Best Adventure Games on the PS1

Adventure Games are one of the things the PlayStation is genuinely for. The ones worth playing start with Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2.

The PS1 and Adventure Games

The console that made 3D normal and made discs mandatory. Full soundtracks, voice acting and pre-rendered backdrops gave a generation of studios room to invent genres we still play.

This is one of its strengths. RPGs above all — Final Fantasy VII, Xenogears, Suikoden II, Vagrant Story — plus survival horror, which was effectively born here.

Filtering to adventure means the place and the story are what you want back, not the challenge. It is the right filter when the thing you remember is where you were rather than what you did.

The Adventure Games Worth Playing

  1. 1. Final Fantasy VII

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  2. 2. Metal Gear Solid

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  3. 3. Resident Evil 2

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  4. 4. Castlevania Symphony of the Night

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  5. 5. Crash Bandicoot

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  6. 6. Spyro the Dragon

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  7. 7. Silent Hill

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  8. 8. Chrono Cross

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  9. 9. Suikoden II

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  10. 10. Vagrant Story

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  11. 11. Parasite Eve

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  12. 12. Legend of Dragoon

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  13. 13. Tomb Raider

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  14. 14. Xenogears

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  15. 15. Dino Crisis

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  16. 16. MediEvil

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

What Makes a Good Adventure Game

A world with a reason to wander it, and writing that survives being read rather than skipped.

Mechanical depth. Several of the best adventure games have combat that is deliberately unsatisfying, because they want your attention somewhere else.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best adventure game on the PS1?

Final Fantasy VII is the usual first answer, and there are 16 in the library we cover.

Was the PS1 good at adventure games?

Yes — it is one of the things the machine is known for, and there are 16 in the library we cover.

What counts as an adventure game?

Anywhere the story and the place matter more than the skill ceiling — point-and-click, walking sims, narrative thrillers and most open worlds. The label alone tells you very little, which is why each pick here says what it actually is.

Are adventure games long?

They split hard. Open-world adventures run to a hundred hours; the narrative ones are often finishable in an evening, and the short ones are usually the better written.

How is this list put together?

From the games this site covers on the PlayStation, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.

Adventure Games on Other Consoles

More From the PS1

Or browse the whole PlayStation library.