What was the Square Millennium Collection? | Squaresoft's PS1 Greatest Hits in Japan! 

The ps1 era of square was truly magical.

What a nostalgia trip! I got a Brave Fencer Musashi story for you. When I was living down South, I went with my mom to Movie Gallery and saw Brave Fencer Musashi was there. My little brother and I were convinced we HAD to get it, because it also having the FF8 demo felt like renting two games at once. We weren't going to wait to convince our Mom to rent it. (Some Moms and games didn't mix back then AT ALL, ours was one of them) We scraped up all of our loose change, and decided to go on an adventure to get it while my mom was still at work. We convinced my brothers best friend to come along with us. We decided not to take the main road, because it went really far out of the way, and we didn't want to get caught that far away from home. So we went through the tall grass in a direct line to our destination. I knew what direction the store was in, and I knew it didn't take long to drive there, so that was good enough. (Kid logic) Well, we ended up walking on a log to cross a ravine and our friend lost his balance and fell in! We got all muddy pulling him out. Continuing on, we had to avoid the snakes and the ants, pick our favorite walking sticks, etc. We ended up back at the outlet stores over an hour later, and it felt like finding the holy grail. We got funny looks being a group of dirty kids renting a game with change, but I had my moms membership card, so they accepted it. We got home and the sun was down, and we were tired from all that walking, but as soon as we turned that game on, it was all worth it. We still have fond memories of playing the game and going on the adventure for the game. It was like our own mini-RPG. This time period was pre-y2k when the Dreamcast was the hottest thing at Toys R Us. Musashi 2 was good, its just got some Kingdom Hearts vibes going on in it. (I thought the cel shading was great at the time). It also had a really cool surf rock soundtrack for the opening. Gameplay wise, I like the first better, but the 2nd still good enough to merit a playthrough. I remember getting it around the same time I got Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. I probably also like Musashi 1 better because of the Lv1 JRPG adventure I had to go on to get it! 😆😆😆

Truly the golden era for Square. I'm not sure if we'll ever have a solid decade of releases like we did in the 90's.

Despite the quality of the tat, it's nice to see these classics re-released with a form of reverance from Square. It wasn't just something slapped in a "Greatest Hits" case.

Nice topic! I think you missed the main reason of being of the collection, in your "context" chapter. Squaresoft was going to have one of its weakest years in terms of output as all its dev teams were shifting to more complex PS2 development. In addition, the combined costs of PS2 development and the FF movie (while being frozen off the booming Game Boy Color market) was a huge strain on the companies’ finances. The output part was especially problematic because Squaresoft ‘s wholesale subsidiary Digicube had just launched a costly direct-to-consumer service via kiosks installed in convenience stores in 1999. So they needed to find ways to make their back catalogue sexier to drive kiosk sales. Initiatives included this Millennium Collection as well as a special CD-ROM that allowed uploading tons of special saves on your PS1 Memory Card for almost the entire PS1 Squaresoft catalogue.

I had no idea these existed! I also did not expect Saga Frontier tea sets to be a thing. Honestly, if one day I sold off most of my game collection, my PS1 RPGs would be some of the games I just couldn't part with. I'm a huge dork and they are dear to me.

Yo that Front Mission chain wallet is fucking siiiiick!

Wow, those collectors ps1 editions are awesome. Happy to see some of my childhood PS1 RPGs there as well.

Wow, I had no clue these existed! And they're really freaking nicely done too!

Jimmy!! Your alive!

Ah squaresoft era back when the developer were kings of the rpg genre and how they cared about their games even the ones that didn't sell well but many gamers including myself loved to death. Also look at their logo back in the day it's so cool and badass looking SQUARESOFT look at the logo and tell me that logo looked amazing. During that era game after game had became a well remembered classic from the Uber popular ffvii to the shooter titled einhander it saddens me how square enix after merging with enix and the failure with ff spirits with changed square forever and never ever become like their former selves.

Ahh freshly opened 23 year old cards, what a smell. Love the packaging these have. Japan really goes all out with presentation. Thanks for showing these off

The music for each game is such a nice too! That LoM Music box... I would die for that

The only one that I own under the Square Millenium Collection series is Final Fantasy Tactics, but still trying to get Legend of Mana and Chrono Cross at some point.

Thank for you covering all of these! Even if they're all just special editions with tchotchkes, it's definitely still interesting to look at as a curiosity. Of these, I'd definitely be the most interested in the Front Mission 3 one because of the mechs. The clock from the Tactics one is cool too. But as much as I adore Parasite Eve, the PE2 one really looks the most disappointing. That plaque is also really cool, though. Not the same Front Mission, but Front Mission 4 has a special place in my heart because it really ignited my love for mecha anime and games as a genre. 17:42 I didn't even know there was a Sentimental Graphiti 2. I bought Sentimental Journey, the anime adaptation of the first game, on a lark mostly because I thought the guy running the booth was cute. The whole thing is an anthology of short stories about the girls, so i didn't know until years later that it was based on a dating sim. For a while I've wondered if I've missed out not being able to play the games, even if the games and the anime seem incredibly different. You regretting getting the sequel kinda suggestions that no I'm not, lmao.

Instant like after you said Brave Fencer Musashi is one of your all time favorites. Is one of mine as well

That is so freaking awesome! Wish we would've gotten it here in the US!

That FF8 demo version of the prelude theme is still my favorite version of it and Square didn't even put it in the official game. It's such a chill theme.

When I saw that SaGa Frontier comes with a teacup and saucer, as a tea fiend and rabid SaGa Frontier fanatic I was like "I MUST HAVE THIS NOW"

Whoa! Another IGFTW video? What is this, Christmas?? My birthday?!

FM3 was the first game soundtrack I ever imported.

I have the Brave Fencer Musashi one. That is one of my favorite games, I really wish it would have gotten a proper sequel.

Cool video, I had no idea that these games were rebundled like that. Must have been quite a treat for the fans in Japan, especially those that remembered Square as that "nice Action game dev" from back in the day, the guys that sighed in relief when Square released the first Mana game. Still, for Musashi and Ehrgeiz of all games to get this honour - I'm impressed. Shame the Bushido Blades didn't get in. Wish Nomura would just find it in himself to helm a Musashi and Bushido Blade renaissance with remasters, similar to what Actraiser had a while ago. Maybe do something cool, like releasing a Musashi and BB collection on the Switch with the Musashis as playable characters on BB this time? Honestly, the last time I saw these types of collections was during the PSP era, with Falcom's boxes for their limited editions, before everything becoming more or else uniform in them having a big box, figurines, an OST cd and an artbook or something.

Not a coffee/tea guy but for some reason I really like those cups. Thanks for showing us your stuff.

Some of the enclosed items were a mixed bag on quality. The SaGa Frontier teacup and saucer were from Narumi which is a decent Japanese porcelain brand.

Oh wow i didnt knew these existed, they are beautiful!!

Thanks for sharing these amazing sets with us! I played most of these games and they're all Squaresoft classics. I hope you could talk about stuff like this more often, it was really interesting and fun! :)

For a long time I thought the SaGa series was the SALSA FRONTIER series, because of that weird logo and because RPG names don't have to make sense.

Ah squaresoft the good ol days …

Wow I had no idea these existed, but what a great celebration of some awesome games. My eBay suddenly has a new saved search!

I remember hearing about all these! never imagined I'd see an unboxing video for the lot, but here we are, haha. great timing as well I just got theatrhythm over on nintendo switch, so it's definitely been a blast from the past musically revisiting all my favorite FFs! I was always more partial to Chrono Trigger, but mainly because my playthrough of Cross basically ended at the Goblin Tank! These are some cool sets, for sure.

Dang I like that plaque!!!

I think i remember seeing some of these on ebay back in the day but never knew exactly what they were.

The extras in those set totally blow away anything included these days. Such a great variety. It’s a shame the Aya perfume bottle yellowed a bit. Wonder if there is any way to clean that up in a similar manner folks clean yellowed consoles. Speaking of Aya, I also love any video where you reveal yet another actress/model/singer you have a crush on. We need a complete series soon!

Trivia: 3 out of every 100 copies of this edition of Legend of Mana were accidentally switched with PDF copies of the Unabomber's manifesto.

Not seen what these are actually like before. One of them things I knew they existed but didn't know all the contents of. I'd probably want these just for the disc art.

I remember these. I was considering then buy the 2 SaGa games just had a tea set and wasn’t very appealing. The FFT set with the cards is the best though. The irony is that a few years ago they did a SaGa collab with the Saga prefecture and had a bunch of SaGa porcelain goods and china. Seemed like they predicted the future.

RU-vid didn't warn me this video was out :( Man, I gotta say, collector's editions seemed way cooler back then. Certainly, they were rarer and felt more important. Now, there's so many floating around that I don't even bother anymore

very cool! nice to see xenogears represented. surprised to see ff viii, ff ix, vagrant story and parasite eve 1 (i did not care for the second one) snubbed as those are some of the best squaresoft games from the era!

Wow, I never knew these existed. They look awesome.

Gotta say, that is a nice collection. BFM is a classic.

Cool stuff! Thanks for sharing. I don't think I have seen these before.

Fun video dude! Thanks for sharing! By the way, sounds like Square Enix is working on fixing Chrono Cross on Switch, so looking forward to that! :)

Nice Final Fantasy I image. Teacups aren't bad.

Thank you for sharing these, Jimmy, they're gorgeous! Any advice for those of us in the States interesting in importing one? Are they overpriced on eBay?

Fantastic sets!!

These look fantastic! Had no idea these existed :)

what a cool collection thanks for showing

Awesome video,you should do a video on Squaresoft SNES games

I used to buy these for 15 to bucks in japan used back when I was there 20 years ago. I resold them on ebay for 50 to 100 bucks.

Any chance of Episode 3 of Video Games on Video coming anytime soon as well as the Next Demoing Demos Video ????

Besides this would you like to make video about premium box like arc the lad, popolocrois, and wild arms from PS2 too? They are kind of similar with this too...

Holy crap, people were amazed that you could still buy ps1 games from the squareenix store, but it has nothing on this. Genuinely believe that 99% of western gamers weren't aware these existed.

Classic Squaresoft is the best Square

Yeah PS1 was peak square, they were never the same once enix snapped them up, sad because I wonder what they could have done on the ps2/dreamcast era even though they did of course have hits in that time too. These collections look nice, not sure I would buy them now though, as usual the price has gone up perhaps too much for what they are.

I can tell BFM on PS2 your not missing anything Jimmy that game was AWFUL And I even beat it and honeslty...I don't remember jack about it other then was awful while remember so much silly English lines and bosses of BFM on PS1 so think that speaks for itself ;p Such lovely box sets honestly never knew about them I be almost tempted ask about some them if I haven't already have so much stuff holding for me already xD

Hey ho Jimmy ma Boy! I´ll be in Osaka from 02.06 - 25.06. I said I´ll be back ^^ I know it´s a bit spontanius to tell you but do you think it´s possible to see each other? Me and my girlfriend will be in Osaka and Kyoto till 15.06 after that, it´s only me in big Japan till the 25.06. I would go so far to say, I´ll visit you at home even it´s for just one day of drinking and game hunting. So, if you think you have time at your hand, let me know. Love you Dude and have a damn good day!!!

Ad-libbed commentary? I refuse to listen to commentary that hasn't gone through at least four rewrites.

That stupid movie ruined Square so freaking hard that they had to get bought out by Enix, and that was the end of good RPGs from BOTH companies forever. What a sad story.

Man these are some epic collections. Man I miss the old Square when they made all kinds of games that was a bit different and their JRPG was fun whacky cool adventures. I mean take FF8 or 10 and 9 which are prime examples on how different their JRPGs where. And now we have games Like FF13 and 15 and Forspoken that makes me question if I even like square enix anymore and looking at FF16 trailers on a game that makes me think game of thrones and Witcher wanna be and not original fun whacky ideas. I mean Square can make epic Jprgs if they wan´t I mean Bravely default 1-2 and Octopath traveler. But yeah I kind of given up on Suqare and mostly look at indie Jprgs or jrpgs from Nis and so on..

ERA PSONE AND PS2 IS BEST GAME EVER MADE.