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.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation4 version of Etrange Overlord, from developers Gemdrops.
The PSN Store page for this demo doesn't have a lot of information and it has no screenshots. all i knew going in to this was that the save file would carry over to the retail version of the game, which the demo itself never said, and that there was some sort of musical aspect to this game.
Etrange Overlord starts with our death and with all things considered we seem to handle it well. we awaken in hell and it becomes clear quickly that the residents of hell should be the ones scared of me, not the other way round. this opening sequence acts as the game's battle tutorial and whilst it's light on information, it's not the only time we see this tutorial as more aspects of the game's battle systems open up as we play.
What struck me early on is how good the game looks. you may hear in the video that this demo was pushing my PS4 quite hard. all the enemies and characters we come across are vibrantly colored and whilst they may not have fine detail, they do look great. the art style used in this game throughout is nice. a good compromise was reached letting this game look as well as it does whilst also performing as well.
The biggest issue i had was that it was never clear when the game was saving. i admit i got the manual save wrong at the end of the demo, but up to then the only time i could say for sure i knew that game had saved was when i changed some options at the start of the demo.
the biggest, and pleasant, surprise goes to the game's musical aspect. at no point was i expecting the characters to burst out into song. what's impressive is that it fits well in to the game itself. it was surprising, but once i got over that, by the end of the demo i was looking forward to these little bursts of song. another aspect of the game's story telling that i enjoyed was the banter between our main character and some of the demons. they're not afraid to talk behind our main character's back, and she's not afraid to remind them who's the boss and that she can hear them. that sort of comedy wasn't over played and i feel like it worked well.
From the start of the demo, it suggests playing it on Sweets Mode, which makes the combat easier so the focus moves to the story telling. i'd suggest leaving this on as the combat, but the end of the demo, was starting to get a little difficult. the combat systems are good. i enjoyed how combat bonuses appeared and how they can help us. But what i wasn't expecting was when the game had a Capture An Area battle situation. our team had to battle to gain and hold parts of the battle world to win the fight. it was refreshing and i do wonder what other twists are instore later in the game.
I really enjoyed trying out this demo for Etrange Overlord. i never finished it so if you enjoyed what you see, i'd recommend trying the demo for yourself or just get the game. there's nothing here, in the demo at least, that comes across as hardcore. i think it's a decent introduction into RPG's for those who are a little older. i think some of the game's humour might be wasted on kids.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II Battle DEMO.
There are 2 demoes for The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II. last week i tried out the Story DEMO, https://youtu.be/Z8q4UuYjIw4, and today i tried out the Battle DEMO. Playing them was a different experience, not just in terms of the demo content but also in how broth approach the customer. as the story demo was from the start of the game, it includes a tutorial and is a much slower pace. this battle demo has no tutorial and puts us into one of two dungeons with basic missions to complete.
Thankfully, have played the demo for The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak and knew about it's battle system. but using this many characters was new to me and things were happening i wasn't too sure about. it's frustrating in that both the dungeons in this demo were specially made for the demo and that this demo feels "hand made" whereas the story demo is just a cut and paste from the start of the game. if the effort was put in to make such a special demo, then why was no effort put in to providing a tutorial. they might as well have just lifted the tutorial from the start of the game as a video and played that, at least it would've been something.
Oh, i would highly recommend setting this demo to easy. i did the first dungeon at easy difficulty level and found it to be a good challenge for my knowledge of how it all worked. for the second dungeon, i tried out the normal difficulty level and ended up getting my first team wiped out. thankfully, in The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II there's a backup team so if the first team get knocked out, the second team take their place and continue the battle.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II Story DEMO.
Unlike The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak which only got one demo before it's release, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II has two and today i'll be trying out the Story DEMO and next week i'll try the Battle DEMO. I had forgotten that i tried out the The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak DEMO last year https://youtu.be/8Ow0x0EV_XQ. When i started this DEMO there was an option to watch a re-cap for the first game, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak, and i decided to watch it. as i didn't play it, i was fascinated where the story ended up going and wouldn't mind playing it as it looks like it was a good story.
Once that video is finished, this DEMO starts by setting up the mystery, or one of the mysteries, that The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II will be dealing with. Then the story starts and as this is a Story DEMO, it's unsurprising that this is story heavy.
what i played took place mostly in the same area as the DEMO for The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak, so it was nice and familiar. but we did get to visit a couple of different areas. most of the people were also familiar, and again this isn't a negative. the speed of this DEMO felt slow, but because the location and people were the same, the speed of the story telling actually felt appropriate. the conversations were casual, people were familiar with each other, and ultimately i didn't really notice how long this video was until near the end, which is why this ended up being more than an hour. i was enjoying the story being told.
I would recommend checking out this DEMO. the save carries over to the main game if you choose to buy it. The DEMO also has it's own checklist of things to do. i didn't reach the end of it, nor did i finish the checklist. it wouldn't surprise me if there's another hour or so of DEMO left to play!
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.
Here it is, the final Part of my playthrough of Poison Control. in this video we have the final battle against a familiar foe and not who we thought it would be after the end of Part 13. the ending is nice and feels like it went how it should. there is an after credit scene that adds another happy ending to this game.
I had a great time playing Poison Control. it's not the oldest game in my backlog, but it's one of those games that came and went without much fanfare. for me, it was a good time and i had fun. it has some lows with it's bugs, but overall it's a game i'd recommend playing if it's in your backlog.
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.
Part 13 feels like the beginning of the end. the animosity i felt from the White Poisonette at the end of 12 carried over and developed into a full on fight. but then it took a turn that i didn't see coming, a character appeared we all thought was long dead. the story of White and their Partner tugged hard on the heart strings, but with this new character there wasn't time to mourn as we had to try and survive. this is a much longer video than normal as the story kept on coming.
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.
With Part 12 is a little different as it's the first video where i only managed to complete 1 Bell's Hell. the hell in this video was much much longer than i expected but it did play into the story of the hell so it was still interesting in that respect. There was a nice surprise for finishing this hell but there also seemed more tension between us and the White duo so i wonder if that'll come to something soon.
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.
With Part 10 being as shocking as it was facing off against the Black Poisonette, i wasn't surprised that Part 11 was a little more back to normal. there wasn't any story stuff for our characters, but there were some interesting stories in the Hells we visited.
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.
In Part 9 we learned more about the Black Poisonette and it was very weird. it looked like we would have to defend ourselves but thankfully the White Poisonette team arrived and we were fine. But the situation wasn't over and in this part it took a turn for the worse and things got even weirder. we did get some new story about the Black Poisonette and about ourselves, but it didn't make things clearer.
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.
Part 8 was unique in that it was the first part that didn't add to the story, we only did a couple of Belle's Hells. Going into this Part, i expected there to be story but i was surprised that we got some back story for the Black Poisonette. It makes me wonder if it'll become an enemy we have to deal with, but i also wonder if it's partner got to heaven or had a far worse fate.
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.
We didn't get much story in this week's video, but the hells we visited were somewhat interesting. the first one had the saddest, and most confusing, story so far whilst the second saw us facing off against enemies wearing dessert themed hats or back packs, similar to how the flower themed enemies were dressed during the hay fever hell.
*There's no commentary from me, my audio software crashed 3 times and i couldn't save it.
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.
The two Belle's Hells i did in this video went fairly quickly and felt mostly fine difficulty wise. what was interesting were the little bits of story that helped flesh out how hell works but also that we didn't deal with the "big bad" when going to the second circle of hell.
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.
we're six videos in and i'm starting to predict when things are going to happen, like i knew there would be a story update in this video and it was a very interesting update. But it's not been an issue as Poison Control has, so far, been able to break the monotony by changing things slightly or by revealing more of the story. one gameplay change came in the 10th Belle's Hell where not only did we have the regular enemies wearing a costume, there were other cardboard cut out enemies to deal with. in the previous video there was another change where money was the goal. Poison Control has done great in changing things up slightly to feel fresh and exciting whilst also dishing out at the right times updates to it's story.
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.
Now the story is continuing, after being stuck in Part 3 and getting unstuck in Part 4, i managed to do 2 Belle's Hells. the first one was simple and similar to other one's i've done. but the second one had a bit more of an interesting design and requirement to finish so it was a pleasant surprise.
Today's video ends at the shop and a discussion had there gave my character some answers but left more for my companion. the way the story is being teased out at a decent pace is really keeping me engaged with it so i look forward to the next video.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Ys X: Nordics Demo from Nihon Falcom.
Ys is a series that i've heard about but not one i've ever played before. so trying out this demo wasn't just for the site, it was for me too. i was curious about soo many aspects and hoped that the demo would let me know if i want to get the game or not.
Unfortunately, my time with the demo got every increasingly frustrating and i didn't enjoy my time with it. nearly every aspect of the game felt outdated or that it was built for a different console, whether that's the #Switch or maybe if the initially started planning this on Vita. graphically, the PS4 version feels like a downgrade. the lack of shadows make certain items in the game look like stickers, but there's the opposite problem where there are shadows that make characters look like they have scars.
The artwork for buildings looks so bland, and the draw distance is so close to the camera that later on islands in the background started to blend in with the sea so it looked like a wall of a single color. the characters were the best looking thing in the game, but don't look to closely as their mouths don't sync up with their speeches.
I also found the game's story wasn't syncing up with what i was doing and that was probably the most frustrating thing as it meant i was having to pick what to say from a choice of something that makes no sense or something that makes only a little sense. very rarely did the game offer me something to say that i, the player, wanted to say.
The demo also hit a technical issue where i had single digits of frames. this started with the dual battle with the "Princess" and maybe a combination of luck and low difficulty setting meant we could defeat the wolves even if nothing was moving on screen.
Unfortunately, i can't recommend the PS4 version of the Ys X: Nordics Demo, and as my experience with the game was so negative i can't really recommend people getting the game. it felt like it's only for the hardcore fans who are maybe used to the outdated designs and complaints i had through most of this video.
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.
In Part 3, i got stuck in the first major "Dungeon" of the Second Circle of Hell. i tried twice and was defeated twice, right at the end of the Dungeon. so going into this part i thought that would be my first goal. Unfortunately, i seemed to have forgotten to manually save after recording Part 3 so when i started the game for this recording, i realized that i had to basically re-do Part 3 all over again.
Thankfully i was able to defeat the dungeon, which had previously bested me, on my first attempt. This lead the the story twist that i didn't see coming. previously, our goal had been to collect stickers. we get stickers by solving personal hells. with 5 of them, we're able to get to heaven. well, by finishing the dungeon today i got all 5 and headed off to the shop to redeem them. that's when it's revealed that 5 stickers are needed to get 1 Gold Sticker, and it's 5 Gold Stickers that are needed to get to heaven. so our goal, and the amount of videos in this series for this game, as now grown.
I am still enjoying the story and the gameplay is mostly fine. the camera tends to fight me now and then and sometimes the lock-on seems to be aiming at ghosts or just off the enemy. thankfully the story is keeping me going so i am looking forward to the next couple of videos at least to see where things are headed.
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.
Things got more difficult in Part 3. i was able to get into the second circle of hell, but i failed to beat the first dungeon there twice. you can see that in each attempt i get to what seems to be the final fight, but i was unable to successfully clear away the poison whilst defending myself from the never ending swarm of enemies.
It's a shame as this video starts with a new character, some new questions being asked, and there was a nice boss fight. i wanted to beat this dungeon to see what would happen, would this have been enough to get us to heaven.
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.
Part 2 continues on with the story. we previously did the first two Belles' Hells and they weren't too difficult, nor were the stories behind them that bad. the two I did today, they were much harder. not just in difficulty of playing them but also the stories behind them. There will be a Part 3 as i expect there to be more twists and turns in the story as we progress further deeper into hell.
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.
Poison Control is a surprise pick for a series that focuses on Backlogs. it came out in 2021 so it's one of the more recent games i've bought. But the thing is i don't remember buying it, so i don't know why i have it. it's not a PlayStation Plus game so my Backlog Conquering series is the perfect place to try it as whilst it's not an old game, it's still in the backlog.
Today's Cloud Monday is part 2 of playing Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness on my launch Japanese PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming Service.
In the first video, https://youtu.be/4acBC6x5XXI, as well as enjoying the game i would go so far as to say the streaming experience from PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming was perfect. it had been a while since i played a game with little to no streaming issues so at the time there was a sense of relief, too.
This second video continues that trend. once again i noticed no issues streaming the game and, in both videos, there were moments when i forgot that i was playing this PS3 game on a PS4 as i was so engrossed in playing it.
It's a hard game, but if it's a style of RPG or if you're a fan of the series, there is a way to play the game just like you had the disc. unfortunately in this video i forgot to do the speed test, but over both days playing the game i'm comfortable in saying that it's one of the highlights i've had streaming games from PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Service.
