Mobile Friday - Puzzle Quest 3 - What A Mess! The First 45 Minutes

Mobile Friday is back and the first game i tried outside of Apple Arcade was Puzzle Quest 3. i was a huge fan of the original two games, but i can't say i enjoyed this sequel.

From the beginning you can see how long it took to actually start the game. the point of this series is to see what happens when you launch it for the first time. and for me, it crashed. ultimately i ended up closing it and launching it again. but then it went vertical as well as taking a long time to get to the main screen. 

Another reason for this series is to see if there's a long tutorial or additional downloads needed. The tutorial is seriously lacking. throughout the whole experience i ended up asking again and again what things are, why are things where they are. So much is left unexplained and what is explained is done by text boxes, some of which seem to have been in the wrong place. As for the additional download, well there seem to be two options. let the game download what it needs when it needs it, or download nearly 2 GB all at once. As i'm on Wifi, i downloaded all it needed. but neither seem like a great solution for someone starting the game for the first time on a mobile network.

There were other menu options but, like many parts of the game, there were poorly explained or used different terminology to the menu items themselves. This game seems to want "hardcore" gamers who are familiar with games and know how options work. it's not welcoming to casual players. It's worth saying that this game made my phone hot. i've played many mobile games and often my phone gets warm. nearly in all videos i take time to mention how hot my phone is. but i can say that this game made my phone the hottest out of any of them. and know where does it say that by changing the options it'll make my phone hot.

Graphically, it looks great. it has a pleasant colorful style, too. The story is a mess, the biggest example is you start as one character and do some story before having to go to the character select and seemingly continue the story using this new character with no mention of the change. It also felt like the character you picked was getting the same text as any other character would get. this is strange in my case as i picked the lizard man, and yet people used words i'd associate with humans. there are a couple of moments of picking your own response, but this early on in the game it felt like it it didn't matter what you picked as the game was going to keep on going.

So ultimately, this is a game you should start at home first. get everything downloaded. so the next time you play it, you'll be all set and won't have to worry about using up data caps.

Backlog Conquering - Outland - Part 1 - The First 45 Minutes

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is the first video with a new PS3 game. for the video i played through the first 45 minutes, or so, of Outland. It's a game from Ubisoft and Housemarque. 

I've had this game for a long time. i speculated early in the video that i probably got it as a PlayStation Plus game. i didn't really think about it until i used it in my PS3 XMB Game Preview Series, https://youtu.be/WIh3ZkDSCLY. Going in, i didn't really know anything about it other than it's a Housemarque game.

This was an interesting first 45 minutes. the first thing i noticed was how gorgeous it looked. My capture device said it was 720p, but it looked so crisp, vibrant, and detailed that it could easily have been 1080p. technologically speaking, it's also run really smooth and i haven't noticed any issues with it, unlike Papo & Yo which i just finished as that game had all sorts of issues like screen tearing and framerate dips.

But it's story hasn't grabbed me. so much else of this game has, but the story we've had so far is very brief. there's not really been a great answer to "Why?" and the world we're playing in sure looks great, but again there's no reason why it looks the way it does. there'll be a part two and i look forward to seeing where it goes.

Backlog Conquering - Papo & Yo - Part 5 - The Final Part

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is part 5, and the final part, of playing Papo & Yo on PlayStation 3.

in part 4, https://youtu.be/2AmtDoudYak, i got stuck on a puzzle and said i would look up the answer. turns out i was doing it right but i was having terrible luck. so the video starts with me continuing with that puzzle. the only thing i did differently was where i put the frogs and starting with the house closest to where i had to go, then doing the middle one, and skipping the third one by walking across a wall.

From then on, i didn't have any issues completing the remaining puzzles and the game itself. the game had some technical issues in places with screen tearing, stuttering, and what felt like the frame rate decreasing.

But overall, i enjoyed my time playing the game. it's not the best, nor is it the most technically proficient, but it does something very important. it doesn't let difficulty get in the way. all but one of the puzzles were easy to solve and all but that same one came with a very useful help "box". if the monster got you, it never killed you. and if you fell, it wasn't to your death. the game would  very quickly restart you close to where you fell. the game's goal was never difficulty, the puzzles were never meant to stump you, you weren't punished by death. the goal was simply telling the story. and that it did very well. 

in the video, i gave the game a 7.5 assuming that a 5 would be average. i'd recommend giving this a go if you have it.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Vishnu Cup - Achievement Run

Welcome to Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday! Sit back and either watch me play through, with no commentary, the cup or leave it running in the background as BGM!

I play and earn all the achievements from The Vishnu Cup! (2023/3/27 9:00～2023/4/3 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This week was much easier than the previous few. i did get a few wins and many top 3's, but there weren't too many others playing when i did. the gimmick  of making an "L" as well as the "+" that my set always runs was quite easy to make. using the power-ups actually made things more difficult as they changed far too many pieces into one color, this made it near impossible to make the power shapes to the point where i often didn't due to the time it would take.

This week i played against:

Winstein - Lvl 71

マイクらみつけた！ - Lvl 51

モブトラ[オルタ] - Lvl 63

Cloud Monday - Zack Zero - Over an Hour of Gameplay!

Today's Cloud Monday is part 1 of playing the PS3 game Zack Zero on the PlayStation Plus Streaming Service.

This wasn't the game i had planned to play. i had planned to play LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean. it was a game i couldn't get to work when the service was PlayStation Now. but this video, https://youtu.be/2jHnCIfBhDw, shows that i couldn't get it to work. Zack Zero was chosen because it was a game i could quickly get to to test to see if it worked or not.

And it did work! and i played it for over an hour, too! it was totally unexpected so i really went in knowing nothing about the game or what it was. a lot of the game pleasantly surprised me. it was a little rough in places and somewhat repetitive with, annoyingly, respawning enemies. but i kept on playing as i was, for the most part, enjoying playing it. 

Whilst the game had it's own issues, streaming it was mostly fine. i would guess that there was maybe a 5 minute window where there were some streaming issues. they were noticeable, but they never got in the way of playing the game itself. there were some stream tearing and some macro blocking, but i'd argue that the game's own issues were far more of a distraction than the comparatively brief period of streaming issues.

Switch Funday - Super Mario Kart - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This week i decided to try out the Super Nintendo App that's part of the Nintendo Switch Online. i had a Mega Drive growing up so i didn't get to play the SNES beyond Super Mario World that my cousins had. on the Game Boy Advance App, i have been playing Maro Kart Super Circuit for fun in my spare time so i was curious what the original game would be like.

i am familiar with the original game, in that i've seen videos of it and heard people talking about it. but i haven't sat down and played it myself before. so in a way i broadly knew what to expect. in some ways i was surprised, i played the game using Pixel Perfect mode and i was impressed as to how well the graphics hold up. certain characters look strange, Yoshi being the prime example, but the bold simple designs of the tracks and backgrounds were great.

it did take time to get used to how it played. modem Mario Kart games use a drift mechanic that also gives you boost as you charge it up. however in this game, and the GBA version, the drift isn't quite the same. the main use seems to be jumping, with a little drift and no boost. another difference is how the weapons work. you can't hold weapons behind you nor can you fire the green shell behind as it's just placed on the track. it also seems that each character has their own unique weapon(s) rather than how it is now where there are no unique weapons as each character can use all of them.

Online Saturday - Tetris 99 - Getting The Tetris Maximus Cup Kirby’s Dream Buffet Theme

Welcome to Online Saturday!

Today i'm playing Tetris 99 on Nintendo Switch. This weekend it's a special event where you can earn a Fire Emblem: Engage theme buy earning 100 points.

it's a short video this week as it didn't take too long to get 100 points needed for the theme. most games i played, i was in the top 50. i didn't make it to top 10 tho. i found the competition this weekend really tough. i also had a few moments where the controller seemed to not do what i wanted it to do.

It's a nice theme. Let me know how the cup went for you. did you get a win?