Good and relatively obscure PS2 games

PC spoiled me with no way back.

It's not totally obscure, but it certainly doesn't get due credit for being the best racing game ever made.

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I remember playing this as a kid and then I reached a part where I ended up joining the bad guys and couldn't go back and then I got lost and never found out what to do next

...

imagine DMC in the Wild West with a better protagonist and some fuckin crazy bullet-slicing shit

Been considering picking it up if I ever see it locally at a decent price. I've seen it a few times before (one of which was asking way to much comparatively to when I'd seen it prior), and I suppose the good news is that outside of people that tend to buy up anything with the Atlus logo in the corner (local stores has confirmed that happens), there's next to no demand for it, so if somewhere gets it in it's liable to just sit there.

I'm going to believe you just on that and guess the game is good.

I know this isn't PS2, but PS4 and PC but: If you're looking for some DMC that isn't DMC try Onechanbara Z2. It's Senran with more IRL looking girls and they fight demons and zombies with a more CRAZY combo style.

I played this all the time when I finally got out of Cuba

Cuba have a ban on vidya?

Cuba isn't a communist shithole anymore?

It's cuba nigger, a well known communist shithole; at least Fidel is dead but I doubt things will change.

i was about to make fun of you, then saw NATSUME and realized that it's probably just harvest moon with cars or something else that would keep my autistic self occupied

Darkcloud

This game is sooo awesome. Thanks for reminding me of it.

Played this game a lot back in 2004

Fair point. I know Cuba's a commie region, but I'd have thought that maybe some of them might have become a bit more open to vidya now.

Tenchu was developed by from software

I remember I wanted to play Report from hell but didn't because videogame mag I used to read gave it a poor review back in the day, what a fucking idiot.
How well does it emulate?

This game was beautiful

Stop burying your head in sand, please.

Too bad NISA butchered it and the sequels

In my defense we didn't even bother to learn much on Cuba, even in classes. Most I've heard from there in a long time was the hilarious fact that Castro dyed on Black Fucking Friday.

AT2 at least has an ongoing retranslation effort. Not sure if AT1 or Qoga will see the same.

I don't care what anyone says, that shit was maximum comfy when exploring the world for the first time.

I remember this being impossible to play on an emulator. How badly programmed was it?

Is there a nice chart of obscure PS2 games?
I had every console from 6th gen except a PS2, so I feel like I've got a lot of catching up to do on emulators.

Actually, any charts for Ps2 would be nice, so I have a baseline of things to try.

Only game that made me care and cry ever. It looked great and was lots of fun too.

ArT1 wasn't butchered at all. It all has to do with one translation editor, I forget his name but he was discovered in the Nep threads. Apparently Nep 1 wasn't bad either but got worse when he was aboard so now you can check each NISA game an know if it's shit or not but checking the credits.

Current version is at . Admittedly I've been meaning to get around to updating it further since it's been like a year now since the last one.

I've lost hope in Acquire ever making a game this good again.
That said, the protagonist was generic and uninteresting. I switched him out for different characters as soon as I could. He's certainly no Dante, not even close.

Wrong
r
o
n
g

DO YOUR RESEARCH

To be fair, looking at the wikipedia pages for various Tenchu entries, it seems like a few did have From as being involved in the development, or at least Japanese publishing. Still much more of an Acquire/K2 LLC developed series though.

ofc, can't you read

...

This game isn't that good, but some of the things you can do in it are a lot of fun, such being able to poop whenever you want, carrying the turd around, then throwing it at people.

Nick Doerr?

Doerr was the guy that IFI brought in from NISA for Rebirth 2 and 3, who proceeded to shit them up (apparently some vocal fans of the PS3 entires bitched about Rebirth 1 not being memed or whatever, so I'd guess they brought him in so IFI's scripts would feel "cohesive" with the earlier ones). Digging through the credits listing for AT1 and 2 on MG though, I don't see him listed for either game (and I kind of doubt he's have used a pseudonym like English voice actors sometimes have to), so I'm not sure he was involved in either. I could be wrong though. The translation for both AT1 and 2 was apparently handled by one Satomi Aihara, while editing was done by one Steve Carlton.

Grimdark 50s/60s timeline in a divided North/South Japan with primitive walking tanks. They're far closer to Gear Kreig-levels of technology, much less full mecha or even wanzers.

Doesn't that game have a really weird death scene near the end if you fail?

Eternal Ring. A From Software title that is mechanically similar to Kings Field with a heavy emphasis on using magic rings to cast spells.

I see that around about as often as Evergrace where I live. Either it used to be pretty popular (and thus sold well), or has had no demand (hence no one buying the preowned copies I see). Worth dropping $5 or so on next time I find one in good condition?

I'd say for $5 you can't go wrong. I will say that it was developed during the PS1 and released on teh PS2 so the graphics are pretty mediocre, and the game doesn't make use of the analog sticks which is a slight pain since it's all in first person.

It's an interesting title and I liked my time with it. As long as you're down for a Kings field like game it's a nice little game.

I'll give it some consideration, thanks. I do find it a bit odd though that Evergrace and it seem to have sold so well, yet later PS2 From Soft RPGs like King's Field: The Ancient City and Forever Kingdom are ones I barely see around.

This will forever be the underrated gem game.

A neat little game where you play as a samurai doctor by day and an assassin by night. There's no english translation but there is a save file that has everything unlocked. Also the iso is extremely hard to find but luckily I uploaded it to emuparadise.

epforums.org/showthread.php?107888-Hissatsu_Ura-Kagyou-(NTSC-J)-SLPM-66113

...

Felt so god damn good.

Its a short game(10 hours) and was a launch title
Evergrace was also a launch title(released before the system itself in some regions) which explains its popularity.

I played the shit out of it when I was younger its like Harvest Moon mixed with Sim City. Kept my autism occupied. They had a sequel but I cant remember if I ever played it.

Dog's Life has detective vision allowing you to see where other dogs peed, it's the most realistic dog simulator ever made.

It's a rather obscure RPG that went over everybody's heads. The music is by Yasunori Mitsuda, and it's pretty good - it has a 'folk'-ish style, pretty catchy.

As said, AT1 hasn't been butchered. It does have one of NISA's famous game-crashing bugs but it's thankfully easily avoidable since the boss that does it is fairly weak. There's also a potentially unwinnable situation bug in Misha's route when you need to get an item but trigger a scene before doing so.

The retranslation is done! It was released just a few days ago - I already patched my iso and also added a 480p patch to it. Works wonderfully.

thanks fam. Hope there's an english patch one day

Np fam, maybe shill it to the nippon thread so someone translates it?

Yes, if you fail on the last level then the female dog gets turned into dog food. Scared me as a kid both because of the thought of that and the nightmarish colour palette.

Got a link to it?
I applied patches up to 5a for AT2 a couple months ago for an user on here. Is applying the final basically a part 6 or is it a one-step from-original-ISO application?

If you have 5a, there's an incremental patch to save you time.
Otherwise you can get the xdelta for either the vanilla US iso, the vanilla EU iso, or the undub iso. It will spew out the same final patched US region iso in the end.

at2.metalbat.com/?page_id=502

Sky Gunners is a game i would recommend to anyone. Its a fantastic arcade flight game with pretty visuals, a nice soundtrack and great gameplay. It also features multiple sides of the story and a choice between subs or dubs. Its a real shame it went unnoticed.

This Ape Escape game was quite fun. You chose a character and you go thru multiple stages with certain gimmicks and you try to be the best.

Crash Twinsanity is pretty fun. Despite what some may say, Twinsanity is really good despite not being made by ND. It has good gameplay and a nice story to go along with it. It also has a pretty unique soundtrack, pretty much all of the music is made with mouths, there is no instrument being used. Its true that there are glitches but most of them are found by going out of your way to find them and considering what the devs had to go thru and the short amount of time they had to make the game, i would say it turned out pretty well.

I need to get into digging through all the different Simple games.

I remember playing and fapping to her as a kid. That game was awesome.

Are you sure that's a game and not a documentary?

SkyGunner had a lot of personality put into it for just an arcade-style game. Difficult game, too. I think I managed to win that new engine on stage two, like, one time. Shit, I would have really liked a sequel to this game at some point. A real sequel.

I wonder what even became of PixelHearts.

If you didn't know there's a sequel or at least something related to it called ChoroQ.

There's also Auto Modellista, Enthusia, Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challange and TXR games.

For some reason I just can't imagine that. I mean, it's one thing to buy a game before you actually buy the system, but for games for a system to be out before ANYONE in a region can actually play them?

I see, thanks for the information. I do have to wonder though why "professionals" were so critical of it, though it's not the first time the big outlets would have been wrong about something (3/10 God Hand review being a shining example).

Yeah, I saw that. Some user was even kind enough to dump it prepatched into the share thread. I do have to wonder though if his was just patched with the regular patch, or also the 480p patch as well (though, as I'd be playing via a PS2 drive, I'm not sure if 480p would work with it the way I assume it would played via emulation). Got no response though.

They have a final Beta 5a -> v1.0 patch for people that had been playing with the beta files, as well as a set of patches (one for NA copies and one for PAL ones) that will take your game from the base release to v1.0 as a single move.

I kind of want to see a cover edit of that to have an average night in Detroit as the backdrop.

I've still only seen Skygunners locally once.

PixelArts apparently hasn't been big enough to get their own wikipedia page, and mobygames only has them credited with a single game release (Skygunner). I would assume they went bankrupt or got bought out. Wikipedia does list a sequel, but it was a doujin game made by some other group, apparently.

Actually, AT1 WAS butchered too. Just not as badly as AT2.

They were enjoyable tactics games with a somewhat unique setting (sort of like the Shogun Total War for PS2). Pretty immersive too.

Soldiers of Fortune

MD5sum your iso. If it comes out as D3A3F8CC08D3E6277AA72FC16F994E4D then it's a vanilla 1.0 patched image - otherwise it was repatched (possibly with 480p).
I'm playing on a ps2 with component cables, so I find this quite useful since the PS2 Gust games (Atelier Iris, Mana Khemia, Ar Tonelico) crash if you change resolution using GSM Mode Selector. This is why Asmodean made this particular patching tool.

The Skygunner unofficial sequel is by EasyGameStation, mostly known as the makers of Recettear - the capitalism loli simulator.

I played with JP voices and from what I can remember it was okay… Luckily I did not experience the game crashing bugs myself, though. The Mana games were pretty good as well, but NISA dropped the ball hard with Mana Khemia 1. Calling back part of that famous 'NISA fuckups' image:

Back with the PS2 discs there was no patching, but NISA's fuckups with PS3 and Vita games are just pathetic now. I still can't believe Witch & 100th knight hasn't been fixed. Goddamn.

Given how NISA seems to hate elements of the very games they opt to bring over there days, I have to wonder if ruining various western releases is a purposeful MO for them, be it with censorship, terrible English scripts, bugs, cut content, etc. Pretty telling that for WatHK they were outright presented a solution and did nothing with it.

Yeah, looks like mine is the basic 1.0. I'm using composite with my PS2, so I guess going beyond that might not matter much any how. Actually, would a 480p patched file still run fine through composite even if it can't display as such? Would probably be easier to just have a single fully patched file now or if I do get Component cables, though I'd have to make sure that "force 480p" program would even work right on my friend's machine (mine being a toaster).

Just came back from trying it out - there is no signal when using composite with a 480p patched disc. I switched to the composite cables and the opening fmv reappeared.
Stick to the regular patched iso unless you're getting component cables (for a game like AT2 it's not a big improvement, but text becomes clearer and artifacts are highly reduced).

Also, asmodean's 480p patcher is simply a command line tool that modifies a few bytes directly in your input file (it doesn't make a copy). It should run on any toaster.
By the way, you must specify a centering offset or else it'll look misaligned. For AT2, the command would be program.exe at2.iso 51 where program.exe is the patcher, at2.iso is your image file, and 51 is the offset.

Even if you don't 480p patch the game, using component cables still gives out a much clearer text and visuals - I just tried it with my Ar Tonelico 1 disc that has no patching of any sort - the TV reports it's receiving a 480i signal but it still looks nice. So yeah, if you can get hold of the cables it's worth it.

Oh, so it's just something you'd use Command Prompt or whatever to run, and with those parameters it would handle it without needing much else? I assume this can be done with the game post v1.0 patching, or would that have to be done to the base file?

Even if you don't 480p patch the game, using component cables still gives out a much clearer text and visuals - I just tried it with my Ar Tonelico 1 disc that has no patching of any sort - the TV reports it's receiving a 480i signal but it still looks nice. So yeah, if you can get hold of the cables it's worth it.
Alright, thanks for the advice. I'll keep that in mine for the future, though I don't think my splitter box will take component, sadly.

Yeah, it's a CLI tool. Run it without arguments to see the help included.
Asmodean's tool can patch any PS2 iso to force 480p right out (so you can run it on a vanilla AT2, a patched AT2, or any PS2 game in fact), but I recommend using it only for Gust games so far, because they crash when you force resolutions with GSM Selector (which is run as a homebrew launcher - so it's temporary and doesn't force you to burn 480p only copies on discs). For example, Asmo's tool help includes the offset for Persona 3 FES, but you can force its resolution with GSMS and it does not crash, so it's not needed for said game.
I've tried GSM with many games. Tales of the Abyss worked fine, Legendia not so much. Personas 3 and 4 were okay too, same for the other SMTs such as Nocturne and Raidou. The only full crashes I had were Gust games, so this tool comes in handy.

What do you guys use to rip backup ISOs of your game discs? Anything efficient?

Just curious, if it works on all PS2 games, why would you only recommend it for Gust's games? I mean, going from the information, Gust's stuff certainly has the biggest benefit for using that tool, but I would assume that for games that run as less-than-perfect with GSM but don't crash, it would still be useful.

Strikes me that having proper documents for various things relating to the PS2, like what games have fan-translation patches, fanmade undub patches, native dual audio, and stuff like GSM compatibility might be something good to have out there. But I would assume that the latter would get really long in comparison, like how long the Wikipedia page just for PS2-on-PS3 compatibility is.

AT1 has some translation mistakes, the most notorious of them one calling a brass horn the "Silver Horn", when it's name should actually be taken from the Silvaplate (or Sylva Plate if you wanna follow Gust's romanization scheme).

There's also the butchering of the Hymmnos lines and the fact they broke the routine for the Hymmnos font by maing it far smaller than in the JP version, to the point of it becoming unreadable.

And you can also add the bugs it had out from factory: the Misha Route bug, the Ar tonelicards that can't be obtained in any way, and a few other things.

This is a feature of the playstation 2. Some CRT TVs could become damaged if fed with a signal with 480p sync.

The PS2 was so great for both devs and players. Such a rich and diverse library. A time when studios could work on games with small budgets. I miss the creativity that was just abound at the time. When yearly releases didn't result in terrifying dips in quality.

Alcohol120%. I don't know why, by burning discs with any other program creates extremely unstable copies that run 1 out of 20 times in my console. It's weird.

GSM works on most games, notably except Gust games. This tool runs before you run a game, and allows you to select normal 480i, 480p, 720p and even 1080i, it also allows you to readjust the alignment offsets. The fact that this tool runs before a game is launched means I can burn a regular vanilla iso with no tricks and I can play it on a regular ps2 with composite or via GSM and component for higher res.
In the case of AT2 and other Gust games, having to use Asmo's tool to force 480p on it means I have to burn a disc that will only be usable on a system connected with component video. On the upside, it means I don't need to hold a button combo (r1+triangle) on boot to run GSM every time I want to play.

I think there was a list of compatibility in a GSM thread in some hack forum, but I don't remember which one it was.

I read about the Soleil stone bug. Good thing I didn't end up triggering that one. Hymnos does look fucked up now that I compare it to AT2's, but back then I didn't pay notice since I wasn't really making effort into reading it, thinking it was just gibberish (gotta give it to Tsuchiya and the dev team, Hymnos is really goddamn complex - I find it amazing that the conlang wiki has such an extensive article on it)

Yeah, I know. Games with the 480p selection trigger (hold X and triangle after Playstation 2 logo) such as Pump it Up Exceed mention that you shouldn't try to force 480p output on a tv that does not support it.
I was expecting it to fall back to 480i, but it seems the patching makes it work exclusively on progressive only.

Can't find the ps2 cover, but PFA4 was leagues ahead of the rest in the series and played best on the ps2. Not sure how well it emulates but if you find a copy I recommend giving it a try.

About that info and documents you speak about, the first step is to start building it yourself if there's nothing so far.

Quickly off the top of my head, there are undubs for Persona 3 and 4, Wild Arms 4 and 5, supposedly Grandia III but I can't find any live links of that, Tales of the Abyss (a must, it restores skit voices thanks to glorious Asmodean), Tales of Legendia (sadly it does not bring back the Character Quest voices though)…

wait, scratch that. I just googled 'ps2 undubs' and found this holy grail of a torrent on nyaa with 140 freaking gigs of data: nyaa.ws/?page=view&tid=598931&showfiles=1
There's Grandia III! So it does exist!

That's a list of undubs (of sorts), I guess. Gonna fire up some torrenting now…
That's a lot of undubs, wow.

did you play the same games as me, user?

Indeed. While there's still some mid-budget Japanese devs out there (Vanillaware comes to mind), it seems like in the west we're stuck with just AAA and indie budgets, and these days it seems like publishers are less willing to take risks than they used to, be it for localization or just game development. Not that sixth and (part of) seventh gen didn't have their own issues with what content was "allowed" at times (Mastiff's censorship of La Pucelle), or the occasional really shitty localization (NISA's work on AT2, for example), but it certainly seemed a time where more stuff could slide, and both devs and publishers were willing to take more chances.

If you find it, post it in a PS2 thread sometime. Might be useful to compile into an image or something.

I remember searching "undub" on The ISO Zone myself and finding a list of things, but even narrowing it down to just the PS2, it seemed a bit hard to tell (at least at first glance) which ones were of actually working undubs (and some that worked had the uploader noting it was only his fat PS2 that would work with them, while his slim wouldn't run them) and which were just attempts that may or may not have gone/be going anywhere. Anyhow, I'll take a look through that nyaa list as a start for making something, but it might be nice if you can confirm some of them as actually having working undubs. Considering you seem to be interested in downloading some of those anyhow, I mean.

Has anybody here tried SLAI from Konami? what did you think of it? did you have fun with it?

Found it.
PS2: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OAReBQTTLmYh7eET1Tc-6jtXDmWm_zFRt89vPJSpPdw/edit?hl=en_US#gid=0
PS1: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a0VasDJl_cFfGkZasZlaAwBO1zucFtwNtGeQFI0QxLU/edit?hl=en#gid=0

Strangely it says AT2 does work with 480p. Perhaps it's with another version of GSM? I'm going to see if the version in my memcard is up to date.

Right well, just to elaborate, I'm trying to copy my discs into ISOs so I can put them on my IDE hard drive to play off of.

You can use any ripper for that. I ripped my non-patched AT2 undub with k3b on linux, patched it, transferred to a windows machine and then burned with A120% and it works just fine.
PS2 discs don't deal with subchannels and all that stuff like the PS1 CDs did, so just rip it with anything: Nero, imgburn, Ashampoo…

Thanks, I'll jot those links down for later.

I hate having to explain to people that the most successful console of all time is the PS2 because, yeah, stuff like the Dreamcast might be ONLY good, but you can never, ever own the entire PS2 library.

Nobody will, the thing had games for twice as long as the next runner up.

How do I run PSX backups off of the IDE?

Bumping for an answer.

You can't natively. Emulations with POPS or another emulator is the only option.

Why was the ps2 such a great console for cuhrazy games?

What said. The easiest way in a modded system is burned discs - CDs are cheap as fuck, get a spindle and burn away.

Play Xenosaga, its the best rpg on Ps2 (got two sequels but theyre not as high quality as the first episode), it switches between serious sci fi and rpg gameplay in a pretty good blend of anime style storytelling.

I feel the developers were on to something with this game. Just sish the combat wasn't so damned slow and I also wanted to aim at robot's limbs at will and not randomly. Customization was unfortunately limited to only your crew, so you have to play to each pilot's strengths. It's one of those games you get excited about as you think about replaying it, but then remember all the god-awful design decisions you have to endure that makes you want to stop altogether. There's a lot of fun to be had in this game, though:

And then comes the bad parts. Imagine waltzing in to battle, with a god damned unskippable 5 sec cutscene at the start of every battle you engage. Then look at another 20 sec cutscene as the enemy shoots flares/places mines/whatever. Then look at a 20 sec cutscene as YOUR crew does the same thing or answers the enemies attacks. Want to activate your special attack? Sure thing, look at ANOTHER 20 second unskippable cutscene. What was supposed to be 180 seconds worth of combat is stretched out to 10 to 15 minutes. You also need to make a mad dash toward settlements to pick up new crew, otherwise the AI will take them and the crew with them. I beat the game and I endured all this just because shooting a mech so hard it's leg gets fucked up permanently or hitting it in the weapon so hard it bursts into flames never got old to me. The pure excitement of landing a perfect hit and seeing the enemy mech fall flat on it's ass and bursting into flames kept me going.

good ps2 launch title. basically a 60 fps fast paced version of king's field. great music and multiple ways to play the game from the ring system.

How the fuck do you even play King's Field?

with a controller :^)

What the fuck is that? At first glance I thought it was one of those old fake game covers from that site that generated fake game covers with stupid names.

I think it has the same developers as Deadly Premonition, so you can guess what you can expect. It's a horror game, but with so much unintentional humor it's downright hysterical.

Basically Outlast but with shit voice acting.

Suda51 also worked on it.

"what the fuck is happening": The Game

in good way or a bad way?

I have this too. Great game.

Depends on how hard you're willing to slam your head against a wall. I think it's in a good way but man is this game opaque at times on what to do and what is happening.

But it's more fun than outlast, the camera is actually important mechanically for more than nightvision. And it's not boring despite having an insane plot.

Speaking of PS2 games

dualshockers.com/2017/01/01/ar-tonelico-2-fans-redo-botched-localization-ps2-classic/

Not exactly obscure, but this and Fight for NY are lesser-known. By the same guys who made Style Savvy.

The fuck is a def jam?

They released Slayer's third album.

I can almost swear I played the demo for that game on 360 for almost a hundred hours.

tfw you would get the prototype bike
god damn I LOVED this game, holy shit

Maybe you're thinking of its Xbox predecessor, Phantom Crash?

It's more from Genki then Konami. I'm not too much into Mecha games but it feels nice enough to me and wrecking others with a sword is great. Tons of customization too and you can jew the stock market in it. I think it emulates pretty well but can't remember.

On one hand I want to ask who didn't play Black People: The Game, but on the other hand I can totally see someone not picking it up because of it.

Take Wrestlemania 2000, replace all the wrestlers with Rappers and there you go.

Also a record company.

This and Fight for New York were huge among rasslin' fans because they were developed by AKI, who made the greatest wrestling games ever that weren't Fire Pro WCW vs. nWo World Tour, WWF No Mercy, and Wrestlemania 2000 for the N64. And while FFNY was more of a fighting game, they were both solid titles that had their fans.

And then (((EA))) pissed the fans away with a Fight Night reskin.

Same user here, I just fucked my FMCB installation by updating it, and then trying to get the latest OPL to show up on the boot menu. Now it's back to the stock PS2 browser menu, and I'm pissed. How do I fix this shit? Seems the info and PS2 modding scene is archaic.

What's your setup? Do you have a modchip? How do you run your exploits?

I bought this game on CD. It didn't work.

I have a fat SCPH-39001 with the stock Browser version at 1.20. What happened was, I was trying to get the newest OPL to show up on the boot menu, and I followed a guide to edit the ODSYS config to make it show up in an empty slot 7. When I went to go back to the boot menu, it returned to the stock Sony menu.

Also I believe I used the disc swap trick way back, but can't remember what I used to do it. Don't know if it was 007 Agent Under Fire or not.

Tank for the win always, honestly I was not ready for how anime this game is. Those fucking crazy supers.