Welcome to The Top Shelf, a weekly feature wherein I sort through my extensive PS2 collection for the diamonds in the rough. My goal here is to narrow down a library of 185 games to a svelte 44: the number of spaces on my bookshelf set aside for my PS2 collection. That means a whole lot of vetting and a whole lot of science that needs to be done, ten games at a time. Be sure to check out the Case File Repository for more details and a full list of games/links!

Case File 046: Team Soho's Dropship: United Peace Force

• Original Release (EU): 18/01/2002
• PS2 Exclusive!

This is probably the most Drew game I own for the PlayStation 2: a science-fiction yet semi-realistic flight simulator featuring military vehicles that could potentially exist in the near future. It's by the same British devs behind The Getaway games and one of the few console games from my country to not involve rally cars, so I might've been curious about it for that reason also. Honestly, I don't think I played the game for very long: it was part of a bundle that I bought with some more pressing RPGs and the like, and I suspect I just forgot all about it in the shuffle. I'll be rectifying mistakes like that with this blog series, though I am slightly concerned about how badly flight simulators tend to age. They're built on verisimilitude, which is hard enough to get right when you're constructing games around non-existent future fantasy vehicles and is one aspect of game design that is best served by the ever-advancing tech governing the medium.

Still, there aren't a lot of games like this in my collection and I don't know enough about it to properly render a verdict, so let's put this on the homework pile. Considered.

Case File 047: The 3DO Company's GoDai Elemental Force

• Original Release (NA): 01/21/2002
• PS2 Exclusive!

A shocking lapse in quality for the creators of the Army Men franchise, GoDai might be the least critically acclaimed game in my entire PS2 library. I couldn't even begin to explain the thought process that lead to its purchase, though I do recall I was buying a lot of Hong Kong wuxia DVDs at the time. The game has a sort of mystical kung fu hero sensibility, presumably spurred on by the recent Oscar success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but none of the grace and skill you might find on display in such a setting. It's just a whole bunch of floating around while button-mashing random goons. Like many of the more dubious games showcased in this feature, my memories of it aren't particularly strong, but what few I do have are tinged with frustration and confusion.

Normally, it's around this point where I decide that I don't know the game sufficiently well enough to kick it to the curb without a refresher course, but I think in this case that would be an insult to the many fine games I've already eliminated for one reason or another. In fact, I'm fairly sure I'm safe in throwing this one off a wish mountain, or whatever the hell happened at the end of Crouching Tiger. Go die, Elemental Force. Eliminated.

Case File 048: Game Arts's Grandia 2

• Original Release (NA): 01/28/2002
• Not PS2 Exclusive (originally a Dreamcast game, and is also available on Steam)

I adore the first two Grandia games, which made it all the more painful that no subsequent entries - irrespective of their quality - ever made it to Europe. @danielkempster's been blogging about his experiences with the first Grandia (though he's unfortunately decided to stop his series, it looks like) and I have an equal amount of affection for its even nuttier sequel. The Grandia series is explicitly known for two qualities: their immense size, which often take on a serial novel aspect as certain arcs seem to end and others begin during the impressive length of the game, and its battle system which incorporates more strategic aspects like where the characters happen to be standing relative to the enemies and the ability to mess around with turn orders by interrupting foes about to strike. A long game needs a creatively dynamic combat system to keep the player's attention for that duration, and Grandia 2 pulls it off. I also have fond memories of characters like the personality-opposite alternating deuteragonists Elena and Millenia, its wailing upbeat synth-rock VGM, and the game's occasionally sarcastic sense of humor.

There's really only one quibble that relegates the game from instant "Approved" to tentative "Considered", and that's its release history - if you recall, exclusive games get an extra boost because I'm looking for "the best of PS2" rather than "the best of what is available on PS2", a small but important distinction. In truth the game is first and foremost a Dreamcast RPG - as indelibly linked to that system as Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue - and has since been rereleased on Steam. While the Steam version apparently has a few problems, it's a far more convenient option if anyone wanted to play the game today. I'm not taking it out of the race, though it may have to fight a few other "close but no cigar" favorites for remaining shelf spaces. Considered.

Case File 049: Nippon Ichi Software's La Pucelle Tactics

• Original Release (JP): 01/31/2002
• Not PS2 Exclusive (there's an enhanced Japan-only PSP port, which I probably shouldn't count)

La Pucelle Tactics was the first of Nippon Ichi Software's trademark anime SRPGs to come to Europe - for North America that distinction goes to the PS1 game Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure - and very much set the tone and pace for the insanely in-depth SRPGs to follow. NIS is better known for their Disgaea games these days, but La Pucelle introduced recurring elements like a cutesy anime presentation which was often at odds with a subversive sense of humor, the intense level of customization and extra-curricular grinding, and a few mechanical features and quirks that take a while to properly master. La Pucelle - "The Maid", as in Joan of Arc - features a church of holy warriors as they run around exercising demons and waiting for the arrival of a prophesied destroyer, at which point one of them will rise up to fight him as the equally prodigious "Maiden of Light". Naturally, that leads to a bit of rivalry in the ranks and the game often pokes fun at the freakishly strong protagonist Prier, who aspires to be a demure beacon of virtue but is built like Chun-Li and generally solves conflicts as violently as possible.

La Pucelle's a strong introduction to the NIS SRPG construct, but it's really just a dry run for their breakout game Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. I like La Pucelle but I love Disgaea, and given that all NIS SRPGs are so similar I really only need the one on the shelf. Eliminated.

Case File 050: Koei's Dynasty Tactics

• Original Release (JP): 02/14/2002
• PS2 Exclusive!

In all honesty I have no idea what compelled me to buy Dynasty Tactics. It was at a time where I was looking for more games like Final Fantasy Tactics - which I fell for hard around this time, a couple years after its release - and unwisely assumed any spin-off game that had "Tactics" in the title would follow a similar route. Dynasty Tactics is far more straightforward a wargaming sim though, fitting for the developers behind Nobunaga's Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and between that dryness and the unfamiliar and confusing Three Kingdoms setting I couldn't really stand it for too long. There are two games in my PS2 collection that I deeply regret owning because I bought them at full price and ended up hating them both. Dynasty Tactics is one, and we will be getting around to the other in due time. Here's a hint: Sonic's in it.

As with GoDai Elemental Force, some small part of me wishes to seek confirmation before I send a largely unplayed game out to pasture, but the sour memories are strong enough to override my desire for a more clinical approach. Eliminated.

Case File 051: Vingt-et-un's Xtreme Express: World Grand Prix

• Original Release (JP): 02/21/2002
• PS2 Exclusive!

Cast your minds all the way back to January and the second The Top Shelf rundown, where I discussed an Artdink fighter game involving construction vehicles. While the premise alone was worth whatever pocket change I spent on the game, the true motive was to capitalize on its rarity as one of the handful of budget Japanese PS2 games that saw an English localization in Europe but not in the States. My reasoning was that I could ship a whole bunch of them to Giant Bomb to check out, or perhaps create a UK-centric blog series with them for this site. You might be forgiven to hear the xtremely generic title "Xtreme Express: World Grand Prix" and assume it's a run-of-the-mill racer biting the exhaust of Tokyo Xtreme Racer or Gran Turismo, but as you can see from the box art you're not racing cars but trains. With the slightly more evocative Japanese title of Tetsu 1: Densha de Battle! (or Iron 1: Battle on the Train!), it's hard to tell how seriously the game takes itself, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume "not very". I'm not sure, for instance, if it features the legendary train racing maneuver of multi-track drifting but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

I'm inclined to find out what the heck is up with competitive train driving, but I'm also apprehensive about spending any time on a game I pretty much bought as a joke. Since I was intending to turn it into a blog anyway, why not? Considered.

Case File 052: Capcom's Onimusha 2

• Original Release (JP): 03/07/2002
• PS2 Exclusive!

Back when I qualified the first Onimusha to the second round and subsequently played through the whole thing I mentioned that, while I own every entry in Capcom's historical Japanese take on their Resident Evil series that also precipitated the Devil May Cry series and "character action games" more generally to some extent, I'd never actually got around to playing any of them back in the day. I enjoyed the first game enough despite its age that I'm willing to repeat the process again for the second, if only to see all the graphical and mechanical advances to the series its developers made in the entire one year Capcom generously gave their team to follow it up.

I'm trying not to learn too much about it, except that it has an entirely new cast and setting, so this'll hopefully be as much of a pleasant surprise as the last one. Considered.

Case File 053: Media.Vision's Wild Arms 3

• Original Release (JP): 03/14/2002
• PS2 Exclusive!

My experience with the Wild Arms series has been spotty. Not in the sense that I find the series inconsistent in quality, but rather due to the ever-annoying wrinkle that is European release capriciousness. I'd bought the first Wild Arms and bounced off it for reasons I can't recall, couldn't find the second anywhere, bought the third (obviously, if it's here), managed to find the fourth eventually, couldn't find the fifth and as far as I know none of the spin-offs/remakes were ever released here. Like with Grandia above and Suikoden - which saw European releases for every entry besides #3, inexplicably - it's one of those franchises I've been meaning to revisit now that availability scarcities of the past are slowly being fixed with retro-friendly digital distribution. Even so, not having that solid foundation of what Wild Arms was may have actually enhanced my enjoyment of its third entry, given that the series thrives on its novelty to some extent. Wild Arms 3 is a Western RPG set on an alien planet that has seen better days - very Trigun, in other words - and the sandy dunes and wildlands that comprise the geography lends itself well to a Wild West flavor. The characters all wield guns, which means spending the occasional combat turn reloading, and the series can play around with fantasy (there's some magic, and many of Filgaia's fauna are traditional JRPG monsters), sci-fi (the whole ancient remnants of an advanced civilization cliche, the most significant of which being the OP "ARMs" weapons of the title) and traditional Western tropes. I particularly liked Wild Arms 3 because of its cast of desperado heroes and recurring villains, the depth of customization it offered for character development, the sheer amount of side-quests and superbosses to pursue in the late game and really that very distinct atmosphere of a Japanese Wild West RPG with all its stylistic idiosyncrasies.

As you've seen many times during this feature, I typically pick one game per series as a "representative" for a shelf space, and while I like Wild Arms 4 plenty it's the third one that's my firm favorite. Despite missing out on several entries, Wild Arms is an important JRPG franchise to me for being a shift from the norm and Wild Arms 3 is easily one of my top ten favorite RPGs for the PS2. Approved.

Case File 054: Squaresoft's Kingdom Hearts

• Original Release (JP): 03/22/2002
• Not PS2 Exclusive (I think, think, it only has the revamped PS2 version named Final Mix and the HD remaster for PS3 called HD 1.5 Remix. Seriously hard to tell with this series.)

I have no idea what's going on with the current state of the Kingdom Hearts franchise and haven't since, oh, let's say the mid-point of Kingdom Hearts 2. In spite of that, there's no diminishing the sheer joy I got out of Square's inaugural combination of Final Fantasy's ludicrous pablum and Disney's morally black-and-white fairytales of princesses and singing animals, in what ended up being the best crossover package the JRPG giant had made since Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. It looked and sounded great, the action-RPG combat was the right level of dumbed down for a Disney game, and it was absolutely packed with fanservice for both fandoms without diminishing an incredibly dense - almost detrimentally so - mythos surrounding the various worlds of the Disney movies and a secretive group of keyblade-wielding protectors of the magical multiverse gluing them all together. Any game that turns Mickey the goshdurned Mouse into some mythical hooded badass is on some next level angel dust and, for a while at least when I had the time and inclination to keep up with it, I really appreciated the weird directions the series took with the several decades of Disney fiction it was handed to play around with.

The second Kingdom Hearts won't fare quite as well in this feature - I'm not going to pretend for a second that the sequel is superior in this case, Tron or no Tron - and I've very much soured on the series as a whole in the years since; my own fault for choosing not to dig deeper into 358/2 Days or Birth By Sleep, mostly because of the titles. All the same, the first still stands as a stone cold classic of the genre and another of my favorite RPGs for the system. Approved.

Case File 055: Amuze's Headhunter

• Original Release (NA): 03/22/2002
• Not PS2 Exclusive (originally a Dreamcast game)

Real talk, I ended up with a copy of Headhunter purely by chance and have yet to play it, and the only thing I actually know about it is that the theme for its main character - "Jack's Theme" - also happens to be the dramatic music that regularly plays during Game Center CX's Arino Challenges. It's a good theme. I've been meaning to get around to this game for a while, deliberately learning as little about it as possible, because it sounds like the video game equivalent to a wonderfully bad 90s near-future sci-fi action movie, i.e. more than a little bit like Metal Gear Solid. Curiously, the game was never released in Japan, so why its music keeps appearing in a Japanese TV show is anyone's guess.

It's perhaps better known as a Dreamcast game in its home territory of Europe (specifically Sweden) - like Rez, the original Dreamcast version never reached North America - but I won't hold that against it for the time being. This will be a discovery for me very soon, either good or bad, so for now we're tentatively giving it a shot at the shelf. Considered.

Results

Leaping to ten games per week has given us more to disseminate in our round-up. In particular, it's given me more to chew on as I consider the second round and beyond. Wild Arms 3 and Kingdom Hearts move directly to the shelf, while Dropship, Grandia 2, Xtreme Express, Onimusha 2 and Headhunter are all in with a shout. I'm particularly curious to delve deeper on Dropship, Onimusha 2 and Headhunter - three PS2 games I've spent very little time with, despite owning copies of them for years. We also say a fond farewell to La Pucelle Tactics, and a less than fond "smell ya later" to Dynasty Tactics and GoDai Elemental Force.

That puts us 19 for 55 for second round entries, and we now have three confirmed shelf buddies in just two weeks. There's forty-one spaces to go so it's still all up in the air, or high up on the bookcase at least. Next week will see another ten PS2 games try their luck, including a few big PS1-to-PS2 sequels I'm happy to see and an unusually large proportion of horror games. See you all again for a spooky episode of The Top Shelf soon.

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