14 Best PSP Board and Card Games

World Series of Poker was the official game of the 2005 World Series of Poker, and it reached the PSP on September 15, 2005. The PSP version was one of five. The same game also came out on the GameCube, the PlayStation 2, the Xbox and Windows, so this was a big release for a card game.

It is the last game on this list and the plainest one. There are no monsters and no story to sit through, just poker with the official name on the box. It still turns up when players list PSP games worth owning, and if you want a deck of cards with nothing attached, this is the one to grab.

Marvel Trading Card Game is a video game version of Upper Deck's Marvel Comics-based collectible card game. It was developed by Vicious Cycle Software and 1st Playable Productions and published by Konami. You choose to be either a superhero or supervillain, and the game follows the rules of the real VS System cards. The story is about the Sentinels, the robots that hunt the X-Men, and it was written that way because competitive players of the real card game were all running Sentinel decks at the time.

Reviewers found it faithful to the physical version but hard going for anyone who was not already a fan of collectible card games. The handheld versions were criticized for a layout that did not suit small screens. Card game fans who try it tend to like it anyway.

Neverland Card Battles came out in 2008, and it puts you in charge of Galahad, who has to stop Hellgaia and save the world. His weapon is a deck of Spectral Cards. They summon warriors and creatures to fight for him, and some of them build bases out on the field. The other dominators you meet each have their own way of playing cards, so the duels call for different plans.

It is one of the quieter games on the PSP, the kind people find by accident while looking for something else to play. The players who found it keep it on their lists of favourites, right next to much bigger names. If you liked the idea of a card game with a fantasy war story around it, this is worth tracking down.

Scrabble on the PSP came out in 2009, and it is the board game you already know: players assemble words on a board from seven random tiles. Scrabble has appeared on almost every console, and this version keeps the scoring of the real thing. Each tile's point value is based on its frequency in English, so Q and Z are worth 10 points. Use all seven tiles in one play and you get a 50-point bonus.

Nobody buys a PSP for Scrabble. Players reach for it when they want to use their brain instead of their reflexes, and they name it alongside the system's sudoku and puzzle games.

Chessmaster: The Art of Learning came out in October 2007, and its lessons come from Josh Waitzkin, an eight-time National Chess Champion and two-time martial arts World Champion. The tutorials use principles from his book The Art of Learning, and he takes you through the climactic game from the book and film Searching for Bobby Fischer. The database includes 600,000 matches and 190 personalities of computer opponents. In dark chess, the other side's pieces are invisible unless under attack. There is even a Raving Rabbids set, for when the grandmaster lessons get too serious.

Reviewers felt the tuition tools in the PSP version were thin for intermediate players. That has not stopped anyone. Players who own it keep it in their rotation for years, long after the action games have been finished.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Tag Force 4 was the first Tag Force based on the 5D's cartoon, and it reignites the story of the Dark Signers, who come back from the Underworld with a lust for revenge. The fight is for New Domino City and the fate of Satellite. You can duel one on one or team up with a partner, with more than 3,500 cards to build a deck from. It came out in Japan in September 2009 and in North America in November 2009.

This is the era of Yusei Fudo, a duelist from Satellite who builds his own Duel Runner, so the whole series changed feel here. Players who know the card game recommend it. If you never watched past the original cartoon, this is a good place to see what came next.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force 2 is a digital collectible card game and the second game in the Tag Force series. North America got it first, on September 18, 2007, and Japan got it nine days later. Europe followed in December 2007. It keeps the setup of the first game, where finding a duel partner at Duel Academy is half the point, and fills it with a bigger card pool.

Reviews were mixed. Players who were kids when it came out still hold it close, and they remember it as a relaxing game to pick up for a few duels. For a lot of fans this was the first Tag Force they owned, and that counts for a lot in a series this long.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Tag Force 6 is a card video game developed by Konami Digital Entertainment and Tenky. It came out in Japan on September 22, 2011, and a PlayStation Store version followed in Japan in June 2013. It was the last Tag Force based on 5D's, and it never got an English release, which makes this spot on the list a little surprising.

Players who want to play it in English use a fan translation. Players who know the series well still point newcomers to it, especially fans of the older card formats. That is a lot of love for a game most of its fans had to import or patch, and it says something about how far the series had come by its sixth try.

Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V Tag Force Special is the seventh installment of the Tag Force video game series. It came out in Japan on January 22, 2015, as a PlayStation Store release, years after most companies had stopped making PSP games at all. It is the only Tag Force built on the ARC-V cartoon, and it was the series' last game on the PSP.

English players play it through a fan translation. Fans of the series rate it near the top, and some put it ahead of every other Tag Force. Konami putting out a PSP card game in 2015 is like a band releasing a new cassette. Somebody was still listening, and they were very happy about it.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force was the Yu-Gi-Oh! series' debut on the PlayStation Portable and the first game in the Tag Force series. You enroll at Duel Academy as a transfer student, and the main event is a Tag Force tournament on the island. You must find a partner to compete in the tournament alongside, so a lot of the game is spent making friends with the cast. Three promotional cards came packed with the game.

It came out in Japan on September 14, 2006 and in North America on November 14, 2006. It was later ported to the PlayStation 2 as Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force Evolution. Players still go back to the first one, and some love it best. It set the pattern for the five sequels that followed it on the PSP.

Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Tag Force 5 is one of the most expansive Yu-Gi-Oh! games ever made, with over 4,500 cards and more than 300 hours of gameplay. It came out in Japan on September 16, 2010, in North America on October 26, 2010 and in Europe on November 26, 2010. It was the last Tag Force game to come out in English.

Plenty of fans call it their favourite Yu-Gi-Oh! game. That makes sense, since it is the biggest Tag Force you can play in English without a fan patch, and the card pool runs deep enough to keep a deck builder busy for months. If you want one Tag Force on a real UMD, make it this one.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Tag Force 3 is the Tag Force game players named most, and it closed out the GX years with cards up to the Crossroads of Chaos set. You battle Jaden and his friends, along with Haou Jaden and even Yubel. The seasonal events and the mail system from the first Tag Force came back for this one.

It came out in Japan on November 27, 2008 and in Europe the next day, and North America never got it. That makes its spot here even more impressive. Fans call it their favourite Tag Force, and some say it is old school Yu-Gi-Oh! at its very best. If you grew up on the GX cartoon, this is the one that feels most like it.

Metal Gear Acid 2 came out in 2005, and it uses a completely new cel-shaded graphic engine, replacing the darker graphics from the first game. Snake starts out trying to infiltrate a research facility run by SaintLogic, a military arms manufacturer on an isolated North American island. It added a new tutorial mode, which helps a lot with a card system this odd. It also has a Solid Eye Theater mode for watching videos of the Japanese women seen on posters and magazines throughout the Metal Gear series, using the Solid Eye attachment. It is a very Metal Gear thing to put in a card game.

It was named by more than twice as many players as any Tag Force game. Players nearly always name the two Acid games in the same breath.

Metal Gear Acid is a turn-based collectable card game, and it was the first game in the Metal Gear series for the PSP. It came out in Japan in December 2004 and in North America in March 2005. Acid stands for Active Command Intelligence Duel. Cards move Snake around the map, and most cards only allow you to move three spaces. Your hand can hold a maximum of six cards. Nearly every card has a cost, and the higher your cost, the longer you wait until your next turn while the guards act first.

Critics praised its unique mechanics and turn-based stealth. More players named it than any other board or card game on the PSP, and players put it on their lists of the system's best games. As one player put it, it is "meant to be played in slow manner."