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00:06Welcome to MojoPlays and today we're going back in time to praise games that had a massive
00:11opportunity to be hated and either came out on top or followed that original opportunity.
00:15These are 20 PS1 games that were super ambitious for their time. Let's go!
00:20Before we continue we publish content all week long so be sure to subscribe and ring
00:25the bell to get notified of our latest videos. Final Fantasy VIII
00:40Following Final Fantasy VII with something safe would have been the obvious move. Square instead
00:45used Final Fantasy VIII as an excuse to rethink almost everything. Characters suddenly had
00:50realistic proportions, enemies levelled alongside you, standard equipment systems were stripped
00:54back and magic became something you drew from enemies and junctioned directly to your stats.
01:00Even getting paid worked differently thanks to the seed salary system. The technical ambition was just
01:06as impressive. Square created sequences where playable 3D characters moved through scenes while
01:11elaborate pre-rendered CG continued behind them, making the boundary between gameplay and cinema
01:16feel unusually smooth, especially for the PS1. Not every idea landed perfectly though,
01:21junction system, but the final Final Fantasy VIII was clearly more interested in experimenting than
01:27repeating an easy formula.
01:41Galerians
01:47Psychic powers gave Galerians a hook that separated it from the wave of survival horror games being
01:53compared to Resident Evil. Instead of simply worrying about ammunition and healing items, players also had
01:58to manage the protagonist's mental state and the strain caused by using his abilities. Push things too
02:03far and those powers could become a problem rather than an advantage. That extra layer made survival feel more
02:08personal because keeping your character functional was part of the challenge. Critics at the time often
02:13dismissed Galerians as familiar territory, but plenty of its ideas were surprisingly forward-thinking.
02:19Later horror games would build entire systems around stress, sanity and character condition.
02:24Galerians was already experimenting with that concept on the PS1.
02:33Tekken 3
02:41Porting Tekken 3 to the PS1 was apparently such a headache that even Namco reportedly doubted it could
02:46be done properly. The arcade version ran on the more powerful System 12 hardware, so squeezing it onto
02:51Sony's console meant getting pretty creative. Backgrounds were rebuilt as 2D panoramic images,
02:57character models lost some polygons, and the resolution took a hit, all so the game could
03:01keep its smooth frame rate. Somehow the result still felt remarkably close to the arcade release,
03:06while also adding new modes and secret characters. That was a big deal at the time, when home conversions
03:11often came with obvious sacrifices. Tekken 3 proved consoles could get frighteningly close to the arcade
03:18experience, and 8 million people would agree. I was one of them.
03:34Spyro the Dragon
03:44This feels like I'm boiling an epic game down to something kind of trivial, but what made Spyro the
03:50Dragon feel so advanced in 1998 was how far you could see. Most PS1 games hid distant scenery behind
03:58fog because the hardware struggled to render large spaces, but Insomniac built its own solution. Alex
04:04Hastings panoramic engine displayed far away objects with far less detail, then gradually
04:10improved them as Spyro moved closer. That let the game create colourful open levels without drowning
04:15everything in mist and fog and blockages. The design matched the technology too, with wide areas full
04:22of collectibles, side activities and plenty of room to explore. Spyro's fire breath also gave
04:26platforming a slightly different flavour. For an early Insomniac game, it was already showing the
04:31technical cleverness that would define the studio later.
04:39Bushido Blade
04:47One clean sword strike could end an entire match in Bushido Blade, and that alone made it feel
04:53completely different from almost every other fighting game of that era. One hit equals one kill.
04:58Great concept today, but ambitious in the 90s. While competitors were built around health bars,
05:03huge combos and characters surviving absurd punishment, this one treated weapons like actual
05:08weapons. A badly timed attack could leave you injured while a perfectly placed blow might finish the
05:13fight instantly. That simple idea created enormous tension because every movement suddenly mattered.
05:19There was no comfortable rhythm or trading hits until somebody's health disappeared.
05:23Bushido Blade demanded patience, positioning and nerves of steel. And buns of steel. And steel.
05:39Trying to judge jumping flash by modern standards is probably a mistake, but hear me out. In 1995,
05:45a first-person 3D platformer running on a home console felt borderline futuristic. The visuals were
05:51rough, the controls could be awkward, and plenty of jumps demanded more patience than precision. But
05:55the important part was that the whole thing actually worked. Players could move through fully 3D spaces,
06:01leap across floating platforms, and experience vertical level design from a first-person perspective,
06:06years before that became remotely normal. Even as a technical showcase, it would have been impressive.
06:17Tenchu Stealth Assassins
06:26Sneaking around as a ninja sounds obvious now, but Tenchu Stealth Assassins was surprisingly unusual
06:33when it arrived. Rather than turning you into an unstoppable sword machine, the game encouraged
06:38patience, rooftop movement, careful observation, and silent kills. Plenty of players quit halfway through
06:45because charging into a crowd usually ended badly, but that commitment to stealth is exactly what
06:49made it special. Its influence can be felt in later games like Sekiro, Nioh, and Ghost of Tsushima,
06:55all of which borrowed pieces of that fantasy. Tenchu also had rotten timing, launching in the US just
07:00days before Metal Gear Solid. It didn't stand a chance. This Japanese stealth game got undermined by the
07:07master of Japanese stealth games.
07:18Future Cop LAPD
07:20Proceed to the observatory. Officers are down. Hostile air and armor units confirmed. Be advised.
07:26Civilians are caught in the crossfire and the situation is rated X.
07:30Future Cop LAPD was doing far more than simply proving third-person action could work on the PS1.
07:35Its campaign delivered satisfying mech combat and even supported co-op, which was already impressive
07:41in 1998. It felt less like Future Cop and more like future in general for me and my brother.
07:46Then Precinct Assault turned the whole thing into something much stranger. Players captured bases,
07:51defended territory, produced units, and pushed towards the enemy headquarters in a mode that mixed action
07:55and real-time strategy ideas together. Looking back, it feels remarkably close to concepts that
08:00would later become standards in MOBAs, but that kind of genre blending was ambitious on hardware
08:05still struggling with basic 3D camera problems.
08:14Diablo.
08:25Most PS1 RPGs tried to impress players with enormous stories and cinematic moments. Diablo took a
08:30completely different route and asked whether the game itself could keep generating reasons to come
08:35back. Randomized dungeon layouts, enemy placements, and mountains of unpredictable loot meant two
08:41trips beneath Tristram rarely played exactly the same way. That made replayability part of the design
08:47rather than something players invented after finishing the story. The PS1 port was also ambitious simply
08:52for squeezing Blizzard's famously addictive action RPG onto a console in the first place. More importantly,
08:58its endless hunt for slightly better equipment became one of gaming's most powerful progression loops.
09:03Entire genres now revolve around numbers going up because Diablo made finding another sword weirdly exciting.
09:25The ambition from this game could be nailed down to how much was relying on its success.
09:30Five years of development this took, and in the 90s, that was a lot of years. Five years of development
09:35paid off when Gran Turismo arrived and made the PS1 look far more powerful than people expected.
09:40The game's producer later estimated the game used around 75% of the console's performance, yet even that was enough
09:46for stunning results.
09:48More than 100 licensed cars were recreated with an attention to detail that almost felt absurd in 1997, while the
09:54handling physics and presentation pushed racing games toward full simulation.
09:59It didn't at that time have the real-world tracks later entries would introduce, but the jump in realism made
10:04it feel like a PS2 game years before the PS2.
10:15The nuclear weapons disposal facility on Shadow Moses Island and Alaska's Fox Archipelago was attacked and captured by next-generation
10:24special forces.
10:25Speak of the devil, Metal Gear Solid pushed the PS1 in ways that went far beyond just making things look
10:30pretty.
10:31Kojima turned a relatively niche 2D series into a cinematic 3D stealth game, packed with voice acting, elaborate cutscenes, weather
10:38effects,
10:38and some of the best presentation on the console.
10:41Then he started messing with the hardware itself.
10:43Psycho Mantis reading your memory card, commenting on other games you owned, and forcing you to switch controller ports remains
10:49one of the cleverest fourth-wall breaks in gaming.
10:52And I don't know if cleverest is a word.
10:54That kind of ambition made the whole experience feel unpredictable and alive.
10:58The graphics were impressive, sure, but all the ambitious things about the game is exactly why Kojima himself expected it
11:05to fail.
11:08Your memory is completely clean.
11:15Hmm. You have not said often. You are somewhat reckless.
11:21Silent Hill.
11:22Was I dreaming?
11:25How do you feel?
11:28Oh, like I've been run over by a truck. But I'm alright, I guess.
11:34The PS1 could not render an entire town into the distance, so Silent Hill made that weakness terrifying.
11:41Konami buried the streets beneath a thick fog, hiding the draw limit while ensuring players could barely see whatever monster
11:48was waiting ahead.
11:49It was a brilliant technical compromise, but the game's ambition went much further.
11:54Rather than chasing the straightforward creature horror popularized by Resident Evil, it leaned into psychological trauma, symbolism, fractured reality, and
12:02deeply uncomfortable sound design.
12:04The town itself seemed unstable, shifting between versions and making players question what was real.
12:10That was a bold direction for console horror in 1999.
12:14Silent Hill proved technical limitations could inspire an artistic identity instead of forcing developers to settle.
12:25Alien Resurrection
12:32One of the PS1's most forward-thinking ideas was mocked for feeling terrible.
12:38Alien Resurrection made modern-style dual-analog FPS controls its default, using one stick for movement and the other for
12:45looking and aiming, which is obvious now.
12:47But back then, similar setups had appeared as optional schemes elsewhere, but committing the whole game to that layout was
12:55a huge gamble in 2000.
12:57Players were accustomed to different console shooter controls, and some contemporary reviews complained that this new method was nearly unplayable.
13:05Losers.
13:06Within a few years, it became the standard that makes Alien Resurrection really fascinating.
13:11Its ambition was not about enormous levels or flashy effects, but predicting how people would eventually control an entire genre.
13:18This game forced us to move forward, and honestly, it was for the better.
13:27Driver 2
13:32Getting out of the car sounds laughably ordinary now, but in Driver 2, it represented a huge expansion of what
13:39an open-city PS1 game was attempting.
13:41The original had already delivered roaming 3D streets. The sequel added on-foot exploration, car-swapping bigger ambitions, and enough
13:48FMV storytelling to require two discs.
13:51There was a price. Frame rate drops, bugs, and instability made it obvious that Reflections was asking more from the
13:58hardware than it could comfortably provide.
14:00Still, the experiment mattered. A year before Grand Theft Auto 3, players were already leaving vehicles and moving through urban
14:06spaces with new freedom.
14:07Driver 2 didn't solve the open-world action game, but it was reaching towards something we all eventually got.
14:28Sony made owning a relatively new controller mandatory, and then designed an entire platformer around proving why you needed it.
14:36Ape Escape required the DualShock controller, with the left analog stick moving spike while the right physically operated gadgets.
14:43Nets swung, scanners rotated, and other tools behaved differently depending on how you moved the stick.
14:48That was far more ambitious than simply adding analog movement to a traditional platformer.
14:53Japan Studio was exploring a new vocabulary for game controls and asking players to learn it in real-time.
14:59Considering DualShock input soon became normal across the industry, the experiment looks remarkably whatever today.
15:06But back in 1999, it was actually a risk for sales.
15:18Urban Chaos
15:24There is something admirable about a PS1 game failing because it tried to become a PS2 game too early.
15:32Urban Chaos carried over the PC version's explorable buildings, side objectives, vehicle use, power-ups, and flexible mission design,
15:39creating city districts unusually dense for a console action game.
15:43Players could investigate, prepare, and approach objectives from different angles, instead of simply following one corridor of enemies.
15:49Unfortunately, the hardware didn't enjoy any of this.
15:53Performance struggled, controls were awkward, and the port earned rough reviews.
15:57Yet the underlying design pointed directly towards the coming open-world boom.
16:02Ambition sometimes produces a masterpiece, sometimes it produces a game painfully breathing the words,
16:21A few weeks after the PS1 launched in Japan, FromSoftware was already building the design DNA of games that would
16:28become influential decades later.
16:30In fact, Kingsfield placed players inside a 3D first-person dungeon filled with traps, secrets, oppressive atmosphere, and enemies capable
16:37of ruining your afternoon or your morning.
16:40Progress depended heavily on exploration, equipment, and understanding the environment rather than simply watching stats climb.
16:48For 1994, that was adventurous.
16:50Most studios were still learning what new 3D hardware could do, while FromSoftware was experimenting with slow, hostile worlds that
16:58expected players to learn through failure.
17:00Jumping back in now, you can almost hear the empty dungeon walls echoing the words, Dark Souls, Dark Souls.
17:07Just wait a little bit, we've got an actually good game coming out, it's called Dark Souls, Matt, you fat
17:11little turd.
17:12Beautiful.
17:19Final Fantasy 7.
17:29Three CDs, polygonal characters, huge pre-rendered locations, and mountains of CG footage made Final Fantasy 7 feel outrageously expensive
17:40before you even consider the RPG underneath it.
17:42Square was already trying to transform a traditionally sprite-based genre into something with the spectacle of a blockbuster film,
17:50then filled that spectacle with an enormous world.
17:52Midgar alone felt unprecedented, yet the game eventually opened into towns, vehicles, optional characters, superbosses, and bespoke systems for snowboarding,
18:01motorcycles, submarines, and chocobo breeding.
18:04Even tiny diversions received absurd attention.
18:08That willingness to over-build everything was the ambition, and it bloody worked.
18:21Legacy of Kane Soul Reaver
18:28Two versions of the 3D world existed on one PS1 disc, and Legacy of Kane Soul Reaver let Razael shift
18:36between them on command.
18:37Moving into the spectral realm could warp geometry, alter pathways, and completely change how a puzzle worked, meaning Crystal Dynamics
18:45had to design environments that functioned in multiple states while keeping transitions smooth.
18:50That was a serious technical achievement on aging hardware.
18:54The game matched that technology with oversized storytelling, vampires, resurrections, cosmic gods, revenge, and a bonkers mythology involving time and
19:03destiny.
19:03Plenty of games have since played with parallel worlds, but few made the idea feel this groundbreaking.
19:15Tell me, Melkaia, where can I find Kane?
19:19Vagrant Story
19:25Square's Final Fantasy Tactics team jumped from 2D sprites to one of the most visually sophisticated RPGs on the PS1,
19:34which still sounds ridiculous.
19:35Vagrant Story used detailed 3D character models during both gameplay and cutscenes, avoiding the obvious downgrade common when games switch
19:43between the two.
19:44Lighting, facial animation, camera direction, and environmental detail gave the world a cinematic quality rarely seen on this hardware.
19:52Then the designers laid in real-time exploration, pausable combat, targeted body parts, and a deep weapons system.
19:58It was technically ambitious and mechanically fearless at the same time, particularly releasing at the end of the console's life.
20:06But it rules.
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