Games for a 7yo girl (Vita & RetroArch)

I have a VitaTV / PSTV (with RetroArch installed) that I want to give to my 7 year old niece and I'm looking for fun games suitable for someone her age.

The main thing is that I don't want the games to be open ended in the way that for example something like Zelda (Emulation) or Gravity Rush where you need walk around and find a specific place to do a specific thing to progress the plot, or something like Pokemon or RPGs in general where you need to read text to figure out where to go and what to do (She's Dutch, so I can't rely on her reading English text boxes to figure out what to do). So it would be better if the games were more straight forward or somewhat arcadey.

The games don't have to necessarily be "girly" though, they just shouldn't rely on lots of text or complex open ended instructions. Native Vita games and whatever runs on RetroArch.

While you're waiting on recommendations, you should check out SNESdrunk's channel over on YouTube, dude's got tons of bite-size retro reviews which may be helpful.

@shiftygism: Thanks, will do.

Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends are the first things that come to mind for the Vita. It also has the Vinny Caravella household's kart racer of choice, the Sonic & All-stars one, and it has Minecraft. Which, Minecraft is open. But you can also just do whatever in it. It's not like an RPG.

As for the older stuff - I'm not super familiar with Retroarch, so I couldn't tell you what emulates well, but it's mostly old platformer stuff that comes to mind. Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land, Wario Land 4, Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, the Crash Bandicoots, that sorta stuff was at least easy for me to get into when I was a kid. Straightforward, little english required, just follow the stages and done.

More open 3d platformers like Banjo, Ratchet & Clank or the 3d Marios don't require a ton of English comprehension either( I usually asked my dad if I needed some with a word), but I guess if she's gets easily lost or frustrated that might still be a bridge too far. I think those environments can be more welcoming in some ways than some other games, though. There's no time limit in Mario 64, to put it like that.

As an aunt with a 7 year old niece, I will second racing games as a recommendation. Any one really. They are pretty much the only ones my niece has patience for, other than mobile games.

Depends on how much gaming your niece already does, how patient she is, or how much her parents would be into helping her. My niece's parents don't game (other than her father loving COD/etc. which she is not allowed to watch/play). So when I tried to introduce her to games (at around 6) she hated almost everything I showed her, and had no patience for platformers or any of the games on the mini NES (except for about 5 minutes of Kirby). Racing games were the only ones she called fun.

Also, lol on the spam. Reminds me of bad old email spam before filter were a thing.

The Patapon games were some of my favorites on the Vita. Very rhythm heavy, but if she is cool with that, highly recommend.

Tearaway is a great game for the vita. It's got a little exploration in certain areas, but it's still pretty linear.

Anything Lego on Vita. Like Lego Batman 3, which is sorta my favorite. It’s $10 on Amazon right now, but ah they’re all good I suppose. ☺️