Playstation Vita: Livin' La Vita Loca

[Tegan]

yes, really

So I was a legit Vita owner back in the day; had the original OLED model (actually had two of them briefly, but that's neither here nor there) and basically only used it for Persona 4 Golden and as the ultimate Spelunky machine. I had basically the exact same experience I had as a two-time PSP owner: "I bet this would be pretty neat if I could afford the stupid proprietary memory cards" (my understanding is that this is the standard PS Vita experience). So I packed it up and pulled it out a few years later to hack it and never put much on it because again, proprietary memory cards and I never got the SD2VITA adapter and put it away again and just pulled it out of storage a few weeks back to make sure it still worked and that I still loved Spelunky.

Cut to today, where I impulsively use all my Spin-It credit to buy a Playstation TV.

I passed up buying one of these countless times when I worked at Toys R Us and they were on clearout for $40, and I've been kicking myself for it as recently as a few weeks ago, when I started checking ebay to see if they had gone down at all. I barely remember how to hack Vitas, and I want to grab an external USB drive before I even start because PSTVs can use those, but otherwise the world is my oyster. So TT... what's good on Vita? Don't worry about compatibility; you can force it to play normally incompatible games through homebrew now, so the sky's the limit.


Note: I do think it's extremely funny that I immediately had the thought of "well I didn't finish Persona 4 on PS2 or PS3 or Vita or PC, but this time for sure.

Additional note: it looks real good snuggled in there with the other nondescript black boxes.

 

[Kazin]

Gravity Rush! There's a patch or something that makes it run well on PSTV, I believe, though I've not tried it. It's my favorite Vita game by miles.

I love my Vita, and have a PSTV, but haven't hacked the TV yet. One of these days, I will... probably. So much of the Vita library is available elsewhere, usually in better forms nowadays (Ys 8 being the best example - don't play that on Vita!).

 

[Peklo]

Muramasa Rebirth is still trapped there. Especially good if you get the DLC which adds four unique playable characters and their stories. Even if you played the original on Wii, the localization is entirely redone and much more articulate in the complex script it's conveying.

Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines could easily sustain a dedicated niche following if released on an accessible platform, much like SaGa: Scarlet Grace eventually got to. It's similarly idiosyncratic as an RPG which audiences, if not generally more receptive to these days, are at least more equipped to experiment with and try out. There's very little like it out there.

 

[Tegan]

I owned Muramasa Rebirth! Dragon's Crown too. Have the former on Wii too; always loved that beautiful Vanillaware art.

 

[ArugulaZ]

Tearaway is a personal favorite of mine, offering a playground of creative activity that's more satisfying to me than Media Molecule's other, more popular series Little Big Planet. It might be tough to play on the Playstation TV even with hacks, but on the Vita, it's a great experience. Makes you feel like you're back in kindergarten, cutting out shapes in construction paper with a pair of safety scissors.

Mortal Kombat 9 is a rough looking, but otherwise great port... not exactly a showcase for the Vita's unique features, but you don't want those anyway. Killzone Mercenary and Uncharted: Golden Abyss are Vita adaptations of their respective franchises, and they both represent their series well enough. Killzone borders on gorgeous in spots, especially in the cut scenes, and it's specially adapted for the PSTV, ditching touch screen melee kills for something that's more intuitive with a game controller. TxK is probably the best version of new-wave Tempest you're going to find, although good luck finding it NOW after the Atari lawsuit.

Everything else I've got are either PSP games or more direct ports of console games. You've got enough common sense to avoid Little Deviants (I didn't, cough) but Freedom Wars is also a hateful little game with a hateful little story. It's restrictive and depressing and the action is spotty at best. Sometimes fighting robot skeleton monsters borders on fun, but then there's this capture the flag like segment where you're pitted against way too skilled AI players, and it's a total drag. Monster Monpiece also sucks as a card game, all boobies and no gameplay. This ain't Culdcept; it's barely Go Fish.

The Playstation TV was an odd blip in video game history. I bought one back on eBay when the price dropped because playing Vita and PSP games on a television set was a tempting proposition. I bought another from Wal-Mart on clearance because it came with a Playstation 3 controller and I needed one of those... the system itself barely got any use, because well, why bother when I already had one? Still, the PSTV has its uses. It's kind of nifty playing PSP games on it with a dual analog controller, since an actual PSP didn't have access to those. It's also a better Playstation Classic than the actual Playstation Classic.

 

[Violentvixen]

Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines could easily sustain a dedicated niche following if released on an accessible platform, much like SaGa: Scarlet Grace eventually got to. It's similarly idiosyncratic as an RPG which audiences, if not generally more receptive to these days, are at least more equipped to experiment with and try out. There's very little like it out there.

Yes, Oreshika is the best game on the Vita in my opinion and while I know nothing about Playstation TV I bet it would be gorgeous and even better on there. The thread on the old board had tons of QR codes and such from people on here. I think there were a couple free gods to download from the store too although no idea if that's up right now.

Damn now I want to play that again. I seem to remember the opening cinematic being long, weird and unskippable but please power through because after that it's just great.

 

[Tegan]

whoops I started hacking the PSTV wish me luck ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Octopus Prime]

Good luck, and Gosh Speed

 

[Tegan]

Success.

Didn't put anything on it yet, and I won't be until I get a USB drive for it, but it's ready.

 

[ArugulaZ]

I didn't expect you would have any problems. Weren't you the one who turned your Vita into a Danny DeVita last year?

 

[Sprite]

I will add to the chorus recommending Oreshika. I got so attached to my family

Is Vita emulation any good yet? My own Vita has been pretty iffy lately and I don’t want to lose access to Oreshika.

 

[Octopus Prime]

It was that easy?
Man, now I’m way less gun shy about hacking my own.

 

[Tegan]

I didn't expect you would have any problems. Weren't you the one who turned your Vita into a Danny DeVita last year?

 

[Tegan]

Also, do not remember where to find Vita games. Whoops.

 

[YangusKhan]

I hacked a VitaTV last year and have done absolutely nothing with it yet. I'm treating it more as a PSP + PS1 machine, since my PSP is kind of out of commission and the PS2 still can't reliably run PS1 backups with homebrew.

 

[ArugulaZ]

I think you have to use the PSN store directly on the Vita, Teg. You can't buy or download legacy games on the web anymore. I hates it.
(There might need to be some credit card trickery you'll need to do, too... buy PSN credit with a card, and then use THAT in the Vita store.)

 

[Tegan]

Naw man I'm pirating shit (I found 'em).

 

[Tegan]

H E L L Y E A H

(I got external storage via USB working so now I have a microSD adapter connected, giving me about 120GB of space to work with. I also got a new plant)

 

[ArugulaZ]

I would think about doing this and using it as a general purpose entertainment device, but arcade Vita emulators are still in the stone age. 8-bit games generally work, but some 16-bit games are just hopeless in pFBN. Plus I think you'd have to bugger around with a USB hub to make everything work, at least if you wanted a wired Playstation controller.

I guess old arcade games are that important to me. I should hook up my Arcade Legends puck one of these days and play that. Similar device, but much more tailored to the oldies.

 

[Tegan]

I have discovered that you can just unzip VPKs, place the contents on your storage, and use "Install Folder" in Vitashell to turn hours-long installs into minutes-long ones.

This knowledge comes a little late.

 

[Tegan]

 

[Tegan]

Important Vita updates:

I'm home sick with a UTI and in the last six hours I have learned how to install PS1 and PSP games, how to add those games as bubbles to the home screen, how to apply custom artwork to bubble icons and launch pages for those games, and how to permanently kill the stupid "Featured" page that shipped with North American PSTVs. Look at how gone it is!

 

[ArugulaZ]

Ooh, ooh! I want that! They've been throwing the same ad for Metal Slug 3 at me for years!

 

[Tegan]

Ooh, ooh! I want that! They've been throwing the same ad for Metal Slug 3 at me for years!

As I shared on Discord:

download VitaRW-min-[vs0-sa0-pd0].vpk from this link
https://archive.midnightchannel.net/SonyPS/Vita/Packages/zefie/
install it in Vitashell
then open it, let it do its thing (it'll close automatically)
open Vitashell again, navigate to vs0:/apps/NPXS10102
backup the folder if you really want
then delete it and restart your Vita
er, PSTV
and it'll be gone forever
GONE
FOREVER
VitaRW is homebrew that lets you edit read-only partitions; the vpk I linked is a lite version of it that'll only let you edit the relevant thing
because otherwise you can brick your system
you still can brick your system, so be absolutely sure you pick the right folder

 

[ArugulaZ]

Thanks. I'm down... I just need to drag out my PSTV (or both of them, I dunno) and give this a shot. While I'm at it, I should probably get one of those cartridges that double as an SD adapter, so I'll actually have storage for it. (Can a PSTV use the USB port for storage? You probably answered this one already, huh?)

 

[Tegan]

It can. I'm using an SD card in a microSD to USB adapter, but I think in the near future I'll probably get one of those low-profile USB drives for the PSTV and use the SD card in an SD2Vita adapter for my actual Vita.

 

[Sarge]

Ooh, may look at doing this particular fix myself.

I guess at some point I need to hack my actual Vita, but I think I'm also on the latest firmware, so it will take more wrangling to do so.

 

[ArugulaZ]

I tried this! It works, but the VPK you provided seems to scrub the necessary folder auto-magically. There's no need to go back into your VitaShell and delete the specified folder, because it's done for you. Then you reset and clamp clamp kabam, the annoying advertisements for ten year old games are gone. It's as fool-proof as they could possibly have made it, which is smart design for hacks that can brick your system. Thanks for the assistance!

 

[Tegan]

Weird, I had to do it manually.

 

[Tegan]

I've been having increasing problems getting things to install and run, and I think it's the memory card that I'm using. Gonna put all this on hold until I get me a proper USB drive for it.