RPGWatch Feature: The Whole Game in My Hand #4
 

What's going on in the RPG world for portable gaming systems? Join Mike Anderson as he continues his monthly quest to keep you informed on the hits and misses of RPG's on the GBA, DS and PSP. This latest monster guide to recent happenings in the portable RPG market has so much content, I'll let it speak for itself:
Read it all here.
More information.

I just wanted to thank Mike for the ridiculous amount of work he puts into these handheld articles. It's just insane.

Thanks Mike!

Yep, I agree. Mike is one of the hardest working writers around (he writes for at least 3 sites, all unpaid)!! We're glad you're part of our team.

I'll have to pick up Mazes of Fate (good, very informative review), I think I'm going to get the runs soon and need something to do.

edit: in case this came off hostile, like I think Mazes of Fate is crap or something. What I ment is hand held games are made for playing while going to the bathroom, and if I have the runs I will be spending a lot of time there. I could read or do something useful, but I like to waste my life playing games.

Viva la poo

Great article
 

Just purchased Mazes of fate from the ebay store based on your review can't wait to try it out and thank you for you great articles I find the handhelds to be the last bastion of traditional RPG titles and your article is a huge help with finding some of the lesser knowns!

Don't worry roqua - anyone who uses a laptop or handheld device (PDA as well as game system) knows that they are used *everywhere* … :D

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSHHHHH! My pretties!

EDIT:

I got Spectrobes after winning a competition held by a portuguese videogame magazine. Took me five minutes of gameplay to take it to a store and get rid of it. The Pokemensch-derived gameplay wasn't really what drove me away - since I can be blammed of enjoying the Shin Megami Tensei series, which requires demon recruiting and fusion - although it was pretty bad in itself since it was needlessly slow and methodical. However the combat was the worst offender, with the main character and Spectrobes locked into a battle formation and moving concurrently leading players to control all three party members with the D-Pad. Much as people enjoyed bashing Wizardry 8's combat system, this is far worse.

Mazes of Fate sounds like a badass dungeon crawler.

Great article! ;)

Thanks for all the kind words … this is a pretty fun thing to do, but it is hard to find the time. Especially when I want to expand the views of as many games as I can in each article. Of course, when fall comes and we have a whole bunch of handheld RPG releases in a month it will be a different story, but for now I'll do what I can.

As for getting these games, I know I've mentioned it before but if you are in the US or Canada you should really check out Goozex. They have Mazes of Date and the Dungeon Siege PSP game and many other handheld games, not to mention tons of new and old RPG's for Mac & PC. I've scored loads of cool stuff like a deluxe version of Betrayal at Krondor while ditching crap like Spectral Souls for the PSP …

I'm already working on the next one which will be much shorter due to the fact that there are only three handheld RPG's that came out in April.

Y'know, it is interesting - I was driving my kids to some sports thing the other day and asked if they thought they would ever touch Spectrobes again and they said 'no' … they got Pokemon Diamond & Pearl and that rendered Spectrobes obsolete in a second.

I've found Spectrobes to be just like other derivative takes on the formula, trying to add something new but spectacularly failing. I suspect that the Pokestuff series has some additional gameplay elements to make up for its considerable longevity and ocasional poor titles - and I bet brand recognition helps a lot too.

Thanks for the informative reviews! Hopefully I'll get to check a few of these games out over the summer.