trash panic is the first PSN game i'll talk about here, but it's for sure the most interesting. it's a puzzle game made partially made by Japan studio released on PSN in the late 2000's, or well, its first release was, this had a few releases weirdly, one of which was an ahead of its time free version that cost 100 yen per play, strangely, very neat but not worth actually playing that version, we're talking about the final release which was a full retail package released on PSN in 2009. anyway the game is very interesting, it's a pro-environmental puzzle game where you have to try and fill a trash can with trash, trying to crush or burn things and keep them from spilling out by overflowing, it's fun and its messaging is very good, you have two meters that fill depending on how ecological your playstyle is so you're encouraged to be eco friendly by not burning things for example, though the game is very difficult, like, very very difficult, this is one of the hardest puzzle games I've ever played and beating it was such a challenging time, though it wasn't the hardest PSN game i played for this, anything above stage 2 will really tax your skills and the last two are almost impossible, i barely managed to scrape by both times on easy mode and couldn't get passed the town in the third mission. it starts out very simple, with you just needing to crush things and not worry too much about things like water or near indestructible objects, level 2 ads more of the latter and more things like precious items you need to not break or else you get penalised, level 3 is more of the same but harder, but with fully indestructible objects that you will need bombs to destroy and a lot more water that will make things harder to burn, after this it throws its last big mechanic in with the oil, which can't mix with the water but can burn super well, it's a lot to have to balance and it is very difficult to, especially in the final stage where you'll struggle to last even a minute, forget about finishing it or doing it ecologically, its brutal but it's still fun for those first few stages and it is cool how the scale gets bigger and bigger, going from an office trash bin, to a street and ending with a worldwide scale, crushing entire islands as puzzle items, there's even a secret stage larger than this. you also have a few extra modes to unlock that give more playtime, though beating the game fairly will run you a good night or two, there is more, harder modes, a versus mode, a mission mode with challanges and leaderboards, there's a ton to do, especially with things like the unlockable cans and the trophies, one requiring you to play for 24 hours.

the game is really nice looking for a PSN game, there's so much on screen and there's some very good particle effects and stuff, when the game gets hectic it can be a very impressive game to look at with all the physics objects and the sheer amount of things on screen in some of these levels, the town one is an especially impressive one to watch, and seeing the mix of oil and water and the physics there in the 4th and 5th levels is also really cool to watch. the OST is amazing, worked on by Taro Fujikado who also worked on way of the samurai 3 and tenchu shadow assassins. Tomoyuki Kato also worked on the OST but this is his only real credit. it's a super funky and catchy OST, very reminicient (please don't shoot me) of jet set radio with its instrumentation and use of sampling (look i don't know music i'm sure this is a genre but i just don't know), i love stage 2's jazzy bits and the lyrical bits in stage 3 and the piano in stage 4 is wonderful, it has my favourite stage theme by far, its jazzy and classy and just so good, also a shoutout to stage 5 with its cool flute and tropical vibes. the game has one of the best OST's on the playstation network and it's a standout even among Japan studios incredible list of music.

the game was developed by jetraylogic (who had only worked on this game) but it also had hands on it by Japan studio, with much of its staff being from there (like Taro Matsuda the games director, who worked on deracine and everybody's golf ps4) and it tends to sadly be one of their more forgotten titles, it was a big enough deal on PSN at time of release especially with its multiple versions, but in the years since its been really ignored with the exception of a stage in astro-bot, never being ported beyond a version available to play on PS NOW, which is a shame, it didn't even get a physical release. given japan studio is long since dissolved, it's hard to say if we'll ever fully see the game again, which is a shame because it has a lot of potential for expansion and it is a lot of fun on those easier difficulties, if you do want to play it it's still full price on PSN but you can play with a PS plus premium sub if you happen to already have one of those, it doesn't require big reaction time so you can stream it there no problem, but if you can play on original hardware then thats how i would reccomend it, and i do reccomend trying this, it's more japan studio and that alone should be incentive enough to play it.

crystal defenders is one of those games that i both love to death and have super fond memories of, and kind of maybe hate? i think its first game, this is a trilogy originally released on wiiware and bundled on other consoles as one game, is really good and fun, it's a super deep tower defence game with RPG mechanics, units themed on FF tactics classes, this is set in that universe, and it has you on maps that i think are from tactics and there's some smaller things in there like status effects with slow, level ups using money gained for defeating enemies and bonus's based on damage taken, your units work very differently with some being better with ground enemies, some better with air, some can only do air and some only ground, it's really deep, but its also still simple here and its manageable enough to beat it even with the games depth, where the issue comes in is with the second game and third game. what happens here is the difficulty ramps up, very harshly. i mean, really harshly, I've never beaten either of these legit without guides online, i'm not fully sure you even can without dozens of hours of trial and error or luck, it's kind of absurd, these might be the hardest games I've ever played and it makes these later levels not even fun to play, which is a shame because they're really pretty and they add things like new units and have some great map designs, but they're just too hard to be fun, barely getting 10 waves in before the game becomes super difficult and hard to win any individual round, forget perfecting many of them, though you do have some summons too which help, but even these come at too great a cost, costing your own life to use. you have a good variety in maps with different themes like ruins and fields and a very cool snow map complete with falling snow and each game has its own set, even with harder layouts to boot, if you really want that and they're all super fun in those earlier rounds, they have great designs to boot and if you do try and beat them all the game will last you a long time, probably a good weekend or so, though don't expect a story mode or anything, this is purely just gameplay.

the game uses some super high quality sprites which might be some of the best rendered versions of most of these jobs, really nice looking map backgrounds and has a really great OST from Hitoshi Sakimoto(who has worked on almost a hundred games ranging from shin megami tensei, to magical chase, grimgrimoire and 13 sentinels to stranger of paradise and indeed, FF12, hell there's tons more classics in his resume, tactics ogre, the Valkyria chronicles games, devils third, tons of other vanillaware projects, lord of arcana, opoona and stella deus) that fits the game perfectly into the ivalice series, it sounds very FF12 specifically, the main map theme sounds straight out of a zone in that game. the game has some weird crediting though, since other versions also list Ayako Sasō and Kaori Ohgoshi as additional composers, the former having worked on things like ridge racer, rage racer, tekken 2, bushido blade, the street fighter ex games, driving emotion type s, gungrave, ff tactics advance, xenosaga 2, folklore and 999, one of the most stacked credits lists out there. the latter though having only worked on this and final fantasy tactics advance A2, which is still a solid list.

the game was made by a smaller team within square and not one with a real name, it was directed by Hiroyuki Chiken, who also worked on space invaders infinity gene and a ton of older saturn and super famicom era games, like super robot wars and some ultraman stuff, lots of kaiju and kaiju adjacent games. though another page tells me that Hisanao Suzuki also directed it, i'm assuming differing ports have to do with it but the one that this person is credited on is much more fully filled out, they themselves had worked on much more at the company, tons of final fantasy games like the breve exvius spinoff war of the visions, tons of ports on PC, the original brave exvius and final fantasy dimensions 2. they also worked on things like chase the express, kengo, a few dragon quest games and some more recent square projects like valkyrie elysium, harvestella and the romancing saga 2 remake. even with all this praise that difficulty does make the game super difficult to recommend, plus it's also digital only and stuck on older console storefronts, with the exception being the xbox version which is backwards compatable, but it was also on mobile phone, psp and wii, plus the ps3 which is where i did this run on, hopefully one day it gets a more modern port with a physical release and some better difficulty options. if you like FF and tower defence though, i do recommend it, just know this is a very difficult game going in, do not underestimate it.