Can the PSP cut it this year?

[Sen]

So I thought the PSP was kicking major ass in the earlier months of 2008, with games like God of War: Chains of Olympus, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, and Patapon. For a while there, the handheld had a solid grip on my attention, and successfully allowed for a layer of dust to settle upon the more powerful PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. But then as the month of April came to an end, so too did my enthusiastic relationship with the little machine. Suddenly there was little to be excited about, and this trend would continue through the end of the year. Fortunately, it seems a reversal of fortune is in order for the year 2009, with the portable platform boasting a number of worthwhile titles, including a variation of LittleBigPlanet, a new installment of Assassin's Creed, a remake of the original Persona, and the long awaited Dissidia: Final Fantasy. To me, it looks like 2009 will be a good year for the PSP, and will hopefully make up for 2008, which started out great, but ran out of steam way too early. Anybody else looking forward to what this year has in store for Sony's baby?

[Poofy]

Eh...

[twerp]

I've read good things about Dissidia. Nothing else really tickles my fancy.

[Sushi_b]

I missed this thread before. It's really hard to say where the PSP will be by the end of the year. There are numerous accounts that a PSP successor will be announced this year at E3 and that they are moving away from the UMD's to perhaps focus only on downloaded games. It could just be another PSP variation though as in the 4000.

As for those recent game line up reveal, I'm not sure. I haven't played LBP or Patapon so I don't know much about them, but I would like to try them both before looking into the next PSP installments. I might be interested in the Assassin's Creed game. I liked the first one and if it's more Altair, I might be sold. Supposedly Ready at Dawn studios are making a new PSP game, possibly a new God of War title. There are things to get excited about for the PSP, but the line up is still not as solid as the DS unfortunately.

[Ges]

Patapon 2 should be out at some point this year, I think. Loved the original.

Also, word is Ready at Dawn is hard at work on another GoW for the PSP.

[Sushi_b]

I remember you had that Av for a while Ges. So you must have really liked Patapon. I've tried to get it a few times but I can't ever find it in English for what ever reason so I've never bought it. The second game is out in Asia already so it should be coming to North America sometime in the near future. The cover was a greenish flavour that was hard to miss, much like the orange one of the first.

[Raidou]

FF: Dissidia sux.

[Sushi_b]

http://kotaku.com/5162884/rumor-more-details-on-the-next-psp

Well Kotaku hasn't got much of an update about the new PSP but supposedly a fair number of sources are suggesting that it won't support the UMD's. Which is interesting because that almost seems like this would be a brand new PSP then. We might be needing some heavy duty memory cards if all the games are going to be downloaded (if this is the case) in the future. The sliding feature is kind of neat though.

[Sen]

I'm a little torn on Dissidia. Though not a spectacular game, I enjoyed Square's last Final Fantasy-inspired fighting game, the PlayStation's Ehrgeiz. It's approach to battle was grounded in reality for the most part, with characters who didn't move at the speed of light or fly around all over the place. That game was probably the one and only instance where the weight of Cloud's ridiculously sized sword was ever addressed, as using it would noticeably slow him down with how heavy it was. Details like that have been primarily absent in the Final Fantasy universe (at least since the dawn of cinematically depicting the fights), and Dissidia appears to follow suit. I definitely want to play it, but I don't think I'll ever warm up to the Dragon Ball Z-style fighting.

I'm looking forward to information on a new Assassin's Creed. I'm interested to see whether the PSP's title will be completely new with a different time period and character (as is implied for the series' future), or another adventure with Altair. I'm also excited about another God of War game, if what has been said in this thread is true. Chains of Olympus is most certainly one of my favorite PSP games thus far, and I'd very much welcome a second handheld quest with Kratos.

To be released later this month is Resistance: Retribution, which I'm slightly anticipating. Not sure if I'll be enthusiastic enough to pick it up right when it comes out, but I would like to play it eventually. I enjoyed the two Resistance games on the PlayStation 3, and I'm hopeful this portable spinoff will be just as fun.

[Sen]

So I recently learned of a game called Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?, a goofy sidescrolling adventure featuring the undead penguins from the tactical RPG series, Disgaea. I've never played those games (and most likely never will), but this game looked like a load of fun, and I was laughing quite a bit as I watched some gameplay footage of it the other night. So I really wanted to buy it, but when I got to the game store to purchase a copy, I learned that it was forty dollars! That was pretty much twice the amount I was expecting to spend on such a game, so I was forced to pass it up. Apparently the steep pricetag is due to the game being packaged with the soundtrack and a comic book, and there's no way to just buy the game by itself. I want the game, but don't care about the bonus items. What a bummer. Anybody else heard of it?

[moogle]

Anybody else heard of it?
Heard of it and want it.

But I don't own a PSP.

Each time a game like this comes out it becomes more and more tempting. Daxter, Loco Roco, Patapon, Castlevania Rondo of Blood remake, FFT remake, among others, have been very tempting.