Vampire Survivors - Part 2 - Can't Recommend Streaming It From The Cloud - Cloud Monday

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

Part 1 was the worst or one of the worst experiences i've had streaming a game from PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service. thankfully, i do each game twice, on a different day and at a different time, to get a better average of the experience. Whilst i didn't get any disconnections in this part, it continued to be a struggle to play Vampire Survivors.

The biggest issue we have when we stream the game is the degradation of the visuals to the point where it affects gameplay. instead of the small characters, they become macro blocked which means they become larger squares of color. In Vampire Survivors, squeezing past the enemy is a legitimate way to survive but when macro blocking starts it's almost impossible as the narrow gaps are gone and replaced by blocks of color from enemies close to each other. 

Another negative becomes obvious as you get better at the game. to beat a level you have to survive for 30 minutes. but there appears to be no checkpointing and no way to save during a run. If the visuals get soo bad, or if the 20 second disconnection warning appears, there's nothing we can do other than to quit and hope the game saves in-time.

It's hard to think of a useful positive reason to stream this game from the cloud rather than downloading and installing it. I did download it and have played it a few times since and it's such a better experience that i can't even suggest streaming the game if you're curious. Vampire Survivors should only be played downloaded on your console. it's such a bad experience i can't help but wonder why it's on the service at all.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/eAZPIqeNMD4

Vampire Survivors - Part 1 - Simply, A Bad Time - Cloud Monday

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

I had previously checked out the iPhone version of Vampire Survivors, https://youtu.be/JuPywdS5N2M, and i really didn't enjoy the experience. The reason i'm back trying it on PS4 is because i wondered if it's screen filling small graphics would be too difficult for a streaming service. YouTube, and others, have trouble streaming video with lots of small details like sand or confetti and i thought Vampire Survivors could suffer with issues.

Turns out i was right to be concerned. in fact, i could say that Vampire Survivors is soo bad being streamed from the Cloud that it shouldn't be on the service. Not only did i have stream tearing, when grey would appear on screen instead of the video, there were also frequent macro blocking issues, caused by the small details i mentioned above, and the service disconnected me twice! As well as that, we had the video crash we saw back in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind - Part 1, https://youtu.be/jLALcYNyUJc, in this part.

What doesn't help things is that there is no manual save during a run. there's no checkpoint during a run either. when i got the disconnection notices, there was only one thing i could try and that was stopping the run and getting back to the main menu in time for it to autosave, or to try a manual save. the problem is, we only get a 20 second warning before being disconnected and it takes longer than that to quit to the main menu and save. so when the message comes up, that is it.

For some games i've played, a break up or decrease in visuals isn't too bad. to some degree, i'm able to carry on playing. I know that my character is in the center of the screen, but when things got bad i couldn't see the gaps between enemies. it was also tough to work out how close to me the enemies actually were. So when things got rough, i should've stopped rather than continue. 

Mobile Friday - Vampire Survivors - Fun Gameplay Hobbled By Everything Else

*I APOLOGIZE THAT THE QUALITY OF THIS VIDEO IS POOR. I DIDN'T NOTICE MY CAPTURE CARD WAS HAVING A DIFFICULT TIME WITH THIS GAME*

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Vampire Survivors on my iPhone 14 Pro. This game from  Poncle Games is also out on #Android and consoles

Vampire Survivors was released last year to much fanfare and praise but i held of from playing it because it looked like a console game ported to iPhone rather than being designed for it. A long time has passed and this hasn't changed so i decided to just try it.

Unfortunately for the game, it still looks and plays like a console game ported to phones. it got off to a bad start when it glitched the first time i loaded it up vertically as the final few pixels at the top failed to load and left me with a black banner. most of the game feels too small, and due to the games artstyle, not very distinct. the enemies are perhaps the only highlight because they're bigger than my player character or visually distinct from each other. tho there were some that i couldn't make out what they were.

One option would be to zoom in. but the area i saw on my phone already felt smaller than normal, more so when the game put up borders, for no apparent reason, that gave it a 4:3 feel rather than making full use of my screen. it's a baffling choice that irked me throughout my hour with the game.

This game is also not very accessible. it tells you nothing about how to play it or how to make progress in it. The garliclike genre is fairly new and the team are making some big assumptions about mobile players and the time they're willing to put into something in comparison to console gamers. it's so bad that i wouldn't recommend this game to any casual gamer unless they're playing one of the many knock off games.

the real frustratingly thing is that the gameplay is great. i've got enough experience to know what the gameplay loop is, that and i heard about this game across many podcasts. it's a bit uneven at this early point in the game and i wonder if it'll ever balance itself once you buy upgrades, but once you get going with more upgrades and abilities it gets really fun.

It's just nearly everything else around it holds it back from being truly great. it's not a complete package. But it's fun enough that i won't be deleting it either.

(Version 1.7.103 Played)