Mobile Friday - RPG Dragon Spira - An Interesting Freemium Pixel RPG That's Not Full Of Adverts

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried RPG Dragon Spira from developers KEMCO on my iPhone 14 Pro.

Many of the games i play for Mobile Friday are ever evolving and growing, which is why i always try and put the version of the game i played. but RPG Dragon Spira is a finished game. it's available as a premium version you can pay for and get no adverts whilst you play or you can download this freemium version and watch the occasional advert. 

After playing this for an hour, i had to sit through 8 adverts. it's more than i expected but certainly not as much as many other games i've played as part of Mobile Friday. all of these adverts were short, but they also had videos. personally, i'd recommend playing RPG Dragon Spira with wi-fi as the data these adverts use will build up over time.

Another odd thing about this first hour of RPG Dragon Spira is that i didn't get to the game's gimmick. KEMCO RPG's often have a unique gimmick and this one seemed like it was going to involve a roulette wheel. but the pace of RPG Dragon Spira meant i never got to use it. the game does have a lot of talking between characters which did slow down the pace. the adverts also slowed things down. but even tho it was slow, it didn't feel too slow as the story and character interactions were mostly fine.

What i found interesting about RPG Dragon Spira was how it did combat. it takes full advantage of the widescreen of my phone. i can see how the number of heroes and enemies could be quite high and there'd still be space on the screen. at the top it shows who's next to attack, the right are commands for our team, and on the left we can turn on auto attacks, speed up the fight, escape, and see the type chart. there is a lot on screen but it never felt crowded.

Launch Version Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Space Adventure Cobra - The Awakening On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Space Adventure Cobra - The Awakening from Microids.

This isn't an anime or game series i was aware of. so for me, the appeal was the nostalgic look and feel of the animation. i've learned since i played this demo that the game itself covers the first 12 episodes of the 1982 anime.

Unfortunately, as much as i enjoyed the look of the game, as a demo this isn't great. it takes place from the third mission in the game, which means it's after any proper tutorial. so the developers appear to shoehorn in tutorial and it doesn't work. after the animated intro to the mission, we're shown how to move and then how to jump. but the character quips about the collectable at the same point the game tells us how to jump. but the platform is unstable and means we have to skip the collectable as we have no idea how to get it.

the character next quips about exploring the cemetery, so i do that. but then we're up against bats and have to work out the shooting. thankfully the game does tell us how to use the psycho gun, tho it doesn't call it that.

the tutorial aspect isn't great, but the rest of the demo was quite enjoyable. the mix of animation and gameplay worked well for me. it's not quite seamless switching between the two styles, but it's fine. it was surprising to get a mix of combat styles, there's a shotgun style weapon as well as hand to hand combat. by the end of the demo, i was starting to get into a flow with the gameplay.

What the demo was successful in showing was the varied types of gameplay. there's "traditional" platforming, there's puzzle platforming, there's underwater sections, and there are sections where we're avoiding in-coming enemy fire. it's a demo where playing it a second time would probably feel better. 

the demo does have a cool trailer at the end, after a "to be continued section." it shows off other characters, several other locations, and a few other gameplay platforming mechanics and situations. Whilst the demo is aimed at the original Anime, the nostalgic feel of the game, and therefore this demo, worked for me too and after playing this demo i would be interested in trying out the full game. so whilst it wasn't the best execution of a demo, i do think it's a successful demo.

Cloud Monday - Ratatouille - Part 1 - A Rough Game With No Manual Saves And Distant Auto Saves

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS3 version of Ratatouille on PS4, via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

I'll admit that i'm not a fan of the movie Ratatouille. As for the game, it's not something i've ever looked into on any platform so i didn't know what i was going to be playing here. 

As ever we're looking at the save situation and unfortunately there appear to be no manual saves in Ratatouille. the Auto Saves seem to be when ever a quest is finished. there are collectables, but picking them up doesn't trigger the auto save. at the end of this part, before the PS4 internet speed test, i did check to see if the game's checkpoints were working as save points but they weren't. so if you pick up collectables, you have to finish the quest you're on to trigger the Auto Save to get them saved.

This part focused mostly on the tutorial, but that's mostly because of how poorly implemented the controls were. because of my previous experience with cloud based gaming, i do not believe that the poor controls are a result of the game being streamed, rather it's an inherent issue with Ratatouille. thankfully, there will be a Part 2 so we can have another look at the controls, but ultimately i get the impression they're a little broken or at the very least not as accurate as they need to be.

Mobile Friday - Silver & Blood - A RPG With A Great First Hour That Makes Me Want To Play More

For this week's Mobile Friday i tried Silver & Blood from developers Moonton and publishers Skystone Games on my iPhone 14 Pro.

I had seen this game rise slowly up the free to play App Store game charts and was curious how they'd make a vampire themed RPG work. the app store page offers some hints, but going in i wasn't too sure how it'd all work out.

It's disappointing to say that when you start the game you have to download extra data. i thought this might be the case as the game is less than 1GB to download. the game does say you can play through the start and it'll download in the background, which might be a decent option for those with newer phones, or you can download it all right now. the problem is, you have to download over 5GB of extra data. So it's safe to say that you must start this at home and download the data before playing this out and about. at such a big download size, especially when compared to the game's initial download size, it almost comes across as more suited to Apple TV or a Mac.

That initial disappointment is maybe the only disappointing thing i experienced across this hour of gameplay. We start the game with an almost anime like intro showing our death before the game shows us the day before. We're slowly introduced to numerous characters across this hour at a pace that didn't seem to fast whilst only being told enough about the world and what's happening to keep the story going forward. The game is also using it's tutorial smartly to introduce us to how basic combat is done whilst also tying it into the story on occasion to explain why a character is fighting at the back and why, to show how to use their special moves, they're only going to attack certain enemies.

Silver & Blood smartly uses it's own world to explain other game mechanics. So many games struggle to explain their "summoning" mechanics in a way that ties it into the world that's already been introduced. towards the end of this video we're introduced to it in such a smart way that it tied directly into the world and made sense. it also will make sense why the result can be random. they've done a fantastic job creating a world that makes sense and keeping you in it.

By the end of the first hour we came to the first chapter of the game and i was genuinely interested in learning more. i wanted to know about the world the game is set in as it comes across as rather bleak. i want to know more about our character and what makes them unique. and of course, there's the mystery behind Dracula ... or rather which body does it in habit, as in Silver & Blood it's memories that are key and what is past on to create immortality or insanity.

Version 1.3.4 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Knightica On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlaySation 4 version of Knightica from Mad Mango Games.

Knightica appears to have a simple premise, choose a leader, create an army, then defeat the enemy. the tutorial helps by keeping it simple when explaining how to play the game. the tutorial uses videos to show off game mechanics before letting us try. Quite quickly, i was combining troops to level them up, strategically placing them to offer bonuses to other troops, and thinking about which troops to save.

What i didn't get from this demo was the roguelike elements of the game. when my run was over, there were stats, and then we're back to title screen. a demo is a representation of the game, so from this demo i can only assume this is the case with the final game. if you have played it and know how the roguelike elements work, please let us know in the comments. 

The demo does have 3 characters, of which i tried out 2 in this video, two of which are unlockable from completing quests. i don't think this is what they mean by roguelike but i can't be sure.

It's a shame a gameplay element doesn't come across when there's much to like from playing Knightica. it looks great, runs well on PS4, and has nice music. playing and watching the action was fun. but when the game's Steam page says "Recruit powerful units, place them strategically and find the best synergies in this Roguelike Autobattler!" i have to question whether this demo is a success and whether it's a good demo or not.

It's worth playing the demo for Knightica as it comes across as a fun game to play. but i don't think it successfully gets across what the game is so there's a chance there's an element of gameplay you won't enjoy. so i'd suggest checking out reviews and watching more gameplay videos.

Stories on Tuesday - XBlaze Lost: Memories - Part 1

The new game in the Stories on Tuesday series is the PS3 version of XBlaze Lost: Memories from Arc System Works and Aksys Games.

This is the first part and it covers the start until we're on our way down for the first time.

Cloud Monday - Bluey: The Videogame - Part 2 - Frequent Auto Saves Work Well With Game's Design

This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing Bluey: The Videogame on #PS4, via the #PlayStationPlus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model #PlayStation4.

Returning to Bluey, after Part 1, let me focus more on the game's design. we learned that it does not have a manual save and we know what to look for when it auto saves. Now i could focus on the gameplay, it was clear just how frequent the Auto Save in Bluey actually is.

There is a story in Bluey and each part of that story is broken up into segments. each of those segments is broken up into small gameplay chunks. a good example in Part 2 is when we went looking for treasure. the story was we went looking for it with our family and grandad. but that is broken into walking sections, platforming, and cleaning sections. each of these is tied together by conversations. so you'd walk for a minute, some talking would happen, then it auto saves as you start the next platforming section.

When PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service is going to disconnect you, it only gives us a 20 second warning. across both parts it's clear that if this happens during the story there's a high probability you've just triggered the auto save or are about to. if you're disconnected, your only going to loose a minute or two of gameplay.

Walking around and collecting stuff outside of the story mode is even better as each time you pick up a collectable, it auto saves. early on this means you're saving very frequently. if you get the disconnection warning, i don't see it as much of an issue. you have either just picked up something, are about to pick up something, or are looking and now know where not to look.

I will say that Bluey is a great game to stream from the cloud. But, whilst the game's design works well on the platform, it's fair to say the game itself comes with it's own amount of jank. so whether it's worth playing or streaming is up to you.

Check out Part 1 for more:

https://youtu.be/wtJFAazufNE