Got myself a PlayStation Vita today

See, my copy of Ys: Foliage Ocean in Celceta will be arriving either some time next week or early October and later on in the same month, DJMax Technika Tune will come out. With two must-have games on my list being released, I figure it’s high time to get myself a PS Vita.

I actually never had the chance to hold one in  my hands before so I was really surprised at how light it was, especially compared to the 3DS. The display is vibrant and crisp and all the games I’ve tried played fairly smoothly with no drops in framerates. What surprised me was that the audio volume can go up pretty damn high. X__x In terms of the actual offerings that came pre-installed on the Vita, like near, they seem all right. The only gripe I have about this system is how simply boring and, well, ugly the home screen is. I mean, take a look at this:

I would be completely happy if Sony continued to ues the XMB (XcrossMediaBar) GUI used with the PSP and PS3. I suppose they wanted something new for the Vita and came up with amateur Photoshop work. I mean, where’s the anti-aliasing? Kind of hoping that if custom firmware ever comes out for this device, it’ll include the option to install custom themes (and that people will design much nicer icons and layouts).  Speaking of which, why are there no official themes for the Vita?

Anyway, here’s another freaky screenshot of the games that I currently have installed:

I might get Dynasty Warriors Next because I’m a goofball that LIKES Tecmo Koei’s brainless hack-and-slash games. In fact, I’ve been eyeing Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2 & 3 for the PS3 for the longest time but they seem to NEVER go on sale.

Oh yes, I should note that I’m one of those PSN users that has multiple region accounts. In my case, I have one for North America, one for the United Kingdom, and one for Japan. Going between multiple accounts on the PS3 is extremely easy since I can just log in and log out. No fancy footwork is needed! Unfortunately, it’s not as simple with the handheld systems.

The PSP had people removing and reinstating their regional accounts over and over whenever they wanted to access games and data from a particular country account. Like the PSP, the Vita can only be linked to one account at a time. However, it takes this restriction one step further and requires a factory restore as well as a separate memory card for EACH account whenever you want to switch accounts. Pretty sickening, huh?

Tidbit: It used to be that you could have multiple accounts on a single Vita memory card but firmware version 1.80 removed that luxury.

Thankfully, I’ve yet to find anything that I desperately want from my Japanese or UK PSN accounts. I’m hoping this doesn’t change any time soon.