For the record, I think PlayStation Plus Premium revived the PlayStation Legacy. And I'm dead serious. I know that there are a bunch of naysayers that would say that full backwards compatibility would've been better, but I know that PS Plus Premium is the hero. Sure, we get three classic games monthly and some additions can be disappointing, but it became an obvious solution to revive the PlayStation Legacy with emulation of older titles released on older PlayStation consoles on PS4 or PS5. I'm gonna explain on how PS Plus Premium became the hero of reviving retro gaming, so let's talk about it.
Retro gaming became the golden age of gaming since the 3rd generation era of gaming when Nintendo and SEGA created their consoles and made all time classics like Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. And I know that you don't want to think about the past and focus on the future. Well, it is great, but retro gaming is the golden standard of gaming and it's something people want to do. Now, before we get to the point, I'm gonna go back to the very beginning.
The PlayStation brand was established in December 3, 1994 when Sony's first console came out first in Japan. The PS1 era is the community's most favorite era. It's believed to have a lot of charm. What makes it so are the polygon models, Crash and Spyro games and more. Sony had brought on Exact and Ultra and were impressed by their first PS1 game, Jumping Flash!. It's the first 3D platformer where you control Robbit and stop Baron Aloha's evil plans. It was showcased in 1994 to showcase the PS1's peripherals.
Sony was impressed by the production of the PS3, which marks the start of PSN, wireless controllers, internal storage and patches to games. Certain models are backwards compatible to PS1 games, while some are backwards compatible to PS2 games. The PS1 and PS2 titles are also available on the PS3's storefront. The slim model comes out, the backwards compatibility feature was lost, but retro titles are still available on the storefront. And sadly, there is one thing that given fans no hope of revisiting retro titles.
After the PS4 came out, all classic titles we know and love were gone, so they had to develop a separate service called PlayStation Now, which pretty much flopped because of its limited selection of PS2 games and the lack of a PS1 catalog. The specs for the PS4 show that it uses a Jaguar component incapable of emulating PS3 games. It's because the PS3's architecture is hard to develop for. That's why the PS5 couldn't achieve full backwards compatibility while the PS4 lacked the feature and people need to understand that. The celebration of PlayStation's 25th Anniversary couldn't be bigger for the same reason, until a calvary has came to please retro game fans.
Bloomberg reported that Sony was actually developing a new service codenamed "Spartacus" to have three tiers and compete with Xbox Game Pass. The first tier offers all benefits original PS Plus offers, like online multiplayer on paid games, monthly free games and discounts. The second tier offers access to a catalog of PS4 and PS5 games. The third tier offers game trials, streaming and a library of PS1, PS2, PSP and PS3 games. The third tier is believed to be the hero to revive retro gaming.
When the developers intend to keep the Plus branding, they confirmed that PS Plus and PS Now have merged together to establish PS Plus 2.0. It uses two additional tiers Extra and Premium. These tiers offer catalogs of both modern and classic games on both modern consoles and they add them monthly. This is when PS Plus Premium revived the PlayStation Legacy as they require the Premium tier to play the retro titles. It offered a catalog of classic games and new ones get released every month.
But there is a conflict to this. The separate library of PS3 games is on there, but they are only available to stream due to the PS3's structure that is hard to develop for. And it's gonna be like this forever. If you really want to download PS3 games, you'll have to dust off your PS3 and hook it up. And you'll have to play remasters and ports of PS3 games, like the upcoming Sonic X Shadow Generations. But it's fine. PS3 games are not that important to me anyway. But there are a couple of exceptions, so I'll get to that later.
The fact of the matter to this is that the Xbox 360 version of games that were also released on the PS3 are playable through backwards compatibility on the Xbox. If you want to know how Microsoft was able to achieve full Xbox backwards compatibility to become the winner, the Xbox 360's structure is very easy to develop for unlike the PS3's.
As for the PS1, PS2 and PSP games, they are available to both download and for cloud streaming. These systems are easy to emulate unlike the PS3. Each of them have rewinds, saves, up rendering and video filters. As stated before, the PS4's Jaguar component is incapable of emulating PS3 games, but it is capable of emulating PS1, PS2 and PSP games. You don't have to dust off your PS1, PS2 and PSP. The games of these systems are available to download and they can also be purchased so that you can play them 24/7 without a PS Plus membership in the Premium tier.
And the only thing about this is that we can play PSP games on the big screen. But if Sony has confirmed a new handheld console, it can apply to the upgrade PS Plus has gotten and we can play PS1 and PS2 games on the go.
I livestreamed one of the decent PS1 games, being Ape Escape 1 as the first PlayStation Rewind. It is a great throwback game of mine. I was able to unlock the true ending by capturing every single monkey and have caught Specter. I got all of that on stream for the finale. The second game of the franchise released on the PS2 is currently on the catalog, but that's the European version as I can tell from the logo and it's on the PS Now era.
Since the launch of the new PS Plus, the process of releasing new classics monthly is turning out to come along smoothly. The original MediEvil is on the catalog. But there wasn't a single new PS2 game yet and we are still seeing new PS1 and PSP games added monthly and it turned out smooth. The PS2 games have been a recurring demand since the revamp of PS Plus. The ones in the catalog now are in the outdated PS Now era where PS2 games only have up-rendering on PS4. They were supposed to add a PS2 game last year, but instead, they added a PSP version of the game. But Sony now has a brand new PS2 emulator to run PS2 games smoothly and have emulation features PS1 and PSP games have. It was leaked that Star Wars: The Clone Wars became the first new PS2 game that came out June 11.
Days of Play has returned bigger and better than ever, thanks to PS Plus Premium and other things that made the celebration even bigger. The article about it shown that Star Wars: The Clone Wars wasn't the only PS2 game. Favorites, like Tomb Raider: Legends and Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus were also confirmed and are now available on the catalog. However, outdated PS2 games like Fantavision and Ape Escape 2 remained on the PS Now era despite PS Plus Premium being present, so I added them to my wish list of PS2 games with two asterisks next to them to represent that an outdated PS2 game is on the PS Now era, wondering if it's gonna be possible for Sony to shift their outdated PS2 games from the PS Now era to the PS Plus Premium era where PS2 games have up-rendering, rewinds, save states and video filters like the PS1 and PSP games do on both PS4 and PS5.
But that was only the beginning. The regular lineup announcement for June is also announced and we got more of them. They are Ghosthunter, originally released on the PS2 exclusively, the PSP version of LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, and one of the games I remember playing before, Daxter, originally released on the PSP exclusively.
As a treat, I started my next PlayStation rewind livestream to cover Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus yesterday. It became a decent PS2 game to livestream. I remember playing that game from back in the day when I was younger, but couldn't have the time to beat it because I rented it in my old stomping grounds. In the previous episode, I left off with Tide of Terror, got all of the treasure keys and clues and defeated Sir Raleigh, so I'm gonna go on to the next heist that takes place in Mesa City in Utah to kick Muggshot's butt. I wanted to livestream the whole thing, but I would get burned out if I do, so I'm gonna livestream one heist to avoid burnout.
I revisited Sly Cooper to celebrate the life of the franchise that brought joy to fans and has died with no hopes of Sucker Punch reviving the franchise. The master thief will always be in our hearts. Not only that. This is the starting point of revisiting more of my cherished PS2 games. More PS2 games are on their way.
I forgot to mention that besides Star Wars, video game adaptations of other media are not as common of retro gaming today in terms of licensing as largely dominated by THQ with their entry of their child-friendly video game adaptations of Nickelodeon cartoons. In fact, if I recall correctly, there is only one video game adaptation of a TV show in my wish list of PS1 games that is never listed on the storefronts of older Sony consoles that offer PS1 games, involves rescuing their best friend like Ape Escape where Spike rescues Jake from Specter's mind control and is not a Warner Bros. title or a first-party title published by Universal Interactive, and that is Xena: Warrior Princess, which is based on the TV show with the same name that became an overwhelming success, but never aired on a channel or available to stream on a single streaming service and never greenlit a reboot from NBC.
But if Warner Bros. Discovery owned Xena: Warrior Princess and all of its entirety, that can change everything to stream it on Max, formerly HBO Max and air it on TBS with a TV-14-V rating, pave the way for the reboot and put Xena into MultiVersus as an Assassin character. Who knows? If she actually does make it in, she could be acquired by purchasing the premium track of the Battle Pass. Maybe her neutral special would allow Xena to throw her beloved chakram. Maybe there could be a dialogue between her and Wonder Woman because they are based on Greek Mythology. Think of Spike from Ape Escape with his debut to PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale.
I have Xena: Warrior Princess on my wish list of PS1 games, so if it's released on the catalog, I will download it and showcase on how Xena would play and how she would make a perfect heroic Assassin fighter in MultiVersus, like I did to do a showcase on how Ty would play in Crash Team Rumble, which unexpectedly ceased active development, and submit my moveset idea to Player First Games.
So I believe that Xena is gonna be freaking dope in MultiVersus if Warner Bros. owned the show and all of its entirety. In fact, if I remember, that Warner Bros. Interactive Elements logo from 2000 made me think of why Warner Bros. Discovery should own Xena: Warrior Princess. I experienced it when I booted up Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Great game. And in this point of time, I experienced it again on one of Broken Saw's videos. It is only on 6th generation-era of gaming. If we do get a single PS2 game published by WB, that would be amazing, right?
It doesn't take a genius to understand that developers went through tough times during the development of retro titles based on movies and TV shows because if I am correct, the catalog currently has several retro titles based on movies by Disney, and they are Toy Story and UP. So picture this. Imagine starting a script when developing a video game based on a TV show or movie. I can hear them asking what about Star Wars. Sure, Star Wars games count. We got a lot of them on the catalog, and the Clone Wars is the latest retro Star Wars game released on the catalog.
The only video game adaptations of TV shows in the 6th generation-era that interest me are the ones based on the Simpsons, Hit and Run and Road Rage. Both of them institute driving. However, things have took a turn for the companies. When Road Rage came out, SEGA came along to sue companies that developed and published Road Rage. The lawsuit shows that Road Rage has gameplay similar to Crazy Taxi and it shows that Road Rage became a carbon copy of Crazy Taxi.
Video game adaptations of manga and anime are also not as common of retro gaming today, that the rights are owned by Bandai Namco with their entry of Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Sword Art Online and Digimon. So far, there has been one anime fighting game that was released this year, and that is Naruto X Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections. The only anime game coming out this year is Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO. So if a retro anime game is released on the catalog, we can revisit them.
Now, video game adaptations of other media may not be as common of retro gaming, but what is as common of retro gaming is the Sony Computer Entertainment America/Europe presents screen. It appears on every single PlayStation exclusive retro title until the point of time when the PS3 comes out to have the Sony Computer Entertainment presents screens on each first party PlayStation game until 2016 when the Sony Interactive Entertainment screens started appearing on each first party game. You have to remember that 2016 is when Sony Computer Entertainment was renamed to Sony Interactive Entertainment.
I am amazed and intrigued at Sony taking their job very seriously on bringing back their beloved classics. The first party games have the old Sony Computer Entertainment America/Europe presents line. But so far, there have not been a single game of the two franchises, Crash and Spyro. These franchises have fueled the charm in the PS1 era. Without the Crash and Spyro games on the Classics Catalog, there is no charm. And now that PS2 emulation is here, the PS2-era Crash and Spyro games may be released one day. If they do, that will double the charm. And I don't care if we got remasters because they use Unreal Engine to kill the charm with modern visuals.
In fact, I don't care about the graphics. The gameplay is the same as the original and remakes and remasters only puts them in a business of making money when fans paid $60 for games they already played years ago, not caring about fans. We just want to revisit the original games because I miss the old school charm in these games. But there is a pro about remakes and remasters. They prevent companies from going bankrupt.
I am going to explain why the games in the original Crash and Spyro trilogies should be released on the catalog anytime soon even though the remastered trilogies are available.
The first one is the ingame music. The game's ingame music is catchy to hear. The composers did a great job composing the music in game and it has multiple soundtracks and uses dynamic music. The music becomes clear when you are in 1st place, but when you're in 2nd place or worse, the music's clarity decreases. And the jingle specific to the current music playing is heard when a racer is hit with a weapon. The music in the game became so catchy as heck, if you like MoonScoop. However, there is a catch, the music changes every new race.
Secondly, creating your own character and their kart and the race track. ModNation Racers gave you the option to create any character and their kart and the race track. It doesn't have to be just your original creation. It can be from any works you like or dislike. To make Batman, his Batmobile and Gotham City is a creative idea. It's only a taste that San Diego Studio would publish their critically acclaimed racing game with user generated content. That applies to creating your own character, their kart and race tracks.
And thirdly, the best thing that made ModNation Racers so exciting to play is the ingame crew chief. You usually hear him in the one player exhibition race and in the Story Mode. In a one player exhibition race, you hear the crew chief's voice lines. He also had the best fun to hear voice lines when it comes to staying in 4th place or worse, getting passed, going the wrong way and driving off course. Especially the stopping for takeout and the pulling in for a snack lines. Hearing that made me hungry. These voice lines are fun to hear. Again, that's in a one player exhibition race.
So these are the three things on how ModNation Racers became an exception in the PS3 department. And this will be the only game I want released on the catalog, even though it will be only available to stream. If the PS3 hadn't gotten a structure that is hard to develop for, then the PS3 would've been easy to emulate and full PlayStation backwards compatibility would've been a reality.
You know about the Gran Turismo movie? I watched it at my local movie theater. It was a great movie based on one of PlayStation's racing game franchise since Johnny Test. So some fans wanted a ModNation Racers movie. Now, I strongly agree on wanting a video game film adaptation of ModNation Racers that would be CGI animated and rated PG for mild action and violence to involve racers using weapons and crashes against other racers. It can match some aspects in the Story Mode, with Espresso as the main villain of the movie. Sony Interactive Entertainment's Studio Business Group is led by Herman Hulst and his leadership can give us more film adaptations based on PlayStation games. We got Uncharted, Gran Turismo and a third movie to come to theaters.
Kart racing games have been common of the genre in the 7th generation era of gaming. The only fun kart racing games in the generation are ModNation Racers and Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing. There is literally an extravagant racing game the 7th generation era has. There is a PSP version of ModNation Racers, but there is no ingame crew chief in the version and it may likely be released on the catalog because the PSP is easy to emulate.
And now let's go on to another exception. That is Mortal Kombat. But what makes Mortal Kombat also an exception as ModNation Racers? I'm glad you asked. I have a couple of reasons for that, so let's take a look.
The first reason is the return to its roots of a traditional 2D fighting game. The 2011 reboot of Mortal Kombat piggybacked off the success of the first three Mortal Kombat games under the Midway umbrella as this was the comeback to the 2D fighting game genre after the 3D-era games and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, the final game under the Midway umbrella before their liquidation and the series' shift to being published by WB Games and developed by NetherRealm Studios. It became the 9th mainline title and that's why they called it Mortal Kombat 9 to distinguish things. If we see a Mortal Kombat character being put into MultiVersus, they won't have Fatalities, so they will be in line with Injustice games.
Secondly, my most favorite part of the story mode, which is when Raiden killed his champions over the battle against Outworld villain, Shao Kahn. What makes it so is that part of the story in Mortal Kombat became very insane. A padding to the story is that when Raiden killed his champions, they became revenants to serve Quan Chi and Shinnok in Mortal Kombat X. They've been together back in Mortal Kombat 4 and in Mortal Kombat X, so it's really canon.
Now, if you keep track of the incidents regarding killing champions, Shao Kahn snapped Kung Lao's neck, Liu Kang tried to defeat Shao Kahn, but Raiden stood in his way to kill him. And those are incidents I can remember when playing through the story mode. I know there are a lot more champions that became revenants.
These are two reasons why Mortal Kombat became the exception on the PS3 department with ModNation Racers. While PS3 games are only available to stream, Mortal Kombat is also available on Xbox 360 and the version can be played on the Xbox through backwards compatibility.
A padding we had with NetherRealm Studios is that their games have been released on years with odd numbers. 2011 was the reboot of Mortal Kombat, 2013 was Injustice: Gods Among Us, 2015 was Mortal Kombat X, 2017 was Injustice 2, 2019 was Mortal Kombat 11 and 2023 was Mortal Kombat 1, the newest game that took place in the new era crafted by Fire God Liu Kang. You have to remember that the 2011 reboot of Mortal Kombat returned the series to its roots of a 2D fighting game and is the first game published by WB Games and developed by NRS. 2021 didn't see an NRS game, so the producers had to put in an R-rated 2021 Mortal Kombat movie reboot as a buffer. Production on the 2021 reboot's sequel has wrapped up, but the trailer is not up yet.
There is another padding, which is listening to the stage's music in a Mortal Kombat game under the NetherRealm umbrella while thinking about Spyro's two best goddesses, Elora the Faun and Bianca the Rabbit. It's the fact that you don't mix child-friendly games with dark games nor allow an underage person to play Mature rated games albeit they have no sex in them. If I have a child, I will not allow them to play M-rated games. Not a single one until they are 17 years old and up and that is the age when you are allowed to play M-rated games.
The 3D-era MK games by Midway involve switching between three styles and I know we loved those. The original Xbox versions of these games are playable through backwards compatibility on the Xbox. But with the PS Plus Premium tier offering emulation of titles and PS2 emulation reopening, it is only a matter of time before they get released on the catalog.
If you rewind back to the point when PS Now was released, it was a standalone streaming service that was known for offering PS4, PS3 and PS2 games. The PS4 and PS2 games became available to download. Its reception became poor because of the lack of the PS1 catalog and a weak selection of PS2 games. With all that easier said as done, I have one main point to make.
So many people at Sony tried to figure out how to make a decent service that is borderline superior to PS Now, and they did by incorporating all of PS Now's assets into PS Plus Premium so that it can offer a vast catalog of their retro titles. Now, if and when the PS6 goes into production, they can keep the revamped PS Plus and carry their progress of releasing classics over to it.
In conclusion, because of the reasons alone, despite PS3 games being only available to stream as you have to hook up your PS3 to download the games and play current and future remasters and ports of games originally released on the PS3, PS Plus Premium is literally the hero to revive retro gaming. And I better not hear any of you naysayers to tell me otherwise. PS Plus Premium has literally revived the PlayStation Legacy, and I'm dead serious. It's the only way to revisit retro titles from back in the day and it has the "why can be one thing when you can be anything?" tagline. Your PS1, PS2 and PS3 game discs will not work on the PS4 or PS5 and more of them get added monthly.
I can't wait to see what July's and later months' additions have in store for me in the classics department. If they plan to pick up the pace, they must release six to nine new classics, sporting two to three PS1 games, two to three PS2 games and two to three PSP games monthly going forward. It's to follow Nintendo's footsteps. I will be expecting the ones in my wish list to get released, including the Crash and Spyro games.
PlayStation's 30th Anniversary is coming. You know why am I so excited for the celebration? Because PS Plus Premium is the hero that literally revived retro gaming unlike PS Now. Astro Bot is coming this year and this game is gonna have the ultimate PlayStation experience. Here's to later months' lineup of classic games.