Demo Play Thursday - Reynatis On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch game Reynatis, from the developers Natsume Atari and FuRyu.

Going in, i didn't know what to expect from Reynatis. But i know of Natsume Atari and FuRyu so i was expecting an RPG. the icon art for this game is really cool and even on Switch i was expecting something vibrant. i can say that after playing this demo, Reynatis is this and much more.

The demo itself is well designed. it's from the start of the game but it's been changed slightly because it's a demo and it lets us know this. but other than not being able to go to some areas i never really felt like i was playing something lesser. at the end of the demo, it also details that our saves will be used in the final game and unlock bonuses for us and then makes us save before it goes to the main menu. A lot of care and attention went into this demo and it showed. this is one of the better demos i've played this year.

It also highlights the start of the game and how good it is. in the hour i played, the demo introduced a lot of the gameplay mechanics, the story concepts, the main characters, possible twists in the story, and also left a few things unanswered, some hooks that'll keep us playing.

The tutorial at the start is good as well. it takes us through the basics of gameplay. what helps is how responsive the controls are in the game. i might argue that the controls are a little too responsive as a couple of times during battles i felt the camera couldn't quite keep up. the combat is in the style of Devil May Cry in how you attack and the rating you get afterwards. there are clear bonuses for getting high ratings, tho it's not always obvious what you need to do to achieve a 3 star rating. 

The only other knock against Reynatis from this first hour with it is that it felt like there were too many mechanics. aside from the mechanics for combat and the overworld using witch powers or not, which i consider to be essential to the game, there was a stress mechanic and social mechanic introduced that never really got to be used in this demo so felt unessential and superfluous. 

Overall, i had a great time with the demo for Reynatis and i feel that it does well at showing the game. Playing the demo got me interested in the story and having now played it i'm comfortable with how it plays and controls. i would recommend this demo to anyone looking for an action RPG or someone looking for some fun with combat, much like Devil May Cry. i may suggest waiting for some reviews just in-case the rest of the game falls apart of gets weighed down by the mechanics, but it's well worth wish listing.

Backlog Conquering - Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut - From Start To Finish On PS4

I have stitched together all 6 parts of Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/E3WqJ6MF2Rg

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/SHFIJexGFVA

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/hoKQ2FrQlKo

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

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/_GQCkMCw7Ug

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/afEhpxT5Eag

Stories on Tuesday - Loopers - Part 2

This Stories on Tuesday game is Loopers, also known as ルーパーズ in Japan. i'm playing the Switch version of it, but there are other versions. It was developed by Key and this version was published by Prototype. I'm playing the Japanese version of the game so the audio is in Japanese but there are English Subtitles.

I was impressed when starting this part with how quickly it loaded, it was almost instant. this was a depressing part for one of the characters, their world was collapsing around them and it just kept getting worse. this was the part where the game's twist first started and thankfully one of the characters began to realize what was happening. i stopped the video just before things looked like they were going to be explained so come back for Part 3 to learn about what's happening.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/ztRQ-C4xHyU

Switch Funday - F-Zero X - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This week's game is F-Zero X and this is my first time playing it. i've played some of most of the other F-Zero games across GBA, GameCube, Switch, and 3DS but never this one. I think i've played a little of the SNES game, but that's similar to the GBA release so i'm not worried about playing it. 

After playing Extreme G a few weeks ago, https://youtu.be/7Y9M26roAs0, i wondered how this game would deal with speed. in that game, it felt like at the highest speeds the only way to navigate tracks was to crash your way round. but i was pleasantly surprised that in F-Zero X i felt more in control.

the tracks were much wider than i expected and whilst that made it easier to race on them, it introduced other issues that i hadn't experienced when playing the more constrictive Extreme G. You'll see throughout this video on every track pop-in. that's when the track or elements of the track pop-in not too far in front of us. whilst it doesn't get in the way of racing as i'm able to see where to go, it's very distracting.

The music choice while fun, also felt a little off. between the music and character art style, it feels like Nintendo was aiming at a specific audience at maybe the detriment to the game. i'm not saying the music was bad, it just didn't gel with the gameplay. with no story, i just didn't get rock music vibes from the gameplay.

I think F-Zero X is fine. i don't think there's a lot of game here

Online Saturday - Squad Busters - Trying The Transformers Crossover Event

Squad Busters got some big changes and a crossover event in the latest app update so i wanted to try them out. i haven't played a game since the June video where i played it for the first time, https://youtu.be/91HK5li0Agg.

Like that video, i played 10 games but unlike that video i only managed to win 1 game. it was clear whilst playing it that the level of players has increased, which is good to know that there is a player base still playing it enough to have developed stronger squads and tactics. some aspects of the game also felt different. in the video i commented that i thought cutting trees was faster and whilst i played it i thought that the base movement speed was slower than i remembered. 

But i was here for the Transformers crossover event. i've been a fan of Transformers since i was a kid, i even have the movie across VHS, UMD, DVD, BluRay, and Digital. But i only knew of this event from the game's update page on the App Store. going in, i hadn't seen any trailers nor had i seen any social media updates. i make it clear from the start that i'm looking for the game to tell me about this cross over and to lead the way. unfortunately, it doesn't. i spend a while at the start of this video lost, unable to work out what i need to do or where it is.

I started the app, and there's nothing. after the first game i deal with the awards and chests i've unlocked and there's still nothing about this crossover. I checked the Squad News section and it was a copy paste of a press release. it just said what it brings to the game, not where it is or how it works. it wasn't until after the third game, which was Transformers themed, that i got information about it. Maybe it was explained in trailers and on social media, but like i said that's not how i found out about this. i left it up to the game and it failed.

Then came the fourth game and there was no Unicron and i didn't know if i was still doing Transformer stuff or not. thankfully it was quickly clear that i was as i earned some Energon at the start and i understood that i can collect Energon, to help with Transformer specific unlocks like Optimus Prime, in every level and Unicron is a level modifier that can be selected randomly like all the other level modifiers. 

I hope this video makes it clear how this crossover works. once things got going i was back to having a lot of fun. when i played the game in June i said it's a Game of the Year contender and coming back and playing it cemented that. Squad Busters is a lot of fun and Supercell  have done a fantastic job at making the gameplay accessible, balanced, and competitive. i rarely felt like i never had a chance and on a couple of occasions worked my way back up near to the top. Squad Busters is a must play and this Transformers event has been tied into the game very well and is well worth checking out. it appears that what ever characters you unlock from this event are kept once the event ends!

Version 7.301.3 played

Mobile Friday - Match and Rogue: Pixel RPG - The Roguelike Needs A Little Tweaking, But It's Good

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Match and Rogue: Pixel RPG, from Another Jay, on my iPhone 14 Pro.

It's a combination of a Match 4 game and a Roguelike and going in i was very curious how it would be balanced. the Match 4 gameplay style is similar to the famous mobile game 10000000, and it's later sequel You Must Build A Boat. so i was familiar with that gameplay style, but the game also does well with it's tutorial in not only explaining but also showing how it works.

With the tutorial being so strong for one aspect of the game, i was disappointed in how it stops with the other aspect of the game. Match and Rogue: Pixel RPG has been developed clearly with mobile in mind, it's playable with one hand and is welcoming to new players. so it's hard to understand why the developer decided to stop being so welcoming when it came to the Roguelike aspect of gameplay. There's no tutorial and the game doesn't even push the player to that aspect of the game. it's entirely possible to play Match and Rogue: Pixel RPG and never interact with it's Roguelike half when you first play it.

clearly, the game needs to either hold the players hand and take them directly to this section so they can spend the ability points gained from levelling up, or change the labels to make it clear that you can quit and upgrade. As for the Roguelike aspect of the game, i learned that you do not keep any in-game upgrades you obtain. Nor do you keep money. but you do gain XP and when you level up you gain Skill Points. these are permeant and you can spend these points on the home screen in the Skill Tree section. 

But i felt that this section also needs a little work. i didn't feel like i gained anything useful from the first 2 upgrades. i feel the start of this Skill Tree needs some tweaking, some rebalancing, to help make the first step a noticeable change for the player. gaining a secondary weapon did little to nothing in the first stage as my first weapon was able to kill most things in one hit anyway and was more powerful than the secondary skill i could equip. I think moving the third skill, a new Grid Power block, down to first and then having Grid Power Weapons spawn in the level, or after a boss, would be a better way of introducing the mechanic but also showing how it can make you stronger.

The music in Match and Rogue: Pixel RPG is fantastic and i'm glad there are separate tunes for bosses in the levels. a little more fanfare on levelling up would've been nice, and helped draw attention to unlocked skill points, but what's there is great and i would like the soundtrack.

Even as it currently is, Match and Rogue: Pixel RPG is a good and well worth downloading. It's one i'm going to play in my free time and i will keep a look out for updates to it as there's a solid base to work from. 

Version 0.3.3 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Epic Mickey: Rebrushed On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed from Purple Lamp.

Even tho i had a Wii, i never actually played it before. back then, whilst the idea was very popular there were many complaints about the execution and i wasn't into Disney enough to give it a go. But with this "Rebrushed" version, i was curious if they could not only make it look modern but also feel modern.

One thing i bring up a few times throughout this video is how slow it feels whilst Mickey looks to be going so fast. it must be that the levels are big and Mickey is small, but even when running there's no great sense of speed. i would go so far as to say that the running speed is closer to what i expected the walking speed to be. The only other minor complain i have about how it feels to play it is that sometimes it was difficult to judge jumps. once or twice it was because the camera got in the way, but other times it was a mix of the lack of speed and difficult to spot shadows making it hard to judge 3D space.

there is a lot of other things that this did well. graphically, i was impressed. it doesn't feel like the Wii version but HD, it looks like they went through the game and re-did a lot, if not all, of the assets. the controls are good, the music is good, and everything is nice and clear. If this was the version that came out originally, i probably would've tried it.

But i still came away with many questions about this game. i feel like the game doesn't talk about the consequences of our actions. as i say in the video, there's a disconnect with it being a Disney game and us having the ability to destroy the world. it feels wrong, it feels like there's a morality system at work that the game doesn't reveal. i felt like i was second guessing myself, wondering if i should be creating, that in doing so i would get a better ending. the same applies to the enemies. we can destroy them or make them our friends. then the demo introduced a guardian system that gives us one use guardians, but we need to create or destroy to get a guardian of that type. It honestly felt like the game was adding too many mechanics to the game when all i was interested in was the story.

So whilst it is an effective demo, after playing it i'm not interested in getting Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. i do recommend people try it. but for me, it just didn't do enough to answer all the questions i had about the game.