The PS1 era became the community's most favorite era because of the polygon models, the original Crash and Spyro trilogies and the iconic start up screen. 1994 is when the PlayStation brand was first established. What is so special about the PS1 era is that it became the most charming era. It has great games that launched franchises. Crash Bandicoot became the mascot of the PS1 after Polygon Man was rejected to throw in commercials that feature the mascot suit. Our orange marsupal became well liked that his first game became a huge success, along with the rest of the original trilogy. Now here's what is really interesting about the PS1 era.
Naughty Dog had a three-game contract with Universal after Way of the Warrior was released on the 3DO. When Naughty Dog signed their three-game contract with Universal, the initial name was Willy the Wombat. But the developers weren't a fan of the name and asked Universal if they can change it. When the developers put in crates, they decided on a different name, Crash Bandicoot. It was all or nothing that Naughty Dog threatened to drop the project as a whole if Universal did not accept the Crash Bandicoot name, so they did and Naughty Dog went on with the project. It saw commercials that feature the Crash mascot suit. However, during crunch time, Universal treated Naughty Dog like crap, by simply turning off the air conditioning to the building in the Californian summer weather.
After Crash 3, Naughty Dog wanted to leave the Crash IP once their three-game contract was up, but Sony wanted another Crash game that would be a kart racer. But Naughty Dog refused to work with Universal because they don't want to deal with their bullcrap anymore, not especially after for what they did to turn off the air conditioning to the building during crunch time, so PlayStation conducted that so that Sony and Naughty Dog would work together under a licensing deal from Universal so that Naughty Dog would have the least amount of contact with Universal as possible following their poor treatment. This resulted in the creation of Crash Team Racing and it was made by Naughty Dog themselves without a contract. That would be Naughty Dog's final Crash Bandicoot title before they parted ways with the IP and the Crash IP gets passed to Eurocom to make a party game, Crash Bash. That would be the final Crash title to ever be released exculsively on the PS1.
All of this on the Crash Bandicoot side would mark the PS1 becoming the most popular 5th generation console, with Sony negotiating between Universal and Naughty Dog to pave the way for Naughty Dog to make a kart racer. However, nothing has gotten as close to the part where Hidden Variable is suing Autumn over an inexcusable faliure like the breach of contract and Future Club not negotiating between companies so that they and Hidden Variable would work together under a licensing deal from Autumn so that Hidden Variable would have the least amount of contact from Autumn as possible.
Universal also brought on Insomniac, who also had a three-game contract with Universal after Disruptor was released on the PlayStation and they started development on the titular purple lad, Spyro the Dragon. Insomniac followed Naughty Dog's footsteps by having their three-game contract with Universal, but they were also treated poorly like Naughty Dog was during crunch time. After Spyro 3, Insomniac followed Naughty Dog's footsteps and moved on to pursue the next IP with Sony. I'll continue the story later on.
Naughty Dog and Insomniac have worked with Mark Cerny at Universal. Both developers did a great job on the original trilogies. Universal now has two IPs created just for them and they were the publishers of the original Crash and Spyro IPs. And there's one most obvious thing to note. Sony doesn't own Crash or Spyro, but they own both studios that developed the original trilogies and released them on the PS1 as it was the most popular console. Universal owned both IPs and they can brand them however they want. Naughty Dog and Insomniac's three-game contract with Universal is how the PS1 era became interesting, even though Universal treated developers poorly by turning off the air conditioning in the building during crunch time, which was not cool and was an uncomfortable thing they have done.
Along with the polygon models, the original Crash and Spyro trilogies became the source of fueling the PS1-era with charm and the reason why the era is believed to be community's most favorite since both companies' three-game contract with Universal sparked a lot of charm. As it turned out, there is one other reason why, which is console ports of retro games that were first released in arcades and they became a part of the PlayStation's massive library. This factor showed that the PS1 has sold really well, even in Japan since Japanese game companies were able to develop their games for it well without losing any money. The PS1 became well-sold because of its widespread third-party support, attention to detail, a massive library of games and high quality games.
Over to PS2. We have experienced a lot of charming stories we already heard for generations. During launch, the PS2 has sold the most units because of the same factors the PS1 did and backwards compatibility to PS1 games and accessories. Sony now has two legendary bestselling most popular consoles that became gems of the gaming industry, all on a silver platter and ready to go for emulation. The experience of the legendary consoles became well-liked by gamers that were born in the 90s and when they became adults, they feel the nostalgia in them.
When the PS2 came out, after Naughty Dog and Insomniac are done with Crash and Spyro, they pursued their next IPs. Naughty Dog released Jak and Daxter while Insomniac released Ratchet and Clank. As I said, Sony doesn't own Crash or Spyro because Universal owned all rights to the IPs, so this means Universal wasn't done with Crash and Spyro and they can brand them however they want.
This resulted in Universal passing the Crash IP to Traveller's Tales to develop the first Crash title for the PS2 and Mark went along with them. However, Cerny had parted ways with the studio and Traveller's Tales had to start the game from scratch. This resulted in the creation of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. This game would be the first mainline Crash game being multiplatform and not developed under the Naughty Dog umbrella, courtesy of Konami, who was responsible of making the game multiplatform, unlike the original trilogy, which was sold on one console. It attributed Wrath of Cortex to establish a slightly larger audience than the original trilogy, making it the commercially successful multiplatform Crash game. I remember playing this game back in the day when I was a kid and I pretty much loved it. To be clear, Wrath of Cortex did sell well, but has mixed Metacritic reviews.
Then Universal passed the Spyro IP to Check Six and Equinoxe to make Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. This would be the first Spyro title being multiplatform and not developed by Insomniac. This game got approved, but during production, things got cut, rearranged, didn't work, got cut again and so on and was then given an awfully short development time to release it for the Christmas season. The final product became very buggy and became a Homer Simpson mess of ideas. I saw the blooper that covers the bugs in Enter the Dragonfly. I laughed my butt off watching it. I remember playing Enter the Dragonfly back in the day and it was a totally crappy Spyro game that was riddled with bugs with a big LMAO and did not come close to how well the original trilogy has performed, all because Universal has darn near blew it and they couldn't figure out what they want to develop for a new Spyro game. That resulted in giving the game a bad Metacritic score. This shows that without Insomniac around, Universal became terrible.
I wanted to revisit it, but it was so buggy that I may not want to revisit it at all. Unless if I can use the bugs to my advantage for the cheese, of course. But if there is one thing I like about Enter the Dragonfly, it's Spyro being like Mega Man, by having different breaths, which lives up to the Spyro vs. Mega Man thing, and this is something I want for a new Spyro in development, along with Elora to be the Sally Acorn of Spyro because in Sonic SatAM, the friendship between Sonic and Sally lives up to the Sonally term, so I believe that them friendship between Spyro and Elora can also live up to the Spylora term and that's the way terms go.
Twinsanity has also suffered the same fate Enter the Dragonfly suffered. Dozens of hours of gameplay and content have been cut from the game because of Universal not having any idea what they were doing, even though they merged with Vivendi to establish Vivendi Universal. That's how both games made a terrible entrance on the PS2 era. That's where Matt McMuscles comes in to make videos covering Twinsanity and Enter the Dragonfly's putrid performance on his What Happened? series.
In conclusion, Universal had found two AAA developers. They are the reason why the original trilogies performed well in the first place and they were crunched to release a game per year. The two developers were the source of making Universal amazing, even though they treated them poorly. When both developers parted ways with the IPs to make Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank, Universal lost their bearings and proven that they are awful to Crash and Spyro.
Of course, they would still be a close relationship, especially later on with the remastered trilogies, but nothing ever got as close as it did with the original trilogies. Then the IPs would get passed on to Xbox, meaning that Xbox has had more ownership than PlayStation had.
Remember the part where Jim Ryan has disrespected us retro game fans just by talking down to the golden age that is revisiting PS1 and PS2 games while he was at a Gran Turismo event? That part reminds me of something familiar... Oh, I know. It sounds a lot like two things.
First off, the sadistic joke Mike Z has created. During One More Once, Mike made an "I can't breathe" joke. When he made that joke, it alienated a lot of users from playing Skullgirls and they made calls to get the game off EVO and boycott the game in light of the situation, until he apologized to the whole community and he regretted making that joke. Now let's go on to the next one, two Mightykeef skits that involved disrespecting. One for anime and the other for Persona 5. When he simplified anime as cartoons, the thoughts of an anime watcher emerged. One is the aggression while the other is reasonability. The skit about Persona 5 also has that. These events have occured in 2020, the year when the COVID-19 pandemic has hit.
Resources, time and money are indeed finite when it comes to developing a new console. Ryan has stated that after he apologized about his rude comment. But the PS3's unique structure and Cell processor are the reason why none of the modern consoles were backwards compatible to PS3 games and beyond. But PlayStation Plus Premium has resolved this enigma just by offering a vast catalog of PS1 and PS2 games with emulation features and PlayStation 30th Anniversary became even more exciting because of it and future anniversaries of the brand will be even more exciting going forward.
PS3 games may only be available on cloud streaming due to the PS3's notoriously weird structure the Xbox 360 didn't bear, but I can invest in an Ethernet cord to provide a stable experience. However, I can't do Remote Play or record longer clips when streaming a game and that's the only problem with PS3 games being only available for cloud streaming and playing remasters and ports of PS3 games is the way. Sure, remasters may have killed the old school charm, but they are faithful to the original. And to be honest, I am into revisiting PS1 and PS2 games more than PS3 games because fan favorites are usually PS1 and PS2 with the PS3 trailing behind due to the overwhelming worldwide sales established on the first two systems and the criticism surrounding the PS3's launch model.
But when we get to the PS4, oh my gosh, the retro titles we know and love were fizzled out except for the ones on PS Now. If there is one silver lining for this, if the PS3 hadn't beared a weird structure or a Cell processor in the first place, then full backwards compatibility would've been established on later systems. But who needs full backwards compatibility when we have emulation of PS1 and PS2 titles and we can invest in an Ethernet connection for a stable streaming experience anyway? It's faster and better. We can be able to finally revisit our cherished titles we played in our childhood on PS4 and PS5 after nine years since the PS4 came out. The PS2 boot up screen is still here, but the PS1 boot up screen has not returned. There is one game that I found interesting to play and experience.
Now, if you're around on the year when Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus released, one of the games in the PS2 era was Disney's Stitch: Experiment 626. In this game, it serves as an origin story and a prequel to the the 2002 animated film that entails 626's standalone adventure where he is ordered by Jumba Jookiba to collect DNA across the world of Greemas to assist him in performing more experiments. There are weapons and gadgets that navigate 626 on certain levels and squid bots that have a film reel. Each film reel has scenes of the movie.
The game was originally gonna be called "Experiment 626: Stitch on the Loose!" but they renamed it to "Stitch: Experiment 626" for unknown reasons. But what I'm gonna say is that it points out to the fact that the game serves as an origin story and a prequel to take place before the events of the film where our blue furry lad escapes from the United Galactic Federation and goes to Hawaii to befriend a charming Hawaiian girl and her big sister. While a classic Disney game, it became a PS2-exclusive as Sony is the publisher of the game. However, the game wound up with mixed reviews upon release and couldn't become critically acclaimed.
During June's State of Play, we got a number of classics announced. This month, Deus Ex: The Conspiracy has launched and this game was produced by defunct video game companies. Unfortunately, there aren't any deep logos. Coming in July, Twisted Metal 3 and 4 are coming to the catalog. This marks the possibility to complete the original quadrilogy just in time for Peacock's TV series adaptation's second season. And lastly, coming in August, Resident Evil 2 and 3 are launching into the catalog. That comes with completing the original trilogy and is in preparation of the upcoming Resident Evil Requiem. In total, we have one PS2 game and four PS1 games coming out this summer. This shows that PlayStation Plus Premium is reigning supreme so far that we're getting the very first Deus Ex, the last two Twisted Metal games of the original quadrilogy and the last two Resident Evil games of the original trilogy.
During this year's Days of Play, Myst and Riven were revealed. These are point and click puzzle games that first came out on PC before being ported to consoles. They may not be on my wish list, but they at least have silent logos and to my knowledge, since playing retro games is considered a break from playing modern games, playing Myst and Riven is considered to be a break from playing violent video games.
Desiring to revisit games from our childhood is what makes Sony being kings of the gaming industry in their time on their first two consoles so interesting and special. Our desire has been fulfilled by PlayStation Plus Premium and its ever growing classics catalog. Like Nintendo Classics on the Switch, that revived classic gaming, especially for PS1 games since they weren't on PS Now. I'll be looking forward to re-experiencing the original Crash and Spyro trilogies' polygon models and charm.
And speaking of the original Crash and Spyro trilogies, remember that I was demanding the games of the franchise to be on the catalog? I don't think that we're gonna see the originals get released on the PlayStation Plus Premium catalog until 2026 when Crash Bandicoot turns 30 and 2028 when Spyro turns 30. I'm just speculating it. We can find out if my speculation is true or not, because I want to revisit the charm in them and they are the most popular games.
The golden age of PlayStation is back, with the PS1 being the shadiest like Bob Burgers' first season and the Simpsons' first two seasons. They are the golden age ones. Since the PS6 and Sony's new handheld console are in the works, it's likely that we can continue using PS Plus Premium, which became the heart of retro gaming and play retro games on these new and upcoming consoles and be backwards compatible with PS5 and PS4 games and not PS3 games and beyond due to the PS3's unique structure and its Cell processor, which is why PS3 games are only available through cloud streaming. But emulation of older titles will be on the new systems.
Speaking of becoming the heart, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls became the new heart of the FGC to surprise the community after Arc System Works is leading the way of the development of their Marvel fighter. I have the link to the post about it, so go check it out if you're interested.
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