One of my favorite eras to live through and emulate!

Aside from Dark Cloud 2, mentioned already, I also really love:

Katamari, but on Deck the native version is better and includes the sequel.

The Jak and Daxter trilogy, simply amazing games! The first or the second are usually the favs. 1 is a solid mascot platformer. 2 also is, kind of, but adds guns and cars and a slightly GTA inspired open world. 3 is also fun but leans harder into vehicles and generally isn’t regarded as highly.

Odin Sphere. All the VanillaWare games are great, but OS is one of the most beautiful games ever drawn, and has really fun brawler\rpg combat. GrimGrimoire is another of theirs, also good, kind of a side scrolling RTS.

Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 are both a lot of fun, especially if you love Disney or SquareEnix games. If not, they’re still pretty fun and have an… interesting, if convoluted, lore. I probably would recommend if you dont care for Disney though. Probably worth playing Final Fantasy 7 first as well. It’s referenced quite reverently and is a great standalone game (and PS1 still counts I think, haha).

Devil May Cry 1 and 3. You can skip 2, even the fans and creators don’t care about it, and 3 is a prequel. DMC1 is a landmark game, and is required playing in my opinion for being both important and incredibly fun. It can be quite hard though. 3 is arguably the best in the whole series, and holds up really well near the top of the genre to this day.

God of War 1, 2, and 3. They’re all fantastic action games, and pretty influential still. I dont like them as much as DMC, but they’re still pretty fun.

There were actually a lot of pretty mediocre DMC clones on PS2, like Gungrave or Bujingai. If you love the genre, they’re neat and OK fun. God Hand is quite funny and kind of unique, probably the best of the 3 listed here.

I see Okami in there and I approve! Although I think the remasters released on other platform more recently are a better way to play. I also preferred the Wii version back in the day.

The Sly Cooper games and the Ratchet and Clank games are also both really excellent series. I liked Jak more, but they’re distinct games with their own neat elements. Sly’s particularly unique as a mascot stealth game.

Metal Gear Solid series and the Tony Hawk games are obviously excellent, but you’ve got so many other ways to play those I’m not sure they’re worth emulating.

Zone of the Enders, 1 and 2. ZoE 1 is infamous as being the game that came with the first MGS2 demo on it. The game is fine but short, and mostly serves to set up ZoE2, which fucking rules! You pilot a badass mecha and it just has a really fun plot, great music, and good action. An underrated gem!

Not your jam I’m sure, but I’d be remiss if I didnt mention the many hours I spent playing Capcom vs SNK 2. Still one of my favorite fighting games, legendary roster and soundtrack.

If you’d like a roguelike, I’d suggest Baroque or (PS1) Azure Dreams. Both pretty fun, quite long games with lots of replay value. Baroque is uh… well titled, kind of challenging to get into.

Ah, there were so many good games in that era. Truly one of the most stacked console lineups ever.