Cloud Monday - Far: Changing Tides - Part 2 - It Needs Manual Saves As A Cloud Based Game

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Far: Changing Tides via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

In Part 1, https://youtu.be/fELEYPvIhEc, i talked about how some aspects of the game's design work well as a game being streamed from the cloud and other aspects didn't work well. that holds true after Part 2, but what has solidified for me is that the lack of a Manual Save feature in Far: Changing Tides is too much of a hinderance to the point where i wouldn't recommend streaming this from the cloud.

I do think that Far: Changing Tides has some other gameplay issues, namely the platforming, but it's the save system that holds it back. it does have an auto save feature and we saw in this video that it puts you right back where it saved. The only issue is, i didn't fully know what was about to happen. so when it started and we're heading straight for a wall and i was carrying something, i kinda had to just let it happen. i don't know why there couldn't have been an auto save as the boat game to a standstill or not something in the boat itself that could do a manual save, like a hammock. 

It's hard to trust the auto save when i see it saving in the middle of the ocean for no apparent reason and then not saving when we reach once populated areas.  we're only given a 20 second count down before we're kicked off the service if there's an issue. and in a game where not much happens for long stretches of time, or there are periods of non story related busy work, i feel that we're going to end up having to do a lot of it again because of the auto save.

I'm not saying that Far: Changing Tides is a bad game. the music is good and atmospheric. i'm enjoying the art design and watching the world pass by. but actually playing it can feel a bit of a chore sometimes when all i want is the story, and it's not been great at telling it either. it's left it up to interpretation via environmental story telling and i'm not sure i've understood it fully. 

if you want to play Far: Changing Tides, i'd recommend downloading it as it's only 2.12GB. i feel that loss of HDD space is better than the possible loss of progress due to the auto save.