Online Saturday - Disney Speedstorm - Poor Tutorial And U.I Detract From Good Racing And Graphics

Welcome to Online Saturday.

For today's video i'm trying out the free to play Nintendo Switch game Disney Speedstorm. this game is out on other platforms and had been out for a little while before as something akin to a paid beta. but now it's free to play and i went in expecting a polished game with a robust selection of characters and tracks. unfortunately, wasn't the case.

The game starts with what looks like a good tutorial and across many sections it says what menus and stuff are. but it's because it looks so useful that when it turns out to not be comprehensive it comes across as a half finished tutorial. there are some basic stuff not covered by the tutorial, like the rails and jumps, some basic moves, like charged attacks, and things are made worse by some poor U.I choices.

one of the very first things the game asks you to do is choose your racing style. but it doesn't define what either is. you can change it in the menus later, but even then it doesn't give much more detail. this lack of detail is apparent throughout the U.I and a real missed opportunity to make the came more accessible and easy to understand. throughout the video i complain about many different aspects of the game that are poorly explained, if they are at all.

These choices give the game a feel of a mobile phone game. but in trying to be minimal and be useable across many devices, it has instead come across as a mobile game that's surprisingly not as accessible or as straightforward as you'd expect for a Disney title. it's almost like it has an identity crisis. a key example of that is how the game promotes energy drinks and uses them to level up characters. it's well documented how multiple energy drinks can be bad for health, so it having such a prominent use in this game is almost baffling and it doesn't really make much sense in the game's universe anyway.

Whilst the game has many issues, one of them isn't the racing itself. whilst there are things you'll have to work out yourself because the game won't tell, the core racing itself is good. but, in the beginning, it doesn't feel fast. instead of breaking the game into speed categories, your speed is determined by your character's stats. so the higher the level your character is the faster they'll go. i don't mind it, but i'm a little unsure as to whether or not the online multiplayer is going to be successfully balanced. the game does use drifting and it doesn't take long to get used to. each character has their own selection of weapons as well as a character specific move. for the offline races, it felt exciting, close, and it often came down to the wire. 

But, even tho it's an option on the main menu, you can't start with Online. you have to do a minimum of 9 offline races before you can unlock the Online mode. and even then it's only a ranked online mode. it felt very strange to me that the first online mode unlocked is ranked instead of unranked. the two online races i took part in felt unbalanced, with a couple racing ahead and none of use seemingly able to do anything, or the game giving us anything, to catch up to them. it didn't feel as fun or as balanced as the offline racing did and it's why i'm concerned that the online modes are going to be unbalanced. but having this be the first online mode people play feels like a quick way to turn people off online as it could just be not fun.

This might be a fun game to play offline, and if that's all you want to do then i would recommend the game. but if you're looking to play it online, then i wouldn't recommend the game and suggest you wait until the game is patched. not only because of how unbalanced the online felt, but also because it seemed like the online mode was struggling with there being disconnections and poor connections. i have no idea what region it's placed me in, so i can't comment if that's the reason. with the game in the state it's in, it feels like a shame that such fun core racing mechanics have been placed into a poorly designed mobile phone game. coupled with the weight of the Disney brand behind it, it's a case of what could've been.

Mobile Friday - Need for Speed No Limits - An Old Accessible Racing Game That’s Still Worth Playing

For Mobile Friday this week i tried out Need for Speed No Limits on iPhone14 Pro. this game was originally released back in 2015 on iOS and Android.

This is maybe the oldest game i've played for Mobile Friday. Honestly, it doesn't really show in a negative way. some of the more modern games i've played have issues with unexpected adverts or poor tutorials. This game has none of that. it's very accessible, and it does things more like a guide rather than a tutorial. every thing i unlocked would have a guide first to explain what it is. But the game often had another screen before the races explaining what is about to happen. as for the adverts, it was clear when i had the option to watch one to get an ingame reward.

If there is something that perhaps shows the game's age it possible some of the graphics. the cars are fine, the buildings are ok too. but the sky looked like it was painted and not very dynamic. it wasn't distracting, but it did look the worse in comparison to the rest of the game. but other than that, the game doesn't really feel old.

A bonus for playing a game this old is that there is a lot of content. the game has some simple ways to get players to come back, none of it in this video was a pain. it's possible that making progress will slow down the further you play and coming back repeatedly could get a bit frustrating as you'd have to do so often for only a little progress.

i do recommend this game. it's not only a good racing game but it's also a good mobile phone game. the races i took part in were all under a minute long and controlling the game was simple. touch and hold left or right to turn left or right. swipe up to activate the turbo. swipe town and turn to drift. this meant that i could play the game with just a finger on each hand. there didn't seem to be any additional downloads when starting the game for the first time either. the game is also still being supported, so if you used to play the game i'd recommend coming back and checking out all the additional content.

(Version 7.1.01 Played)

Demo Play Thursday - KAMiBAKO on PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of KAMiBAKO.  This DEMO, from developers Gravity Game Aris, is also out on PC via Steam.

The listing for this game on the PSN store is light on detail so it would only be once i started playing that i would learn about the game. or so i thought. in this hour i played, i didn't learn as much of the world and my character as i expected i would. but at least i did learn how to play the game.

That's where this game gets interesting as it has a few unique elements. the first one you'll encounter is how the world map is a flat 2d thing that your 3d character stand on. until you move onto a square, that the 2d map is broken up into, as then that square becomes 3d and stays 3d. it's fun what it happens but it also means it's easy to see where you've been or not.

The other interesting thing about this game is that you don't battle. instead, you manage the mana of your team mates. each turn of battle you can give mana to a team mate. once they have enough, they can unleash a powerful attack. but whilst they're waiting for the mana or instruction to use their powerful attack, they are still attacking the enemy. personally, i've not seen a game do this before but i have seen card games do something similar in that by using up a gathered energy you can put cards down. as it's different it did take a little bit of time to get used to, but now i've played it i'm interested to see how that mechanic works in practice.

The game wants you to use the mana and special attacks so makes it easy to gather it. you earn a small amount each turn in battle but you can also farm it from each square on the world map. it's here that we get the final interesting aspect of this game's mechanics and story. the world is suffering from fragmentation, this leaves areas of the map unpassable until you've fixed it. when you try to fix it, the world shifts to a room and the square becomes a puzzle on your desk. you need to match a certain amount of colors within either a time limit or move limit. once you're successful, the square on the world map returns to normal and you can travel on it.

This demo for KAMiBAKO does have some issues. they range from technical ones where the frame pacing feels all over the place to issues with the English script not reading right or even not appearing at all. there was one time where another language was on screen. But despite the many issues with the demo, i do feel it's a good demo as i'm interested in the game because of it's uniqueness. but the game itself does have issues, too. the demo shows there's a lot of copy and paste, whether it's map tiles, city buildings, or even character models and character art. the story isn't told that well, there's still a lot unknown and due to the English script not being great it even contradicts it self a little. so whilst the demo was interesting, the game could potentially still have these issues and that's why i'd wait and see if the reviews highlight them. it's possible that as this is a demo, the game will have been improved. but i have a feeling that the game will be largely similar to the demo.

Backlog Conquering - Gunstar Heroes - Part 6 - Completing The Empire's Space Craft

Part 6 of playing Gunstar Heroes on PS3 was interesting as it introduced a new gameplay mechanic. the first part of this video takes place in space. i'm in my space ship and the game is a side scrolling shoot-'em-up. for the most part it's not too bad nor too difficult. but it has one very weird control method. my ship always faces forward, so to change the direction of the guns i have to move the ship in the direction i want the guns to shoot and then fire the guns. i didn't really master it, instead i changed tactics to avoid incoming fire more than destroy them. 

the second part of the video takes place on the ship. it looks like it has crash landed so the action is similar to the previous parts. it's a short sequence before i had to fight 3 new bosses! each one, technologically speaking, looked great and interesting, but they all had their own frustrations. especially the first boss who had an annoying attack where it swept across the bottom of the screen, getting faster and faster, whilst machines attacked from above.

Defeating the 3 bosses is the end of the Space Craft section. so, to end this video i had a quick go at what looks like the final level of the game. it's a boss rush mode with some tricky platforming between each boss. it looks tough!

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

This week is the Athena Helios Cup Revival. i have played this cup before, https://youtu.be/Axk_VmmcLE0. back in the day, this was one of my shorter videos.

This week was as competitive as recent weeks, as you can see below there weren't too many other players online when i was playing. the rules this week were simple, make a + shape. But it also felt like the enemies health was also upped so i didn't seem to make too much progress. a couple of games didn't go well for me, but for most of it i was still competitive and finishing in the top 3. It didn't look like many other players managed to beat the boss this week, i didn't, but i did get to the boss a few times.

This week i played against:

マロン - Rank 69

ころん - Rank 72

ほれぁ - Rank 76

キグナス - Rank 67

Cloud Monday - West of Dead - Part 2 - A Great Game To Stream From PlayStation Plus

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing West of Dead from Upstream Arcade. I'm playing this game on the PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming Service.

Part 1 did go too well. you check out that video at https://youtu.be/KltyL6NREyA, but long story short, the game was fine, it was the cloud streaming service that caused me a lot of issues. i'd recommend giving that video a look as it'll contrast greatly against this video as part 2 was almost the polar opposite of part 1.

As streaming it was soo much better, i was able to sit back and enjoy the game more. i already recognised that the game design worked well on the service, so it was nice to simply play and trust that even if i got kicked off the service, the loss wouldn't be that great.

I made more progress and went deeper into purgatory. it was fun trying out different weapons, i particularly enjoyed a flare fun, and when i got the rune to travel from save point to save point i felt like it really opened up the possibilities and gave more reasons to explore.

There are a lot of positives with this game. the obvious one is just how great it looks. even when the stream drops to 720p or less, the game still has it's unique look. It controls well and is very responsive. the only issue i have is perhaps more a skill level complaint in that i just find it difficult to aim and hit enemies. i feel that i would've liked more of a lock on or perhaps a slight rumble with the controller. across both videos, my aim isn't great. the stories a little light, but i can give the game some benefit of doubt as it could also be that due to not being great at it i've maybe not gone far enough, or because the rooms are randomised each run i've just not found the place where i learn more about the game's story.

It's not the perfect game to be played from PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Streaming Service, but it's certainly up there as one of the best. it suffers when the resolution drops and things become unreadable. but other than that, it works well. save points are frequent, but as it's a run based game, the only progress you'd loose at worst is just 1 run. as a rouge lite, i'd recommend it over Rogue Legacy 2 simply because of the more frequent saves.

Switch Funday - Tetris 99 - 35th Maximus Cup - Xenoblade Chronicles 3

For Switch Funday i went back to Tetris 99 to take part in the 35th Maximus Cup. This cup has a Xenoblade Chronicles 3 theme for those who get the 100 points needed to complete it. it took me 5 games to get the theme, with the 6th game being a bonus game where i tried to commentate and also play.

It's great to see how popular Tetris 99 continues to be. it took very little time to find a game. it's also fun to see how competitive the game continues to be. i didn't get to the top 10, but i got top 25 a few times. some games felt like they took a long time whilst others went by very fast.