Your description of why it's hard to re-play Shadow of the Colossus is so fucking perfect! I want to play this again, but I step in, and...the memories are already perfect. It was an amazing experience that I don't need to have again because the discovery and new-ness was core to it.
I got a PlayStation for Christmas 1996 when I was 7 to replace my Sega Genesis, and played it a bit. But, I didn't really get way into it until FF7 came out in 1997. After that, I was hooked for life.
Major props for using final fantasy X music for the background music of this video. I love that t-shirt Pam. I sincerely hope an aussie guy walks up to you and says clever girl. Your story about the football game is incredibly endearing since too many people like to shit on sports games. You learn something new every day, never had any idea you did QA for the playboy game for the ps2. I've only ever played shadow hearts from the new world but I absolutely love it and the judgement ring is one of my favourite battle systems of all time. Ahhhhhhhhh Star Ocean 3, the game that ruined the entire storyline of the star ocean series. Personally if you want my advice on a ps2 game that should be added to your collection, I think valkyrie profile 2 should be a game you should add. It doesn't have the strict time requirements that first game has and its actually quite forgiving. It's technically a prequel to the first game but it has an excellent story with some really excellent voice work and it was released as a greatest hits so it shouldn't be too expensive at all.
I just bought a nice condition fat ps2 a few months ago. It’s probably the 6th PS2 I owed cause I get nostalgic for 6th gen every so often. I wasn’t even a child nor teenager when this gen started either and I still get all warm and toasty thinking about the early 2000s
Pam, you've good taste in games. Thanks to you I discover new games I've never heard about, but I never have much time to play them, since I'm busy with my music career, both in my normal life and now also here on RU-vid.
Awesome collection Pam! I will forever love Shadow Hearts II. That Alice and Yuri scene made me cry so hard the first time I played it. Thanks for sharing this with us!
I had a PS2 back in the day. I liked it a lot. I eventually gave it to my neighbours kids. I wish had kept it seeing as how retro gaming has become "a thing". Eventually I'll rebuild my collection.
The Bard's Tale - OMGosh looked this game up and loved the look. I really enjoy games and movies that don't take themselves too seriously. Thanks for this nugget!
Psychonauts is the best and has stayed in my head all these years. Its one of those hidden gems everyone raves about now but no one cared then. It is so imaginative and strange. Great game!
I just played The Bard’s Tale on NES! I didn’t buy a PS2 until the mid-00’s, and I got it in order to play Gauntlet four players with a coworker and her two young daughters! Still have great memories of it! Love the video!
I tried the remake for an hour and didn’t get it. Been hearing about how amazing it is for years and missed out on it. Didn’t see what the hype was about but I got kinda bored real quick, lost, and quit.
Ico was really good too, and so underrated...I about shit myself at the end of Shadow of the Colossus, after having played Ico a few years prior. I was stoked they released them both in the remaster.
@@justingates4985 Ico is also one of my favourite games ever. That developer knocked it out of the park twice in a row. I haven’t tried The Last Guardian yet, I keep forgetting it’s been out for a while.
@@lukemarshall3497 I didn't even know about Last Guardian...but I don't have any consoles after PS3/XBox360. I opted to upgrade the PC instead of spending $700-1000 on a new console, controllers, and games; since consoles just became dumbed-down PC's with incomplete games. I likely won't get to play it unless it gets a port or whenever a stable PS4 emulator, that can run it, happens.
Nice collection! So much nostalgia! FFX-2 - I rented this for a weekend, and you're right, it was pretty silly fun. But as with all the FF titles, I just couldn't get past the JRPG mechanics. They shit me to tears after an hour or two. GTA - Never played Vice City, but watched my friend play some of it. But San Andreas...oh boy, did I play the shit out of this. So much so that I couldn't get in to GTAIV, and even the latest one I'm on the fence about. It's all about that '90s LA experience. The music especially. Kingdom Hearts - I think I rented or borrowed this once, and couldn't get into it. I guess not having any FF experience was a barrier to enjoyment, but although I found the combat okay, I had no idea wtf was going on. Like...okay, chosen one, big-arse key as a sword, but suddenly Goofy? God of War - Like you, I've only played the first one. It was fantastic and I think the main reason for its success was, as you noted, how smooth and intuitive and beautiful the combat is. Metal Gear Solid - Same as you. I think I missed the boat on this. Briefly tried the first mission of the second one, but after half an hour reading background info and profiles and mission briefings and stuff I lost interest in actually playing it. NOLF - I loved this on PC! Solid FPS with great aesthetic. Didn't realise it was ever on PS2. Psychonauts - Again, loved it on PC. Maybe Double Fine's greatest work. Get on it! :) The games that I played a lot on PS2 were Gran Turismo 3, Soul Caliber 3, and Timesplitters 1&2 (an FPS made by ex-Rare devs who worked on GoldenEye). Looking back, my PS2 focus was on multiplayer, most of my single-player experiences were on PC or N64.
Another thing about Kingdom Hearts I didn't mention... Goofy and Donald's voices are not pleasant to listen to for 60 hours (especially Donald). I don't know why they'd choose them as your permanent companions.
@@Cannotbetamed1 Ha yes I can imagine. Although that many hours of Mickey's voice would give me nightmares I reckon. Monkey Island - didn't realise PS2 had Escape, though I shouldn't be surprised. Don't forget to go back and pick up Curse as well (PC only afaik) which I think is the most pleasing graphic style of all of them. Pixel art to chonky polygon is quite a jarring leap I'd imagine. Oh and that subtitle on The Fast and the Furious just says "Fast and Furious".
I still own the PS2 since March 23rd 2005 there's alot of awesome Sony exclusives such as Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, San Andreas, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Gran Turismo, Syphon Filter, Kingdom Hearts I and II, and Sonic Mega Collection Plus I Currently own 75 games as of February 2019 I thought about getting more and more PS2 Games by the end of this Year because how much I love the System itself
Good stuff, Pam! A few surprises in there, like the ESPN football game. I don't think I'd even heard of it. I never got into sports games, because I'm always pretty terrible at them. That said, I had fun with a college football game with my best friend when we were in high school. I might have to look out for the ESPN football games, though, because I'm intrigued by the footage, and your description. I would also recommend God of War II, if you enjoyed the original. They tweaked the controls a bit, so it's a little nicer, and the continued story is fun. I was also very surprised at how the PS2 was pulling off the graphics and smooth animations for God of War. Very impressive, and fun game.
Great collection. This video made me so nostalgic. I always loved the PS2 RPGs, but I LOVE Vice City and spent so many hours on my PS2 playing this as a teen. There is just nothing like flying over the neon lighted city with a heli and turning up Fever 105. never cared for GTA Games before and after that though.
@Mr. NoName San Andreas has a bunch of mini games and some two player. Hard for me to pick but of course if I had to vice city is too nostalgic and San Andreas was only added to my collection a few years ago
STRONGLY agree with you on Shadow Hearts series btw. Super underrated! Just a small correction on Covenant: it's mostly set during WW1, not WW2 technically. Not hugely important for the game though.
I was not much into videogames between 1998 and 2010 (because of collège). I had a PS2 but the only game we played with friends was Pro Evolution Soccer 5. Thanks for sharing all those souvenirs.
"The Sims with boobs!" SOLD! Kidding... mostly. I'm one of the few people who never had a ps2. It was during the period of my life when I got out of gaming for a time. I've only played 2 ps2 games ever. I played G.T.A. San Andreas for like an hour at a friend's house when it came out. The 2nd is Castlevania Lament of Innocence which I played on ps3 via PlayStation Network and did beat. Though weirdly enough I have Shadow of Destiny but the P.C. version. Never played it. I bought The Konami Collection for P.C. on Ebay and S.O.D. came with it for free. Anyway. Great video and it makes me re-think if I should pick up a ps2. Some of those JRPGs looked interesting.
This was a trip down memory lane. I remember so many of these games, even the ones I didn't play. The Silent Hill games, Psychonauts, Space Channel 5 (Dreamcast version), Shadow of the Collosus, MGS, The FFX games and Fatal Frame 1 are my faves. Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 are worth getting. And so are the Digital Devil Saga games which are offshoots of the MegaTen series like Persona is. In Digital Devil Saga you can eat demons to power up your characters! Oh yeah, the leveling system in FFX is called the Sphere Grid.
Really cool! This video made me remember how much i love ps2. It was a great console and for me it just had more variety and interesting ideas and concepts in games than in recent consoles.
I was one of the original owners of the PS2 back in 2000. Got it for Christmas that year, which was a huge surprise to me because I remembered being told by my mom that I might not be getting it that year because she was having a hard time having it, unless she found it ahead of time and only told me this to make me more surprised and boy was I. Remains the best Christmas present I ever received to this day. Only had 1 game for it at the time which was Ready 2 Rumble Boxing 2 which was the only PS2 game I owned until Crazy Taxi came out the next year. The ESPN NFL games were awesome. 2K5 was my favorite. The Dark Cloud and Fatal Frame games are all solid gems, I love those games, and Vice City is my fav PS2 GTA game. The Simpsons Hit and Run and Tony Hawk 3 I spent many hours on when I first got em, and Silent Hill 2 and Shadow of the Colossus are among the best games ever made. I actually liked X-Files Resist or Serve when I first played it. The show is probably my favorite show of all time so maybe I'm being a little biased. Solid collection overall Pam!
Tony Hawk 2 was one of my favorite PS1 games but I never really got into 3 and 4. Shadow of the colossus was definitely one of my favorite PS2 games. FFX is up there too. I have The Suffering: Ties that Bind. I would recommend The Suffering. It's by Midway. Its genuinely creepy and violent. It really didn't get enough love when it came out. Shadow of Destiny brought me back. I had totally forgot about that. I loved that game.
I just started getting back into the ps2 and got a little collection going. I'm buying stuff that I missed out on like the Onimusha series and Tenchu, and looking for Dragon Quest 8 next. Couldn't imagine not growing up with Metal Gear but I definitely understand your prospective. I tried to get into Psychonauts and Dark Cloud 2 and many others later in life, but feel I left it too late to really appreciate them.
PS2 A very powerful system. My favs are: Dynasty warriors 3/XL Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero Street Fighter Anniversary Collection Dynasty Warriors 5 Samurai Warriors Virtua Fighter 4
since you're talking about JRPG's but I can spot Arcanum on your shelf: Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath are very fun WRPG series esp. in co-op. Also Dragon Quest VIII and Grandia II are AWESOME JRPG's if you haven't played those. Some great characters and excellent gameplay.
The PS2 also double as some people's first DVD player as it can also play DVD movies and it did the job very well as well as play normal music CDs and it was the first truly multimedia device for the early 2000s
I played Dark Cloud 1 and liked the whole city building and dungeon crawling mechanic. But nowadays it feels kinda repetitive. Still a good title for it's time. Awesome music too.
During the PS2 days, it was extremely rare to come across Kingdom Hearts style of JRPG's. I know Tales series and Star Ocean had similar mechanical styles like Kingdom Hearts that have been around during the 5th generation as well. It's only recently thatJRPG's have finally caught up to the standards that Kingdom Hearts has set. Also if you haven't played it yet, there's a game called Way of the Samurai on the PS2. It's a JRPG with a ton of western RPG elements and it has multiple endings and many different joinable factions. It's actually a really fun game especially with how much control you have with the narrative.
I love your channel, Pam. Your content is great and very informative. What I like the most about your channel is that you don't have a weird hyper persona like a lot of gamers on RU-vid.
Great video, thank you for sharing! I'm just getting to Metal Gear Solid 4 now, so there's really no bad time to jump in if you want to see what it's all about, especially since there will likely be no more true Metal Gear games after 5. Please do try out Okami some time - it's a beautifully crafted game on many levels. For someone who isn't huge into the Zelda-like games, I still place Okami in my top 5 games ever. Someday I will have to check out Shadow Hearts 1 & 3, since I did QA on 2 while at Midway and thought it was great - even having to collect all the stud cards and do the entire man festival were funny, yet tedious. Have a good time!
i only played through the metal gear solid series about 2 years ago :D was a great experience. once you get to the end of the first one, it'll feel like you have to play the rest of them. it's got one of the most hooky narratives once it sets in.
Surprised that you don't have any of the Xenosaga games since you mentioned you love JRPGs. You should check them out if you get a chance. The first 2 are pretty cheap but the 3rd is on the expensive side. Nice video btw.
These collection videos are really cool, and it's making me want to do these types of videos with my own collection just for fun! But boy, that's gonna take a long time...
Damn it's cool your stepdad supported your love of video games! My freaking stepdad was the total opposite. He first made it so our mom could no longer buy my brother and I video games for Christmas or our birthdays and then a few years later completely just banned all video games period.
Hell ya, Shadow Hearts is my favourite Jrpg series on ps2 as well! I played Covenant first but stopped 10ish hours in because I liked it so much that I felt I had to play the first one first. I finally got a copy a couple years ago and have played both once a year since. I love Disaster Report! It's pretty clunky but it's so interesting. I've been looking for Mr Mosquito forever but I never see it and now it's usually a little more than I'm willing to pay.
You have a great collection, I love ps2 i have a small collection of neo geo compilations like art of fighting anthology, metal slug anthology, samurai shodown anthology, fatal fury battle archives 1 and 2, fuu super combo, last blade 1 and 2, the king of fighters collection orochi saga. I also have wild arms alter code F and bought last week CONTRA shattered soldier
Wooo FFX! The first time I played I got right to the end but then never finished it because I was looking for the ultimate weapons or whatever they were called. I recently played it again and finished it. The end sucked in my opinion. It was super easy. I tried FFX2. Played about an hour and I was done. I always wanted to play Okami on Wii. Silent Hill 2 is so good. Shadow Hearts looks cool.
I remember playing indigo prophecy, one of the first visceral story games I’ve played in my life. I’ve never forgotten it since I played it on my PS2. Quite a peculiar game!
Got a PS2 a year after they came out and had it until I got a 360 in 2010. Only jumped because of Fallout 3. I still have the system and it still works.
You are on the very short list of creators whose stuff I’ll watch beyond 10 minutes 🤣 Really dug that Final Fantasy frack you had playing early on. Dark Cloud is a good time, I’d suggest a walk through to get the most out of it but I really enjoyed it and Travis is in love with it. I had no clue you were a football fan! I was always partial to Madden but that’s because I started with them on the SNES You’re not missing anything by skipping MGS
It's kind of bizarre, even to me, how long my videos have gotten lately. When I started the channel they averaged 5-6 minutes. I used to be a big football fan! I was even part of the my high school's team - as a coach, not a player.
My Rule of Rose horror story...I sold my copy as part of a lot of 40 games on eBay for $100 total when I was in need of rent money right out of high school :[ I still have the picture we used for the listing and I'm working toward getting all of those games back, but that one stings a little!
Oh nooo. I sold my copy of Rule of Rose a couple years ago, for a decent price. I felt I had gotten what I needed from it. At Too Many Games one vendor had $400 on it... and they had four copies at their table 🙄
@@Cannotbetamed1 I saw that!! I'd love to have it again eventually but that's just a biiiit much for one game. I think I may have grabbed "Obscure" from that vendor, it was on the cheaper side since it was missing the manual. Love your collection! Disaster Report, Playboy: The Mansion, Mr. Mosquito, lots of really underrated games. Also really like Raw Danger, which is the sequel to Disaster Report and just turns the craziness up a few notches, worth checking out if you get back around to DS :]
I did the same thing with Haunting Ground several years back along with selling other PS2 games. I did it to save up & get a PS3 but I do regret selling that a little bit because I did like it.
I'm replaying Onimusha3 right now through a fairly good hdmi adapter. I didn't remember how great this game is, still impressed what developers accomplished on this console.
Now I must get indigo prophecy.... And I just don't feel like I can afford the shadow hearts games yet. Disappointing cause I've so been lusting for them. Thanks for the vid. Love ya Pam. 😎💙
@@Cannotbetamed1 I'm still trying to rebuild my PS2 collection that I purged to get the PS3 in 2008. Unfortunately almost every time I find games for it they have tons of stickers, scratches or are incomplete. Those EB Games and other stickers on some of the games you showed would annoy me. Those stickers (EB Games ones) could survive a nuclear blast I think. They're impossible to get off. FYI: If that game you had trouble loading was a blue bottom (CD) disc it may mean that your PS2 is gonna need a laser sooner than later. As that's usually the first type of disc to stop reading right on PS2 systems.
Quick, someone sneak into her house to put a Metal Gear Solid game into the PS2 lol xD. Great PS2 collection, really enjoyed seeing all the different games :)
It's funny, initially I didn't like the PS2 collection of RPGs (at the time they were released), as I believed that the PS1 had a better library. However, over time and as I got older, I came to love a lot of the RPGs that were released for the system. I actually owned a ton of games for the PS2, but unfortunately I had to sell them all when I moved to Japan. I do have a small library now, but most of them are copies that are in Japanese. Also funny that you're playing FFX music at the start of the video. It was actually FFX that caused me to save and purchase the PS2.
Hello! You are a very good video game youtuber! I'm glad that I found your channel accidently. I put like and then I will check your others video. P.S. Sorry for bad English.
Some of the games you mention here are one of myy favorites of the system, love Disaster report (and raw danger), Echo night and Shadow Hearts, wich is also my favorite series in the ps2