Favorite PS2 Games

It seems that now that the PS2 is officially retired, happily running around a farm somewhere "up north", everyone's talking about the wealth of games for that system and the few in particular that really stood out for them personally. Having such a huge library means that any one person's top ten games for the system is almost bound to be unique to them. There's no doubting it had the lion's share of universally regarded classics, but everyone has their own tastes, as occasionally weird and unsavory as they might be.

Here's a bunch of PS2 games I particularly enjoyed. However, it might be worth mentioning that the second list I ever made for this site has over 40 PS2 games I have yet to play through but some day intend to. So I'm not done with Sony's jagged little box, not by a long shot.

List items

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  1. Dark Cloud 2

  It's hard to overstate just how much Dark Cloud 2 impressed me. It already found a way to vastly improve on an already stellar little dungeon crawler, but the way it expands on everything that made the original work and add a metric ton besides is a testament to just how good Level-5 got at making these expansive and colorful JRPGs. It's no wonder they were chosen to continue the venerable Dragon Quest series shortly after this game.

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  2. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

  Of course I'm going to follow it up with Persona 4. I mean, this is Giant Bomb after all. Persona 4 takes a similar tactic as Dark Cloud 2, presenting a very in-depth dungeon crawl with enough excellent peripheral features to break the monotony of randomized dungeon floors full of monsters and loot. The story and characters are perhaps the best realized of any RPG ever.

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  3. Shadow Hearts: Covenant

  Covenant's phenomenal. Before Persona 3 and 4 came along, I wasn't aware a game could be so grim and have a wonderful, bizarre sense of humor at the same time. I wasn't aware an RPG battle system could be so reflex-intensive. I was already aware that a game that comes on two DVDs is probably going to be a long 'un. Honestly, Covenant is probably my favorite of the early period PS2 games, back when the PS2 was still ruling the world prior to the 360's release.

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  4. Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu's Dororo

  Blood Will Tell is an odd one that not many people might be cognizant of. It's an adaptation of a manga that essentially plays like a medieval samurai version of Pinocchio (or perhaps a more apropos video game analogue would be Mega Man). It's jam packed with crazy boss fights, has an absolutely nuts story and manages to shake up the action gameplay on a level-by-level basis. It's endlessly creative, if not perhaps as polished as it could be, and the sort of strange game that finds its way into your heart and stays there.

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  5. Sly 2: Band of Thieves

  Oh jeez, I almost forgot about the greatest 3D platformer ever made. Well, this can be a list of 11, then. Sly 2: Greatest 3D platformer ever made. There. Done. Just perfect.

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  6. Final Fantasy XII

  Most would point to FFX as the PS2's Final Fantasy game of choice, as it's a far more traditional JRPG than its black sheep sequel. However, Final Fantasy XII's exhaustive open-world gameplay, multitude of customization options for character skills and AI behaviors and the Star Wars-esque plot that has shades of Matsuno's narrative brilliance (hidden amidst some admittedly dire JRPG tropes) elevates this above not only the other PS2 FFs, but most of the PS1 ones as well. And certainly the PS3 ones, oh my yes.

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  7. Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly

  I don't play a lot of survival horror. Especially when it's as aggravating with its various key puzzles as this one is. However, Fatal Frame II is genuinely one of the most terrifying games I've ever played and it never stopped finding a way to scare the bejeebus out of me right until the end. The emotional reaction I had to this one, even if it was entirely just fear, means I have to give its due on this list.

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  8. Rogue Galaxy

  Rogue Galaxy is another Level-5 joint and perhaps not one that people would generally rate above Dragon Quest VIII, which was their most ambitious (and prominent) contribution to the PS2 library. However, Rogue Galaxy's story, its setting and its more forgiving dungeon crawling (not to mention a lack of Akira Toriyama foreheads) puts it on top in my book. If you've never heard of it, it's a great lost classic of the sci-fi JRPG genre.

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  9. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter

  Dragon Quarter earns points for being so darn weird. It's a much darker game than the other Breath of Fires, both literally (it's all underground) and figuratively (Bosch's arc is definitely something to behold). The restart mechanic, much more confidently applied in Capcom's later Dead Rising series, is one of those unique ideas that becomes something wonderful once (and if, I suppose) you finally get your head around it.

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  10. Suikoden V

  Suikoden V, meanwhile, doesn't rock the boat like Dragon Quarter does. Instead, it's simply the best Suikoden experience ever crafted - updating and expanding from the limited resources of its fantastic PS1 forebears and fixing the myriad faults of IV. I haven't played 3 so maybe I can't speak too soon, but V's a great distillation of everything that makes the Suikoden series work.

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  11. Everblue 2

  I'm as surprised as you are. I absolutely adored this game when I played it relatively recently. There's something about the sense of exploration, atmospheric dread, treasure-finding and occasional breathless (as it were) panic that really stuck with me after the game was over. It didn't even matter that there weren't enemies to defeat or, often, specific goals to follow. Swimming through the wreck of an ocean liner, purloining all its turn-of-the-century furnishings for my own gain and finding new unidentified items for my catalogue was something I never expected to enjoy as much as I did.