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[Erebus]

I was born in '88, so PlayStation was my first big step into the world of gaming. The first two Sony consoles hold a special place in my heart, filled with countless cherished memories from my childhood and teenage years.

 

[MrSmooth]

Was pure magic back then. Honestly couldn't believe how good it the ps1 was. Truly amazing times. Was actually better with PS2 as that thing was utterly beastly. Alas Sony has lost that altogether now and release by the numbers mid range pc hardware. Need KK back to instill some magic.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

It had the best library.
Sega cultists talking about Panzer Dragoon Saga? I counter with Xenogears.

 

[hinch7]

I've owned every PS system which has garnered some of my best and favorite games over the past few decades (MGS, FFVII/VIII etc). And though its been a rocky few years for them, they've given us a lot of good times and memories. So many great games and franchises that the industry wouldn't be where it is now. At least it would be a lot different.

Hopefully they can go back to making bangers after a hiatus of sorts this gen (thus far).

 

[yogaflame]

Ps1 is OG the goat for me even bigger than Snes for me. From playing final fantasy 7 three times and so touch with Aeriths scene no matter how many times I watch it. To fighting psycho mantis in msg 1 and thinking how to beat him was memorable, MGS story and graphics was the best. The surprise T rex scene in Tomb raider scared me. To Re2 andrenaline rush and so terrified with the attack dogs. And being so engage with the story of Xenogears and its lore. And stuck for many hours playing GT1 just to get the license and new cars. And cools scene and battles in Parasite eve 1 and stuck in many hours collecting weapons. Colony wars, syphon filter,FF8,FF9, etc this era is OG. It was happy times and bonding with my family. So many good memories with Ps1,

 

[Cyborg]

So many hours playing GT2, Tekken 3 or Tomb Raider games back then. And of course FFVIII, i played it endlessly.

PS1 and PS2 have so many good games that i like. Same thing with Sega Genesis.

Add:

I was blown away by Medal of Honor and soldier throwing back granades! haha.

 

[Hookshot]

The Japanese release date is very early, it's nearly a whole year before the UK got the console and almost 2 years before games like Tomb Raider, guess that's why I was already on PC. Although I'm sure some things like Theme Park and Discworld I played on PS.

 

[Judge Magister]

I was blown away by Medal of Honor and soldier throwing back granades! haha.

haha. gameplay full of action and suspense; the epic music; the presentation with those briefings using Nazis footage; really cool stuff!
the first and Underground along with Allied Assault for PC were incredible. i enjoyed Airborne or even MoH 2010 but the series never reached that level of quality again. also Infinity Ward stole the scene with CoD1 and 2.

 

[SHA]

I like how we became attached to the first true 3d console unconditionally, it's like we knew it's special and will stay forever.

 

[SHA]

Ps1 is OG the goat for me even bigger than Snes for me. From playing final fantasy 7 three times and so touch with Aeriths scene no matter how many times I watch it. To fighting psycho mantis in msg 1 and thinking how to beat him was memorable, MGS story and graphics was the best. The surprise T rex scene in Tomb raider scared me. To Re2 andrenaline rush and so terrified with the attack dogs. And being so engage with the story of Xenogears and its lore. And stuck for many hours playing GT1 just to get the license and new cars. And cools scene and battles in Parasite eve 1 and stuck in many hours collecting weapons. Colony wars, syphon filter,FF8,FF9, etc this era is OG. It was happy times and bonding with my family. So many good memories with Ps1,

The psone changed gaming forever.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

It would be great to celebrate with a showcase.

That was the dream. A dream unfulfilled

I miss the short dev cycles more than anything else. Your favourite designers just banging out new titles every year or two...

More fuel for the Nostalgia trip:

Shorter dev cycles for AAA definitely need to come back, so while even though Astro Bot's a (higher-budget) AA game, the timecycle for that title and the quality they got with it gives me hope there's a path to it for most of the industry at large outside of just Nintendo (where even games like TOTK are getting to that 6-year cycle, though that's probably more for polish if anything and reports were saying the game was "technically done" quite earlier on).

Special time. Radically different games on PS1 versus N64.

My first game on it was FF7. It was also my first RPG. The system felt so alien.

Yeah, going from the Genesis to the PS1 felt like entering a whole new world to me at the time. The whole venture from mainly playing 2D games to 3D ones (including going to arcades more with my dad during that time) felt so cool.

The last time I really felt that way was when 360, Wii & PS3 were releasing.

And still works

Keep mine sealed up.
Got the box but it has the accessories in it
Also have a newish hardly used Dualshock, still has that new smell
Although this isn't my original, the original (SCPH-1002)one with all the ports fall to the whole have to turn upside down trick
This is a SCPH-7502
The PS2 fat sits on my bed table and yet again still works but the Clock battery is dead so it doesn't keep the time.
Crazy it doesn't feel like it's 30 years old
The original PS3 fat is the only console I don't still have, it got replaced with the first Slim PS3 and still works

Now that is a beautiful system . Wish I still had mine (same with the Saturn & N64), but they're long gone now.

Unfortunately when I did first get a PS1, it broke in a few months because, well, I was a kid and sucked at using a CD-based console correctly. My fat PS2 died too, but that was because I left it running four days with Burnout 3 to try unlocking all the content, when I probably should've just bought or borrowed a memory card xD.

Meh. I lost all interest in gaming for quite a few years when it was released. Going from beautiful 2D to ugly-ass early low polygon 3D was a huge step down for me and I didn't really get excited for console gaming again until the PS3, with the exception of some GameCube games.

Never liked the PS1, still don't.

Damn bro, you missed out TBH

Parasyte eve is still has one of the most insane openings to a video game ever and one of the best experiences on the ps1 back in the day. I still don't understand why square enix don't remake it and the second one as well. Instant classics for that system.

From what others said, it seems the author who owns the IP was very upset with how Square handled the IP (I would assume with 3rd Birthday), and hasn't wanted to work with the
them since.

So, we can probably blame Square-Enix for that one. Though I hope they can patch things up and get the author's consent for a new Parasite Eve, even if it's a remake of the first game. I'd snatch up a copy or two ASAP.

PS1 is the best Playstation and best console of all time.

It's definitely in the running. To this day though I'm still torn between giving that title to PS1, PS2, or PS3. They all can claim it for a mix of different reasons IMO, but it'd get long-winded to delve into all of that here.

My first games were Megaman X4 and Syphon Filter. I remember waking up on christmas and me and my brothers unwrapped it. Played it well into the PS2 era. So many memorable games. Still have one hooked up to a sony trinitron with a book full of burned games.
I remember this being my jam at the time.

Those lyrics are like candy. Gonna add this to my playlist.

Nice job including Einhander and Galerians. I don't have my PS1 any longer, but I was able to grab a Playstation Classic so I can at least keep the illusion and play everything else via PS2 or PS3 BC. Awesome console and my intro to 3D gaming.

Also, obligatory

Definitely wanted to spotlight some of the more obscure & lesser-known titles for the system with this, and I love both of those games so had to include them. Still quite a lot I missed tho, like Legend of Dragoon, so I'm glad you all are mentioning them in the comments.

I made this video to celebrate the 30th!

Nice, I'll add it to the OP!

Being born in ‘88 the PS1 is a core part of my childhood. Of course I have many memories, but the first is the strongest.

It was the run up to Christmas, and I saw adverts on the telly for Croc 1. I wanted it. It looked amazing. Christmas rolls around, and I remember 2 presents in particular. A small square one, and a large box. Despite the suggestions of the big one first, I opened the small one. It was Croc. Amazing! But I didn’t have a PlayStation. Did my parents not know? Was the bigger present… I had slightly ruined the surprise, but it added to the excitement. I opened the bigger box, almost nervous because I had to find out. There it was. That beautiful grey masterpiece.

That was the beginning of an incredible period of seemingly endless innovation. I was getting the Official magazine and playing the fantastic demo discs, sampling so many games. You just don’t get that these days, and anyone that wasn’t lucky enough to be around won’t appreciate just how much we got to try. A good chunk of my top 10-20 of all time would be PS1 games, with most of the rest being franchises that started on PS1.

As for Croc, I have the remaster wishlisted on GOG. There’s zero chance I’m not getting that day 1, I’m fully embracing the nostalgia with this one.

I’m need to make time to fully absorb and digest the huge OP, but that DnB mix at the bottom is getting and put on my phone ASAP. That reminds me of something not everyone will know:
Cool Borders 2 had two different soundtracks. One was the typical 90s electric guitar shredding, and that’s what NTSC got. But there was also a PAL soundtrack that had a completely different feel to it. Personally I think it fits the game far better. Drum n Bass has a way of being high tempo but calming, and I think that fits a snowboarding game perfectly.

I've been watching a lot of Sean Seanson videos the past few months, and they've shown just how different the OSTs for games between regions back then could get. Even with just NTSC vs PAL and, seemingly when those changes happened, PAL got the better soundtrack of the two.

Then again, I can't say that's surprising. IMMO and as much as I love a lot of '90s music from America, countries like UK, France, Italy etc. just really dominated electronic music that decade, especially for stuff like Jungle & DNB (two of my absolute favorite genres). So a lot of game devs in that area during the PS1 era, seemed to have musicians & music teams that were either heavily inspired by the DnB, Jungle, Speed Garage etc. scenes, or came from those scenes themselves (I know there was a Tekken OST that had featured artists and Lemon D. did a Windermere remix, for example).

And I think a lot of that stuff also influenced many Japanese game composers of the era, you can see the influences with a lot of Namco's games that gen for example. I liked that they managed to also blend those European electronic music influences with the type of sounds Japanese composers had perfected during the Super Famicom/Mega Drive/PC Engine era and arcade games during 4th gen as well, though.

Omega Boost, under rated classic. That intro was corny as hell too. Obviously nowhere near the launch period, but still - Great game. For those of us who were Nintendo and Sega diehards, there was a lot of hesitation with the Sony. I remember thinking there is no way they could succeed and nothing would change. Boy was I wrong.

Yeah Omega Boost is super slept-on and I really wish Polyphony made a sequel to it. Though in a way, I guess the Zone of the Enders games on PS2 are sort of spiritual successors to it.

It's weird how I never really owned a Playstation 1... but I always had access to one. I owned 20+ PS1 games, but never had the system.

I would use to emulate most of them on a Windows 98SE PC using Connectix Virtual game Station. I also had a retail version of Bleem, but I could never get it to work right. I still have Castlevania: SOTN, Ridge Racer Type 4, Wipeout 3, and a few other discs hanging around.

The first game I ever played for the PS1 was Wipeout, and Rayman, two games that I rented from a Hollywood Video with a PS1 unit. Wipeout blew my mind.

Rayman was cool to look at. But I didn't find it to be much better than the 16bit platformers that were available. Still a great game. I have good memories of completing Metal Gear Solid on the PS1, the original Driver, Rage Racer and Ridge Racer type 4, the Wipeout games, Suikoden (borrowed), the Command and Conquer Red Alert games. I put a lot of time into those. Crash Bandicoot. I consider Silent Hill to be one of my favorite games on the console.

I had this poster on my wall when I was a teenager.

[image]

I'm extremely curious how good was PS1 emulation on a Windows 98 SE machine back then. Do you remember your PC's specs? I've always thought that pre-BLEEM that type of emulation would be pretty bad or sketchy with typical specs at the time, so I'm just curious to know how well it worked with your system.

We already have a thread for this.

30 years later, PlayStation has lost its edge

Silent Hill 2 Stellar Blade Astro Wukong Alan Wake 2024 had some great games I don't know why this negativity Those are 3rd-party games except for Astro.

www.neogaf.com

That one's just another pessimistic media piece bringing modern critiques to what should be a celebration of the brand. I'm not saying the points they raise are invalid; they do have valid points. But we already went through that conversation multiple times and even when Astro Bot was releasing.

Some people just want to needlessly harp on the current brand's shortcomings every single time; personally I don't think a 30th anniversary of the brand is the place to do that. I mean, it's like your parents listing all your mistakes at your birthday party. It's a mood-killer.

 

[sachos]

Happy anniversary PS! Here to add to the recommended videos, the Digital Foundry Launch Mega Special

 

[nordique]

1998, year of my first gaming consoles

N64 first with diddy Kong racing
PS1 next the dual shock system with a bugs life and twisted metal 2


I’d say time was split evenly between 2
I’d probably have quit gaming/never cared about video games if I never played ocarina of time and the original metal gear solid

I ended up loving the system - even got a ps one with a screen and tried playing it on road trips

mgs, crash 3, ff7, tm2, Spider-Man were standouts for me at that age

 

[GreatnessRD]

When gaming was actually fun. When the "AAA" had a huge variety. When microtransactions didn't exist. Oh, what a time to be alive.

Happy G day, PS1!

 

[JimmyRustler]

Ok, I’ll celebrate.

 

[Krathoon]

I like how DuckStation has pretty much nailed PlayStation emulation.

 

[Impotaku]

Ps1 was the home of the rhythm game genre it was born on that system how could i not love it. All this time later the PS1 remains my most loved of the playstation family, imported in it's heyday but even back then i never knew certain games even existed till decades later and that's the beauty of it there's still so many hidden titles that even the usual youtubers know nothing about. Although i don't buy huge amounts of PS1 stuff now i still keep adding titles i missed out on. Some i replaced with more pristine copies and some are my originals, glad i got most back in the day as now i'd be priced way out as the prices keep going up.

Recently grabbed a refurb original model as although the psone is a lovely thing it's too tight to change disks you don't get a lot of finger space and i don't like my disks sliding around over the spindle putting them in & taking them out.

One of the many rhythm controllers i have for ps1.

Sadly these got retired when i got my mem card pro but they are way too colourful to sell on so i keep them as extra save data backups

My other psone setup along with the pocketstation, i love that little gizmo i have been trying to grab as many interesting games that use the pocketstation as possible, quite surprising just how many titles supported it.

One of my most cherished games, from the same guy who made LSD but this is WAY rarer, took me a long time to find a new copy as even used ones rarely show up.

And yes it did get opened and played, screw sealed game hoarders

The library of weird & wonderful PS1 stuff i have picked up over the decades

 

[SkylineRKR]

Probably the best console I ever had.

I bought one late 1996. I wanted it for over a year after I saw RR and Tekken on it. And finally that day came. It was unpredecented. I went from Genesis 2D surfaces to the Playstation with games like Destruction Derby 2, Tekken 2 and Ridge Racer. Slowly but surely everyone around bought a Playstation over the 1997 and beyond. So we borrowed and traded a lot of games. The PSX introduced me to many, many genres I still play today. FFVII was my first RPG, and a gateway to a TON of RPG I would play over the years. Its how the genre got on my radar and eventually also dabbled with strategy RPG such as FF Tactics and Front Mission. I would buy Ace Combat 2, which was my first flight combat game. Resident Evil 1 was my first horror game. Tomb Raider, Wipeout, V-Rally.. they were all sort of my first games in their genres. Hell, I bought a lightgun for the first time.. with Time Crisis and later Point Blank and others.

Eventually I would have my system mod chipped, since I was in Euro region. The first game I bought was Tekken 3 US, which was 60hz. And then I sold my European copies of FFVII etc and bought the US versions. Another friend of mine did the same and he came up with CDR of Xenogears, Parasite Eve, FF Tactics etc. I got hooked to all of those. And yeah, I would buy original copies anyway. I wanted the original packages. Actually I sold my collection about 4 years ago. I owned most of those on my PS3 anyway.

Metal Gear Solid was a game changer in terms of cinematic story telling and VA around this time too, and I received 2 little games called Einhander and Bushido Blade 2 which were just out in Japan. I can see why many say 1998 is the best year ever for gaming. N64 and PC got some legendary software in this year, but for me the PS1 sealed it. I have so many memories playing this thing. Like link up Wipeout and GT, or Rival Schools and SFZ3 against friends. Or just spending nights on Xenogears and a dozen of other great RPG because there was no save point in sight for 2 hours. I was about 17 and was still in school, I had so much time to play all this.

As it happens, just yesterday I could finally recover my PS3 account with my ancient email adress and user ID. And I downloaded Xenogears, Vagrant, PE, CC and Dino Crisis 2 among others. I am happy I still have access to these games.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

I remember my first experience with a ps1 was a demo kiosk at toys r us, played toshinden and destruction derby (went in to buy a 32x)

My other big memory is seeing a demo reel of resident evil on a tv when I was with my family in curry’s I think it was, seeing that blew my mind and made me a lover of zombie movies
Also remember my mate having tekken 2 but no memory card so we just left it on for a week or so whilst we unlocked all the characters.

 

[SkylineRKR]

It had the best library.
Sega cultists talking about Panzer Dragoon Saga? I counter with Xenogears.

Yeah I am a Sega fan as well but Saga has nothing on Xenogears.

That game is perhaps the best JRPG of all time. It was a rollercoaster. Extremely long, intruiging, emotional... the game had everything. Me and my friend, who was an RPG nut for a bit longer than I was, considered this the best game of all time back then. We discussed the story, and pretty much everything. He was crazy for Macross and Evangelion, and he pretty much fainted when I borrowed him this game.

The game deals with facism, racism, religion in a way no other did afaik. Its story is too big to explain in a few words. So big, that disc 2 was clearly rushed out. But I didn't care. By that point I was approaching 80 hours and kind of ready for it to end. I kind of liked how it started to wrap things up. Its an epic journey every RPG fan should play. And its in dire need of a remaster.

 

[PhillyPhreak11]

I liked the original PS but didn't own one. My preference back when I was a kid was Nintendo, so I played primarily on N64. I do, however, have fond memories playing the original GTA, Twisted Metal, THQ wrestling games, Crash Bandicoot, Legend of Dragoon, and Vagrant Stories. Great little system.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

You know I almost forgot just how satisfying popping the top of the PS1 disc tray was. The open button was perfection, especially when you were working it out with Monster Rancher. Awesome concept.

 

[King Dazzar]

Remember Destruction Derby?

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

Remember Destruction Derby?

Master piece. Wreckfest is the worthy successor of this franchise.

 

[SportsFan581]

Incredible machine for its time. RE, TR, Crash, so many classics.

My favorites were some of the more obscure titles like 2Xtreme and the Die Hard games. Unbelievable that it has been 30 years.