Important Importables: Pump It Up: Exceed Portable for PSP review

Title: Pump It Up Exceed PortablePrice: $12.90 (on sale at Play-Asia – retails for $49.90)System(s): PSPRelease Date: November 30, 2006Publisher (Developer): Andamiro (Studio 9)ESRB Rating: N/APros: Very nice song selection, Korean or English language options, cool background videos playing while you play, online ranking and a video mode where you can just listen to the music and watch the videos.Cons: The cool background videos are too cool, and often distracting. Also the control scheme takes getting used to and there is no auto-save function.Overall Score: 7/10

Not too long ago, Play-Asia had a deal on a special Pump It Up bundle, where you’d receive both Pump It Up: Exceed Portable and Pump It Up: Zero Portable for $19.99. Of course I jumped on the deal, and upon receiving my shipment decided I’d dedicate a column to reviewing one of the games.

The Pump It Up games are similar to Dance Dance Revolution, except they have five markers to hit instead of four. This makes the PSP version a bit more difficult, as you would imagine. It also requires a bit of an inventive control scheme to make the whole thing work, as the game involves diagonal arrows facing UP+LEFT, UP+RIGHT, DOWN+LEFT, DOWN+RIGHT, along with a center square/circle thing…