PlayStation Vita Recommends – RPGs

Rogue-Like

Rhythm

Visual Novels

Metroidvania

Horror

I recently posted a collection of my carts on Twitter which created a HUGE* buzz, in the Vita community and had a lot of you asking what my recommendations were. However, when the Vita’s library is soooo huge, I often ask people a genre of games are they looking for. So I decided to start off with the genre the PlayStation Vita is most well known for; RPGS.

The Usual

Persona

People cannot talk about the PlayStation Vita without Persona 4 Golden exploding forth from their face holes, in one breath. Yes P4G is one of the Vita’s greatest titles with deep fun dungeon crawling and high school simulator combined. What’s also great about the Vita is that Persona 3 Portable, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Persona 2: Innocent Sin and the original Persona games are ALL available on Vita and they are all amazing. They may be digital only but I give them all a firm recommend my personal favourite being P2EP but P3P could certainly give it a run for it’s money.

Ys

Much to my shame I have never played a Ys game though I have heard Ys VIII  is one of the best JRPGs of all time and an absolute banger on the Vita. Though it can be a little difficult to find physically it’s freely available digitally and other games in the series Ys Origin and Ys: Memories of Celceta are much easier to find for a reasonable price. Ys VII is also available digitally, though I have heard it’s the ugly step-cousin of the Ys family.

Trails of Cold Steel

This is another classic series which comes up time and time again on theVita hot list (and another that I shamefully haven’t played yet). While the 3rd and 4th installments have been released on PS4, the first 2 games are available cheaply physically for the Vita and much like the other JRPGs on the list, mix up classic JRPG combat with a good cast of characters and interesting story.

The Unusual

Lost Dimension

I will scream how good Lost Dimension is until I have fully gone insane because this game is incredible and no-one seems to know how good it is. Get this, it’s a tactical, turn-based RPG where in each round you pick 6 out of your team to go into battle, BUT after every round you find out one among you is a traitor. You have to work hard to figure out who it is, AND THEN you are left with the tough decision whether to keep your best characters on your team (even though they are a traitor and knowing they will turn on you eventually) or to let them go. It’s heart wrenching, it’s amazing, and every play through the traitors change meaning no game is the same. Available physically and still pretty cheaply.

Romancing Saga

Just last year Square Enix released the remake of Romancing Saga 3 for Vita and I thought it was just magical. It’s a completely different take on the RPG genre where grinding or leveling up doesn’t really help as enemies level up with you. It’s truly open world and you can take part in quests in any order knowing that you won’t be over leveled or equipped when you get there. There are also tonnes of characters to recruit so 2 playthroughs will never be the same. Romancing Saga 2 is also available digitally for the Vita, and in Japan there is a physical copy of Saga Scarlet Grace.

Vagrant Story

The PlayStation Vita is the best console for emulating PS One games which has a long history of amazing RPGs. Naturally, there is the Final Fantasy series which the Vita has digitally 1-9, Tactics and it has Final Fantasy X& X2and World of Final Fantasyphysically as well as. But here I wanted to highlight Vagrant Story from the same director as Final Fantasy Tactics. Written in olde English is plays like no other JRPG. Slow paced with no leveling system. Vagrant Story is a journey and like all great JRPGs the battle system can be bust wide open. It’s really cheap digitally on Vita and an absolute stea

Other Recommendations

Other RPGs which I would recommend include:

Undertale: a short indie RPG which came out physically for Vita where the less you know the more you will enjoy it.

Child of Light: If you can bear that everything is in rhyme then this fun Ubisoft title has some great gameplay mechanics and is available physically on Vita.

New Little King’s Story: Plays like Pikmin. Roll around in a tiny fantasy world using your villagers to attack enemies. Unfortunately, only available physically now.

Cosmic Star Heroine: Available cheaply digitally or with a limited physical release, a fun take on the RPG genre condensed down into a much shorter format.

The Longest 5 Minutes: This is another strange take on the genre where you don’t level up but rather jump between different points in time. Physicalcopies are becoming rarer.

Tokyo Xanadu: I haven’t personally played this one but it always comes highly recommended by others. A classic JRPG.

What do you think of the above games? Have any more favourites to recommend?