Demo Play Thursday - Blade Jumper On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Blade Jumper, developed by bit paradigm and published by CFK.

The #eShop mentions that this game has one button that does the jumping and the attacking. i was very curious as to how this would work and whether or not it would make the game difficult or not. the eShop page also talks about the game's story and i wondered if it is a difficult game would they be able to tell that story. So having a demo is great for this kind of game as it could answer many questions.

It starts with a cool song that really sets the mood, we find out at the end of the video that this song doesn't loop so don't be surprised when it stops. it also mentions that this is a demo and has a link to the eShop page, something that few games actually do so it was welcome to see.

Once you start, you're immediately introduced to the story, your main character, and what you're task is. there is a tutorial and it's mostly blended into the game's introduction. but with everything using just one button it does take a bit of time to get used to. thankfully, there is graffiti across this first stage that'll help with how to line things up and what force to use.

So far so good, but it's not long after this that i personally started to have issues with the game. i don't enjoy the core gameplay mechanic, i found the jump system to be a chore and when it's coupled with respawning monsters it was frustrating. the whole experience took nearly 50 minutes to complete what turned out to be a short demo. i imagine this could easily be done in less than 30, maybe less than 20 minutes. but i found the learning curve so high and the level design unforgiving so it simply took a long frustrating time.

But i wouldn't say the whole game is frustrating. i actually found myself really interested in the story and the music. i talk about how i would like this game to have a story focused mode, instead of the game focusing on it's jumping mechanics. so the demo did it's job. i got to try out the core mechanics and i learned that it's not for me. it's not a style of game i would enjoy, and whilst i did like the story and would like to see what happens i've also learned that i don't want to experience the story how it's currently being told. i recommend people check out the demo before buying the game as it's more hardcore than it lets on to be.

Stories on Tuesday - Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz - Part 12

Hello and welcome to Part 12 of the new series here on QTE Gamers!

The goal with Stories on Tuesday is to play games with a heavy focus on their story. this can be Visual Novel games, like today's game, or it can be something more episodic. For me, it's a style of game i've not really explored. i have several games across a few platforms that i haven't played but i bought them because i wanted to. So now the time has come for me to experience these sorts of games.

Our debut game is Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz. I have the game on PS4 via DISC but i'll be playing the PlayStation Plus version of the game that's been downloaded to my PlayStation4.

In comparison to Part 11, https://youtu.be/653QoTugqm0, Part 12 felt a little less frantic but with an even higher body count! I was wondering if Part 12 might be the final part but it turned out not to be. things slowed down a little and a few days pass across this part. But the threat never goes away and now one of our closest friends is involved the stakes just keep getting higher.

If you're interested in watching the stories unfold without my commentary, head over to Ko-Fi. there, you can subscribe to the "Stories on Ko-Fi" which will let you watch all the stories. This tier will always be one week ahead of the free video on QTE Gamer's YouTube Channel. Or, of course, you can head to https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers and donate via PayPal.

Cloud Monday - Marvel's Midnight Suns - Part 2 - Well Designed To Be Streamed From The Cloud

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Marvel's Midnight Suns via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Right from Part 1, https://youtu.be/IZ948UHlLsM, the slower turn based pace of the combat and frequent auto saves and very accessible manual saves gave me a positive first impression of Marvel's Midnight Suns. In this part that didn't change. i felt at ease playing the game as i was secure knowing that if there were issues, saving wouldn't be an issue. i was able to focus more on the game itself and the story it was trying to tell.

And that brings up a different issue. Marvel's Midnight Suns may work great as a game in the cloud, but does it work great as a game. i chose to play the game with the focus on story so that's what i was expecting. but more and more fluff was being added into the game with little to no explanation how it relates to the game. the thing that triggered me the most was i gifted access to a social network with seemingly no explanation as to how that would benefit me or the story. it was yet another system being added. 

Again, with my focus being on the story and how grim things were turning. i expected the game to have a quicker pace, to want to deal with things. and yet i didn't get that sense of urgency from any of the other characters or in the pace of the game. i don't mind that combat takes time, i feel that the game's combat and mechanics are it's strongest part and i enjoyed the strategy challenge. It's just that in a story with the fate of the world at stake, it didn't feel like the fate of the world was at stake. Like, why do i have options to customise my room, surely this will all be over in a day or two?

The graphics are kinda an example of this ambivalence. Most of the big stuff and the backgrounds look great. even up close some of the stone work looks highly textured and great. and then you get the characters. at times i wonder if they look any better than some characters on #PS3. especially the faces, it's one thing to look emotionless but it's another to also look plastic.

Personally, i feel like Marvel's Midnight Suns needs a remaster or directors cut. something that'll focus it on it's two core things, it's story and it's combat. in a way, Marvel's Midnight Suns would've been perfect on a Pocketable Portable as it's likely a lot of the fluff would've been cut. plus the auto save would've worked great on such a system. the Marvel's Midnight Suns we got is bloated and that bloat feels disconnected from what makes it good. It's possible that it isn't fluff and that it all ties together. but they failed in these 2 hours to tell me that, which in itself could be telling of other issues.

as a game played in the cloud, Marvel's Midnight Suns is a great choice. but is it a game worth playing, that's up to you. i'm not too sure, but the fact it's part of PlayStation Plus and i can stream it and not buy it does help make it more worth playing.

Switch Funday - Tetris 99 - 40th Maximus Cup - Endless Ocean Luminous

There is a Maximus Cup this weekend in Tetris 99 on Nintendo Switch. The 40th Maximus Cup is for the Switch game Endless Ocean Luminous. By getting 100 points, you can unlock a Endless Ocean Luminous theme which includes sounds, a background, and unique looking Tetromino.

The side quest, as ever, is to try and win. unfortunately, i didn't manage to make it to the top 10 at all during this cup. I thought that it was very tough just to get into the top 50. often, it felt like i was defending more than actually trying to attack. It did feel satisfying tho so i'm not too dissatisfied with the result.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - May's Eggstra Work Event

For this week's Online Saturday video i'm back on the Switch with Splatoon 3 as it's an Eggstra Work Event on the Jammin' Salmon Junction Map.

Like my #SalmonRun videos, the goal is to get 1,000 points. but because it's an Eggstra Work Event, the main goal is to get the highest score possible within that time. So far, i don't have a great record getting a prize winning score in these events and i don't think i'll get one today. Out of the 8 matches i played, my none of the teams i worked with could beat all 5 waves. we only managed to get to the 4th wave twice. the 3rd wave was surprisingly difficult. one issue was the first couple of waves were so easy that we were doing too good. this meant the game would raise the difficulty of the next stage. so by the time we got to the third stage, the difficulty had often risen twice to more than double what it started at. 

Even tho we didn't finish, i did have a good time. this was the right balance of difficulty because we put ourselves into this position whereas it often feels tough because it's designed that way. the weapon selection was ok, but i had the same weapon for 7 of the 8 games.

Mobile Friday - The WereCleaner - I Recommend This Clean 'em up, Tho A Bit Rough It's Fun To Play

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out The WereCleaner from developer Charlie Heatherly. I Played this on my iPhone 14 Pro.

The premise of this game, a cleaner who's a werewolf doing the night shift, was all i needed to give this a try. It's very new, this might be the launch week, and it's not a game i had heard about, but the screenshots on it's app store page combined with the little bits of information about the game were enough. i was very curious and just had to play it.

You start The WereCleaner during your day shift so you're human. this acts as the games story introduction but i feel it could've or should've given us the option for a tutorial. it might've been difficult, but i feel it's possible the developer could've used our interactions with Daryl as a way for our character to talk about their job, thus being the tutorial, and Daryl replying with something about keeping his current one. The game does provide text on screen between stages but i worry that this might be easily missed as this isn't something i've seen much in other games. Those text boxes are done up very nice and do provide most of the information needed, with our imagination on how we can use it filling the gaps.

As a Clean 'em up, your goal in The WereCleaner is simple, clean up all messes within the 5 minute window. the problem is that as we're a werewolf, we will kill anyone who spots us in the same location as us. killing them, and then eating them, and then cleaning up that mess uses up time which is were the stealth element of the game comes in. the other characters have a timer above their heads and when it reaches 0 they move. we need to avoid them whilst also making our way across the stage or cleaning. it's a difficult balance that i didn't quite master. i felt like this challenge was well managed at the start, but by the 6th level i was on the difficulty had spiked.

We are given tools to help us clean and the info card before the level also talks about how we can use it against the other people. but it's one thing to read it and another to do it and it's this using the tools that didn't quite work how i expected. one tool is throwing a ball of trash. the other humans will pick it up and put it in the bin, clearing a path for you. but what i didn't anticipate was them putting it in a bin near us. Another item is the Knap, a bag we can use to pick up critters or a bag we can put over the heads of humans. But nearly every time i tried to use it it failed because i would instinctively kill the person i was trying to knap.

Another example where things are a little rough is in the controls. more than once i noticed and commented on how the on screen buttons didn't match what cleaning item i was using. i had heard the game make the noise that i had changed my tool, but on screen the buttons for that tool hadn't changed. so for a while it was a little frustrating not knowing what tool was equipped. by the end of the video i was getting used to it, but it's not ideal.

So whilst The WereCleaner does have some small issues and a few bugs, the core idea and presentation is still really good. so much so that it's already in my Free to Play Mobile Game of the Year List and i'd happily recommend it to anyone looking for something interesting to play. It's a shame there aren't pocketable portables from Sony or Nintendo as this is something i would've enjoyed on those platforms. On phone it does work well, but i can't help but feel that the controls would be better with buttons than touch screen.

Version ? Played. (Maybe it's the launch version)

Demo Play Thursday - Korean Rail Driving Tour: LRT Uijeongbu On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Korean Rail Driving Tour: LRT Uijeongbu, published by 14Dimension.

I have never played a train simulator game before and when i saw this demo come out on Switch i thought i should give it a go. starting the demo gives no hints that you're actually playing a demo. it looks and feels like the full game.

There is no tutorial either. for me it was very frustrating as not only did i not know what buttons to use, i had to use my intuition and the on screen speed prompts as to what i need to do. so needless to say i only manage to get the train from A to B three times and neither time was perfect.

And that's the end of the demo! it only allows us to play one section out of 15. i did like how it uses video from a real train doing the same route, it means i got to see somewhere new. the music was also surprisingly epic, and i left it playing at the end. but overall all, it's a poor demo that doesn't even have an option for us to purchase the game from within the demo like many do. I'm glad i tried it as i got to play a genre i've never played before, but it's a bad demo and difficult to recommend for people to try beyond curiosity like i had.

Backlog Conquering - Tearaway: Unfolded On PS4 - Part 1 - A Good First Impression

This new Backlog Conquering game is being played on PlayStation 4 but it'll cover the PlayStation Vita version as well. on PSV, the game was released as Tearaway back in 2013 and i do have that version. Like this PS4 version, i haven't finished it either so this is my chance to tackle Tearaway twice! ( i know there are differences in the controls and how you interact with the games, but you know what i mean.)

The start caught me by surprise as the game starts it's narrating before it's even revealed all the developer logos. It's a bit long, but it's uniqueness works for me and it gets to the point where the narrators interact with "you" and thus begins the events at the start of the game.

another thing the game does well is it's tutorial. it's impressive how it manages to balance telling us how to something whilst giving us the chance to use it with some imagination. One of the better features is the "Squirrel" as this guide will pop up if it thinks you're struggling to offer advice. so many games don't offer help after the tutorial and just leave it up to the player so it's nice that this game will try and help. It doesn't make Tearaway: Unfolded feel too easy either, but it's nice to have regardless.

It takes time, when playing the game, to get used to not having a jump button. i could see places i wanted to reach and for most of this video my first reaction is to press X for jump. as i played, what i learned is that there are ways to get anywhere if you're meant to get there. this often takes shape as ramps, flowers, and spring jumps. part of the puzzle is seeing somewhere you want to go, maybe there's a collectable present you want to get, and working out how the environment is set up for you to get there.

I really enjoyed what i've played so far so i will do a few more parts at least. i'm curious if the game does anything fun when you come back to the game. i'm also wondering if there'll be any more fun interactions with the controller. i know that we're able to backtrack with our current abilities so i may give that a try in part 2 as in this part i already found a white mystery and later in this part i was given a tool to deal with it.

Stories on Tuesday - Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz - Part 11

Hello and welcome to Part 11 of the new series here on QTE Gamers!

The goal with Stories on Tuesday is to play games with a heavy focus on their story. this can be Visual Novel games, like today's game, or it can be something more episodic. For me, it's a style of game i've not really explored. i have several games across a few platforms that i haven't played but i bought them because i wanted to. So now the time has come for me to experience these sorts of games.

Our debut game is Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz. I have the game on PS4 via DISC but i'll be playing the PlayStation Plus version of the game that's been downloaded to my PlayStation 4.

A lot happened in this part. Part 10, https://youtu.be/vfva7DWmvVo, saw us getting a lot of information which we dealt with in this part. much of this part goes how i expected it to. for a few parts now i had been making some assumptions and most are revealed here. But things take a dramatic turn around the half way mark and just keeps on going. Whilst the change of pace is welcomed, it does feel like a lot happened much quicker in this part than any previous part. but it has reenergized the story and i'm maybe even more excited to continue the 5th, and final, Chapter of this game.

If you're interested in watching the stories unfold without my commentary, head over to Ko-Fi. there, you can subscribe to the "Stories on Ko-Fi" which will let you watch all the stories. This tier will always be one week ahead of the free video on QTE Gamer's YouTube Channel. Or, of course, you can head to https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers and donate via PayPal.

Cloud Monday - Marvel's Midnight Suns - Part 1 - A Good First Impression, Auto And Manual Saves Too

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the #PS4 version of Marvel's Midnight Suns via the #PlayStationPlus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

This game, from developers Firaxis Games, is one that was seemingly well received from reviewers but not necessarily the public at large. I've heard quite a lot of non specific praise about playing it but also reports on how poorly it sold, either in general or when compared to expectations. Thankfully, the point of this series is to talk about how suitable the game is as a game being played in the cloud. And i can say that it makes a great first impression.

Much like the previous game i played, The Wild At Heart https://youtu.be/Cg0q3nv-E58, this game starts with a choice on how you want to play it. i went with a focus on story, but there's also normal mode. If you've played one of these before, streaming the other from the cloud is a great option to have as this game is a fairly sizeable download around 32GB. I also chose to do the tutorial mission. 

I couldn't say where the tutorial mission ended and the game started. they did a great job incorporating the tutorial into the story. admittedly, playing a strong super heroes and being limited because of the tutorial could've been delt with better, like with a side comment that these are just henchmen so don't go all out just yet as someone stronger may come later. But after it, i did feel mostly confident that i understood the systems taught to me.

As well as the tutorial and options, the game's story also makes a great first impression. it's always made clear who is talking and when someone new is introduced there's a quick little banner to say who they are. about half way into the video i explore the save system and it's clear that at this early point in the game the auto save system has been working quite frequently and not overwriting one auto save. there are 4 auto saves the game makes and we can do manual saves, too. this sense of security means i can focus on the game instead of worrying about when or if i can save next.

In this part, the connection to the cloud was mostly fine. early on there were a couple of moments of macro blocking, where instead of fine details there are larger squares of color. but this was never an issue with gameplay. a lot of the text, characters, and pictures are quite big so were still legible. Later on there were more incidents of Stream Tearing, where there's grey on screen, and these do get in the way of gameplay. thankfully, there were no audio issues nor controller issues so i was still able to continue and understand what was happening. 

I'm looking forward to part 2. it'll be interesting to see how the game holds up on the PS4, especially when there are more effects and more enemies on screen in the first mission of the game. the card battle system we've played so far is slow enough that i always felt in control, again a good fit for being played in the cloud. But there were some hints that the PS4 was being pushed hard by this game.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - Getting May's Salmon Run Item

This month's Splatoon 3 Salmon Run item is the Knockout Boots. The goal for this video was to get 1,00 points. that way i get the item twice and have a go at defeating a King Salmonoid. 

This Salmon Run might be the worst one i've ever done. it took 11 jobs to reach my goal of 1,000 points and it wasn't until the 12th, and final, job that my team mates and i actually completed all 3 waves! I admit i made a couple of mistakes, but it was tough anyway with such a poor selection of weapons,  in my opinion, in which i only enjoyed using the Aerospray. In the final job we did go up against a Megalodontia and got it to about half health. What's also annoying about all this effort is that both of the items i got were only two pins!

Online Saturday - Foamstars - Normal And Hard Squad Missions

For Online Saturday i'm back with Foamstars, from Square Enix and Toylogic. Foamstars is out across PS5 and PS4. I'll be playing the PlayStation 4 version of it. 

For this video i wanted to try out the online Squad Missions. These take place on specific maps and have a team of 4 players work together to defeat 10 waves of enemies. i tried out the Sunny Funny Factory, Rap Wrap Scrapyard, and Bath Vegas Marina Bay maps in Normal difficulty and i also tried out the Lucky Funky Street, twice, in Hard difficulty.

when you finish your attempt, you're awarded points towards the current season, i went up from 3 to 6 during this video, your own personal level, i went from 19 to 21, and Miracle Dust. This dust is important as you use it to level up your stats, that are used by any character you play with. I didn't realise this so my first attempt at Hard Difficulty didn't go well. but that's also down to the stats of my team mates. to upgrade your stats, head to the "Upgrade Energy Core" section, to the right of Squad Mission, and chose which stats you want to upgrade. during this video i put everything up to Lvl 1 and then a few others up to Lvl 2.

Mobile Friday - Cat Garden - Food Party Tycoon - A Fine Idle Game With Nice Art And New Ideas

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Cat Garden - Food Party Tycoon from developers Daerisoft . I Played this on my iPhone 14 Pro.

The art for this game caught my attention, like it has with other similar games, but what i was most curious about was whether or not it could stand out from the other idle games with nice art or if it would have the same grind issues that Cats & Soup, https://youtu.be/B5_zo0ov4IM, Cat Snack Bar, https://youtu.be/hhqyaTmhXw4, or if it had some interesting ideas to beat the grind like Animal Restaurant, https://youtu.be/DZhTicMX4Bo, had.

in Cat Garden - Food Party Tycoon,  the grind does come fairly soon. the pacing isn't bad but it's not quite right either. i could feel the grind a little before the next thing would unlock. It does have some interesting ideas to help break up the grind, but they don't feel finished. for example, there's a whole fishing aspect to the game that has no tutorial and seemingly little to no impact on the game. It sticks out the most because the tutorial, whilst a little forceful, is mostly great. i don't appreciate it wanting me to share a photo tho.

Another plus for Cat Garden - Food Party Tycoon is that there are no intrusive adverts. it's our choice if we want to watch an advert and we get in-game rewards for doing so. that's amazing and somewhat rare in idle games. this is a game good for commuters as i played it with one hand throughout and your "turn" can be finished in just a handful of minutes, then you put it down and come back to it later. adverts can be frustrating as they break up that flow but also use up data. for example, i would chose not to watch adverts whilst out and about but at home i wouldn't mind watching an advert via my wi-fi for some in-game benefits.

The nice artwork in Cat Garden - Food Party Tycoon isn't enough to make this a great game. it needs it's other ideas to be fleshed out more and the game to get a little bit more balancing. What is here now is fine and very playable and could be enough for idle restaurant fans. but if the developers can continue to improve and add to it, it could become a much better game.

Version 1.0.5 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog from developers Space Colony Studios.

This was an example of me seeing cool icon art and deciding to download because of it rather than me reading what i was about to play. so i was taken aback when this turned out to be a visual novel. But i wasn't deterred from playing it because it's a visual novel.

I'm going to be upfront and say that i stopped playing the demo because it broke. i reached a point where the demo would not progress and nothing i did would fix it. you can hear me talking through the button presses i was trying. Unfortunately, whilst this was a demo breaking issue it wasn't the only one i came across. right near the beginning i found navigating the option menu nearly impossible due to the lag in the controls. you can hear me say when i've pressed a button and a second or more later see it replicated on screen. The menu area and parts of the game also had an issue where pressing a direction on the controller once could mean it's done twice in game or not at all. safe to say this demo is a buggy mess to the point where i can't recommend it on PlayStation 4.

That's not to say there was nothing good about this. far from it. the music is fantastic and the artwork was amazing. when it came to setting the scene and story telling, i was hooked. i would've liked the option for bigger text and for the game to offer to automatically progress the story, but this is a demo and i haven't tried the final version. It's a shame their website doesn't list a way to buy the soundtrack because after playing the demo i'd like to get it.

As a demo it's not good because not only does it have issues but it also broke to the point where i couldn't continue. But this also makes me concerned that the game itself might have issues when it's released. there are hints of a cool story that i was really getting into, but i don't even know if my save from the demo will carry over or not. there was a real lack of communication in the demo. so overall i can't recommend the demo nor the game. but i would say it's one to watch out for. if reviewers say it's fixed then it could be something cool to try out.

Backlog Conquering - Deponia On PS4 - Part 2 - Watching The Story Was More Fun Than The Puzzles

This will be the last part of playing Deponia on PlayStation 4. It's a game that i have had for a long time and i had heard a lot of good things about it. But in part 1, https://youtu.be/BebaNadnGTw, it became clear that the game's logic and mine weren't quite matching up. it meant that how the game wanted me to play it wasn't how i wanted to play it.

I want to be clear that i'm not saying it's bad or broken, just that i personally found it difficult to play. I decided to give it one more try. now i knew what to expect, i went in knowing that i need to see everything, collect everything, and yet that still wasn't enough as by the end i was still stumped. I wasn't a fan of the collecting and seeing everything either as it was clear a couple of times that i had done things out of order and it messed with the story a little.

When the game was telling the larger story, rather than the small stuff during the puzzle sections, i was hooked. i enjoyed the humour and watching what happened. for me, i would've like this to have been a movie or cartoon/anime. for me, Deponia is at it's best when it's telling it's story.

So there will be a new game next week and it won't be any of the other Deponia games. i'm not saying that i won't ever play them. but for now, i want to try something else.

Stories on Tuesday - Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz - Part 10

Hello and welcome to Part 10 of the new series here on QTE Gamers!

The goal with Stories on Tuesday is to play games with a heavy focus on their story. this can be Visual Novel games, like today's game, or it can be something more episodic. For me, it's a style of game i've not really explored. i have several games across a few platforms that i haven't played but i bought them because i wanted to. So now the time has come for me to experience these sorts of games.

Our debut game is Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz. I have the game on PS4 via DISC but i'll be playing the PlayStation Plus version of the game that's been downloaded to my PlayStation 4.

In this part we continue looking at our Grandfathers daily activities and try to put together his final moments on the day he died. We ended Part 9, https://youtu.be/8RUeZNVCapo, realizing one of his coats was missing so that was the main goal at the start of this video. But as we ended up at the site of his murder we ended up finding something far more shocking that had reverberations between several of the people we had met since we came to New York. We headed back to Silver Snow to follow this new lead and what we uncovered points to certain individuals and possible danger ahead.

If you're interested in watching the stories unfold without my commentary, head over to Ko-Fi. there, you can subscribe to the "Stories on Ko-Fi" which will let you watch all the stories. This tier will always be one week ahead of the free video on QTE Gamer's YouTube Channel. Or, of course, you can head to https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers and donate via PayPal.

Cloud Monday - The Wild at Heart - Part 2 - It's Brilliant Save Systems Make This Game Even Better

This week's Cloud Monday video is part2 of playing the PS4 version of The Wild at Heart, from developers Moonlight Kids, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Part 1, https://youtu.be/00DYIf7y46g, was one of the smoothest experiences i've had with a game on this service. that's not just in terms of how well it's suited for being streamed from the cloud but also because of how well the streaming went. Part 2 wasn't as smooth, but it didn't really take away from my enjoyment with the game.

throughout the video i had small little nitpicks and suggestions on how things could've gone a little better, but in the grand scheme of things they're not that important. it's just because a lot of the game is so good, it really it just the small things that are noticeable. 

for the majority of this video there were no issues with the streaming. there were only a couple of moments of stream tearing, where grey would appear on the screen, and a connection warning. I live in an apartment building so these issues usually appear when streaming a PS4 game. what's important is that i wasn't concerned nor worried because of how frequent the game auto saves. i knew that if there was a disconnection, i wouldn't have lost much progress if any.

Personally, i do think my choice in part 1 of setting the difficulty to "Wanderer" was the correct choice for me. i'm enjoying playing for the story, one that i don't know where it's going to go. i feel that "Adventurer" might've pulled focus away from the story and exploring and made the game into something else. But it's great that such a choice exists. if you played The Wild at Heart at one of the difficulty levels, trying out the other via streaming the game is a great option to have as you get to try it without having to download it.

So The Wild at Heart is definitely a highly recommended game from the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - Getting April's Salmon Run Item

This month's Splatoon 3 Salmon Run item is the El Rey Calamar. The goal for this video was to get 1,00 points. that way i get the item twice and have a go at defeating a King Salmonoid. 

This #Salmonrun might be the best i've ever been a part of. it took just 5 games to get the 1,000 points and out of those 5 my team mates and I managed to clear 4 of the 5, with that other one being a loss in the third round. We faced a King Salmonoid but could only get it to half health. whilst it's not beating it, it's definitely one of our best attempts.

Online Saturday - Predecessor - Wouldn’t Recommend For First Time MOBA Players Like Myself

For Online Saturday this week i wanted to try Predecessor. Other than Pokemon Unite, i've not really played a MOBA before so i saw this as an opportunity to try one out. i got it on PlayStation 4 but i didn't know that this is an early access game. the PSN Store page and the games own home screen didn't highlight this. it wasn't until i saw in-game it say "Early Access In Development" that i knew this. Communication is one of the issues i had with this game.

Don't get me wrong, there is a tutorial and as this is my first MOBA i very much welcomed it. but it finished way too soon. it mentioned the basics, but then when it came to the real thing i had soo many more questions that the game never even tried to answer. I know it's early access, but surely they would've focused on the How To Play part.

Even tho it's early access, the game is out and there's things to buy for it so as far as i'm concerned it's open to criticism. Graphically, i have no issues with it. the game looks great, the world and character designs are varied and also look great. But the performance on #PS4 was all over the place. there were times when i noticed no issues, there were too many other times where there was a noticeable stutter and on occasion that stutter could be measured in seconds. I'm not sure if the lack of BGM is due to a bug, the game not having any, or just my recording set-up.

The biggest issue i had was a repeat of the bug that cropped up in Hawked, https://youtu.be/T9KZofqgVFo. In that game, the X and O buttons did the same thing or nothing, this meant i couldn't even start a game as the in-game graphics and in-game controls didn't match up and did nothing. In Predecessor, this same issue happened in the store. i could get into the store, but i couldn't get out unless i hit start to get the options up. i could exit the options and be returned to gameplay. this was the only time i spotted this bug, and like Hawked i will message the developers but even the latest Hawked patches didn't fix the issue, hence why i haven't gone back to do another video.

The lack of communication also affected what i could play. seemingly, all i could do was play against the Ai. i tried switching to different regions, but to no avail. If the servers are only up at specific times, then the game itself needs to message that. i shouldn't have to go hunting for that information myself, especially for a situation like this where i played this game on a whim.

Actually playing it wasn't fun. so much of the UI around the screen just wasn't communicated to me so i ignored it. when i tried to use it, it did nothing that i could work out. the first game i tried was essentially a stalemate and not fun. i tried a second game with a different character and had a much better time and my Ai Team mates and i did win that game. but it didn't feel that satisfying.

Strangely, what i was most satisfied with were the controls when using a gun. The weight of the character, the way they moved, the speed of the camera, it all worked well together in such a way i was reminded of #Killzone. If the developers had taken this engine and built a arena shooter and still had many different character classes, i would be far more excited to play that than this MOBA. The speed of the character was great for moving around, but getting around the map was far to slow. Whether that's getting from your core to the enemy, respawning, or teleporting back to your core, it all felt to slow and ruined the momentum of the game and my team's drive to the finish.

There are a number of smaller complaints about Predecessor, but ultimately it boils down to me saying that i wouldn't recommend this game for anyone who hasn't played a MOBA before. maybe gamers who understand the style of game will enjoy it, understand it, and be able to get the most from it. But for me, it's lessened my enthusiasm for trying MOBA's in the future and even tho it's free, i can't really recommend it for those unfamiliar with MOBAs.

Mobile Friday - Oops Dragon - An Idle RPG That Gets The Basics Right

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Oops Dragon. I Played this on my iPhone 14 Pro.

There are two reasons why i decided to try this game. the first is the name. it's fun and ridiculous. I was very curious how they were going to refer back to the name in the game. Honestly, in this video i don't think i get an answer about where the name comes into it other than there are dragons to fight. The second reason why i wanted to play this was to see if this really is a game or if it's one of those "scam" games that are mostly adverts with some gaming inbetween. Oops Dragon's iOS page doesn't have any in-game screenshots, it's just artwork, so i didn't even know how it'd look. at least with this, i can say that yes it's a game.

It's not the most complicated game, but what's important is that they got the basics right and have a great platform to build from. there's a decent, if a little slow, tutorial that showed everything we needed to do. The game's idle mechanic didn't get in the way of gameplay and whilst i quickly understood the loop of the game, it took around 40 minutes before the grind, and the need to turn it off and wait, emerged. Another great feature about this game is that there are no intrusive ads. the game has some self promotion, which i wasn't too concerned with, but other than that there were no ads in this video. the game gave us the choice to watch them, and would've rewarded us with in-game benefits if we did.

Oops Dragon is a game that can be played on handed. coupled with no ads and no additional downloads, Oops Dragon comes across as a great choice for commuters or casual players. there are some "auto" features, too. the main aim of the game is to collect vases, break the vases, and equip better equipment. in doing so, we're able to progress further into the game, level up, and get better vases. We're able to automate most of this. the game plays itself in the background, we can automate vases being destroyed, attacks are automated to. what's left for us is choosing whether to equip the better equipment and to level up stuff. 

Oops Dragon does have a couple of minor issues that don't really get in the way, but stick out mostly because of how solid the rest of it is. The one that annoyed me the most was the lack of a countdown timer for when things recharge, or an in-game tutorial explaining how to recharge them if it's not a countdown timer. The other is the music and sound effects. each area as a different song, but it's fairly obvious when it loops. and the sound effect of breaking a vase was grating so when i found out how to turn it off, i did. the tutorial could've pointed us towards the settings as it's not in the most obvious place.

Oops Dragon is certainly one of the better idle games i've played this year and a solid choice for younger gamers, casual gamers, but i would say it's got enough depth for more "seasoned" gamers too. I do recommend downloading it and trying it out.

Version 1.0.5 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Umbraclaw On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Umbraclaw, developed by Inti Creates Studios.

Whilst i wasn't great at playing at this demo, i actually had a great time with it. Umbraclaw doesn't say how big this demo is and i don't reach the end of it during this video. It feels like it is the actual start of the game.

The most noticeable thing about Umbraclaw is the art style and design of the world. I played the Switch version and it looked great and played great, too. it's out on PS5 and i imagine it will look impressive in 4K. What was key is that the game's style doesn't get in the way. there are a lot of colors on screen, but the details are still there and everything from the platforms to the enemies are clear and easy to spot.

The demo starts with Chapter 0, which acts mostly as a tutorial before the main aim of the game starts with Chapter 1. the tutorial isn't the best, it does offer pictures to try and show what to press and what happens, but it comes across as the game telling you everything at once. With there being a Chapter 0, i feel like the tutorial could've been spaced out better. It wasn't until the end of the demo that i remembered there's an upgrade mechanic as the game also doesn't seem to have reminders.

The upgrade mechanic seemed to be the solution to the small gripes i had with the controls. for example, i felt like the basic attack's reach was a little shorter than i wanted. The first upgrade can help fix that. Umbraclaw has a few other mechanics that really set it apart from other games. the biggest is how death works in the game because you're already dead. So when you "die" in the game, it's not game over. You're a cat, so you have 8 more "lives" left. you respawn stronger than before with new powers. There are many of these different powers, each offering something either to attack, to defend, to evade, or to platform. The game is open in saying that you can die and get a bunch of these powers and that's a strategy. But there's yet another twist. each time before you respawn, you have a choice. use up "hope", the main currency in the game, to stay the cat you are or become more feral and get stronger. Not just in attack power, but also in the amount of hits you can take. But as you're bigger, certain non critical areas of the map are now off limits.

There is another, more feral, stage. but the trade off is that you remember less and less of your previous life and the reason why you're making this journey. For me, i found it useful to go feral because of how much health it grants you. Umbraclaw isn't too hard, but it has a decent challenge as a cat because it's a one hit KO. The game does let you revert back to a cat at certain points, like at the end of a stage. there is a sense of not only strategy about all this, but also replay-ability and challenge.

The other game mechanic of note is one that i'm just as impressed by. All too often i come across games where the game is gated by ability. if you're not good enough, then you can't access the whole game. But with Umbraclaw, not only are there 3 game modes you can choose from before you play, the game will notice that you're struggling in a section and offer to lower the difficulty to the easiest one so that you can make it through and continue the game. I personally would play this game on the easiest setting so i can enjoy the combat, the story, the world, and the music. but for the demo i tried it on the default setting, akin to medium. and in this video i did get stuck and took the game up on it's offer to switch it to easy so i can get to the end and continue the game.

This demo for Umbraclaw isn't the best in some ways because it fails to communicate what it is. i don't even know if my save file will carry over to the main game. But it is super useful because i'm very interested in the game now i've played it and i highly recommend the demo for anyone who is interested just from looking at the screenshots like i was. Umbraclaw is more than a puzzle platformer, there are hints and influences from other genres and games in this. The important thing is that it all feel's cohesive and i'm genuinely interested in it now i've played the demo.

Backlog Conquering - Deponia On PS4 - Part 1

It's time for a new backlog conquering game and this time i've started the PlayStation 4 version of Deponia, a game developed by Daedalic Entertainment that is out on many other platforms.

I have had this game, as well as others in the Deponia series for a while now but i haven't started any of them. I don't know what i expected from the game but i think it's clear from the video that i wasn't expecting a point and click adventure game. it's a style of game i rarely play as i don't often do well with them.

I feel like this first part is just an hour of me struggling over and over again. i did enjoy many aspects of the game and it's humour worked well. I don't think that i quite grasped the game's logic during this part. I know it's an old game that originally came out on PC and there are aspects of it's design that feel old or like it was designed for an audience used to this style of game as there are few concessions to help newcomers like myself.

I think i wil do a part 2, but i'm not quite sure as yet.

Stories on Tuesday - Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz - Part 9

Hello and welcome to Part 9 of the new series here on QTE Gamers!

The goal with Stories on Tuesday is to play games with a heavy focus on their story. this can be Visual Novel games, like today's game, or it can be something more episodic. For me, it's a style of game i've not really explored. i have several games across a few platforms that i haven't played but i bought them because i wanted to. So now the time has come for me to experience these sorts of games.

Our debut game is Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz. I have the game on PS4 via DISC but i'll be playing the PlayStation Plus version of the game that's been downloaded to my PlayStation 4.

In this part we wrap up our time in Silver Snow, tho i do wonder if we'll be back, by correctly working out who is a murderer. The game's story seems to come across like everything is finished now and things can return to normal in Silver Snow, but Deadalus themself moved out a while ago and is still at large. We return back to New York with Chapter 4 and it starts with us retracing the final steps of our Grandfather to try and work out what he was working on, seemingly in secret.

If you're interested in watching the stories unfold without my commentary, head over to Ko-Fi. there, you can subscribe to the "Stories on Ko-Fi" which will let you watch all the stories. This tier will always be one week ahead of the free video on QTE Gamer's YouTube Channel. Or, of course, you can head to https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers and donate via PayPal.

Cloud Monday - The Wild at Heart - Part 1 - Auto and Manual Saves Make This A Good Streaming Game

This week's Cloud Monday video is part1 of playing the PS4 version of The Wild at Heart via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

This game, from developers Moonlight Kids, isn't one i knew about. The Icon on the PSN drew my attention but it was watching the trailer that made me interested in playing the game. i was impressed that the game looked like the icon and whilst the gameplay shown looked like Pikmin, there were extra ideas that seemed cool. So i was keen to play this game to see if it played as well as it looked.

A great idea at the start is we, the player, get to choose our style of playing. i went with a story focused style, but if i wanted a challenge i could've chosen the second style. i prefer this more than just a simple difficulty slider. I do think it made a difference as i never felt like difficulty or challenge was getting in the way of the game telling me it's story. i was happy to make regular progress.

That's not to say there aren't issues with gameplay. it does feel like the game is lazy when it comes to tutorials. an example early on is how it just puts on the screen use the left stick to climb. that could've easily been taught to us through gameplay at the start if we had to climb down from a bunk bed for example. there are a few moments where stuff is put on screen when it could've been an in-game example. other times, i feel like  the game could've offered hints, the one that i didn't work out for a while is that our vacuum can be used to collect the spritelings too.

In the hour i played, most of these felt like missed opportunities rather than deal breakers. what i played was good and it had a fantastic soundtrack accompanying it. The game also has a great save system that helped make it be one of the better games to stream from the cloud. not only does it make frequent auto saves with a clear icon when it does, but you're also able to make manual saves. there is a slight cravat tho in that when you reload that save it'll put you either at camp, if you saved there, or at the entrance to the area  you entered. But this is all explained by the game, something that is rare to see.

I look forward to part 2. in this part, there were only a second or two of issues due to the game being streamed. i felt no delay in the controls, the audio was fine, and the video quality was high with no dips in the bitrate of the video being streamed to me. so far, streaming The Wild at Heart from PlayStation Plus seems like a great way to play the game.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - April's Weekend Splatfest Tricolor - 15 Battles 8 Wins!

Welcome to Switch Funday.

It's day two of April's Splatfest weekend so today's video focuses on the Tricolor game mode in Splatoon 3. 

Just like yesterday, https://youtu.be/QJn1Mw3Md3c, matchmaking didn't take too long and my teams and i managed to get several wins. The only negative was how few Tricolor matches i played in were against the other two teams, Baby Chicks and Bear Cubs. it felt like there was a lot of Bunny on Bunny action today. 

The 3 weapons i used today were the Bamboozler 14 Mk 1, a weapon i didn't enjoy using that much and one that never seemed to either have the power or range i needed at any given time. Also, the charge to attack felt out of place in Tricolor when people are moving around so much. The second weapon i used was the Gold Dynamo Roller. i have used it before and a complaint back then was how long it takes to do the jump attack and that was still true today. but it's inking was very useful. the final weapon was a new one i bought and it's the Custom Splattershot Jr. it looks strange shooting it as it seemingly can't shoot straight. but it did a good job at inking, attacking, and not using up ink quickly so i think it's one i'll use a lot going forward.

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - April’s Weekend Splatfest – 15 Battles 9 Wins!

Welcome to Online Saturday.

It's a Splatfest weekend so today's video is on the "Which fuzzy fluffiness do you like most?" Splatfest in Splatoon 3. I chose to join #teambunnies.

This was one of my most successful Splatfests yet! I went in not expecting much as the previous one in March, https://youtu.be/ctf5ACsF6oA, went badly and i only got 3 wins in it. My focus was to try out weapons i own but haven't used much. I started with the Custom Dualie Squelchers and got 4 wins with them! I was so surprised, 4 wins out of 5 games, that's already better than March. next i tried the Tri-Stringer. I wasn't having as much fun with it, i could ink fine but i was having worse luck attacking and my teams and i only got 1 win during those 5 games. for the final 5 games i switched to a new weapon i bought, one from a type of weapon i haven't used before. I used the Explosher and once again my teams and I won 4 times. The only downside is that we failed to win the only 10X battle we had and we didn't play against Baby Chicks as much as we did against Bear Cubs.

Mobile Friday - Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat - Great Fighting Gameplay In A Game That Needs Work

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out the newly globally released Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat. I Played this on my iPhone 14 Pro.

It was surprising when i saw in the charts Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat. it looks like it had been out either in beta or in out in a couple of countries for some time and now got it's full global release. But i hadn't heard of the game prior to it's release. 

I haven't played a Devil May Cry game since DmC on PS3 so i don't know what the story is at the start of this game and the game itself does a poor job of setting the scene. Once you start the game, download an additional 40MB of data and sign into an account, the game just goes and doesn't really stop until the end of the first chapter.

One of the issues with the game's story telling also applies to the games tutorial. both aspects of the game feel half finished at best because how both are implemented in the game are only half as effective. for example, with the story there are some fun cutscenes, that look low resolution, that are voice acted and match the level of gameplay well. But then the game tries to tell some story with text boxes on the left side of the screen, the same way it tries to add additional tutorial information. these boxes are small and are sometimes blocked by the dynamic island. It feels like a game designed on either other #Apple phones or #Android. The combat is so fast and fluid that my attention is solely in the middle of the screen watching it, not what's happening on the periphery.

There are a few things in this game that also feel not finished or not fully implemented. the next main one would have to be the gamepad controls. ASTRA: Knights of Veda, https://youtu.be/kzt0SEuitI4, has so far had the best implementation of gamepad controls and whilst i wasn't expecting Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat to copy it, i was expecting something more than nothing. When you start to use the controls, nothing changes on screen. the game doesn't tell you on screen what buttons do what. you have to go to settings, select the gamepad you're using, and read an onscreen picture. But even then the controls didn't fully work for me. there were times i had to manually touch the screen to progress so i gave up using the controller and finished the game using the touch screen controls.

It's disappointing that a game that's been worked on for so long comes across as being half finished. they got the core combat design and failed to build a game around it. I would like to say that maybe they can rework a lot of the game and bring it up to a better standard but i'm not so sure they can or will. Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat is fun to play, but not for long. but it might be worth keeping and checking what the updates to the game bring.    

Version 2.3.

Demo Play Thursday - SaGa: Emerald Beyond On #PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of SaGa: Emerald Beyond, developed by Square Enix.

I've known about the SaGa series of games for a long time. But the only game in the series i know i played was Unlimited Saga on PS2, and even then i don't think i played too much of it. This recently released demo is a great way for me to check what a new game in the series looks like.

SaGa: Emerald Beyond does a poor job of presenting itself as a demo and what is included. near the start, at the character select screen, i didn't know if i was limited in character because it's a demo of it's a game where you need to unlock characters. I don't know how big the demo is in general and it doesn't say. so i don't know if i came close to the end or not.

A big highlight from playing this demo was the fantastic music from Kenji Ito. i really enjoyed listening to it and there are periods in this video where i'm not talking mostly because i'm listening to the soundtrack. The second highlight for me was the battle system. Whilst it wasn't explained the best, i did find the game's timeline based party focused combat system to be fun to engage with and by the end of the demo i was trying to add strategy to the commands being issued to make best use of it's timeline system. But it was the other systems related to combat that the game did a poor job in conveying and the commands available really needed a more in-depth explanation as to what each did. As did the level up system as i never really understood how it all worked and the game never explained it.

There were a few little frustrations with SaGa: Emerald Beyond but for the most part i could live with them. The one that annoyed me the most, and i complained about the most in this video, was the story taking place in the latter third. It was unrealistic, even for a fantasy RPG, and honestly came across as cheap. my character is an alien and yet no one treated him like one. the world was engulfed in ice, but the way my character talked made him seem callous like he only cared about his mission. it was like two stories were taking place at the same time and little to no effort was made to combine them into anything looking realistic. 

For me, the highlights of this demo weren't enough to get other the lows. It's a poor demo and i don't think it shows off the game great. there are too many unknowns as to whether this is just the game we were playing or if certain parts of the game have been removed from this demo. If you're interested in this game, maybe you've played one of the earlier games in the series, or maybe you're interested the battle systems, then this demo is worth playing. But for most others it's not one i recommend trying out.

Backlog Conquering - Papo & Yo On PS3 - From Start To Finish

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is the long awaited playthrough of Papo & Yo on PlayStation 3 from start to finish. I played this game back in 2023 and completed it across 5 parts, which you can watch below. One reason i didn't combine all the parts back then was because this playthrough wasn't seamless. there are many times where i look around, make mistakes, and then understand what i need to do. At the time, i didn't think that would be satisfying to watch. I'm more content with how this playthrough went nowadays than back then but when i combined these parts i did cut 2 or 3 longer diversions where i was making a lot of mistakes and unfortunately those cuts are easy to spot. But please do enjoy watching the game and the story it's trying to tell. The music is fantastic, too, so maybe sit back and enjoy the soundtrack as i play. Or you can check out the credits at the end of the video.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/lHHf-56b7Xs

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/Oh94XuK5U_k

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/ihIQ3nFTKdE

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/2AmtDoudYak (You can skip this, it's just me stuck on one puzzle)

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

Stories on Tuesday - Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz - Part 8

Hello and welcome to Part 8 of the new series here on QTE Gamers!

The goal with Stories on Tuesday is to play games with a heavy focus on their story. this can be Visual Novel games, like today's game, or it can be something more episodic. For me, it's a style of game i've not really explored. i have several games across a few platforms that i haven't played but i bought them because i wanted to. So now the time has come for me to experience these sorts of games.

Our debut game is Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz. I have the game on PS4 via DISC but i'll be playing the PlayStation Plus version of the game that's been downloaded to my PlayStation 4.

We continue in Silver Snow trying to find out what our Grandfather was looking for. In Part 7, https://youtu.be/QHY2p-Tb9jo, it was made clear that someone didn't want us looking around. We didn't have any more threats in this part, but it was clear that people didn't want to talk about it. A big possibility is that we may have a suspect in the old "Daedalus" case but it's unclear if this person is also a suspect in what happened to our Grandfather.

If you're interested in watching the stories unfold without my commentary, head over to Ko-Fi. there, you can subscribe to the "Stories on Ko-Fi" which will let you watch all the stories. This tier will always be one week ahead of the free video on QTE Gamer's YouTube Channel. Or, of course, you can head to https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers and donate via PayPal.

Cloud Monday - Black Knight Sword - Part 2 - Easy Is Better, But Saving Is A Pain

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS3 version of Black Knight Sword via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

From Part 1, https://youtu.be/xdaueEIkV_M, we learned that this is actually the whole game and not just a DEMO like the store page says. we also learned the the Normal difficulty level is surprisingly hard, and the biggest thing we learned is that the game has a weird save system.

The fact that the game only saves at checkpoints continues to be it's biggest issue. I played Part 2 on easy and found it a much more normal pleasant playing experience. The amount of enemies and how much is needed to kill them feels right, like either this was the default normal difficulty and they decided to make the game harder or they did an amazing job rebalancing the game for an easier difficulty. I was able to progress through the levels quicker and it almost made up for the checkpoint only saves. But when i did die, it wasn't as much fun having to redo what i've already done as it was going forward and making progress. so whilst it is better, it's still not ideal.

The biggest surprise i stumbled upon is that there is a story, of sorts. it's just that you have to leave the game on the home screen for a little bit for the game to show it. So that's why i included it at the start of this video as i imagine many people, like me, might've not known about it nor even seen it.

But the story and better gameplay can't make up for how this game saves. It looks good and has some interesting ideas. but Black Knight Sword's save system is a fundamental issue so bad that it mostly negates all it's good points, as a game being streamed from the Cloud. This makes it hard to recommend, especially for those interested in the challenge that hard mode brings. Black Knight Sword isn't easy to play legitimately outside of the Cloud so that is a positive reason to give it a go. it's short length does work in it's favor. But the first time you're disconnected from the service and find you have to play through several minutes of enemies, platforms, and traps is probably when you should put it down and move on.

Switch Funday - The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

For today's game i wanted to try out the Game Boy Color game The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. I was always curious about games that had two versions. i played a lot of Pokémon Gold on Game Boy Color and would trade with others who had Silver. So i knew how two versions like that would work. But here, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages is one of two The Legend of Zelda games that together tell a bigger story.

I started with The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages because, when i was young, it's the blue version and i like blue. but i do intend to try The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. Whilst this will be my first playing these two games, i did have and did play the Game Boy Color version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX.

I remember how good The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX looked back in the day, but what surprised me was how good The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages looked on my TV screen. The music was great, too. i was taken aback by how nostalgic it felt and there was a wave of awe that a game from a console i loved playing looked so great and felt so good in this modern era.

But again, the disadvantage of this system is that there are no game manuals. as a kid, i would've read the manual and learnt about the games. So it's a little embarrassing how long i thought the game was auto saving. the game does have in-game help and a tutorial of sorts, via statues, but in this period manuals were also a tutorial for the game and even offered back story. so it did feel like i was missing some of the game.

What i played was enjoyable. remember, i went in wondering how this story would be told and whether it would feel like a story or part of a story. From the first hour i spent with it, it did feel like it's own story. i saw a couple of hooks for The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, but they never felt like they were gate keeping the story.

The pacing was decent with navigating the world the only thing slowing me down. i did find a few of the character names surprisingly boring and i do wonder what ever happened to Ralph!

If you have Nintendo Switch Online, i do recommend The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. it doesn't really feel old, it looks amazing big on a TV, and the soundtrack still holds up. Plus, with the Switch version you're able to save and rewind which makes it even easier to play.

Online Saturday - Foamstars - Season 3 And Chloe Noir Gameplay

For Online Saturday i'm back with Foamstars, from Square Enix and Toylogic. Foamstars is out across PS5 and PS4. I'll be playing the PlayStation4 version of it. 

Season 3, MYSTERIOUS SWING, has just started so i went back into Foamstars to check it out. In this video i was able to try out the new character Chloe Noir, she can be bought as part of the Season Pass or can be earned in-game for free by reaching Season Pass level 31. Everyone can use her in the Extreme Party Mode and i played 4 games of 4 Vs. 4 where everyone is Chloe Noir!

Other than that, i warmed up with a couple of Smash The Star games and once again tried Rubber Duck Party in my attempts to win that mode but once more my teammates and i failed to win it. it is still the only mode i've played where i've yet to get a win.

Demo Play Thursday - The Land Beneath Us On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of The Land Beneath Us, developed by FairPlay Studios and published by Dear Villagers.

This demo is another that i chose to play because the screenshots on the #eShop page look cool. But i didn't read what the game was actually about before i played it so i was a little surprised that it was a Rouge Like. It doesn't reveal that it's a demo when you start, but it did have some cool music and story that got me hooked and wanting to play.

After an interesting introduction, we're dropped into a tutorial world that does a great job explaining what's happening and often has pictures. I feel like gifs or short videos would've been even more helpful. But after that we're dropped into the world and the difficulty is evident from the start. I feel like the tutorial does a poor job in setting what our expectation should be for the initial difficulty, but that could also be true to for the game itself as it's initial level(s) could be smaller and act as putting the tutorial into actual practice.

It's never made clear in this demo how long it actually is. I think i found out it's just the first task of completing Llosgi but i'm not sure as i think the demo broke and let me continue back to the main room without the reward i should've got. I should've been able to take that reward and upgrade my character, but when i went to do so i didn't have the item i got from beating the boss. I'm thinking i'm not supposed to see this and rather it's more that the demo broke.

To get to the boss, you have to travel to stages across the level. we have some choice by choosing a teleporter to take us from one stage to another stage. But i forgot from the tutorial and the game doesn't seem to remind us again so i had to try and learn as i went. 

This Rouge Like has a couple of mechanics in play. when you play, you're collecting gold that can be used across this run and at shops and item chests in the stages and you're collecting souls that are kept when you die and that can be used to upgrade your soul tech. But upgrading via soul tech never really felt like it did much. numbers increased, but in the actual game i didn't feel a benefit from it. especially compared to the things i would loot or could buy. This made playing the game feel more random and luck based than perhaps was the intention. i mention it in the video that it wasn't satisfising to beat the boss because i felt like i did it because i got lucky in getting epic items rather than because i had been levelling up and improving. 

Unfortunately for The Land Beneath Us, this demo has made the gameplay feel luck based rather than skill based and that's something i'm not looking for in a Rouge Like. Rouge Legacy 2 is example where the things i bring back when i die are used to improve my skills and my abilities and i feel it in game. the random luck element of that game is our character's class and skills. But because of our levelling up, even these feel like they get better. But crucially, those random elements have pluses and minuses about them and they're easily understood by the player so each run may not beat the game but each run has it's own uses. But because The Land Beneath Us is soo random and luck based, a couple of the runs i had felt like a waste of time. especially when the cost of upgrades ramps up quickly and yet i don't feel any benefit from them.

The Land Beneath Us has some great graphics and music and ideas. But the gameplay doesn't quite match that level of quality. it feels like it needs rebalancing at a minimum. As the game isn't out, i would still recommend playing the demo as whilst it's not the Rouge Like i'm looking for, maybe it's one you'll enjoy as there are some great aspects of the game.

Backlog Conquering - Kamiko On Switch - From Start to Finish

This is my playthrough of the Nintendo Switch version of Kamiko from start to finish. i cutout my deaths but, due to editing difficulties, left in backtracking and mistakes. There is no commentary in this video so please enjoy the amazing soundtrack.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/4bmi0nwJzzo
Part 2: https://youtu.be/cXD9PhFPtnQ

Stories on Tuesday - Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz - Part 7

Hello and welcome to Part 7 of the new series here on QTE Gamers!

The goal with Stories on Tuesday is to play games with a heavy focus on their story. this can be Visual Novel games, like today's game, or it can be something more episodic. For me, it's a style of game i've not really explored. i have several games across a few platforms that i haven't played but i bought them because i wanted to. So now the time has come for me to experience these sorts of games.

Our debut game is Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz. I have the game on PS4 via DISC but i'll be playing the PlayStation Plus version of the game that's been downloaded to my PlayStation 4.

In part 6, https://youtu.be/Fo3rUd-CEoU, we learned more about our Grandfathers friends and past. one of them was suspected as being the person who killed him. during our investigations of him, he told us about a town and Daedalus. So in this part, the start of Chapter 3, we set out to this town and began our investigations. this lead us to uncovering events that happened 20 years ago and we quickly learnt that there are those in the town who want us gone.

If you're interested in watching the stories unfold without my commentary, head over to Ko-Fi. there, you can subscribe to the "Stories on Ko-Fi" which will let you watch all the stories. This tier will always be one week ahead of the free video on QTE Gamer's YouTube Channel. Or, of course, you can head to https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers and donate via PayPal.

Cloud Monday - Black Knight Sword - Part 1 - It’s Not A DEMO, It’s The Full Game!

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS3 version of Black Knight Sword via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I have know Black Knight Sword was on the Cloud Streaming Service and even when it was #PSNow. But it's always been listed as a DEMO, and if this is true for you too please mention it in the comments, so i've never tried it. I didn't know anything about it either, other than that i've always liked the artwork in the icon. So this video, and part 2, is me being curious if it really is a DEMO or if it's the full game.

I can say that yes, it is the full game. in this part i earn a couple of trophies, something you can't earn in a DEMO. so the listing is wrong, out of date at best, and probably a hang over from the PS3 PS Now days.

it's hard to say what Black Knight Sword is as there's no story to guide us. it bleakly starts and hints that maybe we're dead, but doesn't answer were our suit of armor comes from nor what's happening in the world around us. It all looks good but at times i want the screen to zoon in a bit more. The screen is surrounded by theatre style curtains and the game comes across as some sort of performance. But again, there's no context for any of it, the game just wants us to play.

Black Knight Sword is quite fun to play. i started on normal but i think i would change that to Easy and would recommend people to start there. on normal, whilst the combat is fun and easy, the enemies do seem to be sponges and seem to take more hits than you would think to be defeated. A nice aspect of the game is how wide the levels are. it feels like there is often more than one way to get across a level, and with collectables to find it does feel like it's designed to be played through a couple of times.

As a game being streamed to me, i had no issues with the controls. i felt no lag and they felt very responsive. there were no graphical issues either. like many PS3 games, streaming Black Knight Sword was a pleasant experience. But, and it's a big asterisk, there are no manual saves nor are there specific save points. It's all tied into the games checkpoint system and there doesn't seem to be any visual cues as to where or when it happens. So in the event of the service giving us a 20 second warning before disconnection, there's nothing we can do but hope that the last save wasn't too far from where we currently were.

Switch Funday - R.C. Pro-Am - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

For today's game i wanted to try out the NES game R.C. Pro-Am from Rare. This was a recent addition to the service and a game i've heard many people talk about for a long time now. I was quite eager to give it a go, but i didn't really know how it will play. I've got experience playing top down racers like Micro Machines and behind the car racers like Moncao GP, both games on the SEGA Mega Drive. But this was a side on isometric game with graphics that surprised me.

R.C. Pro-Am is a fairly early NES game so i was surprised by how good it looked. sure, there are few cars on track and not all the screen is used, but what is on screen is very clear. The only issue i had was that i felt like the controls weren't as tight enough for how narrow the tracks were.

On real highlight was the soundtrack to the game, all the music i heard was fantastic and i really enjoyed listening to it. I was caught of guard by the game going straight into racing. i imagine the game's manual would've explained things a bit more as i had to learn whilst playing. Early on, i didn't know that i had weapons, but once i learned there are weapons i fully enjoyed using the rockets.

I hope the sequel, R.C. Pro-Am II, comes to the service as i imagine it's a more refined and impressive game than this was. But R.C. Pro-Am is well worth trying, there are a lot of positives and using the #Switch save state feature means you don't have to worry about starting from the beginning. Tho i kept doing that as i felt like i was learning each time i tried again.

Online Saturday - Tetris 99 - 39th Maximus Cup - Princess Peach: Showtime!

This weekend there is the 39th maximus cup in Tetris 99. the prize this cup is a Princess Peach: Showtime! theme. It has been a while since the last Maximus Cup but as the game was updated recently to 2.4.0 i suspected that Princess Peach might be coming, my guess is that the 40th cup will be Paper Mario. 

As it has been a long time, the first game was over quickly. i really felt rusty. but the second game went much better, it was actually my best game today! My worst was the final game where i was the first one knocked out! it seemed like there was a mistake in every game. sometimes i could recover, but other times it would be coupled with being attacked by many others i would lose really quickly.

How did it go for you? let me know in the comments. If you got the win, Congratulations! My best this week was 10th.

Mobile Friday - ASTRA: Knights of Veda - Game Of The Year Contender, With An Extra 5.7GB Install!

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out the newly released ASTRA: Knights of Veda, from developers Flint and publishers HYBE IM. I Played this on my iPhone 14 Pro, but it's also out on Android and Steam.

ASTRA: Knights of Veda came out this week and shot straight to the top spot in the Action Genre charts and got some impressive ratings. I hadn't heard of this game prior to seeing it top the charts so i was eager to try the game and see what the fuss was all about.

But let's talk about the single biggest issue about this release. The game is already a 3.58GB download and after you create an account to play the game you're forced to download a further 5.7GB of data. When games have an additional download they often give us a video to watch or pictures to look at or even tips and minor story stuff to read. With ASTRA: Knights of Veda there's the same picture and looping music. it took about 13 minutes to download and install all that data. I firmly believe that any mobile game should download all it's data at the initial install and there should be no further downloads. Game updates should be used to add additional data to a game. By having such a massive additional download, the game is essentially unplayable without Wi-fi. i dinged Honkai Star Rail, https://youtu.be/g5wTksigHyU, for this last year. i didn't think that game was Game of the Year material so it only got a mention. But ASTRA: Knights of Veda has the potential to be 2024's Mobile Free to Play Game of The Year and with how my rankings currently work, the 5.7 GB additional download makes it illegible. 

The additional data download is probably the only bad thing worth mentioning as the rest of the game is fantastic. the music is very good and a soundtrack i'd be happy to own for sure. the graphical art style looks familiar to Vanillaware games whilst also feeling entirely unique. I was very impressed how ASTRA: Knights of Veda incorporates the game mechanics into the story itself, something that's rare to see and one of the reason's last years Free to Play Mobile Game of the Year winner was Fortress Saga: AFK RPG, https://youtu.be/YzOEz4T_PkE.

I was hooked right from the beginning and there are long periods where i'm so focused on the story and gameplay that i forgot to commentate. The story is very well told with amazing cutscenes and in-game cutscenes. when we played in game, the controls were smooth, responsive, and well taught to us via tutorials. Game Pad controls need some tweaking as the icons get a bit too small on my phone screen and my TV and there were a couple of occasions where i couldn't find the correct button to press but this wasn't a big issue as i could touch the screen to switch it to touch controls and manually do what i needed.

ASTRA: Knights of Veda call's itself a "Beautiful yet Brutal 2D RPG" and this first hour has the body count to back that up. there are large numbers of enemy soldiers to fight and large numbers of your own fighters strewn about the battlefield. It may look like medieval world but the story quickly turns into fantasy with a mad king, undead, a goddess, magic, and more. and yet, it never feels out of place nor over the top. everything is explained, history is told, and the game carries on as if this is how the world is with such confidence that there's no doubting it. 

I highly recommend ASTRA: Knights of Veda, it's a must download. BUT you must start the game on wi-fi. Other than that, it's faults are few and far apart. 

Version 1.0.0 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Pepper Grinder On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Pepper Grinder, developed by Ahr Ech and published by Devolver Digital.

This game had gotten some positive attention and i had heard many people talking about it on podcasts i listen to. So i came into this quite positive and it makes a great first impression with big music and an evocative image of a skull and a drill. But as i played this demo, the first impressions that this game gives didn't really match with the gameplay. In the video i call it lo-fi beats to play games to, whereas the music at the intro screen is anything but lo-fi.

There's no doubting the visuals of this game. throughout it looks amazing with not only high quality pixel art but also high quality animations. the life in the world is moving and there's energy to it. And yet, the music feels much slower. this is in contrast to the drill we use as that can drag us quite quickly, but the levels that we played in this demo seemed built around a slower pace. Even tho this demo is 3 levels, this mix was confusing and noticeable playing it.

For me, the overwhelming feeling i got from this demo was that the game's quite shallow. the gameplay didn't match the visuals, the level design didn't match the controls, and who knows what we're actually doing and why 'cause there's no story whatsoever. each level is packed with many new ideas on how to use the drill that it feels like the game's being front loaded, leaving me feeling overwhelmed trying to use a drill that controls however it feels in all new scenarios and wondering if by the end are the levels going to be too packed with everything the devs thought of or just repetitive and boring as it's all be shown so far.

In this demo, and i imagine the game too, i wanted shorter levels that dealt with each new mechanic one or two at a time. so i could get used to how the drill controls, so i could get used to the level design, or simply so the game could've spent a little time on story and tutorial. As it is, i came away from this demo frustrated and i didn't enjoy my time with it. Oh, this demo ends very abruptly, so much so that i called it out for being rude.

It's not a great demo, to the point where i wonder if it's actually negative to the game, whether its a fair representation of said game or not. Pepper Grinder isn't for me and not only do i not recommend the demo but i don't really recommend the game either.