Today I will be talking about the great handheld console the PlayStation Vita. It is an interesting console but right now it's at that awkward stage of its life where you can't find it new anywhere yet, it's technically not discontinued somehow and still has games coming up for it. Is this really worth it to buy a PlayStation Vita? Obviously, that's up to you and I'm sure that a lot of people who can argue for a long time about when in a particular console's life cycle it would be best to buy but this review is supposed to showcase what makes this system fun to have and why it is interesting when it comes to gaming as in the end, it's supposed to be about fun. 

Overview

So with that in mind let's take a look at what makes the Vita great and why you should consider getting one for yourself. The PlayStation Vita came out a couple of years ago in 2012 so like even the earliest models are still pretty new. The system was supposed to be a handheld console that offered home consoles like controls and graphics combined with cell phone features like camera and touch screen and is a modern interpretation of the PSP which is why it should have been called the PSP too but of course, they called it Vita. Originally the Vita had a lot of different games coming out for it but as the years went on just like with the PSP the Vita got less and less mainstream titles and became the must-have console for niche Japanese games.

 

In comparison to the PSP the Vita sprouted a second analog stick a front and back facing cameras a front touch screen and rear touchpad. The UMD is gone thankfully and has been replaced with a very small cartridge. In terms of storage Sony had the brilliant idea (heavy sarcasm) of making a memory card that only works with the Vita and costs too much the largest card that is 64 GB costs a whopping $94 on Amazon. It can also do other things like remote play and that PlayStation now streaming nonsense. Overall it has all the right controls and is plenty powerful and has reasonable battery life though that could be a little bit better I guess but then again battery life could always be better no matter what the device is. 

Hardware Releases

There are three different hardware releases for Vita:

 

The first is the fat Vita with the OLED screen which is the one I own and many consider it to be the best version of the console though I disagree with that for a couple of different reasons. The first gen Vita has  OLED screen and I'm not exactly a fan of that technology the screen looks really good but over time like anything organic the screen deteriorates especially if there's a lot of black or dark on the screen the blue color degrades the quickest so that means the color balance actually changes as the screen ages plus because the different color is too great at different speeds it's really easy to get a burning like effect so yeah personally I don't think this is the Vita to get.

Ps vita original and slim

The second is the slim vita which was redesigned and lost the OLED screen and a port but gained more battery life, lightness and much better buttons. I always found that the fat Vita had buttons that were just a bit too hard to press on compared to a regular controller. You also get one gigabyte of built-in storage which is nice if you don't want to buy a memory card right away and you get the option to copy everything over once you do get one and you probably do want to get one if you plan on buying games or DLC from the online store also thankfully the charging connector has been replaced with a regular micro USB port so good on Sony for changing that nonsense.

The last version that came out isn't a handheld at all, in fact, it's not even called a PS Vita at least not in the west and that's the PlayStation TV which I have never owned or used. It connects to a TV with an HDMI cable and you can use either ps3 or ps4 controllers and it outputs a 720p image and from what I have seen online I have to say the image actually looks better on a real Vitas even though the resolution is lower on those I guess it has to do with pixel density and all that. Also, not all games are compatible with the PlayStation TV which is a shame if you want to record Vita's gameplay footage the PS TV is the cheapest way though you do need a special box because of the whole HDTV thing. There is a way to mod the PlayStation TV to get rid of the whitelist and play any game you want but honestly, I don't feel comfortable modding a console that still gets updates like what if an update bricks the system.

Games

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 In terms of games, there's a lot to choose from many indie games and mainstream titles are available like Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy and things like that but personally, it's the nice Japanese stuff that interests me the most. I got my original Vita in order to play Amasa Odin sphere, Dragon's crown, Disgaea, The Valkyrie drive, The madness process, The Atelier series, Persona 4, Trails of sky, Soul Sacrifice and Ys. You know all you need to do is type Vita JRPG in google and you get a huge list of games and it's also region free so you can play imported games like DLA Xtreme 3 and moai Chronicle board games which many people import the Asian release off because you can just switch it to English. We still have games coming out for 2017 so there are still new games to look forward to and the online store is still active so you can get updates DLC and those games that are you know digital only as well. If there's one thing though that's going to hinder a physical game collecting for this thing it's the price of the games it's a bit of a surprise for such a recent system but we get to absurdity like this Madden NFL 13 is $80 sealed that's a bit much for sports game if you ask me. The physical games come in these really small cases and they hold even more minuscule cartridges inside and there's also a clip just to remind you that games used to come with the manual. 

Conclusion

So the games are great and the hardware while having faults is pretty decent as well so why didn't the Vita succeed and died a slow death? Personally, I think it has to do with the fact that so many games on the Vita are cross-platform and people prefer to buy the games on for more powerful systems whether that be the ps3,ps4 or PC and Vita to PC ports must be their own genre by now. Not only that but collecting for the Vita can be difficult too because of those prices I talked about earlier but at the end it all boils down to this:

 The PlayStation Vita is a very capable handheld a system with proper controls and no obvious and terrible faults and has many great games that's the only recent handheld that allows you to play home console quality games while on the go and no the switch doesn't count because it's well it's too big. People like to go on and on about how terrible the Vita is but the truth is that it just isn't terrible the games run perfectly fine on the Vita the console feels perfectly fine to hold and the control layout is exactly as it should be the only thing missing is those extra trigger buttons and then it's like any other full-size console. There are so many people who don't even give the Vita a chance because of the negative things been said about it but whether you like it or not is a decision you make yourself that's not an opinion you should ever let someone else make for you if you've never played one before try one out if you get the opportunity to you might find something you never thought you were looking for.

Sources: 1, 2,3,4