If you are looking for a tool to make VGM for your game, then Beepbox is a good free option. Beepbox is a online tool for making music and can be used online and offline. It’s one of the most straight forward music making tools out there and is great when you need to mock up a sound or song for a game.
From just messing around and having no musical knowledge, I made these following tunes:
Have a good year and go out and make some VGM’s.
Downwell Logo, Downwell website 2016
Developer: Ojiro Fumoto
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, iOS, Android, PC
Genre: Rougelike Platformer
Played on PlayStation Vita
Arcade games focus on the essence of a video game, one or two good mechanics that create everything else. Pac Man eats dots on a screen, Tetris aligns blocks together to destroy them and Asteroids is shooting and avoiding incoming asteroids. Downwell was created by Ojiro Fumoto who was inspired by a quote from video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto.
Shigeru Miyamoto, Time 2016, 7 Fascinating Insights from Nintendo’s Gaming Genius Shigeru Miyamoto, captured on October 21st 2008
“A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather can solve multiple problems at once.” Shigeru Miyamoto Interviewed by Eurogamer.net, 31 March 2010
Downwell takes the philosophy of this quote to its logical extreme and has the simplicity of its contemporary’s, but is deceptively skilled based. Downwell will be remembered as the modern arcade game because of the incredible amount of depth, skill and player choice provided from just two game mechanics.
Gameplay
God is a Geek 2016, “Downwell coming to PS4 and PS Vita this month” May 6th 2016
In Downwell, the player goes down randomly generated levels to the bottom of a well. They encounter enemies, rooms with power ups and a perilous threat at the bottom. Downwell’s excellence comes from how the two actions of jumping and shooting do more than what is expected of them.
Shooting makes the player slightly hover in the air, destroys blockades, creates gems from defeated enemies and has different attack attributes depending on what power up is obtained. Jumping and stomping on enemies without landing builds a combo, landing on the ground or enemies refills the player’s ammo count and landing on the ground stops the combo and rewards gems, ammo and health depending on how high the player’s combo is. The rewards and risks from these multipurpose mechanics direct the player to play at full speed.
Downwell artwork by BlueASIS, “Jelly Smash!“
This is expanded with randomly generated power ups at the end of a level that add beneficial abilities, such as collecting gems refilling ammo and creating a blast by stomping on enemies. Rooms the player encounters during their descent offer a break from the fast action and have power ups that change the attributes of the shooting attack and give health or ammo. When enough gems are collected, the player enters a gem high that increases the power of their attack, but withers out if the player can’t maintain a constant flow of gems.
This rapid fire decision making is possible because of the art style. Hazards are pure red, enemies indicate they can be jumped on by being predominantly white with a hint of red, walkable and jumpable objects being white and a black background to make colour stand out.
This makes Downwell have the qualities of iconic arcade games such as Pac Man, but has a layer of mechanical sophistication that is easy to understand, but difficult and engaging to master. When a game like Pac Man is understood, it doesn’t offer a way of adjusting difficulty to suit the player’s mastery and understanding of its mechanics. It only offers more challenge by making enemies faster and more unpredictable. Downwell uses randomly generated power ups that increases the player’s defence or attack capabilities and the player is able to decide on what is best for their skill and situation depending on what they have on hand.
After the end of a playthrough, the player unlocks palette swaps and player styles after collecting a set number of gems. Player styles give unique player native abilities that can make future playthroughs easier or harder depending on their skill level. Palette swaps change the primary colours of the game’s art style. Some palette swaps such as Dirtsnow make reading what’s happening on screen more difficult because of the background colour being different from black.
A problem with power ups is that power ups at the end of a stage are randomly generated. This means the player can’t really customise what playstyle they want and have to replay the game again and again until the right combination is generated. The game could have capitalised on allowing the player to start with a select number of power ups and offer challenges that are unique to the specific power ups the player chooses at the start. While these trappings do not ruin Downwell, it eventually makes repeated long term playthroughs tedious because the player can’t have an optimal loadout from the start.
Value
Designing a game around one or two game mechanics is an effective way of making one. Downwell is evidence of what happens when just one or two mechanics are developed to their full potential, with gameplay that offers an enjoyable learning curve and depth. Downwell is a short game. While hard mode and palette swaps offer a bit more for the player to achieve, the main game can be finished in fifteen to twenty minutes. This is both Downwell’s strength and weakness, because it makes it an excellent game to pick up and easily get into without a substantial time commitment. But for a player who wants a substantial amount of content and can’t meet that need from replaying and mastering a game’s gameplay, Downwell isn’t going to convince them.
But Downwell has an understanding of how systems and mechanics influence player behaviour that is more sophisticated than most iconic arcade games. Arcade games such as Asteroids and Pac Man had to find the most easily understandable way for people to interact in a virtual space. This meant gameplay had to be about moving around a space and getting a high score.
It made them easily approachable and players would try everything to reach a new high score. But this meant challenge could only increase by making enemies more aggressive, faster and in greater waves. Downwell’s challenge is changeable for the player’s skill. The native abilities from player styles can give more health at the start or make the jump have more float. The player can also decide to take the risk of building a large combo so they restore their health when landing on the ground or build up their gem count to spend on health and ammo items. The skill involved in Downwell comes from how the player survives by making deliberate and intuitive decisions and using the strengths and drawbacks of power ups the player has to decide on at the end of a stage.
It results in a game that is as approachable and fun to play as Asteroids and Pac Man, but has a layer of mechanical mastery that keeps it continuously engaging. After the optimal way to play most arcade games is mastered, it’s gameplay is static and predictable. Downwell is a modernisation of the arcade game because even when the optimal way is mastered, there are still equally valid gameplay choices that are better suited for different levels of skill. It’s creator Ojiro Fumoto wanted to show how solving multiple problems with one solution creates powerful player choice and elegant intuitive design. By following the philosophy of a quote from one of the game industry’s most influential designers, Downwell has solved the arcade game’s issue of static approaches to the problems it presents by using rewards and benefits for jumping and shooting at problems.
What’s great:
What’s okay:
What’s bad:
Developer: Queasy Games, SCE Santa Monica Studio
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
The Modern Image, 2016, Jivesh Hanoomaun 2013, ‘PlayStation Plus August 2015 Lineup’, viewed 4th January 2016, http://themodernmage.com/playstation-plus-august-2015-lineup
(This review is based on the PlayStation Vita version and is available for the PS3 and PS4.)
Music is a medium made from instruments expressing a meaning or message. Sound Shapes is a game based on a simple idea around the effects of music. What a person imagines when listening to music.
Sound Shapes excels with its inspired execution of a typical game concept with gameplay that unravels the full composition of a song as you play through the level, paired with a gorgeous minimalist art-style. It also implements player created levels that has formed a community creating fun and visually pleasing content that adds significant replay value to Sound Shapes. Sound Shapes however struggles time to time in gameplay because the basic platforming skills can make navigation unnecessarily frustrating. With such strong positives paired against occasional rage inducing level navigation, it will be revealed if this flaw in gameplay ruins Sound Shapes great qualities.
Gameplay
The ultimate core of any video game is gameplay. It is the element that binds all of a video games engagement and there are many ways this element correlates with a games art and possible story. In Sound Shapes, the player can stick to objects with light colours, jump and run and use those ability’s to collect notes in a level while avoiding contact with anything red.
Notes in Sound Shapes play a beat and as the player collects notes, the levels song unravels to its full composition. The campaign is relatively short and unlocks tools for the level editor but offers a wonderful collection of levels that tease the possibility’s of the community’s offerings. The act of getting to point A to point B in Sound Shapes is pleasing because of the imaginative art designs in every stage and relaxed checkpoint pacing.
But an unavoidable problem with Sound Shapes is the occasional difficulty of navigating through certain levels, especially with user created content. While it is great to platform through such visually splendid levels, the spectacle of the stages can possibly distort the actual direction a player needs to head towards.This issue only really show its ugly head in user creations, where creativity often compromises ease of navigation, even when there are stand out creations.
Presentation
It is rare to see a video games presentation be tied so closely to the actions between the player and the game. The colourful and appealing art style invokes a feeling of relaxation through pleasant stimulation. This is reinforced by how the sights and sounds of a level unravel as the player moves through it. It complements the soundtrack in all of its rich, varied and uplifting pieces. Rowdy Cloudy epitomises what makes Sound Shapes work.
In the beginning, the repeated sound of a flying platform hints at a incomplete song. Eventually, the first couple of notes create a catchy tune that incentives the player to progress. Once the momentum of the song comes alive, the players eye takes attention to the distinct marvellous art style on display. The realization comes that they make this art style come alive by their skill and dedication to collecting the notes. This impeccable utilization of design and sound is where Sound Shapes shines, the seamless blend of platform sensibilities and music’s ability to inspire the mind.
Value
Sound Shapes at its very core is a basic sound platformer. The low key gameplay perfectly pairs with an admirable presentation while prevailing over challenges with a consistent casual difficulty, throwing enough challenge to keep interest going. The campaign’s length and memorable art design in its levels allows players jaded from the intensity of more realistic video games to reinvigorate the simple joy they find in the medium, even when artistic ambition conflicts with navigation in user generated levels.
Sound Shapes is a brilliantly executed musical game that ties platforming and the psychological effects of music to make a truly special game. It fills a need for players that isn’t commonly found in the modern gaming scene. To just enjoy a video game and leave a impact on its world.
What’s great:
What’s okay:
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If there ‘s one aspect of the 8th Generation of consoles I love, it’s screenshots features. It saves me a lot of time with making my posts and allows me to get that one image for illustrating what I am saying in my reviews. Hope you all enjoy the pictures.
Transistor: Ocean Green
Bloodborne: Searching for the Cathedral Entrance
RESOGUN: Voxel Apoclapase
The Unfinished Swan: A painted lake
The Unfinished Swan: Unknown Depths
Developer/Publisher: Ubisoft Montreal
(This Review is based on the PS4 Version and is available for PC, PS3, PS Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One)
RPG’s have evolved tremendously over the years. Combat has become quicker, robust character customization has allowed for all manner of playstyles and the journeys players partake in have become grander and power fantasy fulfilling. But an integral aspect of the genre has been slightly abandoned with the RPG’s evolution. The ability to submerge a player in a RPG’s world has lost its effect as more RPG’s seek for greater graphics and many gameplay systems and mechanics.
Child of Light is a perfect example of a game representing traditional story telling in RPG’s to highlight how the genre is able to submerge a player in a story. In a role playing game, RPG’s are sometimes called JRPG’s. (Japanese Role Playing Game) This is because players can be in the role of a character or express their own character.
Child of Light is a JRPG because the player is in the role of a set non changeable character, with story being the main player engagement. It is one of the best RPG’s the gaming world has seen because of its fully realised presentation and accessible combat system. The observation of the game’s retelling of Cinderella will reveal that classic and traditional story telling methods of novels and RPG’s are interwoven in Child of Light’s design.
Story
A kingdom’s Duke has fallen ill after marrying a new wife. His daughter Aurora falls asleep under a coma and “Her skin was cold as snow.” Aurora awakens in a world not her own and encounters a Lady of The Forest, who gifts her with pixie wings to fly. With this gift, Aurora begins her journey to become a queen.
Child of Light takes the story elements of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, both written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and takes advantage of the JRPG’s typical story arc of good vs evil, to create a story that is refreshing in a genre that often has overly convoluted plots. The loss of Aurora’s mother for her father to then find a new wife takes inspiration from Cinderella who grieves for her deceased mother. The coma state of Aurora and the Duke’s kingdom facing the danger of a flood is inspired by Sleeping Beauty falling into slumber and the castle she resides in falling into the same slumber. Finally, the gift of pixie wings by the forest maiden is a parallel to Cinderella being gifted a dress of silk and sliver by birds of nature.
The use of inspiration from these two fairy tales, coupled with the mystic and fantasy ascetic of the game takes the genre back to why people value JRPG’s to begin with. JRPG’s when they became relevant with the original Final Fantasy in 1987, amazed players with how they were engaged with the world they explored and the journey they took in saving it from evil. RPG’s have been successful in making players feel fulfillment in crafting the character they play as, but having the player engrossed in the world they venture through is why RPG’s are one of the most popular genres in video games.
“I”: Quote from Child of Light’s introductory cutscene that plays when starting the game.
Gameplay
Child of Light has the most casual, beginner friendly combat system of any RPG, with a strong layer of strategy behind it straight forward exterior. This strategy comes from the time line battle system and the crafting system. In battle, an action is executed when the player or enemy reaches the end of the timeline.
Aurora’s companion Igniculus can slow down enemies by pressing L1 while hovering over them. These mechanics result in battles where victory is decided by how the player can take advantage of the timeline, rather than having the highest stats. Gems that are found in treasure chests and being dropped from battles, can be equipped to have an elemental attack, defense against an elemental attack or simply increase a character’s attributes. These gems can be enhanced by combing them and the simple execution lets anyone easily grasp the possibilitys and shape their team to cope with any battle situation. To top it all off, experience is plentiful and stops from the player from needlessly grinding and makes the journey smooth sailing and concise.
Presentation
The retelling of Cinderella is one of Child of Light’s strengths, but the artistry and music is its magnum opus. Every location has intricate detail with soft, masterful layers of tone and light. This amazing level of graphical detail is taken to profound heights by a moving soundtrack. The instrumental piece that plays in the beginning of chapter 5 creates a mood of mystic wonder with pounding drums enforcing the trials Aurora will soon face and the urgency of saving her father from his illness.
Value
Child of Light by HiroUsuda, Deviantart
http://hirousuda.deviantart.com/art/Child-of-Light-451785879
It’s rare for a game like Child of Light to have such an eternal aesthetic. It has a perfect fantasy presentation, solid approachable combat and brilliant utilization of fairy tale classics to allow the RPG genre to rediscover why people adore it in the first place. The world the player can become engrossed in likely evokes the same feeling of wonder players had when they played the original Final Fantasy all the way back in 1987.
Developer/Publisher: Iguana Bee
The most exotic surprises can come when you least expect them. Monsterbag is one of those surprises from Sony’s striking handheld.
Monsterbag’s virtues is its vibrant art style and wacky escalating story hiding a dark crafty sense of humor under its child friendly exterior. These delightful elements are brought down somewhat by rare events of frustrating game design. By observing the ups and down’s of Monsterbag, the real thrill of its idiosyncratic roller coaster ride will be revealed.
Story
You are in the role of V, a monster who is Nia’s loyal friend. Nia heads off to the school bus, with V coming along for the ride hiding from a world scared of monsters. The story from this point onwards transforms into a ludicrous tale of discovering secret experiments and ending the apocalypse.
The heart of Monsterbag comes from the lunacy of the story that is loaded with humorous chaos. V’s passionate efforts of catching up to and protecting Nia is a sincere direction among the craziness unfolding. This compassion reaches its peak in the level “Love” that visually depicts Nia’s feelings of isolation in an orphanage because she was born fragile in health and her parents couldn’t financially provide her medical needs.
The somber solitude of Nia crying to then be comforted by V is an emotionally stirring scene in a mostly light hearted game.
Gameplay
Monsterbag is a casual journey through almost the entire play length. The mechanics of avoiding detection and using items with the touchscreen to find the solution makes for an enjoyable experience because of the short length of stages. The puzzling solving is challenging enough to nog the mind, but not overly complex that you will be tearing the hairs of your head.
Monsterbag’s biggest issue however, lies in instances of frustrating gameplay design, inherent from the mechanic of avoiding detection. In the level ‘Another World’ one puzzle phase requires the player to power 4 switches in a time limit, or they reset. Most of the puzzles up until this point let you leisurely figure out the solution while hiding from people’s sight. This design fault won’t tear open heads from frustration, but its primitive execution leaves a bitter taste that brings back painful memories of the worst in old school difficulty.
Presentation
Minimalist, yet vibrant sums up Monsterbag’s art direction. The grey scale backgrounds contrasting with the bright colors of the characters on screen make every movement pop out and come alive. This friendly art however hides a gruesome dose of dark humor, with surprisingly unexpected gore from what appears to be harmless.
Value
The most enjoyable experiences can sometimes come when you aren’t expecting them. Monsterbag is one of those rare gems, with mild challenge and a wonderfully outlandish story. It’s one of the best games you will ever play about a girl and her little monster.
Note: All images have been captured with the Vita’s Screenshot feature. (Start and PlayStation Button at the same time.)
Ps Vita wallpaper by mattsimmo, Deviant Art
http://mattsimmo.deviantart.com/art/PS-Vita-Wallpaper-275044577
(This Review is based on the original OLED modal that doesn’t have 1G of internal storage and bigger rear touch placers.)
Sony’s successor to the PSP has ventured an interesting journey through the gaming industry. Released worldwide in 2012, its early titles amazed with production values coming close or on par with home consoles. But the expense of making a Vita game at the time made the handheld suffer the chicken and egg predicament. How can you get people to buy the console without software support, but where can you get the developers willing to pay the expense for making the software.
It was a console that had so many excellent strengths from its design, features that can be used in inventive ways as illustrated in Tearaway and being 1 of 3 modern consoles able to play classic games, but its own excellence was its greatest weakness.
Artwork from Dorkly, Videogame consoles are your teachers, page 3, number 10
http://www.dorkly.com/post/45128/videogame-consoles-are-your-teachers/page:3
3 years later, the Vita’s solution to its problems was shifting focus to being a console thriving with unique and cult status games, a companion device for the PS4 and giving a solution to retro gamers wanting to play PS1 and PSP titles but own a PlayStation 4, as the Vita is able to play PS1 and PSP titles. As of the 25th January 2015, the PlayStation Vita has sold 9.6 million units worldwide and its rival the 3DS has sold a dumbfounding 50.4 million units. By inspecting the negative and positive elements of Sony’s handheld and how its game library can be a utopia for aficionados of gaming, one will discover how the PlayStation Vita is the best handheld console that dared to compete against the unshakeable masters of the handheld console.
Design
Weighing 260 grams and having a stunning OLED screen, the original Vita fits well in a cargo trouser pocket though it doesn’t have the slimmer weight of the Vita Slim which makes it easier to fit in a regular pocket. Even though this model may need trousers with long and deep pockets so it doesn’t slip out and hit the concrete, its greatest virtue is the display.
OLED Vita Screen photo from Mobile Fanatics, Up close with the PlayStation Vita, http://www.themobilefanatics.com/2012/03/photo-gallery-up-close-playstation-vita/
Bright, vivid and colourful are a few words describing the majestic beauty of the OLED display. Games with colourful art direction appear crisp and pop out while games with a more realistic or gritty art direction have clear contrast and rare colours stand out.
The handheld also has the advantage of responsive dual analogue sticks that are as comfy as the DualShock 3 and 4 once the user is used to the small yet effective input range.The D-pad isn’t as separate or mushy compared with the Dual 4, but great for PlayStation 1 games with their more finicky and precision based gameplay, like in platformers. The traditional shape symbol buttons and R1 and L1 are also there, but how does one play a FPS (First Person Shooter) without the distinctly missing R2 and L2 buttons.
The Vita uses the touch screen and the obscure rear touch pad to make up for a lack of R2 and L2 button, and games for the Vita have used the touch inputs in varying degrees of success.
Impulse Gamer, Little Big Planet
http://www.impulsegamer.com/vitalittlebigplanet.html
The front touch screen is an intuitive and sensitive input, and its sensitivity along with a dual shock control layout has been put to great use in fighting games as well as improving on functionality in games like Dragon’s Crown where it’s used to find treasure while fighting through hectic battles.
Tech Radar, PS Vita Review, March 05 2012,
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/handheld-consoles/ps-vita-1061138/review/4
The rear touch pad is a mixed bag in terms of intuitiveness and reliability. While being an inventive way of interacting with in game objects and makes actions more involved, the pad by its nature and placement is prone to accidental input, and because the original Vita is no longer in production and replaced by the vastly better Slim, OLED models are plagued with technical issues that all revolve around the rear touch pad. When installing games that heavily use it like Tearaway, such games may stop the pad from functioning completely which can cause critical progression issues in games where it’s used to progress in a Vita game. This issue only applies to the original Vita, and not the Vita Slim.
PlayStation PS Vita, WordPress, PS Vita Specs
http://psvitaplaystation.wordpress.com/ps-vita-specs/
The console with its screen and glossy finish is a dust, stain and finger print magnet that will often need cleaning. Even if it’s a bit unfriendly to fashionable trouser pockets, the Vita is an good looking handheld, and the rear touch pad issue only affects a certain number of games, with a large majority of the library being fully playable without the rear touch pad.
Features
A plethora of features reside in the Vita, with the most useful ones being Remote Play, Content manager, Videos and web browser. The other features, while having there uses are done better on other consoles, and even smartphones.
Pocket Lint, Hands-on video: PS4 Remote Play Explored
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/125119-hands-on-video-ps4-remote-play-explored
Remote Play allows the player to have PS4 gameplay streamed to the Vita with the handheld being the controller. This is a commendable feature for players that have their sessions regularly interrupted by people watching TV and is similar to the Wii U tablet. The function works with all PS4 games that don’t require the PlayStation Camera, and the L2, R2, L3 and R3 are mapped to the front touch screen with Start and Select being the Share and Options button.
Dragons Dogma Wiki, Dragon’s Dogma PS Vita backgrounds,
http://dragonsdogma.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:ObsidianDraconis/Dragon’s_Dogma_PS_Vita_Backgrounds
Due to the compulsory need of a proprietary memory card, content manager will be a frequently used app as digital Vita games have sizes of 1 to 3 GB’s filling up 16 GB card quickly. (Psychical game cartilages are smaller in file size) Apps on the card are in coloured categories making space management a simple press on the screen.
Dragons Dogma Wiki, Dragon’s Dogma PS Vita backgrounds,
http://dragonsdogma.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:ObsidianDraconis/Dragon’s_Dogma_PS_Vita_Backgrounds
There is also 3 back up methods for games on the Vita and they are the PS3, PC and PS Plus cloud storage. Cloud storage keeps save files and is the easiest method that simply needs the player to be subscribed to PS Plus which is purchased on the PS Store starting at $10 for a month and won’t make you top up if the automatic funding option is turned off on the service list once purchased. The PS3 serves as a mass back up storage for Vita games and allowing music, videos and images to be transferred onto the Vita while storing PS1 save files that cannot be saved on the cloud. (The PS4 sadly does not support the PS3’s mass storage utility for the PlayStation Vita)
PC back up requires Content Manager Assistant to be installed on the PC, and makes it easier to organise one’s Vita games while serving as the best way for getting music files on the Vita. These methods offer great versatility for preserving Vita games as well as getting other forms of media, particularly music on the handheld.
The PS Store also offers movies to rent that are found on the Videos app on the home screen, and is an acceptable video player, with movies looking great on the OLED screen with reasonable rental prices at round $5 to $6. TV rentals however are lacklustre because the pricing structure will have the user purchasing one episode at a time instead of a whole season, making them more expensive and stopping binge watching.
The web browser is commendable for finding walkthroughs, and nothing else. Having only 512MB of Ram, the browser takes an eternity loading webpages and has virtually no security unless paying for Trend Micro Security to defend a browser that struggles to load and display any decent website. It’s a useful app for guidance in a game, but is terrible when compared against other respected web browsers.
The four features of the Vita are apps that give handheld strong potential as a multimedia device that provides great distractions when the player wants more than simply games from their console.
(P.S There are 32 and 64 GB memory cards but are available only in Japan, and other countries have only 4, 8 and 16 GB memory cards commercially available.)
Gaming library
The titles for the Vita cover a range of genres with the most popular games being JRPGS and Indies. One of the criticisms aimed at the handheld is the lack of exclusives in the library and how it pales in comparison to the 3DS library. The reason why the Vita thrives with Indies and ports while having sparse exclusive like Tearaway and Killzone Mercenary is due to one simple fact.
Vita games have production values that are close to the budgets of console games which makes them more expensive for handheld developers to create. When the Vita launched worldwide in 2012, its launch titles Gravity Rush and Uncharted Golden Abyss amazed with their production values and inventive use of the Vita’s control features. But these games set a high expectation that the Vita would have exclusives that matched or came almost close to console games, and resulted in a drought of games that wasn’t a popular IP like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed meant to be system sellers and being inferior to their console counterparts.
10 best PlayStation Vita Games cover image, Arcade Sushi
http://arcadesushi.com/best-playstation-vita-games/
The PS Vita would remain in obscurity in the handheld market until the PS4’s Remote Play feature gave the Vita some much needed attention. It wasn’t a solution to its problems, but people realised that a competitor to the 3DS existed and by that time, ports of games such as Dragon’s Crown, Persona 4 Golden, Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remastered and having backwards compatibility with PS1 and PSP titles gave people incentive to purchase the handheld. Then the Vita shifted its ambitions from the console experience on the go, and instead thriving on indie titles and hosting a gaming library of critical darlings and cult classics that were made in the Vita’s life time period of 2012 and 2014.
With the PlayStation Vita’s original and current ambitions, it has never had a popular system seller and is very evident with the 3DS’s 50.4 Million units sold and the Vita selling 9.6 million units. The game library of the PlayStation Vita clear cuts a gaming audience in half. One half will be having a ball as the library is stuffed and exploding with offbeat and specialised titles taking video game elements of eons past, and giving them a modern update or create a fantastical element that gives players an experience they will find nowhere else. The other half have found their gaming needs with the 3DS and its blockbuster titles of Pokémon, Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart and it’s stellar Street Pass social feature allowing them to have greater connections with gaming friends.
With such a broad and unique library of games, the Vita is the modern aficionados’ handheld console.
Value
Poster artwork by Patrick Zachar, Deviant art
http://patrickzachar.deviantart.com/art/Playstation-Vita-Poster-Blue-309933032
Sony’s little console is an exotic product of the handheld market. Even with a dwindling beginning and the problematic reliability of the originals rear touch pad and the borderline money sink of a compulsory memory card, its revision the Vita Slim fixed the pad’s issues and being less awkward in the everyday pocket. The library is a smorgasbord of unique IP’s and classic PlayStation games that epitomise the brands international third party developer’s innovative and evolutionary efforts in the gaming world.
The original Vita in comparison to the Slim, is one of the master disasters of the PlayStation lineage. But the original is a reminder to avid fans of video games that often it takes time and a lot of blunders before an entertainment device matures into a product worth spending dozens of hours on with all its incredible adventures waiting to be experienced.
Summation: If you really want to get the PlayStation Vita, I implore you to but the Vita Slim because it has a better touch pad and 1 GB internal memory, enough to play an indie game or two and the argument on what screen of both models is better won’t matter when you actually play on the Vita Slim. Please note that the images without a description and link to the source were captured with my IPad and the Vita screenshot feature (Start+ PlayStation button). And yes, now that I am beginning to credit the image and artwork sources of other people’s creations, I will be updating my older reviews and giving credit to the images and artwork of other creators they rightfully deserve.
Have a great day and don’t hesitate to point out an inaccurate detail in this review.
