Demo Play Thursday - Sea of Stars on PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Sea of Stars. For clarity, i did back this game on Kickstarter so i have a copy of this game already, as well as it's soundtrack, but i haven't played it as yet. This demo is my first experience playing this game.

I played through the whole of demo. it's a "slice" of the game that tries to not spoil the game's story. so at points, it stops your characters from exploring too much, and some parts of the story are redacted. it's a little weird as it feels less of a public demo and more of a demo for publications to play. Whilst i'm not against such a thing being available for the public, it does mean it's less accessible than people may expect. For example, there's no main tutorial. it meant that there are aspects of the gameplay that i didn't learn about until right at the end. some of the key battle mechanics are in the pause menu in the How to Play section. a simple splash screen of slide show before it began would've done more than than what the game does. Some characters are given dialogue that's just for the demo, one of them could've reminded the player to check out the How to Play section.

The reason why i highlight this is that the battle mechanics especially are deep and fun to play with. the basic battle stuff is fine and easy to understand. it's one reason why i didn't check out the How to Play section first. having played many RPG's in the past, i understood how it basically worked. but as i started to explore it, i grew to understand that it's much deeper than i anticipated. there are combo's,  different ones between pairs of characters, there are power up moves, and the player can reduce damage taken and increase damage delt by pressing O at the right time.

The slice of the game this demo showed had been good. it shows the great pixel art, the beautiful locations, the music, and locations. i was already enjoying playing it. but by the end, once i learned how to take better advantage of the combat mechanics, i was excited to play the main game. ultimately, the demo did it's job. it made me want to play the full game after playing it. it's not the most accessible demo i've played, but it's good and if you're interested in Sea of Stars it's a good place to start. But as it's a couple of sections from early in the game, you can't carry on with the main game with your save.

Backlog Conquering - Gunstar Heroes - Part 2 - Completing The Underground Mine

Part 2 of playing Gunstar Heroes on #PS3 saw me struggle to complete The Underground Mine. It was very hard to complete what was a small boss rush mode. there were no health pick-ups after each boss either. So this video is mostly me failing again and again but ultimately i did stick at it and beat the stage. Whilst i don't have a rewind feature, i was able to use the save feature to my advantage.

I'll be honest, this felt unfair. Whilst it was interesting to go up against different bosses who act and look differently, it felt like it was designed in such a way that i was meant to fail. Gunstar Heroes was an #arcade game first, so it's designed to take money. In some respects, a modern equivalent would be a Souls Like style game. in those games you learn by failing, as did i in this video.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Lajoa 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 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.

Cloud Monday - Cursed to Golf - Part 2 - A Good Game To Play From The Cloud

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. 

Switch Funday - Pokémon Unite - September’s Unite Weekend

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.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - September's Big Run Event

Welcome to Online Saturday!

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.

Mobile Friday - Postknight 2 - More Difficult Than I Expected

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.

(Version 1.9.3 Played)