Forgotten PlayStation 1 Games That Revolutionized the Industry

If you've happened to stumble upon Sony's and PlayStation's social media accounts in recent months, you'll have noticed that celebrations for the first PlayStation's 30th anniversary are underway, which also coincide with Sony's thirtieth year in the video game world. Among various posts, Sony hasn't missed the opportunity to recall some of the successful video game sagas that grew big thanks to the first PlayStation, and anyone who's passed a certain number of candles can only confirm that Sony's first console is connected to a series of historic titles that still capture the hearts of millions of players today.

However, the first PlayStation also saw a series of video games that dared to innovate and paved the way for true revolutions in the industry, only to be forgotten by most, with their innovations later attributed to other titles that took the spotlight.

Some of these titles, which we could call “forgotten,” managed to carve out their own space, making them cult classics today, while others are only remembered by developers and their parents—perhaps.

The Revolution of Console Gaming Through New Hardware

A clear example is Ape Escape.
Despite the saga's last title being published in 2011 on PlayStation 3 as a game dedicated to PlayStation Move, and Konami introducing the historic monkeys as additional content in Snake Eater Delta, Sony's saga has now become a cameo to be inserted into other titles, with the consequence that its innovative charge has been forgotten.

The launch of Ape Escape in 1999 marked a crucial moment for console gaming.
Unlike other titles released before it, Ape Escape was unplayable with a standard controller but required the analog sticks of the DualShock.
This necessity pushed the concept of exclusivity beyond just the console, extending it to the hardware possibilities it could offer.
Furthermore, it is precisely thanks to Ape Escape that Sony began to consider the DualShock controller as the new normal, thus leading more and more software houses to develop games that utilized this technology.

But Ape Escape isn't the only game to have made the first PlayStation utilize additional hardware.
Although it didn't have the same impact as Ape Escape, Time Crisis and Point Blank brought the arcade experience into players' homes.
These games were developed to support the light gun, so when they were brought to the PlayStation, they prompted Sony to adapt its console, opening up to the many light guns on the market.

Similarly, with point-and-click and strategy games, their arrival on the first PlayStation with Command and Conquer Red Alert in 1996 led players to grapple with the enormous difficulty of selecting and guiding troops with a controller.

Fortunately, Sony's first console was a technological marvel and had already anticipated the presence of a dedicated mouse at its launch in Japan, which until then had only been used by some FPS games, the progenitor of which was Area 51.
However, despite the hardware already existing, it is to Command and Conquer that we owe the arrival of RTS games on consoles.

Not Just Hardware, But Also New Genres and Revolutionary Mechanics

Limiting ourselves to hardware-related innovations alone would not allow us to discuss the many “forgotten heroes” who silently shaped the world of video games, letting others take the stage later.

The Birth of the 3D Platformer Genre

One of the most iconic cases is Jumping Flash; a name that means nothing to many, yet we are talking about the first 3D platform game with first-person elements.
Released on PlayStation in 1995, Jumping Flash puts us in the shoes of Robbit on his mission to save Crater Planet.

Published by Sony as a PlayStation launch title in Europe and North America, Jumping Flash literally opened the doors to the dominant genre between the second half of the 90s and the early 2000s, however, it is Super Mario 64, released a year later, that is credited with creating the 3D action-platform genre.
The more knowledgeable, however, do not forget Jumping Flash, which also received a Guinness World Record for being the first 3D Platform video game.

The Arrival of Realism in Video Games

Another forgotten hero is Bushido Blade, which in 1997 tried to revolutionize the fighting game genre by introducing a series of mechanics that made the game hyperrealistic.
The game is based on individual melee combat and, unlike other fighting games, it has no health bar or timer.
This decision was made by the creators to ensure that every fight was “to the death,” with the player able to gradually injure the enemy thanks to the “Body Damage System”; a system that allowed different damage to be inflicted on the opponent based on the body part hit and the force of the blow.

The game's enormous realism was also reflected in the length and weight of the various weapons, which influenced the extent of the various blows. The icing on the cake, however, was the ability to defeat the opponent with a single well-aimed blow, exactly as in reality.

Every time you play a title today that allows you to attack enemies in different body parts and cause different damage, you'll know that the credit goes to a small fighting game from '97.

An idea similar to the Body Damage System, but implemented differently, is present in Vagrant Story, a Squaresoft title that blended action and RPG elements, which featured a combat system that allowed players to target specific body parts of enemies to inflict status ailments or reduce their combat capabilities.

This mechanic was later popularized by Fallout with its Aimed Shot first and then with the VATS system.

The Absence of Loading Screens

Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver is certainly not a forgotten game by fans, so much so that it received a remastered arriving at the end of 2024 - and if you don't know what I'm talking about, listen to the Just Play episode about it.

Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver brought two major innovations to the world of video games: the presence of multiple worlds on screen - a technique now used by Split Fiction - and the absence of loading screens.

Legacy Of Kain Soul Reaver unfolds in two different dimensions, which the player can access at any time. The simultaneous presence of two worlds on screen is possible thanks to careful design by the developers, who recreated the spectral world using the living world as a base, already present on screen, and reduced its details and definition, used less defined geometric shapes, and minimized the color palette.

Furthermore, despite being an open world with two dimensions simultaneously on screen, Legacy Of Kain Soul Reaver has no loading screens.
This is because the game uses a continuous data streaming system that loads portions of the game the player is accessing while deleting those just finished.
In short, the game world is structured into hundreds of mini-blocks that load and unload depending on the player's position.

To avoid loading problems, the developers conceived a series of design choices that made this system invisible to players' eyes: corridors or staircases long enough to lose sight of what was behind Raziel, gates and doors to be opened with specific animations, and a verticalization of game areas that allowed lower or upper areas to be hidden.

Although Legacy of Kain is still beloved today, almost no one recognizes the title as the progenitor of these innovations. In fact, the introduction of an open world without loading screens is usually attributed to Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.

PlayStation's Legacy 30 Years Later

These are just some of the games that passed through PlayStation 1 and innovated the world of video games from behind the scenes.

In celebrating PlayStation's 30th anniversary, it's right to fondly remember the sagas that left us with pleasant memories, but it's also important to keep in mind that the industry has been revolutionized by many small gems that had the courage to dare and innovate, laying the foundations for mechanics and genres that later made the fortunes of much more renowned games.

The legacy of these games is proof that innovation is the true engine of the video game industry; an engine that PlayStation started 30 years ago and has never turned off.