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.
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.
I finally finished Tearaway Unfolded. i would argue i had seen at least 3 possible end game moments before i got to the actual end game moment. for that, that's the only blemish this game has. for me, the fun and story ended when the scraps were delt with. post that, the story lost me and i don't think i got what the developers were trying to say. it almost feels that the stuff after the scraps could've been DLC for the messenger in our controller.
I never really got that whole there's another messenger part of the game. the idea of being in our controller is cool, but it didn't look anything related to Sony or the games, it was generic. there was no talk about how the messenger got in there either. any why was it that i only became aware of the other messenger right before we met them. it would've made much more sense if my controller would play their song every now and then. like i said, it would've made a lot more sense if this last section was DLC to let us help get the other messenger out and to safety.
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 1's "Storm Surge", "The Price of Duty", "All I Ask is a Tall Ship...", and Act 2's "Cast Adrift", "A Provocation to War", "Navigational Complexities", and "Seat of Power"
This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS3 version of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
In Part 1, https://youtu.be/6y9KGJK1P84, our time with the game was cut short by PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service terminating our session. but there was enough time to start to compare it to the PS2 version of the game that's recently come out via emulation on PS4 and PS5. visually, the main differences between them are that the PS3 version is widescreen with more muted colours whilst the PS2 is 4:3 and more vibrant. i found the controls more responsive on PS3 and more modernised.
But in this video, Part 2, i finally got to see what would happen without the emulated version's rewind feature. i lost all my lives. i was genuinely concerned about what would happen. but thankfully i needed not worry. the game isn't too concerned that i lost my lives and was happy to give me 5 more and restart me back at the boss fight. With lives being nothing to worry about, it makes the advantages of the PS3 version really stand out.
Both versions have quick saving, and while the PlayStation 2's ability to save anywhere is a bonus, it's not that big of a bonus as the game has frequent checkpoints. The only big difference between the emulated PS2 version and this PS3 version is that you can download and play the emulated version on PS4 and PlayStation 5. the PS3 version is stuck on PS3 and on this cloud gaming service.
Which ever one you play, it's a fun time and i do recommend you give either version a go. it's one of those games which can be played by many ages and skill levels, but there's something for those wanting to complete the game too.
For Switch Funday i'm back with F-Zero 99 as the game has been updated to 1.40. this brought some new additions, including the new Team Battle mode i tried out and the current Festival Event.
For Online Saturday i tried out The First Descendant on #PS4. i had heard some good first impressions of The First Descendant from Nexon , and i was keen on playing an online game similar to Destiny. but i knew next to nothing about The First Descendant so i was hoping for a good tutorial.
I can say that the tutorial in The First Descendant was fantastic. it smartly used gameplay and instructions to teach me the controls. for the more simple stuff, it was a text box on screen. but for more difficult stuff they'd stop gameplay and put up a bigger box with a video showing what you need to do. but with the gameplay stopped, i didn't feel a rush to read everything and could take the time to slowly read it and try to understand. for the most part, the tutorial was smartly implemented throughout this video whenever something new would happen either in-game or in menus. only once did it get in the way when it tried to teach me how to equip better items in the middle of a shootout and i had to dismiss it was gameplay didn't stop as this was during the online section.
I didn't know when the online section was going to come. in the beginning, the game was focused on telling it's story and world building. and then, we were online with everyone! after the story, we were dropped into a hub world full of other players. it wasn't clear which region i'm playing in. i didn't see anyone with Japanese or Asian names and the game didn't ask me what region i wanted to play in.
Whilst this section took me by surprise, the game was much more explicit when it came to the next mission. it used a quick tutorial to talk about public or private play, tho it i must've missed in the tutorial where that selection was. so for the second half, it's all online. the open world elements had enemies randomly attacking and i could engage with them with others in the world. then there were story sections where i could choose to play said section publicly or privately. i chose public each time and each time i either joined someone else playing or someone joined my game. each time was seamless with a simple addition of a player name to my screen.
the first thing i noticed about the gameplay was when i pressed L2 and zoomed into the enemy. it felt much quicker than i expected and there wasn't any lock-on to the enemy either. this isn't a bad thing, it's just one way shooters differentiate themselves. what i found odd was how my character was a big bulky guy and yet moved like someone much nimbler. i may not have fully got used to it during this video, but i was overall satisfied with my progress and the shooter in general.
i had a great time with The First Descendant. it does very well introducing the world, the story, the characters, and the gameplay mechanics. as a free to play game, it's easy to recommend to anyone looking for a shooter in a similar vain to Anthem and Destiny. I'm looking forward to playing more of this game in the future.
