Dracula X Chronicles actually includes Symphony of the Night. You have to unlock it, but its not hard to do, and it doesn't take too long.

GTA - Liberty City and Vice City Stories, controls might be a bit awkward but hey, it's still GTA. And iirc they have different soundtrack compared to non-Stories versions.
Monster Hunter - Freedom United or, if you find the way, 3rd HD (or how was it called) if you don't fear the grind.
Brandish - Dark Revenant is pretty neat dungeon crawler.
Final Fantasy Tactics - War of the Lion
Trails in the Sky
Valkyria Chronicles 2+3 (if you find translation, they are completely different compared to 1st game so be warned)
WH40k Squad Command - nothing special but scratch that Incubation/Chaos Gate itch,
Elminage Gothic (and other Elminage games) for hardcore Wizardy experience.

I've recently purchased a pristine copy of Dracula X (Italian/EU version), and from what I saw it's pure Castlevania with 3D graphics and rearranged music.

I've fitted mine with a 'MicroSDHC to MS PRO DUO adapter', utilizing two 32GB micro SD cards to fit in to one MS slot, giving me a single 64GB card of storage. Loads games a lot faster than from a UMD, also saves on the battery quite a bit, not to mention the cost of an MS card.

LocoRoco feels way better on PSP, actually. But as you wish.
Aside from that - Crash Bandicoot?
I also remember some third person shooter with (I think?) zombies, but not its name - sorry.

Ah, and dont forget Disgaea series - I dont remember, how many (I think, 2?) games out of this series were available for psp, but its one of best jrpg/tactics series, you can even find. Especially "on the go", since they are as grindy, as you are (so - turns to be awesome timekillers).

[irony]Damn, sometimes I feel myself bad for not being active irl - wish I've had friend with unnecessary PSP too. Or just PSP[/irony]

They're like small floppy discs but with a little CD in them.

Growlanser 4
Mega man powered up and maverick hunter x
xi coliseum and iq mania if you don't mind importing (they are pretty manageable to play without knowing japanese)
badman series is kind of fun for short bursts
zhp if you aren't burt out on rogue likes
I'm also a fan of the dept. heaven series but they probably aren't for everyone.

I heard. But I must shamefully admit that I'm a trophy whore.

Yeah, I had seen that. And today my first batch of UMDs arrived. One of them (Medal of Honor: Heroes) was actually in such a bad state that the PSP had trouble reading it. One time the game actually disappeared form XMB for a moment and while playing a "do you wish to quit the game?" message appeared regularly - I checked, it's also what happens when the drive is opened during gameplay so it was clearly caused by reading errors. The UMD's case is coming apart in one place, I guess that might be the reason.

And whichever game I tried, the drive was always disturbingly loud. From the sound I first thought that something's grinding on the disc while it's turning but from what I've read that sound is normal, even in a perfectly healthy PSP, so I guess it's just the laser moving.

Soooo... I instantly backed the games up to my PC and put two of them on the memory stick. Oh boy, will definitely have to upgrade that one. Still, I'm too much of a collector to feel bad about having gotten the games on disc rather than from the PSN store (where all of them are available but most of them priced notably higher than what I paid).


Also, Medal of Honor plays surprisingly well. Even before starting the first mission I switched to an alternate layout which puts aiming on the stick and movement on the face buttons. I was concerned if aiming with the left thumb won't be a problem but it's not. Will definitely finish that one.

MGS: Portable Ops on the other hand controls like shit. I guess I will get used to it, though. Can't skip an MGS game at this point, lol.

I've owned a PSP since its release and i've played several games, even though i mostly bought it for PS (and others) emulation. From the PSP games i'd recommend the following:

☆ God of War Olympus
☆ Tekken Dark Resurrection
☆ Killzone Liberation
☆ Tactics Ogre
☆ Ratchet & Clank
☆ Daxter
☆ Echochrome
☆ Sega Rally
☆ Final Fantasy Tactics
☆ Crisis Core
☆ Wipeout Pulse
☆ Jeanne D'Arc

As for PS games, the list would be h-u-g-e, therefore i'll only post my favourites:

☆ Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
☆ Metal Gear Solid
☆ Silent Hill
☆ Tomb Raider series
☆ Resident Evil series
☆ Syphon Filter series
☆ Crash Bandicoot series
☆ Abe's Odysee & Exodus
☆ MediEvil 1 & 2
☆ Alundra 1 & 2
☆ Soul Blade
☆ Disruptor
☆ Exhumed

All the above run flawlessly on my PSP, but i'll list some others that i didn't have the chance to try: Nightmare Creatures, Tenchu, Loaded/Reloaded, Future Cop LAPD, Colony Wars, Crash Team Racing.

There are also a lot of emulators for the PSP -- Snes9xTYL gets my vote. :)

Yeah, only heard about this one earlier today. Seems pretty amazing. On the list it goes. Most other games you listed were already on it.

Yeah, I tried a few of those but the thing is that surprisingly many of those support analogue controllers very well and thus play much better on PS3. And I guess with SotN I should play the native PSP version instead.

Yeah, I actually already "converted" my disc copy of Tenchu, gave it a nice XMB background and everything. It plays very well on PSP, at least compared to the PS3, because it only uses the Dpad, plus the analogue stick is a decent option for cycling inventory items.

Future Cop also works very well, it does support an analogue stick but it doesn't make much of a difference in case of that game. Also tried Crash Team Racing, decided to leave that one for the PS3, though, because with Dpad it controls very erratically (although the analogue controls aren't perfect either, with some really messed up sensitivity curve).

Definitely want to get Loaded/Reloaded which I enjoyed a lot back in the day (although everything I've heard about it ever since suggests that it's actually crap). Nice idea with Nightmare Creatures, always wanted to play that one. Will have to see about Colony Wars. Always wanted to play that one but sounds like something that should be played with a DualShock.

Anyway, thanks for the many suggestions.

Yeah i read the previous posts, i just thought it wouldn't hurt to list them again. :P

Yeah, Dual Shock was a "thing" back then and many developers rushed to support it from the beginning. As for SotN, i've never played the PSP version so i can't compare the two of them. Whatever the version, just don't miss it -- it's really a masterpiece! ;)

I don't know about the review scores for Loaded, but just like you i've had tons of fun.

But wait, there's more (just returned home and had a look at the collection):

- Agent Armstrong
- In the Hunt
- Alien Trilogy (how did i forgot about it? excellent game)
- Gauntlet Legends
- Die Hard Trilogy ("if you want to stay alive, stay with me")

Cheers and happy gaming! :)

edit: also, if you can't find Exhumed, look for Powerslave -- it's the same game.

As I mentioned (ha, did you really read my previous posts? ;)) I already finished the PSX version. And yep, the game is certainly a masterpiece. Anyway, the most notable improvement in the PSP version is a new translation with new voice overs. It went from "90's video game bad" to "anime bad". Watching comparison videos I'm frankly not sure which version I prefer. The utterly campy dialogue in the PSX version kinda added to its charm, the PSP version is much more professionally voiced (although for some incomprehensible reason all voices still sound as if they had been recorded in a public bathroom) but that kinda makes the writing just feel stupider.

Haha, it's actually one of the first PSX games I tried running on my PSP. It was a bit tough to find a good binding but I guess I finally found one. For some reason I had no music, though, will have to figure out what to do about that.


Oh yeah, I remember Agent Armstrong, briefly played the demo on PC. Always meant to give the full version a shot one day.

And as always: thanks for the many suggestions.

The Alien Trilogy suggestion just reminded me that there is a PS1 version of Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels. That game is pretty cool. Its like a first person shooter, crossed with a squad based strategy game. Sort of.

Funny enough, i remember most of the other quotes in that post of yours. :D Not sure, i must have skipped some things unintentionally -- reading through a 4" screen sucks anyway.

Also, I saw a comparison video of the two versions of SotN on YT (more specifically the first battle), and i vastly prefer the original; i found the newer Dracula actor very weak in contrast to the old one.