My wife just surprised me with a new PSP battery after listening to me moan about not having one ever since reading PerfectDark’s most recent PSP article. After messing around with broken USB cables and jumping through hoops to un-spoof my old prome-2 firmware version for too long last night, I finally got ARK4 running and had a blast playing Wipeout Pure.
My favourite PSP game back in the day was probably Monster Hunter Freedom Unite… so many late nights spent playing that with friends in my freezing flat. There was something special about LAN parties with handheld games. I remember putting serious hours into Peace Walker and Dissidia too.
Now I want some game recommendations… tell me which games you loved on the PSP! I might even have a look around for some UMDs!
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Locoroco. It was just so sweet and cheerful.
The sounds the balls made were just beautiful. Oooooo
So cute.
And I loved the main theme.
Wow I had forgotten about this game… definitely going to give it a jam again!
PATA PATA PATA PON!
FEVERRRRR!!!
Play patafour! (I was once a major maintainer! It’s a bit abandoned now but if any souls wanna help it’s ripe for the taking)
I just got a new battery and screen for my Darth Vader PSP2000 just to play this but have been struggling because the audio is so terrible which makes it difficult to hear the beat over the other sound effects. I had to try three different pairs of modern headphones to find one that even worked and yet the audio is still so hard to hear. IIRC the original earbud that came with it was a mono piece (just one ear) so maybe I need to buy an amp or something. Or perhaps its the 30 years of hearing abuse I’ve subjected myself to in the interim that is the culprit.
Final Fantasy Dissidia duo decim and Crisis Core were the only games I really enjoyed on the PSP.
Dissidia is probably the best Final Fantasy game no one remembers anymore
Yeah, I played Crisis Core, VII-IX and GoW on mine a lot. I may have even had a Jax and Dexter on it? I can’t remember. It was wild to me that I could play my final fantasy games on it.
There are plenty of good titles already mentioned here so I’ll go with something less popular.
- PangYa: Fantasy Golf - it’s a golf game, as you can guess from the title. It has simple but really fun gameplay with customisable characters (outfits and equipment, the latter affects character stats). It also has a story mode to get you started.
- Puzzle Quest - RPG with match 3 gameplay for combat. Really addictive in a “just one more quest” kind of way.
- Ridge Racer 2 - it’s Ridge Racer. Riiiiiidge Racer! Tons of content, bunch of modes, fun to control - it’s great! Might be my favourite handheld racing game (and definitely one I spent the most time with). It’s pretty much a celebration of the franchise until that point, especially the classic era.
Puzzle Quest! Man, I was way too addicted to that game!
It’s so easy to just keep going. It’s great!
Golf game with a story mode? That sounds interesting!
It’s a silly and light hearted romp about a golf tournament, with a cast of weirdos as your rivals. It’s pretty fun as long as you don’t mind anime aesthetic and tropes (it’s not egregious or anything, I just know some people are allergic to anything anime adjacent).
Loco Roco was nice and I don’t think its been mentioned.
@VerseAndVermin @PeculiarGoat Agreed! Forgot about that one.
I never owned a PSP, but tried a few in an emulator. Really missed out on a fantastic device and game library. I think there are some obvious famous games that many recommend, as such
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7
- God of War - Ghost of Sparta
- Grand Theft Auto Liberty/Vice City Stories
- Lumines
- Metal Gear Acid / Peace Walker / Portable Ops Plus
- Monser Hunger Freedom Unite
- Persona 2 Innocent Sin
- Ratchet and Clank Size Matters
Also kind of ports I think, maybe new games in series, I’m not sure. But just able to play these on a portable device is awesome:
- Gran Turisomo
- Littlle Big Planet
- MotorStorm: Arctic Edge
- OutRun 2006 - Coast 2 Coast
- Tekken 6
I didn’t play much on PSP yet. Following are also interesting:
- Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex
- Hot Shots Golf
- Jeanne d’Arc
- R-Type Command
- Tekken - Dark Resurrection
- Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
- WipEout Pure
And the list goes on and on. This was an awesome handheld.
Seconding Lumines. One of the few puzzles games that captures the feel of Tetris while still being it’s own thing
Yeah there are so many cool looking games to choose from!
Jeanne D’Arc
A fantastic RPG.
Did they ever manage to port Jeanne D’Arc to any other platforms? It would be a shame if they didn’t it was an excellent game.
As far as I know it’s either PSP or you play it on an emulator.
Figured as much, thanks. My PSP is a release model and is iffy. I’ll probably try and track down an iso file some day since I don’t think there is a viable way to play the PSP physical media any other way.
It was indeed
Surprised so few people mentioned it. It’s one of the best tatical RPGs I ever played.
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters.
Played through that sucker more times than I care to admit to.
Brave Story is a great RPG that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome and that I’ve enjoyed a lot. The enemy design was what really got me into it at the time, but the fun story and quality of life features kept me going
Yeah, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite was probably also the game I spent most time on my PSP.
It depends on what games you like, but I loved Persona 3 Portable and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.
If you liked Monster Hunter, you could also try God Eater. It is a really gold Monster Hunter Like with a good story!I like so many different types of games so all recommendations are good… I’ll check those out. God Eater sounds appealing, I haven’t played anything from that series!
LocoRoco, Patapon, the God of War priquel and Crisis Core
And also Armored Core Formula Front, it’s such a weird game in the series.
Oh, and Carnage Heart EXA. I’ve never managed to actually get far, but it’s the most unique mecha game there is. You program your mecha from scratch using logic blocks, and you can make it fully autonomous, fully manual (but you have to program each button press), or a combination of two. It takes as many hours to learn as an Armored Core game would take to complete.
I really loved playing the racing games on it. -Ridge Racers -Gran Turismo -Street Supremacy (Tokyo Xtreme Racers) -Initial D: Street Stage
Crisis Core Dissidia Locoroco Lumines
And the vast catalog of PS1 games you could download from the PSN store.
@Omegamanthethird @PeculiarGoat That was a nice perk.
If you’re into racing games, you could try ‘Colin McRae Rally 2005’ — it’s quite good and even requires a bit of knowledge about racing setups.
‘Race Driver 2006’ is also alright, it’s an expanded port of ‘TOCA Race Driver 2’ with lots of content and okay physics.
There’s ‘Twisted Metal: Head-On’, which is reportedly pretty good and in the vein of the first two games in the series (which had a different feel from 3-4 and probably ‘Black’ too).
If you’re into making music, check out LittleGPTracker: it’s a tracker-style app that works on PSP among other platforms and allegedly can load samples, as a tracker should. Inspired by the famous LSDJ for the Gameboy.
Oh hell yeah I hadn’t even considered running a tracker on PSP. I’m a big fan of LSDj and Dirtywave!
Forgot to mention: ‘Sid Meyer’s Pirates!’ is reportedly good on PSP, and it’s in my queue as a classic economic sim.
‘Pilot Academy’ is a remarkably difficult flight sim. Try also ‘R/C Stunt Copter’ on PS1 for extra credit.
There are several ‘Airport Hero’ games, from the ‘Air Traffic Controller’ series, aptly named for being simulators of ATC.
I’ve also heard good things about ‘428: Shibuya Scramble’, which is a detective visual novel adventure.
An ATC simulator on handheld seems like a bizarre game development choice… I must see this game in action!
There were also games from that series on GBA, NDS, 3DS, and five games on phones.
Again forgot: I’m not sure that the PSP games are officially translated to English, since the series primarily targets the Japanese market. But there might be fan translations.
Then you’re probably all set with Dirtywave, but you could also be interested in looking at SunVox for Android. It’s a combination of a modular synth, tracker and sequencer. Has a rather peculiar interface, and has been around on portable platforms like PalmOS for twenty years.
I’m not sure that the app can currently be bought, since the author is in Russia and will certainly not receive the money (not right away, at least), but afaik one can pay him directly and he’ll arrange the apk.
For my taste, SunVox is too much in beep-boop territory, so I prefer desktop trackers with some gnarly samples and effects, but the app is definitely good.
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions
Arguably the best way to experience the game.
