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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is part 2, the final part, of playing the Nintendo Switch version of Kamiko, from developers SKIPMORE, as part of Backlog Conquering.
I was a bit surprised that i finished the game in this part. I was enjoying going to each of the different locations and fighting against their unique enemies and boss. But, by the end of this video i was getting a bit frustrated with the respawning enemies. I talked about it in the first part, https://youtu.be/4bmi0nwJzzo, and i do understand why they respawn, the blue orbs they release are currency for a special attack and opening stuff, but it doesn't stop it being frustrating.
The option is there to try to beat the game with two other characters. each plays differently and my guess is in doing so we would unlock the special menu labeled ?????. But for me, playing through the game once is enough. i did enjoy the art, music, and designs. but i don't want to play again with the respawning enemies and the feeling that luck is needed rather than skill.
But with this game taking less then 2 hours, i think it's a good length. i had frustrations, but i wasn't ready to stop playing. i think if it was longer, then maybe things would've added up and i might've stopped playing. but at 4 locations and a final boss, it's a great length. So i would recommend Kamiko as there's plenty to enjoy. just know that it can get frustrating. but it's ok to put it down and come back later as you're likely to finish the game.
Hello and welcome to Part 6 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 5, https://youtu.be/NwYjqhS59SY, we were introduced to the people maybe closest to our Grandfather and one who was a suspect. In this part, we focused on that suspect and learnt about their life and current situation. In Part 6, we finished Chapter 2 of the story by deciding whether or not this friend of our Grandfather is a suspect.
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.
This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Death Stranding via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
In part 1, https://youtu.be/4-ih2i8MSrY, i was surprised how, at first glance, Death Stranding looked like it was going to be a good fit as a game to stream from the cloud. But after playing more in Part 2, it became harder to recommend it.
The first surprise last week were the manual saves. But in this part, 2 things came up which kinda ruined it. the first was that when you can save manually, there are limitations on when you can. In this video i was up against BT's and i thought i would save before dealing with the situation. But the game wouldn't let me save. I showed that the game doesn't tell me when the last Auto Save was or where it would load me back if i were to load another save. I had to trust the game that if i died, it was fine. Then later there was another limitation in our apartment when the control scheme of the game changed. before, i could just press the "Options" button and access the save menu from System. But in our apartment, that didn't work. the first time there i didn't know what to do and continued playing, it's a big reason why this video is much longer. When we were back in there the second time i had an idea about looking for a console and whether that was replacing it. I found one and yes, that's where you save. But the game never told us this and now i don't know if there'll be more changes and limitations further into the game.
In Part 1, it was evident that the game was going to use long cinematic cutscenes and cinematic effects during gameplay, in both parts this can be seen when music starts playing. Personally, i don't mind these and was enjoying the story being told to me. the problem that arose more in this part is how the break-up of the video being streamed to us from the cloud can detract somewhat from the cinematic effect. Whilst these didn't happen often and were very short, they are easily seen. they story being told isn't affected and i heard everything. but it's how it affects the presentation of the story that's the issue, it's a large part of this game.
It's not all negative about playing Death Stranding in the cloud. For those who have played the game before and know the story, playing it in the cloud is a great fit. For those, like me, using the first version of the PS4, streaming the game in the cloud is a great experience because the PS4 fans are very quiet. a game that pushes the hardware hard like Death Stranding can really ramp up the fans and detract from the audible experience of playing the game. But during both parts, my fans were quiet and i got into the atmosphere of the game from the sounds and soundtrack.
But not everyone has played it and not everyone listens to the music and sounds when playing. so, all together, it's more difficult to recommend Death Stranding as a game to be played in the cloud. for most, downloading it onto the PS4/Pro and PS5 would be a better solution. But i would argue that streaming it is a good way to try it out first and then you could decide to download it or not.
