Was the PS Vita a good system?

[Veknoid_Outcast]

I love my Vita and would never part with it, but I struggle to call it a good system. It looks great, it feels great, and the tech inside is impressive, but none of that matters if it doesn't achieve a critical mass of great games.

 

Sony didn't really bother supporting the little guy, and when it did, the games didn't exactly set the world on fire. Uncharted: Golden Abyss is just okay. Tearaway, in my opinion, is seriously overrated. Killzone: Mercenary is quite good (in many instances superior to the PS3 titles), but still not amazing. The finest first-party game on Vita, to me, is Wipeout 2048. I think it's legitimately great. Gravity Rush is worth playing as well.

Japanese third parties like Atlus, Chunsoft, Nihon Falcom, and Vanillaware did a more admirable job. Vita received worthwhile games like Tokyo Xanadu, Memories of Celceta, Virtue's Last Reward, Muramasa Rebirth, Dragon's Crown, and, of course, Persona 4 Golden. I just don't know if these games are enough to elevate the Vita library.

 

Ultimately, I think Vita is most useful as an indie and backward compatibility machine. The system hosted a handful of great indie games, even if many were available elsewhere. Guacamelee! is great. Velocity 2X is great. Retro City Rampage is great. Severed is really great. And the system supports tons of digital PSP and PlayStation games. My Vita home screen is populated mostly with old-school icons: Oath in Felghana, Valkyria Chronicles II, Persona, Final Fantasy VII, Wipeout, etc.