Sadly, the game is only available on Vita in Japanese, although you could always remote play the English PS4 port.Īnother action-RPG named after dragons is Dragon’s Crown, the gorgeous hand-drawn mega-hit from Vanillaware that combined side-scrolling brawler action with looting and skill systems. Meanwhile Dragon Quest Heroes II is almost the polar opposite – a fast pace hack ‘n’ slash cut from the Warriors cloth that features plenty of progression systems, making it deeper than it first appears. On the topic of historic Japanese IP’s, the Dragon Quest series tried its hand twice on Vita and both could sort of be classified as action-RPG’s – Dragon Quest Builders is a Minecraft clone that’s decent fun and includes simplistic combat where you mash away at enemies with whatever weapons you’ve crafted. Tokyo Xanadu wouldn’t be the only Vita action-RPG set in Japan’s capital – Akiba’s Beat also offered exploration around the Akihabara district while ripping off the Tales of combat system which I quite enjoyed, although most reviewers seemed to struggle with. Speaking of Tales, the granddaddy of action-RPG series appeared twice on Vita with Tales of Hearts R (which released in the west in 2014 where it immediately became one of my favourite games on the handheld) and Tales of Innocence R which sadly remained Japan-only, although is still a decent import if you’re willing to try it. The game offered fast-based team action alongside a stunningly huge world to explore and was well-received by critics ( myself included) setting it up as an early sleeper hit on Vita. Falcom followed it up with Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana a few years later that expanded on all the ideas in Celceta and despite an expanded port later releasing on PS4, PC & Switch, the title remained a great addition to Vita’s library full of enjoyable action-packed gameplay.įalcom also licenced their earlier game Ys Origin to dotemu who ported it to Vita in 2017, which offered a different take on the IP with solo gameplay and platforming puzzles, which worked incredibly well. While this was happening, they were also working on reviving one of their older IP’s with Tokyo Xanadu, an action-RPG set in the modern day where high school students solve mysteries in and around Tokyo. While it was again surpassed by a later expanded PS4 port, it’s still well worth checking out on Vita. The first of these ( Ys: Memories of Celceta) was actually one of the first RPG’s to hit the platform in general, landing in November 2012 in Japan and a year later in the west (thanks to a stunning localization by XSEED). So as already mentioned, probably the most prolific developer of action RPG’s on Vita is Nihon Falcom, the stories Japanese developer who graced the platform with their long-running Ys series, releasing two brilliant entries and allowing another studio to port a third. Sadly, there’s a bit of a lack of western-developer action-RPG’s (a problem across the board for western games on Vita) but this doesn’t detract from the otherwise stellar offering that exists here. On Vita, there’s a tonne of choice and best of all, the company who started it all (Falcom) turned up in full force bring some of their most revered titles to the handheld. Some of the more successful examples include Square-Enix’s Star Ocean series, Bandai-Namco’s Tales of and a variety of western variants. The genre’s roots can be traced back to Nihon Falcom’s Dragon Slayer franchise which debuted in the 80’s on the PC-Engine – from there, various new takes on the idea have cropped up all over. Given that I looked at turn-based RPG’s not too long ago, it was only a matter of time until I tackled their action counterparts. from the EU or NA stores), as well as some commentary on how well those games run on Vita and whether they fill any missing gaps in the library. The articles will highlight all Vita-native games, as well as any backwards-compatible PSP and PS1 titles which can be downloaded in English (i.e. The eleventh in a series of articles I’m writing, looking at all the games available in a particular genre on Vita.
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