PS2 is an awesome system!  It's my #2 system of all time behind the NES.  (Switch will probably knock it down to #3 eventually though.)

I have a pretty good amount of PS2 games, and I am sure that there are a ton more great ones I missed back when it was a current system.  Also, my PS2 is almost 20 years old at this point, and I've never had any issues with either the system or the controller that came with it.  I still fire it up several times a year to play a PS1 or PS2 game, and the games look great on a PVM.

PS2 and NES are really what I like in a system too.  I prefer having a dominant piece of hardware that gets almost all of the good games for a generation.  Somehow that makes me want to collect a lot more games than I normally would.  The backwards compatibility is also an awesome feature that I wish more consoles would have.  Long live the PS2!

PS2 is a pretty easy system to fix too. It's really just a fan, mobo, and disc reader. 90% of the time if a PS2 is failing it just needs a quick replacement part. And since PS2's are common as water, replacement parts are also common as water. 

I expect there to be working PS2 systems well into the 2040's and beyond. I mean, sure, there might only be 10 million working systems worldwide by that point, and the vast majority of them will have been worked on. But that's a hell of a lot better than the current state of Sega CD, Saturn, and Turbografx CD. 

Just a few of your wishlist I wouldn't play on PS2 hardware but on different systems:

Most God of War, Ratchet&Clank, Sly Raccoon, Jak&Daxter games have HD-versions on PS3 and/or PS4. Most PS2-Final-Fantasy games also have HD-versions on a lot of newer systems. The PS3-collection of Shadow of the Colossus / ICO is also much better than the PS2 versions of these two games.

>Max Payne PS4

For you information, delete it. It's still essentially PS2 version not exactly the same native PC version due to remained downgraded graphics and low level details, the iOS did actually get a real PC port and it's cheaper too despite the touch control.

Similarily, Sakura Wars and Phantom Brave are better on Wii. LoTR games are on Gamecube, Spy Hunter and Psi-Ops as well. Onimusha: Warlords is on PS4.

Soul Calibur 3 is horribly bugged and it needs a memory card all for itself, otherwise data on the memory card might be lost.

Didn't know Sakura Wars and Phantom Brave were on Wii. What makes them better on Wii? I thought I was done collecting GC games, but I see the LotR games are almost as cheap on Gamecube, so I'll get them there instead. Same goes for Spy Hunter. Psi-Ops is not for Gamecube. I checked. 

And I'll  just take Soul Calibre 3 off my wishlist entirely. 

In hindsight, I should have named this thread: Help me pair down my PS2 wishlist! Some of you guys have been a great help. 

I updated my PS2 wishlist a little. Moved Spy Hunter, Two Towers, and Return of the King to GC wishlist. Got rid of Soul Calibre III due to it's buggyness. Moved Battlefront II, Hitman Trilogy, Starfighter, and Beyond Good and Evil to my GoG wishlist instead.

That'll put me at 74 PS2 games once I get all the games on my wishlist.

Nah PS1 was involved with thay awkward transition from 2D to 3D.  Games did not age well at all in a lot of cases...

Buuuut...we all know you said that for LoD...and Chrono Cross has a similar place in my own heart on my end...so I cannot say I don't understand.  XD

Wii versions should be 480p, PS2 versions are very likely 480i. Wii versions may have widescreen support as well. Besides, PS2's video output is one of the worst ever made by mankind, second only to N64's.

Agreed, best system ever.