It’s been 25 years since the launch of the original PlayStation, and while games have evolved by leaps and bounds in the two and a half decades since, it’s impossible to deny the lasting impact Sony’s flat grey box had on the industry and pop culture at large.
From bandicoots to battle-hardened super-soldiers, the PlayStation is single-handedly responsible for some of the most iconic characters and franchises of all time, and while there are so so many to love, we wanted to look back at the very best the console had to offer. These are the greatest PS1 games of all time.
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Check out the video above for the top 10, and click through the gallery below or scroll down for the full list!
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25. PaRappa the Rappa
Before Rock Band, before Guitar Hero, even before Dance Dance Revolution, there was Parappa the Rapper. An unlikely rapping game starring a cartoonishly flat dog and his animal pals, Parappa won us all over with catchy songs and a quirky charm that stood out among other games seeking to posture themselves as “extreme” or “hardcore” on the new generation. Nothing else on the console looked like Parappa (until Um Jammer Lammy arrived, of course). This rhyme-spitting canine is so beloved, in fact, that we named him one of the top 10 dogs in video games. I gotta believe!
24. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2012/10/01/abes-oddysee-new-n-tasty-debut-trailer"]Abe’s Odyssey was such a weird game; an action/puzzle/platformer with a story that’s sort of like a crazy outer-space Soylent Green. Abe’s Oddysee is fondly remembered for its bonkers character design and deep lore, which led to several fun, weird sequels and spinoffs like ‘Munch’s Oddysee’ and ‘Stranger’s Wrath, and featured unique systems for communicating and working together with your fellow Mudokons, plus various alien species you can ride, telepathically possess, or manipulate into taking out your enemies for you.
23. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
While we've ranked Crash Bandicoot 2 higher, it's undeniable just how important the entire Crash trilogy was to the PlayStation legacy – and that largely comes down to just how damn fun and challenging Naughty Dog made those first three games. While Warped's base levels may not be as rewardingly challenging as Cortex Strikes Back's, it still offers plenty of extremely fun platforming levels, mixed in with a host of vehicle/riding challenges. Perhaps the most robust Crash of the original three games, Warped uses its time-hopping set dressing to offer a wide variety of levels, enemies, and tricky create locations, but makes them all feel part of a fun, cohesive whole.
22. Spider-Man
Developed by Neversoft (the same developers behind the Tony Hawk franchise), PS1’s Spider-Man served as the template for pretty much all the good superhero games to follow. This was the first Spider-Man game many of us played that really captured Spidey’s unique method of traversal, swinging between buildings, climbing up walls and acrobatically taking down enemies. It was also filled with easter eggs and secrets, including many, many Marvel cameos (like the Human Torch and Daredevil), unlockable costumes like Spider-Man 2099, the Amazing Bag Man costume or even his classic Captain Universe getup. They even got Stan Lee himself to do all the descriptions of each character in the character viewer!
21. Mega Man Legends 2
Before Mega Man Legends, I don’t think people really thought of the Mega Man series as being all that great for story and character. Mega Man Legends changed all that, presenting one of the most unique and charming 3-D action/adventures ever, and the sequel only improved on the formula.
20. Ape Escape
Nowadays, holding a PlayStation controller without the familiar analog sticks feels almost unnatural – like wearing someone else’s shoes, or when your arm falls asleep after leaning on it wrong – but there was a time when the DualShock controller seemed like an unnecessary gimmick. How do you rally players to adopt this new technology? You present them with the threat of rampant, mischievous apes.
19. Crash Team Racing
While many have come for the Mario Kart throne, Crash Team Racing, surprisingly, is perhaps the kart racer to come closest. Long before its modern-day remake, the original CTR surprised and delighted fans with a mascot racer worthy of excitement alongside Nintendo's long-standing franchise.
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Introducing a varied and fun set of original tracks, wacky weapons that smartly pulled from existing Crash lore, and offering a skill-based drifting/boost system – that was both innovative and fun – made Crash Team Racing one of the more beloved entries in the kart racing pantheon to this day.
18. Syphon Filter
Pulling inspiration from hit titles like Metal Gear Solid and GoldenEye, Eidetic Games – now known as Sony Bend – combined elements of both with their own unique blend of stealth and action to create a unique adventure that spawned several sequels. Syphon Filter offered a wide assortment of fun weaponry that allowed you a good amount of freedom to approach problems in different way throughout its 20-odd levels of espionage action. Perhaps most memorably, you could tase enemies to death, preempting the whole “don’t tase me bro” fiasco by nearly a decade.
17. Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain
Perhaps more accurately titled “Legacy of Kain 2”, Soul Reaver is an incredible second chapter in what might be one of the most underrated game franchises ever. Gothic and macabre, the Legacy of Kain sequel is more like a grimdark Ocarina of Time than its top-down, action RPG predecessor, Blood Omen. Shifting between the world of the living and spectral plain to solve puzzles and traverse the twisting corridors of Nosgoth would prove deeply influential beyond the PS1 era, as well. The characters and story, penned and directed by Uncharted’s Amy Hennig, are miles above most Playstation games of the era and, despite a rushed and anti-climactic ending, Soul Reaver stands on its own and deifies Kain in a fantastic re-introduction to the series.
16. Final Fantasy Tactics
When Final Fantasy Tactics arrived in 1998, it was arguably the best turn-based strategy game ever to grace consoles. Even today, there are few games in the genre since that have even come close. The juxtaposition of cute yet super-deformed characters works well, especially when they get caught up in one of the most complicated video game plots of all time. This is yet another game that proved the PlayStation didn’t have to rely on fancy 3D graphics – though it’s a shame we never got a true sequel (the two Game Boy Advance spinoffs, although not bad, were a huge tonal departure).
15. Medal of Honor: Underground
There wasn’t an enormous list of must-play first-person shooters on the original PlayStation – the genre simply wasn’t as ubiquitous on consoles at that time as it is today. There are a handful that carved out a legacy – like Quake II, or Disruptor – but probably none did so more successfully than the incredible Medal of Honor. Wolfenstein 3D may be the granddaddy of FPS WWII action, but Medal of Honor (and especially Underground) was the series to really drag it into the third-dimension, kicking and screaming, “Rennt um euer leben – er hat ‘ne Panzerfaust!”
Arriving just a year after the original and late in the console’s lifespan, the prequel/sequel Underground is one of the best shooters of its era thanks to its memorable main character Manon Batiste, a fantastic array of levels, and its terrific behind-enemy-lines tone. You could also trick Nazis into posing for embarrassing photographs before you shot them, which is simply brilliant.