Oh, Sony. We were a bit curious as to why you held back from revealing the full list of 20 titles launching on the $99 PlayStation Classic, due this December. And now that you’ve revealed the contents of that list, we understand completely.
The PlayStation Blog shared the entirety of the micro-console’s roster Monday morning, and it reads as follows:
- Battle Arena Toshinden
- Cool Boarders 2
- Destruction Derby
- Final Fantasy VII
- Grand Theft Auto
- Intelligent Qube
- Jumping Flash
- Metal Gear Solid
- Mr Driller
- Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
- Rayman
- Resident Evil Director’s Cut
- Revelations: Persona
- Ridge Racer Type 4
- Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
- Syphon Filter
- Tekken 3
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six
- Twisted Metal
- Wild Arms
Of those 20 games, 11 of them previously appeared on the PlayStation Network in the U.S. as downloadable titles for the PS3, PSP and PS Vita. But even if you eliminate that fact from the equation, this list is still pretty underwhelming.
There were three Tomb Raider entries on the PS1, and none of them are present here. It’s the same story with Crash Bandicoot and Wipeout. There’s no Spyro, no Square RPGs outside of Final Fantasy VII and no actual Street Fighter game. Resident Evil: Director’s Cut, GTA and Twisted Metal are odd choices in lieu of their sequels.
Suikoden, Symphony Of The Night and Xenogears are missing too, along with the system’s best seller, Gran Turismo, as well as all the other fantastic racing games on the platform that aren’t Ridge Racer Type 4. And where’s PaRappa, Ape Escape and Tony Hawk?
MORE: PlayStation Classic vs. SNES Classic vs. NES Classic: Retro Console Showdown
Sure, many of those games are mired in licensing hell, and Sony would have to tip-toe through a legal minefield and secure the full cooperation of third parties to get them on the system. But they’re also inseparable from the PS1 experience. There’s no PlayStation without those names, and maybe Sony shouldn’t have even bothered making the console in the first place if it couldn’t ensure the best examples made the list — or if it wanted to coax gamers into buying the remastered versions instead.
That leaves us mostly with a bunch of first-wave PS1 titles that anyone really only sunk hours into because there wasn’t anything better available at the time. And it stings a little worse when you look at some of the titles on the Japanese version of the console that we aren’t getting in the West, like Parasite Eve, Armored Core and cult classic ‘shmup Gradius Gaiden.
Try as we might to find a silver lining here, it just isn’t happening. If you still have a PS3 on hand, you’re likely better off just downloading the games you want and creating a PlayStation Classic of your own. In that way it’s beginning to look like this holiday season’s greatest retro console might just be the one you already have in your home — unless Nintendo has any last words.
