[jizmo]

Playstation 1 has always been bit of a problematic console for me. On the other hand I have good memories of it and admire how it pioneered lots of 3D stuff that we take granted these days. But on the other hand the time has not treated its catalogue well and almost all of the games I tried out haven't been anywhere as good as I remembered them to be, being plagued with odd camera angles and movements to unintuitive controls and dodgy framerates.

When PS1 came out, the arcade games, Megadrive and Snes had perfected the pixel style and the 2D games from that era still look top notch. Most of the conventions presented in them have also remained the same, so you can pick any of them up and instantly feel at home. When it comes to 3D, the developers had to invent the whole way of presenting and interacting that did not exist before so a lot of stuff was thrown to a wall to see what actually sticks (and not much of it did in the long run), and I mostly find it an underwhelming chore to pick any of these games up.

I've found that the few pixel 2D games that exist for PS1 generally feel much fresher and playable than their 3D counterparts, with some of them even improving the 2D experience seen with the previous generation of consoles with nice visual tricks seen in arcade titles, while keeping the same pixel perfect look. I personally get much better mileage out of these games.