Continuing my coverage of handheld RPG’s from the last three months of 2008 over at RPGWatch, I take a look at the PSP and select iPhone releases.  This article covers nine games – six for the PSP and three for the iPhone.  Of the PSP games, one is a PSN port of an early PSx game and one is a strategy game, which means that even in the traditionally busy holiday schedule the PSP closed the year with a light offering.

From my review of Valhalla Knights 2:

“I will occasionally drift off in thought while playing games and picture life in the world described by the game. This can be a good thing, such as imagining life in the island city of Khorinis in Gothic II, or a bad thing, as I wonder who is sitting in all of the empty chairs around Arindale in Dungeon Lords. In this case I was thinking about Sartre. To be specific, I was thinking of his play No Exit. The basis of the play is that several people are trapped in a room with no exit, left to deal with nothing but each other. The group eventually realize that they are in hell – and that hell is the other people.

So, what causes me to have these thoughts about Valhalla Knights? In short, it’s the battle system. When you meet up with an enemy on the field, you are tossed into a circular battle ring. You cannot escape the ring unless you defeat the enemies. There are typical tactics you would use in a case like this – if you are a melee fighter then you’d get into the thick of things with the enemy and count on your mages and clerics to aid you with support and ranged firepower. Your ‘back line’ helpers should also strive to stay out of harm’s way as much as possible – but this is difficult when there is no ‘line’ because the battlefield is a circle. The tie-in to the original thought? At some point in the game you will ask yourself, “what the heck am I doing here and how do I get out?!” That is the easy part – press the ‘Home’ button, select ‘Yes’, remove the disk and insert something else… then forget you every played this one. “

You can check out the whole thing here at RPGWatch!.

Tags: Game Reviews