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You won’t need leather home theater seating to enjoy Dungeons and Dragons Tactics, the latest D&D videogame from Wizards of the Coast and Atari. That’s because it’s on the Sony PSP and, despite some lukewarm reviews, I feel the game is quite good.

Sure, it’s not as flashy as Final Fantasy Tactics or the forthcoming Disgaea Afternoon of Darkness (PSP) title, but it does go a long way toward capturing the atmosphere of the old paper-pen-and-2d20 tabletop game so many people enjoyed in their youth.

Dungeons and Dragons is losing its “cool” appeal to trading card games like YuGiOh!, so perhaps younger gamers won’t be able to relate. But for an old gamer like me, this PSP title is role-playing in the most classic sense, and the best videogame version of the D&D universe since the first Neverwinter Nights title for PC.

If you’re into videogames, stores like EB and GameStop are your hobby shops of choice. This fall, expect to find some interesting fare.

After years of offering Americans jack-squat when it comes to special editions of videogame hardware, Sony is changing that at last with a special Star Wars edition of the new PSP Slim. Cased in white with an image of Darth Vader engraved on it, it’s a classy piece of hardware.

Here’s hoping it sells well and starts a trend toward the US getting more special-edition hardware.

While some argue the Nintendo DS is hotter, when it comes right down to it, I’d put the top five RPGs on Sony PSP up against the top five RPGs on Nintendo DS any day.

If the two portable platforms shared bunk beds, I guarantee you it would be Sony PSP getting the top bunk every time.

Here’s my list of the Top 5 RPGs on Sony PSP at this time:

1) Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions from Square-Enix

Faithful remake of the PSone original, but with tons of new stuff. Available in October.

2) Jeanne d’Arc from Sony and Level-5

Anything Level-5 makes becomes RPG gold. Wonderful stuff. Available now.

3) Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth from Square-Enix

One of the most under-appreciates RPGs from the PSone era became one of the most appreciated RPGs on the Sony PSP last year.

4) Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII from Square-Enix

Promised to be to PSP what FFVII was to PSone. Release date still up in the air.

5) Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness from NIS America

Finally, Disgaea becomes portable! Expected release in October-November of this year.

When Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is released in North America on PSP, it might be worth your while to even indulge in a payday loan to get it before all the copies are swept up by older fans who remember playing the original when it was first released.

Word has it that the remake will contain many new features even compared to the version released in Japan earlier this year. And one of the things I’m looking forward to the most is a better localization than the game received about 10 years ago.

The PSone FFT had several endearing quirks to the translation, but many of them were less endearing and actually made the story harder to understand. The new version will have many cutscenes and the North American version will even boast voice-acting in those cut-scenes, a feature missing in the Japanese version. There will be new characters, new items, new weapons, new jobs and lots of added content to make the experience fresh for veterans of the old version.

Who could ask for anything cooler?

Pair this game with the recent Jeanne d’Arc RPG on PSP, and the Sony PSP is now unquestionably the portable platform of choice for RPG enthusiasts.

Some people ask me why Final Fantasy Tactics is so great. After all, it’s hardly as critically acclaimed as Final Fantasy VII was, the game’s about 10 years old, and it’s incredibly hard to conquer.

My response, for the most part, is: exactly. This is the game I’d love to lock myself into a Venetian hotel with and just play until I’ve completely beaten it.

Final Fantasy Tactics is a game where, if its style appeals to you, you don’t care if the game was critically acclaimed or not. These days, some entire companies (Atlus, NIS America) are almost exclusively devoted to making games that attempt to be everything that Final Fantasy Tactics was on PSone, yet only rarely do the imitators come close.

Sure, the game’s about 10 years old but I still take it out and play it from time to time; having it remade and re-released on PSP will only make that easier; the graphical facelift is merely a bonus.

And yes, Final Fantasy Tactics is hard to beat. Damn hard. It’s a game that will dare to challenge you to battles that last for an hour or more, and still find a way to wipe out your party, causing you to have to fight the battle over and over … and sometimes, over again.

The push in videogames these days is to make games easier and easier to win and breeze through. Final Fantasy Tactics is the antidote to such watered-down game play. I’m relatively certain that once the PSP comes out, the new version will keep me challenged for the next decade, the way the first version did since it was released on PSone.

OK, so it’s a remake and not a completely original title or sequel, but in this case I doubt anyone will complain. In October, the Sony PlayStation Portable will become home to the best all-time tactics-style RPG ever released on any platform.

While hardly necessary, this is one game it might even be worth selling off your bedroom furniture to own: Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions is an enhanced remake of the PSone-original title, Final Fantasy Tactics.

There will be a lot of new content, including more cinematic cut-scenes and some added missions, including the ability to draft Final Fantasy XII character Vaan into your party. No official word yet, but here’s hoping Vaan comes into play earlier in the game than Cloud Strife did on the PSone original.