#Strangest PlayStation video games ever made – Destructoid

Drained that the pursuit for realism and graphical constancy has pushed most huge funds video games these days to play and look the identical? There’s a very good, if peculiar, resolution to your woes!

It’s time to dive deep into the huge library of PlayStation consoles, which I consider is liable for the creation of the weirdest, most creative, and typically simply plain creepiest video games ever made.

Mister Mosquito (PS2)

After Steel Gear Strong made stealth video games a factor in a single day, it was solely a matter of time till they bought bizarre. In 2001, we bought Mister Mosquito, a stealth sport the place you performed as a Mosquito whose mission was to suck blood out of a household with out getting seen.

Mister Mosquito was very bizarre, even when not being lewd, which it typically was. I by no means completed Mister Mosquito as a result of the novelty wore off reasonably shortly for me. Nonetheless, I’ll always remember anticipating one thing akin to an precise simulator, solely to search out myself piloting a mosquito that behaved like a Mecha from an anime sport, thrusters and concentrating on techniques included.

LSD: Dream Emulator (PS1)

Although it’s one of many older titles on this record, LSD stays the go to sport each time somebody mentions peak PlayStation video games weirdness. I perceive why, as you’ll have a tough time taking a screenshot that doesn’t really feel like an image taken straight out of a dream.

Curiously, nevertheless, LSD is barely a sport. There aren’t any aims, challenges or perhaps a plot to talk of. It’s much less like rescuing the princess from the citadel, extra like a chill journey by way of the Home windows 95 screensaver museum. It doesn’t get extra distinctive than this.

Katamari Damacy (PS2)

A easy means of describing Katamari Damacy is as “that sport the place you roll all the things right into a ball”. However, as quickly as you’re carried out speaking, somebody will go “all the things? Like, I’m fairly positive you’ll be able to’t seize the solar”. That smartass is unsuitable.

In Katamari, we play as The Prince. We’re tasked by King Of All Cosmos with, effectively, rolling all the things right into a ball. We begin off small, then, because the ball will get larger with all of the stuff it has picked up, we acquire the power to seize ever-larger objects. Katamari Damacy is bizarre, humorous, straightforward to understand, and likewise a fantastically harmless showcase of the PlayStation 2’s energy.

Noby Noby Boy (PS3)

When you discovered Katamari Damacy bizarre, nothing can put together you for Noby Noby Boy.

Controls-wise, Noby Noby Boy is so simple as it’s unusual. You play as a kind of animal with a face on each ends of its physique. This animal eats objects to achieve the power to stretch from each ends to an unbelievable measurement. Having gamers use the left and proper analog sticks to make every respective facet develop was a seemingly intuitive design selection, although it doesn’t actually make the sport any much less complicated.

Gamers are used to solely controlling one character at a time, and Noby Noby Boy has you embodying two gigantic twizzlers on the similar time.

And, even with all that, I’ve but to say probably the most peculiar half about Noby Noby Boy. Although it seems like some other kid-friendly platformer the place you’re simply supposed to avoid wasting the world, Noby Noby Boy had galaxy-spanning ambitions. You see, Noby Noby Boy’s girlfriend wasn’t in one other citadel, she was on one other planet.

Noby’s goal was rising to the purpose of reaching his girlfriend throughout the celebrities, so the sport recorded each single inch grown by each single participant and added it to a grand whole. As soon as the grand whole of all Nobys on the Web had grown lengthy sufficient to permeate the space between them, then Noby would have reached its objective. And guess what? It completely did solely six years after the sport’s launch. Sadly, this lovely experiment in progress and cooperation has been delisted from the PlayStation Retailer.

Vib Ribbon (PS1)

Upon first look, it’s clear that you are able to do weirder and extra minimalistic than Vib Ribbon relating to graphics, however the gameplay is up there as effectively. Vib Ribbon combines parts of side-scrolling with these of a rythm sport. Gamers are strolling on a treadmill that can convey obstacles primarily based on the depth of the sport’s soundtrack.

The unique Xbox bought a number of deserved love by permitting you to play no matter soundtrack over your video games, however Vib Ribbon did it first — and with a twist. You possibly can amp up or decrease the sport’s issue by getting the Vib Ribbon CD out of the console and changing it with no matter music CD of your selection. This gave gamers the possibility not solely to have their desired soundtrack, however to even have it affect the sport itself.

Kula World (PS1)

The unique PlayStation was the console that actually bought the ball working for 3D graphics, and Kula World reveals that in probably the most literal of the way. You play as a seaside ball because it absolutely navigates and flips over floating 3D labyrinths to search out keys and get to the following degree. It’s a platformer like no different. The closest comparability I can consider is Fez if Fez had been carried out over ten years prior, and in 3D.

It additionally had a fairly neat and ethereal soundtrack. An inferior model of Kula World would simply dominate the cellular gaming panorama had it been launched later, however this fashion it has the honour of being the unusual sport about being a seaside ball that was forward of its time.

Tecmo’s Deception: Invitation to Darkness

“James Bond villain” is a time period usually related to wealthy guys in possession of a lair of kinds crammed with all kinds of lethal devices he’d gladly use in opposition to the great guys. In most motion pictures and video games, we are inclined to go in opposition to the James Bond villain-type man. That, nevertheless, is just not the case in Tecmo’s Deception. Right here, we play not because the hero, not because the precise villain, however because the villain’s worker who’s tasked with making the lair as harmful as doable to stop adventurers from breaking in.

Being unhealthy offers some distinctive enjoyable in a sport that sadly didn’t spawn a whole style .

Unimaginable Disaster (PS1)

So far as simplicity goes, you’ll have a tough time beating Unimaginable Disaster. Many of the sport’s many challenges don’t require gamers do extra than simply hit the identical button repeatedly – assume the torture from Steel Gear Strong, however (even) funnier.

Nonetheless, simplicity doesn’t equate to normalcy, and the setting of Unimaginable Disaster undoubtedly doesn’t, both. It tells the story of a hopefully very particular cut-off date for a Japanese household the place each member is coping with trials, tribulations, and freak accidents worthy of a PG-13 model of Last Vacation spot. It has been a very long time, however I’m nonetheless onerous pressed to consider a sport that made child me snigger as a lot as this one.

Kowloon’s Gate

Within the now-gone Kowloon Walled Metropolis, a comparatively small place in China which illegally grew into most densely-populated metropolis in historical past, Kowloon’s Gate discovered one of the crucial mesmerizing settings within the historical past of gaming.

Kowloon’s Gate’s easy plot of getting to search out various magical symbols to avoid wasting the world is shortly forgotten as quickly as we start to marvel on the eerily superb visuals of cutscenes and the sport’s areas.

When you’re searching for a sport able to making you are feeling such as you’re visiting a doomed techno megalopolis within the ’90s, then that is the one for you.

Storage: Unhealthy Dream Journey (PS1)

In my view, Storage is the holy grail of unusual horror video games. And, if Kowloon’s Gate bought you curious about the topic of Kowloon, then you must undoubtedly strive it out.

Whereas it performs roughly like a basic level & click on journey in a fantastical setting primarily based on Kowloon, all the things appears intentionally far more obtuse than it wanted to be. Storage takes the technology-meets-hell visuals seen in Kowloon’s Gate to unimaginable heights, and provides an infinitely disturbing plot that I’d actually have a tough time describing right here.

The historical past of Storage is nearly as attention-grabbing as the sport itself. It solely got here out in Japan within the late ’90s in a launch so restricted that Storage grew to become a factor of fantasy shortly after launch. For twenty years, many thought Storage was a sport made up by Web trolls to idiot individuals, however somebody was fortunate sufficient to search out an precise copy and put the entire thing on-line to show its existence. It was solely in 2022, 23 years after its authentic launch, that Storage noticed an English language launch which you can now play on Steam.