The Sony PlayStation Portable or PSP was released by Sony Computer Entertainment around December 2004 in Japan and March 2005 everywhere else. One year later in April 2006, I received it as a birthday present mixed with Easter. This little device gave me a taste of console gaming on the go for the very first time. Sure we had the Gameboy advance and even around the same time the Nintendo DS, but I did not feel like they were full-on fledged video game consoles. As a kid, they felt like handheld gaming and were much different than a console game.
This was what gave me a taste of console gaming on the go and I absolutely adored it. The first game I got with the system was Dragonball Z Shin Budokai. The history of the PSP is actually a really good one. It was received with critical acclaim with most critics talking about how powerful it was for the time. The only big problem at launch was the glossy exterior and that the screen was easily smudged.
I had one of the originally designed PSP units, the PSP 1000. I remember my only issue was being unable to charge with the USB cord since it had special AC adapter cords to charge from but had a USB port for data transfer.
Showing it off to my friends
I was popular with my friends for having a PSP. Eventually, some of my friends would get their own PSPs after watching me have one and playing it almost everywhere. Most people used iPods or Zunes constantly. I was using my PSP. I liked music but I liked gaming more. I would get more games in my library, one that I was utterly addicted to was the first Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force. It was the best animation I saw on a Yu-Gi-Oh! game I have ever seen at that point with 3D models in short cutscenes to use their cards. I wanted to collect every card and beat every single story in the game by partnering with every character in the show. It was a little later that I grabbed another game that was going to show me the power of the PSP. That game was Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core. The graphics and cinematics aesthetically blew me away every time a new cinematic came out. I spent my time shortly afterward looking up Music Videos utilizing clips from the cinematics from this game because I wanted to see it on the big screen. Zack Fair to this day is still my absolute favorite character of all time in the Final Fantasy franchise and it is purely based on this game.
That was the nail in the coffin for one of my really good friends to get a PSP. After seeing Cloud Strife in full a 3D model, he convinced his dad to get him it. I am glad he did, I showed him the tag Force game and around that time, the second one was released. We got Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag force 2 at the same time and became a normal occurrence to play it during lunch at school. Another friend of mine saw us playing it but he had a Nintendo DS instead, so we decided we would just bring our physical cards to school afterward, so we could play after school for about half an hour to an hour. This ironically gave us a nickname at school as the students under the stairs. We would be playing Yu-Gi-Oh! at the end of the hall and under the stairs and it was in large part due to the PSP. This helped me socialize a lot in school and keep in touch with my friends in more than just classes. (Heck the two friends and I still talk through Facebook every so often)
New Friends
It wasn’t just old friends that the PSP helped me get more time with. It was September 9th, 2010, my third week of the final year of High School. A new game came out I was beyond hyped for on the PSP. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Anyone who knew me knew that I was a huge fanboy of the Kingdom Hearts games. Heck in 2008 I literally tested my new camcorder on video footage of Kingdom Hearts 2 gameplay that ironically did extremely well on Youtube at the time. Of course, I spent my allowance on this game on the release date. I was not the only one either. Someone who was a good friend of my girlfriend at the time also got it as soon as it got released. At this time of my life, I was in a weird place. I used to go to Drama club and do auditions and even Improv, but during the summer before my senior year in High School, I underwent back surgery for Scoliosis.
I still waited for my parents to pick me up since I couldn’t drive because of it. The good friend of my ex-girlfriend waited 45 minutes at the bus stop for the bus. While he was waiting we discovered the Battle Arena in the game. In Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep you could team up with other people to fight a variety of unversed challenges. So we made it a habit to play some Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep with each other after school as he was waiting for the bus and I was waiting on my Mom from Work. Before we weren’t really close but afterward we talked a lot more about stuff and even during classes we had with each other we talked about other interests we had like Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy.
Some see gaming as just an escape from reality, but it is also an avenue of finding others who are interested in the same things as you. Some get into acting from Video Games, others write, some will even get into game design or just electrical design or engineering in general. There are many facets of life that gaming effects and the PlayStation Portable was one that affected many of my own. It gave me a love for stories, characters, and card games. It sent me into a variety of worlds and perspectives that I have brought with me every year of my life. Each game you play and console you play adds a bit to your character and desires.
The PSP had a lot of love from Sony as well as from third-party developers. We got God of War games, Jak and Daxter games, SOCOM games, Ape Escape games, Twisted metal games, Gran Turismo games, and many many others all on the go. It thrived even if it didn’t do as well as the Nintendo DS it still got plenty of love from players and developers from all over. It makes me sad Sony didn’t put as much love into the PlayStation Vita as they did the PlayStation Portable.
Karl Smart gave me this idea due to his own Ode to the PlayStation. As such, I want to give my own top 10 games from the PSP. This is my own list based on games I played!
Personal Top 10 PSP Games
1. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep – This was the first prequel done by Square Enix that explored three characters who were heavily involved with competing with Xehanort directly. You need to play all three characters in this game to piece the full story together. A revamped battle system that has the best features of building a deck of actions but also still having fluid and unique playstyles for the three characters. Each story is short but it builds into a great last chapter for each character that ends in tragedy that doesn’t even get resolved until Kingdom Hearts 3 arrives.
2. Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core – There are a few mobile games and animations and flashbacks from the original game that show the crisis but there has never been one so well made as this game to explore the dynamic of Zack Fair and his connection to Shinra. We get to see the savior of Cloud Strife in full 3D glory with the personality of the “Puppy” who is always up and giddy to get higher up in the ranks of SOLDIER.
3. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable – A portable release of Persona 3 but with a whole new difficulty mode tied to changing your character’s gender. Instead of walking around in the overworld, you just get to move by using your character cursor instead, but the story and dialogue is roughly the same as the original release. The new difficulty mode also adds new romance options and even a slightly different ending. The gameplay for dungeon-crawling is still super solid and the story is still very dark. Overall this was a great translation to the portable format.
4. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions -A revamped version of the old Final Fantasy Tactics game on the PS1 with new graphics, assets, and even more secrets to look for. It even has new animations tied to certain scenes. A very solid entry that is what most would want to see in a Remake of one of the best tactical RPGs of all time! If only we could see something of this scale for the original Fire Emblem.
5. Final Fantasy 1+2 – It definitely looks like Square Enix used the PSP to run a few remakes of older games. Final Fantasy 1 and 2 were completely remade with new dialogue, battle difficulty, map overworld, and even better sprites and animations. It was a masterpiece.
6. Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force series – Still, in my opinion, the absolute best of the Yu-Gi-Oh! video games. You could decide to do all duels by yourself except for story duels where you have to duel with your AI partner who was actually pretty competent in dueling. I mean there were a few times where you would have Jaden use Polymerization to fuze your already fusion monster to get a generic Elemental hero who was weaker but for the most part, they were great. It also showed the story of their respective series in the eyes of different characters and the struggles they had to deal with.
7. Dragon Ball Z Shin Budokai: Another Road – I am heavily biased on this game. I adore the Dragon Ball Z series and this game deals with my two favorite characters, Future Trunks and Future Gohan. Before Dragon Ball Super showed us how Trunks dealt with Majin Buu, this game took place to show what happened after Cell was defeated and peace was restored. Future Trunks decides Buu is too much for him to handle and is then joined by Future Gohan. They decide he is still too much to handle so Trunks goes back in time to get some more people to help out. Fighting is tight and it adds to the great formula the Budokai series already laid the groundwork.
8. God of War: Chains of Olympus – Honestly wasn’t too keen on this story but the gameplay was extremely well done in this God of War entry. It had great graphics. Played well, felt extremely satisfying to play and kill all of the boss enemies. Everything was tight and polished.
9. Valkyria Chronicles 2 – Going from the first game where you become a tank operator, this one starts with a class of students all with very unique features and mindsets that amplify the class roster greatly. I loved playing through this game and figuring out what character to bring for which trial. The characters were all very compelling and even fun to listen to. The worst parts of this game were the AI.
10. Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 – Now I dislike pretty much all sports games and golf games. This one attracted my eye by being visually appealing and honestly just so charming. My friend showed me this game and we both played back and forth a bunch with multiplayer. It was fun to get new outfits for your character and try to one-up each other constantly. Well worth a look.
The PSP was something that was a part of my life growing up and even stayed relevant in my life after high school. I still have my old PSP 1000 model and it still plays very well. The only issue is the battery isn’t as solid as it used to be. What could hold a 5-hour charge now only can hold 2 hours of battery at most. I still get nostalgic on looking at my card collection in Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag force 2 and my constant save files in Crisis Core just so I could replay a cinematic when I wanted to see more Zack Fair. For the most part, I stick with my PlayStation Vita or the Nintendo Switch when I want to play a handheld console but I still love my PSP and will try to keep it running for as long as I can maintain it.
My PSP and I have been through so much and I want to let it go through so much more with me. It has been by my side on many car trips and airplane rides now and has given me so much out of such a little small device. I thank my parents for letting me have this device, but also Sony for making and maintaining as well as you have when it was released. Thank you, Reader, for reading this and sharing in my love of the PSP.
