Playstation 2 is one of those consoles that was just a juggernaut of its own even though the Gamecube and the original Xbox had slightly better graphics however nothing rivaled it in terms of sheer amount of games and variety it had and it came with a built in DVD player so that was cool for the time. With the great amount of time I had with it I wanted to show my top 11 for my favorite console in the history and please keep in mind that numbers don’t matter there because they are all loved equally and I wrote whatever goes into my mind first. So lets begin with…
11–Metal Gear Solid 3 (PS2/PS3/X360/PC) (Konami)
Length:12 to 15 hours to complete/Time spent: 100 hours on 15 playthroughs
I consider MGS3 the best in the series. Even though I loved the first two so much, this one was just on a league of its own to me. The Big Boss/Boss story was really beautiful, the CQC gameplay was amazing and the soundtrack was well done. I will be really sad when his story ends in The Phantom Pain but I know Kojima will deliver another amazing masterpiece.
10–Rule Of Rose (PS2) (Punchline-Atlus)
Length:15 to 20 hours to complete/Time spent:60 hours on 3 playthroughs
Now Rule of Rose is one of those games that you probably never heard of because of its disturbing imagery and themes and the killing of little children and it was under a lot of controversy and was banned in several countries. It was a horror game mixed with some really weird elements in it and the reason that I began to lean more to the story side of games and not just play them for fun only, because it had one of the most disturbingly amazing stories I have played. The game takes place in England in 1930 and you play as a young girl named Jennifer who is most of the time accompanied by man's best friend, a dog named Brown that is really one of the greatest allies ever, I can't tell you how much he saved me and been always there for me. Now the gameplay wasn’t really the best out there and felt dated and played like Silent hill 1 which was cool with me but its outrageous difficulty sometimes could be annoying. The soundtrack is simply a masterpiece and so fitting in the mood of the game and you should do yourself a favor and listen to its beauty. The graphics were lovely and resembled Silent Hill 2 and for the time it was good. But like I said, the thing that will stick with you the most is the story and the ending. I have to say it was the first game to affect me like that and I really hope one day they remake it because it is just the most underrated game I have played.
9-Silent Hill 2 (Ps2/Ps3/X1/X360/PC) (Team Silent-Konami)
Length:7 to 12 hours to complete/Time spent:40 hours on 6 playthroughs
After playing Silent Hill 1, I have been dying for a sequel because I wanted to know what's to happen to Harry Mason and I have to say I was disappointed at first because he was not the protagonist. Until I played Silent Hill 2 and I really didn’t expect it to be that good story wise. The revelations of what happened to the protagonist James Sunderland and why he was in Silent hill was just shocking and unexpected accompanied with a beautiful ost from the genius Akira Yomaoka. The gameplay didn’t really change much from the first game but most of the time you will be running scared because the terrifying and disturbing soundtrack that comes when the monsters approach. The graphics were great and the atmosphere was unmatched because of the ost. The different endings and unlockables encouraged multiple playthroughs that’s if you can withstand the beautiful and horrific nature of the game :). It’s a shame the HD collection on the PS3/X360 didn’t do it justice because of the horrendous framerate and bugs. Here is hoping Kojima can deliver a masterpiece like this in the next Silent Hills.
8-Shadow of the Colossus (Ps2/Ps3) (Team Ico-SCE)
Length:15 to 35 hours to complete/Time spent: 70 hours on 2 playthroughs
So I was bored and decided I want a new game so the employee in the store recommended this for me. I didn’t know anything about it and I never heard or seen a trailer for it. And boy am I glad that the awesome employee gave it to me. It’s a game about a young man named Wander trying to save the person he cares about and you go venturing into the world with the cool horse Argo to find and kill 16 Colossi in order to bring her back, I think I spent like 6 hours trying to find the first Colossi only to be killed In 10 seconds lol. The gameplay was different from anything I play and it felt so rewarding defeating a giant being with your sword and useless arrow. The soundtrack was awesome and fit the atmosphere of the game and when you find a weakness of the Colossi and climb on him the soundtrack changes and makes you feel like a badass that can take on the whole world only to fall in a matter of seconds :). The graphics were excellent and the open world environment, while being empty, it was never boring and that kind of magic is something a company like Ubisoft never has in its games that is filled with a billion boring activities. The story plays an important role here and I don’t want to spoil it but all I can say is that this game is a masterpiece and people who wonder why we want The Last Guardian so bad and call it overhyped should really play this.
6-Resident Evil 4 (Ps2/Ps3/GC/WII/X360/PC) (Capcom)
Length:10 to 20 hours to complete/Time spent:Over 300 hours on 80 to 100 playthroughs
Now I am pretty sure everyone expected this on the list and no matter what you say, its still one of the greatest game in the history and one of most innovative games that created the over the shoulder third person genre that we see in almost every TPS game. You play as Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil 2 who is looking for the kidnapped daughter of the president of the USA. Resident Evil 4 was and still a masterpiece. While fans of the old ones hated it, and I understand why, a change was needed and to be honest the game had some really scary moments like the Regenerators. This was a horror game with action elements and not the other way around, the atmosphere was beautiful, the village had a mysterious vibe to it and the monster design was absolutely beautiful and detailed. The bosses were scary and an absolute joy to fight. Now the most important part about the game was the gameplay, it was so satisfying and the amount of replay value was unmatched. I mean I did a run with only knife and grenades, one with handgun only, one with shotgun only, etc etc etc. The graphics were the best I have seen in the PS2, the content was really huge with many unlockables. The only bad thing about this game was Ashley. But if you look at the bright side if Resident Evil 4 didn’t exist, a lot of things in the gaming industry would not be there and for that I am thankful and hopefully one day Capcom can bring back the series to be one of the best again.
5–God of War 2 (Ps2/Ps3) (SSM-SCE)
Length:8 to 10 hours to complete/Time spent:70 hours on 6 playthroughs
Now the Hack and Slash genre was not really my cup of tea until my brother came one day with this game . When I opened the game, I didn’t even bother to look at the name because I knew I would hate it and I really didn’t like those types of games. It took me exactly five minutes to fall in love with it, it was just so god damn good and I was like, What The heck Is the name of this awesome game!!!. The gameplay was a beast, the graphics were awesome and the protagonist was the most badass MF in the history lol. The story follows Kratos, a Spartan badass who killed the God Of war Ares and took his place in the throne. The soundtrack was also great, the locations were really cool and the QTE in the game was well and. The boss fights were epic. I loved every bit of the game and went on and got God of war 1, DMC and Prince of Persia trilogy after I finished it. It made me love a new genre that I was missing out on and for that I am glad and can't wait to see what they will do in God of War IV.
4 - Obscure 2 (PS2/PSP/WII) (Hydravision Entertainment-Ignition Entertainment)
Length:10 to 12 hours to complete /Time spent:60 hours on 8 playthroughs
Obscure was one of the games that was bundles with my PS2 and I really loved it so much. Critics called it a cheap Resident Evil knockoff and thank god I didn’t listen to them or else I would have been missing out on a lot of beautiful games. The first game was in a Highschool called Leafmore and you played with 5 characters that faced horrific things when there teacher goes mad and makes a new drug and inject the students with it creating monsters out of them. The only thing that was bad about the game is the length. I finished it in like 5 hours and I did a speedrun on hard mode in 50 minutes. Anyway I had totally forgotten about it because I thought it would not get a sequel. So one day my older brother wake me up and brought Obscure 2 to me as a gift so we stayed up for like 13 hours until we finished it. The game was really awesome and underrated. It was set 2 years after the first where the characters from the first game are trying to move on with their life and get into college. You play with 7 characters in which each part consist of two playable ones. The game felt like a teen horror flick like the Scream series or Halloween and that was awesome because no other game had that unique setting and although the college moments are so brief, which are like 10 minutes or something, they really captured the feeling that you are in a real campus with students partying, having the time of their life, smoking pot and whatnot. The gameplay was great and the co op was excellent. The graphics were really good for a PS2 title and the ost was superb. It has the best final boss soundtrack I have heard. Seriously the composer Oliver Deriviere made one hell of a masterpiece ost. I am glad a game like Until Dawn is coming because we need more games like those.
3–Resident Evil Outbreak File#2 (PS2) (Capcom)
Length:1 hour each scenario from 5 scenarios/Time spent:150 hours
After playing Resident Evil 4 and Code Veronica, I hated this one, I think I played it for like 2 hours then replaced it from the store to another game. It was hard and boring and so messy and the AI sucked. So a couple of months later I decided to buy it again and hoped that I might love it and I did. Seriously, I was like why didn’t I play it sooner, how could I be so stupid and hate it. The game really blew me away. There were 5 scenarios to choose from, at first it was weird but as I played it more and more it got so much better. I loved how we had 8 characters to choose from with each one has their own set of abilities and usefulness. Yes, the AI was idiotic but the more you play the game, the better you get and soon you will be playing it solo. Off course the game felt like it was designed for four players co op but unfortunately the servers was closed and I was stuck playing it alone. The replay value was awesome because you unlocked infinite ammo, Solo mode, different outfits and different cutscenes for each character and other playable characters that has the same set of abilities as the original but nonetheless it was awesome. The game was underrated because of its difficulty and short scenarios and because the online wasn’t popular on the Ps2. But if this was released on the PS3, things would have been much different. I also loved the variety of items and ammo availability in each difficulty and also the limited game saves in harder modes. It made the game feel exactly like the classic one. It’s a shame that Resident Evil 4 was the one who got the attention and this got nothing. I still hope one day we get to see File#3 happens. I will be all over that.
2–Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix (PS2/PS3) (Square Enix)
Length:20 to 40 hours to complete/Time spent:Over 200 hours
I have never spent 20 minutes in my life listening to a main menu theme before. But I did with this because it was really beautiful. Kh2fm is an experience I will never forget even though it was in Japanese and I died like 20 times with each boss because I started it on Proud mode because I didn’t understand anything so I just pushed the circle button and started. I never went back and give it to the store because by the time I started it, I kept on playing and playing, and even though it was the first one I play in the series, I didn’t think the scene where Roxas gives his heart to make Sora wake up was going to be so damn emotional. I consider this one of the best games I played all my life and when they announced Kingdom hearts 3, I screamed so loud lol. It was the best thing news to me this gen. I recommend you go watch the reactions of the fans on Youtube when they saw the trailer.
1–Final Fantasy XII (PS2) (SquareEnix)
Length:Over 100 hours/Time spent:Over 1300 hours on 3 playthroughs
Yes, you read that right. 1300 hours on 3 playthroughs. I am going to be brief with this one. This is the best in the series to me and my favorite game of all time.
Thank You for reading this and do comment and tell me what do you think of the games I put there. And tell me what your favorite PS2 games are. And I recommend you listen to the OST of each one of those games because they are really beautiful.
The best Souls-like not made by FromSoftware, Lies of P has now sold over three million copies since its 2023 release.
To celebrate, all members of the Round8 Studio development team will be rewarded with a two-week holiday, a bonus of 10 million KRW (~£5,400 / $7,300), and a Nintendo Switch 2.
I appreciate this way of doing business. I may even buy Lies of P now because of it. Where your money goes it's literally the only leverage we have as consumers to make a difference in an industry we all have an opinion about. Withholding it or spending it in the right places is about all we can do.
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Where are the Shin Megami and Persona games? Those were the cream of the crop.
I haven't played FFXII but hear mixed things about it, ranging from 'it's the best in the series' to 'it's second worst behind XIII'. What exactly makes it better than the others?
Hmmm, interesting list.
My PS2 11: Virtua Fighter4 Evo, Manhunt, Vice City, NFL 2k5, Tiger Woods 04, MGS3, NBA 2k6, Yakuza, FFX, Shadow of Colossus, and Unreal Tournament.
No particular order.
Fantastic List! So happy to see ObsCure show up, such an underrated gem!
MGS3 and KH2 are among my favourite games of all time.