In “honor” of the upcoming launch of the PSP Go, I wanted to look back at the original PSP and list my favorite UMD games on it.

As far as I can tell, the PSP Go is pretty much just like the original except there is no slot to put in UMD games. It’s all downloadable stuff. Now, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t really say I’m very excited about it for that. If I did download all my games on the PSP Go, and then lose it, does that mean I lose all my games, too? And since I’d be downloading games that take up a lot of memory, does that mean I’ll be buying more memory cards as well as games?

Keep in mind that, since the PSP Go really isn’t on my radar to buy, I haven’t really researched it enough to list its strengths, and I’m sure it has them. And I don’t shy away from downloading games on my other consoles, either: Wii, Xbox, even DSi! And I can still download games on my old PSP if I want to. It’s just that, and I can’t put my finger on it, but something doesn’t “smell” right about the PSP Go.

Anyway, because the PSP Go is UMD-less, it makes me think that Sony may be trying to phase out the UMD format (can’t blame them, it did kind of bomb). I know that there are a few upcoming games that I’m looking forward to, like the quirky RPG Half-Minute Hero and the PSP Kingdom Heart game that’ll probably be on UMD. But other than that, there’s not really anything else that’s on my radar. So because of the lack of UMD titles in the foreseeable future, I figured now was a good time to list my favorite PSP UMD games.

In my opinion, the best games on the PSP are not only fun, but take advantage of the PSP’s strengths: the big bright screen, better graphics capabilities, and downloadable content from WiFi. The first few games on my list definitely do that. So let’s get this list started! First on the list are my top 5 favorites.

Loco Roco 1 and 2

I like the original a little better than the second one, but Loco Roco and its sequel are probably my favorite PSP games. It has everything I like: cute characters, quirky themes, and simple yet fun gameplay. And it takes advantage of the PSP’s strengths. The simple yet colorful and cartoony graphics look great on the big bright screen. And the L and R only controls are a perfect fit for the handheld. I really liked how you could download Halloween and Christmas levels, too! And the music is so catchy, I imported the soundtrack! (Yes folks, I did buy a CD of kids singing gibberish, so yeah, I am insane) I always call Loco Roco “The best game Nintendo never made.” It would be a perfect fit on the Wii, tilting around the levels with the remote. Too bad it’s from Sony. If they ever made a full-blown new Loco Roco game on the PS3, I just have might to get one of those. Supposedly around Christmastime, Sony will release a download only Loco Roco game on the PSP called Midnight Carnival, with harder levels and such. I just might maybe download that. They’re just such happy games, it’s impossible to be sad while playing Loco Roco!

Mega Man Powered Up

One thing that always surprises people is that I didn’t like Mega Man 9. Yes, I did appreciate the 8-bit graphics and sound, but that’s it. But Mega Man Powered Up was everything Mega Man 9 should’ve been. My main beef with MM9 is it was way too difficult. Yes, I know Mega Man games were tough, but not THIS hard. Really turned a lot of people away. But Powered Up had selectable difficulty levels that were truly different from one another. Little kids could enjoy the easy mode while hardcore gamers would still be challenged on hard mode. I always think it’s best to make games that EVERYONE can enjoy. Another problem with MM9 is that you had to pay to download all the extra stuff. But not in Powered Up. Secret characters like Roll and her monthly outfits were free, and Capcom was even generous enough to let you download Proto Man a year after Powered Up had been released (he was a secret character you had to unlock). Powered Up also had more substantial extras, like being able to play as all the bosses, play the original NES game, even a LEVEL EDITOR! I wish Capcom could’ve done a Powered Up version of Mega Man 2 or 3. Especially 3, because then we would’ve been able to see a chibi-fied puppy version of Rush! Yeah, I loved the cutesy approach of Powered Up, too.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy

This crossover fighting game starring Final Fantasy characters has only been out hardly a month, and it’s already on my top 3 favorite PSP games list. Yes, it’s that good. I’m not very good at fighting games, so I stink at this one, but I’m still having fun playing it. Instead of making a Smash Bros. or Capcom Vs. clone, Square Enix combined elements of Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Ball Z fighters to make Dissidia their own. They made the PSP controls work in their favor and used the graphical power of the PSP to the fullest. There’s plenty to do in all the robust gameplay modes, and lots of fanservice for old school FF fans like me (Kefka and Terra are my favorites). I’ll be playing this one for a while. You should try it, too.

Speaking of PSP fighting games, I also recently picked up Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny. Haven’t played it much yet, but I’m pretty impressed they managed to basically make a portable version of Soul Calibur 4. Only thing that has disappointed me so far is the character creation mode isn’t as full-fledged as it is in SC4. But I guess that’s the limitations of it being on a portable system.

Work Time Fun

WarioWare style games work great on portable systems, but none can capture the quirky fun of WarioWare itself. But Work Time Fun came pretty close. If you abbreviate the title it spells WTF, and that’s just what you’ll be thinking as you play this. The premise is that you’re in Hell and must do menial jobs for a meager paycheck, which you’re forced to spend on useless gashapon trinkets! The mini-games are your ‘jobs’ and you earn pay by doing well in the games. Some of the games really are menial and are meant to be a joke, like pressing a button to forever screw caps on pens in an ink pen factory! But some of the games are pretty fun and creative. And Work Time Fun is just teeming with quirky Japanese humor. I’m a bit surprised it was released in the US, actually!

Another notable WarioWare clone on the PSP is HOT Pxl, which featured a lot of urban style art and culture. It’s not as good as Work Time Fun, though. My favorite part is that you know in WarioWare titles, there are mini-games based on classic Nintendo games? Well, HOT Pxl has that, too, except its mini-games are based on classic Atari arcade games, like Breakout, Asteroids, and Battle Zone.

Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure.

This is a 3-D action RPG by Falcom, makers of Ys. It’s cute and cartoony and reminds me of Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends and Spirited Away. You play as a little girl who befriends monsters that adults can’t see, and she travels to the monster world to defeat bad guys. She has a drill weapon, and if you time your attacks to the beat of the music, you’ll get bigger hits. The thing I like about Falcom’s action RPGs is that they focus more on gameplay than anything. Only problem with Gurumin is that it’s VERY hard to find, so if you see it, GET IT!

And that’s my top five favorite PSP games. The rest of the games on this list can be put in any order of preference, depending on my mood.

Patapon

This was a pretty creative music/rhythm game. You entered in 4 button presses in 4/4 time to the music like drum beats. And depending on which buttons you pressed, your drum beats would command your cute little eyeball soldiers in battle. You could make them march forward, attack, defend and retreat, or use magic. Only problem is I lost interest in the game surprisingly quickly. Guess it was just too repetitive (and hard). Good thing it was only 20 bucks. I probably would’ve bought the sequel if it was on UMD, but since it was download only, I didn’t feel like having it take up space on my memory card. Strange how that works. I wish I had one of those Patapon toys they had in Japan.

Speaking of music games, another notable one was DJ Max Fever. The DJ Max games are HUGE in Korea, so I’m glad someone ported one over for US gamers to try. It’s similar to some of Konami’s beatmania games, but the techno tunes and cartoon music videos are slick. It’s also pretty hard, though!

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology

I never played too many PSP RPGs, so there may be some I’m missing out on. But one I did get into was Tales of the World. This game was light on story, but if you loved the action packed battles of the 3-D Tales games, this one is for you. You could fully customize your main character and even recruit characters from other Tales games to be in your party (sadly, no Grune). Then you’d go off into dungeons and battle a bunch of monsters. There were tons of classic Namco game references, too. Namco made a few Tales of the World games with the 2-D Tales battles on the GBA, too.

Mega Man X: Maverick Hunter

This 3-D remake of the original 16-bit Mega Man X game wasn’t as good as Mega Man Powered Up, but it was still a pretty solid game. The extras were nice, too. You could play as Vile with his own abilities and story. And when you beat the game, you unlocked a 30 minute Saturday morning styled Mega Man X cartoon that was pretty good for what it was. The original Mega Man X is one of my favorite Mega Man games, alongside MM2, MM3, and MM8.

Ridge Racer PSP

This launch title was one of the first PSP games I got. The graphics were surprisingly good for a first gen title, and looked almost PS2 quality. And for once, they actually added something NEW to the series: Nitrous that allowed you to have speed boosts! And as always, I liked the classic Namco references. It was neat how you could unlock the Rally-X car to race as, and it was all blocky and you could even shoot smoke out at the other cars. And the intro was cool, too. Silly Ridge Racer lady!

Me and My Katamari

Because of the lack of a second analog nub, this Katamari game didn’t control as well. While it’s definitely the weakest in the series, I didn’t think it was AS bad as every reviewer said it was. I was pretty impressed they were able to put a Katamari game on a portable console. My favorite part was when you beat the game, during the credits you could play a 8-bit game that was like a cross between Katamari Damacy and Super Mario Bros. It was very fun and pretty challenging, too!

Arcade Game Collections

Because of the quick burst, pick-up-and-play style of gameplay, compilations of old arcade games work well on a portable system. And thanks to the PSP’s power and nice screen, arcade games look really great on it. Here’s a few of my favorites.

Namco Museum Battle Collection had a pretty impressive list of games, including some that had never been released before on a Museum collection in the US. And even though they weren’t as good as the arcade, the arranged titles were nice, too. Capcom Classics Collections had a wide roster of games with variety, and EA Replay had a lot of their old games from the 16-bit era. Gradius Collection had the first four Gradius games plus Gaiden. It’s strange, I really love the Gradius titles even though they’re so stupid hard, yet they’re always playable and you feel like you can just get a little bit further if you try one more time! Konami made some other PSP collections besides Gradius that never made it to the US, but we’ll talk about those in the import category. Same with other arcade collections not in this paragraph.

And that almost does it for my favorite PSP games. Keep in mind that I have many more games than that, and some were pretty decent, just not good enough for my list. And there were some games not on here because they’re not my cup of tea (such as Metal Gear, etc.). And some games I never got around to buying. I would wait for the price to go down and it never did, and then the games would get too hard to find! Some PSP games I missed out on but would’ve liked to have tried include Crush, Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?, Hammerin’ Hero, Pangya Fantasy Golf, etc.

Import Madness

A lot of my PSP library includes import titles. And luckily, I didn’t have to pay full import prices for most of them. Probably because the DS and PSP are region free and can play import titles with no trouble, but because of that, for a couple of years, Fry’s Electronics would sell import PSP and DS games. And sometimes they would put them on sale like regular games, and if I was lucky I could snatch them up. About a year ago they stopped selling import games, but it was nice while it lasted. So I figured I’d include my favorite import PSP games, too.

Taiko Drum Master 1 and 2

Taiko no Tatsujin Portable and its sequel are handheld versions of Namco’s Taiko music games. Of course, some may say they’re not as good because you’re pressing buttons instead of hitting a drum, but they did the same with Rock Band Unplugged, right? And I love the Taiko games. Speaking of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, while I recognize those games are good and are popular because of the instrument and music choices, I just can’t help but be a little bitter that they soared in popularity while the Taiko game on PS2 bombed in the US. I loved the Taiko games for the cute characters and eclectic music, and I guess that’s just the price I pay for being too weird for my own good.

Parodius, Twinbee, and Salamander Collections

These were the other Konami collections I was talking about, and made GREAT import titles because most of the menus were in English anyway. Parodius is like the Gradius games except with silly themes. I’ve always wanted to have a Parodius game so I’m glad I got to import this one. It has nearly all the arcade Parodius games. My favorite one is Forever With You because the levels are spoofs of other Konami games: Goemon, Lethal Enforcers, even the dating sim Tokimeki Memorial (the bosses in that level are giant versions of the bunny girls that ride on missiles)! My favorite characters to play as are Kid Dracula and the Bio Miracle Upa baby.

The Twinbee Collection also has a bunch of cutesy shooters, this time vertically scrolling, and it’s almost as solid as the Parodius Collection. The Salamander Collection (aka Life Force in the US), is the weakest of the three, but it’s still fun and Salamander 2 looks great and fans of Life Force will love the first level of it!

Super Star Soldier

This is a remake of Hudson’s Star Soldier 2-D game that was also on the GameCube. I hear it’s a pretty rare import game, too, so I’m glad I have it. I wish Hudson would’ve put their other GameCube remakes on the PSP for me to import, like Bonk.

Taito Memories

I like classic Taito games nearly as much as Namco ones. I think this ended up coming to the US as Taito Legends Powered Up, but I managed just fine with the Japanese version, so I didn’t get it. It has a few nice remade ‘arranged’ versions of the games, like Cameltry.

And that’s all the import games I’ve got. There were some other import PSP games that I hated missing out on, like the European version of Ridge Racers 2 and some of the English translated Tales RPGs. But oh well. I have the Tales games on my PSOne, and Ridge Racers 2 isn’t that much different from the first PSP title.

And that pretty much concludes my favorite PSP games list. While the PSP is nowhere near as good as the DS, it did have enough good games for me to buy it soon after it came out, so I’d have to say that other than the Neo Geo Pocket Color, it’s probably one of the best portable contenders. Some folks have even found ways to play emulators and indie games on it (like Cave Story), which is why Sony has to do all those firmware updates! In the comments section, let me know what YOUR favorite PSP games are!

Tags: Game Reviews