Early PS1 RPGs Almost No One Remembers

The PlayStation 1 is home to some of the best RPGs of all time. Chief among them has to be Final Fantasy 7 for a lot of fans. It changed the game in so many ways, from its CG cutscenes to its impressive story. There is a reason why it is getting remade piece by piece.

What about the games that came out before Final Fantasy 7? There were a lot in Japan that never came out over in the West. There were also some Western releases. Either way, some of these titles were overlooked for one reason or another, and some avid RPG fans may never have even heard of them. Let’s take a look back to see what was going on in the first few years of the PS1’s RPG output.

Updated May 21, 2024 by Mark Sammut:The specifications have been added for every forgotten PS1 RPG, providing information about the developers and how long each RPG takes to beat (based on HowLongToBeatalong). A new game has also been added that belongs to a fairly unique subgenre.

Tecmo's Deception: Invitation To Darkness

Serving An Evil Master

An unusual RPG even by PS1 standards, Tecmo's Deception: Invitation to Darkness is quite a unique entity, and it was successful enough to warrant a few sequels (with the most recent being 2014's Deception 4: Blood Ties and its subsequent expansion). So, clearly, this franchise is not completely unknown; however, it is niche. The first game casts players as a new employee of Satan himself, and they are tasked with running a mansion and ensuring that visitors receive a substantial death, which generally involves triggering traps in the right order.

Deception blends strategy, puzzle, and RPG elements, creating a fun albeit frustrating experience that takes some getting used to. Although slow and repetitive, the gameplay can be fun, particularly since the traps are generally animated well and, at times, enter Looney Tunes territory. While not a huge name, Tecmo's series is worth checking out.

Community Pom

A Cute Secret Of Mana

Community Pom was a Japan-only release in 1997. However, fans have since translated most of the game into English, making it easily accessible today. It’s a pretty straightforward action RPG that looks and plays like a cuter version of Secret of Mana.

Players take control of a young magical girl who goes off on an adventure. They begin with a magic staff that they can whack enemies with or power up for a mighty swing. Fighting enemies will level her up, and there is equipment and other power-ups to be mindful of as well. It feels like a good beginner RPG, so it’s a shame that more fans of the genre don’t know about it because of its obscurity.

Arc The Lad

Blending Tactics With Classic Gameplay

Arc the Ladwas first released in 1995, but that was in Japan only. There was a trilogy of games all exclusive to Japan until a collection was released in North America well after the fact in 2002. So, by that point, the games probably felt a bit outdated since the PS2 had been out for three years, and the trilogy looked like a collection of SNES RPGs. That’s one reason why no one paid attention to them besides the fact that they were hidden in another country for years.

Despite all that, all three of these games are compelling, unconventional tactical RPGs. Players encounter enemies while exploring dungeons, and then things shift into combat mode. Characters can then move around on a grid, and combat shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete, except for bosses.

Beyond The Beyond

A Camelot Game That Released Before Golden Sun

Camelot is a smaller RPG company that is most closely associated with Mario sports games now, like Mario Golf: Super Rush and Mario Tennis Aces. While they are good games, Camelot made a living with RPGs first. For Sega, it was the Shining series, and for a brief time with Nintendo, it was Golden Sun. They even dabbled with the PlayStation brand with Beyond the Beyond.

It was released first in Japan in 1995 before it got a Western release in 1996. A lot of the gameplay elements and aesthetics look a lot like a prototype version of Golden Sun, like with the intricately animated combat scenarios. It was a fine starter RPG for a new console, the PS1, but it definitely feels archaic now. There isn't even a proper equipment menu, which is baffling since NES games had that option.

Crime Crackers

An Anime Star Fox

Crime Crackers is significant for lovers of the Wild Arms franchise because it was also developed by Media.Vision. This was Media.Vision’s first game, which was released in 1994 close to the launch of the PS1 in Japan. It is a first-person dungeon crawler but also a shooter.

Players have three party members to work with that they can swap out on the fly. When an enemy appears, players will have to shift into shooting mode to take them out. There is no traditional leveling-up system in the game, but characters can get upgrades and change equipment. Unfortunately, there is no finished translation for it yet, which makes it tricky to check out.

King's Field

FromSoftwares First Brutality

King's Field is FromSoftware’s very first game, which was also released close to the PS1’s launch in Japan in 1994. The release for this series is a bit confusing when it comes to North America because, in 1996, King’s Field 2was rebranded as just King's Field. It’s sort of like how the numbers were off for theFinal Fantasy series for ages.

No matter which game players start with, they follow similar formulas. In the true first game, there is no preamble of a story; players simply start in a castle and have to make their way through it. It is brutally difficult even by modern Soulslike standards, but it is interesting to see the origins of FromSoftware before most players cared about them or their games.

PoPoLoCrois Monogatari

A Ni No Kuni-Like

PoPoLoCrois Monogatari is based on an anime of the same name. The PS1 game was released in 1996 in Japan with a sequel soon to follow. While the West never got either of these games on PS1, they were ported to a collection on the PSP in 2006. Prince Pietro is the star of this series who, in the first game, leaves his sick mother and father in the castle to seek out both a cure for them and revenge against a wicked villain.

Combat is turn-based, and characters move on a grid, like in a tactical RPG. One of the more forward-thinking moves in the design was the inclusion of an auto-battle system, which was indeed rare in 1996. Unfortunately, it seems like this series got passed up twice, once on PS1 and again on the PSP since that system did not sell well outside of Japan.