Demo Play Thursday - Abathor On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Abathor, from Tesura Games and Jandusoft.

The look of the game is very nostalgic for me. i grew up playing the SEGA Master System and Mega Drive so i saw this and instantly thought of Golden Axe. The screenshots on the eShop did look interesting as the pixel art looked beyond what those systems could output.

Before we get to start, we're greeted with a bare bones home screen that mentions that this is a demo, has a very basic settings page, and allows us to view the credits. But there's no link to the eShop, not even a QR Code. there's a lot of wasted space that could've been filled with stuff that could help sell the game.

But when you do start the demo, there's a very cool character select screen. i wasn't expecting that screen to show you the moves of the character. you see, when you click on a character a gif/video starts playing showing what buttons on the controller do what in the game. it's a simple concept but it really works and i hope other games do something similar.

With our character selected we start at 1-1 and the first thing you notice is how animated the background is. the rolling waves look fantastic. our ship has a bear skin sail that also looks stunning. i appreciate that the devs didn't go all in on the 16 bit style, they've taken the best bits of style from it and modernised it so it doesn't feel dated and stilted. there's lots of little animations everywhere.

It's not just the look of the game, but the soundtrack too. each stage has it's own theme, as does the credit screen and the home menu. the music on 1-1 really made me think of music from the Mega Drive era. But i do have a complaint in that there's not enough of it! it was really noticeable when the music looped and i felt that it happened too quickly.

But my biggest complaint has to be how the controls interact with the game. it's not all bad, i found them to be very responsive. each character also controls a little different from each other. It's just that the critical part of the gameplay, the attacking, just didn't feel right. all the characters i played as had to get too close to the enemy so inevitably i ended up taking damage whether i was attacking, dodging, or parrying. i found it difficult to judge distance, occasionally this was a jump but more often than not i underestimated the reach of my attack. it was frustrating but, perhaps more importantly it wasn't satisfying to attack.

Another example of this was how many hits it took to defeat enemies. with our main weapon i could understand if it was only that that took numerous hits. but every item we picked up seemed to be underpowered to the point where i didn't really want to use them. they did provide range, but if they're no more powered than i am, they weren't special or cool. the same goes to the special attacks did. none of them felt any more powerful than a standard attack. this is probably why i felt more comfortable using the character which didn't have an attacking special, rather she employed a parry which slightly stunned an enemy long enough for me to get all the hits in to defeat it. I highly recommend #Sais as the character everyone should try first.

Abathor does a lot right and i really did have fun playing it. but I can't ignore that the combat just wasn't satisfying. Using Sais did help and maybe i would be able to endure a while longer using her. but that's not exactly a great endorsement of the game. So it's great there's a demo that allows us to try all the characters. hopefully there'll be one that'll make playing the game fine enough. So i do recommend you check out the demo, but maybe wait and see with the reviews if the combat is fixed, or at the very least modified.  

Stories on Tuesday - Star Trek: Resurgence - Part 3 - Act 2 Part 5 to Act 2 Part 9

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS4 version of Star Trek: Resurgence, from  Dramatic Labs.

In this video i play through Act 2's "The Scientific Method", "Suspicions", "Containment Protocol",  "Symbols and Legends",  and i die during the 9th part "Lost and Found".  Don't worry, i will continue from the 9th part in next week's Part 4.

Cloud Monday - Daxter - What Made It Great On PSP Makes It Great To Stream From The Cloud

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PSP version of Daxter on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Daxter originally came out on PlayStation Portable back in 2006 and it's a game i have played and finished. but it's been such a long time, i was excited to play it again. I've been looking at the new PS1, PS2, and PSP games that have been added to PS4 and PS5 via emulation, trying to find one that still holds up and isn't a novelty or a nostalgia recommendation. Daxter maybe the first one of these games that i've played that i would recommend as a game that still holds up. 

Daxter is smartly designed for the PSP. it's level's aren't too sprawling that they take ages to complete. there's a decent amount of platforming and things to do, but it can take 15-25 minutes to complete it. this may sound like that there'd be a lot of loss progress if there's a disconnection from the cloud streaming service. Daxter also has a great check point system and auto save system which helps alleviate those worries. The service does give us a 20 second warning first and Daxter seems to let us save anywhere in the game and it saves quickly.

These features are similar to what the emulated games can do. via the Options button you can chose to save or load at any point in the game. what the emulation software adds is the ability to rewind. but this isn't as big of deal as in other games because the game checkpoint frequently and is very fast to put us back in to the game.

Other benefits are that the game looks great. it was already a great looking PSP game, but it still holds up well in 1080p on PS4. our character, Daxter, is quite big on screen, as is other characters and things like text boxes and enemies, which mean if there are issues with stream tearing or macro blocking it's still fairly easy to work out what's happening and continue playing like nothing's wrong.

Today's gameplay was a little rough with my connection. i imagine it was a bandwidth issue more than anything. i would say that the camera does take a little getting used to. the emulation software has done a great job of mapping the controls to the right analogue stick and i found them responsive. but maybe they're a bit too responsive for the game itself. it was made with different controls in mind and sometimes i found myself fighting the game. this meant that there were moments where i failed to land a jump as i couldn't work out the 3D space well. But with the rewind feature, i wasn't too concerned. it's just a little frustrating quirk of the game.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - July's Weekend Splatfest Tricolor - 15 Battles 6 Wins!

Welcome to Switch Funday.

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

For the second Splatfest in a row all 15 games i played were with the other two teams. i chose teambeach and came into today with only 5 wins yesterday, https://youtu.be/ZHhUeZ8hiII. yesterday we only played against teamthemepark but thankfully today we also played with teampalace.

For yesterday, i chose to use 3 different brellas weapons. today i had a similar idea and only used brush weapons. i started with the Painbrush, then went with the Inkbrush Nouveau, and finished with the regular Inkbrush. It's a type of weapon i've not really used much and only had 3 of that type to chose from so it was an interesting time using them.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - July's Weekend Splatfest Battle - 15 Battles 5 Wins!

Welcome to Online Saturday!

This weekend is a Splatfest weekend in Splatoon 3 on Switch. the question being asked this Splatfest is "Which would you reserve for a day? A Palace, a Theme Park, or a Beach?"

I picked TeamBeach and played 15 matches for them. unfortunately, i only managed to win 5. Also, i only played against TeamThemePark. i never played against TeamPalace.

I was in the mood to use Brellas so i started with the Splat Brella, i changed to the Undercover Sorella Brella, and finished with the Sorella Brella.

Mobile Friday - Maze of Gods - A Good Looking And Playing Roguelike That Needs A Better Tutorial

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Maze of Gods from RSCube. From the app store page, it's art immediately grabbed my attention but i couldn't work out what type of RPG it was.

After playing for nearly an hour, it's clear that Maze of Gods is a Roguelike. It's a rather generous Roguelike in that when our run is over we get to keep all the loot we found, except for healing potions. the level of difficulty is also quite low. the game as a whole is a very approachable Roguelike.

but it could be much more approachable in general. for example, the tutorial it has is very basic. it switches from telling us how do to something to doing it for us without explaining what's happening. far too often in this video i have to work out what things do and explore menus myself. it feels like this tutorial needs to be expanded, or at the very least ask us if we want help or not and if we do then be more hands on.

Overall, i really did have a good time playing Maze of Gods. but there are enough little things that need improving that keep it from being one of my top games of the year. i will keep it on my phone and check what updates come for it. as it is, i would still recommend it for anyone looking for an approachable Roguelike.

Version 1.1.12 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - On Your Tail On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of On Your Tail, from Memorable Games and published by Humble Games .

This game knew it was a demo and i enjoyed how it leaned into it. where ever there were invisible walls, the game had something to say. even tho effort had gone into this demo version of the game, it was a little surprising that the title screen didn't have a link to the game's #eShop page to pre-order it.

There isn't too much to do in this demo. i don't think it starts from the beginning of the game, but it's fairly close to it. we're given a short list of things to do and let loose into the world to do them. there's no map and no markers pointing the way. but there's also no time pressure to get things done quick. some areas we couldn't explore because it's a demo, and it wasn't too difficult to find our way.

But the first thing i did was find a guy and talk to them. they offered to be my tour guide, and then preceded to never lead. we had to lead and the guy quipped in now and then with things not too useful or he talked about things we weren't looking at. if it was meant to be a way to introduce us to the town, it didn't work. but it's difficult to know if that's because it's a demo or because that's how it is.

The other thing we had to do was talk to a restaurant owner about a theft. this was far more interesting as it showed of the game's core mechanic. we have a timepiece that lets us look at items in the past. we had to find 3 that had been changed in the past. one we did, we had to put them onto a timeline and watch the crime take place. this may sound complicated but it was surprisingly simple. i failed a few times and there's no punishment for it. it would've been nice if it was clearer what had succeeded and what had failed. especially as this is a demo and i suspect the first time we've done this sorta thing. i expected a bit more of a hands on tutorial for this, or a tutorial via inner monologues. 

After we solved that mystery, that seemed to be the end of the demo. and yet it didn't end. so i explored the town and met as many of the people living there as i could. i was wondering how the demo expected us to end it. would it end the demo, treat us to a trailer or screenshots before putting us back at the title screen. or did it expect us to end it by quitting the game. unfortunately i never found out as it crashed and that's where i ended the video.

Overall i had a good time with the demo. it did feel a little rough in places with textures taking a long time to load, and some popping in and out once they did. it also felt a little bare bones at times. i feel much from the background noise and would've preferred a more calm, relaxed, maybe even lo-fi background music instead. there wasn't much life in the town. very few people out and about. whilst i enjoyed the core detective mechanic, i worry that the bits between that may not be as fun or exciting. with the demo being this short and this bereft of content, i just don't know.

So i do recommend people checking out the demo, it's not quite enough for me to say it's an instant whish list or pre-order. but it's well worth checking out reviews and then getting it and it does have some nice ideas and it was a nice time.