Must play PS1 games

[Dominus Atheos]

I never had a PS1 when I was young, I only had an N64 so I missed several infamous games like FF7 and Resident Evil. I now wish to play some of those games. (my purchase of a graphically underpowered netbook and external disk drive is completely unrelated)

So what games should I play if I want to understand threads about who would win in a fight between KOS-MOS and Parappa the Rapper?

[Stark]

Gitaroo Man.

Everything else has a better version for a not complete shit system.

Oh and Silent Hill. Ie the only good Silent Hill game ever.

[Dragon Angel]

If you like to play RPGs, then I recommend that you try to find the two Lunar games ("Silver Star Story" and "Eternal Blue"). They may not contain a shred of three-dimensional goodness that most games during the era were blessed with, but I found the battle system to be fun, and both games had very charming stories (if not just a little bit cliche, but the characters more than made up for it!).

Also, another RPG that I can recommend is the first Wild ARMs (again, if you can even find it). The battle system was your standard Final Fantasy 1-styled turn-based system, but the game's dungeon crawling was spiced up a little with the addition of Lufia 2-style puzzles. Plus, the game's world actually had a complex background history created for it! (...and I also liked its Old Western theme. )

[JonB]

Parasite Eve, Vagrant Story.

[General Zod]

The Parasite Eve games were pretty good. Colony Wars and Omega Boost were pretty amusing pew pew space shooters, if short. Einhander was another pretty decent shmup. Xenogears was a great RPG at the time, though it might come off as pretty dated now. Oh, and the obligatory plug for Final Fantasy Tactics.

[Spekio]

Tomba!

Cult classic, so awesome! Seriously, Tomba! is a must(the first one, anyways)

[eyexist]

Bust A Groove.

*and now that I've had a chance to think about it: Einhander, R-Type Delta, UmJammer Lammy, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Intelligent Qube, and Final Fantasy Tactics.

[The Kernel]

Chrono Cross. That alone justified the purchase of a PSX for me.

[Connor MacLeod]

Valkyrie profile, suikoden 2 (if you can find either without having to pay through the nose for it, good luck) I was also rather fond of the Namco PSX "Tales" games. And Wild Arms 1 and 2 (although 2 is so so.)

FFVII is okay, but its over-hyped for its (for me) confusing plot. FFVIII was okay, but I liked FFIX the best of the PSX final fantasy entries to be honest.

I havent played Chrono Cross yet, or Legend of Dragoon but I hear both are good.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Some of these games being listed are actually PS2 games...

[ShadowDragon8685]

Well, Final Fantasy VII and IX. Tactics, of course, has to be on this list. You should also try to pick up Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Um....

Armored Core. Can't go wrong with Armored Core. I thought the original was the best, and the rest less so - though still not bad. (The ability to import my Core from the previous games helped a lot.)

[Jade Falcon]

Well when it comes to RPG's a lot of them weren't available in Europe, but from what I can remember....

The first Grandia game wasn't too bad.

Breath of Fire 3, but I understand this one is pretty difficult to get now.

[irishmick79]

Bushido Blade 2 is a pretty fun button masher.

[Norade]

One that I enjoy that hasn't been mentioned in Star Ocean: Second Story, it puts the new games to shame in terms of not being 100% boring all the way through.

[ShadowDragon8685]

One that I enjoy that hasn't been mentioned in Star Ocean: Second Story, it puts the new games to shame in terms of not being 100% boring all the way through.

Oooh, I'd forgotten about SO2. it was nice, but it always frustrated me in that I always wanted to take impossible combinations of party members.

[Ryushikaze]

Good
FFVII- It's overhyped as hell, but still good.
Lunar 1 and 2- Seriously, if you can find these for any reasonable price, play them.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night- Also available on PSP.
Final Fantasy Tactics- Also available on PSP. Fun glitches missing.
Xenogears- good, until it becomes a movie, then good again when it gives you control again.
Saga Frontier- Fun game. Horribly incomplete, in that one of the game's seven main character quests contains only a beginning and conclusion.
Tales of- we got two Destiny and 'Destiny 2', which was released for PSP in Europe under it's proper title, Eternia (there is a Destiny 2, but it is a sequel to Destiny, unlike Eternia, which is a different story), both are good, 'Destiny 2' is Better.

Wild Arms is also good.

So bad they're fun
Any not major name fighting game, but especially Evil Zone and Ehrgeiz. Your milage may vary, however.

[SapphireFox]

I can confirm that Legend of Dragoon is VERY good and had a creative combat system for its time. I HIGHLY recommend you try it.

seconding FF7 and FF9 they might be hyped a bit since I own them I can say that quite a bit of the hype is true. You won't regret picking them up if you truly enjoy a good RPG.

[Vendetta]

Breath of Fire 3, but I understand this one is pretty difficult to get now.

Breath of Fire 3 is a very good JRPG. It's also one of the few RPGs where the world is not in imminent peril of destruction, and only your intrepid band can stop it.

The PS1 version might be hard to find, but you can pick up the PSP version for a song.

[JonB]

Any one else notice that the vast majority of suggested games are RPGs?

I think its because they age well.

Now, for a non-RPG suggestion, have you ever tried Rival Schools?

[Dragon Angel]

I was about to mention Star Ocean 2 here, but then I remembered its recent remake on the PSP. In my opinion, that remake is far superior to the original... The PSP version contains an entirely new voice cast, which replaces some really cringe-worthy voices that I heard in the PSX one...and it has a few other enhancements. In terms of gameplay, animated cutscenes, and otherwise.

Any one else notice that the vast majority of suggested games are RPGs?

I think its because they age well.

Not too many of the other games on the PSX really interested me...I remember playing Intelligent Qube, Jumping Flash, PaRappa, SimCity 2000, Armored Core, and some of the DDR games as non-RPGs. Aside from those, however, RPGs more or less made up the majority of my collection.

Also, you have to keep in mind that the PSX was pretty much THE home console for RPGs in its time. Sega's Saturn system was not that successful, and the Nintendo 64 only had the two Zelda games and "Quest 64" to claim as RPGs.

[Koolaidkirby]

---RPGS---
-Final fantasy 7 (obvious)
-Final fantasy 9 (my next favorite)
-Xenogears (kinda a mecha/RPG/anime thing, fun but gets preachy at times)
-Legend of legia (good, although fairly difficult at parts)
-Legend of Dragoon ( good although during a replay recently I found the combat system to be irritatingly slow)

--non RPGs---
-Tiny Tank (I found it memorable enough to remember it off the top of my head as the only good non-rpg game I played for the PSX)

[darkjedi521]

Also, another RPG that I can recommend is the first Wild ARMs (again, if you can even find it). The battle system was your standard Final Fantasy 1-styled turn-based system, but the game's dungeon crawling was spiced up a little with the addition of Lufia 2-style puzzles. Plus, the game's world actually had a complex background history created for it! (...and I also liked its Old Western theme. )

There's a remake of the original Wild Arms for that for PS2 that's a good refresh of the original and offers some enhancements.

On the subject of Final Fantasy, the PSX games didn't seem as good to me as the SNES or PS2 collections. Don't know what it was, but there was just something about them that makes them not stand up. I think it was that they have been so over-hyped compared to more recent/earlier titles.

[The Dark]

If you didn't play the originals, there's also Final Fantasy Chronicles (FF IV and Chrono Trigger) and Final Fantasy Anthology (FF V and FF VI). FF V was the second game with Active Time Battle, and the first with the ATB bar. It also introduced the idea of Job Classes that was used in Tactics.

[Vendetta]

It also introduced the idea of Job Classes that was used in Tactics.

Actually, FF3 did that.

All of those games have upgraded GBA and DS remakes as well. The system improvements to FF4 DS in particular are significant.

[Darth Yan]

Metal Gear Solid. The crash bandicoot and spyro the dragon series are sort of guilty pleasures, but they are pretty fun.