This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Hotshot Racing
on PS4 via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
I haven't checked out many racing games as part of this Cloud Monday series so when i was looking for one to try Hotshot Racing caught my eye as i felt that it could not only be fun to play but it's arcade racing style and fast gameplay could be an interesting challenge for a game being streamed from the cloud.
Now, the first thing that will become apparent is that my PS4 controller started playing up as i started playing this game. it appears i now have stick drift in my right analogue stick and in Hotshot Racing that stick controls the camera. so i'm unable to use the boost much in this video but after the initial confusion things do seem to become manageable.
This issue i had did highlight a big issue or reveal that Hotshot Racing does not have control customisation. this will mean that the game isn't the most accessible. combined with the fact there was no tutorial, no introduction race, and only the controller layout as a screen, really highlights that perhaps the developers stuck a bit too close to the retro style for the good and bad of the user experience.
Here, there was a thunderstorm outside but for the most part my internet connection remained stable. whilst playing Hotshot Racing, the main issue i noticed with the video stream was some macro blocking. this is when instead of fine detail, colours become larger squares. but in Hotshot Racing, this never became a problem because of the retro graphical style. there's not much fine detail anywhere in the game so when there was macro blocking it really wasn't that noticeable. it wouldn't surprise me if it happened at other moments during gameplay and i just didn't notice it.
I didn't notice any issues streaming the game during this play time. the controls were responsive, there were no drops in bitrate, no lowering of the resolution, no artifacts, and after the beginning of the stream no warnings about the stream.
But playing Hotshot Racing wasn't the true retro arcade experience that i thought it would be. it looks like games from the late Mega Drive to PlayStation 1 era, but the music didn't quite feel right for this type of game. at times, it felt like the music might've been more appropriate for a WipeOut style game. but the thing that i noticed immediately were the other racers. older racing games of this style usually start of with easy opponents and as you progress through the cups the ai of the other racers gets progressively more and more difficult. i did all my racing today on normal difficulty and i thought the other racers were out to wreck me instead of racing against me.
This works against Hotshot Racing and combined with the lack of an intro race or controller customisation really does make Hotshot Racing feel like it's not that accessible for friendly for those who are curious. You'll hear me say that i tried out racing styles and cars similar to Ridge Racer because i have that experience. for those who don't have that experience, i honestly think it could take several attempts to finish the first race, let alone try to win it.
For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Remi Zeros: Card Defense on my iPhone 14 Pro.
There were a few things on Remi Zeros: Card Defense's store page that caught my attention. the art style certainly stands out but the screenshots and video also seemed to show how simple the game was to play.
I wasn't expecting the story sequence at the start and because i enjoyed it i was a little disappointed that i never saw anymore story stuff during this video. it's possible that as we progress to other stages there maybe story between them, but i can't say for sure.
The graphical style extends from the story intro into the main menu and into the gameplay. i really thought it was cool how the summon sequence works, taking our character lurking in the background and brining them to the front and they themselves do the summoning. so it was a shame that by the end of the video, with my home screen filling up with icons, that the devs seemed not to be taking full advantage of the phone screen and instead clogging up the middle and detracting from what had once been a cool sequence.
Thankfully the gameplay remained solid throughout. Remi Zeros: Card Defense starts with a good tutorial that makes it clear what to do but also reveals from the start what the basic gameplay loop is. what i will say is that there were a couple of times when the tutorial was trying to be useful but was also dumb because i didn't have the materials to do what it was trying to show me or it wanted to show off a powerful attack but i had already cleared the screen of enemies.
I do have a possible concern and that's making progress in the game could take a long time. it's not clear how much content is in the game but on the home screen it only mentions two stages. i'm wondering if the slow progress is going to be because of how little content there is and that whilst the start may move at a decent pace, it'll require more and more playing to earn more and more souls to level up just once or twice. the game does offer some incentives to watch adverts to gain boosts or daily logins to get rewards, but i'm unsure if it's enough.
But for now, as the game is, i would recommend Remi Zeros: Card Defense. it's great for new players, has a bit of strategy and luck to it which means it differs run to run. everytime you play you earn something that'll help you progress and for now that progress is fine.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Bubble Ghost Remake.
Whilst i have played on an Atari ST, i haven't played the original version of Bubble Ghost so i wasn't really sure how it played going in. the eShop page tells the features of the game, but i didn't read that it was about managing a bubble so i was surprised by that gameplay feature. i wasn't expecting the character to be the thing that rotates either, in my mind i was expecting something akin to LocoRoco when you rotate the stage. so the start of the game is a little rough whilst i adjust to how it plays.
Bubble Ghost Remake looks great on Switch. the character art is also great to. playing this on a TV was a great experience. even tho it looked so good, i didn't notice any slowdown either. the game also uses a mix of a comic/book style at the start to tell it's story and that looks just as good.
But there are aspects of the demo that feel a little dated or not as modern as they could. the first one i came across was the inability to change the difficulty in a level. i can understand why part way through a level it would be difficult to do so, but they could've reloaded the stage at a different difficulty. Bubble Ghost Remake is a difficult game but it's hard to gauge how difficult it is as it's a remake of such an old game. having a demo helps and it really is something i'd recommend people try before playing it. But once you've started, if you think it's too hard your only options are to loose all progress and start over from the beginning at a different difficulty level, quit completely, or just try over and over making slow progress. The other weird thing was having the leaderboards for the speed running aspect of the game not in the speed running section of the game.
I did complete the demo and i can say that at no point does the demo say if the save data carries over into the retail version of the game. there isn't a trailer, artwork, or screenshots once you finish the demo either. but i do recommend people play the demo as there is a lot to play and it'll help you understand how difficult it is, what the gameplay style is, and just how great it looks. personally, after playing the demo i'd set it to the easiest difficulty level as for me i'm interested in seeing the art and the story rather than the gameplay mechanic.
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. The newest game in the Backlog Conquering series is the PlayStation Portable version of Final Fantasy. this is the downloaded version of the game, but it is also available on UMD. To help with this playthrough i'm proudly using a guide from GameFAQS. here's the link, https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/psp/937909-final-fantasy/faqs/55625. i'm not following it exactly, but it's useful to have.
There were to big things that happened in this part. the first was getting the Airship. whilst it looked cool on screen, i can't help but think that this scene could've had an fmv sequence. the music whilst in the airship is nice. once we had it, the guide pointed us in the direction of the Citadel of Trials. but i don't know why and i feel that it's either the guide of the game, or both, at fault for the lack of why we're going where we're going. for example, it's the game fault if there's no one telling us to go there or the games not pointing us there. it's the guide's fault if the guide is not getting us to talk to the people who would be telling us where to go. so whilst i'm following the guide, i'm not sure about the why we're going where it's telling us.
The Quality of the Live Stream at the start is poor but it does improve by the end.
I start of trying to get the Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition theme, and once that's done my chat and i fight against each other to win. I didn't get my win against the 99, but i did get many top 30 finishes and even into the top 10!
