iPhone Friday - Arknights: Endfield - Style And Good Combat Don't Make Up For A Dull Opening Story

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Arknights: Endfield from Hypergryph and Mountain Contour on my iPhone 14 Pro.

I had seen many adverts for this game on various platforms, but i was always intending to try it out. But when something is seemingly being advertised so much i can't help but being a little weary why. 

Our immediate impression of Arknights: Endfield isn't great as the game starts downloading an update without warning, without permission, and then forces us to restart the app, which itself took longer than expected. i appreciate that the game gave us the option to chose which language the audio is in, but then it never said that it was going to download other stuff as well as that audio. so instead of the 786.06MB that Arknights: Endfield advertised it was going to download, it actually downloaded 17607.41MB (or 17.6GB) and it took about 25 minutes. Once that was finished, the game then had to install shaders which took an additional 3 minutes or so. 

So after 30 minutes we finally get to the game's home screen. It's an impressive looking screen, but it gets better when the game starts. the character select option looked cool but in terms of the game's story it also doesn't really make sense in hindsight. but once we go outside the tutorial begins and it's quite good. it introduces how to control the character step by step and for more complicated stuff the tutorial uses videos to show us how to do things. I also commented in the video that i thought the game's button placement was quite good, better than in Destiny: Rising, https://youtu.be/i4OljQxqzyg, because there was smart use of the same buttons and space for camera controls with my right hand.

Whilst the introduction to gameplay was good, in terms of story i have no idea what happened. i don't think it's ever explained in this video what we went through or even if it's normal. my issues with the game's story extend throughout this video and not just this opening tutorial segment. Our character is introduced as having amnesia and whilst we get a little bit of pity everyone is seemingly determined to talk to us and bombard us with information like we know what they're talking about. the game's story needs it's own tutorial to help give us context for it all. for example, key terms and names should be highlighted a different color and when touched we should be given a little bit of information to help us, the player, understand the context and story.

For me, from what i understand of it, i'm not enjoying the game's story. it's had nearly two hours to try and hook me and it's just not doing it. from what i understand of the story it seems like our character created or found a way to take advantage of a material what lets us create stuff, kinda like a replicator from Star Trek. we're at a planet and we're going to Terra Form it into something more suitable for mass production of stuff using this technology. But the local wildlife and seeming people already living there aren't too happy about this. it's possible i missed something, but i don't seem to remember any "why" being given. i don't know if we're a part of any Empire or not. i also don't remember any reason given for why we were away for ten years.

Thankfully, even though i'm not enjoying the story the gameplay is great. the combat is fluid and fast, maybe a little too fast for the camera controls so perhaps a tweak to the lock-on with a semi automated camera might help. the graphics are good and the video sequences look great. so the gameplay aspect of the game is fine, it's just the story aspect that i'm not getting into.

So that's why i've rated this game so-so. there's stuff to enjoy, but if you're like me there may not be enough to hook you. but it's probably worth checking out. just beware, it could take about 30 minutes after starting it to get to gameplay so maybe trying it on PC or console might be a better option.

Version 1.0.13 Played

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On #PS4 - Part 7

This was done with my backup recording on Mini Disc.

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 4 version of Anthem. i have previously played around 5 hours of this game back in 2019, but i stopped playing once EA announced they weren't going to update the game. The main reason for picking up Anthem now is that the game servers are going to be turned off on January 12th 2026. I started recording these videos before the servers were taken down so from Part 5 onwards, these will go live on YouTube AFTER the servers have been shut down. You can't play Anthem anymore as the game doesn't have an off-line mode, it was online only.

I started Part 7 with a side quest before moving back to the game's story and looking for tombs. what i didn't anticipate were the challenges that had to be done to unlock the tombs. i thought that it would've been related to story and things i've done in that but it seems that for at least two of the tombs i needed to have done things online or things in the game's world. so the rest of this video is my attempts at completing the needed challenges, but finding it quite difficult. So this will continue into Part 8.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/A9yTrycU5gk

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/e8-wLS1CmN8

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/n-V3VDh_cJQ

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/kgWj3TeJWXg

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

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/OaOLQf336ZQ

Stories on Tuesday - Underworld Office: Ghost Story - Chapter 7 - The Final Part

The current story i'm playing is Underworld Office: Ghost Story. i'm playing this on #iPhone14pro.

Now i've played it, i understand how it works. so each video from this one going forward will be it's own chapter in the game. i will continue to blur out the advert at the bottom of the screen. there are full screen adverts during my playthrough and i will edit them out. this will mean that occasionally the music will skip or go from on to off abruptly where i've made the edit.

Chapter 7 is the final chapter. the previous chapter teased that what was happening could only be delt with by other mortals and so it comes down to us to try and save the day ... or not. both choices exist.

Check out the previous Chapters of this story:

Chapter 1 - https://youtu.be/Gte27gt0KuQ

Chapter 2 - https://youtu.be/DTE_yWs9UHU

Chapter 3 - https://youtu.be/izLKYJgJtiQ

Chapter 4 - https://youtu.be/OF6IQKLat9E

Chapter 5 - https://youtu.be/rUVifyzOhpw

Chapter 6 - https://youtu.be/C_sUVnUVOoA

Cloud Monday - Final Fantasy VII: Remake - Part 1 - Early Access To Manual Saves Saved The Day!

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of Final Fantasy VII: Remake via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

This was one of the worst sessions of playing a game from the Cloud i've had in a very long time. off the top of my head, the last time it was this bad was when i checked out West of Dead, https://youtu.be/KltyL6NREyA. after 4 disconnections, i gave up for this Part 1 and hopefully Part 2 will be a better experience.

But that's not to say nothing was learned. with things this bad, i would say that Final Fantasy VII: Remake is still a good choice to stream from the cloud because players get access to manual saves after the first fight and the game itself seems to auto save fairly frequently. so even though there were 4 disconnections, i only lost progress after the first one because i hadn't unlocked manual saves by that point. every time the countdown began after that, i was able to manually save before time was up.

Demo Play Thursday - Neon Inferno On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Neon Inferno from Zenovia Interactive.

Neon Inferno has been out for a few weeks now but i hadn't played the demo for it until now. i'm glad i did go back and try it as i have a good time with it. the demo is short with only a tutorial stage and the first mission/stage, but there are two characters and different difficulty levels to try.

Even though this is a short demo, we do get to learn quite a bit about the back story of the characters. the first mission also has different gameplay styles, starting with a side scrolling shooter before switching to a side scrolling car chase, and ending with a boss who switches from foreground to background. But what's missing from this demo is the story of the game. we learn so much about our character's pasts and what our jobs are currently, and yet we seem to have learned nothing of the game's story. i don't know if this is intentional or not, but i can say that there is no trailer or screenshots in this demo that could showcase such a story.

I really enjoyed the music and the world as a whole seemed to work well with the tone and graphics. there are plenty of options to give the game a CRT feel, tho the tutorial stage seemed a little broken. i can imagine that this came with it's neon would look great in HDR, but here on PS4 it looks and plays good. the controls felt responsive. i played on medium and never felt overwhelmed but there were times i needed to quickly dodge, attack, or do bullet time to counter enemies.

If you're a fan of side-scrolling brawlers or if you enjoy games with a Cyberpunk style aesthetic about them i think Neon Inferno is well worth checking out. the tutorial is good for new players so i would also say this demo is worth checking out for those who are curious. it's not perfect, it's a little short, and i would've liked a trailer at the end. but i did enjoy playing the demo and think it's worth checking out.

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 6

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation4 version of Anthem. i have previously played around 5 hours of this game back in 2019, but i stopped playing once EA announced they weren't going to update the game. The main reason for picking up Anthem now is that the game servers are going to be turned off on January 12th 2026. I started recording these videos before the servers were taken down so from Part 5 onwards, these will go live on YouTube AFTER the servers have been shut down. You can't play Anthem anymore as the game doesn't have an off-line mode, it was online only.

I had unlocked Strongholds in Part 5 and started Part 6 trying out the first one. unfortunately, i couldn't do it. it was just too tough. but i did try a few times and learned/remembered about the Wind Wall ability i had. after that i completed a few contracts before trying Strongholds again, thinking that i would be trying a different one, but it ended up being the one i had tried earlier and once again i failed. I ended up finishing this part by completing more contracts for Yarrow and Matthias. hopefully this'll open up things in future parts and i can focus on the story in Part 7.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/A9yTrycU5gk

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/e8-wLS1CmN8

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/n-V3VDh_cJQ

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/kgWj3TeJWXg

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

Stories on Tuesday - Underworld Office: Ghost Story - Chapter 6

The current story i'm playing is Underworld Office: Ghost Story. i'm playing this on iPhone 14 pro.

Now i've played it, i understand how it works. so each video from this one going forward will be it's own chapter in the game. i will continue to blur out the advert at the bottom of the screen. there are full screen adverts during my playthrough and i will edit them out. this will mean that occasionally the music will skip or go from on to off abruptly where i've made the edit.

Chapter 6 saw us being teamed up with the Boss, but before that in the real world we continue to open up to Luke and once again we came across the mysterious man. thankfully the Boss agreed to help and we checked out that person as ghosts and the story took a turn, one that legit gave me goosebumps!

Check out the previous Chapters of this story:

Chapter 1 - https://youtu.be/Gte27gt0KuQ

Chapter 2 - https://youtu.be/DTE_yWs9UHU

Chapter 3 - https://youtu.be/izLKYJgJtiQ

Chapter 4 - https://youtu.be/OF6IQKLat9E

Chapter 5 - https://youtu.be/rUVifyzOhpw

Cloud Monday - Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Part 2 - I'd Recommend Streaming It From The Cloud

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Granblue Fantasy: Relink via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

After playing Granblue Fantasy: Relink across two videos, i will say that i do recommend streaming it from the Cloud. But, we did discover something about the manual saves in this video. When a quest is engaged, the best example here being when we we're taking out Goblins and saving people, we didn't have access to manual saves. the game switches to a save crystal system for manual saves. However, the game does also seem to use auto saves at checkpoints across the quest so if the 20 second disconnection warning comes up and there's not a manual save in sight, the auto save most likely saved after a boss fight or the unlocking of the next step of the quest.

This isn't ideal, but i imagine that if we're unable to save before being disconnected we're only going to lose 5-10 minutes of progress at most. with the combat and walking around being as easy as it currently is, this isn't much of an issue. it's not perfect, but it's manageable. so if you're looking for a good looking RPG with action combat, a smart tutorial system, and likeable characters then i'd recommend giving Granblue Fantasy: Relink a try and with it's Cloud performance being so great, i'd suggest trying it there and then deciding to either continue playing via the cloud or download it if you have space to do so.

iPhone Friday - The Land of Boggs: Decor Dash - A Runner That Feels Light On Content And Incomplete

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried The Land of Boggs from Buzzfeed on my iPhone 14 Pro.

I've been a fan of The Land of Boggs for many years now and enjoy watching their videos. when i saw, in their videos, that they have a new mobile game and that it was a runner i was keen to play it as i do like runner games. But The Land of Boggs: Decor Dash has some issues that prevent me from recommending it.

The initial presentation looks great, but it's a shame they couldn't get the voice actors to reprise their roles. the game does start with a tutorial for the basic controls, and then immediately stops whilst new things are still happening. as i've played a number of runners before i have a rough idea what's happening and what power-ups do, but the developers are making big assumptions here as there's a lack of information for the player throughout The Land of Boggs: Decor Dash.

For example, the game introduces an upgrade screen but never details what the upgrades do. do we need to upgrade an item 5 times to level them up or can the items only be leveled up 5 times to max. does levelling up the items make them stronger or does it only increase the time they're in use. i have no answers to this and the game makes no effort to tell me.

The same applies to the decorating aspect of the game. there's a tutorial on how to do it but the tutorial didn't mention that by doing it you increase your score multiplier. some items also have a +0.3 mark next to the and that's also not explained. i'd guess that's something to do with the score multiplier.

The running aspect of the game is fine but i'm concerned that there's only two stages. if there are other stages, i don't know how to unlock them. throughout this video i tried to run as far as i could in the main city stage and jungle stage to see what other stages would open up to me but i never encountered another one. In the city stage, because of the angle of the camera, there are moments when i couldn't see a car coming straight at me because of coins in the way and on both stages it was a little difficult to judge whether there was a gap i needed to jump or if it was just a different color. so even the running aspect of the game needs work.

I mentioned that the game doesn't have the voice actors from the video series but it may be more accurate to say actor as i didn't see anyone else from the show, just the Bogo character we play as. throughout the video i come up with ways that characters could be introduced and i kept waiting for one to show up. i don't know if there are other Bogg characters in this game and it's not made an effort to let me know.

For as much of a fan of the YouTube channel i am, i can't recommend The Land of Boggs: Decor Dash in it's current state. it feels incomplete and that  i played a Beta version of the game that wasn't feature complete. it may be worth downloading and checking out what the updates bring to the game. but after 45 minutes with it i think i've seen all there is to see for now.

Version 0.1.3 Played

Demo Play Thursday - CASSETTE BOY On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of CASSETTE BOY from Forever Entertainment.

I can't say i had heard of this game before i downloaded it from the PSN, but reading it's store page was really interesting. at first glance, the game looks to be a retro Game Boy style RPG but when you read it's store page it becomes clear that there's more to it than that.

This is a short demo and the game makes it clear that the final version that, i think, is out now could be a little different from this. But i feel we get a good look at CASSETTE BOY. the music was really nice, the graphics were mostly fine, apart from when our character who's mostly coloured white goes onto what appears to be white sand as it's hard to tell the two apart, and i thought the tutorial for the game mechanics was handled well.

This is a game where you need to go slow, talk to everyone, and then go forward using the information you just gained. in this demo, so it could have been changed in the released game, we're not provided with an obvious go here and do that. but by talking to people we know we're meant to get the sword, we know how much the shop deed costs so we should aim to get it, and we know that the locals are frustrated by the big rock so we should be looking at ways of clearing it out of the way.

But with this demo being as short as it is and the game's story being mostly unclear, apart from the moment to moment stuff i mentioned above, i really did feel that this demo needed a trailer to showcase the game. the demo shows off the early ideas so if you're interested in mechanics then this demo maybe enough, but i'm more interested in the story and i have no idea what it really is here and i don't think the game does enough to sell it to me. as for the mechanics, well moving the world to hide things is straight from Echochrome on PS3, which i did a playthrough of it's demo before https://youtube.com/live/KW2tikPtS8g, so for me it's nothing new and this demo showed nothing new to me in it's implementation. I kinda feel that players would learn more from watching a trailer than playing this demo, but playing the demo itself is a pleasant experience. 

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 5

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 4 version of Anthem. i have previously played around 5 hours of this game back in 2019, but i stopped playing once EA announced they weren't going to update the game. The main reason for picking up Anthem now is that the game servers are going to be turned off on January 12th 2026. I started recording these videos before the servers were taken down so from Part 5 onwards, these will go live on YouTube AFTER the servers have been shut down. You can't play Anthem anymore as the game doesn't have an off-line mode, it was online only.

The main story brought our past back and it was tense all round. it was nice and felt believable. the tension it brought to Owen was also interesting, who had his own adventures in this part. But what ruined the moment was when we were on their Strider and the mission finished and we all spawned back at the Fort. there was no mention of this before we spawned, nor any video showing us making our way to the fort. we haven't even seen the "car park" for Striders at the fort. it felt disjointed and ruined the moment.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/A9yTrycU5gk

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/e8-wLS1CmN8

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/n-V3VDh_cJQ

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/kgWj3TeJWXg

Stories on Tuesday - Underworld Office: Ghost Story - Chapter 5

The current story i'm playing is Underworld Office: Ghost Story. i'm playing this on iPhone 14 pro.

Now i've played it, i understand how it works. so each video from this one going forward will be it's own chapter in the game. i will continue to blur out the advert at the bottom of the screen. there are full screen adverts during my playthrough and i will edit them out. this will mean that occasionally the music will skip or go from on to off abruptly where i've made the edit.

Chapter 4 had a plot twist and i was very interested to see where it would lead in Chapter 5. i was pleased with how things turned out. it would've been easy to allow our character to wallow in self pity and thankfully that didn't happen. it seemed like things were going to be ok until he came across the ghost energy on the subway once again. Whilst dealing with it didn't quite go to plan, the character growth of Eugene was nice and we got to see some backstory for Joan, who had some really cool moments. the next Chapter has us and The Boss together so i'm really interested in checking that out next.

Check out the previous Chapters of this story:

Chapter 1 - https://youtu.be/Gte27gt0KuQ

Chapter 2 - https://youtu.be/DTE_yWs9UHU

Chapter 3 - https://youtu.be/izLKYJgJtiQ

Chapter 4 - https://youtu.be/OF6IQKLat9E

Switch Funday - Tetris 99 - 51st Maximus Cup - Animal Crossing: New Leaf

There is a Maximus Cup this weekend in Tetris 99 on Nintendo Switch. The 51st Maximus Cup is for the upcoming update and DLC for the Switch game Animal Crossing: New Leaf. By getting 100 points, you can unlock it all.

Whilst i wasn't able to get my first win in Tetris 99, i was able to get 4th place twice! it only took 3 games to complete this cup. i added a 4th game but it wasn't as successful as the previous 3. i really enjoyed the music, it helped keep me calm even when things got really hectic. as i haven't had a top 10 in quite a while i was very surprised by how fast the game gets at that point.

iPhone Friday - Inkvasion - A Stage Based Bite Sized Town Builder And Defender With Great Art

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Inkvasion from ChillyRoom on my iPhone 14 Pro.

I'll be honest, the name for this game doesn't really do it justice. i saw the name and thought it was going to be some sort of Splatoon style game on phones and that got me really interested. but when i checked out it's store page it revealed the game to be something else entirely. that's not a bad thing as i really enjoyed my time with this game.

From looking at the pictures, you'd assume that this is a city builder and you have to fight off enemies. that's kinda right, but you don't build one city in Inkvasion. the game is broken up into stages, like 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and bonus extra stages. each stage has it's own requirements to complete it. each stage has you start from scratch in a different location. in this video the basic goals were the same, build farms to get food, use food to get people, use people to get troops, use troops to defend your town to complete the stage. to get 3 stars for completing a stage there will be an additional task, and each stage will give you a ranking based on your score.

The game smartly has a pause button. the stages are all kinda bite sized and suitable for mobile playing, but having a pause button is great for when you have to put your phone down. it's also great as it allows the player to take stock. what is the stage like, how long until the first wave hits, and what do you have to do to get 3 stars. you're able to start building things whilst it's paused and when you go back to play things start. that aspect of it's design almost reminds me of the PSP/DS era where games tended to be bite sized or could be paused as you put the system to sleep.

Another aspect of it's design i liked was the art. the app store page describes it as a wood block art style and i can see it. Inkvasion does have an Asian feel about it. the music helps with this, too. the game was developed in China but i found the English translation to be great. but Inkvasion does have a few issues. the first one happens quickly, there is no guest account. you must create an account to sign in to play it, i chose to go with Apple. the game also did a data download without asking for permission or warning. thankfully it was around 28MB, but still it's kinda rude. I did think the tutorial was good and gave us some tips, but the first level you play after it isn't quite the same as the tutorial. the tutorial shows you using 3 troops but when you start the level you only have 2. so i went back to the troop menu to see if i missed something and instead of troops there were buffs, something that the tutorial didn't mention. As with many games, the home screen also didn't have a tutorial but it wasn't overly complicated to work out.

The biggest disappointment with Inkvasion, in comparison to other issues mentioned above, is that the game feels like a straight port from Android. the main difference between the Android and iOS platforms is that iPhones have a Dynamic Island and most Android phones don't. it seems like Inkvasion has done nothing to mitigate this on iOS so it often is covering something. most of the time it doesn't seem too important so it's mostly just visually jarring.

As i said at the top, i enjoyed my time playing Inkvasion. i barely made a dent into the game's content. i was playing in the first few stages of the first world in the first game mode. there is a lot of content here and the game is being supported with new content being added. i do recommend Inkvasion as i feel like it'd be good for beginners and for those who know how these sort of games work. it's design is great for mobile players, maybe more so for those familiar with portable games on other past platforms. Inkvasion may even make it into my Game of the Year list i enjoyed it that much. i certainly won't be uninstalling it anytime soon.

Version 1.2.0 Played

Demo Play Thursday - House Fighters: Total Mess On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of House Fighters: Total Mess from Revulo Games.

This wasn't a great demo experience to the point where i wouldn't recommend people trying it. for example, the icon for the game and it's label say's it's a demo but when you play it the only other time it say's it's a demo is when it tells you something is not included. the link to buy the game isn't on the main page, you have to start the demo to get access to buy the game. there's no trailer for the game, there's no information saying that this is from a game in development and that the final game may differ from this demo.

That last point is important because House Fighters: Total Mess can be difficult to watch at times. there are moments when you move the camera that the screen has numerous examples of screen tearing and it gets a little disorientating and hard to follow. the game doesn't say whether the game is from an in development build of the game or from the final game. from this experience alone i wouldn't recommend playing the game.

There is the option to change the game's video quality. but it's never explained. when you change it to low, there's a big visual difference. but from medium to high, i couldn't notice any changes. i assumed that going to low would increase the framerate, but i don't know for sure as the game doesn't explain. i assume also that this is the case in the released game and not just something in the demo.

It wasn't the easiest game to play. i admit i'm not great at flying games but i was surprised that the default controls were old school down is down and up is up. we only get 1 plane to use in this demo and there are just 4 levels, the tutorial, 1, 6.1, and 4. there are a lot of enemies to deal with across the stages and, in my opinion, not enough health or ammo pick-ups to deal with them, especially as this is a demo and our first time encountering them. for those who play the game, it probably won't be such an increase in difficulty as the game should build up to it rather than how this demo just dumps us in it.

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 4

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Our new game is the PlayStation 4 version of Anthem. i have previously played around 5 hours of this game back in 2019, but i stopped playing once EA announced they weren't going to update the game. The main reason for picking up Anthem now is that the game servers are going to be turned off on January 12th 2026. With the servers turned off, the game will be unplayable as there's no offline mode.

In Part 2, there wasn't a lot of time to explore and do more than the main mission. so from Part 3 onwards i'm going to make these videos a little longer, maybe up to 2 hours, to allow myself time to do a main mission, do a side mission, and do some exploring. 

In this part i got access to the Launch Bay, an online hub of sorts for players of Anthem. when i arrived there were a couple of others who seemed AFK. But, i don't know how useful it actually is. i might've missed it but i don't know how it connects to our story in Anthem, nor where is it in the base we're situated at. it felt tact on so i didn't use it much and i don't know if i'll use it much going forward. you'll have to let me know how best to use it in the comments.

Check out previous parts:

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/A9yTrycU5gk

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/e8-wLS1CmN8

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/n-V3VDh_cJQ

Stories on Tuesday - Underworld Office: Ghost Story - Chapter 4

The new story is Underworld Office: Ghost Story. i'm playing this on iPhone 14 Pro.

Now i've played it, i understand how it works. so each video from this one going forward will be it's own chapter in the game. i will continue to blur out the advert at the bottom of the screen. there are full screen adverts during my playthrough and i will edit them out. this will mean that occasionally the music will skip or go from on to off abruptly where i've made the edit.

This chapter was now only shorter than i expected, it also took a turn that i didn't expect. i don't want to spoil what happens here but there's a plot twist. there were a couple of instances where the game seemed to be trying to funnel us to where it wants us to go so i disagreed with a couple of the choices i was presented with. What was nice was being able to see that Sean's mother does seem to be doing better now, as i was unsure my choices in Chapter 3 would've lead to her happiness as we only saw the conclusion from Sean's point of view.

Check out the previous Chapters of this story:

Chapter 1 - https://youtu.be/Gte27gt0KuQ

Chapter 2 - https://youtu.be/DTE_yWs9UHU

Chapter 3 - https://youtu.be/izLKYJgJtiQ

Cloud Monday - Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Part 1 - A Fun First Hour With Plenty Of Auto Saves

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of Granblue Fantasy: Relink via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

 

I may not have played a Granblue Fantasy game before, but i have seen them across various platforms and even on podcasts i've heard people talking quite positively about them. I know that there was a Granblue Fantasy iOS game a while ago but i'm unsure if this game is a direct sequel to it or a remaster of it. you'll have to let me know in the comments as the press releases i have for it don't answer that question.

The stream quality was very good in this first hour. i didn't notice any issues with the video i was watching. i also didn't notice any lag in the controls so the game felt responsive to play. one of the key things i look out for in this series is how the game saves. the service will only give us a 20 second warning before it disconnects us so we need a way to either save or for the game to have auto saved very recently. the Manual save feature of Granblue Fantasy: Relink is less clear than i would like. when i went to check for it, a message came up saying we could save from the pause screen but it wasn't there. later, i checked again and it was there and i did a manual save. in between those two times, i had played quite a lot and didn't check so i can't say for sure when manual saves actually activated but it was less than an hour. thankfully the game's auto save seems to be extremely frequent. it seemed to save before every major battle, after every cutscene, basically after every set piece and when we entered a new area.

iPhone Friday - Saturn Slalom - A Cool Space Themed Runner With Simple Mechanics And Great Music

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Saturn Slalom from Noodlecake Studios on my iPhone 14 Pro.

The game mechanics and rules are very simple in Saturn Slalom. you get points by crossing the middle of the screen. you press the left or right side of the screen to go in that direction. the obstacles are planets. you earn combo points by moving through the planet's gravity well as you move across the middle. the higher the combo, the better and more epic the music gets. But as this video shows, i only got 1 decent run as it's much harder to master than i thought it'd be.

My concern is that i saw everything the game has to offer. i know there are much higher scores possible, as i looked up the global leaderboards, but the game does nothing to tease what else is ahead. Saturn Slalom is difficult and takes some skill. i feel like the developers could've highlighted the music aspect like a carrot on a stick. if someone downloaded the game without knowing getting combos is how you enhance the music, i feel like some people may walk away from Saturn Slalom.

Throughout the video i make suggestions about different planetary hazards, like threading the needle between a planet and it's moon, or a black hole which requires the player to stay on the opposite half of the screen, which is a challenge with these simple controls. There is no difficulty in Saturn Slalom and i feel like it wouldn't be too hard to implement one. i'd suggest making the combo system easier for normal players and keep it as it is for hard mode. sometimes it's tough to keep a combo level up if it's just increased. i often found that i'd get it to 3 for it to go right back to 2 because i didn't combo the immediate next planet.

Even though it is hard to master Saturn Slalom, it is just as easy to pick it up and play. it does require both hands so it's not perfect for commuters, but restarts are prompt and there's even the option to revive yourself and continue, for the price of watching an advert. This use of adverts is fine. watch an ad and get something in return is the best way to do them in free to play games. but there came a moment where i was having to watch ads even if i restarted from the beginning. i think this could've been made clearer with a simple countdown next to the restart button. Saturn Slalom doesn't make full use of my iPhone's screen so there's space to make things clearer for the player.

Ultimately, these are more suggestions rather than things that need to immediately change in the game. what i played of Saturn Slalom is fun and having 1 good run gives me incentive to try and get better at it. with it's basic controls, simple rules and mechanics, and nice music i would recommend it, though i know it's difficulty won't be for everyone. 

Version 1.1.4 Played

Demo Play Thursday - Front Mission 3: Remake On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Front Mission 3: Remake from MegaPixel Studio and Forever Entertainment.

I haven't played any of the Front Mission games before so i was hoping that the demo would start with a good tutorial and not rely on prior knowledge of the previous two games in the series. There is a tutorial for the basics, but as soon as i got into actual proper battles, more things were popping up that i just had to guess. for the White Flag situation, i think i understand what's happening, but near the end when my character was doing 3 attacks when every time before it was only doing 1 i have no idea why that happened.

whilst i enjoyed the music in the game, i found the art to be surprisingly poor. i'd say all bar two of the character pictures looked odd, and not in a good way, and whilst most of the buildings looked like buildings the art was very simple. Apart from the mechs, most of the art and design of the game seemed old and low resolution. i did like the style of the old websites and navigating the internet, but that's more from a nostalgia point of view as it looks familiar. personally, i found the poor quality of art and design overall distracting. it felt like a phone game upscaled.

As for the story, it didn't really grab me. some of the character interactions felt odd, and how we instantly helped someone break the law at the end of the demo also seemed unbelievable. 

So whilst the demo was fine, i didn't enjoy playing the game and won't be seeking out the game now. the demo is best for those curious, but other than that it's hard to recommend.