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Since launching 20 years ago, what's your favorite PlayStation memory ?

Too many good memories. Ridiculous amounts of demo discs, repeatedly playing the THPS demo and G-Police demo. The beast that I became in Tekken 3. GTA 1, 2, and 3. Endless drunken evenings playing 4-player Mashed with friends and shit talking throughout, Polar warf! Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance 1&2. I could go on

PS1/PS2 eras destroy every other era of gaming for me.
 
Can i give you a hug? ;(

Sure!

Everything is obviously much better now, but when you are like, 12, parents splitting up can be so massive.

I'm a dad myself now, and I actually have little memories with my daughter of my own, now. Skylanders, Child of Light, and she likes to stay up and watch me play Zelda games, like I used to with my dad.
 
Lead up to Psone launch.
Marveling at the pics on magazines, Ridge Racer, Zero Divide, Tohshinden and a bunch of obscure japanese games.

Driving to a place 1hr from where i live to grab an import japanese unit on launch day, for an absolutely outrageous price (something like 750$).

Frying the console the very instant i tried connecting it to a wall plug at home, getting a replacement the next day and frying that one too in a matter of hours by using it on a bed with the blanket obstructing all bottom air vents...got a second replacement ("man, you really aren't lucky with these..you got two faulty units..")

Having to use the open tray + pencil trick to make PAL games work on a Japanese console.

I was 18, and there was something special about videogames and obscure import videogames especially.
 
By far, it was playing FFVII during my wife's pregnancy and after my first daughter was born. I was a young dad, so holding my daughter in my arms late at night while playing FF so my wife could get some sleep left a lasting impression on me...

This is also why SE can sck one for the swift kick in the nuts they gave me again, a few weeks ago at PSX
 
oh so many, apart from the usual (mgs, ff7, tekken, etc):

figuring out what to do in the japanese only adventure mode of tobal no2

and playing bushido blade 2 matches for hours
 
Resident mother f'ing Evil!!! Survival horror has not captured me as much as RE back in the day. The memories!!! The chills!!!! =D
 
I remember the day my friend got a PSX (Launch day). We sat and played the Destruction Derby demo for hours and hours. I'll never forget the excitement and awe.
 
PS2 was my first playstation console and I got Jack and Dexter with it. Used to play a lot with my friends, switch controller everytime one dies. We were playing it on 15" CRT TV and it was so much fun.
 
For me it has to be gran turismo 2

i think it was the first game where the concept of time went out the window and it nearly cost me my first year at college. I could sit there for hours and hours setting laps trying to beat my brothers ghosts.

Honourable mention to pes4, 5 and 6 just fantastic memories playing that game. It had a cult like following in uni. Every night would begin with pes and most nights finished with pes
 
Wipeout - first game I got and blew my mind. The branding and the art style was totally fresh like nothing I'd seen before. E.g. the redbull sponsorship!

And the soundtrack.

And the gameplay...divine.
 
FF7.
My dad rented it, we didnt have a memory card.
I played upto when we leave Midgar, got destroyed by the snake in the desert.

We went out and bought a memory card, and FF7 soon after.

My parents started having some bad fights. and my sisters and I would sit in my room and I'd play FF7 while they fought. We played the whole game this way, and I remember not wanting to beat the game, because my parents were still going through that rough patch.

Eventually I discovered all the side missions, like killing the Weapons, and raising chocobos, so we did that for awhile.
It was interesting, and challenging, but eventually everything was done, except for the damn Crater.

I popped the game in one night, all of us determined to finish it, when we heard a loud bang in the kitchen.

Long story short, Mom and Dad split up that night, and it took a few months for all of us 3 kids to be together again.

When we got together, though, after just chilling out, my older sister told me I had to beat the game now.

So we did.

Mom and Dad never got back together, my mom ended up stealing my little sister and myself, and we travelled all over Canada and America(We are Canadian), and eventually I ended up in Australia. I see my sisters every few years, we still talk online and through skype a lot.

But thanks to FF7 we found out a few things we all had in common. My sisters now play games themselves, albeit waaay less than I do, but its something we can still talk about.

What a touching, and bittersweet story. Thanks so much for sharing.

Edit: I realized I never answered the OP... Legend of Mana was, and still is, my favorite Playstation experience. It was such an oddball unfocused cluster of adventures with the PERFECT art style. It's one of the most gorgeous hand drawn games I've ever played and it is the epitome of 240p sprite based graphics. I mean, just check out this art style:

locale4.jpg

Legend_of_Mana_battle.jpg

gfs_50597_2_1824.jpg

locale3.jpg


Big mention also goes to Soul Blade. I'm playing Soul Blade pretty regularly.
 
Just the PS1 in general. It was a great machine with a fantastic selection of games and managed to pull me away from the PC in a similar way as the snes did. The best PlayStation by far.
 
Playing a freshly unwrapped copy of Final Fantasy VII in my room on Christmas Day, 1997. With the cold and crisp night outside my windows. Surrounded by sweets and chocolate and Christmas dinner leftovers.

That was pretty nice.


Playing Journey from start to finish in one sitting in 2012.

That was pretty nice.
 
Putting Lik-Sang out of business
#PlaystationMemories

Huh. You've made me realise that despite owning every Playstation console and handheld, and despite being a PS+ member, I fucking hate Sony. My strongest 'Playstation Memories' are:

Watching the PS1 kill the Saturn :(
Watching the PS2 kill the Dreamcast :(
Watching Sony kill Lik-Sang :(

My fourth will probably be the look of hurt and betrayal in the eyes of the Vita as Sony slowly strangle what little life remains in it after an existence marked with abandonment and neglect.

Fuck Playstation :(

#PlaystationEnemies
 
Mine is when my best friend brought his TV and PS1 to my house over Winter break and we played Tomb Raider 1 side by side till the end. Took us like 4 straight days.

That is my fondest memory of the PS1.
 
Hearing that boot up sound when i was a kid gave me chills still does a little now.

Playing FFVIII for 10 hours straight during holidays

Taking 50 attempts to beat M.Bison on six stars in SFA 3

Playing Resident Evil 3 at midnight giving my self nightmares in the process
 
1- Going into space on FF8

2- Figuring out how to reach Hanzaki in Bushido Blade

3- Finishing MGS3 in my first playthrough
 
Imma break it down console by console. The games that defined the PlayStation consoles for me

PS1 -

MGS1
Vagrant Story
FF9
Tenchu 2


PS2-

San Andrea
GOW 1, 2
MGS 2, 3, mind blowing narratives the sucked me in
ICO
DMC3
True Crime - Streets of LA

PSP

Locoroco
Chains of Olympus


PS3
MGS4
Uncharted 1,2,3
Infamous
Battlefield BC2
COD 4
Deus Ex HR
The Last of Us

Vita

Gravity Rush

LONG LIVE PLAYSTATION
 
Playing Dantes Inferno, I really loved that game unlike everyone else on this planet that seemed to have hated it :(

Sony needs to get this game and release part 2.
 
There are a lot, but finishing Journey and right after recieving message from stranger thanking me that I stayed with them for the whole game was the fondest, I mean damn.
 
Unexpectedly getting a PlayStation for Christmas in 97. The demo disc that came with it gave me hours upon hours of entertainment (Tomba, Blasto and Einhänder). Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus and Crash Bandicoot 2 were my first games, which sparked my love for their respective series.

For my birthday in 2001, I was yet again surprised with a Gran Turismo 3 PS2 bundle. For some reason my mom made me pay for it. To this day I don't understand why, but I had the money from working that summer. That night I spent hours playing GT3 and Twisted Metal: Black.
 
Burning entire days on Red Alert for PS1. The first RTS I had ever played, the first game I bought for a console I actually owned, I couldn't get enough.

With some G Police on the side.
 
Playing RE1 for the first time, scared shitless. And the Syphon Filter demo, running around Georgia Street tazing everyone in sight until they burst into flames. Burning bodies falling off buildings. Bliss.
 
A long time ago my cousin and I played RE1 together on PS1. As children, the story and puzzle elements amazed us! But, being dumb kids we didn't realize that we needed a memory card. Rather than not face a gameover, we left the PS1 on... and together we devised a plan to get a memory card! Now, you see, my cousin's parents were strict - they had no idea that we were playing such a violent game. Furthermore, they didn't allow my cousin to own video games, so he would come to my place to play them. Anyway, we convinced his mother, who only knew of anything game related merely as "a Nintendo" to purchase a PS1 memory card for us while we were out shopping. We told her that it was a battery pack for my remote control car. Later that night, the PS1 was still running RE1 and we were able to save our game and eventually beat the game over the weekend (as Jill)!

Several years ago, my cousin died of cancer; however, a few months before his passing we did reminisce about RE1 over some small talk involving video games. He only seemed to remember the dog crashing through the window! Man, those were good times, probably my favorite playstation memory.
 
Crash Bandicoot, Hercules, Chefs Luv Shack and some random dingy demo disc with my cousin. Some of the best memories I have of my childhood.
 
I remember GTA III taking off and everyone playing it. All the kids in school were talking about their exploits for weeks after release. Even Vice City and San Andreas didn't monopolise the conversation to that extent. I'd maybe put the first Mortal Kombat as being equally dominant but I don't remember any one game managing it before or since.
 
Seeing Grandia, the sega saturn game I had wanted so much, that sega had failed me on, sitting on a shop shelf in english, released without me even knowing. Bringing it home and playing it, with it living up to all the hopes and dreams I had for it.
 
What gave me so special?

Diversity:

ParappaTheRapper
Tekken
Resident Evil
BUSHIDO Blade
FinalFAntasy
VibRibbon
EinHänder
BraveFencerMusashinden
Klonoa
SoulEdge
TimeCrisis
Suikoden
GranTurismo

Almost every genre was covered
New genres were born
A real New era of gaming

There's so less diversity and choice nowadays
 
the boot screen, followed by the "doot, doot, doot, doot do doot, doot, doot, doot, doot do doot" and the konami logo popping up when I first fired up MGS.
 
I was very late to the Playstation family; maybe in 2007 I bought a PS2. Couldn't have made a better decision, aside from maybe buy a PS2 earlier.

My best memory was playing Metal Gear Solid 1, 2 and 3 all in the same summer. One big glorious, delicious gulp. MGS1 is still, to this day, incredibly playable and mindblowing.

The runner up would have to be Persona 3 FES, which I crashed through in a week. I had never done that before and never since. Not even Persona 4 could do it for me in the same way.

One last memory was when I wanted to try the PS1 after reading about it in EGM, so I rented a system and bought a Greatest Hits version of Final Fantasy VII. The system barely functioned, and I didn't have a memory card. Didn't care. I turned it upside down and played as much of Final Fantasy VII as I could handle. It was amazing and precious. I made it to the section where Cloud is remembering his past with Sephiroth and my mind melted with how well the game was paced and the quality of the plot.
 
Doom on the PSX was my first exposure to Doom, deathmatch, and PlayStation. A friend of my Dad's had them and we would play whenever I would visit. I got a PlayStation with Doom for my next birthday after that and we would set up both PlayStations with a link cable and their own TV to play deathmatch. I was 8 years old. It was seriously a great way to experience all that. Very fond memories.

 
Final Fantasy VIII.

First Final Fantasy I experienced, still remember when I first saw the opening CG I thought that they were real people for a moment there. It was a Jaw-dropping moment for me.
 
I have good memories with Playstation

Buying one for Street Fighter Alpha and discovering a new game called Resident Evil.

Playing FF7 and show it off at the college's D&D club, met a person here who became my best friend ever since.

Discovering MGS with that new friend ;)

Make him fall in love with an import game called Gran Turismo.

It was like discovering games all over again as an adult.
 
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