Wisdom, I’ve never really played JRPGs or these tactical RPG thingies until I got a Vita. It’s a brilliant little system.
I love my Vita. If you own a PS4 the remote play feature is fabulous. It also works with a PS3 but only for classic PS1 titles and a few others.
As for the OLED/LCD comparisons, see if you can try one before you decide which to buy. There’s fanboys in both sides for good reasons.
The OLED performs worse in badly lit rooms. There will be some artifacts on the screen. Someone’s Vita pictures that show the issues. Pretty much all of them will have something somewhere. Mine only has a few small blotches at the corners when it’s displaying near-blacks. They also have small display problems with some shades of brown & green. The screen’s brightness was enough for me to use it as a flashlight during a power failure, and it can cause some eye strain in the dark.
LCD on the other hand has less vibrant colors and terrible blacks. That system is also more comfortable for people with large hands.
Perfect timing if you get one then. Most of the old ones are 75% off as part of this week’s sale. Tearaway is adorable. :)
Agreed. Vita is great for quirky japanese titles and indie stuff. If that’s your jam it’s a fantastic little system.
The original Vita’s brightness is adujstable (the new one as well I’d guess), so not really an issue. It can get brighter than the new screen for sure though (which also means if you even out brightness, you can probably match the new machines slightly better battery life)
I have no issue in dark rooms. Very dark scenes within games can show the slight ‘blobs’ on the screen, however.
I wish there was a dragons dogma / Dark souls /demon souls style game or at least a competent diablo clone for it, otherwise very happy with it.
Hell, it is worthwhile just for the excellent version of spelunky, which controls amazingly.
Sadly, I haven’t used my Vita much yet. After the initial exciting first month of holding a handheld for the first time, I finally realized that I was right when I first thought I had no real room for a handheld in my life. It’s almost impossible to use on my daily commute without wrecking my car (just too dangerous, I tried), and the short spurts I get at work were okay in the winter, but I don’t get time to play it much at work anymore, and at home I’d much rather watch/play stuff on the big TV. I initially used it on the can to remote play some PS4 games, like Infamous: Second Son, but eventually I realized I much prefer to just read in that situation, playing games is too… I don’t know, weird? Distracting? I’m not sure what word describes it best. I also initially used it to play games in bed right before bed, but I found myself staying up too late, so I went back to reading my kindle app on my phone instead. Reading before bed just fits me better.
So sadly, it looks like the Vita really has no slot in my life where I could fit it in after all. I thought if I owned one, I’d somehow find a slot that I never thought of. But that didn’t happen. It’s a nifty device, but really the only time I can play games or watch TV really is when I’m home alone on the couch before my wife gets home. And during those couple of hours, I’d rather use the big TV instead.
I love the Vita but I also don’t really have room for a handheld in my life (though I don’t have or particularly intend to get a PS4 and I prefer my PC rather than my consoles). The situations most people use them in, I end up reading instead. Or watching Netflix on my iPad. I never seem to learn this, though.
Still, it may have been worth it just for Virtue’s Last Reward. that thing is fantastic.
Don’t forget to price in a large memory card. I bought an 8GB, and I’m swapping out games left and right thanks to PS+. (Now I just “buy” things on the PSN store from my PC browser instead.) Also, Uncharted will take up most of the 8GB by itself.
I love mine, but I still tend to play on my PC or laptop instead of the Vita. But I’ve accumlated quite a library ready and waiting, backed up on my PC somewhere.
Old Persona games had gone on sale 4 times in the past 365 days, so wait for a sale! P4G might have gone on sale only once, though.
Love my Vita. I played Disgaea most of the flight from the UK. Great battery life.
My only real complaint about the system is sometimes it seems very finickey about letting me log into PSN Store from it.
Thanks everyone for the comments!
I did some looking into it and in the end decided against the OG model. It appears that their cost has increased significantly, which is understandable, plus I’d have to factor in the cost of a mem card.
What I didn’t anticipate was that the new bundle would be so hard to come by - no store within a reasonable distance of me had them in stock all weekend. I managed to snag one from Amazon on Saturday morning, during the few hours (!) that they were in stock.
So in the end I got a console, 8GB mem card, and P4G all for less than just the OG console would have cost. Now here’s hoping the screen isn’t the abomination the internet makes it out to be :p
Woohooo, welcome to the club WC!
As for me, after reading so many positive impressions, I finally plunked down for Jeanne D’Arc. I was worried because I found Tactics Ogre a bit overwhelming, and was worried this would be in the same boat, but four or five missions in, it’s anything but. Such a great little game with an elegant combat system that I can grok fairly well. :)
The one I tried wasn’t. Some people are really unfair with comparisons. :)
The 75% off sale on Persona titles will be ending less than 24 hours after this post, but you can buy them from the Sony store in your browser if you want while you’re waiting for your system.
A warning since you’ve never played one. The characters & stories are very interesting, but this series can be extremely frustrating, cruel, and grindy. Persona 3 is usually considered the best of these if you’re not sure if you’d like that. The first two’s graphics (originally PS1 games improved for PSP) haven’t aged very well. They’re still fine to play if you can handle it.
Yeah, I figured some of the anti-LCD vitriol might have been a little overblown. And having only spent a little time with the OG model, I doubt I’d notice much of a difference anyway :)
Also, thanks for the heads up on those links! I hadn’t thought to use the website to get the sale price before the system arrived, so good call on that. The Sony online storefront is pretty nifty (and I suspect will be a bit dangerous…). I now have P3 ready to download - between that and P4G, I may never have time to play another game again…
It’s becoming more dangerous as they slowly seem to have more Steam-like sales. ;)
They are indeed nefarious!!!
Also, some joker took my preferred username on PSN so I had to settle for “wisdom_child.” The nerve!
That’s a whole heap of anime of high school hijinks! :)
That happened to me on Xbox…just one more reason I am glad to be out of the Live garden.
Welcome to the club!! Like you I was sucked back into JRPGs by Bravely Default (and Dark Souls 2, but that’s another story…), and recently started up my long neglected save of P4G…it wasn’t as instantly gratifying as BD, but once I started to understand the gameplay and systems it really opened up, and now I love the hell out of it.
Glad you’re a part of the Vita club ; )
I may be late to the party, but I’m REALLY enjoying the FFX HD Remaster on the Vita. It’s so nice looking it actually feels like a modern game released within the last year, and it runs and plays great. I’m still in that awkward “early hours” of a Final Fantasy game but I feel like I’m getting close to the story/action really heating up, if memory serves, and once that happens I’ll probably play it even more. One of those purchases that really makes the decision to purchase a Vita a good one, though, so far.
I look forward to both hijinks and shenanigans alike! [Related: I loved the way Double Fine’s 2011 masterpiece Stacking implemented hijinks as core gameplay]
I got sucked into DaS2 pretty hard, and my love for it burned hot and bright. But as such flames are wont to do, it extinguished relatively quickly. By contrast, Bravely Default has been a nice slow burn :)
Yeah, I’ve been keeping an eye on that one too. I’m glad to hear that the HD update turned out so well. I definitely played the shit out of FFX when it came out - it might be worth picking it up again on sale down the line just to get a portable Blitzball fix!
Fun Fact: I just noticed that I apparently voted “no” on this Poll at some point in the past. Shows what I know!