Demo Play Thursday - Umbraclaw On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Umbraclaw, developed by Inti Creates Studios.

Whilst i wasn't great at playing at this demo, i actually had a great time with it. Umbraclaw doesn't say how big this demo is and i don't reach the end of it during this video. It feels like it is the actual start of the game.

The most noticeable thing about Umbraclaw is the art style and design of the world. I played the Switch version and it looked great and played great, too. it's out on PS5 and i imagine it will look impressive in 4K. What was key is that the game's style doesn't get in the way. there are a lot of colors on screen, but the details are still there and everything from the platforms to the enemies are clear and easy to spot.

The demo starts with Chapter 0, which acts mostly as a tutorial before the main aim of the game starts with Chapter 1. the tutorial isn't the best, it does offer pictures to try and show what to press and what happens, but it comes across as the game telling you everything at once. With there being a Chapter 0, i feel like the tutorial could've been spaced out better. It wasn't until the end of the demo that i remembered there's an upgrade mechanic as the game also doesn't seem to have reminders.

The upgrade mechanic seemed to be the solution to the small gripes i had with the controls. for example, i felt like the basic attack's reach was a little shorter than i wanted. The first upgrade can help fix that. Umbraclaw has a few other mechanics that really set it apart from other games. the biggest is how death works in the game because you're already dead. So when you "die" in the game, it's not game over. You're a cat, so you have 8 more "lives" left. you respawn stronger than before with new powers. There are many of these different powers, each offering something either to attack, to defend, to evade, or to platform. The game is open in saying that you can die and get a bunch of these powers and that's a strategy. But there's yet another twist. each time before you respawn, you have a choice. use up "hope", the main currency in the game, to stay the cat you are or become more feral and get stronger. Not just in attack power, but also in the amount of hits you can take. But as you're bigger, certain non critical areas of the map are now off limits.

There is another, more feral, stage. but the trade off is that you remember less and less of your previous life and the reason why you're making this journey. For me, i found it useful to go feral because of how much health it grants you. Umbraclaw isn't too hard, but it has a decent challenge as a cat because it's a one hit KO. The game does let you revert back to a cat at certain points, like at the end of a stage. there is a sense of not only strategy about all this, but also replay-ability and challenge.

The other game mechanic of note is one that i'm just as impressed by. All too often i come across games where the game is gated by ability. if you're not good enough, then you can't access the whole game. But with Umbraclaw, not only are there 3 game modes you can choose from before you play, the game will notice that you're struggling in a section and offer to lower the difficulty to the easiest one so that you can make it through and continue the game. I personally would play this game on the easiest setting so i can enjoy the combat, the story, the world, and the music. but for the demo i tried it on the default setting, akin to medium. and in this video i did get stuck and took the game up on it's offer to switch it to easy so i can get to the end and continue the game.

This demo for Umbraclaw isn't the best in some ways because it fails to communicate what it is. i don't even know if my save file will carry over to the main game. But it is super useful because i'm very interested in the game now i've played it and i highly recommend the demo for anyone who is interested just from looking at the screenshots like i was. Umbraclaw is more than a puzzle platformer, there are hints and influences from other genres and games in this. The important thing is that it all feel's cohesive and i'm genuinely interested in it now i've played the demo.

Backlog Conquering - Deponia On PS4 - Part 1

It's time for a new backlog conquering game and this time i've started the PlayStation 4 version of Deponia, a game developed by Daedalic Entertainment that is out on many other platforms.

I have had this game, as well as others in the Deponia series for a while now but i haven't started any of them. I don't know what i expected from the game but i think it's clear from the video that i wasn't expecting a point and click adventure game. it's a style of game i rarely play as i don't often do well with them.

I feel like this first part is just an hour of me struggling over and over again. i did enjoy many aspects of the game and it's humour worked well. I don't think that i quite grasped the game's logic during this part. I know it's an old game that originally came out on PC and there are aspects of it's design that feel old or like it was designed for an audience used to this style of game as there are few concessions to help newcomers like myself.

I think i wil do a part 2, but i'm not quite sure as yet.

Stories on Tuesday - Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz - Part 9

Hello and welcome to Part 9 of the new series here on QTE Gamers!

The goal with Stories on Tuesday is to play games with a heavy focus on their story. this can be Visual Novel games, like today's game, or it can be something more episodic. For me, it's a style of game i've not really explored. i have several games across a few platforms that i haven't played but i bought them because i wanted to. So now the time has come for me to experience these sorts of games.

Our debut game is Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz. I have the game on PS4 via DISC but i'll be playing the PlayStation Plus version of the game that's been downloaded to my PlayStation 4.

In this part we wrap up our time in Silver Snow, tho i do wonder if we'll be back, by correctly working out who is a murderer. The game's story seems to come across like everything is finished now and things can return to normal in Silver Snow, but Deadalus themself moved out a while ago and is still at large. We return back to New York with Chapter 4 and it starts with us retracing the final steps of our Grandfather to try and work out what he was working on, seemingly in secret.

If you're interested in watching the stories unfold without my commentary, head over to Ko-Fi. there, you can subscribe to the "Stories on Ko-Fi" which will let you watch all the stories. This tier will always be one week ahead of the free video on QTE Gamer's YouTube Channel. Or, of course, you can head to https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers and donate via PayPal.

Cloud Monday - The Wild at Heart - Part 1 - Auto and Manual Saves Make This A Good Streaming Game

This week's Cloud Monday video is part1 of playing the PS4 version of The Wild at Heart via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

This game, from developers Moonlight Kids, isn't one i knew about. The Icon on the PSN drew my attention but it was watching the trailer that made me interested in playing the game. i was impressed that the game looked like the icon and whilst the gameplay shown looked like Pikmin, there were extra ideas that seemed cool. So i was keen to play this game to see if it played as well as it looked.

A great idea at the start is we, the player, get to choose our style of playing. i went with a story focused style, but if i wanted a challenge i could've chosen the second style. i prefer this more than just a simple difficulty slider. I do think it made a difference as i never felt like difficulty or challenge was getting in the way of the game telling me it's story. i was happy to make regular progress.

That's not to say there aren't issues with gameplay. it does feel like the game is lazy when it comes to tutorials. an example early on is how it just puts on the screen use the left stick to climb. that could've easily been taught to us through gameplay at the start if we had to climb down from a bunk bed for example. there are a few moments where stuff is put on screen when it could've been an in-game example. other times, i feel like  the game could've offered hints, the one that i didn't work out for a while is that our vacuum can be used to collect the spritelings too.

In the hour i played, most of these felt like missed opportunities rather than deal breakers. what i played was good and it had a fantastic soundtrack accompanying it. The game also has a great save system that helped make it be one of the better games to stream from the cloud. not only does it make frequent auto saves with a clear icon when it does, but you're also able to make manual saves. there is a slight cravat tho in that when you reload that save it'll put you either at camp, if you saved there, or at the entrance to the area  you entered. But this is all explained by the game, something that is rare to see.

I look forward to part 2. in this part, there were only a second or two of issues due to the game being streamed. i felt no delay in the controls, the audio was fine, and the video quality was high with no dips in the bitrate of the video being streamed to me. so far, streaming The Wild at Heart from PlayStation Plus seems like a great way to play the game.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - April's Weekend Splatfest Tricolor - 15 Battles 8 Wins!

Welcome to Switch Funday.

It's day two of April's Splatfest weekend so today's video focuses on the Tricolor game mode in Splatoon 3. 

Just like yesterday, https://youtu.be/QJn1Mw3Md3c, matchmaking didn't take too long and my teams and i managed to get several wins. The only negative was how few Tricolor matches i played in were against the other two teams, Baby Chicks and Bear Cubs. it felt like there was a lot of Bunny on Bunny action today. 

The 3 weapons i used today were the Bamboozler 14 Mk 1, a weapon i didn't enjoy using that much and one that never seemed to either have the power or range i needed at any given time. Also, the charge to attack felt out of place in Tricolor when people are moving around so much. The second weapon i used was the Gold Dynamo Roller. i have used it before and a complaint back then was how long it takes to do the jump attack and that was still true today. but it's inking was very useful. the final weapon was a new one i bought and it's the Custom Splattershot Jr. it looks strange shooting it as it seemingly can't shoot straight. but it did a good job at inking, attacking, and not using up ink quickly so i think it's one i'll use a lot going forward.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - April’s Weekend Splatfest – 15 Battles 9 Wins!

Welcome to Online Saturday.

It's a Splatfest weekend so today's video is on the "Which fuzzy fluffiness do you like most?" Splatfest in Splatoon 3. I chose to join #teambunnies.

This was one of my most successful Splatfests yet! I went in not expecting much as the previous one in March, https://youtu.be/ctf5ACsF6oA, went badly and i only got 3 wins in it. My focus was to try out weapons i own but haven't used much. I started with the Custom Dualie Squelchers and got 4 wins with them! I was so surprised, 4 wins out of 5 games, that's already better than March. next i tried the Tri-Stringer. I wasn't having as much fun with it, i could ink fine but i was having worse luck attacking and my teams and i only got 1 win during those 5 games. for the final 5 games i switched to a new weapon i bought, one from a type of weapon i haven't used before. I used the Explosher and once again my teams and I won 4 times. The only downside is that we failed to win the only 10X battle we had and we didn't play against Baby Chicks as much as we did against Bear Cubs.

Mobile Friday - Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat - Great Fighting Gameplay In A Game That Needs Work

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out the newly globally released Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat. I Played this on my iPhone 14 Pro.

It was surprising when i saw in the charts Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat. it looks like it had been out either in beta or in out in a couple of countries for some time and now got it's full global release. But i hadn't heard of the game prior to it's release. 

I haven't played a Devil May Cry game since DmC on PS3 so i don't know what the story is at the start of this game and the game itself does a poor job of setting the scene. Once you start the game, download an additional 40MB of data and sign into an account, the game just goes and doesn't really stop until the end of the first chapter.

One of the issues with the game's story telling also applies to the games tutorial. both aspects of the game feel half finished at best because how both are implemented in the game are only half as effective. for example, with the story there are some fun cutscenes, that look low resolution, that are voice acted and match the level of gameplay well. But then the game tries to tell some story with text boxes on the left side of the screen, the same way it tries to add additional tutorial information. these boxes are small and are sometimes blocked by the dynamic island. It feels like a game designed on either other #Apple phones or #Android. The combat is so fast and fluid that my attention is solely in the middle of the screen watching it, not what's happening on the periphery.

There are a few things in this game that also feel not finished or not fully implemented. the next main one would have to be the gamepad controls. ASTRA: Knights of Veda, https://youtu.be/kzt0SEuitI4, has so far had the best implementation of gamepad controls and whilst i wasn't expecting Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat to copy it, i was expecting something more than nothing. When you start to use the controls, nothing changes on screen. the game doesn't tell you on screen what buttons do what. you have to go to settings, select the gamepad you're using, and read an onscreen picture. But even then the controls didn't fully work for me. there were times i had to manually touch the screen to progress so i gave up using the controller and finished the game using the touch screen controls.

It's disappointing that a game that's been worked on for so long comes across as being half finished. they got the core combat design and failed to build a game around it. I would like to say that maybe they can rework a lot of the game and bring it up to a better standard but i'm not so sure they can or will. Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat is fun to play, but not for long. but it might be worth keeping and checking what the updates to the game bring.    

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