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Well, there's the new remakes of the first two Final Fantasy games, for a start. Very basic games, due to their age, and that's meant that they've received some negative reviews (as has the fact that Squenix are really milking the series right now, both of these already having been remade for the PS1 and then, more recently, the GBA). I really like them, though - the visuals have been redrawn so that they're all in spanking PSP resolution - wonderfully sharp, 2D pixel beauty. Animation remains the same basic two frames business, which might initially seem odd. But yes, nice releases - the Japanese versions include full English language options, if you can find them cheaper than the US ones. No European release yet.
There's the port of Valkyrie Profile, originally released on the PS1, now renamed Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth. Again, a very nice Square RPG, although a lot more complex than the two FFs. also very original in concept - you've been sent to Earth to find and train warriors, who you're then to send back up to Valhalla in preparation for Ragnarok. There's a lot of freedom in how you go about this and multiple endings depending on how successful you are, but the game is terrible at explaining itself and the manual's not much better, so there's a huge amount of trial and error - I suspect that I'm not going to have a proper understanding of it until I've completed it at least once.
Europe and Japan got a port of Breath of Fire III, which is a nice, traditional JRPG, but hampered by nasty, frequent pauses for loading. never came out in the US and never will, unless Sony of America changes its idiotic stance on refusing to allow official licences to remakes unless they include 20% new material, so you'll need to import the UK version if you're in teh US yourself.
Same applies to Namco's Tales Of Eternia, which is another PS1 port. Doesn't have the loading issues of BoFIII. Combat is real-time, side-on stuff, which I'm struggling to see much strategy in atm (although it should be noted that I've played all of half an hour of the thing). Another one that looks lovely on the PSP screen - PS1 games are given a whole new lease of life by this thing, when they're converted to the widescreen format properly. One thing to be aware of with ToE is that the initial European run had a bug that made it unplayable after a certain boss battle - if you want the game, you need to be looking for the version that includes the PSP's 2.5 firmware on the disc, as that's the later one with the bug fixed. That's require emailing the store selling it, or the eBay seller, or whoever, because there's no indication of which run it is on the box, manual or disc until you whack it into the PSP.
The Metal Gear Ac!d games are interesting combinations of Metal Gear Solid, collectible card stuff and turn-based strategy. If you're a big fan of the series, you should get a lot from them. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops is more traditional MGS gameplay, but with an odd capture/collection ethic - you need to knock out enemies and drag them back to your point of entry in a level to capture them and add them to your forces, either to be deployed at different points on the game's map to provide benefits when you play through those areas, or as playable characters to add to your squad when you enter one of those areas yourself. Controls are a little iffy, which is about the only major negative point I can think of, off the top of my head.
I've not played either of the PSP GTA games, but most people who have seem to like them - they do what you'd expect, which is portable GTA.
Those would be my recommendations, going on what you've said you enjoy. Otherwise, there are some superb racers - both Ridge Racers, WipEout Pure - some decent puzzlers - Bust-a-Move Ghost, Exit, Archer Maclean's Mercury - Konami's bargainous shmup collections and a bunch of little gems, some hidden - LocoRoco, Everybody's Golf. |
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