Gitaroo Man - Part 2 - Can't Recommend Playing It In The Cloud - Cloud Monday

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

In Part 1 of playing Gitaroo Man it became clear that this was going to be tough to play in the Cloud and in Part 2 i was unable to make more progress. i did get better with more practice, but it still wasn't enough to complete the level and move on to the next one. with no training and no option to practice, all i could do in this part was try and try again to beat it. there were a couple of times where i got close, but the game's mechanics meant i would have to play long stretches without making a single mistake, even if the enemy seemingly had no health. it's a combination, with the lag in the controls seen in Part 1, that just make it too difficult to play in the Cloud. 

There is a chance with practice that you could get better, but then there are other problems with playing this game in the cloud. for example, we saw across two parts of Gitaroo Man and Runner 2 that there are occasional stutters on top of controller lag. but this often presented itself in the audio or video not being clear so i would miss the button prompt completely. 

Unfortunately, there's another issue which is related to the game's aspect ratio. it's a 4:3 designed game that, when it comes to the button prompts, doesn't take full use of it. with Runner 2, as it's a 16:9 Widescreen game, you can see the enemies, gold, and platforming sections coming so even if there is a stutter of visual issue like macro blocking, there's time to react. but with Gitaroo Man, the action happens in a small area in the middle so there's much less time to react to the prompts without the issues mentioned above.

As much fun as the art and music was, i wouldn't recommend playing this game in the cloud. i can only recommend downloading Gitaroo Man. 

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

Gitaroo Man - Part 1 - Missing The Beat - Cloud Monday

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

Gitaroo Man is a different style of rhythm game to Bit.Trip Presents... Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien, that i previously checked out for Cloud Monday. Runner 2 lets you finish the level as long as you cross the finish line. but with Gitaroo Man, it's more of a "traditional" rhythm game where you finish when you beat set conditions. In this game that means beating an enemy.

I found Gitaroo Man to be a lot harder than expected. one of the disadvantages of the game is that there is nothing else to do but replay levels you have completed. but because it's soo tough to get the timing right, i could only replay the tutorial and first boss.

the timing of button presses in Gitaroo Man is very tight. i'd go so far as to say that it's tighter than in  #Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line, a game i've lived streamed on this site. there is no easy mode to increase it, there's no calibration mode in the options to help with the timing. Gitaroo Man feels old in how bare bones it is.

If it was easier and that i could make progress and see more of the characters and story, it wouldn't be much of an issue. but streaming it from the cloud, in this part at least but we'll see in Part 2 for sure, seems to be introducing additional delay/lag in the controls which means i can't rely on when the the prompts are on target. i have to judge it slightly earlier. Gitaroo Man is one of the very few games where i've not only noticed the lag in the controls from playing the game in the cloud but couldn't compensate for it. if the game had a practice mode where i could do levels over and over i feel like i could get close.

But there's another downside that did hit Runner 2 and that's the odd stuttering. every now and then, the game would stutter and i'd completely loose any rhythm i had. you can see at the end that i had a great internet connection, but of course i'm unable to check for bandwidth.