Demo Play Thursday - Fate/Samurai Remnant On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Fate/Samurai Remnant, tho the game itself did think it was the PS5 version at the end. This game, from Koei Tecmo, Omega Force, Kou Shibusawa, Aniplex, and Type-Moon came out last year but the demo only came out this week.

I didn't know about this game and the PlayStation Store webpage for it didn't give much information. there are no screenshots, no videos, and you have to scroll down to the bottom to find out that it's an action RPG. In the demo the action aspect of the game is very clear and mostly explained. The game uses blocks of text and a screenshot for the tutorial so it's not great, but most is done in easy fights where you can see it in action so i mostly understood what it wanted me to do.

What isn't explained at all in this demo is the RPG aspect. my character did gain levels, but it was never explained. It's most likely because this demo is less than an hour long and focuses on the beginning of the game. i would imagine that the RPG aspect is explored in the next section, that's not included in the demo.

What we do get in this demo are several videos, animated and in-game, exploring history, backstory, and what's happening. after the demo is finished there's a cool trailer for the game that makes a lot of sense as we know the rough outline of the game by this point. 

This isn't a perfect demo. as well as the game not knowing what version it was, at the beginning the game got stuck for a couple of minutes in the settings menu. i cut out of this video when nothing was happening and skipped to when it had fixed itself. there were a couple of instances where the game had framerate issues or stuttering. thankfully whilst those were noticeable, they never got in the way of gameplay. One aspect of the gameplay i wasn't keen on was how the story jumped from the present to the past and back to the present and it just felt unnecessary and that it didn't add anything to the story compared to if the story had been told linearly. 

I did come away from this demo enjoying my time with the game, so ultimately the demo did work as i know enough of the story to be interested, i understand the basic gameplay and know it's something i can do and enjoy, and that this PS4 version of the game looks great and it doesn't feel like a downgrade from what would be a better PS5 version. so i do recommend you try out the demo if you're interested.

Demo Play Thursday - Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the #PlayStation4 Demo of Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2. This game, from developers CyberConnect2, is already out across all platforms but this demo came out this week on the PSN Store.

The icon for this game is striking and really grabbed my attention. for the most part, this style continues into the game. The main screen was nearly perfect. it said this was a DEMO, it gave us links to buy the game, but it never mentioned how long the demo would be or whether our saves would be carried over into the final game. Thankfully, the PSN store page does have this information. in this video i did the first chapter and this demo has 2 more. so, in all, the first 3 chapters of the game are included in this demo and my save would be carried over to the final game if i were to play it. One further good point about the main page is the option to watch what happened in the first game. unfortunately, there's no speaking, no subtitles, so it is left to our imagination as to what happened. But at the very least i do appreciate the effort put in to including such a recap.

For the most part, i had a good time playing the game. Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 doesn't have the best tutorial as some parts are taught a little out of sequence or don't quite carry you through all of it, but it is good enough that i didn't feel overwhelmed by what was happening. What i found distracting from the experience was how the story was told. it felt like the story was jumping around time for no particular reason. it detracted from the story telling and was never really explained why it was done this way. If anything, it detracted from an actual time based mechanic introduced later in the demo.

Graphically, it only looked like the PS4 would loose out to the PS5 when it came to the 3D art used with the characters in-game. all the other art, backgrounds, 2D characters, and such, looked crisped and detailed. but in the 3D sections things looked a little soft. it was still clear who everyone was, but it was only distracting because of how much crisper and detailed the rest of the art had been up to that point.

I do think this demo has some bugs. at 3 points in the demo, it freezes on me for tens of seconds up to over a minute. i do have an old PS4 so that could be part of the issue, but when you take into account all the tiny second or less pauses that occur in this demo i can't help but think it's buggy. another possible bug is the lack of Japanese voices even tho i had toggled that option on in the options. it could be it's a style choice and the Japanese voices are only used for battle sounds, but that in itself is weird because in those moments there were no subtitles.

So, with weird story telling and bugs, this demo gives us a mixed view of Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 as there is a lot to like but clearly there are things to be concerned with.

Cloud Monday - Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - Part 2 - Decent Cloud Gaming Experience

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Square Enix's Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PS4.

With Part 1, https://youtu.be/2O-V6qgzcrw, i began to understand the game's quirks so in this part, i was able to focus more on the experience of playing this game in the cloud. We had already seen in Part 1 that the game does a lot of auto saving in the background which is great. it means if we're going to be disconnected from the PlayStation Plus Cloud Game Streaming Service then we won't have lost too much progress in the game. With Part 2 it also became clear that the manual save points at this point in the game are also strategically placed before big, story moments or significant points in your progress through a section. this once more highlights that if you are kicked off the service, the amount of progress loss shouldn't be too significant.

Playing this on PlayStation 4 is both good and bad. the obvious bad part is the graphical quality. there were more than a few points where i could see how low resolution or how little detail elements of the levels were. from that point of view, it would be easy to recommend that Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin should be played on a PS5. but this helps with the game being streamed via the cloud because it means the impact to the game from things such as macro blocking isn't too significant. it'll be somewhat easy to see, but it shouldn't detract too much from the overall gameplay experience as there isn't always too much finer detail on PS4 anyway.

Ultimately, a game being decently well designed to be played via the cloud won't be enough for some players. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin has it's fair share of quirks and frustrations as a game itself. thankfully, with streaming being an option, it can act as a decent demo of the game and what to expect. but i would recommend giving it a couple of hours like i did to play through what felt like a tutorial heavy introduction to the game.

Cloud Monday - Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - Part 1 - Useful Frequent Auto-Saves

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Square Enix's Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PS4.

Even tho this is a somewhat recent release, it has been in development for a long time, probably so long that it originally wasn't set for PS5. So i was wondering how this game's design would work if it was streamed from the cloud to me. For example, would it have a traditional save system like Scarlet Nexus did and thus be a poor choice because of how the save system works or would it have a more "casual" approach letting you save everywhere, like Disgaea D3 did. turns out it's both.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin has fixed save points in the environment and this isn't great for a game being streamed via PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service as there's only a 20 second warning before you're kicked off it. However, the game does appear to have an Auto-Save system that is frequently saving in the background. The Auto-Saves appear to be the same as a manual save, but the whole system is shrouded in mystery as we, the player, get no choice as to what save slot is used. both the manual and auto saves just save. Ultimately, the positive is that we will probably loose some progress but in the end not too much.

The quest you have to ask yourself is are you willing to replay bits of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin again. Even after this first part, i'm not excited to go back because of how clunky the whole thing is. the tutorial is bad, the controls have issues, the story is nonsense so far, and graphically playing it in performance mode makes everything look so soft it might as well be PS3 graphics. 

One interesting issue the game has that is streaming related is that the in-game cutscenes are visually stunning and full of intricate small details that the bandwidth being used to stream this to me from PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service is having a hard time to keep up. A little early on there's a moment when the camera is spinning around the main character in a field of wheat and things stop being highly detailed and crisp and instead go a little blurry. i say in the video it's like the bandwidth needed is just a little short for sequences such as that, whereas for the rest of the game it's fine.

Demo Play Thursday - Cherry Tower On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Cherry Tower. This game, from developers webnetic is already out on PS4 and PS5.

This is not a good demo, i would go so far as to say that in places the demo is broken. this is on top of some questionable level design which is designed for us to loose health or that something isn't working right. the jump seems broken as the first tutorial doesn't work, and the final one doesn't seem to work either. it's one reason i don't like text boxes on screen as i don't know if it's working right or not. games that have a video showing how it should be have better tutorials and whilst that may not work with the game's aims and atheistic, it would be better than the nothing we got.

The demo doesn't say if our save carries over to the main game. i assume that this demo is from the first stage of the game. there's no story and there's no indication whether it was removed from the demo or if there's none in the main game. I was surprised how long and difficult it is. the stage doesn't slowly ramp up in difficulty, it's pretty full on through out. new things are introduced but not explained via a tutorial.

There are a few positives to take away from this demo, perhaps the pixel art used in the level is the main one. But, the negatives outweigh them. the music, the controls, the settings, the tutorial, the story, and the bugs are mostly negative in my opinion and throughout the video i try to talk about them and explain why.

So i came away from this demo not wanting to try the main game. with how broken elements are of this are, i don't know if the main game would have the same ones, or if it's been patched, or even if it's quite different from what i played.

Cloud Monday - Genji: Days of the Blade - Part 2 - Difficult to Recommend But I’m Glad I Played It

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing #GameRepublic's #Genji Days of the Blade, tho i think i got the name wrong a few times in the video. this was a #PS3 launch title when it came out in 2006.

Coming back to this game for part 2 helped to solidify my thoughts that whilst it's great we're able to play a game from the launch of the #PlayStation3, there's not much more here than that. the game isn't designed for being played in the cloud and i would argue that it has some fundamental issues regarding what feels like no checkpointing. it seems that it relies purely on manual saves, which in this game can only be done at specific points.

I didn't notice any issues with the game because of it being streamed to me in the cloud. i might've had some complaints about the graphics, controls, and framerate but that was because of the game and not because of it being streamed to me.

But, ultimately, i didn't have a great time and fell victim to the lack of a checkpoint a couple of times. i was playing on normal and still felt that it was a bit tough. i don't think i will be coming back to the game, but i am glad that i got to play it, as i said in Part 1 i bought Resistance: Fall of Man and F1 at launch, as i hadn't played it before.

Cloud Monday - Genji: Days of the Blade - Part 1 - Large Gaps Between Manual Saves

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Game Republic's Genji Tales of the Blade, tho i think i got the name wrong a few times in the video. this was a PS3 launch title when it came out in 2006.

I got a PlayStation 3 at launch, but i went with Resistance: Fall of Man and F1 so i have never played this game before. But as i was playing games at launch, i went in with realistic ideas about what this is. To be honest, after just playing this part, it mostly met my expectations of a HD PS2 game with some fancy effects.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. i actually enjoyed most of what i played. The combat is a little basic and feels a little disjointed, but there was no lag from playing it online from PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Servers. there were no visual issues either outside a frame or two of stream tearing. as a game being streamed to me, it was a near perfect experience. 

But as a game being played in the cloud, it has the same critical issue that Scarlet Nexus had in that you can't do manual saves and there's a big gap between saves. When the service is going to kick you off, due to poor internet bandwidth or connection, it only gives you a 20 second warning. unfortunately, in Genji: Days of the Blade in this part i played it was almost 20 minutes between saves.

So as a part of PlayStation history, i of course recommend people at least give it an hour or so. But this does come with a warning that if you're kicked off, it'll probably be frustrating to play the sections again.

Cloud Monday - Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot - Part 2 - Side Quests Are Weird In A Known Story

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. I streamed this game, developed by, CyberConnect2, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese PS4.

I was concerned last time that getting the game to work might be a one off, but i was wrong. once again, the game started for the first time when i wanted to play it. it's a welcomed surprise and i may check out some of the other games that refused to work.

A lot of what i said in part 1, https://youtu.be/_IdUPMR6gTE, are true in this part. but the thing that stuck out the most was actually doing side quests. If, like me, you're familiar with the story of Dragon Ball Z then the idea of doing side quests is strange as it's hard to imagine how they'd fit them into the game. the stuff in part 1 worked well as a tutorial and was before Dragon Ball Z started. In this part, the side quest on the island also work because the story hadn't kicked off.

But having to save Gohan or do a side quest just felt wrong. at this point in the game i was Goku and my son had been stolen by Raditz, so naturally my response is to go and save Gohan. it's what happens in Dragon Ball Z and it's the natural thing to do. but to have the map open up a bit and for there to be side quests just didn't feel right. i tried to do one but abandoned it to continue the story.

This game is a little difficult to review. on one hand it's got pretty good game design to be streamed from the cloud to my PS4. there are some story moments hard to skip, but for the most part it works as a cloud streaming game and in that respect it's better than quite a lot in this series. But on the other hand, it's a weird game in that i don't know who's it's audience. People who like and know Dragon Ball Z already know this story. if this game was just this story then i'd understand why they'd want to play it. but the addition of social connections, RPG elements, and side quests feel more like bloat than a useful addition. so perhaps this is aimed at those who want a different type of RPG or who recognise Goku but don't know the story.

Online Weekend - Sunday - Gundam Evolution - It's Final Weekend!

This weekend is the final weekend for Gundam Evolution. I'm playing this game on PS4. Gundam Evolution ends at the end of November so be sure to join in and play before then!

Here are 6 casual games i played on Sunday.

Online Weekend - Saturday - Gundam Evolution - It's Final Weekend!

This weekend is the final weekend for Gundam Evolution. I'm playing this game on PS4.  Gundam Evolution ends at the end of November so be sure to join in and play before then!

Here are 3 casual an 1 ranked games i played on Saturday.

Cloud Monday - Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot - Part 1 - Good Game Design For Streaming, Unsure For Playing

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. I streamed this game, developed by, CyberConnect2, via the #PlayStationPlus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese PS4.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is a game i've been trying to stream for a while now. I try it each week, and since it came to PlayStation Plus it's never worked. Until now! I was really surprised and very unprepared for it, i've been saying for a long time that i couldn't get it to work and, at least this one time, it did.

My thinking behind trying this game is that it's slower pace might make it more suitable for it being streamed. i had hoped that, as a RPG, we'd be able to save more frequently. And it looks like we can. the game also has a decent auto save feature that seemed to be fairly active. so in comparison to Scarlet Nexus, i was more confident that i could either manually save, hit an auto save, or get to a save point in Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot than Scarlet Nexus.

A welcome bonus is how big and simple the characters are on screen. they look very much like their anime counterparts, so when there was some macroblocking i was still able to work out what was happening and wasn't really hampered. this is a great looking game and it feels like you're playing in the anime. so when there is macroblocking or stream tearing, it takes you out of the experience, more than anything else, because it looks so much like what it's based on.

But, whilst there are many positives about the game design and how suitable it is for being streamed from the cloud i can't ignore how other parts of it weren't great for actually playing. In, nearly, every section of this first part there was something that i found annoying or something that made the game less accessible. 

The way it introduces anything new with tutorial cards of screen is simply lazy and something i'll always complain about. it's something that's not that accessible to new players. i'd expect the cards if i was looking for a reminder on how to do something. They have Goku and Gohan at the start, Goku could simply be telling Gohan the basics of fighting and that could've been out introduction. The way they introduce the social aspect of this game is also baffling and a part of the game i didn't know about.

The controls were often slightly worse than i expected, for example the dash is super fast and difficult to use or when you're on Nimbus and there are collectable orbs but you have to seemingly touch them to collect them but that's difficult because Nimbus is slightly more difficult to control than expected. Also, why  can i collect items from afar but not these orbs?

Maybe in part 2 there'll be more context for everything and with more practice things will improve. but as it's been near impossible to play this game just once i'm not sure if/when Part 2 may be.

Backlog Conquering - Abzû On PS4 - From Start to Finish

This is a video of my playthrough of Abzû on my #PlayStation4. I have edited together all 3 parts into one long video. the cut between each video is a little rough but i don't think it gets in the way of enjoying this playthrough. there is no commentary either.

You can watch each part at:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/R_MvXOPcm4o

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/FiugN2sszG0

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/hIo3HzPfiug

Backlog Conquering - Abzû On PS4 - Part 3 - The Final Part

This is the final part of my play through of Abzu on PlayStation 4. Whilst i may not fully understand the story the developers were trying to tell, i did enjoy being in the world. the swimming, the interactions, and the world they had created was really nice to explore. And of course the fantastic Soundtrack by @awintory  not only adds to the gameplay and what you do in the game, but it also helps give more life to the world and just being in it.

Other than the story and how it is told, i don't really have much to complain about. i really enjoyed my time in the game and i'm glad i finally played it. It's definitely up there as one of the better games on the PS4.

Demo Play Thursday - Star Ocean: The Second Story R On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Star Ocean: The Second Story R.  This DEMO, from developers Gemdrops, is also out on PS5, Switch, and PC.

Star Ocean is a series of games that i've never really played. i think i have a couple of the games, but even then i've maybe only played an hour of each. There's something about them that doesn't seem to grab me, but it's been so long since i last played one it's difficult to remember exactly why. But seeing this remake of the second Star Ocean game, especially with it's unique art style, had a DEMO got me interested as it offered a way to try the game without buying it.

As a DEMO, it's great. before the game starts, it clearly says what this DEMO is, what it's limitations are, and where/when it ends. It's most of the start of the game, which means that it also includes the tutorials for the game. So in this DEMO we get the backstory to what i presume is the first game, Star Ocean: First Departure R, first before it moves onto telling this game's story. in the hour i played we also got a lot of world building and some useful, tho not great, tutorials. the last tutorial i got was how to parry but i couldn't get it to work. the game tells us how to do something without showing us. it feels like a waste of screen space that could've been used to show us rather than just telling us.

The standout feature of this DEMO, and the game itself, are the graphics. it's a mix of pixel art, similar to the style introduced by Octopath Traveller, and 3D environments. it mostly works fine, but on PS4 there are moments where it looks like the characters are floating on the world as there's a lack of shadows by their feet. also, near the end of the video i did find navigating the overworld a little tricky as it was a bit difficult to know what our character could and couldn't walk over. One nice addition, that i didn't go into in this DEMO, is the ability to switch the game soundtracks from the original PS1 version to this new one's soundtrack.

As a DEMO, i felt that it works well. it could've been a bit better here and there as a DEMO, but as a representation of the start of Star Ocean: The Second Story R i feel that i does a good job in highlighting how accessible the game is to new players whilst also slowly introducing us the world without it feeling overwhelming. it's a very accessible DEMO which leads me to suspect that at the very least the start of Star Ocean: The Second Story R is also very accessible and maybe even a decent choice for people new to Star Ocean or new to RPG's in general.

Backlog Conquering - #Abzû On #PS4 - Part 2 - The Next Two Shrines

Part 2 of playing the PlayStation 4 version of Abzu, a game developed by Giant Squid and published by  505 Games, started amazingly. It's not something i remember seeing before. When you get to the home screen, it's background has changed to the location we finished part 1, https://youtu.be/R_MvXOPcm4o. This isn't a surprise as the Rime videos had the same thing. But what i hadn't expected was that when you hit continue, you go to the background and play the game. I never suspected that the background was the actual game paused, i thought it was art. it's a really cool effect.

As for the rest of the video, i continued to find myself awestruck throughout. i'm going through it at my own speed, taking time to enjoy the scenery and exploring a little. If i have to criticize something, i'd say that the story is still difficult to parse from the art on the wall. the ruins in the world also don't point towards what happened in the past as we have the technological doors contrasted with the stone ruins throughout. so my drive to continue playing isn't the story but more the experience and seeing what the game has to show.

Cloud Monday - Cloudpunk - Good Game To Stream From PlayStation Plus But Unclear Saves Are An Issue

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Cloudpunk. I streamed this game, developed by Ion Lands, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese PS4.

In part 1, https://youtu.be/o3KbvReYduI, i had a great experience streaming the game from PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming Service. there were the occasional hiccups throughout my time with the game but nothing that seriously impacted my time and my enjoyment of the game. they were simply noticeable.

For the most part, that continued into this part 2. I felt no lag in the controls and the streaming issues we had didn't get in the way of gameplay nor my enjoyment of it. But there were more noticeable streaming artifacts than in part 1. there were Stream Tears, where grey appears on screen, and it felt like there were bit rates drops, where the video looked like "1080p" but not too detailed. 

A lot of the games design, intentional or not, helps mitigate the issues i had streaming the game from PlayStation. Most, if not all, of the conversations in the game are voiced and also have subtitles, if you don't accidentally hide them,  so if there is macro blocking and the text becomes illegible, then you can listen to what's happening. If the bit rate or resolution drops, you can slow down or stop. most of the game so far is us delivery items in our vehicle but these don't go fast and we don't move fast when walking so i never felt like i was headed to a crash. and i could simply stop and wait for things to get better. So for these reasons, and more, i do recommend this game as something that's streamable from PlayStation Plus and that it's a good game in general.

But...it's unclear when the game saves. And in a game that's being streamed to us on a service that can kick us off with just a 20 second warning, it's a little frustrating. I ended this video not knowing when the last save was, would i have to talk to the Coffee Man again or was the save when i landed. i don't know. The game has some other small issues like a so-so tutorial that i can work my through. But this save issue is big enough to give me pause and it's something i must add when i recommend this game, 'cause i do recommend it.

Demo Play Thursday - CRYMACHINA on PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of CRYMACHINA.  This DEMO, from developers FuRyu, is also out on PS5, Switch, and PC.

The reason why i chose to play this demo was because it's game icon on the PlayStation store looked soo cool. i didn't even check out any of the screenshots or videos on the store. i simply saw the icon and downloaded the DEMO.

I didn't finished this DEMO, but i played enough to know that it wasn't specifically built as a DEMO. it's simply the start of the game. But, in a way, this is good as we get to see the back story, the tutorials, and even some world building. In that sense, it's a great DEMO. But, what wasn't made clear at any point is whether or not our save will carry over to the final game. It's possible that it will say so at the end of the DEMO, but i didn't get that far. if you know, let us know in the comments.

The combat in this DEMO is a highlight, and potentially exciting for the full game. the controls felt accurate but also spamable for new comers, the tutorial was clear, if a little basic, and the visual affects were showy and added a cool factor and heft to what was happening on screen. But the DEMO made it clear early on that there's a casual mode which'll make the combat easier if you'd rather focus on the story.

As for the story, as this is only a short look at the game it's understandable that there are a few questions left answered. but the game does a good job of having the main character ask the questions that we, the gamer, would ask. I would say that it works. enough has been revealed to put the game in a world, some things have been explained well enough to explain game design choices, and some things have been teased as to what we're going to be doing in the story. But there's no hint of a twist as yet so it's hard to say whether the game as a simple story to tell or if everything's not quite as it seems.

Graphically, it feels like this DEMO is taken from a near end or final build of the game. it looks great and i was surprised how much i liked the architecture style. The main character designs may be a little busy, but they are distinct from the bad characters in the DEMO. everything considered, i would say this succeeds as a DEMO even if it's not really designed as one. so perhaps it's best to say that the first hour of this game is approachable for casual and hardcore gamers, and after playing it i am much more interested in it than i was before. so i recommend people play the DEMO, one way or another it's a good one.

Backlog Conquering - Abzû On PS4 - The First Two Shrines

The next game from my backlog that i'm going to play is the PlayStation 4 version of Abzu, a game developed by Giant Squid and published by 505 Games  .

I'm sure this is a game i got from PlayStation Plus, downloaded, but never actually played. Even when i changed the HDD in my PS4, i downloaded this game again because i wanted to play it. thankfully, this series has given me the push i needed to finally start Abzû, and after just this first part i'm glad i did.

Abzû is a beautiful game, even on my Japanese launch model PS4. it starts well, instead of just telling us to press a button it puts on screen the controller and also shows us which button to press. that immediately makes the game more accessible for people unfamiliar with the DualShock 4. What some people may not enjoy is how the game doesn't explicitly tell us what to do, but in it's own way it does give some hints in the first few areas as to what you'll be doing.

In this video, i did the first two shrines in the game. i don't yet fully understand the significance of the shrines, but like the rest of the game they are visually impressive. along the way, there are hints as to a story as there are seemingly structures, or ruins of ones, as well as surprisingly advanced robotic doors. There's also the enigma of the character we play as, as initially i thought it was humanoid. but as we were able to spend as much time as we wanted under water i'm starting to think that maybe we're not human. there are robots in the game, so maybe we're more advanced robots or even androids. in this video i wondered if this is a post apocalyptic world and our job is to help bring life to the oceans.

There will be a part 2, i'm very interested in this game. if you've watched the Rime videos  from earlier in this series, you'll know that i liked that game because i was playing and learning the story. the puzzles didn't really add much to that game. thankfully here there don't seem to be puzzles, other than the story itself.

Cloud Monday - Cloudpunk - Unclear Checkpoints And Auto-Saves Bring Unwanted Anxiety

This week's Cloud Monday video is is on Cloudpunk. I streamed this game, developed by Ion Lands, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese PS4.

Going in to this game, i didn't know much about it. over the years i had heard this and that about it so i knew that it was something like a taxi/delivery game with lots of talking. but the specifics were unclear. But one of the reasons for choosing a "Cyberpunk" style game is whether or not the aesthetics of it would hold up being streamed to my PlayStation 4.

For the most part, streaming the game from the cloud doesn't affect the aesthetics of the game. the biggest issue the game has in this regard is with the PS4. the draw distance isn't too far so there is a lot of pop-in. it's hard to get a sense of scale, the fully grasp the whole world, when it's popping in as you drive along. But what you do get to see is some amazing voxel art and some huge buildings.

As the game uses varying sizes of voxels, i never really had an issue with how it looked or with things not being clear due to issues with the streaming. in the video, there was some macro blocking, some stream tears, some small hiccups, but in all these instances i still could understand the world. thankfully, these all happened in the car so it's possible out on foot it could be a little bit more of a distraction. the only issue i had with the cloud stream was an instance where macro-blocking made reading what a character was saying difficult.

Once again, it was the game itself that provided the biggest issue. In this video, i was unable to save my game, nor was i able to workout if the game is auto saving or checkpointing. I'll find out when i start Part 2 next week, but it genuinely adds a bit of anxiety to the experience because if there is an issue with streaming a game from PlayStation Plus, there's only a 20 second warning. I have no idea when the last save was, so i have no idea how much progress is about to be lost. The game's pace is slow and that works well with it being streamed, but that works against it if a lot of progress is about to be lost.

As a streaming experience, i do recommend it. But that comes with a huge asterix over the saving and checkpointing that i won't know the answer to until the second part of this series.

Online Saturday - Redout 2 - It Feels Incomplete, Has A Bad Tutorial, And The Online Is Tacked On

Welcome to Online Saturday.

For today's video i'm trying the PS4 version of Redout 2 from 34BigThings. I have the original Redout game, also on PlayStation 4, but i haven't played that in many years. But i have pleasant memories from playing it. Redout 2 has recently come to PlayStation Plus so i was keen to try it as i'm still enjoying racing games at the moment. 

I'll be upfront about my feelings after playing this game, i do not recommend it. frankly, it feels like an unfinished early access game with modes tacked on. Even as a free PlayStation Plus download, it borders on a waste of time when there are far more games out there to play.

It starts with a cinematic that looks a little weird, like it's a lower resolution that the rest of the game. i wonder if the disc version of the game has a higher resolution cinematic than this. It tells some story before panning the camera behind our vehicle, then there's a lurch, maybe for a frame or two, as the graphics ramp up and we're into the tutorial. It does work well and it is exciting, but this tutorial is at full speed and adds a level of anxiety as it feels like there's not enough time to read the prompt and do it as the vehicle is still racing on the track. as we race there's an unprompted speed boost that slams us into the wall and then another prompt for strafing that also puts us into the wall as we try it.

The tutorials don't get any better. there's even an instance near the end of the video where a prompt appears just as the track loses a side wall. so in the process of reading the prompt on our screen we race straight off the track. as for the rest of the tutorials, they are more like telling us how to do something without explaining what the expected result or next step is. one that frustrated me was the rewind feature as it told us how to enter it, then gave no further explanations for all the buttons that appeared on the screen. 

A weird thing about the tutorials is that you don't need to finish them to unlock unranked multiplayer. i found it frustrating that i had to go into multiplayer to find out i can't do multiplayer, but at least it said what the requirement was to unlock unranked mode. so that's what i did, and then in multiplayer i had situations where prompts came up on the screen that i didn't fully understand. it wasn't until i went back to finish the tutorial that they were explained. I understand why multiplayer was locked, but i don't understand why it was unlocked before the tutorial we finished. that one decision made gave me negative impressions of both modes.

At best i can call the multiplayer tacked on. there is just 1 mode. Ranked mode, like a couple of other modes, is "Coming Soon". but it's almost unbelievably basic. all i can do is select unranked and wait. there's no lobby, no region, no course select, nothing. all i can do is wait and join when it's found a match. and over about half an hour to forty minutes, i only found 1 match. and even then the other racer DNF'd. after the race the messaging is unclear, as there's no tutorial or prompts or text boxes, and you're dumped back to the home screen when you leave multiplayer. i didn't want to leave it, i wanted to race again.

This whole "Coming Soon" debacle is why this game feels incomplete, almost like it's in early access. it's not just the ranked multiplayer, but even on the home screen there are two other modes with "Coming Soon" on them, "Season Challenge" and "Community". it's hard to believe that DLC came out for this game before these modes did. there's no date on them when they're coming, no information as to what they are either. Why even use up space on the home screen advertising some features that are coming later. that should be off to the side, with information about what they are and when they're coming. it's not even clear if they're DLC or a patch. The three "Coming Soon" features and not really there multiplayer really do make this game feel incomplete. i could even say that with a tutorial this bad, that also adds to it.

It's a graphically nice game, but i'm not entirely convinced the racing is that good. the tracks are great, they're interesting and the world around them is also impressive. the vehicles are unique and each one looks different. it's cool how you can parts, too. But the vehicles don't work well on the tracks, or the tracks aren't suited to the vehicles. the tracks don't feel designed well enough for the handling of the vehicles. It could be a speed thing, like maybe the vehicles are too fast.

Overall, i can't recommend Redout 2. even as a free to download game on PlayStation Plus, it's hard to recommend as ultimately it borders as just being a waste of time. I'm even starting to wonder if the first game was actually good or not. it's been soo long since i played it that maybe my memory is wrong.