The PlayStation Network is crowded with games to download and play, but for many old-school gamers, the PSone Classics library, hundreds of titles strong, is where the action’s at. But ever since the PlayStation Vita was launched, complaints about how Sony’s new handheld couldn’t play PSone Classics remained consistently loud. Thankfully, those complaints can soon subside, because a firmware update for Vita, launching soon, will rectify the situation.

At E3, Sony showed-off a new firmware-equipped PlayStation Vita with seven playable PSone Classics: Final Fantasy VII, Cool Boarders 2, Wild Arms, Arc the Lad, Tomb Raider, Jet Moto and Twisted Metal 2. I spent a brief amount of time with Final Fantasy VII, and what I found is pretty much what you’d expect. Final Fantasy VII looked and played just like the real thing, and that’s all you really want, right?Interestingly, the firmware on the Vita I was using seemed to be incomplete. The Sony representative I was with told me that all manner of extras were being added to make the future firmware update as complete as possible. For instance, PSone Classics were only controllable with the directional pad on the Vita I was using, but left analog stick support was promised. PSone Classics that take advantage of L2 and R2 buttons will allow the use of Vita’s back touch pad on the left and right side, respectively, in order to replicate those buttons’ functionality. And strangely, some sort of widescreen support was promised. When I inquired whether that meant that the picture would be improperly stretched or if the support would still somehow retain PSone games’ native aspect ratio (which is 4:3), I never received a satisfactory answer.The best news of all, however, is that if you already own a PSone Classic, whether on PS3 or PSP or both, you won’t have to purchase the game again. All you’ll have to do is connect your Vita to your PS3 or directly to the PlayStation Network and transfer the game(s) desired from your purchased items list. And if you don’t own a PSone Classic and want to play it on Vita, there will be no restrictions. Every game currently available in the PSone Classics catalog will be available for play on Vita with no exceptions.

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.