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Japan's PlayStation Classic Full Game Lineup Is A Lot Better Than Ours
Parasite Eve, Arc the Lad, Armored Core, and others make for a more tempting package.
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by
Caty McCarthy,
10/29/2018.
As time inched closer to the PlayStation Classic's release, it seemed inevitable that we'd get its full lineup any day now. Today, it turned out, was that day. And it's not great, at least for North America and Europe. Meanwhile, Japan gets a drastically different 20-game lineup, with eight games in particular that diverge from our stateside list.
Japan's lineup for the PlayStation Classic includes Parasite Eve, two Arc the Lad games, Saga Frontier, Armored Core, G-Darius, Gradius Gaiden, and Devil Dice. Japan's roster for the PlayStation Classic stands out a lot more than the one we'll get the chance to get in December. The PlayStation was a great console for RPGs, and the Japanese lineup directly reflects that. While the European and North American version has a nice variety, it does have some huge gaps compared to its counterpart across the Pacific—in particular in omitting, well, all of the above.
A couple months ago, when the PlayStation Classic was first unveiled, we cooked up our own wish list for the final 15 spots. Pretty much nothing we suggested made it on, with the exception of Arc the Lad making its way to the… Japan version. It's a disappointment that our version pales so much in comparison to Japan's. So if you want to get a loved one a nice surprise for the holidays, you better look into importing.
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Comments 7
Ultimately, the problem is that Sony historically relied on 3rd parties during that era, so securing the rights to most of the games that defined the PS1 must be really difficult. Nintendo on the other hand was responsible for a huge percentage of the best games on their platforms, so they've been able to create the NES and SNES Classic systems with a bunch of great first party content, sprinkled with some of the 3rd-party gems as well.
It just blows my mind how like, our list doesn't have the Playstation staples on there like, Crash, Spyro, the superior Resident Evil 2, the superior Twisted Metal 2, Silent Hill, Tomb Raider 1 or 2 or even something like Parappa. Like these were the games that made the system in the west. Like, I can understand having to exclude some jrpgs, but It blows my mind how this stuff isn't on there, cause a lot of them became greatest hits.
EDIT:...I'm sorry but why would they put tom clancy's rainbow on there? It's a PC game. It was the best on the PC! the N64, GameBoy Color, Dreamcast and the Playstation versions all got negative reviews - why would you put a piss poor port on a classic system??Edited 5 times. Last edited 3 weeks ago by Funny_Colour_Blue
I'm not completely disappointed with the US list, but Japan definitely got the better deal.
Sony did have some great first-party stuff on the PS1: Gran Turismo, Parappa, Umjammer Lammy, Gunner's Heaven, Legend of the Dragoon, ESPN Extreme Games, Ape Escape, Tomba, Porsche Challenge, Omega Boost, Warhawk, Everybody's Golf, Kula World, MediEvil and Devil Dice. Psygnosis was also first-party as it was wholly-owned by Sony back then and they made some of the best PS1 games like Wipeout, Colony Wars, Alundra, F1 '97 and Rollcage.
It's kinda baffling how few of even those first-party games have made it to the PS1 Classic.
I can understand why most of these games aren't included in the US list (maybe less so Parasite Eve; did it bomb outside Japan or something?) but the more I think about it, the more I'm baffled by both lists. My first thought was that it's hard to put together a Best Of for PlayStation; because so many iconic games were third party; because so many games used licensed music; because most of its nerd cred is in JRPGs; because so many games are too janky now... but both lists are missing virtually every iconic hit first or second party title, many of which have aged pretty well.
I'm not disappointed, as I was on the fence about this to begin with, but I'm so confused by these lineups. Oh, well.