Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Quest Mode - Dungeons 6-10


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 2 and it shows the second set of 5 dungeons in Quest Mode. i had already finished up to the 10th dungeon, but it was nice to come back and try out some of the new teams i have unlocked since i've been playing Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition.

Come back next week for what could be the final part.

Monday, January 8, 2024

Switch Funday - Pokémon Unite - January’s Unite Weekend


Today's Switch Funday video is on Pokémon Unite. as this is the first full weekend of January, it's a Unite Weekend. this means i'm able to use any Pokémon i want in the unranked online modes. my goal with these weekends is to try out several new Pokémon i don't have and hopefully find some new favorites. 

I think i have influenza so i chose not to commentate after the intro. it also meant i wasn't playing my best and with some Pokémon i wasn't have a great time. The Pokémon i enjoyed the most using was Tyranitar. it's not a Pokémon i see often being used and i don't know why as it is strong and i thought it delt a lot of damage. I didn't find the new Meowscarada fun to use, i felt the same with the recently released Mimikyu. Lapras was far to slow and didn't seem to have enough bulk or deal enough damage. Espeon and Dragapult were fine. i did enjoy Dragapult's Unite Move, but i don't think i enjoyed either enough to buy them.

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Online Saturday - Pokémon Unite - Another 7 Panic Parade Matches, But 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. even with the better stats my Pokémon had, in these 7 matches we didn't really come close to beating Panic Parade.

I discover a great set for Venusaur that worked well and that i enjoyed using. so try out Sludge Bomb and Petal Dance!

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Demo Play Thursday - Gates of The Mind On Switch


For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Gates of The Mind. This game, from developers Gaga Game studio is set to come out later this week.

On the eShop page the game describes itself as a "...2D Hardcore Platformer" so i was curious to try it out to see what the level of difficulty actually is. Unfortunately, i don't think calling it difficult is the right word. i think unfair is more accurate. this is a short demo that i assume is from the start of the game, and whilst there is an attempt at a basic tutorial of how the controls work, the game fails at tutorialising how the game works. only through trial and error can that be solved.

One issue with this is that i broke the demo and had to die at one point. there was another where a dangerous enemy was able to damage me whilst i was in the air, even tho their attack hit the ground, and once it hit me even tho it was off screen! if this is the start of the game, it's going to throw a lot at the player and most of it will be unfair and in a way specifically to damage the player.

the music and sounds in the demo are also suspect. the sounds especially seem to be mistimed for the most part. ultimately, even tho this a really short demo, it was enough for me to learn that i don't want to play it. even if they're able to patch the bad English, tutorials, and level design, it won't fix the basic issue of the games design. i can't recommend Gates of The Mind.

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Backlog Conquering - CounterSpy On PS3 - Part 6 – Finishing The Game


CounterSpy is the current Backlog Conquering Wednesday game. i'm playing this version of the game on PlayStation 3. It came out across the PS4, PSV, and even mobile in 2014 from developers Dynamighty. This video has no commentary.

I finally did it, barely, but i did it. in my initial run i made the mistake of not continuing and getting game over. and in part 5, the game itself broke. but here, in part 6, i did it. i finished the game. i was surprised that after the ending sequence there were no credits. when i put together the From Start to Finish video, i'll add the credits to the game on.

There's a cut in this video and you'll see that the USA style team on the right suddenly has DEFCON 1. that's because stick drift caught me out and it went right as i was selecting it. but it wasn't a great run and i died once or twice. so i took that out as it's extra to the point of finishing this game.

Oh, and again there's no commentary like part 5. after commentating on the first 4 parts, i had nothing extra i wanted to say. i, stubbornly, just wanted to beat the game.

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Quest Mode - Dungeons 1-5


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 1 and it shows the first 5 dungeons in Quest Mode. these are dungeons i have finished a long time ago, but it was nice to come back and try out some of the new teams i have unlocked since i've been playing Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition.

Come back next week for what should be the final part.

Monday, January 1, 2024

Cloud Monday - Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - Part 2 - Decent Cloud Gaming Experience


This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Square Enix's Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PS4.

With Part 1, https://youtu.be/2O-V6qgzcrw, i began to understand the game's quirks so in this part, i was able to focus more on the experience of playing this game in the cloud. We had already seen in Part 1 that the game does a lot of auto saving in the background which is great. it means if we're going to be disconnected from the PlayStation Plus Cloud Game Streaming Service then we won't have lost too much progress in the game. With Part 2 it also became clear that the manual save points at this point in the game are also strategically placed before big, story moments or significant points in your progress through a section. this once more highlights that if you are kicked off the service, the amount of progress loss shouldn't be too significant.

Playing this on PlayStation 4 is both good and bad. the obvious bad part is the graphical quality. there were more than a few points where i could see how low resolution or how little detail elements of the levels were. from that point of view, it would be easy to recommend that Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin should be played on a PS5. but this helps with the game being streamed via the cloud because it means the impact to the game from things such as macro blocking isn't too significant. it'll be somewhat easy to see, but it shouldn't detract too much from the overall gameplay experience as there isn't always too much finer detail on PS4 anyway.

Ultimately, a game being decently well designed to be played via the cloud won't be enough for some players. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin has it's fair share of quirks and frustrations as a game itself. thankfully, with streaming being an option, it can act as a decent demo of the game and what to expect. but i would recommend giving it a couple of hours like i did to play through what felt like a tutorial heavy introduction to the game.