When I first saw the above screenshot on the PlayStation Store for PS5, I thought to myself “Uh oh, the PS2 version of Lego Star Wars II looks worse than I remember.” Sony recently got back into re-releasing PlayStation 2 games with the sudden drop of Tomb Raider Legend last week. The second Lego Star Wars seemed like a weird choice for continuing that initiative, but I was still happy to see it pop up in the new releases section.
It wasn’t until I downloaded the game and played through the entire introduction, opening hub, and first stage that I realized my mistake. “This game requires 128kb on the Memory Stick to Save,” said the UI. Wait a minute, Memory Stick? That’s not the save media used by the PS2. A wave of realization washed over me: this was the PSP port.
Suddenly, game that I thought hadn’t aged well was in fact something far more interesting and impressive: the return of a port I once thought nigh impossible. Its game play quality managed to fool me for almost thirty minutes, before then eliciting a huge “Ohhhhh” out of my mouth directed at no one in particular.
The PSP (or PlayStation Portable) was the first of Sony’s two attempts at breaking into the dedicated handheld gaming market, and their most successful one from a sales perspective. It used tiny…
