Cloud Monday - Genji: Days of the Blade - Part 2 - Difficult to Recommend But I’m Glad I Played It

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing #GameRepublic's #Genji Days of the Blade, tho i think i got the name wrong a few times in the video. this was a #PS3 launch title when it came out in 2006.

Coming back to this game for part 2 helped to solidify my thoughts that whilst it's great we're able to play a game from the launch of the #PlayStation3, there's not much more here than that. the game isn't designed for being played in the cloud and i would argue that it has some fundamental issues regarding what feels like no checkpointing. it seems that it relies purely on manual saves, which in this game can only be done at specific points.

I didn't notice any issues with the game because of it being streamed to me in the cloud. i might've had some complaints about the graphics, controls, and framerate but that was because of the game and not because of it being streamed to me.

But, ultimately, i didn't have a great time and fell victim to the lack of a checkpoint a couple of times. i was playing on normal and still felt that it was a bit tough. i don't think i will be coming back to the game, but i am glad that i got to play it, as i said in Part 1 i bought Resistance: Fall of Man and F1 at launch, as i hadn't played it before.

Switch Funday - Tetris 99 - 38th Maximus Cup - Super Mario Bros. Wonder

This weekend there is the 38th Maximus cup in Tetris 99. the prize this cup is a Super Mario Bros. Wonder theme. It was nice playing Tetris again so soon after the 37th Maximus Cup a few weeks ago. unlike that time, i felt that i was much more ready for today and had some great games. the 3rd, 4th, and 5th games saw me around the top 15, but it was actually the first game which was most challenging as even tho i only finished 26th, it was going very fast as that game was over 6 minutes long!

How did it go for you? let me know in the comments. and of course, if you got the win, let us know as this week 10th was the best for me.

Online Saturday - Pokémon Unite - 7 Panic Parade Matches

Today's Online Saturday video is on Pokémon Unite. Panic Parade is back for this year's winter season and i was keen to play it. the last time Panic Parade was available as a game mode was back in August. in this mode, instead of it being Player vs Player (PvP) it's Players vs Enemies (PvE). So it's 5 of us up against the computer. The enemies come at us in waves. in these 7 videos, we work our way up the difficulty levels. the higher the difficulty level, the more waves we face.

The goal is to play, get as far as you can, and earn event points. when you have enough points, you can spend them on levelling up your stats and these will be applied to any Pokémon you use. With better stats, you can go further and earn more coins, which can be spent on leveling up your stats. there are also other things to buy in the store if you complete Panic Parade.

Demo Play Thursday - Silent Hope On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Silent Hope. This game, from developers Marvelous is already out on Switch and PC.

The demo for Silent Hopes seems to be taken from the start of the game, with no changes made for it being a demo, and lets us play through to finishing the first stage and letting characters get to level 10. What's great is that the save from this demo will work in the final game so you can carry over your progress.

And you may want to do that as i enjoyed the demo. This isn't the best start of a game that i've ever played, i do feel like the tutorial is missing key messages and is mostly just text on screen. But for the most part, the game will have some control over your first time diving into the abyss. it just feels that the game chose to go with immersion at the expense of its tutorial.

The demo lets us understand the basic gameplay loop. there's an abyss and the goal seems to be getting to the bottom. the demo has the first level and in it are 10 floors to go down, with things getting more difficult as we do. on top, there are other characters doing tasks we set but what's interesting is that we can swap places with them at certain points. in the demo, health recovery seemed limited so what i did was to swap out someone on low health for a new character fully healed. this made going deeper even easier.

Each character controls differently and they all have different stats. this made going deeper more enjoyable as i got to try out different styles. But there's more to this as at the end of the video i found out each of the 7 characters can unlock even more fighting styles so i imagine that'll make them feel fresh.

This demo shows that the start of the game may not be the best for new players and there are a few small things i felt could be better. but as a demo i do think that it worked well as after playing it i'm now interested in getting it. i would also like to get the soundtrack, too. the game looks great on Switch, mostly plays well, and could be a good choice if you're looking for something to play in 30 minute chunks, maybe on a commute or on breaks. the story may not be the driving force some would hope, but in combination with the gameplay and overall loop i came away from this demo thinking that it does enough.

Backlog Conquering - CounterSpy On PS3 - Part 4 – Failing

CounterSpy is the current Backlog Conquering Wednesday game. i'm playing this version of the game on PlayStation 3. It came out across the PS4, PSV and even mobile in 2014 from developers Dynamighty.

It finally happened, the DEFCON countdown began and more than once i was unable to stop it. today's video was the most difficult i've had to record so far, the increase in difficulty continued to be greater than the money we earn which meant it wasn't possible to keep up with it in a satisfying manor. This isn't something new as this had already started to become apparent in the previous part, but it's still frustrating.

And then, at the end of the video, i made the biggest mistake. instead of hitting continue, i hit Game Over, and all the progress that had been made was erased. So i managed to fail at the game in more than one way!

I don't know what i'll do for the next part, whether that's retying and uploading each try or just finishing it and releasing them in one big video.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Pixel Sitri Cup Revival - 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 Pixel Sitri Cup Revival! (2023/12/11 9:00～2023/12/18 8:59 JST) in Puzzle & Dragons: Nintendo Switch Edition whilst using a GamePad and a docked Nintendo Switch.

This week is the Pixel Sitri Cup Revival. i have played this cup before, https://youtu.be/oxQec5wx4ZM. That video is short like that one, but in that video i was unable to defeat the boss whereas this time i did it!

The gimmick this week was one that i't a fan off. but i was lucky in that it didn't get in the way too much. The gimmick is a square that changes the orb, inside said square, color. But this gimmick didn't change color to all the available colors, instead it was limited to a small set of colors. There were also fewer stages this week in comparison to last week so it was easy to get to the boss but it was very tough. i only managed to beat the boss once. This was also the second week running where i only played against 2 other human players.

This week i played against:

naaちゃん - Rank 68

おれ- Rank 54

Cloud Monday - Genji: Days of the Blade - Part 1 - Large Gaps Between Manual Saves

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing Game Republic's Genji Tales of the Blade, tho i think i got the name wrong a few times in the video. this was a PS3 launch title when it came out in 2006.

I got a PlayStation 3 at launch, but i went with Resistance: Fall of Man and F1 so i have never played this game before. But as i was playing games at launch, i went in with realistic ideas about what this is. To be honest, after just playing this part, it mostly met my expectations of a HD PS2 game with some fancy effects.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. i actually enjoyed most of what i played. The combat is a little basic and feels a little disjointed, but there was no lag from playing it online from PlayStation Plus Premium Cloud Servers. there were no visual issues either outside a frame or two of stream tearing. as a game being streamed to me, it was a near perfect experience. 

But as a game being played in the cloud, it has the same critical issue that Scarlet Nexus had in that you can't do manual saves and there's a big gap between saves. When the service is going to kick you off, due to poor internet bandwidth or connection, it only gives you a 20 second warning. unfortunately, in Genji: Days of the Blade in this part i played it was almost 20 minutes between saves.

So as a part of PlayStation history, i of course recommend people at least give it an hour or so. But this does come with a warning that if you're kicked off, it'll probably be frustrating to play the sections again.