#my first was LttP on SNES

[kagayakuseiza]

I was just curious and decided to make a poll. Unfortunately, I couldn’t list them all, but tried to include the more well-known titles.

[crimsonender]

I know you've talked about it a little bit before but favorite Zelda Game?

In terms of gameplay, plot, concepts, etc?

more videogame questions yipee!

Zelda Ocarina of Time is the one I return to the most. That being said A Link to the Past and Minish Cap have great gameplay. I think that the 2D Zelda games tend to be more solid and well rounded and I prefer the puzzle solving of these games. Oot is pure nostalgia fuel as it's my first real Zelda game. (I played Lttp on a friend's SNES when I was younger but didn't really process or internalize the experience. Zelda is a big more sophisticated than the platformers I was playing at the time)

[heinousactszx]

i think link to the past has aged very well in most aspects. like its counterpart super metroid, there is a ton to explore on this snes cartridge, in a really impressive way. two worlds to explore, each filled with all kinds of nooks and crannies, and you're encouraged to find everything. in my opinion, the ease of exploration in this game makes it so much more fun than the 3d entries, because it's just so simple to get around and backtrack. all the locations are distinct too, which means it sticks in your mind to come back

the items really play into this, you have such a wide selection in this game, and pretty much everything is useful. it all can come up at any time, and it gives you the feeling of this arsenal at your disposal to handle any problems you come across.

i appreciate that the game will let you get lost for so much of it, and force you to figure it out yourself. while there are some segments that are on the unfair side (it is a snes game after all), i just have a preference for these games that don't hold your hand and walk you through it all (looking at you, skyward sword). in the modern era especially, just look up a guide if you need a boost, otherwise just let yourself enjoy the fun of exploration

aside from all that, while i've been waffling about whether i should have played the games in release order or not, playing them chronologically like this has given me a perspective on just how influential link to the past is on the series. lttp solidified the formula that the first game started, and you can see its dna in every game since.

it's a great game is what i'm saying. if you're looking to play zelda, this should be your starting point

up next, link's awakening! in color!

[owlixx]

GBA Wishlist

Okay so I’m thinking about picking up a GBA so I can play those games on a real console instead of emulated. I had a silver and then a blue GBA SP as a kid. I’m torn between a modded original GBA or an SP, especially the triforce design. Anyways, I wanted to list some games I’d actually play on a GBA and figured I might as well post it online to look back on later, not sure if the notes will even make sense to anyone but me. Feel free to add recommendations. Also I had so much fun making this list that I’m thinking about going through and doing a similar list for the DS, 3DS, GameCube (on my WiiU), Wii (on my Wii U), Wii U, PS3, PS1 (on my PS3 or Vita), Vita, PSP (on my Vita) since those are the consoles I can currently play on original (or close enough) hardware.

Big hitters:

* Advance wars - 1 and 2, never really tucked into them past the tutorial before and having a real GBA would really force me to take them nice and slow.

* Fire emblem - multiple, I could even grab a fan tran of FE6

* Drill dozer - doubt I’d have rumble on a flash cart but this would have a lot more charm on a physical gba

* Pokémon mystery dungeon - again, I think I’d have more patience with this slow game on a real gba

* Chain of memories - been meaning to play this anyways

* FF5-6 patched - fan patched because of the audio, but I think these have exclusive content on a GBA vs snes/ps1 and I wanna play these games on a non-modern screen

* FF Tactics Advance - again, just feels more charming on a small screen

* MM battle network - been meaning to play these anyways

* NES Classics - not the best way to play these games, but kind of a novelty

* Super Mario advance 1-4 - would be so funny to play the Wii U rom of SMA4, but also I grew up with that game

* Kuru Kuru Kururin - always one I use to test a new emulator setup, easy fun

* Tony Hawk - had a recent Tony Hawk phase, these ones are supposed to be good

* Doom - novelty

* Game and watch gallery 4 - great for testing/pick up and play

* F zero/Mario kart - again, very pick up and play

* Mario golf advance tour - loved the gba Mario tennis and I should play this one too

* Wario Land 4 - had a wario land phase recently and stopped mid-3

* Golden Sun - I did actually do the first hour or so on Wii U but this game belongs on handheld

* Warioware - the definition of pick up and play

* Minish Cap - I feel like this game is good enough to be worth playing removed from the original console so it’s doubly worth playing on a real one

* Mother 3 - Cmon, this one is a gimme. Playing the fan Tran on a real GBA would be such an own on Nintendo

Lesser:

* Swordcraft Story - started this on vita, pretty cute

* Banjo Kazooie/Pilot - because I played nuts and bolts as a kid

* Bit generations - don’t have the ROM’s currently but I love a simple game

* Boktai - patched for the sensor but cmon it’s Hideo

* Bomberman - they made so many of these for GBA

* Bookworm - I’m a simple man

* Car battler joe - I always see this mentioned

* Starfy - fan trans

* Various SNES ports (DKC) - I had DKC as a kid but also there’s sooo many snes ports

* Dr Mario & Puzzle League - pick up and play

* Yugioh - I had one as a kid and got into these recently

* GTA - I think this one is a GTA3 prequel?

* Various fighting games (MK, GG, Tekken, SF) - novelty

* Jet grind radio - even if just for the music

* Finding Nemo - had as kid

* Lady Sia - seen on lists

* Sabrewulf - rare! And seen on lists

* That one xcom game (rebelstar) - I mean, I do like xcom

* LttP - never played it, I should look up version differences first

* Lego Star Wars - had as kid

* Return of the king - seen on lists, seems better than it should be

* Magical vacation - fan Tran, from Hazel’s video

* Pac-Man - various here, pick up and play

* Polarium - polarium DS is cute

* Puyo - pick up and play

* Zone of the Enders - I’ve been meaning to play this and the 2 main games

* Denki blocks - cute puzzle game

* Gunstar super heroes - kind of a shmup, I stan treasure honestly

* Sword of mana - I think this is a remake of the first game? So it’s safe to start here?

* Sigma star saga - read about this in Nintendo power as a kid, seems like a shmup rpg hybrid

* Hamtaro - nobody will shut up about how good this game is for some reason

* Pinball of the dead - seen this one praised a few times

* Chu chu rocket - I wasn’t convinced until I saw that it had 2500 user created levels

* Tactics Ogre - surprised to see this so high on metacritic when I didn’t know it existed before

* Ninja Five O - no one will shut up about this game

* Various racing games

* Asterisk and obelisk XL - impressively 3D

* Harvest moon - maybe the tiny screen will finally convince me to have the patience to farm

* Activision Anthology - again, just for the novelty

Replay:

* 3 Castlevanias - only actually beat Aria

* Mega Man Zero - hard, maybe too hard

* Sonic Advance 1-3 - had 3 as kid, love these

* Kirby - didn’t beat amazing mirror, wouldn’t mind trying to 100% nightmare

* Metroid Zero Mission/Fusion - classics. Perfection.

* Pokémon RSE/FRLG - always due for a replay

* Pokémon pinball - my go to testing game

* Mario tennis power tour - never did beat hard mode. And it’s been a while

* Mario Vs donkey kong - played as kid

* Klonoa - very pick up and play

[unluckystreak]

I'm almost done with LTTP and tbh it's one of my favorite Zeldas so far

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Secret Of Mana

Right, story time-

I have fond memories playing through Seiken Densetsu 3 a loooong time ago, and introducing it to a friend. Fond memories that were dormant for a long time before I rediscovered its soundtrack a few months ago. Listening through it brought a lot of melancholy nostalgia to the forefront of my mind, and I thought about playing through it again. It’s considered by some to be the best SNES game of all time (they’re wrong, ‘cos that’s LTTP, but it’s definitely up there) but I was worried about the misleading qualities of nostalgia and wondered if it was best left in the past.

Three days after I started thinking about SD3 again, Squenix announced a remake of it at E3, and a Thing Of Mana bundle for Switch, with SD3 being rebranded as Trials Of Mana and packaged up with its two prequels.

So, you know. Serendipity and all. But since I got the other two games with it, I figured I should play those first. Through a logical process too convoluted to explain, I decided to put both of them on the backlog together, and the second game in the series came up first.

Secret Of Mana, then- it’s pretty janky! Feels quite prototypical of Trials, from what I remember. The combat is pretty wonky, with a lot of enemy moves taking control away completely. The knockback time is so offensively long that getting caught between two enemies is basically an instant game over as they keep me stunlocked.

Most perplexingly, my guy alternates between a wide swing and a narrow lunge of the sword seemingly at random and with no input on my part making a difference. It’s quite frustrating to have a group of enemies in front of me, ripe for slashing, only to watch my dude poke harmlessly at the air between them.

Fin or Bin:

It’s a classic of the genre despite its numerous rough edges and I feel like most of the issues I have at the moment will stop being a problem once I get other characters in my team to back me up. It’s a Fin, but a tentative one. I feel like I’m too biased towards the bin in my haste to get to Trials, so I’m swinging it the other way, but it’s close.

[elligames]

i wanna talk about retro gaming

because i just have a lot of feelings. 

i got a pocketgo as a late night purchase when it was on sale for $30. i had seen it floating around the internet this year, and i’ve been intrigued. this year saw a ton of emulator handhelds actually... which makes me super happy, but none of them stand out to me like the pocketgo.

first of all, the thing is cute. it’s the same size as an iphone 5, which makes it tiny and adorable. and they just got the gameboy vibe so perfectly. and unlike other gameboy clones, it looks more like a gba with a comfortable landscape layout... and this is a dumb reason to get excited, but it actually has the right amount of buttons. at least for GBC, GBA, NES, and SNES titles. which i think is what most people want to emulate. i have been turned off by so many handhelds simply because they look cramped, they don’t include basic things like shoulder buttons, etc.... and it doesn’t make itself too big by trying to include extra buttons for games it honestly can’t emulate. (you don’t need a joystick for ps1 titles, for example... because this thing really doesn’t run ps1 well at all.)

also, it has a really decent display. it’s a very clear IPS, and the pixels look just... really good and really sharp. 

now, the very first thing you find when you’re googling for reviews is an issue the screen has, particularly with snes titles.. the display refreshes at 30 fps, causing games that run at 60fps to screen tear. if you haven’t seen it, it looks a bit like someone ripping a seam along the game in things like backgrounds and peripheral graphics. people make a huge deal about it and complain that the screen is crap. i...... disagree a lot. i think the screen is bright and clear and i’m not exactly looking for graphical power when i’m playing 30 year old games. 

i will say that you need to turn on transparency settings in the snes emulator, which absolutely kills the speed of the games and some games really chug along. getting across that timed section in the beginning of super metroid was choppy af with transparency turned on. however, i DO think the timed mini-game in LTTP would probably still be more enjoyable than what i described on the psp. for the most part, i’m not really THAT bothered by it and probably wouldn’t notice if i didn’t have the FPS number right in front of me. it was seriously just that one minute in super metroid where i was like “oh this is less than good”. for the most part, i don’t think it impacts the playability of the majority of games you want to be playing on a small handheld.

and while i originally got it thinking, oh this is absolutely going to be my go-to for most SNES titles..... i guess i didn’t anticipate that it actually is really small. i absolutely love the size, personally. but it does take away from the immersion of a game, and i think is best suited for titles you want to pick up and play. i don’t really notice that with other handhelds, even when they’re just slightly bigger, like the psp. 

gameboy games feel right at home on the small screen, and the emulator has a ton of options for different filters and uses allll of the frames for the super gameboy. it’s adorable.

the emulators are really stable, and i haven’t experienced any crashes yet. which is more than i can say for the psp. i will say that the battery indicator annoys the crap out of me.... it stays green and then it just powers off. that makes it really not suitable for more than a couple of hours of gameplay without a powerbank nearby. it seems to hold a charge okay, though.

the d-pad and buttons are clicky, responsive, and the build overall is actually pretty quality. i honestly can’t believe i got it for so cheap, considering all it can do.

now, i just wanna also talk about the controller in the pic because this is also a really good device for retro games. i got the 8bitdo sn30 pro yesterday, but i’ve had a little bit of time to mess around with it. it needed a firmware update right off the bat, but the updater is actually really smooth and a very stress-free experience, which i can’t say for most firmware updates i’ve needed to perform. after the firmware update... it runs smoothly on pretty much every device i’ve tried? the switch treats it like a ps4 controller, and it’s integrated pretty well. the firmware update makes it compatible with iPad, and KOTOR recognized it fully. i don’t have a true android device, i only have a chromebook with android games... but once i updated the firmware, those games seemed to have no issue. i had a bunch of issues before updating the firmware, however. but i’m not the go-to person regarding android.

and!! that dedicated d-pad!!! oh shit ohhhhhh shit!! the input on this is also clicky and responsive. i’m so excited to play mario maker on this thing. yall. i’m so excited that this thing has a very retro-friendly layout but with all the buttons and functionality of a modern controller. they also have another version with grips. that one looks like a reinvented dualshock controller to me, personally.

i also like that the aesthetic between the pocketgo and the 8bitdo controller just. match. i don’t know why that makes me so happy. 

anyways we live in a beautiful time where you have lots of options to play lots of games, and i’m starting to accept that my obsession with playing old games isn’t going away and boy man if only nintendo would take a hint-- no. that’s a whole ass rant for another day.

i also got cheap usb versions of n64 and gamecube controllers, and i do want to point out that zsnes, pj64, and dolphin are all very stable and fantastic ways to emulate. i could kiss the person who made zsnes. i mean i won’t, probably, but i could. 

[6ad6ro]

i got a bunch of cool things lately but lol i'm unhappy rn so i'm just gonna list them instead of take pictures (might take pics when im happy):

alucard statue (the mondo one). it's amazing. better (and bigger) than i ever expected. i'm now like... p much done getting figures lol. i'm so satisfied.

super mario world boot vinyl. it looks so good and so professional. but idc. i haven't listened to it. i'm sooo over vinyl. i'm so done. it's sad, rly. i'll listen to it eventually and it's cool but it's hard to care rn.

donkey kong country 2 boot vinyl. same as above. i feel ungrateful.

switched on snes zelda link to the past vinyl. it's an amazing moog take on lttp. same as above. haven't even opened it.

castlevania sotn, rondo of blood, cv1, cv2 vinyls. i listened to n enjoyed sotn. these were like... pinnacles of my vgm vinyl collection. but i just don't care. haven't opened cv1 or 2. i only listened to part of rondo's first disc...

okami box set. it's so pretty. i don't care. haven't even opened it yet. in my defense w all this vinyl? it was all pre-ordered forever ago when i still thought i liked it so.... idk i think i might try and sell most of it off who knows.

there's a lil more but prob not worth mentioning. why did i even write this post lol? i have a prob where i get stuff and feel like i need to post pics of it... but realised that's the main reason i got it. not that i wanna show off. more like i wanna... record and "archive" my experience? idek. but once i realised i was doing that? it felt empty.

i'm buying soooo much less stuff lately and it feels right. actually trying to enjoy what i have and saving money and buying FOOD is so much nicer??

[defunctzombie]

Have I shared this before? Anyway, I was reading something that said OOT was the debut of Zelda’s iconic princess dress and I wanted to tear my hair out. NO. Link to the Past was the first game to debut Zelda’s iconic princess dress, just like it was the first game to debut the Master Sword, the Seven Sages (then called Wise Men), the various theme songs, and the Sacred Realm (then called the Golden Land). And no, the dress and accompanying art were not drawn for the GBA remake, they existed way back in the SNES days. This is a page from the series bible handed out to advertisers and Nintendo Power staff. I only have a few pages of key art featuring Link, Zelda, Ganon, and Agahnim, not the whole thing. But there you have it, the dress that Princess Zelda wears in the LTTP ending (the ending sprite is fancier than the opening) and eventually wears in OOT.

[gascon-en-exil]

The Not Really Definitive Ranking of the Zelda Series: #7

#11-19 (link to #11, with further links to each of the others)

#10 - Tri Force Heroes

#9 - The Wind Waker

#8 - The Minish Cap

#7 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (including the GBA rerelease)

Alright, it’s finally time for me to take on my own nostalgia. I started playing A Link to the Past not long after it first came out, when I was three years old. It took me six years to develop the necessary levels of spatial and analytical reasoning, patience, and reading comprehension to finish the game for the first time (with a fair bit of help from the player’s guide), and as such by the time 1998 rolled around I was able to jump into Ocarina of Time barely aware of the infamous five-year gap between Zelda releases that had preceded that game. LttP was then the only Zelda I played when I had no others in the series to compare it to, and hadn’t really played any other games at all aside from the wildly different experience of platformers. Even I”m kind of surprised to see it sitting here only at #7.

I really shouldn’t be, though. Even around the time of its Game Boy Advance update (the bonus content of which I never got to play - see my Four Swords post) I was starting to regard LttP as more of a progenitor of greatness than as a source of one in its own right. OoT may currently be on the fandom chopping block now that Breath of the Wild has exposed it in all its formulaic glory, but it was really LttP that put that formula in place, with a story told in-game via cutscenes rather than in a manual, a tangible sense of worldbuilding, exploration gated behind the acquisition of items, and (mostly) linear progression along a predetermined series of dungeons. Additionally, this game introduced more than half of the series’s defining imagery and music, from the united Triforce to the below scene of the Master Sword (faithfully recreated, tiny white flowers and all, in BotW). OoT and its former near-universal acclaim just presents a bigger target for criticism; also, A Link Between Worlds exists, but more on that in a few days.

It’s a controversial opinion these days, but I honestly think that LttP more strongly defined the Zelda series and the direction it would go in the future than the original Legend of Zelda ever did; indeed, as I just mentioned the spectre of LttP even haunts BotW. In a literal sense it’s harder to conceive of a more legendary Zelda game. So why the middling ranking?

Simply put, what was a monumental undertaking to me as a toddler is now a game I can breeze through in two days tops. When you strip away the legacy and the nostalgia LttP really is scarcely anything grander than a prettier, more polished, and slightly more story-driven rendition of the NES games - and you already know how low those rank in my estimation once the lasting impact factor has been removed from the equation. This game is absolutely a blast to play through and feels epic at (most of) the right times, but how much is there really to do in Hyrule and the Dark World other than collect heart pieces and a few optional items? Even if it beats out every other game in the series for dungeon quantity, how well does their quality really measure up when around half of them are so distressingly unmemorable? Seriously, if you asked me right now to describe the Misery Maze/Mire, I could only tell you that it’s long, it’s green, and there are Wizzrobes. That kind of description wouldn’t be out of place for any of the NES dungeons.

The newfound focus on story also comes with its missteps, most of them the product of a series that was just stepping out into the world of serious narrative without really establishing the mythos first (that would come in OoT). You just sort of have to ignore the frequent mentions of the Knights of Hyrule considering you can count on one hand the number of time they’ve ever appeared in the franchise, the sages’ descendants all being Hylian/human has raised some unusual questions regarding future titles, and the nature of Agahnim - alter ego or victim of possession? - is never resolved. Also...am I allowed to point out that the subtitle of this game is just awful? It’s a bad pun that identifies exactly nothing except that this is a prequel to the NES games, which is never brought up except in supplementary material. Worst localization choice* for a Zelda game ever? You decide.

In summary, LttP is by no means a bad game, but it’s one that’s been outdone several times over. It holds up today far better than the NES games do, that’s for sure, even in its original version. Almost every music track is iconic, and some of the visuals in this game are absolutely breathtaking even today. It may lack the scope of most of the later games, but there’s no question that LttP is a legend in its own right.

*The Japanese subtitle for LttP is “Triforce of the Gods,” which unsurprisingly didn’t survive the period of heavy religious censorship NoA was going through during the SNES era. I wonder if OoT dropping a polytheistic creation myth on you in the first half hour was part of the reason that trend died an abrupt death in the late 90s....

Next time: the game that first proved that the series can veer off in unexpected narrative and philosphical directions and still come out gold

[lorerunner]

Okay Lore, starting this min you learn that there is a terminator coming to kill you (not targeting anyone in your family, just you.) BUT it is on the other side of the country right now, meaning you have some time. It knows your address, but if it loses you it will have to find you again. How do you react with this news? Where do you go and what do you do? And the cops will not believe you if you call them.

First I line up several things financially to ensure that people close to me are taken care of and my estate is in order.  Then I hook up my SNES and play FFVI, CT, MMX, and LTTP until it shows up to kill me.

[elligames]

emulating on the psp: a review

I initially bought a psp because i am obsessed with kingdom hearts, and knew that birth by sleep was an incredible installment. (spoiler alert: I was right. totally worth it to buy the psp just for that.) but when I bought it, i was surprised the psp held it’s value. my friend informed me that it’s because the modding community for the psp is incredibly strong, and emulation is really easy. needless to say, my almonds activated. so, that was a couple of years ago now. and I’ve had a lot of experience with the handheld since then, so i wanna share what I’ve come to know as someone who uses their psp for retro gaming.

The System Itself

whether you’re emulating on the system or not, there’s a couple of things to note about the system. it’s roughly the same size as the largest iPhones, so it is a pretty good size for a handheld. it’s quite thick, and not exactly pocket-sized, but it’s definitely portable. I keep mine in a 3DS case, and you can find those anywhere. the handheld doesn’t fold, so you might want a screen protector. I’m personally a fan of the screen, which is quite large for any emulation needs. it’s 16:9 though, so it can get annoying to have to change emulation settings back to 4:3. fortunately, though, this is usually a 1 time deal, and i think most emulators for any system are going to require tweaking for personal taste. the sound has decent volume scale, and the system includes a headphone jack. 

what weirds me out the most is that it’s kind of difficult to turn completely off. you can put it to sleep with the power slider, and the battery holds pretty well. but i never feel like i’ve turned my system all the way down. it’s also the only handheld i know of that runs games from a disk drive, in case that means anything to you. the SD cards are also not proprietary like the vita’s are, which is nice.

Library

the first thing to understand is what the psp can actually do. it is a smooth ride up to the 32-bit ps1 system. there are emulators for n64 and sega saturn, but i admit i have not tried them. i have heard everything from “it’s sketchy at best” to “it totally runs smoothly!” so i’ve been wary. the psp can sideload ps1 and native psp games, and emulators from the 16-bit era and below have a huge following behind them.

sideloaded psp games run just as smoothly as games running from disks, which is really nice. 

emulators vary in quality. the great thing is, though, if you don’t like an emulator, there’s almost always a different one for the same system. and most of them have been worked on thoroughly. i recommend snes9x tyl, gpSP, and masterboy. i had huge issues with snes9x euphoria, but made the switch like a week ago to tyl and i’m never going back - the sound and game stability are both fantastic. i admit i’m a stupid nintendo fangirl, so that’s what i use the most. i noticed that my genesis emulator doesn’t use the psp’s joystick, and i’m not sure if i avoid sega because i’m uninterested, or if i dislike the controls. more on that in a minute.

to note, i am running on a psp 1000, which is the first model - so really all models are powerful enough for most emulators. (though this might change if you really are going to research n64 emulators)

Setup

holy crap, it’s stupidly easy. and there’s a lot of guides out there. i used one that was literally just like, “alright, you’re going to put these files in this folder on your system” and that was about all it took. and once you have that file system setup, adding new emulators and roms is really just a matter of moving things over whenever you want. it’s fantastic.

i really recommend using a guide that installs a recovery option. for the setup i used, i need to run this recovery option when the system loses battery. it’s not a huge deal, and doesn’t affect the game saves, but it’s like the system forgot about my files or something. 

Controls

okay, this is the part that really surprised me the most. emulation in general takes you away from the native experience, so some difference in controls is to be expected. so i didn’t really ever expect that to bother me. 

but this is the kicker: there’s no dedicated d-pad. the arrows on the left side are all individual buttons, which means the handheld does not support diagonal directions. i didn’t even consider this on purchase. i had heard other gamers talk about how important a good d-pad is, but i kind of brushed it off. for the most part, i still think i am pretty casual gamer, and i think a low-quality d-pad would not bother me. at least it would still be there.

but the setup of the psp kind of requires you to use the joystick for all games, which really takes you out of the moment for GBA and SNES games. it’s also slightly uncomfortable because of the location of the joystick, and the fact that the joystick is a similar rubber-band-y setup to the 3DS, and not a true stick. if you’re looking to emulate games that require lots of precision, this is an even bigger consideration. i don’t play a lot of games like that (i’m mostly doing adventure-style and jrpgs personally, no intense shooters or anything) but i will say, the 15-second game in LTTP is a bitch and a half on this thing. it is immensely easier on a setup with a real d-pad. moving around corners with a time limit is a real pain in the ass with this rubber-band joystick. and, i will also note that when looking at psp models, i personally think the joystick on the psp go looks awkward, but that’s just something to consider.

it’s honestly annoying enough at certain times like that, that i recommend moving save files back and forth. or at least for that one mini game. 

this also means that, like i said, because my genesis emulator doesn’t support the joystick, controlling sonic feels jilted and unnatural. so if i ever develop an interest in sega, i’ll have to post some updates.

for what it’s worth, the psp includes L & R shoulder buttons, the four shape buttons you see on dualshock controllers, and the aforementioned arrow buttons and joystick. so, in theory, there’s plenty of input for the majority of emulation. 

i will say the controls can also be confusing because the psp has opposite controls of nintendo consoles, and switching your brain between the two can take some getting used to. most emulators use the playstation controls in their settings menus, though i remember snes9x euphoria would use the nintendo controls - which i constantly forgot and found confusing, so there’s another point for snes9x tyl. 

Conclusions

even though the psp has held a value, it still remains to be one of the cheapest options for the library available to it and the quality of emulation. it’s got a great screen, great sound, and a community behind the emulators that ensure you’re likely going to find something stable and worth playing. while the controls severely hold the handheld back, i find myself really, really fond of my psp. i notice cheaper emulation options that pop up, and there’s almost always issues reviewers bring up such as screen tearing or poor sound. more expensive options might fix issues the psp has, but i almost always see them at least double the price of what i paid for my psp. 

of course, the value is going to depend on your local retro gaming store, so it might be comparable to other emulation options. and it might not even be worth it if you’ve got a device, such as a tablet or phone, that can do emulation. you might want to consider bluetooth controllers instead! but as a dedicated machine for gaming, i’d recommend it. i have to say that the psp is a very smooth experience and definitely worth checking out.