A Look At EVERY Namco PS1 Game | Sean Seanson

thank you [Music] hi everybody generic Irish PlayStation man here back again with another very long video where we take a look at a whole lot of games last time we took a journey through the roster of games brought to the PlayStation courtesy of legendary UK publishing and development house cygnosis a journey full of fun games great music big owls and of course a line named Brian this time however I'd like to bring things over to Sony's home country of Japan and highlight the works of a company that was arguably the single most important partner Sony would make during the PlayStation's life cycle now most will know this company for their legendary output during the Golden Age of arcade gaming introducing us to some of the most iconic and influential characters in video game history others might know them as the company responsible for muscle March the single greatest we wear game of all time okay maybe maybe that's just me of course we're talking about Namco Sony's partner in crime during the early days of the fifth generation of consoles and the company that more or less gave them a leg up to get into the very crowded Home console Market you see at the time Sony and namco's biggest competition was Sega Sega dominated the arcades during the early 90s wearing audiences with Incredible polygonal titles like virtual fighter and Daytona USA and with sega's new Home console on the horizon promising to bring the arcade experience right there into your home well things were looking pretty good for sega's future so if the inexperienced Sony wanted to challenge Sega in the crowded Home console Market day two needed big games that brought the arcade experience into your home and the obvious choice to partner with was Namco who themselves were breaking into the exciting world of treaty and fighting Sega head-on in the coin op World they probably didn't know it at the time but this collaboration between Sony and Namco would be one of the most important decisions the two companies would ever make and in many ways shape the future of bow organizations right up until this very day so of course keeping all that in mind I thought it would be fun to run through the entire catalog of games Namco would bring to the original PlayStation the games that launched the console the games that cemented its place in gaming history and although weird stuff that I prepped up in between we're gonna take a look at every single one so sit back relax and make yourself comfy because we're taking a journey all the way back to December 1994 where the future of Computer Entertainment was about to change forever and it starts right now foreign I just like to preface this video by stating the goal here is to Simply take a brief look at every game Namco was involved with on the original PlayStation in order of release now there are some true Landmark titles in this collection that you could easily spend an hour or two highlighting for a critical and analytical Deep dive but really the aim here is just to take you on a journey through the works of Namco on the console showcasing some iconic and belowed favorites that I'm sure all very familiar with while also shining a spotlight on some of the Lesser known works that may have passed you by over the years for one reason or another now in regards to the total number of games Namco were involved with on the console well as usual finding a complete de facto list on the internet uh not that simple unfortunately in this case it's mostly thanks to there being a number of titles exclusive to certain parts of the world I needed to dig deep and pull data from a wide variety of sources to build today's list and while I'm not 100 sure it's completely accurate I am 99.9 sure and hey that's good enough for me plus I promise you if I did miss anything somebody in the comments will have let me know within a few minutes of this video launching so feel free to check there when you're done to find out anyway buy my calculations we have a grand total of 60 games to get through today now that may seem like a lot of games on it most certainly is but for some reason I kind of thought that there would be more oh well this video is probably long enough as it is so yeah let's just consider this a blessing for both of us also just for clarity we will be going in order of when the game's first release so in most cases we will be adhering to the Japanese launch date outside of the odd few that did happen to launch in the west first also version wise we're gonna opt for the North American versions of these games whenever possible followed by pal versions in the cases where the games were pal exclusives in the west and finally Japanese versions whenever Namco decided to keep cool games exclusive to their home country so let's not wait waste any more time we've got a lot to cover and what better place to start than at the very beginning when not only namco's first PlayStation game but the very first PlayStation game it's Ridge Racer Ridge Racer remember that one so of course we're gonna be kicking things off today with the granddaddy of all PlayStation games the original Ridge Racer the console's premiere launch title across pretty much every region and of course even though this wasn't the only game that came out during the console's Japanese launch in December 94. this is still technically the very first PlayStation game since its serial number is slps 00001 so it truly is the Smitty worben Jager man Jensen oh PlayStation game he was number one now what can be said about Ridge Racer that hasn't already been set to death this port of namco's 1993 arcade classic had a very very important job to do it had to convince people the PlayStation was the real deal and despite the games let's just say Charming look by today's standards put yourself back into the shoes of a gamer in 1994 and well this right here was absolutely mind-blowing I guess the best way to put it into perspective is that Donkey Kong Country came out about a month before Ridge Racer and people's minds were already blown by how good Donkey Kong Country looked Ridge Racer was quite literally A Step Beyond anything we had seen on a console before now that's not to say it was all down to Graphics there were definitely some eye-catching Racers that made their way to the likes of the treaty oh and even the Super Nintendo and mega drawer to a degree but Rich racer not only looked A Cut Above everything that came before it it also ran amazingly too something these other games couldn't do was hit the magical 30 FPS limit for gameplay and this right here was quite literally a game changer now of course little old Ridge Racer wasn't an arcade perfect Port featuring a number of downgrades from the original system 22 version to cater to the PlayStation Hardware but the fact it still manages to nail the look and feel of the arcade original while bringing that experience into your home it was absolutely crazy a genuine moment where you felt like gaming was going to change forever and yeah it most certainly did now if we're gonna talk about the game itself Ridge Racer is still a blast to play even today one of the purest arcade racing experiences you can find on the console bright colors overly hyped announcers checkpoints are plenty and cars that occasionally break the laws of physics it has it all Ridge Racer games from day one placed an emphasis on managing Corners at high speeds through a mixture of carefully breaking and most notably a drift mechanic which would end up being the series defining gameplay feature throughout its history now I've always been a bit hit or miss with the drifting and older Ridge Racer games sometimes I can pull it off and look like a pro sometimes I'll completely botch it and as a result completely botched the race in process it's definitely a bit trickier compared to what we'd see in later entries but it still feels great to pull off successfully and adds a nice bit of depth to the games otherwise relatively simple gameplay they are probably the biggest critique of the game nowadays is The Game's notable lack of content and by that I mean the game features just four cars on a single race track that split into two different courses the second of which still uses half of the first course anyway now on one hand yes that does seem kinda lacking nowadays but to its credit Ridge Racer still has plenty to keep you busy mastering the gameplay to beat the higher rank races will take some practice and persistence but doing so will reward you with even tougher reverse versions of the tracks time trial mode and some secret cars as well also now would probably be a good time to highlight the introduction of namco's patented load screen minigames where you get to briefly play fun cut down versions of some Namco RK classic while the game boots up in this case it's the Golden Age classic 1979 galaxian now rest assured we're gonna see a few more of these mini games down the line not to mention classic arcade games as well but for now if you manage to clear the entire wave of enemies during this loading minigame you get rewarded Within additional eight cars to race with more than doubling the game's starting roster from 4 to 12 you'll love to see it we also need to take a moment to talk about the music here as well now you can make an argument that the single two most important things in any Ridge Racer game is the racing and the music on the original Ridge Racer has maybe one of the funnest soundtracks in any video game sure if one might seem like a weird way to describe a game's soundtrack but Ridge Racer manages to have music that simultaneously adds funny as it is groundbreaking combining elements of popular dance music with this almost cocky and bombastic sample heavy style it not only sounds great but also uniquely Ridge Racer as well get my life [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] also I think this might be the first game to bring gabber to the masses which in itself is really funny to hear in a video game [Music] yeah it's a new record [Music] you know you can probably thank Ridge Racer for giving us that gabber track in the Disney DDR game and no I'm not making that up that is a real thing now if for some reason you don't like the Ridge Racer soundtrack or you just want to play Daytona music over the game which is also kind of phone I'm not gonna lie fret knock because you can also pop a CD into the game while it's running and ruin your music from that this is thanks to Ridge Racer being so small that the entire game gets loaded into the PlayStation's Ram once booted so you can race your heart out to Shania Twain's Greatest Hits if you like ain't nobody gonna stop you well that's about it for the original Ridge Racer now we probably spend a bit longer looking at this game than we should have I mean you do have 59 more games to go so you know God help me but I think if any game deserves it it's probably this one it's arguably the game that legitimize the PlayStation across the globe and in what was a very crowded market during the mid 90s Sony really needed that one big game to make it stand out from day one now of course other games down the line would be what solidified Sony as a big player in the video game industry but in 1994 at least nothing on Console was turning heads quiet like Ridge Racer a bridge racer we have our first game of 1995 and that's cyber sled a 1v1 vehicular car mat game that is also a part of a game originally released in arcades in 1993. now this too was meant to be a launch game for the console but got pushed back about a month later to January of 95. cyber sled is a game that I have a lot of love for well the arcade version that is there used to be a two-player unit set up in my local leisureplex which I guess would be the Irish equivalent of a Chuck E cheese basically a bowling alley with laser tag and arcade games the game used a twin stick setup similar to games like virtual on and the goal was to Pilot your vehicle around an arena and take out your opponent in 1v1 fights the combat is relatively simple featuring just two attack buttons one for machine guns and another for missiles which you pick up around the map the game also notably used unshaded polygons as well which certainly wasn't uncommon for the time but it is a look that I think helped make it stand out a bit more nowadays anyway the PS1 Port of this game is pretty much exactly done a PS1 Port of cyber sled for better and For Worse the gameplay remains more or less entirely unchanged and sees you running through a series of 1v1 fights against your opponents until you eventually beat them all and start all over again of course the major difference beyond the requisite PS1 downgrade and performance is the lack of twin sticks to control your vehicle now to namco's credit controlling the game using a PS1 pad actually pretty good all things considered it's just a shame that to my knowledge the game doesn't support the PS1 analog controller which would have definitely been the ideal way to play this thing now of course seeing as this is a Home Port there are a few console exclusives here as well most notably a bunch of extra characters who aren't playable in the arcade version one of which is a big robot crab which let's be fair we love to see also the game Now features a toggle to swap between a real and original Graphics mode real of course meaning they now added some textures to the environment and gave the vehicles cool logos and decals so it's a nice little bonus plus there are now phone cut scenes before each battle too which I always appreciate now truthfully while this game is some nice simple arcade phone its lack of content is even more pronounced than Ridge Racer and unfortunately while Ridge Racer can make up for this with almost infinite replayability and a high skill ceiling unless you really want to do things out with a friend in two-player mode you'll have seen and done pretty much everything this game has to offer in about an hour cyber sled is a fun game but it's one that I can't really recommend unless you're looking to relive some old arcade Nostalgia or if you want to fight people in a big robot crab I suppose [Music] up next we have starblade Alpha another arcade Port would you believe but this time a very different kind of arcade game cause it's FMV time baby yes even Namco wasn't immune to the Allure of FMV gaming back in the 90s but unlike many of the console games we'd see fail to sway the masses on the likes of the Sega CD and treatio Namco was actually wowing audiences with tech away from the home in arcades where these games were treated almost like interactive theme park rides rather than just standing up and playing on a basic arcade cob you were sitting down with your friends in elaborately designed cockpits lights flashing speakers all around you FMV gameplay blowing your mind this was the future right here of course this FMV stuff didn't exactly pan out in the transition over to the Home Market but boy they certainly did try now starblade here originally launched in arcades in 1991 as a follow-up to another game which spoiler we will be looking at shortly starblade is your standard FMV rail shooter in space where you shoot some simple polygonal enemies who pop up over some video playing in the background now the game did originally get brought to home consoles such as the Sega CD and 3DO which In fairness to the Sega CD version at least is one of the best looking FMV games on the platform in my opinion and the 3DO version is not too shabby either featuring some texture mapping in the FMV to up the graphical Fidelity somewhat but a little while later in 95 an enhanced version of starblade made its way to the PlayStation called starblade Alpha and well here we are now I say enhanced but truthfully starblade Alpha is in some ways better but also way worse than both the 91 arcade original and even some of the earlier console ports that came before it now what this version does feature is both the option to play in the original and updated graphical styles with the updated version now also featuring texture mapped enemy units alongside the texture mapped FMV although notably the video compression in this PS1 version is really bad coming out even worse than the 3DO version not to mention they also managed to botch the controls giving us a loose jittery cursor that just doesn't feel good to aim with and since the core of the gameplay is pretty much just you know aiming at still for the cursor well that's no good now this probably could be alleviated if the game had mouse support but alas the game is d-pad only so tough look now you may wonder how the game ended up like this and the simple answer is Namco farmed out the port to an external studio called high-tech lab Japan rather than handle it internally this actually ended up really upsetting the original Dev team who weren't consulted at all during its creation and wealth considering how the PS1 version ended up can you really blame them now personally even if you were to set aside the port issues star blade isn't just an FMV rail shooter it was an old FMV rail shooter not only is it very basic on a gameplay level and has little to no in-game music it also lacks a lot of visual variety and can be beaten in just under 20 minutes too so even if the gameplay was perfect it would still be a tough sell to most in 95 let alone here now in 2022 but hey if you really gotta play Star blade you can unlock the arcade original in Tekken 5 which is a nice little feature and I suppose since we are talking about Tekken another landmark series for the PlayStation and for Namco themselves the original Tekken arrived on the PlayStation in March of 1995 just a few months after the game first appeared in arcades around the globe Tekken was a very important title in the gaming landscape at the time because fighting games both in the arcade and a home were really all the rage titles like Killer Instinct Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter ruled the ruse for a time but sega's Virtual Fighter really took things to a whole other level bringing the fighting genre into the Realms of 3D Not only was it one of the most popular and profitable arcade games across the globe but it was also the flagship title Sega was using to promote their new flagship console the Saturn and it was no doubt gonna be a huge system seller so seeing the success of Virtua Fighter Namco and Sony no doubt needed something comparable to compete with virtual fighter and the result was Tekken a game that also happened to be directed by the same designer who created Virtual Fighter now one of the most important choices when it came to creating Tekken was the decision to build the game around the new arcade board called the Namco system 11. this board was a result of a meeting between Namco and Sony Computer Entertainment who after discussing the PlayStation's preliminary specs decided to build an arcade board based around the PlayStation's architecture and while this meant the game's build for this board would be less technically impressive than the likes of sega's competing model 2 boards it meant Namco could create games for the arcade that could very easily be poured over to the PlayStation to create near arcade perfect ports and the lower cost of the board made it an appealing budget option the stock in both bigger on smaller scale arcades now this in itself was a very clever move for a couple of reasons but I think the biggest success of this arcade board ended up being for Sony because the PlayStation very early on got these impressive unpolished versions of two big Arcade Hits Tekken and of course Ridge Racer the Saturn on the other hand it's 2 two big first party titles were virtual fighter and the soon to be released Home Port of Daytona USA on these ports did not turn out well while both games generally played okay they were very poorly optimized and did not really show the Saturn in a very good light when compared to what the PlayStation was outputting now this didn't play a huge factor into the Saturn's overall success in Japan but over here in the west it most certainly did so while little old Ridge Racer and Tekken may seem rather unassuming nowadays with their Charming early treaty Graphics these games had a big impact that possibly changed the course of gaming history forever anyway here's the PS1 Port of Tekken and good news it's pretty great Tekken is very much from the school of early treaty Fighters where you could tell developers were still figuring out how to finesse the art of brawling in 3D but Tekken definitely made some big strides in that regards too Tekken here opted for a more fleshed out four button combat system giving you individual inputs for both your arm arms and legs giving you a much larger set of moves and plenty of fun opportunities for Combos and juggles and plenty of trolls too it's definitely a lot stiffer than some of the later entries which would improve the flow and feel of the combat immensely but it's still surprisingly playable and features a bunch of moves and combos that appear more or less unchanged in modern iterations of the game so if you're a Tekken 7 Pro you're probably also a Tekken 1 Pro as well by proxy the game also features a roster of eight now iconic characters from the arcade version but as a bonus in the PS1 Port the game's additional sub bosses can now also be unlocked by playing through the arcade mode with each character giving the game a huge roster for a 3D fighter at the time other bonuses included in the PS1 Port is the option to swap between the original arcade soundtrack and a new arranged soundtrack both of which features some incredible Tunes [Music] oh ready I'm probably my favorite addition in the PS1 Port FMV cutscenes and if there's one thing Tekken nailed right away from the get-go it's the game's cutscenes beyond the cool opening sequence this game's ending cutscenes are just so damn good I almost exclusively play as the character King in Tekken games because of his ending cutscene in this game it is incredibly funny but also kind of sweet you see the character King is designed as a sort of hybrid of two real-life figures the Japanese wrestler tiger mask and a Mexican Luchador named Frey Tormentor a Catholic priest who became a masked wrestler to support an orphanage so not only as a fan of wrestling do I really appreciate King's incredible grapple heavy moveset on you know being able to give my opponents a frankensteiner but King's backstory also has him running an orphanage as well I'm I mean just look at this cutscene [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] now this this is Art so that's Tekken one a great game especially for the early days of the PlayStation but it is a game that pales in comparison to its follow-ups though in terms of gameplay and mode so not a necessary purchase nowadays by any means unless you're looking for some classic early treaty fighting phone and cheesiness or if you just want to play Gallagher while it boots up I guess [Music] following up in the summer of 95 we got Ace Combat or air combat as it was known in the west due to some unfortunate licensing issues something that may sound familiar is that this game is based on the 1993 arcade game also called air combat 4. unlike the previous games we've looked at the PS1 version isn't a straight Port of the arcade original you see after being tasked with making a Home Port of the game for the PlayStation the designers found that the PlayStation's Hardware wasn't really capable of delivering a proper Recreation of the arcade original so instead they opted to create a brand new version from scratch exclusive to the PlayStation and thus the Ace Combat series was born now the original Ace Combat offers up exactly what you'd expect fun pick up and play arcady combat flight action gameplay is broken down into a series of missions where you complete objectives like taking out enemy aircraft and bombing various buildings depending on how you do instead missions you also earn credits that can be then use the purchase new aircraft and even to hire Ally wingmen first some of the Topher missions honestly while this is a very fun game one of the biggest criticisms of it is its very basic environments which while not bad per se didn't help the game Stand Out Among some of the flashier treaty games at the time on this aspect in particular is something that they would improve upon greatly in its follow-ups although this is the only Ace Combat game that uses exclusively cheesy 80 star rock music so it does have that going for it which is nice [Music] they're over so the original Ace Combat still definitely a fun game even today and one well worth having in your collection but compared to the later entries in the series it is merely just a taster for lots to come [Music] Namco soccer prom goal is both the first sports game on our list and also the first game to launch as a pal exclusive in the west two things that probably go hand in hand with one another when you think about it so in Japan this game was known as j-league soccer Prime gold ex and is actually part of a series of games that came out across multiple platforms including the arcade and super famicom where only one other game in the series J League Soccer prom gold 3 making its way outside of Japan once again as a pal exclusive title for the Super Nintendo now known as 90 minutes European Prime gold but let's ignore that for now and look at the first PlayStation entry in the series which also happens to be the final game in the series this is a port of the arcade version of the same name which is another title to run on namco's system 11 board meaning the game is more or less spot on with the arcade version on the gameplay and visual front but now features a whole host of additional modes that football fans would come to expect like the usual cup and League options now considering the game's arcade routes it's no surprise we have a nice straightforward arcade football game in our hands utilizing this very lovely mixture of 2D Sprite work for the players and clean 3D visuals for the pitch and stadiums it's honestly one of the nicer looking football games on the console in my opinion especially considering its early release on the platform but once again I think that's down to the 2D assets often holding up a lot better than some early 3D models you can also enter into these very arcadey quickfire standoffs with your opponents which don't those look cool are a nice little addition to the gameplay as well although unfortunately while I really wanted to like this game just something about the gameplay wasn't quite gelling for me now I'm not a football game expert by any means but I played way more than I probably care to admit and for me the passing in particular just felt really odd in this game the way it swapped players during the passing process always meant that I ended up running away from the ball that had recently been passed to me now maybe it's something I just had to get used to after a few games but it didn't really lead to a great first impression I also found it really hard to score too but that's probably down to me just being really bad so let's just go though the only other notable change here in the western release is the change from the licensed J League themes of Japan over to national teams which are of course all Europeans so the pal crew should be pretty happy with that even if it does mean I have to disgrace my home country by somehow playing worse football than the actual Irish football team seriously how did I miss five penalties but simultaneously save five penalties how is that even possible next up we have the first of namco's tributes to their Golden Age Classics it's Namco Museum vol 1 making its way to the PlayStation in November of the Year 1995. this right here is a collection of seven video games from Namco alongside a collection of fun pieces of history for each all dolled up and displayed through a fun virtual Museum that you can explore as well now before we talk about the museum itself let's first talk about the games we've of course got Pac-Man the original Mega hit that took the World by storm Pole Position one of the first razors to popularize the usage of a sit-down cabinet rally X which is kind of like Pac-Man in a car new rally X which is like the last game but with the word new in front of it Galaga the second entry in namco's legendary space shooter series you uh might also remember it from Tekken a moment ago Bostonian one of the very first multi-directional Shooters and also the very first shooter to feature diagonal movement and also toy pop which you know is a game now of course the number of game games in this collection pales in comparison to what we'd see nowadays not to mention all these games are easily playable through the use of emulation on practically every device imaginable but back in the day for many this was the first opportunity people had to actually play near arcade perfect ports of these games in their home and as such the Namco Museum series of games were Mega hits across the globe becoming some of namco's biggest sellers on the console there was real attention to detail with these games even allowing you to mess with some of the game's dip switches to the use of an included UI it was really cool as for the games themselves well it was a very strong lineup for volume 1. I mean you can't really go wrong with Pac-Man Gallagher and pole position can you but beyond the games themselves arguably the biggest selling point of these collections was the museum each volume features a full 3d Museum that you can explore from a first person perspective with each included game having its own dedicated section within and here you can walk around looking at Old images marketing material and various other phone tidbits from The Game's history really making the most of all that extra CD storage space so you can enjoy these little pieces of history from your favorite games but without a doubt my favorite thing about these collections were the little diorama rooms for each of the games each of these rooms not only features a little model of the original arcade cabinet but fun custom-built designs full of Easter eggs and little features from each of the games I'm a real fan of exploring spaces in early 3D games so these things are an absolute tree except for the toy pop room which is a actually kind of lame I guess even Namco didn't care about it better still each of these rooms also have remixes of the game's music and let me tell you some of these are really really good by yourself [Music] now if I had to give the game one major critique it's that the load times are quite bad actually they're very bad but if you can put up with that Namco have created one of the coolest gaming collections around and one that pays tribute to its history unlike any other game that's come before it that being said it won't be very long until we do pay another visit to the museum I mean there are four more letters in Namco after n of course coming to the PlayStation exactly one year after the original we've got Ridge Racer Revolution the follow-up to the PlayStation version of Ridge Racer not to be confused with the follow-up to the arcade version of Ridge Racer which was just called Ridge Racer 2 and is also a completely different game although that being said Ridge Racer Revolution did inherit a lot of the new music from Ridge Racer 2. so there you go I guess they are basically the same Ridge Racer Revolution is probably the closest in the series to the original game in regards to look and feel in fact at surface level it might even just feel like an expansion or update to the first Ridge Racer and in some ways yeah it kind of is but Namco did add some notable improvements this time around including a two-player link mode a rear view camera and the first person view additional single player modes and a new track with even more variations and visual variety than the first game and of course a brand new load screen minigame which this time is Gallagher 88 which in spite of the large number in its name is in fact only the fourth game in the series it's still rather Bare Bones by modern standards but it is a notable step up from the original and if you enjoyed the first game well Revolution is a no-brainer really also some of the music tracks in this game are the best you will hear in any Ridge Racer it still has wacky and bombastic as ever but features a bit more variety too with tracksuit grip for example which will transport you to a whole new realm during gameplay [Music] foreign this is probably also a good time to talk about namco's Premier Driving game peripheral the nejicon controller this thing was a controller primarily designed to give users more control in their driving utilizing a cool twist function that gives you way more control over your steering versus a regular old d-pod hence the name nejicon which is derived from the Japanese word nejiru which means to twist on top of that the controller also has raised analog buttons allowing you to control the level of your brake and acceleration too giving you even further levels of driving Precision now at first glance this may seem like a very odd controller on honestly it kinda is but trust me once you've tried it out on a racing game you'll find it works surprisingly well a nice alternative if you don't want to have to deal with a heavy steering wheel in your way now this controller not only supports Ridge Racer Revolution but also the original Ridge Racer Pole Position from Namco vol 1 cyber sled and even games like wipeout so in general if a racing game comes up on our list in the future safe to assume it's going to support this thing anyway this won't be the last Ridge Racer game or weird Namco peripheral we'll be talking about but safe to say Ridge Racer Revolution great game go buy it [Music] speaking of great games you should go by next up we have Sparrow Garden Namco Mahjong our first game of the year 1996 and also our first Japan only exclusive okay so maybe this isn't exactly a great game you should go by but then again I'm not exactly the person that asks since I both can't read Japanese or play mahjong for that matter but hey we can still give it a quick look all the same so things I do like about this game it's got a very weird opening cutscene which you love to see it's also got a nice roster of big expressive player characters slamming down Mahjong pieces while Funky Music plays in the background which you also love to see and the gameplay yeah it seems quick and snappy without anything bothersome like loading times getting in the way this right here seems like a nice competent version of Mahjong let me tell you so maybe if you're in the market for one of the hundreds of Mahjong games on the console and can read Japanese this might be the one for you plus it also gets bonus points for the loading screen with the bear jumping rope that's real Q [Music] following up a few months after the first it's time for volume 2 of the Namco Museum series which made its way to the PlayStation in February of the year 96. this time around the package contains one less game than before coming in at a grand total of six but let's be fair rally X and new rally X were kind of the same thing so it is more or less the same the star of the package here is without a doubt xevius another one of namco's most influential titles and also the very first vertically scrolling shooter the granddaddy of vertical Shooters if you will there's also grobda a lesser known but still pretty fun tank game that features what can only be described as seizure bullets we've got super Pac-Man which answers the age-old question what of Pac-Man but worse there's Mappy a game about a mouse cop bouncing on trampolines to get away from gangster cats this one's kinda cute actually and also very popular in Japan I believe we've also got gapless which is a direct sequel to Gallagher and yes it is basically just slightly fancier Gallagher and finally we have dragon Buster which I think is another standout on the disc mostly just because it's an action Dungeon Crawler made for the arcades and that in itself is kind of cool the combat here is a little bit wacky but there's a certain level of charm to the whole thing I thought it was a pretty fun time and there you go that's the six games included in volume two not as many Heavy Hitters as the first volume in my opinion but still a good collection of games but what about the museum you ask well it's back on more or less unchanged from the last volume we've once again got individual sections for each game filled with tons of cool images and concept art to explore but really we're here for the new dioramas which I am delighted to say might even be better than the last game the gapless one we are getting captured by this ship the super Pac-Man area that takes place in a rundown ghost theater the Mappy house with all the characters running around a cool cave for Dragon Buster and my personal favorite the xevius area which looks like it's designed to be inside one of the enemy ships and the music here is just Sublime [Music] foreign [Music] by the way Volume 2 also launched with a special edition that included another cool Namco peripheral the volume controller which was ideally used to play Breakout clones and twisty games like grogda for example now this bundle was only available in Japan and was primarily used to play a game called qdq which appears in the Japanese version of volume 2 instead of super Pac-Man and not only does qdq have its own room and music in that version it's also much better than super Pac-Man so go figure now unfortunately I don't have a spare Namco volume controller lying around to show you so you'll just have to imagine what it's like to use I'm afraid but this thing did support a wide variety of non-namco titles as well as any game that has nejicon support as well so if you wanted to play Ridge Racer using this thing well you go right ahead so all in all another worthwhile installment in the museum series and yet another step closer to being able to spell Namco what a time to be alive once again arriving a year after the original Namco brings us Tekken 2 the bigger and badder follow-up to the console's premiere fighting game now while Tekken 2 here still runs off the same engine as the original delivering an experience that is still closer to Tekken 1 than any other attack and out there the game does see a number of improvements across the board with the starting roster increasing to 10 characters meaning even more Boss characters to unlock while playing through the game not to mention every character has seen their moves list at least double in size making for a much deeper fighting game experience overall we also see the additions of staple modes like Team Battle survival and the oh so important training mode Tekken really began to shape things up here and further cemented itself as the treaty fighter to be during the console's early years it's also probably worth highlighting the game's presentation as well because despite sticking to the same engine the visuals here have taken a note noticeable jump in quality too sure we still got those Charming 2D backgrounds but we do have some fancy new lighting and particle effects and the character models look a lot cleaner and more the fun not to mention their movements which also look a lot smoother too the game just overall feels like a further polished and better playing version of what came before it and really what more could you ask for from a sequel although once again the things I love the most about Tekken 2 are the music and cutscenes Tekken 2 once again gives you the option of choosing between the arcade and arranged versions of the soundtrack and let me tell you Tekken 2 music on all time classic there's just something so distinct and memorable about the game's usage of synths in particular now this style would be used in many other PS1 games even Namco games for that matter but I almost always see people refer to it as Tekken 2 style since so that should tell you how good it is [Music] hey oh [Music] hey yo also the cutscenes are back once again and better than ever it's around this time when Namco really started to get good at making openings for their games and I don't think there's any company that has made so many games where I'll sit down and watch the full opening every single time and for me Tekken 2 is the point where they became unmissable also shout out the king who was once again looking after those real-life kids in the orphanage [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] excellent game it is still a little old school boy modern standards but I think it's worth playing today just to experience the vibe of the game the cutscenes the music there is a lot to love for sure of course as good as this is Tekken was really still just chilling in its hyperbolic Time Chamber and nobody could prepare us for what was to come [Music] next up We have galaxian tree or maybe it's galaxian cubed I'm not quite sure either way this is another game that was a pal exclusive in the west although I suppose people won't be too disappointed when they realize this is another FMV rail shooter but hold up what have I told you this one was a good FMV rail shooter well maybe we won't stretch that far but it is significantly better than starblade Alpha that I can't say for sure so galaxian 3 is another Port of an arcade game but this is actually the prequel to start blade Alpha galaxian Tree Project Dragoon as it was known in arcades was originally designed as a theme park attraction for use in the 1990 garden and Greenery Expo of all things now the original version of this game supposedly supported up to 28 players simultaneously which kind of sounds incredible I'm not gonna lie now due to the popularity of this attraction it was later released in arcades in cut down forms featuring smaller cabinets that supported anywhere from 16 to 6 players some continuously and the Cavs were so big that the game needed to be split over multiple screens as well now this was all the way back in like 92 so people no doubt flocked to this in the arcades whenever they found it and it's probably no wonder why Namco taught this Tech was the future of course we all know that didn't last but eventually the PS1 did get a home part of the game which was now cut down to a still very impressive maximum of four players interestingly even in the PS1 version you can still see that the void between the two separate screens here which I kind of like just for authenticity's sake now while this is still a very short game just like starblade Alpha galaxian 3 is a much more enjoyable experience in my opinion it's way more action-packed it's full of cool moments it has better visual variety and a banging soundtrack to boot not to mention Namco did handle the port this time around so the game feels much more polished overall with better options and customization across the board not only that they even went and added an exclusive bonus mission for the PS1 version with entirely new areas and enemies to fight it's really cool and also very very tough also I want to give a shout out to the game over screens in this title because if you die in galaxian 3 the game wants to make it very clear that you really really messed up [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] not great not terrible now the appeal of this game once again will really depend on how you personally feel about FMV rail Shooters but for my money this is one of the more enjoyable ones on the console and you can play it with up to four players too so you can all fail together and share the joint responsibility of causing the sun to explode welcome back to the museum everybody where it's time for another round of classic Namco titles in this volume we once again have six games on offer and volume 3 here is packing some Heavy Hitters first off we have the Tower of daraga a role-playing maze game that was incredibly popular over in Japan I don't know how popular it was over in the west but yeah it's pretty fun we've also got the first game in the galaxian series uh galaxian you might also remember it from The Ridge Racer segment I don't know like 10 games or so ago I don't know why Namco opted to put the game's follow-ups in the first two volumes ahead of this one but hey at least you can now play the game not started at all there's also this cool game called foson which I'd never actually seen or played prior to trying it here for this video but I ended up liking it quite a bit the goal is basically to move around collecting these little molecules to form the shape in the center of the screen while also avoiding this big cluster of balls floating around it's pretty addictive not gonna lie we've also got Miss Pac-Man which I gotta say plays so much better than the original pack I don't know it just feels snappier and Tighter all around and also something I didn't know originally was that Miss Pac-Man was actually developed in North America by a company called General computer Corporation the development was just overseen by Namco in Japan to make sure all the Pac-Man stylings were on point so there you go North America you managed to make Pac-Man even better fair play to you there's also pole position too which is just more Pole Position only now there's more tracks this time around it's kind of like a Ridge Racer sequel if you think about it and finally we have Dig Dug another of namco's Mega hits and probably the one I see referenced the most outside of Pac-Man especially across other Namco titles this little red guy here gets around and honestly look at them how could you not go out of your way to put him in your game so all in all a great selection of games maybe even the strongest yet but of course what's new this time around well outside of the museum the in-game menus to change dip switch settings have also been streamlined a bit and while it doesn't look as flashy as the previous games it is much quicker to load and thus a great change in my opinion most notably though the museum itself has seen a few changes starting with a visual makeover and even some cool new sections like the library and theater where you can even bother the entirety of Pac-Man's family if you like better still the game's specific rooms have also seen some improvements with the art and history sections shrunk down to keep the arc closer together on each room also getting a game specific makeover as well to really help add more charm to the overall experience although the highlights once again are the diorama rooms which are by far the coolest we've seen yet almost every room in volume 3 has some crazy views to take in whether it's the giant enemy in the tower of daraga room the galaxian ships preparing for launch or even Miss Pac-Man on her dog giving you a full song and dance routine you can even barge in on Pac-Man while he's sitting on the toilet Namco are given the people what they want the music highlight this time around is probably in the faux on room which features this lovely little synthy banger [Music] foreign [Music] probably my favorite iteration of the series so far from the games to the museum portion is just lovely stuff all around although isn't my very favorite volume of the museum series well you're just gonna have to wait and find out aren't you [Music] next up we have another Japan only exclusive and oddly a game that is neither developed nor published by Namco it's SD Gundam over galaxian which actually comes from Bandai and no we aren't suddenly just including games from namco's future Fusion body we're counting it because this game is technically a spin-off of galaxian which is a Namco series plus it says Namco there on the title screen so there you go that's good enough for me and it means I also finally get a chance to talk about a Gundam game on the channel which is nice even if it is just a Gundam take on the galaxian formula but turns out that might actually be a pretty good combination because this right here is a fun little video game while the core of the gameplay is still the usual galaxian Fair of shooting down waves of enemies on a static screen the added Gundam makeover not to mention some improvements to the gameplay go a long way in making this feel like a real modernized take on an old classic we've got special weapons alloy support pickups various different boss enemies and new locations to keep things fresh there's even codes scenes in between levels now they do seem to be based around the original series and they are all of course all in Japanese but hey they do look cool at least the game even features an additional story mode that lets you select from a wide variety of different Gundams with unique attacks and even a classic Mode which keeps the Gundam facelift but mimics the gameplay from the original arcade game so really a great little package overall a fun game for about Gundam and galaxian fans and something you can blast through in one sitting on a nice Lazy Afternoon well worth a look in my opinion [Music] following up one Japanese exclusive one another we've got world stadium ex a baseball game based on the arcade series of the same name now I probably don't have to tell you but baseball not exactly that big where I'm from I mean I've played a game called rounders which is more or less the same as baseball but pretty much all my peripheral knowledge of baseball comes from what I've seen in TV and movies under Yakuza and Persona probably that being said Ireland's national sport is just running around and hitting a ball with a very big stick with the uh occasional brawl thrown in for good measures so maybe I'll get on okay now full disclosure this is the first time I've ever played a full dedicated baseball game but the good news is that world stadium ex is an arcade style baseball game so picking up the basics here really wasn't that hard at all now that's not to say I was very good at the game but you know I could hit the ball at least now in spite of the game's Simplicity there is still a lot of Japanese text to navigate through so a lot of the games additional features are nuance is probably went over my head but even so I still ended up quite liking my time with this one it features a ton of teams some of which I believe are licensed Japanese squads and the game has a ton of additional modes and plenty of stadiums to choose from quite a lot of stadiums actually there's even a fonzievous stadium which you'll love to see also the game features another cute Namco loading minigame this time baseball theme to keep things on brand the game just has this really nice playful look with bright colors unexpressive character sprites it's just I don't know a fun little game I feel like if I was into baseball this would very much be my kind of baseball game so if you like baseball games and want to run the risk of navigating past a few screens of Japanese text from time to time well this one I think is well worth checking out foreign hey do you like sports games good because we're back with another the original smash Court which made its way to the West as a pal exclusive under the name Namco tennis smash court for some reason by the way while there isn't exactly anything wrong with the palbox are for this game take a look at the Japanese version quite literally one of the best game covers ever in my opinion how could they have gone with the power version over this one seriously now luckily tennis games are something I like quite a bit and for my money the smash Court series is without a dou one of the best available on the console maybe even the best so it's a shame that none of them ever made it to North America but hey if you're from North America worry not we're gonna take a look at them today so you can see what you've been missing so smash Court games at least on the PlayStation anyway are cool little arcade style tennis titles Simplicity and fun is the name of the game here and while smashcourt may not be as immediately user friendly as a game like sega's Virtua tennis for example believe me Smash core will make you feel like you're a trash at tennis when you first try it once you get the hang of things you'll find one of the most satisfying tennis experiences the PlayStation has to offer now for me a big selling point of the game is the overall look and feel of everything you've got a cast of charming little low poly characters and a wide range of Courts to choose from some clearly based on famous real life tournaments but also plenty that are a bit more exotic and video gamey too which are always the Highlight for me the game just has this really nice Vibe and this extends over to the game's menus and UI too you'll see as we go on to this video Namco really had a flare for making even the most mundane thing in a video game look extremely cool and smashcourt is where this really started to become more noticeable this series also has one of the most overlooked soundtracks of any Namco Series in my opinion now for this first entry I'd say the music is a bit more relaxing and voiby than later entries but it still suits the gameplay really well and it's a pleasure to have on in the background while playing speak together [Music] and while later entries would see improvements in a number of areas the original still has arguably the most fleshed out single player content with the tennis club and build the court options giving the game some nice longevity all in all smashcard is a great start to the series on the PlayStation and a fine choice for tennis fans to have in their collection we're getting close to the end now because it's time for volume 4 of Namco Museum this time bringing us a grand total of just five games so one less than before but don't worry let's see if the quality of games included makes up for it first up we have pack land aka the Pac-Man game where he wears a hat this right here is the very first Pac-Man platformer and it's also kind of weird because the arcade version's movement is tied to individual button presses requiring you to tap the buttons a whole bunch to move to the left and right I'm not quite sure about this game I've always liked the way that it looks but it's just never been one of my favorites next up we have returned to Ishtar which is actually the follow-up to Tower of the Raga from the last volume this one is also kind of weird as it requires you to control two characters at the same time and also move through an interconnected map rather than just random rooms it's kind of cool in theory but I just found it a little bit boring for my tastes although here comes the Genji and hecky Clans to bring up the mood this is a really cool action platformer that changes its gameplay styles from level to level sometimes you're a little guy running around the next screen you're a big guy running around and the controls are also all wacky now on the next screen it's now a top-down game because why the hell not kinda janky overall but it is a fun time after that we've got assault which is by far the most modern and graphically impressive game we've seen in the series yet utilizing some fancy mode 7 cell features this is another tank game but this time you have individual control over boat your Tank's tread so the challenge is to not just destroy all the enemies on screen but successfully Master the controls so you don't get stuck on rocks or something and finally we have ordin which is without a doubt my favorite game to appear in the series so far this horizontal scrolling Shoot Em Up kinda plays like a mixture of Proteus and fantasy Zone allowing you to collect currency during the levels which you can then spend on power-ups by using shop scatter throughout the stage it also looks really nice and has great music so a winner all round in my book so when it comes to the games in volume 4 it's probably the biggest mix bag so far but it does still feature some Heavy Hitters making it a more than worthy entry in the series in my opinion but of course what's new in the museum well the museum retains the previous layout we've seen in volume 3 but the game's art rooms have seen another significant upgrade acting more like little add-ons to the dioramas themselves which thankfully are once again the stars of the show with the Ordon level letting you visit the in-game shop you can watch dragons rise up and change the land in the return to Ishtar room and even hang out with Pac-Man on the beach something I'm sure we all wish we could do in real life the music highlight this time around has to come from the assault room which features this wild metal remix with loads of good rule vocals and even guitar solos foreign probably the coolest part of volume 4 though lies behind this mystery sixth room which takes the place of the missing sixth game inside is this weird little pedestal thing that seemingly does nothing but if you enter a secret code here you actually end up unlocking a whole extra area on bonus game which features this really cool unlocking sequence the extra game is just an enhanced version of assault called super assault which includes the original game and some bonus extra tough levels nothing too exciting really but a great little surprise and addition for the museum content alone so yeah another Banger probably the best game for Museum content so far but I still think volume 3 is the best complete package for now but hey we're only one letter away from being able to spell Namco and I'm sure we won't have to wait too long to see how that turns out [Music] say hello to Ridge Racer's angrier little brother it's rage Racer the third entry in the Ridge Racer series on PlayStation and the first that was designed ground up with content made exclusively for the console now rage racer I think has gotten a hard time over the years I used to often see it get put well behind the other PlayStation entries in the series mostly down to the more dark and drought visual palette as well as the gameplay not changing much over the original entries thankfully nowadays this opinion seems to have rightly done a 180 because for my money rage racer is probably one of the very best entries in the series it took the gameplay that we all know and load from The Originals and just gave more purpose to everything the game was fleshed out with more tracks than ever before featured more visual variety and more importantly Namco implemented a proper single player progression system allowing you to both purchase and upgrade cars by earning credits through Racing the game also implemented car customization for the first time allowing you to Jazz up your cars with custom paint jobs and logos now as for the visuals yes there's no denying rage racer is a notably less colorful game than its predecessors but I don't think that's necessarily A Bad Thing rage racer is still a very nice looking game in my opinion and features one of the more recognizable Styles in the series like at a quick glance I would always be able to tell this is Rage racer you know not to mention the production values have also been updated big time as well with the game now featuring a great opening cutscene which is also the first appearance of iconic series mascot and race Queen Graco nagase the UI elements are also gorgeous featuring some of the sickest menus you will ever see in a racing game of course we can't talk about a Ridge Racer game without mentioning the soundtrack and this time around the game has taken a shift into what I call Pure Banger territory rage racer has one of the hardest and most energetic soundtracks you will hear in any video game let alone The Ridge Racer series I feel this game's music gets over shadowed by the next game in the series which don't you worry we will get to but seriously if you haven't checked this soundtrack out before make sure to give it a spin on YouTube sometime it is absolutely incredible [Music] foreign [Music] racing game on the console in my opinion and one of my favorite entries in the series although just like with tech and Namco would take a little longer than usual to bring us the next entry in the series but I assure you it'll be more than worth the wait as if Namco hadn't already released enough bangers at the tail end of 1996. Here Comes Soul blade AKA Soul Edge over in Japan the first game in namco's Beloved Soul series of weapon-based fighting games and an enhanced Port of the arcade version which once again used the system 11 arcade board this right here was one of my absolute favorite fighting games growing up and to be honest considering how old it is this is still one of the best playing fighting games on the console in my opinion I think Namco kinda struck gold from the get-go with the fighting style and soul Edge it's still remarkably similar to the exact system used in more modern entries and as such it is still a blast to pick open play today featuring one of the more beginner-friendly fighting systems you will see in the genre you've got buttons for blocking kicking and vertical and horizontal weapon attacks and unlike Tekken the fighting doesn't take place in Infinite Space meaning you can in fact ring out your opponents this time around which I think works to help complement the combat overall the game features a roster of 10 and now iconic characters with pretty much all of these becoming series regulars in the future now one negative I guess over the likes of say Tekken is that the game doesn't have any unlockable Boss characters well except for soul Edge if you've beat the game's arcade mode with every character but to make up for this the game contains one of the best single player modes ever put in a fighting game weapon Master mode here you pick any one of the game's characters and move through a mission based story mode where you take on enemies under a variety of tough conditions like winning 5 battles in a row winning while you are poisoned or even winning by ring out only these are not only fun challenges that help make you better at the game but by beating them you can unlock a variety of different weapons for your character and these not only look very different but feature modifiers that both buff and hinder your character in certain ways and there's a bunch of these for every single character it's so good this mode would of course be expanded upon in Soul Calibur 2 but even here in its more Lim limited form it's still such a great addition to have and if that's not good enough for you we've got all the good fighting game modes we'd come to expect from Peak Namco so there is plenty to keep you busy now of course we can't talk about Soul Edge without also mentioning the end scenes which are crazy good in this game I always personally loved mitsarugi's end scene because it features a playable minigame where you have to dodge and then kill a gunman with your sword and depending on how you do the ending changes it's definitely something that sticks in your mind just down to how unique it is and my God the opening to Soul Edge easily in my top 5 video game openings of all time maybe even the very best the way it's directed the way it highlights all the game's characters and lets you know exactly all you need to know about them in such a short amount of time not to mention the almighty Banger that is the opening song the edge of Seoul it is sacrilege in my book to ever boot up Soul Edge and not sit through this thing it is a Masterpiece so yeah safe to say one of the very best fighting games on the console from the gameplay to the graphics and sound heck even content wise it is second to none at this very moment in time Namco was setting a very very high standard as far as treaty Fighters were concerned now believe me they were only getting started foreign well everybody we finally did it we can now fully spell Namco with our collection of Namco Museum games what a time to be alive and let's be fair if you do own a full collection of these things it is almost definitely the first thing you did when you got them so here's our first game of 1997. the fifth volume of Namco Museum this time around we once again have five games in our collection starting with pacmania the cool isometric Pac-Man game that added jumping as a feature which you're gonna be using a lot because the zoomed in perspective means you can't see where the ghosts are coming from and they also added even more of them this time around so yeah good luck with that but next up we got ourselves a new favorite it's the legend of Valkyrie and arcade follow-up to an old famicom game called valkyrino boken it's more or less a top-down run and gone with fantasy and RPG elements really interesting for an arcade game actually but more importantly it's also a ton of fun next up we have Dragon Spirit a cool dragon themed vertical shooter where you uh play as a guy that's turned into a Dragon I've played this one a few times actually it's kind of more like an advanced version of xevius in a way utilizing the same rapid fire and bomb gameplay but my God am I bad at it I don't know if I just suck or if it's just really really hard but hey let's just say it's a mixture of bow how's great music though that's nice next up we have baraduke that has a logo which looks like that of a progressive Stoner rock band from the 70s this game is kind of fun you basically move through various floors of a space station on your jet pack shooting aliens and collecting items although sometimes the items are traps actually a lot of the time the items are traps yeah this game is a kind of an sometimes although it does look like some of the levels are called kissy that's kind of funny and finally we have Metro cross which is another fun little title where you gotta run through a series of obstacle courses to reach the goal before you run out of time and has fun gimmicks like skateboards to speed you up and plenty of things to slow you down it's rather simple but hey I thought it was pretty fun all in all even with only five games appearing and no real true all-time classics I think it might still be one of the strongest lineuper games yet well at least based on my own personal tastes but of course we ain't here for the games we gotta know what's happening over in our final Museum and this time around we're getting another makeover with the museum Now featuring multiple floors separated by staircases and even an elevator very fancy easily the coolest of the museum so far even if it is also the most awkward to navigate although it's worth it to go see Pac-Man and Miss Pac-Man put on a show I suppose the entrances to the game rooms also seem to have had another of grade 2 featuring cool things like portals and shifting doors to access them the rest here Isabel on par with seen before although some of the diorama rooms were a little disappointing this time around especially considering how memorable the stuff from volume 3 and 4 was although that being said I do really dig the baraduke room which has over and underground sections as well as the Metro cross Zone where you can ride a skateboard and even do a flip ladies and gentlemen this is Peak entertainment and well that's it for the five volumes of Namco Museum and while there are certainly better and easier ways to play many of these belowed RK Classics nowadays there really isn't anything quite like these PS1 Namco Museum discs you can tell there's so much love and effort put into each and every one and it's rare that the big selling point of a game compilation isn't the games themselves but all this cool bonus stuff that just exists around it namely these museums which are just so incredibly charming and worth the price of admission alone in my opinion even though there are more pack compilations out there thanks to this stuff these discs will never be obsolete but for now at least since we can officially spell Namco I guess the museum series on the PlayStation is done and dusted right right next up we have another arcade pour and also namco's only modern Shoot Em Up to make it out on the console it's xevious 3D over G Plus quite the mouthful really now this package contains not only a selection of classic xevious titles but also the star of the show xevius 3dg a modern update on the xevious formula that Pope pays respect to the originals gameplay on visual star while managing to update pretty much everything else imaginable to make a game that doesn't really feel out of place next to some of the bigger Shooters available on the console a real perfect melding of retro Style with modern gameplay sensibilities for example this time around you can collect three different styles of gun and bomb I especially like this homing laser that really helps to deal with the hordes of enemies that will be bombarding you throughout the game seriously I heard people say in the past that one of the game's issues is that it's a little bit too easy and I would like to talk to these people xevious 3dg does not screw around now beyond the wide number of stages cool bosses and strike talking high resolution visual style another huge highlight of xevious 3dg is its music which once again Namco have knocked out of the park we got access to both the arcade and arranged PS1 soundtrack as per usual and while both of these soundtracks are very good some of the tracks in the PS1 version really are some of namco's absolute best [Music] oh [Music] oh yeah [Music] this is a game I can easily recommend the fans of shoot em ups it's definitely not the console's best but one that is well worth checking out even if the game does kind of demand the uh Shoot Em Up tax if you want to pick it up physically but come on you can even play as hey Hachi It's gotta be worth the price of admission right well would you look at that it's Ace Combat 2 which now thankfully retains its original name all across the globe and for me this is when the Ace Combat series really started to get good once again this is a case where you take the arcade flight gameplay everybody load from the first game and just dramatically improve everything else around it bigger budget story and Mission briefings a wider selection of planes to buy and choose from more Mission variety with bigger set pieces and probably most noticeable of all the visuals which have taken a huge step up from the previous game the planes look excellent the environments and cities feature much more definition than before not to mention some great weather and Cloud effects as well to really show off what the team could do with a bit more experience working on the hardware and we've also got this sick transforming UI lovely stuff also special shout out to the sound team as well because the sound effects in this game are second to none and let me tell you they popped off so hard on the soundtrack for this game giving us a whole range of cinematic electronic and hard rock bangers all perfectly complementing the action on screen [Applause] [Music] this right here is another most owned for the console in my opinion and one of the very best console flight games of the era of course that's not to say it's the best or even the best Ace Combat game on the console for that matter but I'm sure we'll see for ourselves in good time [Music] oh baby it's like on time and of course that means we've got to kick things off with a classic the original Time Crisis first making its way to the PlayStation in the summer of 97 roughly a year and a half after it first showed up in arcades once again after seeing sega's big Commercial Success with their first polygonal like on game Virtual cop which was both big in the arcade as well as being a flagship first party title for the Saturn Namco did what they did best and set out at making a competitor and Time Crisis here was the result and would you believe it this ended up being even more commercially successful than virtual car especially around the time they released the second entry in the series Time Crisis too seriously I don't think there's an arcade on the planet that didn't have this installed at some point or another it was everywhere anyway like on games were hot hot hot so naturally it made sense to bring namco's arcade Shooters to the PlayStation to compete with sega's offerings like virtual cup and House of the Dead Anton crisis here was the first to appear alongside a shiny new peripheral known as the gun con or g-con if you're from the power region this was namco's official light gun accessory that was bundled in packages containing namco's lycon games now this is a beautiful controller and a must-have for lycon fans on the console and while I'm sure there are higher quality third-party options out there if you're looking to play your Namco Shooters on a big old CRT or a a tiny VHS Combi in my case well this is pretty much all you need now in spite of having everything I need to play these local games as they were originally intended the capture you will see will be of me playing with a standard PlayStation pad the purpose of this was both due to my recording setup and to avoid unnecessary flashing during gameplay although unfortunately in the case the Time Crisis the screen does still flash whether you're using a light gun or not so uh tough look there now of course while the d-pad is more than usable the games are nowhere near as fun played using this method it ends up throwing off the game's balance completely making some parts significantly easier and other parts almost impossible due to the speed of your cursor now in some cases lycon games have PlayStation mouse support allowing you an option to meet somewhere in the middle but alas none of the Namco lycombe games feature this option so it's either like gun or d-pad take your pick as for the game itself well Time Crisis is considered a classic for a reason taking place inside of a big old castle we take the role of Richard Miller the one-man Army on a quest to save the president's daughter from a whole host of crazy boss goons under Army of lackeys who kindly wear different color uniforms to indicate how capable they are at shooting of course the big gameplay gimmick setting Time Crisis apart in the genre was the use of a pedal that allowed you to enter and exit cover which wasn't just how you dodged incoming fire but it was also how you reloaded your weapon in this version of course the pedal has been replaced by a handy button that you press on your controller or like them it made for a real fun time and even though the formula would undoubtedly be improved upon greatly in the games that followed it this is still a must-have for like gun fans maybe the purest example of the genre you can get on the console and better yet the PS1 version doesn't just feature the arcade original but a whole new bonus campaign to play through as well which takes place in an entirely different location featuring multiple parts and endings depending on how you perform during the levels pretty neat right look even the bellhop stick to the colored uniform system gotta love the dedication now while this is an excellent game not no doubt sold a lot of guncon's Time Crisis wasn't the only light gun heavy hitter Namco were packing and their next game might just be their very best [Music] coming just a few weeks after Time Crisis in Japan we got a port of an even older Namco light gun shooter it's 1994's point-blank AKA gun bullet in Japan not only is this the game I got bundled alongside my original guncon this right here ladies and gentlemen might be my favorite lycon game of all time well it's either this or house of the dead too seriously how could you not love House of the Dead 2. Point Blank offers up a very different type of lycon experience while the majority of Shooters released throughout the 80s and 90s mostly focused on gunning down countless hordes of humans or creatures Point Blank set out to do something different that could appeal to both youngsters and adults alike creating a cartoony and lighthearted alternative in the genre not just in look but in the gameplay Department too instead of a linear campaign Point Blank instead offered up a collection of quickfire minigames not to unlike what we'd see in later hits like Warrior which is also one of my all-time favorite game series these mini games test your shooting abilities across a whole set of skills from Rapid Fire logic and decision making and of course accuracy to name but a few the game just has so much variety packed into its large collection of mini games and pretty much all of them are an absolute blast to play either alone or with a friend and while using a controller instead of a d-pad still kinda sucks at least the game doesn't flash every time you shoot in d-pad mode so that's nice to see now a big benefit of the PS1 Port of Point Blank is the inclusion of a wide range of additional modes to help flesh out the overall experience including arranged versions of the arcade mode where extra stages a comprehensive training Suite party modes for multiple players and if you can believe it a full role-playing Quest mode that you control entirely by using a light gun now I'm not gonna say this is an incredible RPG by any means maybe not even a very good one but the fact it even exists and is as polished as it is it is absolutely one of the coolest additions to any game ever in my opinion just by sheer novelty alone it's got random like gun battles for Christ's sake I mean come on anyway needless to say if you're interested in getting a like going for your PlayStation you 100 need this game in your collection it's endlessly entertaining endlessly charming and without a dou one of namco's finest ever games it's even got a fun bonus game where you shoot some Treasures of the deep hmm I wonder what that could segue into [Music] foreign Hey look it's Treasures of the deep one of the standout titles on this list not only because it's really good but it's one of the few games on our list to launch first in North America which is probably no surprise when the game was published by namco's American publishing arm namako Home Tech and was also developed by California Studio Black Ops entertainment whose name I just can't seem to keep out of my videos lately Treasures of the deep is an underwater action game where you take the role of a diver sent out on missions to retrieve rare and valuable Treasures the game features a mixture of vehicle-based gameplay where you ride around on your little one-man sub but you can also get off and explore by yourself when you need to to fit into tighter locations try to imagine it as a sort of cool underwater rkd FPS vehicular hybrid and you're kind of on the right track the game features a ton of hidden and secret areas as well as big floating coins on treasure chests to collect so you can bulk up your finances and hey why not browse the store in between missions and span your newfound riches on equipment and operate trades for your Topher dollars down the line the gameplay Loop here is a ton of phone and the underwater gameplay makes it feel like very few other games on the platform a real deeper on the console if you will plus it's got a lovely relaxing Oceanic soundtrack courtesy of Tommy talarico which really just ties the whole thing together Black Ops entertainment have put a lot of good games out on the PlayStation but for me they're one and only release under Namco still stands as their very best you didn't think we were done with the Namco Museum series did you of course we weren't we may have spelled Namco but we did forget about the little registered trademark symbol at the end so Namco Museum Encore is back to rectify that issue albeit only in Japan you see while the original plan was just to release five volumes total for the museum series The Games ended up selling so well that Namco just couldn't say no and came back for one last hurray also certain special editions of Encore came with this beautiful display booklet for your complete Museum collection which I must say I have a mighty need to own after realizing this existed now while Encore here contains a hefty seven games in the package disappointingly the Museum Part of the game has more or less been removed entirely instead featuring a menu of the game's arcade cabinets with a few small bonuses to view for each it's nice but it is nothing on the level of the previous games now that's not to say it's not a nice setup or unpolished in any way it's just given the lofty standards of volume 1 true 5 it's hard not to feel a little bit let down when it comes to Encore but hey we still have the game to check out and the Seven contained here have some definite highlights first off we have King and balloon another very early shooter from Namco that plays A Lot Like galaxian Only in the gimmick here is that instead of shooting aliens you're instead protecting your king from being captured by hot air balloons it's fine I guess next up we have Moto S a game where you move around an arena trying to push objects over the edge while also avoiding the same thing happening to you it's kind of like a classic version of that Mario Party mini game where you're all on the ball there's also Sky Kid which I often see referenced in other Namco games but I've never actually seen it in action until now and yeah here it is it's a cute little shooter where you oddly move from right to left and your goal is to shoot down as many enemies as possible while also collecting a bomb and then dropping it on a designated Target kind of fun but also very tough moving on to one of the highlights of the collection it's rolling thunder a run and gone action classic or should I say uh walking gone this is a very early example of the genre and still a pretty fun one in my opinion it is more or less just Shinobi with a gun but hey ain't nothing wrong with that another standout title is Wonder Momo a cute little action game that takes place entirely on stage in front of a crowd so all the levels are essentially you entertaining The Crowd by beating up bad guys in stylish ways before you eventually transform into the all-powerful Wonder Momo and then take out bosses with your magic circle yeah this one own kind of rules we've also got rompers another cute little game where you play as a little kid and a sun hat navigating around a maze collecting keys while occasionally pushing a wall down on top of enemies trying to kill you surprisingly fun actually and finally we have dragon saber the follow-up to Dragon Spirit which you may remember from Namco Museum Vol 5. this is pretty much exactly what you think it is more Dragon Spirit only now with much fancier graphics and extra power-ups it also kinda rules so in spite of Namco Museum Encore locking the air museum part of the game I still think it has a nice selection of games included and let's be fair that collector's box is pretty nice so you might as well get the game that comes along with it now this final japan-only release would truly be the Encore for the museum series on the PlayStation but worry not cause Namco would try something similar again and thankfully we won't have to wait very long to find out what that is [Music] rounding out an eventful 97 Namco still had two Heavy Hitters to bring us in December of that year the first of which being the wonderful clanoa door to Phantom model a gorgeous 2.5 D platforming adventure and the very first game in the much-loved clinoa series clinoa is a game that's very close to my heart not only is it one of the games in my youth but it's a game I still play true quite often down to how incredibly enjoyable and Charming the whole experience is in clonoa we take the role of clanoa of course a cat with big floppy ears and a Pac-Man hat who ends up finding a ring deeper than a forest that contains an utter worldly entity called hupo who quickly becomes kanoa's friend and what follows from here is genuinely one of the biggest emotional roller coasters you will ever see in a platforming game normally the story doesn't play a huge factor for my enjoyment of games in this genre but Namco really set out to punch you in the goat with this one let me tell you as for the gameplay itself it's probably one of if not the tightest playing 2.5 the Platformers you will see on the console avoid waiting many of the pitfalls of earlier examples in the genre giving us a game that's both a joy to play and rarely ever frustrating the gameplay overall is quite simple with the major gimmick being clinoa's ring which allows him to inflate enemies which can then be used to take out order targets as a projectile or even boost him to Greater Heights a system which gets used to great effect to challenge you throughout the game clinoa also features some of the most charming and colorful environments on the console with a beautiful blend of polygonal 3D environments and enemies and 2D Sprite work for clanoa on a bunch of the support characters all perfectly complemented but a wonderful catchy soundtrack on incredibly cute vocal cues and less cute vocal cues for the bad guys this game is one of my outright favorites on the console and depending on the mood I'm in when you ask me maybe even my favorite PlayStation game I know there's plenty of games that are better on paper than Canoa but the games I think are the best and most impressive often aren't my favorites the games I consider my favorites all come down to the way they make me feel and few games take me through the range of emotions that canola con a game that's joyful and heartbreaking and equal measure I'm truly one of the console's all-time greats in my book of course in the time since its release the original kanoa has rightfully earned its place as a cult classic on the console and even though a physical copy will probably cost you an arm and a leg nowadays the game has seen a number of remakes and re-releases including a very nice version exclusive to the Wii and the very recent fantasy reverie collection which includes a HD remake of Beau clinoa 1 and its PS2 follow-up lunetta's Veil another excellent game so if you're yet to play clone or even just want to revisit it for all time's sake there's really no better time than now to dive into the series and trust me you won't regret it now as if December wasn't already good enough for Namco fans in Japan next up we have Tales of Destiny to close out the year 97 the second game in the very popular Tales of series of action role-playing games and both the first be released on the PlayStation as well as outside of Japan although this time as a North American exclusive in the west Namco must have heard from squaresoft that we hate getting RPGs over here in Europe I guess now Tales of Destiny comes from the classic era of tales games which means we get gorgeous 2D visuals both in the Overworld and during battles where the game switches to a real-time battle system that takes place on a 2d plane it's still quite reminiscent of the combat scene in many of the 3D Tales games that would follow it but honestly the 2D element adds its own Flair and style to the proceedings and it's something I actually quite enjoy about these older entries now unfortunately the game's classic style did not earn it any favors critically upon release with games journalists almost universally slowing the game for its visuals and presentations stating the game look like something you'd see on the Super Nintendo versus the likes of Hardware pushing games like Final Fantasy 7. it was the usual 2D automatically equals badge stick that was all too prevalent in the early days of 3D gaming and while the game certainly isn't the most technically impressive 2D game you'll see on the console it's a style that's actually aged quite well in my opinion and certainly looks better than many of the early 3D role-playing games that showed up on the console now unfortunately due to the nature of this video it didn't give me as much time as I'd have liked to really dig into the story and gameplay elements seen as you progress throughout the game both word on the street from Tales fans as well as RPG fans on the PlayStation is that it's still one of the better games in the series and one that is well worth having in your collection there's even a cool PS2 remake that only came out in Japan and looks quite stunning actually both fret not though because Tales of Destiny would later receive a follow-up on the console one that might also be the victim of one of the most confusing naming situations ever seen in gaming and if you want to know what I mean by that well we've only got 26 games until we find out or you know you could skip ahead if you like but sure why would you want to do that when it's time to showcase the king [Music] Tekken effing tree this ladies and gentlemen is peak fighting Excellence on the original PlayStation and also namco's first game of what would be an incredible 98 Tekken 3 is not only the best selling fighting game on the PS1 selling over a whopping 8 million units worldwide it's also the fifth highest selling game on the PlayStation period and as of the time of recording still the most successful entry in the entire Tekken franchise so what was all the hoopla about well after the success of Tekken 1 and 2 Namco decided to give their next entry in the series a little more time in the oven to really improve the overall quality of the experience and after a successful launch to the arcades in early 97 which was also one of the first games to utilize namco's new upgraded System 12 arcade board a more powerful version of the previous system 11 Tekken 3 finally made its way home to the PlayStation in March of the Year 98. this version attacker not only features vastly true graphics and character models with the blocky boys and girls of Tekken 1 and 2 now a thing of the past but the fighting gameplay has seen numerous tweaks and improvements giving us something that not only felt much better to play but genuinely felt like a gigantic Leap Forward in terms of what treaty Fighters were capable of in the home combat just felt so smooth unnatural in motion which is even more impressive when you consider the huge increase to the number of moves and inputs available to the game's roster of characters which once again sees the debut of many series favorites like Jin Zhou Harang and Eddie aka the character that inflated the egos of button Bashers everywhere not to mention the collection of bonus sub bosses and Boss characters to unlock was bigger than ever before making for one of the most memorable rosters of characters in any Tekken game past or present I also once again need to give a special shout out to King in this game who is technically a different character this time around King number two I believe I don't know Tekken lore is pretty long uncomplicated now this kind of sucks because we now lose the orphanage subplot for I don't know sad wrestling drama but it's also better too because we now get to play as drip King owner of one of the sickest fits in all of video gaming seriously the dude was predicting fashion trend way into the future also he has even more wrestling moves this time around figure 4 leglock Jaguar driver and here take a look at how stupid this is [Music] absolutely insane but hey you love to see it the game also sees the inclusion of more modes than ever before with all the old favorites returning but more importantly the game Now features a solid scrolling beat em up sub game reminiscent of final fight and Streets of Rage called Tech enforce mode it's kinda janky but also pretty amazing too and How Could You Forget Tekken ball mode which I mean come on how could you not love Tech in ball mode top it off with an overall wonderful presentation amazing high quality cutscenes and for my money the best and most iconic soundtrack scene in any Tekken game and well it's easy to see why this right here was the definitive king of fighting games during the fifth generation dominating both the home and early competitive Esports scenes especially outside of Japan of course from here Tekken mode continue to rise into being one of the most popular and recognizable Series in fighting game history with the most recent entry Tekken 8 recently being shown off in motion for the first time and let me tell you we've come quite a long way haven't we but for many including myself Tekken 3 will always be the ultimate Tekken game the one that not only solidified the series place in video game history but one that helped make Namco and the PlayStation household names across the globe truly the king of the Iron Fist then now and forever [Music] here to help us calm down after the run of big Namco Heavy Hitters we've got ourselves a return to the wonderful world of world stadium with the second entry in the series once again making its way to the PlayStation as a Japan only exclusive now in many ways World Stadium 2 feels like your standard Sports style upgrade in the sense that a lot of it looks and plays exactly the same but of course there's been a few nice additions to help make it worthwhile for fans of the series things like new 3D player models while batting a whole new loading screen minigame even more stadiums than before this time around featuring a fun paclan themed Stadium as our bonus Namco treat the gameplay remains more or less the same for the most part but once again it is something I found myself having a really good time with just down to the presentation and simplicity of it all you can actually watch in real time as I slowly begin to understand and improve at baseball video games and you can rest assured this trend will continue because there's plenty more world stadium games to come don't you worry although to say this is just a simple update of the first game might be a bit harsh because this time around I also managed to stumble into what seems like a deep single player mode that takes place in feudal Japan and is really fleshed out and features stadiums themed after the time period obviously I can't progress very far in it but it seems kind of rad so yeah another phone entry in namco's qrkd baseball series one I'm sure will only keep getting better with each passing entry well I sure hope so anyway [Music] remember the Namco Museum series well as I might have previously mentioned those games sure did make Namco a whole lot of money so if Namco could be successful selling compilations of their old arcade games well surely they could do the same thing selling compilations of old console games games that were published under their console focused nomcock Division and well here we are this is Namco Anthology one the first in a new series of compilations bundling some classic console games from namco's past similarly to Namco Museum Encore this boat only released over in Japan unlocks any sort of virtual Museum which is pretty disappointing but instead to make up for it Namco has given us this really cool UI and menu system based around classic 90s web pages which are really cute and also surprisingly accurate to the time period featuring a few hidden pages and Links of Plenty allowing you to discover things like game artwork and other little tidbits this way instead the Japanese text sure does make it a little bit harder to navigate than before but it just looks so cool it kind of reminds me of that Space Jam website in a way which is somehow still live on the internet I think as for the games well we've got a grand total of four this time around the lowest we've seen yet but as another big change to spice things up each of these four selections not only allow you to play the original console version but each game also features a brand new PS1 enhanced Edition with better graphics and sounds some gameplay tweaks and even full opening cutscenes for each game which are pretty amazing by the way so let's take a look at the four games on offer as well as comparing their enhanced editions why don't we first up we have the famicom puzzle title the Tower of Babel a game that is all about rearranging blocks in a tower to allow you to escape said Tower it's a very simple and straightforward game that I am somehow absolutely Dreadful at as for the enhanced Edition well awesome opening cutscene aside this is very much the same thing with improved graphics and sound the remix of the track that plays during gameplay is particularly nice [Music] you can definitely tell things have been refined gameplay-wise in this new edition but it really is just the exact same thing as before with no major changes it's just more terror of Babel really and since I suck at it well I can take it or leave it next up we have another famicom game it's 1985's starloster which is another game that takes place in the Bostonian Universe remember of course you do we spend so much time on it and I gotta say starloster here this game kind of blew me away it's a space combat Sim where you have to navigate across a map screen taking out groups of enemies while also simultaneously defending friendly planets and bases now you do this by selecting a Zone on a map warping to that location and if there's enemies there the game swaps over to a combat mode where it actually does a really good job of emulating the experience of fighting enemies in a pseudo treaty space it's rather primitive sure but considering this is a famicom game from 85 this is actually kind of incredible really not to mention the game adds this whole extra strategic element by requiring you to monitor the map and deciding how you want to cut off the enemies it's really rather neat and good news the PS1 update of starloster also rather neat once again this is more or less a like for like remake of the game from a gameplay perspective but now the game really does truly take place in a 3D space now while there is certainly a charm that makes the classic style really appealing This Modern version really benefits from extra graphical effects and most notably the game's sound cause while the original feature is practically no music the PS1 version of starloster most certainly does and it's a banger [Music] [Music] on to our next game then and it's a wrestle ball which unfortunately is not as cool as it sounds wrestle ball was originally released on the Mega Drive and is a futuristic Combat Sports Game think speedball and well you kind of have the right idea and if you thought I had trouble with some of the previous sports games we've looked at today I reserved a whole new level of bad gameplay for this thing yeah uh not my favorite to say the least as for the update well once again we get improved graphics and sound but also probably the best of the openings contained on the disc foreign about the game though because I still suck really bad at it and also did not enjoy it either I am sad to say as for our last game well it's time for conqueror's continent another famicom game but this time it's a grand strategy game so uh yeah needless to say I didn't make it very far on this one but for what it's worth the PS1 update seems really nice so yeah two thumbs up I guess so all in all Namco antology one probably the biggest mix bag we've seen so far from a Namco compilation series and this most certainly isn't down to the concept or style of the package I love both the 90s web page aesthetic and the idea of PS1 upgrades of classic 8-bit and 16-bit games the issue for me was the games really there was one I couldn't play at all two I didn't really enjoy and one that to be honest kind of saves the package for me just because both versions of starloster are pretty rad well for a few minutes at least now unfortunately these compilations sold nowhere near as much as the museum games which is probably down to both the selection of games on also how easy it still was to purchase original copies of these games at the time people were very excited to be able to play proper arcade ports in their home for the first time fancier versions of the terror of Babel which you could pick up complete in a box for the famicom brand new for about 100 yen and not so much but fear not because the ontology series isn't done just yet well it is almost done but hey you'll see for yourself in a few minutes oh thank God it's Point black time Point Blank 2 AKA gone Barrel in Japan once again Caesar's return to the light gun minigame fun we all know and love and as a sequel it gives us exactly what we want more mini games point blank as a concept is just so fun and replayable that literally all they have to do with each subsequent entry is just give us more and more mini games and we'll lap it up each and every time once again the mini games retain their distinct point-blank charm and while I think the overall selection in two isn't quite as memorable as the first game there's still plenty here that will both Challenger shooting skills and make you a simultaneously crack a smile while doing it although notably the biggest change and I think improvement with Point Blank 2 is the adjustment to the original content made for the PS1 of course we once again see things like the party and training mode but the RPG mode has now been replaced by a new story mode that takes place in a theme park featuring multiple different themed areas with each new area featuring its own unique gameplay style from dungeon crawling to space combat and even underwater missions all of which cleverly tie the minigames into the gameplay so you basically got a game within a game within a game and while it doesn't have the sheer novelty factor that the first game's Quest mode has these undoubtedly end up suiting the game better and as a result end up being more satisfying to play well at least in my opinion anyway all in all another fantastic entry in the series and even though I prefer the first the little bit more this is still a must have for any light gun owner on the console basically if you see these two guys on the box just buy the damn game [Music] hey would you look at that it's Namco ontology 2. see I told you it'd only take a few minutes the second and final entry in namco's anthology series made it to the PlayStation just a few short months after the first and as you'd expect once again it's a japan-only exclusive presentation wise it's more or less the same as before only this time the web page has had a bit of a makeover not quite as cool as the Space Jam one in my opinion but I'll take it and as you'd expect we've got four more console games as well as four more remakes to check out so yeah let's do that why don't we first up we got Pack Attack specifically the Mega Drive version of Pack Attack which I swear either my mom or sister rented out back when I was really really young I got Vivid memories of this brick Pac-Man background and yeah it's uh it's all very exciting this is a Pac-Man take on the popular Block Breaker puzzle titles which were all the rage during the early and mid 90s and for what it's worth this is actually one of the more fun entries I've played in the genre in it's built rather easy to pick up and play and the Pac-Man implementation works quite well I think it's certainly not the most exciting or visually appealing game you'll see but hey the core puzzle gameplay is sound and that's what really matters but hold up if you want better graphics and presentation why not check out the PS1 update which certainly does a better job I think of course the game itself nothing new here but if I had to pick one of the two versions this is the one that I'd be vibing with although disappointingly unlike the previous Anthology game none of the PS1 remakes feature opening cutscenes this time around Namco of all the companies how could you do this to me you know how I feel about opening cutscenes okay maybe they'll make it up to me with the next game Valkyrie no boken a famicom title that already made a brief Cameo back when we were talking about the legend of Valkyrie which I'm sure you also definitely remember well here's the famicom game that started it all and let me tell you this most certainly is a famicom game it's a very old cool Zelda style action RPG that's kind of unrefined and pretty hard to get into nowadays but you know it's sold like a bazillion copies over in Japan because let's be fair they love this stuff a little too old school for my liking but pretty cute all the same with some nice music too the PS1 remake however easily the most impressive we've seen so far this is practically a completely different game in fact it's more or less what the original valkyrino boken would be if you put it in a blender with its arcade follow-up so in other words a cool run and gone action RPG alright namako if you're gonna keep making things like this I'll let you away with the lack of opening cutscenes because this is pretty great I'm not gonna lie so let's see if Namco can keep up the streak of good games with our next entry Namco classic 2 a famicom golf game yeah that uh probably doesn't bode well for us does it well to the game's credit this is a decent and rather fully featured golf game by famicom standards the keywords here being famicom standards it sure is good but I still don't really want to play it you know well too bad because we've gotta remake the Troy and yeah once again a pretty substantial update in terms of presentation and content there's even a bunch of selectable characters and caddies that you can choose from I'm I don't know you could probably tell me this is an early or budget Standalone PS1 golf title and I believe you so High Praise all around and for the final game to Grace the ontology series we have King of Kings a tactical RPG and strategy game once again for the famicom now as you'd imagine this is a little tough to play thanks to all the texts but the gameplay here does seem like a nice hybrid of Advanced Wars and Fire Emblem with the units and locations being fantasy inspired but the gameplay featuring resource management and unit building as well pretty cool for the time honestly and the soundtrack once again pretty great too as for the PS1 update once again we have what feels like could be a full retail release with greatly improved graphics and little tweaks of the gameplay helping to bring another classic Namco title into the Next Generation the language barrier is still here of course but hey I can admire the battles at least so yeah Namco ontology 2 a much better package overall this time with a superior selection of games not to mention the PS1 updates taking a significant jump in quality too it's unfortunate that this would end up being the last game in the series due to poor sales because you could definitely tell the team responsible for these compilations we're really beginning to hit their stride oh well at least we have these two Anthology titles and while the second would be my pick of the bunch if you can get both of these for a good price I still think they're well worth picking up especially after I hung around on the main menu for ontology 2 and discovered the game does actually have opening cutscenes they just play outside of the games for some reason uh whatever they're all bangers so All Is Forgiven foreign ly two years after the original smash Court we get its branded follow-up Anna konikova's smash core tennis or if you live in Japan uh smash core 2. this game was once again a pal exclusive in the west but is probably the most popular and well-known of the PS1 era smash Court games no doubt in part to Namco teaming up with Russian professional tennis player Anna Kournikova who was one of the biggest stars in professional tennis around that era as for her inclusion in the game well she's on the menus and you can play as her in-game if you like so there you go everything else is the same old smash Court 2 they got in Japan in fact smash Core 2 itself also very similar to the first entry from the gameplay visuals and even certain new eye elements in many ways smash Core 2 is just a further refinement of the original formula only Now featuring more characters and a whole host of new courts and environments to play in some of which are very aesthetically pleasing it's just a nice vibey tennis game you know although I suppose a big part of that also comes down to smash core 2's soundtrack which is not only one of namco's biggest deep cuts on the console in my opinion but maybe the best soundtrack ever put in a tennis game [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] team to calm down they really didn't need to go this hard for a tennis game but I'll take it so while smash Core 1 does probably have the more complete and fleshed out single player experience if you have to choose I say smash Core 2 is overall the better game due to the variety of quartz and music Alone really and while this would be the last smash Court game released on the console in the west the series still wasn't done on the PlayStation just yet and next time things get a little bit weird well I sure hope you aren't sick of pal sports games cause it's time for libero Grande a PS1 Port of the 1997 arcade game of the very same name what we have here is another arcade style football game and while I'm sure many of you out there could care less about yet another PS1 football title I'm to be honest I'm kind of in the same boat as you this may just be one of the most interesting and unique football games on the console if not ever really so at its core libero Grande is still just regular old football it's bright colorful and very arcady but it's still regular old football the big gimmick in this game however is that you played the entire game from the perspective of just one player so instead of single-handedly controlling 11 men to achieve Victory you're gonna have to play your part as a cog in a bigger machine while also simultaneously giving your AI Partners commands sort of like a real-time strategy game as well it's kind of cool actually you can also play it in co-op with four friends if you like which is also kind of cool to be honest it's more or less what you'd see in the story modes that appear in later FIFA titles but you know with less awkward dialogue trees the gameplay itself is actually quite simple in no part due to its arcade routes you have a small number of buttons that are context sensitive depending on where do you control the ball if your AI teammate controls the ball or if the opposing team controls the ball you have commands to get your AI Partners to chase down the ball clear the ball use longer short passes shoot or do slide tackles and you gotta do this while also simultaneously trying to line yourself up for a goal so you can claim all the glory yourself I gotta say it's really one of the more refreshing takes on a sports game that I've played in quite some time it also helps that the game has a lot of that 90s Namco arcade charm like the way you pick your player for example it's almost like you're in a fighting game the players all have great names by the way Ajax Mobius come on how am I not gonna play as him also the in-game visuals and stadiums look really really impressive device especially like the sense of scale you get from the player's perspective I wish every football game had a view like this and of course as expected there's the inclusion of a bunch of console exclusive modes to really help flesh out the whole experience now while this game is pretty great it's not to say it's perfect by any means some of the commands can be a little bit confusing until you've memorized them and the player movement can be a little bit stiff at times but really as a guy who isn't a big football game fan I ended up picking this one up for my collection almost immediately after playing it so clearly it's doing something right so yeah if you're up for a very different flavor of football game libero Grande is definitely well worth a look oh hey check out those sponsors I wonder what game they're from [Music] well ladies and gentlemen it's time for a big one it's Ridge Racer Type 4 the final Ridge Racer game to make its way to the console and to many people also the absolute best there are a few games that I love as much as Ridge Racer type 4. sure if you judge it solely as an arcade racing game for the PlayStation yeah it's pretty amazing but Type 4 manages to be so much more than just a good video game Type 4 has a Vibe an aesthetic a style that is to this day still unmatched on the console right from the opening movie you know you are in for something special with this one the game is just a visual and audible Feast for your senses it's not just that it has some of the best in-game visuals of any racer on the console though across its cars and environments or every single part of this game from its menus to its UI elements everything down to the malls mundane and minute detail is just dripping with style now as for the gameplay itself Type 4 rap presents the biggest and most notable changes to the core gameplay yet it's still very much an arcade racer at its heart for the drifting and overall car control feels so much more accessible and refined this time around making for both an experience that is more beginner friendly but also Tighter and more consistent for expert level players another big Improvement in Type 4 is The Game's main single player content the GP mode which sees you join up with a choice of different race teams and car manufacturers to take on a series of eight races all interspersed with these lovely little visual novel style chats with your teammates that are surprisingly heartfelt and interesting and will make you want to play through all of the different teams to see how they actually all turn out and that's probably a good thing because Type 4 has a whopping 320 cars to unlock through this mode I am not kidding 320 cars but hey if you've unlocked them all you also get this Pac-Man car for your trouble so clearly it's very much worth it now I guess if I had one minor complaints that even though the game never features a whopping eight unique tracks with reverse variants as is tradition it's still not a very big amount overall and if you're going for all 320 cars well you become very familiar with all of them let me tell you that being said the eight tracks that are here feature some of the most beautiful and appealing environments of the fifth generation of gaming this right here is Peak nighttime driving and of course as we all well know you can't talk about a Ridge Racer game without talking about the music and type 4 is probably the peak of the series in that regard too gone are the Techno heavy bangers and in its place is one of the chillest funkiest Soulful and varied soundtracks ever put in a video game this thing is so good that it's easily a contender for the best original soundtrack on the system and in a generation defined by incredible music and video games that's really saying something [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] so yeah Type 4 is simply poor a masterpiece and my personal favorite racing game on the platform as far as I'm concerned it's the first racing game that you should seek out for your console a Timeless slice of video game Perfection and would you believe it we're not done yet because this game also launched with a new wacky Namco peripheral called the jog con which featured a motorized dial for racing now I don't own this controller because I was never really fully sure if I actually wanted to play a racing game using this method and most folks who have tried it still recommend the Neji con over anyway but hey it's weird unassociated with the game so I thought I should at least mention it and speaking of associated with the game certain editions of Ridge Racer Type 4 also come packaged with a bow bonus disc containing Ridge Racer turbo Edition a demo showcasing the original Ridge Racer now with some improved graphics and most importantly 60 FPS gameplay albeit now with a limit of just two cars on the track at the time but hey it's a really cool thing to have on a disc and the cherry on top of the Ridge Racer Type 4 package of course the next Mainline entry in the Ridge Racer series would launch alongside the PS2 as another early showcase for the hardware but interestingly around now is also the time that Namco kind of split off from Sony and began making games for other platforms too resulting in series like Ridge Racer making it over to the N64 on old arcade rival Sega even nabbing a major console exclusive in Soul Calibur which also showcased the next level Graphics of sega's New Home console the Dreamcast now the reason I bring this up is because it's also around this time that namco's Focus would soon begin to prioritize the neck generation of consoles but that doesn't mean Namco gave up on the PlayStation by any means even though it means we'll see no more iconic series like Tekken or Ridge Racer Namco still had plenty of Heavy Hitters left to go um some rather odd titles as well to Grace the console and our next entry is most certainly a heavy hitter [Music] rounding out the year 1998 we have Tales of Fantasia a PS1 remake of the very first Tales game which originally released on the super famicom back in 1995. now the PS1 version of tales of Fantasia benefits from being built on the same engine used in Tales of Destiny only now the engine has seen a number of tweaks and enhancement showcasing some really nice visual effects and snappier more responsive combat taboo although unfortunately unlike Tales of Destiny Fantasia here never actually seen a release outside of Japan but eagle-eyed viewers out there might notice the gameplay you're all seeing is in English which of course means the game is one of the lucky few that has been translated into English tanks to the effort of some lovely fans so as long as you have the means to patch it playing this new and upgraded version of Fantasia is very little trouble now this is a game I did talk about briefly in a video covering the majority of fan translated games currently available on the PlayStation but long story short a lot of the game play here is very similar to what we've seen in Tales of Destiny although one of the things that always strikes me about Fantasia particularly in the beginning of the game is how dark the story is like the opening hour or two of this thing is grim which wasn't something I often associated with Tales of games well until I played some of the more recent ones and when they're Grim they're pretty Grim let me tell you anyway this is another top tier role-playing game on the console and a great way for Tales fans to experience the very beginning of this much love series hell yeah it's baseball time and we're back with another go at my new favorite sport with world stadium tree the newest on maybe even the best entry in the series yet okay in all seriousness world stadium 3 here is even more like World Stadium 2 than World Stadium 2 was like world stadium ex and by that I mean a lot of this seems the same that being said there are of course a few notable changes which we'll highlight Now new opening cutscene really nice brand new xevious themed minigame also really nice our token Namco theme stage this time around is the literal Tower of daraga which once again pretty nice and the feudal Japan campaign mode once again makes a return and seems to be even better than before with the plot seeming to center around battling Americans this time which uh seems kind of rad actually I'm not gonna lie so all in all another good game that is very similar to what came before it but maybe I'm still missing out on some of the finer details thanks to being Beau base ball challenge and Japanese challenged in equal measure but hey at least I can hit a home run now so I've got that going for me which is nice [Applause] now it's time for one of the most controversial games on our list and also one of the very best it's Ace Combat 3 electrosphere the Final Ace Combat game to come out on the PlayStation Now similar to previous Namco Heavy Hitters like Tekken and Ridge Racer Namco once again settled on a longer Dev cycle compared to the earlier entries in the series meaning the game we have here feels like the most polished and refined version of the Ace Combat series on the console with amazing Graphics tighter gameplay and most notably of all one hell of an incredible aesthetic running throughout this game giving the whole thing this beautiful futuristic Y2K look that just oozes style interestingly a lot of the team responsible for Ace Combat 3 previously worked on an earlier Namco arcade title called technodrive which is basically designed to be a sort of futuristic driving test simulator which is a yeah pretty crazy well if you compare techno Droid then Ace Combat 3 side by side you can kind of tell it's the same folks that worked on it right well anyway gameplay in Ace Combat 3 is once again the arcade style that we've seen in the previous entries you complete various objectives over a number of missions and occasionally get new and more powerful planes to take on even harder missions and thanks to the lovely new aesthetic gameplay improvements and frankly incredible soundtrack well we've got what I think is the finest Jeff Fighter game on the console another must own in my opinion although be warned unlike the previous Ace Combat games we talked about there's actually some major differences between the Japanese and Western versions of this game so much so that I'd actually recommend against the Western versions if you have the choice you see when electrosphere first launched in Japan in the summer of 99 this was a big game for Namco one that featured huge amounts of voice cutscenes as well as voice dialogue during each Mission the game also features a large variety of high quality fully animated cutscenes which took up so much space that it required the game to be split across two discs and another reason for the two discs also comes down to the game's number of missions with 52 in total that allow for branching parts and a number of different endings based on your performance and decisions during pivotal moments in the story so safe to say Namco they spared no expense on this bad boy which is why it's a shame that despite being an excellent game electrosphere sold well under expectations upon its release in Japan and I suppose in what was a panic move for Namco they opted to save money on the western release and reduce the game from two discs down to one so this meant scrapping all the animated cutscenes The in-game Voice dialogue actually the whole story is kind of just gone in favor of a generic replacement story with no voice acting whatsoever but worst of all it also means the number of missions has been reduced from 52 down to 30 36 and all the branching part stuff that's just gone instead it's just 36 linear missions with pretty much all the contacts between just outright missing now I can see where Namco were coming from to an extent it would have been very expensive to re-record All The Voice work in this game into English and with the game already kind of bombing in Japan well the risk of doing this was just too damn high so I guess if the solution is a gimped version of electrosphere over no version of electrosphere in the west well I'll take the gimmed version sure it's not like it's bad or anything it's just it could and should be much better which is why it's a good thing there's also a fan patch for the Japanese original so my recommendation to you play the complete version if you can it's incredible to see how much effort did go into the original Japanese version of this game and while I think future iterations of the Ace Combat series would go on to surpass it especially Ace Combat 7 that game is incredible as far as the original PlayStation is concerned a Ace Combat tree electrosphere is easily one of the console's best and coolest games hey remember about 20 minutes ago when I was talking about how much I enjoyed starloster on the famicom well guess what managed to receive a true PlayStation follow-up about 14 years later that's right it's star ixium the sequel the starloster see guys everything's connected from Bostonian to starloster and now star ixium which features weird time control exploration in space you love to see it now star ixium here is another pal exclusive over in the west I guess at least if Namco doesn't want to give us the Tails games at least they're well versed in Europe's love of space Shooters now what's interesting about star ixium is that after all this time it still plays pretty much exactly like the original starloster the name of the game here is to once again remove all the enemy units from a map while warping around to protect alloy planets and bases the major differences time around is that the game actually plays more like a traditional PS1 Eros space shooter and the game is also fleshed out a bit by different weapon types unlockable ships and the ability to enter into your home base to talk to various allies about uh stuff in many ways it really is just a further update to the classic starloster formula and while it's most definitely a more fleshed out and engaging version of that formula I also think they kind of dropped the ball in a few areas too the major issue for me is that the combat is still kept a little too simple when you compare it to other space Shooters available at the time it can end up feeling a little samey or even boring at times when you've got to take on bigger maps with larger groups of enemies it just lacks the variety of say something like Colony Wars which features more objective types and a deeper story oh and speaking of story you might as well pretend there isn't one the NPCs in this game are some of the most vapid I have ever seen in a game in fact this hole in ship stuff a real missed opportunity really it's pretty much nothing but a fancy menu system and they really could have done so much more more with it look I'm only being harsh on this game because I actually got pretty hyped for it after playing starloster and to see it's kind of just still starloster after all this time but not quite as Charming well that's kind of disappointing still though I think there is some fun to be had here as long as you know what you're getting into and you do get to fight galaga's forms to a nice little remix of the Galaga theme so you know that's kind of fun oh yeah Pac-Man was beginning to forget about him this right here is Pac-Man World the characters first and only Mainline entry on the PlayStation and also his first foray into the Realms of 3D well unless you include pac-mania which we won't interestingly similar to Miss Pac-Man this is another American-made game remember Namco Home Tech the American arm of Namco who were also responsible for publishing Treasures of the deep yeah turns out they make games too quite good ones actually Pac-Man World was another old favor of mine as a kid did I was there let's just say quite the mark for Platformers in my youth I mean you do remember the clanoa segment don't you well Pac-Man world is about a fun little treaty platformer and also a nice celebration of Pac-Man and his little group of friends and family which not only includes a packed dog but also the little red thing from dig dog too see told you he should be in more games anyway the plot of this game sees the leader of ghost Island known as tokman who definitely isn't just a ghost in a big evil Pac-Man suit devising a plan to kidnap Pac-Man and basically replace him as the new Pac-Man of course the ghosts end up kidnapping Pac-Man's entire family instead of him and well there you go that's your plot what I really like about Pac-Man World is that it manages to be a pretty competent 3D platformer with nice levels tons of Collectibles and good movement but it also makes sure to implement a tone of the old school Pac-Man gameplay too featuring little maze segments and mini games Fruit doors that require you to seek out matching fruit to obtain what's inside and all also plenty of fun remixes and Throwbacks to both classic Pac-Man games as well as other popular Namco franchises too I love that one of the boss battles is straight up a whole Gallagher level that is super hard by the way this is actually the first time I ever beat this boss on my first go if little Sean Could See Me Now he would be so so proud and uh also probably call me a nerd the music in this game is also pretty amazing too featuring some fun Renditions of old Pac-Man Classics as well as some really catchy original tracks too Tommy talarico is actually responsible for a lot of the music in this game and I know he's probably somebody you wouldn't think of when you consider it Namco soundtracks on the PlayStation but don't forget this is an American Namco game and since he already did the music for Treasures of the deep as well hey why not get him back now while I used to consider this a game that kind of flew under the radar over the past few years thankfully Pac-Man World has seen a bit of a re-emergence thanks to a modern remake that launched quite recently called Pac-Man World repack and having played it myself I can tell you it is a very good remake with a bunch of quality of life improvements and let's be fair some appropriate Nerfs to some of the bosses although that being said there are times where I kind of missed the PS1 charm and aesthetic of the whole thing but honestly whether it's the PlayStation original or the modern remake of Pac-Man World you really can't go wrong with this one and it also contains the Original Pac-Man as well so you know two games for one you love to see it rounding out the year 99 we have one of the bigger Namco titles that really flew under the radar it's Dragon Valor a two-disc action RPG beat em up hybrid of sorts and also the sequel to Dragon Booster which you might remember is looking at briefly see everything is connected so the gameplay in Dragon Valor is broken down into short beat-em-up stall levels where the majority of the time you'll be taking out enemies using a simple but satisfying blend of melee and Magic bass combat you take on some goons Dodge some obstacles seek out some Collectibles solve the odd puzzle and fight a big boss at the end all the good stuff is here but what really sets Dragon Valor apart is its focus on story and deeper RPG systems Dragon Valor is truly a full on role-playing game with plenty of story and characters to me across your adventure it's just all of this stuff that would usually be filled with random battles against mobs is now broken down into linear levels with beat em up style combat it's actually quite cool now when I say linear levels yes most are pretty much straight lines until the end but every now and then the game does give you multiple choices in regards what routes to take and even in some levels different characters to interact with and this plays a very big role in the outcome of the game because not long into the story your main character actually dies and You Begin playing as the child of your previous character which begins a whole new story or chapter so to speak and this cycle continues multiple times throughout the game until the very end now this is already kinda cool in and of itself but depending on the choices you make with these characters it actually affects who you have your child with resulting in not just a new character to continue the story with but unique story sections and missions for those characters as well now I believe there are five parts in total and when you consider all the story and cutscene space needed for each well it's no surprise this game needed to come on two discs so in concept I love pretty much everything about dragon Valor and it seems like the kind of thing that should have been a bigger hit right well as I said it just kind of flew under the radar and from what I can gather the biggest criticism of the game was that the combat was just a bit too basic and repetitive for a game of its lend and admittedly yeah the combat is actually rather basic to be fair and it also doesn't change much from character to character so yeah I could see how that might let the overall experience down a bit but personally as somebody who grew up playing mindless repetitive beta Bops having one that also features all this cool story and role-playing game stuff attached to it kind of rad really and you get to fight some dragons so you know that's always a plus so yeah while far from perfect this is kind of a Namco sleeper hit on the console it's weird it's different and it's also full of classic beat em up action and you know what ain't nothing wrong with that kicking the year two tails and all for the bang we have rescue shark a lycon game that launched as a pal exclusive in the west and let me tell you this right here one of the strangest games Namco would ever put out on the console this is once again an attempt by Namco to create a kid-friendly light gun shooter although unlike the point blank series rescue shot here was developed exclusively for the PlayStation aiming to deliver a more linear story driven style of like gun game now that's enough to say there isn't a ton of great like on action it's just the reason for this lycon action is so incredibly funny so the hero of our game is a rabbit named Beau who the manual describes as a somewhat absent-minded after Poor Beau here is bullied by some minol bats and is pushed off a cliff he ends up losing his memory once Beau awakens the first thing he sees is a crown and believes he must be a prince so sets off towards the nearby Castle the only problem though is Bo is kind of a well a little bit oblivious to the world around him so the character we play as a fox detective named Hunter decides to protect our little bunny friend here by sniping every single obstacle that gets in his way he's even kind enough to shoot his feet to help him jump and assist in steering a boat from time to time it's great so yes the goal of the game here isn't so much to protect yourself but to make sure a little bow here stays safe and completes his journey to find out if he truly is royalty it's really silly it's really fun and it's one of the most unique like on games out there the way the levels flow allows for a number of unique little challenges within them so there's a surprising amount of variety here and even during some of the game's quieter moments there's always stuff to Target in the background to earn various items and health pickups for little bow throw in some fun gimmick stages really well-designed boss battles and a surprisingly banging soundtrack too and well we've got another great light gun shooter on our hands although do keep in mind the linear story driven nature of this game and it's rather easy difficulty does make this one of the less replayable Shooters out there but regardless I think it's still worth a playthrough at least once just for the lovely characters and concept alone I mean look at this guy not a care in the world so yeah a weird pal and Japan only like gun game that's well worth your time much like another one we'll be looking at real soon but first we've gotta Take Me Out to the Ball Game it's world stadium 4 time and take a look at how they say the name of the game at the title screen Perfection so world stadium 4 Once Again quite a lot like world stadium 3 but let's take a little look at what's brand new including a brand new racing minigame on the load screen a Mappy field as the bonus Namco option this time around and also the soundtrack has suddenly gotten really good in this entry although I don't know if this is just me being dumb as usual but I couldn't seem to find any sort of wacky single player campaign similar to the ones featured in World Stadium 2 and 3 so maybe they got rid of it I don't know probably just me being really dumb as I said but hey check out this home run that's baseball baby wow all right give me that one you know that's the only ball I have and I didn't expect you to hit it that far I really don't feel like going to get it so I'm not a baseball is gone again let's talk about that other pal exclusive like on game it's ghoul Panic a PS1 Port of the arcade original which answers the age-old question what if Point Blank but also spooky and yet also play as cop people hey trust me it works so beyond this kind of being a dream game for me theme was this is very much just a lighthearted horror take on the point-blank formula you still play through a bunch of mini games with each game continuing to offer up fun bite size challenges that test you on a variety of shooting skills and even though the formula is relatively unchanged the devs really made the most of the horror theming to breed new life into the gameplay giving us a whole bunch of mini games that feels strictly unique to Google Panic even though it's a game that while in essence is a clone Google Panic still manages to stand out and feel like its own thing although a big part of that probably does come down to the fact this game is rendered fully in 3D versus the 2D stuff in the point blank game games and also this game has a bunch of House of the Dead style boss fights which are actually kind of incredible you can even collect these Gems by beating certain minigames and if you have the gem in your possession when you reach the boss you got a bunch of free damage at the beginning of the fight a nice little addition I taught of course while the arcade mode is the main attraction we do still got the usual Suite of additional modes like party mode and training mode but we've also got another unique single player experience too this time in the form of another Dungeon Crawler although one that definitely feels more fleshed out and lengthy compared to the one scene in point blank too the mode has multiple floors some exclusive boss fights and mini games and a bunch of secret stuff to find and even some unique cutscenes that help flesh out the plot a little bit more which is basically a story about how everybody got turned into cat people by a witch so yeah even though it's kind of weird there is a reason to all of it at least and come on it's worth it because it means we get these little cat bodies and they are really really cute so needless to say if you're looking for a spooky alternative to point blank enjoy House of the Dead boss fights and like cats well then you've got great taste and you should also play this game [Music] up next we have the debut of one of namco's more popular characters during the mid noddies it's the first Mr driller making its way to the PlayStation in June of the Year 2000. this is another game where the box art is significantly better over in Japan I mean look at those textures for those unfamiliar with the Mr driller Series this here is a puzzle game where the goal is quite simple you drill down way way down now clearly there is a little more Nuance to it than that sure your goal is to get as far down into the stage as possible but you also have to make time to pick up oxygen canisters so you don't run out of Brett while also simultaneously picking the best roots to make sure you don't get crushed by any falling blocks from above it also helps to have really quick reaction times too which I assure you I do not have it's really a rather simple game at its core but it's also one that manages to be really addictive and easy going not to mention it's excellent cheery presentation with bright colors a cool aesthetic and of course the star of the show Mr trailer himself look at him go what a star also the game's soundtrack is another low-key Banger from Namco featuring some of the most diverse and chill tracks of any game we'll look at today perfect for the gameplay on offer [Music] now since this is a port of the first Mr driller originally released in arcades there is some nice extra content to buff off the PS1 version although by Mr driller's standards this game is notably more Bare Bones than future entries in the series which would see the formula fleshed out in new and exciting ways but regardless the entry that started it all is still a ton of fun even today and is definitely a game that every puzzle fan should have in their collection particularly the Japanese version because seriously look at this thing [Music] now it's time for one of the strangest entries on our list it's Galaga destination Earth which is not only not made or published by Namco but is also the only game on our list to not launch in Japan so yeah similar to SD Gundam all the way back near the beginning of this list this is technically not a Namco game but since it's a Gallagher game I'm officially licensed by Namco well it would be rude not to include it so this odd Gallagher game was the product of an American Studio going by the name king of the jungle while Hasbro handled the publishing duties and I gotta say while we have played some American games in the list already this right here definitely feels like the most American game of them all so on paper destination Earth is actually a pretty cool concept it's essentially a sort of variety shooter where the gameplay regularly Cycles through various different styles of gameplay one minute it's a vertical shooter the next it's a horizontal one heck now it's a full on rail shooter cause why the hell not honestly as a fan of pretty much all the gameplay stalls on offer well except the turret bit so I could probably leave them I was pretty excited to see how this game would turn out and after spending a bit of time with it I am very sad to say it kinda sucks okay well not all of it the horizontal and vertical shooter sections are fine if a little uninspired I'm the music here is actually pretty great the issue here is almost entirely down to the rail shooter segments which are so very very bad like I know this probably looks pretty fun that's what I taught before I played it but Jesus did they botch the shooting in these segments for whatever reason your bullets have an incredibly small hitbox and the enemies also feature an incredibly small hitbox meaning shooting anything in this game is an absolutely miserable experience and while this is only a part of the game it's also by far the biggest part when on rail segments taking up I'd say at least 80 percent of your play time so even though the other stuff is kind of fun it's just not worth how frustrating the rail shooter segments are and believe me I wanted to like this thing but hey sometimes it's just not meant to be to be fair I should have probably known better when Japan saw this game and were like you know what we're fine actually you you can keep this one oh well at least we got a good soundtrack out of it I suppose that's always nice [Music] you didn't think we were done with Palace Sports titles did you no of course not but at least this time we've got the follow-up to one of my previous favorites it's libero Grande International or just libero Grande 2 if you live in Japan now this follow-up differs a bit from the original in that this was developed exclusively for the PlayStation and as such the game kinda also looks a little bit more like a PlayStation sports game while the original was very arcadey and also kind of silly this one plays it more serious and goes for a realistic look the likes of what you'd see in some of the bigger budget competitors like FIFA ISS or this is football of course the gameplay still unlike any other football series you'd see on the platform only now it's also seen a bunch of quality of life improvements to make it even better than before player movement is a lot quicker and more responsive the game now also features the option of a handy overlay that tells you the various commands available to you depending on the situ situation and most notably of all the game also now lets you play in a multitude of roles across the team you can even be a goalie if you like I'm not quite sure why you would but I do love that it's here just for the pure novelty Factor alone oh come on how do I let that in this is literally my one job another one of my favorite new additions is the character creator that lets you live out the dream fantasy of actually being competent at a sport for once although as you may have previously seen even in a video game I'm still terrible also I gotta give a shout out to the aesthetic and presentation running through this thing this is another top-notch Namco game from a visual perspective not to mention it features some of their most criminally overlooked music too the game's soundtrack may not be the biggest out there but whenever the music does play in this game you better believe I'm popping off so in the end libero Grande International while lacking a little of the arcade charm of his predecessor is undoubtedly the better playing and more complete experience and it's really quite a shame how much this entry in particular has flown under the radar I would have actually bought this one as well but it's actually kind of rare to find a copy on mine and whenever it does show up it's also one of the pricier Sports titles you can buy for the system but hey if you ever plan on blowing 100 quid in a football game it might as well be this one next up we have Miss Pac-Man maze Madness a spin-off of sorts the Pac-Man World coming once again from the US team at Namco Home Tech now while it probably would have been very easy to make a straightforward follow-up to Pac-Man World than just uh replace him with Miss Pac-Man on and do it all over again maze Madness actually sticks closer to the maze-based roots of Pac-Man's Original Adventures giving us a taste of what a True Modern take on Pac-Man or in this case Miss Pac-Man could look like and they do this by adapting the game into a sort of puzzle Focus platformer with longer individual levels set across a variety of different locales now on a personal level while I do quite like the Pac-Man games I never really bothered with this one in particular because I wasn't sure if I'd like a whole game built around the 4-way maze gameplay of the originals but I gotta say Namco Home Tech really outdid themselves here this is a very fun and often times very clever game with plenty of level specific gimmicks new enemy types and items that keep the game challenging and engaging as it goes on visually it uses the same engine as Pac-Man World so everything still looks pretty good and once again the music is really nice as well featuring a much Chiller soundtrack to complement the more puzzle Focus gameplay there's is even some cool multiplayer orientated modes too giving us this weird competitive Bomberman Pac-Man hybrid that probably works much better than it should and yeah the original Miss Pac-Man is also here and as I said before it is the better of the two Originals so yeah you'll love to see it so all in all this is a great companion piece the Pac-Man World giving Bo Miss Pac-Man and her husband two very different types of introductions to the world of 3D gaming and also ones that pay tribute to the roots in different ways as well both excellent games in my opinion and easily worth having in your collection all right folks just as a heads up as we enter into the final stretch of games the potential for japan-only exclusives is on the increase and not only that some of these Japan only games might even be super text Heavy role-playing games like this one right now kamroy made its way to the PlayStation in October of the year 2000 courtesy of devs tamtam and Alpha unit namako of course picked up the publishing Duty so that's why we're here talking about it today now as you can see by all the Japanese text kamroy is not a game that currently features any sort of fan translation but at the very least I was able to gather the basic plot from the internet so in camera you actually take the role of two different protagonists kagado a country boy out in search of Adventure and fushi an immortal God who was set on keeping control of the humans below her supposedly the game will swap back and forth between these two protagonists on the regular until their stories intertwine into one big struggle between gods and humans but suffice to say I never made it that far because I got stuck in the first Village but in the meantime let's talk about some of the things I enjoyed all the same for one I think Camry is a very pretty game it goes for a similar 2D Sprite in 3D environment style seen in games like grandia and Xeno gears and it seems like a game that features some pretty cool and vibrant locations and what I've seen I really enjoyed during my Play Time battles also seem kind of interesting using a sort of hybrid of turn-based and real-time action that I'll be honest I didn't get to try nearly enough of the judge but hey they seem pretty interesting at least and lastly the game also seems to use some sort of like and dislike meter for the protagonist where depending on how you interact with your allies their feelings towards you can change kind of forward thinking for a PS1 game and also something you'll probably need a grasp of the language to utilize properly so yeah not much more I can say about it than not really but for what it's worth it does seem like something that would be right up my alley and hey stranger games have received translation so you never know one day I might just make it out of this Village probably not though [Music] following up one Japanese exclusive with another next we've got nachavu no dibokin my favorite namja town and this game right here might also be the most obscure game on the entire list and no part thanks to the fact it was sold exclusively in the gift store of a theme park you see back in 96 Namco actually opened an indoor theme park within the sunshine City shopping complex located in the East ikibukuro area of Tokyo now while Namco was of course famous for its video games this theme park actually focused more on attractions and themed dining opting to create its own unique line of character mascots exclusive to the park rather than you know just having Pac-Man monitoring about although that would have been kind of cool and in the year 2000 the star mascot of the theme park najavu the KA starred in his own PlayStation game available to purchase only within the park itself making it quite the collectible PS1 title as for the game well it's a very Bare Bones minigame collection and also not a very good one if you're expecting the usual level of Polish and quality that most Namco games serve up well you're not gonna find it here it really feels like the disc was made more for novelty purposes than anything really and while it does feature some cute cutscenes and theme park related tidbits of information this really isn't something I'd recommend playing or seeking out unless you were really interested in the theme park itself which I imagine outside of Japan anyway can't be that many people although that being said it does seem to feature some cute pocket station content that unfortunately I was unable to try but you never know it might be worth checking out for some folk the pocket station could always use another q-cat mascot rounding out a busy October for Namco we finally got another game that's seen a global release and it's none other than Point Blank tree AKA gundalina in Japan a port of the arcade original and the third and final entry to make it to the PlayStation you know the drill by now the quickfire minigame collection is back and as addictive as ever although this time around the mini-games feel more like a throwback to the original point blank in a way just in terms of the visual style anesthetic I know all three of the point-blank games are very similar in style so it can be kind of hard to notice at first glance but trust me if you play all of them back to back you'll know what I mean now this isn't a criticism in any way I actually think Point Blank 3's overall selection of mini games is one of the strongest and most memorable in the series and this entry even features even more nods and references to Classic Namco titles than ever before which I can really begin to appreciate after having played so many classic Namco titles prior to this I mean look at this minigame all the stars you really keep up with them all right here tonight oh yes so needless to say the arcade mode alone once again makes this a must buy on the console but what's new in the PlayStation version well once again we see the expected list of Playstation modes for things like training multiplayer and party modes Etc but notably this Edition doesn't feature any sort of tailor-made single player mode like we've previously seen in the first two games and more recently in Google Panic instead the game features an endurance mode which functions as a sort of extra fancy survival mode really and while nice it is unfortunately a bit of a letdown considering what came before it although I'm gonna let Point Blank tree away with it solely thanks to the Judgment music that plays after you complete a mini game [Music] I love this so much so all in all a great way to round out the series on the console and while the first will always be my personal favorite all of these games are a must-have if you plan on purchasing a light gun for your PlayStation but if you'd like a more convenient option you can also opt to get the gonvari collection a Japan exclusive PS2 disc that contains all three of the PS1 Point black games as well as the PS1 version of Time Crisis so there you go four classic lycon games all packaged together for your pleasure as for point blank as a series well it kind of disappeared for the most part after the PS1 entries outside of a cool Nintendo DS version and the odd mobile game but I was delighted to find out that Namco brought the series back into the arcades in 2016 with the release of Point Blank X an updated HD version of the game that features remasters of mini games seen in the originals and some new exclusive games as well sure it's been quite some time since that game also seen a release but hey it means the series isn't dead in Bandai namco's eyes anyway so yeah that's something at least [Music] oh yeah smash cord I haven't talked about that in a while well this right here is the Final Smash Court game to make its way to the PlayStation and unlike the previous two entries this one stayed exclusive to Japan which is quite the shame because once again it's another very good tennis game and also probably the most stylish and the weirdest of the bunch so once again at its core smash core trees gameplay remains almost identical to what we've seen in the first two games and the visuals maintain that mixture of pre-rendered chords and backgrounds with little 3D tennis players of which there is a rather large selection of and also Pac-Man is unlocked from the start this time around which we love to see the biggest changes however comb in the form of The Game's new 60s aesthetic and visual flare which is prevalent all across the game from its menus and music to its cutscenes and story oh yeah the game kinda has a story now too which is based around a fictional TV show broadcaster in the 60s over in the UK called Ready Steady Smash and I suppose since it's set in the UK the game also features a bunch of English dialogue during the cutscenes and these are definitely a weird highlight of the game the fashionable mod attired Young Folks went as far as to leave the pubs and discos in order to watch this historical match now these cutscenes will play during The Game's new single player mode called mission mode which unsurprisingly is a series of missions requiring you to complete various goals like hitting a certain rally quota or the feeding your opponent with a particular type of volley it's a nice change honestly although all the briefings on instructions are in Japanese which can make it a bit tricky to figure out exactly what you need to do I just ended up using Google lens and it solved the problem for me but it does make the game not a little bit tougher to get into from the get-go another negative of this new mode is that Namco have decided to remove a basic tournament or league mode in place of mission mode meaning your only options for a game of regular tennis is the exhibition mode which is fine but a little disappointing for people hoping for a deeper classic tennis experience but hey they did add some fun little mini games so that's nice to see also while the game features some very stylish new courts and some excellent new music tracks the dance hall in particular featuring a lovely little vocal number [Music] a lot of the music in this game has also been recycled from Smash Core 2 and while that game is full of bangers it does feel a little lazy I'm sad to say and since Namco is rarely ever lazy it certainly stands out a bit more whenever they are either way this is yet another great smash core title and definitely one of the more unique tennis games ever made I personally hope it sees a fan translation someday just to make the mission mode that a little bit more accessible because supposedly you can unlock clonoa and Mr driller by playing through it and God knows I need a clinoa tennis game in my life foreign It's the Return of the series that Namco really likes closing gears at wit I'm also not releasing in power regions give it up for Tales of Destiny 2 also known as Tales of Eternia over in Japan now this name change across regions is probably one of the more catastrophic ones to ever happen because Tales of Eternia as it's more commonly known has nothing to do with Tales of Destiny and while you may think it's harmless to change the name of the game to Tales of Destiny 2 for its North American release not long after this game came out there would in fact be a real Tales of Destiny 2 a PS2 follow-up to the actual Tales of Destiny so bizarrely there exists two completely different Tales of Destiny 2. God could you imagine if somebody did that nowadays I bet they'd look pretty stupid now Tales of Eternia here as we're gonna refer to it going forward is clearly the most technically impressive Tales of game to make it out on the console featuring a ton of beautiful 2D visuals and some improved 3D visuals to boo man I sure do love walking out in a PS1 era world map for the first time nothing beats it gameplay for the most part remains similar to the Tails games that we've seen before just once again further refined and spruced up to make the experience that much smoother but beyond the visuals which are the most notable change the game also features voice acting for the first time in the series and there is quite a lot of it too now this isn't the first PS1 RPG that feature voice acting nor is the English dub the best alright it's a actually kind of bad but it's still really cool to see a fully voiced PS1 RPG and it does help you connect with the characters and their personalities that little bit quicker it's a game that once again leaves a very strong first impression and since this bad boy came out on a whopping three PlayStation discs you know you're gonna get a good few errors out of it now the North American release of this game is unfortunately crazy expensive nowadays probably the priciest game that we'll look at today on our list but the good news is that Tales of ethernia also seen a port over to the PSP which is not only way way cheaper but event available across all regions too so for many that might be your best way of checking out this classic RPG lighter way if you're in the mood for some beautiful 2D PS1 era action RPG goodness this is one you really can't go wrong with [Applause] kicking off the year 2001 we have what might be one of my very favorite games to show up on this list even if it is entirely in Japanese and I can't play it very well ladies and gentlemen this is voltos a japan-only tactical RPG and one of the most metal games ever made and it even has the soundtrack to back that statement up thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now at its core volfoss is a pretty traditional tactics game in the vein of many of the genre Classics move your units around the battlefield one by one attack some enemies and then your opponent takes a turn and whoever is left standing at the end well that team's the winner although Volvos manages to stand out from the crowd due to its insane World filled with tons of bizarre locations and imagery and most notably of all its incredible character and creature designs who come from none other than Fame Japanese illustrator yasushi nirasawa known for his work in tokusatsu series like Kamen Rider safe to say once you see some of nirasara's work you don't soon forget it and Volvos here is filled with tons of crazy and out there near as our creations and the best part is that all of these creatures are recruitable to your Army in game because Volvos is actually a tactics game with monster collecting elements you can either recruit monsters through your base in the game or capture them in Mission and send them to your in-house jail for punishment or recruitment now this as a concept is already very much up my alley coming across very much like a tactics focused take on a Megami tensei game well you know before devil Survivor came along but I think a pretty addicting part of Volvos is also just seeing how these creatures make the transition from super detailed illustration to 3D model in game I don't know I just got a kick out of these little polygon nightmares waging battle for me and my goth homies and by the way each of these creature illustrations are viewable using an in-game Gallery which is fully accessible from the main menu as soon as you boot up the game so make sure to get on that now unfortunately as you'd expect the language barrier in a Japanese role-playing game doesn't make this the most accessible game in the world specifically the story which I mean come on you'd want to know more about considering how crazy this whole thing is now from what I can gutter the game revolves around a mercenary group known as the Silver Fang who can accept missions from three different warring Nations to gain favor with them and this can supposedly affect how the main story pans out now if you you were attempting to play through this thing for the gameplay alone and opted to ignore the plot I'd say it's surprisingly playable once you figure out some of the more basic commands a lot of the gameplay is taken up by the battles which aren't terribly complicated thanks to the different creatures limited move sets and the in-game menus and post Mission stuff all take place in a singular home base which features a lot of helpful visual cues and even a bit of English here and there so you know it is playable but still I think I'd be doing valfos as a service by playing it without knowing the full context about why and how the game is the way it is so for now at least I'll just live in the hope that one day it might see a fan translation and if there's any potential translators out there looking for a new project I made an innocuous tweet about some of the character designs in this game recently and safe to say quite a lot of people were disappointed to find out this game was locked behind a language barrier so the demand is there and seriously look how metal this game is come on give the people what they want coming nearly four years after the PS1 release of the First Time Crisis and nearly four years after the release of Time Crisis 2 we get Time Crisis project Titan a console exclusive follow-up to the first game giving us a continuation of the story of Richard Miller featuring some other familiar faces like wild dog and that lady from the hotel mission as well as new characters like Ricardo Blanco Big Ranch man and also a killer chef you love to see it so long story short Richard Miller has been framed from the murder of the president of a fictional nation and what follows is a Time Crisis of sorts where Richard Miller has to kill countless numbers of identical goons in fancy outfits so he can clear his name before he's captured seems like a solid plan unlucky for us it means more fun like gun action now even though project Titan was developed by an American studio called Flying Tiger developments the game was heavily overseen by Namco which means for the most part this feels very much like an extension of the original Time Crisis just with slightly fancier graphics and a whole new set of areas to shoot goons in of course there's nothing wrong with that really More Time Crisis is always a good thing and I'm happy to say even if it is very familiar it's still a blast to play although credit where credit is due the game does implement a few new features like Point bonuses for hitting certain parts of enemies bodies and also the ability to move around during boss battles they feature which was later added in future Time Crisis releases now personally even though this is a lot of fun I still think the original is the better game a lot of that is down to Nostalgia I'm sure but the original does feel a little more balanced as the later parts of the game can be incredibly tough even if you're playing with a light gun and while the campaign is a bit longer in this one I did appreciate the variety of having two separate campaigns in the original but hey a lot of this is just nitpicking really so there you have it that's the final Icon Game Namco would release on the original PlayStation and I'm sure you'll agree nobody dominated the genre on the platform quite like they did I think the only other game that even Rises to the level of their output on the console is Elemental Gear build but at least the Namco games won't cost you an arm and a leg to pick up so if you have a CRT lying around pick yourself up a PS1 a guncon and as many Namco games as you can and well you've got yourself an age-old recipe for happiness right there well folks we did it we finally made it to the end of the world stadium chapter of our story with the final entry on the console world stadium 5 making its way to stores in May of the year 2001 and would you believe it it's still the same old baseball fun we know and love but in some ways also the best now in the gameplay Department everything is still same old same old only now I'm actually pretty good at hitting home runs so don't ever let people tell you you can't grow through practice or by making really really long PlayStation videos but as always it's the little extras that help make the package for me and in this case our new loading screen minigame is Mappy themed look we even get little mouse ears how cute also the music has once again taken another bump in quality and features new metal in the opening cutscene [Music] okay you'll love to see it world stadium 5 also features what is easily my favorite theme pitch in the game with this really cool Mr driller themed environment taking place underground not only is it really cool and colorful but get a load of this guy I don't know who he is but he's the king of my heart going forward and finally we see a return to another cool single player mode which is now pirate themed and sees you fighting turn-based battles against opponents and when you enter into combat it gets resolved by the old classic a Pirate baseball game yeah this is a pretty great so all in all a strong finish to the world Stadium Series and to its Credit in spite of me carrying little to nothing about baseball or baseball video games for that matter I always look forward to playing these games and checking out whatever new phone additions they'd add I can only imagine how much better these games might be if you actually enjoy baseball so if you're in the market for a cool new baseball game and can maybe put up with a healthy dose of Japanese text world stadium is a series well worth checking out [Music] closing out the year 2001 we have Mr driller G the third entry in the Mr driller series and the second to appear on the PlayStation if you're wondering what happened to Mr driller too well that one just ended up on the Game Boy Advance for some reason now the bad news is that Mr driller G here is a Japanese exclusive but the good news is that it is also a much better game than his predecessor not only giving us a ton of new environments and modes to dig around in but also a whole host of new characters to choose from too all of which featuring unique ability modifiers that change of gameplay as well like the little robot who can take a free hit before dying or the dog who is well a cute dog I'm sure he has some other additional benefits but let's be fair getting to play as a dog that digs is a benefit in itself this also led me down a path into Mr driller lore and I was fascinated to find out that Mr driller is actually a spin-off of dig dog and connected to some other Namco games as well our main character susumu is actually the son of the original player character in dig dog named taizo who just so happens to be playable here too and did you know susumu's mother is actually the main character from paraduke named Toby kissy Macio now all that kissy stuff actually makes sense man Namco lore is great see everything is connected as for the mode well we've got the classic mission mode which is of course fleshed out with even more stages and difficulties but the biggest addition is the scenario mode which features a ton of really fun and colorful cutscenes and story segments I haven't a clue what was going on during them but they sure were a joy to look at these are also interspersed with small solo missions and even some battle missions where you gotta out dig your opponents these in particular are a ton of fun and would no doubt be great to play against a friend also I Gotta Give a special shout out to the presentation in this game it really is one of the slickest releases with some really eye-catching visuals and music to match it even has some cool web functionality which I believe lets you enter codes from a website to take part in weekly challenges on competitions which then give you a code to upload onto a website for leaderboards and stuff such a neat little addition and a real throwback to simpler times so for my money easily the best Mr Driller game on the console and one that I'm really sad didn't get a western release now this game would see another Japan only follow-up only this time for the GameCube called Mr drillerland which would expand on the formula scene here and bring it to even greater Heights creating what is arguably the peak of the Mr driller franchise and while Mr driller G is still locked to Japan drill land did finally see a global release in the year 2020 remastered in HD fully translated unavailable on pretty much everything so while I do still highly recommend checking out the PS1 entries in the series if you're looking for an ideal place to start the updated release of drilland is undoubtedly the way to go well this is it guys we finally made it to the year 2002 the final year of Namco releases on the original PlayStation and we're gonna kick it off with two games that are technically one game but we'll explain more about that in a minute it's Tales of fandom volume 1 a collection of tales fan discs featuring characters from previous games like Fantasia Destiny and Eternia now intersecting in a bunch of exclusive fan service you saw content done there quite a lot of it too now needless to say if you taught dealing with Japanese text in a role-playing game was hard well doing it in what is essentially one giant visual novel that's split up into various chapters many of which are entirely done with voice acting and no subtitles while it's safe to say there's not many out there that this game is going to appeal to but what I will say is that for a disk which is essentially just fluff for fans of the series and its characters the whole thing is really well put together and full of long fully voiced scenes that are on par with the quality you'd expect from the tale series and its much love skits although that being said there are a few little pieces of side content as well like this simple puzzle game that's actually pretty good all things considered and even features its own story mode as well which is very nice as for the games two different versions well there exists unique copies of this game themed after the protagonist from Tales of Fantasia named class and mint although as far as I know the actual content contained within the two disks is pretty much exactly the same you just get some bonus content in the manuals and the cover art is also different by all means correct me if I'm wrong but hey that's what the internet told me now while these are the last Tails games to release on the console the tales of fandom series would continue on into the PS2 life cycle with volume 2 featuring characters from Tales of Symphonia Fantasia and Abyss so clearly Tails fans are eating pretty good well in Japan anyway since none of these games are translated so yeah sucks to be from the West I guess anyway if you taught Namco was just gonna close things out with some fan service game just you wait they left the real best fan service game until the very end so safe to say for their final game Namco were really out here to please the crowd and graced us with the one and only kanoa beach volleyball which as is technically a sports game only came out in Japan and power regions now as a pretty big clanoa fan one who has played pretty much all his games across the PlayStation Gameboy Advance and even wonder Swan I am sorry to say that this is actually my first time playing this game and you know what this might just be one of the best sports games on the console I am deadly serious clonola beach volleyball is as you'd expect a beach volleyball game but it manages to give us not only a Fun Arcade take on the sport with a lovely clinoa thin coat of paint but one that simultaneously very beginner friendly and full of tougher skills and tricks to master in fact if I was to liken it to any one game it's almost as if they said what if Windjammers but it was clonoa and volleyball instead and well there you go now as it's a later budget release on the platform focus at a younger audience it doesn't have a huge amount of content on offer but to its credit there is still plenty to unlock playing through the game's Championship mode which sees you battled a number of pairs until you finally win the big prize at the end and doing so on different difficulties unlocks you new characters and even volleyball courts to play in and when you play at a higher difficulty this game can be pretty tough too but the benefit of having tough AI is that it forced me to get really good at the game and once you nail some of the extra abilities like spikes blocks and special moves which are activated by scoring points in certain areas of an opponent's field to create a line sort of like tic-tac-toe well you kind of end up getting sucked into this thing honestly I spent way longer with this game than I had planned because I was having such a good time with it plus it's also really cool to see a lot of clanoa characters appear in this polygonal PS1 style because not only did clonella appear in 2D in his original game but in the time between the original PS1 hour and Beach volleyball's release we also got quinoa 2 on the PS2 as well as some other entries on handheld consoles so seeing these later clinoa characters on the PS1 in this style as well I don't know I just thought it was neat if anything I'm sad I didn't pick up this game when I had the chance because for ages you could buy this thing brand new off Amazon for like a tenor and now it's you know under the clino attacks which you hate to see but seriously if you're a clinoa fan or just looking for a fast-paced rkd sports title that's fun alone or with a group of friends namco's very last PlayStation game is without a dou worth checking out [Music] well there you have it folks that was a look at every single Namco and Namco adjacent game released on the original PlayStation well at least I think so anyway once again this ended up being an incredibly long project so thank you for sticking with me until the end of the video I honestly had planned on this being much shorter but I found as I was playing these games and writing about my experiences when it comes to Namco there's so many iconic and important pieces of PlayStation history here GameStop completely defined a console and dare I say a generation of hardware and even when you intend to write just a little about these games you can't help but sometimes write a lot I mean we're talking about games here that are considered the Pinnacle of their genre on the console Tekken 3 the greatest fighter Ridge Racer Type 4 the greatest racing game Ace Combat 3 the best flight game the best tennis game pretty much every single Icon Game Namco released on the console and all the big hits and weird Oddities that came in between Namco we're not playing around when a into the PlayStation and their library of games offers one of the highest quantity to Quality ratios you will see on the console so suffice to say if you see this logo anywhere on the box you can rest assured it'll be money well spent well within reason of course as for modern day Namco well not long into the 2000s they merged with Bandai and became the Bandai Namco we know today they seem to pump out games at a quicker rate than ever before even if they are kind of specializing in the weeb market nowadays if there's a new anime gamer well there's probably a good chance these guys are behind it although when it comes to their bigger homegrown franchises some are driving some not so much while it's great to see Ace Combat and Tekken doing arguably better than ever the tail series Breaking franchise cell records and Classics like clonoa and Pac-Man World coming back into the public eye with some Modern remakes the one that stands out from the crowd for me is Ridge Racer which after a series of declining sales odd spin-offs on some absolutely botched design choices the franchise has kind of been dead in the water for the past 10 or so years which is a real shame because as much as I adore classic Ridge Racer the modern iterations of the game are fantastic in their own right Ridge Racer 2 on the PSP being one of my all-time favorite racing games basically a greatest hits of all the games that came before it with some much improved visuals and controls come on Namco just bring it back to us the world is ready for Ridge Racer type 8 you know we want it but regardless of how we feel about modern day Namco I think we can all agree that the PlayStation wouldn't be what it is had these guys not gotten involved easily one of the single most important Partners Sony would ever make and worn heavily responsible for making the Golden Age of treaty gaming as iconic and memorable as it was Namco called themselves the game creators and my God they really weren't lying really anyway thank you once again for sticking around until the end of the video of course I Gotta Give a big shout out to all my lovely patreon subscribers who helped make videos like this possible including fine folk like Alan coslin Crimson cyclist Dave Nolan Doma fergalo Hagan Kyle winter mumatron Moomin biscuit trans rights are human rights Mr the joshmon Richard Cramer and specter117 who have all subscribed at the fan plus plus tier I'll be back with some more classic PlayStation content as soon as possible but until then thank you so much for watching take care of yourselves and I'll talk to you again real soon see ya [Music] the street moving to

Channel: Sean Seanson

Views: 109,668

Keywords: sean seanson, ps1, playstation, every ps1 game, every playstation game, ps1 games, kim justice, caddicarus, thor high heels, playstation one, sean seanson ps1, namco, every namco game, namco playstation, namco ps1, namco history, all namco ps1, namco review, namco games, namco ps1 games, namco psx, a look at every namco ps1 game, tekken, ridge racer, ace combat, namco ost, namco museum ps1, klonoa, pac man world, ridge racer type 4, all namco games, psx, time crisis, pac man

Id: iSouk55C3Zc

Length: 182min 17sec (10937 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 09 2022