10 Best PSP Demakes

Rival Swords is The Two Thrones with a new name. The third game in the Sands of Time trilogy came to the PSP and the Wii under that title, and players still have to explain to each other that it is the same game. By then the series had come a long way, from the 1989 original to Prince of Persia 3D in 1999, the first one built with 3D graphics.

On the PSP it sits next to Revelations, the handheld version of Warrior Within, and players treat the two as the easy way to carry the trilogy around. If the original games are out of reach on your setup, this is the one to grab. A prince with a sword and a bad attitude fits a small screen better than you would think.

Dante's Inferno came out on the PS3, the Xbox 360 and the PSP in February 2010, and the PSP version was made by its own studio, Artificial Mind and Movement. The story is loosely based on the first part of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Here Dante is a Templar knight from the Crusades who follows the poet Virgil through the nine Circles of Hell to rescue his wife Beatrice from Lucifer himself. It sold over one million copies worldwide and even got an animated movie on DVD the same day.

Critics compared it to God of War, and players do the same, putting it right next to the two PSP God of War games. That is high praise on this console. If you finished Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta and still wanted more, this is the obvious next stop.

Shattered Memories was made for the Wii and released there in December 2009, then ported to the PS2 and the PSP in January 2010. It is a reimagining of the first Silent Hill. Harry Mason is still looking for his missing daughter, but the plot and the people around him have changed. Between trips through a snowy Silent Hill, you sit in a first-person therapy session with Dr. Michael Kaufmann. Akira Yamaoka wrote the music, and it was the first soundtrack in the series built around dynamic music.

Reviewers praised the way the Wii version used the Wii Remote, and players who know both versions tend to rate the Wii one higher. Even so, the PSP version keeps showing up when players list the best horror games on the system. Bring headphones and play it in the dark.

The Force Unleashed came out on almost everything in 2008, from the PS3 and the Xbox 360 down to the PSP, the DS and mobile phones. It reached North America on September 16 and sold over a million copies in its first month. The story bridges the first two Star Wars trilogies. Darth Vader kills a Jedi in hiding, finds the man's son strong in the Force, and secretly takes the boy as his apprentice.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions ran on the Ronin engine with big destruction effects, so the handheld game had to find its own way. The PSP and DS versions added a four-player wireless battle mode. Players say the PSP game has more in it than you would expect from a port, with its own style of combat and levels reworked for the handheld.

Tekken 6 started in arcades in November 2007 as the first game on the System 357 board, which is based on the PlayStation 3. An update called Bloodline Rebellion followed a year later, and the home version for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 arrived in October 2009, the first main Tekken on a non-Sony console. A PSP port came out shortly after. Alongside the fights there is a beat 'em up mode about Lars Alexandersson, a soldier who turns on the Mishima Zaibatsu's Tekken Force.

Critics liked the PSP port for how faithful it was to the console versions. Players remember it as a lot of fun for its time. They often name it in the same breath as Dark Resurrection, the other PSP Tekken, and plenty of people simply own both.

By 2005 Need for Speed had left its scenic tracks behind. Underground had moved the series to import tuners and street racing in the city, and tuning your car had become part of every game. Most Wanted 5-1-0 is the PSP's take on that year's Most Wanted. One player summed it up as "basically a portable version of NFS Most Wanted but without the BMW M3 GTR", which is about as fair as reviews get.

The PSP got a lot of Need for Speed games, from Underground Rivals to Carbon: Own the City and Undercover. Players still single this one out as the one worth playing. The car that is missing hurts a little, but you will forget about it by the third race.

Battlefront II was made by Pandemic Studios and came out in PAL regions on October 28, 2005, on the PS2, the PSP, Windows and the Xbox, with North America getting it on November 1. Savage Entertainment made the PSP version. The big game tells its story through a veteran clone trooper of the 501st, looking back on his service for the Republic and then for the Empire. Galactic Conquest is back from the first game too.

The PSP version is a trimmed one, and players are honest about it: the story campaign did not make the trip. They still call it one of the best things you can play on the system, and it is still a lot of fun with friends. It also came to the PlayStation Store as a PSP download on October 20, 2009.

Monster Hunter Freedom was the first handheld game in the series. It is an enhanced port of Monster Hunter G, a PS2 game that never came out in the US or Europe, rebalanced so you could clear quests on your own. The harder quests come straight from Monster Hunter G, and they are a much bigger challenge. When you need a break, you can sit at the tavern table, swing your beer mug and pass out drunk.

Players keep putting it on their lists of the best PSP games, next to the system's biggest names. It is where the PSP's long love affair with Monster Hunter started, and everything that came after on the handheld grew out of it. If you have ever wondered why people still talk about hunting wyverns on a bus, start here.

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition lets you race through open world versions of San Diego, Atlanta and Detroit. The soundtrack is huge, with 98 licensed tracks of hip hop, rock and more, and the Remix version takes that up to 124. Pick a city and spend the night tearing through it.

Players say the PSP version feels close to the PS2 game, with the full city racing and all the features of the original squeezed onto a small screen. It still holds up. They often recommend it together with Midnight Club: L.A. Remix, the PSP's other big Midnight Club. If you want an open world racer in your pocket, start with this one.

Persona 3 first came out on the PS2, in Japan in 2006 and in North America in 2007, and the extended Persona 3 FES followed with a new epilogue. The PSP version, Persona 3 Portable, was released in Japan in 2009 and reached North America in 2010. The story is set in 2009 in Tatsumi Port Island, a city the Kirijo Corporation built and funded. Your friendships matter in battle too: create a Persona of an Arcana you have a social link with and it gets an experience bonus.

Players call it a trimmed version of the PS2 game that adds things of its own, a female protagonist above all. Nothing else on this list comes close in how often players recommend it. It was ported to the Switch, PS4, Windows and Xbox in 2023, so the PSP's best demake is easy to find today.