Playstation Classic
Sony underestimates THE Power of Playstation
This month we give our official verdict on the Playstation Classic, stack blocks with Tetris Effect and play through the Spyro and Toki remasters
When Sony first announced its entry into the retro plug-andplay field, we got the sense that it could be a monster hit that could provide serious competition to Nintendo’s NES Mini and SNES Mini – after all, the Playstation is one of the most popular consoles ever. Unfortunately, first impressions can sometimes be misleading and the Playstation Classic is a device that has the capacity to underwhelm in many areas.
Externally at least, the Playstation Classic is lovely. The miniaturised console is a cute replica of the iconic machine, and clearly shows attention to detail – even the raised bumps on the disc lid are present. The buttons are all functional, with the open button for the disc tray used to change discs in certain games. The controllers feel perfect to hold and play with as they’re highly accurate to the original, and you get two with the machine which is always nice. There’s been some disappointment that Dualshock controllers aren’t included, but though we’d have loved to have revisited that famous Psycho Mantis scene in Metal Gear Solid, most of the games just don’t support Dualshock meaningfully.
The games list is pretty strong. The selection does a solid job of providing mass appeal, historical representation and variety. You’ve got third-party hits, some key first-party releases and some oddities which seem to be there to provide genre balance (we’re looking at you, Rainbow Six). Although Cool Boarders 2 feels significantly worse post-tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Battle Arena Toshinden is probably best left as a fond memory, most of the games still play quite well today. There’s plenty of lasting value thanks to the likes of Final Fantasy VII and Persona, and games you may have missed like Intelligent Qube can surprise you with their quality.
It’s worth briefly addressing the games that aren’t included. Like most plug-and-play consoles, Japan also
gets a different list of games. While we’re big fans of some of the games on the Japanese machine (Drew was particularly upset that we didn’t get Armored Core), the international list clearly resonates better with its target audience. The bigger problem is what’s missing from both versions. It might well be impossible to create a list of 20 games that people would agree on as a definitive representation of the hardware, and nobody could realistically have expected to see Gran Turismo due to its heavy use of licensed cars. But iconic Playstation brands like Tomb Raider and Crash Bandicoot don’t make it in, and that will upset some.
Unfortunately, regardless of whether or not you like the games included, the Playstation Classic does not represent them well. Between the hardware and the emulator used (PCSX REARMED), the games just don’t run as well as they should – some visual effects are inaccurately represented and we noticed slowdown in games that previously didn’t have any, including a particularly nasty drop in Jumping Flash when the music reached its end and restarted. Compounding the problem, nine of the 20 games included are 50Hz PAL versions, which run slower than the original NTSC versions (though mercifully, the characteristic black borders have been cropped off). You might not notice if you’re used to PAL games, but we felt that something was off after just a short while with Tekken 3, having recently played the NTSC version. The decision to include these inferior versions is baffling, especially since the console is being sold like this outside of the traditional PAL territories. We’d be curious to see if this issue affects the Japanese version, too – we’d assume that the need for Japanese language support in games like Resident Evil: Director’s Cut would prevent it.
The problems continue with video output. Although the Playstation Classic outputs 720p video over HDMI, image quality suffers from a blurry filter – and you’re stuck with it, since there are no video options at all. Standard features such as borders, scanlines and even the ability to change the aspect ratio are all absent. In fact, beyond the virtual memory cards (one for each game) and the ability to create a ‘suspend point’ by hitting the reset button, there’s not much to mess with in the console’s menu. That’s a shame, because time has clearly been spent on creating a theme that matches the old console’s internal menu.
If you don’t care too much about playing the games as intended, the Playstation Classic does the job. It’s certainly possible to have fun with the machine as the line-up of games is mostly very good, and you’d struggle to replicate it for the same price (even without the obscenely expensive
Persona included). But Sony’s previous attempts at Playstation support on the PS2, PS3 and PSP/VITA don’t have the performance problems of the Classic, and generally offer more video output options. We’d imagine many of you still have access to those systems, and of course you’d get to pick your own line-up of games, so they’re a better option for Playstation nostalgia. As a result, the Playstation Classic can only really be recommended to the more casual retro gamer, and that’s a real shame.
In a nutshell
The Playstation Classic offers a variety of good games at an attractive price, but can’t match Nintendo’s miniature offerings for polish – or even previous Playstation support from Sony, for that matter.