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. I was surprised that there were no major copyright issues with the music, except for a couple of countries. So not only enjoy the racing but also enjoy the music. You can see in the top left, when the track changes, what song is playing.
This is a compilation video showing all the races i won against the game's Top 10 Most Wanted.
This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of Vampire Survivors via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
I had previously checked out the iPhone version of Vampire Survivors, https://youtu.be/JuPywdS5N2M, and i really didn't enjoy the experience. The reason i'm back trying it on PS4 is because i wondered if it's screen filling small graphics would be too difficult for a streaming service. YouTube, and others, have trouble streaming video with lots of small details like sand or confetti and i thought Vampire Survivors could suffer with issues.
Turns out i was right to be concerned. in fact, i could say that Vampire Survivors is soo bad being streamed from the Cloud that it shouldn't be on the service. Not only did i have stream tearing, when grey would appear on screen instead of the video, there were also frequent macro blocking issues, caused by the small details i mentioned above, and the service disconnected me twice! As well as that, we had the video crash we saw back in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind - Part 1, https://youtu.be/jLALcYNyUJc, in this part.
What doesn't help things is that there is no manual save during a run. there's no checkpoint during a run either. when i got the disconnection notices, there was only one thing i could try and that was stopping the run and getting back to the main menu in time for it to autosave, or to try a manual save. the problem is, we only get a 20 second warning before being disconnected and it takes longer than that to quit to the main menu and save. so when the message comes up, that is it.
For some games i've played, a break up or decrease in visuals isn't too bad. to some degree, i'm able to carry on playing. I know that my character is in the center of the screen, but when things got bad i couldn't see the gaps between enemies. it was also tough to work out how close to me the enemies actually were. So when things got rough, i should've stopped rather than continue.
For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Ascent Spire - Roguelike RPG, from Terrier Games, on my iPhone 14 Pro.
It was the game's App icon that initially grabbed my attention when i was browsing the store. When i checked out the game's store page i knew i wanted to try this. the art for the Spire, mixed with the game's black and white aesthetic, looked great. thankfully there was art of the gameplay too and whilst i wasn't too familiar with this style of RPG, i still wanted to check it out.
The store page also gives some nice details regarding the game's story and initially i was concerned that the game itself wouldn't be able to tell this story, that it was relying on the user to have read it's store page. thankfully the game starts with the story, going into more depth than the store page, whilst also not revealing everything.
Our character seems to be nameless with no story, but it's possible this is revealed in greater detail the further up the spire we make. there's no story as to why we're able to be reived either. but if we consider that no one seems to know anything about the spire, it's not too hard to imagine that we're coming back because it's a feature of the spire.
Each run is different. Even when the art and the scenario are exactly the same, you can pick the same outcome as before and get a different result. On one hand, this makes smart use of limited art assets but on the other it does become noticeable when we're getting the same background and text combo. It's the same with the music. it's nice, but it's very noticeable when it repeats as there's a pause. The art and music here is great, but for long play sessions, or repeated play sessions, it starts to become noticeable when it keeps repeating.
I thought Ascent Spire - Roguelike RPG was quite accessible even though it doesn't have a tutorial. all the commands needed in a moment are on screen. when you fight, the controls are on screen. instead of pressing arrows to move around, we have to read the options given to us. this is usually a single button but there are time when we're given the choice to, for example, follow or head towards something or to go in the opposite direction. the first time a QTE event happened caught me a little off guard. there wasn't too much extra time to read what my choices were before they were nearly gone. But it was fun in this game that i came across a point where the best choice to make was to not make a choice.
The Roguelike aspect of the game seems lite, and i mentioned above that the why isn't explained. with each run we get a reward and when we have enough of it we can spend it on permanent upgrades for our character. my concern is that some of these upgrades are very expensive and that it may take a long time to fully level up our character. i wonder if the game is built that this isn't needed and, whether by luck or design, we're able to beat the boss/complete the game many different ways.
The art, music, approach to story, and simple combat make Ascent Spire - Roguelike RPG something i'd recommend to gamers of all experiences. it's something i'd recommend trying at least one because it's something i so very rarely see on the app store.
This week's DEMO is the Steam PC version of Astral Bounty, from developer Weepel Games.
Full disclosure, Weepel Games got in touch about Astral Bounty and brought it to my attention, but i was unable to play the demo before it came out on Steam and what i played was from the store, rather than it being sent to me.
Fans of the channel will know that i'm not great at side scrolling shooters, regardless of whether it's vertical or horizontal, but i'm always up for trying a new one as i'd like to find one that i can improve at and still enjoy playing. i knew that Astral Bounty was going to be tough as it describes itself as "Astral Bounty is a brutally hard 2D arcade sidescroll shooter" on it's Steam Store page, https://store.steampowered.com/app/4952490/Astral_Bounty/.
I didn't finish this demo but that wasn't because it's a bad demo. i was surprised how generous Astral Bounty was with it's checkpoints. one way developers make a game tough is by reducing or completely removing checkpoints. Here, they're optional. the game's store appears several times during the demo stage i played and whilst i could spend my money upgrading my ship, i also had the option to respawn at the store for a price. as i learned how to play the game and got better, i stopped using the first and then second stores as revival spots and could focus on buying upgrades and progressing further into the level.
So whilst the start of the level got easier, it always got tougher as i got further into it. Sometimes this was due to new enemies, sometimes there were level hazards, and there are times when both are combined. But it's not like i could never see a path through, my failure to progress to the end felt more like skill issue rather than the level design being unfair.
Astral Bounty ran smoothly on my old low powered laptop, but there were very short but noticeable hitches in the frame rate when a new song started for the first time. i found the controls responsive, but a couple of the upgradable attacks i tried never seemed to work right so it's possible there could be a bug or two. the game doesn't have a release date on Steam so it could also be quite early into it's development.
As a demo this could be better. at no point do i remember it ever saying that it was a demo. there were no screenshots, no links to get the game, and no trailers showcasing the rest of it. thankfully the demo runs well, controls well, and the restarts are fast. So, as a demo it may not be great, but as a game it seemed all right.
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. I was surprised that there were no major copyright issues with the music, except for a couple of countries. So not only enjoy the racing but also enjoy the music. You can see in the top left, when the track changes, what song is playing.
I did it, i beat all of the Top 10 Most Wanted drivers. i think i thought it was going to be harder than it actually was. some of the other racing i had done across these 4 parts, to earn upgrades and points, had been more difficult than beating the Top 10. for a couple of drivers, it was more difficult to take them down after the race had finished. I did have fun and i enjoyed just going around and looking for cars, billboards to smash, and gates to break through.
What i'll do for next week is a video showing how i beat all 10 of the Most Wanted drivers in a race. taking them out afterwards is more difficult to edit into a video, but the races are fine. i'll cut out the mistakes, they're in these 4 parts if people want to see them.
Why not buy me a Vending Machine Bottle of Coffee over on https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers
This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
I had a rough time with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind in Part 1 so thankfully in part 2 we didn't have a repeat of the crash.
We learned that the levels continue to be long with seemingly no checkpoint system and no manual saves. if you're disconnected, you could loose 5 minutes or more. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind isn't an easy either. after playing it across 2 parts, i'd highly recommend playing it on easy if you're streaming it from the cloud. at least this way, if you have to replay a mission, it shouldn't be too difficult to catch back up to where you were.
The music in this game is loud and comes across as an important part of the experience of playing the game. But it's often in the music where we can first experience issues with streaming the game from the cloud. So across both parts, i could often hear an issue before it happened. as the music is such a part of the experience, it meant it was very noticeable when it happened.
I'm not saying that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind is a bad game. i actually quite liked it and have since downloaded it to my PS4. it's just that it's a bad fit for the service. I turned off the filters to try and help make the streaming experience smoother, but it doesn't help much when there's a stream tear across the middle covering most of the playing area and hiding the enemies. when the resolution drops, it becomes less clear how close the enemies are and if you're on the same plane. i've already mentioned the music and the lack of manual saves, too.
So if you're curious about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind, i'd suggest downloading it rather than playing it from the cloud.
Why not buy me a Vending Machine Bottle of Coffee over on https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers
This week's DEMO is the Switch version of Talespinner, from developer Flash Cat Games.
From the eShop page, i new going in that Talespinner was a roguelike RPG Deckbuilder. But after playing this demo, it's like the game wasn't aware.
First up, this is another example of a game not mentioning it's a demo. it also didn't have links to it's eShop store page. i could see the game saving at times but there's no mention whether or not the save would carry over to the retail version. The only times i encountered any mention that this was a demo was when it was telling us about features we couldn't use.
After playing the DEMO, i'm probably not going to wishlist the game. For me, i found the progression of this Roguelike to be too slow for me. I do like the art and music, i also enjoy the way they let us build our own path through each story section we play. But it's the Roguelike aspect of the game where it falls short.
Another great example of how the game falls a little short is what is and what isn't explained. there is a tutorial and some aspects of it are very useful. But when you start looking at what all the buttons do you realise how little of the game's mechanics have been explained. Thankfully, i found the tutorial to be quite good. there was only one aspect of the game i didn't understand fully, but eventually worked out for myself. some things have legends explaining what things mean, but then there are times where i wanted more legends for things that haven't been explained.
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. I was surprised that there were no major copyright issues with the music, except for a couple of countries. So not only enjoy the racing but also enjoy the music. You can see in the top left, when the track changes, what song is playing.
I continued looking out for cars to drive, secrets to find, and of course challenging the Most Wanted. I managed to beat all of them up to Most Wanted 2, so i finished this part with a car i hoped would be fast enough to challenge the final 2 Most Wanted drivers in the next part. The Porsche Concept i spent most of this video driving was not that bad, just not a lot of colors. And of course, i made some silly mistakes and had some bad luck with the local drivers!
This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the #PS4 version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
Growing up when Mighty Morphin Power Rangers first came to TV in the UK and having played arcade side scrollers back then, this combination really interested me and i was keen to try it.
The big takeaway from this first part of playing it from the cloud was the issue that happened. i've not seen it before, or don't remember seeing it before, and i still don't know what happened. for some reason, the video being sent to me stopped by my controls and the game's audio was still happening.
What was nice was how each level i played had something different. the graphics were spot on for a 90's sidescroller of this era. the music was a wonderful surprise. But the difficulty was higher than expected. i felt like it started hard and kept getting harder. i was expected more of a ramp up than this.
For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG, from PocketHaven Games, on my iPhone 14 Pro.
The App store page for Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG initially looks like any other idle RPG kind of game. but when i browsed the screenshots, the board game aspect of the gameplay really grabbed my attention. all to often these games have a scrolling background and our main character running into enemies or enemies running into us. But the addition of a board really means each run could be different, which is useful in a roguelike game.
Unfortunately, there was an odd 5 minute initial load to start the game. this clearly has to be a bug of some sort as this is something i've only experienced with games downloading data and Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG never mentioned it was doing this. I'll try to send the developers an email about this bug.
The tutorial for Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG is lite. there is a tutorial finger which shows us where to go and then stops. Or it'll point out a new feature and then stop. It could be done a little better. thankfully Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG doesn't overload it's home screen with buttons from the start so newcomers or those unfamiliar with these sorts of games probably won't feel overwhelmed.
The game's art does look simple, but when you look closer you'll see our character has a lot of animations, more so when we're on the board and fighting. once you notice this you'll see there are other nice animations on enemies and board pieces. This is so nice that it's just as obvious when the wider world map doesn't move. for more powerful phones it'd be nice if this also animated.
The board gameplay was great. each time we got around the board, it'd refresh itself and the enemies got harder. the only 4 pieces that didn't change were the corners. the steps between each corner could change from a monster tile to a buff tile, a debuff tile to a digging tile, a enemy tile to a double enemy tile, etc. There is another element, our character has to survive 30 rolls of the dice. on the first board, there was a mini boss after 15 rolls. on the second board there were two mini bosses.
To help, one of the corner tiles is a shop that we can purchase abilities from. there are other tiles that can grant up a power up, level up a power, heal us, or let us gamble for a chance of a power up. My first and second runs on the first board were very different, not just on the tiles i landed on but also what power ups were available for purchase.
Much like how lite the tutorial was, the game does lack little finishing touches. for example, the Battle Pass screen has a Collect All button, but no other screen does. the equipment screen doesn't have a Equip All button. The idle aspect of the game doesn't say how long it'll collect coins and stuff. thankfully the main game is very well done and i really enjoyed myself.
As Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG is a Roguelike, we get money after each run whether we succeed or fail. The Roguelike mechanic in this game is that we spend the money on improving our stats via a level up screen. Money also comes in from the idle aspect of the game. there are also chests where we can win equipment or items that'll upgrade equipment. there seems to be some free stuff daily. So Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG doesn't demand your attention all the time, it needs to be put down in order to get more gold to help with the levelling up.
I really enjoyed playing Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG. the Roguelike loop is solid, the board gameplay was refreshing and interesting, and the game doesn't feel too complicated with too many systems. it's great for those curious about the genre and something new for those who have played a lot. I would go so far as to say that Rogue Legend: Roguelike RPG might even make it on to my download and go top 5 of the year!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
