Retro Gaming with the PSP

My inner 11 year-old just did a happy dance.

As part of my ongoing quest to spend probably too much money playing old games, I recently purchased a PSP. My reasoning for this went something like this:

• I want to be able to play retro games on a mobile device with dedicated buttons rather than virtual, touchscreen buttons that don't work for crap.
• I don't want to rebuy games that I already own (I won't pirate anything I don't legitimately own, but I have zero problem pirating something that I do for the sake of convenience).
• I can't emulate games on my 3DS without some risk of bricking it.
• If I were to brick something, I'd want it to be something cheap and easily replaced.

So, I went on eBay and found a Japanese PSP 1000 launch model for just $52 including the cost of shipping. Twenty-two days later, it finally arrived.

The package says "no battery," but luckily that was just a ruse to fool customs. Very crafty, Japanese used video game store.

Ultimately, I ended up spending a bit more, as I needed to buy a power cable for it, but thankfully it came with the original Sony branded battery, the 1800 mAh rather than the 1200, and it actually holds a charge for nearly 6 hours.

Of course, now I have to learn to read Japanese.
No, I'm kidding. This was easily fixed, thanks to the Internet.

How To Do It

The process for soft-modding your PSP is very, very simple. Check out this simple guide to adding the necessary custom firmware (CFW). You'll need this to be able to install emulators as well as to play ripped Playstation 1 games (the PSP comes with a PS1 emulator but only to play games purchased from the PSN store, which you can't even do anymore). Warning: the guide ends with the option to permanently flash the custom firmware to your PSP. Do not do this. This is the only part of any of this that carries any risk of bricking your PSP. Once you've got the firmware on there, you'll want to start adding emulators. This comprehensive list of emulators has everything you could ever want from Colecovision to Commodore 64 to the Atari Lynx. I just went with systems that I actually have games for and that I know the 1000 can handle (the 1000 only has 32mb of RAM compared to the 64 of the other models, so emulating the Nintendo 64 or anything beyond that is probably out of the question) or that would be feasible on something this size (no Nintendo DS for now, anyway - besides, any game I legitimately own on there I can just play on my 3DS). As for where to get ROMs for all these emulators, I'm not going to link to that. All I'll say is that the best, safest site I've found rhymes with Fimm's Fair. Happy hunting.

The Review

So far, it's pretty great. The PSP buttom configuration is perfect for emulating the SNES or the PS1 in particular and works just fine for the NES. The emulators that I'm using (NESter for NES, SNES9x for SNES, MasterBoy for Gameboy/GameboyColor/SegaMasterSystem/Gamegear, and Daedalus for N64) all have deep customization options, allowing you to do all sorts of things, from setting custom controls to changing framerate. One thing I found really neat is that, at least with the SNES9x, saving in the game actually creates a save file. So, you can do legitimate, no quick-save runs of classic games, if that's your thing. I discovered this on accident while playing Super Metroid. My quick-save broke and I thought I'd have to start the game over. I decided to do so since I was only about 30 minutes in. When I loaded up the ROM and got to the New Game screen, my save from a save point was there. I've never seen that in any other emulated game, including on SNES9x for the PC. So, that's pretty awesome. My big disappointment with saves, though, was that copying my saves from the PC didn't work. So, I can't pick up my Final Fantasy V game at hour 30 as I was hoping. I'll have to continue playing on the PC.

One really cool thing the PSP has over the DS/3DS - no region-locking.

The system is a little too small, though. Playing for more than 30 minutes at a time causes my right hand to hurt in the same way that the original DS and 3DS did, whereas I can play on my 3DS XL for hours without any hand pain. It's not bad, though, and definitely worth it. The screen is big and beautiful, too. PSP games have some "ghosting," which is where there is a soft afterimage at some points. I've been playing through Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles, the 2007 PSP remake of the Japanese-only PC Engine release of Rondo of Blood. If you've ever heard of Symphony of the Night, widely considered to be one of the best games ever made, that was a sequel to Rondo of Blood. You can actually unlock the original, uncut Japanese release (but localized in English) version of Symphony of the Night in Dracula X Chronicles (which I actually did already) as well as the American SNES version of Rondo of Blood (which I haven't). Anyway, it's the only game I have on UMD, though I'm expecting Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, soon. It plays very well, though the ghosting happens a lot with it, but it's not bad at all. If you're worried about it, the PSP 3000 supposedly has zero ghosting.

Final Thoughts

Piracy is bad, but if you already own the games, why not play them in a super-convenient and enjoyable way? At a cost of $50-60, a PSP is a great choice for anyone wanting to relive the glory days of 80s and 90s gaming.