There I sat, brow nervously furrowed, sweaty hands clammed around my PSP console. I had been sat there for approaching a good hour, consistently tapping buttons and wincing into the screen. A few deft clicks later and a series of frantic pushes of the D-pad and I clenched my trembling, twitching hand and yelled ‘yes!’ - or possibly something slightly ruder - loud enough to worry someone passing by the outside of my house. I had done it. After an hour of agonising, frustrating play I had completed the first level on Ghosts ‘n Goblins.

This passage of play appropriately sums up much of the time you’ll spend with Capcom’s latest collection of classic titles for the PSP. It teaches you that no, it’s not just your older brother saying it to annoy you – gaming back then was more difficult. Pixel-perfect jumping, enemies spawning in intensely unfair places, brutal one-hit-and-you-die health systems, it’s all crammed in there. A collection to be avoided by those with short temper fuses? Quite possibly.

So, what’s been packed in this time round? For your money you get vertical scrolling World War 2 shooters 1942, 1943 and 1943 Kai, dungeon-‘em-up platformers Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, army shooters Commando and Mercs, a trio of Street Fighter versions and a smattering of lesser-known titles from the same time period.

Most people will probably head towards Street Fighter first, and there are endless hours you can whittle away battling through to M. Bison or fighting against your pals in link mode. Returning after all these years to visits old friends like Ryu and Guile need not really be a guilty pleasure either, as the games still hold their charm very well and are great fun to play through.

The trio of Ghosts ‘n Goblins games are every bit as brutal as they were, each requiring rapid decision-making and a fair slice of luck for you to progress through. Helping Arthur the knight to save his kidnapped girlfriend often involves long periods of repeating a short section of a level trying to somehow fathom a tactic for surviving it. The thing with each game though is that they carry weighty bragging rights if completed, and it’ll keep you plugging through even when you feel like throwing your PSP at the nearest wall.

1942 and its associated follow-ups offer little respite. I can’t admit to being a particularly adept vertical shooter player, but time on Ikaruga had given me what I thought to be a pretty good chance of doing well should I come across similar games. I was wrong. The main problem with the games is that to retain a proper aspect ratio they’ve had to be shrunk in order to appear correctly on the PSP screen, and although there is the option to flip the screen horizontally it leaves the player awkwardly hashing at the controls. Thus, the games’ difficulties are greatly increased by forcing the player into a squintathon just to see opponent bullets.

The rest of the games vary in terms of quality. Commando and Mercs provide excellent shooter entertainment much in the vain of Cannon Fodder, but Knights of the Round feels (and actually is) like new skin on Golden Axe framework. That said, none of the games available are complete lemons and you’ll end up playing most of them through at least once.

Playing the games earns you coins for your performances based on a number of criteria. The coins can be spent in the slot machine that offers you a number of prizes such as artwork, music and cheats for each of the games included. There’s certainly a good collection of stuff on offer and even if you’re not too bothered about getting music for Son Son, but gaining artwork for Street Fighter 2 is all good.

I’ll hold my hands up right now and openly admit that this is the first retro compilation that I’ve sampled. I was always a little wary of going back over old ground and reasonably convinced I would spoil some pretty happy gaming memories by exposing just how ropey some of my previous favourites were.

It was therefore much to my pleasure when I realised I had spent a good 20 hours totting up scores and shooting my way through various levels on Reloaded. Quite a few of these could be totted up due to the inordinate loading times which often see you waiting up to 30 seconds for a game to load, but you’ll spend plenty of time and attention intently staring at the aging bunch of sprites in front of you, desperately trying to teach your hands to react more quickly and your brain to focus on every last pixel. For a trip down memory lane, Capcom have served up a great slice of history.