I’ve been revisiting the greatest video game console ever made: the PlayStation Portable, and I’m just gonna run down a few games I’ve been going through.
Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles
A really great remake (remaster?) of Rondo of Blood. It feels weird that it never escaped the PSP, but whatever. It’s still balls hard and you can unlock Symphony of the Night for a fun bonus. It’s probably my favorite Castlevania. That doesn’t mean much, I haven’t played most of them.
WTF: Work Time Fun
This is the definitive PSP game for me. Perfectly simulates having terrible jobs. Like if someone sapped all the fun out of WarioWare. On purpose. It feels insane that a game that was called Part-Time Job Hell 2000 (Baito Hell 2000) was ever localized, but that was a very specific era. It is worth checking out and putting too much time into it.
Hammerin’ Hero
What I mostly remember about this game at the time is that, for some reason, one of the writers at Kotaku was extremely hyped about it. I gotta say: he was fuckin’ right. This game rocks. It is very arcade-y, especially with high scores and one-hit kills, but once I got a feel for it, it became really fun to play. It also has a lot of fun segments in various levels like piloting a downed mech, growing to the size of a giant, inflatable kaiju, and space. It’s charming as all hell and has some anime-ass stuff going on, especially the voice acting which is cheesy in a good way. This has rocketed to near the top of my favorite PSP games.
Astro Boy: The Video Game
I played through this as part of a stream where I was trying to go for 24 hours and raise a million dollars or else I would throw my laptop in the river. I failed on both parts and my laptop is (as far as you know) completely waterlogged.
Look, I’m a big fan of the original Astro Boy manga (no, I don’t want to call him “Atom,” Astro Boy is such a cool name, come on). I highly recommend it (except any moment that features a black character). I have not seen the American movie which stars The Good Doctor on ABC, which is the basis of this game.
I wasn’t expecting anything good. And it delivered. It’s a platforming beat-'em-up and shoot-'em-up developed by the people who brought us The Conduit. Jumping feels bad. Fighting feels bad. Shooting feels bad. None of it was terrible enough to keep me from finishing it.
Oddly, I had more criticisms of the movie (which I still haven’t actually seen!). I think the robots don’t feel like Tezukabots and feel more like they were looking to Futurama for inspiration. Hamegg’s redesign is criminal. The plot, overall (or what I could gather) seems very, very bad. I don’t look forward to ever watching it for when I inevitably launch an Astro Boy podcast.