Throwback... Saturday? Why I love the PS One

Hello everyone! Today I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite game systems: The PS One! I've enjoyed PS One games for a majority of my life, so I was thrilled when I found a store that sold PS Ones as well as other retro systems and games. Part of my excitement was that this meant I'd be able to recover all of my save files off of my dad's PS One instead of having to start all over on my favorite games, like Legend of Dragoon and Final Fantasy VII.

 So a lot of you are probably wondering why I love the PS One so much, especially since it's a very outdated system and has such blocky graphics. I'd say for sure a part of it is just nostalgia, but more than that, I honestly enjoy more of the older games made for this system than I do newer ones. Why is this? Well, before I get into the details, let me make a few comments on PS One gamplay in general. First of all: Graphics.

 PS One games have very crude graphics in comparison to current games, but this is almost completely due to technology. We didn't have the sort of processors, graphics cards, and such like back then and due to this, there were a lot of blocky shapes and somewhat rough graphics. Usually this doesn't affect gameplay since helpers like random ground or object sparkles, targetting systems, and in game tutorials usually would explain or point out that certain objects can be manipulated. However, one thing that I like the most about some of my favorite games (*cough* FFVII) is that they have varrying levels of graphics qualities. Normal gameplay is very blocky looking, but when you go into a battle (or "combat mode") the graphics become significantly better. Then there's the cutscenes. I'm still in awe over how good the cutscene graphics were in older games. Even going back and watching them nowadays, I'm still impressed.

 Now we get to controls. In a lot of the PS One games I've played there's usually some sort of tutorial or practice mode that explains how the controls for the game work and let you run around and get a feel for them. Usually the controls are explained a bit at a time with new abilities being worked into the gameplay after initial controls are learned and the player has time to practice them some. I like this a lot better than the gameplay tutorials in a lot of more modern games where a lot of times you just get thrown into the game without so much as a how do you move. While newer games do typically have some sort of tutorial at the beginning, often times the actions are poorly explained, or they expect you to have played the last twelve installments of the game and merely give you a quick refresher while throwing you into the game. An example of this is when I decided to try playing Assasin's Creed and couldn't even figure out what the heck was going on story wise much less control wise. The control intructions were little bubble-like things popping up in a most unobvious way and more often than not, I was running around like a fool having no idea what I was doing. Compare this to one of my newer PS One aquisitions: Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver. In Soul Reaver, you begin the game with a step by step tutorial, teaching you how to move, what each button does, and how to attack and heal as well as a few other things pertinent to gameplay. The tutorial taught one thing per room in a long tunnel environment and was easy to figure out as I went along. In addition to this, they introduced the character and story in bits and pieces as you went through the initial area.

 Now let's talk about cameras in PS One. Camera styles vary wildly in PS One games depending on gameplay style. In games like FFVII or Resident evil, the camera is static and allows you to view a room from only one angle. In games like Spyro or Soul Reaver, the camera usally follows you, but can still be adjusted if needed. And in some games, like Crash Bandicoot, the camera is at a set angle, but the world is more 2D in it's layout, much like Mario games of old, while still being a 3D environment. Then there's games like Gex and Harry Potter, the camera is annoying and refuses to show you what the heck is in front of you and instead decides that viewing the character is top priority. (Can you tell which games frustrate me? XD) Many games nowadays have automatic camera angles that follow your character from behind alowing you to see the environment around you as well as your character. This can have its frustrations though as you typically have to turn your character around in order to view the full environment, or oftentimes there is a secondary "looking" state you have to go in and out of to look around without moving your character. This can slow response times down a LOT and make gameplay frustrating at times when you can't look around an area while staying hidden unless there's room to move. This is also annoying for me when I'm trying to look around and suddenly get attacked, but am unable to fight back without having to punch a button to get out of the "looking" mode, slowing reaction time for counter attacking.

 While there are ups and downs to each generation of gaming system, I find that PS One games are in general better written than many of the newer games I've played. While buying a PS One might not be feasable or even possible for many, there are many emulators as well as downloadable copies of many more popular PS One games out there. If you haven't played a PS One game before, I would highly recommend giving one of the more popular games a try, be it FFVII, Tekken, Spyro, or some other game. Enjoy!

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Throwback... Saturday? Harry Potter on the PS One

Hello everyone! So the other night I was feeling antisocial and somewhat depressed due to a date falling through, so I decided to bust out one of my old PS One games I'd recently recovered from back home: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. As mentioned in a previous article, I've enjoyed PS One games for a majority of my life, so I was thrilled when I was able to get one of my own after moving out. Now on to the Harry Potter game!

 In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, you play as Harry when he first discovers he's a wizard and arrives at Hogwarts. While the characters and general story is similar to the original book, Harry Potter follows a different story line with a lot more running about and random character interactions that tend to go along the lines of "Hey Harry! We totally know you. You should do this!" This makes the game feel a little akward storywise as it pretty much depends on the player having previously read the book and know what part of the book they're butchering. Fortunately, I have read all the Harry Potter books multiple times in the past, so I'm not running around wondering why all these random people are suddenly so buddy-buddy with Harry. Or why this blonde kid has two characterless blobs following him around as he harrasses Harry and the school population in general for no aparent reason. This reliance on previous knowledge gained from reading the book makes the storyline very awkward throughout most of the game, but there's still enough of a congruent story line to explain events.

 Years ago when I first purchased Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the PS One I struggled a lot with the gameplay and also got stuck. VERY stuck. My dad tried to help things along for me by putting cheats on our Goldfinger (a nifty little device that doesn't seem to exist anymore) for the game. Sadly, none of the cheats ever seemed to work properly as I still couldn't progress despite the requirements being met for certain in game missions. Recently, when I decided to pick it up again, I decided to start over at the beginning despite having a previous save file to see if I'd do any better with having several more years gaming experience under my belt. Not to mention I'd pretty much forgotten all the controls, so I didn't want to be flailing around aimlessly wondering what the heck I'm supposed to do. After the night's gaming, I'd pretty much caught up with my previous progress in the game, but let me tell you: It wasn't easy. Not in the slightest. To be honest, I can see more clearly why I struggled with this game so much and feel that it was rather poorly written. Annoying voice acting and seemingly nonsequitor story beside, the controls for much of this game feel very clumsy and poorly done to me. While having to manually adjust the camera isn't too uncommon for PS One games, sometimes the camera would be facing towards Harry, making it impossible to see the monster, lava, or whatever happens to be a threat in front of you. This makes losing health in the game  very easy at some points. Fortunately, you are given the option to continue from where you last left off, rather than having to start at the last save point. One of the biggest frustrations I have with this Harry Potter game is the broom controls. When Harry's zipping around on his broom, the controls are opposite what I would expect. Instead of being reversed, up to go down, down to go up, the controls are up for up and down for down. I'm not sure this is entirely a bad thing, but I know I've struggled getting a hang of these controls even when I was younger.

Overall, I'm feeling this game will probably end up being no higher than a 2.5/5 in my book. It relies too much on previous character knowledge based on the books, has difficult controls, and is overall a frustrating game to play. While I still intend to finish this gam, I would recommend anyone looking to buy older games avoid it completely except for collector's purposes ("I have all the Harry Potter games! They sit, unplayed, on a shelf!").

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