What are your Top Five PlayStation 2 games?

One of my favorite generations:

Socom 1/2
Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal
Toca Racer Driver 2/3
Fight Night Round 2
Manhunt

Sly Cooper
God of War 2
Katamari Damacy
Black
Mr Mosquito
Gran Turismo 3
NHL 2k3
GTA: Vice City
Ace Combat 4
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence
Ico
Shadow of the Colossus
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
Taiko Drum Master

Sky Odyssey
Spider-Man 2
 
Where's Forbidden Siren, huh?

New Yorker Girlfriend GIF
Its in my top 10 :messenger_beaming:
 
Jak and Dexter
God of War

Cant even name a top 3. I enjoyed more games but only these stand out for me.
I owned all platforms back then. GC was my favorite and I was playing the multi plats on Xbox.
 
God of War 2
Metal Gear Solid 3
Final Fantasy XII
Shadow of the Colossus
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria

Surprised to see all the Final Fantasy XII love. It was hard to find big fans of it back in 2006.
 
Xenosaga Trilogy

I know I cheated. What I love about this trilogy is that each game has a different battle system. I love all three battle systems but the second one is my favorite. The third game battle system is a close second. The story across all three games is gripping and full of twists. The cast were are memorable and had a lot of hidden depth to them. The villians were scary and had interesting motivations. Graphically, I thought all three games were fantastic. My only issue is with the second game, for some weird reason they decided to go the ultra realistic route when it came to the facial designs on their characters. Episode 3 has the best graphics with the best OST. Overall these games were fantastic. If I ever get the chance, I want to replay these games someday. It's the spiritual successor to Xenogears I've always wanted

Odin Sphere

The first Vanillaware game I played. Action RPG combat is addicting and fun. I spend a lot of time grinding my characters to Level 99. I loved the use of food and how it could help you (It's been so long since I played it that I forgot exactly what food does in the game other than healing you) Graphically, looks fantastic with detailed sprites that have lot of animation. The backgrounds are really beautiful too. The OST is really good and memorable. My characters battle animations and enemies battle animations are detailed and fast. It's one of the best looking games on the PS2. The cast are all fantastic and have interesting plots. The first plot line, I especially loved due to the romance being well written. I was able to get the true ending. I have to play the remake someday

Star Ocean 3 Till the End of Time

Yes I know, there's that twist in the story that everyone hates. I didn't mind the twist but I don't play Star Ocean for the story or characters. This is the first Star Ocean I have played and beaten. It still has my favorite Item Creation system. I loved the mechanic of putting money in and how time is a factor in the Creation of your Item. It just was different from the other games in this regard when it comes to Item Creation. People hated this but I loved it. Another gameplay aspect I loved was the battle system, especially MP death. If your MP goes down to 0, you die. But the same happens to your enemies and you can use that against them too. It was an interesting mechanic that made the game more challenging and fun. This was another mechanic people hated about this game. I still think this game looks great. I love how detailed the environments look. I especially how well the characters translate to 3D. The enemies and bosses look fantastic too. As with every Star Ocean game, I always have loved the OST due to how distinctive certain tracks are. This is another one I want to replay someday

Ar tonelico II Melody of Metafalica

Despite the translation issues, this game has one of the best stories in a JRPG I have experienced. The setting is one of my favorites in videogames and I'm not just talking about the second game but the first and third game since they take place in the same universe. The lore is deep and really unique. The characters are all interesting but I especially am a huge fan of all the love interest that MC can pursue. They are all interesting. I only pursued one of the love interest and she had a very dark side that was surprising to see. She ended up being one of my favorites in the game. I'm a big fan of the diving game you can do with your love interest. Whenever you start doing those, they are set up like a visual novel. It's a interesting concept that's a lot of fun. I love the use of songs in the battle system and having to protect the singers. It's a really unique battle system and a lot of fun. I like how even though there's random battles, in the field there's a bar that shows how many random battles there are left til it fully depletes and once it's fully depleted you can explore the area at your own pace without having to worry about enemies showing up. I wish more JRPGs would use this feature if they go the random battle route. Graphically I like the 2D/3D style of the backgrounds mixed in with the sprites. The animation during battle and outside of battle are fun to watch. I especially like the character portraits that accompany each scene. This game has some top tier WAIFUs especially. As for the music, the whole franchise is based around music and man this OST deliver. The music is melodic and stays stuck in my head for days. I loved how they used lot of singing voices in the OST. Really great stuff here. When I played it back than the game did have a game breaking bug. One of the last bosses did an attack that they would do after a certain amount of turns has passed. The issue is that it would freeze the game to the point that I would have to reset the game and redo that boss fight. I was able to beat him before he did that attack. Despite that this game is fantastic

Tales of the Abyss

I'm not as big of a Tales fan as other gamers. Abyss has the best story and best cast in the franchise. The story had some great twists and I really liked how unique each of my party members personalities are. Luke character development is one of my favorites in the genre. Let's just say he starts out as someone you heavily dislike to someone who grow to be a decent person. The romance that slowly blooms between Tear and Luke is for me one of the best written romance in the genre. Each of the party members were actually great and I still remember them to this day. This is by far the best cast in a Tales game so far. And the character designs for each of the cast is memorable. Graphically, it did a good job with the environments and characters. The battle system was fast and responsive. Music was really good too. I wish we got a sequel

Runner Ups

Suikoden III/Suikoden V


This was hard to choose between the two because I love both equally. The third game is the first Suikoden I ever played. The third game had lot of issues but I loved the Trinity System and the characters. The story and cast for both games were fantastic and I loved recruiting all 108 Stars of Destiny. Just recruiting characters and going back to your headquarters, seeing how much progress has been made in making your headquarters into massive complex with a ton of people is fun and rewarding to see. Graphically both games look good especially the fifth game. Both games have good OST. I kind of wished that we got a direct sequel to Suikoden III since everything past that game is a prequel. They left it on a cliffhanger

Persona 4

Persona 3 FES is what got me into that type of JRPG. While I think Persona 3 has the better story, Persona 4 has the best cast in the franchise. The standouts for me is Adachi, Kanji and Naoto. Especially love the romance between Kanji and Naoto. The story had an interesting mystery behind it and the twists actually surprised me. The music as with every Persona has a style to it and has you humming along to it. Graphically, it looked great and I really liked how colorful things looked. Battle system is addicting too. I liked the social links in this one. Overall a fun memorable experience

Okami

One of the first adventure games I played. The 2D watercolor graphics are beautiful and are some of the best on PS2. The action was a lot of fun and I loved to use the paint brush to destroy enemies. I really loved exploring the world. The music was fantastic. The story and cast was a lot of fun. I loved playing as a wolf


The reason why it's mostly JRPGs is because the PS2 is when I started to play more games. I wasn't really good at games other than JRPGs. Even with PS1 JRPGs I had issues completing alot of them. It wasn't until the PS2 when I started to get better at completing videogames. It's why I have such a fondness for the PS2 Era. I've been playing Shadow Hearts for the first time on an PS2 Emulator and man it is fantastic and reminds me so much of what I miss from that era. Games made with passion that don't hold your hand with gripping stories and memorable characters. My plan for this year on the emulation front is to play more games from that era. I especially want to get into other JRPGs I missed during that era and also play games outside of that genre like the first two God of War games
 
No order:

Tales of Destiny Director's Cut
Tales of Rebirth
Metal Gear Solid 2 - Sons of Liberty
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3
Okami
 
1. Rez
2. GTA III Vice City
3. Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance II
4. Final Fantasy X
5. SSX3

I didn't count RE4 because that is truly a Gamecube game.
PS2 is such a bad system. It was hard for me to come up with those 5.
Xbox has all the great Sega games, Halo 1 and 2, KOTOR, Jade Empire.
BG: DA2 is better on Xbox, as is SSX3. Vice City is better on Xbox, altho it came out much later.
 
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Not a very memorable era of gaming for me as it had probably the shittiest hockey games I can remember. I wont even put one in my top 5.

Gran Turismo 3 (didnt like GT4. Driving felt stiff and the music was worse than 3)
Ace Combat 4
TM Black
NFL 2k4 and 2k5
GoW 1 and 2
 
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