The PSP pre-dated the iPhone and iPod touch and between its strong homebrew support, the amount of games available both digitally and at retail, the iOS ports, its PSOne classics, and its nice physical button set, it still managed to be a great alternative to the iPod back in high school during downtime circa 2008-2013.
Really sweet how these little games existed, I remember those times where mobile games...were actual games and not cashgrabs. These have that great feeling of nostalgia in it!
@@TexasHollowEarthlove the original Ikari warriors. I had the Amstrad CPC and it was one of the few arcade games that trounced the C64 version. The other for me was Sorcery. The C64 was faster but the Amstrad was just so much better looking. It’s fun to use emulation to revisit every now and then. Just recently I was using the PS2 PC emulator for Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 and at 1440p it looks amazing for 21 plus years old. I do own that game anyway on Disc for PS2.
@@Maximus20778 I'm not an 80 year old grandma. Literally almost every mobile game is filled with ads and microtransactions. Sure there's a few that aren't, but they're quite rare.
As the person who suggested the video topic this was a great video! PSP Minis are really fascinating and beyond the causal appearance there are some really good hidden gems under the label.
Great topic. Been wanting to see someone cover these since I learned about them the past few years with the question what are these oh flash/mobile games on PSP huh, emulated a few, got a 5 in 1 UMD physical volume 1 pack and yeah they are interesting bits of PSP/PS3 history no one talks about compared to WiiWare/XBLA. Besides well PS Mobile for Vita that died yet PS Minis survive. Wii U/3DS got mobile superior releases over the Minis versions of some games so that was interesting notably Edge and Shift I'm familiar with. Haven't discovered others yet I'd have to compare a bit more between archives of Wii U/3DS (eshop dead after all and visibility of some games gone) and the store on Vita/archive of PSP Minis/whatever PS3 store may show if I can get it to work. Bloons 1/TD1 are great still even if for $5 AUD is still a bit much.
Seeing Jetpack Joyride 1 gave me a huge wave of nostalgia as I used to be a huge mobile gamer in the early 2010s and that was one of the last mobile games I played before losing interest in mobile gaming. I played it on my iPad (iOS release) and later on my Surface Pro (Windows 8 port). I didn't know it was on PSP, probably because I never had a PSP or PS Vita.
Ah... I had a jailbroken iphone 4 with a hacked Jetpack Joyride on it... I didn't know the iphone wss jailbroken at the time, but i remember enormously enjoying Jetpack Joyride, it was one of my favorite mobile games! I didn't have access to the internet at the time, but i had this iphone 4 and an android tablet, which the game store owner pre-loaded with game installation packages... Anytime i wanted to play something new, i just went into the Files app and installed whatever i wanted, althought not all of the games would install... And anytime i wanted new games, i would just be able to go down to the game store under my house, and ask the owner to load new games for me as APK's for me to install and play! At the time, having no internet meant i was stuck with the games i had. I had many many APK's to download and play, but that forced me to finish my games instead of uninstalling them and downloading new ones... I actually managed to almost finish Angry Birds Seasons, (Ah! The title screen changing music for each season chapter! Rovio give it back to us please! 😭), Hill Climb Racing and Asphalt 5!... My family later got the internet and a router in our household...i still had my tablet with all the games i had completed... Then most of them updated... You can imagine my reaction when i discovered Hill Climb Racing had so much new levels and vehicles added... I was annoyed, because it was a pain completing it! 😭 Then i got into mobile gaming on the internet... But the OG Temple Run and Jetoack Joyride will always have a place in my heart! Additional content: You see, before my family got a router and an internet subscription, i would either have to ask one of my parents to share their Mobile Internet Data with me, which and we had limited plans. .. or i would have to go an aquaintance's house, and ask them if i could use their wi-fi... I downloaded Subway Surfers and Temple Run 2 this way, and these games were oh so beautiful for me... I didn't have access to thee internet on my tablet, this was bad, but still has it's good sides since i wasn't annoyed with ads or new upgrades... I could complete all of these games in peace, and they gave us so many happy moments, me, and my family!... Nowadays, with the advent of the Play Store (which has been with us for more then 10 years, i can't really call this an advent, lol), we can download all the free games we want, althought it's harder to focus on playing, finishing, and 100% completing them, lol... But mobile games, even though many despise them, gave me so much good times, and are the reason for my love for games, and mobile technology in tthe first place!
16:25 I worked a game store back then. Absolutely. If anyone wondered why the "hardcore" Wii & PSP games weren't as successful, it's because most anyone I knew that played them, pirated them.
and the reason why alot of western devs/studios stopped making PSP games and the rest of it's release after 2007 or 2008 was all Japanese made games for the remainder of it's lifecycle in the market.
Vector TD was another one of those Flash games that got put on the PSP thanks to it's native ability to run Flash. There's actually a sequel that came out a year after the first one arrived in 2007. Bloons TD is also running in Flash, and not quite the original. It's a hybrid of Bloons TD 2's maps and changes and Bloons TD 3's art style. Impossible Game's yet another Flash game.
@@forcedexcess26 Speaking of mobile games, there was also a program someone was working on called PSPKVM that allowed you to play Java games from Symbian and Blackberry OS on the PSP. I dunno if it ever got finished, but the last time I checked on it it could at least start all the games.
I remember playing EDGE on mobile and PC back in the day, never knew there was a PSP port of it, great game. One remarkable thing about EDGE for me is that it ran in the most potato-est of systems, the crappiest netbook or early Android phone had no issue with it, there even was a flip-phone version of the game that somehow managed to not lose anything in the translation. The game was really well optimized.
Really great video! I wanted to note that Jetpack Joyride, from what I remember, originally wasn't a microtransaction-laden mess like it is now. The original iPhone version back in 2011 was I think identical to this Minis version. That was before the big Microtransactionpocalypse, though.
The version of Tetris that saw release as a PSP Mini has absolutely no right being as good as it is. Still one of my favorite versions to this day, and I only found it long after the PSP was a relic of the past.
Totally agree, the EA versions of Tetris are still some of my favorites. Tetris Mini IS fantastic. The PS3 version had an awesome 2 player shared screen version which was the best.
the psp was my childhood. we were very poor and because of that my father took on 2 jobs so he could afford to get me proper present for my 11th birthday. it ended up being a psp with just 1 mini. twin blades (check it out! maybe a part 2?). i absolutely loved it and played it so much. back then we couldn't get games really so every few months i'd get another mini (we don't had essentials in our store back then and mainly used psn) and that made me really appreciate those small games. sooner or later i figured out how to hack my psp and finally being able to play whatever i want regardless of money. after playing the hot games at the time i ended up mainly sticking to minis and homebrews. just like now, i mainly play indie and small games. god bless the steam deck. every psp kids biggest dream.
Very awesome to hear someone talk about JellyCar. I discovered it when I was, like, 8 and have loved the series since Very excited to see it on PS3 through this
1:01 if i recall the minis were the only psp games that could be bought and played (*legally) on the ps3, which is amusingly ironic since those are the types of games that usually work better mobile/handheld wise
They weren't the only ones, there were a few "PSP Remasters" on the Japanese PSN that were regular PSP games packaged with hi-res textures running via emulation at a higher resolution. Though I'm not sure whether PSP Minis and PSP Remasters use the same emulator...
I remember minis. I also remember ignoring most of them, as I'd already played the flash versions. But one I did invest a fair bit of time in was "A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks!" It was amusing, a bit of comedy, and of course the price. Worth the two bucks.
YES, glad to see someone else on here bring up "A Space Shooter For $2"... It really is one of those "If you only buy ONE game here, it's this one" kind of games 👍
So glad that they made a full fledged Vita version. I remember getting the vita at launch and downloading all the minis I owned on psp, and while being able to play Age of Zombies felt much better with two physical analog sticks, the fact that you could only shoot in 8 directions still made the game feel inferior compared to the iOS version. Once they gave it a proper vita port then it suddenly became the absolute best way to play the game imo
Halfbrick had a few other PSP Minis apart from Jetpack Joyride, including Age Of Zombies and their Halfbrick Fridays games. games like Echoes and Aero Racer didn't do too well, but they played a big part in getting AOZ to mark the start of one of the most successful mobile gaming ips, the Barry Steakfries series. it's super interesting to see their slow evolution from making console-only games to mobile platforms, and their super old ports are really interesting to see! it was nice seeing that old menu in Jetpack Joyride again after years :)
I got a psp go last year and the minis have been a godsend when you want to spend 5-10 mins. a lot are available on phones too but having a controller just feels better
I don't own a PSP and have only played some of these games through emulation. I've noticed that minis aren't very popular among ROM sites. Most of them don't have the mini games at all, or if they do, they only have a few of them. Also, some PC Engine/Turbographix-16 games were ported to the PSP in Japan, such as Alien Crush, Devil's Crash and Blazing Lasers. That said, here are some of the minis I liked; Age of Hammer Wars - Weird game where you have a floating vehicle equipped with a hammer that you can swing to kill the enemies. The controls can feel a little imprecise, but it has nice graphics and it's quite satisfying to bash your opponents with meaty thuds. Alien Havoc - Cute little action puzzle game where you play an alien who has to abduct cows and take them back to his ship without getting caught. Doodle Fit - Puzzle game. Just fit the shapes into the outline. Ducati Challenge - Nice little motorcycle racing game. Pretty good graphics. Forest Puzzle - Puzzle game with nice graphics. Avoid the enemies, collect the fairies(?) and get to the exit. Fortix - Like Qix, but with Dragons, castles and cannons. Hysteria Project/Hysteria Project 2 - FMV games where you have to run from a killer. Normally, I hate games where you only get to choose from a limited set of actions, but I liked the setting and atmosphere of these. Impossible Mission - Nice updated port of the classic Epyx game. Even though it has an option for updated graphics, it still plays exactly the same. Even the room layouts are the same. Knight Fortix 2 - Sequel to Fortix. More of the same. OMG-Z - Puzzle game where you have to kill all the zombies on each level by shooting them. However, you only have a limited number of bullets. You can upgrade this amount using points gained in each level. Different zombies do different things when shot (explode, fire off shots, dissolve into puddles of acid, etc) and it's up to you to figure out how to best use your limited ammo. You have to replay each level multiple times with upgrades in order to beat them all, but it IS possible. Stellar Attack - Colorful space shooter where you have to blast your way through layers of protective objects surrounding a core, so that you can blow it up. The catch being that your bullets are color-coded and can only destroy objects of the same color. The Treasures of Montezuma - Match-3 style game where you can gain all sorts of powerups. Apparently there are a whole series of these games on other systems, but this is the only one for the PSP. I've finished it many times and wish the others had been ported as well. Zombie Tycoon - Create various types of zombies, then unleash and direct them through a 3D town to cause death and destruction.
a lot of my favorite psp games were minis, I spent hours and hours playing the impossible game, I still play angry birds in its mini form because new releases are filled with microtransactions, there's one about a wizard that is actually more of an arkanoid game which is very very fun, Jelly Car was so fun, minis were a big hit for me, I had no idea nobody else cared about them
Finally someone covering them. I never knew for years. I only had physical and even then I'd seen the name on PS3 store but never checked what they were. Then when I did via emulation and a bit of research I noticed oh flash games (Bloons 1 & Bloons TD1 for example) oh mobile games. Some eh of Yeti Sports, others notable others new to me. Yeah Psn ones are just standalone not part of the branding. EchoChrome is great and not sure on that trailblazer one you have footage of at the end and beginning the yellow and blue paths. Reminds me of the Gizmondo one. If it's the same game bur later release or just similar. Let alone other mobile/PDA games of the time. I have no idea how many physical volumes exist maybe 3 maybe 5, but I have volume 1 thats when I got more into discovering them. Anfry Birds is fine. Prefer Crush the Castle instead. What a flash game. The other versions on console I think might be better. Pinball Fantasies isnfair. Yeah Amiga. Ir seems a fair port even if never experienced the original. Pipe dream huh yeah interesting. The marrble maze one seems alright for a concept/mini golf kind of thing. Impossible Game? I might be thinking world hardest game. Not the flash game it looks like Geometry Dash eh not interested. They are fine games but eh not as fun after a while for precision. Didn't know much about the SNK or other arcade ones. Yeah played the XBLA version on disk of Pac-Man Championship Edition. Freekscape looks cool. The mechanics remind me of Tokobot (another PSP/PS3 fame with that formation/staking characters to get to platforming or combat) or Wonderful 101. Forgot about Cubix. Qix is nice. Many shooters on PSP, COD, Medal of Honor had 2, Army of Two was isometeic, Killzone was isometric, Resistance was third person. Coded Arms is a first person roguleike shoorer by Konami no one ralks about. Irs really good. Irs sequel Contagion is linear instead. NOVA is a fine shooter by Gameloft (like the golf game XD) They made 3 maybe more not as much as Asphalt series. Edge is fun. The wall mechanic is really smart. Wii U had more levels. It's not as good as Cube on PSP but still similar bur different level designs and well obstacle courses. Some good never heard of here. Might check our Jelly Car and Days of Thunder. Besiy that Wayforward make great games so of course and the concept/level design is interesting. I forgot about Jetpack Joyride. There is physical volumes I think I own volume 1 which has Yeti Sports (those throw them and see the distance you go but instead of upgrades like learn to fly/shopping cart hero it's just level goals it's pretty basic but before those so can't complain too much there is 5 of them apparently but the first one is on PSP for a 2004 game later Minis sometime I don't know I forget), Pinball Fantasies a pinball collection of pinball tables from a PC game (not Turbo Grapx), Vibes (a bad rhythm game, was a download code only which is annoying but when I emulated it I wasn't missing out it seems). Zombie Tycoon which is a great strategy game attack buildings, and go to goals kind of thing has a few levels, it's I guess like Pikmin then a typical strategy game (not Overlord/Pikmin or the Vita like one deep but still good) literally the best game on the UMD volume to me. And Spot the Difference a really hard game. You get used to the differences eventually and the timer. With 5 differences, very few hints, takes a while to get to the next level because you have so many photos to go through, sure it's 2 photos side by side but the structure is weird for how they make it clear of difficulty level or I guess next levels or something I forget. Work out the differences between the between two photos, hints are rarely given out. It's on Switch these days I think but yeah it's a fine time. The photos are impressive for PSP and the themes of toys, food, sports, locations and such is really cool. Fine idea of Sony to have that for a WiiWare/XBLA approach for PS3/PSP. I own a few on Wii U like Edge (PSP version is inferior now while Wii U is like the mobile release I think for content of levels). Inlooked at Shift as well it was on 3DS I played the demo and while the PSP version is likely inferior too I have only that option to buy it now or well emulate the 3DS version I guess. Says a lot for PS Mobile dying on Vita while PS Minis still exist and can buy a few on Vita and I assume PS3? My PS3 internet settings suck so Vita it is to view these. I discovered Nova and a few orhers over time. Did Car Jack Streets on metacritic even recently.
Back then I loved to mod my PSP without really knowing what I was doing (I was like 9). I played a lot of shitty homebrew games but also stumbled upon PSP Minis. I thought these were Homebrew games aswell until I found out they were not a few years later. I played a heck ton of Jetpack Joyride and Jellycar. I also raged a lot at The Impossible Game. I have so many memories with PSP Homebrew / Emulators and Minis, I really love these, thanks for making these videos you always cover the coolest niches and games
Me and my Step-Dad both had Pinball Dreams on our PSPs and would try to outdo each others high scores. I also remember there being a top down twin stick Terminator game, where you played as Kyle Reese, prior to his trip back in time.
I remember Sony telling me to spend the little money I had on Minis via a PS3 friend message The only one I ever had was Angry Birds Honestly would've been cool to play PSP games on the PS3, like I bought LBP PSP not knowing what it was and was disappointed that I wasn't able to play it 'Least we have homebrew allowing that tho
@@studiocaret PSP emulation on PS3 isn't very good at all, a huge ton of games will give black screens with or without sound which is a very common issue, now while a few games do run perfectly or decently depending on which emulator (Minis or Remaster) you end up using will give you different varying results from graphical glitches or intro & menu works but once u start a game you'll get the black screen softlock.
Great video as always, FrameRater! I've noticed a recent resurgence of interest towards the PSP, and I'm all in for this ride. I actually owned one of the PSP Minis back in the day. Wanted to play Angry Birds before I got an iPod Touch 4th Gen back in 2011. I was still using my PSP for *cough* totally "illegal" games, and entered high school with it in my bag. Sadly, my interest in the PSP Minis was short-lived once I saw how Angry Birds on a PSP is inferior in every way to how it plays on my friend's iPhone. But I'll admit though. Getting rid of my PSP instead of fixing it up, is one of my biggest regrets in recent years. I think I'll get one of the 2000 models that are still around just for the nostalgia. It was such a fun little handheld and the best Bar Mitzvah present I could ask for. It's like having a PS1.5 in your hand. Speaking of which, There's also the fact that the PSP can run every PS1 game via the eboot method, with some games officially available on PSN(AKA PSOne Classics). It was a marvelous achievement that nowadays is a golden standard on smart devices(with popular emulators such as Duckstation). I've already watched a few recent videos about the PSP, and I hope more will come up later. It's easily my favorite handheld ever.
There weren't a whole lot of great Minis games, but I did enjoy some. Wish I had known about some of these games in this video. I mainly played cheap feeling Minis, like even for a Minis game lol
Technical question, for anyone who might know: did PSP Mini run on a different SDK? It seems like a bunch of these games are limited to software rendering due to slowdown in performance.
Yeah I see that. I don't really think the PSP minis ran on different SDKs, more like the PSP hardware wasn't utilized correctly by some of these developers.
fun fact: jelly car first started on the iphone, then was bought by disney who, with the original jelly car dev, created jelly car 2 and 3. today the og dev, who is now a solo developer, has created a brand new entry to the jelly car series, jelly car worlds.
The Mini's UMD discs only had 4 games on each so did not fill up the UMD but came with a Single code to Downlod the 4 games and a 5th one to a PSN account. Because these was sony DLC code 2 years later launch date they expire though a stupid rule sony still do with first party publiished games to this day. The SNK arcade ones in Japan was all sold on one UMD who never got PSP minis they just seperated them them into single Mini's outside Japan.
8:33 the vita has an option to map the right analog stick to the face buttons and other things like l and r and the dpad making this problem irrelevant for vita users
Fantastic video and resource! I'm going to grab all the remaining Minis that are worth playing and still available on Vita's PSN as I never played these when they were current...
one mini i got into and played to the end was OMG-Z. i guess you could consider it an arcade of sorts, where the main game is in black and white. you play as a police (riot?) officer standing atop a vehicle with zombies shuffling about. the gimmick is that the zombies will have a unique death animation that causes a chain reaction and kills more zombies. with the purchase of upgrades, the eventual goal is to kill the entire horde in a single bullet to get the highest score
I believe I still have some or atleast one ''minis'' game on my original fat psp. I think it was a tower defence kind of game and one ballons game where you have like 5 darts and have to pop all the balloons.
This seems pretty cool, like a prototype platform for a lot of games that would eventually make their way onto other platforms, there are even some hidden gems like jetpack joyride on here as well!
i got quite a lot of fun from playing some of these minis back in the day, such as Angry Birds and Jetpack Joyride (i didnt have a smartphone at the time), Ikari Warriors, NOVA and Bloons. Pac-Man CE was also pretty fun to play on the go, even if the DX version is the superior version nowadays i never knew there was a PSP minis game for Days of Thunder, shame it doesn't seem to be purchasable anymore, (since it's based on a movie, the license probably expired) i would like to have tried it.
Ah yes, Edge, one of the games I actually has on old Nokia phone of all things. Yeah, that game had a Java phone versions as well, and, unfortunately, I couldn't complete it because it couldn't load a level, therefore I could not progress.
Edge was one of the first I bought on Wii U when realising it was a Mini as wasn't interested in the mobile release and it had more level packs then PSP. It's a good puzzle game, more challenging with the wall holding briefly mechanics. Same with Rush for its direct thing to goals by the same Dev, many know Toki Tori of course by them. Unfortunate you couldn't progress. I always thought it was a smartphone era game then a J2ME so good to know. I know many Minis were likely flash games or J2ME but later ones more smartphone. Not that I know the origins of all of them yet.
The physical discs are a bit annoying. They only contain the first 4 titles on the disc, and the fifth one is behind a code. (which has expired by now) They are from the time when Sony didn't like used games.
Yeah. Though with Volume 1 I got games I enjoyed with it and Vibes I emulated then went well I didn't miss out on this bad rhythm game (fine game concept just it didn't play well). But for archiving yeah it kind of sucks. Not like all 5 couldn't fit on a UMD they are a few 100MBs I think or what around 400MB limit I guess so a 1.8GB or so UMD is able to fit them all likely. I forgot how big some get as many XBLA/WiiWare I forget if they were all around or the same size limit to work with.
I had no idea Edge was a psp mini. I played the 3ds version all the way through the entire game, it's challenges, and any time trial on the 3ds just because it was so addicting. Now that I know it's for the psp, I guess I have to replay it all over again and see how this version holds up.
I can say from personal experience as a kid around 2010-2012 with a PlayStation Portable. I HAD tons of retail games and minis. Corpse Party, The Impossible Game, Angry Birds, etc. And they were NOT purchased. You can guess why yaaaaaarg.
Ohh, PSP Minis were pretty sweet for about the price of a PS1 game on PSN! My favorite of the bunch is probably Where is My Heart?, but I also remember quite fondly BreakQuest and Wizorb.
Brick Breaker and Bloons TD. They were the only minis I got. On a side note, the 3DS also have Bloons TD4. Works well but if you play freeplay too long, it will slow down.
PS Vita is the best way to play some of these games. For example, N.O.V.A has no performance issues as far as I remember, and you can use the second analog stick for aiming.
