Games That Travel Well

hipernoico writes "Wired has a summary of good portable RPG games for the end of this year. 'What better way to travel than in the company of a dragon-slaying knight? ' " I've travelled thousands of miles playing various Game Boy Pokemon titles. Although lately WarioWare Touched and Meteos have taken the place of my usual RPG travel companions. What games will you be playing while dreading arriving at your parents house?

Advance Wars

[BushCheney08]

I've found that Advance Wars 1&2 are good travel games. Each level takes about 30 minutes or so, and you don't need any volume. Great for airports, planes, or sitting around after xmas dinner. I don't have a DS, so I can't comment on AW on there, but I imagine it's just as good, if not better.

Pocket PC maturing nicely..

[puntloos]

Traditionally the PocketPC wasn't really seen as a serious contender to things like the PSP, however times are a changin, methinks.

Adventures: With scummvm - http://www.scummvm.org/ [scummvm.org] you can run any old lucasarts adventure perfectly:

• Sam and Max
  
• Day of the Tentacle
  
• Full Throttle
  

And modern PocketPC's are starting to have 'doable' processing power too.. Dell Axim X51v has 640x480 screen plus a true 3D accellerator, for example. I bet PSX-1 emulators will start to work soon enough...

Re:Save the batteries...Pen AND Paper Games...

[Gulthek]

Headphones are what you seek.

One can only play Hangman four to five times before boredom sets in.

Tic-tac-toe is amusing two or three times.

Crossword puzzles are only entertaining for a maximum of 1.3 hours.

Video games can be entertaining for 20+ hours straight.

GBA/DS Games

[BenjyD]

Golden Sun is an enjoyable GBA RPG, although a bit annoying in places (I still can't complete the final battle)

Fire Emblem and Advance Wars (DS or GBA) are games that make journeys appear to pass in a flash: I've nearly missed stations on the train because I was too involved in the game. They're both turn based and easily suspendable, so interruptions don't matter.

How about RPG's for Laptops?

[swordfish666]

Let's say a 1.8GHZ/512RAM/64Video....

So far I have found:
Diablo II runs well
NWN runs ok if you turn everything down

Definitely, NetHack!

[RicochetRita]

Yup. It's turn-based & runs on damn near everything.

(Of course, it helps to have the portable hardware to carry it around on...)

R

A summary containing only 3 games?

[VitrosChemistryAnaly]

Okay, I just read TFA. Um, there are only 3 games in this "summary". Don't you think they could have gone over more games?

Basically the article boils down to this: Final Fantasy IV is good for the GBA. Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time is good for DS. PoPoLoCrois is good for PSP.

Any other /.ers recommend any more games?

I find the summary quite lacking.

Ah there already is one..

[puntloos]

http://www.fpsece.net/index.html [fpsece.net] - Plays most of the final fantasies at 40+fps on a 400Mhz Xscale device already.. nice.

Sudoku

[jaf]

Sudoku on my Treo650 works well for me when I need to pass the time..

Re:Save the batteries...Pen AND Paper Games...

[AKAImBatman]

Save the batteries...Pen AND Paper Games...

Amen. There are even some more advanced games that can be played on the go. Ghoulash [ghoulash.com], for example, only requires two printed sheets and two pencils. Scenarios take about 45 minutes to 1.5 hours, and you can pause at any time.

I've also heard of people taking printable board games like Battle for Moscow [grognard.com] and mounting them on thick cardboard sheets. They're then able to put pins through the pieces to keep them in place at all times.

Good Rpg's for Xmas Travel

[Fentekreel]

Well there are a few games that are probably on the good ol' xmas list anyways. Though these are the ones that i have played ober the past few xmas's Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls: An excellent throwback to the elder of the Final Fantasy series. The new dungeons and exceellent redrawing of the characters is just enjoyable. The mix of old and new bosses within the first game are worth it alone....not to mention no more inneffective fighting. ;) Unless you count the battery failing ;) The remakeof FF2 is pretty nice and very close to the orignal. The music on both are quite nice and enjoyable. Legand of Zelda Four Swords: Its Zelda with a multiplayer twist...addictingly fun with multiple people though it is the third zelda in the series a very good pickup none the less my girlfriend has been addicted to it like she is to chocolate ;) hard to peel away at least until she got ... Legand of Zelda: The Minish Cap: Yeah she got this game and still has yet to finish it. She has to find everything....damn persistance i want to play it sometime too heh.... but there are many many things to find and puzzles to solve. Done in the good ol' top down fashion so you can still feel like your on the super nintendo. moving along a little bit .... Final Fantasy IV: This title just came out recently but if it is anything like the SNES version of FFII it will be a killer of time and money well spent. The updates to the soundtrack and the redawing of a good portion of characters to cleant them up to the re graphing of the dialouge to reflect better story should welcome new fans and help remind some of us getting on in our gaming years what rpg's use to have.

Re:Advance Wars

[Hitto]

It's the best!
And you can also unlock extra stuff if you insert the GBA titles in the DS's GBA slot.

Re:DS or PSP

[Bagels]

Definitely go for the DS, then. I own both, and haven't found much use for the PSP outside of its video-playing capabilities - and to properly take advantage of those, you have to shell out extra for UMD videos or large, expensive, proprietary Sony memory cards. Lumines is nice, but it came out many moons ago, and it doesn't see any more than occasional play from me now. My DS, on the other hand, has gotten loads of play of late - most recently due to Mario Kart DS, and also Meteos (an excellent puzzler) and Kirby: Canvas Curse (a truly innovative platformer). No, it's not as shiny and pretty looking as the PSP - but while I have no qualms about throwing my DS in my laptop bag on the way out the door, I'd think twice before treating my PSP the same way. What's more - the PSP doesn't do much of anything that my laptop doesn't, and it sounds like you're in a similar position with your laptop. If you've got your laptop, even the homebrew on the PSP loses its lustre - there's no homebrew out for PSP that hasn't been done better by PC software. Finally, there's the cash you'll save; the few times I've been tempted to buy a PSP game, I've been lured away by the prices of the nearby DS games, which are all $15-20 cheaper. Hell, you can get a DS and a good game (Mario Kart or Nintendogs) for $100 less than the PSP without any games or useful expansions (mem cards, etc.). Looking past the aesthetics, the better buy is pretty clear, IMHO.

Re:DS or GBA?

[StudlyDego73]

Well if you're torn between the 2 and are considering a DS anyways, just get that since it plays both DS and GBA games. That's what I have and I love it. Own probably twice as many GBA games as DS(all my gba are RPGs).