I played PS3 when it first came out, and I recall that game being awesome. I rented it several times, and I loved it until PS4 completely destroyed the rest of the series with its greatness.
It was actually PS2 that came off as extremely outdated even by the early 90s standards.
I find it funny how internet has completely changed the reality of how things actually were back in the day, coz I recall PS3 being extremely highly rated back in the day in all of the leading 90s era console gaming magazines.
I saw at least one video that brings this up and he even shows scanned proof that PS3 used to be a very beloved game during that era.
PS3 is actually the highest rated PS game during its era. It's certainly the most original, but PS4 is the most polished product.
it's kinda like how Zelda 2 was really popular when I was a kid, and it was basically Dark Souls before there ever was a Dark Souls, in the sense that both games are just as esoteric & obtuse.
Then the internet hate machine came, and memed Zelda 2 as a shit game when it was loved during the NES era.
Altered Beast is another game which was considered a masterpiece during its era, but gets nothing but shit on by modern day gamers. It's really easy to see which era a person came from just judging from how they regard those 3 games. I've actually always hated Altered Beast, but that game was before my time. I didn't jump on the Genesis bandwagon until it came packaged with Sonic. As a kid, I thought Altered Beast looked gay as fuck coz you play as a bunch of big beefy naked White dudes who turn into bigger, beefier naked monsters, AYY LMAO! Do not want! With Sonic, I just saw the commercial on tv advertising The Genesis with the Sonic teh Hedgeheg pack-in, I turned to my mom and told her "Buy me that for christmas!" and they actually did. CRAZY!
As for Phatnasty Star, only 4 & 1 really stood the test of time and are still fun to play today.
PS2 is extremely overrated, every time I try to beat that game in the modern era, I always quit coz the dungeon design is so damn confusing and it doesn't help that there's a lot of foreground objects that get in your way.
PS2 was ahead of its time back in the 1980s, and I remember how futuristic it looked back when I saw the commercials on tv as a kid. I think a lot of PS2's nostalgia came from how PS2 was marketed, and how unique it was within the Western gaming market during that era. Most of us have never heard of, or even know what a Rpg was. I don't even think the term Jrpg was around yet despite Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star, Final Fantasy & Megami Tensei all existing back in the mid 80s.
PS2 was less esoteric to gamers back then coz everyone who bought a PS2 copy had a huge guidebook that came packed in with it, which came with maps for every dungeon. You had to actually game along side with the guide book since the last few levels are near impossible to traverse without some kind of meta-material like a guidebook & map guiding you.
PS1's levels were simple enough that you could just graph the entire map out due to how the entire dungeon can be cartographed by hand, piece by piece through blocks.
PS3 is way better than PS2 to me coz the dungeons are a fucking joke for the most part but the fighting is much harder to compensate for the braindead level design. It's not that the level design was braindead, it's more that PS3 had realistically designed dungeons. The caves just look like real life caves, castles look like realistic castle designs whereas in PS2, every single dungeon was some huge randomly designed labyrinth that made no thematic or utilitarian sense at all.
PS3 also started off with a much more interesting hook, although that Blue Hair bitch actually has nothing to do with the plot.
I also think that PS3 has much better music. I don't like that 70s style poprock shit that PS2 had going on at all. Everything sounded happy in PS2, including the fight with mother brain, lol.
PS3 had atmospheric music which sounded like a creeping evil.
Modern gamers always claim that the battle music is the ugliest song they ever heard but I love it, because it sounds so EVIL!
Especially the part that starts at :33 seconds. I prefer that type of music over the happy bullshit that was in every single battle of PS2.
Those are such awesome visuals but it's ruined by the peppery pop music, AYY LMAO!
Thankfully PS4 got it right with the most badass final boss Jrpg song of all time. Or one of the most badass.
I like how the boss songs starts out as this evil & depressing PS3 style shit, but then it turns into a full blown heavy metal song once the final boss takes the form of Mother Brain lol.
I can see why PS2 fans were so pissed with PS3 coz PS2 ended with this awesome cliffhanger, battle to the death against Earthlings but PS3 seems to be set in this alternate reality medival fantasy world until it's later revealed that the entire game is set on space ships with its own ecosystem that escaped the genocide of PS2.
For its era, PS3 was interesting due to the multiple time lines & multiple endings.
PS4 was the most generic anime game, but it's also the best designed PS game and pretty much Genesis's answer to Chorno Trigger. I still play PS4. Chrono Trigger I try, but that game is so easy & the plot is ultimately not that interesting. The music & graphics still hold up though. Now sure, PS4's plot isn't that interesting either since it's just another tale of an heroic bloodline fighting against an Evil force. What I think PS4 does much better than Chrono Trigger, is a coming of age story where you see a young boy mature into a man. To the point that even Rune (the Han Solo motherfucker) will acknowledge that you're a man now as you end the game with your 1 yr old Android Catgirl girlfriend (who looks like a grown up late teens early 20s adult) who jumped outside of a fucking spaceship while nearly naked, so you're seeing this naked bitch in the sky screaming "CHAZ!" AYY LMAO!
The absurdity of PS4's plot is just so damn memorable to me. It wasn't a generic fantasy set inside of a Star Wars universe like Phantasy Star 1 was, and it wasn't this extremely depressing nihilistic plot that Phantasy Star 2 & 3 were. PS4 was like a typical anime. Where none of it should make any sense but the incongruous nature of the entire product just fits, and created an identity of its own which far surpasses every Phantasy Star that came before it & after it.
It's weird though coz only PS1 & Ps4 feel like the same Star Wars-inspired universe even though PS2 took place in the same exact solar system as PS1. PS2 & PS3 felt more like a thematically connected Sci-Fi series even though PS2 directly connects to both PS1 & PS4.
