Mobile Friday - Tailed Demon Slayer: RISE - Cleverly Tries To Hide The Grind

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Tailed Demon Slayer: RISE on my iPhone 14 Pro. This game from CookApps is also out on Android. i haven't played the original Tailed Demon Slayer so this was my first time playing in this game world.

The start of this game is great but also a little weird. It's great because it does a good job of telling a story, putting the game and the game world into context. it's simple approach to world building is effective. so much so that i was waiting for more all throughout this video. and that's the weird thing about this game, so much effort is put into creating context, telling a story, and then the game does nothing else with it. Early on, i was always expecting the game to slow, or even stop, to tell more about the story. but once i realised that it wasn't going to, i was a bit disappointed.

That's kinda true for other aspects of the game. there are times when so much effort has clearly been spent on something and then it stops. the tutorial is a good example of this. the start of the game does a good job slowly introducing the game right up until it stops doing that and as this video goes on i found myself asking more questions. For those who have watched my Mobile Friday videos, you'll know that i appreciate games that slowly introduce themselves even if it means stopping players from accessing parts of the game. and whilst this game did a good job of that, i was able to get clothes and equip them long before the game's clothes tutorial. there's also an instance later of the game starting a tutorial, then showing an advert for said item in the store, then finishing the tutorial. putting an advert half way through the tutorial made no sense.

Ultimately, this aren't huge complaints. they only stick out because of how well the rest of the game is designed. This is one of the better autobattler RPGs i have ever played. having a good start of the story helps, as does a good tutorial, but one of the smartest things the developers did was trying to hide the grind. it took around 45-50 minutes before the grind became noticeable and i applaud all the clever ways they designed the game to try and hide the grind. There is the main "story" battle, then there are dungeons, there's also improving the stats of your character, there's summoning equipment, and then improving your current equipment. there are also quests to aim for, and when you do you can collect the earned items. But if you want more rewards, you can watch adverts. you can also earn things from the Battle Pass, Season Pass, 7 day missions, Quests, Album, and the Advance System. all the while, the game is still progressing, you're still earning money and experience. Essentially, the game is grinding in the background but it's hidden by everything else there is to do in the game.  

It was a little much at the start, but once i realized what was happening and that there's no rush to do things it did become easier. For example,  the Repeat Quest keeps track of your progress. so if you've completed a quest a few times, you'll still get the correct amount of reward. By the end of this video, i still had a lot left to unlock so there could be other ways the developers have tried to hide the grind.

The core gameplay is good, the graphics are good, the music is good, and the tutorials are good. there is a lot to like in this game. it also doesn't force adverts upon us, nor where there any additional downloads before we could start playing. Oh, the music is also good too. there's soo much to like about this game that it's easy for me to recommend this game to fans of the genre, to those curious, and to those looking for a new game to play.

(Version 1.3.02 Played)

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.