Gamertell

Title: Pump It Up: Zero Portable
Price: $39.90
System(s): PSP
Release Date: October 15, 2007
Publisher (Developer): Andamiro (Studio 9)
ESRB Rating: N/A
Pros: 117 songs, English language option, cool background videos playing while you play, online ranking, PSP wallpapers you can earn. Different arrow options.
Cons: The cool background videos are too cool, and often distracting. Also the control scheme takes getting used to. Unlocking can be tedious since you must earn points.
Overall Score: 7/10

If you take away anything from this review, let it be that Pump It Up: Exceed Portable and Pump It Up: Zero Portable are pretty much interchangeable. If you own Zero Portable, you don’t need Exceed Portable. These two PSP titles aren’t like DDR entries, where there’ll be different songs, patterns or mechanics. Instead, Zero Portable is more like Exceed Portable 2.0 rather than a whole new game.

This means that almost everything I said in last week’s Exceed Portable review carries over to this week. Sure, there are a few differences, and those differences are what this review will focus on. This review will essentially help you decide which Pump It Up Portable would be best for you.

Music

Quite a few of the Pump It Up: Exceed Portable songs are in Pump It Up: Zero Portable. I haven’t had the chance to do much unlocking (since you need to earn points from playing to unlock new songs in Zero), so I’m not sure exactly how many. I’d wager about half appeared in Exceed.

Zero Portable does have quite a few more songs. It has 117 tracks to dance to, compared to Exceed Portable‘s 94 songs.

Menus/Modes

The menu system and modes are different in Zero Portable as well. The Arcade station is your basic play mode, where all the songs are available. The Easy station has a handful of songs that are very simple to play for people who haven’t played Pump It Up games to learn on. The Versus station lets you challenge other players. The Shop station where points earned in play can be used to unlock new songs, arrows, videos. The Mania station lets you watch replays of songs you’ve played, watch videos, set wallpapers and view scores.

So things are much more organized than in Exceed Portable. Also it is easier to navigate menus. In Exceed Portable, you navigate menus by pushing the down and x buttons. In Zero Portable you use the analog stick or directional buttons to make selections. It is much easier and more comfortable.

Unlocking

Excuse my language, but unlocking’s a bitch in Zero Portable. Unlike Exceed Portable, where you just have to pass songs to unlock videos, new difficulty levels or new songs, Zero Portable has a shop and points system.

All extra arrows, music videos and extra songs are sold in the shop for points. The cheapest item there is a different arrow design for 8,000. Everything else is a five digit figure or higher. Since passing most songs will only earn you between 100 and 1,000 points, it takes quite a long time to unlock stuff. You begin to cherish the things you have earned. I have 15,000 points so far, and I’m still debating which song to buy with it. Yes, songs cost a minimum of 10,000 points.

The only item you get to unlock for free are wallpapers. If you manage to completely combo a song - that is, you don’t get any “bads” or “misses,” then you’ll unlock the song’s intro image as a PSP wallpaper. And even that has its limits. Only one wallpaper can be saved to be used as a PSP wallpaper at a time.

Exceed or Zero?

Deciding which one is best comes down to your personal tastes and preferences. If you want the newest and most recent game, or one that requires quite a bit of dedicated playing, then Zero Portable‘s for you. If you prefer to have everything at once (via easy unlocking or Gamefaqs save) or want to master a game completely, then Exceed Portable‘s your game.

Personally, I’d prefer and recommend Zero Portable. While I prefer the unlocking methods of Exceed Portable, I like the menus, song selection and execution better in Zero Portable. But if Zero Portable‘s still on sale at Play-Asia for $12.90 http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-bj-49-en-15-pump+it+up-70-1pfi.html, then I’d say go for that instead.

COMING NEXT WEEK: Summer’s here! So next week’s Important Importables will look at some neat, Japanese gadgets that you can import for summer fun. If you don’t miss a single installment of Important Importables, or want to know right away when the next column is up, then sign up for the Gamertell Newsletter and RSS feed.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Last week Important Importables reviewed Pump It Up: Exceed Portable.

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