Kusan: City of Wolves On Switch - Demo Play Thursday

This week's DEMO is the Switch version of Kusan: City of Wolves, from developer CIRCLEfromDOT.

Kusan: City of Wolves is a top down shooter where you're scored on how well you beat a level, similar to the Hotline Miami games. As much as defeating enemies is a priority, there's a puzzle element in how best to accomplish this. In this demo i get to use my fists, a knife, and a gun to clear all the enemies from a set level. The enemies also have weapons, some which can hit the player before the player can attack them. 

This puzzle element initially was quite interesting. i'd enter an area and have a knife wielding enemy Infront of me. i could punch them, but that alerts the gun wielding enemy and they immediately shoot me. the puzzle element is how to get past these two. in the video you'll see me try to punch and hide, punch and go backwards to where i came from, or even punch the knife guy into the gun guy taking out both in one go.

Kusan: City of Wolves has a fast retry system so if you fail it's very quick to start again. But this stopped being fun when the gun was introduced. the ammo wasn't unlimited so instead of just working out how best to take out the enemy, i now had to try and manage my 5 bullets. it wasn't clear, not explained, how or where i got them back and the randomness of when it happened was frustrating. Maybe if it explained things clearer, then i wouldn't have as much of an issue with it. 

But another issue is that we had a knife at the start and then never got to use it again. so what was the point of the knife? Maybe the game's story explained what happened, but as the default speed for telling said story was so fast, it's quite possible i missed how or when i lost my knife. We start the game trying to save someone's sister and then we're trying to save a bunny, but i thought the sister was taken again, and by the time i finished playing the demo i got a little confused with the game's story.

I feel like Kusan: City of Wolves tried to do too much too soon and it ended up frustrating me much quicker than i expected. As a demo, it also fails to mention that it's a demo or clearly explain what's in it. i don't know if my save will carry over to the final game either. So it's not a great demo but i'm glad i tried it as i know i don't mind this style of game, it's just i would rather play something simpler or something that ramps up slower than Kusan: City of Wolves does.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted On PS3 - Part 2 - Backlog Conquering

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

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Due to music copyright issues, there maybe times in the video when there is no sound due to it having to be muted. if this is the case, i'll turn the music off in Part 2 and we'll just have car sounds instead.

My goal for this part was to try and win some of the Most Wanted races. By the end of the video i had won races 10, 9, 8, and 7 but it wasn't straightforward. the Alfa Romeo in 10 was difficult because when i won the race the car crashed before i could take it out. it never respawned into action so i had to do the race again until i won and then i shut it down just before it took itself out once again! Race 7 was against a Lexus and whilst i won it i wasn't able to shut it down so it appears throughout this video as a black symbol on the map and appears now and then.

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

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Reforged - Part 2 - Cloud Playing Recommended - Cloud Monday

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Reforged via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Part 2 of playing Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Reforged was interesting for me as it was all new. i had talked about my previous experiences with the game in Part 1 and how i didn't get far at all. SO it was nice to leave all that behind and explore more of the game's story.

I was still fighting with the game's logic at times, i tried to explain my reasoning as i went, so i'm very grateful that there's a hint system. if i had to think of something that could possibly be affected by a degraded streaming experience it would be this system. when it's activated, sparkles appear on screen but these aren't too big nor are they very flashy. they're just noticeable. but out of the whole game they would probably be affected the most by any issues from the stream.

With that being the only main issue i can see with the game, this means i do recommend playing Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Reforged from PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service. it has a robust auto save and manual saves are quick and easy , too. Combined with the larger more colourful art design, rather than finer smaller details, i think Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Reforged  would hold up well if the resolution dropped or if there was macro blocking. 

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

Banecraft: Idle RPG - Good Basics, But No Story. Some Bugs And Lack Of Information - iPhone Friday

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Banecraft: Idle RPG, from Game Duo, on my iPhone 14 Pro. 

The App store page for this game caught my attention. the pixel art looked great but it was the story, where you were the top demon only to wake up the following day as a lowly human, that interested me the most. I thought that this game might lean more towards the RPG elements of it's name with a deep story, rather than the idle elements, but after my time with Banecraft: Idle RPG it feels like the App Store page has more story than the game itself.

There's a general lack of information given to the player from this game. There's a soul mechanic that's just there, and i never really fully grasped it. sometimes it makes noises, sometimes numbers go up, but the only thing that i understood from it was the merging mechanic, and for some unknown reason the higher the merge level the better our attack.

There's an instance where the game tries to introduce a really interesting team up mechanic where summons can be shared. but i didn't understand it. for something this different, more information or examples were needed. maybe even a "fake" group should've been offered so we'd fully understand how it works. from the sounds of it i thought it worked like sharing in the Dragon's Dogma games.

The other thing that annoyed me about Banecraft: Idle RPG was a bug that happened 3 times. in each time, the majority of the screen dimmed, apart from the top, and none of my touches worked. the game continued playing in the background but wouldn't accept inputs from me. so each time i had to quit and reload the game again. I'm not sure if the light at the bottom of the screen was also a bug or something happening in the background. there was also an instance where the guide pointed to something and then almost immediately pointed elsewhere.

Banecraft: Idle RPG has got a lot of the basics for this sort of game right. there's magic, fiends, and dungeons which work as expected. there's summoning and equipping. So the game works. but it's the extra stuff where it falls short. for example, there's the idle mechanic but i have no idea how long it'll collect money for as most games cap it, forcing the player to interact with the game and restart the collection.

There is more to this game than what we saw in this video as there were more things left to unlock, like alchemy. for what it is, Banecraft: Idle RPG is fine. but the potential is there for something really interesting. The game isn't quite there yet and may never reach it. but if you like the music, the art, and the mechanics, then Banecraft: Idle RPG is still a fine game to play. but it's closer to the middle score than most games which received the top score.

Version 2.18.0 Played 

Turnip Mountain On Switch - Demo Play Thursday

This week's DEMO is the Switch version of Turnip Mountain, from developer JanduSoft.

This is a climbing game where you control the left arm with the left analogue stick and the right arm with the right stick. This demo only has, what seems to be, the first two stages from the game. there's a very basic tutorial that shows how to control each arm and how to go up. But once you start a stage you're immediately faced with new scenarios the tutorial has failed to prepare us for.

Even though there are only two stages to play. each stage is very long. there's no mention if there's a checkpoint or save but thankfully if you do end up falling off the map you restart on the same screen you started last. a downside to the stages being so long is that the music starts off really nice but by the end of the stage it's been repeated so many times that on both stages i played it started to grate a little.

i don't think i fully grasped the controls to this game. going up is easy enough, but sideways was always tough. there's a move where you can jump up high and fast, but i wasn't consistent at it and found doing the same move on the diagonal really tough. a video plays on the home screen showing off future areas of the game and after what i went through in the first two stages i didn't find what's coming exciting.

There is a story to this game and the starting animation shows us how we got to where we start the game and where our ultimate destination is. but i can't help but wonder if the gameplay is getting in the way of telling that story. i wondered in the video if maybe the game had an easy setting which cut the stages into smaller sections or cut them in half so we could progress the story faster.

At no point did Turnip Mountain say that i was playing a demo. there's no mention if there is a save, or if said save would carry over to the retail game. But i'm glad i tried out this demo because i now know that this isn't a game that interests me.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted On PS3 - Part 1 - Backlog Conquering

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

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Due to music copyright issues, there maybe times in the video when there is no sound due to it having to be muted. if this is the case, i'll turn the music off in Part 2 and we'll just have car sounds instead.

For me, Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a PlayStation Plus game that i got a long time ago. i've never played the PlayStation 3 version of the game but i do have it on PlayStation Vita and have played it quite a bit on there. So this may not be a series of videos where i complete the game, but i'm going to race around and get cars for a few videos.

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Reforged - Part 1 - Now With Hints - Cloud Monday

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Reforged via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars is a game i've tried to play on #PS1 and #GBA but i never made much, if any, progress in the story as i never truly understood how it was trying to tell it's story.

The option is there to play the game as it used to be, not just with original graphics but also with it's original gameplay. I went with the mode called Story as this had some modern benefits like removing items from conversation once they've been used but more importantly it adds a hint system.

The hint system helped me a lot in making progress. it's possible i got further in this video than i have in my previous attempts. but the hint system also highlights the game's logic isn't quite syncing up with mine. i don't think it's that the game is set in the early 90's, it's probably more down to my lack of experience with such point and click story games.

The game works well being streamed from the cloud. the auto save seems fairly robust but it's the ability to do manual saves, and that the saves themselves are quick, that's great. when you only get 20 seconds to save before being disconnected, accessible and fast manual saves are a great thing to have. With this being a point and click game, progress only happens when the player wants it. so if there are issues with the stream, you can wait it out, save, or do both and the game is waiting.

Metal Slug Rush - No Tutorial, Odd Gameplay Screen Area, And Basic Gameplay Loop - iPhone Friday

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Metal Slug Rush, from Revive Contents, on my iPhone 14 Pro. 

I've had Metal Slug Rush on my phone for a little while, but it wasn't until it got a big update this week that i decided to give it ago. ever since i downloaded it, the game has had a low review score but it was surprised that even with this update the score hasn't improved, if anything it might've gotten worse.

I was also surprised that there was an additional data download. at least it gave a heads up about the download but we didn't have much to watch in the background. thankfully it's not big and didn't take very long at all. But this did give a hint as to how strange the gameplay area might be. the video that plays doesn't fill the iPhone screen vertically or horizontally!

Once the download is done we're taken to the home screen. there is no tutorial, nothing to guide us on where to go. all the icons are on, there's nothing locked. i've played enough games to know what each of these mean, but for someone unfamiliar with modern mobile gaming this could easily be overwhelming.

Starting a mission takes us straight into a mission. i initially didn't move my character, assuming there'd be some sort of tutorial or guide as to what to do but there's nothing. the game has started and expects you to know what to do and how these sort of games work. thankfully i do and it quickly became apparent that this is a basic one of these. in the hour of this video, i didn't come across any gameplay mechanic that seemed overly new or interesting. In some respects, Metal Slug Rush feels like a cheap cash grab rather than a game that has had substantial development time behind it. 

It is also in the mission where we can see the bizarre gameplay screen. there's soo much space up top and down at the bottom but what's even weirder is there's space on the sides, too. the analogue controls appear when you touch the screen so you can see where i initially put my thumb on the screen. but my thumb kept moving around and i often got into the situation where my thumb was covering my character, an enemy, or both.

I did enjoy the look of the characters and enemies. i've never played a Metal Slug game so i'm not familiar with any of it and the game doesn't have any sort of encyclopedia to help introduce them to us. but the maps these missions took place on were often really quite bland. i don't know if this is true to the games, but playing it they stood out as boring in comparison to the characters, weapons, and enemies on screen.

I didn't really enjoy my time playing Metal Slug Rush. even when i thought i knew what to do, i missed things like Auto Equip, i thought the loot boxes were dull, even simple things like item fusion didn't seem to work right. when you level up things, there's nothing showing what the improvement was. having everything unlocked on the home screen meant i was woefully unprepared for any of the dungeons i tried. But what i really found strange and annoying is the inability to play past missions. from playing it, i don't know how i'm meant to level up and beat levels if i get stuck. it feels like my only option is going to be trying the same level i can't beat over and over again until i get enough of what ever it is i need to improve something.

In the end, there are better games of this style. there are specific franchises like My Hero Academia and Medabots who have their own versions of these sort of games. i think i can only recommend this game to fans of Metal Slug, but even they may find the game a little offensive to their memory of the series.

Version 1.0.5 Played

Twofold On PS4 - Demo Play Thursday

This week's DEMO is the PlayStation 4 version of Twofold, from developers Studio Coattails and Salty Salty Studios.

Twofold is a visual novel that originally came out on PC back in 2023. this demo has a unique short intro, that may not be in the main game, what maybe the first 5 chapters of the game, plus a quick look at where a choice will lead.

the demo does feel bespoke and it's clear it's a demo. but it's not clear if the game saves and if it does whether or not that save will carry over to the retail game. there was also a weird thing with the game's settings. at the start we can prefigure a few things which is nice, but when it started the game didn't have auto play on. when you pause the game and go into settings, there are more things we can customise. but the changes at that screen don't seem to carry over from gameplay session to session.

Any demo is the game trying to sell itself to you. When it comes to games like Visual Novels, the challenge is also for the game to sell it's story and characters. i did like Olive's story and the choice she had to make did make sense. at the end of the demo i was interested in seeing where her story would go. unfortunately, i didn't like many of the other characters we had been introduced to. so after playing the demo, i'm in no rush to continue playing Twofold if at all because i didn't like most of the characters.

Puppeteer On PS3 - Part 8 - The Final Part - Backlog Conquering

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

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 game Puppeteer. this game came out in 2013 and was developed internally by Studio Japan. this game can be played in 3D and with PlayStation Move controllers, but for this series i'm playing with the DualShock 3.

This is the final part, this is the whole of Act 7 and the credits. whilst this is the longest video i did for this game, i wouldn't say this was the most difficult Act. i died a few times but it never took long to make progress. it was nice having some older mechanics come back and i liked how, in the final boss fight, the combined my attacks and the cinematic QTE attacks into something more seamless. I wasn't surprised by the character reveal at the end, i assumed it was the case, but it was nice to unlock one final head just before the credits.

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

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/Ti2e3_u6Hxc

Part 3 - Act 2 - https://youtu.be/AyXafK0G4KQ

Part 4 - Act 3 - https://youtu.be/HFUUYC04mV0

Part 5 - Act 4 - https://youtu.be/0jql54duy8A

Part 6 - Act 5 - https://youtu.be/B6Gwpk6vgks

Part 7 - Act 6 - https://youtu.be/7r6ybvGyc9I

Sonic X Shadow Generations - Part 2 - Playing It In The Cloud Is Fine For Some - Cloud Monday

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Sonic X Shadow Generations via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

In Part 1 i focused on the original Sonic Generation levels, something that i was familiar with. In this part i tried the new Shadow levels. we start with Shadow's story, something i was only vaguely familiar with as i haven't played a Sonic game where Shadow is a major character but i seemed to have picked up his story over time. This is told via a slideshow style cinematic. this feels very cheap with no effort to tie it into the game, like they could've had a chao watching it or something. 

When you start Shadow's game we have another cinematic that tries to tie it into the story we saw from the Sonic Generations group. it's fine but it really does feel like DLC. Shadow plays quite differently from the other two hedgehogs we tried in Part 1. as i progressed through the video i was unlocking new powers that could not only defeat enemies in new ways but also unlock new level traversal mechanics.

As i'm unfamiliar with Shadow, i didn't know the levels we were unlocking, some of the enemies, or the music. the music was great to listen to, i wonder how much was changed from the originals. But the levels were a bit hit and miss. i'm not used to Sonic levels taking nearly 10 minutes and there were additions to the level that hadn't been introduced and even after playing i'm not sure i can describe how they really worked. So out of the 4 i played, one was long, one was short, one introduced new mechanics in a way i didn't grasp, and i don't really remember the other. fair to say they're a mix bag and as i haven't played the game they're from they hold no nostalgia for me.

There are positives and negatives when it comes to whether you should stream this game from the cloud or not. for me, someone who's familiar and finished the Sonic Generations part of the game, streaming the Shadow stuff saves space. if your internet is great and very reliable, then streaming it would be good. But if you have a little trouble with your connection, the visual artifacts it would create could make navigating really difficult or the delay it adds to the controls could make playing is frustrating. 

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/8nnq2mPHlI8

Tetris 99 - 56th Maximus Cup - Splatoon Raiders - Switch Funday

There is a Maximus Cup this weekend in Tetris 99 on Nintendo Switch. The 56th Maximus Cup is for the Switch 2 game Splatoon Raiders. By getting 100 points, you can unlock it all.

For those who have caught the Live Streams this weekend, you'll know that i've had a bad headache so going into this i of course hoped for the win but i wasn't expecting much. However, i started with a top 30 finish, then a top 10, then some poor results, and i finished with a top 20. so my finishing positions were all over the place! i made a few too many mistakes. I finish by going theme shopping! there's a special on at the moment where you can buy missed Maximus Cup themes for only 2 tickets. you can see where i stopped playing Tetris 99 and where i picked it back up again. unfortunately, i didn't have enough tickets to get all the themes i'm missing. i was 6 tickets short. this offer runs until August 17th, so i have until next Monday to earn those 6 tickets in-game and get the remaining themes i'm missing.

Wish Upon A Cat - A Quirky Dimension Hopping Story With Nice Art And Music - iPhone Friday

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Wish Upon A Cat, from Odencat, on my iPhone 14 Pro. 

Wish Upon A Cat was originally released on PC in 2025, you can pick it up on Steam for free. this is the iOS release of the game. i haven't played the Steam game yet, but my guess is that the two big differences between this and the PC version are the addition of adverts and a vertical screen. I do hope to check out the PC game in the future, but i'm unsure if that'll be something i record or not.

Wish Upon A Cat's App Store Page lists the game as being short so for this video i played maybe 1/3 to half of the game, judging upon the reveal that there were 5 adverts and i had seen 3 by the end of this video. But even by this point, i wasn't totally sure what was going on. i don't think that's a negative for this game as there seems to be a general sense of confusion all around. but at the very least we had the hints of understanding between my character and the other cat.

Graphically it feels similar to Deltarune and Undertale in terms of character design but i'm unsure if i'm familiar with the landscape art style. each area we went looked quite distinct and they also had their own music, which was also really cool. i also enjoyed how the game tried to answer simple questions like the mouse can see what's happening because the headset has a camera. that mouse is far to calm about the crazy stuff that's happening. there are plenty of strange characters throughout but as we're travelling between dimensions it all fits in with the game.

Even though i may not fully grasp the story, i have started to have some thoughts about it and i do want to continue playing to see what happens next. Wish Upon A Cat is one of those rare story games that are free to play and tell a story in a playthrough, or two. i would recommend checking it out.

Version 1.0.4 Played 

Gurei On Switch - Demo Play Thursday

This week's DEMO is the Switch version of Gurei, from developer Lobo Sagaz Studio.

When you start the demo it mentions that the game will auto save, but at no point does it actually say that the demo's save data will carry over to the final game. This demo doesn't say much at all about what it is. it wasn't until i died the first time that it became clear that at most there were 4 monsters to fight, and by dying later it was then revealed that even tho i couldn't face off against a boss, the game still counted it as defeated. this meant what ever boss you faced third, it'd actually be as tough as the 4th.

It's revealed that you can face off against any of the bosses in any order. i tried a few different combinations in this demo. each of the defeated bosses grants our character an ability or power. i personally found the shield to be very useful but by getting that first it makes the scythe and bow even more difficult to obtain.

The more bosses you defeat, the more chances of trying to beat the next boss you get. your health is also recharged before a boss fight. so there is a real element of strategy behind the order you try bosses. i found the snake to be a challenge so did that first. i thought the shield was useful against the bird so i did that boss second and the bird third.

Gurei looks great on Nintendo Switch. the controls felt fast and responsive, too. the only downside i felt in this demo was the loading times. typically in games when you can respawn and face off against the boss, the time between death and respawn is short. but here it's a long black screen. maybe they could've done something with the black screen to make it feel like it's taking less time. the example i came up with was our mask offering advice, back story, or general information.

Boss fighting games like this, Furi, or even Mega Man aren't typically games i enjoy playing. i enjoy their music and graphics for sure, but the gameplay style doesn't do it for me. that being said, Gurei didn't come across as a bad game. it's just the demo could've done more to sell it to me. i would've liked more information about the story, maybe a trailer showcasing examples of what happens later in the game.

Puppeteer On PS3 - Part 7 - Backlog Conquering

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

Our new game is the PlayStation 3 game Puppeteer. this game came out in 2013 and was developed internally by Studio Japan. this game can be played in 3D and with PlayStation Move controllers, but for this series i'm playing with the DualShock 3.

This was a mix bag kinda part. the first curtain call was tough with platforming that kept changing, for example sometimes you had to move quickly whilst other times you had to wait. The boss fight wasn't too bad. the other two curtain calls weren't as tough but the cut race section was still frustrating. But the story kept me going and i liked the kinda twist at the end. the next part could be the final part and i'm excited to play it!

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

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/Ti2e3_u6Hxc

Part 3 - Act 2 - https://youtu.be/AyXafK0G4KQ

Part 4 - Act 3 - https://youtu.be/HFUUYC04mV0

Part 5 - Act 4 - https://youtu.be/0jql54duy8A

Part 6 - Act 5 - https://youtu.be/B6Gwpk6vgks

Sonic X Shadow Generations - Part 1 - Re-Released Nostalgia - Cloud Monday

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of Sonic X Shadow Generations via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I played Sonic Generations on PS3 and finished it, so this is game i could've been familiar with. but as this is Sonic X Shadow Generations, i thought that this might've been more of a director's cut or remaster. from this part, it feels like they just re-released the PS3 game and attached a Shadow section.

In this part i focused on the Sonic Generations part. unfortunately, it's not 1080p on PS4 but it does look better and more crisp than i remember the PlayStation 3 version looking. It does feel dated. it talks about aspects of gameplay and then never tells us how to do it or where to go, or if it does it's late. the game's difficulty spike at Sky Sanctuary is still here, too. so i'm just disappointed this is it, but what's here is fine.

Sonic X Shadow Generations allows you to manually save in the home area, but whilst you're doing a stage there isn't an option to save. so if you get the 20 second disconnection warning, you can save in the hub area or quit the level and save.

I didn't have this issue much in this part, but there's a high chance that any video issues could impact my gameplay. visually, when things are going fast there doesn't seem to be an issue keeping track of what's happening. but i can imagine that things might be tough if there's macro blocking. the camera zooms out with Classic Sonic making the character smaller on screen which could also be an issue if the video quality degrades. We'll have to see what happens in Part 2 if i come across some issues.

POINPY - Re-Released As Free to Play, Could Do With A Better Tutorial - iPhone Friday

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried POINPY, from Ojiro Fumoto and Devolver Digital, on my iPhone 14 Pro. 

It wasn't until after i played POINPY that i knew that the game had been re-released. i can't say i knew about the game before i started, but i did know Downwell and have it so as this game was from the same person i wanted to see what they came up with.

The App store page made it clear that this is a free to play game with no ads. the store page also mentioned about the game using a tip system for those interested. but i was surprised that inside the game itself there was no mention of this. i stumbled upon the tip feature rather than having the game point it out.

POINPY doesn't really explain that much about itself. the tutorial shows how the basic controls work but when you start the game it frustratingly adds elements not in the tutorial. this is probably a sign of the game's real age as it came out in 2022. the best games nowadays will have mini tutorials or information about the new stuff as we uncover it. here, there's nothing. this applies to the left and right of the screen. i'm sure i might've discovered them by accident, i only aimed right to see if the rabbit was something i could interact with.

It feels like POINPY has been re-released with little to no modernisations. the gameplay idea is still great, which is why i recommend it. but what's been built around it already feels a little dated and has been done better by quite a few games. it's unclear if there'll be any other updates to POINPY or if it's just been re-released as is. i've checked the latest press release i have for the game and it's not clear.

So as a quick pick up and play game, POINPY is good. but it falls behind the better games released nowadays with it's dated tutorial and general lack of information. this "souls-like" approach was more common on consoles whereas on mobile it's much less common now.

Version ? Played (Launch version)

Disgaea Mayhem On Switch - Demo Play Thursday

This week's DEMO is the Switch version of Disgaea Mayhem, from developer Nippon Ichi Software.

On the eShop the game is described as an action RPG, but after playing this demo i get the sense it's closer in style to something like a Muso (Dynasty Warriors) or Poison Control, which i played on PS4 and completed as part of Backlog Conquering https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdgikQqtoXRk. That's not a negative as the controls in this game were very responsive and our character was quite fast.

This Disgaea Mayhem says it's bespoke made. we're given 3 maps to practice combat on. each map has a different location and different monsters to go up against. when we're on the map, it's clear that we're playing in a small area as most of the map is off limits. the task is simple, defeat 20 monsters from each wave and then defeat a much bigger boss monster. There is no tutorial, nor an onscreen prompt as to what the controls are. i don't mind a small bespoke demo, but it's a big miss to not detail the controls as in a couple of the areas the monsters attack quickly after we arrive on the map.

This demo really needed a trailer or screenshots as what we got to play didn't quite match up to what is described in the eShop. for example, it's eShop page has a screenshot showing off a game board looking location. the description talks about the female main character and what we've been tasked to do. But that's not included in this demo. If i hadn't read the eShop page first, i would've come away from this demo thinking that it's Dynasty Warriors Disgaea.

Puppeteer On PS3 - Part 6 - Backlog Conquering

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

Our new game is the #PlayStation3 game Puppeteer. this game came out in 2013 and was developed internally by Studio Japan. this game can be played in 3D and with PlayStation Move controllers, but for this series i'm playing with the DualShock 3.

it'd been a few weeks since i last played this game, as my copy is from PlayStation Plus and my subscription ran out, but thankfully it didn't take too long to remember the basic controls. during the first curtain call i didn't even loose a life. But that doesn't mean this part was easy. i don't think i quite understood the first Dog boss fight and a couple of times i found it difficult to do an accurate slam attack. Thankfully, the story continues to be fun and i really am enjoying it as well as the gameplay.

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

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/Ti2e3_u6Hxc

Part 3 - Act 2 - https://youtu.be/AyXafK0G4KQ

Part 4 - Act 3 - https://youtu.be/HFUUYC04mV0

Part 5 - Act 4 - https://youtu.be/0jql54duy8A

Digimon Story Time Stranger On Switch - Demo Play Thursday

This week's DEMO is the Switch version of Digimon Story Time Stranger, from developers Media.Vision Entertainment.

The Digimon Story series of games has been reasonably well received, i have Cybersleuth myself. so i personally was interested in checking out the latest game in the series. as far as i'm aware, the games may not be tied together via story or location but i can't say for sure so please let me know in the comments how these games tie together, if they do.

This is a long demo that seems to take place from the start of the game. what's nice is that the game clearly tells us the save will carry over to the purchased copy of the game more than once. this video starts with the first message and ends with the message being repeated. What's also nice about this demo is that when you complete it there's a trailer for the game showing off many locations and a lot of Digimon.

We get to do the game's tutorial but it's presented in an old way. there's text on screen and when there are pictures used they're not gifs or videos. the tutorial feels basic, more so in comparison to many games i've played over the last couple of years. at least we're given a chance to use what it's telling us more than once. the game also reminds us to do a few different things. But the tutorial really doesn't cover most of the game's items.

Graphically, the game's main characters and Digimon look nice. but everyone else has no faces and their clothes are typically one color plus that color with shadow. thankfully, with these cut backs and more, the game does seem to run stable and i found the controls very responsive. it seems like a fair trade off, but the bright areas of the game might be a bit too bright for non-HDR tv's.

I think the demo fails to provide the "hook" to draw players back to it. it's a long demo, but i couldn't tell you the game's story or what seems to be a time travel mechanic. i don't think it gives enough hints as to what could be happening either. if i had to guess, the events at the start of the demo were "now" and the events at the end of the demo were before the wall was erected and a loop exists between these two points in time. i say it in the video that there was a better moment to end the demo because it would've left the player wanting to know what happened.

I do think this demo is worth checking out and it's possible your playthrough might be a little different to mine because of how the evolution mechanic works. i know i enjoyed the game enough to Wish List it.