Summary
The PlayStation 2 was a memorable era of gaming for many companies, particularly the two biggest creators of RPGs in the world.Square & Enixwere both massive companies with huge IPs in their own right before they merged to formSquare Enix, a publisher that has continued to be at the forefront of the gaming industry.
This merger took place in April 2003, during the height of the PS2 console. But this didn’t stop the companies, individually and together, from creating some of the most challenging video games of the era. The PlayStation 2 was around at a time when accessibility was beginning to take priority over difficulty in gaming, but that didn’t stop these games from raising the difficulty to surprising levels.
TheStar Oceanseries was one of Enix’s best RPG franchises. Set four hundred years after the second main game in the series,Till The End Of Timewas bold and innovative, choosing real-time combat over the more popular turn-based combat of games at the time. Filled with magic, despite being set in a more science-fiction-based setting, theStar Oceanfranchise is memorable despite there being fewer new releases nowadays,though this one did get a PS4 remaster.
Till The End Of Timewas challenging though. The different styles of combat were harder to balance at the time, and no dedicated healing character made some battles tricky to navigate. With a lot of micromanagement on the tactics of the NPCs in the party, most battles could be won, but this added challenge meant that the game was harder than many other JRPGs of the time.
TheValkyrie Profilefranchise has survived through the decades, withValkyrie Elysiumthe most recent release in 2022. However, the second mainline game in the series was criticized by some for its brutal level of difficulty. Taking place hundreds of years before the original game, and cluttering up the game’s interface, made it difficult to get into it in the first place.
Fortunately, many players braved the challenges, but it was intimidating, especially since there were no difficulty settings available to choose from. Players find themselves having to grind a lot of time for the biggest battles, trying to unlock individual secret weapons that could do incredible things for them. Unfortunately, a lot of players didn’t put in the time investment required to master the challenging combat systems, and it is just one of thegames in the franchise that isn’t readily available today.
One of the strangest JRPG games released for the PlayStation 2,Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song, a remake of the original 1992 game, continued the notable challenge of the franchise. Featuring a strangely non-linear narrative and eight optional protagonists, players were left to go about their own business, exploring the world and completing various goals at their own pace, while the story would move forward depending upon their level and number of objectives completed.
Romancing SaGahad some strange systems for combat, reducing the dependence of players on healing and focusing more on ending fights quickly. This throws a lot of players off, as the attrition-style battles of other JRPGs go out the window quickly. With a steep learning curve and some brutal boss fights,Romancing SaGaremains one of the very hardest PS2 games ever, therecent remaster reminding players of the difficulty.
One of the earlier PS2 titles, Enix developedEndonesiaas an adventure game, quite different from their usual style, in 2001. Though the game wasn’t a high-selling one, it has been well-remembered by some players for the great difficulty that comes with trying to complete it.
Endonesiafeatures a fifth-grader who is transported to an island calledEndonesia, and he has to communicate with each of the island’s fifty Gods to get home. The difficulties withEndonesiawere simple, the controls were hard to get used to and players found themselves confused about where to go often. Though this game has been mostly forgotten, some players won’t soon forget the frustration they were left with.
This major entry in theFinal Fantasyseries isone of the more famous gamesfrom the PlayStation 2 era, being the first MMORPG to offer crossover play between the PS2 and PC. Known as the first MMORPG in the franchise, and remembered for introducing real-time battles to the normally turn-based games,Final Fantasy 11remains one of the most challenging entries the franchise has had.
The high difficulty ofFinal Fantasy 11bosses has been talked about to such a degree that a recent update gave players the option to choose between different levels of difficulty for their boss fights in-game. The endgame content before this update was abnormally tough and required players to build up for many, many hours before they were ready sometimes, leading to some of theproblems players have with the franchise today.
There aren’t too many games, even large-scale RPGs, which come with the disc as well as several guidebooks. Such was the level of exploration of the world’s lore, in addition to the helpful tips needed to get players throughUnlimited Saga. Evoking the style of the earliestSagafranchise games, this entry was a huge shift.
The main issue players found withUnlimited Sagawas simply getting started. The learning curve of this game was one of the hardest for an RPG ever, leading tomany players remembering it unfavorably. The learning curve for combat in this game made a challenge that few players managed to beat.
Shockingly, the hardest of all games by either company on the PlayStation 2 was not an RPG, it was a racing game made by a subsidiary of Square, and it was the company’s first release for the PlayStation 2 console. It was alsointended to be a very realistic driving experience, but this resulted in some severe difficulties.
The challenges of steering and the basic driving controls were considered huge.Driving Emotion Type-Sis a brutal game, one of the hardest the PlayStation 2 ever saw, and despite having been forgotten in favor of other driving sims, it remains a piece of Square Enix history in terms of challenge.
