(And perhaps, the entire PSP library for that matter?)
I have dusted off my old PSP 1000 to play DJ Max Clazziquai (damn, that muscle memory is still going strong) but along with it I remembered I have never finished KH: Birth by Sleep despite having quite a bit of fun with it back in the day.
And despite having massive problem with Terra's final boss this game is GLORIOUS. I really dislike Kingdom Hearts series (despite loving the premise), but BbS has some of the best action jRPG systems around - The finish commands, command styles, melding the commands, keeping abilities from them - I lost 5 hours just grinding and maxing out the D-links and commands.
Besides the game looks great and just feels like a big console release squished into old UMD.
Dissidia series is another great and an innovative title - the system was unique and captured a lot of the Advent Children acrobatics and just plain outlandish style. How many games have SE released with the amount of content rivalling Duodecim? How many games like it were released on any handheld at all? That game had a massive cast of playable characters, NPC characters with semi interactive areas AND it had a fairly robust overworld exploration AND it had ton of modes AND original Dissidia storyline AND completely replaceable RPG mode AND crazy amount of customisation and editing options AND massive amount of lore and fun fan service AND copious amount of DLC should you find the original content was not enough. Duodecim is absolutely MASSIVE and it felt like a game that was - would you believe it - made with love for the franchise.
Another favourite of mine is Tactics Ogre: Let Us Sing Together, which automatically became (to me at least) one of the finest tRPGs ever released. While it was a remake, it brought refinements that made the game feel really fresh with fantastic menus, wheel of fortune system (enabling you to backtrack up to 50 moves within the game) and extra content. The game has one of the best writing and story in the video games, and choices you make are some of the best I have ever encountered. Law and Chaos routes are so different they pretty much mean two entirely different story lines. And that beautiful music!
Crisis Core was to many a system seller and while I wasn't loving it as much as most of the GAFfers here, it had some really good gameplay there. It was a great portable title and a blueprint for Type-0 and Birth by Sleep. It's easily the best title out of the FF7 compilation.
3rd Birthday was one of the best looking shooters on the platform and I personally had a lot of fun with it. It was silly, but it worked better on PSP than most of the other shooters that tried to fit two stick gameplay onto a single-stick console. I haven't actually beaten it yet but I played it a good bit back in the day. A lot of people hated it because it wasn;t Parasite Eve, instead of embracing it for what it is - a really competent portable shooter.
And there was the infamous Type-0 which I wasn't particularly blown away buy but it was an another big project that Square Enix could have easily decided to sell Vitas with - it's one of the very few 2 UMD released games. The game looks absolutely beautiful on PSP still and was good enough to be remade for PS4. It had an overworld with a simplistic RTS, towns, a cast of 14 characters, online play, 4 kingdoms and a very bloody, cinematics unlike most of the FF games. Yes, a lot of its premises were disappointing (towns were often the same simple room, repeated, the RTS was REALLY simplistic, crystarium was a joke and the overworld in Dissidia Duodecim felt IMO livelier than in Type-0) but hey, SE hasn't released anything remotely as big or ambitious on Vita. And the cast was perhaps more interesting than the entirety of FFXIII.
Besides these SE released around the same time the World Ends With You, FFXII Revenant Wings and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 - which all were fantastic, especially TWEWY which had more gameplay and interesting systems in it than the entire Final Fantasy XIII sub franchise.
As much as I love Vita, sometimes I wish there was more unique and big releases like that on that system. Square Enix haven't given much attention to either N3DS or Vita this time around, which is a shame because it seems like they try to make money on shitty mobile games that rip off the legacy of their franchises, instead of actively building that legacy like the PSP games did (here's to hoping that the companies realise this and just try to recognise the dedicated handheld gaming is a niche worth catering towards to). Looking back, it was like a renaissance for them of sorts: the titles had high production values, they were full of content and just fuun. Right now I am hoping that all the Vita Dragon Quest games make it in Europe.
What do you think of their output on PSP? How does it hold up against other PSP titles? What would you like to see them do on PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS?
I have dusted off my old PSP 1000 to play DJ Max Clazziquai (damn, that muscle memory is still going strong) but along with it I remembered I have never finished KH: Birth by Sleep despite having quite a bit of fun with it back in the day.
And despite having massive problem with Terra's final boss this game is GLORIOUS. I really dislike Kingdom Hearts series (despite loving the premise), but BbS has some of the best action jRPG systems around - The finish commands, command styles, melding the commands, keeping abilities from them - I lost 5 hours just grinding and maxing out the D-links and commands.
Besides the game looks great and just feels like a big console release squished into old UMD.
Dissidia series is another great and an innovative title - the system was unique and captured a lot of the Advent Children acrobatics and just plain outlandish style. How many games have SE released with the amount of content rivalling Duodecim? How many games like it were released on any handheld at all? That game had a massive cast of playable characters, NPC characters with semi interactive areas AND it had a fairly robust overworld exploration AND it had ton of modes AND original Dissidia storyline AND completely replaceable RPG mode AND crazy amount of customisation and editing options AND massive amount of lore and fun fan service AND copious amount of DLC should you find the original content was not enough. Duodecim is absolutely MASSIVE and it felt like a game that was - would you believe it - made with love for the franchise.
Another favourite of mine is Tactics Ogre: Let Us Sing Together, which automatically became (to me at least) one of the finest tRPGs ever released. While it was a remake, it brought refinements that made the game feel really fresh with fantastic menus, wheel of fortune system (enabling you to backtrack up to 50 moves within the game) and extra content. The game has one of the best writing and story in the video games, and choices you make are some of the best I have ever encountered. Law and Chaos routes are so different they pretty much mean two entirely different story lines. And that beautiful music!
Crisis Core was to many a system seller and while I wasn't loving it as much as most of the GAFfers here, it had some really good gameplay there. It was a great portable title and a blueprint for Type-0 and Birth by Sleep. It's easily the best title out of the FF7 compilation.
3rd Birthday was one of the best looking shooters on the platform and I personally had a lot of fun with it. It was silly, but it worked better on PSP than most of the other shooters that tried to fit two stick gameplay onto a single-stick console. I haven't actually beaten it yet but I played it a good bit back in the day. A lot of people hated it because it wasn;t Parasite Eve, instead of embracing it for what it is - a really competent portable shooter.
And there was the infamous Type-0 which I wasn't particularly blown away buy but it was an another big project that Square Enix could have easily decided to sell Vitas with - it's one of the very few 2 UMD released games. The game looks absolutely beautiful on PSP still and was good enough to be remade for PS4. It had an overworld with a simplistic RTS, towns, a cast of 14 characters, online play, 4 kingdoms and a very bloody, cinematics unlike most of the FF games. Yes, a lot of its premises were disappointing (towns were often the same simple room, repeated, the RTS was REALLY simplistic, crystarium was a joke and the overworld in Dissidia Duodecim felt IMO livelier than in Type-0) but hey, SE hasn't released anything remotely as big or ambitious on Vita. And the cast was perhaps more interesting than the entirety of FFXIII.
Besides these SE released around the same time the World Ends With You, FFXII Revenant Wings and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 - which all were fantastic, especially TWEWY which had more gameplay and interesting systems in it than the entire Final Fantasy XIII sub franchise.
As much as I love Vita, sometimes I wish there was more unique and big releases like that on that system. Square Enix haven't given much attention to either N3DS or Vita this time around, which is a shame because it seems like they try to make money on shitty mobile games that rip off the legacy of their franchises, instead of actively building that legacy like the PSP games did (here's to hoping that the companies realise this and just try to recognise the dedicated handheld gaming is a niche worth catering towards to). Looking back, it was like a renaissance for them of sorts: the titles had high production values, they were full of content and just fuun. Right now I am hoping that all the Vita Dragon Quest games make it in Europe.
What do you think of their output on PSP? How does it hold up against other PSP titles? What would you like to see them do on PS Vita and Nintendo 3DS?
