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 Lajoa Cup! (2023/9/4 9:00～2023/9/11 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.
This week is the first "Revival", where i am doing a Cup i have played before. you can watch that video at https://youtu.be/C-hzDv2kKSo. it's much longer than this video! This week i wasn't up against many other people. it's the quietest achievement run in some time. the competition was intense and very close at times. As for the gimmick this week, it was much simpler than last weeks, https://youtu.be/WbQSBNL2pJc, in that i could focus mostly on combos rather than anything happening to the stage itself. I did get to the final boss this week many times and i did manage to beat it once!
This week i played against:
はるひさ - Rank 68
HIROKUN - Rank 76
かいと - Rank 65
さい - Rank 91
jester - Rank 38
Due to some recording errors, the start of the video had to be cut and edited. i tried, but it's a little obvious. the rest of the recording from the first battle onwards is fine.
Today's Cloud Monday is part 2 of playing Cursed to Golf, a game from Chuhai Labs, on #PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service.
In the first video, https://youtu.be/vP5cDfpa8ek, i had issues with the game, rather than streaming it from PlayStation Plus Premium. Knowing that things like button prompts are going to be an issues, i went into part 2 hoping for things to go a little smoother. and for the most part they do. Once again this game streams mostly fine from PlayStation Plus Premium. There is the occasional hiccup, but nothing that interferes with gameplay and rarely is it noticeable.
But what i've learned from playing this game is that i'm not good at it. i tried to not let that cloud my judgement as the point of Cloud Monday is not how good the game is, rather it's how good the game is as a streaming game. In my opinion its one of the better games for streaming due mostly because of how frequent it saves. But the point of the game seems to be try and try again. It's not a big issue if you fail, the game wants you to learn, to practice, and to try again.
I do think that the game has some minor issues throughout, things that kinda got annoying across the two videos. So, for me it's not a game i will continue to play. it does have a lot of good points, like the graphics, the animations, and of course the soundtrack. Those are good enough that i would recommend people try it from PlayStation Plus Premium.
Today's Switch Funday video is on Pokémon Unite. After learning about the Unite Weekend, i'm keen to at least play the game once a month and try out different Pokémon. For today, i was in the mood to just play standard matches, so unlike the first time i did the Unite Weekend https://youtu.be/u-kAQWmCKb8, there won't be any Ranked matches in this video.
As it's a Unite Weekend, i'm able to use any Pokémon i want. I went with Mamoswine first as it's on sale in the store and i could afford it. but, i didn't enjoy using it as much. I went with Absol next as it's a fast Pokémon and i'm looking for an alternative to Talonflame. But in that match i went up against a powerful Dodrio so in my third game i wanted to give it a try. For the fourth game i was looking at trying a new ranged attacker and in my fifth i wanted to try a support Pokémon. It didn't go great with Sableye so i wanted to have a little fun in the final game so i went with the allrounder Dragonite. tho, i didn't pick the best moves for it.
This weekend is September's Big Run Event in Splatoon 3. This event has the Salmonids attacking the Um'ami Ruins map. This is one of the bigger differences between a Big Run event and Salmon Run. another is that because the regular maps are bigger than the Salmon Run maps, you don't always start each round in the same place. coupled with the 3 levels of sea water, this means there are 9 possible map layouts in Big Run. But, like Salmon Run, your scores in this event do contribute to getting the September item, which this month is the Retro Future Helmet. An added bonus for Big Run is there is an extra item to collect. everyone who finishes a game get's it, but those who get the most gold Salmonoid eggs get different colors of it.
Today's video is much longer than normal videos. i really wanted to try and get a high score as in the past my scores haven't been close to getting the better rewards. But as i kept on playing, i was able to try to defeat the King Salmonid twice and get September's item three times. Tho, at the end of it i didn't get a high score, nor was i able to defeat the king. but i do think this went better than August's Salmon Run, https://youtu.be/3_QhqMXLLbs, and the item i got had some great pins that are suitable for how i play. let me know in the comments what score you got.
For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Postknight 2 on my iPhone 14 Pro. i haven't played the original Postknight game, but it is available on the iOS App store. i was a little concerned whether this game would assume i had played the original and not give much context for what's happening.
In a way, i think i was right. But it could also be a result of the game's tutorial being lacking and the difficulty being so much higher than you'd expect for the start of the game. My character died a few times in this first hour! If this was the first game or a standalone game, my instinct would be that the game is a little unbalanced at the start and the tutorial isn't thorough enough. But as this is a sequel, i do have to wonder if the game makes some assumptions about the players knowledge about the world and how things work.
The game makes a great first impression. graphically everything's nice and colorful and clear. the character creator is also simple and every change appears on your character instantly. then, after some introductions, the game asks if i'm familiar with Postknights. i thought this was the game checking if i had played the first game or not. so i said i wasn't familiar. But i don't think it made much difference. i never felt that the game did extra world building or that the tutorial more in-depth. it almost felt like that option wasn't working as intended, or what my interpretation of such a question must be different to those of the developers.
There were quite a few little things like that throughout the first hour with Postknight 2 that added up enough to outweigh the positives of the game. it is charmingly cute, with a good soundtrack, and a combat mechanic that's great for mobile phones. the screen is used well and buttons are often nice and big. it's clear a lot of thought has gone into this game and it is noticed. But for me, someone who hasn't played the first game, the contrast between the good parts and where it's lacking was stark and frustrating. a classic example, for this series, is how i was able to get into menus for things that the game hadn't introduced, hadn't tutorialized, and that i couldn't actually use.
There are enough positives where i can recommend people try it. if you watch the video, understand the shortcomings, but really want to try it, i'd say go and download it. But, on the other hand, if you watch the video and think the shortcomings would be an issue then i'd say you're probably right and should try something else.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Chants of Sennaar. i was very curious about this game when i saw the screenshots on the Nintendo Switch eShop, https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Chants-of-Sennaar-2370366.html, as they looked too good to be true. i don't mean to put down the graphical abilities of the switch, but these screenshots looked so crisp and the clear that i wanted to see if it's true.
I can honestly say this game looks amazing on Switch. The demo has it's own language and your main character doesn't know it. by using the context of when people talk to you and what you're doing, you can make notes as to what symbols of the language relate to what activity. your guess is in your language, so for me it's in English. when you're correct, the color changes and when you're wrong your guess is still used to try and understand what's being said. it worked soo well right up to when you can guess which symbol means what action. there's no hint if your guess is correct. in the demo you have a few actions and many symbols to chose from, but the game won't tell you if any of the guess are correct unless you get all of them correct. this was annoying as i don't know if i'm meant to fully understand or not. i feel that it needs a little more interaction with the player or at the very least an option for a hint for those who might obsess over it.
What made this demo stick out in my mind is how i wanted to keep on playing after it was done. i knew what i was going to do with my language notes in the next section and i wanted to see more of the world. the only issue with this in this demo was that, and i could be wrong, i couldn't see a message anywhere saying that my save would be carried over to the main game. If you're curious about the game or just looking for something different on Switch, i highly recommend trying Chants of Sennaar out.
*1st September UPDATE: rundisc have confirmed via X that "Concerning your question: yes, I can confirm that the saves from the demo will be usable in the final version of the game!"
Gunstar Heroes is the new Backlog Conquering Wednesday game. i'm playing this version of the game on PlayStation 3. it was a downloadable game that was developed by Backbone Entertainment as part of SEGA's Vintage Collection.
All the other SEGA Mega Drive games i have on PS3 i have either played on the Mega Drive or i played on PS3 when i bought them. Except this one. i don't know why, but i bought but never actually played Gunstar Heroes. I knew the game is highly regarded, but i didn't remember what the story was or what was going to happen when i started the game.
I was greeted by a screen where i could select my character's color and shooting style. the color is easy to understand but, after playing the game, i'm not sure i fully understood what the differences were between them. i chose the one that sounded like i could move and shoot. Then there's a stage select screen, again something i wasn't expecting, where i could chose between 4 stages. i didn't know if there's a "perfect" order to do them in so i just went with the first stage. I was not expecting to be dropped into a gun fight! the action starts fast and hard and it caught me off guard.
The game is fast, the action is frenetic, and the music fits. it was a lot to take in. the game then surprised me by having more than one boss in a stage! the boss battles seem to also act like a checkpoint. i found that out as health is scarce and i died often. thankfully, there doesn't seem to be a limit of continues. But i can't seem to pick up health easily. i have no idea why, but it's something that game hasn't mentioned how to do. in the menus, there are some tips but nothing that acts like a tutorial. the game does throw you in and it was a tad intimidating. But the experience as a whole has been pleasant enough that i'll do a second video for this game and hopefully more.
