Summary
Few mediums are filled with titles as broad and compelling asanime. Just like with any other form of TV, movies, novels, or video games, some titles hit andsome miss, but regardless of what genres and styles viewers are a fan of, there will be an anime out there to meet that need. This style of animation hasn’t just punctuated TV and film from Japan for decades but has also crossed over a fair bit into video games.
Many anime series get some incredibly high-quality adaptions into video game format. Much like the adaptation ofmovies into video games, this is a practice that isn’t as common anymore, but there are still plenty of video games that exist as interactive parallels to arcs and narratives from prolific anime series. Just going back a few console generations, however, reveals a plethora of anime series that found new stories to tell in the video game medium. These PS2-exclusive titlesare some of the best anime adaptions around, and still hold up as excellent games today.
An excellent 3D third-person title with some fairly advanced open-world capabilities considering its 2004 release date,Astro Boyis a title in line with video game giants likeSpyro, though it blends 3D platforming with a greater emphasis on exploration.
Some incredibly intense boss battles punctuate plot beats throughout the game, and it featured a day/night cycle that was once again ahead of its time for 3D games of the era. This title plays like a classic episode ofAstro Boyand controls as fluidly and gracefully as one could hope for.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey To Jaburois an incredibly expansive game based on the animeMobile Suit Gundam,and it reflects the sheer destructive action that the series is known for. Numbering as one of the best entries in theprolific Gundam genre, this title is a great start for anyone wanting to see whatMobile Suit Gundamis about.
After players complete the wonderfully dense story mode, a missions-based mode is unlocked, which allows players to experience a small bout of quests from the perspective of the Federation or Zeon.
There’s an impressive amount of variety inDigimon World: DataSquadthathelpsdistinguish it even from modernPokemontitlesin the best way possible. A much more dynamic affection scale leads to a plethora of alternate Digimon that the main characters' partners will turn into.
Like many PS2 anime titles, efforts to emulate the cartoon’s style do not go unnoticed, and the game pops in a way that many other 3D titles from this earlier period in gaming simply do not. The variety of outcomes based on player choices alone make this game a must-play forDigimonfans.
A slightly altered parallel to one of the earlier arcs in the anime,Shaman King: Power of Spiritsfuses two genres that wouldn’t share much space together for a very long time. Even then, no game has truly melded fighting and strategic gameplay in the way that this one did.
While operating at first on a top-down level like a strategy RPG, when the player ends their turn next to an enemy, it prompts a new battle mode that operates very much like a fighting game, where players clash against AI opponents.
For the most part,Fullmetal Alchemistis not a seriesknown for its video games. They never really made much of an impact and were often seen as little more than facsimiles of the proper anime and manga series, never fully capturing the depth of either original version.
An exception to this rule, however, was the extremely compellingFullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir.This beat-‘em-up is a strong title with plenty of interesting combos to pull off and some fantastic handling. It’s a shorter game mostly geared towards existingFullmetal Alchemistfans, but thanks to a quality combat system, even series newbies will get something out of this title.
There are few mainstream card games as complicated asYu-Gi-Oh!, and even long-time players can admit that the game was built to be a dramatic device for epic duels first, and an actual,playable card gamewith proper rules second.
This only makesYu-Gi-Oh!The Duelists of the Rosesall the more impressive. It is a deep, wonderfully realized interpretation of the anime and card game both, helping players feel like they’re truly summoning these incredible creatures to the battlefield.
Samurai Champloo: Sidetrackedfocuses on an entirely original storyline involving the central cast ofSamurai Champloo, an anime often in the shadow of its creator’s previous work,Cowboy Bebop. Despite not gaining or retaining the attention of its predecessor, this is an astonishingly good anime, and the same charm that goes into the TV show was put into this combo-focused brawler.
Players who have seen anything ofCowboy BeboporSamurai Champloowill be able to tell that the original spirit is still intact here—which is no small feat, considering many game adaptions of other media tend to come off as soulless. It’s an incredibly stylish title, with a top-notch soundtrack and just the right amount of flair to its combat to satisfy series fans.
The.hackseries is an interesting one to discuss, with the anime and video game adaptions releasing almost alongside one another. This title has fallen under the radar when compared toother anime shows, even those from the time, but there are so many things about this game that make it amazing.
There is something relaxing and immersive about “The World,” the liminal, dreamlike MMO that players act as avatars within during the story of.hack//Infection, and this setting, alongside the meta-textual moments where players can exit the MMO to return to a desktop, and the title’s overall critique of video gamesasa video game, just make this PS2 title something extremely special and unique.
