PS2 Emulation is Finally Coming to PS Plus Premium

I am very hyped to play and revisit PS2 games. I'll tell you why right now. Sony has a new and better PS2 emulator to allow PS2 games to run smoothly. This means PS2 emulation is coming to PS Plus Premium and this can definetely light the way for more PS2 games to be added. Let's jump right in.

We have some good news regarding playing PS2 games on the PS4 and PS5 through emulation. Sony is having a brand new PS2 emulator that allows PS2 games to run smoothly, courtesy of Implicit Conversions, the company behind emulation. This is where you'll facepalm and argue that it's bullcrap that there are already PS2 games on the catalog. It's true that there are PS2 games on the catalog, but the ones we have now are the PS4 ports of PS2 games.

PS2 games have been a recurring demand since the revamp of PS Plus and now that Sony has a brand new PS2 emulator, PS2 emulation and new PS2 games are coming to PS Plus Premium, finally. Gematsu shared their post on X saying that the first new PS2 game Sony is adding is Star Wars: The Clone Wars. This is coming in June. Hearing PS2 emulation finally coming to PS Plus Premium made me hyped to revisit favorites from back in the day. All I'm hearing in my head was "I can't wait to revisit The Simpsons: Hit & Run. This has been my favorite nostalgic game since I was younger," "NFSU2 is gonna be awesome to play on my PS5," "The Wrath of Cortex, here I come!" "Looking forward to revisit 3D era MK games," and so on.

Like the original PS1 and PSP games, PS2 games will have rewinds, save states, video filters and up-rendering. Chances are, this will be better than the PS Now era. In honor of that, I have made a separate wish list for PS2 games that will be updated as I think of one. I went to CoolROM to look at a list of PS1 and PS2 games to help me think of what to add to my classic game wish lists. Here's the link to my wish list of PS2 games.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XmFK2Y8tle13iNoRycy1cA2o2DLOk9JlpP-EDAohRdU/edit

And here's the link to my wish list of PS1 games.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgCNlVyvoUP8NyDiB0j2jbZdScHmvWTGi6GTzBVg2oo/edit

Are you wondering why am I making separate wish lists? Well, my original wish list has all systems. It has more PS2 games than others and I listed it to have PS3 games. Where it stands now, I am making separate wish lists of classics I want by system. I might make a separate wish list for PSP games I want. If I do, I won't be putting the ones that are also available on the PS2 on there since we're playing PSP games on the big screen. A separate wish list of PS3 games however will not be made due to them being only available to stream. That's why they are no longer reverent to me. As such, PS1, PS2 and PSP are the three consoles that are easy to emulate while the PS3 isn't.

So I just want to get this piece of information off my chest on why PS2 games should be important to us. The PS2 era is known for having games that have a charming environment and music and use aspects we seen on the PS1 era. Copyright screens and logos are generally for all ages, but the PS2 era's are more charming. I have three of them on my library, but the ones we have now are from PS Now. 

And when PS Now was launched, no more PS2 games were added, even though they were downloadable and available for standalone purchase. Even though PS Plus is revamped, Sony was still struggling to add more PS2 games and they paused adding more of them. That is just a Satan or a Frankenstein mess of things that the PS4 ports of PS2 games are on the catalog. Thankfully, PS2 emulation is coming to PS Plus Premium to pave the way for more PS2 games, starting with Star Wars: The Clone Wars, set to be added June 11.

After Star Wars: The Clone Wars, more PS2 games will be added as they can run through their new PS2 emulator and this is something we can expect. I can be able to re-embrace Coral Canyon's charming environment and listen to the theme of Gold Rush in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, re-experience the goodness of Springfield in The Simpsons: Hit & Run, re-experience tag team racing and combat in Crash Tag Team Racing and more.

The process of adding more PS1 and PSP games turned out smoothly so far and starting in June, the process of adding more PS2 games will come out smoothly, unlike PS Now. Once June comes, hopefully, PS4 ports of PS2 games should be patched to have emulation and the list of downloadable PS2 games on Wikipedia should be remade to match the algorithm of downloadable PS1 games.

On the previous post, I told you about Crash and Spyro games on the PS1. They became the source of fueling the charm on the PS1 era. I want them in the catalog to fuel the charm and PS Now never had a single one. And now that PS2 emulation is coming to PS Plus Premium to reopen the gates of PS2 software, our possibility of revisiting Crash and Spyro games in the PS2 era is happening and making a Bianca palette out of Annie really had its perks weirdly enough. The real crap starts in June. Let's freaking go. Maybe they might give us three PS1 games, three PS2 games and three PSP games every month to be like Nintendo. Either that or they might pick up the pace in adding new classics monthly.

But that will not stop here. I potentially have one more future post regarding revisiting PlayStation classics. I just want to express my feelings on this post on how excited I am to revisit PS2 games for reals since PS2 emulation is coming in June 11 when Star Wars: The Clone Wars makes its debut. Maybe they might give us three PS1 games, three PS2 games and three PSP games every month to be like Nintendo. Either that or they might pick up the pace in adding new classics monthly.

PS Now Was Awful to the Community

Are you wondering why am I so excited to revisit the PS1 games? Because PS Now was a terrible standalone video game subscription service and never had a single one. Let's talk about it.

So there has been some interests in the community that the PS1 era is the community's most favorite era of PlayStation. I strongly agree with the community. What makes it so is polygon models, Crash and Spyro games becoming the source of fueling the charm, compilations and more. But how can I be proud and excited on something I don't know of? There is one possibility. One that is obvious and factual is that PlayStation Plus will be offering PS1 games. Before you said that I am a PS Plus fan, let me explain this. It's actually not the fact that PS Plus is offering PS1 games. But better yet, it is what is not offering PS1 games or getting any more classics. That is PlayStation Now. So why am I talking about it? Why is that an issue?

Well, PS Now was known for offering cloud gaming on games released on the PS2, PS3 and PS4. The PS2 and PS4 games were downloadable locally. The problem to this is that PS Now lacked PS1 titles. It's really awful that PS Now never had a PS1 catalog. It's not the only problem because Sony hadn't added any more PS2 and PS3 games to PS Now. The community adored the PS1 era with polygon models. PS Now was first launched on January 28, 2014 here in North America during its closed beta on PS3.

PS Now grew as its development goes on and expanded to PS4 on May 19th and would expand to other electronics. Chronically, the PlayStation fanbase in some of its entirety gave it a go. But lacking a catalog of PS1 games is really insane. Now, this is where you can groan and say that PS Now was considered a good service. It's not really that good of a service. It just lacks a catalog of PS1 games and more PS2 and PS3 games weren't added.

If you remember the older PlayStation consoles, the PSP was the first to offer PS1 games back in 2006. PS3 followed suit to have them in 2007. And the cherry on top, the PSVita offers them, but had a small library. The PS3 is a winner to have a biggest library of them all. However, the majority of the PS1 games on these systems are no longer available on the PlayStation Store as the PSP is no longer having PSN features. But the PS3 and PSVita's PSN features are still live for the forseeable future.

Sony has developed a PlayStation Classic, a dedicated console that emulates PS1 games. It launched at 20 games and a weak library like that have blatantly excluded many popular titles, so to remedy that, many users who hated such a small library intend to mod the console using a flash drive so that any amount of PS1 game ROMs can be added to the console like an emulator.

Even though the PS5 came out, PS Now still remains awful and couldn't be any more decent, until there was one piece of information. One of the articles shown that a PS Now upgrade was suggested to have a vast selection of classic games, including the PS1 games. But later, Bloomberg has reported that Sony was actually working a three-tiered service codenamed "Spartacus" now becomes a beefed up PS Plus with three tiers Essential, Extra and Premium. Essential offers the same benefits the original PS Plus has. Extra offers the benefits of the previous tier a catalog of PS4 and PS5 games. And Premium offers the benefits of previous two tiers, game trials, streaming and access to a catalog of not just PS1 games, but also PS2, PSP and PS3 games, which are only available to stream.

PS Now has merged with the new PS Plus back in June 13th, 2022 and lit the way for the PS1 games. What makes it so is that PS Plus adds more PS1 games monthly, as well as more PS2, PSP and sometimes PS3 games. The PS1 and PSP games have a handy rewind feature. It helps when it comes to making mistakes. The Nintendo Switch Online catalogs of NES, SNES, GB, GBA, N64 and SEGA Genesis games have that.

The process of adding PS1 games monthly is coming along nicely. Even the original MediEvil is on there, as well as the re-imagining of the first installment for the PSP, MediEvil Resurrection. What really got me the most in a while is that SingleTrac logo when I got ready to revisit Twisted Metal 2 on my PS5. I remember playing that game from back in the day. But that will not do it to fuel the charm.

What will be enough to fuel the charm are the Crash and Spyro games. But almost two years has passed since the new PS Plus launched and there has not been a single one yet. I don't care if we got remasters that have 8th gen graphics that killed the old school charm. We want them because not only the PSP and PS3 have them. Without the Crash and Spyro games, there can be no charm.

I am aware that Universal was awful to Crash and Spyro, but overall, their original trilogies are considered the best and this is another reason why I want them. I originally also want their games on the PS2 era to be on the catalog, but a there is a circumstance among them.

It has come to my attention that we won't be getting any more PS2 games added to the catalog. It's due to the fact that the current emulator PS2 games are currently running on came with performance issues and that's why Sony had to pause releasing more PS2 games until they get a better emulator to run PS2 games smoothly. But on the upside, games that are released on the PS2 are also available on the PSP and the process of adding PS1 and PSP games is turning out smoothly as Sony is taking their job to bring their beloved classics back seriously.

I also wanted to point out that I am planning a livestream series called PlayStation Rewind and I will be streaming PS1, PS2 and PSP games originally, but there has been some circumstances. Since we're not getting any more PS2 games added to the catalog because Sony had to pause adding them, PS1 and PSP games will be livestreamed.

My original wish list of classic games I want was erased unexpectedly, so I made a new one. But my wish list will be restricted to PS1 games for now. Here is a link to my wish list currently restricted to PS1 games that will be updated as I think of more of them.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgCNlVyvoUP8NyDiB0j2jbZdScHmvWTGi6GTzBVg2oo/edit

The PlayStation brand was established back in December 3, 1994 when the PS1 first came out in Japan and this is the year when PlayStation celebrates its 30th Anniversary, and now that we have PS Plus Premium, 30 more PS1 games may likely get added to the catalog. We'll see.

Here's to May's additions, hoping it has a decent classic game.

UPDATE 5/15:

I originally said that we aren't getting more PS2 games, but there has been some good news. I read the article and it indicated that Sony is officially working with emulation company, Implicit Conversions to bring more PS2 games to PS Plus Premium and get the ones that are available to play to run in a better emulator to allow PS2 games to run smoothly. Don't believe me? Here's the link to the article.

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2024/03/11/ps2-games-ps-plus-premium-sony-emulation-partnership/#:~:text=Emulation%20company%20Implicit%20Conversions%20is,before%20joining%20the%20PlayStation%20maker.

I am also officially restating that my PlayStation Rewind livestream series will have both PS1, PS2 and PSP games in honor of Implicit Conversions teaming up with Sony to bring better emulation to existing PS2 games and bring new PS2 games with better emulation to PS Plus Premium. If they do, they may come with a rewind feature like the PS1 and PSP games. I'll tell you more about it in a future post. Stay tuned.