Pokémon Violet - The Third Hour - Going to School and Exploring Mesagoza City

I was curious how the school system would work. is it a hub that we return to after we do something? is it somewhere we visit once? and after this video i'm still not sure. What i didn't expect was the time skip. our room got more decorations, but our Pokémon didn't level up

Something i didn't expect to annoy me, but did, was the lack of interactions. in past Pokémon games you could click on many things and get a little speech bubble with some text on it. often that text had nothing to do with the story and more to do with the world or place in general. something like "there are many books" "the trash can is empty" or even "you found TM..." because in previous games looking around could sometimes be good as you could find things. as you'll hear in this video, i look around a lot and find nothing.

That kinda continued into the town as you'll see in the video that restaurants are often repeated and take up many shop spaces. whereas there are other shops that look like we could go in, but we can't. But the town is very big and very impressive. i wonder if it'll be a place they fill in more with updates and DLC or if it'll stay as is.

In this video we also had our first encounter with Team Star and we Terrastalized our first Pokémon!

Pokémon Violet - The Second Hour - An Hours Walk To Mesagoza, Exploring Along The Way

Continuing my laid-back approach to this game, it would take about an hour to get from the lighthouse at the end of the first video, https://youtu.be/o2qMxElMJMk, to the city where our school is located in at Mesagoza.

I was surprised at how open this game is. sure, you can't jump or climb but there are still plenty of paths to find and go down. I caught my Wiglett because i found a path that led down to the ocean. other paths have lead down to the river, whilst others have rewarded us with TM's and other items. 

Like the first video, there were some technical issues. this time it felt like they were mostly related to shadows and geometry. from the beginning of the video there's an issue where the lighthouse shadow disappears and reappears. later, as we get into a hilly area, the camera breaks out of the world and when we start Pokémon battles there are points where half the screen is "normal" and half is looking through the world.

But overall, i feel just as energized and curious as i did when i started the game so i will keep on playing.

Pokémon Violet - The First Hour - Getting My Starter, Catching Pokémon, And Meeting Miraidon

I enjoy playing Pokémon games so I was looking forward to playing this game. I chose Violet because I liked the box legendary. Other than that, I’ve tried hard not to read leaks. 

In the Splatoon 3 Pokémon Splatfest, https://youtu.be/DkZlwadS50Y, I talked about how I like Grass types. But I actually went with the Fire type Fuecoco! You see my favorite Pokémon, Jumpluff, is in the game and I wanted to get it. And I did! It’s one of the first Pokémon you find.

There are some technical issues throughout the video. They’re not game breaking, but they can be immersion breaking. The game feels a little rough in places. 

But overall, the first hour was fun. I enjoyed the new setting and seeing the Pokémon. The story wasn’t bad either. I’m looking forward to playing more of the game. I had thought that I would be calm and relaxed playing Pokémon Violet, but by the end of the video I felt energized!

Backlog Conquering - Not A Hero - The Second Part

(Sorry for the late post. This went up on YouTube, maybe you could subscribe there and be kept up to date https://www.youtube.com/user/QTEGamersVideos)

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is part 2 of playing Not A Hero on PS4.

I don't make as much progress in this video as i did with part 1. For me, the difficulty ramped up a fair bit as there were many more enemies to deal with, and they had stronger weapons. i'm not sure as yet if there'll be a part 3 as i was getting frustrated and not really having much fun.

Backlog Conquering - Not A Hero - The First Part

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is part 1 of playing Not A Hero on PS4. I decided to move on from Legend of Kay as i wasn't really enjoying it. The point of this series isn't to finish games, it's to actually play them. Once i've played them, i'm able to judge whether or not i want to finish them.

In this first part, i play through the short tutorial and play through the first section (boss) of the game. it's certainly different and i don't think i've quite got the controls down. the writing is fun and whilst the story hasn't grabbed me, it's still been fun to read. my concern is the difficulty level. i have found some sections difficult already, so we'll see if it's just spikes in difficulty or a sign of things to come.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Pixel Zuoh Cup! - Achievement Run

Welcome to Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday! Sit back and either watch me play through, with no commentary, the cup or leave it running in the background as BGM!

I play and earn all the achievements from the Pixel Zuoh Cup! (11/13 4PM - 11/20 3:59PM (PST)) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and my Nintendo Switch is Docked.

This was a good week for me. i got a win in one match. in another i beat the boss, and i mostly in the top 3 throughout. the gimmick was to make a row of 6 using green, blue, and red. i don't think Purple or Yellow worked. in the grid was a space that would change the color of a sphere on it. i got lucky and for the most part these weren't too in the way. i did have a few mistakes with my controller. it maybe time to think about a better pro controller for the switch.

Let me know how you did this week and if you have controller recommendations, also let me know what they are.

Cloud Monday - Skydrift Infinity - A Fun Arcade Racing Game BUT Avoid The Online

In today's Cloud Monday, I'm playing Skydrift Infinity. I didn't know anything about this game other than the screenshots and video that were on the game's page.

So i was pleasantly surprised to find a fun arcade flying racing game. this was the first racing game i've played for Cloud Monday and i was interested to see how the cloud streaming would hold up to such a fast paced game. it wasn't perfect. there were several instances of the video quality dipping or becoming blocky. there were other instances of the grey tears here and there across the screen. thankfully controlling the game felt fine. it was different from other racing games i've played but it felt like it was because of what i was controlling rather than any lag introduced to the game via cloud streaming.

But, and a big one as you can see in the title. i had to quit the game because i got stuck in online. i have a Japanese PlayStation 4 and so the O and X buttons are often swapped. some games will automatically swap these back to a European standard. some won't. this game did and didn't do it! so more than once i would find that the buttons did the opposite. in the online section, that you can see near the end of the video, none of the buttons would allow me to exit. it left me with no choice but to close the game and try again. But then the PSN failed to restart the game and gave me an error screen. i had waited for several minutes and decided to end the game there. i say avoid the online because i can't say for sure if it is operational, if there's a bug which is stopping it working, or whether i had a unique issue.