Demo Play Thursday - Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid, from Toybox and Millennium Kitchen.

This has just come out and had received a little bit of fanfare so i was curious as to what all the fuss was about. these vacation style games are somewhat common in Japan and something i've known about for a long time, but i've never played one. So again, i was keen to give it ago.

The game makes it clear that it's a demo on it's main screen but just as impressively it has a link to pre-order the game from the eShop, something that many games don't include. What isn't made clear is if there have been any changes to the game for the demo or how long, or what we're going to do in the demo.

We start with a nice video sequence that helps set the scene. but i wasn't blown away by the visuals. this is true for the rest of the demo. i liked what they've done for the characters but in a way it's too good in comparison to the rest of the game. the characters have style and a unique look about them but the rest of the world feels plain and not as impressive. it feels like the Switch couldn't pull off what they were trying to do with the art.

I was also disappointed with how long the demo is. being so short means there's not a lot for us to do. so much of the demo is scripted, we're only able to briefly explore the town before it's night time. we're encouraged to interact with town people, bug hunt, and investigate a mysterious apparition, but they never felt that connected to the story. so in the short time we had to play, it felt like busy work rather than something that helped flesh out the world and the story.

So i came away from the demo for Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid not really wanting to get the game. i don't think this demo has done much to put it in a positive light. and there's some weird conversation stuff, too, that really took me out of the experience. there were two occasions near the end where i said something to another character, but couldn't end the conversation. i had to do all 3 interactions with them. that's not something that happens in story games, you say something and the story moves on. And one of those people was some random guy i'd never seen before who seems to be a private detective, but why were they in the guest house and why were they talking to a young kid.

After my brief time with Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid, i honestly can't recommend it right now. wait for reviews and see is all this confusion is a bug or a result of how short the demo is.

Backlog Conquering - Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut - Part 1 - The First 3 Missions

Welcome to Backlog Conquering. This is a series were i play a game from my backlog that i may or may not have played before. the goal isn't necessarily to finish the game, the goal is to play it. that way, i can have an opinion about it.

Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut is a game from Born Ready Games that i've had on PS4 since it game out on the PSN. i have played maybe the tutorial level before, as i had the trophy for transforming, but it was so long ago i didn't remember anything. it felt like playing the game for the first time.

What i've done is chose the easy difficulty level as the game suggested this is best for those interested in it's story, and i typically am in any game. It starts, as does this video, with an interesting story segment telling the story of earth and it's colonists. it reveals the tensions between them, the end of an uneasy peace, and the war we're currently playing in that both want to win but both can't afford to wage.

The tutorial was effective and there are prompts afterwards that help remind what buttons to press. Graphically, it looks nice and the space backdrop has some cool moments, but there's a lack of detail throughout. it doesn't get in the way nor detract from the game. the music is a little more epic and worldly than i was expecting but overall i've enjoyed what i've heard so far.

As for the missions, they're telling the story effectively but there's not been too much variety in what we do. But playing it overall hasn't been bad and i would say i've enjoyed myself and i'm looking forward to where the story goes in part 2. we have an Ai that's calling the shots but are they on our side, on our enemies side, or do they have their own agenda!?

Stories on Tuesday - Star Trek: Resurgence - Part 5 - Act 3 Part 3 to Part 8

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

Part 4, https://youtu.be/yZBHupuQcfU, ended on a rescue mission so the first thing to do in Part 5 is save as many as we can. but it gets tricky and it becomes clear that the Bioforming is far more widespread than i imagined. unfortunately, our captain appears to be loosing control and that's putting us in a difficult position.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - Getting July's Salmon Run Item

This month's Splatoon3 Salmon Run item is the Octavio Dome. The goal for this video was to get 1,00 points. that way i get the item twice and have a go at defeating a King Salmonoid. 

This Salmon run was quite good. in all but one job, my team mates and I managed to get to the third wave. unfortunately, we only managed to beat the the third wave once!

Online Saturday - Pokémon GO - Mega Lucario Raid Day In Shin Yokohama

This Saturday, July 17th 2024, was the Mega Lucario Raid day in Pokémon GO. I went to Shin Yokohama!

It didn't quite go to plan. there was a Twice concert at Nissan Stadium so Shin Yokohama was packed full of people. so i wasn't able to record as much as i wanted because recording people isn't the thing to do in Japan. It was also meant to rain so i didn't bring my other camera and had to use my phone.

It's also the first time i've tried something like this, even tho i've been playing Pokémon GO since it came out here! so i may do something like this in future, kinda two birds with one stone. i get to do the day and i get a video out of it! Any suggestions are welcome!

Mobile Friday - Bacon's Revenge - A Simple And Fun "Mergelike" With A Good Tutorial

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Bacon's Revenge, from CloudOcean Star, on my iPhone 14 Pro.

The screenshots on the app store looked nice but it was the description that really piqued my interest. It said Bacon's Revenge was a roguelike but one that also had merge gameplay mechanics. i was really curious how this would work together and after this hour, i think it worked really well.

Bacon's Revenge is a simple game, but it does get the basics right. there's a decent tutorial, too. But it could be a little better, there were some things on the home screen not tutorialised and maybe it could be a bit more aware of what the player is doing, or not doing, and offer some advice. But it is more than enough to get the basics across, and the first chapter we play through is simple enough so that the game isn't overwhelming.

The Roguelike elements of the game are generous so that helps lower the difficulty of the game. each time we fail, we still get gold, items to use when upgrading, and experience. It took me a couple of tries to get past the first chapter, but i learned something each time i failed and when i did succeed in finishing the 10 waves of chapter 1 there was a good sense of accomplishment. 

The Merge aspect of the game does give Bacon's Revenge a sense of luck and randomness. i thought that it wasn't too inconvenient because the Roguelike elements were so generous, so progress however slight was always being made. we can choose which weapons we want to take into a chapter, but we don't start with all of them. we get a choice of 3 at the start and then each time we finish a wave. we have to choose weapons and place them in our bag. each weapon has a space requirement. if we get two of the same weapon, at the same level, we can merge them together and the weapon's now more powerful. but space is limited, so there's a tactical element to not only the weapons we bring into a stage but which ones we have equipped. we can add more bag space and we can also merge items outside of the bag. but if we get nothing we can use, we're able to use the silver coin we've collected from the waves to refresh the selection.

If i had to pick some faults with the game, it'd be that it's too obvious when the music loops. the music itself is fine, but the end and start are different when they loop. i mentioned the tutorial could be better, but the text could also be improved as on occasion it's too small or outside the boundaries of the art it's on top off. but these are fairly small faults in comparison to what the game gets right.

I would prefer there be a speed up option that wasn't locked behind Chapter 5 or a paywall. but other than that, i'm happy with my time with Bacon's Revenge. i do recommend it, Bacon's Revenge is easy but there's a lot to unlock and progress. it's also possible to play the game one handed so it's also recommended for commuters. 

Version 1.1.1 Played.

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