Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade - SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit - The First Hour

This thirteenth video in the new Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade series is on SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit. I Played this as part of my Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade series, i think this game is exclusive to the service.

Last week i played Simon's Cat: Story Time, https://youtu.be/SJtlwaqB-KI, as i was curious how a game typically associate with mircotransactions and limited playing opportunities was going to be adapted to a free game on the Apple Arcade service. that was the same reason why i chose to play SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit.

i went in thinking it was just a runner but after the first level i was wrong. i thought it was an endless runner like Sonic Dash, Minion Rush, and Temple Run. but it turned out to be an Auto Runner like Super Mario Run and Rayman Mini, which i looked at in this series 9 videos ago, https://youtu.be/65ZdmAz0GfE. Once i knew what type of game this was, it was easier to understand how it worked as an Apple Arcade game with no microtransactions. much like Simon's Cat: Story Time, the limit is your own time.

It starts with an introduction to the story. it's not animated, but it's voiced. then it puts you straight into the first level. what tutorial there is is done by telling you what to do in game and letting you try it. the first few levels are fairly easy but they don't feel overwhelming even tho the game is introducing the mechanics.

In this video i completed the first couple of locations, and throughout the game slowly showed different things that can happen in a level. whether that's different layouts, different things to navigate, and the idea of different paths you yourself can take or your companion can help you take. we get Patrick first and he's able to bust down brick walls. near the end of the video we get Squidward and he's able to tell us where the Spatulas are and use jellyfish to create platforms. The levels are designed in such a way that it's probably not possible to complete them in one try. it'll take 2 or 3, or more, play throughs of them with different characters and taking different routes to get the 3 Spatulas and all the coins.

Once the second location was finished, the game opened up 3 other play style options. i finished this video by trying them out, but again it's another example of the game getting continued support and being full of content. Like Simon's Cat last week, this would be a fun commuting game to play on the phone as each level is only a few minutes long, but because it's dense with content it could be played for a long time on a Mac or AppleTV.

I'm not a fan of SpongeBob SquarePants, not because i don't like it but rather because it's not something i grew up watching. i missed it when it came out. this means i've not played any of the games, tho i have now downloaded SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated. but i would still recommend this game for Apple Arcade Subscribers. it looks fantastic on my phone's screen and there's no issue with the Dynamic Island. it's a game targeting a wide audience age and ability level and does a great job in doing so. i feel that it's something causal gamers can play but also having depth and replayability for those looking for a challenge. especially when the daily challenges and shorter F.U.N sized levels are available after completing the second location.

Backlog Conquering - Pyre - Part 14 - Winning The Fifth Liberation Rites, Getting to the Sixth

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is part 14, of playing Pyre on PlayStation 4.

In part 13, https://youtu.be/Znj2rtF1pHU, we started by doing the fourth Liberation Rites and loosing. we did a couple more rites before ending it at the start of the Fifth Liberation Rites.

My main goal was to win the fifth Liberation Rites and to send Ti'zo to the Commonwealth. I thought that by sending a creature that the Commonwealth hadn't seen before, it would benefit the plan. I won the game, i sent him to the Commonwealth, but it would be much later into the video until we heard if i had been successful. Turns out i was, tho not quite in the way i expected. but i'll take it!

Much like the previous video, things are happening faster than before. but i have also noticed that some things seem to be slowing down. for example, the amount of rites needed to be completed before getting to the Liberation Rites is reducing and making the game faster, but the social elements of the game also seem to be reduced. so one part of the game is getting faster, but the social side is slowing down. it is possible that the choices i've made have contributed to how the social aspect of the game is playing out.

I finished the video at the Sixth Liberation Rites. but i don't really know who to send back. it's starting to sound like there will only be this and one more Liberation Rite. i got a trophy for sending three people back to the Commonwealth so a part of me believes i've reached the minimum needed for a "good" ending. but i'd like to give it a go. so i have some time to think about who i want to send back, and perhaps more importantly why i think sending them back is a good move.

Backlog Conquering - Pyre - Part 13 - Getting to the Fifth Liberation Rites

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is part 13, of playing Pyre on PlayStation 4.

In part 12, https://youtu.be/vL8df1PrWoQ, i got to the fourth Liberation Rites so this video starts with it. and i lost! I was doing OK but then the opposing team got a health bonus near the end and i didn't. 

With that loss, this video turned once more into getting to the next Liberation Rites, the fifth ones. whilst playing against other teams was difficult, i was surprised that i managed to win all the Rites. There weren't too many big story bombshells this week and i avoided reading the book in this video, too. But there were some interesting developments regarding certain characters, for example we now know who's been speaking to us and can understand the tone they use.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Ishida Mitsunari 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 Ishida Mitsunari Cup! (2023/2/27 9:00～2023/3/6 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This week was much easier and you can see from the time it was quicker, too. But that doesn't tell the whole story as a big aspect of this, much like the other recent cups, is that there were few players online. I don't play the game at the same time on the same day, so there is an element of randomness. But i also play in Japan, a country where Puzzle & Dragon's is really big. so it is surprising that once again i had very few matches with anyone else.

As i was mostly up against the computer, i won most of the time. the gimmick this week was to get a full row of one color, and that was fairly easy to do. what i did find difficult was defeating the boss. i got there many times, but i couldn't seem to do enough damage. in a way, the boss felt unbalanced compared to the run to the boss. it also felt that my luck in getting combo's was poor, too. a few times i was able to nearly clear the screen only to get no further combos. i think i was only able to get a combo of 10 or higher once through the whole video.

Cloud Monday - Marvel Puzzle Quest - Using My Old PS4 Save Data

Today's Cloud Monday continues from last weeks video on Split/Second, https://youtu.be/eNBKyboS-3k. In that video the goal was to try and use my old PS3 save data that was saved in the cloud with that game. i showed how to do it and that it worked. at the end of that video i said i would try it on PS4 and show how it works.

It was difficult trying to find a game suitable for this as i still have most games and saves still installed. Marvel Puzzle Quest is a game that i finished on PS3, got all the trophies too, and tried on PS4 to see if there were any differences. as there weren't any i stopped playing it and didn't have it installed any more.

Before i could do that i had to deal with my PS4 and PlayStation Plus Premium having issues. you get to see some of them in this video, but to save time i skipped ahead to when things started working again. it would be great to know if the service works better on PS5 than on PS4.

When it came to importing the save file on PS3, it was not automatic. i had to go to the XMB, by pressing the PS button on the PS4 controller and scrolling down to the XMB option, then go to the save file, then exit the game, then go into my Cloud Saves, find the save, copy it over, exit the save menu, which restarted the game and then the game loaded that save file. With the PS4 it was so much simpler. it prompted me asking if i wanted to use my save file in the cloud. i said yes, and it went ahead, grabbed it, and started the game for me. this was a much more user friendly experience and one that would be useful on PS5 where storage is a bit of an issue as it could be quicker and easier to simply stream the game instead of downloading it.

Online Saturday - Gundam Evolution - Changing "Matchmaking Area" Fixed My Issues With Matchmaking

Previous to today's video, in my first video with Gundam Evolution, https://youtu.be/mslLmo9mTTs, in the hour i spent with it i got into one game and had one game fail. In the second more infamous, video https://youtu.be/2UyzdhVjI4Q, i spent an hour trying to matchmake and failing. so in around 2 hours of game time, i had played 1 game and had 1 game fail very near the beginning.

But in the training and that one game, i did enjoy it. it's a different experience from Splatoon 3, or any other online shooter i've tried. so i've wanted it to work and be good because i think there's something to it. so i went back for a third time and that's when i noticed it, in the top right corner, "Matchmaking Area". I hadn't noticed that before but when i was getting set up and watching the Earth in the background, i had a look at it and saw that it defaults to North America and Europe. If you're unfamiliar with my videos, i live in Japan and the time difference between this region and those can be big. so i decided that the goal of this video was to see what happens when i switch that to Asia, does it result in more games.

AND IT DOES! In this video i get matched to 4 games. one of them fails right at the beginning, but i do get to play 3 full games! in this one video i get to play more games that my previous  two videos combined. i had a good time with this game. it's not up there with Splatoon 3, but then again i don't think anything is, i feel it's the best online shooter out there. but i did enjoy it more than nearly any other shooter i've played in this series. i won't be deleting the game now.

Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade - Simon's Cat: Story Time - The First 50 Minutes

This twelfth video in the new Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade series is on Simon's Cat: Story Time. I Played this as part of my Mobile Friday: Apple Arcade series, i think this game is exclusive to the service.

i was curious how a "match 3" game would work in Apple Arcade as games on this service don't seem to have mechanics that you would associate with a match 3 game. these typically include a limit to how many games you can play at once, for example a life system. 

This game does not have a life system. it seems like the limit is purely down to the time the player has. there is a mechanic that uses the coins you earn in the game. when you run out of moves, you can spend some coins and gain some moves. but you're also given a choice to retry the level at no cost.

This meant i was able to sit and play for 50 minutes, except for when it crashed. the app crashed to my phone's "desktop". this was the first Apple Arcade game to do so, but it's difficult to put the blame on the game itself as i had used my phone to play other games and use other apps. Simon's Cat: Story Time was also updated the day i recorded this video so if there is an issue there's a chance it'll be fixed in a day or two. so whilst it crashed, i'm not worried about it as it could be due to any number of reasons.

the game looks amazing, the world is so much bigger than i anticipated, and it's fully of animation. the game makes good use of the phones vibration motors, too. it was easy to control with my finger or with a controller, but when i switched to the controller there were no on screen prompts as to what the buttons did. this would've been useful as it wasn't as obvious how to move the screen.

There is soo much more to this game. when we unlocked the trophy room, each one was for some part of the game i had yet to unlock. i have no idea how many hours it will take to play it all, but in the first 50 minutes i played i only managed to finish the first chapter! so let me know in the comments how big this game actually is.