Highlights From My PS3 Backlog Part 1

For the past year or so especially, I’ve been making a focused effort to clear out my PS3 backlog. When I first started, I had a list of over forty games to either play through or decide to retire for good which I did end up doing for a few of them. I recently hit a big milestone of only having twenty games left, so I thought now would be a good time to reflect on some of my favorite games I’ve played as part of this long term project. I regularly enjoy playing older games each year and despite my best intentions, I don’t tend to blog about them often so I’m pretty excited to share my thoughts here.

Before I get into it, I thought it’d be fun to quickly share a little bit about how I approached tackling my PS3 backlog. I first tackled my PS+ games since I don’t own them so Ducktales, which I finished back in December 2023, and Tokyo Jungle, which I didn’t end up finishing, were my first two games. I had a few games in my PS3 backlog that would require me to play some games on my Vita first, so after also wrapping up my PS+ backlog there back in the Summer of 2024, I went to tackle those next. I didn’t end up vibing with the older Persona games sadly, but I did play and finish Breath of Fire III which I will talk about later on in this blog since this is a good opportunity. At the same time I was tackling the Vita games, I set out to play the PS3 games I figured I wouldn’t be too hot on. Since I thought this project would likely take two years or longer, I wanted to first weed out games I’d likely cross off the list (Time and Eternity was one for example because despite visually looking kind of cool that game is miserable to play lol) as well as get through stuff that I did want to finish that stunk (like the Neptunia games) while my enthusiasm was high. I remembered I put my final Wii and Wii U games off for so long in part because I didn’t save games I wanted to play to the end. This cut my list down more quickly too ultimately which made the project less daunting. Once I got down to the last thirty, I noticed I had an unfortunate mix of three RPGs to only two games in other genres (with some fudging by including action RPGs in the latter lol). My strategy from here to the end is to tackle the remaining games in sets of five that I decide from the remaining games after I finish each set. The goal is to not make that ratio worse and to space out the games and sequels from the same publishers and franchises. I still allow myself some flexibility to push games around so I think it’s been going well. I think that covers it, so let’s get properly into it, here are the first set of highlights from my PS3 backlog!

Atelier Rorona Plus

I mentioned my approach to tackling my PS3 backlog upfront because it took a few months after I really started focusing on it before I played my first truly great game as part of it, Atelier Rorona Plus, and it currently still stands as my favorite so far. I’ve picked up various Atelier games over the years and started but never got very far in any of them. As an RPG fan and since I liked Gust’s other games like Blue Reflection and Ar Tonelico (well minus the awful third one lol), I figured I’d have a decent shot at liking the Atelier series especially since the usual basic premise of a young girl discovering alchemy and making a career out of it always seemed interesting. Part of what always discouraged me from determinedly tackling the Atelier games is that, for the ones I briefly played at least, there appeared to be a major focus on meeting strict deadlines which I found off putting because I’ve found I’ve gotten choice paralysis in other games that featured them. I thus never had given Atelier a serious shot and now I’m so glad I finally did.

​Atelier Rorona Plus is a game about managing deadlines, but rather than being about managing strict deadlines, it is actually about seeing how much you can achieve during long set windows of time. The premise of the game is that Rorona’s alchemy instructor has put her entirely in charge of running her atelier after the kingdom rules it will be determining if it is allowed to remain open depending on how well the atelier can perform across twelve tasks in three years. Essentially then you’ll be given a basic task, like crafting medicine, and the goal is often to then craft as much medicine as possible and at as high a grade as possible in a ninety day window all while managing other tasks like exploring more of the world and completing jobs for individual citizens. Simply completing the main goal of a given window is easy then, so it’s about doing as many victory laps as possible afterwards while completing whatever goals you then decide for yourself. The game gives you enough information and does a good job guiding you so that you’ll never overextend yourself provided you plan properly. I especially enjoyed exploring the world and opening it up as parts of it were story restricted and others were blocked off by needing to craft more tools like better bombs. The combat system is solid turn based fun as you can see combat order in advance and react accordingly. A majority of enemies you can tackle well enough with just your party, but then for the extra tough monsters your alchemy creations will often make the difference. If I had one complaint, I did wish the game was less event based and more structured than it was, but the general thrust of the story of Rorona becoming more confident and finding her place in her town hit well. While I still haven’t tackled it yet, I’m looking forward to finally playing Atelier Totori, the sequel, as part of my PS3 backlog in the near future since I loved Rorona so much.

Breath of Fire III

So technically I played Breath of Fire III on Vita with the PSP port, but it was in service of playing Breath of Fire IV on my PS3 (which I’m playing now!) and I’m not sure when else I’d get to talk about it, so I’m doing it here! My brother growing up had Breath of Fire on the Super Nintendo and while I tried playing it a few times growing up, it wasn’t until a few years ago when I was working through my Wii U Virtual Console backlog that I finally played both Breath of Fire and for the first time at all its sequel. The first Breath of Fire is a pretty basic RPG and is really most notable for having a guy that can turn into a dragon as the main character which is pretty awesome. I never knew anything about the second Breath of Fire at all before I played it and while it still prominently featured a guy who awesomely could turn into a dragon it also had this obsession with…toilets…like a distractingly wrong amount. Every town had toilets, there was a character you could recruit in the bathroom, and toilets even regularly and heavily featured in the plot including a secret toilet elevator in a castle and two(!) separate toilet dungeons. It was a far better game than the original, but darn it was weird.

It was with that strange context, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from Breath of Fire III, a game I similarly had never heard really anything about walking in. Breath of Fire III ended up being my favorite one yet and the first I felt pretty positive on all around. What struck me up front is that despite being much more modest, it channeled some Mega Man Legends Saturday morning cartoon energy with its art style and humor, even though it is ultimately a more dark and serious adventure than Mega Man. There is a great sense of adventure here (even when the story becomes more narrowly focused in the back half) and I dug the cast much more than the prior games since everyone had their chances to shine and since you could talk to them regularly when you’d stop to make camp to save and rest up on the world map. When I played through it, I dug my strategies regularly evolved over the course of the adventure as I continued to learn new skills like new Dragon forms for Ryu and Rei’s Weretiger berserker form which you can direct with the proper set up. Breath of Fire III thankfully wasn’t unforgettably weird for the wrong reasons like the prior game and I’m glad I checked it out because I had a great time playing through it.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

For the longest time, my experience with Metal Gear Solid was limited to the original PS1 game which I first played fifteen years ago with one of my friends from high school, Revengeance which was too incredible to skip, and the two Metal Gear Solid Vs which I also enjoyed. I had also played well over a decade ago now the Tanker portion of Metal Gear Solid 2, but not much at all of the main game featuring Raiden for whatever reason. I was excited then here to replay the Tanker portion of the game, which was a big leap forward over the original Metal Gear Solid in terms of gameplay and presentation yet is similar in tone with Snake as the main character, and then finally see what Raiden’s story was about. I had heard about MGS2 being the weird entry of the series, but I definitely wasn’t prepared for how strange parts of it were with some of the bosses like the vampire and the bomb guy who rolls around on roller skates before getting into the really wild stuff.

I enjoyed the stealth game in this playthrough much more than MGS1 and over my first encounter with MGS2. I think having more games under my belt helped me to better appreciate and make use of the variety of tools and abilities both Snake and Raiden have. While I didn’t care about the number of deaths I took to do so, I had a good time “perfecting” rooms as much as possible. I was really impressed in particular despite the Big Shell having a seemingly basic design of two hexagon shaped structures, exactly how much variety it would offer in itself and as challenges were thrown on top of it like bridges collapsing and sections flooding. I definitely didn’t think walking in that I’d be remiss that you actually don’t visit all of it during the course of the game. I think what’s most going to stick with me was the big story twist regarding the colonel melting down and the aim of the patriots. As the game essentially predicted, the world is becoming more cruel and faceless with the advent of the internet, how online communities behave, and even things like where AI is flooding the world with junk. Yet the final message of the game, delivered by Snake, is hopeful because he feels it is up to the people to fight for what matters most despite the direction the world is heading in.

Shin Megami Tensei Digital Devil Saga

I’ve picked up a handful of Shin Megami Tensei and Atlus games over the years and while there are some I’ve enjoyed, some I only briefly dabbled in and others I’ve retired for good. A big point of pain is regularly Atlus’ combat systems which I don’t always vibe with and sometimes actively dislike. In the past year in particular, I decided I had little interest in engaging with Persona and Persona 2 after seriously trying them for a few hours each so I was kind of nervous I wouldn’t like Digital Devil Saga. While the story of the game is sadly thin despite the cool premise and world, here I found perhaps my favorite Atlus game to actually play which is good since the majority of the experience is dungeon crawling. Digital Devil Saga features the Press Turn system common in many Atlus games at this point, but it stands out by having a fun character growth system with clear and decisive rewards, presenting more choices in battle than just “hit the weak point” (which is still important of course), and fairly engaging resource management. I’m glad it didn’t feature demon fusion and instant game over if your leader dies, which I have mixed feelings about at least from the Atlus games I’ve played so far. I’m looking forward to playing the sequel in the next few months.

Gran Turismo 6

The first PlayStation 2 game I ever had was Gran Turismo 3 which came with the console. I liked the game a lot, but when I was so young I didn’t really understand the game nor did I necessarily want to brake around every corner lol. I didn’t vibe with Gran Turismo 4 much and when it first came out, I didn’t put much time into Gran Turismo 6 either, but I kept it in my backlog since I wanted to give it a proper shot. Gran Turismo 6 is perhaps my second favorite game I’ve played in my backlog so far. I didn’t expect it to sort of tap into my love of RPGs with buying and upgrading my cars (though it’s often either a little too basic or too in depth which is annoying) and since I knew what to expect walking in and have been driving in real life for years now, I had a much better mindset to approach Gran Turismo on its own terms and I had a lot of fun! The game is very rigid and unforgiving in many ways which makes properly learning how to best navigate each turn and getting gold medals all the more satisfying. There are a ton of cars and tracks in the game and though it is a bit annoying the game seems to favor a handful of tracks more than the others, I enjoyed all the variety nonetheless. When I started Gran Turismo 6, I wasn’t sure at all how much I was going to play and I was wondering if I’d hit a wall at some point, so I’m really glad I both managed to hit credits and had such a great time.

Sly 2: Band of Thieves

I played the first Sly briefly in elementary school once thanks to a friend and when the HD collection came out, I think I played the original in full soon enough, but I didn’t get very far in the sequel for whatever reason. I started a fresh save and found the first level kind of boring, but as I kept playing, I definitely got into the groove of tackling the smaller challenges that would build up to the big heist. I didn’t realize I liked the characters all that much until a midgame twist sees Sly and Murray captured and Bently has to then break them out of prison which was also incidentally one of the best levels to explore as it was densely laid out and had enjoyable verticality. The core gameplay that feels like a more basic Assassin’s Creed in some ways is pretty solid and I appreciated the variety of challenges as the game continued. While I may not be as wild on Sly as I was on Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank, by the time I was done I wish I had played this one sooner. I’m looking forward to wrapping up the original series soon.

Suikoden II

I played the first Suikoden game for the first time earlier this year and had a good time, so I was looking forward to playing the sequel and decided to play it a little earlier than first planned. I was really intrigued by Suikoden II as it has such a legendary reputation and while I’ll cut to the chase and say I don’t think it quite lived up to that for me, I did have a very good time. The gameplay surprised me by largely being very similar to the first game with a few tweaks and QOL bumps. The combat is a little too basic as normal attacks and the occasional Unite move will help you get through normal encounters just fine and bosses will then melt under your saved up spells. Yet the pace of the game moves well as a result and I do dig it gives you good flexibility to bring your favorite characters in and feel comfortable to bring in members who have been sitting on the bench for a while. Like the first game, I became hooked on Suikoden II the moment you unlock your castle because it is so cool to see it become bigger and better as the story advances and as you continue to recruit more of the 108 Stars of Destiny who expand its function. One thing I did enjoy more than its predecessor were that the strategy battles now resemble Fire Emblem rather than the clear rock, paper, scissors battles in the original. Sadly, I do mean it when I say they resemble Fire Emblem as they heavily rely on luck and there are very few you actually play to the extent I was regularly calling it Vibes Emblem. The story was definitely the sharpest jump over the original Suikoden as it plays for keeps with a truly monstrous villain who delights in razing towns. The moment to moment writing hit harder, a lot of the big character moments landed well, and even the humor sprinkled in was often good fun. I really enjoyed more characters than I expected had returned from the prior game and I can definitely see why when Trails was first starting it got regularly compared to Suikoden. After really enjoying Suikoden II, I’m definitely looking forward to playing the third game soon!

OverBlood

Until now, all of the games I’ve written about in this blog I’d consider good games. Well, OverBlood is not a good game, but I had a blast finally playing it so I’m certainly considering it a highlight. I first encountered OverBlood watching Game Informer’s Replay series and was one of the commenters back then encouraging them to play the full game which they gloriously did after their first time playing it swiftly ended in a game over. I had shown the Super Replay to many of my friends and one of them got me a copy of the game on Amazon for a few cents as either a birthday or Christmas present. While I dabbled with it when I got it and even did some commentary on the Replay Live episode that featured it when I interned at Game Informer, it wasn’t until a few weeks ago I started increasingly kicking around beating it as a bonus game for my PS3 backlog. With determination to beat it, more experience with tank controls, knowledge from seeing it played in full before, and a guide handy for the more opaque parts, I flew through OverBlood with little fuss. Combat is super easy for the most part as your health refills after every encounter and most of the enemies go down easily with your basic punching combo as it locks them in place. I was thus able to save all of my ammo and healing items for the final three fights which made them not too difficult either. The biggest danger is the one hit kill traps and interactions that are not always immediately obvious especially as some of the ones that function sort of like quick time events actually change the behavior of your button controls. The runaway trolley in particular accounted for two of my three deaths during the run since I didn’t think crouch would suddenly function as dive to the floor for example.

The real reason to play OverBlood isn’t for the gameplay, but rather because it is extremely goofy. It takes itself fully seriously throughout, with sarcastic comments being the only intended humor in the script, which makes the fact that it is very funny even more so. All of the animations in the game are super silly in both normal gameplay and in cutscenes. The main character, Raz Karcy, is constantly finger gunning, he regularly pushes goofily against invisible walls as he navigates the environment, and anytime he gets hit in combat he gets sent violently flying backwards. Raz is a colossal dork despite I think intended to be something of an everyman especially as he develops such a strong attachment to a robot he names Pipo who dies an hour into the adventure. When Pipo dies Raz says “Don’t leave me Pipo!” before the camera begins to pull back and he shouts “PIPOOOOOO!!!” which is hilarious. Most cutscenes incidentally often feature voice lines that cut off early and some are so distorted you often can’t understand what they were trying to say. Additionally, while I didn’t see any this playthrough outside of the trolley, the instant death cutscenes are super amusing especially as Raz regularly screams at the top of his lungs for them. All of these elements and more really come together to make OverBlood such a fun time. It was even better experiencing some of these elements first hand while playing. In particular, I always got such a big kick out of the crouch walking animations that I’d often find myself taking a break from puzzle solving to laugh from just walking around. While I certainly would not recommend OverBlood on normal merits, the gameplay is clunky and the story is whatever, if you want a very silly, unforgettable bad game that isn’t too intolerable to actually play provided you know about the voice recorder and how crouching works for puzzle solving walking in, it’s hard to top OverBlood.

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Thanks for reading my latest blog! I hope you enjoyed it! I’m planning to write a Part 2 PS3 Backlog Highlights blog either when I finish ten more games on my backlog or when I finish all remaining twenty games so it’ll probably be sometime next year when that will happen. I’ll certainly be blogging again on a different topic before then so keep your eye out! I always enjoy hearing from my readers, so always feel free to reach out to me to share your thoughts! I’m publicly easy to reach these days on Bluesky @justinmikos.bsky.social. Until next time!