Locoroco. It was just so sweet and cheerful.

PATA PATA PATA PON!

Yeah, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite was probably also the game I spent most time on my PSP.

It depends in what games you Mike, but I loved Persona 3 Portable and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep.
If you liked Monster Hunter, you could also try God Eater. It is a really gold Monster Hunter Like with a good story!

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters.

Played through that sucker more times than I care to admit to.

Final Fantasy Dissidia duo decim and Crisis Core were the only games I really enjoyed on the PSP.

Original games - LocoRoco Midnight Carnival, Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII, Daxter, Trails in the Sky trilogy, LittleBigPlanet PSP, Silent Hill Origins, MGS Peace Walker, Gran Turismo... Remasters/ports: SMT Persona 2 Innocent Sin, Lunar SSSC, Breath of Fire III, Tales of Eternia (all of these games are JRPG, and all of them are the best version of these games in my opinion), Crazy Taxi, Prince of Persia games, Tomb Raider games...

There are plenty of good titles already mentioned here so I'll go with something less popular.

• PangYa: Fantasy Golf - it's a golf game, as you can guess from the title. It has simple but really fun gameplay with customisable characters (outfits and equipment, the latter affects character stats). It also has a story mode to get you started.
• Puzzle Quest - RPG with match 3 gameplay for combat. Really addictive in a "just one more quest" kind of way.
• Ridge Racer 2 - it's Ridge Racer. Riiiiiidge Racer! Tons of content, bunch of modes, fun to control - it's great! Might be my favourite handheld racing game (and definitely one I spent the most time with). It's pretty much a celebration of the franchise until that point, especially the classic era.

I played Lumines so much I would see squares when I closed my eyes

Jeanne D'Arc

A fantastic RPG.

I never owned a PSP, but tried a few in an emulator. Really missed out on a fantastic device and game library. I think there are some obvious famous games that many recommend, as such

• Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7
• God of War - Ghost of Sparta
• Grand Theft Auto Liberty/Vice City Stories
• Lumines
• Metal Gear Acid / Peace Walker / Portable Ops Plus
• Monser Hunger Freedom Unite
• Persona 2 Innocent Sin
• Ratchet and Clank Size Matters

Also kind of ports I think, maybe new games in series, I'm not sure. But just able to play these on a portable device is awesome:

• Gran Turisomo
• Littlle Big Planet
• MotorStorm: Arctic Edge
• OutRun 2006 - Coast 2 Coast
• Tekken 6

I didn't play much on PSP yet. Following are also interesting:

• Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex
• Hot Shots Golf
• Jeanne d'Arc
• R-Type Command
• Tekken - Dark Resurrection
• Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins
• WipEout Pure

And the list goes on and on. This was an awesome handheld.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness

wipEout, Jeanne d'arc, Battlefront, locorocco, peace walker, Ys seven, Mega Man Powered Up, Gran Turismo, Dissida, Final Fantasy Tactics, Ghosts of Sparta

Loco Roco was nice and I don't think its been mentioned.

My favorite is when I go pspspspspsp to my dog and he comes over for cuddles.

No but really, if we're talking full exclusives, Ridge Racers 2 is pretty much all the good stuff about the old RR series but with better graphics and most of the content from all games. If we're talking non exclusives (sometimes the best version though), Final Fantasy IV, Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles, Final Fantasy Tactics WoTL, and Tactics Ogre, Let US Cling Together are pretty top tier

I got Wipeout Pure so I could do the browser exploit wayyyy back in the day. I ended up really enjoying the game too!

The only game I remember was the FF7 one. I'm such a nerd for the story, I can't even remember if it was good or not. I do remember that by the end I was so OP that the game had to force a cut scene of the main character being all beat up, even though I was still full health, or near enough.

PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe & Everyday Shooter are amazing games from small indie studios.

LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet and Clank and Daxter are some must plays from Sony.

GTA Vice City Stories, MGS Peace Walker, Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron are fun games from third parties.

Honourable mention for The Sims 2, not for being good. But for being interesting

Brave Story is a great RPG that doesn't overstay it's welcome and that I've enjoyed a lot. The enemy design was what really got me into it at the time, but the fun story and quality of life features kept me going

MHFU is definitely my favorite too. very fond memories as I'd get together with my friends (who had moved away) once or twice a year to do the big hunts we struggled with on our own.

I also really liked star wars battlefront: (rogue squadron?). was a bit shit to aim with no second stick but I remember the incinerator plus a lock-on killed anything real quick.

Crisis Core Dissidia Locoroco Lumines

And the vast catalog of PS1 games you could download from the PSN store.

I just miss game sharing. Multiplayer games across 2 PSP's with only one copy of the game was so peak. Tekken specifically I guess to answer the question

LocoRoco, Patapon, the God of War priquel and Crisis Core

And also Armored Core Formula Front, it's such a weird game in the series.

Oh, and Carnage Heart EXA. I've never managed to actually get far, but it's the most unique mecha game there is. You program your mecha from scratch using logic blocks, and you can make it fully autonomous, fully manual (but you have to program each button press), or a combination of two. It takes as many hours to learn as an Armored Core game would take to complete.

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions

Arguably the best way to experience the game.

Gottlieb Pinball Classics was fantastic on the PSP. I quite enjoyed the Burnout games on it too.

The only game that others haven't mentioned but I think you should definitely check out is Ace Combat X (never mind Joint Assault though).

I think every single favorite of mine is listed already so I will list the niche one I don't see:

Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus

Aw man, this reminds me that I have a busted PSP I need to fix. I've been wanting a pocket emulator for some time, and I used to have a PSP ages ago that I'd jailbroken to play SNES games lol

Probably Lumines. Nothing amazing from a gameplay standpoint

lots of falling block games out there

but the music makes it a fun experience.

That being said, you can get it on Steam now, so don't need a PSP.

Try Crimson Gem Saga if you are into JRPGs.

Work Time Fun.

I would just play 5 Finger Filet most of the time 🤣

Crush and ff tactics remake stood out to me but there were a bunch of great games on there wipeout, monster hunter, persona 3, etc. Crush is a 2d/3d puzzler with a really interesting soundtrack and ff tactics the story and characters and soundtrack hold up well.

If you're into racing games, you could try ‘Colin McRae Rally 2005’ — it's quite good and even requires a bit of knowledge about racing setups.

‘Race Driver 2006’ is also alright, it's an expanded port of ‘TOCA Race Driver 2’ with lots of content and okay physics.

There's ‘Twisted Metal: Head-On’, which is reportedly pretty good and in the vein of the first two games in the series (which had a different feel from 3-4 and probably ‘Black’ too).

If you're into making music, check out LittleGPTracker: it's a tracker-style app that works on PSP among other platforms and allegedly can load samples, as a tracker should. Inspired by the famous LSDJ for the Gameboy.

Well, there's no competition. It's Danganronpa.

Oh and the Parodius collection is also great.

• Field Commander
• Gran Turismo
• Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars (the best GTA)
• Hellboy The Science of Evil
• Jackass The Game
• Killzone Liberation
• Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops & Peace Walker
• Midnight Club LA Remix
• Motorstorm Arctic Edge
• Socom Fireteam Bravo 1-3
• Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron
• Twisted Metal Head On
• Untold Legends Brotherhood of the Blade
• Worms Open Warfare 2
• Ys Seven

I’m not going to lie even when it was brand new I thought the PSP’s graphics were lame for 3D games and never wanted one. But it might have been the prevalent art style.

Yeah, for me it’s The 3rd Birthday, Jeanne D’Arc, Lumines, and Tactics Ogre. All of them are straight bangers.

If you like music games, those DJ Max titles are awesome. And the PSP version of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is one of the best puzzle games ever made

I liked Echochrome pretty much :)

Not sure why everyone skips a generation back to the PSP when the Vita was backwards compatible.

Uncharted Golden Abyss was a pretty decent Uncharted game, and even offered motion controls in some useful ways.