Demo Play Thursday - Mario vs. Donkey Kong On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong. This game previously came out on Game Boy Advance and i feel like there's a chance i tried it out on it, but it was so long ago i don't remember one way or another.

So going into this game, i didn't really know how it was going to play. Other than possibly the first game, i've not played any of the subsequent releases. i've seen trailers and heard people talking about them, but that's it. So coming into this i was really expecting the game to tutorialize what to do and how to play it, not just because it's a #demo but also because it's different from other Mario games.

I was surprised by how unhelpful the tutorial was, what little there was. It's always possible the main game might be a little different as this is a demo that knows it's a demo. the main landing page says demo and it has a link to the eShop. But i suspect that's not the case. The biggest issue with this was the final level with the Mario Toys. i genuinely had no idea what to do and all the game said was guide the toys to the letter blocks. so i walked them to a letter block and they did nothing. it wasn't until i jumped and moved that i realised the toys were following me and have no Ai intelligence themselves.

The demo is only 4 levels and two difficulty levels. the first 3 levels were nice and short with some different platforming and puzzle stuff. the fourth level was the one with the toy Mario's. But it was the difficulty levels that i found most interesting. i started with casual, as it's my first time, but i didn't really know what it was as the game doesn't say what the differences are between them. but after playing i can say that casual adds checkpoints to the levels and a bubble save to the already lives you have. in the normal mode, you only have lives.

I didn't have fun playing this so i'm glad that it's short. it was nice that the demo had a trailer and screenshots for the game. overall, the demo knowing it's a demo was great and a brilliant example of how to do demos. but all that extra detail helped to confirm that this isn't a game i want to play. as well as the poor tutorial, i also found basic stuff like jumping not what i expected and disappointing. i would recommend people try the demo before buying the game as it does feel outdated. it may look nice, but it's accessibility is lacking nowadays. 

Backlog Conquering -Titan Attacks! - Part 1 - More Than Just Space Invaders

I've started a new game from my backlog, now i'm playing the PlayStation 4 version of Titan Attacks!, from developers Puppygames, as part of Backlog Conquering.

Looking at my trophies, i have already got one for getting the max multiplier. but it looks like i never cleared Earth. And i did it many years ago. So i went and deleted that save file so i could go in to it fresh. I was surprised that when i started the game, i was straight into it. thankfully, i guessed what to do as there is no tutorial. the music is great, the graphics are cool, and it starts like Space Invaders. but it quickly changes that old formula and adds it's own twists and ideas.

because there's no head's up about what's coming, no tutorials explaining any of the systems, the first part of this video is more frustrating than fun. i can imagine that this game wasn't very approachable to a lot of people. if i didn't make progress, i would've ended this game with just one video. but thankfully, i managed to get past the first stage Earth.

Then it gets crazier on the Moon. immediately, as well as the aliens i also had to face off against Asteroid looking asteroids impacting the moon. But not long after the aliens also leveled up and starting dropping bombs. this was more difficult because of how busy the screen is. it's hard to pay attention to what's coming down whilst you're looking up to try and hit the aliens. during this stage, that's the thing i complain the most about and whilst i started to adapt in this video, i've got a way to go. 

Thankfully, i'm able to upgrade my own craft. but it's soo slow. plus, i'm spending most of my money trying to restock my shields. like i said above, i'm being hit and not knowing why and it's eating into my shields. it feels more unfair than just being hard with the game struggling to telegraph enemy attacks and what's happening in general.

I will do a second part. the goal will be to try and beat the Moon stage. But if it continues to feel unfair rather than hard, then maybe i'll leave it at two videos. i do enjoy the music and the look and feel. but it's the gameplay that's lacking and perhaps not living up to potential.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Quest Mode - Dungeon 14 - Starlight Sanctuary

Welcome to one of the final Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday videos! 

With the series being retired on YouTube and finishing over on Ko-Fi, https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers, i'm celebrating by showing off the Quest Mode.

This video shows the 14th Dungeon, Starlight Sanctuary. the closer i get to the final dungeon, the harder these are becoming and the more time they're taking. So the remaining few dungeons will come one at a time.

Come back next week for what will be the 15th,and final, Dungeon!

Cloud Monday - LEGO City: Undercover - Part 2 - Not Recommend To Stream From The Cloud

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Tt Fusion's LEGO City: Undercover via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

It wasn't a great day trying to stream this game from the cloud. The video is from the third attempt to play the game. the previous two attempts failed in less than a minute getting to the game's start screen with PlayStation kicking me off due to my internet connection. i tried restarting my PS4 but it didn't solve the problem as it would repeatedly fail to launch. Thankfully, the game finally did launch and that's when this video was started.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the trouble i had with this game today. one reason this video is shorter than before is because it crashed #Sony's end, instead of my internet connection being the reason it ended. But i wasn't having a great time anyway so i wasn't keen on trying again.

I still find the game funny. but playing it wasn't as great as i'd expect from a LEGO game. The slower pace was very noticeable. I still found driving to be a chore rather than fun, and the other drivers and pedestrians in the game were brainless. having a game world with a mix of LEGO stuff and real world stuff wasn't great for driving as i was constantly hitting the small rocks trying to avoid the surprisingly large numbers of slow traffic. Once we got the grappling hook, new issues emerged. i got it but couldn't seem to use it even tho there seemed to be places to use it where i got it. it got in the way of combat, and then i was able to use once the story required it.

The final part of the video is the second story mission. this was probably the most familiar LEGO style gameplay level i've played so far. but it felt slow. using the grappling gun was slow, swinging felt slow, and the levels themselves were surprisingly small as we could access portions of it. you can hear in the video how disappointed i was when i realised i needed an extra three costumes/characters to access the other areas of the level. i wasn't excited to have to go back to previous levels. i was expecting to explore around the map rather than repeat levels. i could imagine that the gameplay reason for returning might be police forensic stuff, but that's more in hope than what i think is actually going to happen.

Ultimately, once we found out in Part 1 that there are no manual saves and erratic auto saves, the game became one i couldn't recommend to play in the ground. the fact that it crashed Sony's end and how long it took to reconnect when i was kicked off, just adds to my conclusion that LEGO City: Undercover is a game you should download from PlayStation Plus rather than stream it.

Switch Funday - Pokémon Unite - February’s Unite Weekend

Today's Switch Funday video is on Pokémon Unite. as this is the first full weekend of February, it's a Unite Weekend. this means i'm able to use any Pokemon 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.

Today, i played at the Shivre City map, it's a 4 vs 4 map so it's a little different from the other Unite Weekend videos i've done. So i came away from this weekend not really feeling great about any of the Pokémon i used. Crustle was a surprise and i scored a lot with it. I don't think i understood Hoopa, and Garchomp didn't seem to have a great selection of moves. Mewtwo was fine, Blissey wasn't, and ending with Lucario was alright but it never felt as strong as i thought it should be.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - February's Eggstra Work Event

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This weekend is February'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.

In the end, none of the teams i was on were able to beat Wave 5, but the rest of the goals were met. I say at the beginning that the start of the video is going to be full of failure and things would get better on near the end and that was true. I don't watch videos of the event before i play, i go in knowing nothing. i just hope for a good weapon selection and good team mates to learn with. Match 4 was the start of things getting good and it mostly continued like that from that point on. 

Mobile Friday - Dream Detective: Merge Game - The Choice To Wait Or Pay To Play Came Far Too Soon

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Dream Detective: Merge Game, from Century Games on my iPhone 14 Pro. This game is also out on Android and PC. 

The app store page for Dream Detective: Merge Game immediately grabbed my attention with it's beautiful colorful art. i was instantly curious whether this is purely for the app store or if the game looked this good. from the screenshots i instantly knew what kind of game parts of it would be, but i was keen to find out how it could combine detective gameplay with merge game play. But the developers #CenturyGames also make another game i'm familiar with called Whiteout Survival. I've been bombarded with ads for that game for a long time now and it had garnered a reputation that the ads don't match the gameplay.

Thankfully in starting the game it was clear that the artstyle is used in game and it looks fantastic.  unfortunately, that's about all the praise i can give Dream Detective: Merge Game. the tutorial is bad and seems to give up almost immediately. in about 15 minutes i had finished what i could do in the game. it left me with the choice of waiting 2 hours or paying with gems to continue. This sucked for me, someone who was starting the game for the first time, as the game had done nearly nothing to prove to me that i should continue and not delete it. 

And that's one of the games biggest problems. i only knew about the size of the game world because i had a look, the game did nothing to convey it to me. the game has done nothing to show off the detective gameplay teased in the app store pictures. the game has done nothing to explain the 3 currencies in the game. i've worked out 2, but i have no idea about the third. Because the time was soo short, the game hadn't really begun and it was already asking us to wait or pay to continue without ever justifying why.

Dream Detective: Merge Game is a game i can't recommend unless you're OK playing the game for 10 minutes every few hours. It's introduction to first time players is almost rude in how poorly designed it is. in this series, games typically allow players to do a lot in the beginning before slowing down and a grind beginning or the player running out of energy. often that's about 30 minutes, plenty of time for players to learn the mechanics, get the back story, and have an idea where things are going to go forward. But Dream Detective: Merge Game gave me none of that, and even less when you compare with what's seen in the app store. 

(Version 10.0 Played)