A big part of the reason why there were so many weird PS1 games was due to the guy in charge of approving funds for games for the PS1 and had a big part in it's creation - this Icelandic guy Olaf Olafsson who is probably Icelands most famous businessman, and who also found the time to write multiple best selling icelandic classic books while at Sony. He basically approved anybody that seemed halfway competent and had a good sense of humor himself. There are so many great weird PS1 games and we wouldn't see that level of imagination until late into the indie boom, and we have olaf to thank for that.
Source? Most of these games weren't published by SCEI and he apparently resigned from Sony in 1996 while all these games were released 1997 or later, so I'd be interested to learn more about his impact on them
@@stripedhyenuh Just from talking to people - I've been in the games industry for a while and worked at CCP (Icelandic company) and knew people who pitched to him - one guy I know was 18 years old with zero experience and took a plane to NYC just to pitch Olaf and ended up with a chunk of money from Sony to hire a team. Not a huge amount (budgets back then were smaller) and he never actually finished the game, but this is just typical of Olafs approach. Apparently for the first wave of PS1 games everything went through him (even if not published by Sony you still need to be approved to be on the console) so even if they came out after he left he still could have approved it - but also he did set a tone so even if it was later he was still influential. This is based on what I've heard, so some facts may be wrong, but there is a unique character to early PSX games, and from what I've heard it's due to someone who didn't know games, was a budding fiction writer, fell into CEO position of the playstation and was winging it on instinct.
I thought I'd post this here, it's from the wikipedia article of him :) : Olafsson began a career at Sony in 1985, where he rose through several positions.[7] In 1991, he founded Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc., and became its first president and chief executive officer. Sony Computer was established as a free-functioning unit of Sony Corporation. Olafsson built and managed its businesses in the United States and Europe.[clarification needed] During his six-year tenure, he directed the worldwide operations of Sony's entertainment software and hardware divisions and was responsible for the creation and launch of the PlayStation console, which would go onto generate major sales and profits for Sony Interactive. However, Olafsson clashed with higher-ups over the PlayStation's pricing as he favoured lower price on the console. The intense feuding caused him to lose support within the company and he was forced to resign in 1996.[8] Olafsson became a member of the board of directors of Advanta Corporation, a specialty finance company, in 1997, and became Advanta's president in March 1998.[9] Olafsson left Advanta in 1999 to join Time Warner as Vice Chairman of Digital Media.[10] He briefly left the company after its merger with AOL, which formed the short-lived AOL Time Warner.[6] He returned at the request of CEO Richard D. Parsons after Time Warner executives reasserted control over the company.[6] He was later given the title of Executive Vice President.[11][12] With the AT&T purchase of Time Warner, Olafsson and several other Time Warner executives left the combined company.[13][14]
There are some weird Dreamcast games. I remember playing a game called Maken X. An obscure first person sword fighting game made by the Shin Megami Tensei team 😂
hey so for some context i believe the characters have dog faces is a reference to the dog Laika which was a dog that was sent into space during the soviet era while people were trying to test what could go into space. Hence also the name! although its pretty tragic what happened to her :(
there is a lot of good poetry that was written about her, even the scientists that put her on the rocket regretted doing that, not that they had too much of a choice though considering the time and place they lived in
Yeah..poor laika was lost during sputnik 2’s fourth orbit after dying of heat stroke.. I feel bad for the scientists because the soviet government forced them to basically seal her fate..
7:30 You might want to check the sRGB space of your monitor, or get checked for colour blindness. That aura is 100% green dominate. According to the color wheel I'm look at it, it's values are roughly Contrast: 50, R 118, G 255, B 55, with a subtractive yellow value of 78, 1/3 of the green value.
Kowloon Gate is actually a perfect candidate for a remaster. From everything you said, it's basically ALL Quality of Life holding it back. Remake/upscale the graphics, probably toss the FMV sections entirely and make the whole thing mobile dungeons with better controls now that the city can look good in-game, add a "Press them?" prompt for where you have to ask more than once, make enemy encounters visible as roaming monsters, and I don't know what made it fail to be horror, but I'm sure shifting the tone wouldn't be that difficult just as part of a visual remaster.
Its a trash game. Even if you can read you would still have to randomly stumble in corners to progress further. Story makes no sense and dialogs whould never told you where to go. Funny enough "dungeon sections" are the place where you can actually feel playing the game.
Tossing the FMV sections is tossing most of the game. It's not as bad as the Internet would have you believe, I had a good time exploring. No masterpiece for sure, but interesting.
This video was incredible, and I have no idea how or why it ended up in my recommended feed; notwithstanding, I fully believe that your channel will succeed if you can tweak the metadata right. Very fun watch.
3:25 - the finger used on the right side of the screen is pulled from the Hobbit (book) it’s the finger pointing to the secret entrance to the lonely mountain.
Crazy enough when I was a kid I remember seeing a Japanese game that felt like a bad acid trip on G4's Cinematech which was a Video game clip show with music playing in the background basically early GMVs and what they were showing that night was Kowloon's Gate or something ether way you just opened up a lost obscure treasure chest form my childhood Thanks.
Wow, somehow you got me going down a little rabbit hole about the walled city of Kowloon. Crazy enough regardless of the living conditions and the rampant crime, a lot of people that lived there look back fondly on it.
For a game from that era, it looks pretty damn good. With this dude having already said that games with far worse graphics have "aged really well," I'm genuinely curious what the hell his graphics standards are, because it doesn't seem consistent.
Such hilarious games, hope you’ll share some more next time. Mind you share the title of the intro bgm? Sounds very cute (Also the first game music as well)
This goes to show that the japanese devs were way ahead of western devs, many indie stuff the hipsters do nowadays were already done in japan since the 80s, i mean there are some wacky stuff on the famicom and the pc engine and even the pc 88 and 89
Turns out Planet Laika was developed by Quintet and co-developed by Zeque. None the less, both PL and Kowloon's Gate look pretty interesting. Such a shame they were never brought to western markets and the companies went under.
I once got a Playstation Underground demo disc which included a Japanese demo that was a combined racing and cooking game. First you had to compete in a race, like Mario Kart, but all the power ups were ingredients. When you got to the finish line, you had to use the ingredients you picked up off the race track to cook something. Everybody I tell about this thinks I am crazy, but I swear this was a real game, I just can't read Japanese so I have no clue what it was called or who made it.
I don't know if you have talked about this game, but as a kid I had a japanese game called Shake Kids that took me some time to understand how to play, it was really weird.
my dad loved tf out of kowloon's gate despite them being bootlegs ahahah a shame the disc don't really work anymore but he did get kowloon's gate suzaku, it's an alright tribute but he was sad that it wasn't actually a full game :'}
Pet in TV sounds a lot like the game Creatures, in the way that you can train an AI to do things, except Pet in TV is in 3D, and you are training the AI to complete objectives. Creatures is more of a life simulation. You can train them to do cool stuff, but you don't have to, they'll figure out how to survive on their own.
Chrono cross is criminally underrated...all the characters you could recruit, the story, the graphics were awesome at the time (I think it used the FF9 engine, also underrated even though, imo it's the second best after 7 of course) I think it was just too long for some people, but I saved up all summer for CC and I definitely got my 60$ worth out of it....I played it all school year, dedicated entire weekends to it, beat it finally, then came back to it with a walkthrough so I could get all the best weapons, items, and characters...I might break out the pi 4 tonight and start a new game...
The first game reminds me of this really obscure platformer where you play as a chicken, that came out near the end of the playstation's life, and it was pretty terrible compared to other games at the time, but the graphics look very similar. Edit: It was called Alfred Chicken.
What was the game in the opening scene of this video? I've been looking and can't find that one anywhere. The only with all the faces and they suck the character dry with their tube like tongues. Interesting and wierd!
Laika was the name of the dog that the Russians shot into space and never retrieved as a test subject for their early space program, so that may have been the influence for the alien dog face thing in that game.
another reason why the era of ps 1 games (and partially ps2) is the best one, where they werre trying to get a game for any genres, even genres that doesn't exist
I would love to get a English translation of Kowloon's Gate, I'm very interested in Kowloon Walled City. Unfortunately it seems that no translation exist.
Story and dialogs makes no sense. Ability to read japanese only adds to frustration. Massive potential of art and visual wasted in a mindblowing scale.
those were definitely wiener monsters comin outta the tv in that last game XD i'm more than a spectator than a player of games, but i appreciate these wild graphics!!
KAWLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN say it right the vibe, the fucking vibe you had to be there on 2nd life say it low, chill, and kinda sleepy, yet sincere kawlooooooooooooon~
Can't think of many great games we got this year, baldur's gate 3 is 1, Armoured Core 6 is another, that is all I can think of at the moment, other then that it's either bland boring or just poor remakes that cost more and gave less or as well just franchises that should of died long ago and are being dragged through the mud. Would be nice to see more new and different games that bring something to the table. Be nice to have more weird and bizarre games like these old Japanese games.
Wow I've never seen any bizarre Japanese PS1 games before in my entire life except Pet in TV. I used to play Pet in TV on Sony PS1 when I was a kid and I also played it on Sony PlayStation 2 when I was a teenager. It was alright for myself but it's kinda average. Sometimes it keeps repeating two songs at the same time and it's kinda very tedious as well. I still like it though. Greetings from Ireland 🇮🇪 By the way Merry Christmas!
If you're wondering who the anime gal in the thumbnail is: Xiaohei (Kowloon's Gate) drawn by shiba hajime.
A big part of the reason why there were so many weird PS1 games was due to the guy in charge of approving funds for games for the PS1 and had a big part in it's creation - this Icelandic guy Olaf Olafsson who is probably Icelands most famous businessman, and who also found the time to write multiple best selling icelandic classic books while at Sony. He basically approved anybody that seemed halfway competent and had a good sense of humor himself. There are so many great weird PS1 games and we wouldn't see that level of imagination until late into the indie boom, and we have olaf to thank for that.
Source? Most of these games weren't published by SCEI and he apparently resigned from Sony in 1996 while all these games were released 1997 or later, so I'd be interested to learn more about his impact on them
@@stripedhyenuh Just from talking to people - I've been in the games industry for a while and worked at CCP (Icelandic company) and knew people who pitched to him - one guy I know was 18 years old with zero experience and took a plane to NYC just to pitch Olaf and ended up with a chunk of money from Sony to hire a team. Not a huge amount (budgets back then were smaller) and he never actually finished the game, but this is just typical of Olafs approach. Apparently for the first wave of PS1 games everything went through him (even if not published by Sony you still need to be approved to be on the console) so even if they came out after he left he still could have approved it - but also he did set a tone so even if it was later he was still influential. This is based on what I've heard, so some facts may be wrong, but there is a unique character to early PSX games, and from what I've heard it's due to someone who didn't know games, was a budding fiction writer, fell into CEO position of the playstation and was winging it on instinct.
wow, this is cool, new information for me!
I thought I'd post this here, it's from the wikipedia article of him :) :
Olafsson began a career at Sony in 1985, where he rose through several positions.[7] In 1991, he founded Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc., and became its first president and chief executive officer. Sony Computer was established as a free-functioning unit of Sony Corporation. Olafsson built and managed its businesses in the United States and Europe.[clarification needed] During his six-year tenure, he directed the worldwide operations of Sony's entertainment software and hardware divisions and was responsible for the creation and launch of the PlayStation console, which would go onto generate major sales and profits for Sony Interactive. However, Olafsson clashed with higher-ups over the PlayStation's pricing as he favoured lower price on the console. The intense feuding caused him to lose support within the company and he was forced to resign in 1996.[8]
Olafsson became a member of the board of directors of Advanta Corporation, a specialty finance company, in 1997, and became Advanta's president in March 1998.[9] Olafsson left Advanta in 1999 to join Time Warner as Vice Chairman of Digital Media.[10] He briefly left the company after its merger with AOL, which formed the short-lived AOL Time Warner.[6] He returned at the request of CEO Richard D. Parsons after Time Warner executives reasserted control over the company.[6] He was later given the title of Executive Vice President.[11][12] With the AT&T purchase of Time Warner, Olafsson and several other Time Warner executives left the combined company.[13][14]
What a nice load of non sense. Get off of internet, kid. Go touch grass and make some friends.
I miss this era of crazy games, PS1, Dreamcast and early PS2 era had some of the most weird games I ever played.
There are some weird Dreamcast games. I remember playing a game called Maken X. An obscure first person sword fighting game made by the Shin Megami Tensei team 😂
agreed, after that it was just a downfall of cod and clones everywhere
The ps1 and ps2 had some hidden gems that sometimes I feel like they're completely forgotten
hey so for some context i believe the characters have dog faces is a reference to the dog Laika which was a dog that was sent into space during the soviet era while people were trying to test what could go into space. Hence also the name! although its pretty tragic what happened to her :(
So its.... doggone?
there is a lot of good poetry that was written about her, even the scientists that put her on the rocket regretted doing that, not that they had too much of a choice though considering the time and place they lived in
Yeah..poor laika was lost during sputnik 2’s fourth orbit after dying of heat stroke.. I feel bad for the scientists because the soviet government forced them to basically seal her fate..
She was a good dog.
Poor hot dog
Playing With Yourself looks like one of those lost media creepypastas
7:30 You might want to check the sRGB space of your monitor, or get checked for colour blindness. That aura is 100% green dominate. According to the color wheel I'm look at it, it's values are roughly Contrast: 50, R 118, G 255, B 55, with a subtractive yellow value of 78, 1/3 of the green value.
0:38 - It still hurts :/
Kowloon Gate is actually a perfect candidate for a remaster. From everything you said, it's basically ALL Quality of Life holding it back. Remake/upscale the graphics, probably toss the FMV sections entirely and make the whole thing mobile dungeons with better controls now that the city can look good in-game, add a "Press them?" prompt for where you have to ask more than once, make enemy encounters visible as roaming monsters, and I don't know what made it fail to be horror, but I'm sure shifting the tone wouldn't be that difficult just as part of a visual remaster.
Its a trash game. Even if you can read you would still have to randomly stumble in corners to progress further. Story makes no sense and dialogs whould never told you where to go. Funny enough "dungeon sections" are the place where you can actually feel playing the game.
Tossing the FMV sections is tossing most of the game.
It's not as bad as the Internet would have you believe, I had a good time exploring. No masterpiece for sure, but interesting.
This video was incredible, and I have no idea how or why it ended up in my recommended feed; notwithstanding, I fully believe that your channel will succeed if you can tweak the metadata right. Very fun watch.
haha same thing i was thinking
"Teaching the game how to play it self." Love that quote.
3:25 - the finger used on the right side of the screen is pulled from the Hobbit (book) it’s the finger pointing to the secret entrance to the lonely mountain.
Crazy enough when I was a kid I remember seeing a Japanese game that felt like a bad acid trip on G4's Cinematech which was a Video game clip show with music playing in the background basically early GMVs and what they were showing that night was Kowloon's Gate or something ether way you just opened up a lost obscure treasure chest form my childhood Thanks.
Wow, I've heard of nearly none of these. Pretty rad, man. Subbed.
That pet in TV game is literally what i do for work as a behavior interventionist
Awesome list, and I'm glad you mentioned Kowloon's Gate, very underrated!
2:19 that scary laugh from the first level of Einhander 🤣🤣
Who is the character in the thumbnail?
Wow, somehow you got me going down a little rabbit hole about the walled city of Kowloon. Crazy enough regardless of the living conditions and the rampant crime, a lot of people that lived there look back fondly on it.
I actually think the low-res FMV might enhance the flavor of a game like Kowloon's Gate. Old resolution for a long-gone city, amirite?
For a game from that era, it looks pretty damn good.
With this dude having already said that games with far worse graphics have "aged really well," I'm genuinely curious what the hell his graphics standards are, because it doesn't seem consistent.
Whats the music that starts at 3:05?
Please answer 😢
It's the intro stage music from the MegaMan Powered Up OST
@@TheGameStan You don't know how much I appreciate your answer thanks 💜💜💜
That AI training game would be a great way to demonstrate the Pavlovian Response in a video game
that game is awesome someone just isn't smart enough to understand it
The ZEQUÉ vignette is amazing lol
Really good video please do a second video on japanese ps1 games
Great video, subbed because I too am waiting for Mega Man Legends 3 that Capcom will never give us.
Always looking for weird games and you provided some. Take my sub!
Such hilarious games, hope you’ll share some more next time. Mind you share the title of the intro bgm? Sounds very cute (Also the first game music as well)
"The Apple Market" and "DASH 2 Demo - Ad" from MegaMan Legends OST
@@TheGameStan I knew it was famliar, the only megaman games I played when I was a kid. Thank you for the reply!
This goes to show that the japanese devs were way ahead of western devs, many indie stuff the hipsters do nowadays were already done in japan since the 80s, i mean there are some wacky stuff on the famicom and the pc engine and even the pc 88 and 89
Turns out Planet Laika was developed by Quintet and co-developed by Zeque. None the less, both PL and Kowloon's Gate look pretty interesting. Such a shame they were never brought to western markets and the companies went under.
What game is the Anime girl from the thumbnail from?
i'd like to know too
@@someonecool8533 clickbait I assume.
I once got a Playstation Underground demo disc which included a Japanese demo that was a combined racing and cooking game. First you had to compete in a race, like Mario Kart, but all the power ups were ingredients. When you got to the finish line, you had to use the ingredients you picked up off the race track to cook something. Everybody I tell about this thinks I am crazy, but I swear this was a real game, I just can't read Japanese so I have no clue what it was called or who made it.
that first game is such an acid trip lol
bro your editing is amazing and content is sick.
Who's the character in the thumbnail?
I think it's the main character of Kowloon's Gate
That's a fanart of Xiaohei , the girl from Kowloon gates .
I will never give up hope for a mega man legends 3, regardless of how unlikely it will be. After all, a suikoden remaster seemed just as impossible
Dude, I can't believe I missed out on Mars Furry Sim in my childhood.
I really like this video! These are some games I've never heard of before and it's cool that you're giving them some attention.
Would like to see AVGN review these games one day.
The PS1 is so great. Pretty much the height of experimental design.
I still remember playing PS1 and PS2 games when I was a kid..man what a good childhood I had.
I don't know if you have talked about this game, but as a kid I had a japanese game called Shake Kids that took me some time to understand how to play, it was really weird.
my dad loved tf out of kowloon's gate despite them being bootlegs ahahah
a shame the disc don't really work anymore but he did get kowloon's gate suzaku, it's an alright tribute but he was sad that it wasn't actually a full game :'}
12:42 Is that Shenmue slander I'm hearing?!
A would pay alot of money for a remaster/remake of Parasite Eve 2, btw happy New Year Mr Stan!!
Congratulations for the new most popular video on your channel 🎉🎉
Bro I know I didn’t finish this but this video is already a banger
MegaMan Legends profile? subscribed
Pet in TV sounds a lot like the game Creatures, in the way that you can train an AI to do things, except Pet in TV is in 3D, and you are training the AI to complete objectives. Creatures is more of a life simulation. You can train them to do cool stuff, but you don't have to, they'll figure out how to survive on their own.
My favourite ps1 games when I was a kid where definitely Teken, Driver, FF7 and Chrono Cross (came before Chrono Trigger on PlayStation)
Chrono cross is criminally underrated...all the characters you could recruit, the story, the graphics were awesome at the time (I think it used the FF9 engine, also underrated even though, imo it's the second best after 7 of course) I think it was just too long for some people, but I saved up all summer for CC and I definitely got my 60$ worth out of it....I played it all school year, dedicated entire weekends to it, beat it finally, then came back to it with a walkthrough so I could get all the best weapons, items, and characters...I might break out the pi 4 tonight and start a new game...
0:50 it is SEGARI ajiri i remember beating this game 6 years ago
What is the music at 1:35 ?
I just watched a documentary on that place in China! One of the craziest places to exist in our modern times. Very interesting
Source for thumbnail girl plz?
I clicked only cause of the thumbnail…
I wasn’t disappointed
What's weird is that the thumbnail looks super familiar for some reason... the art style specifically... was that character from a manga?
@@cyberneticxylem9614 is the girl from the thumbnail related to this video? mind telling me who that is?
@thegrayboxzero That's what I'm trying to figure out. I've seen that art style before I just can't remember if it's from a game or a manga...
@@thegrayboxzero yeah after watching the video it’s one main cast from the.. 2nd to last game listed in the video.
@RazorBladezX Ooooh I see. I appreciate that. it was driving insane because I've seen that character or the art style at least once before.
The first game reminds me of this really obscure platformer where you play as a chicken, that came out near the end of the playstation's life, and it was pretty terrible compared to other games at the time, but the graphics look very similar. Edit: It was called Alfred Chicken.
LSD is one hell of a drug. That first game lmao
What was the first game? The last one?
so @ 2:52 is that piles of poo on the wallpaper?
More PS1 videos please. I love this.
The cow from Segare Ijiri looks like a glimpse into the future for that time (nose pierced Gen Z people) lol
What was the game in the opening scene of this video? I've been looking and can't find that one anywhere. The only with all the faces and they suck the character dry with their tube like tongues. Interesting and wierd!
Laika was the name of the dog that the Russians shot into space and never retrieved as a test subject for their early space program, so that may have been the influence for the alien dog face thing in that game.
Ok but what's the sauce for the thumbnail?
shiba_hajime
9:58 - Good one.
santa san in japan is kernel sanders in a santa suite
7:37 the grapics look like legend of dragoon vibe
Oh for using Nietzsche on MML3, YOU HAVE EARNED MY SUB.... WELL PLAYED, SIR.
Kowloon gate is a good obscure game and im still waiting on the translation
in some different universe, exist the tv show "how i met your mother, the severed cybernetic giraffe head".
another reason why the era of ps 1 games (and partially ps2) is the best one, where they werre trying to get a game for any genres, even genres that doesn't exist
What game was the intro
interesting. I think the Laika in Planet Laika may be a reference to the first dog in space. Thus, the dog faces.
Also, first animal to orbit Earth.
All rockets and tech looks like sci-fi of 60s. And i dont whant to spoil but there IS reason for that.
rip ml3
tyvm for the great video
Great content. Subbed for more.
Wait, what sound does a penguin make?
I would love to get a English translation of Kowloon's Gate, I'm very interested in Kowloon Walled City. Unfortunately it seems that no translation exist.
Story and dialogs makes no sense. Ability to read japanese only adds to frustration. Massive potential of art and visual wasted in a mindblowing scale.
Why did you have to remind me of that Nietzsche quote that he absolutely said about Megaman Legends 3? ;_;
Pet in TV! I really wanted that game when I was 7 and saw it in OPSM.
MegaMan legends series are some of the best games out there
Great video!
"Fur suit, we shooot!" Hehehe! That's the only reason why I'm not touching that Mars game!
Sauce for the girl in thumbnail?
MOVE THE PLAYSTATION LOGO NOW.
I’m SAYING THE SAME
Last one reminds me of deSpiria
those were definitely wiener monsters comin outta the tv in that last game XD i'm more than a spectator than a player of games, but i appreciate these wild graphics!!
Why are so many people talking about kowloon's gate all of a sudden?
How to do you spell these?
What kinda drugs were they on!?
10:24 BOMBS! Don't cry now!
KAWLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
say it right
the vibe, the fucking vibe
you had to be there on 2nd life
say it low, chill, and kinda sleepy, yet sincere kawlooooooooooooon~
Can't think of many great games we got this year, baldur's gate 3 is 1, Armoured Core 6 is another, that is all I can think of at the moment, other then that it's either bland boring or just poor remakes that cost more and gave less or as well just franchises that should of died long ago and are being dragged through the mud. Would be nice to see more new and different games that bring something to the table. Be nice to have more weird and bizarre games like these old Japanese games.
The PlayStation was the best console ever imo.
there is kowloon gate sim in Second Life
Wow I've never seen any bizarre Japanese PS1 games before in my entire life except Pet in TV. I used to play Pet in TV on Sony PS1 when I was a kid and I also played it on Sony PlayStation 2 when I was a teenager. It was alright for myself but it's kinda average. Sometimes it keeps repeating two songs at the same time and it's kinda very tedious as well. I still like it though.
Greetings from Ireland 🇮🇪
By the way Merry Christmas!
I love this weirdo game 🎮 for same reason 🤔 😂
The last two "Japanese" games are Chinese. Maybe you think that resident evil is an American game because your copy is in English.
who is the female character in the thumbnail?
The main character from Kowloon's Gate
Ooh.....
I played some if them on this list. I hated them 😅 it wasn't my cup of tea.
Pepsi Man and Incredible Crisis
Why you gotta hurt me like that, mega man legends is so good.
Who’s the girl in the picture on the thumbnail?