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PlayStation Plus is the perfect stocking stuffer for RPG fans this year

DeAngelo Epps
By

I thought I had my fill of gaming subscription services. PlayStation Plus’s price increase turned me off and the offerings of Xbox Game Pass never fit my fancy. While both of these have their positives, I’ve never been one to just drop so much money every month for a bunch of games I don’t really care about. That was until I jumped into my yearly Christmas-time RPG mood and discovered the bounty of classics that’s built up on PS Plus.

The First 11 Minutes of Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade Gameplay - 60 FPS Performance Mode

Like the seasons, my gaming tastes change throughout the year. I get in a horror kick whenever September and October come around, but for some reason, I always get a hankering for a good RPG during the holidays. So like every year, I went on the hunt for a new title to sink my teeth into. What I didn’t know was that so many of those titles were sitting there for a relatively small monthly fee in the form of PlayStation Plus Premium.

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After PlayStation upgraded its Plus program from offering two free titles a month to a multi-tiered Xbox Game Pass-like service, the service’s catalog got a lot bigger. The Premium tier is the highest of its three and gives access to a huge library of PS1, PS2, PSP, PS3, PS4, and PS5 games. What got me to finally bite the bullet and resubscribe was the number of RPGs I discovered when combing through the library.

The cast of Star Ocean 5 standing together.
Square Enix

From games that I’ve always wanted to play but missed out on, like Odin Sphere, to newer titles that I’d love to re-experience like Yakuza: Like a Dragon, there was enough there to justify diving back in. And those titles aren’t even a small percent of what’s available here. Vanillaware titles, Square Enix games, NIS franchises I’d never even heard of — there’s a whole lot to dig into. I sat aside an entire day to go through these games, spend 30 minutes to an hour with them, and decide whether I’d keep them installed or move on.

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The experience took me back to my childhood days when demos were a lot more prevalent. I downloaded tons of trials of games I’ve never seen before just because I was bored on a weekend. My latest PlayStation Plus experience, except that it gave me entire titles at a fraction of the price I’d need for them all.

I’ve never been one to really care for these subscription services. I’m the type of guy who subscribes for a month, gets my fill, and unsubscribes soon after. I’m sure this time around will be the same if I’m being honest with myself. But considering I spent $18 for hours of content during my RPG season and was introduced to one of my new favorites in Odin Sphere makes me feel like I spent my money well.

If you’re like me, or someone needs a good gift idea for someone like me, a curious subscription won’t go unused. It offers plenty of games from heavy-hitting franchises like Final Fantasy, Yakuza, Star Ocean, and a lot more. Grab a voucher code, stuff it in a stocking, and give your loved ones the gift of RPGs this year.

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DeAngelo Epps
DeAngelo Epps
Former Digital Trends Contributor
De'Angelo Epps is a gaming writer passionate about the culture, communities, and industry surrounding gaming. His work ranges…
PlayStation Plus is adding the Yakuza series. Here are what tiers you’ll need
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PlayStation has revealed it will be adding all eight mainline Yakuza games to PlayStation Plus throughout the rest of the year, starting in August.

Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami, Yakuza Kiwami 2, and Yakuza: Like a Dragon will be added first into the service next month. Later in the year, Yakuza 3 Remastered, Yakuza 4 Remastered, Yakuza 5 Remastered, and Yakuza 6: Song of Life will be included too.

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PlayStation revealed a new batch of games coming to PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium on July 19. Headlining the bunch is a day one release in the upcoming cat-starred cyberpunk adventure game, Stray.

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PlayStation Plus Premium is off to a rough start overseas
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As gamers debate whether Xbox Game Pass burnout is actually here, Sony is launching its own enhanced PlayStation Plus subscription service on PS4 and PS5. New higher PlayStation Plus tiers started rolling out in Asia on May 23 and will make their way to the rest of the world over the next month. Unfortunately, a couple of issues already seem to be plaguing PlayStation Plus Premium during its first days on the market.
From how much people have to pay for the service to how the retro games themselves play, customers are running into a slew of problems with Sony's service. While it's a rough start for PlayStation Plus Premium and its chances compared to the notable success of Xbox Game Pass, Sony's project isn't quite doomed.
A lacking game library
While this issue is subjective depending on how many games you've played and what you're looking for out of this subscription service, the launch library for PlayStation Plus Premium has been largely painted as underwhelming by fans. Even if it's a bit better than what a blog post earlier this month initially suggested, it mainly contains PS4 games a lot of hardcore PlayStation fans like myself have already paid for and played. Some questionable games like Balan Wonderworld and Mighty No. 9 also stand out even more thanks to the limited selection.
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The PS1, PSP, and PS2 game lineups are thin at launch, with major franchises like Sly Cooper and Metal Gear Solid completely missing. Trophy support isn't ubiquitous across all retro games, which is frustrating for trophy hunters. PS3 games are not natively emulated on the console; they stream from the cloud and don't include DLC originally released for them, according to VGC.
While this differs from person to person, the PlayStation Plus Premium lineup is starting off on shaky ground compared to Xbox Game Pass, which already gets flack for whether it has a good month or not.
Problems playing games
Unfortunately, there aren't just subjective problems with the library, as Sony actively seems to be releasing poor versions of classic PS1 games onto the service. According to VGC, the first-party PS1 games in the PlayStation Plus Deluxe tier -- the highest tier in Southeast Asia where the service has started rolling out -- are based on the PAL versions of each game, not the NTSC version. PAL PS1 games only run at a 50Hz refresh rate because they had to accommodate the dominant video format in places like Europe and Australia. Meanwhile, North American players experienced the NTSC versions of these PS1 games, which run at a 60Hz refresh rate.
If Sony uses the PAL versions of its PS1 games when the service expands to North America, then those retro games on the PlayStation Plus Premium tier will run slower than North American players experienced in the 1990s. We don't know for sure if the North American version of the service will use the PAL versions just yet, but it's still a worrying development as the PlayStation Classic also had this problem. Some technical issues in games like Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee are also being reported by VGC, raising further questions about the quality of the classic PS1 ports. Playing retro games seems to be a rougher experience on PlayStation than trying original Xbox and 360 games on Xbox Game Pass, even if it's nice that Sony finally acknowledged its back catalog of classics. 

Upgrading memberships is messy
Players who bought lots of PlayStation Plus or PlayStation Now subscriptions at a discounted rate in hopes of converting them to higher-tiered subscriptions were met with disappointment on May 23. Sony reportedly requires players to pay the difference of their discount if they want to upgrade to the more expensive tiers. Couple this with the fact that you must upgrade for the rest of your current subscription, not just a few months or a year of Extra or Premium, and some players are having to pay much more than they expected to upgrade PlayStation Plus. 
Yes, buying several years of PlayStation Plus or PS Now at a discounted rate in anticipation of the service for cheaper is gaming the system a bit. However, PlayStation's decision to surcharge the fans that are prepared to embrace PlayStation Plus Premium in this way doesn't feel like the best judgment call for a new service hoping to earn players' trust.
Is PlayStation Plus Premium doomed?
Despite these issues, PlayStation Plus Premium isn't doomed to fail.
Any new subscription service will have its fair share of problems, especially right out of the gate. Xbox Game Pass was not an overnight success; it had years to build up to become the popular (and sometimes controversial) subscription service it is today. The game library will improve over time as Sony makes more deals with companies for current-gen games and continues to port older PS1, PSP, and PS2 games to the service. They still have a chance to make sure it's the NTSC versions of the games available in North America, so we aren't playing slower versions of these classics. And once PlayStation Plus Premium's launch is months or years behind us, these discount surcharges won't matter to subscribers as much anymore.
Hopefully, Sony can learn from and correct these mistakes as PlayStation Plus Premium rolls out worldwide and subscribers utilize it for an extended period of time. If it does, PlayStation Plus Premium can be the Xbox Game Pass alternative that PlayStation users seem to want, rather than a rough first draft of something that Xbox is already doing pretty well. 

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