One day when I was a child, we found someone selling a bunch of second-hand PS1 games in Friday Souq for less than 5 LYD (That's around $3.8.) In a previous post I touched about why PS1 games were so cheap in Libya in early 2000's, but this deal was too cheap even compared to that.
These disks were used ones and the seller warned us that they might not work anymore. But it was still a good deal because of how many they were. (I forgot the number of them but they were more than 10 disks, maybe 20.)
So looking at the amazing cover art of these disks, I convinced my father to buy them for me, and impatiently waited until I return home to try them.
So when I returned home, I powered up the PS1 and began trying the games one by one with my brother.
The majority of them didn't work!
What the seller said was true. Some disks were damaged. Some of them had fingerprints on them, (we used to wash those to clean them.) Some of them didn't progress past the first "loading" screen.
I don't remember the names of most of them. One of them had Pacman on the cover. But two of these disks were burned in my memory because of their cover art. The first being MegaMan Legends 2, (with its superior japanese "Rockman Dash 2" cover art.) The other is One Piece Grand Battle. I didn't know anything about One Piece until years later, but the cover of the disk was gorgeous!
Megaman & Roll!
I kept those disks even though they didn't work (kept them with my other working disks for years until I eventually lost them.) I played both of these games with emulators years later.
One of the disks that actually worked was Rival Schools! It was a flashy fighting game with anime styled characters full of personality!
Rival Schools team attacks!
I liked Rival Schools so much and I still remember the times I played matches with my brother and cousins even though we all sucked at the game. For a while I thought the game was better than Tekken 3! (I don't think so now.)
Another game that worked was Martian Gothic, that game gave me creeps and nightmares (that was before I played Resident Evil games.) There was another disk that worked besides these two but I don't remember its name. Maybe it wasn't memorable enough for me to recall over a decade and half later.
Martian Gothic's creepy enemies...
I don't remember how I felt about my purchase but I think I was disappointed since most of the games didn't work. If you ask me now, however, I'll say it was worth it, only for the two awesome covers of One Piece and Mega Man, and the fun time I had with Rival Schools!
And that was another fun memory I had with PlayStation 1.
What do you think?
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- Cover image is made using this public domain PS1 image with games covers taken from gamefaqs. Mega Man Legends screenshot is taken from here. Rival Schools image is taken from here. Martian Gothic image is taken from here.