25 Best PSP Strategy Games of All Time

You play as a fresh-faced recruit of the Space Corps.

The Space Corps is tasked with defending Earth from a new threat, the Bydo.

After an outpost on Mars goes dark, the Space Corps mobilizes and rushes to investigate.

When you think of the R-Type series, you’re likely to think of a side-scrolling shooter.

This game is a big departure from that formula, however despite being a turn-based strategy game R-Type Command still uses the side-scrolling aesthetic for their maps.

This isn’t just a style choice. Since you can’t change the way you’re facing, it directly impacts what attacks and skills your units can use.

The game boasts 58 levels and over 100 different units.

Couple that with clever map design and you have an amazing strategy game with a ton of depth and an enjoyable story that has a great twist.

In the Empire of Gargandia there is a growing conflict between the upper class, the Daltanians, and the lower class, the Leonicans.

The Leonicans and Daltanian sympathizers have created a resistance army called the Esperanza.

You play as platoon leader, Giulio who after a battle that nearly takes his life is granted the power of a demonic weapon called Gungnir swinging the conflict in Esperanza’s favor.

Will the Esperanza be victorious, or does a terrible fate await for Guilio?

Gungnir has a wonderful art style.

They utilize hand-drawn sprites that are rendered in 3d which gives it a unique and refreshing look.

The gameplay also stands out for one unique mechanic called the “Tactics Gauge” which has a pool of points that can be used for various functions.

If you have a lot of tactics points it will increase your units’ attack power, but if you spend the points you can change the turn order.

Will you hoard your points or will you use them and wreck your enemies’ well-laid plans?

The game sports a rich narrative, moreover, there are multiple endings which will give you a ton of incentive for multiple playthroughs.

You are a happy citizen of the Isle of Heartflame.

You enjoy whiling away your days exploring the island, growing crops, improving your homestead, and helping the people of Volcano Town.

Will you find something extraordinary in the ruins that litter the island?

Will you survive being attacked by monsters while exploring?

Only you can master your fate and the dangers on Heartflame island.

Unlike a traditional Harvest Moon game, Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon adds RPG elements and battles to the mix.

You have a huge tropical island to explore that has plenty of ruins and even a volcano, as well as the addictive daily life simulator gameplay that Harvest Moon is known for.

If you can’t decide whether you want to play an RPG or Harvest Moon, now you don’t have to.

This is the perfect game to scratch both itches.

One day you receive a voicemail from your eccentric uncle Mortimer.

It turns out he’s seen your designs for rollercoasters and thinks they are phenomenal.

It’s always nice to get a compliment from your crazy uncle, but the really good news is he’s offering you the chance to run a theme park of your own, called Thrillville.

Success will bring many things, including business rivals, and the trials and tribulations of a theme park manager.

Thrillville is more than just a Tycoon game.

There is an actual story to go along with designing the park that you want to run, additionally, there is a party mode where you can actually play minigames based off the attractions you design in the park.

If you get tired of setting up food stalls to keep your guests happy, play mini-golf or tear around a newly installed race track.

It offers a lot to the player and has plenty of fun spins on the classic manager style game to keep it fresh and interesting.

In a continent known as Noievarl, an advanced civilization was destroyed by creatures known as Angel 2000 years ago.

After the Angels disappeared and the continent had a chance to heal a young man named Crevanille, a mercenary trained since childhood, witnessed the return of the Angels.

With the return of an ancient foe, will Crevanille be able to stop the destruction about to befall his homeland?

Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time is notable for its interesting choices for game mechanics.

It takes out the traditional grid-based movement system and replaces it with a circular area in which to move your units.

Its real-time battles come with a lot of fun strategy elements.

The active battles bring a different kind of pacing to engagements and give you and your enemy the opportunity to interrupt turns.

There’s also an element to the magic system that lets you cast spells co-operatively to increase their effectiveness.

The story is also stellar, moreover, there are 40 different endings that you can unlock so there’s plenty of reasons to go back for more.

The Worms franchise isn’t known for being story rich.

It is, however, known for its sense of humor and bombastic weapons.

The two hallmarks of Worms like to intermingle with each other to make for an enjoyable massacre.

Worms: Open Warfare is a fun time, just like the other games that came before.

You have story missions that give you specific challenges to complete with limited toolsets.

The other part of Worms is the local multiplayer which is just as crazy and over the top as ever.

The weapons are the real star of the show, and all the old favorites, like the banana bomb, are still there.

The worm sprites are animated and quirky and customizable and the stages look amazing.

If you haven’t tried Worms: Open Warfare yet, play it with a few friends and enjoy the mayhem.

You play as, well, yourself.

The game itself is set in Tokyo and you are being mentored by Kenichi Nakamura and Professor Dawson, both working for PSP R&D.

A hacking attempt was made on PSP R&D to try and steal their Invizimals technology that was pioneered by Nakamura.

It’s your job to catch as many Invizimals as you can and track down the unknown hacker and keep Invizimals technology from falling into the wrong hands.

Invizimals has an augmented reality slant to its gameplay.

Instead of wandering around the overworld on your screen and fight random enemies, you actually use the PSP’s camera to hone in on your monsters and trap them.

The type of monster that spawns is based on the color of the objects you are viewing through the camera and the time of day.

The basic gameplay is similar to Pokemon but what really makes the game stand out is the augmented reality mechanic.

It was Pokemon GO before Pokemon GO existed.

With over 100 Invizimals to collect and secrets to uncover, there is no shortage of fun to be had.

The premise is simple. You are a loyal minion of the demon lord, Badman.

It’s your job to defend him by creating an elaborate dungeon to destroy the heroes seeking to end Badman’s reign of terror for good.

While the game is simple, the mechanics allow for a great deal of depth of strategy.

You have a limited number of points to dig out the dungeon and upgrade monsters to defend your demon lord.

Finding a good balance between your monsters and how large a dungeon you want is paramount for victory.

Moreover, if you fail to destroy the hero before he gets to the demon lord, you still have the chance to spawn more monsters to prevent the hero from escaping with your liege.

The bonus is the sense of humor that the game sports. The title says it all.

What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!? is a lighthearted strategy game with tons of options for you to defend your demon lord.

You control a battalion of bloodthirsty worms.

Replete with an arsenal of whacky weapons and fun hats, it is your mission to eliminate enemy worms and gain even MORE fun hats and unlock other weapons of wormy destruction.

Worms: Battle Islands doesn’t deviate from the Worms formula, however, it is designed specifically to take advantage of the PSP’s controls.

The control scheme is intuitive and friendly to new players of the Worms franchise.

The single-player campaign has 30 missions that will allow you to unlock your customization options and PvP is still the highlight of the game, allowing you to pit your wits against other players to see who’s team can dominate a map.

There’s a princess that needs rescuing, but the problem is you aren’t the only one doing the rescuing.

A rival team of heroes seeks to steal your glory.

The obvious answer to your problem is feeding the princess cake until she gets too fat to be carried away, buying you time to figure out how to steal her from underneath your rivals’ noses.

Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake is a real-time action strategy game where two teams of 16 try to rescue the princess before the other team can.

In addition to the “Save the Princess Mode” there are multiple other game types to enjoy.

Between the multiple game modes, absurd sense of humor, six character classes, and large multiplayer battles there’s plenty of fun and cake to be had with this title.

The heroes are at it again.

What’s a loyal minion to do but create an even more dangerous dungeon to traverse?

The demon lord Badman needs defending again, and it’s your job to fell the heroes threating you lord, and get heaps of praise in the process.

The sequel puts a few new mechanics in place to make your dungeon creating even more interesting than before.

While the gameplay is still similar to the original, What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!? 2 gives you more control over how your monsters power up.

Monsters can randomly evolve forms through mutation.

These mutations are classified as deformity, obesity, and gigantism.

There is also a new room called “The Overlord’s Chamber” where you can closely observe the breeding of your monsters.

With the new mechanics, familiar gameplay and even more levels, monsters and a great sense of humor, this version of the game is one you shouldn’t miss.

The Princess of Fantasinia, Yggdra, is fleeing her home with her family heirloom, the Holy Sword Gran Centurio.

Her kingdom is under attack from Bronquian Empire and has nearly conquered all of it.

The only way she can bring peace to the land and get revenge for her people is to gather together a ragtag group of warriors and thwart the Bronquian war machine.

Yggdra Union: We’ll Never Fight Alone is a great game with a deep and interesting story that provides a compelling moral choice in gameplay.

Three different endings will keep the completionists out there coming back, additionally, the tactical RPG elements are a treat as well.

The main unique mechanic that governs combat is the “Union” system.

Unions are essentially large groups of soldiers that attack at one, however, you can also make Unions of only a single character.

Troop formations are set by gender as well, giving male Unions an X shape and female Unions a Y shape.

You only get to move and attack with one union at a time, and your enemy has the same restriction.

This makes the pacing of the battles feel epic and intense with up to 80 units attacking the enemy.

The PSP version also includes even more story content and characters making it the most comprehensive version available.

Definitely pick up the PSP version if you can.

You play as Wisp, the soul of a murdered king.

Wisp has amnesia from being violently torn from his body.

With help from a Valkyrie and the souls of other dead knights, Wisp seeks to defend the world of the living from an army of demons and their mysterious leader, who seeks to dominate the world.

Knights in the Nightmare boasts a tremendous story filled with twists and turns, as well as multiple branches in the narrative that reveal details that you wouldn’t be able to see in just one playthrough.

It’s mechanically similar to other tactical RPGs with a few notable exceptions.

First of all the exp you earn are distributed to your party however you choose, so you don’t have to worry about one unit or another soaking up all the experience why other units flounder.

A battle is a blend of traditional tactical RPG gameplay, real-time strategy, and shooters.

Weirdly enough, however, this doesn’t make the game an unholy union of disparate mechanics, they managed to balance each element to provide a unique and memorable way to fight.

In the year 2016, a plane is hijacked with Senator and presidential candidate on board.

The terrorists responsible demand a research project dubbed “Pythagoras” from a Southern African state called the Moloni Republic.

The United States immediately launches an investigation into Pythagoras but is shut out by the Moloni Republic.

After a failed attempt to infiltrate Moloni, the US sends in Solid Snake to get to the bottom of Pythagoras and rescue the Senator.

Metal Gear Acid is an interesting game, even by Metal Gear standards.

It is a strategy game, but instead of a menu-driven and stat-based experience, it is set up like a collectible card game in addition to the turn-based combat that you’re used to.

With its unique gameplay setup and a story worthy of the Metal Gear moniker, it’s worth picking up for Metal Gear fans and strategy game fans alike.

You play a newly recruited member of the Advanced Tactical Legion for Allied Security (ATLAS), an international military alliance.

ATLAS has been tasked with fighting against the Shadow Nation, a globe-spanning criminal empire.

It’s up to you and your fellow soldiers to bring justice to this dangerous group of terrorists and criminals.

Field Commander is an imaginative take on a traditional military strategy game.

You can stack multiple units on a single square, for example, you can have a plane in the air, an infantry unit on a bridge and a submarine in the water under the bridge, all on the same square.

Another interesting feature is the ability to affect terrain using explosives or tank shells.

You can make a dense forest that would normally only allow infantry to pass and clear it so you can roll tanks through.

You can also use explosive ordnance to destroy urban areas to reduce the amount of money your opponent gets each turn.

With a single-player campaign as well as online multiplayer, there’s a ton of fun to be had using imaginative ways to circumvent your enemy’s defenses and claim victory.

You once again control Snake, who is trying to fly into the United States covertly with two of his allies.

They are shortly apprehended and are coerced into another mission by cocky FBI agent named Dalton.

He wants you to infiltrate an isolated island research facility run by SaintLogic because he suspects they are conducting inhumane experiments on children.

It’s your job to sneak it, investigate his allegations and bring back evidence of their terrible crimes.

Metal Gear Acid 2 is a major improvement over the original.

It still retains the card game aspect of the first game, but improves the system by allowing you to sell off cards that you have duplicates of, and gives you the ability to use what it calls “cover fire” where if you have two units within range of the same target, you can have both attacks at the same time.

The graphics for the game got a major overhaul as well.

With new particle effects and a brighter, cell-shaded aesthetic.

Additionally, there are more modes than just the story to play.

There is an “Arena” mode where you can fight bosses from previous Metal Gear games, as well as “Sneaking” and “Elimination” modes.

What’s better than a team of cutthroat worms in funny hats who want to blow things up?

That’s easy, it’s MORE worms in funny hats that want to blow things up.

While it’s still a Worms game, it isn’t just a few more hats and funny voices, this one has more up its non-existent sleeves.

Worms: Open Warfare 2 sports that same Worms gameplay that you love, but brings more to the table than just customizable victory dances and voice lines.

There is a puzzle mode that forces you to use a limited amount of tools to reach a specific goal, additionally, there is a story mode that treats you to animated cutscenes between matches as well as the classic Worms deathmatches that will fill your hours with hilarious hijinx and explosions.

There is also a “Forts” mode that takes the traditional deathmatch mode and adds siege mechanics to the mix.

You play as a sailor during the “Golden Age of Piracy”.

You were wronged by a Spanish nobleman and it’s up to you to decide how to get your revenge.

Will you become a privateer and raid Spanish galleons?

Will you explore uncharted islands in the Carribean for merchants?

Will you be a Rum Runner and ply your trading abilities to gain wealth and influence?

No matter what you choose, we can all agree that the best revenge is success.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! is a fantastic port of the original PC game release and is a great fit for the portable game format.

The main strength is the games fantastic pacing.

You are never a large number of turns away from something interesting.

You’ll be so busy setting up trade deals, attending balls, dueling and trading broadsides with enemy ships that you’ll be an old person counting the coin you earned along the way before you know it.

Time flies when you’re having fun being a pirate.

The story follows a young human man named Adell.

His family was cursed by the demon Overlord Zenon.

The curse has changed his family into demons.

In a desperate attempt to reverse the curse, he and his family attempt to summon Overlord Zenon so they can defeat him.

Instead, the accidentally summons his daughter, Rozalin.

She agrees to help Adell find the Overlord and force him to lift the curse and save his family.

The PSP version of Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days isn’t just a port of the PS2 game.

It’s an enhanced edition that includes some mechanics from Disgaea 3, as well as some characters from that game, additionally, they packed it with other extras that include new character classes, new shops, new modes, and new playable characters.

The story is also just as fun as the original Disgaea.

It’s filled with moments both touching and hilarious in a way that only Japanese anime can pull off.

The game is set 2 years after the initial game and follows our protagonists as they try to battle an attempted ethnic cleansing by a newly formed militia called the Gallian Revolutionary Army.

With the original Gallian army in tatters after the conflict with the previous antagonists, you’ll be hard-pressed to return peace to your homeland and keep the country of Gallia from tearing itself apart.

While the gameplay isn’t hugely changed for Valkyria Chronicles 2, they have added additional classes as well as the ability to upgrade those classes into specialists which increases the depth of the combat.

Moreover, the new class called “Armored Tech” can deploy a large shield that can deflect enemy rifle and machine-gun fire, as well as disarm mines.

This will give you more defense options and allow your tank to move a bit more freely without having to worry about tripping a mine that could cripple or destroy your mobile armor.

This is all topped off with a compelling narrative that the series is known for.

In a fictionalized version of the 100 Years War between France and England, demons roam the countryside ravaging innocent French citizens and helping the English army in their campaign to take control of France itself.

After Jeanne’s village was razed by English soldiers, she and her friends Roger and Laine are guided by a voice from the heavens to rally the French and repel the demonic invasion threatening to swallow France.

Jeanne d’Arc has balanced a lot of interesting mechanics.

While it does take a traditional map movement system and opportunities to grind for equipment and experience it also brings rock, paper, scissors elements to combat.

A completely unique feature of combat is something called “Burning Aura” which occurs after one of your units lands an attack.

A field appears in the space directly behind the enemy, and you can move a character to that spot to land an attack that deals more damage than usual.

There is also a “Unified Gaurd” ability that works for enemy attacks.

If you have allies one space away from the unit being targeted, your damage is reduced and it increases the likelihood of the enemy missing entirely.

Between the semi-historical story and great blend of mechanics, Jeanne d’Arc is a must for any strategy game fan.

Tikiman, the proud defender of the forest is in trouble.

Roving bands of monsters have invaded his homeland and are threatening to devour his offspring.

It is your job to defend the defender and protect his children from this monster horde.

PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe is the ultimate version of the PixelJunk Monsters game, with all the DLC and more added to the base game for the PSP.

Instead of moving a cursor around the map you control your avatar, picking up gold and setting up the defenses against the waves of monsters trying to eat Tikiman’s progeny.

There are over 36 levels to play through, including 3 special levels that will give your avatar additional abilities, additionally, there are 3 difficulty levels on top of all of it, making the game incredibly replayable.

The demon overlord has passed.

He met his demise by choking on a black pretzel, his favorite snack.

As the son of the Overlord, Prince Laharl must assert his dominance over the other demons looking to take the throne, thwart Angelic assassination attempts and rule over the Netherworld with an iron fist.

This port of the PS2 original brings a bunch of improvements to the table when it comes to presentation.

The aspect ratio and optimization have been brought into modernity by getting rid of the occasional frame skipping that would happen with the more over the top anime-style special attacks that your units are capable of.

The unit customization and deep strategy is all there, as well as the wonderful story.

Laharl’s journey to becoming overlord is just as touching and absurd as the original was, and the voice acting brings the characters to life beautifully.

There is a reason why Disgaea has seen so many sequels and the original still stands tall after all these years.

You play as Ramza Beoulve, youngest son of the noble Beoulve family.

Born into wealth and privilege, you are recruited into the royal army and are tasked with helping your family gain glory in a civil war to claim the throne.

The country of Ivalice is currently embroiled in a war of succession and you, along with your childhood friend Delita must navigate through classism and political intrigue to uphold your beliefs and bring the country back together before the Lion War tears it apart.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is an updated version of the 1998 cult classic.

Final Fantasy Tactics practically wrote the rulebook for strategy RPGs.

With the update, there are now animated cutscenes bringing its complex and satisfying story to life, and the already deep Job system has two brand new jobs added to it, giving you more options to use in your fight to save Ivalice.

It’s easy to lose yourself in the story and grinding for hours to set up a unit with the perfect combination of job skills to suit your playstyle.

If you want to know why there was a massive boom in the late 90s and early 2000s in the strategy RPG genre, this is the title that arguably made it happen.

The country of Valeria was at peace until the King passed away without an heir apparent.

This power vacuum caused a massive upheaval in society and led to horrific ethnic cleansing and political interference from outside sources.

With your village destroyed you, playing as Denam Pavel, seek to lead the Liberation Army to get revenge for all that you’ve lost, and hopefully bring peace back to Valeria.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is truly one of the greatest strategy RPGs, on the PSP or otherwise.

It features a complex story that has branching paths depending on the choices you make and what battles you participate in.

The game has a feeling of reality and gravity because of the grounded setting and very personal journey of the central protagonist.

It’s easy to get invested in the adventure because the impetus is relatable and easy to understand without any knowledge of the previous entries in the series.

There is lots of depth to its gameplay as well, with multiple character classes and turn order being deemed by the stats of individual characters and not just enemy and ally status.

While Final Fantasy Tactics made the genre commercially mainstream, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together adds to the formula and brings replayability due to the branching narrative.