I was a game tester for Shadow Hearts Covenant, which was one of the few solid games published by Midway at the time. Even after testing it for hours and hours, playing through it many times, it never got old. I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing!
"A little bit of the old ultraviolence." I understood that reference! I still remember picking up a PS2, I also grabbed three games: Jak and Daxter, GTA 3 and Metal Gear Solid 2. What a lineup of great games, I still have my slim PS2 that I dig out from time to time.
Ah, so many great PS2 games I’ve missed out on. I wished I played most of these at a young age. Great PS2 list, Pam! You do a wonderful and well thought-out layout of each game, and you have a great and wonderful voice! Great job Pam! I’m glad that you love video games as much as I do! Thanks Pam!! 🤩🤩🤩
Great stroll down memory lane again! I had forgot about Beyond Good & Evil! One classic gem that I still enjoy playing to this day was Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven. Basically a slight refresh of the original Tenchu, it keeps the original suspense and Tactical stealth while letting you enjoy much better graphics and a great story! Love your picks!
This is old but really good list, I like the fact that it's not just full of the standard picks, this vid actually made me want to play fatal frame 2 (more of a silent hill fan myself lol) and shadow hearts covenant! Awesome work keep it up!
Hello, nice top 5! After watching some of your videos, I can say that you got yourself a new subscriber! One of my favourite Ps2 game is Summoner 2, but i think it's mostly because of nostalgia.
Beyond Good and Evil is my favourite game of all time. I loved that it had a bit of everything. Racing, Stealth, Puzzles, Aerial combat... it was so, SO good. I may dig out my PS2 copy and boot up my PS3 to replay it now...
5:05 The very 1st book I loaned from my elementary school library was a collection of Greek mythology stories and I have very fond memories of them, from Athena to Zeus, Hercules to Prometheus. Can't forget Medusa, the Kraken and the Minotaur. Great video!
Great list and really good descriptions for each. God of War was the first M rated game I was able to own because I secretly traded games for it with a friend. Has always been one of my favorites since then. Actually just replayed it a couple months ago using the collection from PS3, still so much fun.
Never heard of beyond good and evil, gonna have to get that one. The photography and photojournalism caught my attention, plus the game content seems really good. Good video and reviews.
Very interesting list! Good stuff. I've only let playstation into my heart the last couple of years...the first two titles I played through were Colossus and GoW which made me feel like an idiot for shunning Sony for so long! So frickin good. Your description of the feels in Colossus are bang on.
Nice to see some love for Beyond Good and Evil. Great game. I finally just beat Shadow of the Colossus last year! I’d have to put Resident Evil 4 in any top 5 list.
Saw your video on JPOG and was recommended this after. Subbed as soon as you mentioned Beyond Good and Evil. 2 games I absolutely adored as a kid. Edit: Shadow Hearts Covenant, nice
What draws one in with the PS1 intro is that odd, almost orchestral-style transition from the loud, booming bass notes of the 'White screen', to the haunting, echoey synth notes on the black 'PS Logo screen'
First things I noticed on the video that just needed to be said, those Saturn accessories caught my eye almost immediately. After that, that Clockwork Orange reference before talking about God of War, I can't deny it. Didn't see it coming but it was a welcome reference. Considering how many games the PS2 has, yeah, there's a lot of possible favorites, in fact my top 5 would be Shinobi, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, King of Fighters XI, Virtua FIghter 4: Evolution and Silent Hill 2. But there would be a ton of honorable mentions such as , Way of the Samurai 1 and 2, Yakuza, Tekken 4 and 5 (Yeah if I made a video with T5 as an honorable mention I would get torn a new asshole for prefering VF over Tekken), Burnout 3: Takedown, Neogeo Battle Coliseum, Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, SMT Digital Devil Saga (amazing JRPGs by the way) ... the list just goes on, the system was full of gems, easily one of the consoles I had the most fun with.
Gotta love Shadow of the Colossus, its such an amazing game! It appealed to such a wide range of people because the creators did a masterful job of making a vast open-world action adventure game with a great atmosphere and intriguing story which also felt like an arcade game you could comfortably jump in and out of at any time.
I really liked how each colossus was it's own thing, you definitely could jump on for 20 to 30 minutes to defeat one then put the game down. Though, the first time I played it I played the entire thing in one sitting.
That startup music, though. Such sweet nostalgia. My top 5, in no particular order, when mood permits: 1) Final Fantasy X 2) Silent Hill 2 3) Silent Hill 3 4) Shadow of the Colossus 5) Ico Honorable mentions: Onimusha, Metal Gear Solid 2, Katamari Damacy, God of War, Contra: Shattered Soldier, and Resident Evil - Code: Veronica X. I'd include Resident Evil 4 and Beyond Good & Evil, but I had those on the Wii and GameCube instead, respectively. (I'm glad you didn't "spoil" or mention the final location of Beyond Good & Evil. It's a fantastic experience the first time around seeing where the game takes you. Looking forward to playing the sequel!) When God of War came out in 2005 I only played a demo, and didn't play the full game until a few years ago, followed by its sequel. I see what all the hype's about. My first experience with Final Fantasy X was also from a demo, which ended on a cliffhanger with Auron saying, "This is your story," before you get sucked up. I was awestruck. To be honest, X was my first true FF experience. Around the time I played the demo, a friend lent me VII and VIII (he was madly obsessed with VIII and personified one of the characters), but alas, they didn't fully resonate with me. In recent days I watched playthroughs and whatnot, which merely solidified that claim. Eventually I'll check out the VII remake, and hope to one day play IX (I appreciate its return to the original style). Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem was another game that left a lasting impression on me. I kinda wish I still had it, only played through it once. Wait a sec, that's GameCube. Off-topic, silly me. /rant
Oh this video was AWESOME! Pretty much have this whole list in my collection. (except the last two). So glad to see you back! Was wondering about your return yesterday. That's a real funky hair cut!
Spot on with the feeling on the Shadow of the Colossus. It's like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions! Awesome vid, even though I'm 4 years too late.
Nice list and video! I never played Fatal Frame or that particular Shadow Hearts but they sound right up my alley. Some of my favorites are Dragon Quest 8, Final Fantasy 12, Resident Evil 4, Rogue Galaxy, and Tony Hawk Underground.
Cannot be Tamed It's definitely long and can be too "grindy" at times but the story line is pretty refreshing in how wholesome it is, I felt like a kid again playing it.
Nice list. Nice reviews. Not your regular Ratchet and Clank or FFX video. Great games but on every list. Shadow Hearts never appealed to me because of the cover but really sounds interesting now that you’ve explained a bit of it. G&E was on my eventual list but I may have to move it up. Peace.
Fantastic choices in my opinion, especially your number one pick! I would say my five would have to be Lifeline, Sakura Wars: So Long My Love, Final Fantasy X, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, and ICO.
Loved shadow hearts 2! So good and so underrated imo just like you said, the attention to detail is great. I loved the descriptions of the monsters too.
Glad you have Beyond Good and Evil... I worked in a game store back then and yeah, a lot of female customers were interested in the game just because of the cover. But the males just weren't that interested, even when I told them it was just as good as the Wind Waker. To this day, I lament the game's lack of sales. Looking forward to the sequel!
YAAAAAS Fatal Frame II is absolutely amazing ^_^ great choices. I still need to pick up Beyond Good and Evil. I think one of my favorites is Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Nice. Not bad choices. I'm right there with you on SOTC and FF2. Only just beat FF2 for the first time this week! Finally opened my sealed copy of FF3 now too!
PAM U ARE A GODDESS!!! I LOVE A WOMAN THAT LOVES VIDEO GAMES AS MUCH AS I DO. THANK U FOR YOUR HARD WORK ON YOUR REVIEWS OF OLD SCHOOL GAMES . KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!
Good job of narrowing it down to five. I don't think I could even cut mine down to ten unless I quantified by the number of hours spent and even then that's rather misleading.
Nice list! My top five is 5# - James Bond: Nightfire 4# - Spider-man 2 3# - Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith 2# - God of War games 1# - Ratchet & Clank games
shadow hearts II. oh yeah baby. i'd say that's one of the most overlooked jrpgs ever. definitely the best one on the ps2 and i've played almost all of them.
Maybe it's the fact that this generation was the first when games could really capture that cinematic presentation - but looking at your choices I feel like developers were really pushing that "Video games as Art" vibe that was somewhat lost in the PS3/360 era.
I do agree that vibe started really strongly with the PS2, but I don't necessarily think it was lost. A number of games are wither aesthetically or emotionally impacting without being quite as lofty and vague as SotC.
I think I lot of indie games rose during this period and there's a lot of emotionally driven story lines in that circle of development. But I don't see it reflected as much in the big companies. But maybe my experience is limited.
Shadow Hearts Covenant could be the most underappreciated game of ALL TIME. While I would have included games like Okami and Persona 3 & 4 on my personal list for sure, you still have put together another excellent list of games worth mentioning.
Interesting picks ☺ My personal top five favorite PS2 games have always been: 5) "Okami" 4) "Shadow of the Colossus" 3) "Fatal Fame" 2) "Silent Hill 4:The Room" 1) "God Hand" My list of games are pretty obscure,but it's mainly the hidden gems that I love the most.
Cannot be Tamed Thanks ☺ "Killer 7" is another one of my favorites. It came between that and "Okami" for the fifth spot,but I went for "Okami" instead. Such a unique game.
I lucked out big time. A friend wanted to trade with me, and he actually had interest in the random assortment of game manuals and PSP games I had. Score! Now I just need to get around to playing it.
Shadow Hearts 1 + 2 = two of my most beloved RPGs of all time. (I legit started playing the first again yesterday.) You, miss, are a woman of culture and fine taste.
I have fond spots for Bombastic, Okami, Ico, Arcana Heart, and Culdcept. There's probably a GTA in there too, but my favorite was the Vice City Stories port from PSP so I'm not sure it counts. Beyond Good & Evil is also awesome, but I keep telling myself I'll get it on PC again. Shadow of the Colossus has the dubious honor of being the final game I ever bought either at release or at full price. I hated the empty map. Meanwhile, the horse's controls/camera hogging annoyed me so much I named it Dogfood and cheered when I found the cliff where you could actually kill it. That said, I love Ico enough that part of me still holds out hope for The Last Guardian.
I have the opposite opinions of SotC and Ico. I hated dragging that girl around with me in Ico and wanted to push her off a ledge. I found when I went back to play the PS2 games to capture footage, the controls on all the 3D games were weird. In both BG&E and SotC I had to invert x and leave the y axis, which is totally opposite from every other game I can think of. Also when using the camera in BG&E and Fatal Frame the camera was aimed with left stick instead of right. Really hard to get used to after all these years.
I absolutely loved Shadows of the Colossus. I also like that you weren't too spoilery for any of these games even though they're all over a decade old at this point. I haven't played any of the others on this except God of War, but I know those two games are utterly phenomenal, so this list is great in my book.
Beyond Good and Evil is SO GOOD. I first played it in Iraq. I just got another copy of it and can't wait to play it again for the Cartridge Club in...September? I may do a video on it.
BLACK is my favourite game on PS2 wow what a game, followed by GTA San Andreas haha. Then probably Gran Tourismo 4, Syphon Filter, True Crimes, Streets of LA and Resident Evil 👍👍
Awesome list! Gotta love Fatal Frame 2 and Beyond Good and Evil! Some of my favorite ps2 games that I have on the ps2 are God Hand, Silent Hill 3, Haunting Ground, Gregory Horror Show: Soul Collector, and Tales of Destiny (so sad the last two never came out in the US).
If you like creepy games, check out Haunting Grounds if you haven't already. Great atmosphere and the main character is awesome. Great list, nice to see Fatal Frame and Shadow Hearts, they're so underrated.
Great list Pam! OF the games listed, I've only played through God of War but have played bits and pieces of Beyond Good and Evil, Fatal Frame 2 (on Xbox though) and Shadow of Colossus. I really want to finish the rest if these games, but it seems I don't have as much time on my hands as I used to ha ha. Other games I would have a hard time deciding to put on the list would be Xenosaga (first one was the best), Metal Gear Solid 2 or 3, Gran Truismo 3, Persona 3 or 4, and by far one that I would absolutely have to put on the list would be Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne. Nocturne got me into the SMT franchise and it was just so different from the fantasy RPG's I was accustomed to.
I've never gotten into the SMT or Persona series. I played a little bit of Persona 3, but didn't get too far and wasnt' a huge fan of the social stuff. Nocturne seems cool though.
Yeah, I know the dating sim aspect to the Persona series can be a turn off, but I don't really mind it. Nocturne is absolutely fantastic though. I highly recommend if you play ant SMT game that you give it a try. Hard as nails at times, but so rewarding!
Many excellent choices here. Beyond Good & Evil is a classic, though I don't think I'd ever put it on a "best PS2 games" list b/c it was out for multiple platforms. Still, it was a flawed but unique experience, and I'm still pissed that Ubisoft has yet to release a sequel. Never been that big a fan of the God of War series. Shadow of the Colossus - well, that had to be on because of the incredible experience it provides. Fatal Frame 2 was definitely the height of the series with how unnerving it could be, and even now I still get chills when I play and the ghosts pop up. Still need to get through the Shadow Hearts games, but Covenant sounds quite interesting. My top 5 PS2 games would probably be, in no particular order - SotC, Persona 4, Okami, Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid 3
That's right, BG&E was on all the platforms, I tend to think of games as belonging to whatever console I played them on. I like your picks, I played some of Okami but I need to go back and play through the whole thing, I remember it being gorgeous.
ps2 recommendations to people who have not played them. Metal gear solid 2&3, scareface, way of the samurai, silent hill 2&3, and one of the best underrated games Dark Cloud!
Hell Yes! Shadow of the Colossus! It's truly a magical game and is EXACTLY how you describe it. Earlier this year, I posted this on my social media: In most video games when you get to the final stage/boss fight, the music is epic. It makes you feel like a total badass and pumps you up for the final showdown. Not this game. This is the final boss battle music for the game, “Shadow of the Colossus.” It’s completely opposite of what you’d expect; it’s haunting and hopeless. When that ominous music starts and slowly builds, a pit forms in your stomach. You know something just isn’t right. You don’t feel excited that you’re close to “beating the game.” You start to question all your previous actions. It makes you feel as though nothing good can come from this. You have doomed yourself and others. Guilt sets in as you realize that even though you were motivated by true love and the purest of intentions, your selfish human desires made it easy for the darkest of evil to manipulate you into doing their sinister bidding. By ingeniously turning your Love against you, these ancient demons twisted and corrupted your once good soul. And so deceptively certain of the honorableness of your actions, you recklessly trudged on your death march, mercilessly slaying these MASSIVE, majestic creatures, one by one-only to realize that in the end, you’ve become the biggest monster of them all.
Pew Pew Pew Pam ;P It's a nice top, didn't play Shadow Hearts. There are lots lots of good games for PS2, and i didn't play too much on this system, so 5 games that i really like to play: Okami, Baldur´s Gate: Dark Alliance, Kingdom Hearts 2, Wipeout Fusion, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2.
For PS2, look for Drakan: The Ancient's Gates. It is a 3rd person action role playing fantasy adventure game with a female protagonist. ..and has dragon riding. long before Skyrim. I enjoy it.
I haven't played a single one of these games before... but I did just get Beyond at Goodwill for $2 a few weeks ago! Shadow Hearts looks great though, I need to find! For me, I mostly played FFX and FFXII on the PS2. And Castlevania Lament of Innocence, that as a good 3D Castlevania title, didn't know what to expect after playing Symphony of the Night.
Nice list. Sad, how I bought God of War at a game convention and have yet to play it. Damn priorities. Honorable mentions: Tekken Tag Tournament, Devil May Cry 3, NBA Street and Def Jam: Fight for NY My top 5 are: 5. Burnout: Revenge - I loved the demo so much, I had to get the game for Christmas when it was released. Fast action and you can run ppl off the road! Plus, crash mode and traffic attack is really fun. 4. Final Fantasy X - Not my favorite entry but a solid one. I wanna finish XII soon. 3. Tekken 5 - I love that you can play the Arcade version of the first 3 games plus T5 itself. Tons of replay value! 2. Capcom vs. SNK 2 - Just an awesome fighter between the two companies. 1. Fire Pro Wrestling Returns - It's a 2D wrestling game with deeo gameplay based on timed button presses. love the deep roster as well as game modes.
Hey, hello from France ! Very good selection ! Beyond good Evil is so good and is a french production, for Fatal fram we don't have the same title, in France is «Project Zero», I give Silent hill 2 and Dragon Quest VIII :)
I really enjoyed your commentary on this video. Really insightful on Shadow of the Colossus, was that your interpretation or does the game tell us he's getting conflicted with his quest. Nice to see some titles I'd never heard of, as well as a top 5 list that didn't include GTA.
The game doesn't tell us (at least not with words) that he's getting conflicted, but from how his appearance changes there's clearly something going on. Vice City is the only GTA I've ever finished. It was alright, but not really my favourite kind of game.
Yeah! Shadow of the collossus made me feel awful. I felt bad, i felt deep guilt. And by the end i felt so weak and clueless... But the colossus crying in pain. They felt, alive. And that's nothing compared to the Trico in The Last Guardian!
Agreed - it is pretty daunting picking out a Top 5 List with so many choices of excellent games! 😅 (it was tough) Great Picks! 😎👍🏻 My Top 5 PS2 Games (A-Z) 1. Final Fantasy X 2. God of War II 3. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 4. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater 5. Resident Evil 4
