Have you planned to buy a PS Vita?

Games
1821

You’re suggesting that handhelds are only ever used outside of the home, which is not the case for everyone (me at least). Also you can tether Vita to your phone via Bluetooth for internet access.

Yes… well, not an Xbox because I have a PC. ;) But I would buy one once a critical mass of unique games I want to play arrives. I also have an Android phone, and an iPad. I realise I’m most likely an edge case…

I also must be unusual because I don’t game on the go at all, as I really don’t enjoy playing on the bus or when waiting in lines. I’ll just listen to music and stare at scenery instead. I don’t travel away from home for extended periods. In bed I’ll read books (on the iPad).

So almost all of my ‘mobile’ gaming is done on the couch or in my computer chair at home (or work). My choice of which device to use at any given time is not based on how far away I am from the big-screen games, but rather which game I feel like playing (or whatever has the freshest new-game smell). All of those platforms have some great games worth investing time in.

The least played devices are the phone/tablet, as they have the least compelling gaming experiences for my tastes. I do love some board, card and interactive novel games and generally play those there, but only because they are exclusive to the device. I find the phone/tablet awkward to hold and prefer physical, disconnected controls over a touchscreen. A cross-platform touch card game like Star Realms for example, I’ll play on PC since I don’t have to hold anything or zoom in to see the cards properly.

The most played device outside of my PC is the 3DS. That’s not because I’m travelling a lot, it’s because it has many excellent games that appeal to me that can’t be played elsewhere. I do wish Monster Hunter 4, Fire Emblem, SMT, Pokemon et al were on the PC, because I’d play them there if they were, but they’re not. And the 3DS is quite fun to hold and use anyway, with it’s touch/pen second screen and gimmicky 3D (drawing maps in Etrian for example gives me a buzz).

Same goes for the Vita. It has some great titles as well - I wouldn’t have been able to play Persona 4G without one. But again, once PSTV became available I bought one so that I could play most of those Vita games on a bigger screen with a PS4 controller.

So yeah, I’d just have a PC if everything were available on that platform. Since that’s not the case, and there are great games waiting to be played everywhere, whichever game I’m currently engrossed in gets the attention regardless of platform.

1822

The same here. “I have no use case for it” is a pretty brilliant way to put it Denny. I like it! Very geeky, fancy way of saying what I wanted to say.

Also Merryprankster: I’ve tried using it while driving, it just doesn’t work out. My theory was that I could play it when I’m stopped at red lights, but it just doesn’t work out, the stops are too short to be able to do anything substantive.

I’m also impressed by the hardware. I like the idea of owning it. If I really was stranded somewhere with no TV, no other console, lots of spare time, and a VITA, I could finally use it to my heart’s content. Maybe on a cruise? But from what I heard from friends, you can take your home console on a cruise and have a blast playing games on the TV in your cabin. So maybe not a cruise.

The reason I bought one is that my theory was that even though I saw no use case for it in my life, I theorized that once I owned one, I would find the use case. That it would be something I’d never even thought of when I didn’t own one. Sadly that never materialized. I even tried playing it in bed before going to bed, and that worked okay for a couple of months, but I just really enjoy reading before falling asleep a lot more than playing the Vita.

1823

That’s ridiculous to say that some games aren’t better on mobile; clearly there are some games in which a touch screen really is a better way of playing, and some games which might seem ‘trite’ on a PC but are ‘right-sized’ on a mobile device. Gettysburg, the Sorcery! games, Waterdeep. If you want “strategy” the Shenandoah games (Battle of the Bulge, Drive on Moscow, ect) were great experiences. There are even some MMOs i haven’t played but which seemed to amuse those who liked that style of gaming.

I don’t spend as much time gaming on my mobile devices - and of that time, most is on the iPad, not the iPhone - but when i do i’m struck by how dense and meaningful those experiences are. I can blow 2 hours on Age of Wonders and have little to show for it, but 2 hours in the iPad is usually a complete experience.

1824

Arise…

Ok now i regret buying a Vita TV. I fear mine is dying. For a while it was saying “you removed the memory card previously” when i didn’t. It still worked fine though. Now it still sees the memory card but i can’t install anything or delete any installed games. I can still play existing games, still load saved games and still create new ones though.

Nice to see paying for an overpriced memory card resulted in a superior experience. Every DS system i’ve owned has never had memory problems and i had them much longer and played them much more.

It goes without saying that i’m not Sony’s biggest fan at the moment. Either my system is dying or my memory card is corrupted for some unknown reason. Maybe i can save all my save games (the option to upload them is conveniently off by default on Vita TV even though i am plus, and it doesnt seem to be working now) and maybe i can’t. Either way i need to waste a bunch of time trying to fix it.

Now i am rebuilding the database in safe mode. Hopefully it will work.

edit: So good news, bad news.

I had a lot of games installed. About 22gb on my card. It used to be about 12 games or something like that. A few of which i had put a lot of hours in to, a few more that i had put a low amount.

When i rebuilt the database, the list now only sees 4 of my games, 2 of which i’ve never played, one of which i only minorly played and the other which was in the middle.

However my card still has 22gb used.

Even if i can manage to fix this somehow, who knows how long it will be until it happens again =/

edit #2: it still isn’t fixed. It is looking like the dreadful next step is to completely reformat the card and reset the system. However i don’t think there is any way to rescue my save games. Obviously i am extremely reluctant to take this option.

1825

Hearing that makes me glad I only spent $30 on my PSTV (recent Newegg sale with coupon) and am going to use a spare memory card I already had. It hasn’t arrived yet, but knowing that there’s the potential for critical failure that I haven’t run into with my actual Vita (which has its own different problem of having the worst battery life I’ve ever dealt with, preventing me from actually using it as a portable system) is worrying.

1826

The moral of the story seems to be that you should backup your save games to your PC regularly if you have a Playstation TV.

I’m not sure mine will even work, my system seems pretty screwed up and it seems to be hanging now. Even if it does work, i dont think it will work for all of the games that my vita “forgot” i have on it.

It is a shame because i’ve been getting some good use out my PSP TV.

1827

Hm. my Vita’s battery life has been excellent, I wonder if the difference is my perception or that you got screwed by a bad battery.

But yeah, don’t overspend on a PSTV, at the $30 I paid for it it feels like a toy with a spare memory card in it. So I wasn’t heartbroken when the remote play with my PS4 never worked right. It’s been in a box somewhere ever since. Maybe they have patched it up . . .

And remember to use your cloud saves if you have PS+. I’m guilty of forgetting that myself, and was lucky they were automated on my now-dead PS3.

1828

The problem seems to be my memory card itself. I can’t even format it, although i can read from it for the most part because i got most of my saves from it. Maybe those were actually saved to internal memory though.

So basically it looks like my nearly $65 32GB vita memory card lasted about 7 months of mostly VERY light use. I never once took it out of the unit until now.

My story sounds exactly like other people who had the same problem too. The vita starts complaining about you having removed the memory card previously when you didn’t. You think it is just because it went to sleep while doing something because everything still works with no problems. Then one day it just gives up while you’re installing something new. You can’t reformat it at all.

I don’t want to give sony more money on this, but i’m out all my games if I don’t. I’ll probably end up waiting a few days to let my anger clear so i can be more rational, then sending a likely useless email to sony support. Then buying a smaller card. I can just install the 2-3 games i’m playing currently.

I should be able to do it with a 4gb card i think and 2 games.

I am just glad i didn’t try to import one of the 64 GB cards from japan. That would have been even worse…

Oh and luckily i was able to get my demon gaze save data i think. That was the one i was concerned about most by far since i put about 30 hours in to the game and am VERY far in to it.

1829

Hey, I’m also playing Demon Gaze! What do you think about it?

I’m well into it, and it seems perfectly serviceable to me, although nothing spectacular. It’s basically Etrian Odyssey with unavoidable cutscenes of anime girls in panties every 5 hours or so (so, a NIS game).

It has a garbage translation and is really terrible at communicating it’s game mechanics and iconography, (i.e. what does AntiBeast do, exactly? What’s the tradeoff between ResistSpirit vs 10 more defense?)

But, it kills the time.

1830

I liked what I played of Demon Gaze, especially when it decided to actually bring the heat by throwing three boss fights at me in a row. Hopefully I’m not too lost when I resume it on my PSTV.

Also, don’t blame Nippon Ichi Software for what NIS America does. Anime panties are very much the realm of the latter, while tactical RPGs where you level characters to a billion and one are the former’s forte.

1831

I have a Vita chock full of the highly rated PSP stuff I never got around to playing (Jeanne D’Arc, anyone?) and great “free” games from PS+ and… I never turn it on. Seriously considering selling the Vita/64GB card just to recoup some value from it. Between the phone, iPad, and Surface Pro 3, there’s just never a situation where I’m going to choose this over other things. Made worse by my Surface Pro 3’s new ability to stream Xbox One games surprisingly well.

Man, I loved my PSP, but I guess this niche is just disappearing.

1832

Keep mine around as a JRPG machine. Just grabbed Demon Gaze on sale. And by Grabthar’s Hammer someday I’ll get more than an hour or two into FF Tactics!

Persona 4 is good, though I haaaate the ‘comical’ designs of the monsters. Seems like 3 has more normal baddies, if so I’ll grab it.

Tried a rhythm/rpg hybrid (or so I thought) with one of those Hyperdimension games and it turns out to be more of a pop-star management sim with a dating sim thing sorta tossed in. Has plenty of JRPG jiggle, though it makes fun of the tropes pretty enjoyably. Didn’t finish it but liked it enough to try another of the HD games only this one is a tactical RPG. One that looks good, but just seem far too involved.

However, Steam now seems to be handling a lot more JRPGs so I’ve though of ditching the Vita for a 3DS to try some of the Nintendo stuff I’ve missed over the years.

No idea why I’m on a JRPG kick, fwiw

1833

Huh. Looks like that’s Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection. I guess it’s an idolm@ster clone of some sort?

I hadn’t even heard of it. The success of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series is just about as baffling to me as anything I’ve come across in all my years playing games. There are like 9 games in 4 years, and by most accounts they aren’t even very good?

I’ll just hold out for Persona 4:Dancing All Night.

(Although, speaking of bizarre idol games and Nintendo, how excited am I for Genei Ibun Roku X #FE? Very excited.)

1834

I think the mainline (Rebirth 1/2/3) are good enough. I wrote up my thoughts on Neptunia 1 on this post in the Steam Summer Sale 2015 thread. It’s repetitive in a Disgaea way, where once you gain a few levels then whatever area you’re in gets easier, so farming isn’t as hard anymore, but then it’s time to move on elsewhere. I’m near the end of 1, and I have 2 waiting, along with Fairy Fencer F (a more serious business JRPG using the same system).

Internets say the other neptunia spinoffs aren’t as good.

1835

I traded mine away with some cash for a New 3DS. It’s just a dead system (to me). I bought it in 2011 (I think?) and it’s literally been sitting on my book shelf for at least the past 2 years. The 3DS is far inferior in specs but it just has so many cool games out and coming for it.

1836

By and large accurate. And I say that as someone who has a platinum trophy for PP.

1837

I find the games on phone/ipad to be significantly inferior. Even games i like, like the warhammer 40k Tyranid invasion one, are huge grinds with near forced cash shops. To actually use a decent controller, i need to jailbreak my ipad unless things have changed. There are a few jrpgs that work ok on it though.

1838

I liked it a lot. I did find it becoming a grind near the end of the game.

I even ended up getting Operation Abyss, but that game plays like a worse version of Demon Gaze. Interesting world though.

1839

I just got a 3DS XL my own self, and I love it. Haven’t touched my poor Vita in overall month. I don’t wannnnnna sell it since I purchased a good deal of games for it, but the fire just isn’t there for it. :/

1840

You might try one of these.

But yeah, as far as controls go, I prefer a Vita over a phone for everything except touch-only games. Have always hated virtual buttons.