The Simple Series

A broad and extremely diverse range of low-budget, affordable games put out by D3 Publisher throughout the early PlayStation era. Includes both simple takes on popular concepts such as mahjong, tennis and driving, as well as highly experimental, unusual games such as Demolition Girl.


Developer: Various
Publisher: D3 Publisher
Available on: Various


Articles about the Simple Series

Retro Select: Deep Water - The Simple 2000 series for PlayStation 2 remains a continual source of fascination for me — particular as a surprising number of these odd games made it west via 505 GameStreet. Deep Water, also known as The Daikaijuu, is an open-world game about pootling around in your boat blasting sharks and cannon-toting pirates. Supposedly there are also … Continue reading Retro Select: Deep Water
PS2 Essentials: Fitness Fun - Ah, what could possibly be better than the charming jank of the Simple 2000 series on PlayStation 2? Why, the Simple 2000 Ultimate series, of course! Yes, indeed, not content with 123 volumes of low-budget, experimental and weird titles, D3 Publisher decided to put out another range of 34 games under the “Ultimate” branding. Exactly what makes … Continue reading PS2 Essentials: Fitness Fun
PS2 Essentials: Paparazzi/The Camera Kozou - The late 2010s are often described as one of the most gleefully experimental periods in gaming history, with a wide variety of independent developers from all sorts of backgrounds doing their best to push the boundaries of gaming conventions in both mechanical and narrative terms. There’s no denying that the rise in phenomena such as … Continue reading PS2 Essentials: Paparazzi/The Camera Kozou
The MoeGamer Awards: Coolest Scoring Mechanic - The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here! Today’s category suggestion is brought to you by my dear friend and talented pixel artist Mr Chris Caskie, aka MrGilderPixels. … Continue reading The MoeGamer Awards: Coolest Scoring Mechanic
PS2 Essentials: Party Girls - Party Girls is an interesting anomaly in D3 Publisher’s Simple Series in that its Japanese title is much more interesting than its somewhat generic sounding localisation, rather than the other way around. Party Girls? Eh, pass, sounds like shovelware. Mogitate Mizugi! Onna Mamire no THE Suiei Taikai (Fresh-Picked Swimsuits! The Swim Meet Packed with Women*), on the other hand? … Continue reading PS2 Essentials: Party Girls
Shmup Essentials: Steel Dragon EX - The shoot ’em up genre is one in which it is quite difficult to innovate. This has, of course, led to a number of games over the years that can quite reasonably called knock-offs of other, popular titles that became well-established, though that doesn’t mean that said knock-offs aren’t interesting in their own right. One … Continue reading Shmup Essentials: Steel Dragon EX
PS2 Essentials: Bust-a-Bloc - In many cases the games that are part of D3 Publisher’s sprawling budget-price Simple Series are enjoyably experimental, while in others they simply represent traditional gaming genres brought up to date with modern (for the time) visuals and sound. Bust-a-Bloc, or The Block Kuzushi Hyper as it was known in Japan, occupies a space somewhere between these … Continue reading PS2 Essentials: Bust-a-Bloc
PS2 Essentials: Radio Helicopter - One of the most charming things about D3 Publisher’s Simple Series is its straightforward naming convention, which brings to mind the good old days of Atari 2600 games called imaginative things like “Combat”, “Golf” and “Dodge ‘Em”. As such, with a game called The Helicopter — or the even more literal Radio Helicopter, as it was known in Europe … Continue reading PS2 Essentials: Radio Helicopter
PS2 Essentials: Demolition Girl/The Daibijin - One of the most interesting phenomena of the early PlayStation eras was D3 Publisher’s “Simple Series”, a range of low-budget — and budget-priced — titles produced by a wide variety of external developers. The series began on PS1 with some pretty straightforward interpretations of concepts such as mahjong, tennis or racing, but over time gradually … Continue reading PS2 Essentials: Demolition Girl/The Daibijin

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