PS2 Need Some PS2 Game Recommendations

[Blamhammer]

Not a single Armored Core game? Ya gotta fix that. Although you got a lot of action heavy games there, I'd check out ICO or Boku no Natsuyasumi 2.

 

[Morgan Katarn]

A very solid list not knowing what you fancy the most my biggest recommendation is.

 

[Glimbo]

Looks like you got most of the really good ones. I don't see many RPGs so I'll avoid those.
Ape Escape 2
Ape Escape 3
God Hand
Shinobi
Nightshade
Way of the Samurai

 

[DuckLord]

Nice, forgot about Armored Cored tbh

 

[Masterofthefalcon]

If you want more stealth games after you go through Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3, I'd recommend Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven. Just finished a playthrough recently and I'd say it's a very solid action stealth game. The ranking system and multiple playable characters gives it a bit of replay value as well.

 

[RustySK]

As larger franchises go and off the top of my head pretty much all the Shin Megami Tensei-branded titles come to mind.
Also the Ace Combat series, Dragon Quest VIII, maybe the Onimusha and Fatal Frame games or God Hand and Okami, possibly King's Field IV or Shadow Tower Abyss, or obscure stuff like Bujingai, Chulip or SkyGunner.
The list really does go on and on...

The PS2 has such a humongous library that is also just overflowing with excellent games that a complete list would end up just plain ridiculous. The PS2 was one hell of a console.

 

[sneakyguts]

gungrave and wild arms 3-5

 

[WesternYokai]

Steambot Chronicles
Castlevania Curse of Darkness
Wizardry The Forsaken Lands
Xenosaga 1-3

 

[rebirthphantasi4]

Hey guys i'm playing through a ps2 with a matrix modchip.
I made this list to play games: pastebin.com/k3w6GvCu
I wanna add a little bit more so if you've got anything to add lmk, cheers!

Gotta put the Tales games on! :) Tales of the Abyss has an amazing story and Destiny DC and Rebirth have great spritework and awesome gameplay too.

 

[nobitakun]

Oneechanbara.

 

[Stookymalarkey]

Here's a few I can suggest:

Alien Hominid
Dark Cloud
Dark Cloud 2
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X-2
Gitaroo Man
Persona 3
Persona 4
Raiden III
Red Dead Revolver
Robot Alchemic Drive
Shadow Hearts
Shadow Hearts Covenant
Star Ocean - Till the End of Time
Yakuza
Yakuza 2

 

[LastValsion]

MS Saga: A New Dawn and Rogue Galaxy

 

[DanVzare]

Don't forget to add the TimeSplitters series onto there. All three of them.

 

[Deleted member 291530]

Gran Turismo, Odin Sphere, Chulip, Rule Of Rose, WRC Rally Evolved, God Hand, Ace Combat, Ichigeki Sacchu Hoi Hoi san, Genshi No Kotoba (super cute), Twisted Metal Black, Okami, Ghost In The Shell SAC, Forbidden Siren, Alone In The Dark The New Nightmare, Soulcalibur, gungrave, michigan report from hell, zone of the enders, klonoa, metal gear, enthusia professional racing, shadow of the colossus, urban reign, last bronx, outrun 2006, tourist trophy, persona, radiata stories, evil twin cyprien's chronicle, critical velocity, ssx, syberia, mercenaries, katamari, destroy all humans, gregory horror show, rumble roses, clock tower, haunting ground, hitman, magic pengel, onimusha, rogue galaxy, shadow hearts, splinter cell (i would use the xbox version tho), king of fighters, black, beat down fists of vengeance, oni and in general everything made or published by rockstar games, bokura no kazoku, zombie virus, maximo, driver parallel lines, sniper elite, the suffering, xenosaga, shadow of rome, wipeout pure, suikoden, wild arms, dual hearts, star ocean. probably forgot something, but i think this is the nice stuff that i didn't saw on your list

 

[χKai]

Tales of Legendia was pretty good

 

[Deleted member 360084]

ask here for recommendations and you will have 3/4 of the PS2 library on the list that you will not play anyway

they rush like hungry dogs with their favorite games that are very often objectively max 6/10 lmao

 

[χKai]

ask here for recommendations and you will have 3/4 of the PS2 library on the list that you will not play anyway

they rush like hungry dogs with their favorite games that are very often objectively max 6/10 lmao

It's true, a lot of mid-tier games get suggested by this; but let the person make their own mistake.

The herd has been called, the stampede; imminent.

 

[Deleted member 291530]

ask here for recommendations and you will have 3/4 of the PS2 library on the list that you will not play anyway

they rush like hungry dogs with their favorite games that are very often objectively max 6/10 lmao

too many games? lol sorry, i didn't suggest stuff thinking about quality, just quirky stuff (but a few of them are really good)

 

[Zerohour2k12]

Aside from the ones I already posted on older threads, I'd recommend.
Rogue Galaxy
Sub Rebellion
MS Saga
Twisted Metal Black and Head-On
Kuon
Fatal Frame 2
KoF '02 UM
Batman Begins
Okami
Both Castlevanias

 

[NeonKnights]

Genji

 

[bigstinkie]

evergrace is a caleidoscope of colours and shapes
if you like art games i would recommend it
clock tower 3 is an underrated horror title i would recommend it is equal parts stressful and silly
if you like to take walks in the woods i would recommend king's field iv as it is very real and raw in how you explore such rich locations

 

[sneakyguts]

okage shadow king

 

[Neverborn404]

I practically never use these forums but this particular post grabbed my attention I guess.
No kind of input or criteria other than "PS2"? Do you literally enjoy every genre? I don't doubt that being possible, but it just seems kind of unnecessary and a waste of time to have people take time out of their day to recommend things you'd potentially never consider playing.
But that's a pretty minor complaint. It's some of these responses that bug me a lot more. People presumably not even checking the list before making recommendations. People repeating the same recommendations as previous comments, with no mention of it being a duplicate specifically. It'd be fine if you note "Oh, I see someone else recommended this, too. I figured I'd mention it also gets my vote as far as emphasizing it may be something worth checking out."
People using either poor grammar or using words like "few" and then listing more than several games instead. Fucking hell. I'm sure someone is going to think this is nit-picky, but fuck it, I don't care. It seems like there's a lot of lack of consideration in this thread, if I had to boil down how to put it into words.

As far as mine, as someone who personally has a strong favor toward RPGs, my recommendations are likely to reflect that.
Arc the Lad Twilight of Spirits was legitimately my favorite game as a kid when it first came out. And honestly remains probably in my top 5, if not top 3 games of ALL time, which is really saying something. I saw it got voted as the best RPG to come out that year in some popular youtube video.

I'm currently playing SMT3: Nocturne and having a hell of a fun time, personally. But it just got remastered for PC and has some new QoL features if that's a potential deterrent. There's also Digital Devil Saga on PS2 though. The story and themes and philosophical concepts have really appealed to me, but I'd be lying if I said the mechanics themselves aren't the main draw for me. Which the person I had recommend it to me was spot on in his predicting all of that.
And while it's very much so kind of underselling and minimizing what the game/series is as a whole, the elevator pitch that was given to me was "It's like Pokemon but instead you collect demons." and while very oversimplified, it's not an inaccurate statement. Granted it's one the diehard fans seem to hate, but you can't really help that something like Pokemon is so huge, it serves as a cultural touchstone or point of reference for most people and makes communicating things and ideas much simpler.

I saw someone mentioned Armored Core, I literally just beat AC3 on PS2 like a week ago and imported my save over to Silent Line but hadn't really touched it since. I was a BIG fan of that despite the fact I honestly could not have cared less about mechs or the mecha genre prior.
It's also pretty rad because there's just so many games to dig into. And that you can carry your progress over through many of them. I can't wait to get to Last Raven on PS2. Though admittedly I have been considering playing the ports on PSP, which I still have and get use out of mine regularly since I got rid of my smartphone when I got clean and sober, my PSP became my go-to music player and general source of distraction when at doctors offices, clinics or hospital waiting rooms or whatever. I get a shocking amount of people sparking conversations with me when they see/recognize it, and often go into reminiscing about their favorite games, or even movies they watched on it, often during roadtrips and stuff. It's like you can literally see some of these people revert to their childhood in real time for a moment, it's a trip. No less than 30 people probably, it's shocking how much of a conversation starter it's been, completely unexpectedly.
That being said, I've been thinking about getting either a Vita or an Odin 2 Mini and I've learned you can remap the controls of those portable PSP armored core games to be much more comfortable on a device that actually has two joysticks. In which case, the AC games on PSP apparently have some new/additional parts, and you can import from AC3 to Nexus to Last Raven, I believe is the order. Which you can't do on the PS2 versions, the progression goes differently.

Also, didn't see anyone mention at the time of typing this
Dragon Quest 8 is often considered like one of those all-time great RPGs and timeless, arguably masterpiece. There's a 3DS version that has two additional playable party members if that's something that potentially interests you, though.
There's also a fan translation of DQ5 on here somewhere iirc.
I'm not especially into racing games myself, but NFSU2 is a game that even non-fans of the genre have enjoyed, myself included. And there's a little cult of us that wish the game would go back to having that absurd degree of customization.
The Gran Turismo games are considered to be some of the best on the PS1 and I believe the PS2 as well. Or at the very least, one of the Gran Turismo games was the highest selling game for PS1 in general, I believe 3 and/or 4 also sold incredibly well on PS2, so they must've done something right.
There's also the Ridge Racer, Test Drive games. Not really for me, personally, but just throwing out there.

Some niche games I enjoyed and don't hear nearly often enough.
S.L.A.I. like a weirdly arcade-y action mech game
Seven Samurai 20xx
Dark Cloud 1, although it's potential popularity is kinda iffy.
7 Blades
Tsugunai Atonement, it has a fascinating puzzle grid almost mini-game for inserting your skills and stuff. I wish I saw that feature in more games tbh. Naruto Uzumaki Chronicles 1 and 2 actually do it as well, it essentially rewards you for clever thinking and sort of pattern recognition.
Extermination is this this interesting game I never hear about that was like RE4 before RE4. Or RE3.5. Utilizing over-the-shoulder aiming in a survival horror game, and it has some pretty fucking rad weapon customization actually.
Monster Hunter 2 English fan translation is also on here last time I checked, and it's the most unique entry in the series I believe. It has like an arena where you can battle with captured monsters and feed/train them and all kinds of stuff. MHF2 was supposed to be this port of that game yet somehow they're entirely different. It remains this intriguing outlier in the MH series.
ATV Offroad Fury, this is a weird one, as I couldn't give a shit less about games of this genre usually. But it just really impressed me as a kid. I associate it with Far Cry for whatever reason, idk if I got them at the same time or something, another game that pleasantly surprised me. From what I could remember it was somewhat like Tony Hawk Pro Skater-lite but on ATVs and with racing aspects? But the main draw for me was that you can build custom maps with explosives and all kinds of shit, I think you may've even been able to make parts underwater..? For all I know this one may not actually hold up as it's been over a decade.. and a hafl? And may have just been stupid childhood fun. So take with a grain of salt.

Anyway, happy gaming or whatever, may the RNG gods smile favorably upon you and may you find some interesting hidden gems.

 

[Wampyr]

Oni!

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

PS2 games I summon yooooooooou

-DoDonpachi DaiOuJou
-Homura
-Mana Khemia duology
-Atelier Iris trilogy
-Ar Tonelico trilogy
-Ibara
-Ace Combat 4, 5, 0
-Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne (USA for extra content and Dante, or Lucifer’s Call because PAL had to be quirky)
-Digital Devil Saga duology
-Persona 3 FES
-Persona 4 (if you’re one of those people who somehow think this version that doesn’t even have an overworld is better than Golden)
-Final Fantasy X, X-2, XII
-Yakuza 1 and 2
-all Castlevania games on this system
-Odin Sphere
-GrimGrimoire
-Giga Wing Generations
-all Grand Theft Auto games on this system
-Devil May Cry 1-3, yes that includes 2. You WILL play 2
-Killer7
-Shadow the Hedgehog
-Sonic Heroes
-XII Stag/Trizeal
-Mega Man X: Command Mission
-Mega Man X8
-Tales of games on this system, if you can fan translate, get Rebirth too
-God Hand
-Shadow Hearts trilogy
-Bully
-Ico & Shadow of the Colossus (ofc)
-Okami
-Psychonauts
-Dark Cloud duology
-Radiata Stories
-Rule of Rose
-Haunting Ground
-Kuon
-Raiden III
-all Kingdom Hearts games on this system
-Grandia III
-Timesplitters duology
-Ape Escape trilogy
-Snake EATERRRRRRRRRR (or just get Subsistence and Substance for remasters of MGS 2 and 3 with more content but without a catchy title)
-Chaos Field
-Rez
-Triggerheart Exelica
-Radirgy Precious
-Cho Aniki: Sei Naru Protein Densetsu
-The Suffering duology
-all Silent Hill games on this system
-all Fatal Frame/Project Zero games
-Burnout III
-Gradius III & IV, V
-Ridge Racer V
-Skygunners
-Gungrave games
-Chaos Wars (this isn’t a good game, it’s just really fucking funny)
-Scarface
-Gitaroo Man
-Suikoden III-V
-Critical Velocity
-Soul Caliber 2 and 3
-Valkyrie Profile 2
-Rogue Galaxy
-Wild Arms III
-R Racing Evolution
-Zone of the Enders duology
-Outrun 2006
-Street Fighter EX3
-Xenosaga trilogy
-Atelier Marie/Elie (again if you can fan translate)
-Berwick Saga (fan translate)
-Metal Slug 3D (fan translate and be aware the 3D is not in the actual title)
-Espgaluda
-Shikigami no Shiro (don’t bother with a fan translation, it’s not needed plus the first was translated as Mobile Light Force 2)
-Psyvariar duology
-Mushihimesama
-Twinkle Star Sprites duology
-Gunbird I & II
-Strikers 1945 I & II
-Sol Divide & Dragon Blaze
-R Type Final
-PS1 games, backwards compatibility is goated

Got all that? If not, pick whichever ones sound/look the coolest