Online Saturday - Pokémon Unite - 7 More Panic Parade Matches With No Win

Today's Online Saturday video is on Pokémon Unite. My goal in Panic Parade is to beat consistently. So far, my team mates and I have only managed to beat it once and unfortunately that continues today. This means that out of the 35 matches i've done, my team mates and I have only managed to beat it once. By the final match with Pikachu, all my stats are level 4, so not quite max level. I feel like i played good today, but some of my team mates play like they've never seen an in-game map before. Match 5 was especially annoying!

Demo Play Thursday - Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. This game, from developers Ubisoft, is out now across various platforms.

This demo came out on the eShop page a little too late to be last week's video. but it was a demo i was keen to play. I've been a fan of the Prince of Persia series since the PS2 and i'm always happy to try out a new one. In terms of style, i've always enjoyed the PS3/Xbox 360 2008 game Prince of Persia.

This isn't the most intuitive demo. there's the first home screen. then there's a couple of settings, and then there's a page for Ubisoft Connect. but the confusing thing is, this page makes no mention of the demo and refers to the game. So it's really now clear if there's any benefit connecting the demo to Ubisoft. Finally, there's a second home screen. but this one is much more customed for a demo, offering links to the eShop. But it does feel more complicated than it needed to be jus to get to this point. There are more settings and it's good to see we can visually see how the game changes with most of them. 

When you finally get to starting the demo, there's a splash screen revealing that this is a custom area. we have been given some things so we can enjoy playing and we're not going to get any story spoilers. some area's are sealed off. This is great, but it never says when the demo ends. this'll be a problem later as the demo doesn't seem to stop, nor does it say that we've explored the demo or finished everything. i feel like there needed to be a better way to tell the player that there's nothing left to see in the demo.

Playing it was a lot of fun. the tutorial is basic but mostly gets things across. But what was immediately noticeable on Switch was how good the game looked. At no point in playing the game did i feel like i was having a lesser experience than someone playing it on a PS5. But the one part of the game i never got the hang off was the parry system. i don't know if the tutorial was missing information or what, but i never really got it. you'll see me die a few times because i try to parry and fail. combat is satisfying, but you do need to do more than just spam the attack button as the enemies felt like they had decent Ai and different types posed different challenges. In the main game this is something that can be patched, but here in the demo i don't expect things to change.

Thankfully, even tho i died a few times the loading to a previous check point was very fast. Loading in general was very fast or there wasn't any. it often felt like a seamless experience. exploring was fun and this game introduces a new mechanic where if you find something you can't currently access, you're able to take a screenshot in game and attach it to your map. so in the future you can backtrack, explore, and solve things you previously saw.

The gameplay in this demo was great. the hassle getting into playing it didn't play a part in my feelings of the game. but my inability to grasp the parry system really does weigh on me as it feels like combat is just as important as exploration. one felt great and the other didn't. after playing the demo i am interested in the game, but i think i would play it on the easiest setting so that combat doesn't become a chore and i can focus on the better story telling and exploration.

Backlog Conquering - Aaru's Awakening On PS3 - Part 1

The new game for Backlog Conquering is the PlayStation 3 version of Aaru's Awakening from Lumenox. This game grabbed my attention because of it's PS3 XMB Game Preview, https://youtu.be/zarm7HwyTrQ. It's a long beautiful preview that's visually stunning. and yet i had no memory of this game. i don't remember getting news about it, when QTE Gamers was a news focused site, nor do i remember people talking about it when it came out. So i've been curious about this game for a long time and decided to play it for Backlog Conquering.

In-game, the beautiful backgrounds, the intricate world design, the clear monsters and hazards are all visually great but they also reminded me quickly of a previous Backlog Conquering game i tried called Outland, here's part 1 https://youtu.be/eCNE0cQbRZk. the more i played Aaru's Awakening, the more i started to compare the two negatively. 

in this part, i did the first tutorial section and the second section. in doing so i got glimpses of the story, but the world and the story didn't seem to tie together. my concern going forward is that the game will be a game and tell a story that is set in the game world without tying the two together and will focus on the platforming and enemies rather than the story. Already it feels like the gameplay mechanics game first and the story came second and the game wants you to focus on the mechanics. There'll be a part 2 so things could change. 

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Quest Mode - Dungeon 11 - Rhea-Themis Temple

Welcome to one of the final Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday videos! 

With the series being retired on YouTube and finishing over on Ko-Fi, https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers, i'm celebrating by showing off the Quest Mode.

This video is part 3 and it shows the 11th Dungeon, the Rhea-Themis Temple. the closer i get to the final dungeon, the harder these are becoming and the more time they're taking. dungeons 6-10 was too long a video so for these final ones i may do them one or two at a time. i wanted to do the 11th and 12th together, but my recording ran out of space.

Come back next week for what will be part 12, and possibly part 13.

Cloud Monday - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Part 1 - The Cloud Is A Decent Place To Play This

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS3 version of Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I have tried to start The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion a few times across Xbox 360 and PS3, but i have never finished the game. during this video i find out that i had tried it when the service was PlayStation Now and still had no memory of it. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a game i do want to play and explore and i picked it as part of Cloud Monday as i was curious if it's game design would allow for it. 

It came out in a time where RPG's had a mix of fixed location saves and in-world saves. i couldn't remember which one this game had. I did remember the game had auto saves, but only in a negative way because on PlayStation 3 Bethesda games had an issue where if you played the game for hours and hours, the auto save file gets huge and then breaks. but i don't remember the details on that, just that i remember being told back around this time to manually save and to close the game after a few hours.

Even tho i had this negative memory of Bethesda on PS3, i still went in hopeful and even tho is this part 1 i still had a good time. The game makes it clear when it auto saves, and whilst i'd prefer it to be more frequent, loading the save was quick. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion also makes use of manual saves, so when you're free you can pause the game and save. this is an amazing feature for a game being played in the Cloud as Sony's Cloud Streaming Service only gives a 20 second warning. this means we can hit pause and save, quickly get through a conversation to either get an auto save or manual save, or hope that we did it fairly recently. 

With any Bethesda game on PS3, i'd recommend saving regularly because of how buggy they were known to be. but this behaviour works well for games being played in the cloud and should be encouraged. Part 1 was mostly in confined spaces so saving and loading were quick so in part 2 it'll be interesting to see is saving times increase to the point where a save might be incomplete before we're kicked off the service if there is a streaming issue. But for now, even tho there are parts of the game dated, playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on PS3 in the cloud is a solid option to play the game.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - January's Frosty Splatfest Tricolor - 15 Battles 13 Wins!

Welcome to Switch Funday.

It's day two of the Frosty Splatfest weekend so today's video focuses on the Tricolor game mode in Splatoon 3. I felt like it took less time than yesterday to get into matches and there were far fewer connection issues, too. An issue that can plague the Tricolor Mode is where it's 3 teams of the same type fighting each other. thankfully that only happened twice this week.

Personally, i'm amazed how often my team mates and I were able to win and how easy it often was. you'll hear me make the same comments throughout this video in that the opposing teams often did a bad job of inking their home areas. i'm sure it gave us the win a couple of times. Some games were tough and competitive, but overall it was just a pleasant time all round. I can't say i found one team more useful than the other, but perhaps Team Family were the ones inking their starting area the least.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - January’s Frosty Splatfest – 15 Battles 8 Wins!

Welcome to Online Saturday.

It's a Splatfest weekend so today's video is on the "Who do you spend the holiday's with?" Splatfest in Splatoon 3. Our choices are between Family, Solo, or Friends. I chose to join teamsolo.

This was the first time i've played Splatoon 3 this year, as my previous videos had focused on Pokémon Unite. i was expecting to feel rusty and the first game certainly felt like it. but i felt ready after that and my team mates and i managed to win 8 of the 15 games we played. it was disappointing that out of the 15 games, only 4 were against Family teams. Family also felt the easier of the two to beat, so from my point of view Team Friends are the biggest rivals to Team Solo.