Highlights
- The PS Vita had a great library of RPGs, both exclusives and games from home consoles, making it a hit among fans of the genre.
- Tokyo Xanadu, Mary Skelter: Nightmares, Dungeon Travelers 2, and Tales of Hearts are some of the standout RPGs on the PS Vita.
- While the PS Vita may no longer be supported, there are still many wonderful Vita games worth playing, including Dragon's Crown, Muramasa Rebirth, Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited, and Soul Sacrifice.
The PS Vita may not have been a huge success for Sony, but there are many fans who enjoyed the second attempt by the company to go handheld. Part of the reason for this was the great library of games that were available to play on the go. Those who enjoy the role-playing genre should be among the happiest with the line-up.
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Updated on October 8, 2023, by Chris Birsner: It has been years since Sony has had a handheld active in the market, as the PS Vita was the last one they released to have active support from many developers. This makes the announcement of the PlayStation Portal all the more interesting as it gives people a way to play their PlayStation 5 games in the palm of their hands, giving people the feeling of playing on a device like the PS Vita again. Meanwhile, while its library stays stagnant, there are so many wonderful Vita games that are worth playing. To be specific, there are some great PS Vita RPGs that hold up to this day.
20 Tokyo Xanadu
A spin-off of the old-school action RPG Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu, Tokyo Xanadu takes place in an alternate reality Tokyo where the city has been recovering from an earthquake that happened ten years prior. The game surrounds Kou Tokisaka, a high school student who one night finds his classmate in a suspicious situation.
After following her, Kou gets pulled into the nightmare realm known as Eclipse. His classmate, Asuka Hiiragi, reveals that she and a group called Nemesis are looking to close the realm off. The game involves real-time combat.
19 Mary Skelter: Nightmares
A first-person dungeon crawler is not something one may hear about every day, but the indie title Mary Skelter: Nightmares takes on the genre and sticks the landing. The game's protagonists, Jack and Alice, are freed from a jail cell by Blood Maidens, a group of girls with supernatural abilities.
However, they find out that the city they were in has been absorbed by this monster known as the Jail. The primary objective of the game is to guide the party through a dungeon to take on bosses known as Nightmares.
18 Dungeon Travelers 2
The origins of Dungeon Travelers 2 are unique as the game comes from a line of Japanese visual novels that were focused more on romance than anything else. While still having some suggestive themes to it, this game departs from the others as a dungeon crawler.
The Kingdom of Romulea has been invaded by monsters that seemingly came out of nowhere, and it is up to the player's party to stop them from continuing to wreak havoc. This is a classic turn-based RPG while also having key elements that fall under the dungeon crawler genre, such as getting treasure and exploring through winding pathways.
17 Tales of Hearts
Dating back to 1995, the Tales series has been around now for 26 years and through 16 mainline titles plus many spin-offs. The eleventh main game in the series is titled Tales of Hearts and was originally released for the Nintendo DS.
The story revolves around a boy named Kor Meteor who attempts to save a woman, Kohaku Hearts, from being fully infected by a monster. Unfortunately, he instead destroys her Spiria, with pieces ending up landing around the world. In the remake for the PS Vita, the action RPG has fully-rendered character models and 3D environments.
16 Freedom Wars
While there wasn't a ton of them, there were some Sony studios that were interested in making PS Vita RPGs. Japan Studio, in collaboration with development studios Shift and Dimps, decided to make a game in an entirely different world: Freedom Wars.
Society has been divided into Panopticons, underground civilizations where the people who live there must do some work for the city they live in to survive. Criminals are forced to go to war for these Panopticons, one of whom is the protagonist of the main campaign. While online servers are shut down now, players can still play locally with friends in co-op or competitive modes.
15 World of Final Fantasy
One of the most prestigious RPG franchises out there is Final Fantasy, so it makes sense that the minds over at Square Enix made a game celebrating it. In World of Final Fantasy, many of the characters that span the franchise's long history come together in the world of Grymoire.
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14 Dragon's Crown
It's always fun when a video game comes out that feels just like living in a world made in Dungeons & Dragons, and Dragon's Crown definitely fits that vibe. From Vanillaware, the beat 'em up is set in a 2D environment where players take on the role of an adventurer.
Pick between six different classes that will determine the overall approach to combat, and get ready to do a ton of dungeon crawling. The game also has a central hub town where adventurers can accept quests, keep track of certain collectibles, and upgrade their gear.
13 Muramasa Rebirth
Not often are there a ton of side-scrolling role-playing games, but Muramasa Rebirth is another one. The game was originally published for the Wii under the name Muramasa: The Demon Blade before being remastered a few years later for the PS Vita exclusively.
Set in the Edo period in Japan, the main campaign revolves around two protagonists and their relation to the Demon Blades, samurai swords that possess the individuals that wield them. Muramasa Rebirth also adds four separate stories based on Japanese folklore under the title Genroku Legends.
12 Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited
A company that has long been making RPGs is Nippon Ichi Software, usually abbreviated NIS. One of its well-known franchises is Disgaea, a tactical role-playing game that is approaching seven released entries in the series.
One of the best Vita RPGs from NIS was Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited. The setting is the Netherworld, and players take on the role of Valvatorez, a vampire looking to fight back against those in power, specifically President Hugo. While the game has its usual turn-based combat, it introduces an ability for characters to pick each other up and combine forces.
11 Soul Sacrifice
Games can sometimes fall into using the same formula as other titles, just under a different veil. Soul Sacrifice introduces a wild mechanic that makes it stand out in a deep role-playing game genre. In the game, players have been enslaved by an evil sorcerer named Magusar.
In order to defeat them, players must use a book called Librom to relive past fights between the sorcerer and other monsters. The mechanic that makes Soul Sacrifice interesting is the need to sacrifice parts of the player's body to become more powerful.
10 Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines
It's always great to see a long-dead game be revived for a remaster, but it's even better if that game actually got another installment after nearly 15 years. That was the case for Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines, which is the sequel to the 1999 PlayStation game Ore no Shikabane o Koete Yuke.
Set 100 years after the events of the original game, the newer installment revolves around a family that is cursed, preparing to fight against a demon. The game involves fighting enemies to earn enough points to continue the bloodline to future generations.
9 Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower Of Fortune And The Dice Of Fate
Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and The Dice of Fate
- Released
- July 26, 2016
- Developer(s)
- Spike Chunsoft
- Genre(s)
- JRPG , Roguelike
The first roguelike on this list, Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate, is part of a series that is within the Mystery Dungeon franchise developed by Spike Chunsoft.
Like other games in the Shiren series, The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate follows a wanderer named Shiren and his talking weasel Koppa as they climb the titular tower to see if the rumors of a god that can change their fate are true. The game revolves around exploring dungeons and fighting monsters that appear in turn-based combat.
8 Ys: Memories Of Celceta
Nihon Falcom is known for developing quite an array of role-playing games. Along with Tokyo Xanadu, one of its best RPGs on Vita was Ys: Memories of Celceta, the fourth canonical entry in the Ys series.
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7 Atelier Totori Plus: The Adventurer Of Arland
Another game that was brought to the PS Vita after its initial release, Atelier Totori Plus: The Adventurer of Arland is the twelfth entry in the Atelier series and the first to release on the PS Vita.
Taking place five years after the events of its predecessor, Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland, The Adventurer of Arland starts with a girl named Totori, who is looking for her missing mother. Rorona teaches her alchemy, which she uses on her journey around the world to find her mother, who she believes is alive.
6 Child Of Light
On its surface, Child of Light appears to be a platforming game. However, the game also mixes in plenty of role-playing elements. Child of Light revolves around Aurora, a girl who died from a mysterious illness but woke up in a new land known as Lemuria.
Now, it's Aurora's goal to restore the land by rescuing the sun, moon, and stars from the Queen of the Night. The game uses an active-time battle system that is similar to the Final Fantasy games.
5 The Legend of Heroes: Trail Of Cold Steel 2
Another Nihon Falcom game, The Legend of Heroes: Trail of Cold Steel II, is actually the seventh entry in the Trial subseries, which is part of the overall Legend of Heroes series. Taking place one month after the ending of The Legend of Heroes: Trail of Cold Steel, Rean Schwarzer and Valimar have escaped only to find that he and his loved ones are in the middle of the Erebonian civil war.
Like its predecessor, the gameplay revolves around turn-based battles, with this game following Rean as he travels around the world. Choices made in the first game matter in this one.
4 Rogue Legacy
When thinking about the best PS Vita RPG games, it's hard not to think about how the handheld elevated Rogue Legacy. While the game was a platformer at its heart, it had roguelike elements that evolved it into one of the more unique indie RPGs out there.
The general premise of Rogue Legacy is that the player explores a procedurally generated dungeon where the goal is to explore for treasure, defeat enemies, and take down five bosses. Upon death, players will pick from three descendants who will fill the shoes of the killed hero.
3 Odin Sphere Leifthrasir
This PlayStation 2 classic made its way to the PS Vita through its remake titled Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. The game is set in the fictional continent of Erion as a massive war takes place between the nations of Ragnanival and Ringford over a powerful weapon known as the Crystallization Cauldron.
Odin Sphere Leifthrasir follows five characters and their connection to the war as well as a disaster that could destroy the continent known as Armageddon. The game is a beat-em-up side-scroller with role-playing elements, all mechanics that have been enhanced in the remake.
2 Final Fantasy 10/10-2
While it's great to have a fun spin-off in the series, nothing hits home quite like a mainline Final Fantasy game. PS Vita was known for having a handful of ports, and one of them was the 2-in-1 release of Final Fantasy 10/10-2 from the PlayStation 2.
The first game, Final Fantasy 10, introduces players to the world of Spira and Tidus' mission to take down a monster called Sin. Final Fantasy 10-2 follows the events following the first game, with the player in control of Yuna as she hopes to find Tidus. While it may not have been exclusive to it, these games are easily among the best PS Vita RPGs.
1 Person 4 Golden
The Persona series is among the most beloved RPG franchises out there. The PlayStation 2 hit Persona 4 is rated among the best in the series. It only made sense for there to be an expansion for it eventually. Persona 4 Golden features the original story of Yu as he moves from the city to the countryside, only to find himself in the middle of solving murders that have happened in town.
Along with its usual blend of RPG and simulation elements, Persona 4 Golden features an expanded version of the story along with new characters, Personas, outfits, and cutscenes.