Ascent Spire - Roguelike RPG - Great Black And White Graphics With A CYOA Story - iPhone Friday

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Ascent Spire - Roguelike RPG, from Terrier Games, on my iPhone 14 Pro. 

It was the game's App icon that initially grabbed my attention when i was browsing the store. When i checked out the game's store page i knew i wanted to try this. the art for the Spire, mixed with the game's black and white aesthetic, looked great. thankfully there was art of the gameplay too and whilst i wasn't too familiar with this style of RPG, i still wanted to check it out.

The store page also gives some nice details regarding the game's story and initially i was concerned that the game itself wouldn't be able to tell this story, that it was relying on the user to have read it's store page. thankfully the game starts with the story, going into more depth than the store page, whilst also not revealing everything.

Our character seems to be nameless with no story, but it's possible this is revealed in greater detail the further up the spire we make. there's no story as to why we're able to be reived either. but if we consider that no one seems to know anything about the spire, it's not too hard to imagine that we're coming back because it's a feature of the spire.

Each run is different. Even when the art and the scenario are exactly the same, you can pick the same outcome as before and get a different result. On one hand, this makes smart use of limited art assets but on the other it does become noticeable when we're getting the same background and text combo. It's the same with the music. it's nice, but it's very noticeable when it repeats as there's a pause. The art and music here is great, but for long play sessions, or repeated play sessions, it starts to become noticeable when it keeps repeating.

I thought Ascent Spire - Roguelike RPG was quite accessible even though it doesn't have a tutorial. all the commands needed in a moment are on screen. when you fight, the controls are on screen. instead of pressing arrows to move around, we have to read the options given to us. this is usually a single button but there are time when we're given the choice to, for example, follow or head towards something or to go in the opposite direction. the first time a QTE event happened caught me a little off guard. there wasn't too much extra time to read what my choices were before they were nearly gone. But it was fun in this game that i came across a point where the best choice to make was to not make a choice.

The Roguelike aspect of the game seems lite, and i mentioned above that the why isn't explained. with each run we get a reward and when we have enough of it we can spend it on permanent upgrades for our character. my concern is that some of these upgrades are very expensive and that it may take a long time to fully level up our character. i wonder if the game is built that this isn't needed and, whether by luck or design, we're able to beat the boss/complete the game many different ways. 

The art, music, approach to story, and simple combat make Ascent Spire - Roguelike RPG something i'd recommend to gamers of all experiences. it's something i'd recommend trying at least one because it's something i so very rarely see on the app store. 

Version 1.0.4 Played 

Astral Bounty On PC - Demo Play Thursday

This week's DEMO is the Steam PC version of Astral Bounty, from developer Weepel Games.

Full disclosure, Weepel Games got in touch about Astral Bounty and brought it to my attention, but i was unable to play the demo before it came out on Steam and what i played was from the store, rather than it being sent to me.

Fans of the channel will know that i'm not great at side scrolling shooters, regardless of whether it's vertical or horizontal, but i'm always up for trying a new one as i'd like to find one that i can improve at and still enjoy playing. i knew that Astral Bounty was going to be tough as it describes itself as "Astral Bounty is a brutally hard 2D arcade sidescroll shooter" on it's Steam Store page, https://store.steampowered.com/app/4952490/Astral_Bounty/.

I didn't finish this demo but that wasn't because it's a bad demo. i was surprised how generous Astral Bounty was with it's checkpoints. one way developers make a game tough is by reducing or completely removing checkpoints. Here, they're optional. the game's store appears several times during the demo stage i played and whilst i could spend my money upgrading my ship, i also had the option to respawn at the store for a price. as i learned how to play the game and got better, i stopped using the first and then second stores as revival spots and could focus on buying upgrades and progressing further into the level.

So whilst the start of the level got easier, it always got tougher as i got further into it. Sometimes this was due to new enemies, sometimes there were level hazards, and there are times when both are combined. But it's not like i could never see a path through, my failure to progress to the end felt more like skill issue rather than the level design being unfair.

Astral Bounty ran smoothly on my old low powered laptop, but there were very short but noticeable hitches in the frame rate when a new song started for the first time. i found the controls responsive, but a couple of the upgradable attacks i tried never seemed to work right so it's possible there could be a bug or two. the game doesn't have a release date on Steam so it could also be quite early into it's development.

As a demo this could be better. at no point do i remember it ever saying that it was a demo. there were no screenshots, no links to get the game, and no trailers showcasing the rest of it. thankfully the demo runs well, controls well, and the restarts are fast. So, as a demo it may not be great, but as a game it seemed all right.

Why not buy me a Vending Machine Bottle of Coffee over on https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers

My Laptop Specifications:

Dell Inspiron 15 3525

16gb RAM

AMD Ryzen 5 5500U 2.10GHz

Integrated Graphics VRAM: 495 MB

Need for Speed: Most Wanted On PS3 - Part 4 - The Final Part - Backlog Conquering

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.

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I was surprised that there were no major copyright issues with the music, except for a couple of countries. So not only enjoy the racing but also enjoy the music. You can see in the top left, when the track changes, what song is playing.

I did it, i beat all of the Top 10 Most Wanted drivers. i think i thought it was going to be harder than it actually was. some of the other racing i had done across these 4 parts, to earn upgrades and points, had been more difficult than beating the Top 10. for a couple of drivers, it was more difficult to take them down after the race had finished. I did have fun and i enjoyed just going around and looking for cars, billboards to smash, and gates to break through.

What i'll do for next week is a video showing how i beat all 10 of the Most Wanted drivers in a race. taking them out afterwards is more difficult to edit into a video, but the races are fine. i'll cut out the mistakes, they're in these 4 parts if people want to see them.

Why not buy me a Vending Machine Bottle of Coffee over on https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/JZaXTO-LMKI

Part 2: https://youtu.be/yPZVa5TAoWk

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/6VIGjdkfBps

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind - Part 2 - Bad Match For Cloud Streaming - Cloud Monday

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I had a rough time with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind in Part 1 so thankfully in part 2 we didn't have a repeat of the crash.

We learned that the levels continue to be long with seemingly no checkpoint system and no manual saves. if you're disconnected, you could loose 5 minutes or more. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind isn't an easy either. after playing it across 2 parts, i'd highly recommend playing it on easy if you're streaming it from the cloud. at least this way, if you have to replay a mission, it shouldn't be too difficult to catch back up to where you were.

The music in this game is loud and comes across as an important part of the experience of playing the game. But it's often in the music where we can first experience issues with streaming the game from the cloud. So across both parts, i could often hear an issue before it happened. as the music is such a part of the experience, it meant it was very noticeable when it happened.

I'm not saying that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind is a bad game. i actually quite liked it and have since downloaded it to my PS4. it's just that it's a bad fit for the service. I turned off the filters to try and help make the streaming experience smoother, but it doesn't help much when there's a stream tear across the middle covering most of the playing area and hiding the enemies. when the resolution drops, it becomes less clear how close the enemies are and if you're on the same plane. i've already mentioned the music and the lack of manual saves, too. 

So if you're curious about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind, i'd suggest downloading it rather than playing it from the cloud.

Why not buy me a Vending Machine Bottle of Coffee over on https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers

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

Talespinner On Switch - Demo Play Thursday

This week's DEMO is the Switch version of Talespinner, from developer Flash Cat Games.

From the eShop page, i new going in that Talespinner  was a roguelike RPG Deckbuilder. But after playing this demo, it's like the game wasn't aware.

First up, this is another example of a game not mentioning it's a demo. it also didn't have links to it's eShop store page. i could see the game saving at times but there's no mention whether or not the save would carry over to the retail version. The only times i encountered any mention that this was a demo was when it was telling us about features we couldn't use.

After playing the DEMO, i'm probably not going to wishlist the game. For me, i found the progression of this Roguelike to be too slow for me. I do like the art and music, i also enjoy the way they let us build our own path through each story section we play. But it's the Roguelike aspect of the game where it falls short.

Another great example of how the game falls a little short is what is and what isn't explained. there is a tutorial and some aspects of it are very useful. But when you start looking at what all the buttons do you realise how little of the game's mechanics have been explained. Thankfully, i found the tutorial to be quite good. there was only one aspect of the game i didn't understand fully, but eventually worked out for myself. some things have legends explaining what things mean, but then there are times where i wanted more legends for things that haven't been explained.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted On PS3 - Part 3 - Backlog Conquering

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.

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I was surprised that there were no major copyright issues with the music, except for a couple of countries. So not only enjoy the racing but also enjoy the music. You can see in the top left, when the track changes, what song is playing.

I continued looking out for cars to drive, secrets to find, and of course challenging the Most Wanted. I managed to beat all of them up to Most Wanted 2, so i finished this part with a car i hoped would be fast enough to challenge the final 2 Most Wanted drivers in the next part. The Porsche Concept i spent most of this video driving was not that bad, just not a lot of colors. And of course, i made some silly mistakes and had some bad luck with the local drivers!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind - Part 1 - Odd Cloud Streaming Tech Issue - Cloud Monday

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the #PS4 version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Growing up when Mighty Morphin Power Rangers first came to TV in the UK and having played arcade side scrollers back then, this combination really interested me and i was keen to try it.

The big takeaway from this first part of playing it from the cloud was the issue that happened. i've not seen it before, or don't remember seeing it before, and i still don't know what happened. for some reason, the video being sent to me stopped by my controls and the game's audio was still happening.

What was nice was how each level i played had something different. the graphics were spot on for a 90's sidescroller of this era. the music was a wonderful surprise. But the difficulty was higher than expected. i felt like it started hard and kept getting harder. i was expected more of a ramp up than this.