Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.
Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut is a game from Born Ready Games that i've had on PS4 since it game out on the PSN. i have played maybe the tutorial level before, as i had the trophy for transforming, but it was so long ago i didn't remember anything. it felt like playing the game for the first time.
What i've done is chose the easy difficulty level as the game suggested this is best for those interested in it's story, and i typically am in any game. It starts, as does this video, with an interesting story segment telling the story of earth and it's colonists. it reveals the tensions between them, the end of an uneasy peace, and the war we're currently playing in that both want to win but both can't afford to wage.
The tutorial was effective and there are prompts afterwards that help remind what buttons to press. Graphically, it looks nice and the space backdrop has some cool moments, but there's a lack of detail throughout. it doesn't get in the way nor detract from the game. the music is a little more epic and worldly than i was expecting but overall i've enjoyed what i've heard so far.
As for the missions, they're telling the story effectively but there's not been too much variety in what we do. But playing it overall hasn't been bad and i would say i've enjoyed myself and i'm looking forward to where the story goes in part 2. we have an Ai that's calling the shots but are they on our side, on our enemies side, or do they have their own agenda!?
The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the #PS4 version of Star Trek: Resurgence, from Dramatic Labs.
Part 4, https://youtu.be/yZBHupuQcfU, ended on a rescue mission so the first thing to do in Part 5 is save as many as we can. but it gets tricky and it becomes clear that the Bioforming is far more widespread than i imagined. unfortunately, our captain appears to be loosing control and that's putting us in a difficult position.
This month's Splatoon3 Salmon Run item is the Octavio Dome. The goal for this video was to get 1,00 points. that way i get the item twice and have a go at defeating a King Salmonoid.
This Salmon run was quite good. in all but one job, my team mates and I managed to get to the third wave. unfortunately, we only managed to beat the the third wave once!
This Saturday, July 17th 2024, was the Mega Lucario Raid day in Pokémon GO. I went to Shin Yokohama!
It didn't quite go to plan. there was a Twice concert at Nissan Stadium so Shin Yokohama was packed full of people. so i wasn't able to record as much as i wanted because recording people isn't the thing to do in Japan. It was also meant to rain so i didn't bring my other camera and had to use my phone.
It's also the first time i've tried something like this, even tho i've been playing Pokémon GO since it came out here! so i may do something like this in future, kinda two birds with one stone. i get to do the day and i get a video out of it! Any suggestions are welcome!
For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Bacon's Revenge, from CloudOcean Star, on my iPhone 14 Pro.
The screenshots on the app store looked nice but it was the description that really piqued my interest. It said Bacon's Revenge was a roguelike but one that also had merge gameplay mechanics. i was really curious how this would work together and after this hour, i think it worked really well.
Bacon's Revenge is a simple game, but it does get the basics right. there's a decent tutorial, too. But it could be a little better, there were some things on the home screen not tutorialised and maybe it could be a bit more aware of what the player is doing, or not doing, and offer some advice. But it is more than enough to get the basics across, and the first chapter we play through is simple enough so that the game isn't overwhelming.
The Roguelike elements of the game are generous so that helps lower the difficulty of the game. each time we fail, we still get gold, items to use when upgrading, and experience. It took me a couple of tries to get past the first chapter, but i learned something each time i failed and when i did succeed in finishing the 10 waves of chapter 1 there was a good sense of accomplishment.
The Merge aspect of the game does give Bacon's Revenge a sense of luck and randomness. i thought that it wasn't too inconvenient because the Roguelike elements were so generous, so progress however slight was always being made. we can choose which weapons we want to take into a chapter, but we don't start with all of them. we get a choice of 3 at the start and then each time we finish a wave. we have to choose weapons and place them in our bag. each weapon has a space requirement. if we get two of the same weapon, at the same level, we can merge them together and the weapon's now more powerful. but space is limited, so there's a tactical element to not only the weapons we bring into a stage but which ones we have equipped. we can add more bag space and we can also merge items outside of the bag. but if we get nothing we can use, we're able to use the silver coin we've collected from the waves to refresh the selection.
If i had to pick some faults with the game, it'd be that it's too obvious when the music loops. the music itself is fine, but the end and start are different when they loop. i mentioned the tutorial could be better, but the text could also be improved as on occasion it's too small or outside the boundaries of the art it's on top off. but these are fairly small faults in comparison to what the game gets right.
I would prefer there be a speed up option that wasn't locked behind Chapter 5 or a paywall. but other than that, i'm happy with my time with Bacon's Revenge. i do recommend it, Bacon's Revenge is easy but there's a lot to unlock and progress. it's also possible to play the game one handed so it's also recommended for commuters.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road from Level-5.
Living in Japan, i have head of Inazuma Eleven and it used to be very popular, but there hasn't been a new anime or game for many years. i checked out the Wikipedia page and yeh, i was surprised that this game was originally set to come out in 2018! back then it was titled "Inazuma Eleven Ares" and was meant to tie into the Inazuma Eleven Ares anime series in 2018.
I doubt that the tech in Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road has much in common with Inazuma Eleven Ares. since it's first reveal it's had 3 more names and gained the PS5 as a release console. Honestly, for a PS4 game it did look really nice. many of the anime releases on PS4 have looked great. the animated cutscenes also looked high quality, but with their black borders i don't know if they're 1080p, scaled down to 1080p, or upscaled to it.
Whilst graphically Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road looks like a modern game, playing the game wasn't as impressive. i was bored playing it. Whilst i know of the Inazuma series, i've never watched nor played any of the games. what i played of Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road went against what i knew, in that Inazuma is a football/soccer series and yet our character hates it and moved to this school specifically to avoid it. after 50 minutes of the story mode, i felt like i knew more of other characters than my own.
The demo does have a second game mode, after story, called Competition Mode. But this felt unwelcoming to me, a new player, much like the story mode did. i had the choice of playing it online or against bots. i chose to play against bots but for some reason the game gave the bots more levels than me. so not only did i not know how to play it, i was up against much higher opposition.
And wow, it doesn't play like any football/soccer game i've ever played. in some respects, it's more like a strategy game. but it should've had some sort of practice mode. it tried to teach me what was happening, there were videos showing it in action, but it tried to do it in a game with a much higher opposition. so i would try to do what it said, but the opposition was so much higher levelled than me it didn't matter what i did.
So i didn't enjoy my time with Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road that much. sure it looks good and it was interesting trying out a game in a series i've heard so much about. it's just that it never felt like this game was for me. i didn't have the context for the story and i didn't know how to play it's style of football/soccer. thankfully, as it's a demo it does mean i can use this as practice for when the real game comes out. but as i didn't enjoy my time with the demo, i'm not really keen on getting the game. instead i'd rather try one of the other Inazuma games
I have stitched together all 10 parts of my gameplay of Tearaway: Unfolded into one video, from start to finish of the game. I tried to cut out all instances of when i accidentally used the Pause/Option button, but on my limited computer and how many hours it already took to make this video i wasn't able to cut out the many many times when i was sent back to a checkpoint or had to re-enter a fight.
The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS4 version of Star Trek: Resurgence, from Dramatic Labs.
Part 3, https://youtu.be/MlnRuF47B9E, ended when i died trying to do a stealth section. so today's part continued from there. the story started to pick up pace and it started to become clear what was happening, not only to the #Hotari and #Alydian but also on our ship. questions still remain, with perhaps the biggest being what is the end goal of the Scions of the Flame.
This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PSP version of Daxter on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
It quickly became clear in Part 1, https://youtu.be/8O1Ue63OQ7Q, that the PlayStation Portable game #Daxter holds up today just like it did back in 2006. After that part and this, i can comfortably say that this is one of the best PS1/PS2/PSP games emulated on PS4 and PS5. Daxter was already well designed for a portable system, and things like great checkpoints, immediate respawns, and manual saves carry over into streaming this game from PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service.
It's not perfect, there are some issues due to it's age and original platform it was developed for. there were times when i felt i was moving the camera and doing button presses faster than the emulated game could keep up with. this meant i was walking of ledges and not hitting enemies as i thought. this wasn't a huge issue, but something i noticed. something else is that it felt hard to walk in a straight line with Daxter. whilst out and about it wasn't a big issue but many levels have narrow ledges and platforms and more than once i ended up walking off and falling. thankfully, the emulated software has a rewind feature so i was able to quickly get back and try again.
This weekend is July's Eggstra Work Event in Splatoon 3 on Switch. I haven't had much luck with the previous events so i came into this just wanting to get a decent score, one i felt satisfied with, a 1,000 points for the Gatchapon, and if possible finishing Wave 5.
There are a lot of factors that go into whether an Eggstra Work event is going to go well. i feel like this weekends went mostly ok and a big reason for that were the weapons. all 4, tho i only use 2 of them across the 8 matches i played, are weapons i like but also they help create a balanced team. as for the waves, Wave 2 was the biggest pain as it's a glowfly wave. but the others were much more manageable, with Wave 5 being obviously the most difficult. My team mates and I got to Wave 5 twice and came close to beating it each time.
So overall, i'm satisfied with my top score of 116. whilst i never finished Wave 5, i feel like i came close so i don't think i would've been able to get a much higher score.
It's Pokémon Unite's 3rd Anniversary and they are running some events. For today's Online Saturday video i checked out all the different events happening, including the return of Pokémon Parade, by playing Pokémon Unite on my Nintendo Switch.
For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Royal Card Clash from Gearhead Games. I was looking for card games with some interesting ideas, and not just for example Solitaire reskinned, and when i saw the video on the app store page i knew i wanted to give Royal Card Clash a try.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Abathor, from Tesura Games and Jandusoft.
The look of the game is very nostalgic for me. i grew up playing the SEGA Master System and Mega Drive so i saw this and instantly thought of Golden Axe. The screenshots on the eShop did look interesting as the pixel art looked beyond what those systems could output.
Before we get to start, we're greeted with a bare bones home screen that mentions that this is a demo, has a very basic settings page, and allows us to view the credits. But there's no link to the eShop, not even a QR Code. there's a lot of wasted space that could've been filled with stuff that could help sell the game.
But when you do start the demo, there's a very cool character select screen. i wasn't expecting that screen to show you the moves of the character. you see, when you click on a character a gif/video starts playing showing what buttons on the controller do what in the game. it's a simple concept but it really works and i hope other games do something similar.
With our character selected we start at 1-1 and the first thing you notice is how animated the background is. the rolling waves look fantastic. our ship has a bear skin sail that also looks stunning. i appreciate that the devs didn't go all in on the 16 bit style, they've taken the best bits of style from it and modernised it so it doesn't feel dated and stilted. there's lots of little animations everywhere.
It's not just the look of the game, but the soundtrack too. each stage has it's own theme, as does the credit screen and the home menu. the music on 1-1 really made me think of music from the Mega Drive era. But i do have a complaint in that there's not enough of it! it was really noticeable when the music looped and i felt that it happened too quickly.
But my biggest complaint has to be how the controls interact with the game. it's not all bad, i found them to be very responsive. each character also controls a little different from each other. It's just that the critical part of the gameplay, the attacking, just didn't feel right. all the characters i played as had to get too close to the enemy so inevitably i ended up taking damage whether i was attacking, dodging, or parrying. i found it difficult to judge distance, occasionally this was a jump but more often than not i underestimated the reach of my attack. it was frustrating but, perhaps more importantly it wasn't satisfying to attack.
Another example of this was how many hits it took to defeat enemies. with our main weapon i could understand if it was only that that took numerous hits. but every item we picked up seemed to be underpowered to the point where i didn't really want to use them. they did provide range, but if they're no more powered than i am, they weren't special or cool. the same goes to the special attacks did. none of them felt any more powerful than a standard attack. this is probably why i felt more comfortable using the character which didn't have an attacking special, rather she employed a parry which slightly stunned an enemy long enough for me to get all the hits in to defeat it. I highly recommend #Sais as the character everyone should try first.
Abathor does a lot right and i really did have fun playing it. but I can't ignore that the combat just wasn't satisfying. Using Sais did help and maybe i would be able to endure a while longer using her. but that's not exactly a great endorsement of the game. So it's great there's a demo that allows us to try all the characters. hopefully there'll be one that'll make playing the game fine enough. So i do recommend you check out the demo, but maybe wait and see with the reviews if the combat is fixed, or at the very least modified.
The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS4 version of Star Trek: Resurgence, from Dramatic Labs.
In this video i play through Act 2's "The Scientific Method", "Suspicions", "Containment Protocol", "Symbols and Legends", and i die during the 9th part "Lost and Found". Don't worry, i will continue from the 9th part in next week's Part 4.
This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PSP version of Daxter on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
Daxter originally came out on PlayStation Portable back in 2006 and it's a game i have played and finished. but it's been such a long time, i was excited to play it again. I've been looking at the new PS1, PS2, and PSP games that have been added to PS4 and PS5 via emulation, trying to find one that still holds up and isn't a novelty or a nostalgia recommendation. Daxter maybe the first one of these games that i've played that i would recommend as a game that still holds up.
Daxter is smartly designed for the PSP. it's level's aren't too sprawling that they take ages to complete. there's a decent amount of platforming and things to do, but it can take 15-25 minutes to complete it. this may sound like that there'd be a lot of loss progress if there's a disconnection from the cloud streaming service. Daxter also has a great check point system and auto save system which helps alleviate those worries. The service does give us a 20 second warning first and Daxter seems to let us save anywhere in the game and it saves quickly.
These features are similar to what the emulated games can do. via the Options button you can chose to save or load at any point in the game. what the emulation software adds is the ability to rewind. but this isn't as big of deal as in other games because the game checkpoint frequently and is very fast to put us back in to the game.
Other benefits are that the game looks great. it was already a great looking PSP game, but it still holds up well in 1080p on PS4. our character, Daxter, is quite big on screen, as is other characters and things like text boxes and enemies, which mean if there are issues with stream tearing or macro blocking it's still fairly easy to work out what's happening and continue playing like nothing's wrong.
Today's gameplay was a little rough with my connection. i imagine it was a bandwidth issue more than anything. i would say that the camera does take a little getting used to. the emulation software has done a great job of mapping the controls to the right analogue stick and i found them responsive. but maybe they're a bit too responsive for the game itself. it was made with different controls in mind and sometimes i found myself fighting the game. this meant that there were moments where i failed to land a jump as i couldn't work out the 3D space well. But with the rewind feature, i wasn't too concerned. it's just a little frustrating quirk of the game.
It's day two of July's Splatfest weekend so today's video focuses on the Tricolor game mode in Splatoon 3.
For the second Splatfest in a row all 15 games i played were with the other two teams. i chose teambeach and came into today with only 5 wins yesterday, https://youtu.be/ZHhUeZ8hiII. yesterday we only played against teamthemepark but thankfully today we also played with teampalace.
For yesterday, i chose to use 3 different brellas weapons. today i had a similar idea and only used brush weapons. i started with the Painbrush, then went with the Inkbrush Nouveau, and finished with the regular Inkbrush. It's a type of weapon i've not really used much and only had 3 of that type to chose from so it was an interesting time using them.
This weekend is a Splatfest weekend in Splatoon 3 on Switch. the question being asked this Splatfest is "Which would you reserve for a day? A Palace, a Theme Park, or a Beach?"
I picked TeamBeach and played 15 matches for them. unfortunately, i only managed to win 5. Also, i only played against TeamThemePark. i never played against TeamPalace.
I was in the mood to use Brellas so i started with the Splat Brella, i changed to the Undercover Sorella Brella, and finished with the Sorella Brella.
For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Maze of Gods from RSCube. From the app store page, it's art immediately grabbed my attention but i couldn't work out what type of RPG it was.
After playing for nearly an hour, it's clear that Maze of Gods is a Roguelike. It's a rather generous Roguelike in that when our run is over we get to keep all the loot we found, except for healing potions. the level of difficulty is also quite low. the game as a whole is a very approachable Roguelike.
but it could be much more approachable in general. for example, the tutorial it has is very basic. it switches from telling us how do to something to doing it for us without explaining what's happening. far too often in this video i have to work out what things do and explore menus myself. it feels like this tutorial needs to be expanded, or at the very least ask us if we want help or not and if we do then be more hands on.
Overall, i really did have a good time playing Maze of Gods. but there are enough little things that need improving that keep it from being one of my top games of the year. i will keep it on my phone and check what updates come for it. as it is, i would still recommend it for anyone looking for an approachable Roguelike.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of On Your Tail, from Memorable Games and published by Humble Games .
This game knew it was a demo and i enjoyed how it leaned into it. where ever there were invisible walls, the game had something to say. even tho effort had gone into this demo version of the game, it was a little surprising that the title screen didn't have a link to the game's #eShop page to pre-order it.
There isn't too much to do in this demo. i don't think it starts from the beginning of the game, but it's fairly close to it. we're given a short list of things to do and let loose into the world to do them. there's no map and no markers pointing the way. but there's also no time pressure to get things done quick. some areas we couldn't explore because it's a demo, and it wasn't too difficult to find our way.
But the first thing i did was find a guy and talk to them. they offered to be my tour guide, and then preceded to never lead. we had to lead and the guy quipped in now and then with things not too useful or he talked about things we weren't looking at. if it was meant to be a way to introduce us to the town, it didn't work. but it's difficult to know if that's because it's a demo or because that's how it is.
The other thing we had to do was talk to a restaurant owner about a theft. this was far more interesting as it showed of the game's core mechanic. we have a timepiece that lets us look at items in the past. we had to find 3 that had been changed in the past. one we did, we had to put them onto a timeline and watch the crime take place. this may sound complicated but it was surprisingly simple. i failed a few times and there's no punishment for it. it would've been nice if it was clearer what had succeeded and what had failed. especially as this is a demo and i suspect the first time we've done this sorta thing. i expected a bit more of a hands on tutorial for this, or a tutorial via inner monologues.
After we solved that mystery, that seemed to be the end of the demo. and yet it didn't end. so i explored the town and met as many of the people living there as i could. i was wondering how the demo expected us to end it. would it end the demo, treat us to a trailer or screenshots before putting us back at the title screen. or did it expect us to end it by quitting the game. unfortunately i never found out as it crashed and that's where i ended the video.
Overall i had a good time with the demo. it did feel a little rough in places with textures taking a long time to load, and some popping in and out once they did. it also felt a little bare bones at times. i feel much from the background noise and would've preferred a more calm, relaxed, maybe even lo-fi background music instead. there wasn't much life in the town. very few people out and about. whilst i enjoyed the core detective mechanic, i worry that the bits between that may not be as fun or exciting. with the demo being this short and this bereft of content, i just don't know.
So i do recommend people checking out the demo, it's not quite enough for me to say it's an instant whish list or pre-order. but it's well worth checking out reviews and then getting it and it does have some nice ideas and it was a nice time.
I finally finished Tearaway Unfolded. i would argue i had seen at least 3 possible end game moments before i got to the actual end game moment. for that, that's the only blemish this game has. for me, the fun and story ended when the scraps were delt with. post that, the story lost me and i don't think i got what the developers were trying to say. it almost feels that the stuff after the scraps could've been DLC for the messenger in our controller.
I never really got that whole there's another messenger part of the game. the idea of being in our controller is cool, but it didn't look anything related to Sony or the games, it was generic. there was no talk about how the messenger got in there either. any why was it that i only became aware of the other messenger right before we met them. it would've made much more sense if my controller would play their song every now and then. like i said, it would've made a lot more sense if this last section was DLC to let us help get the other messenger out and to safety.
The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS4 version of Star Trek: Resurgence, from Dramatic Labs.
In this video i play through Act 1's "Storm Surge", "The Price of Duty", "All I Ask is a Tall Ship...", and Act 2's "Cast Adrift", "A Provocation to War", "Navigational Complexities", and "Seat of Power"
This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS3 version of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
In Part 1, https://youtu.be/6y9KGJK1P84, our time with the game was cut short by PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service terminating our session. but there was enough time to start to compare it to the PS2 version of the game that's recently come out via emulation on PS4 and PS5. visually, the main differences between them are that the PS3 version is widescreen with more muted colours whilst the PS2 is 4:3 and more vibrant. i found the controls more responsive on PS3 and more modernised.
But in this video, Part 2, i finally got to see what would happen without the emulated version's rewind feature. i lost all my lives. i was genuinely concerned about what would happen. but thankfully i needed not worry. the game isn't too concerned that i lost my lives and was happy to give me 5 more and restart me back at the boss fight. With lives being nothing to worry about, it makes the advantages of the PS3 version really stand out.
Both versions have quick saving, and while the PlayStation 2's ability to save anywhere is a bonus, it's not that big of a bonus as the game has frequent checkpoints. The only big difference between the emulated PS2 version and this PS3 version is that you can download and play the emulated version on PS4 and PlayStation 5. the PS3 version is stuck on PS3 and on this cloud gaming service.
Which ever one you play, it's a fun time and i do recommend you give either version a go. it's one of those games which can be played by many ages and skill levels, but there's something for those wanting to complete the game too.
For Switch Funday i'm back with F-Zero 99 as the game has been updated to 1.40. this brought some new additions, including the new Team Battle mode i tried out and the current Festival Event.
For Online Saturday i tried out The First Descendant on #PS4. i had heard some good first impressions of The First Descendant from Nexon , and i was keen on playing an online game similar to Destiny. but i knew next to nothing about The First Descendant so i was hoping for a good tutorial.
I can say that the tutorial in The First Descendant was fantastic. it smartly used gameplay and instructions to teach me the controls. for the more simple stuff, it was a text box on screen. but for more difficult stuff they'd stop gameplay and put up a bigger box with a video showing what you need to do. but with the gameplay stopped, i didn't feel a rush to read everything and could take the time to slowly read it and try to understand. for the most part, the tutorial was smartly implemented throughout this video whenever something new would happen either in-game or in menus. only once did it get in the way when it tried to teach me how to equip better items in the middle of a shootout and i had to dismiss it was gameplay didn't stop as this was during the online section.
I didn't know when the online section was going to come. in the beginning, the game was focused on telling it's story and world building. and then, we were online with everyone! after the story, we were dropped into a hub world full of other players. it wasn't clear which region i'm playing in. i didn't see anyone with Japanese or Asian names and the game didn't ask me what region i wanted to play in.
Whilst this section took me by surprise, the game was much more explicit when it came to the next mission. it used a quick tutorial to talk about public or private play, tho it i must've missed in the tutorial where that selection was. so for the second half, it's all online. the open world elements had enemies randomly attacking and i could engage with them with others in the world. then there were story sections where i could choose to play said section publicly or privately. i chose public each time and each time i either joined someone else playing or someone joined my game. each time was seamless with a simple addition of a player name to my screen.
the first thing i noticed about the gameplay was when i pressed L2 and zoomed into the enemy. it felt much quicker than i expected and there wasn't any lock-on to the enemy either. this isn't a bad thing, it's just one way shooters differentiate themselves. what i found odd was how my character was a big bulky guy and yet moved like someone much nimbler. i may not have fully got used to it during this video, but i was overall satisfied with my progress and the shooter in general.
i had a great time with The First Descendant. it does very well introducing the world, the story, the characters, and the gameplay mechanics. as a free to play game, it's easy to recommend to anyone looking for a shooter in a similar vain to Anthem and Destiny. I'm looking forward to playing more of this game in the future.
For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Dadish 3D, The latest Dadish game from Cat Cup Games and Thomas K. Young. i hadn't played any of the other Dadish games, but it was a series i had heard about. i played this on my iPhone 14 Pro.
from the app store page, this game was overflowing with nostalgic charm so i was excited to play it. but after trying out the mobile version, i don't think i can recommend it. i'd imagine the PC version would be a better experience than what i played.
For me, what was the most frustrating thing were the adverts. i think i had 15 adverts in less than a hour. it was shocking and abrupt the first time it happened and every now and then i'd be blasted by adverts with their volume so high. it looks like the game is using Unity and Lunar and i'm concerned that these are going to eat through your mobile data. i played the game on Wi-fi, but imagine you're commuting 5 days a week, an hour to and from work. that's 150 adverts each week just playing the game. by cutting the adverts from this video, i cut out around 4 minutes. that's like 40 minutes a week of adverts.
Unfortunately, adverts weren't Dadish 3D's only problem. whether it was using the touch screen or Bluetooth controllers, i couldn't trust the controls. with the Bluetooth #Xbox controller the lag was so great that it got me killed. i show in the video it felt like nearly half a second between pressing the button and it happening in-game. the controller doesn't work with the adverts either so you'll need to pick up and play on your phone anyway. but i never really trusted the touch screen controls. there were many instances where it was like my character had momentum when landing and walked off an edge or into something. there were other times when it felt like we barely made a jump.
That's one of the weirdest things about playing this game, i found it really difficult to navigate the 3D environment. sure, my character had a shadow so i could see where i was, but it was really difficult to judge where in a 3D space everything else was. sometimes i would have to move the camera side-on to make it a 2D experience to judge it. other times i'd hope. and sometimes i'd just repeatedly fail until somehow i didn't.
I had other issues with Dadish 3D that got in the way of my enjoyment. mostly they're question i had whilst playing it. the game has one good tutorial moment and then stops it. so when i found a star and it had little to no fanfare, i had no idea what was happening. or when other foods appeared, i didn't know if they were out to get me, if i could defeat them, or what. i had no idea how many stages were in each area or how many kids i was to get. for some reason the game never sent me to the overworld menu screen. there, i got some of my answers. but i only discovered that screen right at the end. the game never communicated it to me.
There are some other small issues, but ultimately they all combine into a gaming experience that i cut short of my usual hour play time because i stopped having fun and was more frustrated than anything else. So i can't recommend the mobile version of Dadish 3D. i don't know how it plays on #Switch or PC, but after this experience i'm not that keen to find out.
This week's DEMO is the PlayStation 4 version of Capcom's Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.
This is one of the better demo's i've played this year. the video starts with it saying this isn't the final game, some things may not work, and there's no support. it's making it clear this is a demo. after some options, we're greeted with the main menu and it also says it's a demo. what's great is that there's an option to go to it's PSN store page. Capcom have made it clear that it's a demo and made it easy to pre-order the game.
At the end of this video, there is the first ending to this demo and once again Capcom have given us a link to pre-order the game. the only way the end could've been better was if Capcom added screenshots and/or a trailer for the game. It knows it's a demo, we know it's a demo, so we can focus on the game itself.
i assume this is from the start of the game, maybe with the opening cutscene and story cut from the demo. the tutorial and initial stages are very well done and work well together. i never felt overwhelmed nor did i feel that things we too easy. there were a mix of tutorial methods, ranging from the basic box of text on screen, to a check list to help you try out different attacks. later in the video, we'll get access to new moves and a little gif plays showing what it does. overall, i was surprised how accessible the game is for new players.
My time with Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess was so positive it made me wishlist the game after playing. if you're unsure, playing this demo will be great for you. but i do think that Capcom has a good game here and for some they should simply pre-order. i would've liked more of the story, more of the why, but in terms of gameplay its good.
For the second time, i thought i had finished Tearaway Unfolded. i didn't play the PSV version of it so i don't know if it's the same on there, but this PS4 version has tricked me twice now. the first time it wasn't too bad as i felt that they worked it into the narrative of the story very well. but this time, it feels cheap.
After beating the scraps, we ended up between stories in a section that looked cool but didn't offer much different in gameplay mechanics. but visually it was very different. the same is true when we reached the desert looking area. there were some cool visual and audio moments, but this feels like the first video we've done where nothing special was added to the gameplay.
This helps add to the thought that this third story feels a little unearned and cheap and that perhaps i would've been more satisfied with the game ending than what i have played so far.
This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS3 version of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
The previous game i checked out for Cloud Monday was the recently released PS2 version of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus on PS4, it's also out on PS5. That version of the game is running in an emulator. So the positives after Part 1, https://youtu.be/tphGJ4lCw88, and Part 2, https://youtu.be/gg_RuiDKR5c, were that you're able to save anywhere which is great when you only have 20 seconds before the service kicks you off, and that you're able to rewind gameplay and retry. But i wondered if the PlayStation 3 HD Rerelease would be better.
So as well as the usual goals of seeing how the game plays as it's streamed to me, i was checking out a personal question of is this PS3 version than the emulated PS2 version.
The first thing i noticed was that it was a 16:9 screen, tho the resolution wasn't 1080p, it was maybe 900p. then i noticed the camera controls were much more modern. and then i was able to get into the police building, something which took too long in Part 1 as i took time to adjust to the jump in the game. So immediately i felt more comfortable with the game.
But then came the first instance where i would've liked to have had the rewind controls. i was hit by a missile and the respawn point was right at the start of the level. Thankfully this section is very short, but it was a tad frustrating.
Overall, i found this version much easier to play. with no rewind, i also found myself going a little slower too. but i know this section having played it previously so it will be interesting if i'm able to get to the boss fight or even a new area in part 2.
This part ended earlier than i wanted as i was kicked off the service. thankfully, not only is it easy to save in this game but it's also fast so i was able to save before the 20 second count down. when i checked my internet stats at the speed test it was clear to see why i was kicked off, these speeds were very abnormal for me and other games i've played.
