I had a PlayStation when I was a kid. There were so many games that I looked at when I was a child with no money, and while I got to play many of the cult classic titles (like all the Final Fantasy games) there were so many that I couldn't play, or didn't play.

Having spent some time going through the extensive library of PlayStation games, I've put together a wish list of things that I would like to play at some point in the future.

Vagrant Story

I'm starting with this because I actually owned a copy of this game, but it was far too sophisticated for me. Way too complex, and I just didn't get it. Age has matured me, and it is the sort of thing that I know that I would now thoroughly enjoy.

Everyone talks about this incredible weapon crafting system where you can unique weapons for different situations, kind of like a medieval fantasy version of crafting in modern games. I've heard it's really mature and political - not your typical "save the world" story - and that's intriguing. I keep seeing people compare it to Game of Thrones in terms of its political intrigue, but I know that if I do play this, I'll be devoting a lot of concentration to it.

Parasite Eve

Why am I going to first talk about the "The 3rd Birthday"? - because it was a PSP title that was a spiritual successor to the Parasite Eve series, and that series is Parasite Eve.

I've been fascinated by how people describe Parasite Eve - it's like if someone took Resident Evil but added RPG elements before anyone thought that was even possible to merge genres. The setting sounds incredible - New York City during Christmas, but everything's gone horribly wrong.

Genetic mutants that aren't the Grinch ruining Christmas, in a game made by Square? Yes, please.

Wild Arms

I've had a work colleague previously rant about how good his feelings of nostalgia are for Wild Arms.

A JRPG but set it in the Wild West with magic and ancient technology. I don't really need to know more about the game beyond that. Its graphics are the classic 2D sprites, and with some 3D battle sequences that have a similar visual style to the original Final Fantasy.

Xenogears

Xenogears intimidates me a little because everyone talks about how deep and philosophical it is, but that's exactly why I want to try it. The way people describe it, it's like this massive story about religion, psychology, and giant robots all mixed together. I've heard there's something about the second disc being different from the first due to budget issues, but fans still consider it one of the greatest stories ever told in a video game.

I remember seeing my High School Art Teacher play this game (in the class room nonetheless) and I marvelled at its presentation.

Final Fantasy Tactics

I am now, as an adult, a person who truly understands how turn based tactics and strategy games work, and when I was younger, I did not. (Unless you count Fire Emblem on the GBA when I was a little bit older).

The way people describe building their teams and discovering different job combinations sounds so satisfying. And apparently, the story is super political and dark - way more than you'd expect from a Final Fantasy game - though they've been drifting that way for a while now.

Dino Crisis

This is one where I am judging a book by its cover. The cover art is cool, and the concept is cool, too. Survival horror with dinosaurs, from a time when Jurassic Park was a ... major thing.

But in terms of game play, the idea of "Resident Evil with dinosaurs" sounds like some savage fun. People keep sharing these clips where you're being hunted by Velocraptors in this facility, and it looks terrifying in the best way possible. I've heard the dinosaurs are actually smart and work together to hunt you, which sounds like early Half-Life style AI.

Ghost in the Shell

Even though I'm not moderately familiar with the anime, the idea of controlling one of those spider tank things from Ghost in the Shell sounds like a blast. People say it really captured the cyberpunk feel of the series, and I love that it tried something different instead of just making a standard action game. The wall-climbing mechanics people talk about sound way ahead of their time. It sounds like an ancient version of Titan Fall 2, but with a darker, more Japanese, cyberpunk setting.

So will I ever play these?

Through the wonders of contemporary emulation, it will be a trivial task to obtain these titles for play, and I think I own digital copies of several of these games on my PlayStation 3 (with its PS1 backwards compatibility) - and probably had copies of several that I never got around to playing on the PSP with its ability to play PlayStation games, too.

I really do want to play these at some point, but I still have a very... long and exhaustive list of Steam Games to get through, not to count my physical collection Switch, PlayStation 3, 4, and 5 games. Then there's a bunch of Xbox exclusives ... so... maybe?

What are your PS1 must-plays?