Before I finish my top 10 list games of 2021 (only will have enough time to squeeze in one more game), I wanted to post about some of the good games that I played that did not come out this year. After the PS3 was going to shut down their store, I stocked up on a bunch of old PS1 games that I have missed and that seem like they wouldn’t ever be ported anywhere else.
Xenogears has this cool history that unfortunately has kinda been swept away to time. It was originally in plans to be Final Fantasy 7, but was considered too dark. Maybe too ambitious for it’s own good, Xenogears released in a state where the first chunk of the game (about 40ish hours) is this huge JRPG that has a lot of polish and depth, but ran out of development funds and instead of chancing it on whether it would be successful enough to warrant a sequel, the second part (about 10 hours) is almost a visual novel where the story is just being told to you through paragraphs and you aren’t a part of major sequences. After the game came out, the developers broke off to form Monolith Software, who have made other “Xeno” games, Xenosaga and Xenoblade (which you may recognize from the smash character). Anyway, Xenogears has a really interesting history, but also is an awesome JRPG in it’s own right. It shoves a lot of anime (in particular, Neon Genesis Evangellion) inspiration by having a lot of things you would want from a JRPG from the time. It has quant villages, big robot battles, a deep story that makes you reflect on humanity/religion. If you are in the mood for a JRPG from 1998 that is not FF7 or Pokemon, Xenogears is worth checking out.
Continuing on games that had a shot at being Final Fantasy 7, Parasite Eve is another overlooked PS1 game that is a cool fusion of survival horror and RPG. The ties to FF7 was that Square was considering setting FF7 in New York City, but eventually settled on making their own City (Midgar), and leaving NYC to a new game, being Parasite Eve. The premise is that it takes place on Christmas day, and is about a biological virus that causes everyone to die, except for Aya the protagonist. It’s cool to have almost a gaming equivalent of Die Hard where it kinda is a Christmas movie since it takes place at that time, but isn’t about Christmas. The gameplay is a mix of real time action and turn based strategy, where you wait for a meter to fill before you can do an action like shooting, magic, items, etc. Tetsuya Nomura (the kingdom hearts director) did the art and Yoko Shimomura did the music, which is really great music. It would be cool to see Square Enix branch out to try different genres and styles again, but if not at least they gave us Parasite Eve. If nothing else, watch the cool intro cutscene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Tcl6qvfy4
Believe it or not, the Mario RPGs are some of the best rpgs out there. They have excellent, well written humor, and have engaging turn based battle systems where well timed button inputs effect your attacks and defenses. Super Mario RPG is the predecessor to both the Paper Mario, and the Mario and Luigi franchises. It may not have the depth of story as those games do, but it still carries a lot of the charm and is the building blocks for those future series. While I would recommend Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door, or Mario and Luigi Superstars Saga over Super Mario RPG, I can appreciate seeing RPG Mario’s beginnings.
After playing through Resident Evil Village, I was in the mood for a good action survival horror game similar to the other RE games. I’ve played through DS 2 and 3 before, but never the first one and I am pleased with how well these games hold up. You can definitely tell that the first one was a 360 game and that it drew a lot of inspiration from Half Life such as a silent protagonist and trying to have no cuts (there is some loading but that is understandable). The Ishimura, which is the ship the first game takes place on, is an all time great setting that fells both lived in with the previous crew, and completely alive with the enemies lurking in the walls. The sound design is incredible where you don’t know if you are going crazy hearing whispers of passengers hiding from the Necromorphs. I won’t go too much into Dead Space 2, but that is probably one of the best games from that generation. You’ll definitely want to continue after DS1 to DS2…then maybe consider DS3? Eh, maybe just the first two lol
Mega Man Legends (also known as Megaman 64 on the N64) feels like Capcoms take on trying to solve action adventure gameplay before LoZ: Ocarina of Time. It feels ambitious as the time, but definitely dated in terms of controls. However, this does not keep MML from being a fun game. MML features a nice sized sandbox area where you explore the world and dungeons to find power ups for Megaman. MML also has a style similar to 90s anime, in particular reminds me of the original Pokemon anime, which is a plus for sure.
