Retroid Pocket 2

I had a look at Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance. They don't give a good first impression after playing Aria.

Well it's either Symphony of the Night on PS1 if you don't already own and have played it a million times or we go for the first half of the Metroidvania portmantea…Zero Mission! Super Metroid! F-fusion…!

Metroid Fusion is the only other Metroidvania I've ever really played. And I only got a 25% through.

Super Metroid is very good, the Symphony of the Night equivalent. The bit during thelast boss is one of my favourite gaming moments.

Zero Mission is the best of the Metroids. Super Metroid's ever so slightly old-school in comparison and Fusion is too linear.

Symphony of the Night is still an absolute classic but probably too similar to what you've just played.

I have simply played SOTN too much, it's easily the best one imo but it's such a good series I feel bad for giving SOTN alone permanent replay status. Like I got the Requiem double pack on PS4 after I binged S3 of the anime last year and it comes with SOTN…and also 'Rondo of Blood' aka the full game starring Richter Belmont (the very same guy in the SOTN intro!). Well, I tried it for once and…it's really good! It's the old school harder level based Castlevania, but that's not necessarily a bad thing imo.

Dude let me know when you find the Balmung, I was on low health and getting out was nightmare. Then arena boss phase 1 made me super salty.

I am right here.

The boss was annoying me enough that I went back and had another try of the silly conveyor room. I finally got through it with a bunch of potions and the Death ability summoning scythes.

And I'm out. 31hp left and used up all my health potions.

Oh good. It's another big hands boss.

Yeah, it's a doozy…but it's worth it until you can get the Claimh Solais! Although it's irrelvant as I've just seen you've beaten it so nice! I have moved on to Fire Emblem instead of Metroid in the end, specifically the translated version of 'The Binding Blade aka 'Roy from Smash Melee's game'. Perfect for commutes, can usually do a chapter a day, maybe more.

As for the game itself, man these are a lot of people that I don't like as much as the Sacred Stones cast yet T_T. Although, it's GBA Fire Emblem so it's still really fun, playing on emulator raises a lot of questions on how much I should limit myself to using stuff like save states…but I'll probably still do it here and there. -_-

I went a bit crazy and downloaded all the Fireemblems, Metroidsand Castlevania games though, also Valkyrie Profile which reminded me how much I hate getting PS1 isos…

When I was downloading ROMs I found a bundle of about 150 GBA games so I just grabbed that. I haven't had any trouble with PSone ROMs.

I could be tempted to play a Fire Emblem, I think I'm going to 100% Aria, well the map anyway. I only need to get the fire demon soul and then I can get the good ending. I'm actually still playing Harmony as well. I should finish Breath of Fire IV before starting another epic too.

I wanna' start Chrono Cross but I'm already playing a big RPG so I dunno' if I should. I really enjoyed Harmony back in the day, maybe I'm wrong and I'll hate it now but it feels like people hate it for not being Aria? I just remember him schmoovin' with his front and backdash. Maybe their take on the dual castle thing was a bit irritating.

Chrono Cross is great. It's massive if you want to unlock everything, but it took me about 40 hours for a straight play through though.

Yeah, I will just play it blind as possible at first. My scumbag brain is telling me to play Chrono Trigger first though, going to try ignoring it…

Don't worry about it, there is very little connecting the two and Trigger hasn't aged well.

Listening to a podcast about Mega Mag Legends 2 and cracked, started the first game and it seems cool despite the controls. Might still beat Fire Emblem 7 which so far is pretty frustrating, Roy is super weak unlike the Lord of every other game and I think I've missed more attacks in 6 chapters than in 3 whole other FE games…

It took me ages because I kept on putting it down for weeks at a time, but I finished Breath of Fire IV. It was alright. I enjoying the setting and the reasonably detailed sprite graphics were nice. The combat mechanics had just enough tactical depth to hold my attention. Other than that it was JRPG by-the-numbers.

I'm not sure what's next. FF 9? FF Tactics? Golden Sun? Saga Frontier 2? I'm not short on options.

Oh hey you're familar with Saga Frontier?

A friend of mine is a big fan and has been telling me to play them for about twenty years.

They're…different, I'm playing the first remaster on PS4 at the minute and it's incredible, if very hard to recommend because of how obtuse it can be.

Played Lunar, Brian?

I played a bit of the GBA version. It didn’t grab me.

Ah, I heard the GBA and PSP version were a lot worse than the PS1, but I doubt that will change your mind. Rough but also the most Disney ass RPG I've played in ages. Last game RPG I beat on the Retroid was Xenogears which is still a flawed masterpiece.

If I pick one of these up for Christmas, is it still the best option? There's not a Retroid Pocket 3 around the corner or anything?

Oh actually the Anbernik RG351M sounds more my level… less fiddling with settings.

Throwing in my votes for Suikoden 1 and 2 as well, I think the second is on track for being one of the best, maybe top 3 RPGs on the PS1, only reason I forgot is that I played em' on my Vita but they're great.

Oh actually the Anbernik RG351M sounds more my level… less fiddling with settings.

The Retroid is a little fiddly, but if I can manage… The RG351M gets as much praise as the Retroid but I've never tried one to compare them. I'm sure either would be fine. There seems to always be another one just round the corner though. I got mine from droix.co.uk they were really good.

Thanks, I’ll take a look.

I suppose if it already runs up to PS1 and N64 perfectly, there’s nothing to gain from waiting, unless I cared about Dreamcast emulation.

The Retroid supposedly has patchy Dreamcast emulation, but I haven't tested it. I keep meaning to try and get Skies of Arcadia running on it.

I figured out that the reason I couldn't get PSP games running on my Retroid was that the ROMs need to be unzipped (all the other emulators seem happy to run from compressed files).

I started with Burnout Dominator which I loved on the PS2 but it was kinda exhausting to play thanks to all the fuzzy speed lines and light effects used to hide the lack of 3d detail. I always wondered if it would look better on the psp with its lovely LED screen. You know what? It really does! At least until you try and turn a corner and then the frame rate plummets to about 5fps. I'll come back to this on my next emulator handheld.

Still, the Retroid looks more than capable of running Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre so I'm happy.

Apparently the One Vision mod for Tactics Ogre is an essential overhaul for the game, if you've got the ability to run it (which you certainly should have). My Vita is unmodded so I can't easily run it but I'd definitely be checking it out if I were in your position.

Nice, I’ll check it out.

I haven't bothered with PSP emulation much, mostly because I can't think of any PSP game I wanna play that isn't already on my Vita, but I did get Ys vs Trails (Literally a party fighter with Trails in the Sky vs Ys big shock, whatever though we never got it in the EU) with the translation patch on there but I couldn't get it to run smooth and PSSPPP or whatever it's called has like 12 billion settings and I don't think the game is worth the tweaking about tbh.

I'm still impressed I have played like 3 DS games so far and they've all been easy to play on one screen, so far the only minor quibble is Days of Ruin requires tapping ZL to swap to the top screen during combat because unlike the previous game, it played that little combat animation split between the top and bottom as opposed to a split screen on one so I have to 'swap' it myself.

Maybe I will list all one screen friendly games or rather RP2 friendly for the DS. (dunno about 3DS that seems like a whole different story ofc)

Pokemon Soul Silver - the bottom screen was just menu stuff, so at worst you get into a fight and every time you wanna' pick an attack you have to swapscreens for like 1 sec then back. I even managed to do the stupid Unknown temple puzzle which required a touchscreen because RP2 has a mode to simulate that too. Perfectly fine.

Chrono Trigger DS - literally lets you choose 'classic' mode where the menus during combat are on the same screen as the characters, still need to swap screens for the out of battle equip and saving whatnot. Perfect, just like the game. :^)

Advance Wars Dual Strike - Some battles take place between two characters on both screens alternately, which you can easily swap to and back from. Perfect.

Castlevania: Order of Eccelsia - been a while but I don't recall any issues, also side note there's apparently a romhack for Dawn of Sorrow that automates the DS gimmick it had of sealing bosses with actual stylus pentagram drawing because people hated it so that's also promising…

Also in general, I sometimes/usually have to wait a few seconds for framerate to stabilise then it's okay, I remember having to download a very specific core in Retroarch to get FFVI above a shaky 45 frames though. Which isn't a DS game anyway.

I haven't bothered with PSP emulation much, mostly because I can't think of any PSP game I wanna play that isn't already on my Vita

The two Metal Gear Acid games were never put on the digital store… I love those. They're the only ones I can think of.

Rock Band is on the store, but they blocked it for use on Vita. I managed to get it onto mine, but that was just lucky timing…

Oh man, I LOVE Acid 2

The PSP version of Outrun 2: Coast to Coast was incredible. That would be my starting point.

Considering the performance of Burnout Dominator I can't imagine Outrun is worth trying.

I've got FF Tactics, Tactics Ogre and Valkyria 2&3. Oh also Every Extend Extra. Might see if LocoRoco is still fun. Patapon might be worth trying but if the emulation is less than perfect then I'm sure it will be basically unplayable.

A friend was just showing off FF XII PS2 running flawlessly on his phone (Samsung Note 10+) which was impressive.

The two Metal Gear Acid games were never put on the digital store… I love those. They're the only ones I can think of.

Omg, I loved them games. I'm a big fan of strategy card games anyway, but mix that with MGS and you have my attention. I remember making a CQC deck that was decent at close range, but was really fun to play with. It's was perfect for handheld too.

I haven't bothered with PSP emulation much, mostly because I can't think of any PSP game I wanna play that isn't already on my Vita

Did you ever play an rpg called Jeanne D'arc, a Final Fantasy Tactics/Tactics Ogre type thing that was never released over here? Well worth digging out if you can find a version somewhere.

I'll add that to the list!