Mobile Friday - Miracle Merchant - As Good as it is, I’m Left Wanting More

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Miracle Merchant by TiNYTOUCHTALES. It's not a new game and it's out across the iOS app store and android.

I've seen the app icon on the store for a while but only recently downloaded it. but i didn't really know much about it other than it was a card game.  i think i saw it mentioned it was a solitaire style game, but i don't think that's quite accurate enough to describe it. It's more a card matching game. you need to match cards to what the customer needs, but also to what the cards themselves need.

It can sound a little complicated and after some of the games i've played recently i too was concerned that i was about to be dropped into the deep end. thankfully the game starts with a simple but effect tutorial that, to me, felt like it covered most of what you need to know. there were a couple of UI stuff i'm sure i worked out for myself. but i'd say the biggest thing Miracle Merchant doesn't do is keep a record of what card matches do.

there are 4 colors of cards and 1 extra trap color. each of these has a picture on them. it wasn't that clear whether the items made by combining four of them were a result of the cards used, the pictures on the cards used, or the amount of money you got from combining 4 cards. i would've liked a book next to me that would tell me what combinations i've found from the cards available.

There's a sense of wanting from this game throughout. it starts us off with a great introduction sequence as we move through a town. and that's the only time we get to see it. i was playing it for free so for me all there is are a few games of completing customer orders. it was shown that if i bought it, i'd get daily challenges unlocked. but it also looked like that was it for those who bought it, one extra mode. the game has great art style, all sorts of interesting characters on screen and a cool world too. but all i get to to in this game is match what the customer wants to the cards i have. i wanted more from this game because the world looked soo interesting.

Miracle Marchant is worth playing for free. there were no additional downloads, no intrusive adverts, and my phone didn't really get hot. but for many, i imagine that this game is a one and done. that's not to say it's bad, i don't think it is. but once you've won, there was nothing left that i wanted to go back and play. i imagine that'll be the case for a few who try it.

Backlog Conquering - Foul Play - Part 3 - Finishing the Second Play

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

This is part 3 of playing Foul Play on PlayStation 4.

In this part i finish the second play and start the third. Whilst i continue to enjoy being in this world and the main characters, the story is starting to be affected by the amount of fighting that seems to now be taking place. it's like the fights have broken the pace of the game. I am playing this on normal so there's a chance that playing this on easy would reduce the amount of fights and bring back pace to the story.

Whilst it is annoying, it's not enough to stop me from playing so there will be a part 4. There's not too much commentary from me in this part as i was really tired and might've even dozed off for a second or two! so it's not my best playing. 

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - June Bride Cup 2 - 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 June Bride Cup 2! (2023/6/19 9:00～2023/6/26 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

It was fun this week. i had another player to go up against in every match. tho, the matchmaking was a little strange at times. more than once i was put  into a game right at the end of the countdown or someone was put into mine. as for playing, well i got a couple of wins early on but then it seemed to get tougher. it certainly got more competitive but i also think i got a little unlucky with combos. this is another week where i got to the boss many times but i was never able to defeat it.

This week i played against:

キクナス - Rank 65

mikey - Rank 79

Oyajimar - Rank 49

オットセイ - Rank 73

ビカチュウくらぶ - Rank 65

Moondoggie - Rank 65

しゅうさ - Rank 61

アレルギーのおとこ３ - Rank 77

Cloud Monday - Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness - Story, Tutorials, And Perfect Cloud Streaming

Today's Cloud Monday is part 1 of playing Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming Service.

the only Disgaea game i've played is Disgaea 3 and that was on PlayStation Vita a long time ago. But i still remember roughly what it was about and the style of gameplay. for me, going into Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness i had an idea what it could be whilst also having no clue. thankfully, the game has an amazing tutorial that slowly and assuredly reintroduced me into the world of Disgaea.

I'm not positive where on the Disgaea timeline this game sits, but it felt like it took place after Disgaea 3. the characters and story seemed to match what i remembered of that game. here, the story did feel a little much. Like, they needed to quickly tell the story of what came as well as begin the story of this game. so really, in the 50 minutes i played, i didn't learn much about the story of this game. thankfully, there's a part 2 next week where i'm sure the game will move on from the world's past and focus more on it's own story.

And streaming it from PlayStation Plus Premium went perfectly. it's a very rare thing, more so when you compare the quality of this stream with previous videos. things had been rough recently but then there's this game and it's perfect. All i can think of is that maybe because it's a PS3 game, it requires less bandwidth than some of the PS4 games i've been playing. the speed check seemed normal and comparable to the previous videos so i don't think that has anything to do with it.

Switch Funday - Harvest Moon - My First Time - It Didn't Go Well

Welcome to Switch Funday!

Many games that i've played for the first time in this series have mostly gone fine. I've not been that good at them, but they've always gone better than what happened with Harvest Moon. in nearly all the videos i've said something along the lines that the manual would have helped. But i think that wouldn't have helped here. as you'll see, i get stuck in the main town area for over 17 minutes as i couldn't find the one person to talk to.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing i didn't understand. it's possible that had i watched the full How to Play video i would've understood what to do. But i hadn't so i made many more mistakes. for example, i didn't plough enough soil so sowing grass seeds didn't go right. the same for turnip seeds. this meant that i was stuck for money. out of the three turnips i actually managed to grow, i broke 2, so i was only left with 1 to sell. thankfully, that meant i had just enough money to buy some more turnip seeds. by this point i had ploughed more soil so when i sowed them, i finally realised what i was meant to do.

Ultimately, this game doesn't tell you anything as a tutorial. the town's people offer advice and heavily suggest what to do. But as it's my first time playing the game, there was no context for it. by playing it, and mostly stumbling along inefficiently, i've now learned how to start the game and how it should be played. Harvest Moon on the SNES is like the Dark Souls of this farm simulation game style, as the world offer hints as to what to do, but only by failing do you truly work it out for yourself.

Unlike Dark Souls, i didn't come away from the game thinking too favorably of the past hour i spent with it. to be honest, it almost feels like a waste of my time. there are other little things about the game i wasn't enjoying, like what was the point of the dog. i can't pet it, it does nothing inside the house, and seems to do nothing outside. i put the mole/rodent thing next to it and nothing happened. what am i supposed to do about that, too!?

At the end of the video i kinda think out loud that i may give it another go now i understand what should happen. i feel like i could condense the hour plus i spent with it to less than 30 minutes and then maybe the game will open up a bit more. i may do that but i can't guarantee when.

Online Saturday - Trackmania - Not Recommended For First Time Players

For today's Online Saturday video, i played the new-ish Trackmania on my launch model PS4.

Lets start with the title, i do not recommend this game for people who haven't played any of the previous Trackmania games. In the video i go so far as to say that i consider this game to be somewhat rude and maybe even insulting to first time players. If it was a new studios first try, i'd maybe be a little les harsh, but when it's Ubisoft and new game in a long running series it's hard to think of any excuse as to why a game from both working together could be soo inaccessible for new players, and in some respects downright lie to them. 

This version of Trackmania is a free to play game. i knew that going in. so everything i saw i expected to be all that was available to me. for example, i didn't see any track building stuff so i wasn't expecting it. but the truth is that it wasn't all for me. but the game doesn't tell you this right until your ready to click go. i do not appreciate this, the game is simply lying to me, teasing me.

This lack of information runs throughout the game. for most of this video, i had no idea what i was doing or why. i simply had to learn as i went cause the game spent no time trying to educate me. there wasn't even a tutorial! the game does have training but, as i show in the video, all it says is drive. it doesn't tell you the best times, there is no ghost data as an example, nor does it even explain why you're doing this challenge in the first place. what added to the frustration was that you can't restart either. you had to complete training for a chance to do it it again better. And you'd want to do it again as there are medals to win, tho at not point does the game ever say why you want them.

Game modes are equally uninformative, they're just names. you won't know what any of them do until you click on them. so i learnt that Royal mode was the game's Fall Guys equivalent. the big differences being you're in teams and you have no idea what challenges await ahead of you as your dumped onto a track and have to go. Even when you're playing this mode the game lies to you. when your teammate completes a section you can press O to with them to the next. Pressing ∆ restarts you to your last checkpoint. that is until it doesn't and it jumps you ahead without warning.

Another example of the game doing it's own thing was in Arcade Mode. i assumed this was simple arcade racing. But no, i was put into a team and our team was up against 3 other racers in their own team. That's easy to adjust to, but when the level started it was a warm-up. it gave no extra information so i had to assume it was to allow us drivers to give the lap a go before we raced. However, the warmup just stopped before i got to the end and i have no idea why. Why would the game let us practice if it wasn't going to let us practice?

The racing itself isn't that great either. the cars are skittish which means they're not satisfying to drive. there's not a huge sense of speed either. the connection of the car to the track is fairly non-existent, and graphically the whole thing felt too simple, under populated, and rather bland.

So even as a racing game, it's really hard to recommend. there are other issues shown in this video, like my initial inability to find the garage or workout to choose a skin for my car there. So what does this game have going for it. well, it's Trackmania. the wacky track designs that you can race on is Trackmania. whilst they're there, and other prominent games don't have them, it's the sole reason i can think of for anyone to play this game. but other than that one reason, i just can't recommend this game. i deleted it after recording this video.

Mobile Friday - Super Cat Tales: PAWS - Finishing The First World

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Super Cat Tales: PAWS from NEUTRONIZED. I played this game on an iPhone 14 Pro so i also had a look at whether or not the Dynamic Island was an issue.

This is the third game in the series and i hadn't played any of them before today. i don't think it's important to have played any of the other games. its possible that those games may have added some back story for the characters and the world, but for the first world that i played through it didn't seem to be an issue.

the game doesn't feel like the first in the series. it's very polished and refined, and when you combine it with the graphic style and the bright bold colors, it makes an impressive first impression. So much so, that through the hour of playing i could only come up with some small critiques where and there. that was until i came across a bug. for some reason an advert played after a level had started and once i was able to close it and get back to the game, it was clear that the game had taken my last command of pressing right and was stuck on it. i could press left and the character would briefly go left but as soon as i let go the character went back to going right even though i wasn't touching the screen. what was more unfortunate was that this part of the level required me to run on a treadmill like device and it just wouldn't activate. i had to kill the character and restart that level.

The adverts were really the only issue i had with the game. they're soo bad it almost felt rude and even though the game is as great as it is, the adverts can't be ignored as they are part of the experience. Super Cat Tales: PAWS is a free to play game and i have no issue with there being adverts. but the way they're handled feels so rough and sloppy compared to the refined game. the first advert came out of nowhere and didn't ask for permission to play or at least give me a heads up. the game is played horizontally and yet most adverts were vertical, so they were tiny on the screen. and even the horizontal adverts didn't fill the screen so there were big black bars either side. it's a shame they couldn't so something like play an advert in-game, like in the sign they use to advertise paying for the game to remove ads.

The controls are simple, there are two buttons; left and right. each time they add a technique to what those two buttons can do, they do it brilliantly with a simple graphic showing how it's done. that's something i can really appreciate and it really makes the game accessible. something else that makes the game accessible is that your character can, mostly, take a hit. the cats run into enemies to defeat them, unless they have a pointy end, but if you make a mistake and walk into them it's OK as the enemy will have taken a hit and you won't have died.

Even tho i only played through the first world, the variety of levels was quite impressive. it didn't feel samey nor did they feel too difficult. with a control scheme as simple as this game has, the levels feel like they take full advantage of it with their layout but with the art direction and colors, the levels also were clear to navigate and i always knew where to go. there is one exception and that's the home base. i feel that maybe a little tutorial is needed to act as an introduction to show what's where. it felt more luck than design that i managed to complete that section.

Super Cat Tales: PAWS is a game i do recommend people play. it's great there's no additional download when you start the game, but people need to be aware that the game will throw video ads at you. there weren't as many as last weeks Neodori Forever, https://youtu.be/peXQekqMcTM, but there was one that did kinda break the game. it only happened once so for now i'll assume it's a bug. Super Cat Tales: PAWS gameplay and design and art and music and characters, i feel, are well worth it. But that does mean this maybe a wifi only game for some people.