The PS Vita had a lovely screen and a library that leaned on Japanese studios and small indie teams. That mix suited a handheld. People kept one by the bed for a long role-playing game or a visual novel, and a few publishers made the deal sweeter by putting two or more games in one Vita release.
A lot of Vita collections were older PS3 sets that showed up years later. The five here reached the Vita while they were new. You get a pair of Square RPGs with the extras Japan kept for itself, a puzzle story series about strangers trapped in a deadly game, a fluid physics shooter and a stealth trilogy drawn like a brush painting. Here are the 5 best PS Vita compilations.
5. Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Trilogy Pack (2016)
Assassin's Creed Chronicles is a series of side-scrolling games developed by Climax Studios and published by Ubisoft. Each game has a new hero in a new place. China follows Shao Jun, India follows Arbaaz Mir, and Russia follows Nikolai Orelov in the aftermath of the October Revolution. The levels are 2.5D environments inspired by traditional brush paintings, so the series looks like nothing else in Assassin's Creed.
China came out first, on April 21, 2015, for other platforms. The collection of all three followed on February 9, 2016, and the PlayStation Vita version of the Trilogy Pack was released on April 5, 2016. India and Russia add a Silencer rank, earned by staying undetected and using only non-lethal takedowns. Players who recommend it point to the art style and the side-scrolling stealth.
4. PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate (2014)
PixelJunk Shooter came out on the PlayStation Store in December 2009, and Q-Games followed it with PixelJunk Shooter 2. PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate, developed by Double Eleven, combines both games into one continuous game. It was released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in June 2014, and it was free for PlayStation Plus subscribers that same month. One purchase gets you both versions, and the save carries across.
You fly a small ship underground to rescue a number of surviving scientists. To reach them you have to manipulate three types of fluid: water, magma and ferrofluid. Kill too many survivors and you have to restart the stage, which makes every lava flow a small moral question. Players keep calling it a great game.
3. Zero Escape: The Nonary Games (2017)
Zero Escape is a visual novel series written by Kotaro Uchikoshi, with music by Shinji Hosoe. The Nonary Games bundles remastered versions of Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue's Last Reward. The first game came out on the Nintendo DS in 2009, and the second came out for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita in 2012. The bundle was released for Windows, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in the West on March 24, 2017.
The stories branch based on player choices, with multiple endings, and the puzzles are part of the plot. Both games were commercial failures in Japan, and the third game was put on hold in 2014 until fan demand brought it back. This version has the English and Japanese voice tracks in all regions. Players name it among the best visual novels on the Vita, and puzzle fans get plenty too.
2. Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster (2013)
Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster is a high-definition remaster of Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2, which Square first made for the PlayStation 2. It is based on the International versions, so players outside Japan got content like the expert Sphere Grid and extra dresspheres for the first time. The Chinese studio Virtuos handled large parts of the work. It came out for PS3 and Vita in Japan in December 2013 and worldwide in March 2014.
You also get the Last Mission dungeon, the Eternal Calm movie and a new audio drama set a year after X-2. Sixty tracks of the original Final Fantasy X soundtrack were rearranged. The Vita version runs at 720x408 pixels, and saves move between the PS3, Vita and PS4 versions. Players who like JRPGs recommend it to new Vita owners again and again.
1. Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (2015)
Shovel Knight comes from Yacht Club Games, founded by former members of WayForward. Development was crowdfunded, and the game came out for Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and Windows in June 2014. It reached PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita on April 21, 2015. More campaigns followed: Plague of Shadows, Specter of Torment and King of Cards, along with the fighting game Shovel Knight Showdown. The full set was released in December 2019 as Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove, with all previous purchases being updated to the Treasure Trove edition.
The developers took the checkpoint design from Dark Souls and smaller ideas from DuckTales and Super Mario Bros. 3. Jake Kaufman wrote the chiptune music, with two songs by Mega Man composer Manami Matsumae. Players count it among the Vita's must-have indie games, and they recommend it more than any other Vita compilation.
Which one to play
There you have it, the whole list of the best PS Vita compilations. Each one holds up as more than one good game for the price of one.
If you are not sure where to start, play Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove. If you want a long traditional RPG, Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster will keep you busy for months. For a story you will think about for weeks, pick Zero Escape: The Nonary Games. If you only have ten minutes at a time, PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate fits. And for a hidden pick, try Assassin's Creed Chronicles and its brush painted stealth.
