Here’s Why The PS Vita Is One Of My Favourite Consoles Of All-Time

Alright, I’m going to kick off proceedings with candour and say this: Sony’s plucky underdog handheld, the PS Vita is one of my favourite consoles of all-time. Phew, I said it. That’s a hefty weight off of my mind. For context, I’ve been playing games for almost all my life — knocking on thirty years, now — and I’ve always been very much drawn to the concept of handheld gaming. The thought of squeezing all those amazing, epic adventures and captivating, magical experiences into a device that fits into the the palms of my hands still somewhat blows my mind. The fact that my first proper console was Nintendo’s iconic GameBoy handheld (man, that was the best Christmas present I ever had — thanks Santa) only helped to add fuel to the ardent fire that burns within me for portable gaming. To say that Sony’s latest handheld has had a rough time on the market is a colossal understatement. Out of the gate, the Japanese giant was dedicated to it, throwing first-party development resources at the machine with fervent glee (more on this later). However, over time Sony rapidly realized that its miniature console just wasn’t hitting the sales numbers to warrant investment from their valuable internal development teams, particularly in regards to triple-A support. Sadly, roughly three years into the console’s life-cycle, Sony pretty much washed their hands of the device and sent their poor, little orphan console out into the wilderness to fend for itself with a smattering of Sony-funded ports and a swathe of much-appreciated third-party and indie support keeping the handheld alive. It’s a somewhat different story in Sony’s Japanese homeland, as the PS Vita, and handhelds in general, are still hitting healthy sales numbers. As a consequence, many of the titles you see on the PS Vita’s upcoming release docket are often Japanese developed games that have been localized and introduced to a western audience. If you like Japanese titles, Sony’s handheld is a veritable gold-mine. I’m not going to go into detail as to why the PS Vita never quite set the world on fire (that would take up another article entirely), but suffice to say, with the emergence of smart-phones and tablets, the dawn of free-to-play mobile gaming and Sony’s daft decision to exclusively support those damn over-priced proprietary memory cards (why Sony? WHY?) the PS Vita’s journey was always going to be an uphill struggle. Nevertheless, the PS Vita has found an audience. Sure, it’s a smaller scale community than most other modern consoles (global PS Vita sales sit around the 14 million mark at the time of writing), but it does have its fair share of ardent fans who love the damn thing with all their heart, with me being one of them. It really is a wonderful machine, and personally it’s my go-to console for on-the-go gaming. And so, without further ado, here’s a handful of reasons as to why I hold Sony’s diminutive handheld in such high regard. It’s Super Comfortable And Well Designed I’ve been lucky enough to own all the modern handhelds and I can safely say that the PS Vita is the most comfortable of the bunch by a pretty wide margin. If you’re like me, and enjoy spending extended playtime grinding XP in the latest dungeon crawler, or dredging up diamonds from deep within darkened caverns with a band of buddies in Minecraft, then the PS Vita has got you covered. Its design is comfy and ergonomic and the inclusion of dual-analogue sticks out of the box is the icing on the cake. Furthermore, it’s nice to discover the console’s neat accoutrements that many people overlook, such as an in-built microphone hidden with its shell, which makes partying up with friends and having a good old chinwag a total cinch. Also add to the list that beautiful, vibrant display, particularly on the original OG OLED model. And don’t forget those PS Plus freebies and the ingenious magic that is Sony’s cross-buy/cross-save/remote play functionality, which is a total life-saver, especially if you’re like me and own the PS Vita’s bigger console brothers. It’s Still A Pretty Powerful Handheld By modern standards, the PS Vita is by no means a powerhouse. As mobile-phones exponentially become more powerful with every yearly iteration, it’s tough for a static piece of hardware like a handheld console to keep up with the times. Nevertheless, with 512 MB of RAM and a supplementary 128 MB of Video RAM, the PS Vita can still hold its own and punch above its weight — for context, the PS3 shared 512MB of RAM between its GPU and CPU. It’s a more than capable piece of gaming hardware, especially considering the other handheld console competition that's currently on the market. A lot of the PS Vita’s power can be felt in its day-to-day multi-tasking, which is super handy as the console suspends games for you whilst you surf the PS Store or check out what your friends are up to via the Friends List app. Its UI is incredibly snappy and intuitive, too (ok, those bubbles are a little bizarre but they do their job admirably). Long story short, the PS Vita is still no slouch in the power department, which is impressive considering the fast-paced, ever-evolving mobile market that it was born into. Games often look incredible; you just have to look at Guerrilla Cambridge’s terrific FPS PS Vita exclusive Killzone: Mercenary as evidence for this, which astonishingly runs on a modified version of its PS3 brethren’s graphics engine. If you’re in the market for a powerful handheld, then look no further than Sony’s plucky underdog handheld. It Has A Phenomenal Indie Line-Up I can’t understate how magnificent the indie library is for the PS Vita. It’s got a tremendously vibrant and a remarkably eclectic ecosystem of indies that would satiate only but the most curmudgeonly and cantankerous of gamers. Bitesized indie titles lend themselves well to on-the-go gaming and there's the odd occasion where the PS Vita is the best place to play them. A full fat version of Mojang’s sandbox indie phenomenon Minecraft is a notable highlight, while twitch arcade murder-em-up sensation Hotline Miami, the addicting rogue-lite action platformer Rogue Legacy and Red Hook Games’ brutal perma-death D&D-inspired Darkest Dungeon all spring to mind as titles that really shine brightly on the handheld platform due to all the convenient benefits that on-the-go gaming brings to the table. Add to this the fact that the PS Vita frequently runs these smaller indie titles with parity in comparison to its way more technologically beefy home console siblings, and you have a fully-fledged pocket-sized indie machine that fits snuggly in your coat pocket. It Has A Solid Triple-A Roster Ok, so many of you will balk at this one, but bear with me here. The PS Vita had a lot of triple-A support in its early days and if you’re picking one up now, you’ll be spoilt for choice for titles that push the little blighter to its limits. You want a First-Person Shooter? You’ve got Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified and Resistance: Burning Skies. You want a good First-Person Shooter? You’ve got Borderlands 2. You want the best handheld FPS ever made (in my humble opinion), you’ve always got the glorious Killzone: Mercenary. As for Third-Person Shooters, there’s Zipper Interactive’s criminally underrated Unit 13 and the fantastic full-fledged action-prequel Uncharted: Golden Abyss. If you’re in the market for quirky, unique titles then there’s Media Molecule’s charming and wonderfully creative platformers LittleBigPlanet and Tearaway. And that’s all without mentioning heavyweights such as Assassins Creed: Liberation, Gravity Rush, Rayman: Legends, Freedom Wars, XCOM: Enemy Unknown Plus, Civilization Revolution 2 Plus, Dragon Quest Builders and Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. The PS Vita ain’t got any games? Pffft. It’s A JRPG Powerhouse Like I mentioned earlier, due to the success of handhelds in the east, many spots on the PS Vita’s release schedule are populated with Japanese developed games. If you’re a fan of the genre, the PS Vita has a rich, extensive library of both mainstream and niche JRPGs that fit perfectly on a handheld format. You've got brilliant oddball dungeon-crawlers, such as Demon Gaze (which is a personal favourite of mine), Dungeon Travelers 2 and Stranger of Sword City, to more popular mainstream JRPGs, such as Persona 4: Golden, Ys: Memories of Celceta, World of Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Tales of Hearts R, Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir and The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel I and II, to name but a few. In all honesty, it's actually super hard to keep up with all the great games coming out on the system. The PS Vita is a JRPG powerhouse and should absolutely be on your radar if you have even a smidgen of passion for eastern-developed role-playing games. In conclusion, it’s a genuine shame that the PS Vita didn’t quite gain the traction it deserved, as it truly is a superb little system. On release, I get the feeling that Sony didn’t quite know what the identity of its new handheld was, and what its identity would ultimately become. Over time, the portable ploughed its own distinct furrow and laid claim to a very special niche as a portable indie machine and a JRPG powerhouse, with the triple-A titles serving more as scrumptious accoutrements to a much more substantial, and an even tastier overall feast. With so many outside factors attempting so hard to rain on the PS Vita’s parade, and Sony’s unwillingness to double down on its misunderstood prodigal son, it seems to me that it was merely an imperfect storm of circumstances that brought PS Vita’s success to a halt. As Nintendo gears up for the upcoming March 2017 release of its compelling home console/handheld hybrid, dubbed the Switch, it’s hard to believe that the PS Vita has got much more to give going into 2017 and beyond. Despite this, I shall continue to believe in the console, along with the fantastic and positive PS Vita community that supports, embraces and adores Sony’s unloved lonely child. The PS Vita may well be an orphan, but we can still give it a loving home, right?