Top 30 PSone Games Missing From the PlayStation Network

There are a lot of great games already available, but some terrific ones are still missing.

By Jason Venter · January 16, 2015

If you check here, you can view a list of the PSone Classics available for purchase in North America. You can head to the PlayStation Network and download the titles, often for $5.99 but sometimes for $9.99 in the case of games the publisher figures you'll willingly pay more to play.

Until rather recently, I was mostly oblivious to the offerings on the store. Sony might have done a good job of publicizing the variety of titles available, or maybe it didn't. Either way, I overlooked the bounty.

If you look at the list now, you'll see that there are well over 200 games available. As high as that number is, it's still low enough that a number of great titles have yet to appear. Companies still seem to be adding stuff, though, so there's still time to potentially make your voice heard. For that reason and others, I thought it would be fun to list some of the (in my opinion) obvious holdouts. Below is my alphabetical list of the top 30 games I want to see added to the service.

Alundra 2
Blasto
Breath of Fire III
Bubsy 3D
Dragon Quest VII
G Darius
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete
Lunar 2: Eternal Blue
Mega Man Legends
Mega Man Legends 2
Mega Man X6
NBA Jam Tournament Edition
Parappa the Rapper
Revelations: Persona
Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure
Ridge Racer
Saga Frontier
Saga Frontier 2
Soul Edge
Strikers: 1945
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Tales of Destiny
Tales of Destiny 2
Tekken 3
Thousand Arms
Thunder Force V: Perfect System
Torneko: The Last Hope
Valkyrie Profile
Vandal Hearts
Vandal Hearts II

Some of the games above probably have no chance at coming. Parappa is available as a PSP title too, so it's possible Sony just doesn't see the point in releasing the beloved original. NBA Jam Tournament Edition may be a tricky matter due to licensing. And so it goes. There are a lot of games on the above list that seem like they would be ideal additions, though, well worth any trouble.

So that's my list. Think it's a good one? What might your own list look like?

Comments 10

overdrive Staff Jan 17, 2015

I got so tired of waiting for DQ VII to get remade for something (presumably the 3DS, since it was remade there in Japan) that I finally bought the PS1 version. Which means that at some point in the distant future, I'll be using the blogs to complain bitterly about how it takes roughly an eternity to actually start doing things like fight monsters, while you're encountering slimes roughly 5 minutes (at max) after starting up every other damn game in the series.

While most of the titles there don't overly interest me (Bubsy????), there are a few I'd love to see brought back. Particularly the ones in the "not spending the coin to buy/re-buy" category like Vandal Hearts, Lunar, Valkyrie Profile; as well as the shooters (who knows, someday I might decide that since I've reviewed the first two Thunder Forces, I might want to go all the way through the series).

Germ Jan 17, 2015

I love hitting the PS1 games on PSN when they're on sale for $1... Otherwise I tend to ignore them. The omissions that stand out to me are the Colony Wars games. The first two are some of my favorites and it's weird that they aren't there.

honestgamer Blogger Jan 17, 2015

Yeah, if I made a top 40, it would have included the Colony Wars games. Someone on Twitter pointed out Brave Fencer Musashi, which also would have made it, plus I would have included the first Need for Speed, Legend of Legaia, and Jade Cocoon. Even Bubsy would earn a spot, because his trainwreck of a game was important (I think) even if it wasn't good. In future posts, I will probably take a look at Virtual Console's oversights. Honestly, PlayStation Network has done a fairly decent job of catching most of the titles I would consider important. I hope that more are on the way...

jerec Jan 17, 2015

The European selection is even more lacking. Thankfully all it takes is registering a US account on the PS3 and buying US store credit online.

But I hear they're finally bringing out Suikoden 1 and 2, apparently two very good games that have become so impossibly rare that all I've ever heard is hype... and they won't possibly live up to my expectations.

joseph_valencia Jan 17, 2015

I really want to have "Breath of Fire III" on my PSP.

By the way, the 3DS version of DQ7 apparently makes the intro less of a slow burn. It's weird that Square Enix hasn't given Nintendo the go-ahead to localize that game, considering that DQ9 and DQ6 actually sold pretty well in the States.

honestgamer Blogger Jan 17, 2015

Jerec, I look at Suikoden (and to an extent, its sequel) as really good games, but not life-changing or anything. Had they come out on the SNES, they would have ranked among the best RPGs on that system, which is no small feat, but they're not as over-the-moon fantastic as the hype would suggest. I wouldn't mind playing through the first one again, and finally completing the second one, now that I have both of them on my PS3. The second one lost me partway through, and then I wound up selling it for $120 (score!). A return with fresh eyes is probably overdue.

overdrive Staff Jan 17, 2015

I've played the first Suikoden twice and it was fun, but nothing amazing. Getting it at the same time as FF VII made it kind of funny. One appeared next gen, while the other was somewhat enhanced SNES, but with a better score.

The first time, I just played it. The second time, I used a guide to collect all 108 guys. If you play it like I did the first time, you'll be amazed at how short it is compared to most modern RPGs. Took about 25 hours or so. Still a good game, though, they crammed a lot of action and story-telling into that time. The only thing that annoyed me was that you get 108 characters, about 2/3 of them can be party members (of wildly varying usefulness), but you'll never even mess with most unless you go out of your way to, because the game seems to force (in a six-person party) 2-3 allies on you at all times.

Genj Jan 18, 2015

Valkyrie Profile is likely owned by Square-Enix these days and I'm sure they want people to buy the PSP port instead. You may notice their big PS2 games aren't on PSN either no doubt because they want you to drop $40 on the HD remasters instead. Since Atlus has released everything they can on PSN, I'd imagine they feel the localization is too poor of the PS1 game and would rather people play the PSP remake.

I'd guess the Lunar games would be difficult for legal reasons. Who would even have the publishing rights now?

joseph_valencia Jan 18, 2015

The publishing rights for the Playstation versions of Lunar would belong to Gaijinworks, the company Victor Ireland founded after Working Designs went under. Vic's working to get both games released on PSN, but I imagine they'll have to negotiate with GungHo Online Entertainment, the current parent company of Game Arts. It probably doesn't help that neither game is on the Japanese PSN either.

zippdementia Jan 21, 2015

I didn't like the first Suikoden game. It was that period of RPG transition, from SNES (and the overseeing Nintendo) to PS1 (and third party developers), and I had trouble making that change over (same issue with Xenogears). Not that the move away from dominating oversight was a bad thing, but I grew up with a certain style of RPG. For a while, every RPG I played blew me away. But once PS1 era games hit, I would say only a few moved me ever again. FF7 and FFX are the only ones that come to mind, actually. Well, and Mass Effect, years later.