Demo Play Thursday - Cross Tails on PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the #PlayStation4 version of Cross Tails.  This DEMO, from developers Rideon, is also out on all current generation platforms and PC.

The reason why i chose to play this demo was because i was genuinely curious about the game. on the #PSN store, not much is mentioned about the story but the screenshots showed that when the characters are on screen, not their character art, they are surrounded by a thick black outline. but it didn't look quite like cell shading that i had seen in the past. 

The most annoying and disappointing part of this demo is the tutorial. it's just text boxes and pictures. and lots of them. the demo does start by saying that there are some limitations to it, but i do think that this is how the retail version of the game treats it's tutorial. it's an old way of doing it and many games have found better ways to incorporate their tutorials into the story and/or gameplay. it's quite important to this game as this game does have some unique features.

the one i used the most in this demo was the auto function. i can set some tactics, but once i've put everyone on the field i can turn on auto and the game's battles will just play out them selves. it's a fun and accessible thing the game does, and when you couple that with the story of the game it lets the player chose to play it like a JRPG or like a Visual Novel. the only downside of the visual novel aspect is that i had to manually continue the conversations, unlike battle mode there's no auto function when characters are talking.

But the highlight was how the characters on the game world looked with their thick black lines and the character art. the art was great with a lot of detail and the black lines on their in-game models worked better than i imagined. it was easy to keep track of the characters in the game world and it just looked really cool.

But as a demo, it has such a disappointing tutorial. it's really bad and becomes a barrier to higher level play. i could understand how after playing this demo some people would be turned off and not want to buy the game. on the other hand tho, there are many good aspects of the demo like a decent story, intrigued, and the fact we only played the beginning of one of the two stories in the game. these are things that some people will find compelling and get the game afterwards. what ever your choice, just be aware that your save game will not be carried over to the retail version of the game.

Backlog Conquering - Gunstar Heroes - Part 7 - The Final Part

Part 7 of playing Gunstar Heroes on PS3 is the final part of my playthrough of the game. in part 6, https://youtu.be/RKKnRQQN82A, i ended that video with a try at the final boss rush. in this video i completed that boss rush as well as the final boss battle.

i don't want to go into story spoilers here, you can choose whether or not to watch how the video ends. but what i will say is that i found the boss rush to be easier than some of the other parts of this play through. i was surprised that i managed to beat it, i think, on my third try. i was a little lucky that the game continued from the final boss and that it didn't send me back to the start of the boss rush.

at the end of the game, once it's all finished, i'm kinda left speechless. it's one of the hardest games i've ever completed. it's hard to say why i kept on going, i imagine there's a level of stubbornness behind it. Gunstar Heroes does have some good points, and from a technological standpoint it does some cool things. but it's difficulty is brutal and unbalanced. i can only recommend that if you're going to play Gunstar Heroes as part of the SEGA Vintage Collection on PlayStation 3 then set the difficult to the easiest.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Pixel Fenrir Cup Revival - 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 Fenrir Cup Revival! (2023/10/9 9:00～2023/10/16 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This week is the Pixel Fenrir Cup Revival. i have played this cup before, https://youtu.be/69Tg4WuUNFI. Much like this video, back then when i played there weren't many other players playing.

This week was disappointing as i only played against 1 other human. the last couple of cups have had fewer opponents, but i wasn't expecting to do a cup where i only played against 1 other person. Plus, i only played against them in the first game. after that, each game was against the computer. It maybe that i'll have to retire this programming in the not to distant future and do something new on Tuesdays, or move this to #Kofi.

As for this cup, it wasn't too difficult. i knew i had to make "L" shaped matches and i needed to add light and/or dark combos to it for the big score. But honestly, this wasn't one of my better cups. i got to the boss a few times but never came close to defeating it. it felt like i was moving much slower than normal, or that setting things up was taking too much time.

This week i played against:

なっとうぐんかん - Rank 8

Cloud Monday - Matterfall - Part 1 - Cloud Streaming Copes OK With All The Particles On Screen

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Matterfall, a PS4 game from Housemarque that came out in 2017. I wanted to see how this game would hold up being streamed from PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming as it has a lot of particles that, on services like YouTube, can appear to be blocky rather than the fine points of detail they are.

And for the most part, the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service was able to cope with the, at times excessive, amounts of particles on screen at a time. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough that when the quality did drop and things got a bit blocky it wasn't too noticeable and not for very long.

The game has a mechanic that makes it a good choice to be streamed from the PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Service. we know, and have seen, that the service will give you a 20 second warning when it'll kick you off. thankfully, Matterfall has, mostly regular, checkpoints. this means that you're either not too far from reaching one or haven't progressed far since your last one. because of this, i wasn't worried about loosing progress and felt relaxed continuing on. 

Whilst streaming it is fine, the game itself has it's own quirks that will take time to get used to. the one that annoyed me throughout the video was the control scheme. i feel like i never truly mastered it. the focus is on the R1 and L1 buttons and using them in combination and it's just something i've not really done in games. the other thing i mention a few times is how our weapon feels so weak right from the beginning. Hopefully i'll get more familiar with it in part 2, but for now this does make it more difficult whether or not to recommend the game 'cause on one hand it's game design means it's a great choice to stream but on the other hand it's gameplay feels lacking.

Switch Funday - Pokémon Unite - October's Unite Weekend

Today's Switch Funday video is on Pokémon Unite. as this is the first full weekend of October, it's a Unite Weekend. this means i'm able to use any Pokémon i want in the unranked online modes. my goal with these weekends is to try out several new Pokémon i don't have and hopefully find some new favorites. 

I was having a lot of fun during this weekend and ended up playing 7 games, that's why this video is longer than the others. this also meant i got to use 7 different pokemon. Zoroark was fun, but it's illusion gimmick isn't something i'm interested in. Blaziken was interesting as when you used it's unite move, it's other two moves would switch to the other two moves. it took a little time to work this out but it's kinda cool. I had more fun with Duraludon than i expected. not only does it look cool but it's moves were useful. Azumarill was another with useful moves, especially whirlpool. but it was goofy moving around. i was eager to try Trevenant but i don't think i fully understood how to use it, going with curse seemed like a bad idea. Leafeon was the big surprise and the Pokémon i enjoyed using the most. i enjoyed it soo much i actually bought it after i stopped recording! for the "bonus" extra match i wanted to try another eeveelution, Umbreon. but it didn't feel strong enough in the game i played. like Trevenant, it might be one i could try again with a different move set.

Online Saturday - Disney Speedstorm - Poor Tutorial And U.I Detract From Good Racing And Graphics

Welcome to Online Saturday.

For today's video i'm trying out the free to play Nintendo Switch game Disney Speedstorm. this game is out on other platforms and had been out for a little while before as something akin to a paid beta. but now it's free to play and i went in expecting a polished game with a robust selection of characters and tracks. unfortunately, wasn't the case.

The game starts with what looks like a good tutorial and across many sections it says what menus and stuff are. but it's because it looks so useful that when it turns out to not be comprehensive it comes across as a half finished tutorial. there are some basic stuff not covered by the tutorial, like the rails and jumps, some basic moves, like charged attacks, and things are made worse by some poor U.I choices.

one of the very first things the game asks you to do is choose your racing style. but it doesn't define what either is. you can change it in the menus later, but even then it doesn't give much more detail. this lack of detail is apparent throughout the U.I and a real missed opportunity to make the came more accessible and easy to understand. throughout the video i complain about many different aspects of the game that are poorly explained, if they are at all.

These choices give the game a feel of a mobile phone game. but in trying to be minimal and be useable across many devices, it has instead come across as a mobile game that's surprisingly not as accessible or as straightforward as you'd expect for a Disney title. it's almost like it has an identity crisis. a key example of that is how the game promotes energy drinks and uses them to level up characters. it's well documented how multiple energy drinks can be bad for health, so it having such a prominent use in this game is almost baffling and it doesn't really make much sense in the game's universe anyway.

Whilst the game has many issues, one of them isn't the racing itself. whilst there are things you'll have to work out yourself because the game won't tell, the core racing itself is good. but, in the beginning, it doesn't feel fast. instead of breaking the game into speed categories, your speed is determined by your character's stats. so the higher the level your character is the faster they'll go. i don't mind it, but i'm a little unsure as to whether or not the online multiplayer is going to be successfully balanced. the game does use drifting and it doesn't take long to get used to. each character has their own selection of weapons as well as a character specific move. for the offline races, it felt exciting, close, and it often came down to the wire. 

But, even tho it's an option on the main menu, you can't start with Online. you have to do a minimum of 9 offline races before you can unlock the Online mode. and even then it's only a ranked online mode. it felt very strange to me that the first online mode unlocked is ranked instead of unranked. the two online races i took part in felt unbalanced, with a couple racing ahead and none of use seemingly able to do anything, or the game giving us anything, to catch up to them. it didn't feel as fun or as balanced as the offline racing did and it's why i'm concerned that the online modes are going to be unbalanced. but having this be the first online mode people play feels like a quick way to turn people off online as it could just be not fun.

This might be a fun game to play offline, and if that's all you want to do then i would recommend the game. but if you're looking to play it online, then i wouldn't recommend the game and suggest you wait until the game is patched. not only because of how unbalanced the online felt, but also because it seemed like the online mode was struggling with there being disconnections and poor connections. i have no idea what region it's placed me in, so i can't comment if that's the reason. with the game in the state it's in, it feels like a shame that such fun core racing mechanics have been placed into a poorly designed mobile phone game. coupled with the weight of the Disney brand behind it, it's a case of what could've been.

Mobile Friday - Need for Speed No Limits - An Old Accessible Racing Game That’s Still Worth Playing

For Mobile Friday this week i tried out Need for Speed No Limits on iPhone14 Pro. this game was originally released back in 2015 on iOS and Android.

This is maybe the oldest game i've played for Mobile Friday. Honestly, it doesn't really show in a negative way. some of the more modern games i've played have issues with unexpected adverts or poor tutorials. This game has none of that. it's very accessible, and it does things more like a guide rather than a tutorial. every thing i unlocked would have a guide first to explain what it is. But the game often had another screen before the races explaining what is about to happen. as for the adverts, it was clear when i had the option to watch one to get an ingame reward.

If there is something that perhaps shows the game's age it possible some of the graphics. the cars are fine, the buildings are ok too. but the sky looked like it was painted and not very dynamic. it wasn't distracting, but it did look the worse in comparison to the rest of the game. but other than that, the game doesn't really feel old.

A bonus for playing a game this old is that there is a lot of content. the game has some simple ways to get players to come back, none of it in this video was a pain. it's possible that making progress will slow down the further you play and coming back repeatedly could get a bit frustrating as you'd have to do so often for only a little progress.

i do recommend this game. it's not only a good racing game but it's also a good mobile phone game. the races i took part in were all under a minute long and controlling the game was simple. touch and hold left or right to turn left or right. swipe up to activate the turbo. swipe town and turn to drift. this meant that i could play the game with just a finger on each hand. there didn't seem to be any additional downloads when starting the game for the first time either. the game is also still being supported, so if you used to play the game i'd recommend coming back and checking out all the additional content.

(Version 7.1.01 Played)