I just recently talked about my memories of the Demo 1 demo disc that came with my PlayStation when I got it for my birthday in November of 1995. I loved that machine and for years it pretty much ruled my life! The PlayStation had an epic library and a very interesting one too. Interesting because it was so varied that very few people’s top 5 PlayStation 1 games lists will be the same.
Well, this is my top 5 PlayStation 1 games list! These are the games that always spring to mind when I think of the original PlayStation. It was hard to narrow it down, but these are my picks. I would love to know what your top five PS1 games are so be sure to leave them in the comments section.
Number 5
WWF Smackdown 2: Know Your Role
I have been a wrestling fan since 1989 and to this day I still watch it every week. The PlayStation had some great wrestling games, but it is the last one, WWF Smackdown 2: Know Your Role that props up my list. The amount of stuff that was put into this game over its predecessor is insane. It is also kind of insane that THQ had the balls to release a sequel less than a year later, but that is just how popular the WWF was in 2000. This is a more arcade fast paced style of wrestling game and it is a game I can still have a great deal of fun with to this day.
Number 4
Die Hard Trilogy
I got Die Hard Trilogy for Christmas in 1996 and I played the hell out of it all day! This was three games in one. You had a 3rd person action game with Die Hard. An on-rails light gun shooter (that caused me to actually get a light gun for my PlayStation) was the style for Die Hard 2, this was by far my favorite of the three. And Die Hard With A Vengeance was a driving game. All three were good in their own right and captured the style of the movies really well. Even now, I will fire this up and play through Die Hard 2 and have a great time doing so. To be honest the unnecessary sequel that came out a little while later is not a terrible game either.
Number 3
Final Fantasy VII
The hype for Final Fantasy VII was unreal! I had never played a Final Fantasy game before this, but the insane marketing push from Sony sure as hell worked on me. This was one of the first RPGs I played and it was a gift that I got for Christmas in 1997. I had the whole Christmas break to play this and I loved every moment of it. At the time, this was the most epic story that I had ever experienced in a video game. I got addicted to grinding so I could be super strong and like most other people, I was devastated when Aerith was killed! While I think the remake is vastly superior, I still love the blocky original!
Number 2
Street Fighter Alpha 3
I played all three of the Street Fighter Alpha games to death on the original PlayStation, but Street Fighter Alpha 3 is my favorite. This is one of my favorite fighting games of all time! It has a massive roster of characters, and a solid amount of game modes and it looks amazing too. The gameplay is just so much fun and while I played a lot of Street Fighter on the Super Nintendo, it was the Alpha series where I really started to get serious about it. Even now, I consider this to be the best Street Fighter game of all time. I did get this for the Dreamcast a few years later, but for whatever reason, the Dreamcast version did not click with me as the PS1 version did.
Number 1
Dino Crisis 2
Let me start by saying that Capcom needs to bring Dino Crisis back! I bought an original Xbox mainly for Dino Crisis 3 that is how much I loved this game. Dino Crisis 2 ditched the survival horror approach of the original Dino Crisis and instead was pure action. It had an awesome combo system where you got more points for killing more dinosaurs that allowed you to buy cool upgrades and weapons. The game was just a ton of fun to play and I have probably played through this 20 times since it was released all the way back in 2000, this even still has my favorite underwater section in a video game! I also love the cheesy sci-fi story and at the time I played this, the cut scenes were some of the best that I have ever seen.
So those are my top 5 PlayStation 1 games and I am sure there are a couple of surprises on there. Be sure to leave your own one, but try and put them in order as that is where the challenge of doing a list like this is!