15 Best PS1 Adventure Games

Discworld II was made by Perfect Entertainment and published by Psygnosis on PC in 1996, and the game was ported to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1997. Eric Idle is back as Rincewind. This time Death is on indefinite vacation, having grown disillusioned with the thanklessness of his job, and Rincewind has to get him back to work. His plan is to make Death a star in his own film, which the Discworld calls a clickie.

The console version fits on one disc, with hand-drawn environments and full voice acting. It received positive reviews across Europe but fared less well in North America, which is more or less what happened to the first game too. Players still name it among their PS1 favorites.

The Last Revelation came out on the PlayStation and Windows in 1999, the fourth Tomb Raider in four years. Core Design had been making these games non-stop since 1996, and the staff were tired enough of Lara that they wrote the story to end with her death. The same basic engine was used, but it was extensively redesigned for better graphics and more intelligent enemy behaviour. Peter Connelly composed the music, his first major work on the series.

Critics praised it as a return to form, though several felt the series was becoming stale. It sold over five million copies, and as of 2009 it was the fourth best-selling Tomb Raider. Players who still pick it put it next to the PS1's biggest names.

Kingsley's Adventure is a 1999 action-adventure made by Psygnosis' studio at Camden Town. Kingsley is an orphaned fox who wants to become a True Knight, like his father, and the villain Bad Custard has been turning True Knights into Dark Knights. Training starts with Old Wrinkle, a badger who sets an obstacle course that tests your agility, combat, archery and puzzle solving. Then you travel through foxholes to collect the weapons a True Knight needs, helping people in distress along the way.

You end up with an axe, a sword, a crossbow and a dagger, and there are fifty characters to talk to. The game is described as having five magic spells, but no spells can be cast in the final release. Critics gave it a mixed reception. Players who grew up with it still go back to it and still recommend it.

Blazing Dragons is a point-and-click game based on the cartoon of the same name, and it is a twist on the legend of King Arthur. You play Flicker, a young dragon who lives in Camelhot castle and is in love with Princess Flame. He cannot ask for her hand because he is not a knight. So when the King announces a dragon tournament, and the winner gets the princess and the crown, Flicker has a reason to start collecting objects and talking to everyone in the castle.

The humour is heavily influenced by Monty Python, and Terry Jones is one of the voice actors. You can never die, and you can never reach a point where a puzzle cannot be solved, which is a kindness more adventure games should have learned. Players who found it remember it fondly, and some call it their favorite game on the PlayStation.

Mizzurna Falls is Human Entertainment's 1998 mystery set in a snowy small town in America. You play Matthew, a young man looking for his missing childhood friend Emma. You can drive around town in your car and talk to the locals, and its setting and story borrow from Twin Peaks. The game simulates the whole town, and it is now seen as a forerunner of open world games like Shenmue.

It never came out in English. An earlier, unfinished patch was pulled after a copyright complaint, and Cirosan released a full translation on March 30, 2021, with a script rewritten to fit on the disc without losing the plot. It is the only game Taichi Ishizuka wrote and directed. He later retired from games and became a tour guide in the Canadian Rockies. Players who know it recommend it strongly.

Discworld is a point-and-click adventure based on Terry Pratchett's novels, released in 1995 for MS-DOS, Macintosh and the PlayStation. You play Rincewind the "wizzard", voiced by Eric Idle, and you have to stop a dragon that a secret brotherhood has summoned to terrorise Ankh-Morpork. The story is divided into four acts. Rincewind keeps his things in his pockets, which hold only four items at a time, or in the Luggage.

Reviewers praised the humour and the voice acting but criticised its difficult puzzles, and it was more popular in Europe than in North America. The PlayStation version even works with the PlayStation Mouse, and you will want it. Players still name it among their PS1 favorites, and the ones who loved it tend to love the sequel too.

OverBlood is a 1996 science fiction adventure from Riverhillsoft. A system malfunction frees Raz Karcy from a cryogenic container, and he wakes up with no memory of who he is. The puzzles are the main event. You can toggle the camera between first and third person, and some puzzles need both. The idea critics liked most was switching between three playable characters to get past certain puzzles.

One academic study calls it the first survival horror game to use a fully three-dimensional world. IGN said it tries to recreate the mood of Resident Evil but never quite gets there, and critics found too much time spent wandering corridors and opening doors. Players are fond of it anyway, rough edges and all. A sequel, Overblood 2, followed in 1998.

Policenauts is a hard science fiction adventure written and directed by Hideo Kojima, first released on the PC-9821 in 1994. Jonathan Ingram, an LAPD officer trained as a police astronaut, drifts into space for 24 years after an accident at the colony Beyond Coast. Not long after he is found, a woman named Lorraine asks for his help with her husband's disappearance, and she is murdered right after she leaves his office. The PlayStation version uses cel animation by Anime International Company.

An English version was planned for the Saturn but was cancelled, with Kojima citing technical problems with the translation. After Metal Gear Solid made people curious about his earlier work, JunkerHQ released an English patch for the PlayStation version in 2009. If you know Kojima's later games, you will spot plenty of his habits here.

Echo Night is a first-person mystery adventure from From Software, first released in 1998. Richard Osmond is searching for his missing father, and the trail leads to two magical stones and the ghost ship Orpheus. You do not fight the dead on board. You talk with the souls of the passengers and solve puzzles to fulfill their final wishes and help them move on. Even the light switches often need a puzzle solved first.

It began as an experimental title built on the realistic graphics made for King's Field III. Years later it inspired Hidetaka Miyazaki while he was making Déraciné for the PlayStation VR. A Japan-only sequel followed, then Echo Night: Beyond on the PS2. Players call it the most hidden gem in survival horror, and the one to play if you like puzzles more than combat.

The Smoking Mirror is Revolution Software's sequel to The Shadow of the Templars, released a year later on Windows and the PlayStation. Six months after the first game, George Stobbart is back in Paris, and a Mayan stone that Nicole Collard was researching gets her kidnapped. The trail runs from a drug smuggling ring in Marseilles to a Mayan god trapped inside a mirror. Nicole is playable in parts of the game, and on the PlayStation you can use a mouse or a gamepad.

It received mixed reviews, mostly for not living up to its predecessor, but it still sold around one million units. It is the only game in the series that does not involve the Knights Templar. Players rarely pick one Broken Sword over the other. They recommend both games together.

LSD: Dream Emulator has no objective. You explore surreal places, and touching almost anything warps you somewhere else, through a system the game calls "linking". Each dream can last up to 10 minutes, and when you wake up a graph shows your state of mind, which can change the dreams that come later. The artist Osamu Sato built it from a dream diary that an Asmik Ace employee had kept for over a decade, and it got only a limited release in Japan.

Sato rejected the idea of games and wanted to use the PlayStation for contemporary art, which explains a lot. It has been cited as one of the most experimental video games of all time. Mr.Nobody released a full English translation on May 1, 2020. Players who love the PS1's weird side still put it on their lists of essentials.

Tomb Raider III came out on the PlayStation and Windows in 1998, and unlike the first two, it was primarily developed for the PlayStation. Its upgraded engine added coloured lighting and triangular polygons, which allowed more detail and more complex geometry. Lara travels to a South Pacific island in Indonesia, among other places, chasing artefacts carved from a meteorite. A large part of the game takes place underwater, and some pools have piranhas that can kill her within seconds.

Critics liked it but felt it did not change the tried and tested formula, and its difficult, unforgiving gameplay got some criticism too. Players tend to recommend the PS1 Tomb Raiders as a set. A remastered version came out in Tomb Raider I–III Remastered in 2024.

Tomb Raider II came out on Windows and the PlayStation in 1997. Core Design started it right after the success of the first game and finished it in between six and nine months, a short development period which was physically and emotionally stressful for the team. It still has the platforming and puzzle solving of the first game, but it puts more emphasis on fighting, with many human enemies. New weapons include a harpoon gun and a grenade launcher, and Lara's search for the Dagger takes her to a monastery in Tibet.

Critics noted its expanded gameplay and smoother graphics. Toby Gard and Paul Douglas left over creative differences with Eidos, but composer Nathan McCree stayed. Players rarely name it without the first game.

Soul Reaver is the second Legacy of Kain game and the sequel to Blood Omen. When his lieutenant Raziel evolves wings before him, Kain casts him down in jealousy, and centuries later Raziel awakens as a disfigured and ghostly vampire. He hunts his brothers, who have each developed different powers. Kill one and devour his soul, and Raziel gains part of that power. Under Amy Hennig's direction, the music changes with what you are doing, like fighting or swimming.

Critics praised the gothic story and the graphics and criticized the repetitive gameplay and an unsatisfying climax. Delays pushed material planned for it into later games. It sold 1.5 million copies by 2001. One player summed it up well: it "nailed Zelda-style exploration and puzzles". Players still name it among the PS1's best.

Tomb Raider was first released on the Sega Saturn, followed shortly by versions for MS-DOS and the PlayStation, in 1996. Lara Croft is hired by businesswoman Jacqueline Natla to find an artefact called the Scion of Atlantis. The game is mostly about exploring and solving puzzles in ancient ruins and tombs, with some animals and creatures to kill on the way. On the PlayStation you save your progress with Save Crystals. Toby Gard created the concept, and he is credited as Lara's creator.

It is one of the best-selling games for the PlayStation, with seven million units sold worldwide, and it remained the best-selling Tomb Raider until the 2013 reboot. Lara became one of gaming's most recognisable characters. Players recommend it more than any other PS1 adventure game.