Hey guys, so a friend gifted me his old PSP recently (specifically a PSP 2004). Any recommendations on must-have titles for that thing? I'm also interested in PSOne titles that play well on it (so, play well on D-Pad and don't need all four shoulder buttons too often). Not really interested in games that got ports to PS3 or PS4 as I own those (or any vastly superior ports in general, for that matter).

Also: the original battery is dead (incidentally I got the thing just two days after Jeff Gerstman tweeted this) and a cheap replacement battery I got instantly died today. I'd be glad for suggestions on decent replacement batteries and I'd prefer to avoid heavy mods on the thing, although apparently the fact that there aren't any good replacement batteries is why people do some pretty crazy mods like throwing out the UMD drive and inserting a Nintendo DS battery or something).

So, hope some of you guys have a few decent ideas.

The games I've ordered so far are Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Monster Hunter: Freedom, the Medal of Honor: Heroes games and Persona 2: Innocent Sin (I actually found a ridiculously good offer on the latter - new for 30 bucks), I'm also planning to get Persona 1 from the PSN store. I'm also eyeing some handheld spin-offs from franchises like Killzone and Assassin's Creed but that's all I have planned for now. I'm skipping LocoRoco and Patapon (1) since those got PS4 ports.

What I did on my two psp's was to install an os extension which loads iso's, then you can copy across iso's and play from that. I know it's not legal, but psp is old now and the discs they use don't always work, ie if you buy second hand games.

As for games, the lego ones work nice on there, that's all I got round to playing apart from a couple others I didn't think much of.

Pursuit Force is crazy awesome.

Actually there was already some custom firmware installed that does that when I got the thing. Then I updated it to the latest official one... and installed an even newer custom firmware. To the best of my knowledge that in itself is not illegal, it will just make the warranty void which has obviously expired ages ago anyway. Anyway, I'm not really planning to play pirated games on the thing but I'll certainly use that functionality to play dumps of PSX games I already own on disc, I actually already checked out the whole process which involves creating some packages where you can include pictures and whatnot to be shown on the XMB. Sounds like fun to me. :D

Anyway, hope UMDs aren't as fragile as your post suggests. I'm super curious about the format as I've never even held one in my own hand and these things seem pretty cool. Damn, never heard about it but I've taken a look on YouTube and indeed, it seems pretty awesome. Added to my list!

My solid recommendation is Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. My second recommendation is definitely an acquired taste, almost to the point of not recommending it. It's like Wizardry or Might and Magic, called Class of Heroes; an anime style game that takes place in a school.

Get it hacked so you can put emulators and the like on it.

There's a Pandora battery you can plug in; How it works is it has a serial of null/zero when you plug it in, which puts the PSP in debug/admin mode and lets you access admin features.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is one of THE best turn based strategy games ever and I would highly recommend it.

Metacritic reckons the best game is Persona 4 Gold, I've played the PS2 version and I can vouch that this is also a great game.

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is another good turn based strategy game.

If you like the well known playstation series, you have: Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, God of War: Chains of Olympus, and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, they all play roughly the same as the rest of the games in the franchises.

If you like fighting games, Final Fantasy Dissidia and it's sequel are good picks.

You've got the flagship PSP series of Patapon and Rolando, both interesting and unique gameplay wise.

Exit 2 is a challenging puzzle game, albeit slightly slow paced and finicky.

If you want something difficult, you've got Ultimate: Ghosts and Goblins.

I have a whole slew of games for the platform, and still play most of them. Though my exposure is somewhat limited to RPGs.

Breath of Fire III
- An optimized version of the PlayStation classic, a turn based RPG with puzzle elements and gorgeous visuals.

Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII -
A prequel to Final Fantasy VII and arguably one of the best looking games on the platform.

Disgaea, Disgaea 2 ~ Dark Hero Days ~
- Strategy RPGs with a lot of humor.

Dissidia Final Fantasy, Dissidia 012 Duodecim
- A series of fighting games on a 3D playing field, based around Final Fantasy characters.

Lunar Silver Star Harmony
- A complete remake of the Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlayStation Lunar RPG with new visuals and updated soundtrack.

The Legend of Heroes, The Legend of Heroes II, The Legend of Heroes III
- Turn based RPGs with a lot of charm, predecessors to the The Legend of Heroes games you can find here on GOG.

Star Ocean First Departure, Star Ocean Second Evolution
- The first is a complete remake of one of the biggest SNES games ever released Star Ocean, the second an optimized version of the PlayStation game Star Ocean The Second Story, a personal favorite.

Tales of Eternia
- Another great RPG adopted from the PlayStation with great visuals and soundtrack.

Wild Arms XF
- A turn based SRPG developed for the PSP by the makers of the Wild Arms series. Though no Final Fantasy Tactics, this game is faster paced and based on a hexagonal grid, instead of square one.

A lot of good ones have already been mentioned. The only one I notice missing is Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. Of course, you'll get more out of it if you played the KH games that came before it, but I still think it's one of the most impressive games in the system.

Just a few remarks on the games you bought:

MGS Portable Ops controls a bit weird, from what I can recall. MGS Peace Walker is much closer to the console experience. Not raining in your parade, just saying that if by any chance you're not a fan of Portable Ops, Peace Walker would still be worth checking out.

Not sure if you're aware, but Persona 2 was sort of split into two different games. Innocent Sin is the first one. Eternal Punishment is the second. Unfortunately, the PSP remake of Eternal Punishment never got an english translation. The original PS1 version was though, so whether by emulator or whatever, you can still find some way to play it if you want to. Either way, do check out Persona 3 Portable if you can, that's like my favorite game, and that's the best version of the game.

Oh yeah, I loved Symphony of the Night so I've also been eyeing this one. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah, I might check it out. I'm not too big on JRPGs but this one seems pretty neat. Thanks. As I wrote above: it was already hacked when I got it and I also installed custom firmware after updating it to the latest official version. I actually checked out some emulators out of curiosity but I really didn't get a PSP to emulate stuff that I could have just as well emulated on PC. :D Yeah, I read a lot about those. Not sure they will allow me to do anything I'm actually interested in, though. Pro CFW seems to be good enough for my needs. Yeah, I've heard a lot about that one as well as Final Fantasy: Tactics. I'm really interested in those.I think you've confused something here. Persona 4 Golden is a Vita port, not PSP.

Will also look at the other ones you're suggesting. Ironically I'm not too big on JRPGs but I guess PSP is an excellent platform for those so I'll certainly check out a few of them. Thanks for the suggestions.Yeah, I actually have the first "HD remix" or what it's called for PS3. Still have to finish that one day.Well, I've even finished the MSX ones so I don't think that "weird controls" are gonna stop me. :D As for Peace Walker, I already have that one for PS3 from the Legacy Collection.

Get it hacked, then get one of these: https://www.amazon.com/PhotoFast-CR-5400-MicroSD-Adapter-Dual/dp/B001B6EAOY/

i have it with 2 32gig microSD cards, which gives you 64 gigs of games always with you, no hassle :)

PSP owner here since, well, a lot of years: some of the best games I've played (on the PSP and elsewhere) are Ultimate Ghosts'n Goblins, Key of Heaven/Kingdom of Paradise, Lumines and WipEout Pure (Pulse is SO DAMN HARDER, and frustrating, compared to Pure).

I highly recommend Ratchet and Clank: Size Matter, as well as Daxter. Both are great action/adventure/platformers. Hope that helps!

Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, Sega Rally and all the other Sega Games. Arcade Games are great on the go. And as far as i know the metal slugs are also avaiable on the psp. And another advice, the psp is the best MP3 Player in the world. If you have a good headphone it acually outputs hifi quality sound, you can even use PCM uncompressed. Forget about IPOD and all the other garbage, when it comes to portable hifi Sony always wins.

Registered: Jul 2012

From Luxembourg