A Look At EVERY SquareSoft PS1 Game | Sean Seanson

thank you [Music] hi everybody generic Irish PlayStation man here and if you can believe it it's a long video once again last time we took a look at the impressive number of games Namco brought to the original PlayStation games that not only Define the console but establish Sony as a serious contender in the console Market from the very get-go there was also a bunch of baseball games in there as well although if we're gonna be making big long lists centered on companies that Define the PlayStation we can only go so long before we talk about squaresoft a company not only responsible for some of the console's most legendary and influential titles but also some of its most interesting and experimental as well they also made Rod racer and treaty World runner on the NES and look if your game is immortalized then the wizard well then you know your company is only destined for greatness now as I'm sure a lot of you already know squaresource output during the 16 bear era was probably one of the single greatest runs in video game history it's almost hard to believe that we got Final Fantasy 6 second and setsu tree live live Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger all in the space of about two years like imagine being this good at making video games all these games of course came out for the super famicom and no doubt made Nintendo a whole lot of money so and what can long be considered one of the bigger bag fumbles on gaming when longtime Nintendo partner Square decided to choose the PlayStation over the Nintendo 64 primarily down to Nintendo's decision to stick with cards for their next gen system over the vastly cheaper and more spacious CD format Square had Grand Visions for their games and more importantly it also had booklet loads of cash and if they wanted to make these Visions a reality we'll then Sony have the console that can make that happen so how did these games turn out in the end well I think the majority of you already know the answer to that both in short if signosis helped establish Sony as a big player in Europe and Namco helped set the wheels in motion to legitimize the PlayStation brand well then it was squaresoft whose skyrocketed Sony to the moon so as always I thought it would be fun to run through the entire cat log of games squaresoft brought to the original PlayStation the games that kicked off their legacy on the platform the games that dared to be a little bit different the games are pushed the console's power to its very limits and of course some of the most legendary and beloved video games of all time and uh also all the weird stuff that crept up in between we're gonna take a look at every single one so sit back relax and get yourself comfy because it's gonna be a long one as we take a journey all the way back to the year 1996 where once again the future of Computer Entertainment was about to change forever and it starts right now thanks [Music] now as always before we Dive Right In I'd like to preface this video by stating that the goal here is to Simply take a brief look at every game squaresoft was involved with on the original PlayStation in order of release you may already be aware that many of the games that we'll be looking at today are a quite lengthy story driven experiences so naturally a video of this type isn't going to be the most in-depth exploration of these games but I'll still do my best to give you a nice overview of the experience and what helps make them the classics we all know and love today now by my calculations there are a grand total of 47 unique games squaresoft brought to the original PlayStation of these 47 games every single one was released in Japan unsurprisingly 28 of these games were released in North America and depressingly only 16 of these games were ever released in power regions a number that I'm definitely not bitter about in the slightest so if you're surprised to find out that it's my first time trying a game in this list it's probably because I didn't know it existed for a good portion of my life now just for Clarity this list doesn't take into consideration the various Collections and reissues square have released over the years 99 of which only ever came out in Japan on Nora really really cool and I want them but with that being said some of these collections are a bit more notable than orders and also tie directly into today's list so we'll of course take a look at a few of these throughout the video and finally all the footage you'll see today will be the North American versions of these games unless they were exclusive to Japan in which case surprise surprise will be playing the Japanese version so you can all rest easy in the knowledge that you won't have to suffer any 25 FPS power games today God bless so let's not waste any more time we've got 47 games to get through and what better place to start than with the game that people only bought because it came with a demo for Final Fantasy 7. [Music] kicking things off with a literal kicking and punching it's the wonderful tobal number one first ever Square soft game to appear on the PlayStation launching in Japan in August of the year 1996. now it seemed like the basic strategy for most devs looking to make a big splash of a fancy new 3D console was to either make a racing game or a fighting game let's just call it the Sega and Namco strategy if you will squaresoft would actually go with the racing route on the PS2 to a mixed results but when it came to the PlayStation we were gifted with a fighting game a 3D fighter that aimed to bring something new to an already credit genre dominated by virtual fighter and Tekken as well as many many subpar virtual fighter and Tech and clones now Square themselves uh not exactly known for making fighting games but good news they didn't have to instead Square drafted in a new developer by the name of Dream Factory a company headed up by one sayichi ishi who was heavily involved in the design of both virtual fighter and Tekken and if Square didn't already seem serious enough they also got a kiritoriyama on board to handle the character design something that has worked out quite well for them in the past now taobao number one is an interesting game for a number of reasons not least of which is the fighting gameplay itself which while still a straightforward 3D fighter at its core does a lot of things to help make its Nano in the genre even to this very day while virtra father uses a simple tree button system with a button for a Punch Kick and block and attack and kick things up a notch further with individual buttons for right and left kicks and punches so battle changes things even further with Bolton's now dedicated to positional attacks one for lows one for mids and one for high attacks depending on your directional inputs and combo strings each of these buttons can output a variety of different punches and kicks there are also individual buttons for both blocking and jumping which is a interesting it can all feel a little bit odd if it's your first time playing but it actually goes a long way towards simplifying one of the trickier parts of fighting games because you always know where your attacks are going to land on an opponent you hit the high button it's gonna hit High you hit low it's gonna hit low now that's not to say things are domed down each character has plenty of fun and difficult combo strengths and special moves to master that give them their own unique flavor and fighting styles but the real star of the show when it comes to the fighting has to be the game's grapple system like nearly all fighters tobal allows you to throw opponents but what sets it apart is that prior to a troll you lock into a grapple with your opponent and depending on your inputs and movements within this grapple you can actually control the direction that you troll your opponent with a level of precision that's not really seen in most fighting games it means that if you're near the edge of a stage and you see an opportunity for a Ringo you can grapple your opponent position them closer and then throw them in a particular direction to get them out enough only looks really cool but it's a serious scumbag move as well which you know the fighting Community is gonna love you take all these cool new elements combine them together and with tobal you've got an early treaty fighter that not only plays very differently to its contemporaries but one that actually holds up incredibly well too now the combat itself is a big part of it but another thing that really sets tobal apart is how it looks and feels to play you see tobal is one of the more notable games to make use of what's known as the PlayStation's high resolution interlace mode or high-res mode for short this mode allows games to run with both higher frame rates and higher resolutions and as a result of this tobal number one's characters and Stage elements are made up of untextured polygons to save on memory but personally I think this gives the game such a striking and distinct look that I genuinely still think looks great even today the 60fps frame rate and super smooth animations also make the fights look a lot more natural and fluid than what you'd come to expect from a PS1 fighter let alone One released in 1996. sure the stages themselves are a little basic and the character designs while pretty fun certainly aren't toriyama's most memorable except for Mary and norc and mufu and all the M's the chicken man of course okay I take it back the characters are actually pretty incredible but overall in terms of style and aesthetic I think tobal is one of the coolest and most distinct looking fighters on the platform hands down also it doesn't hurt that the soundtrack lives up to the lineage of Banger fighting game music that came before it by delivering us a collection of tracks from a whole host of squaresoft and fighting game Legends including yasinori mitsuda jonya nakano and Yoko shimamura to name but a few meaning this game doesn't just look and play good it sounds damn good too foreign [Music] [Music] everybody [Applause] [ __ ] call although probably the most famous aspect of total number one isn't its 1v1 fighting it's actually the game's Quest mode this is a squaresoft game after all so I suppose it would be rude not to include a hybrid fighting game or PG uh Dungeon Crawler wouldn't it now I'm not gonna lie and tell you that this mode controls very well or that it's overly deep and complex but for a fighting game in 1996 to include a mode like this at all is absolutely insane sure this first attempt here is a little bit rough and janky at times but it's still a really fun and Charming little inclusion that helped further Define tobal as a standout game in the genre plus beating the dungeons are how you unlock bonus characters in the game and the music also features jungle breaks so come on you might as well give it a go hmm all in all a very strong showing from squaresoft and Dream Factory for their debut game on the PlayStation maybe not what Square saw fans were expecting but hey if you bought it for the included Final Fantasy 7 demo well then at least you got yourself a good game with it a tradition that seems to follow almost every game that somebody purchased because it came with a demo that is unless you lived in the pal region of course because we didn't get a demo because fauna fantasy didn't even exist here yet by the way I should probably also mention that bookstation the popular PS1 emulator of choice recently got support for rollback netcode meaning taobao number one or practically any fighting game on the console can now be played online at a competitive level so if anybody out there is looking to pick up a cool new fighter might I recommend towbar number one although now that I think about it you may want to hold off just for a little bit because this certainly won't be the last we see of Dream Factory on the console or our old friend olims the chicken man for that matter if you taught our last game was exciting well you better buckle your seat belts because it's Mahjong time that's right next up is Pro logic Mahjong hoi Shin a Mahjong game from squaresoft or should I say aqueous or is it aqueous I'm not really known for pronouncing words properly anyway so I don't know just pick your favorite of the two Aquas is a name that's gonna pop up a few times during this video it was basically a short-lived side brand from squaresoft dedicated to publishing their more sporty and Casual entertainment focused titles I guess you could kind of think of them as Square's version of EA Sports only much less successful but their games do feature a nice logo sequence at least [Music] foreign foreign and uh yeah it's a Mahjong game all right now I know it's probably very easy to just dismiss mahjong games because like most people from the West we generally don't have a lot of experience with or attachment to traditional Asian board games but it is important to remember just how popular these types of games were back in their home country I'm pretty sure the Japanese PlayStation Library features well over 100 different mahjong games of varying quality and even if I personally ain't that into them or even know how to play mahjong for that matter it's still important to understand I suppose respect their place in Japanese gaming history of course that being said those pro-logic Mahjong do anything interesting or different to set it apart from the usual Mahjong video game uh honestly not really from what I've played this simply seems like a nice Speedy competent Mahjong video game it features still images of various people for your opponents a hefty amount of Voice work and some occasionally nice if unremarkable music as well I guess from an outsider's perspective I would describe the game as a decent but unremarkable Mahjong experience do you like Mahjong well then you'll probably like this game but don't expect it to convert any newcomers now you might wonder to yourself how could a Mahjong game possibly convert newcomers and for example there's a game on the 3DO that's currently being translated into English where you can beat up perverts harassing women while playing Mahjong see if you want to get people into Mahjong this is how you do it foreign our first game of 1997 and also the first game to actually be developed by squaresoft on the console it's Final Fantasy VII uh might have heard of it Final Fantasy 7 is a difficult game to talk about in a short space of time because it's really hard to fully break down just how important and influential this game was and honestly it still is I mean we're getting Final Fantasy 7 games over 25 years after its release which is kind of crazy when you think about it there are people out there who will say it's the greatest video game ever made and there's probably just as many who consider it overrated schlock but I suppose at least for me anyway I think Final Fantasy 7 is one of the truest examples of a special video game and while I always really loved this game ever since I was a kid I don't think I truly appreciated how special it was to me until I played the Remake all these years later it's kind of hard to explain but there are Parts in the remake where seeing certain locations or hearing certain songs Just elicited such a strong emotional reaction for for me and that's not even down to the quality of the Remake which I think is a pretty good game in its own right but it was just down to how much I love this game how much this world means to me how much I care for these characters how great the soundtrack is and I suppose considering my entire video game Journey from childhood up until Mayo how much this game and I suppose the series as a whole played a part in shaping it Final Fantasy 7 was a statement video game from squaresoft they had just come off making some of the best the most highly regarded games of the 16-bit era and to say they were confident in their game making skills at this stage would be an understatement now Final Fantasy 7 had been in the works long before Square even decided it was going to be a PlayStation game you can find early footage of various tests that they worked on both in 2D and 3D form and it was a lot of this experimentation with newer 3D graphic Suites that really Define the trajectory of what the game would eventually become the ability to display game worlds in 3D and also to make these highly detailed pre-rendered cutscenes allowed Square to achieve a truly cinematic feel with their game something that just wasn't possible on previous Hardware now despite ff7 being in the works for a number of years the actual development of the game took just over a year with a team of roughly 100 to 150 people working on it which at the time was unheard of for a video game not to mention it was also at the time the most expensive video game ever made until you know our Lord and savior shenmue came along so it was clear to see squaresoft put a lot into Final Fantasy 7 and needless to say it paid off Big Time becoming squaresoft's biggest hit today and not only that it also single-handedly pushed the PlayStation into the lead in Japan you see up until early 1997 the Saturn which as we all know struggled a bit in the west was actually outselling the PlayStation in Japan that was of course until Final Fantasy 7 came along and initiated a paradigm shift which unfortunately Sega would never really recover from the game also sold a tone in the west by the way no tanks down to some serious hype and bows from the gaming press and also some very aggressive odd campaigns that infamously spoiled some plot points in the game but whatever look how cool this looks good and evil better war of love and hate Final Fantasy VII is the biggest selling game ever on Playstation over 100 hours of the most compelling gameplay this year's most anticipated release is Final Fantasy VII by the way Final Fantasy 7 was also the very first Mainline Final Fantasy game to ever release in power regions and the Buzz for the game was so big over here that they didn't even feel the need to change the name we just immediately went to number seven no questions asked also as a side note while Final Fantasy 7 was the first game to feature the Final Fantasy name in pal regions it's not the first Final Fantasy game that we got as we did in fact get both Final Fantasy adventures and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest only strangely with no Final Fantasy branding whatsoever I guess they were just really trying to make Mystic Quest happen so that's a little bit of history behind one of the world's most famous games but what's it all about you ask well as Final Fantasy 6 did before this entry pushes the series further into the Realms of Science Fiction giving as a world of feels both futuristic and primitive in equal measure Final Fantasy 7 follows the Avengers of a bunch of Eco terrorists by the name of avalanche on their quest to save the planet from the evil Shinra Corporation who are sucking the planet's life force drawing all in the name of big profits baby as you can see it's actually quite ahead of its time really there is of course a whole lot more to Final Fantasy 7 than that but this isn't the type of video to get into the nitty-gritty parts of the story all you gotta remember is that we've got sweet pre-rendered cutscenes and cool guys and gals with spiky hair and big swords what more could you want really now Final Fantasy 7 doesn't actually do a whole lot to change from the established turn-based RPG formula that the final fantasy series was known for sure there's a reduction down to a tree person party versus the usual four seen in the previous entries but for the most part it's classic turn-based action now just spruced up with fancy treaty visuals but it's these visuals that really allowed Square to capture the scale and cinematic elements of combat from the magic effects to the big imposing enemies and probably most notably the summon attacks which can be so spectacular and over the top they were literally out of this world although probably Final Fantasy VII's defining feature is its Materia system in this game all your skills magic and abilities are contained in items called material to use these abilities you need to slot the material into your character's weapons and armor the better your equipment the more material you can equip and the more you use your material the stronger your abilities will get it's a fantastic system that's not only quite easy to understand but allowed for tons of flexibility and combos with your character is effectively allowing you to spec them in any way you see fit although that being said each character still does have their own individual strengths and weaknesses and more notably there's also these attacks called limit breaks which are basically character-specific super attacks and another cool addition to the series that began in this entry now if you move outside of the battles in the cool pre-rendered cutscenes this game was also the introduction of things like pre-rendered backgrounds the iconic 3D world maps and these lovable blocky 3D character models that you'll spend the majority of the game looking at possibly a throwback to the Chibi characters from previous final fantasies but more likely a result of this being Square's first ever treaty game quite primitive by today's standards but I still love them all the same in fact one of the strongest parts of these 3D Final Fantasy games isn't the 3D but the lovely pre-rendered backgrounds look I love a good pre-rendered background and when done well they can provide a scene or environment with so much charm detail and personality in a way that even the most graphically impressive and fully realized gaming worlds can't match every location every building heck every room is like a little piece of art in and of itself and fun of Aussie 7 is chalk full of these things across its tree disks and hey if you enjoy pre-rendered backgrounds as much as I do good news Square tended to feature these things quite a bit during this era so expect to see plenty more throughout this video and of course while I've probably talked about this game long enough as it is we can't move on without highlighting its glorious soundtrack from Long Time Square self composer nobuo uematsu this is easily one of the most well-known and iconic soundtracks in all of Gaming one that even transcends gaming on occasion in fact a big reason why I even decided to make this video was because I was playing the recently released Final Fantasy rhythm game final bar line and hearing these songs even just briefly has this overwhelming power to make you want to play Final Fantasy games and 7 definitely features some of the best and most memorable tracks this series would ever see foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] anyway that's a short look at Final Fantasy 7 one of the most beloved video games of all time and at least in my opinion anyway one that is definitely worthy of the praise it receives I mean how can you hate a game that features mog's house seriously this is the best shirt ever now if you've never tried Final Fantasy 7 before and want to check it out for the first time thankfully it's available on pretty much every modern platform imaginable now with a bunch of quality of life features which we love to see although when it comes to the original on Playstation did you know that there's actually two different versions of Final Fantasy VII there's the original Japanese release and Final Fantasy 7 International International is basically an updated version of the original game with some bulk fixes gameplay and storyline tweaks International is basically the version that we got over here in the west but was then really released again in Japan so they could benefit from all the adjustments as well squaresoft is probably the company most notable for putting out these International releases but other examples include capcom's Auto modelista us tune which uh made the game worse and there's also Sonic Adventure International because of Utah's Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast was janky oh boy you really gotta try that 1998 Japanese original so this International faunamazi 7 based on the western release eventually came to Japan in October 1997 roughly nine months after the original now you may think releasing a new and improved version of Final Fantasy 7 in Japan so close to the original is kind of a scumbag move but I mean what else could you really do back then well I'll tell you what they did do they sweetened the deal by adding a Japan exclusive Ford disc known as Final Fantasy 7 perfect guide now this disc has got to be one of the coolest bonuses I've ever seen in a video game it essentially acts as an interactive compendium and guidebook giving you detailed stats and information on pretty much every single character enemy weapon item and uh even location in the game you can go around a map click on a location travel to that location see what items are inside chests and even check full lists of every single item a sharp is selling it's kind of amazing really the disc also has highly detailed illustrations of items these insane high-res 3D models of some of the iconic vehicles and machines featured in the game and you can even watch video clips of every single summon attack which I legit would have bought this disc for alone there's even some footage of early versions of the game which is just so cool to see here all the way back in 1997. if you're a big Final Fantasy 7 fan and you've yet to check out the perfect guide disc absolutely go out of your way to do so it's a charming and beautifully crafted Love Letter to Final Fantasy 7 and further goes to show just how much effort squaresoft put into every aspect of their releases anyway that's about enough Final Fantasy 7 for one video I think I mean we've only got another I don't know 10 plus Final Fantasy games to get through and the good news is they probably won't take as long as this one did but I mean come on it's Final Fantasy 7. where do you love it or hate it there's no denying the impact this game had on role-playing games squaresoft the PlayStation in fact gaming as a whole really it truly is one of the all-time greats and if you've yet to try it well what better time than now I suppose well maybe not right now because it's Samurai time [Music] squaresoft is back again with yet another fighting game and this time it's Bushido Blade a cool weapons based fighter and a debut game from a Japanese developer called lightweight now if Dream Factory aim to mix up the traditional treaty fighter formula with tobal number one lightweight's Bushido Blade throughout the rulebook entirely and dared to do something completely different what we have here is a 1v1 weapons based fighter but you might notice is a few of the usual fighting game UI elements like health bars timers and uh actually everything really is missing from the screen that's because Bushido Blade aims to give you a more realistic take on the weapons based fighter just like in real life one good hit with a sword can take down your opponent in an instant then you better believe if you slip up they can do the very same to you the appeal of the shito blade lies in the moment-to-moment gameplay leading up to that one deadly strike the Mind Games the Dodges the parries what seems like a deceptively simple game on the surface actually offers up a huge amount of depth thanks to the wide variety of options it provides to you not just for slicing up your foes but for uh preventing it as well the movement for the most part is similar to your usual fighter although if you hold down the L1 button you can actually run around freely which is quite useful and also potentially quite funny more on that later as for your attacks though similarly to tobal this game gives you individual bonds for high medium and low attacks only this time time the game also adds in a stand system allowing you to lower and raise your center of gravity which in turn will give you different attack options specific to that stance throw in a bunch of additional options like rolls guards a complex Parry system the ability to launch limited range weapons and even the ability to throw sand into your opponent's eyes to Blind them temporarily the best move in all of gaming where things get even more interesting though is how the different characters and weapons can change the flow of combat even more Bushido Blade has a roster of 6 characters which admittedly doesn't seem like a lot right but when you take into consideration the game also gives you a choice of 8 different weapons from katanas to broadswords and even sledgehammers and each of these six characters also has unique attacks that can complement certain weapons well then as you can see things really start coming together also it's kind of funny that one of the characters called Black Lotus is an Irish Samurai I did meet a fella in a poblance called Black Lotus but In fairness I think this might have been a different guy the whole thing is such a simple concept well thanks to a well thought auto combat system and wide range of options it makes every single fight feel tense and enjoyable there's even a cool body damage system where if you wound your opponent but don't kill them it can take out one of their arms or even leave them crawling around the floor which naturally puts you at a serious disadvantage but it gives you even more options to Stage a dramatic comeback I mean it does rarely happen but still you never know it might another aspect worth highlighting are the combat Arenas themselves the shito blade takes place in modern times oddly enough and while its environments do have a very traditional feel making it almost look like it takes place in ancient Japan every now and then things like telephone poles helipads or people with literal guns will show up to snap you back into reality the environments can also sometimes feature Ledges and drops that you can scale and of course fall to your death from which certainly spices things up but the best feature of this game's fighting Arenas is the fact that the areas are actually all connected if you run to the edge of the screen you and your opponent will then move to another part of the game world and you can keep doing this to your heart's content by the way as long as you see an exit you can just keep on running this will of course probably be very annoying for your opponent but come on what's a fighting game without a little BM am I right modes wise the game offers up a limited but fun selection we've of course got training and versus modes and even a nice story mode which is basically just arcade mode for each of the six characters but those feature some very nice voice cutscenes a fun little feature in story mode is that you can actually be denied the final fight if at any point you break the Bushido code of honor which basically means any dirty tactics like stabbing a down opponent drawing a projectile or a sand in people's faces although my personal favorite mode has gotta be the slash mode where you take on 100 opponents with just one life unsurprisingly it's uh quite difficult to do especially when you lose the use of one arm halfway true oh yeah and for the sick girls out there there's also a POV mode as well which you can even use in two player if you link up two PlayStations seriously some somebody out there has got to run a tournament using POV mode only come on make it happen something needless to say I think Bushido Blade is pretty great and a major part of that is down to its accessible yet complex gameplay but I think it also comes down to the voids in a way the games lack of a UI and the Mysterious low poly environments go a long way to cultivating a dense atmosphere not to mention the actual fights themselves usually feature no music and it is absolutely the right choice as the sound of the ocean or clashing blades echoing in the wind is all you'll ever really need in a game like this [Applause] although that being said the game does feature a limited amount of Music which was done by the sampling masters of Ridge Racer Fame so uh somehow this tends an atmospheric sword fighting game also has an absolute Banger soundtrack [Applause] [Music] also for those who watch the Namco variant of this video You Might Recall how big I am on fighting game openings and while towball number one does indeed have an opening which we'll leave a thought Bushido Blade gives us one of the coldest openings of any fighting game completely setting the stage for what's to come [Music] thank you so all in all I think Bushido Blade is an absolute must-owned fighting game on the console Not only was it incredibly unique for its time but it's managed to remain a standout in the genre right up until this very day squaresoft may not have been making the fighting games themselves but clearly they've picked two very impressive teams to put their weight and finances behind and in the case of a lightweight they weren't done on the console just yet but we'll have to wait a little while longer to see how that turns out foreign would you look at that we're back to Final Fantasy again and so soon as well I sure hope you all enjoy seeing the fun and Fantasy games out of order I'm sure that won't get confusing that's right hot on the heels of Final Fantasy VII Japan got a standalone Port of the Super Nintendo classic Final Fantasy 4 or a final fantasy 2. if you're nasty now I say Standalone because in the west I'm sure most of you are familiar with this version coming as part of a Duo pack either as part of Final Fantasy Chronicles in North America or with Final Fantasy ontology in power regions which coincidentally was also the debut release of this game in power regions C Square did Care About Us eventually in like 2002 anyway since those packages contain other games that we'll be looking at later we'll wait until then to talk about improper but for now here's the PS1 Port of Final Fantasy 4 and it's a Super Nintendo game all right except worse somehow we'll talk more about the quality of the poor and its new features in a moment but for those unfamiliar this is Final Fantasy 4 the fourth Mainline entry in the Final Fantasy series and the first to make it to a 16-bit console originally launching for the super famicom in July 1991. following in the footsteps of Final Fantasy 2 4 placed a much bigger emphasis on storytelling featuring not only a set cast of named characters but this time all with their own unique classes and skill sets as well Cecil The Dark Knight came the Dragoon Rydia the Summoner stars are here different storytelling just as much as his toy role-playing gameplay it's a dark and dramatic tale and even though it's quite clearly a very early Super Nintendo game from a visual perspective it's still one of these shining examples of the genre and helped introduce elements like the ATV battle system which we'll be seeing in plenty of games to come don't you worry so needless to say Final Fantasy 4 another Stone Cold classic but what about the PS1 version well if you're like me and this was your only way to play this game for a time yeah it does the job just fine it's got a couple of new features like some brief CGI cutscenes that play at the beginning and end of the game which is nice don't go in expecting to see Mainline Final Fantasy budget where the cutscenes but it is nice to see the Amano character designs rendered in this style also the English translation has been adjusted somewhat to tidy up a few errors here and there and you can also now run by holding down the circle button which is quite useful but unfortunately for all the talk we did about CD swaying Square over to Sony when it comes to Super Nintendo games CDs sure are no replacement for cards because we've got loading times baby now in isolation the loading times in Final Fantasy 4 aren't too bad really especially in comparison to some of the other Super Nintendo ports we'll be looking at later but it still has load times which makes it inferior to the card version for obvious reasons also since the soundtrack had to be ripped to the CD it also sounds a bit weaker than the original as well it's the type of issues that wouldn't have bothered me back in 2002 when I first could get my hands on this game but here now in 2023 where so many good versions of Final Fantasy 4 exist readily available across multiple platforms well clearly the PS1 version is just kind of there nice to own but uh yeah I don't know why you'd really want to play it anyway that's below of square classic Final Fantasy 4. now who's ready for some horse racing [Music] foreign ladies and gentlemen this is power Stakes our next game launched under the aqueous branding and also the first time I've been able to talk about a horse racing game on the channel how exciting now you may think I'm kidding but horse racing games are huge in Japan there's almost as many horse racing games as there is mahjong games and while I'm not particularly interested in the sport of horse racing in spite of being made to attend many events as a child as is Irish tradition the reason I'm excited for this is because horse racing games almost always have Banger soundtracks it's just one of the many laws of Gaming [Applause] now when it comes to a genre like this my expectations without power Stakes here would either be a riding and racing simulator or probably something more akin to a breeding simulator where you train and look after horses so they can go on and win big events while it turns out power Stakes is neither of those things and is in fact more of a horse racing Data Bank that allows you to simulate classic races and also to create your own using said data basically the idea is that this game has data of the various horses jockeys and events that have taken place in Japan over a certain time period quite a large amount of data actually and with this data you can set up braces and then watch live simulations of these races and uh yeah that's that's about it really it's a very odd game even by horse racing standards but I suppose in the days before computers on online databases were readily available to the masses this game offered up quite a robust Bank of information for Force Racing enthusiasts and I guess considering the crazy number of horse racing games that exist on the console well clearly there must have been an audience for this kind of thing as for gameplay well other than looking out walls of Japanese text the simulations themselves do look nice enough there's no direct input from the player once the race begins other than changing the camera angle slightly if you like but yeah that's basically all there is to it as for the music well unfortunately there's not much of it as it only plays during the menu and what's here isn't exactly what I considered top tier horse racing game tunage but it is still Pleasant background music at least [Music] well that was Paris Stakes a fine example of what happens when you combine Microsoft Excel and horses can't imagine there will be many of you out there clamoring to try this japan-only data focused horse racing simulator but it's a weird curion nonetheless anyway that's enough of that time for a game where you can powerbomb a giant frog welcome back to the world of tobal with the second and final game in the series it's tobal2 you think they'd call it tabao number two but nope it's just regular old tobal too and it's also a Japan exclusive now so yeah sucks for us so Bal 2 is a fine example of a fighting game that takes what worked in the original and just enhances it in almost every conceivable way all the characters from the original game return alongside plenty of new phases as well quite a lot of new faces actually but we'll talk about that more in a moment the core fighting gameplay remains mostly unchanged only now with even more moves and faster and snap your gameplay which we love to see it even features one of the more robust and four thinking training modes you would see in a PS1 game it's quite impressive actually and even more impressively the game somehow continues to run in the PlayStation's high resolution mode at 60fps but now with fully textured characters and stages I know it may not look like the most impressive thing in the world but but you gotta understand this game is really pushing the PlayStation to the limits of its capabilities if you want to show somebody an example of a technically impressive PS1 game well then you roll this bad boy out let me tell you although that being said even though the game is undoubtedly a more visually impressive game compared to the original there's still elements of the blocky characters and untaxion environments from the first game that I kind of prefer plus the stages and backgrounds in to Battle 2 are a little more Barren compared to the first which I imagine is due to the addition of textures limiting the amount of free memory for additional details but still I think it's interesting to compare the two on a visual level and no matter which one you prefer well you think they both look fantastic and are easily some of the consoles most visually impressive games and speaking of visually impressive the game now gives us a bunch of endgame movies for beating arcade mode with a fighter which we very much love to see both the star of the show is undoubtedly the game's opening movie which is just a perfect mixture of gorgeous visuals Good Vibes and great music it is easily one of my favorite fighting game openings on the whole console [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] by the way while the music in the previous entry was provided by a selection of various squaresoft Affiliated composers to Battle 2 instead brings in takayuki Nakamura of Virtua Fighter Fame to provide the music this time around he brings a slightly different vibe and soundscape to the series but the music is just as good if not better than the first entry and having a single composer on board also helps keep the soundtrack more thematically consistent throughout there's certainly a lot to love here [Music] possible [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] although of course just like the previous entry the quest mode Remains the clear standout on the package and boy is it new and improved we've now got talents to explore with full-on shops way more dialogue and even more Dungeons and weird enemies to battle quite a lot of weird enemies actually over 200 apparently all of which if you can believe it are unlockable unavailable to play in the regular fighting modes sure a lot of these have simple move sets or are clones of one another but I mean look at this [ __ ] this is peak fighting games right here also you can play as a chocobo which is pretty fun I mean it's terrible at fighting but still now eagle-eyed viewers might notice that this Japan exclusive fighting game share those have a lot of English text right well thankfully this is one of the games blessed with a fan translation so if you can't read Japanese and want to enjoy all all the wacky combat this game has to offer well worry not it's only a quick patch away so yeah that's tobal too a very fun fighter that improves on the original's combat visuals and Quest mode and it might also possibly have the largest character roster ever seen in a retail funding game it's quite the feat really which is why it's a shame that this is currently the final game in the series I suppose when Dream Factory figured out how to make a textured North there was really no point trying to improve on Perfection so even though this is goodbye to the tobal series this wouldn't be dream Factory's last fighter to make it on the console and next time around things are gonna get a little bit weird well well well if it isn't my long lost love baseball video games back once again and this time it's aqua's turn to take the field with digital League a June 1997 release and of course like all aqua's releases it's another Japan only exclusive now those who watch the Namco video might recall my slow transition from baseball scrub to home run Master over the course of five different world stadium titles well we're back again with Square's take on the genre or should I say no Productions take on the genre since they're the ones that actually developed it the game does have squaresoft branding though so that's nice so similarly to the world stadium games I looked at previously this is a cartoonish arcadey and lighthearted take on a baseball game something Japan really can't get enough of in fact this game almost plays like for like with World Stadium from a mechanic standpoint which is quite handy because it meant my footage isn't just gonna be me failing repeatedly which is always nice now truthfully this seems like a nice competent baseball game it's got the licensed Japanese teams which is always nice a bunch of stadiums to choose from and some nice catchy music too but from a presentation standpoint the game's Reliance on fully treating environments and characters doesn't give it the most eye-catching or interesting aesthetic especially when comparing it to other rkd baseball titles like world stadium or konami's very popular Power Pro Series which just feel like more joyful games to play other than that yeah it's a baseball game already and if you like baseball well you could probably like this too is this the last baseball game we'll be looking at today of course not but in the meantime why don't we take a look at a game that most people will consider to be a home run uh well would you look at that it's Final Fantasy Tactics the series first foray into the turn-based tactic genre and also widely considered one of Square's finest ever games not bad for a first attempt eh well you see in reality while this is Square's first Fantasy Tactics game they did of course previously step into the genre with the release of Front Mission on the super famicom in 1995. a series will be seeing plenty more of throughout this video Don't you worry but when it came to introducing a tactical spin on their beloved Final Fantasy series Square kind of just got really lucky and by that I mean a number of people responsible for developing the excellent ogre bottle and tactics over games recently decided to leave their jobs at Japanese developer Quest and guess who was ready to pick them up without hesitation the most knowable of these hires though is ogre battle series Creator yasumi matsuno who considering the quality of Tactics Ogre was probably the single best person you could have directing a fan of Ozzy tactics game and well the results speak for themselves Final Fantasy Tactics is of course your traditional term-based grid tactics game you take a turn moving all your little Lads and then your opponent does the same Whoever has the most players alive at the end well they're usually the winner what makes Final Fantasy Tactics special however is the care it takes in melding dramatic storytelling full of deep World building that hooks you in from start to finish with some of the most in-depth and customizable gameplay systems ever seen in a tactics game a big part of this are refinements to the great systems already seen in the team's previous effort Tactics Ogre which you can very clearly see Final Fantasy Tactics takes great influence from but crucially it's the addition of the final fantasy series job system that gives this game so much depth and variety it's always exciting to learn new moves and abilities in a game right but unlocking tons of new classes for your units that you can mix and match throughout the game just pushes the whole thing to the next level it's quite simply a game jam-packed with everything a tactics fan could ask for and that lovely final fantasy twist to everything is just the cherry on top in fact when it comes to Final Fantasy elements on display this is definitely one of my favorite Aesthetics in the whole series The Game really just reads as this sort of cozy diorama of cute player's Brides just going to town on one another in these middle age inspired locales but it's juxtapose with this rather serious story about warring factions vying for control of the Kingdom that's filled with enough political Intrigue and dodgy religious organizations to make even the most jaded gamer invested cute yet serious that's FF tactics also they put cloud in the game that's fun seriously though expect to see Cloud quite a lot during this video they would put him in anything if they could the excellent soundtrack from hitoshi Sakamoto also complements the game's battles and World perfectly there's always going to be a lot of pressure when composers other than uamotsu work on fauna fantasy titles because you're inevitably gonna have your work compared to one of the goats but Sakamoto really left his Mark here whether it's the cheerful mop teams or dramatic battle and story sequences Sakamoto delivers the golds and gives us a soundtrack definitely worthy of the series name foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] so needless to say Final Fantasy Tactics yet another home run for squaresoft although unfortunately for some of us this excellent game would be the beginning of a very painful squaresoft drought experienced by pal players all across the globe a dark period where Square just pretended we didn't exist for a while I'm tragically some of the best PlayStation games ever made just went on pastors by like a train in the night it all started here with Final Fantasy Tactics but on the bright side Square was at least good enough to give us both the PSP remake of this game War of the Lions and the Game Boy Advance and DS follow-ups too so there you go it all turned out okay in the end anyway that's enough for both Final Fantasy and tactics games for the moment while there is actually another tactics game coming up pretty soon but before that we've got to play a game where you're arrested for murdering your boyfriend and then have to beat up a starfish to get out of prison foreign y here's Sagar Frontier a game where you're arrested for murdering your boyfriend and then have to fight a starfish to get out of prison and a whole bunch of other weird stuff happens too this July 1997 release is the PlayStation debut of squaresoft's very popular Saga series a series which first debuted on the Game Boy under the name Final Fantasy legend in the west and more notably achieved massive popularity in Japan once it moved to the super favicom for the Romancing Saga Trilogy Saga is easily one of squaresoft's most interesting on an experimental series featuring unconventional systems and progression now make it stand out not only in the Square lineage of games but console role-playing games as a whole now the experience can vary from game to game but the series often features non-linear gameplay and progression always with a big focus on smaller individual stories and quests that can Branch off to new narratives rather than focusing on One Singular consistent plotline and in the case of Sagar Frontier we most certainly get to experience that but interestingly this time around the game features a series of self-contained stories all taking place within the same universe a sci-fi fantasy setting known as the regions you pick from one of seven different characters at the beginning of the game and then off you go on that character's Adventure while other playable characters can't show up as NPCs and certain characters stories to add more context to the world as a whole the story of each character really does feel like its own unique and strange experience seriously the first character I picked Amelia she discovers her boyfriend dead after being murdered by a crazy clown killer and then the police arrest her for the murder she ends up in prison and then joins a gang of fellow prisoners to try win a competition to get out of prison boy beating up monsters and navigating a maze then when you win and get out of prison you arrive home and then the clown killer immediately tries to murder you until you get saved and end up joining a secret society of Assassins this all happens in the first half era of the game it is actually insane now this is my first time playing this game or really investing time into any Saga game really but the whole thing is just so silly and inventive every character I invested time into seems to have a story that goes off the rails almost immediately and you can never tell what's gonna happen next it's great and I suppose that's a big part of the game's charm you really don't know what's gonna happen next the game kinda just leaves things up to you in terms of how you want to progress you get put in a big world with multiple places to visit and people to talk to and I can honestly feel quite daunting at first but if you're the kind of person who loves the trill of the unknown and the ability to make your own path well then Sagar Frontier offers up something completely unique on the console the combat on the other hand still the traditional turn-based battles you all know and love but the series does spice things up by removing the usual XP based level system instead featuring a system where your abilities and stats increase based on on how often you use items or take and deal damage in combat it's kind of like a revised version of what Final Fantasy 2 was going for but yeah we'll talk a little bit more about that later for now though the combat unability system in this game while certainly unorthodox is just another way the game gives you control over how you want your characters to develop honestly this is the kind of game that I think would heavily devoid people it's a Marmite game it's open-endedness and lack of hand-holding it's going to be a selling point for some and a turn off for others as for me while it's something that I'd honestly need to invest a bit more time into to fully appreciate but it's certainly intrigued me to no end it's got a lovely soundtrack from long time Saga series composer Kenji Ito and it's another game that's an absolute treat on a visual level a lot of square games use 3D models on pre-rendered backgrounds and sometimes even Sprites on 3D backgrounds but Sagar Frontier is one of the few that gives us Sprites on pre-rendered backgrounds and some of these locales are really the Wild and Adventure the battles unfortunately don't hold up quite as well visually in my opinion but hey the little sprite characters sure are cute aren't they luckily if you want to try this game it did recently receive a remaster in 2021 that once again released on pretty much everything imaginable this remastered version of course features all the usual bells and whistles but most notably it also adds an additional eighth playable character who was originally caught from the final PlayStation version so yeah probably worth going at the remaster for the moment I'd say unless you want to admire these pre-rendered backgrounds on a CRT as they were intended which come on we all know is the best way to do it see I told you we'd have another tactics game coming up soon this is Front Mission 2 the second main long game and squares Big Mac tactics series and the first to Grace the PlayStation albeit tragically only in Japan from mission was still a relatively new series around the time the second game launched the first game was developed by a company called g-craft in close partnership with square and launched on the super famicom in 1995 and then shortly after that in 1996 the series also got its first spin-off a really cool and narrative driven side-scrolling shooter called gun Hazard which was also on the super famicom so at this rate by the time we got to Fort mission 2 there had already been a Front Mission game a year since its Inception man imagine if they kept that peso anyway from mission 2 once again developed by g-craft is a return to the turn-based tactics of the first game you customize your big cool Max known as wandzers how do you take part in a series of battles and situations all woven together by a story that takes place in the far off future of 2100 where the world is divided into various unions and factions after periods of tremendous industrial growth now the stories in these games are generally quite good especially from the third game onwards which we'll get to in time but the main issue of course with this title is that as a japan-only exclusive and a text Heavy one of that this is a game that has mostly been inaccessible to the West since its Inception and this is even in spite of a fan patch that does translate most of the basic menu items but unfortunately doesn't include the game's story script which I believe is due to space limitations English does unfortunately take up a lot more space than Japanese and they really did need all the space they could get on this disc for the fancy combat cinematics now on the gameplay front the basics of Front Mission is that mechs have separate health bars for different parts of their structure you can take out Max quickly by focusing on their body or crippled them and gain more experience by picking them apart piece by piece of course most of the time your weapons don't really care too much about where you're trying to Target but shooting Max is quite satisfying at least so it doesn't really matter all that much your weapons and attacks are defined by whatever equipment you choose to load your wander up with and of course being a Mech game the big appeal of this series is the ability to customize your Mac with tons of different weapons and body parts if you ever wanted a tactical armored Core game well this is about as close as you're gonna get now aesthetically the game looks fantastic especially for a 1997 release the battle arenas and grids are full of detail and I love these little 2D Sprites for the max as well the battles however are where you can see a lot of the budget for this game went although one issue that I've always had with this game is that these battle scenes take a very very long time in this game a full attack can run well over 30 seconds sometimes even as long as a minute and when you've got multiple units across multiple turns not taking into consideration the enemy's turns as well well then these cool attacker animations might become the bane of your existence quite quickly I'm sure there's probably a way to turn them off or a skip bomb you know language barrier that or I'm just dumb and can't find it probably the latter still though it's a cool high budget Mecha tactics game full of style and atmosphere and if that's your jam well then who am I to say that it's not worth your time that being said though if you want to wait there is a remake of Front Mission 2 coming soon to the Nintendo switch which will also be the very first time it's been available and translated in the west it only took 26 years but hey better late than never honestly I'm just happy people still care enough about these games to make things like this happen all these years later well of course talk more about Front Mission on some other remakes later but next up I've got just what you've been clamoring for that's right another horse racing game [Music] next up we have a game that's usually followed by the phrase wow they made another one of those it's power Stakes grade one which is basically the same as the first Power Stakes game only now they added even more horse data what are tons of be alive honestly if the marker for this game is horse Data Freaks and the original clearly sold enough to Warrant making another well then yeah this seems like the logical thing to do when making a quick follow-up even if it is for the most part the exact same game although I suppose even though the horse races themselves are unchanged there are a few minor new features we're mentioning for one the game Now features even more live footage of horse races which I'm going to assume are important or influential races that are worth re-watching again and again but the real big news is that the game now lets you pick and color a variety of different menu backgrounds and better still lets you swap between tree bgm tracks which I'm delighted to say are starting to live up to that horse game pedigree [Music] so yeah Power state grade 1 is most certainly a video game maybe not a very exciting one but I bet you there's at least one fella out there who loves horses who's going mad for this game but thankfully that's it for horse racing games is what I would be saying if there wasn't another horse racing game on the horizon book in the meantime here's what happens when you try to start a war with the Moon next up we have squares one and only attempt at the Shoot Em Up genre it's ironhander which made its way to the PlayStation in November of the year 1997. now this is a game that I actually covered in full on the channel a good while back in the dark days of 2020 but I'm more than happy to talk about it again because this is whatever day one of my favorite games on the console einhander at its core is your traditional horizontal scrolling shooter in the vein of games like or toiban gradius only now and fancy 2.5 D and I bring these games up not just because orotype and gradius are a very difficult one that horizontal Shooters which einhander also is but Square actually drafted in a bunch of ex-konami Staff who worked on games like grottius to help make their first attempt at the genre a success and they only went and made one of the best games the genre has ever seen einhunter isn't just a master class of toy shooter gameplay featuring action-packed levels big menacing bosses and more cool weapons than you can shake big laser sword art but it also takes place in this dark menacing and hostile version of Earth which in a Twist you are actually invading as part of the moon's Elite fighter Squad known as einhanders hey that's the name of the game the gimmick here is that the iron Hunter ships are designed to be self-sufficient in combat instead of worrying about Ammo supplies the einhander has a mechanical arm that can steal and utilize enemy Weaponry allowing the pilot to keep on fighting indefinitely until they win or die and believe me you'll probably die a few times if you want to hear my full thoughts and more of the ins and outs of the game's design I go into all of this in my original video but long story short if you like shoot em ups you've either already played this and love it or you've yet to try it and should really get on that ASAP although while we're here I would like to highlight ironhander's presentation which is really what I think sets it apart from his contemporaries the game's combination of dark cityscapes ruined wastelands and oppressive industrial locales paints this picture of an earth ravaged by War a situation that you are progressively making way worse as the game goes on Square have managed to add an extra layer of grit and atmosphere to the traditional shooter experience it's still as pure and hardcore shooter as they come but it's also got that cinematic Flair that you'd come to expect from swear in the PS1 days and I think what they've managed to pull off here in 1997 is still unmatched even today but the cherry on top that ties the whole thing together has to be ironhander's soundtrack which I'll put my cash on the table here I think is the best soundtrack in the entire Shoot Em Up genre while it's either this or one of the Thunder Force games but I digress now look I've listened to a lot of game music over the years and in particular a lot of music on the original PlayStation a console synonymous with banging electronic music but when composer konichiro fukui set out to make the ironhander soundtrack the man was like I'm gonna give you these tense atmospheric tracks that emphasize the levels of danger and red but I'm also going to give you the hardest boss music the gaming world has ever seen [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah I don't know when I think of peak PS1 era boss battle music bloody battle has gotta be number one on my list I mean my God what a bagger if you really like video game music I can't recommend the ironhander soundtrack enough it is truly one of these standout soundtracks on a console full of standout soundtracks anyway that's ironhander and despite how good this game turned out this would tragically be the first and final game in the series and to this day squaresoft's only ever shoot him up Square do pay homage to the game every now and then though most notably in Kingdom Hearts 3 which actually had the gummy ship missions developed by members of the original einhander team and coincidentally also features a full einhander boss and music track as well which is really quite cool but yeah in the end it is kind of cold that square decided to release one of the greatest shooters ever made and then just ghost the entire genre forevermore anyway hope you aren't sick of big robot because they're back and now we're added dance music well here's Front Mission back once again for the Renegade master and if you can believe it we've got ourselves another spin-off and this time it's a real-time strategy game how exciting this is Front Mission alternative a game that was actually developed alongside Front Mission 2 as a way to help recoup some of that game's development costs I guess if Square invested all that money into this fancy treaty robot battle engine they might as well get the most out of it now Front Mission alternative is of course another Japanese exclusive and since this game doesn't even have a partial fan translation it's even more import unfriendly than the previous game was but hey that didn't stop me having a fun time with it even if I didn't exactly know what I was doing now even though this is a real-time strategy game with a whole load of text before and during missions the game is actually quite simple to get your head around once you know what to do during missions you have access to a squad of wandzers that you can issue commands to from a map screen the maps have a series of points that you can order your squad to move to and also if there's any enemies along the way you can then Target them for attack as well and honestly that's really about all there is to it it's deceptively simple and from what I can tell outside of splitting up your units to take different objectives or equipping different weapon Types on your mechs a lot of this game is just pointing robots to different locations on the map and then watching the Carnage unfold maybe I'm missing something due to the language barrier but hey at least it's fun watching your little Squad of Mex marching around menacingly to some dance music oh yeah by the way the game's soundtrack was composed by Japanese DJ Ryo arai which is a stark contrast from the serious military-themed soundscapes of the previous game this [ __ ] is quite literally like a cool IDM Brave in the jungle does it fit things thematically probably not but who gives a [ __ ] really it's cool as heck and really does make this game stand out from the rest of the Front Mission series all right [Music] foreign [Music] in fact the main thing I love about Front Mission alternative is its style anesthetic it's probably the coolest of all the front mission games it's got a hype and Visually manic opening cutscenes sick uis and menus and the in-game action is also a treat from a visual perspective you can even view your units from a first person perspective with all these neat Visual and UI details I don't know it may not be the most fleshed out or enjoyable Front Mission from a gameplay perspective but damn they were really cooking here nonetheless funnily enough I actually bought a physical copy of this game a while back because I really love the design of this cover it uses this very striking minimalist style across every aspect of the game's packaging it tells you very very little which just really made me want to know more I mean just look at this manual you know you're in for a good time when you turn to the wargasm page honestly I could probably make a whole video talking about how cool Japanese PS1 cases and manuals are so much love and detail goes into them and they can even be word buying a loan just to admire all this [ __ ] although it probably does help when you've got a fun game to go along with it anyway that's the one and only Front Mission spin-off we're gonna look at today which is probably for the best because those can get pretty iffy if you let them get two out of hand or sponsored by World of Tanks there will of course be more wands or action much later in the video but up next it's time for everybody's favorite yellow bird to take Center Stage unless your favorite yellow bird is Tweety Bird in which case I'm sorry for getting your hopes up foreign that's right not only is this our final game of 1997 but it's time for our first Chocobo themed game of this episode which is coincidentally also the first Chocobo spin-off ever released and that's chocobo's Mystery Dungeon a dungeon crawling Road Glide and also a spin-off of the much-loved Mystery Dungeon series that started all the way back in the super famicom days with torneko's great adventure which itself is a Dragon Quest spin-off so for those unaware Mystery Dungeon is a very popular series of Dungeon Crawlers inspired by the granddaddy of roguelikes uh Rogue now the series does have its own Mainline set of games known as shiran The Wanderer book if your brand is big enough you too might get to make a mystery dungeon game of your own we've got Pokemon Dragon Quest Adrian Odyssey uneven Tower of daraga Mystery Dungeon games both today of course we'll be talking about chocobo's Mystery Dungeon the first entry in the long-running series and also the first game to really establish the Chocobo Universal characters and friends that we'll be seeing plenty more of to wrap this video so what do you do in cho'golo's Mystery Dungeon well it's quite simple really you explore randomly generated dungeons battle enemies collect items and try to either make it to the bottom of the dungeon to be the boss or if you're smart or maybe just a coward you can also teleport out of there alive with all your items so you can earn some cold hard girl in the shop if you die however well then you lose all your items and have to start from the beginning again it's a roguelike and since you can't really walk down the street without being accosted by one nowadays I'm sure you already know if this game is up your alley or not personally I think it's a really fun charming and addicting take on the genre the game has just enough cool Final Fantasy elements to make the Chocobo installments of the series snandel from the crowd from the magic systems to the excellent jaunty soundtrack and probably my favorite thing of all these lovely detailed 2D Sprites which still look fantastic today in my opinion unfortunately the dungeons themselves can look a little bit basic and drab a lemon or randomly generating your levels I suppose but whenever you get to visit the areas above the dungeon the game provides you with some beautiful cozy pre-rendered backgrounds which are honestly some of the nicest I've seen on the console shame there's so few of them but hey credit where credit is due now sadly this first entry is a japan-only exclusive but thankfully there is a full translation patch available for the game so if you want to check out Our Feathered little friends first starring role well then the original chocobo's Mystery Dungeon is still a tree all these years later kicking the year 1998 all for the bang we've got everybody's favorite an aqueous baseball game and instead of getting digital League 2 this time we get something completely different well kinda this is super Life Stadium a more serious baseball video game that still somehow isn't all that serious in this game the Chibi characters have gotten taller and a little more realistic and so has the baseball game play too now a lot of times whenever I see brief clips of baseball games since I'm a sicko who sits up at night watching Big lists of video games the most common hitting system I see is this Target in a box Malarkey where you not only have to try time your swing but also aim your bat to make sure it lines up with the pitcher's troll it's definitely more complicated and involved than why it's seen in world stadium and digital league but once I got used to it I found it quite a lot of fun and I'm really not surprised many baseball games adopted this system for their gameplay I mean it is still just baseball at the end of the day but I can appreciate good mechanics when I see him now look I said even though super low stadium is a bit more involved and realistic on a gameplay level it's still a very light-hearted game at its core we've got cartoonish characters rainbow strikes for home runs players exploding if they strike out this is really a game trying to bring you the best of both worlds a more technical arcade baseball experience but also with dumb stuff happening all around you it's you know fun that being said I think the visuals are once again quite a letdown even with the odd fun animation it's a very Bland and uninteresting looking game and the models and stadiums are lacking a little bit of the usual squaresoft polish all the Aquas games were developed by teams external to square by the way so if you wonder why they all tend to look a little bit ordinary that's probably the reason why I suppose that's just the aqua's way slap a final fantasy logo on a baseball stadium and then call it a day it doesn't really feature any exciting modes outside of regular old baseball and some mini games and while it does of course feature plenty of stadiums on the Japanese licensed baseball teams as you'd expect superlife stadium is really just another baseball game and as the baseball King my standards are only getting higher so let this be a warning to all future baseball games from here on out you better bring your A game thankfully though super Life Stadium is the final baseball game for this video at least so that's the last you're gonna have to put up with Take Me Out to the Ball Game in the background for a while although we do still have a few more aqueous games to get through and I know that's the real reason you're all here today and definitely not for cool games like our next entry [Applause] next up we have a little game by the name of Xenogears which is quite the standout title in squaresoft's library not only because it's very good but also because it's the debut game in the Xeno series which has gone on to become one of the most revered franchises in gaming today long before that though in the ancient year of 1998 the original Xeno gears was Unleashed upon the world what was originally pitched as a follow-up to Chrono Trigger and potential scenario for Final Fantasy VII was shot down by square higher ups for being too grim and uh heavy seriously though they talk about murdering God in the first hour or two of the game I know Megami tensei games tend to have the Monopoly on god-killing board this is certainly up there too now luckily in spite of the original pitch being shot down it did still interest Square's top brass enough to become its own separate project the Project's director tetsuya Takahashi set out to create a fully realized sci-fi world with a story pulling from various religious and Phil philosophical team's book also the game features Big cool mechs called gears as well which let's be fair improves every situation really you can tell the game pulls a lot of inspiration from Mecca anime like Gundam and Evangelion both in the narrative and of course the uh cool Mech designs the game also has a really fun martial arts inspired combat system that allows you to learn and pull off big combos which both hit hard and look incredible and better still even the mechs have martial arts combos too yeah this game kinda rules Xenogears also has a very distinct graphical style compared to the rest of squares games from this era specifically the choice to use 2D Sprites in full treaty environments it's a look that I don't think is aged as gracefully as some of squares other PS1 orpgs and the choice to implement platforming into the game was certainly a choice but there's still quite a lot to love here specifically the 2D character sprites which almost look like they're straight out of a cartoon and speaking of cartoons the game also features fully on scenes which look excellent throughout the game proper professional grade 90s anime goodness Xenogears is also the first major project to come from composer yasinori mitsuda since his acclaimed work in 95's Chrono Trigger and while that may not be quite as fondly remembered as Chrono triggers it's still a beautiful collection of music and another highlight on the console [Music] foreign [Music] honestly this is such a cool game the Sci-Fi elements adult teams import based combat and being able to fight a dinosaur and a Mech these are all things that excite me in a game sure it's kind of Infamous for having a rough second half due to some development and troubles but I still think it's a real standout title in today's list the core team behind this game would of course go on to leave Square in 1999 to form monolith software who then went on to create the Xeno saga games with Namco and are still making these Xenoblade games with Nintendo today so I'd say they did alright for themselves in the end wouldn't you either way Xeno gears is a cool game with CoolMax and you can even murder God what more could you want [Music] hey everybody remember Bushido Blade well it's back in SQL form now since this Bushido Blade game never came out in power regions this is actually my first time ever playing it and it's a game that I've always heard was worse than the first one but uh yeah let's see if that's actually the case now this game was once again developed by lightweight and for the most part is pretty much the exact same sword fighting goodness you would expect from Bushido Blade which is to say you can still dramatically kill people in one hit you'll love to see it although now the game focuses the story on two different groups of Assassins each featuring their own characters and story Parts it's mostly just a case of a slightly different arcade mode experience depending on who you pick but the variety is nice nonetheless plus there's also significantly more characters in the game this time around and the game has full voice acting throughout both story modes which is honestly quite good by fighting game standards who are you is this a trick no no no we're on the same team oh really well I don't recognize you from the dojo but I've been pretty busy at the fish market lately when did you join oh a long time ago but I don't get down there much I got my own rhythm in fact the game as a whole has way more content than the first one whether it's stages levels or even modes slash mode is thankfully still here in case you're wondering it really ain't Bushido Blade with a slash mode the problem however is that while Bushido Blade 2 improves on the original in many ways it also unfortunately takes things away the game has less weapon options than the first which kind of sucks but more knowably the gameplay has actually been simplified somewhat in comparison to the original kind of nerfing The Stance system so more and giving you less attack options overall there's a part of me that kind of sees where they might want to make the game more beginner friendly but look let's be fair the last thing you want to see in a fighting game follow-up is less attacks Roy it just doesn't make any sense also the fighting Arenas aren't interconnected anymore so yeah yeah and frankly the game's unplayable all joking aside though even with these issues the Shadow Blade 2 is still a lot of fun there's way more to do there's way more characters it looks better than ever and most importantly the combat still feels as powerful and weighty as ever it's just if you're a hardcore Bushido Blade player I could see why the first game still Reigns Supreme it's the more technical of the two games on its atmosphere is still unmatched in my opinion plus the sample Master soundtrack in the first game is goaded so yeah it is kinda hard to beat now tragically this would be both the last Bushido Blade game as well as lightweight's final game with squaresoft period after this they went on to make the Kango series of games which are generally considered spiritual successors to the Bushido Blade Games but just you know not as good they also made Kabuki Warriors which I only ever hear terrible things about and also some Hello Kitty games as well so yeah quite the career for lightweight really even if they did never really live up to the horizon of their series I started it all although for those interested a viewer once recommended me a game called hellish Court which is probably the closest I've seen to a modern successor to the shield blade it's still in Early Access and is essentially a weird European take on this game's ideas but it does let you play it as a drunk monk with a big sword so yeah clearly it's worth keeping an eye on anyway that's enough sword fighting for now time for me to get a real job [Music] well we must have gone too long without talking about Final Fantasy because here's Final Fantasy 5 the fifth Mainline game in the franchise and the third to make it to the PlayStation in all its lovely 16-bit Glory Final Fantasy 5 has always been considered the runt of the 16-bit games it's bad enough being subtle between four and six which are generally considered some of the strongest in the series on a narrative and gameplay front and it's probably also down to the fact that most people in the west never grew up with it because it never came out here but hey here it is now on the PlayStation which coincidentally is also when the game first seen a western release as part of the Final Fantasy ontology in North America packaged alongside Final Fantasy 6 and with the Final Fantasy ontology and power Region's package alongside Final Fantasy 4. yeah same name two different sets of games it's as confusing as it seems but anyway here's Final Fantasy 5 a game that I personally really quite enjoy yes it definitely has one of the weaker narratives in the series but I think it's a really Pleasant and light-hearted Final Fantasy detail a throwback to the classics long before Final Fantasy 9 was a throwback to the classics it's a feel-good game that doesn't really take itself too seriously and you know what sometimes that's just nice for a change however the real reason I love Final Fantasy 5 is because this is the final fantasy entirely built around the job system one of my favorite features in the entire series tons of selectable classes tons of available skills all free to level up and mix and match to your heart's content and the cherry on top job specific character sprites to match this here is really the final form of a lot of the ideas from the original Final Fantasy and more notably the class change system in Final Fantasy 3. the jobs are the heart and soul of this game and even if the story and music doesn't hit quite the same high notes as other games in the series if you like classic turn-based RPG gameplay and job systems Final Fantasy 5 offers up some of the best the series has to offer not including Final Fantasy 10 2's dress sphere system which we all know is really the best as for the PlayStation Port well well once again it's the same story as Final Fantasy 4 we get some lovely CG cutscenes and of course now unofficial translation for the first time but the game is still effectively the Super Nintendo version now with some extra added load times low times that are a little bit worse than what we've seen in Final Fantasy 4 as well loading into battles and opening up your menu can now take a couple of seconds before engaging and while this doesn't really seem so bad when you're getting into random battle after random battle it really does start to get noticeable believe me so as before there's plenty of better ways to play this one but my recommendation to you is to still give Final Fantasy 5 a Troy it's better than a lot of people give it credit for in my opinion and if you like job-based RPGs like Bravely Default or I don't know like a dragon you'll probably get a kick out of the game that set the blueprint for years to come but Anna has a cool Chocobo which is something I think we can all get behind [Music] well everybody it was inevitable it's Hai Shin Mahjong 2 which I'm sad to say is the last Mahjong game we'll be looking at today so you know we better make the most of it in all seriousness though this is what you'd come to expect a better Slicker and more polished version of the original Hai Shing Majong the game has lessons bonus modes and the main story mode seems to revolve around a mahjong World Tour of sorts which is pretty cool I don't actually know if this is the case but the game does show you lots of images of famous places around the globe so I'm just gonna put two and two together now a few notable things that weirdos like me might appreciate include a fun opening movie that shoots lots of words onto the screen randomly a much Slicker UI and menu system this cool loading screen and also some nice Bossa Nova music from time to time so yeah a top tier Mahjong experience all round is what I won't say if I could read Japanese or play mahjong so uh yeah let's move on why don't we because we've got to catch a plane to New York next up we have Parasite Eve which made his way to the police station in March of the Year 1998. this game right here is what Square dubbed the first cinematic RPG and my God they weren't kidding Parasite Eve is a pretty interesting game for a number of reasons it's a direct sequel to the popular 1995 novel of the same name which also seen a film release in 1997. it's also what I believe to be the first game published in the west under the square electronic art brand which if you didn't know was a partnership between square and Electronic Arts to assist in publishing their games in Japan and North America Electronic Arts helps out with squaresoft in the west squaresoft helps out with Electronic Arts in the East it's a win-win now just for clarity there are a number of Japanese games that were published under the name Square Electronic Arts and I won't be including any of those games today because in reality they are all just EA Games and would also take up a huge portion of this video and let's be fair I'm already pushing it on time and as it is so yeah we're gonna leave them for the moment even if unfortunately it means we don't get to take a look at theme aquarium which I can't believe I've never heard of until making this video anyway with parasolive we have a video game follow-up to a book only published in Japan you may think that would make it hard to get into for a western audience but thankfully you can enjoy this game as a complete Standalone entity and you will probably enjoy quite a bit too because my God what a game while squaresoft games in the past had featured adult themes this was truly squaresoft's first attempt on a mature rated game and what better place to do it than what a horror themed RPG full of gross body horror creatures an insanely violent set pieces seriously though squaresoft went all out on pretty much every single moment in this game the incredible opening sets the scene perfectly and within minutes of starting you're experiencing one of the wildest cutscenes ever put in a video game and believe me it only gets better from there in power City we take the role of Aya Brea an NYPD officer who is about to have a really bad couple of days after surviving a horrific ordeal at the Opera it's nailed to her and the rest of her police bodies to stop a mysterious woman named Eve who has a habit of making people burst into flames or a melt into puddles of Goo she can also make rats look real nasty the game itself features you exploring these beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds representing a wide variety of locations around New York and it's really quite a treat to see Square creating these modern unrealistic environments in the same style that you'd see a Final Fantasy game it feels cozy unfamiliar but still completely unlike anything Square have done before and I suppose the same can be said for the game's battle system because while exploring you might engage in random battles which is where Parasite Eve really comes into its own the battle system in Paris or Eve is so much fun it's a blend of turn-based arm action RPG gameplay where all your attacks and abilities are inputted from a menu that fills up over time just like the ATB system when you import your ability you then initiate an attack on the enemy and then you just wait to do it all over again in the meantime though you're gonna have to dodge and avoid your enemies attacks in real time all within these little combat Arenas it may not sound like the most exciting thing on paper but the combat in this game is really really good enemies and bosses have fun unengaging attack patterns to navigate around the game features a robust arson of guns that can be heavily customized to cater to your preferred fighting styles and Aya also gains access to a bunch of special abilities that provide even more defensive and offensive options as the game progresses it starts out simple but becomes more and more engaging as the game goes on and honestly it just never stops getting better the story the weapons the abilities the bosses the cutscenes and oh my God the music seriously Yoko shibamura's soundtrack in this game is easily one of her best it's just Banger after banger [Music] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Music] also special shout out to the incredible New York world map what a cool little thing this is now this is a game I'm sad to say I've held off playing for the longest time I mean it didn't come out over here where I live so it's not really my fault but for years I'd always hear people claim this was one of swear's truly unmissable gems and I gotta say the people were right this is pretty amazing so don't be an idiot like me and hold off playing this classic go out of your way to try it it really is one of a kind even though the game does have multiple sequels but yeah we'll talk about that in good time anyway that's enough fun video games I think how about some horses it's the series that just won't quit and this time we're back with a true sequel in power Stakes 2 which is not only the last game in the Paris stake series but also the final game ever published under the aqueous brand and look no shade to the aqueous games that we've looked at today but I am not surprised anyway here's Paris Stakes 2 and while yes it is slightly different to the first games it's still very much power Stakes which means we got a whole bunch of horse data and a whole bunch of horse racing clips and I really can't begin to stress how much time I wasted watching these things at least the horse racing engine has seen a few improvements and look I'm not gonna lie there is something quite relaxing about watching these low poly races I mean the frame rate kind of sucks but hey that's part of the charm I suppose tragically though they did omit the changeable wallpapers in this version but to make up for it the music is better than ever so if there's anything to take away from this experience at least we can sleep easy knowing horse racing games we'll always deliver the goods in the music department seriously it's got a trip hop beat that goes way harder than it really needs to [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so that's the story of Paris Stags and aqueous on the PlayStation we got a lot of horse data some functional Mahjong and a couple of okay baseball games oh well at least the akbas logo was kind of cool we'll always have that next up we have one of the more obscure entries on our list and that's the four-disc Japanese exclusive so kaigi which made its way to the console in may 1998. now in many ways 1998 was the year when Square started to get a bit more experimental with the releases not only were they trying cool and interesting new things in their role-playing games but in the gameplay and narrative departments but it was around this time that square would try their hand at a variety of different genres that weren't necessarily in their wheelhouse we already saw how successful they could be when it comes to fighting games and shoot em ups but with sokaigi it was now time to experience Square's first attempt at a fully three-dimensional action game now all square was overseeing and bankrolling the project it was actually developer yukes who were in charge of making the thing a company you are probably familiar with thanks to the smackdown series of wrestling games a series that has carried the wrestling scene on PlayStation consoles for years to come Square basically brought ux in under an initiative to allow younger less experienced developers the creative freedom and more importantly budget to create new titles for the PlayStation and sokage is one of those games and my God is it a mess at its core it's actually a relatively straightforward action game the idea is that you get plopped into these levels and then have to explore around defeating enemies and smashing these colored crystals to help fill this meter on the right hand side of the screen once that's done you can then exit the level go for the boss and then do it all over again the combat in this game is actually quite fast paced and you have access to a decent variety of moves some cool dashes and even a surprisingly robust magic system allowing you to cast a whole variety of defensive and offensive spells it's honestly really quite impressive there's even multiple characters with completely different weapons and skills that you can unlock and level up as the game goes on really on paper this is a game that has a lot going for it the problem however is that the game does not control very well at all movement I'm platforming is rather stiff as it is but comeback can be a mess at times and it pretty much all comes down to the game's lack of a lock on button I genuinely think if this game had a lock on button I could Overlook the game's more minor flaws but without it the game's combat just feels so awkward and loosey-goosey it's annoying because you can clearly tell this game has a lot of Promise its Graphics are certainly a bit rougher than what you'd expect from square but the levels and environments feature a blend of modern untraditional architecture not so unlike Bushido Blade actually and the strange monsters and strong usage of color gives the game a kind of surreal look which I actually think can be quite pretty at times also if you're wondering why sokage comes on four discs it's because the game is chock full of cutscenes and story segments the video quality of these cutscenes certainly isn't the best in fact it's far from the best but there is a lot of them and they are fully voiced too in Japanese of course but still 4 and action game ux certainly made use of that square budget although probably the single most impressive aspect of this game is the soundtrack which is actually kind of incredible the music here was composed by Hiroki kakuta of Mana series Fame and considering the number of discs the game had on the large budget it was afforded they opted to go full air and use live orchestras for the recording it's so good though I'd say it's almost worth trying sokage just to experience some of these music tracks in game it really really does elevate the whole experience [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] an interesting and expensive experiment that didn't sell very well and was also reviewed quite poorly it's a shame because the potential was certainly there and it's a very high budget and lavish game in some areas just unfortunately not in the places where it really counts still though an interesting Curio on what you could probably fumble through without knowing any Japanese so if you like killing weird demons with a sword to Noise music well you can certainly do a lot worse than this [Music] next up we have Brave fencer Musashi AKA Brave fan through Musashi then in Japan another new IP from squaresoft that came to the console in the summer of 98. the game follows our protagonist a young boy named Musashi as he gets transported into a parallel world in order to save it because as usual he's the only one that can Brave fencer Musashi is a notably more light-hearted ant I suppose kid-friendly take on a square-soft action title this is a fun video game with dialogue that is genuinely quite sharp and often quite comical too the PlayStation sure did have a lot of cute fun mascot games that were aimed at younger audiences and this is the first time it really felt like Square was attempting to make something in that style while still retaining some of the depth and complexity you would expect from a squaresoft game the game is played from an overhead angle that can often give off a classic Legend of Zelda Vibe and the visible towns with day and night cycles certainly helped that Vibe too but once you're into a level the game's focus on action and plan forming takes Center Stage sure there's jumping and slashing as you'd expect but to progress to the game you're also going to have to use your sword's ability to capture enemy skills that allow you to solve puzzles and take out multiple dangers in your path it's a nice mixture of open and linear level design and throughout the game you're also going to be able to acquire new abilities on Armor pieces that can help you do things like climb and double jump to reach new areas sure the platforming and control can be a little rough around the edges at times but overall it's a fun little adventure with a lot of charm and something that definitely shouldn't be overlooked due to its more light-hearted tone in fact story wise the game is really quite impressive actually plenty of the cutscenes feature fully voiced dialogue in English and once again by early video game standards it's really really quite good even if it does kind of have the four kids Vibe what the [Music] wearing since stupid costumes stupid costumes take that back you you little turd honestly the whole game is very cartoony in its visual style enemies and characters have some great unexpressive animations and while I wouldn't say it's Square's most impressive game on a technical level it's still A Cut Above most video games that you'll see on the console also at the risk of sounding redundant here the music is also once again quite amazing this is probably one of squaresoft's more underrated soundtracks I'd say it was the square debut of a composer named siyoshi sakido an ex-konami employee who would go on to work on a number of different Square projects down the line but his debut here is probably his finest work in my opinion full overridi and bombastic Triumph and tunes it's top tier stuff [Music] all right [Music] foreign so all in all a very good game that you should definitely go out of your way to Troy it did manage to receive a follow-up in 2005 on the PS2 called Musashi Samurai Legend but it's poor sales on critical reception kind of killed off the series for good it seems which is quite the shame really but oh well that's Square Enix for you anyway that's enough of that next up we inhabit the mind of a teenage girl [Music] keeping up the current run of experimental squaresoft games next up we have Square's take on the adventure game genre it's another mind which is once again a japan-only release and considering this is a text Heavy Adventure game it's also the game I probably struggle to get through the most and I imagine you might too but hey we might as well take a look at it either way this was another result of Square's initiative to Foster younger Talent within the industry a story about a young 16 year old girl named Hitomi who was involved in a car accident and admitted to hospital only to wake up and find that another Consciousness is present within her mind which is a you by the way the player takes the role of this other mind and after some strange happenings begin to uh happen in the hospital it's up to you and Hitomi to work together to find out what's going on over the course of 10 different chapters naturally a game like this features a ton of branching parts and alternate endings depending on what you do and say throughout the game it's actually quite interesting because instead of simply just picking a command you actually have to talk to and convince Hitomi to take these actions within the world and even though you're trapped in her mind and can communicate with her she's still the one in control of all these actions now you do all this using a dialogue system which is a nice concept for the style of Game Of course unless you can't read Japanese in which case good luck figuring the whole thing out now obviously I can't really comment on the quality of a game like this since it lives and dies by its story and dialogue but it does seem like an interesting take on an adventure game with some nice high quality fmvs decent music and real actors too which is probably a first for a square game so hey that's kind of neat anyway that's enough of that time for a weird game what a weird name [Music] next up we've got the third and final Dream Factory games to appear on the original PlayStation and it's her guys God bless the ring AKA that fighting game with Final Fantasy 7 characters in it seriously though that pretty much was the whole game's marketing campaign now ergos which I believe is the German word for ambition is a big departure from dream Factory's tobal series not only because the game was developed primarily as an arcade release unlike the taval games which were built ground up for the PlayStation but also because urge is an arena fighter instead of your traditional 1v1 fighter think more parastone and destrega I guess on the Ergo is here actually predates them all it sure is quite the departure in a number of ways but it still retains a lot of that dream Factory charm and polish not to mention it's another title that runs in the console's high resolution mode at 60 FPS so on a technical level it's once again off the charts now since this is a console Port of an arcade game the game is kind of awkwardly split into three distinct parts Parts which we'll cover in a moment but for now let's look at the arcade mode which is I suppose the meat of the game the gameplay here once again uses the Dream Factory system of attacks tied to high medium and low buttons on the further simplified to cater to the game's more frenetic Pace since the game now grants you free movement around the fighting Arenas now you might wonder how all this free movement affects your inputs and more importantly your ability to uh square up to your opponent and the good news is that thanks to a simple lock-on button swapping between fighting your opponents and running around the arena like a madman is pretty much a breeze the characters have various ranged and special attacks but unlike games like Paris Stone the game doesn't feature any items or power ropes meaning even though we've got all this extra added movement and Stage options the heart of the game is still taking each other out with cool moves and combos nice and simple the game's roster of course features a bunch of Final Fantasy 7 characters as previously mentioned quite a lot of characters actually we've got yuffie sephiro and Zach who our exclusive additions to the PS1 version but that's not to say the original characters here aren't worth your time as well with our guys we've now got tetsuya nomura on the character designs and I'm not gonna lie some of these are really great I love the police officer Yoko who uses a yo-yo for attacks and also this wrestler who's clearly an homage to Antonio Enoki and Giant Baba and if the character model didn't give that away the guy is literally called Inova so yeah quite subtle in fact a lot of the characters here are quite similar to Tekken characters in some way you see the arcade version of this game was actually published by Namco and built on their system 12 arcade board the same one used for Tekken 3 not to mention the head of Dream Factory was also the director of the original Tekken so seeing characters like God hand here using the same gloves as kazuya and also having the surname Mishima well I'm sure it's more than just a little coincidence now I suppose I could see why some people might be disappointed with this game as a follow-up to to wow as it's definitely a more chaotic and frenetic fighting game that favors accessibility over the technical depth of a traditional fighter but as a more casual fighting game fan myself I really love these Arena Fighters and ergos is City high octane fond no I think anybody can have a good time with also it's got one of the craziest openings I've ever seen in a fighting game they've clearly been drinking some of that Namco War to create something like this all right [Applause] [Music] boy that escalated quickly I mean that really got out of hand fast also takayuki Nakamura is back once again after working on the tabal 2 soundtrack and he made sure to go full PlayStation on the game this time around so the whole thing is a banger as you'd expect [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign so the fighting game part of ergai is not the most in-depth and Technical fighter you'll ever see but a lot of fun all the same what about the two additional modes then well interestingly they added a collection of four different minigames to the PS1 version three of which can be played in multiplayer these include a racing mode where you got a complete lops around an arena and also beat up your opponents to stop them from winning it's very janky but also very funny there's also Battle Beach which is a series of track and field style button bashing competitions it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect it to be but you do get to play Beat sports with Tifa so it's 100 a worthwhile inclusion there's also battle panel which is a game where you run around an arena full of panels and you gotta try plays more panels than your opponent it's uh probably my least favorite of the bunch and finally the fourth mini game and the only one that isn't playable in multiplayer is infinity battle which is basically the game's survival mode and it's exactly what you'd expect although as always the big draw in Dream Factory Fighters is the included Quest mode mode and I'm happy to say it's back once again on bigger than ever although in some ways this is also kind of the most disappointing Quest mode because instead of further refining their blend of fighting game and Dungeon Crawler the quest mode in ergos is actually just a straight up traditional action RPG it's a pretty good one actually from what I've played but it feels entirely disjointed from ergos on a gameplay level and instead kind of just feels like a completely separate game that just kind of ended up in on the package it's still incredibly cool that it's here and is a pretty fun game in its own right but it's just not the same if you can't Parabola giant frog you know you can at least unlock the quest mode characters in the regular fighting game though so that is nice anyway as you can see ergos is definitely one of the more varied fighting game packages you'll ever find and certainly one that won't appeal to everybody but I think overall it's a ton of fun and as a self-professed powerstone fanboy very much the style of the game that's up my alley anyway that's it for Dream Factory on the console I'm while this would be dream Factory's final PS1 game they would of course go on to make one final game with squaresoft that being the PS2 narrative driven beat of up the bouncer a game that people seem to either really love or really hate obviously if you've watched enough of my videos you can probably tell that I love this game in all my heart and rightly so but beyond that dream Factory would also make a variety of games post Square including oddly enough a bunch of UFC games A to shinden reboot for the Wii and my personal favorite a collaboration with Capcom on the PS2 called Crimson tears which is basically a fully realized version of their fighting game Quest modes and if you like these Dream Factory Quest modes well then you owe it to yourself to give Crimson tears a look so that's been Dream Factory on the PlayStation a great run of traditional 3D Fighters and also a game that lets you fire meteors at Antonio Enoki look alike what a time to be alive although next up we're gonna take a return to everybody's favorite yellow bird that's being forced to enter a spooky dungeon to earn money unless your favorite yellow bird is big bird in which case I am once again sorry for getting your hopes up foreign well would you look at that it's chocobo's dungeon 2 the follow-up to the 97 original and also the first game in the Mystery Dungeon series to see a release over in the west still no power version though but hey at least we got ergos chocobo's dungeon 2 is the Quint essential Sequel and that doesn't really change a whole lot of the core gameplay rather it sets out to improve and refine a lot of the aspects that made the original so addictive the game still revolves around the roguelike Dungeon Crawler gameplay we all know and love but now the game is spiced up with more items and abilities a wider selection of dungeon types to explore and a nice increase in visual variety to go along with them the game now even features a co-op option which allows a second player or AI to control a bonus partner character that joins in on the action from time to time you'll love to see it actually another part of this game that sees a big improvement over the first is the story and narrative there are way more characters to interact with and locations to visit and a lot of the characters introduced here would become regular face cases across many other games in the Chocobo universe and look that's a good thing because I think we could all use a bit more chubby Chocobo in our lives now I do kind of miss the more traditional Sprites of the original over this game's digitized versions book I still think it's a really nice looking game overall with some lovely environments high quality cutscenes and a light-hearted pleasant soundtrack so if the first game piqued your interest well there is plenty more phone choke about dungeon calling action to keep you busy on the console now this would be the final Chocobo dungeon title 2 appear on the PlayStation although there would be more Chocobo dungeon games released on the Wii and more recently on the switch and if you're craving a little more Mystery Dungeon action on the PlayStation specifically there's also the Dragon Quest team torneko The Last Hope which once got a 1 out of 10 review in PSM magazine for featuring a fat middle-aged father amongst other things bit harsh I gotta say anyway even though this is the last chocobo's dungeon game on the console it's certainly not the last we'll see of our little yellow booty in this video but next up it's time for something completely different [Music] our first game of 1999 and also one of my favorites in this list it's oh yes internal section A psychedelic tunnel shooter and a collaboration between squaresoft and a Japanese developer called positron and I mean as far as experimental squaresoft games go this is definitely one of the strangest and most eye-catching now oh yes is a game that I actually reviewed before briefly in my Japan only PS1 game series and it is easily one of the coolest games I've come across while doing it the core gameplay is that familiar tunnel shooter experience you get from the likes of Tempest or n2o nitrous oxide you move through a series of levels destroying enemies to earn points and then you fight a big cool boss at the end of the level in a more open arena where you can move around a bit more freely the game lets you choose from a total of 12 different weapon types all named after animals from the Chinese zodiac that have different strengths and weaknesses and even change the design of your player ship thing depending on which weapon you have selected now all the levels do feature a bunch of different enemies and patterns to keep the shooting fun the game also trolls in various obstacle courses and even brain teasers and puzzles from time to time to help keep the levels interesting now the gameplay is probably enough to sell this game on its own really but it's the presentation that really pushes OS to the next level first off the graphics and visual style now I've talked about the PlayStation's high-res mode a fair bit during this video already both oh yes internal section is one of the very few games that manages to run at the highest possible resolution of 640x480 meaning it is ultra clean and sharp now this is no doubt down to the designer's decision to exclusively use shaded untextured polygons but as you can see they really made the most out of it there's a gold case to be made that this game right here is the single most visually impressive title on the PlayStation not just on an Aesthetics level but on a technical level it could very easily be mistaken for a Next Generation title I suppose the obvious comparison to is would be sega's Masterpiece res but keep in mind is here predates res and is another prime example of how clever minimalist design can result in a game basically looking Timeless and as fresh as the day it did when it came out it's really quite something also a special mention must go to the game's soundtrack which is another important piece of the puzzle that makes is the gem that it is once again we see a return of these sampling Masters after working on the Bushido Blade soundtrack too give us maybe one of their most Progressive and experimental gaming soundtracks I mean the game is still wall-to-wall bangers as you'd expect but there's some crazy [ __ ] in here as well it's really quite something [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you and good news it's also another one of those games that lets you pop in a CD to use your own music in the game if you like now I don't have a Japanese PS1 to show you but if we just insert some Vengaboys over this gameplay then I guess that's basically a taste of the experience look oh yes internal section isn't a groundbreaking game from a gameplay perspective it can be finished quite quickly and for the most part is just a very fancy version of Tempest but my God look at it go if you like games that can excite both your ear and eye holes well few games on the PlayStation are more exciting than this one so if you can get this thing running on a big CRT well prepare to have your mind blown and if you don't have access to a CRT well your mind will probably stay intact if you try it but you will still have a nice time all the same not much all you can guarantee thank you wow Chrono Trigger I came out of nowhere released as a standalone game in Japan before being bundled alongside Final Fantasy 4 for the Final Fantasy Chronicles package in North America this is the PS1 port and what is widely considered one of the greatest video games of all time and honestly yeah if you've played this thing you'll probably have a hard time disagreeing originally released on the super famicom in 1995 Chrono Trigger is a result of what's square dubbed the Dream Team a collaboration between Final Fantasy Creator hironobo sakaguchi Dragon Quest Creator Yuji hori and character designer Akira Toriyama to create what felt like a once in a lifetime attempt to make the ultimate console jrpg and honestly they might have just succeeded I mean where do you start the amazing time traveling plot and characters the gorgeous 16b visuals which are easily some of the best the generation has ever produced the turn-based battle system that allows you to combine character abilities to create devastating attacks that reward careful planning and use of the environment there's the writing which is just so sharp and witty I mean it's one thing getting you invested into the story which it absolutely dulls but the game is continually funny and clever in a way that few video games are and of course we have mitsuda's legendary soundtrack one of the most revered in video games a masterpiece that put the man in hospital he worked so hard on it I mean I can't really recommend you put yourself in hospital for the sake of your art but hey it just goes to show how much of his heart and soul he put into this thing and my God it really does show so look if you know your video games you know Chrono Trigger is a classic you don't need me to tell you that but what I can tell you is what the PlayStation version brings to the table what's different what's worse um possibly what's better well the short answer is once again not much the most notable bonus inclusion are animated cutscenes from Akira Toriyama and while there aren't that many of them the inclusion of any legit Toriyama animation and Chrono trigger ones at that well that's actually pretty darn cool on top of that the PS1 version also has an extra section which is available from the main menu that lets you access things like a theater and jukebox which is fun so far so good but of course and you probably could have guessed this was coming the game now has low times and these low times are obnoxiously bad so similarly to the 16-bit Final Fantasy 4 as we looked at so far this game carries the CD baggage of low times but Chrono triggers are by far the worst we've seen yet it can sometimes take close to anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds to load into a battle or simply just open a menu it's not always that bad but it is a lot of the time and it easily makes this the worst version of Chrono Trigger you can buy I mean I haven't played the PC or phone versions of this game but I assume they can't be this bad now of course even with these issues the game is still Chrono Trigger and by proxy one of the best role-playing Games available on the PlayStation but in an age where you you can very easily play the Super Nintendo version or the DS version which happens to include most of the benefits of the PS1 version where none of the downsides and there's even more bonus content well then I think the choice is quite clear although that being said the PS1 version is by far the cheapest way to get a physical copy of this game so yeah being kind of bad does pay off sometimes [Music] well if you weren't content with getting Chrono Trigger on your PlayStation Here Comes squaresoft hot in their own heels with a brand new Mainline Final Fantasy game and it's the much low of them sometimes hated Final Fantasy A a prime example of square at their experimental best and in many ways also their most lavish and uh extra naturally expectations and hype for this game was very very high after the success that was Final Fantasy VII and you can tell it was high because Square even felt the need to release it in power regions this time around which I'm delighted to say also marked the return of regular squaresoft power leases going forward I mean we still didn't get all of them but some is better than nothing that's for sure now Final Fantasy A is a game that's very close to my heart it's not the first Final Fantasy game I ever played but it is the first one I ever owned I saved up my pocket money bought a platinum copy of the game for 20 quid and it's still the very same copy that I have today and let me tell you I had no idea what I was doing in this game Final Fantasy 8 conniff has a rap reputation for being the strange Final Fantasy not only is its story and World quite odd being based around a flying school that trains kids to be mercenary soldiers but its gameplay and systems are probably also some of the strangest seen in the series as well while the basic turn-based action and tree member parties returned from Final Fantasy VII the combat leveling and Stat systems have all gone in a New Direction which is to say they pretty much all rely on these things called GFS which stands for Guardian forces unless achievedo in which case the GF actually stands for girlfriend Guardian forces are basically your summons from the previous games you can still send them out to do big massive attacks which in this game are even bigger and more massive than before but the GFS also hold the key to pretty much everything in this game from your abilities your stats your strengths and weaknesses and a whole lot of other weird stuff too that might leave you scratching your head the idea is that instead of learning or purchasing magic in this game you instead use a system called Drawing magic can be a required from special draw points or simply by drawing it from your enemy's mid-bottle you'll probably spend a lot of the game doing this not just to acquire magic but this is also how you can get other GFS as well which is very very important the magic can of course be used to attack in both your party like normal but crucially you can also equip this magic to your character through a system called junctioning which in turn will both your various thoughts the stronger the magic and GF the stronger your stop boost will be and uh yeah your GFS also have their own separate leveling systems and abilities to learn as well so long story short there's a lot going on here now when I was a kid I had no idea how any of this worked in spite of the game giving you a manual and uh about seven different tutorials within the first era of the game I never really fully understood this system until I came back to the game a few years later in my teens and ended up absolutely loving it because it is one of the most broken things ever put in a video game if you know what you're doing with this system you can become more powerful than anything your wildest dreams could imagine and honestly I think the system is not only very clever but wildly original even today now clearly making such a drastic change to final fantasy's core gameplay was a risk on a ballsy risk of that considering this was their big follow-up to Final Fantasy 7 but square has long gone on to show it's a company that's willing to take big risks when it comes to Innovation and Final Fantasy has always been their biggest testing ground for Innovation something we've seen many many many times throughout the years sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but I will always respect developers trying to push the genre forward in new and exciting ways although that being said I probably could have done without this game featuring level scaling seriously leveling up in this game doesn't really do much to your stats and if anything only makes the enemies in this game harder which is kind of weird seriously if you make it to the end of the game at a low level but with some really strong spells you are pretty much sad for life so beyond this experimental and polarizing gameplay what else has Final Fantasy 8 got going through well quite a lot honestly because this game is probably squaresoft at their biggest and most boisterous on the console the game leans much heavier into the Sci-Fi elements seen in the previous games and as such gives us some of the most beautiful and Visually inventive locales the series has ever seen the character models have also seen a huge upgrade from 7 to what actually look like real life human beings this time around well kind of it really does depend how close they are to the screen otherwise you might end up looking like something that will start a viral meme in years to come the characters here are some of the series most famous we've of course got Squall the edgemaster himself and his two lovely excitable friends who ruin his life Zell and selfie there's the hot teacher friend the hot love interest who fires a dog from her arm Cowboy man and even time traveling dream dad all the stars are here it's a story that I love even with its flaws and it's mostly because of how insane the whole thing is is like this game has some of the most over-the-top cut scenes and set pieces you will ever see in a video game and I think that's why I like Final Fantasy 8 so much it's probably the most extra of the Final Fantasy games the environments The Outfits the attacks the bosses the cutscenes and my God the GF attacks some of these are so long and elaborate that they border on trolling the player I mean one of the games and summons has an attack that goes on for nearly 90 seconds and I absolutely love that somebody had the balls to make that it is excess for the sake of excess and I mean that's Final Fantasy 8 in a nutshell also it's got one of my favorite soundtracks in the entire series probably not as many big hitters as the ff7 soundtrack but a lot of the town and environmental themes in this game are really quite beautiful and catchy especially balam Garden which is one of my all-time favorite opening area themes in video gaming it is pure feel good Nostalgia for me [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] also we can't go without giving a special shout out to Laguna's battle team because come on it's the best [Applause] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] so all in all Final Fantasy 8 is another one of my all-time favorite games one that I love because of its flaws and quirks and not in spite of them it's one of the most Bonkers and beautiful games ever made and I mean if you've seen this game's opening movie it literally tells you all you need to know about this thing that we've spent a lot of money on it and it's gonna look really cool please [Music] thank you [Music] also it's the game that introduced the world to Triple Triad the single greatest in-game card game ever created and part of the reason why I wasted so many hours of my life in Final Fantasy 14 so come on respect where respect is due now even though it's the first game in the series that I ever owned it's still not a game that I recommend Final Fantasy novices Troy as their first entry in the series but it's still a game that I recommend you do check out at some point because there really is nothing else out there that is quite as weird and expensive as this game is and if that doesn't sell you on it well then I don't know what will maybe the gunblades the gun blades are pretty cool the game of course has seen a modern remaster a few years back with the usual bells and whistles but also notably some updated HD character models which uh certainly look a bit sharper than what we got on the PS1 but however you choose to play it you are in for one of the wildest rides the final fantasy series has to offer seriously though you got to shoot a dog at somebody the game really has it all whale Square really wasn't messing around in the year 99 were they imagine three months in and the PlayStation got is internal section Chrono Trigger Final Fantasy 8 and now report of arguably the greatest fun of fantasy game of all time what a year to be alive Final Fantasy 6 of course follows the ongoing trend of popular 16-bit squaresoft games making their way to the PlayStation of course as a standalone release in Japan and as part of the fauna fantasy ontology in North America alongside Final Fantasy 5. now you might be wondering why the power version of this package contained Final Fantasy 4 and 5 instead of Final Fantasy 6 and that's mainly because we never got Chrono Trigger over here seriously the DS release is still the first and only time that we ever got a physical release of the game but it's also because Final Fantasy 6 managed to get a standalone release in power regions which is also the first time it was ever available in the region and not only that it took so long to get here that it came bundled with an exclusive demo for final bossy 10 on the PS2 now I'm not gonna lie I was the dumb kid that bought this game specifically to play the Final Fantasy 10 demo a trend that I would inevitably stick to as I also bought this very expensive Blu-ray release of Advent Children so I could play the ff13 demo before my friends as well not one of my better purchases but hey Final Fantasy 6 sure was now I think most people will agree Final Fantasy 6 is the peak of classic 2D Final Fantasy on almost every level from its riding to its wonderfully dark sci-fi world and realized cast of characters the requirements to the combat and of course it's Flawless umatsu Soundtrack This is classic Final Fantasy perfected and every time I play this game I've always kind of Blown Away by how good it is like I know it's good before I play it but the older I get the more I notice the little details in the riding the personality and the Sprites the depth and likability of all the characters and also just how funny it can be not to mention Kafka is easily the greatest villain in the entire series for a number of reasons he may may not be hot and have a big sword like sephiro but kefka gets [ __ ] done a surprisingly rare trade for most villains the combat also features a nice variety of character-specific abilities and gimmicks that really Elevate the battles in this entry my favorite of which is sabin's fighting game style input system which is not only really fun to use but is famous worldwide for giving you the ability to suplex almost anything imaginable look I know I probably sound like a broken record at this stage but it really is another absolute classic of the genre one of the most popular and influential games ever made and a must play for any fans of 60 games or role-playing games in general it is really that good although as always we need to talk about the PS1 Port which is a certainly not very ideal to play nowadays yes we've got some exclusive cutscenes which In fairness look a lot better than four and fives and even some of the bonus features that we've seen in the Chrono Trigger Port appear like a bestiary and gallery witch lets you view some lovely high-res images which you love to see but of course low times rear their ugly head once again and as was the case in Chrono Trigger they are particularly bad in this one anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds to open a menu or load into a random battle it's something that will definitely become very noticeable as the game goes on let me tell you so once again there are plenty of better ways to Bow own and play this game nowadays but at least the PS1 version is still probably the cheapest way you can own a physically in English and if you get the power version you also get a demo for Final Fantasy 10 so it's a win-win really so yeah if I had to recommend one of the classic Super Nintendo Final Fantasy games 6 is the one that I've spent the most time with and probably have the softest spot for but honestly all of them are quite good just uh maybe don't play them on the PlayStation thankfully though from here on out the remaining ports of classic squaresoft games actually start getting quite good but we'll have to wait a little while yet for those in the meantime however let's sit back relax and tear up the track what our old friend chubby Chocobo foreign racing this March 99 release brought us the first squaresoft racing game in quite some time and it's none other than a final fantasy themed mascot Kart Racer you'll love to see it now of course given the name of this game the star of the show here is Chocobo and his little gang of friends now you might think it would have been a smarter idea to put cloud in this game instead but don't worry it is a squaresoft game on the PS1 so you can bet it has cloud in here somewhere and some air other interesting characters as well but we'll get to them in a moment now the racing here in a chocobo racing is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Kart Racer of the era control is very simple and easy to master you've of course got access to a handy little drift mechanic to assist with the game's tighter corners and there's a whole range of parallels available too which will help you and also make your life hell it's the Kart Racer way after all and for the experts out there there's even some cool Tech like the spin boost which sees you spinning yourself out on purpose to achieve a quick boost shortly after a mandatory skill to master if you're going for the best lap times or are just a speedrunner I guess now where things begin to change a bit from the norm is the way in which power ups can be stucked in this game if you pick up an item box you can store it if you wish and if you pick up the same item a second or a third time using it then results in a powered up version of that item some of which can be extremely devastating to make things even more interesting though you can also select from a number of different player abilities which can be activated in game once this power bar fills up this can range from speed boost to Shields and even flying abilities but I always go for the magic plus ability that lets you immediately use a full pair of magic attack even if you only collected just one of them it's uh very broken and I like it a lot the game of course has a number of selectable characters with different strengths and weaknesses and plenty of the usual modes you'd expect like Grand Prix multiplayer and time trials as well but another unique aspect of this game is this story mode which sees you moving from race to race collecting new abilities and characters all interspersed with these cute storybook style narrative scenes it really is just a fancy way of having you race all the in-game tracks in a row and it does take just under an error to be but it's a nice little addition all the same and there is a decent number of tracks with some nice visual variety churro although every time you beat story mode you'll actually unlock one of up to 10 new characters characters that include cloud and Squall as well as a really cute 8-bit Chocobo which is the absolute best Jack also makes an appearance from the square classic 3D World Runner and he is by far the worst character in the game but still look at him go troying his back although probably my favorite of the bonus characters is Aya Brea from Parasite Eve who is shrunk down to fit in this tiny cop car it's really really dumb but also really amazing look this is quite simply a cute charming and very confident Kart Racer on the PlayStation it doesn't really offer up the same level of depth and challenge that a crash team racing or speed freaks provides but for a lighthearted Final Fantasy themed Kart Racer it's about as good as you could hope for really it looks nice the music is fun it's full of Final Fantasy references and it even lets you play as chubby Chocobo I mean what more could you want now the game won't see a follow-up many years later called Chocobo racing GP which I heard was quite bad but ended up picking up on a whim because it was very very cheap and yeah turns out it is in fact quite bad I mean beyond the very clear mobile-centric design and extreme levels of monetization baked into the game the racing just isn't as fun this time around some hair with Manchester play notably worse than the original game here on the PS1 and if I had the choice between playing a phone card racer with no monetization versus a mediocre one full of monetization well I think the choice is quite clear also this version lets you play as Jack and let's be fair I can't ever see them topping that next up we have a return to the Saga series on Playstation with Saga Frontier 2 which is both the first Saga game to release in power regions and also the last Saga game to make its way to the PS1 those facts are probably unrelated now Saga Frontier 2 from what I can gather was kind of a controversial game in The Saga fandom because as we previously mentioned the saga games were known for their extreme open-endedness and also its huge roster of playable characters something that the original Sagar Frontier definitely lived up to Sagar from tier 2 on the other hand narrowed down the scope somewhat to instead focus on just two selectable characters Gustav the 13th and will Knight who both have separate stories that span over the course of a number of decades all set within the land of sandale it still retains a lot of The Saga elements in terms of gameplay and non-linear progression but even so it's noticeably more linear and narrow in scope than fans of the series might expect now as a relative newcomer to the series with no preconceived no emotions of what to really expect from a saga game I'd honestly say my time with Frontier 2 is probably what's going to convince me to get into this series now a big part of this definitely comes down to the way that this game looks the game uses detailed 2D Sprites over these gorgeous hand-painted 2D backgrounds to create probably one of the most striking visual Styles I've seen in any PlayStation game out of all the games I've played today this is the one that stopped me in my tracks the most just to take in the Artistry and beauty of what I was witnessing on screen the game pulls heavy influence from German medieval history from the characters to the environments and honestly the whole game just kills it on the presentation front it's really something to Marvel at beyond that though the usual turn-based combat and progression systems from The Saga series is present and as fun as ever there is a new weapon degradation system added here which some people might not enjoy but I thought it was quite well implemented into the overall design of the game and its combat so that's the main thing really also I really really like the way the story hops between different periods in the character's lifetimes it's really quite effective I found you can filter off into different time periods and Side Stories too keep that open-endedness alive but I think the intersecting story of these two different characters actually really benefits overall from the changes in designs seen in this entry and I suppose while the look of this game is certainly its strongest and most eye-cashing feature the music in this game also stood out as some of the best that I heard while making this video the music was composed by Final Fantasy 13 composer Musashi hamazu and features some of the catchiest and vibiest Melodies I've heard in any squaresoft RPG it is really really excellent stuff [Applause] [Applause] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so yeah even though this is one of the more unusual saga games it's only the one that I think is the most accessible in a lot of ways it still has a lot of those Saga quirks that make the series what it is but this game kind of eases you in with its beautiful laid-back art style and more focused narrative so if I had to recommend which of the two saga games to try first this would be my personal choice although that being said if you thought this Saga game kicked up a force in the community nothing could prepare them for Square's first PS2 take on the genre which uh sure went down well didn't it laughs next up we have another Japan only exclusive and it's cyber org this April 99 release from squaresoft and developer fuzzbox is one of the crazier titles we'll be looking at today it's essentially a third person action game combined with a Dungeon Crawler in space where you could play as a human or his buff alien friends and beat up older aliens to heavy metal music that's basically the gist of the entire opening movie by the way which yes is amazing thank you [Music] [Music] so the plot here follows our characters as their spaceship is mysteriously pulled into a space graveyard and it's nailed to them to work their way through various other ships and planets to survive now oddly even though this game is a Japan only exclusive the game does feature full English voice acting and even plenty of English texts as well meaning it's one of the more import friendly Japan releases on this list and you can even keep up with the story too which is nice I mean we all need to know the backstory of Mike the pilot right Mike the pilot planet characteristics competitive and sarcastic anyway once you're into the game things are actually pretty good the game is essentially a Dungeon Crawler Action Game beat em up hybrid of Swords there's some Inventory management and role-playing game elements here for sure but the core of the game is Just dunking on opponents with simple but satisfying combat the game features full analog controls with a camera that's mapped to the right analog stick which you'll love to see and it even has a nice lock-on feature see sokagi this is what we needed now one of the big gimmicks in this game is that your three playable characters all need to be moved throughout the game's level separately you can do this by unlocking shortcuts and teleporters between the various areas but because your characters also need to rest up and regain energy between levels you've got to try and maximize the use of all three of these characters to help progress through the game there are some unique abilities and attacks that set the characters apart from one another but it's the same kind of thing that would set characters apart in a simple beat em up you know the core of your attacks will be punches and kicks for the most part and while it's admittedly quite simple the combination of dungeon crawling clean visuals and presentation banging metal music and enjoyable combat make this a nice sleeper hit in Square's PS1 library and even though there is a little Japanese text to overcome on places it's definitely a game I think most people could get into if they really wanted to and I suppose that comes down to how much you care about big buff green aliens but hey I'm sure that's got to be some of you that or you're just big fans of Mike foreign [Music] oh baby it's time for a good one next up we have racing Lagoon this Japan only release is squaresoft's attempt to blend stylistic street racing with a fully fledged role-playing game imagine Gran Turismo but with stats experience gains random battles and one of the most extra stories ever put in a video game now I've talked about this game on the channel a few times before mostly highlighting the game's English fan translation and how crazy it is that we even got one but if this is your first time seeing racing Lagoon the game sees you take the role of a rookie member of a Yokohama racing team known as Bay Lagoon racing and from there it's just a blur of high drama wacky characters and intense street racing battles the gameplay is split between the various story sequences the races themselves and most notably a full three-dimensional world map where you can drive around to visit hot spots and stores as well as engage in battles with various other Racers dotted around the map other boy flashing your headlights at them or them doing the same to you you this brings you into these short mini races where you take on your opponent and if you win the battle you not only gain experience for your car and its parts but you can actually take parts from your opponent's vehicle as well and the parts system in this game literally defines everything about your vehicle it's where you equip your tires your drivetrain your engine type even the color and decals that are placed on your car this system allows you to customize pretty much everything you could imagine and beating more opponents and leveling up your parts allows you even greater range and flexibility in what you can do sure the game doesn't feature any licensed cars but if you know your cars you can tell exactly where this games takes its influence from now these random short races are cool and all but it's the tournaments and story races that really give you the full fat racing experience and just like any l or PG grinding is the way to get your vehicle prepped for these bigger challenges um I gotta say the whole Loop is very very addictive it can be a bit weird at first because the actual driving in racing Lagoon is a little bit odd I guess you could say it just feels very very heavy and it may take you a few races to get into the swing of things and master the handbrake turns but once you've got it down and become accustomed to the game's flow and part system it really is one of the coolest racing experiences you can find on any console but beyond that almost every other aspect of the game plays a big part in its appeal the story for one is so incredibly dumb and endearing it's almost tall with this sort of classy film Noir Cadence where almost every single thing that they describe in this game is very dramatic and almost romanticized in a way and it's just juxtaposed with these really funny renders of stylishly dressed youths with the jazziest Beats playing in the background the whole thing is pure Vibe and aesthetic and completely draws you into this dangerous and dramatic world of Japanese street racing and it's also really really dumb I love it so much and of course the presentation where you're in the races the menus or the world map racing Lagoon is a gorgeous PS1 game that only gets enhanced by its incredible soundtrack Full of high Tempo tunes for the races and Luscious Jazzy beats everywhere else [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] PS1 Peak Vibes I mean the game is Just Peak I don't know what else to say it probably won't be a game for everybody but if you like racing games on Cool menus like I do then you should probably give this game and its English translation a shot I mean what's the harm sure [Music] next up we have Legend of Mana the one and only PlayStation entry from one of squaresoft's most beloved series and like many games from squaresoft they made sure to make the PlayStation entry one of the more experimental games in the series Legend of Mana is of course an action role-playing game focused around real-time combat book combined with all the classic squaresoft or PG goodness you'll explore towns buy items and partake in various story sequences but also spam sword combos on the poor enemies that come your way great fun all around now the part where legend of Mana does things a little differently is in its story and game progression taking a page out of the Saga book somewhere Legend of Mana is a game more focused on non-linear progression on small individual stories rather than being one big long self-contained adventure and narrative the game does this by utilizing an interesting system where you actually create the game's world as you progress through it you start by picking a location on the game's world map and from there you decide where to generate the game's various other locations using these items called artifacts which you can gain by completing various quests within said land and since you tend to unlock a number of artifacts at one time the options in which order to build and explore these new lands is really quite open-ended now this is one of those gameplay features that some people will love for the variety and freedom it provides but others might hate for its lack of focus but in the game's progression and its narrative I mean your main character for example is just a mute girl or boy character so really you're just inserting yourself into other people's stories rather than the game really being about your own now personally I didn't find this a bad thing quite the opposite actually since a lot of the characters you meet have really fun and interesting quests to follow and some of these characters even join you on said Quest and they can also be controlled by a second player for some co-op action honestly the reward of beating quests and then getting new artifacts to unlock even more worlds and characters is a great very little progression Loop that I could really see myself getting sucked into the presentation is also another standout for square on the console going for a similar style to what we've seen in Sagar Frontier 2 with these lovely detailed 2D Sprites on gorgeous 2D backgrounds I think a part of me still slightly prefers the watercolor hand-painted look of Sagar Frontier 2 but there's no denying this is a gorgeous video game and another example of how good 2D could be on the PlayStation also the music kinda slaps as well but you probably didn't need me to tell you that at this stage I mean it's a squaresoft Mana game all you gotta do is put two and two together [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] so needless to say if you like the Mana games and want to try one of the series more interesting experiences well the legend of Mana is very much worth your time now luckily this is another game that recently seen a remaster that's now available on pretty much every platform imaginable and I hear it's a pretty good one too so definitely don't sleep on it anyway as I'm sure we all know the Mana series would go on to live a very long and happy life with the most recent release a full treaty remake of seiken and setsu tree known over here as Trials of Mana being one of my favorite games of recent memories so yeah great to see it's still alive and kicking I'll tell you what's not alive in kicking robots [Music] coming up next we have a personal favorite of mine and that's Front Mission 3 a game that first made its way to the PlayStation in September of the Year 99 and is also the first Front Mission game to see a release over in the west now like many of you Front Mission 3 was my introduction to the Front Mission universe but also my introduction to Tactical RPGs in general I believe I traded a friend a Pokemon card for a loose disc of the game which I still own today by the way honestly we used to trade the dumbest [ __ ] back in the day I think I got my copy of Rayman 2 because I traded it for a bottle of lucozade I'm considering how tasty old school Lucas that is I'm kind of sad I did it anyway from Mission tree is a direct follow-up to the game from mission 2 which uh feels like a really long time ago now doesn't it this entry makes a bunch of big improvements to the gameplay but in terms of combat and customization but most notably the game's battle and tactical segments now move so much quicker than what we've seen in Front Mission 2 two a big part of this comes down to the decision to have combat and movement take place within the map itself this means there's no need to cut away to a long drama battle scene when the fight itself can just take place in the Here and Now sure the combat doesn't look as detailed and flashy as it did in Front Mission 2 but honestly it's a small price to pay for gameplay that isn't slowing down constantly also the way the game transitions from the q2d max Brides to full treaty units for battle is actually really well done of course another big benefit this time around is that the game is actually translated this time and as you'd expect being able to follow the story and easily navigate through the menus greatly enhances the overall experience from Mission tree is often considered a high point for the series but in terms of its gameplay and its Story featuring missions with a variety of different objectives to keep the Tactical gameplay fresh and engaging as well as things like branching story parts and this really cool in-depth online Network that lets you pry into the various characters and factions which just give you a much bigger picture of the war that you've got yourself caught up in overall it's just a really good and engaging tactics game and if you're the kind of person who loves military stories Mecca and tactical RPGs well then you owe it to yourself to give this one a try it really is one of the greats and good news it's supposedly next in line to receive the Remake treatment once the remake of the second game is complete so we'll have to cross our fingers and wait and see how that one turns out but if you can't wait the PS1 version still holds up incredibly well and let's be fair you can't really beat that low poly Mech magic can you now even though this is the final game sequentially to appear on the PS1 with Front Mission 4 and 5 later making their mark on the PS2 which are also very good by the way there would be one more Front Mission game to appear on the PS1 but since it's not coming up next we're gonna completely forget about that and instead move on to this [Music] next up we have the wonderful Treads of Faith AKA do prism as it's known in its home country of Japan this October 99 release is actually a game I reviewed on the channel quite recently as a viewer request it's a game I always knew very little about but after playing it it has quickly become one of my favorite Square subtitles on the platform and for good reason so Treads of Fate is probably the closest square has come to making a true hybrid of platformer and role-playing game on the console it tells the story of two different selectable protagonists a mysterious boy named Rue and a spoiled genocidal princess named mint who each offer up a different perspective on the game's narrative the game essentially revolves around a central Town Hall where you can speak with different characters to help progress through the story but the core of the game takes place in these mostly linear action levels that feature plenty of platforming puzzle solving and wacky wacky combat in many ways it feels a lot like a progression of what we've seen in Brave fencing musashibo with even more of the role-playing game elements strip back now don't get me wrong you will still buy the odd weapon power or pop into an end to save but it's the game's various levels and many many boss fights that will be taking up most of your time now as mentioned the two different characters each experience the story from their own unique perspectives but depending on who you pick the gameplay also changes up quite a bit too each character has access to some basic movement and attack options but Rue has the unique ability to transform into many of the game's enemy creatures Each of which not only gives Roo new attacks but are also required for solving puzzles as well while mint instead gets access to a really robust and varied magic system that features a ton of different Elemental shot types and combinations turbo take out enemies and similarly solve puzzles it's really really fun now I'm not gonna lie to you the game does have some issues with its platforming and combat as the game progresses but on the whole it's a beautifully made game with excellent visuals and music as well as a ton of great set pieces and moments although it's story and characters however that really sold me on the experience overall it's very funny very sweet and surprisingly intense at times and it's also one of the shorter squaresoft games taking only 8-10 errors to complete per character but it's very much time well spent especially if you play mint story because seriously this character is one of the greatest squaresoft has ever produced and it is actually a disgrace that she has never appeared in another game since this Justice for mint everybody she deserved better I'll of course leave a link to my full review in the description alongside any of the uh other full videos I've made for games that we've talked about but all you really gotta know is Treads of faith is an adorable and fun little once all from squaresoft that really really doesn't deserve to be forgotten make sure to check it out [Music] oh the hits just keep coming in 99 and next up we have one of the biggest it's Chrono cross the much anticipated follow-up to Chrono Trigger which you might remember from some time ago now Chrono cross as you'd imagine had some lofty expectations even though it wasn't said to be a direct follow-up to Chrono Trigger story and World it still carried the Chrono branding and that alone is enough to carry some serious weight so when Chrono cross finally did arrive it was a game that was met with overwhelming critical Acclaim and also quite a lot of fan backlash too it was a very different game than what some fans of Chrono Trigger were expecting gone was the Akira Toriyama R and time travel story Instead at this time opting for a story about parallel dimensions and a focus on suicide in style party member collection over a smaller tight-knit cast of characters that's right Chrono cross features a cast of 45 recruitable party members many of which are very miscible throughout the game if you're not looking in fact getting all the party members in a single playthrough is impossible and the game requires a minimum of at least three playthroughs to obtain them all now personally this large roster of playable characters is the number one reason I like Chrono cross so much as a big sweet and fan and a fan of anything where I can collect a large number of party members the sheer men of variety in Chrono cross's roster here is incredible and the way it ties into the game's Elemental based combat means it pays to have a large roster of available characters to mix and match for potentially any challenge oh and yeah the combat system has also changed here quite a bit too it's still turn based and a bit more like a Final Fantasy game at least at a basic level where things get a bit interesting though isn't the game stamina system which sees you spending stamina points on different Strat attacks to try maximize damage but your attacks also build up another stack called Energy which is then used for your more powerful abilities which in a Twist are now only single use per bottle you can thankfully pick quite a lot of abilities for your character so you are rarely left high and dry but it really does make you think twice before blowing a powerful spell at an inopportune time so there is an extra layer of strategy to the whole thing as well now I could see why people might not be into the gameplay that Chrono cross offers but honestly I really love this game the idea of even having this High budget a squaresoft role-playing game that features this many wacky fully 3D model characters fancy over-the-top spell effect beautiful exotic pre-rendered backgrounds and yet another top tier matsuda soundtrack I don't know man this is pretty great sure you gotta play through it three times to complete it fully but when you think about it that's three different adventures with pocial the best dog in all of gaming so if anything we should be thankful really the game also features one of the true Undisputed top tier PlayStation openings and if you've never experienced the full Chrono cross opening before that's something you should rectify ASAP it is a stone cold banger [Music] now unfortunately even though this game never came out in power regions it is the first game that I ever imported so it's always gonna have a special place in my heart but thankfully it did see a remastered version appear a few years back known as the radical dreamers Edition which bundles not only Chrono cross but radical dreamers as well now initially when this remaster came out it got some very bad press for significant performance issues something the PS1 version does also feature by the way since squaresoft was really pushing the PlayStation Hardware at this point but somehow the remaster was actually performing worse than the PS1 original which uh I don't have to tell you is quite bad now this has supposedly been fixed now primarily on consoles but the PC version is still a little bit iffy I believe so uh yeah just read the reviews before you commit to buying it or play the PS1 version it still looks pretty amazing to be fair anyway that's Chrono cross and if we've learned anything here it's that sometimes people get a little bit cranky when they change how a game plays in the sequel and I suppose since we're on that topic [Music] it's Parasite Eve 2 the follow-up to the original Parasite Eve and also the first game in the series to appear in power regions Parasite Eve 2 is a direct follow-up and continuation of the first game story which once again Stars Aya Brea who has now left the NYPD and joined the New FBI task force called Mist who are tasked when investigating further incidents of the dreaded mitochondria the game still retains the extremely high production values of the first in fact this game looks quite incredible across the board but something has changed quite a bit this time around instead of getting a horror themed role-playing game we now have a tank control survival horror title we're added role-playing game elements now as far as gameplay changes go in squaresoft games this is certainly one of the more drastic ones and it results in Parasite Eve feeling like a very very different game to its predecessor and when the first parasaur Dave was such a unique and enjoyable hybrid of role-playing and horror while the swap to a simple resident evil clone might seem like a step back really and to be honest it kinda is now that's not to say parasite of 2 doesn't have a lot going for it this is still a squaresoft game after all and as far as Resident Evil clones go this definitely feels like one of the more polished and experimental out there exploration is what you'd expect relying on the old time controls to move around these pre-rendered backgrounds which I gotta say look really quite amazing in this game you'll pick up items fine Clues and solve puzzles to help progress through the game's areas all that good stuff but when you enter into combat things begin to change up some more as well you still transition into fights kind of like in a role-playing game but all the action now takes place in real time you shoot enemies like a regular old action game and there's even a handy lock-on button for targeting enemies but then you've still got these role-playing elements such as visible damage numbers for attacks and a menu where you can access various items and spells that briefly pauses the action it's still kind of like Parasite Eve in a way but you know know just less fun it's not even a case that I dislike the gameplay present in this game I'm a big tank control apologist and could certainly see myself having a lot of fun with this title it's just you know it's not parasite You've Won and since no other game out there really fills the void that Parasite Eve one left and plenty of games have improved upon the style of gameplay that we have here in Paris audio 2. well you might see why it's given a hard time by some of the fan base but look if you take Parasite Eve 2 at face value it's a really fun story with some great characters and villains really high production values classic tank control gameplay and it's still got plenty of the body horror and Gore from the first game but with a somewhat goofier Edge to everything this time around I mean it's nothing compared to how weird the series was eventually gonna get but even by Tank control horror game standards Parasite Eve 2 is certainly out there so as always my advice to you is just to check it out and make up your own mind remember even the weaker Square subtitles are gen really better than 90 of the PlayStation library and this one lets you go to town on big caterpillars with an assault rifle so there you go what's not to love anyway that's the end of Parasite Eve on the PlayStation which means it's time for a return to horse racing only now in Chocobo form [Music] next up we have Chocobo stallion a game that answers the question what if we took the Chocobo racing segments from Final Fantasy 7 and combine them with the data driven horse gambling elements of power Stakes well you end up with Chocobo Stalin of course a horse racing game with a chokeable skin although In fairness to Chocobo stallion this is a much more fleshed out and feature filled game since it also contains Chocobo breathing elements and some other fun features as well and it has chubby Chocobo too so you know 10 out of 10. so yeah definitely one of the weirder fauna fantasy and I guess Chocobo spin-offs out there and I suppose if anything was to get me into a horse racing video game I think slapping a lowly Final Fantasy coat with paint over the whole experience would be the way to do it the big problem however is that this is a game that is filled to the brim with Japanese text to the point where I'd say it's probably one of the least accessible of all the Japanese games we're gonna look at today now I could fumble my way around the menu sharing a nice taste of the overall experience but clearly to fully appreciate this title you're gonna need some level of Japanese reading ability either way if you do decide on trying it the core of the game does seem to be focused around the Chocobo races themselves the idea seems to be that you can buy and raise chocobos to compete in these races and by either winning cash from these races or simply just betting on other races you can earn money to help grow and flesh out your stable a pretty fun concept actually now the race is similarly to power Stakes are all AI driven and require no input from the player you just watch the choco balls go around the paddock place your bets and then sit back and hope you didn't blow your life savings on number six classic Chocobo racing banter now even though watching the races can grow quite stale quite quickly the Final Fantasy visual update is really quite nice it's not the flashiest thing you'll ever see but there is a nice variety of Final Fantasy themed courses and the music is really quite nice as well I suppose if you combine the laws of horse racing music and Final Fantasy music there is a risk that they might cancel each other's greatness out but thankfully that is not the case here [Music] [Music] all in all it's a cute and rather unique Final Fantasy game that unfortunately will probably be inaccessible to most unless a fan translation rolls around someday but hey weirder things have happened now I should probably mention that this game was first released as part of a collection of games called The Chocobo tent Anniversary Collection this special package celebrating chocobo's 10th birthday included Chocobo racing which I'm sure you all remember choco styling of course which was not only included in this package but also later seen a standalone release on the console and one final mystery game that was only ever available as part of this collection and if you want to find out what that game is well here it comes right now [Music] alrighty give it up for dice day Chocobo our final game of the year 1999 and also a game that's only obtainable as part of the Chocobo Anniversary Collection well at least on the PS1 anyway since Square remated for the game will advance a few years later but hey if they went to the effort of remaking it it's got to be pretty good right so this is Dice De Chocobo and if you couldn't tell it's a chocobo themed board game uh video game now I was a little worried before trying this one because once again it's a Japanese exclusive that's probably gonna feature a heavy amount attacks but also a board game which can be a little bit Hit or Miss in video game form especially when playing solo because as we all know these games are really designed to be played with a group of friends and of course dice De Chocobo is no different that being said though I was quite surprised to find that even in spite of the large amount of text the core of the game is quite easy to pick up and understand and not only that it's also quite a lot of fun even in single player which is an impressive fee in and of itself so dice day Chocobo is quite similar in structure to a game like Monopoly or I suppose the itadaki street games if you want to put it into a video game context you and your opponent take turns moving around a board with the goal of purchasing pieces of land and then placing monsters on them to defend them the more spaces you got the more points you earn and once you reach a set quota and make it to the center of the board you then win the game of course things get a bit more complicated when it comes to buying different monsters leveling up different monsters trying to steal your opponent's spots to capture strategic parts of the board aiming to move by all the crystals on the board and a single lap to cash in point bonuses as you can see there's a surprising amount of depth to this game and probably more features and rules than I can cover in one short segment but considering how complicated and tactical it can be I was quite impressed with the way that it just eases you into everything and it was surprisingly easy to pick up unfortunately though the language barrier will probably prevent you from whipping this game out at a party not to mention as the game goes on and the roster of monsters and abilities you have increases I can also see the game becoming far more complicated and difficult to keep up with it's actually quite annoying because of all the games I was expecting to get its hooks into me this one was certainly very low down on the list it's just a relaxing and cute little board game with a lovely presentation and soundtrack a full single player campaign mode to keep you busy and it's even got chubby Chocobo running an in-game shop I mean what more could you ask for well anyway that's the final game in the Chocobo series to appear on the PlayStation with a total of 5 releases I'd say it's been a pretty good run for our little feathered friend and a nice way to close off his 10th birthday and the 90s with style of course that means we're about to enter the New Millennium in with the the dawn of the PlayStation 2. so that means it's time for squaresoft's final ever PS1 titles and believe me they are about to go out with a back [Music] gracing the PlayStation in February of the year 2000 we have vagrant Story the next game from matsuno and the team behind Final Fantasy Tactics and I suppose considering the pedigree and uh how incredible this game looks well I'm sure you can tell we're in for a tree instead of a strategy or tactics game which is what we would usually expect from matsuno and the crew instead we have an action role-playing game which takes place in a single location over the course of 24 hours players take the role of Ashley Riot a member of a militant division of knights known as risk Breakers who are tasked with capturing a man named Sydney Lobster Roth the leader of a religious cult known as Mullen camp now since this is a matsuno game you can already expect a dense world full of interesting characters of various political and religious motivations and within the first few minutes of the game you are immediately absorbed into the narrative although beyond that the main thing that usually captures people's attention when it comes to vagrant story is just how incredible this game looks I often see this game's name thrown about when talking about the best looking PS1 games and it sure has some really impressive Graphics even by late PS1 game standards but really it's the impeccable visual design and sense of style that makes it a stunner even today the game's usage of Shadows and might the cinematography and direction of the cutscenes the incredibly rich and detailed environments and these character designs and facial animations this is one of those games I think will always look best as a PS1 game you could try to remake and update this style to cater to Modern Hardware but I think what you're seeing here is a game that was born to be a PS1 game a game that's Beauty and style is tied to its low poly limitations and shines not in spite of them but because of them easily one of the prettiest games to ever grace the console what about the gameplay I hear you ask well the core of vagrant story is actually kind of an action-focused Dungeon Crawler with the occasional bit of platforming and puzzle elements and even a turn-based combat system that borrows heavily from Parasite Eve more than anything now of course the switch from range combat in a modern environment to Close Quarters combat and a fantasy environment certainly does change things quite a bit but you can definitely sense the DNA of parasitive in here somewhere once you enter in the combat you simply move into range of an enemy and then bring up a menu and Target a part of your opponent's body to attack certain parts take higher damage but as a fall off the chance to hit them can also be reduced too now early on the gameplay is quite basic you hit the button attack your enemy and then just repeat until they're dead although soon into the game the me of the combat becomes available to you where you begin to use this rhythm-based timing system that allows you to extend your attacks into Combos and these could also be changed to include different attacks and Buffs that can help your character there are a lot of these attacks to learn and not only that each weapon type has its own set of exclusive abilities as well that can be learned by sticking to and improving your experience with said weapon type showing a fun magic system and leveling experience that allows you to choose which abilities you want next well as you can see there is a lot of depth and flexibility to this game's combat and once it gets its grips into you you'll find it's a game that's really hard to put down now interestingly while I'm sure you're all aware that matsudo and his team were responsible for creating the world of ivelisse which is the setting for Final Fantasy Tactics and most notably Final Fantasy 12 vagrant story while sharing a lot of similarities with those games was actually a standalone experience that was never intended to be part of the wider ivelisse Alliance as Square Enix calls it nowadays this was something that was actually retcon by square though after mitsuno had left the company during the triple development of Final Fantasy 12 so even though vagrant story is now officially part of ivelisse's Canon it's probably worth keeping in mind that the Creator never meant this to be the case look Square just can't seem to help but make these big shared universes for their games I mean we've got the ivelisse alliance there was the Fab Villanova crystallis and of course the Final Fantasy 7 stuff that's still ongoing it's a hard to keep up with it sometimes but no matter what Universe you think vagrant story takes place in there is no denying that this is an excellent game and one of the most beautiful and decadent to ever appear on the console and I suppose since we're talking about beautiful and decadent [Music] well here it is the swan song for Final Fantasy on the PlayStation and in many ways what could be considered the swan song for the PlayStation generation as a whole it's Final Fantasy 9 the final Mainline game in the series to appear on the console which made its way to Japan in July of the year 2000. now Final Fantasy 9 was the game that was developed in parallel to Final Fantasy 8 and while a took plenty of risks in the gameplay department and pushed the series further into the Realms of Science Fiction than ever before 9 was meant to be a return to the series roots not just in the gameplay department but tonally and aesthetically This was meant to be a true PlayStation representation of classic Final Fantasy A Tale of Kingdoms Knights dragons and swords but with all the money and Tech squaresoft could throw it and let me tell you it really is something now Final Fantasy 9 was the first entry in the series that I ever played after constantly reading about how gold the series was in magazines over the years I finally decided to give the series A Chance by renting out a newly released copy of Final Fantasy 9. now I probably shouldn't need to tell you that renting a Final Fantasy game over a single weekend especially when this is your first proper Japanese role-playing game was probably not the best idea but my time with this game was enough to Spur me into buying the much cheaper Final Fantasy A and well my love affair with Final Fantasy has been going strong ever since now in the years since that initial rental nine has gone on to become one of if not my favorite entry in the entire series the best way I could describe Final Fantasy 9 is that it's like a big warm hug in video game form it's a beautiful world full of giant castles and town centers big steam machines and quiet little Villages mysterious characters of all shapes and sizes on a particular focus on mughals this time around which let's be fair and proves every game immeasurably the plot focuses on our protagonist Saddam a member of a group of dramatically trained thieves known as Tantalus who have been tasked with kidnapping the princess of Alexandria only in a twist it turns out the princess actually wants to be kidnapped and after a series of rather Unfortunate Events our creuseto on a grand adventure to save the world the game has a notably more playful and almost I don't know pantomime-esque charm to the story it feels like you're playing through some high fantasy stage play complete with jesters and literal scenes with the characters yell he's behind you for comedic effect and you know what we love to see it honestly in terms of the general flow of the game I think no Final Fantasy does this better than Final Fantasy 9. the first two or so discs of this game just Breeze by like nobody's business and it is a constant Joy Terrell like I had sat down to capture a few hours of footage for this video and before I knew it I was at the end of disc 1 and I just wanted to keep going combat is of course the usual turn-based action we all know and love now would a return to the four member parties of old characters in this game are similar to the likes of four and six and that their roles and classes in combat are kind of defined from the get-go and I kind of love that early on the game Partners you up into a team of a thief Warrior White Mage and black mage as sort of an Ode to the Canon party formation of the original fauna fallacy which is a really lovely touch there's of course plenty more cool and uh weird characters that will join you throughout the game but when it comes to actually learning new spells and abilities Final Fantasy 9 also has one of my favorite systems in the entire series you see characters gain abilities depending on their weapons on equipment certain hats might contain spells that are only usable with one character and abilities that are only available to another but through equipping these items and gaining AP points from battle you can then permanently learn these abilities and then equip a new piece of equipment and move on to learning another this is not only a really form progression system that means you're constantly getting a new influx of abilities and perks but it also makes the act of getting new weapons and armor something that is already pretty exciting as it is doubly exciting because they now come with brand new abilities as well it's pretty great it's quite simply classic Final Fantasy combat but now spruce up with some Modern sensibilities and flashy 3D animations it's really all you could hope for now Beyond this the game also introduces some fun new features such as the active Time Event system which allows you to stop and take a peek on the actions of other characters throughout the world and see what's happening to them in real time also the inclusion of mog's save points is pretty incredible not just because you get to meet a lot of nice mughals but because it opens a fun postal side quest that sees you trading letters from one mod to the next giving you some fun Insight not only into the world of mughals but also the larger story elements at play in the background oh yeah there's also a new card game called tetramaster which is a fine I guess it's certainly no triple Triad let's just put it that way although probably my favorite thing about Final Fantasy 9 is just the incredible presentation featured throughout the game I've already said a few times how much I love pre-rendered backgrounds especially those featured in the fauna Fantasy games but nine has such a unique and distinct look prevalent throughout the game and every nook and cranny of this world from the grandest of castles to the murkiest of back alleys are just filled to the brim with personality and charm a lot of the environments in this game are heavily inspired by European history for example you have locations such as burmesia which is a direct reference to places like Scotland and Ireland and you can really tell because it's a land where it's always raining out of all the Final Fantasy games this is the one where I like to just explore the most I'll take time to visit every single building and household not just to talk to the characters or hunt for items but just because they're so aesthetically pleasing and I suppose I should mention the character models as well which in this entry are kind of The Best of Both Worlds they maintain these smaller chibi solids of Final Fantasy 7's models but with the details seen in Final Fantasy 8 and since the characters here are a little less realistic and more exaggerated than the characters seen in those previous games you don't really see anywhere near as much air Squall face I guess you could say equally important of course is uematsu's excellent soundtrack which is also heavily inspired by his trips throughout Europe giving us a very cozy playful and at times Regal Final Fantasy soundtrack that really sets out to combine the best of classic and modern Final Fantasy and succeeds with flying colors [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign it also contains what is probably my favorite world map theme of any Final Fantasy game which is a very very tough Accolade to get but hey it deserves it [Music] now while an excellent game Final Fantasy 9 isn't a game without its flaws there's some pacing and narrative issues towards the end of the game and in terms of performance this title is really really pushing the PlayStation to its limit and it's the only modern fauna Fantasy game on the console where you're really gonna notice some bouts of slow down prevalent throughout the battles and most frustratingly a bunch of pretty lengthy load times between battle and menu navigation something that Final Fantasy 7 and 8 had no issues with but even taking that into consideration it's still probably the Final Fantasy that I think has aged the best of the mainline PS1 Trilogy now don't get me wrong I think all three of them are excellent games that I highly recommend playing today but something about Final Fantasy 9's Back to Basics approach to its gameplay and storytelling its lovely characters hilarious script and just outright breathtaking environments make it one of the purest and most polished fauna fantasy experiences you can find the perfect blend of old and new to create what is easy easily one of the finest games squaresoft would ever produce as always the game has seen a modern remaster which makes it playable on pretty much everything and also adds some very welcome quality of life features but as I send off the Final Fantasy on the PlayStation and in many ways classic Final Fantasy as a whole they really couldn't have given us a better bookend to what was one of the most magical and creative times in Square's history that was until they returned over two years later and somehow gave us even more Final Fantasy released well into the sixth generation of consoles we have 2002's Final Fantasy Square sauce big returns of the PS1 after a long Hiatus with what is probably the best and most worthwhile of their classic Final Fantasy Port because instead of a straight port to the console this time we have a full-on remake of the game that is itself an upgraded version of a remake that originally was created for the Wonder Swan color over in Japan and you can even get a final fantasy themed Wonder Swan as well you'd love to see it now most of you are probably familiar with these games thanks to their 2003 Western release called Final Fantasy Origins which bundles the PS1 remakes of both Final Fantasy 1 and Final Fantasy 2 but since both of these games did see Standalone releases in Japan we're going to be looking at them separately so uh yeah spoilers for the next game I suppose now one of the things that always impresses me about the original Final Fantasy is just how well it stands up even today it's about as bread and borer and RPG as you can find and even though the game borrows heavily from the ground framework laid by Dragon Quest on the various PC and pen and paper RPGs of its day Final Fantasy brought so much Innovation refinement and I suppose approachability to the world of video game role-playing games that it kind of became the blueprint for years to come not only did the game popularize the use of a party system to make the game feel more like a grand adventure with your pals but the addition of a class system that gave you full freedom and how you wanted to build your party was a game changer not just in terms of gameplay Evolution but in replayability too sure it's rather light on story and you are gonna need to grind from time to time but that's part of the charm really I mean what's more iconic than running around the world map outside of a town to gain some experience and gold that's right nothing is it's a relatively unassuming game nowadays but the factor remains many people's favorite fauna fantasy all these years later and also kind of spawned this whole series and even save Square saw for bankruptcy should tell you how special and important this game will and still is to this very day but what about the PlayStation version I hear you ask well the good news is that the PlayStation remake sees improvements in a number of different areas there's a ton of quality of life features that mostly just bring the game up to a Modern Standard by which I mean you won't have to attack thin air if an enemy you targeted dies there's also some lovely visuals and backgrounds which are further improved from the Wonder Swan version and there's some fmvs as well because come on it's a tradition at this point my favorite part of these remakes though have to be the rearranged soundtracks from umatsu not only did these versions of the track sound excellent but there's a bunch of new music added into these versions as well making it a version of Final Fantasy that's genuinely still worth checking out even today foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] the loading times ain't that bad seriously what kind of Miracle is this so yeah even all these years later the PS1 was still getting worthwhile Final Fantasy releases but of course this game did release alongside another Classic Fun and fantasy title one that's Infamous for being the series original Problem Child [Music] Final Fantasy 2 another enhanced part of the Wonder Swan color remake and the Final Fantasy that people seem to dunk on the most now I won't lie to you the first time I ever played the original Final Fantasy games it was part of the GBA collection dawn of Souls when I started Final Fantasy I blazed through the game no problem and had a lovely time with it but when I started Final Fantasy 2 I hated it it looked like Final Fantasy but the gameplay combat and progression was just I don't know weird for a lack of a better word inevitably I just bounced off it and never came back to it safe to declare that it was my least favorite Mainline Final Fantasy game four years to come now fast forward many years later to a less Russian uh Ang's written version of myself one who has since come to understand and appreciate Final Fantasy 2's place in Series history on how important it was to defining the series brand as a whole I mean it's the game that introduced Sid airships and chocobos for Christ's sake but when I actually went back to play it again and this time made an effort to learn its systems and quirks I discovered that it is in fact a game I've been wrong about all this time this is quite a brilliant game won't that genuinely improves upon many aspects of the original game's design the problem is that it's just a little bit weird Final Fantasy 2 is really the fine bias leveling and progression system which foregoes standard experience based leveling instead opting for a stop-based progression system that increases based on how you act in battles if you use magic your magic will increase if you use swords your strength with swords will increase if you take damage your health will increase it's a a bit unorthodox sure and can be completely manipulated if you know what you're doing but it's one of those systems where you really got to understand how and why it works and if you take the time to build your party around it making sure to level and equip your characters quite strategically into their strengths then it's actually quite a lot of fun and allows you to play through the game quite naturally without even really thinking about it too much now this system is pretty much the groundwork for what would spawn off into the Saga Series so even though this is the only Mainline Final Fantasy that uses it this type of gameplay still lives on in the Square Cannon and rightly so beyond that you have your first instance of name party members in the series a stronger focus on the game's narrative and progression some of umatsu's catchiest tunes and of course that PS1 remake polish and shine and well this version of Final Fantasy 2 is yet another worth checking out and my advice to you is that if you bumped off Final Fantasy 2 in the past for one reason or another maybe hit up a quick gamefox guide 5 minutes before you play and see how you get on this time around it might just end up surprising you too except for the Trap rooms though they can go [ __ ] themselves now this would of course be the Final Fantasy game to make its way to the console meaning that during the PlayStation's life cycle every single Mainline fan of fantasy available made it to the PS1 in some shaper form except for Final Fantasy 3 which if you can believe it was intended to see a remaster for the PlayStation similar to the first two games but after the Wonder Swan version of that game entered development hell and they uh gave up and just made Final Fantasy 4 instead well that's the end of Final Fantasy 3 on the PlayStation I'm afraid although that's not to say the Final Fantasy 3 didn't make an appearance on the PlayStation in some form however but uh yeah you'll see what I mean by that in a moment [Music] and with that it's time to look at the very last game on our list and that's 2003's Front Mission first an enhanced Port of the original Front Mission thus started it all back on the super famicom now interestingly this is the only game on our list to be published after squaresoft's merger with Enix to create the Square Enix we know today it's kind of crazy to think that they've been called Square Enix longer than they were ever squaresoft but hey that's the passage of time for you now plenty of reprints and reissues did of course later see the addition of Square Enix Browning to the cases especially considering most of these PS1 reprints were coming out well into the late 2000s but Front Mission first is the only game that exclusively launched with Square Enix branding so it's not only the end of this list but it's also kind of the end of an error really it's uh quite sad actually on the bright side though Front Mission first is a pretty good Port of the super famicom original da not only brings in a few balanced tweaks to the game's difficulty but also gives the game a Fresh coat of paint with redone spawn some background stuff helped take advantage of the PlayStation's wider cooler palette without losing any of the original 16-bit charm it's still the same old grid-based tactical Mech game you all know and love but in cute Sprite form a lot of the basic gameplay features that were implemented here do remain consistent throughout the series so if you played any of the front mission games well then you'll be right at home here well assuming you're able to read Japanese at least although the biggest addition to the PS1 version comes in the form of an additional second campaign that lets you play the game from the perspective of the enemy forces which not only adds new wanders and weapons but also adds context to some of the plots and characters from future entries in the series making this version for a Time the definitive Front Mission 1 experience that was until the game also made its way over to the Nintendo DS and got even more bonus content done also an official English translation and Western release for the first time so uh yeah this PS1 Port didn't really rule the ruse for too long did it now even so Front Mission first on the PS S1 is the basis for all future versions of Front Mission from the excellent DS port to the recently released Front Mission first remake over on the switch which I've heard mixed things about but seems like a decent and quite accessible way to get into the series if you like your games a little more modern and yeah I guess that's the final game Square ever put onto the PlayStation but what if I told you there was at least one more thing we're taking a look at that isn't really a game but most certainly is a Playstation disc [Music] foreign so while researching this video in the hopes that I desperately wouldn't miss out on a game like some uh other videos I made I came across a disc titled the Final Fantasy extra collection that Ollie didn't seem to be tied to any Playstation release it most certainly was a PlayStation disc but it never got released as a standalone game nor did it come packaged as a bonus like Final Fantasy 7 perfect guide so where did it come from well the answer law is in these books well one of them anyway this is volume 1 and 2 of The Final Fantasy complete works one through six a Duo of books released in 1997 that contained pretty much everything you'd ever want to know about the first six Final Fantasy games and even if you can't read Japanese it's got plenty of pretty illustrations on a mono artwork so really they make for a great addition for any Final Fantasy fans collection but wait what's this nestled on the back of the second volume of the collection is a lone PlayStation disc a a disc known as the final fantasy extra collection now this disc essentially acts as a collection of videos and 3D models from the first six Final Fantasy games it's kind of like a Proto version of the perfect guide disc only it contains nowhere near as much information what you get here with the extra collection is the ability to view the opening on end scenes from the first six Final Fantasy games even Final Fantasy 3 so there you go there's Final Fantasy 3 on the PlayStation I mean it's a video but it is playing on the PlayStation using a PlayStation disc so you gotta give me that on top of that the game also features a selection of important scenes and events from these games as well if you want to relive any past traumas the game also has a collection of those high-res 3D models which are particularly cool to see for these old school 2D games I mean look at this magitek armor you'll love to see it and finally there's also a pretty lengthy character trailer for Final Fantasy 7 that was dated in 1996. now I'm sure this trailer was probably included in promotional videos or demos before Han but it was my first time seeing it and as far as Final Fantasy 7 trailers go this one is pretty hype and features quite a lot of the game's cooler scenes overall it's a disc that is quite light on content and the video quality certainly ain't the best but as a supplementary disc to an art book it's a pretty cool curio and I suppose having access to recordings of the game's opening and endings was a pretty cool novelty in the pre-internet days now personally I don't consider this disc a full squaresoft video game release given its content and inclusion within an art book I feel like this is the type of thing that would have been designed for use with home computers in the west but since more people in Japan own PlayStations than computers and why not just put it on a PS1 disc you know either way I thought it was pretty fun and definitely worth checking out before we cap off and bring it close to this very very long video about old PS1 games [Music] so there we have it that's a look at every squaresoft game that made its way to the original PlayStation and if I happen to miss any this time please don't message me about it because I'm very very tired and I really don't need that kind of Heartache in my life look I'm not gonna lie to you this was a very difficult video to make because the format of this series is really to take a brief glimpse into these games learn a bit about them and then paint a picture of the journey The company took on the console from beginning until The Bitter End and with squaresoft games not only are many of these really near and dear to my heart but some of these are legitimately the greatest games ever made and I suppose trying to sum up what makes them all so special in such a short amount of time it can really feel like I'm doing them at the service in a way like you could probably talk individually about some of the games included here for the entire lens of this video and believe me people have and it's actually pretty great but even just the experience of playing Final Fantasy 7 for a few hours having to quit it and then play another great game which I then had to quit and play another great game which I had to quit to play another great game well basically it was like the video game equivalent of edging it was absolutely terrible there's so much more I would have loved to talk about with these games the stories their characters its music its artwork but as you can clearly tell this whole thing is already long enough as it is so unfortunately we're gonna have to leave it at that but at the very least I hope this video helped highlight the important roles squaresoft played in the success of the PlayStation they were a company that pushed hardware and Technology to its limits they weren't afraid to take risks and experiment and most importantly of all they made games where heart and soul these games were special and they just remind me of a happier simple time where everything was alright and the most important thing in the world was finally getting a golden Chocobo and seeing Knights of the Round In Action For the First Time one of the purest moments of Joy a human being can experience of course as we all know squaresoft would exists for a little while longer on the PS2 until somebody blew all their money on a very very expensive movie and they ended up merging with Japanese publisher Enix to create Square Enix and considering enix's massive roster of role-playing game series under its belt I suppose on paper it's the perfect coupling really and in some ways it's certainly been a very fruitful pairing but in other ways it most certainly has not it's a little hard to explain my feelings towards Square Enix nowadays they really give off this big corporate entity Vibe where in spite of being full of talented and passionate developers so many of their games and business decisions wreak of big dodgy shareholder energy like I know all video game companies want to make lots of money and see their profit lines go up but Square Enix really like to make it rather obvious sometimes and often to the detriment of their games now that's not to say that they still don't make good games they make some great games in fact some of the best and in spite of some very dodgy releases and business decisions I still always look forward to new Square Enix games when they're at their best there's still nobody in the industry that's capable of making games like they do I'm personally as a big fan of Final Fantasy 14 I think fonomancy 16 while clearly one of the biggest and riskiest shifts the series has ever seen is in the safest hands possible with Yoshi p and his team if Final Fantasy 16 is going to reshape the future and direction of Final Fantasy and Square Enix for years to come well then I'm optimistic things are gonna turn out well and if not well at least we'll always have their PS1 output one of the single greatest runs a video game developer has ever had and a big reason the PlayStation on its library is held in such high regard to this very day plus it brought us chubby Chocobo and for that I am truly grateful anyway that's the end of the video which means it's time to tank my very patient patreon supporters who I send cat pictures to while I have a breakdown from playing way too many PlayStation games including fine folks like Alan castlin callow Mello Crimson cyclist Dave Nolan disconne the mascot for the famicom disc system doba Globe 99 James levat Carla Reinhardt Kyle winter Max Cohen moomen biscuit transroids are [ __ ] human rights Mr joshmon Nathan McMullen Richard Cramer SN kerstead and specter117 thank you so much to all of you for your support and for helping to make videos like this possible and of course a big thank you to you at home or wherever you are for watching this video I'll be back real soon with some more PlayStation content but until then please remember if any of the words I said throughout this video sounded weird or were pronounced incorrectly I wasn't intentionally trying to annoy you I'm just from a different country thank you and good night [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Sean Seanson

Views: 979,456

Keywords: sean seanson, ps1, playstation, every ps1 game, every playstation game, ps1 games, caddicarus, thor high heels, playstation one, sean seanson ps1, psx, squaresoft, square enix, final fantasy, final fantasy 16, squaresoft ps1, every squaresoft game, every final fantasy game, all squaresoft games, final fantasy ps1, squaresoft retrospective, squaresoft psx, squaresoft ps1 games, squaresoft playstation, square enix ps1, final fantasy psx, a look at every squaresoft ps1 game, ff16

Id: Kh9tc-UMnT0

Length: 211min 22sec (12682 seconds)

Published: Tue May 23 2023