What are the best PS2 games

[† ballard]

I've been playing my PS2 a lot lately, but my library has gotten pretty small over the years. There are a lot of great games out there that I've never played. What are some great PS2 games that you would recommend?

 

Here's a list of the games I have left:

Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2

Final Fantasy 10, 10-2, and 12

Shadow of the Colossus

Dark Cloud 1 and 2

Tony Hawk's Project 8

Edited July 2, 2013 by ballard

[LTJG RIO]

Hmm, its not my favorite in the series but Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater were damn good games for the PS2. Also I'm a Gundam fanatic and I still to this day own and play my copy of Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation VS Zeon that came out in 2003.

[Nero D. Ace]

ooooooh boy. *deep breath*

 

Here's a "personal" top 10 - (Entire list follows after that)

(Note: These are PS2 Exclusive or at the most XBox exclusive. PC games may not show up on this list, unless they were really really optimized.)

 

10) God Hand

 

 

I can't say enough about this game. It's so frustratingly hard that it's easy to give up on. It has a meter which increases difficulty if you play well and decreases it if you start sucking. It's really rather unique. Something about it just kept bringing me back to this fun-as-bats beat-em-up.

 

9) Shadow of Destiny/Memories

 

 

yh

 

8) Prince of Persia: Warrior Within 

 

 

yj

 

7) Okami 

 

 

h

 

6) God of War 2

 

 

j

 

5) Devil May Cry 3

 

 

j

 

4) Rogue Galaxy

 

 

Star Wars! This is Star Wars, i tell you! In JRPG form! With action combat! Lush worlds! Beautifully detailed graphics! Interesting characters! Definitely deserves to be in the top 4.

 

3) Ico & Shadow of the Colossus

 

 

I played the PS3 version but the PS2 version should be the same, albeit less in HD. These adventure games have an interesting gameplay mechanic unique to each game and the first one makes an escort mission entirely enjoyable! The second one is much more epic in scale but has a heart felt story to go with it.

 

2) Persona 4

 

 

This is probably the BEST modern JRPG to date. It has all the elements of a dating sim, a dungeon crawler and a time manager, bundled into a fun package, with interesting characters, a nice murder story to solve and tonnes of side activities. It took a lot of effort to bounce it down to number 2 from the top spot but that top spot is epic in it's own way ...

 

1) Metal Gear Solid 2/3

 

 

They are both FUCKING AMAZING games. I couldn't decide which one was better, so I just put the whole Metal Gear Solid franchise at the top of my list. They are unique tactical stealth espionage action games and they are just so much damn fun to play ...

 

MGS 2) You know how they say Spec Ops: The Line did that social commentary on it's genre? Well, MGS2 did it as well, waaaaay before in the early 2000's. MGS2 has a certain post-modern theme about it that really shows itself well into the game and makes you start to question your own commands on the controller. It's not something that can be described, you need to play for yourself.

 

MGS 3) What is true patriotism? Thousands of hollywood flicks have come and gone trying to answer that, yet nothing has done as marvelous a job as MGS3: Snake Eater. Probably the more emotional game among the 2, this game had an ending that almost had me on the verge of tears with the screenplay, the music and the one action that I, myself HAD to do to continue. Again, indescribable. Needs to be experienced.

 

 

 

Rest of the list -

• Ace Combat Zero: Belkan War (Best. Flight. Game. EVER!)
  
• Beyond Good and Evil (Good game, not great, worth the experience. )
  
• Bully (Rockstar, Open World, School, enjoy.)
  
• Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (Not as great as Symphony of the Night but a good 3D rendition of Castlevania)
  
• Dark Cloud
  
• Dark Cloud 2 (Really under rated JRPG's)
  
• Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition (The normal edition is damn near unbeatable!)
  
• Dirge of Cerberus (If you're a FF 7 hard core fan)
  
• Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
  
• Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories (Under rated SRPG's with a wacky story and fucken awesome gameplay)
  
• Dragon Quest VIII (Artwork by Akira Toriyama. 'Nuff said.)
  
• Drakengard 1,2 (Dragons, yo! And you get to ride em!)
  
• Final Fantasy - PS2 (But it's already on your lise, so ciao!)
  
• Gitaroo Man (Tonnes of fun!)
  
• God Hand (Hard as coconuts! Hardest game on the system!)
  
• God of War 1/2 (Hold! devils! Pot of Tea! Hold devils! Pot of tea Mulan!)
  
• 
  
• Gran Turismo 4 (Damn good graphics. Pretty good racing sim as well.)
  
• Grand Theft Auto (This speaks for itself)
  
• Grandia (You know the drill ... under rated JRPG)
  
• Guilty Gear XX (Only fighting game I like playing on the PS2 anymore)
  
• Guitar Hero: Metallica (Only if you haz the guitar controller)
  
• Hitman: Blood Money (the last "good" hitman game )
  
• Ico (If you have SOTC in your list, put this with it.)
  
• Jak & Daxter franchise (Naughty Dog, yo)
  
• Mega Man X Collection (I personally recommend the X franchise. It's fucking amazing.)
  
• Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (The ONLY good MK for the PS2)
  
• Okami (Ahhh, the memories ...)
  
• Prince of Persia franchise (especially the second one!)
  
• Psychonauts (I regret not playing this sooner ...)
  
• Ratchet and Clank (Insomniac, yo)
  
• Resident Evil 4 (Granted, GC also had it. but the PS2 version was better)
  
• Rez (for some reason, it's fucking amazing. I never got it though)
  
• Rogue Galaxy (fucking ... tears ...) (also, HUGE UNDER RATED!)
  
• Shadow Hearts franchise (under rated, yet again.)
  
• Shadow of Destiny (dat story ...)
  
• Shin Megami Tensei - EVERYTHING! (They're ALL good. Atlus doesn't know HOW to make bad games!)
  
• Persona 3 (MUST PLAY!)
  
• Persona 4 (DEFINITELY MUST PLAY!)
  
• Sly Cooper franchise (Sucker Punch, yo)
  
• Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (Pretty good, wasn't expecting it to be.)
  
• The Suffering (Midway, yo)
  
• Suikoden 3 (4 and 5 suck.)
  
• Tales of the Abyss (Best Tales game, in my opinion so far)
  
• Tomb Raider - ALL!
  
• Splinter Cell - ALL!
  
• Zone of the Enders 2nd Runner (First one sucks.)
  

[CRCGamer]

A few more as yet unmentioned for PS2:

 

Decent:

Eternal Poison - Strategy RPG with branching class paths and high difficulty at first, first play-through per character is a real pain.

Makai Kingdom - Same vein as Disgaea games but different and wackier.

.hack//G.U. - This series should be mentioned for immersion at the very least. Also plenty to do for finding secrets and optional quests.

Ratchet & Clank - Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal. Original one is okay, but can be very aggravating at times. Dreadlocked is... a shooter cash in on the series.

 

Quite Decent:

Xenosaga I & III - I'd include II for completeness... but that one is in a word. Meh.

Soul Nomad - A squad based strategy game with an incredible character in the form of Gig.

Tales of Legendia - Great world design, not as good as Tales of the Abyss... but quite good nonetheless.

Champions: Return to Arms - Hack and slash with multiple difficulties, some deviously hidden secrets, and is quite fun.

 

Go play it already:

Valkyrie Profile - (Seriously, very good game) Stomp your way through a Norse mythology inspired game world with quite a bit of complexity.

Persona 3 FES - (Make sure to get the FEStival edition, has another 10+ hours of stuff to do and quite a few tweaks. P4 has better game play mechanics, but P3 has a better storyline progression.)

[Dark_Angel13]

Imma throw out a couple of my favourites here:

 

Black

Jak and Daxter

Jak 2

Jak 3

Ratchet and Clank 1-3

Destroy all humans

Soul Calibur 3

Predator Concrete Jungle

MoH Frontline

The Warriors

Killzone

Conflict Desert Storm

 

There's my little list of great games

[† ballard]

Thank you everyone for the really awesome list of games. I'm checking all of them out right now. I'd really love to rebuild my PS2 library.

Edited July 3, 2013 by ballard

[LTJG RIO]

If you want I saw online that there is a PS2 emulator online for free with a lot of titles available. I'm not sure if you researched this yet or not but, I figured I would throw it out there and give you a chance to decide. If your super old school though you can buy some games off of nintendoforsale.com some of them are brand new. A few years ago I had this strange craving to play Spiderman 2 for the PS1 so I ordered it off of that website and got a brand new copy.

[mid boss]

i can't remember the last time i played ps2 but the great games that i can recommend for you:

 

 

Odin Sphare

 

although it is a 2D game but it has the best story line i have ever seen and the music and the emotion moments are making me cry until now

 

 

this game my friend has some unique characters and some surprising event that you will not guess, although it has an anime but i recommend the game

mana khemia

 

i guess this game will not get you exited when you Google it.but it is although the beginning might sound boring .oh and the RPG system is a little different too from what you used to i mean you gather EXP to lvl you up in the games but this game it's alittle different there is EXP but it's not make your lvl rise up directly

 

 

 

this game is one of the YS series . most of the games are in PC and all of them are interesting. well this one i didn't enjoy it that much but the other once i played in the PC were piece of work

 

i hope i was  somehow helping

[Kyle_Dimetri]

Too many just too many. Among My favs were

 

God of War 1 and 2

Shadow Of the Colossus

Naruto Ultimate Ninja 1-5

Resident Evil 4

Metal Gear Solid Games

Jak and Daxter (1-3 was awesome)

Kingdom Hearts

Black

Burnout ---(even though it was on xbox also)

Grand Turismo 4-----CLASSIC!!!

[Kageshiro]

My favorite games happen to be:

 

Grand Turismo all of them.

Grandia II, and Grandia III.

FInal Fantasy X, XII.

Drakengard.

WIld Arms 3.

Grand Theft Auto all of them.

Armored Core 3

James Bond:Tommorow Never DIes

Dragon Ball Z:Budokai

 

 

Hm. I can't remember anymore now. I know I had more, but.. :/

[Daytay]

The Dragon Ball Z and Naruto games are the best.

[leelee316]

The Best games for the PS2 to Me are the WWE Smackdown Series Final Fantasy x-2 Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Ball Z Budikai

[Yvonso]

My list would consist of..

 

-Disgaea 1 & 2

-Kingdom Heart 1 / Chain of Memories / 2

-Sakura Wars

 

Seems to be the only ones I can only think of atm..

[mxjbles]

Disgaea 1 and 2

La puccelle

Wild Arms 3

Gladius

Spartan Total Warrior

The Warriors

Godfather

Scarface

are a few of my favorites

[TerraRoyal]

Pretty much all the good ones are taken i loved Grandia 2, Grandia Xtreme and Grandia 3.

[Umi]

Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Suikoden

[Tanis]

I have something like 500 PS2 games, so I'm not sure where to start...

 

Uh, I guess...anything by Atlus is going to be at least worth playing.

-Minus that horrible mini-car crap they released.

[xAaronx]

Well I'll go ahead and add some of my favorites to this list as well.

.hack//G.U. Vol 1-3

This is a series of 3 games explaining and telling a amazing story that spans well over 120-140 hours depending on how you play. The story, gameplay, and characters are very well made and good.

Persona 3 FES & Persona 4

These are easily the best JRPG's made Persona 4 gives you more control over your characters and has a good story, but P3 has a deeper and more rich storyline imho, and I say FES's version because this includes "The Answer" which explains what happens to the main character after the final battle.

Growlanser Generations

This is pretty much 2 games, Growlanser 2 and 3 both games have a small link to one another but its a amazing SRPG, with again a unique storyline, unique battle system, and beautiful character art.

Shadow Hearts 1 & 2 - Shadow Hearts is just a classic awesome rpg

[secretgimp]

DBZ Budokai, Metal Gear Snake Eater, and I enjoyed Guitar Hero too.