Got a Vita on release day, one of those new fancy ones that come with Borderlands. I have some good and some bad that I wish people would have told me. So now I tell you, so you know.
The good
1. The device itself is excellent. Feels like a cross between a PSP and one of those new fancy tablets. I've been swapping between FFXIV, Borderlands 2, and the Walking Dead (Telltale Games), with relative ease.
2. Battery life on the new version is surprisingly long. I found myself playing for hours and going "I should have had to plug in by now..."
3. When connecting to PS4 drectly (without a router for local play) the range is 20-30 feet approximately. So within range of the PS4, The game runs well, at PS4 speed, some window resizing, but if you can adjust to the smaller scale, it is a literal mini-translation. If you uncheck the box to connect to PS4 directly, the game becomes a bit slower (still much faster than PS3), but you extend the signal length to the capacity of your router's signal so you can pretty much travel all around your house with it.
4. I love being able to mine, craft, check retainers, and garden from my living room. I beat Ifrit HM and Hydra from the Vita on my bard this weekend, so it can be done, but for me at least, it was not easy. I have also tanked the new lost city dungeon and beat garuda HM and T1 recently on bard, so it is possible, just presents some extra challenges.
5. Thank Eorzea for the two little cool joysticks. 2 joysticks = Good. Take notes, Nintendo.
The bad
1. Whoever designed it and tested it must have had the smallest hands on the planet. My poor big hands do not even come close to being comfortable. The device was made for 8-10 year old hands, I'm pretty sure.
2. The rear touch pad is divided into three quadrants, and is used for L2, R2, R3, and L3. Unresponsive pain in the rear. I would rather have a little more bulk to the system than have to deal with those touchscreens. Due to the size of my hands, it is nearly impossible to press them. I wish I had a peripheral like my lifesaving circle pad pro ( http://www.gamestop.com/nintendo-3ds/accessories/3ds-circle-pad-pro-gamestop-exclusive/98636 ) to help me with these touchscreen and gripping problems. Note: I have discovered that swiping the regions of the touchscreen works much better than a press.
3. I can not cycle through my HUD menu on the Vita. On PS3, I could press select. On the PS4 I press down the middle touchpad. On the Vita, it says that my front touchpad/screen will perform the task of the HUD cycling, but the front screen does not click in. Even adjusting in the menu to assign it to a button, it still does not work. So pretty much I have to mouse over on the front touchpad to attempt to target the highly detailed (but very very small) commendation buttons and loot buttons when they pop. Same goes for having to click the mouse in the chat window to talk to anyone. Although when I do get there, it is physically easier to type text on the Vita using the controller than it is to type with a ps3 or ps4 controller, so that is good. This is hands down the most annoying feature for me.
4. The memory cards for the Vita come in 4GB and 8GB varieties. They look like the mini-SD cards. At first I thought, well I'll just go and buy a 32MB generic card for $20 from the camera isle in walmart like I did with the 3DS, but upon inspection, the Vita cards are shaped differently than the generic camera mini SD cards. Once I installed Borderlands II (full version with all add ons btw, that was a cool perk) I didnt have enough space to install Walking Dead, so I was forced to buy a another stinking 8MB Vita memory card for 24 dollars.
Bottom line (and probably due to terrible sales early on) they really need to step up in the controller comfort and memory card universality areas. The range on the local wireless connection left something to be desired, but when connecting through the router all is well. But despite its limitations, the ability to use the device almost as a tablet while being able to play games like borderlands II while controlling my PS4 at the same time makes me happy I made the purchase.
And if you have any solutions or quick fixes to my HUD cycling issue, I am all ears.
Edited, May 8th 2014 10:23am by Valkayree
Edited, May 10th 2014 8:53am by Valkayree