8 Great PS1 Strategy Games That Are Fun from the Start

The PS1 is a really interesting era for a lot of genres, and the strategy genre actually had a healthy number of titles. Whether it be the birth of a series that would stand the test of time or one-off games that were amazing and had zero follow-up. They came from all over the world, and each one brought something unique to the genre.

Strategy games have famously been games that are slow to get going, but luckily, the PS1 had more games on the simpler side of the strategy game spectrum.

We're going to check out some PS1 strategy games that were fun as hell from the jump.

8 Brigandine: The Legend of Forsena

The War For the World

Ah, my sweet Brigandine, I'm not too fond of what the series has become, but its origins are pure 90s greatness. The first game in the series is a decently complex, wildly fun strategy game that kicks off the action in a hurry and doesn't make you start in some rags-to-riches storyline either. You choose from multiple different heroes, and each one has their own story to play through. Units are aplenty, and how you build them up and kit out your army is completely up to you.

There's even some pretty good voice acting here, especially for 1998, and the little cutscenes that break out on the battlefield are pretty impressive for the time as well. It's got elements of Fire Emblem in its gameplay, but it's a little more free-form, and it's way bigger in terms of the armies on screen. It's forever a cult classic and one of the best strategy games on the system.

7 The Unholy War

Genre Fusion

The Unholy War is a game that was way ahead of its time in 1998 and, honestly, maybe still today. It takes place on a faraway planet, and it's about two civilizations struggling to take control. While the setup is cool, the gameplay is even better. It's an interesting mix of grid-focused, turn-based combat and real-time action that is wildly compelling from the opening moments of the game.

That genre fusion is the main reason to play The Unholy War, and it's a system that I'm shocked never really caught on. While the larger armies make their moves on a bigger map, when units collide, you shift to an arena battle where you take control of the actual units and fight in rather impressive battles where you have a variety of attacks at your disposal in addition to environmental hazards that can help or hinder you as well. It's a really cool combination of genres that fits perfectly, and it's one of the only games I can think of that combines genres so fluidly.

6 Arc the Lad: Collection

Bringing the Journey West

When you can get three games for the price of one, you do it, and luckily, Arc the Lad Collection is one of the best collections of that sort out there. Here, you get the first three games in the classic series, and it's a fascinating look at how the series started from primarily a strategy game into something that more closely resembled a JRPG.

Regardless, there is some great stuff here, with an intricate turn-based strategy system revolving around some great storytelling. Positioning is crucial to your survival; every character feels completely different, and you can even add monsters to your party, which introduces a lot of variety and gives you multiple ways to do battle. Arc the Lad 2 is probably the highlight here, but all 3 are fun to play and following the story from the start is generally recommended.

5 Front Mission 3

Mechs on a Grid

Front Mission 3 finally made its way west in 1999, and thankfully, because it's one of the more unique turn-based strategy games out there. You'll be controlling a squad of mechs throughout the game, customizing everything about them before taking them onto the field and engaging in a deep, political story that is more mature than most material in the library of Square Enix. It's got an old-school flair about it, from the jagged edges of the Mechs to the explosive effects on the field that just have a charm to it that I think the remake missed out on.

You can target different parts of the enemies, and even target the pilots themselves, which adds a really cool element to battles because ejected pilots can continue fighting on foot and even hijack other Mechs, known as Wanzers, to continue the battle. There are skills to discover that change the tide of battle, a ton of missions, and overall, it's a great strategy RPG that introduced a series to the rest of the world and paved the path for it to make a name everywhere, which it promptly did.

4 Vanguard Bandits

Mech Knights

Vanguard Bandits is a one-off game that somehow never spawned a series, and if you ask, it should've. This grid-based, tactical RPG is incredibly deep and has multiple paths through it, giving you reason to play it again and again once you beat it. It's got a fun, wartime story involving rebels going against an overbearing empire, but the characters are really colorful and often pretty funny, adding some much-needed levity to all the death taking place around it.

The combat takes place on a grid, giving you multiple options for how you're attacking and, importantly, which direction you're attacking from. Executing smart movements is key to trapping your enemy, and every time you move into attack, you get an awesome mech battle on screen which goes further to sell the action to you. It's amazingly fun to play, and different mechs have different weapons and attacks, and you customize them after battle in a variety of ways too. There is even a way to completely ruin the story by acting like an idiot, and it's a hilarious thing because the game adapts to how stupid you are. It's something few games ever do, and this one did it in the 1990s.

Where the Pain Began

X-Com is a name synonymous with the strategy genre these days, but the series goes back a lot longer than you might think. Back in 1994, the world was introduced to this unique take on an alien invasion game, and it was way ahead of its time in terms of intricacy and gameplay mechanics. You might think the series only started getting more complex with X-COM: Enemy Unknown, but you'd be wrong. So many stalwarts of the series started with the first game, including researching different technologies, upgrading your soldiers, and everyone's favorite, permadeath.

It's a bit tense for sure, but it's immediately a really fun game right from the start. It's intense; the graphics are pixelated, but they do the job, and the whole concept of the alien invasion is driven home well here, with multiple types of levels and scenarios for you and your squad to try to deal with. It's a time capsule of a game for sure, but one that is still fun to play today.

2 Langrisser IV

A Bigger Scale Than You're Used To

Langrisser IV is the 4th entry in the long-running series, and it might just be the best. For the unfamiliar, Langrisser is a massive strategy RPG series that largely stayed in Japan until the turn of the 20th century, and each of the games is an epic story that will take you a very long time to beat. With the 4th entry, that's no different, but everything here is just so grand feeling. There are a ton of playable characters, each with their own unique motivations and characteristics, a great story, and multiple endings as well.

The combat is the main event here for me, as it deals with huge-scale battles and includes what I think every strategy RPG should have, and that's battle cutscenes. Every time you go to fight another unit, you get a glorious little battle cutscene that shows you're not just pressing an attack, but you're seeing a little mini battle play out after it. It adds some much-needed gravitas to the otherwise plain graphics, especially for 1998 when the PS1 was starting to really go places with the visuals. It's a long game, but one well worth diving into.

1 Command and Conquer

Take the Command

Command and Conquer is one of the original names in the real-time strategy world, and on the PS1, there were very few games like this. There are multiple campaigns that are completely different, involving different characters, objectives, and overall storylines. While this was adapted from the PC version, the controls are actually surprisingly snappy when it comes to controlling your larger forces, and everything flows more or less how it would with a mouse and keyboard.

The big time feature at the time was the cutscenes, which were fully acted out by multiple actors, giving their absolute most 90s performances possible, and if you know, you know. The action looks surprisingly great, even to this day, and although the series would get more intricate as the years went on, there is something special about the first of its name being this bold of a title in the mid-90s.