Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 10

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

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

Unfortunately, this is more like Part 10 B. i lost the first part of this video when my recorder crashed. so at the start of this video i do try to explain what happened in the story up to when this video starts. i recorded this the late into the day Anthem's servers were going to close. i had hoped this would be the final part, but right at the end the game forced me to do yet another quest once again delaying my progress. I do end this part at the point of no return where i can choose to do the end game. but you'll have to come back and see if i had enough time for one more part or if this was my final Anthem video.

Check out previous parts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/ivTkSJ9nJGg

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/CV1P3tc7pOs

Part 9 - https://youtu.be/ir62lx7d7rc

Stories on Tuesday - Fatal Twelve - Part 1

The new Stories on Tuesday game is the PlayStation 4 Disc version of Fatal Twelve from Sekai Project and aiueoKompany.

Part 1 made an explosive first impression and was interesting throughout. i'm not used to the main characters in these sort of visual novel games having so much inner monologues. i do like the art and style i've seen so far and the music has been a nice complement to it. sometimes in these games the characters have few art so they're often showing an emotion but saying another. here in Fatal Twelve it's been refreshing to see some subtle changes in the character's expressions. for me, what was interesting about the end of this part was how it recontextualised earlier bits of the video in such a way that my assumptions as to what was happening were way off.

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 9

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

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

I had hoped that the game's stopping our progress in the story was over, but unfortunately it happened again in Part 9. to progress the story this time, a new character was introduced and we had to do tasks for her. it was obvious that she wasn't telling us the whole truth so when things went south it wasn't much of a surprise. By the end i was invested in what was happening and then it's dropped by the game. i wanted to know where they had been, how long it had been for them, what happened that day, and yet the game says thanks for saving them, gives us the item we need, and moves us along. i ended this part going shopping and still needing some items to continue the games story. at the very least, this pause in the story was handled and integrated into the main story better than what happened in parts 7 and 8.

Check out previous parts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/ivTkSJ9nJGg

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/CV1P3tc7pOs

Demo Play Thursday - The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon Story DEMO On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon Story Demo, from Nihon Falcom.

I've been told before that these The Legend of Heroes games have a slow long start to them. so in this playthrough of the Story Demo, i allowed myself more time than usual to check out more of the game that i've done with previous games from this series.

The game does look great on PS4 and mostly runs fine but i did notice some pop-in and there was a moment when my PS4 froze. it's possible there were some minor tech issues with it as i remember near the end moments when it looked like one of a character's eyes was not open. Other than that, the demo went smoothly. this is the most recently patched version of the demo.

For this being a "Story Demo" there was a lot of battles at the start. the battle system is mostly introduced to us smartly, but the fact we have to do mostly the same thing twice in the first hour or so means it got a little boring. the final tutorial boss fight was fun. After that we were introduced to what's been happening in the game world, mostly between the end of the previous entry and this. But what's odd is that in this video i never worked out what the game's actual story is about. i speculated what it could be. but for the most part, all we did was the battle tutorial and have a reunion.

You'll have to let me know in the comments how much further i had to go to get the game's story. i know this demo is from The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon Prologue but i am surprised that for a demo they didn't include anything to hint at or tell us what the game's story actually is. there is no trailer nor screenshots on the main menu. there's no hint as to how much further i would've had to go either.

It's difficult to recommend The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon as fans of the series know what they're getting themselves into and for those coming to the series for the first time there's a real chance they'll come away lacking the context to fully understand what's going on in the game.

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 8

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

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

Between Parts 7 and 8 i think i spent around 3 hours NOT doing story stuff because the game forced me to engage with the online multiplayer open world. so the start of this video are my attempts at completing the tasks required of me before i can enter tombs. but once i got that part done, i was back into the story and it got quite exciting by the end. i was lucky that i had help from some random players as there were some tough story moments in this video.

Check out previous parts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/ivTkSJ9nJGg

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On #PS4 - Part 7

This was done with my backup recording on Mini Disc.

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

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

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

Check out previous parts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Demo Play Thursday - Neon Inferno On PS4

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

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

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

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

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

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 6

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

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

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

Check out previous parts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Demo Play Thursday - CASSETTE BOY On PS4

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

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

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

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

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

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 5

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

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

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

Check out previous parts:

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

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

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

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

Demo Play Thursday - House Fighters: Total Mess On PS4

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

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

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

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

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

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 4

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

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

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

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

Check out previous parts:

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Demo Play Thursday - Front Mission 3: Remake On PS4

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

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

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

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

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

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 3

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

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

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

Things opened up more In this part. we saw more players online and had 2 join us for our side mission. they were much higher level than me so they made quick work of the task. the game revealed more of it's online components, but they felt tact on rather than integrated into the game's story. the same can be true with the online store, it didn't really seem to add much to the experience. i don't know how much i'll interact with these online features as i'm here for the story as i'm finding it interesting.

Check out previous parts:

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

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

Cloud Monday - Tomb Raider: Anniversary - Part 2 - Well Worth Playing From The Cloud

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of the emulated PS2 game Tomb Raider: Anniversary via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

In Part 1 it was clear that the ability to save at any point by using the emulators save feature was great. in this part i made use of another emulator exclusive feature that isn't in the game itself and that's the Rewind feature.

In some respects, Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a little difficult in that there are times jumps are a little unclear and there are other times when you're ambushed by predators. i can imagine back in the day the complaints about the game's difficulty were accurate. apparently the game gets more tough towards the end with puzzles as well as gameplay. having the ability to rewind was very nice. i was able to make the mistakes and immediately learn from them. at times, this lead to some really nice flowing platforming sequences. i think i remarked in the game it's like the Sands of Time from Prince of Persia. if anyone tried Tomb Raider: Anniversary back on PS2, or even PSP, but put it down 'cause it was a challenge then playing it this way via emulation is a revelation.

The streaming experience in this part was much more consistent than in Part 1. only once did a warning appear in the top right. but even if was better, the lag in the controls was still noticeable. i think what helps is having to do the tutorial with the lag. if you watch Part 1 you'll see i immediately have trouble but quite quickly adjust to the lag. without playing the game on PS2 it's hard to say if it's solely down to the game being streamed. in my experience, these emulated games do seem to suffer from lag more than the native PS3 and PS4 games i've played via the cloud. i wonder if this is down to the PS1, PS2, and PSP controls being directly tied to the console and the PS3 and PS4 being wireless. Like, the lag i'm feeling is because the controls are wireless and the games aren't built around the lag from these controls. the games are built with quicker responses in-mind, maybe 2-6ms instead of the 10+ that modern consoles have.

After two Parts, i can say that i think Tomb Raider: Anniversary is well worth playing from the Cloud. because of how the emulator save features work and the bonus of the Rewind features, it'd make a great game for PlayStation Portal too.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/9oWARFopVBQ

Demo Play Thursday - Octopath Traveler 0 Prologue DEMO On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Octopath Traveler 0 Prologue DEMO from DokiDoki Groove Works and Square Enix.

The Octopath Traveler 0 Prologue DEMO is a timed demo. as players, we only get to play for three hours. before i started playing i had no idea why we seemed to be arbitrarily limited, but now i've played it i can see why they did it. the game's pace changes depending on what happens. at the beginning, there's a focus on community and the town you live in. you get to meet many of the people, get  to interact with them and learn about them. there's an engagement reveal between two of your friends. for my first hour and twenty minutes, the game is just normal life in a village with some tutorials.

This means what comes next has more of an impact because very quickly village life as we know it is gone and so are our friends. as the sadness takes over things slow down and there's a time skip to when the grief has passed enough for us start moving on. with this desire to move forward, the pace of the game increases and in the last 30 minutes of this demo, or so, we're introduced to town building and set off on two quests. so the 3 hour limit doesn't act as much of a restriction as it provides a push forward.

On PS4, Octopath Traveler 0 Prologue DEMO looks and sounds fantastic. when the village gets attacked, the fire effects look almost too good against the pixel art world. when we're in battle, some effects look simple and effective and then there's the Rage Attacks which go over the top by enrobing the characters in a Super Saiyan light. Sun light and moon light look, much like the fire, too realistic in this pixel world. The music was also very nice. there wasn't a theme that disappointed me. 

Octopath Traveler 0 Prologue DEMO is well worth trying out. having now played it, i'm much more interested in the full game, it's world, and it's story. 3 hours may seem like a long time but it went quite quickly as i played it. at no point did i feel bored or that the game was taking it's time. But for those looking for a more action orientated RPG i can see why it may come across as slow or even old fashioned.

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 2

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

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

At the end of Part 1 we were assigned a mission to find someone so we start this part with that mission. what was fun was someone joining our game. they were quick and dealt with the enemies faster than us. After that i did a mission from an NPC, and also explored the local area whilst doing it. This Part ends with us getting a brand new assignment.

Check out previous parts:

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