Backlog Conquering - Malicious - Part 5 - Beating my Final Boss, But Not Malicious

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is part 5 of playing Malicious on PS3.

I finally did it, i beat the boss. well, i defeated my final boss. this game uses a Mega Man style where you can fight any of the boss characters in any order you want. the main difference is that in Malicious, not only do you get a new ability but your opponents also get tougher. this can be seen in this video, and the last one, where there were enemies everywhere! 

But i didn't manage to beat the game. the goal of the first part of the game is to defeat the bosses who have kept some of the power for themselves. our character was created/summoned for the sole purpose of beating Malice, but before that we have to defeat 5 bosses. now i have defeated all five, i'm powered up and ready to fight Malice.

The fight against Malice is NUTS! and i couldn't beat it.

Backlog Conquering - Malicious - Part 4 - Failing to Beat The Final Boss

Welcome to Backlog Conquering.

Today's video is part 4 of playing Malicious on PS3.

The title gives it away, this video is me failing over and over again trying to beat the final boss of the game. it's the same boss i failed to beat in the first and second videos, too. what's heartening is that i am making progress. i got closer than ever to beating the boss and i feel like i'm learning more and more. But, as you can imagine, at the time it's incredibly frustrating.

I will do a part 5, i really want to defeat the boss and see the ending, unless there's more of course. i just hope it comes easier and quicker than this video. this is probably the closest i've come to getting proper angry whilst playing a game for QTE Gamers since i restarted things.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Michael Cup - 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 Michael Cup! (2023/4/24 9:00～2023/5/1 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This wasn't a great cup for me. the actual recording took over an hour! i didn't win nor did i get to the final boss character. i was often stymied by the second round of enemies! if i could beat them i would get stuck against another monster. it was strange how that seemed to happen to me more than other players, tho some did get some low scores like myself.

This week i played against:

まるまん - Rank 64

TheGolden - Rank 77

UANI - Rank 58 (Vani?)

いーあるふぁんくらぶ - Rank 62

☆あや☆ - Rank 64

キラ - Rank 71

なつき - Rank 64

まさとし - Rank 70

☆REI☆ - Rank69

Cloud Monday - Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - Part 1 - A Few Issues Throughout

Today's Cloud Monday is part 1 of playing the PS4 game Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom on the PlayStation Plus Streaming Service.

This is a game that i've been interested in for a long time. it's art style has always interested me and now it's on the PlayStation Plus Premium service i took this opportunity to play it. i also thought that it's bright bold clear art style would highlight the highs and lows of streaming the game. and it did.

First things first, i'm fairly sure we saw a new issue in this video, Zebra Striping! i don't know the technical name for it, but this seems the most apt. there were a few occasions where instead of the bright colorful art, it was replaced with stripes of black and white (or maybe a greyish color). it kinda felt a bit like stream tearing so maybe the information was just missing. it didn't happen often,  but as the title hints at, but that was the case with many other things in this video.

There wasn't just one issue in this video. each of the usual suspects, macroblocking, stream tearing, resolution dips, etc, cropped up at some point. it was often just one thing at a time and not for very long. it's like the video is peppered with occasional blips of issues but no one big thing. the issue is, even tho it didn't get in the way of gameplay it was very noticeable because of the games bright clear art style. each time it happened, even if it was brief, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

So on one hand it was fine to play, on the other it was distracting and took me out of the experience of playing the game. i'll do part 2 next week at a different time and day so we can see if it's something that persists.

Switch Funday - Pulseman - My First Time

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This week the Mega Drive App, that's part of the Nintendo Switch Online, was updated with new games. i had heard of all but one of the games so i went with Pulseman for this video. It's a game that didn't come out in the UK and it wasn't one i had heard of. well, seeing the game and hearing it's from Game Freak did trigger some sort of memory but nothing i could fully remember.

It was fun playing it tho. it felt very much of it's time and as i grew up playing the Mega Drive, and Master System, it was kinda nostalgic playing it. the level design, the character style, the music all worked well together. those backgrounds tho ... i said it in the video ... they're bananas! 

it's both impressive and pointless at the same time. the backgrounds look technologically impressive, doing things i've not really seen outside of a Sonic special stage. but they didn't seem to really add much to the game either. But, and i said this in the video, the backgrounds could stand out more in Pixel Perfect mode on a modern TV than they did back on a CRT. 

I did have fun playing it. it was a little tough but that could be a mix of it being my first time with the game and the time it's been since i've played such a platformer on the Mega Drive. i'm glad that there was a rewind feature but the game isn't too stringent with health. there are three hearts and each hit doesn't mean you loose all of one. in a way, that helped make the game feel more approachable. the only real downside was the levels. they're big and there seems to be more than one way to get from A to B. but it's never clear if the exit you reached is the real one, nor is there any clear indication if there's a TV in every level or if there's a need to go in them always.

If you have the Mega Drive as part of Nintendo Switch Online, i do recommend that you give it a go. but use the rewind feature.

Online Saturday - Tetris 99 - Getting Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe Edition Theme

Welcome to Online Saturday!

Today i'm playing Tetris 99 on Nintendo Switch. This weekend it's a special event where you can earn a Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe theme by earning 100 points.

this video ended up being a little longer than i expected. i had treid to do an extra video at the end with a little commentary about how it had gone. but i hadn't started recording my audio so in the end there are 3 extra matches of Tetris 99 after i got the theme.

Getting the theme wasn't too bad. apart from 1 game, i think i got into the top 50 each time. of course my goal is top try and win one as i've never managed to do that in all the games of Tetris 99 i've played. some of the games in this video were especially challenging as it felt like i was always on the defensive. i was being attacked so much that all i could do is clear what they had sent my way meaning i didn't have a chance to send much to them. a couple of matches also felt like there were taking a long time, like we were all hanging in for a long time.

It's a nice theme. Let me know how the cup went for you. did you get a win?

Mobile Friday - Tomb Raider Reloaded - A Different Take on a Tomb Raider Game

Mobile Friday this week is Tomb Raider Reloaded, a recently released game that's out across iOS and Android stores from developers Emerald City Games and publishers CDE Entertainment.

I'll admit that this is the most of a Tomb Raider game i've played since the first one came out on PS1! it's a series that i've never really played, and i won't say which it is but it's not the biggest series i've never played/played much of. So going in, i didn't particularly care about how they treated the serie's past.

I think you'll see throughout the video that the game never really grabs me. for the most part, in the 50 minutes i played, the gameplay was mostly solid. i say mostly because controlling it still felt a little off. i thought that maybe there was some lag or some issue with where you were controlling the game on screen. for example, on screen you can see where i initially touched to move. but my finger would be much further away from that spot by the end. the game also did the thing of saying we could buy something for it with no context as to what any of it meant. i don't mind free to play games advertising their own items/bundles/deals/etc... But what i do mind is when they offer something that the game itself hasn't explained/tutorialized or even been shown in the game.

It's a great looking game. i don't mind the art direction they went with for Lara's design. the music is fairly minimum and didn't grab me that much, but i did like the voice acting. it's just that i was getting bored by the end. we played through soo many stages in this video and they were mostly the same premise. we also did a couple of boss battles and they felt like bullet sponges. the game feels slow. in one way that makes our character feel more human whilst those around maybe a tad faster. but it also slows down the pace of the game that kinda goes agains the games own design. the stages are small, they feel like they should be completed fast. but Lara moves a little slow, the enemies take more bullets than you think they'd need, and the lack of rumble disconnects the player from the action in an unexciting way.