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

Demo Play Thursday - Windswept On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the#PlayStation 4 version of Windswept from WeatherFell and Top Hat Studios.

I was in the mood for something not so serious and charming and Windswept certainly has that appeal. the pixel art style is nice with some real nice animations. the music is nice and chill, and the platforming wasn't rage inducing hard. it was tricky at times, but the game gives the player a choice, do the simple platforming to complete the level and/or do the much harder platforming to get collectables.

When i checked out the options at the start of the game, it was clear that it's possible to personalise your gaming experience. if you want to do some speed running, there are options for that, and if you want things to be more difficult there are options for that too. but the base game, as shown in the demo, is quite a relaxed experience. the game never really punished me when i died. This early into the game, the secrets were quite often easy to spot. but there were a few i couldn't work out how to get. thankfully, there appears to be a world map where we can go back to previous levels and try again.

But, as a demo this isn't great. no where on the home screen does the demo say it's a demo. nor does it say what's included in the demo or even if our save file carries over to the main game. i ended my playthrough of the demo where i think it's ended, but seeing as the game never actually says if it's ended or not i could be mistaken. there are no links to purchase the game from the PSN either. i don't know how early or late the demo is, into the game's development cycle, so it's hard to say if the crash i experienced is likely to have been fixed or not in the retail game. 

If you're looking for a platformer to casually play, Windswept is a good choice. if you're looking for one to play and then master, Windswept has potential for you. whilst the demo itself may not be great, the game was quite enjoyable and charming. i'd certainly recommend people check out the demo if they're into the art style

Backlog Conquering - Anthem On PS4 - Part 1

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 this part, i completed the intro mission, then there's a time skip, and i did the following mission. in Part 2, i will start by doing the new mission we've been assigned. 

Cloud Monday - Tomb Raider: Anniversary - Part 1 - Can Save Anywhere, Possible Control Lag, But Fun

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 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.

We have already seen from previous PS1, PSP, and PS2 that have been emulated on PS4 and PS5 that their ability to save anywhere at any time makes them a fantastic choice to be streamed from the cloud. the added benefit of being able to rewind time also makes the experience as a whole feel more casual or approachable. so when looking at these emulated games the question changes more to is it worth your time playing these games.

For Tomb Raider: Anniversary i would say that yes, it's worth your time. this is a remake of the original PS1 game that was released across many consoles and handhelds from 2007. it was released late enough in the PS2 console life cycle that it probably benefited from some of the game design being shown on PS3. this helps make Tomb Raider: Anniversary still feel fresh. a couple of the controls are a little odd by today's standards but fine when compared to games like Resistance, a game released around this time.

I read a little about this remake. it seems like it's not just a PS2 skinned version of the PS1 game. the developers took time to bring over the classic elements of the original game whilst also expanding others, introducing some changes, modernising the controls, and fleshing out the story, as someone who hasn't played the original game, so far it's going great and the open flow of the levels have been fun to run around in.

The only criticism i have so far, as a game being streamed from the cloud, is that there appears to be some lag in the controls. every now and then i came across some platforming that didn't quite go as planned and took a couple of tries or rewinds. right from the start i noticed how i could move the left stick or right stick and it felt like a second passed before something happened on screen. it's difficult to say if it's the developers going for some sort of momentum based movement, but it does take a bit of time to get used to.

Demo Play Thursday - GIGASWORD On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of GIGASWORD from Akupara Games and Studio Hybrid.

I saw the pixel art on the PSN and thought it looked great, but i hadn't watched a video for GIGASWORD so i was surprised when it started playing how good it was. But what's odd is how there are times when there's no music, not even some ambiance. going from some really great music to nothing at all to then more music was quite odd. You'll have to let me know in the comments if this is the case with the retail release of the game or not.

I quite enjoyed the start to GIGASWORD, i thought the opening segment worked great as a tutorial. the level design and puzzles worked great. nothing felt challenging and progress was nice and smooth. But one problem with this demo is how little it communicates to the player that this is a demo. when you start, there's nothing on the home screen that says "demo", nor is there any links to pre-order/buy the game from the PSN. the demo doesn't say what the limits to the demo are either. so i got to a point in the demo where i couldn't make progress and i have no idea if that's because i missed something or if that's the demo ending.

Or it could be a result of the demo crashing. it's not often that a demo fully crashes in this series, but it happened here with GIGASWORD. i got to the PS4 home screen, submitted the PS4 error report, and loaded up the game again. But once i was back in the game, i never made any progress. You'll have to let me know in the comments if i missed something in the demo or how this differs from the released game.

Even tho it crashed and i'm not thrilled with how little it communicated to me how it's a demo, i did enjoy my time with GIGASWORD. i thought the balance between platforming, puzzles, and fighting was spot on for just starting the game, i really liked the pixel art, and the music was fantastic and cleverly hid the loop. so if you're curious about GIGASWORD, i'd recommend checking it out.

Cloud Monday - Patapon 2 Remastered - Part 1 - No Auto Saves But Playing To The Beat Is Fine

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS4 version of Patapon 2 Remastered via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I've not really tried a rhythm game as part of Cloud Monday so it was always going to be interesting whether the delay from streaming from the cloud would make playing the game much harder or even impossible. i admit, i may not have a lot of natural rhythm and i can easily loose focus and loose the beat. so i'll be honest, i can't say for sure if streaming this game from the cloud was the reason for issues i occasionally had or if it was just me.

But Patapon 2 Remastered's attempts at helping the player actually also make it a decent game to stream from the cloud. The game doesn't rely on just audio cues or just visual cues, it uses both. when you watch this video, watch the frame of the video as it pulses to the beat. having both means that if there's an audio issue, you can still see the beat and if there's a visual issue you can still hear the beat. In this part, two or three times we got some Stream Tearing where the video we're watching from the cloud had grey patches in it. but because the i could still see the frame and was often focusing on it to stay on beat, the Stream Tearing was never distracting and i was able to keep the beat fine.

The only real negative i have after this Part is that i don't think the game has auto saves. we're able to do manual saves from the main home area, but once the action starts we're unable to pause and unable to save. i tried to find auto saves, but i couldn't find it. Patapon 2 Remastered also has a weird thing where when you save the option screen backs out as if you hit cancel by mistake. a couple of times i had to check whether i saved or not. Whilst the saving is quick, it'd be nicer if the game made it clearer that it had saved.

Cloud Monday - Legasista - Part 2 - The Cloud Is An OK Way To Play If You Don't Have A PS3

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS3 version of Legasista via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

After over 2 hours of gameplay, i wasn't able to finish the tutorial for Legasista so there are still some questions i have about this game that i wasn't able to answer, the main being whether you're able to save in the dungeons or not. during the tutorial, i wasn't able to, but i wondered if in longer dungeons if there would be save options. if you know, please let me know in the comments.

You're able to manually save before you enter dungeons in the hub world. there is an auto save option that has to be turned on. it will save when you return from a dungeon but as we found out in this video it won't save until character conversations have finished. there is an option to press Start to skip the conversations to try and trigger the auto save or manual save, but there doesn't seem to be a way to read the conversation that was skipped.

Having some way to manually save is better than nothing. Legasista is also a game that hasn't been re-released on other platforms, it's only on PlayStation 3. so streaming it from the cloud is an OK way to play the game if you don't have access to a PS3. but it's not perfect and a disconnection could set you back a lot if there's no way to save in a multi level dungeon.

Cloud Monday - Legasista - Part 1 - Unable To Save In The Starting Slow Tutorial Dungeons

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS3 version of Legasista via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

Legasista is a game i own on PlayStation 3 but not one i remember starting so whilst this isn't a Backlog Conquering video it's adjacent to that playlist as well as this Cloud Monday playlist.

Some of the PS3 RPG's i've played for this playlist have done well and been fine streamed from the cloud. in Legasista, you're able to save before you go into a dungeon and, if you turn it on in the options, the game will auto save when you come out of the dungeons. but at the moment i've been unable to save whilst i'm in the dungeon. so far, i've only been doing tutorial dungeons so there's a chance that when i get to the "real" dungeons the situation will change. you'll have to come back for part 2 where i hope to make it that far into the game.

I had a solid stream from the cloud today and noticed no visual artifacts in the video we were watching. there was maybe 1 or 2 slight audio blips, but other than that even the controls were good today. If i were to get macro blocking, there's a good chance it wouldn't matter too much. the background assets repeat frequently, so if some of them were a bit blocky because of the macro blocking, i would still be able to understand it as those assets are used elsewhere. The characters don't have fine detail, but they do make great use of lighting and are quite big on screen, so whilst it would be noticeable, we would still be able to understand what's happening. the text tho is my main concern. there doesn't seem to be a way to make it bigger and i've been unable to bring up the text log of what's been previously said, even tho it's in the options. with the game audio in Japanese, and no way to change that, macro blocking in the text could be detriment to the story.

Cloud Monday - Digimon Survive - Part 2 - Streaming From The Cloud Is A Good Way To Play It

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

In the first Part, https://youtu.be/kjyaV_4XsyY, it was clear how good the game's save system was. it was an Auto save that's pretty clear to see on screen when it's in action, typically before/after a talking set piece, and there's also the manual save option which can save the game at a specific point in a conversation. when we start this Part, we load right in to the middle of the conversation we left the game before.

When there's only a 20 second window to save before being disconnected from the service, being able to save and knowing when the game itself last saved is crucial and Digimon Survive does a great job at it. One of the reasons i feel like it's one of the better games we've played via the Cloud also comes down to the game's art style. none of the Digimon we've encountered so far has fine detail. their art style is simple and relies on expressions. if the game was to suffer from macro blocking, so instead of fine detail we get larger squares of color, there's a higher chance of such squares not getting in the way of the Digimon's design. their character models are large so there's a higher chance of the squares appearing in color anyway. the subtitles on screen are also rather large. if macro blocking were to occur in the subtitle box it would be obvious, but it's unlikely to obscure the whole world due to the size of it so for the most part text should be legible enough. if things did get rough then it's easy enough to pause and maybe even save and wait for this macro blocking to pass.

The visual novel style of gameplay also lends itself to being played from the cloud. this game has a "Backlog" feature, something fairly common amongst visual novels, where you're able to look back at text already spoken. so if there was macro blocking obscuring text you're able to check what it actually said. I think you're also able to check what was set in a cut scene, if you had to end it to save, but i haven't tested that out. 

Digimon Survive isn't a large install, the PSN Store say's it's 6.34GB so for many installing it will be a sensible option. but i do feel that playing it from the cloud is just as good of an experience. there is one added benefit for those who sometimes forget what they've installed on a console and that's whilst the icon will be on the home screen no space is taken up. so if you do forget to uninstall it when it leaves PlayStation Plus, it'll take up no space and you can add the icon into a "To Buy" folder as a Wishlist" of sorts on your console.

Demo Play Thursday - Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit from Retroware, Mega Cat Studios, and Programancer. 

Whilst i have been watching their video content probably from near the beginning, i have never played any of the videogames. when i recorded this video i thought that this was just a port of a previous Angry Video Game Nerd game but i have since learned that this is a brand new game. so apologies if things get a little confusing in the video.

My history with videogames starts more from the 16bit era with the Mega Drive, but i did play a few 8bit games on the Master System and i've played pixel looking sidescrollers before so for me it wasn't too unexpected when the game started with no tutorial. But as this is a demo there's a chance that the final game has a tutorial of sorts. you'll have to let me know in the comments if this game does have one or not.

Graphically, it sure is an 8bit looking game and it comes with some of the gameplay limitations i expected from such a game. an easy example is how you can only shoot horizontally. there's no up or down shooting. But what was unexpected and very welcomed was how the game isn't sticking to the rules i was used to back then. it was common in games to have jumps into the unknown but here the stages have been built in such a way that you can always see at least 1 platform to aim for when jumping down.

Personally, i found the normal difficulty to be hard and changed it to easy to beat the demo. difficulty in game's like this are rather subjective so whilst i'd recommend starting on easy then going up to normal, for those who like a challenge and like learning pattens the normal difficulty could be a good start.

There was a bug at the start of the game. the FMV sequence featuring the Nerd himself was out of sync. when i changed difficulty and started again, the same sequence played but it worked fine. i don't know if this is unique to the demo or a bug in the PS4 version. you'll have to let me know in the comments. but i will send an email out to the developers to let them know what happened.

Cloud Monday - Digimon Survive - Part 1 - It's Easy To Save And Has Frequent Auto Saves

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

Digimon Survive will be leaving the PlayStation Plus service this month so i wanted to see if playing it from the Cloud would be a good way to play it before it's removed. When it's removed from PlayStation Plus, unless you've bought it, it'll stop working on your PS4 or PS5.

Digimon Survive is a Visual Novel style game that uses that style of game to tell it's story whilst also combining a tactics style fighting mechanic and also have a Mobile Phone explore your location feature. in this hour and a half i played for Part 1, all these different styles work well together and feel cohesive.

How a game saves is important when playing a game from the Cloud. PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service gives users a 20 second warning before disconnecting. it's important to know when the game autosaves and how to do manual saves. in Digimon Survive, the auto save is clearly mentioned on screen and happens before cinematics, where manual saves aren't possible, and after chapters. during typical Visual Novel sections, we're able to pause the game and save manually.

the stream quality was great during Part 1. this helped highlight the graphical style of Digimon Survive which i quite enjoyed. there may not be a lot of small details, but the art style and and use of colors is nice. we saw in the first battle at the start of the game that the Digimon are drawn in a flat 2D style whilst the battle stage is 3D. everything was clear to see and importantly I didn't notice a lag in the controls during menus, story, or battle sections, unlike during the previous game with Cyberpunk 2077.

Cloud Monday - Cyberpunk 2077 - PT2 - Shooting Is Affected By Controller Lag

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I noticed it in the first video, especially during the tutorial, that there's noticeable lag in controller inputs. for the most part, most other games i've played as part of this series haven't had this issue. the worst i remember was Rogue Legacy 2, but that had in it's options a "BETA" feature to improve latency in the controls at the expense of some screen tearing. a quick look in the options showed that the game seemed to be in a console controller mode and couldn't be made more sensitive. 

What this mostly means is that it's going to take longer to adjust to the games shooting mechanics. i personally found it difficult to aim and keep the aim constantly on an enemy. it's hard to say this early into such a long game whether this is something you can adjust to your self or if you're able to spec your character, by stats or equipment, in such a way that it minimises the negative effects. If you play this game via the Cloud, it'll be interesting to hear from you how you dealt with the shooting and controller lag. the tutorial does show how you can use hacking and melee combat so you're not strictly forced to always use guns. it could be a simple change of play style at the start of the game, until upgrades and better equipment make the shooting better, is how you should play it.

The quality of the video stream we got in this part wasn't as good as it was in Part 1. it was mostly Stream Tearing, where one or two of the frames of video we got were lacking information, so there were little bits of gray on screen. in a game as stylised as Cyberpunk 2077 it was noticeable and whilst it didn't affect my gameplay i can see how it happening whilst driving or during a shoot out would be quite a negative experience. In this part i did get to the infamous driving shoot out section and it was rough. the framerate dropped lower than i had experienced up to this point and this made the shooting even worse. this wasn't a streaming issue, this is just the game.

It's difficult to say whether Cyberpunk 2077 is a game better streamed than downloaded to console. it already has it's own issues regardless of how you play it. But streaming it does seem to add one or two more. it's a big download and it's not going to get patched anymore or get any of the DLC so i think i would prefer to stream this from the Cloud rather than having it take up space on my HDD. the streaming experience isn't great but it doesn't detract from the game too much. Let me know in the comments what you chose to do.

Check out Part 1 at - https://youtu.be/ALv_ddXCx9Q

Cloud Monday - Cyberpunk 2077 - PT1 - Many Save Options And Frequent Auto Saves, But It Did Crash!

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

The launch of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 is quite infamous as the game was removed from the PSN because of the state of it at launch. it's 5 years later and the game has received numerous patches since launch and it's now available to play from the cloud. at around 64GB, cloud streaming such a big game is an interesting option so i was curious how it would hold up.

I haven't played this game before, nor do i have anything that can play this game other than the PS4, so for me the version of the game i get from the cloud looked great, apart from people's faces as for the most part the people we met kinda looked ugly. i also enjoyed the soundtrack. there were no audio issues from streaming it and the video quality was solid throughout, even with film grain turned on in the options.

But something that was immediately noticeable from the start was control lag. It's very rare for this to happen and so far only Rouge Legacy 2 had an option to solve it for cloud streaming. In Cyberpunk 2077 it's noticeable in two situations mainly, navigating the UI and gunplay. Cyberpunk 2077 does have extensive options, but there's nothing listed for cloud streaming. the options seem to say that they've been adjust for an optimum console experience, but don't say anything about a cloud streaming experience. it's too early to say if this will be an issue as we might be able to adjust to it over time or we may get upgrades which improve our shooting abilities.

As with any game being streamed, being able to save quickly or having a frequent auto save is very important. if we're going to be disconnected, there's only a 20 second warning before. by pressing options we're greeted with a couple of save options but neither explain what they do. unfortunately, we'll find out in Part 2 how good the auto save feature is as in this part, Cyberpunk 2077 crashes. 

i had just finished the tutorial, and it's a pretty good one showcasing that there are many different ways in dealing with enemies. but in the transition from tutorial back to the game, it seemed like the game hanged. it's a familiar experience to me as this happens on my PS4 when i play many Unity games and can be seen in my Foamstars live streams. but unlike in my experience when things continue like nothing had happened, in Cyberpunk 2077 the screen was very wrong and i couldn't use the options. i had no choice but to quit the game, so tune into Part 2 next week to see whether the auto save triggered after i completed the tutorial or not.