When Sony introduced the PlayStation Portable, one of its major selling points was raw power. It was marketed as a device capable of delivering 3D gaming experiences on par with early PlayStation 2 titles. What followed was a wave cendanabet of ambitious games that not only tested the hardware’s limits but redefined what handheld games could achieve. Some of the best PSP games stand today as technical marvels.

One such standout was Killzone: Liberation, which took the popular FPS franchise and transformed it into a top-down tactical shooter. Despite the genre shift, it preserved the franchise’s gritty tone, advanced AI, and visual fidelity. The controls were intuitive, the level design was clever, and the animation was smooth—elements that proved the PSP could handle complex mechanics without compromise.

Another high point was Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, which offered a full campaign with robust stealth-action gameplay, voice acting, and even online multiplayer. It felt like a console game shrunk down to fit in your hand, a remarkable feat in the mid-2000s. And unlike many other handheld systems at the time, the PSP supported updates and patches via memory cards, making it feel ahead of its time.

Titles like these weren’t just about graphics—they were about ambition. Developers saw the PSP as more than a secondary platform. It was a proving ground, a space to push boundaries and experiment with what portable gaming could be. As a result, the best PlayStation games from that handheld era still feel groundbreaking even now, especially for players discovering them for the first time.