Resources blowing the memory was a common problem on the PS1. A common trick was to bake the resources into the exe. I worked on a game where the final disc was

Resources blowing the memory was a common problem on the PS1. A common trick was to bake the resources into the exe. I worked on a game where the final disc was a directory of 25 exe's. Each exe was a level, even the front end was a separate exe. You could see that the size of each file was under 2mb, so you knew it would work. You would never/hardly ever dynamically allocate memory on the PS1. There was a lot of duplication, but the CD was a huge resource and memory was thin on the ground. Also meant that we could use the CD for audio during the game.