Backlog Conquering - Final Fantasy On PSP - Part 11 - Dragons, Class Changes, And Onrac

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it. The newest game in the Backlog Conquering series is the #PlayStationPortable version of #FinalFantasy. this is the downloaded version of the game, but it is also available on #UMD. To help with this playthrough i'm proudly using a guide from #GameFAQS. here's the link, https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/psp/937909-final-fantasy/faqs/55625. i'm not following it exactly, but it's useful to have. 

In Part 11 i did a lot of little tasks that didn't seem to be a part of the main story line. In Part 10, i did the Citadel of Trials and got a reward. Here, i was able to take that reward and got a buff to my character classes. one thing that was made clear to me in this part was that the guide i'm using is skipping some of the story telling. twice i went off to different places in this video to get a fairy and a warp cube. from my playing, there were no story reasons for this. but in Onrac i talked to everyone and found people who would've given me the story for finding the fairy. i'd been curious if i had been missing some of the story telling and now it's clear to me that i have. i can understand why the guide skips some of it as it's streamlining the experience. but for me i think i would've liked to have got the story and then used the guide to find out where to go next. i don't think i'm going to change things in the future videos as i've already used it as much as i have.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/QWXAyHh-R0s

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/95BsHWcN6K0

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/eMh6cvudEOA

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/LCrkwFxlEJs

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/6SKK1o1QGV0

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/lrgjxlOgUiI

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/0zQLSh9TjaQ

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/yehXjEWljbM

Part 9 - https://youtu.be/DVdc0-6uLXM

Part 10 - https://youtu.be/jb86mpdg_nA

Stories on Tuesday - Coffee Talk - Part 6 - October 2nd and October 3rd

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS4 version of Coffee Talk from Toge Productions. I've downloaded it as part of PlayStation Plus.

This is Part 6.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/px2JkXPMgx4

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/hNdeC5zIv6E

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/SzmUGL0HkGk

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/pe15t9oNvsk

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/hkBmyzf9qH4

Cloud Monday - Hotshot Racing - Part 2 - No Save Options During Grand Prix, Empty Online Lobbies

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Hotshot Racing on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

In Part 2, my goal was to try out the online features and see if there would be any lag or any issues playing it via the Cloud. i wasn't expecting there to be issues as i've played online modes before in this series. unfortunately, there wasn't anyone else playing online. Initially tho i didn't think this was going to be an issue as it populated the race screen with Ai racers. but under that screen in small text it actually said we would need either 2 or 4 human players to start a race. seeing those Ai racers did get my hopes up. There was another section of the online that had labeled a section Servers. but as it wasn't populating i didn't know if this meant this section was going to show available races to join, available servers to join (as in a named server,) or available servers (as in regional servers.)

With nothing happening online i went back to Grand Prix and even tho the "enemy" tried their best to take me out i did manage to get gold. i only ever played on Normal difficulty level and i found the Ai of the computer racers to be really tough, in terms of their racing ability and their attempts at taking me out. i mentioned in the video that if often felt like i did bad because of them rather than because of my own skill. a comparison i tried to highlight was when they hit me and i would loose control and end up pointing in the wrong direction but when i hit them they had a moment of instability before straightening up like nothing ever happened. simply put, the Ai in Hotshot Racing didn't feel fair.

With their being no saves between races in Grand Prix and no online modes to speak of, the only thing worth doing in Hotshot Racing via the cloud would be either time trial or single races. because of this i can say it's only FINE at best when it comes to it's performance being streamed from the cloud. a game this small is better off being installed locally.

Online Saturday - War Robots: Frontiers - My First Time

War Robots: Frontiers is a free to play game that recently came out on the PSN. i downloaded it to my PS4 when it came out and since then the game has been regularly updated, tho my PS4's update section for the game says it's 1.01 even tho the game is now 1.10. So coming into the game i was confident that i would get a decent gameplay experience. for me, what i was really interested in seeing was how the game would tackle the tutorial as this has been a huge let down across nearly all of the free to play games i've tried out.

Unfortunately, even tho War Robots: Frontiers does have a tutorial it's quite bad. one of the first examples is when you start the first tutorial. it'll explain the game mode you're playing and the requirements to win it, then it'll let you play without explaining the loadout of your mech and what each of the buttons do. the tutorial is against bots and already pauses the action so i really don't understand why it can't do it again to explain my mech's loadout and how to use it. even after the live stream, there's at least one attack on each mech i don't fully understand.

It doesn't get any better on the home screen. this is often the biggest challenge for free to play games as they often fill it with icons and adverts and such, but then don't explain most of it or any of it. Mobile games have the best approach to home screens, usually greying out modes and options we don't need right now, haven't unlocked as yet, or it hasn't explained. War Robots: Frontiers has a busy home screen and there are times it tries to explain stuff but the first couple of times i missed it because it highlights a section ever so slightly and it times out really quick. War Robots: Frontiers really needs to ask the player if they want a tutorial. if they don't, fine let us play. but it we do it needs to take things one step at a time, slowly, and with examples.

And just as importantly, the tutorial needs to be smart and restrictive enough that we can't fail it. i found out near the end of the live stream that i made a mistake in a much earlier tutorial to the point where it had a negative impact on my gameplay as i should've had 4 mechs and not the 3 i used. a smart tutorial would've also been helpful cause the game would've noticed i've not used L2 since it started and it could've told me that i should use it as i felt really stupid when i accidently pressed the button and saw that it zoomed in and was really useful.

War Robots: Frontiers is lucky that the basic gameplay is solid. even tho here in Yokohama Japan i was mostly playing against bots, their ai was sufficient for me to have some really fun games. it's entirely possible that there are more players on other servers, but i don't know because the game never shows that information. it was very frustrating that i wasn't able to pick what game mode i wanted to play or, like Foam Stars, tell the game which modes that it offers i wanted to play. there's only a Play button and we get what we're given. 

So with War Robots: Frontiers' poor and frustrating tutorial, so-so UI and home screen experience, and lack of match information and choice, i agree with my chat that War Robots: Frontiers is fine at best but not really something i want to keep playing regularly. if they overhaul what surrounds the good gameplay and improve the user experience and make it accessible to new players then i'd be happy to stream it again. but as it is, War Robots: Frontiers is more frustrating than it should be and more than what it's gameplay can overcome. 

Mobile Friday - Meow Kingdom: Cute Cat Idle RPG - A Satisfying Mix Of Old And New Idle Mechanics

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Meow Kingdom: Cute Cat Idle RPG, also known as Meow Kingdom, on my #iPhone 14 Pro.

As well as how good the game looked from the screenshots and how frequently it had been updated since i downloaded it, i was also interested to try out this game because i wanted to see how/why it's download was over 1GB in size. many of the Idle Games i've tried out as part of this series are a lot smaller than Meow Kingdom. But after playing it for an hour, i have a good idea why it's as big as it is.

It's a little unfortunate that Meow Kingdom starts with such a compressed introduction video as everything after it looked much better. i was pleasantly surprised by how much artwork there was for each character and it really helped portray the emotions of each character. i thought the main characters had so much that it really stood out when it came to the introduction of Gong and their lack of artwork.

The game has a decent tutorial that takes things, mostly, one step at a time and even has videos for some things too. But there are times when it feels like the game has forgotten to mention something. the first example i can think of is when the tutorial mentions increasing game speed but never mentions what the "A" button next to it does. there was also an example late on in the video where the game wouldn't let me install a building because the game's tutorial was going to do it. but for the most part it does a great job for new gamers and Meow Kingdom feels quite accessible. 

The idle mechanics of Meow Kingdom feel a little older than some other aspects of the game. as well as collecting gold and experience from buildings in our town, there are other things we can do to interact with the world, which isn't something i've seen that much in games i've played as part of this series. for example, if you don't touch the screen, the game enables a screensaver of sorts that'll follow cats around. you can interact with the cats by picking them up and getting them to do some things or you can zoom in and pet them or take a photo of them. the cats have wants that are telegraphed by bubbles above their heads, much like the Theme Park/Rollercoaster Tycoon/Two Point games do. around the town, there are items you can touch that'll give you more gold and help keep the place tidy. these little interactions give Meow Kingdom an older feel as i associate these menial tasks with the games i mentioned before. but i think they work well with the game.

The combat in Meow Kingdom is what makes this game feel modern. like the rest of the game, the combat looks great with the enemies looking very distinct and the boss enemies looming bigger over us. at this point in the game we're only able to have 5 characters in our team but it was unclear if we're going to have more. each of those cats can be placed in a grid, or you can ask the game to auto assign the best cats in their best positions. once that's done, your team sets off after the enemies. there's a choice to do the combat at normal speed or to speed it up, but if you press the "A" button, combat will be automated. even tho it's tempting to speed up the combat, i'd suggest doing it sometimes at normal speed because of how flashy some of the attacks are and how well animated it all looks. once the fight is over we're greeted with another cool looking victory screen.

If you're a fan of idle games, a fan of cats, or you're after a good looking game, i'd recommend giving Meow Kingdom a go. there's more to it than just it's cute exterior with solid idle mechanics, solid battle mechanics, and a story that's been simple yet fun so far. there's plenty to do in this game, there were aspects of it i'd yet to unlock in this video. but with it's relaxed pace and feel, there's little pressure to race to the finish. 

Version 00.15.01 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land On #PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land.

Atelier from Gust is a series i've been aware of for a long time and i even have the PS3 version of Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland, tho i've not really played much if any of it. i've always been curious but never given the series the time it deserves, so when the DEMO for Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land came out i was keen to give it a go and i'm glad i did.

This PS4 version of the game didn't feel like a downgraded version of the game. it looked fantastic, sounded great, and the controls felt responsive. the loading times were perhaps the only thing that felt a tad long but they weren't too frequent. going in and out of battles was seamless and when i got to the second part of the demo, the open world had no loading as i moved from place to place.

As a demo itself, and as the opening to Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land, it's very welcoming to new players. the demo, and probably the start of the game, goes step by step introducing how the game is played by modern feeling tutorials. more and more, games are moving away from just text on a screen on how to do something and this game is a great example as it shows videos of what should happen. the level design is also smart enough so that you're able to try out each new thing one after another instead of having to do it all at once. the first part of the demo is also always pushing you forward, with stuff happening to the level meaning you're not able to back track and that you're unlikely to damage yourself going forward.

It wouldn't be until the second half of the demo when it tries to explain the Atelier powers aspect of the game that i feel like the tutorial kept things simple but tried to explain too much in one go. story wise, it made sense, but for us unfamiliar with this aspect of the series it was a lot to take in all at once. i feel like they could've made it simpler or broken it up into more steps over a longer time instead of the lore dump it felt like at the time.

But i said this did fit into the story as our character does come across, more so in the second half of the demo, as someone what excitable and keen to share Atelier Alchemy. as we find out, there are a lot of others less keen on it and her so when two people come along to assist our character it makes sense why we get a lot of it all at once. 

I didn't finish the demo in this video, but i did end it just after a story tease by the game. the title of the game, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land, has been shown to tie into the game so when the possible tease of more story happened, it wasn't shocking but it did feel appropriate.

There are a few things about this demo for Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land that feel a little stereotypical or tropey, but from what i played it's not in a negative way. i enjoyed the gameplay, the story, and the world this demo introduced. the only thing slightly disappointing about this demo was how it failed to detail what each of the difficulty settings do. even tho it's tutorial was modern, this did feel like an oversight. personally, i like playing for the story so i would keep the difficulty at easy. but after playing this demo and seeing how fun the combat is, if i were to get the game i'd actually play it on normal.

I think this demo for, and most likely the start of, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land is great and well worth trying for those who are curious. i tried the PS4 version and it played great, i didn't feel like i was getting a lesser version of the game.

Stories on Tuesday - Coffee Talk - Part 5 - September 30th and October 1st

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS4 version of Coffee Talk from Toge Productions. I've downloaded it as part of PlayStation Plus.

This is Part 5.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/px2JkXPMgx4

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/hNdeC5zIv6E

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/SzmUGL0HkGk

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/pe15t9oNvsk