I got through phases of games, and right now I’m in the one I like to think of everything-modern-is-making-me-angry-so-I’ll-turn-back-to-vintage-games - and that’s in the form of PCSX2 on my Steam Deck.
Playing the PS2 generation on the Steam Deck is kinda the ‘perfect’ generation: I can upscale the resolution without a performance hit, I can apply HD texture packs, Retro Achievements and I can drop the TDP to extend the battery life.
Anyway, I never had a PS2 (it was just a touch before my time), so there’s so many games I’m yet to discover there. I’d love to hear any suggestions you might have for what I can play on there:
Just a couple notes:
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No GTA games because they’re better with the PC versions. While I’ve bought the games, the account that Rockstar demands people have to play their games makes me angry on principle (a single-player game forcing an online check each week to be able to play it? No thanks), so I’ve got cracked versions to play.
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No Final Fantasy because I’m not even sure where to start!
So if anyone was around back in the PS2 era, and has some recommendations for games they’ve loved, I’m all ears. I’ve been having such a fun time playing these.
Some big thanks to my friends who made and run RetroDECK (my choice for emulating on the Steam Deck), and to the PCSX2 team (who I’m chatting to right now actually, so keep an eye out and in a week or so I’ll share that chat with them all about creating and maintaining the PS2 emulator!)
Also, if you do have a Steam Deck, and want to play with the HD texture packs I do, then it’s really simple. Just download the pack, and name then according to their game’s I.D. code - SLUS-20743 for example, then place it in the texture_packs folder:
From there, go into PCSX2, then right-click the game, select properties, graphics, texture replacement and tick the two boxes I have:
Then you’ve got the games looking the best they can be!
Here’s a link to a stack of pre-done HD textures for a lot of PS2 games, to help you on your way!
Tenchu!!! I like the look of this one, will do!!!
Having played Persona 4 and 5…will 3 still be worth my time?
@PerfectDark There are two Tenchu games on the PS2, but I loved that one because the one character (Rin I believe was her name) was a lot more fun to play somehow. Couldn’t say how, just was.
It’s a stealth game though, so if you don’t like stealth you probably won’t like Tenchu. You can technically play it without stealth, but it’s not going to be much fun…
Persona 3 is excellent. I think, depending on preferences, 3 and 4 are the best in the series. 5 had its moments, but it was like 75% of 4 to me story-wise. Between 3 and 4 it depends on what you like. 4 is a bit lighter-hearted and more “Japanese culture” whereas 3 is much darker and more directly “save the world” type stuff.
@PerfectDark Got my HD hooked up. I need to reinstall some stuff among other things, so now was a good time.
Add to my earlier list:
Ico
Shadow of the Colossus
Dragon Quest VIII (don’t worry, zero connection between DQ games of this range, so it doesn’t matter where you start)
Drakan - kind of fun game, but don’t play on disc, use a harddrive
Need for Speed Underground 2
Odin Sphere (hard to believe this is a PS2 game graphically! But sadly gameplay does get grindy and repetitive. Heck of a story and graphics though.)
R-Type Final
Rule of Rose (might be hard to find)
Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim
Baroque translation
Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter
Phantasy Star Universe (undub)
Star Ocean 3 (undub)
Wizardry - Tales of the Forsaken Land
Rogue Galaxy
There are more!
Shadow of the Colossus is one I have for RPCS3…should I instead opt for a polished HD texture PS2 version? From what I read, there was some big frame-rate issues on the PS3 version
Rule of Rose is one I already have on my emulator! You can see it in the picture there, and the HD texture pack I got for that was like…one billion GB, so the textures are phenomenally polished!!!
@PerfectDark PS3 is probably better for Shadow of Colossus. The game ran kind of… questionably on the PS2 at times. They were stretching the limits of what they could get away with. I’m pretty sure some segments even had some sort of smoothed out 15 FPS or something.
Shadow of the Colossus was originally meant to go on the PS3 if I recall correctly. It’s funny it took so long to get a rerelease on it…
I missed that you had Rule of Rose already. Lol.
@PerfectDark Here’s another I forgot. The Dark Cloud games. Perhaps more specifically 2.
I never got around to putting much time in them, but they seem to have decent dungeon crawling mechanics or something I understand?
(I’m still digging through the old PS2 HD. I have to dump everything one at a time and move them to a new drive via a slow USB interface because I don’t have anything IDE that’s faster, lol. My original discs for things are… I don’t even know where. Plus the undubs of course were separate.)