PlayStation

"A horribly overrated system."

I'm not bitter; really I'm not. I loved my N64 and Saturn but came to the conclusion that there had to be something about the Playstation that made 100 million people buy it. Running into several friends that owned the system, I asked to borrow several of their titles for the sake of reviewing; a week or so after playing the Playstation, I was ready to call it quits.

The system is the aborted baby of Nintendo and Sony that somehow survived the abortion but still would suffer the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome. It was a console that could hardly do 3-dimensional graphics in the first place, yet developers were heavily pressured by Sony to develop 3-dimensional games, resulting in such atrocities upon gaming like Street Fighter 3d and C: The Contra Adventure. Many of it's critically acclaimed games, its Metal Gear Solids, it's Tomb Raiders, its Final Fantasy VIIs and Toshindens and Tekkens and Einhanders, were all unified in how grossly overrated they were.

Graphics:
With the exception of a few titles like Metal Gear Solid or Symphony of the Night, the games tended to look god-awful, even by 32-bit standards. Textures were badly filtered, draw distances were outright laughable, and one could count the geometric shapes used in games like Final Fantasy VIi. The system was inferior in 2d to the Saturn (and frankly not that much better in 3d either, as later-gen Saturn titles like Burning Rangers or Panzer Dragoon Saga would prove comparable to the Playstation's best), and inferior in 3d to the N64. Of course, what could you expect from the Voodoo 1? The reason that I give this so high a score is due to the fact that at the time, the PSX was easier to program for than the Saturn's double video-card setup (which required programming in Assembly to truly optimize) or the N64's custom card which was hindered by clunky firmware.
5/10

Sound:
This I shall give credit to the Playstation for; using the CD for media storage meant more memory for sounds meant better tracks than the MIDI loops we were used to from the 16-bit era. This meant that it was easier to include voice acting and really elaborate soundtracks, with One-Winged Angel from Final Fantasy VII stealing most of the glory.
8/10

Controller:
Maybe I should say controllers as in plural. Sony actually released three separate controllers; the first one was a clone of the SNES pad but with an extra pair of shoulder buttons. Following the release of Mario 64, Sony then created one with two analog sticks. Following the release of Starfox 64, Sony then did one with built-in force feedback. While I dislike the concept of multiple shoulder-buttons (as the Saturn, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Xbox, and Xbox 360 would show us the practical uses for analog triggers), the dual-analog configuration was clearly a logical improvement over the cumbersome Saturn NiGHTS controller or the 3-handed N64 controller.
10/10.

Media storage:
Quite brilliant. While more expensive than magnetic storage (i.e hard drives), Memory Cards were a brilliant means to solve the difficulties of storing save data for a console. This fixed the issues faced by battery-backed storage systems (i.e. Saturn internal memory) and proved superior to cartridges for obvious reasons.
9/10

Games: This is where the PSX falls apart. It lacked legitimately good titles; nevermind the gushing praise bestowed upon titles like Metal Gear Solid and Tomb Raider and Battle Arena Toshinden, among other such "games." Most of these titles were so poor that you couldn't pity them. While I could name individual titles, I shall instead go into broader categories:

FPS titles: While the dual-analog system had potential to work for FPS games, the system lagged in this area; it's best shooter was Medal of Honor, which still lagged in comparison to Goldeneye. Nevermind that Quake never made it to the Playstation, nor did Turok II or Perfect Dark.

RPGS: It had a great many RPGS, quite a few which weren't that great. While they stand tall above the rest of the PSX lineup, Grandia's story was horridly butchered when translated to English as was Lunar Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar Eternal Blue Complete; the poor quality of the Lunar translations especially proved grating to fans of the original Sega CD versions, who tried to contemplate why Working Designs screwed up, The PSX's best tactical RPG, Final Fantasy Tactics, is broken due to unbalanced classes (the mathematician comes to mind), and the incredible ease of power-leveling; these flaws make FFT inferior to Dragon Force, Shining Force III, Wachenroder, Ogre Battle 64, or any other good tactics RPG that didn't make it to the PSX. Contrasting with the legendary FFVI, Final Fantasy VII is emotionally juvenile, VIII is one of the most-hated in the series if only because of Squall, and IX came out at the same time as the far superior Skies of Arcadia. I could also be critical of Xenogears but I quit playing after the first disc ended and I bogged down into a text mudpile, and I've yet to play Suikoden II or Vagrant Story. I do admit, however, that Tales of Eternia was halfway decent, but only because Wolf Team rocks. So in conclusion, the RPGs are the best aspect of the PSX though the actual quality of these RPGs is overrated.
7/10

Fighters: The two fighters for the PSX are Soul Blade and Guilty Gear, and those are overshadowed by their superior Dreamcast sequels (Soul Calibur and Guilty Gear X, respectively). Tekken is one of the worst fighters I had the misfortune to play, with horrible character selection, sloppy animations, and dial-a-combo mechanics only beat out by Killer Instinct. If you wanted good 32-bit fighting games, the Saturn was the system of choice, as Fighters Megamix is the only fighting game anyone would ever need. As Guardian Heroes, KOF 97, Asuka 120% Limited Burning Fest, the entire Street Fighter Alpha series, X-men vs. Street Fighter and Vampire Savior showed us (among many others such as Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge), the Saturn also did 2d fighters way better than the Playstation could ever hope to. Let's not forget the PSX gave us such horrid titles like Dead or Alive (which wouldn't become good until DOA3), Star Wars: Master's of Tera Kasi, Nintoshinden, and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, among many others. However, I shall be lenient and say that the PSX had a better fighter lineup than the N64, if only because I consider Smash Bros. more of a party game than a real fighter (by this same rule however, I consider Ehrgeiz and Rakugaki Showtime party games for the PSX).
4/10

Shoot-em-ups: Einhander is pathetic; counting bullets is the worst thing to happen to a shoot-em-up. The PSX conversion of Metal Slug is laughable in all it's animation-skipping anti-glory. Raiden II is OK but ultimately forgettable. The Saturn was a superior shoot-em-up system, with such classics like Batsugun or Radiant Silvergun, or the Panzer Dragoon series, as well as the technically superior versions of Silhouette Mirage and Sokyugerentai. In fact, even the N64 had a superior shoot-em-up library compared to the PSX, with the three memorable titles that are Starfox 64, Bangai-Oh, and Sin&Punishment. The PSX is not the system for the discriminating shoot-em-up fan, unless you are a die-hard Gradius fan.
3/10.

Platformers: When it comes to 3d platformers, the Playstation's attempts to compete with the N64 were outright laughable. Tomb Raider has one of the worst cameras ever, and it's blocky level design has not aged well at all. Spyro, Crash, and Ape Escape are cheap imitations of Mario 64/Banjo-Kazooie, and don't get me started on Bubsy 3D, The 2d platforming genre manages to fare surprisingly well in the face of Sony's draconian no-2d policies, as the PSX does have Symphony of the Night and Albert Odyssey. These two titles singlehandedly save the system, though the N64 was a better 3d platformer system, and the Saturn a superior 2d platformer system.
6/10

The system has some games which are worthy (of course, even the worst systems have one or two titles that stand out); It had DDR, which still rocks, and was an OK system if you liked quirky Japanese titles (examples being Vib-Ribbon or Rakyugai Showtime). Symphony of the Night is an OK title for one, even if weaker than Dracula X on the PCE-CD. But aside from a Castlevania title, Albert Odyssey, and several obscure Japanese titles, the console really didn't have many GOOD games.
3/10

Party games: A weird exception to the norm of the PSX proving inferior to its competitors. The PSX brought rhythm-action games to the home, with DDR and Parappa the Rapper being classic examples. These games are fun to waste time with, and are a high point in the Playstation's otherwise forgettable library. The system also has Rakugaki Showtime, which is naturally good as it comes from Treasure Corporation. However, the N64 was still the superior party system if only because of it's not requiring multi-taps (standardizing four controller ports was a brilliant idea, see?)
8/10.

The PSX's library only had a relatively small list of high points in a sea of pathetic titles, It's only worth getting DDR, Albert Odyssey, Rakyugai Showtime small list of RPGs (of which should include Tales of Eternia) and Symphony of the Night, but only if you already own a PS2, These games are not worth buying a console over.
5/10

Conclusion; The system was overall mediocre due to it's horrid ratio of bad games too good games (plus the fact that many of the relatively good games were given much undeserved praise), yet was a commercial success of the highest caliber. It popularized (it did NOT introduce 3D graphics, despite the delusional claims of Phil Harrison) 3d graphics despite hardly being able to do good 3d in the first place, and gave us Rakugaki Showtime. Yet many factors, like the good games I mentioned being rendered unplayable 10 years from now, the PS2's superior game library (even not taking PS1 games into account), etc. help bring this console's score one point below the median.
4.5/10=4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/20/06