I bought a Vita

[peanutbutter]

What do you recommend?

Surprised how many indies are on it, surprised how easy it is to get vita, psp and ps1  games onto it after installing custom firmware.

[peanutbutter]

Aight so far here's what I've got:

Vita native
- Tearaway
- FF X-2
- Need For Speed: Most Wanted
- Gravity Rush
- Stardew Valley
- Fez
- The Swapper
- Crypt of the NecroDancer
- Persona 4
- Superbeat: Xonic (DJMax sequel thing)
- Undertale
- MGS2
- Lumines
- LittleBigPlanet
- Flower (plays terribly)
- Limbo
- VA-11 HALL-A

PSP:
- FF7: Crisis Core
- MGS: Peace Walker
- Patapon
- Persona 3
- Castlevania SotN (never knew this was released independently)
- Vice City Stories

PS1 (these run via the PS1 emulator so you don't have dual analogue sticks unfortunately):
- FF7
- Suikoden 2

N64 emulator: surprisingly stable for Smash Bros, Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64; meant to run Ocarina and Majora's Mask okay too. Lots of other games don't work though

GBA emulator: seems to work fine

RetroArch: bit of a dodgy mess, might have it set up wrong or something

[JamesTC]

Unit 13 is another Vita exclusive I'd recommend.

I remember Puddle being fun.

Sonic Racing Transformed is the best version of it. A wonderful racing game.

[Pink Gregory]

I would recommend dipping in and out of MGS Peace Walker, I jammed it all down in preparation for MGSV and kind of ended up hating it a a result.

[FalknerHinton]

Do you like rhythm action games? If so I heartily recommend Persona 4: Dancing All Night, though perhaps not until you've finished P4 as it may contain spoilers .

[Pink Gregory]

Get at least one LocoRoco if you can, to go with Patapon

Was there a PSP Katamari Damacy game as well?

[ImmaculateClump]

Spelunky. Best game of the ever. On sale until the 19th - https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/product/EP4407-CUSA00491_00-SPELUNKY00000000

Gundemoniums. If you are me and like those daft shooty games that only I like - https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/product/EP2400-CUSA13032_00-GUNDEMONIUMSBNDL

So they've flung the vita right in the bin now then? It's not even showing that the games are playable on the system anymore on the store page :(

I wonder if sony will have another stab at a portable system since they're all the rage nowadays.

[Pinball]

I've been doing the same with an original OLED Vita. Did the CFW thing. Have added PSP and Vita games but PS1 is a bit fiddly TBH - EBOOT.PDP and all that.

Whatever Sony is doing, the Vita scene is very active from what I've seen, and the OLED Vita has aged very well e.g. a 'vibrant' OLED Switch has just been released. OLED makes a huge difference IMO.

[FalknerHinton]

I forget if they released Steamworld Heist on the vita, but if they did, you should play that.

[peanutbutter]

I've been doing the same with an original OLED Vita. Did the CFW thing. Have added PSP and Vita games but PS1 is a bit fiddly TBH - EBOOT.PDP and all that.

have you been using pkgj? Massive amount of PS1 games there, all the ones released for PSP and PS3; surprised they released as many as they did. I tested Ape Escape on the vita and can confirm it does have dual analogue support after all btw.

It's just reusing the built in emulator from the PSP so I remember the faff from back in 2006 of converting ISOs and all that though.

[Cloud]

Got one around, at the time you had to be really careful not to update it too far as you'd not be able to hack it again without a new motherboard.  Can you have legit and hacked side-by-side yet?

I did the usual thing of intending to use it for emulation and stuff and then never actually getting around to it and shoving it in a drawer.

[peanutbutter]

Got one around, at the time you had to be really careful not to update it too far as you'd not be able to hack it again without a new motherboard.  Can you have legit and hacked side-by-side yet?

I did the usual thing of intending to use it for emulation and stuff and then never actually getting around to it and shoving it in a drawer.

From what I've gathered you can play pirated games online with next to zero risk of your account being blocked once you disable a few things (trophy syncing, I think?) so I think you can yeah. Plus it's a dead console, may as well hack the shit of it. If only so you can use a microSD instead of their shite proprietary one.


Speaking of the microSD functionality, gotta admire the scene figuring out a way to get one working relatively easily and for fuck all (the adapter is like 2 pound?). Seems pretty clear sony deliberately made their memory cards in a way to make an adapter near impossible for it so they just made one for the game cart instead. Once you've it set up you don't even need a memory card too.




oh yeah, if anyone is thinking of buying one, either get a slim (the screen isn't OLED, but the OLED ones have weird blacks at this point anyway) or one that comes with a memory card. Slim has enough internal storage to hack it but the original model needs a card which will add another 7-10 pound onto the price if bought separately.

[Beagle 2]

I still don't really understand why the Vita was a flop. I loved mine, I can't remember why I sold it now.

Anyway, I've been playing Outrun 2006 on a PSP emulator this week, I just wanted to test it out but it's a load of fun. I really enjoyed Killzone on the Vita, and Gravity Rush. Mostly it was my introduction to "indie" games like Hotline Miami and Binding of Isaac. Tearaway I found a bit of a waste of time, lovely to look at but no challenge whatsoever.

[peanutbutter]

I still don't really understand why the Vita was a flop

Doing the proprietary memory card thing and charging so much for them was an absolutely toxic move in a market where it had already arguably priced itself out (3DS almost flopped too until a massive price change and a crappy durable budget model Gunpei Yokoi would've been proud of)

Think the success of the PSP (80 million sold) may have played a part too tbh. Relative to getting your first smartphone (or a drastic upgrade on the one you had), there wasn't much appeal to a better version of a  machine most people were already kinda underwhelmed by.

[Pinball]

I still don't really understand why the Vita was a flop. I loved mine, I can't remember why I sold it now.

Anyway, I've been playing Outrun 2006 on a PSP emulator this week, I just wanted to test it out but it's a load of fun. I really enjoyed Killzone on the Vita, and Gravity Rush. Mostly it was my introduction to "indie" games like Hotline Miami and Binding of Isaac. Tearaway I found a bit of a waste of time, lovely to look at but no challenge whatsoever.

Just my 2c, but I would give these reasons for it being a flop:

- Smartphones (launch was in 2012 vs 2005 for the PSP & 2007 for the iPhone. Get in there PSP!)
- Expensive proprietary memory cards
- Couldn't play PS2 games
- Many people already had the highly successful PSP, so why buy another Sony portable?
- Poor support from Sony, and many games frankly not great

But what great hardware, and now it's a must have for 7 reasons (IMO):

- OLED screen (I accept the LCD screen is good too, but not as good, and if OLED is good enough for the latest 'premium' Switch it's good enough for me)
- plays PS1 games
- plays PSP games
- plays Vita games (well yes)
- plays 50,000 retro games on Retroarch
- CFW (custom firmware) and homebrew apps allow the entire catalogues of the above to be played (so I've heard)
- SD2VITA makes the above possible as you can now use SD cards, including 1TB

Lovely that you can still buy new Vitas (production ended in 2019), albeit the price is creeping up. A solid gaming investment, I'd say.

[Consignia]

I still don't really understand why the Vita was a flop.

I always felt it was a victim of a self fulfilling death spiral. It had loads of press about it failing, so it became that failure. It also kinda failed to get the big devs on it, a bit in my opinion due to the death spiral. I heard indy developers loved it though; it was for easier to develop for than previous PlayStation brand consoles, and some did some of their best sales on the platform compared to others.

It wasn't a huge flop in Japan either, I was buying mid to low tier games on until the Switch came out. In fact the Switch took over that niche in Japan.

[Pinball]

Doing a batch conversion of some .bin files into pdp format using PSX2PSP, then I'll have a PS1 collection for the Vita :-) The challenge was finding single bin files, as multiple bin files can't be converted.

[racecar bed indy 500]

Root Letter: branching path mystery visual novel, I've done one playthrough and am on playthrough 2 doing a different route. You go to Shimane Prefecture, Japan, to look for an old pen pal who's strange last letter you suddenly find with a confession that she killed someone. It can get pretty nuts so I won't spoil it.

Danganronpa: Been into this series for a long time, physical copies are quite pricey lately though. Think of like Battle Royale or Hunger Games but mixed with Ace Attorney whodunnit shenanigans and now its in a boarding school (or eerie tropical island in the 2nd one)

Zero Escape: Another highly praised death game, been meaning to play it or watch an LP at some point.

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Vita Vita Vita Rosa Rosa Rosa

[Consignia]

Danganronpa: Been into this series for a long time, physical copies are quite pricey lately though. Think of like Battle Royale or Hunger Games but mixed with Ace Attorney whodunnit shenanigans and now its in a boarding school (or eerie tropical island in the 2nd one)

There's also the bizarre third person shooter, which is a fun oddity. I don't believe it's been ported to other systems either, unlike the rest of the mainline series.

[Ignatius_S]

Good selection of games - would also add:

TxK
Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines
Suikoden
TxK
Rogue Legacy
Muramasa
TxK
Killzone: Mercenary
Dragon Crown
Wipeout 2048
TxK
TxK
TxK
Guacamelee

I still don't really understand why the Vita was a flop. I loved mine, I can't remember why I sold it now.

Sony making a series of strategic howlers, such as trying to market the Vita as a PS4 accessory and then essentially, doing nothing to turn it around.

Jason Schreier's summary was spot on: https://kotaku.com/mobile-gaming-didnt-kill-the-vita-sony-did-1733350950

Also, IIRC, Sony was successfully sued for false advertising about the Vita's features.

At one keynote speech, someone from Nintendo (Satoru Iwata, I think) publicly stated that Nintendo saw Apple as the main competitor to the 3DS and had discounted Sony as a threat - can't remember exactly when that was but it wasn't *that* long after the Vita's launch and it was unusual for a company refer to another in that way (not the done thing).

[peanutbutter]

Having messed about with a Slim and an OLED I'm inclined to say the OLED isn't worth the extra money (seems like you can get a slim model for about 20 pound less, without accounting for the memory card requirement of the OLED). It's notably lighter to hold, slimmer and likely going to be several years newer than a used OLED model.
OLED tech has come along enough since that it doesn't really have the wow factor I got from some of my first OLEDs either, or maybe just the screen has degraded a bunch?


There seems to be a bit of a bottleneck running PS1 games via the PSP emulator using an SD card in the game card slot. Some games take like 10 seconds to boot. Once running they're generally fine.
Ocarina seems to run fine on the emulator  asides from some audio glitches, but crashes if you change settings mid game.

[thehungerartist]

As stated above, Danganropa and TxK are great.

I'd also add:

PSP-
GTA Chinatown Wars
Silent Hill Origins
Manhunt 2
Echochrome
Death Jr

Vita-
Slain!
Persona 4 Golden
Windjammers
Sir Eatsalot
Motorstorm RC
Helldivers
Virtua Tennis 4
Monkey Ball
Sound Shapes
Freedom Wars
Assassin's Creed Chronicles
Thomas Was Alone
Retro City Rampage
Soul Sacrifice Delta
Bastion

[peanutbutter]

Peace Walker, Kingdom Hearts and GTA Stories can be modded to use the second analogue stick instead of the weird controls they have on PSP. Quite a lot of PSP games can be upscaled to 544p with reasonable performance too apparently (although the dude working on this project stopped a bit ago)

[The Late Satoru Iwata]

Vita Vita Vita Rosa Rosa Rosa

Very good.

[Pinball]

Some top Vita games for me:

WipEout 2048
Dariusburst: Chronicle Saviours
Mortal Kombat
Lumines Electronic Symphony
TxK
Gravity Rush
Rayman Legends and Origins
Helldivers
Dead or Alive 5 Plus
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved

So many others though, plus you can play all PS1 games on it too...

[peanutbutter]

Tried playing Need For Speed Most Wanted online last night and no one else was online :(
Seems like a shockingly solid port but the whole thing feels far too big for a screen that size.

[thehungerartist]

There are a few Vita games, such as the one you mention, that play much better on PSTV.

[peanutbutter]

Dont really get why PSTV's are selling for as much as Vitas tbh. For a case like that ^ I can just play Most Wanted in far better quality on a PC, most the big Vita exclusives got PS4 releases and even if it's for  streaming purposes there's a vita plugin that provides a direct feed of the video from the Vita to a PC via the USB cable.


Maybe it's one of those cases where they were going crazily cheap for a while and there's a  lingering effect of "why you should buy a PSTV" type articles hanging around?

[boki]

Maybe it's one of those cases where they were going crazily cheap for a while and there's a  lingering effect of "why you should buy a PSTV" type articles hanging around?

I think that's it.  I watch a fair bit of retro gaming YouTube and I've had a couple of videos pop into my recommendations of late, and I think they weren't even by people I'm subscribed to, so there's certainly more.