During one of the recent excellent “Gamestop 25% off used PSP games” weekly deals, I picked up the Square remakes of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II in preparation for my family’s annual week of relaxation at the New Jersey shore. I now, over the span of five consoles, have accumulated the entire series of numbered Final Fantasy titles sans FF XI. And with that accomplishment, I’ve finally set out to conquer the most storied RPG franchise in video game history from its initial installment.

I’m about six hours into the game, and I’ll start by saying this is the type of game for which the PSP was created. Fast load times, simplistic controls, incredible price-to-gameplay value are characteristics of a blueprint that should be copied for all PSP games to come. Unfortunately, as the PSP catalog amounts to nothing more than a dumping ground for PS2 ports, complete with the requisite shoehorning of its dualshock control scheme, Sony continues to position the PSP to be something more than what it should, or can, be.

It would be unfair to talk about the shortcomings of the game itself, as its core gameplay is 20 years old; but it is a disappointment it wasn’t given the same overhaul as FF III and IV for the DS. There needed to be something to spruce up the rudimentary story and bland characters of a game that just did not age well. I was continually thinking of the original Golden Sun title for the GBA, and how that was a better game both technically and creatively.

Maybe it was my waning interest in FF, but it also exposed another need for the PSP – in-game custom soundtracks. If Sony keeps preaching the media capabilities of the PSP, what better than to integrate the ability to play music stored on a memory stick while playing a game? It would have been perfect for a game like FF to be able to listen to my backlog of podcasts and at least remain interested while progressing through dungeon levels and random battles. Sony, if you could add this via firmware to the XMB, I would love ya for it.

So now the question is, should I continue to press through FF or just skip to FF II and beyond?