8 Best PS2 Puzzle Games

Myst III started on the computer. It came out on four CDs for Mac OS and Windows on May 8, 2001, and the PS2 and Xbox versions followed in late 2002. The developers at Presto wanted a diverse and logical approach to puzzles, and they worked to make the villain sympathetically multifaceted. Jack Wall wrote the music in a style different from Robyn Miller's, while keeping it recognizable as a Myst game.

Exile was well received by critics. The Daily Telegraph called it the best game in the Myst series, and it sold more than a million copies within the first year. Even so, it sold less than Myst and Riven. On a console it is a slow, quiet game of looking hard at strange machines until they make sense, and that is the whole appeal.

Puzzle Quest was first released on the Nintendo DS and PSP in 2007, and the PS2 got it as one of many ports. It was mostly the idea of Steve Fawkner, the designer of the Warlords series. He cut his staff down to three people to work on their game engines, and during that time he got hooked on Bejeweled, often playing it into the late hours of the night. You can guess the rest.

Fights are match-three boards against an enemy. Coloured tiles give you mana for spells, and skull tiles do direct damage to the opponent. A spell can clear all tiles of one type, and then it needs a few turns before you can use it again. It was a surprise hit, and the reviews praised the way it mixed the two genres. A remaster, Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition, came out in September 2025.

Tokobot Plus is the expanded version of Tokobot that came to the PS2 later. In Japan it is called Korobot Adventure. The hero's first research expedition leads him to rare Karakuri robots known as Tokobots. One of them is Zero, a gigantic prototype robot built to destroy planets and programmed for evil, which is a lot to find on your first day at work.

The PS2 version changes how the Overdrive forms work. You no longer control them; they now only briefly appear to attack before disappearing. GamePro called the original Tokobot "a technological treat, with virtually zero loading", and praised its pleasingly quirky little soundtrack. It is the oddest pick on this list, and that is a good reason to go looking for it.

Tetris Worlds was THQ's first Tetris game. It came out in 2001 for Windows and the Game Boy Advance and reached the PS2 in 2002. Blue Planet Software made the PS2 version. A whispering female announcer, voiced by Kimberly Unger, talks you through it. Next to the classic rules there are new ones, such as a mode where 25 same-coloured blocks that connect form a Critical Mass and clear away.

The big change was in the classic rules. In classic Tetris a piece locks in place once it touches the bottom, but here you could keep moving and rotating it. Critics said this made the game too easy, and GameSpot said it "broke Tetris". The GameCube and Xbox versions later made the "Easy Spin" feature optional. On the PS2 it stayed switched on.

Super Monkey Ball Deluxe came out in North America on March 15, 2005, for the PS2 and Xbox. It was the first Super Monkey Ball game not developed by Amusement Vision. You tilt the whole floor with the analog stick to guide a monkey sealed inside a clear ball to the goal, usually within 60 seconds. Much like Marble Madness, the courses are puzzles full of moving platforms and mazes.

Deluxe is the biggest Monkey Ball of its time. Story Mode is the same as in Super Monkey Ball 2: ten worlds of 20 levels each, and you only need to clear ten levels in a world to move on. Unlike Challenge Mode, you get infinite lives there. Challenge Mode has 300 levels on its own. The party games include billiards and a bowling rule with one throw per frame across a 20 frame game.

FantaVision came out in North America on the same day as the PS2 itself. Director Katsuyuki Kanetaka got the idea from the fireworks shows he saw at Lake Biwa in his youth. He had no experience programming, so he made a prototype in Klik & Play and refined it through a lot of trial and error. The PS1 could not show that many effects on screen at once, so he waited for the new console to pitch it.

It is a real-time puzzle game built on quick colour matching. You steer a ray from a cursor with the left stick and capture flares along it with the X button. White stars give you one letter of the word "Starmine" each. Reviewers liked how it looked and praised its multiplayer, and the release outside Japan added a two-player mode. A remake, FantaVision 202X, came out on the PS5 and Windows.

Keita Takahashi, who created Katamari Damacy, did not want to make a sequel. He believed the industry's focus on sequels was bad for the creativity of the people making games. He only agreed to direct We Love Katamari when Namco said it would go ahead with or without him. The result is both a sequel and a prequel, with flashbacks to a young King of All Cosmos whose father throws his second-place boxing trophy into a river.

Critics enjoyed that it kept the style of the first game intact. Game Informer found the dogs barking the theme song brilliant. Eurogamer pointed to the imbalance in difficulty between levels, and IGN thought it was not as appealing as the first game. It is the only other Katamari game Takahashi worked on. In Japan it is called Everyone Loves Katamari Damacy, and a remaster, We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie, came out in June 2023.

The King of All Cosmos destroyed the stars by accident, and his son, the Prince, has to rebuild them. The Prince stands a little less than half a foot tall, so he pushes a katamari around stylized Japanese houses and cities, and things stick to it as it rolls. Push pins and paper clips come first. Over many levels it grows big enough to pick up people and cars. You steer with both analog sticks, a bit like the arcade game Battlezone.

Designer Keita Takahashi struggled to pitch it to Namco's bosses and made it with students from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory for less than a million dollars. He wanted to prove a game could be fun without violence. It became a surprise hit and won several awards. One player said it best: "while not a proper puzzle game does require you to plan out the order you pick stuff up in". Players recommend it more than three times as often as any other PS2 puzzle game.