In a perfect world, without licensing issues to worry about and with the Dual Shock controller included in the package,
this would've been the line-up for the PS Classic. I'm being realistic and limiting it to 20 titles by the way (although I easily could've added 20 more).
- Final Fantasy VII
- Final Fantasy VIII
- Tekken 3
- Jumping Flash!
- Alundra
- Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
- Gran Turismo 2
- Ape Escape
- Resident Evil 2
- Fear Effect
- Silent Hill
- Metal Gear Solid
- Spyro the Dragon
- Crash Bandicoot 2
- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 or 3
- WipEout 3
- Vagrant Story
- Rival Schools
- Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver
- Twisted Metal 2
That would've made for a pretty amazing little mini console. Unfortunately, as has been well documented by this point, Sony chose to shit out a half-hearted, overpriced, cash grab of a system. When the PS Classic was initially announced and the first five titles were revealed, there was a lot of positive buzz surrounding it, and for instance I remember it charting highly in Amazon's best-selling chart. What completely destroyed it was the bad word of mouth that resulted from the fifteen other games that were announced and all the negative details that poured out from the preview events. The online chatter of 50hz games, poor emulation, lack of options and lazy UI design killed its momentum stone dead. And frankly, nobody wants to shell out £90 for a device that has Battle Arena Toshinden, Rainbow Six, Cool Boarders 2, Destruction Derby and Persona 1 taking up slots. It honestly blows my mind to this day how hard Sony blew it with the PS Classic. It's like they were completely out of touch with what the expectations were and what consumers wanted. A total lack of awareness beyond "Oh hey, FFVII and Metal Gear are on this thing, the rest will work itself out." What a shambles.
The PS1 is an amazing system. Still my favourite to this day. And in terms of first-party output, Sony didn't have a lot of commercial juggernauts on the level of your Crash Bandicoot's and Final Fantasy's, but they did still put out a lot of games that reviewed well and/or found sales success, like Kurushi, Parappa/Um Jammer Lammy, WipEout, Jumping Flash!, Vib Ribbon, MediEvil, Syphon Filter, Alundra and Ape Escape. Hell, even something as obscure as Boku no Natsuyasumi is an absolute gem, and should be played if you happen to know some Japanese. Shame that it never got localised. Quite honestly, I miss that weird and experimental streak their games had during that era compared to this gen.