On paper, thePSPmay seem like an unintuitive choice for fighting games: it had a simple analog nub, meaning that most fighters would have to rely on the D-Pad, and it was also tragically underutilized in the multiplayer department, which forms a massive part of fighting games' appeal. In retrospective analysis, the console is often viewed as ahaven for RPGsinstead.
But as long as you were looking to play single-player, the PSP was the best handheld of its time for fighting games. It was capable of producing console-quality visuals, and had enough buttons to allow gameplay to be transferred faithfully from home consoles. Here are the best fighting games on the PSP, ranked.
WHERE TO PLAY
A launch title for the PSP, Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower is so much more than the compilation it’s gathered a reputation for being. Rather, this pseudo-compilation is a standalone game that includes all the gameplay elements and plot points of the Darkstalkers series.
Adead fighting game seriesthat fans desperately want Capcom to bring back, Darkstalkers is, to date, best experienced in this PSP iteration. It has crisp visuals and gameplay on par with any of the arcade titles.
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core
Guilty Gear XX was critically lauded upon its PS2 launch and quickly received several updates. The most up-to-date version on the PSP, Accent Core Plus, is also one of the definitive ways to experience the game unless you have a Vita lying around.
Not only does Accent Core Plus faithfully port the gameplay of Guilty Gear XX, but itbalances several charactersand reintroduces ones that were absent in the original version. Three new modes were added: Mission Mode, Gallery Mode and Survival Mode. All of these served to make it a fulfilling single-player experience on the PSP.
Dissidia Final Fantasy was the game Final Fantasy fans had always dreamed of, allowing them to pit characters from various games in the seriesagainst each otherin one-on-one combat. Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy does it one better by including even more characters, a new story mode and, incredibly, the entirety of the original Dissidia within itself.
Thanks to its story mode, Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy had a fulfilling campaign even if you had no one to experience its multiplayer features with. The game also gave you different rewards depending on what day of the week it was, giving you a reason to keep coming back.
5BlazBlue: Continuum Shift 2
Updated Version Of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
At one point, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift 2 was supposed to be Guilty Gear’sspiritual successor, bringing the same rock’n’roll ethos to its gameplay while maintaining a greater focus on the story. This made it ideal for the PSP, which had played host to a successful port of the previous entry, Calamity Trigger.
This updated version of the original Continuum Shift features the largest BlazBlue cast up to that point, smooth visuals and even smoother combat. Every feature found in the console iterations can be accessed here, in glorious 480 x 272 resolution, from the comfort of your palm.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
The runaway popularity of Street Fighter 6 might not betray the fact that until the fourth entry saved the series, Street Fighter was struggling to find its way. One of its more successful steps in the mid-2000s was this arcade-perfect port of Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the PSP.
Street Fighter is well known for its iterations, and Alpha 3 was no different. Alpha 3 Max brought together all the new characters and balancing tweaks added to the game up till 2006, and also added new stories for the debutant characters. This makes it one of the most comprehensive versions to play the game, with faster loading times to boot.
Fans of the Tekken series may argue that the portable iteration of Tekken 6 is even better than the one on home consoles. Unlike the PS3 and X360 editions of the game, the PSP version of Tekken 6 lacked the much-criticized Scenario Campaign mode and let you experience each character’s episode in a straightforward story mode instead.
This game was a miracle on the PSP: it looked to be of console quality in its visuals, and had all the gameplay features you’d expect besides multiplayer. Every single character in Tekken 6’s huge cast was faithfully preserved and brought over to the PSP.
The Soulcalibur series is second only to Tekken in the pantheon of Bandai Namco fighters: it is beloved by fans for its deep and charming stories, robust character creation features and excellent graphics.
Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny represents a consolidation of all those aspects. It is proof that Namco was placing great faith in the PSP, because it was the best game in the series up till that point, and had exclusive features that hadn’t been seen before.
1Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection
Updated Version Of Tekken 5
As an early PSP title, Tekken: Dark Resurrection surpasses even its sequel in amazing us with its technical fidelity on the humble handheld. Tekken: Dark Resurrection isn’t just the best fighting game on the PSP, it’s the definitive way to experience Tekken 5 - widely regarded as one of the best fighting games of all time.
Lacking true multiplayer, this game had a ghost-battle mode that allowed you to indirectly fight people worldwide, and you could upload your data to a global server. It also introduced robust single-player modes like Gold Rush, and brought back the beloved Tekken Bowl. Almost every stage received a visual and musical overhaul, and fan-favourite characters like Lili and Dragunov made their debut here.
