Am I the only one who finds the PS1's multi-disc games fascinating? You really feel like you get your money's worth!

[DarkTone | 984]

I cant think of many games played with multiple discs. Not a big RPG fan so that could be a reason. 

Besides my favourite game ever, original GTA London had me swap. Interesting concept I cant think has been duplicated. 

[Estil | 1,264]

3 hours ago, DarkTone said:

I cant think of many games played with multiple discs. Not a big RPG fan so that could be a reason. 

Besides my favourite game ever, original GTA London had me swap. Interesting concept I cant think has been duplicated. 

That's all the more reason I'm fascinated by the PS1 having them...it's one of many things that make it and its games truly distinctive from other systems.  Another example is using pre-rendered backgrounds and polygon characters (FF7) or sprites (Tales of, Lunar) on top, which I don't think was hardly done before or since (as 6th gen onward made it much easier to make the whole game polygon based without making everything look all jaggedy and pointy).  Which because the PS1 has a much bigger color palette and can make sharper/crisper 2D graphics than SNES, they can really be very nice...sometimes like a painting as seen in Final Fantasy Origins.

[Estil | 1,264]

I guess one good thing about being a late bloomer to both PS1 and JRPGs is that you can easily back up your PS1 saves on either a PS2 memory card and/or PS3's memory card storage (does the PS4 do this as well?).  I mean, for those of you did do PS1 gaming in its prime, how in the world did you handle having to have all those memory cards AND I hope made backups of your most important saves in case worst ever came to worst?  Especially for you sports gamers because we all know that on PS1/PS2/GC sports games are big time memory card hogs.  

PS: Is there a way to make backups of my PS3/PS4 saves? 

[Sumez | 2,950]

I've never experienced original memory cards failing. It might be a thing nowadays, but it definitely weren't when they were all brand new. I never bothered to back up anything.

[Alder | 243]

46 minutes ago, Sumez said:

I've never experienced original memory cards failing. It might be a thing nowadays, but it definitely weren't when they were all brand new. I never bothered to back up anything.

Same here. I filled up a few PS1 memory cards before the PS2 came out, never had any issues.

[Estil | 1,264]

1 hour ago, Alder said:

Same here. I filled up a few PS1 memory cards before the PS2 came out, never had any issues.

I don't take any chances though...especially after that GBA Everdrive battery running out incident and losing my FF5 and another save file from a year or two back...  

[TDIRunner | 2,735]

2 hours ago, Estil said:

I mean, for those of you did do PS1 gaming in its prime, how in the world did you handle having to have all those memory cards AND I hope made backups of your most important saves in case worst ever came to worst?  Especially for you sports gamers because we all know that on PS1/PS2/GC sports games are big time memory card hogs.  

 

I've never had a FIRST PARTY PS1 memory card fail.  But with that said, if you are worried about space or backups, this is probably your best bet.  Practically infinite storage and super easy to copy to a backup hard drive.  You should also be able to transfer your saves from your original memory cards over to this.

MemCard PRO for PS1

https://castlemaniagames.com/products/memcard-pro

 

2 hours ago, Estil said:

PS: Is there a way to make backups of my PS3/PS4 saves? 

PS3 has the option to backup everything from your console to an external hard drive.  I've never bothered checking for PS4, but I'm guessing it has a similar option.  I will have to check later.  

[Estil | 1,264]

20 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

I've never had a FIRST PARTY PS1 memory card fail.  But with that said, if you are worried about space or backups, this is probably your best bet.  Practically infinite storage and super easy to copy to a backup hard drive.  You should also be able to transfer your saves from your original memory cards over to this.

MemCard PRO for PS1

https://castlemaniagames.com/products/memcard-pro

 

PS3 has the option to backup everything from your console to an external hard drive.  I've never bothered checking for PS4, but I'm guessing it has a similar option.  I will have to check later.  

Is it the same thing as this?

https://stoneagegamer.com/playstation-memcard-pro-memory-card.html

I don't have $80ish to burn though.  At least not as long as I can just as easily back up the saves on PS2 memory cards or the PS3's hard drive.

Believe it or not I STILL have the original PS1 memory card (a real one of course) and the original PS2 memory card (plus two spares I got later; all three real ones) I got with my PS1 in 2001 and am still using it now.  I don't know how much longer my luck will hold out though...  

[TDIRunner | 2,735]

5 minutes ago, Estil said:

Is it the same thing as this?

https://stoneagegamer.com/playstation-memcard-pro-memory-card.html

I don't have $80ish to burn though.  At least not as long as I can just as easily back up the saves on PS2 memory cards or the PS3's hard drive.

Believe it or not I STILL have the original PS1 memory card (a real one of course) and the original PS2 memory card (plus two spares I got later; all three real ones) I got with my PS1 in 2001 and am still using it now.  I don't know how much longer my luck will hold out though...  

Yeah, that's the same, and I would probably prefer to buy it from SAG.  I was just lazy and posted the first link I found in a Google search.

I haven't bought one myself, but I'm considering it.  I don't really need one.  I still have 5 original PS1 memory cards and 7 original 8MB PS2 cards and even 1 original 32MB PS2 card.  So I'm not running out of space any time soon.  Just putting the option out there.  I've read several good reviews on it including some YouTube reviews from people who purchased it as opposed to having one given to them.  

Also, I like to make my own custom memory card holders.  

 

  

[Tanooki | 4,933]

12 hours ago, Gloves said:

Beneath a Steel Sky on Amiga was 15 floppies.

I can think of one that tops that, when you add in the movie and sound pack.

3.5" floppied, 11 for Star Trek Judgment Rites for the base game, then the movie/sound pack for all the actors voices and more adds another 5.  I never had the expansion but the main game took so long to install with the floppy speed creeping along.  16 floppies is nuts.

[peg | 370]

Supposedly there is a version of Office 97 pro that is like 55 floppies, no joke.

[Estil | 1,264]

5 minutes ago, peg said:

Supposedly there is a version of Office 97 pro that is like 55 floppies, no joke.

By 1997 if you can afford a copy of Office 97 Pro you can spring for a CD-ROM drive.  I mean, dude, seriously.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

13 minutes ago, peg said:

Supposedly there is a version of Office 97 pro that is like 55 floppies, no joke.

Windows 95 or 98 (can't recall which offhand) had 64 floppies.   But you had to make them yourself from the CD.

[Alder | 243]

Random thought: as a kid, I always wondered how many memory cards it'd take to have a save file for every game. In my mind I always fantasized about having a small shelf lined with hundreds of memory cards, all alphabetized

That same thought reemerged years later when I started thinking about full set collecting. I may never finish one, but the thought has always been appealing, haha.

To the point of the thread: I never felt multi-disc games were special, if anything they kind of annoyed me, since there's a chance you get halfway through a game and the next disc won't work. Actually, my copy of FF8 is like that. The first disc freezes on the intro cutscene you can't skip, but (in theory) the other discs work fine.

[Estil | 1,264]

2 minutes ago, Alder said:

To the point of the thread: I never felt multi-disc games were special, if anything they kind of annoyed me, since there's a chance you get halfway through a game and the next disc won't work. Actually, my copy of FF8 is like that. The first disc freezes on the intro cutscene you can't skip, but (in theory) the other discs work fine.

All the more reason I'm glad we now have PSIO...

[Alder | 243]

21 minutes ago, captmorgandrinker said:

Windows 95 or 98 (can't recall which offhand) had 64 floppies.   But you had to make them yourself from the CD.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

32 minutes ago, Estil said:

By 1997 if you can afford a copy of Office 97 Pro you can spring for a CD-ROM drive.  I mean, dude, seriously.

You severely underestimate how cheap some corporations are.

[Estil | 1,264]

2 minutes ago, captmorgandrinker said:

You severely underestimate how cheap some corporations are.

Yeah I was only thinking of individuals and not businesses.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

I remember having a very heavy box I found at goodwill years ago, still sealed so I couldn't count it, but it was Word Perfect around the win95 era as you could mail for an upgrade (sticker on celophane) and it said it was a 3.5" disk version.  I could only guess how many were in there as that thing was somewhere between 5-10lbs in weight seriously.

[cj_robot | 542]

6 hours ago, Alder said:

I hope whoever is doing that install is getting paid by the hour.

[DarkTone | 984]

My wu tang memory card is still a mystery to me. 

[Sumez | 2,950]

A mystery... of chessboxin'?

[RH | 4,903]

Going in the opposite direction, at one point I wanted to catch up on the Squaresoft PSX games I missed, so I bought a few and downloaded them to my PSP.

Vagrant Story is appx. 150MB. I downloaded it and honestly thought it was a mistake. Nope, by then end of the PS1 life cycle, Square was able to highly optimize sprites and 3D model data was also optimized enough where they felt fine creating in-game rendered cut scenes.

If the cut scenes had been rendered to video, I have no sure how big that game would be, but I was considerably impressed that it was as small as it was, and how much of a game it offered. More data doesn't necessarily equal more game.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

^Admirable.  In a way they went Nintendo full circle.  Square jerky as ever ran to the CD and hype machine of Sony and their media, used it, made some ehhh looking FMVs and blew out the audio etc over disc and disc.  Then you get that late one, and boom...150MB, 2.5x the largest N64 cart and who knows with some deep compression N64 could have perhaps hosted it given they did get MML and RE2 on there.  Cool.  Just something to think about.

[Estil | 1,264]

One thing I've noticed is that usually it seems on these multi-disc PS1 games the last disc tends to be MUCH shorter than the previous ones...any reason why this is typically so?

I don't suppose any PS2 games needed two disc did they?  And how many GC games are on two discs?