Creating your own band of characters, taking them on dangerous quests, then watching them slowly become richer, more powerful, and equipped with much cooler gear can be a powerfully engrossing experience. Valhalla Knights 2 proves that it can also be extremely tedious and frustrating. This rote dungeon crawler for the PSP is not worth even [...]

Star Ocean: First Departure is an enhanced remake of Star Ocean, the original Super Famicom classic and progenitor of Tri-Ace’s most renowned franchise. The game has received several graphical improvements for its Western debut, highlighted by impressive anime cutscenes courtesy of the popular anime-house, Production I.G. It retains the hallmarks of the series, including a [...]

Pro Evolution Soccer has become an established franchise on the PSP, and the 2009 version is the fifth for the console. This year’s edition makes a few new additions, including the new Become a Legend mode, online play, and a soundtrack that doesn’t make you cringe. But with outdated visuals, as well as an absence [...]

The last PSP version of Midnight Club, Dub Edition, was plagued with frame rate problems, insanely long load times, and hammy acting during its crummy story bits. The only issue that remains in its newly released sequel, LA Remix, is the duration of the loading screens. Actually, there are still some over-the-top trash-talking and too-extreme-for-you [...]

Turn-based strategy and collectible-card gaming collide in Neverland Card Battles, the latest release in the little-known Cardinal Arc franchise from Japan. And when we say “collide,” we mean it, because this strategy-card hybrid is awfully close to a train wreck. Breaking out a regular deck of cards for some 52 Pick-Up is a better use [...]