Has Fire Emblem become a Waifu Simulator?

This question (amongst others that I will discuss here in this post) was on my mind after having just invested 30+ hours into Fire Emblem Fates and deciding that I simply couldn’t be arsed to play the game anymore. A quick bit of background first though because I think that it’s extremely important to remember how the Western exposure of Nintendo/Intelligent Systems’ tactical gem has evolved in recent years. Fire Emblem has been around since the Famicom days in Japan and proved to be popular enough to spawn many sequels heading into the the 16-bit Super Famicom era. Over here however, it was a different story.

The first official Fire Emblem release that we received was for the Gameboy Advance back in 2003. Simply titled ‘Fire Emblem’, it was a prequel to the previous GBA release that remained a Japan-only deal and largely owed its English language existence to the popularity of Marth and Roy, two Fire Emblem protagonists that had been included as playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Once our FE cherry had at last been popped, the sequels began to flow in the form of The Sacred Stones (GBA), Path of Radiance (Gamecube) and Radiant Dawn (Wii). A remake of the original Famicom title christened ‘Shadow Dragon’ was also released on the DS in 2008 (2009 for North America).

The graphics in Path of Radiance weren’t the prettiest by Gamecube standards but the gameplay was utter gold.

Up to this point, the series was still relatively niche in the West despite the steady flow of localised sequels in the wake of that initial GBA release. This modest popularity was likely propped up by Nintendo in the form of much smaller print runs of the games than other software releases on the same consoles (Shadow Dragon is a pretty expensive pre-owned game here in Europe for example). It sold well enough for the first 3DS installment – Fire Emblem Awakening – to be given the green light for us however and this is where things began to change. For the better? In some ways…but not ALL ways.

Now, I have to point out that Fire Emblem Awakening is one of my favourite games amongst all games that I have played since I started gaming in the early-mid 90’s. I ploughed around 130 hours into it and enjoyed promoting my characters and embarking on an excessive level of grinding in order to create a formidable army. At the same time, it was apparent that the tone of the series had shifted seismically in many respects. Fire Emblem has always been a series where you will find characters with luminous hair hues for example but with Awakening, the anime tropes were beginning to dominate. You could now advance support links between male and female characters to the point where they would declare their feelings for one another and marry and I actually quite liked this element as I thought it was handled pretty well.

However, the fact that your main character is custom-created at the outset of the game and supposed to reflect YOU, the strategist, meant that you had the choice of who to get it on with in midst of war. Is this a bad thing? No but the fact that the majority of FE players are male really endeared this aspect of Awakening to the “Waifu” crowd. Now for those unfamiliar with the term “waifu”, I’ve gone off and retrieved a definition of the word from one of many online dictionaries:

waifu. Noun. (fandom slang) A fictional character from non-live-action visual media (typically an anime, manga, or video game) that one is attracted to and considers a significant other.

One thing I always admired about Fire Emblem was the way in which it was able to give us attractive/pretty female characters who were also formidable warriors, clad in plate armour and not made to look overly-sexy in a try-hard manner. In Awakening however, these sorts of traditional FE ladies are joined by several more sexualised characters that gained a following all of their own (Tharja for example) and various bits of borderline jailbait clearly not prepped for bloody battlefields.

Your MC in Awakening can marry Nowi. If you feel uncomfortable with that, just constantly remember that she is actually over 1,000 years old.

This aside, there are other things about Awakening that really made me see FE as a series that was pandering to the Otaku types. The increase in crazy, out-there anime style characters for example or the DLC hot springs episode which – of course – included lots of awkward moments as battle-hardened valkyries suddenly switched chain mail for swimsuits or kimonos. I’m not saying that I’m against this kind of thing because I’m as appreciative of a bit of casual titillation as the next male BUT it made no sense in a Fire Emblem game and it was that thought which continued to return to me. On the whole though, Awakening was a great game with the usual excellent gameplay, some fantastic music and – despite some of the weirdos – some brilliant characters. Yes, these new elements felt out of place in an FE game but thanks to how addictive the gameplay itself was, there was a pretty good balance.

Then came Fire Emblem Fates, a follow-up with a brand-new world, storyline and characters unrelated to Awakening as is often the case with FE sequels. The game was unique in that it shipped as two versions, entitled “Birthright” and “Conquest”, with each edition following a different perspective of the storyline’s war. A third segment of Fates called “Revelation” was then released digitally on the e-shop (or available physically in the Collector’s Edition) which tied together both games and acted as a conclusion of sorts. This sounded very interesting to me and I battled for a long time against stock shortages and greedy ebay re-sellers to obtain a Collector’s Edition boxset (and story/saga in itself) so that I could get the cartridge that contained all three parts of the storyline. After the brilliance of Awakening, this had to be the next step up? Wrong.

Oh boy! Somebody forgot their armour…yep, we’re knee-deep in Waifu territory with Fire Emblem Fates.

Aside from my gripes with the gameplay additions (such as new classes that I didn’t particularly like) and the fact that I didn’t care one inch for the storyline, there were many aspects of the game that had fully stepped over that line into Otaku territory. Waifu-ism was rampant now, especially when it came to the eye-poppingly breasty Camilla (pictured above) who thought that wearing some token midriff armour but leaving her overflowing chest and underpants exposed is a good idea when going up against axes and spears. Again, I cannot lie and say that I don’t like her design but I also think that it’s not very Fire Emblem and shouldn’t really belong here.

There are all these female characters for the male Waifu fanatic to choose from and this time, when you marry, the two of you have a little house within your army’s fort and certain ‘events’ trigger upon visiting such as receiving a kiss from your significant other or having them speak to you directly in a first-person viewpoint. Most of these moments are quite touching (if you’re a bit of a softie like me) but time and time again, I felt myself asking “is this just too much?”. Along with wildly mis-matched,  impractical outfits for many of the women, the romance element made me feel that the game was definitely part Waifu simulator.

There were other issues of course. I couldn’t care less about the majority of the characters for example and the usual assortment of stereotypical personalities were gradually drip-fed into my swelling assortment of units. The game also committed the sin (in my opinion anyway) of having a Japanese/Ninja-themed setting in a fictional, fantasy world. What is that all about? Why do developers have to do it? Familiarity for Japanese players perhaps? Possibly but for me, this sort of thing has always struck me as lazy and unispired and yes, I will include the likes of Final Fantasy VII‘s Wutai in that criticism. No game is safe.

Usually, Tharja would probably suck your soul away with the Nosferatu spell but because Waifu culture is a thing, THIS can happen too.

Overall, I simply didn’t enjoy Fates. Once again, I will just reaffirm that I really don’t mind the pervy fanservice-y stuff (such as the above image) but there are games specifically geared towards that kind of stuff and I really don’t think that Fire Emblem is the place for it. Unfortunately, Intelligent Systems likely had no say in the matter because – from what I have read – declining sales of the series (even in Japan) forced Nintendo to issue an ultimatum when it came to Awakening: sell 250,000 units or it will be the final Fire Emblem installment. This would largely explain why they have shifted the tone a little and tried to appeal to that niche but sizeable Otaku crowd. The move clearly paid off but at what price? The series seems secure for now but it has taken a new path that the old-school fans who grew up playing translations of the Famicom/Super Famicom releases may (understandably) turn their noses up at.

One final note/disclaimer from me is just to say that at the time of writing this post, I haven’t played the latest 3DS Fire Emblem game which is a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden. Drop me a comment down below and let me know if it is a little more restrained than Fates…

10 Worthy Guest Fighters for Tekken 7

Recently I posted about the elusive Tekken X Street Fighter and how the inclusion of Street Fighter‘s Akuma in Tekken 7 made me wonder whether the mysterious crossover might actually arrive in the form of a DLC expansion pack for Tekken 7. Well, my theory was blown out of the water when Namco announced SNK’s Geese Howard as a DLC fighter and then utterly nuked after the no-way-you-saw-that-a-coming unveiling of a Final Fantasy XV character (WTF?) as the next guest fighter.

It did at least get me thinking though (not always a good thing, I assure you) about just how many random characters from other non-Namco properties will drop in for the seventh King of Iron Fist Tournament. Naturally, they will probably be characters from high-profile and very relevant franchises but me being me, I just had to come up with a list of dream guest characters. A few things to note before I jump in though:

1. This list is just my opinion and includes characters I personally like.
2. As tempting as it was, I have tried to omit anybody with weapons. It would be nice to say “oh, wouldn’t it be awesome if Sephiroth was in Tekken 7?” but 200 mile-long katanas don’t make for a very fair or believable fight. Admittedly, this is when talking about a game from a publisher who once gave the green-light for lightsabers to clash with regular steel in Soul Calibur IV but we’ll pretend that never happened.
3. I don’t actually believe any of these will happen but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of fantasy, is there?

So…here we go!

1 – Zell Dincht (Final Fantasy VIII)

So there’s already a Final Fantasy character in Tekken 7 but for me, a having a sword at a fist fight just isn’t correct. Okay, Yoshimitsu carries one but a) he’s a classic and b) he at least doesn’t use it for the majority of his attacks. Anyway, Final Fantasy has no shortage of hand-to-hand brawlers who could leap in to duke it out with Kazuya and co. From FFII‘s Josef to FFVII‘s Tifa Lockheart, there are more choices than you may realise given how the series is synomonous with sword-wielding characters. My personal favourite however (and I may be biased given how FFVIII is my favourite game of all-time) is Zell Dincht. He has a cool look that I think would fit straight into Tekken and his limit break specials could provide inspiration for a lot of cool moves/combos. As currently relevant as Noctis? Not a chance. Cooler? Hell yes.

2 – Mila (Dead or Alive 5)

Dead or Alive is certainly more relevant now than it has been for a long time and with DoA5, Team Ninja finally made a game that offered all of the playful perviness that the series is famous for along with an extremely competent and skillful fighting game. DoA5 itself has had some guest characters, including SNK’s Mai Shiranui, so it would be no surprise if one of their own managed to venture into another fighting game. I could opt to nominate somebody super-popular such as Ryu Hayabusa or ask for Tekken 7 to get a bit boobier with the likes of Kasumi or Ayane but instead, I would suggest one of DoA5‘s newcomers – Mila. With Mila, Team Ninja created another attractive female but this time made her cool and tomboyish with a bad-ass, heavy-hitting MMA style of fighting that was a welcome breath of fresh air from the usual ninja antics. Off the top of my head, I don’t recall Tekken having too many (if any) heavy-hitting girls so why not give Mila a shot?

3 – Zero Suit Samus (Metroid)

Sorry Nintendo but this piece by ‘Dinoforce’ over on Deviantart is nicer than your official renders.

You’ll have to hear me out on this one because I can hear your thoughts now: “oh look, what a surprise, he’s going for more tits and blonde hair in Tekken“. I admit it: having another slinky blonde in Tekken complete with a skintight bodysuit would not be something that I’d protest too hard about but moreover, I was trying to think of a fitting i.e. realistic bit of Nintendo representation that would make sense in Tekken and Samus in her Zero Suit form was – in my mind – the most suitable (get it? I’ll get my coat…). I did consider having Samus in her famous power suit (because DoA4 included a Spartan soldier from Halo after all) but it seemed out of place and besides, she only really uses her arm cannon when suited-up and guns seemed as rude as swords. If you’ve seen ZSS in action over in Smash Bros. however then you will know that she can kick some serious ass even when stripped of her traditional armoury. Those particular moves wouldn’t necessarily translate well to Tekken but the potential is there as is the sales potential, especially if a Switch port of Tekken 7 was to include ZSS as an exclusive guest…

4 – Gene (God Hand)

The first of one of my more “out there” selections but why not? Wouldn’t it be nice for one of the most unique and quirky 3D beat ’em ups ever made to get some more exposure? God Hand was one of those truly special games that the mainstream simply didn’t go for but if – like me – you did play it, the humour, bizarreness and outright challenge (it was balls-hard in many places) were unforgettable. I think protagonist Gene would be a perfect fit in a fighting game since God Hand featured a ridiculous number of moves and combos which would easily translate to a traditional fighter. Also, I think it’s such a waste that Capcom haven’t included Gene in a Marvel Vs Capcom installment by now.

5 – Honey (Fighting Vipers)

We’re heading into the lands of the more obscure now but old-school fans of fighting games shouldn’t fail to recognise this rubber-suited girl from Sega’s Fighting Vipers, a short-lived mid-90’s series that had only two games plus the crossover with other Sega/AM2 characters, Fighters’ Megamix. The game was a 3D polygon-based fighter released at a time when everybody was jumping on the train that Virtua Fighter and Tekken had started. It was actually decent though, held back by the fact that the Sega Saturn would be the destination for a home conversion and thus the game wouldn’t receive as much exposure as if it had been a third-party Playstation release. I personally really like Fighting Vipers and would LOVE a new Fighters Megamix mash-up from Sega but failing that, some form of modern representation of the characters would do. Honey (named “Candy” for PAL versions of the game) is a girl dressed in a homemade rubber fairy suit and is probably one of the game’s more notorious characters. I don’t think it would take too much to update her moveset and expand on it for the modern fighting game arena plus an outfit refresh would be sweet to see. Characters like Lucky Chloe prove that Namco aren’t averse to inluding quirky girls in their flagship fighting game so as strange as it may seem, I reckon Honey would fit right in.

6 – Akira Yuki (Virtua Fighter)

You can’t have guest characters from other fighting games without having the main man of the 3D fighting game granddaddy, Virtua Fighter. A simple but highly effective design (just like Street Fighter‘s Ryu), Akira is an icon in the fighting game field. Interestingly, he has already recently crossed-over into Dead or Alive 5 and the more niche 2D fighter, Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax so there’s absolutely no reason why he wouldn’t be able to slot straight into Tekken and show everybody how it was done back when characters looked like collections of cuboids and jumps took them to the moon.

7 – Rainbow Mika (Street Fighter)

Some more heavy bias here I’m afraid because Rainbow Mika is one of my favourite characters from any fighting game BUT there is at least a sound reason for her potential inclusion in Tekken 7, that reason being that Namco created their own female wrestler for Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and then neglected to bring her back for Tekken 7. True, Jaycee is an alter ego of Julia Chang but the latter isn’t even in Tekken 7 so it’s odd that Namco didn’t include Jaycee. Whatever the reasons, it means that there is room for a female wrestler so if this crossover thing is on then how about the bootylicious R.Mika? She would bring some bad-ass Street Fighter V moves to the table and Namco would no doubt cook up plenty more interesting plays for her. Make it happen. NOW.

8 – Axel Stone (Streets of Rage)

Sega’s Streets of Rage could well be one of the most requested series revivals in gaming and while I can’t see it ever happening (nor would I necessarily want it to knowing what re-imaginings can be like…), it would be nice to see some of the favourite brawlers return. It was a toss-up here for Axel or Blaze but with enough pretty ladies already on this list, I decided to elect for Axel instead.  The small bit of hope out there is that Axel recently appeared as a support character in the superb Project X Zone 2 crossover RPG for 3DS so there’s proof that Sega haven’t completely forgotten about their famous beat ’em series. Sure, his design is a little simplistic and his moveset pretty straightforward (as you’d expect from a side-scrolling beat ’em up) but these are things Namco could easily sort out.

9 – Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza)

The only major barrier I see for this is that Yakuza‘s legendary protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, looks a hell of a lot like a certain Kazuya Mishima and even has a vaguely similar name! I even created a custom version of Kazuya in TTT2 that looked near-identical to Kazuma so…yeah. Look past all of that however and you have a recognisable character from a relevant series that Sega is pushing here in the West. He also comes with countless moves from the Yakuza series that could be adapted for Tekken. Of all the characters on this list, I would say that Mr. Kiryu probably has the best odds of actually making it.

10 – Cammy (Street Fighter)

Alright…not a very imaginative choice for the final spot considering that there’s already a Street Fighter character in Tekken 7 and that I’ve nominated another already on this list but I’m going to be selfish (as selfish as can be on a list that is already personal opinion) anyway and say that I just want to see what Cammy would look like in high-quality 3D with a more serious look to match that of the other agents/assassins that compete in the King of Iron Fist Tournament. That and I actually struggled to think of somebody else more left-field or suitable from a different game for the last nomination. So shoot me.

So that’s my list of dream guest spots for Tekken 7. Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment on my choices or tell me who YOU would want in the game.

 

What happened to Tekken X Street Fighter?

It’s been a long time since Capcom released the divisive Street Fighter X Tekken, a landmark in terms of crossover fighting games that pitted two absolute giants against one another. It was perhaps the crossover that nobody expected would ever have happened yet it did and despite such a fantasy becoming a very real, er…reality, gamers still moaned about it. There was good reason to be disappointed too: the gem power-up system and “Pandora” ability were both superflous mechanics that could be ignored entirely and felt like weak attempts to add some form of additional depth. Worse still, the game shipped with a small DLC-related scandal whereby it was discovered that the code for fifteen or so additional characters was already locked away on the disc. Today, we are usually unfazed by a publisher planning DLC before a game has even been released but when SFxT hit the shelves, the issue was a hot one that rubbed a lot of fans up the wrong way.

All of this was before Tekken fans had to get to grips with their favourite characters now existing in a 2D game and with radically different movesets and inputs to match. The game felt fine if you were a Street Fighter IV player but somewhat alien if you were used to Namco’s series and were hopping into the crossover to follow your favourite characters.

Ignore the criticism and give the game a chance…it’s pretty fun.

I personally really enjoyed Street Fighter X Tekken. The game played very well in my opinion which was no surprise given how similar to Street Fighter IV it felt. I enjoyed the spectacle of an amazing crossover that I had never believed possible and there were some fantastic remixes of classic tunes thrown in for good measure. Yes, the DLC strategy was a massive mis-step and to this day I haven’t bought the additional characters (though they come as standard on the Vita edition) but it was a lot of fun and very competent to boot. Go and play it, damn it!

Anyway, as much as I enjoyed Street Fighter X Tekken, I was FAR more excited for Namco’s promised version of the crossover, imaginatively titled Tekken X Street Fighter (wow…see what they did there?). How would Ryu and co. look in Tekken‘s highly detailed 3D world? More importantly, how on earth would projectiles, anti-air attacks and super moves translate to a 3D fighting game without unbalancing the world of Tekken? So many questions and unfortunately, so few answers as of 2017.  Let’s remember that the game was initially announced in 2010 and in that time, all we have had are a few promotional images and periodic promises that the game is “still happening” or is coming along in development.

The original promotional image…such a tease!

Let us take a look at a rough timeline accounting for what we know so far…

• Tekken X Street Fighter announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2010
• March 2012 – poll released on Namco’s Tekken Facebook page, asking fans which characters they would like to see in the game. 55 Tekken characters and 66 Street Fighter faces are available to vote for with voters having a choice of 5 from each franchise. Harada later clarifies that the poll results will not define the final roster but will be used in conjuction with other research to determine what the character select screen will look like.
• April 2012 – Tekken X Street Fighter confirmed to be around 10% complete.
• 2014 San Diego Comic-Con  – Namco/Harada confirm that the game is still in development and the reason for a lack of information is due to parent company Bandai-Namco waiting for the ideal time to market the crossover so as not to conflict with the release of solo releases such as Tekken 7 and Street Fighter V.
• 2015 – development of the game reported to have come far along. At the end of 2015, Street Fighter‘s Akuma is revealed as a guest character for Tekken 7.
• April 2016 – Tekken X Street Fighter officially “on hold”. Polygon models and gameplay systems are reported to be complete but the game is on-hold so as not to split the communities behind both franchises.

So what IS happening? It’s been seven years since the game was first announced and it’s difficult to tell whether it will ever actually happen or if Namco are – for some reason – prolonging making a statement that officially announces the cancellation of the crossover. I find it odd that they haven’t simply binned the game by now rather than keeping it on hold while tiding fans over with scraps of information and promises that Tekken X Street Fighter is still happening.

Revealing Akuma as a guest character in Tekken 7 was what I believed to be a major moment. This was huge news, especially given how Namco went as far as to officially weave Akuma into the Tekken canon, writing him into the main Mishima storyline where he has apparently been involved from the very beginning. More interestingly, was Akuma a test to see how well Street Fighter characters would integrate into the Tekken universe? I certainly believed so and even considered the possibility of the standalone crossover game being canned in favour of releasing a stack of Street Fighter characters as a DLC expansion of sorts for Tekken 7. The idea seemed to make more financial sense than persevering with a full-on crossover release.

Admit it: you didn’t see this coming. Nobody did.

But then, something else happened that blew my theory out of the water. Namco announced another guest star…a non–Street Fighter guest fighter in the form of SNK’s Geese Howard. Suddenly, instead of this being a pure Namco/Capcom relationship, it looked like Namco were opening up the floor for guest characters in general. Akuma appearing in a Tekken game no longer looked like a ‘test’ of sorts but the first of a possible wave of outsiders entering the King of Iron Fist tournament. And so it has proven to be. At the time of me bashing this article out, Namco have just announced Noctis from Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy XV as the next guest fighter! This is a LOT more random and unexpected than Akuma or Geese so I can now honestly say that I have no idea what any of this means, if anything at all. This is now likely to be Namco simply raising the profile of its flagship fighter and drawing in new players as other publishers have done before. Let us not forget that Namco themselves have already made this move in the past with Soul Calibur II featuring Link/Spawn/Heihachi (depending on which console you owned the game for) and reportedly intending to host Final Fantasy VII‘s Cloud Strife in the PS2 version before various obstacles scuppered what would have been a real nerdgasm moment.

(on a side-note, I’m not sure what I think about Noctis after watching his reveal trailer. I’m all for guest characters but a sword in Tekken? Hmm…I’ll have a dedicated post for Tekken 7‘s guest character DLC soon perhaps)

So what do I think about all of this? Well, I would be very surprised if Tekken X Street Fighter actually happens at this point. With Namco and Capcom working so closely together these days, it SHOULD be easy but I’m always highly sceptical of any game seeing the light of day when it has dwelled in the dreaded “Development Hell” for so, so long. I’m no expert on videogame development but with the pace that both hardware and software evolves at these days, wouldn’t the completed assets be out of date before they can be utilised? The reveal of Geese and Noctis puts paid to my theory of a full-on Street Fighter invasion of Tekken 7 so…I don’t know. This has been one of my most eagerly anticipated games ever since the initial announcement but I am also keeping my hopes firmly under control because games in development for this long usually get canned or turn out to be disappointments (Duke Nukem Forever, I’m looking at YOU). Given the consistent high quality of the Tekken franchise on a technical and aesthetic level however, I refuse to believe that a finished product from Namco would be scrappy.

One thing is for sure though: it has been a great couple of console generations for fans of fighting games and the scene hasn’t been more alive since the 90’s. Yes there is a lot of crap out there and perhaps a lot less soul than the likes of 3rd Strike, Capcom Vs SNK and Soul Calibur II managed to possess but hey, at least there are fighting games for us to play. We can only hope that Tekken X Street Fighter turns up fashionably late to the party rather than shying out.

The PSP: Not Just an Emu Machine

Welcome to my first ever post on this blog and to kick things off, I thought I’d have a little discussion on a console that I have a lot of affection for: Sony’s PSP.

“The…PSP?” I hear you say. Yes; you remember the first Playstation-branded portable console that valiantly attempted (and utterly failed) to break Nintendo’s vice-like grip on the handheld market? It was a great piece of kit at the time of release and in fairness, held it’s own for long enough to spawn four hardware revisions and boat-loads of software.  There are many factors that contributed to the PSP’s relative failure but the big elephant in the room is Custom Firmware or ‘CFW’ for short. Hacking the PSP was a constantly evolving process that initially required certain UMD discs and permanent hardware modifications that posed the serious risk of “bricking” your system if you didn’t know what you were doing. Sony fought back again and again with firmware updates but new CFW versions kept on coming until it was possible to run the naughty stuff straight from the memory card.

Running CFW was desirable because it allowed for the use of emulators on a console that proved to be bloody good at being a portable Mega Drive/SNES/GBA etc. It also allowed people to download isos of PS1 software to run directly from the card rather than buying from the PS Store. Most of this could be passed off as harmless but what wasn’t harmless was the way on which CFW allowed gamers to download retail PSP games rather than purchasing the physical UMD. Software sales were damaged as a result (several of Square’s Final Fantasy games reportedly suffered heavily for example) and the end of the PSP was nigh.

Now that I’ve given a quick history lesson, let me continue by stating that I’m not here to argue the morality of hacking consoles and downloading software (that’s a discussion in its own right). I’m here to defend the PSP as a genuine platform for great games – many of the exclusives – that should be recognised for more than simply a big screen and buttons to hack as quickly as possible and fill up with teh romz.

Holy shit: REAL games? Am I a madman?

The PSP has a ridiculous number of quality titles across all genres and many types of games work a lot better than you may think given the lack of shoulder buttons and that (admittedly) annoying, slidey analogue stub. There are a few kings amongst the genres though, types of games that received more support than others and were thus reasons to own a PSP. The most suited genres were:

• RPG’s
• Puzzle Games
• Retro/Arcade compilations

If those types of games float your boat then a PSP is a must-have console in your collection. The fact is though that even the lesser-supported genres received some absolutely stunning games. Don’t forget that the PSP was a lot more powerful than its rival, the Nintendo DS, and had the benefit of more adult-orientated games and the kind of stuff that Playstation owners had been used to playing on their home consoles for years now. Witnessing a fully-fledged 3D Grand Theft Auto on a portable blew my mind for example, especially given that both of the “Stories” games were visually superior to GTAIII and Vice City on the PSP as well as more expansive. Then there was Tekken, God of War, Gran Turismo…the list goes on. Of course, the price to pay for this greatness was a woefully short battery life but you had to take the rough with the smooth as with most rewarding things in life.

But going back to what the PSP did especially well and it’s impossible to not start with the RPG’s. Square in particular really loved the PSP bringing upgraded ports of Final Fantasy I-IV, both Star Ocean‘s, Final Fantasy Tactics, Valkyrie Profile as well as brand-new software in the shape of The Third Birthday (aka Parasite Eve III), Tactics Ogre and Dissidia. Capcom contributed Breath of Fire, Atlus offered up enhanced remakes of Persona 1 & 2 plus a portable edition of the mighty Persona 3, Nippon Ichi made Disgaea go portable (twice!) and a whole host of other publishers pitched in with the likes of Riviera, Valkyria Chronicles, Gungnir, Jeanne D’Arc and much more.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII proved to be massively popular on PSP.

Fighting games were also well catered for with Namco’s mastery of the host hardware blessing owners with Tekken: Dark Resurrection and Soul Calibur Broken Destiny – portable versions of their major home console fighters which looked incredible, played just as smoothly and packed in plenty of content (Tekken 6 also received a PSP port later on). Fans of the traditional 2D front were amply supplied to thanks to Capcom porting sublime updates of Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Darkstalkers. Crisp visuals, smooth animation and all of their bigger brothers’ content made it feel like you had somehow managed to ram an arcade cab in your pocket. Guilty Gear and new kid on the block, Blazblue, also rocked up to the party (with varying results it must be said).

Quick-fire puzzle gameplay was another of the PSP’s important cornerstones with so many to choose from. In fact, I’m still discovering new stuff to this day when browsing for new titles to add to my PSP collection! If a puzzle series exists then chances are, there was a PSP version. Lumines, Puzzle Quest, Puyo Puyo, Bust-a-Move, Mercury and Puzzle Fighter were merely the tip of an enormous iceberg.

And if you’re an old fart at heart (I’m a poet and I didn’t know it etc…) then the retro vibes that the PSP exuded would have been most welcome. Taito, Capcom and Midway all published multiple collections absolutely rammed with classic arcade titles while SNK gave us compilations for Metal Slug, King of Fighters and Samurai Shodown (though admittedly, these can be difficult to find due to being published in tiny quantities).

All of this and I feel as though I’ve barely touched on what makes the PSP great. The import scene for example is especially strong thanks to the console’s lack of a region lock and as you may expect, the PSP soldiered on for much longer in its homeland playing host to a wealth of amazing and quirky software that didn’t cross the water. If you have a PSP or intend to pick one up then it’s well worth investigating what didn’t leave Japan. I live in the UK and so there were also many games that the US got and we didn’t so the import pool is even bigger for us Europeans.

My own trusty PSP-3000 rocking a naughty Ayane wallpaper…

What I’m saying is, forget about the CFW, roms and emulators for a moment. Take the time to appreciate the PSP for what it offered in stock form and you might just be surprised at how versatile and impressive both the hardware and games were. I DO run CFW myself – a non-permanent version sitting on my memory card that can be switched on and off at will. I don’t use it for emulation or downloading PSP roms however because I much prefer to have a physical copy of a game as I find that tracking a game down and giving it a proper go is more satisfying than simply downloading a large package of soulless roms. I’m a hoarder by nature anyway and so nothing but the actual box in my hand will do! I use CFW simply to create ISO copies of UMD’s I actually own so that I can play the games directly from the memory stick to improve loading/battery life and save wear on the UMD drive. This has meant seeking out larger storage than Sony’s propiertary Pro Duo format offers so I’m currently rocking a 64GB micro SD card in a Pro Duo adaptor.

There’s far too much goodness to go through here so I will probably feature some of the best games in their own dedicated posts to highlight the gems that the PSP has to offer. With this post, I just wanted to big up the PSP for doing what it does without the aid of modifications. I really find it a shame that such a proper gamers console can’t be talked about without somebody replying “Get it flashed asap, bruv” or “U got CFW on it yet, mate?”. What do these people know? Nothing – clearly.