Modern PS2 Games

video games playstation
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I was just playing Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and got to thinking; this is a modern PS2 game. I know you’re going to say “But, Chopemon! That’s clearly a homage to a Dreamcast game!”

While that is true, it very definitely plays more like a PS2 game than a Dreamcast game.

I started thinking about other modern PS2 games, and wanted to build a thread. I love PS2 games, and I am really enjoying modern PS2 games. If nothing else, this topic might get me some more recommendations.

To fit the criteria of a Modern PS2 game, the game must have a design or feel to it that could be possible on a PS2. I’m not talking about visuals, I’m talking about games that do not reach beyond the limitations of the PS2 in design or ambition. I don’t think the devs are going for this on purpose, and this criteria is definitely about feel rather than hard science. There is only one forum that could compile a list like this and it is the Insert Credit forum.

I know that in these examples are things that the PS2 did do, e.g. open worlds, but when you you think of PS2, you think of level loads as the norm, rather than the standout open world games.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Playable areas are separate level loads and not open world. The gameplay is relatively simple and the design stays within a certain scope. Characters don’t have mouth animations or voice acting. You can grind on lots of things but the environment is largely non-interactive (trash bags are hard as rock and do not have physics etc).

Withering Rooms. A side on Souls-like with a limited amount of enemies on screen at once. It is completely inscrutable at the start but reveals itself as you poke and prod. If this was actually on the PS2, lots of YouTubers would include it in their PS2 hidden gem list videos.

Modern Onechanbara games. These have not moved on from PS2 ambitions in anyway other than normal maps. These are PS2 as heck. Z2 Chaos rules.

Tormented Souls. This is the definition of a 7/10 PS2 survival horror. It borrows from other genre games and conceptually, does not aim for anything more than the PS2. Extremely solid game in the same way that a lot of PS2 games were extremely solid games.

Anyone got any others?

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When I played the demo I thought that maybe Disaster Report 4 was a little too true to its clunky PS2 roots.

But in the end I wouldn’t change a thing and it was easily my favorite game of 2020.

Disaster Report 4 - Summer Memories -_20200526002543
Disaster Report 4 - Summer Memories -_202005260025431024×576 177 KB

Now they just need to revive the Bumpy Trot 2 project as well.

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I feel like Astral Chain is one of these. Distinct levels that are mostly corridors leading to pseudo-open areas, all broken up by cut scenes.

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I’ve been playing the Ratchet and Clank games recently, and visuals aside there’s not whole lot of evolution from the PS2 to PS3 to PS4 to PS5 entries in the series.

This is a good thing! In my mind it’s an example of a series where they nailed the feel early on, so all they need to do is make a new one every few years with nice graphics on top of mostly similar gameplay.

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the recently released Hollowbody is, like Withering Rooms an example of the new phenomenon of PS2 horror aesthetic as compared to the now 1,0000,0000 ps1 style horror games out there

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I need to get back to it and play some more, but I feel like perhaps 1000x Resist qualifies. At the very least the structure fits the pattern so far.

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Disaster Report 4 is definitely a modern PS2 game. I loved it.

Astral Chain is also modern PS2. I always find thinking about that game strange as it was a big budget, tent pole release for one of the biggest gaming companies in the world but it was just one and done. Same with Sekiro. It seems like every big game is supposed to be a franchise nowadays and it is weird that those weren’t.

I really want to play Hollowbody…

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Kunitsu-Gami is another one

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Tennis Elbow 4 (Tennis Elbow 3 is a Modern Dreamcast game)

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Inferno Climber feels like a Souls game kinda transposed onto PS2 era design sensibilities. Really odd game.

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Inferno Climber looks cool. Definitely looks like it fell out of a PS2 disc drive.

Like all intelligent, good looking, cool people, I was thinking about Symphony of the Night last night. It struck me that Bloodstained could be the PS2 sequel to Symphony. I know that there were full 3D Castlevanias on the PS2, and Bloodstained would not have been the sequel made after the reception to Symphony, but in an alternate timeline, I think it could be. Unregardlessly, it feels like a modern PS2 game.

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Is it cheating to say Katana Kami: A Way of the Samurai Story, since it’s a Way of the Samurai spin-off (extremely PS2)? If it is, I’ll also throw in the more recent Before the Green Moon. It visually resembles a PS2 port of a GameCube game (without being winky or homage-y) and has that contained, unaffected by sprawl feeling. Really frictionless gameplay and writing that is very much not early-2000s give it away as modern, but the good parts of the PS2 vibe are heavy

And if you do want a PS2-feeling game complete with PS2-feeling writing and style, Dead or School kind of feels like “what if Metroidvanias had been popularized in 2002?” I could’ve seen it coming out on PS2 from a budget publisher in the West, definitely with a Mobile Light Force kind of cover to hide the anime

image

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I played a little bit of Spartoi Meadow the other day, which has some Star Ocean: Till the End of Time vibes; some(me) would say the most ps2 game ever made.
Honestly feels a little more Dreamcast-y to me, but it’s got the ps2-ness in there.
Evergrace 3 some have said (but I disagree)
Spartoi Meadow on Steam (steampowered.com)

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my beloved before the green moon has some big ps2 energy - the visual style is very chulipy and the separation of the game world into smaller chunks, both capable of evoking a sense of life and of feeling vaguely janky and empty, has that vibe to me. sephonie gets there as well with its style and the ambition of its storytelling matched by a rather limited budget and scope.

honestly, kirby and the forgotten land has really big klonoa 2 energy to me. particularly the sparseness of the world map and fixed, cinematic camera angles. i also feel like the emphasis on combat has a bit of dmc in there.

this looks awesome and reminds me that i gotta get into till the end of time, one of my friends got it when i was a kid and i thought it was the coolest game ever.

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Hell yeah, Dead or School!

That reminded me of School Girl Zombie Hunter. It is a VERY trashy and skeezy coop shooter from D3. It is very PS2.

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Gotta second the recommendation for Before the Green Moon. Played that a while back and loved it. I found it really moving.

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Im not sure how much it really fits, but i was playing Gravity Rush the other day and theres definitely a lot of following arrows and collecting floating gems in that game.

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vr8mdcu8off31

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That’s reminded me about Malicious Rebirth. That’s a Vita game that feels like a PS2 game.

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i’ve been extremely curious about the ps4 version (sequel? remake?) of this game. it looks interesting and goofy!