A bunch of certified PS1 bangers are now available as standalone buys on PS5 for the first time

It's a good day for PlayStation fans, as a handful of delightful PS1 classics just landed on PS5 for standalone purchase.

As shared in a ResetEra thread, four PS1 games are now available on PS5 to buy without a subscription: Tekken 2, Mr. Driller, Ridge Racer 2, and Ridge Racer Type 4. Like I said, certified bangers, and you can finally just buy them from the PlayStation Store on both PS5 and PS4, whereas before they were paywalled behind the Premium and Deluxe subscriptions.

All four of the aforementioned games are favorites of critics and players, but Ridge Racer Type 4 in particular made our very definitive list of the best PS1 games of all time. This 1998 racing sequel offered up a relatively relaxing contrast to its predecessors, with a new dynamic, atmospheric art style and a mellowed-out soundtrack, but the same arcade-like, drift-heavy racing that defined the series.

As someone with already way too many subscriptions, I love to see this. Xbox Game Pass's healthy offering of old Xbox and Xbox 360 games and Switch Online's ever-growing catalog of NES, SNES, and N64 games are wonderful portals into our collective past, but I'd love to see even more retro games become available for standalone purchase. 

Until now, these versions of Tekken 2 and the Ridge Racer games weren't available anywhere except through PlayStation's premium subscriptions, so adding them to general storefronts makes them more accessible to so many fans who wouldn't have otherwise had the chance to revisit them or experience them for the first time. Even Mr. Driller is a relatively hard find, only available elsewhere on Nintendo Switch, so if you didn't have a Switch or a PS Plus subscription, you were previously out of luck. 

Feeling nostalgic? Here are the best retro consoles to relive your childhood through.