For this week's iPhone Friday i tried HUNTER×HUNTER NEN×SURVIVOR from Bushiroad on my iPhone 14 Pro.
HUNTER×HUNTER is a famous manga and anime with iconic characters, but i was dubious about this game from the screenshots shown in the app store. single screen wave based rogue like survival games have been popular since Vampire Survivors popularised the genre. but this popularity has flooded the market with poor imitations of the original. Last year, Medabots Survivors came out and i decided against checking it out as it was a Japan only release. i didn't realize that HUNTER×HUNTER NEN×SURVIVOR is also, at the time of writing, just a Japanese release. but both are the same, re-skins of the genre.
There is an additional download when starting this game, but thankfully the game is transparent about this and reminds us to do it over Wi-fi. whilst that's taking place, there is a nice animated opening that seems to be a mix of original anime and freshly made stuff. it's an interesting choice to keep it 4:3 like the original anime. with the download being small and quick, there's only really time to watch the opening video once.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of BlazBlue Entropy Effect X.
I had previously played the iPhone version in 2025 and put it 3rd in my Game of the Year list, https://youtube.com/shorts/UdYDuVw0L74, so i had an idea as to what to expect from this Nintendo Switch version.
One big thing i noticed immediately was how much better the UI looked. on phone's, because of the icons on screen it can look a little cluttered. but here on TV all the icons were pushed to the edge and we get to see so much more of the game. BlazBlue Entropy Effect X still looks great and on a Switch 2 i imagine the HDR would work great with the neon lights. the music is still great, too. before, i was pressing buttons on the screen but here i was using a Pro Controller and found the game to be responsive and the combat till fluid.
As fun as the game still is, the tutorial issues from the iPhone version are still here. the game starts with a good tutorial, but it just stops and then the game adds more mechanics and terminology to the experience with little to no information about what any of it means.
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.
Unfortunately, this is more like Part 10 B. i lost the first part of this video when my recorder crashed. so at the start of this video i do try to explain what happened in the story up to when this video starts. i recorded this the late into the day Anthem's servers were going to close. i had hoped this would be the final part, but right at the end the game forced me to do yet another quest once again delaying my progress. I do end this part at the point of no return where i can choose to do the end game. but you'll have to come back and see if i had enough time for one more part or if this was my final Anthem video.
The new Stories on Tuesday game is the PlayStation 4 Disc version of Fatal Twelve from Sekai Project and aiueoKompany.
Part 1 made an explosive first impression and was interesting throughout. i'm not used to the main characters in these sort of visual novel games having so much inner monologues. i do like the art and style i've seen so far and the music has been a nice complement to it. sometimes in these games the characters have few art so they're often showing an emotion but saying another. here in Fatal Twelve it's been refreshing to see some subtle changes in the character's expressions. for me, what was interesting about the end of this part was how it recontextualised earlier bits of the video in such a way that my assumptions as to what was happening were way off.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Dragon Quest VII Reimagined from HexaDrive.
I haven't played the original PlayStation One version of Dragon Quest VII nor the first remake of the game on 3DS so i came into this demo knowing nothing about it's story or who the characters are. one of the reasons why i wanted to try this demo is because of the game's art. there's something about the art style of the characters that grabs my attention more than the usual Akira Toriyama Dragon Quest Characters. i had wanted to try it on PS4, but the demo hasn't come out there but in the end this Switch version played great.
This is a much longer video than typical Demo Play Thursday videos and yet i didn't reach the end of it's story. but i did a lot in the demo and i had a great time doing it, too. i found the pacing very good, the story interesting, the game's performance solid, and most of the characters were cool. there was just one that really annoyed me and in 3 hours only really had 1 moment i could look at and say was nice. the rest of the time, Maribel was just unpleasant.
The game's premise was odd, that this is the only island in the world. logically, it doesn't work. but as we played and learned that there are characters in -game who also think this, the story became more mysterious. in this video we uncover some secrets and go on an adventure and by the end when we came back, i couldn't help but wonder whether our island was the bad guys. it probably won't go that way, but after playing the demo i am curious about how the story will play out.
something i really liked about this demo, that will carry over into the main game, was how much you can customise your playing experience. when you start the demo the game will ask you to set the game's settings how you like. i chose to keep things normal but i did change it so my party's health would go back to full after battles. for me, this made the game's difficulty pleasant. but there are many other ways of making it easier or harder. thankfully, you're then able to change these whilst your playing the game so it's possible to fine tune the experience to how you want to play it.
I had a great time playing the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined DEMO, so much so that i'm really interested in getting the game now and continuing from where i left off in this demo. the art style might be a little polarizing but for me it works and it really feels modern whilst respectful to the original art. i look forward to Dragon Quest VIII getting the same treatment. this demo is worth trying for anyone curious about the series and i recommend people give it a go.
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 had hoped that the game's stopping our progress in the story was over, but unfortunately it happened again in Part 9. to progress the story this time, a new character was introduced and we had to do tasks for her. it was obvious that she wasn't telling us the whole truth so when things went south it wasn't much of a surprise. By the end i was invested in what was happening and then it's dropped by the game. i wanted to know where they had been, how long it had been for them, what happened that day, and yet the game says thanks for saving them, gives us the item we need, and moves us along. i ended this part going shopping and still needing some items to continue the games story. at the very least, this pause in the story was handled and integrated into the main story better than what happened in parts 7 and 8.
The new story is Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess from Mediatonic. i played this on PS3, but as a #minis title its playable on PSP and PSV too.
I have played, and finished, Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess in the past a few times. But i wanted to play it again and i thought that it could be a game i can showcase on Stories on Tuesday. there isn't much story here, but the twist at the end is a fun one. this video is the whole story and it shows my entire gaming session, including some fails, the credits, and a look at some of the menus.
For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Heartopia from XD Entertainment on my iPhone 14 Pro.
Heartopia is a highly rated game that is top of the family charts here in Japan and people in my Live Stream chats have mentioned it. but it's not a type of game i typically play. i have played Animal Crossing before but rarely any other similar style of game. graphically, Heartopia seems to be a mix of Animal Crossing but also the My Sims games from EA. i actually like the style they use here.
The introduction to Heartopia feels welcoming. my guess is that the developers have targeted this game towards a more casual gaming audience and in doing so the tutorial in Heartopia feels well considered without coming across patronising. But this does also mean that the start of Heartopia is much slower than i personally needed. i feel that even by the end of this video i was still in the tutorial faze of the game and hadn't made any meaningful progress.
Heartopia is labeled as a cozy game and i do get that feeling from it. there's no urgency from the game but there's always a sparkle trial lighting the way when you do want to continue. the world map is huge and there's clearly space for DLC additions to it. one way the game manages this size is by having a bus route around the central town area. whilst being novel, to get back home i still needed to walk a little bit. it's hard to say whether the bus route will grow as our playthrough of the game continues or not.
As the game is taking things slow, it's also not really explained where things could be going. the store page helps provide some extra information but the game itself, in my time with it, doesn't showcase what you can do with it. the game has an additional data download at the start but does nothing with that. the music and background image remain on screen, there's no video, no trailer, not even screenshots. the developers missed an opportunity to show what's possible.
I have rated the game as worth playing, shown by the up arrow, as even though i feel like i haven't made much progress what i have done was easy to do and understand.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon Story Demo, from Nihon Falcom.
I've been told before that these The Legend of Heroes games have a slow long start to them. so in this playthrough of the Story Demo, i allowed myself more time than usual to check out more of the game that i've done with previous games from this series.
The game does look great on PS4 and mostly runs fine but i did notice some pop-in and there was a moment when my PS4 froze. it's possible there were some minor tech issues with it as i remember near the end moments when it looked like one of a character's eyes was not open. Other than that, the demo went smoothly. this is the most recently patched version of the demo.
For this being a "Story Demo" there was a lot of battles at the start. the battle system is mostly introduced to us smartly, but the fact we have to do mostly the same thing twice in the first hour or so means it got a little boring. the final tutorial boss fight was fun. After that we were introduced to what's been happening in the game world, mostly between the end of the previous entry and this. But what's odd is that in this video i never worked out what the game's actual story is about. i speculated what it could be. but for the most part, all we did was the battle tutorial and have a reunion.
You'll have to let me know in the comments how much further i had to go to get the game's story. i know this demo is from The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon Prologue but i am surprised that for a demo they didn't include anything to hint at or tell us what the game's story actually is. there is no trailer nor screenshots on the main menu. there's no hint as to how much further i would've had to go either.
It's difficult to recommend The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon as fans of the series know what they're getting themselves into and for those coming to the series for the first time there's a real chance they'll come away lacking the context to fully understand what's going on in the game.
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.
Between Parts 7 and 8 i think i spent around 3 hours NOT doing story stuff because the game forced me to engage with the online multiplayer open world. so the start of this video are my attempts at completing the tasks required of me before i can enter tombs. but once i got that part done, i was back into the story and it got quite exciting by the end. i was lucky that i had help from some random players as there were some tough story moments in this video.
With my playthrough of Underworld Office: Ghost Story finished on iOS, i have put all 7 chapters of this story into video. this is a vertical video. i have included the credits.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
