PlayStation Classics begin to appear on PSN

Retro classics from PlayStation’s past have begun to appear on the platform’s store in Asia. Games like Abe’s Oddysee, Worms Armageddon and Ridge Racer 2 will be available to download when the service launches over the coming months.

And along with the leak of these previously unannounced games, some features of the classic games have also been revealed. And it’s bad news for trophy hunters.

The good news is that for PlayStation fans without a PC, you’ll be getting a pretty good service – potentially at no extra cost.

PlayStation of the Past

The games, which also includes Worm’s World Party, were discovered by Resetera user Brokenswiftie. Features will include the ability to Quicksave, upscaling and a CRT filter.

Despite the fact that Syphon Filter supports trophies, this will not be universal. The leak has seemingly revealed that retro games will not be forced to have trophy support. So none of the games above will include achievements.

But as a console-based solution for emulation, it’s not bad. It will get you better looking games and a host of supporting features too.

No further details have been released about what games will be supported, nor which others will support trophies.

Descriptions also hint at potential online play – a regular feature for some PC emulators. Although at this point, it’s not confirmed whether that is true, or if it’s a copy and paste job from the Steam descriptions.

Reaction

This is good news for PlayStation fans, and, depending how much you love your retro games, may be worth the additional subscription tier to get involved.

On the other hand, you might not need to pay at all. PlayStation have already confirmed that if you owned the game in the PS3 era via the store, then you’ll be able to get the enhanced version at no extra cost. Which is actually surprisingly fair. Considering it was linked to a subscription tier, it felt optimistic to think the biggest fans would be rewarded for their long-term support.

Naturally these will only become available as they come to the service. So it doesn’t matter how many times you own Metal Gear Solid. Unless it’s on the subscription service, you don’t get it either way. Which is a shame, but I guess, like Xbox, there is an emulation layer that needs to be tested. That means these are technically new releases, which means you have to hunt down the rights holders.

This is a bit disappointing, but not the end of the world. That’s the nature of modern re-releases. And the pay off is probably worth it.

Games will be available to buy individually too, and each of the leaked games above have a different price point. Expect to pay as much for Final Fantasy VII as you would for the remaster, and then less depending on the nostalgia of the game. Spyro could be seven quid, Kula World could be half that.

Conclusion

Finally, I keep talking about this being a great solution for console gamers. And I believe that is true. If you have a PC though, it’s not doing a lot that you can’t already do. And beyond just PS1 and PSP, but across the whole range of retro consoles. Plus, Retroachievements.

I wanted the PlayStation solution to be a nice alternative to PC emulation. Trophies were a nice part of that. But that won’t be a universal thing, and time will tell how that works out.

But for now, this is relatively impressive, and hopefully will become moreso before launch. Either way, I am willing to be won over.