Sam's video game collection essentials

If you’ve read a lot of my earlier blog posts, you’ll remember that Capcom was a name that came up a LOT. They were one of the greatest and most prolific developers for a couple decades starting in the 1980s. I think of them, Konami, Nintendo and Sega as the “big four” developers of that era who were incredibly prolific and made great games for a variety of different genres. Capcom really made a name for themselves making arcade games first and foremost. Of course, they made a habit of porting their biggest arcade titles to then-current home consoles. One problem, though, was that home consoles almost always lagged behind the power of arcade cabinets until the end of the ‘90s. Therefore, home versions of arcade games were almost always compromised at least a little bit. As home consoles caught up by the turn of the millennium, more and more companies started getting into the habit of releasing these compilations of their arcade games which were more direct conversions and close to perf...

The previous SoulCalibur had made a huge splash in the late ‘90s, first hitting arcades in 1998 and then being one of the most notable Dreamcast games in 1999. The weapons-based fighter from Namco was easy to pick up and play, difficult to master, and had tons of polish, and the Dreamcast release was one of the most critically-acclaimed games of all time. You can read more about that game in my blog post about it. https://samsessentials.blogspot.com/2025/05/collection-essentials-466-soulcalibur-dc.html Namco was, of course, going to make a sequel. And they were smart enough not to seriously mess with the very strong foundation of SoulCalibur 1. Those familiar with the gameplay of SoulCalibur 1 will feel right at home, as the basic buttons are the same. Tweaks were made to the gameplay as certain mechanics were refined, but I don’t need to go into detail about that here. What they did do is give the game a fresh coat of paint to make it feel (what was at the time) “next-gen”. The graphi...

Here’s the fifth of the five new Tales games released in the series’ most prolific period of 37 months. This time we get another fully-3D game, with not only graphics in 3D but combat taking place in a 3D area as well. (By the way, after that prolific period, there would even be ANOTHER Tales game released a year later, a full remake of Tales of Destiny made for the PS2…but that one won’t be making this list, as in my opinion it’s just not very good) The protagonist this time is a teenage boy named Luke, and he’s a little different than you might expect from a JRPG like this. Luke comes from a royal family, the nephew of the current king. He’s a sheltered and pampered kid, so he initially comes off as a real brat. At the start of the game, Luke is with his teacher who is embarking on a mission when a woman shows up who tries to kill the teacher. Her attempt is unsuccessful, and some mysterious power flings Luke and the woman into the distance. The two of them aim to venture back so Luk...

Even more Tales, huh? Yeah, and this isn’t even the last one. In an incredibly prolific stretch, within just three years and one month, Namco released FIVE completely new Tales games. Legendia released just eight months after the previous game, Rebirth. The development schedules for these games largely overlapped, and Namco was big enough that they were able to have slightly different teams working on each one. For Legendia in particular, some members of their fighting game division that made hits like Tekken and SoulCalibur were dedicated to Legendia. It’s really impressive that all five of these games in this stretch were all quite good. Legendia’s story feels pretty familiar. You play as Senel Coolidge, who is very protective of his sister Shirley. And of course, Shirley is viewed by other groups as some sort of “chosen one” and keeps getting kidnapped, giving Senel the drive to pursue her along with the friends he makes along the way. The world of Legendia is largely covered in wat...

Just because Tales of Symphonia was in full 3D and on the GameCube doesn’t necessarily mean that such trends would be the entire future of Tales. Indeed, the next entry would be another PS2 exclusive, and be another one with mostly 2D graphics. Tales of Rebirth tells a story that is largely about racism. This topic had been touched upon a bit in the previous entry, Symphonia, but they decided to take it to another level this time. The game features two primary races, the “Human” (which are basically normal humans) and the “Gajuma” (who are like humanoid anthropomorphized versions of various animals). Sometimes Huma and Gajuma get along, but there are various times and places where this has not been the case. The game starts with an anime cutscene portraying the death of a king, who in his final moments unleashes a power which causes various Huma in the world to gain the power of “Force”, which…actually, come to think of it, sort of does resemble “The Force” from Star Wars a little bit....

Now we have the fourth major entry in Namco’s JRPG series, “Tales of”. This is the first one in the series to be a direct sequel to a previous entry, as the pattern before had been creating a brand new world and independent story with each entry. This led to some confusion, because the third Tales game on PS1 had been renamed “Tales of Destiny II” for its American release. However, the real Tales of Destiny 2 only ever got released in Japan, so the majority of the confusion that could have happened was avoided despite the tragic fate of English-speaking fans not getting this game in their own language. The events of this game take place nearly two decades after those of the first Tales of Destiny. This time, the protagonist is Kyle, the son of the previous game’s hero Stahn. The game’s story sounds pretty typical for a JRPG. Early in the game, Kyle meets a mysterious girl, gets tangled up with both a nasty powerful bad guy who did something horrible to his father and also an evil clerg...

The arcade rhythm game genre took off with a vengeance in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, thanks in large part to Konami and their variety of popular rhythm games which included the very popular Dance Dance Revolution. It’s no surprise that other prominent arcade developers threw their hat into the ring. Namco was one of them, and in 2001 they introduced what would become a popular long-running series called “Taiko no Tatsujin”.  These games are based on a type of Japanese drum called a taiko. Taiko no Tatsujin arcade machines are easily recognized by featuring two fairly large taiko drum controllers along with two drumsticks each for players to whack the drums with. Gameplay generally involves hitting the drum in correspondence to red and blue notes scrolling across the screen when they reach a certain point, which is done in some kind of rhythm with the song being played. For red notes, you have to hit the large center of the drum, while for blue notes the outer rim of the drum mu...

I’ve talked about Street Fighter before, as well as Street Fighter Collection specifically. This time we don’t merely have a Street Fighter Collection, we have a Street Fighter ANNIVERSARY Collection!! Well, unfortunately the names of these compilations don’t do a very good job at all of communicating what’s actually in the package. You can imagine that they contain multiple Street Fighter games, but there are quite a few of those. Do either of these have all the Street Fighter games that existed at the time of release? Heck no!  Okay, that’s a pretty negative way to start this write-up, but I don’t mean to say that I think Street Fighter Anniversary Collection is bad or anything. If I thought it was, it wouldn’t be here. What this collection DOES contain is two games, which doesn’t sound like much, but they are two very good games that were worth porting to this general of consoles. The first is called “Hyper Street Fighter II”, which is yet another version of the smash hit Stree...

“Mascot platformers” were quite a fad in the ‘90s, after the success of Mario and Sonic. The trend was still alive in the early 2000s, as the PlayStation 2 had its share of very popular 3D platformers. In fact, you might be surprised that I haven’t mentioned any of them yet. This includes games like “Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy”, which was a fairly standard 3D platformer that got sequels that were a little more mature and took some inspiration from other titles like Grand Theft Auto. Another popular series was “Ratchet & Clank” which featured a lot of different weapons to blow up the opposition with. And of course, there’s the Sly Cooper trilogy. These games were advertised all over when the PS2 was in its prime. I had interest in them, but by the time I actually got a PS2, there were other games that were a higher priority. The platformers just kept falling down on the to-play list, for years and years, so I never played any of them in their prime. When I finally sat do...

Persona 3 was a surprisingly successful late PS2 game. And even though the PS2 was already a little long in the tooth, Atlus decided that they had to follow up with another PS2 Persona, which would be one of the very last significant exclusive releases on the platform. Persona 4 follows pretty much the same gameplay structure as Persona 3, with a calendar-based progression where the player must decide on two actions per day to “pass the time” with. Not surprisingly, “social links” return in which the player can bond with certain characters which will allow them to fuse stronger personas. This game takes it a little further by adding certain extra benefits to certain other social links, making them even more enticing. The vibe of Persona 4 is quite different from 3’s, as this time they made it more upbeat, with the main featured color being a bright yellow as opposed to 3’s dark blue. The music is a big part of this difference too. Like 3, the game features many songs with vocals sung i...

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Megami Tensei series has seen a number of side games and spinoffs throughout the years. Some of those became their own sub-series, even. One of those, Persona, wound up becoming so popular that it exceeded the success of its parent series! I can’t think of too many other instances of that happening. Persona games are turn-based RPGs like regular Megami Tensei. What sets it apart is that the games always feature a team of high-school students who discover that they each have a being called a “persona” (supposedly a manifestation of their inner self) which they can summon to use special powers, usually in battle. The main characters of these games is always a “silent protagonist” and has the ability to obtain a very wide variety of personas rather than just one, and there is a special place they can go to “fuse” multiple personas together to make newer, stronger ones. As you can see, this is the third installment in the series (though it’s technica...