Demo Play Thursday - Knight Vs. Giant: The Broken Excalibur On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Knight Vs. Giant: The Broken Excalibur. This game, from developers Gambir Studio is already out not only on Switch but also on PS5, Xbox, and PC.

The demo for Knight Vs. Giant: The Broken Excalibur is good and bad which makes talking about it difficult. the game i played was good. it looked great, controlled well, and wasn't too difficult. the tutorial used cards but levelled them up with videos and sometimes it would introduce a second card and video showing another use for the move! I've not seen it before and in that respect it's impressive but those videos looked low resolution and a bit dark. the small details were hard to see.

The demo is from the start of the game so we also get to watch an interesting intro movie that not only explains everything but also hints as towards something being up with one of the main characters. But the intro video is compressed and looked maybe 480p. it was noticeable how bad it was when the gameplay started as the game looks great and crisp, with lots of color and high amount of detail in the art.

So the demo is good at establishing the world, the characters, and what the controls do. But what it fails to do is to convey clearly what the loop is. Knight Vs. Giant: The Broken Excalibur is a run based game, something that to me makes me think or Rouge Legacy. In those games the character typically starts of weak so the initial runs are very short, but usually we're able to make small progress and learn enough to understand the loop. Here, the game seemed to have got close to revealing the loop, but stumbled. 

I got a demo over screen when the demo wasn't over. if i stopped when the screen came up, i would've understood less than i do now as i continued playing the game. By continuing i found new characters, did more in the home area, and tried out new powers. But i still don't clearly know what the loop is as i never completed one. i died at the beginning, which i'm mostly sure i'm supposed to do, and right at the end of the game. all the time in-between felt like one loop. i don't know if it is or if it isn't. i don't know if i'm meant to go out and explore repeatedly, or just do it once and move one. 

It's hard to say whether it's just the demo that failed to get across this critical aspect of the game or if it's just the game itself. on one hand, i'm much more interested in the game than i was and wouldn't mind playing it. but on the other hand, i don't fully know what the game wants me to do. So yeah, the demo is both a success and a failure.

Backlog Conquering - CounterSpy On PS3 - Part 2 – 3 More Missions

CounterSpy is the current Backlog Conquering Wednesday game. i'm playing this version of the game on PlayStation 3. It came out across the PS4, PSV and even mobile in 2014 from developers Dynamighty.

This part felt more difficult than the first part. CounterSpy is randomly generated and today's video felt like it was suffering with the increase of difficulty. the game is adding more enemies as well as different types of enemies so by the time i got to the end of the level it felt like i had no choice but to shoot them. With ammo being so expensive, up to this point, it felt like the goal was stealth takedowns, but now the game seems to want me to do more shooting. So when it comes to money, a lot is being spent on ammo and not leaving much to unlock new guns or equip new potions.

There will be a third part to this game. whilst the gameplay is getting difficult, the story is getting interesting. 

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Mille 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 Mille Cup Revival! ( 2023/11/27 9:00～2023/12/4 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This week is the Mille Cup Revival. i have played this cup before, https://youtu.be/jUXjI8TCz3Q. That video is shorter than this one and is the first time where i did worse in a Revival Cup than the Original Cup!

This wasn't a good week for me. the gimmick this week wasn't too difficult either. i just couldn't seem to keep the big scores coming right until the boss. so whilst i got to the boss a couple of times, i was never able to defeat it whereas it felt like the other human characters were able to beat the boss. I also had bad luck when it came to the bonus points so i wasn't able to climb the scores that way.

This week i played against:

みーど - Rank 55

ゆきぎけ - Rank 66

⊂＝＝＝( • ω • ) ⊃ - Rank 53

Marty - Rank 67

アオトロ－ル - Rank 67

Cloud Monday - Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot - Part 2 - Side Quests Are Weird In A Known Story

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. I streamed this game, developed by, CyberConnect2, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service on my launch model Japanese PS4.

I was concerned last time that getting the game to work might be a one off, but i was wrong. once again, the game started for the first time when i wanted to play it. it's a welcomed surprise and i may check out some of the other games that refused to work.

A lot of what i said in part 1, https://youtu.be/_IdUPMR6gTE, are true in this part. but the thing that stuck out the most was actually doing side quests. If, like me, you're familiar with the story of Dragon Ball Z then the idea of doing side quests is strange as it's hard to imagine how they'd fit them into the game. the stuff in part 1 worked well as a tutorial and was before Dragon Ball Z started. In this part, the side quest on the island also work because the story hadn't kicked off.

But having to save Gohan or do a side quest just felt wrong. at this point in the game i was Goku and my son had been stolen by Raditz, so naturally my response is to go and save Gohan. it's what happens in Dragon Ball Z and it's the natural thing to do. but to have the map open up a bit and for there to be side quests just didn't feel right. i tried to do one but abandoned it to continue the story.

This game is a little difficult to review. on one hand it's got pretty good game design to be streamed from the cloud to my PS4. there are some story moments hard to skip, but for the most part it works as a cloud streaming game and in that respect it's better than quite a lot in this series. But on the other hand, it's a weird game in that i don't know who's it's audience. People who like and know Dragon Ball Z already know this story. if this game was just this story then i'd understand why they'd want to play it. but the addition of social connections, RPG elements, and side quests feel more like bloat than a useful addition. so perhaps this is aimed at those who want a different type of RPG or who recognise Goku but don't know the story.

Online Weekend - Sunday - Gundam Evolution - It's Final Weekend!

This weekend is the final weekend for Gundam Evolution. I'm playing this game on PS4. Gundam Evolution ends at the end of November so be sure to join in and play before then!

Here are 6 casual games i played on Sunday.

Online Weekend - Saturday - Gundam Evolution - It's Final Weekend!

This weekend is the final weekend for Gundam Evolution. I'm playing this game on PS4.  Gundam Evolution ends at the end of November so be sure to join in and play before then!

Here are 3 casual an 1 ranked games i played on Saturday.

Mobile Friday - Vampire Survivors - Fun Gameplay Hobbled By Everything Else

*I APOLOGIZE THAT THE QUALITY OF THIS VIDEO IS POOR. I DIDN'T NOTICE MY CAPTURE CARD WAS HAVING A DIFFICULT TIME WITH THIS GAME*

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Vampire Survivors on my iPhone 14 Pro. This game from  Poncle Games is also out on #Android and consoles

Vampire Survivors was released last year to much fanfare and praise but i held of from playing it because it looked like a console game ported to iPhone rather than being designed for it. A long time has passed and this hasn't changed so i decided to just try it.

Unfortunately for the game, it still looks and plays like a console game ported to phones. it got off to a bad start when it glitched the first time i loaded it up vertically as the final few pixels at the top failed to load and left me with a black banner. most of the game feels too small, and due to the games artstyle, not very distinct. the enemies are perhaps the only highlight because they're bigger than my player character or visually distinct from each other. tho there were some that i couldn't make out what they were.

One option would be to zoom in. but the area i saw on my phone already felt smaller than normal, more so when the game put up borders, for no apparent reason, that gave it a 4:3 feel rather than making full use of my screen. it's a baffling choice that irked me throughout my hour with the game.

This game is also not very accessible. it tells you nothing about how to play it or how to make progress in it. The garliclike genre is fairly new and the team are making some big assumptions about mobile players and the time they're willing to put into something in comparison to console gamers. it's so bad that i wouldn't recommend this game to any casual gamer unless they're playing one of the many knock off games.

the real frustratingly thing is that the gameplay is great. i've got enough experience to know what the gameplay loop is, that and i heard about this game across many podcasts. it's a bit uneven at this early point in the game and i wonder if it'll ever balance itself once you buy upgrades, but once you get going with more upgrades and abilities it gets really fun.

It's just nearly everything else around it holds it back from being truly great. it's not a complete package. But it's fun enough that i won't be deleting it either.

(Version 1.7.103 Played)