Best portable fighting game solution

[Mortificator]

I've played a lot of handheld games over the years, but it's usually been at home. I'm starting to think the only games I can enjoy during random downtime during the day are fighters. A match can be be done in less than a minute and still feel like a complete experience.

I'm mainly thinking of single-player against crazy cheap AIs, with the capacity to play against humans an optional bonus. And there naturally needs to be a variety of games available.

What's the best hardware to do this on? Handhelds traditionally haven't been the best at this genre, with its control demands, but maybe some specific model's more suited? Or is there some other device that, through emulation or otherwise, fits the bill?

[Specineff]

A modded PSP can emulate the CPS2, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD, and "natively" run PS1 games.

[shmuppyLove]

There was a Soul Calibur on PSP that was pretty good, and I think a Guilty Gear?

[louisg]

It might not be the arcade fighter experience, but I love my Neo Geo Pocket Color. Match of the Millennium in particular is a good fighter on that system. I like it partly because it's something a little different.

[Pretas]

Exclusives aside, the Vita is probably the best handheld for fighting games. It has:

- UMvC3
- SFxT (all DLC characters unlocked)
- Mortal Kombat 9
- Injustice Ultimate
- GGXXAC+R
- Blazblue CS Extend & CP
- Dead or Alive 5+ (not Ultimate)
- Yatagarasu (to be released)

And backwards compatibility with downloadable PSP games.

A lot of people never knew that Tekken 6 got a PSP version. It has some exclusive bonuses and is a pretty decent port.

[Damocles]

PSP or Vita. CFW on a PSP opens up, well, everything. Even with OFW you have access to a ton of stuff.

Stick a d-pad cover on the PSP and you're good to go. Also works wonders for shmups.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

PSP with custom firmware. You can play all the Neo Geo and CPS-2 stuff then. Playing Mark of The Wolves on portable is pretty sweet.

I'd do the full dpad mod where you take the system apart and put a piece of plastic underneath the dpad. The stick on pads work great until it loses its stickiness and start sliding around.

Match of The Millennium on the Neo Geo pocket is quite solid too.

I think I heard something about the 3DS getting an arcade stick style adapter for the circle pad so that might be a good option too.

[ACSeraph]

I'm going to agree with Pretas and vote Vita. Seems like most fighters releasing nowadays are getting Vita ports and a lot of them are really fun single player games. Say what you will about about competative play, but SFxT is crazily addictive for single player gaming on the go. And most all of the PSP'S fighters are also available digitally.

The D-pad is also absolutely godly for FG imo, probably the best D-pad around outside of the Sega Saturn. I get the argument for emulation, but I feel like having modern options on top of a good sized back-log of classics is better than being able to play super-obscure older stuff on the go.

It might not be the arcade fighter experience, but I love my Neo Geo Pocket Color. Match of the Millennium in particular is a good fighter on that system. I like it partly because it's something a little different.

I love my NGPCs (plural ) like they are my own children, but people give me weird looks when I bust that shit out on the train

[Skykid]

Vita with CFW. Really is your holy grail: Vita, CPS2, NGPC, PSP catalogue, etc, on a lovely slab of OLED if you bag a 1000 series while there's still time.

Only thing you need is a BIG proprietary memory card and that's expensive - but worth the outlay if you want a varied catalogue that's good to go.

I love my NGPCs (plural ) like they are my own children, but people give me weird looks when I bust that shit out on the train

Are you kidding, that's the ultimate hipster cool. When I first got my backlit modded OG GameBoy I took it everywhere playing Solar Striker and Mole Mania. Nothing gets a girl's pussy wet like a fat slab of GameBoy.

[Mortificator]

Thanks for the advice, everyone! I think I'll be picking up a Vita in the near future.

The Match of the Millennium is a classy game, glad to see it's appreciated.

[LEGENOARYNINLIA]

My personal favourites are Real Bout Garou Densetsu Special Dominated Mind running on PSP/Vita and Nettou KOF'96 on front/backlit Game Boy.

RBS Dominated Mind's controls work well on a portable system, and the AI is a complete asshole - in a good way. Best portable fighting game ever.

Nettou KOF'96 is loads of fun if you've spent a lot of time playing the original. Cute and full of bullshit. One of the most impressive ports ever.

Other games I play on the go are Star Gladiator and Samurai Spirits Shinshou. And other Nettou titles published By Takara.

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

I would get a PSP Go with CFW.

Like mentioned above it will play all Neo Geo and CPS2 games. It plays them perfectly, I have tested every Neo Geo game and the only game that doesn't work is Samurai Shodown 5 Special. You can even include a file that contains a compilation of movelists for all of the fighters on MVSPSP CPS2PSP that can be accessed from the menu. It will play most of the PS1 fighting games, I haven't encountered one that I couldn't get to work. Then there are PSP versions of several fighting games including Darkstalkers / Vampire another chronicle, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Blazeblue games, Guilty Gear, etc.

I love the Go, it is my favourite handheld at the moment, even though it doesn't look ergonomic it is so light that it feels comfortable. The 16GB internal storage will likely hold everything you want and it is faster than the memory cards I've used on previous PSP models.

[ACSeraph]

The D-pad on the Go is way too flat though; it's absolute hell on your thumb. It's responsive at least, but my thumb is always tired/sore not long after I start playing. For PSP emulation I would recommend a 2000 with a mini-SD -> pro duo converter. Get one of these bad boys and fit it with 2 32 gig mini-SD cards (very cheap) and you will never ever run out of space.

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

Yeah I feel that the D-pads on all of the PSP models are inadequate, as well as most of the recent handhelds, so I've just tried to get accustomed to them.
If you've directly compared the D-pads from the various PSP iterations then your opinion likely trumps my own in that regard.

[ACSeraph]

I've owned every revision of it, the 1000 series is almost unusable without modifications, but the 2k and 3k perform decently, about as well as a PS3 controller. The Vita is incredible though, I'm not even kidding when I say it's Saturn tier.