made it impossible to give a fuck about the story, it feels like you're in a theme park 24/7. Which is a shame, because they obviously put a lot of work into the story, the in game encyclopedia thing was pretty awesome. Xenogears, on the other hand, always felt like the you couldn't find enough of the story and were chasing after tiny scraps of what was going on, but there was a consistent sinister atmosphere and feeling of struggle that fit what story there was like a glove.

 

[Fat Dragon]

If you haven't already, check out GUN, a really cool western sandbox shooter with kickass gunplay and an interesting story, and the missions and side-quests are all pretty varied. It was kind of a precursor of Red Dead Redemption, very underrated game.

 

[KalosKagathos]

Shadow Hearts: From the New World deserves way more love than it gets. Not only is it far superior game mechanically than 2 (the combo system is powered by its own meter rather than sanity points, making it a tool you must use sparingly and not a source of free extra damage), it also has the best RPG party since Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. We have:

1. Some kid who wants to be a detective. Just ignore this guy.
2. A hot American Indian shapeshifter who strips down to her underwear whenever she transforms.
3. Her bodyguard who developed his own fighting style that revolves around firing two guns at point blank range.
4. This is where things get trippy. A Polish immigrant who mastered the arts of Ninjutsu in the jungles of Brazil.
5. A vampire who thinks she's a magical girl and has messed up metabolism that causes her to change her body type depending on what/who she eats. It's actually a gameplay mechanic.
6. An anthropomorphic cat that practices drunken boxing and works for Al Capone.
7. A mariachi who carries a huge arsenal inside his guitar.



The world needs more games like this.

http://i.imgur.com/qirdv.jpg

Am I the only one who thinks Karin looks much better in her uniform?

 

[laclongquan]

Stylishier, true. But the other outfit look sexier.

 

[lightbane]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

@lightbane, could you comment on those games? Even a one liner is better than no description.

Sure.



Jak and Daxter series: The best platforming games for the PS2 (Ratchet can go to hell).


Front Mission 4 & 5: Strategic rpgs, kind of like Final Fantasy Tactics but with giant robots, quite cool (althought the 5th game requires you to play the previous titles to understand everything).


Steambot chronicles: Open-ended action-adventure game, you go with a fully customizable giant robot called Trotmobile. There are many, many sidequests, multiple endings and true Choices & Consequences. Unfortunately, it cannot be considered a RPG because it's a japanese game so according to the Codex it's automatically shit (besides, there are optional romances but no sex scenes).


Drakengard 1: Dinasty Warriors with a dragon that's yours to command. It seems the game exists only to utterly destroy and deconstruct all of jprgs' cliches: The main character is mute due a powerful curse (not because the writers are lazy), the main character is also a remorseless mass-murderer that would kill kids to accomplish his goals, your companions vary from a blind pedophile, a crazy cannibalistic elf that eats children, a bald racist, and lastly but not least a kid that cannot age (who's probably the worst of them). There are many endings, each one more and more fucked up than the previous one.


Radiata Stories: Strange jrpg where all npcs follow a schedule and real-time battles. You can recruit a lot of characters to accompany you on your travels (assuming you complete their sidequests). Also, later on you can choose between two different factions that will change the endgame. It may look cute and childish but it's pretty grim.


Beyond Good and Evil: Zelda-style game, made by Ubisoft before they sucked. Quite good but short, it's also available for PC.


Blood will Tell: Onimusha on steroids (with less suck and more EXTREME boss battles). Based on a manga done by Osamu Tezuka. Opening here.


Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter: A strange roguelike game. The game has a time limit and is hard.


Ring of Red: Yet another SRPG with mechs, similar to Front Mission but a different style. Quite hard and slow to play, I recommend you to use a emulator with a turbo function.


Maximo: Ghosts and Goblins in 3D. As you may expect, it's very difficult.


The Punisher: a 3rd person action game (back when they were good), where you play as the goddamn Punisher and kill criminals in extremely gruesome ways (some examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2yW189ZuUc)


The Sword of Etheria: A weird action game with an unique gimmick to battles. May be worth taking a look.


SkyGunner: An uber-obscure game where you pilot fictional light aircrafts and blow shit up. Reminds me of Porco Rosso, a film that was awesome (opening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjo-9a9KLQ8)


I had more games and rpgs to recommend but they've been already mentioned.

 

[WalmartJesus]

The gameplay is pretty mediocre when you aren't on a dragon, but the plot is so deliciously fucked up and worth experiencing. A wiki summary doesn't do it justice. If I ever finally finish abandon A Fistful of Collars, that would be one of two games I would love to LP.

Drakengard had a great dark fantasy setting/story that kept me intrigued during my whole play-through unlike Generic Age 1&2.

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Soul Nomad: the World Eaters is from the Disgaea team, and also fun. From what I played of both, SN is somewhat more serious and less grindy, with an emphasis on squads instead of individual units.

Well I tried it and it's way too easy also there is some questionable game design involved. I'm aware that almost all japanese games like this are very easy to beat (you just need to have enough willpower to sit through dialogue) since they let you grind all challenge out of the game but that's not the case here, I HATE GRINDING. I haven't finished game yet (and don't know if I will) but so far it's a walk through the park. I was using only 1 squad because there was absolutely no need for anything else, fuck you don't even want to use more squads since you can recruit new units up to the level of your main character, so everything else is useless trash that can be easily replaced with better stuff, why would you waste XP on trash you don't need in the first place? (money is not an issue too, I'm fucking swimming in money and if for some reason I actually wanted even more then there is nothing stopping me from grinding it out)

Seriously this could be really nice strategy but instead it's a game about single "death star" squad annihilating crap outta everything, well developers saw this so they added stamina system into the game but it simply doesn't fix the problem, also it's funny how with one hand they try to stop you from using single squad and with the other they hand you over dirt cheap consumable that let's you circumvent just that, though I guess I used it only once because there was no need anyway ... To make you realize just how easy it is - I could easily have 6+ more squads with fairly comparable firepower. My guess is that devs simply balanced it for people playing it the "right way" (I still think it would be too easy even if you'd handicap yourself) but then why would they allow such obvious way to break system?

To not be so negative it actually is pretty fun otherwise. Man it would be really nice with some FFT 1.3 kinda mod.

Ps. How is Makai Kingdom?