Online Saturday - My Hero Ultimate Rumble - Bad Online Ruined The Fun I Was Having

Welcome to Online Saturday.

For today's video i tried out the newly released My Hero Ultimate Rumble on PS4 from BandaiNamco and Byking.

Other than what was written on the PSN Store page, i knew nothing about this game. but as battle royale style games are something i don't really play, i saw this as a good choice for giving the genre a go. i'm a little familiar with My Hero Academia/僕のヒーローアカデミア so i wasn't going to be too lost with who's who.

What's great is that the game starts off with two tutorial sections. they each take their time to explain, have an image of what buttons on the controller are used, and a little image showing what'll happen. it's very approachable. then the second section is a little battle against the computer where you get to try out all the moves you learned. the CPU opponents weren't dangerous no smart, so again it's accessible for people to try out stuff without the fear of other people. But, the first online issue occurred after completing the battle. it kicked me out of the game to the start menu and when i logged back in i had to do all the tutorials again, so i cut that from the video.

Once the tutorials are completed, we're introduced to the main home screen. each section has it's own small tutorial information box which is very welcomed. it also feels welcoming as it lets you chose whether you want to go straight into a game or explore the options. i wanted to check out the other sections and other than a sparsely populated store, it was all fairly standard with no surprises nor was i left with any questions. 

Getting into a game is not as straight forward as i expected. When you start looking for a game, it first tries to find two other players. when it does, it waits for all three to ready up. But, the game is often unresponsive for long periods of time. in this video, two of us were ready and the third wasn't. But there's no way to kick them from the team or to give up matchmaking. i was stuck waiting for the other player. it truly felt like i would have no other choice but to quit the game and this is a very big oversight from the developers. Once all three players are ready, the game then tries to find a lobby for our team to join. once it finds one, it places in it with all the other players, but only briefly as then it loads up the map. from this screen you can choose where you want to spawn in. once everyone has, it then reveals where all the other players are! i've not played battle royales before i so don't know if this is something unique to My Hero Ultimate Rumble, but it was fun when it was revealed.

Once i was playing, it was quite fun. we're all new to this game so it was also chaotic. thankfully, it's easy to communicate with your teammates by putting markers down and we used it quite well. the stages seemed big with different terrains and heights. as everyone was moving so fast, it took a little time to adjust and learn a new play style. but after a few minutes i felt like i was having fun and that each of the other characters were quite different from my own. And then, more connection issues as our game was ended early and i was logged out and kicked to the start screen. then i had to wait before the game was ready for me to get to the main screen.

That was the only online gaming experience i had. the game would fail to join a game and then would disconnect a third time, logging me out. by this time, i had been playing for nearly an hour and a half and i was getting frustrated so i called it a day. but i will return to the game.

It did soo much right. the tutorial is great. the home screen isn't cluttered and is fairly logical in it's layout and what each section does. the graphics on my launch model PlayStation 4 were great. loading times were about what i expected and so were the fans. i felt like it was similar to the Gundam Evolution games in that the character models look fantastic and accurate, in this case to the anime, whereas the world is a bit generic but still looking like as you'd expect. the controls felt tight and it felt and looked like each character was different. But the online experience wasn't great. you can play this game offline versus the computer, but i just can't recommend this game with the online as bad as it is. it's either due to demand being so high or the online just being a buggy mess. maybe wait a month or news via social media before giving this game a go.

Mobile Friday - Dice Kingdom - An Accessible Tower Defense Game Playable With One Hand

For Mobile Friday this week i tried out Dice Kingdom – Tower Defense on iPhone 14 Pro. this game is from 111% and is also out on #Android.

I wanted to play this game because i was curious how the dice element would work in a tower defense game. i had played Crystal Defenders not too long ago, https://youtu.be/CPxDtTKcWJY, and even though it's an older game in a different style the basic elements between the two of them seemed very similar.

So the dice are your units. they have different types. at first these are elemental, but as i progressed in this video i unlocked rarer types like sniper. so far, that's fairly typical for a tower defense game. the cool way that the dice are used is that the number on them reveals what level they are. it's a very easy way of visually seeing the levels of your units. Other than that, the dice theme seems more of an aesthetic choice rather than something that affects gameplay. 

the biggest surprise for me is how accessible the game is to play. it has useful tutorials, you're able to click on the dice and get a video showing how they attack, and it guides you very well through the opening stages of the game. it doesn't feel patronising either. a very cool way the game is accessible is managing your dice units. the game shows this in a tutorial, too. you can press a button and the game selects the best team and puts them on the map. a second button clears the map of your units. the final button auto merges your units. for example, two level 1 fire dice can be merged into one level 2 dice. When you can't merge the units any more, you hit the first button and your best team is placed onto the map. 

Whilst i was playing the game i realized that i was only using one hand. the game smartly uses the space available on the screen. there's nothing up top that the dynamic island could get in the way off, and it's the same at the bottom. everything i needed to click was down in the lower half of the screen and before long i was playing the game singlehanded. this coupled with how sort each of the monster raids are make this a great game for commuting. 

I recommend players get Dice Kingdom. it's very accessible, easy to play one handed, and not a bad introduction to the tower defence genre. the game has other game modes to help pass the time and by the end of this video i hadn't unlocked them all. there are a lot of dice units to unlock and find so it's a game you can come back to again and again.

(Version 1.1.0 Played)

Demo Play Thursday - Born of Bread on Nintendo Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Born of Bread. This game, from developers WildArts, is set to come out this summer.

Other than the pictures on the eShop, i didn't know anything about this game before playing it. i was uncertain if this was going to be a kids game or something for everyone to play. I can say that this is something everyone can play, other than the art style there's not much here that's aimed at kids.

This demo appears to be taken from the start of the game. it's not made clear if it is the entire first part of the game or whether it was edited a little to be a demo. there's no mention as to whether or not your save file will be carried over into the main game when you buy it. As you'll see from this video, there doesn't appear to be any reason to do the start again as there isn't any backtracking. the story that's being told just keeps on going forward. But as it is the start of the game, we get to play the tutorial and learn about the world, characters, and some of the backstory. 

On #NintendoSwitch, the game looks great. it has an interesting artstyle in that the characters are 2D and the rest of the world is 3D. it works well as the characters look very sharp and clear. they have a lot of emotions on their faces. the only issue i saw with this approach was that the characters, sometimes, seemed to not have many frames of animation. another one, when interacting with the 3D world, was a lack of shadows under them. there was a platforming section where it was difficult to judge distance and a section near the end of the video on stairs where it looked like the characters were floating. Born of Bread is on other platforms so it could have shadows on them.

The lack of shadows could be a Switch specific issue as could the couple of instances of slowdown and stuttering. But this is also a DEMO and the game could be much more optimised when it comes out. as a demo it really works as i am interested in playing the full game when it comes out. it's also great in how it introduces characters, the world, and the tutorial. if you're intrigued, i do recommend trying out the demo.

Backlog Conquering - Gunstar Heroes - Part 5 - Finally Saving Yellow

Part 5 of playing Gunstar Heroes on PS3 went as well as i thought it would. In part 4, https://youtu.be/OxdokqLjspU, i had already spent around 30 minutes trying to save Yellow, but couldn't. So this videos continues on from that.

From part 4 i have have two save files, one near the boss with low health and one a little bit into the stage with most of my health. i play both of them before settling into trying to complete the stage with more health to make the boss fight easier. The problem with the boss fight is that whilst i had learned the moves he uses, he was unpredictable and there wasn't a pattern to learn. it felt like a combination of luck and unfairness. But at the end, i did defeat him and save Yellow.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Gaslowe Cup Revival - 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 Gaslowe Cup Revival! (2023/9/25 9:00～2023/10/2 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This week is the Gaslowe Cup Revival. i have played this cup before, https://youtu.be/iP5XB_uUTpQ. back in the day, this was one of my better games. 

This week was very competitive. i was up against someone in every match! the gimmick this week wasn't too tough, but it took a few matches for me to get warmed up. in the final battle, i managed to defeat the boss!  But that only happened once as not only was the boss very tough, but so was the character before. thankfully, i could see that most of the other players using a controller were also having a little trouble. this meant i had to rely, as did the others, on the bonuses at the end of the game.

This week i played against:

はるひさ - Rank 68

さい  - Rank 91

ふたば - Rank 72

ゲームコーナーKX - Rank 68

しぐね - Rank 60

びしょうねん - Rank 68

うつほ - Rank 46

Cloud Monday - West of Dead - Part 1 - Streaming From PlayStation Plus Fails Repeatedly

This week's Cloud Monday video is West of Dead from Upstream Arcade. I'm playing this on PS4 and streaming it from the PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Service. Well, i tried to.

This video is of two halves. the first half is my continued attempts to play the game, as it kept kicking me off, and then my attempts to play anything until eventually, in the second half of the video, i was able to play West of Dead.

The reality is, i'm often having to go through situations like this. West of Dead isn't the first game i've played to kick me off and stop the streaming from the cloud. All the hassle trying to get it to work is also nothing new. it's getting rarer and rarer when i can turn on my PS4 and just stream from the cloud. what i haven't shown, but may do next time, is that i nearly always have to restore my licenses. then i usually restart the PS4 as i end up with the same issues in this video. i did it today before recording but actually had restarted twice, hoping it would help.

PlayStation Plus issues aside, the goal of this series is to see how the game is for streaming and i can say that West for Dead, how little i've played so far, has some positives qualities and a couple of negatives. The negatives aren't that bad, they mostly revolve around the user interface. if at 1080p, for example, it's already a little small, it becomes almost unreadable when the service drops it's quality. But trial and error can help. As for the positives, the biggest one is that the game saves often as there are save spaces in many locations in the map. the game is also randomising the levels each time you die as you're meant to die in the game. so if you are disconnected, some progress is lost but not a lot.

I look forward to trying out the game again in part 2 and hope to have a better experience from PlayStation Plus Premium. I am thinking about making a video showing the hassle i sometimes have to go through just to play a game on the service.

Switch Funday - Blaster Master - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This week is another popular NES game that i haven't played before. for years i've been hearing people talking about how great Blaster Master so i was eager to try it for myself.

Going in, i was somewhat familiar with the basics. i knew the story revolves around a pet frog, but i was surprised how well it conveys that story with just pictures and no words. I knew there was a vehicle section as well as on foot sections, but i was also surprised how seamlessly the two gameplay styles were used in an area. it was cool when the level moved to focus on just the character. it was zoomed in and a new perspective. the high level of detail was surprising and everything controlled brilliantly. 

But i didn't really make much progress in this video. i don't know if i'm still in the starting area, but i suspect i am. i came across a green statue that couldn't be killed. there was a giant raspberry looking boss that i couldn't kill either. at least with the boss it was clear i was doing damage, just never enough to defeat it. for being at the start of the game, this boss was much tougher than i expected. it has rocks orbiting around it and they're very dangerous. 

So i come away with mixed feelings. there's no denying that this game looks great, handles great, and has great music. but actually making progress in it seems much more difficult than i expected. the levels are big, but there seems to be no sign posting as to where to go or what's needed to progress past sections. I want to play it again, but rather because i want to solve the puzzle that the first area has turned into, rather than how good the game is itself. it's certainly well worth playing if you have NES as part of the Nintendo Switch Online service.