PlayStation Plus recently branched out into three subscription tiers — Essential, Extra, and Premium — and after the first month, the middle option feels like the best value. As someone who treasures retro games, especially the ability to easily play them on modern hardware, I thought I’d be drawn to Premium above all. But the initial wave of PS Plus Premium classics was sparse, and so far, the rollout is as incremental as folks had feared.
For July, Sony announced two new classic catalog additions — No Heroes Allowed! and LocoRoco Midnight Carnival — and that’s it for the month. Just two PSP games. Never mind the dozens upon dozens of great potential PS1 games that should still be within reach.
Curiously, Dino Crisis, Ridge Racer 2, and Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny were briefly mentioned for Italy before Sony struck them from the list. A sign of things to come, I hope.
If my expectations weren’t in check before, they are now. It’s early, and things could change for the better, but right now, it seems like most of the value for Premium is tied to the streaming-only PS3 classics and cloud gaming in general. Unfortunately for players like me who never got into the PlayStation Now service, that’s not a great deal — but it could be so much more enticing if the PS1, PS2, and PSP library did more heavy lifting.
For all of the backlash, I’ve slowly but surely come around on Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack thanks to the N64, Sega Genesis, and DLC inclusions. I hope PS Plus Premium can step it up too; otherwise, I’ll swap to the Extra tier when my sub runs out.
As more games join the service, I’ll update this list — including notes about any PS1 classics with trophies, or games that are exclusively playable with PS Plus
Read more on destructoid.com