Monday, August 21, 2023

Cloud Monday - Scarlet Nexus - Part 2 - Still Fun, But More Noticeable Streaming Issues


Today's Cloud Monday is part 2 of playing Scarlet Nexus on a launch model PS4. In part 1, https://youtu.be/z4pOFUlwWsg, streaming it via the PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming service went really well with only one or two noticeable issues. But in today's video, there were more issues to the point where i got a connection warning. thankfully, it wasn't throughout the video, but as it was more frequent it also was much more noticeable than in part 1.

The game was still fun to play. the combat is fast paced and i didn't notice any lag due to the game being streamed to me. that was true with part 1, so at least the feel of the game holds up across both days. The story is a little slow and the world feels empty, more so in this video. near the end it says i'm free to do what i want. but, as i show in the video, there was nothing i could do. none of the shops are buildings i can go in, it was more like i was at point A and the game wanted me to go to Point B. so, in a way, the game's own story got in the way of gameplay.

Across both parts, a typical thing streaming does is reduce the resolution and i didn't notice it happening. for a 1080p system, the game looks great. but i do worry that if there are streaming issues that the resolution will drop and the game will be greatly affected. the text on screen is small, but for me fine. this and the game's unique art style and way it draws the neon stuff are the most likely to be affected by a resolution drop. We didn't get it, but what we did get in this video was just as bad. there was macro blocking, where squares of color appear instead of fine detail, and even more noticeable were the stream tearing moments as it's just light grey on screen.

I think this is a good game, but i don't think it's a great game to be streamed. i mentioned in the first video how the save system is an auto save and only at specific points. it's a system not suited to a streaming service were you get a 20 second notice of being kicked off. it's unique art style is also susceptible to streaming issues. I have this on disc and if i had to chose between playing the game on disc or streaming it from the PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming service, i would chose to play it from disc.