Demo Play Thursday - Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road from Level-5.

Living in Japan, i have head of Inazuma Eleven and it used to be very popular, but there hasn't been a new anime or game for many years. i checked out the Wikipedia page and yeh, i was surprised that this game was originally set to come out in 2018! back then it was titled "Inazuma Eleven Ares" and was meant to tie into the Inazuma Eleven Ares anime series in 2018.

I doubt that the tech in Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road has much in common with Inazuma Eleven Ares. since it's first reveal it's had 3 more names and gained the PS5 as a release console. Honestly, for a PS4 game it did look really nice. many of the anime releases on PS4 have looked great. the animated cutscenes also looked high quality, but with their black borders i don't know if they're 1080p, scaled down to 1080p, or upscaled to it.

Whilst graphically Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road looks like a modern game, playing the game wasn't as impressive. i was bored playing it. Whilst i know of the Inazuma series, i've never watched nor played any of the games. what i played of Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road went against what i knew, in that Inazuma is a football/soccer series and yet our character hates it and moved to this school specifically to avoid it. after 50 minutes of the story mode, i felt like i knew more of other characters than my own.

The demo does have a second game mode, after story, called Competition Mode. But this felt unwelcoming to me, a new player, much like the story mode did. i had the choice of playing it online or against bots. i chose to play against bots but for some reason the game gave the bots more levels than me. so not only did i not know how to play it, i was up against much higher opposition. 

And wow, it doesn't play like any football/soccer game i've ever played. in some respects, it's more like a strategy game. but it should've had some sort of practice mode. it tried to teach me what was happening, there were videos showing it in action, but it tried to do it in a game with a much higher opposition. so i would try to do what it said, but the opposition was so much higher levelled than me it didn't matter what i did. 

So i didn't enjoy my time with Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road that much. sure it looks good and it was interesting trying out a game in a series i've heard so much about. it's just that it never felt like this game was for me. i didn't have the context for the story and i didn't know how to play it's style of football/soccer. thankfully, as it's a demo it does mean i can use this as practice for when the real game comes out. but as i didn't enjoy my time with the demo, i'm not really keen on getting the game. instead i'd rather try one of the other Inazuma games

Backlog Conquering - Tearaway: Unfolded - From Start To Finish On #PS4

I have stitched together all 10 parts of my gameplay of Tearaway: Unfolded into one video, from start to finish of the game. I tried to cut out all instances of when i accidentally used the Pause/Option button, but on my limited computer and how many hours it already took to make this video i wasn't able to cut out the many many times when i was sent back to a checkpoint or had to re-enter a fight.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/E3WqJ6MF2Rg

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/SHFIJexGFVA

Part 3 - https://youtu.be/hoKQ2FrQlKo

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/DwYNJNFAjjk

Part 5 - https://youtu.be/_GQCkMCw7Ug

Part 6 - https://youtu.be/afEhpxT5Eag

Part 7 - https://youtu.be/-XtICrIrFek

Part 8 - https://youtu.be/4-tckdJKFBw

Part 9 - https://youtu.be/VW-DvzbhCww

Part 10 - The Final Part - https://youtu.be/rbz0i8rsJy0

Stories on Tuesday - Star Trek: Resurgence - Part 4 - Act 2 Part 9 to Act 3 Part 3

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS4 version of Star Trek: Resurgence, from Dramatic Labs.

Part 3, https://youtu.be/MlnRuF47B9E, ended when i died trying to do a stealth section. so today's part continued from there. the story started to pick up pace and it started to become clear what was happening, not only to the #Hotari and #Alydian but also on our ship. questions still remain, with perhaps the biggest being what is the end goal of the Scions of the Flame.

Cloud Monday - Daxter - Part 2 - Trophies And Rewind Make This Great Game Easier To Recommend

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PSP version of Daxter on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

It quickly became clear in Part 1, https://youtu.be/8O1Ue63OQ7Q, that the PlayStation Portable game #Daxter holds up today just like it did back in 2006. After that part and this, i can comfortably say that this is one of the best PS1/PS2/PSP games emulated on PS4 and PS5. Daxter was already well designed for a portable system, and things like great checkpoints, immediate respawns, and manual saves carry over into streaming this game from PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service.

It's not perfect, there are some issues due to it's age and original platform it was developed for. there were times when i felt i was moving the camera and doing button presses faster than the emulated game could keep up with. this meant i was walking of ledges and not hitting enemies as i thought. this wasn't a huge issue, but something i noticed. something else is that it felt hard to walk in a straight line with Daxter. whilst out and about it wasn't a big issue but many levels have narrow ledges and platforms and more than once i ended up walking off and falling. thankfully, the emulated software has a rewind feature so i was able to quickly get back and try again.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - July’s Eggstra Work – 116 Top Score!

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This weekend is July's Eggstra Work Event in Splatoon 3 on Switch. I haven't had much luck with the previous events so i came into this just wanting to get a decent score, one i felt satisfied with, a 1,000 points for the Gatchapon, and if possible finishing Wave 5.

There are a lot of factors that go into whether an Eggstra Work event is going to go well. i feel like this weekends went mostly ok and a big reason for that were the weapons. all 4, tho i only use 2 of them across the 8 matches i played, are weapons i like but also they help create a balanced team. as for the waves, Wave 2 was the biggest pain as it's a glowfly wave. but the others were much more manageable, with Wave 5 being obviously the most difficult. My team mates and I got to Wave 5 twice and came close to beating it each time.

So overall, i'm satisfied with my top score of 116. whilst i never finished Wave 5, i feel like i came close so i don't think i would've been able to get a much higher score.

Online Saturday - Pokémon Unite - Checking Out The 3rd Anniversary

It's Pokémon Unite's 3rd Anniversary and they are running some events. For today's Online Saturday video i checked out all the different events happening, including the return of Pokémon Parade, by playing Pokémon Unite on my Nintendo Switch.

Mobile Friday - Royal Card Clash - A Fun Gameplay Mechanic, But It Needs Layout Changes And Less Ads

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Royal Card Clash from Gearhead Games. I was looking for card games with some interesting ideas, and not just for example Solitaire reskinned, and when i saw the video on the app store page i knew i wanted to give Royal Card Clash a try.

Version 1.0.4 Played.