Sunday, April 21, 2024

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - April's Weekend Splatfest Tricolor - 15 Battles 8 Wins!


Welcome to Switch Funday.
It's day two of April's Splatfest weekend so today's video focuses on the Tricolor game mode in Splatoon 3. 

Just like yesterday, https://youtu.be/QJn1Mw3Md3c, matchmaking didn't take too long and my teams and i managed to get several wins. The only negative was how few Tricolor matches i played in were against the other two teams, Baby Chicks and Bear Cubs. it felt like there was a lot of Bunny on Bunny action today. 

The 3 weapons i used today were the Bamboozler 14 Mk 1, a weapon i didn't enjoy using that much and one that never seemed to either have the power or range i needed at any given time. Also, the charge to attack felt out of place in Tricolor when people are moving around so much. The second weapon i used was the Gold Dynamo Roller. i have used it before and a complaint back then was how long it takes to do the jump attack and that was still true today. but it's inking was very useful. the final weapon was a new one i bought and it's the Custom Splattershot Jr. it looks strange shooting it as it seemingly can't shoot straight. but it did a good job at inking, attacking, and not using up ink quickly so i think it's one i'll use a lot going forward.

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Online Saturday - Splatoon 3 - April’s Weekend Splatfest – 15 Battles 9 Wins!


Welcome to Online Saturday.
It's a Splatfest weekend so today's video is on the "Which fuzzy fluffiness do you like most?" Splatfest in Splatoon 3. I chose to join #teambunnies.

This was one of my most successful Splatfests yet! I went in not expecting much as the previous one in March, https://youtu.be/ctf5ACsF6oA, went badly and i only got 3 wins in it. My focus was to try out weapons i own but haven't used much. I started with the Custom Dualie Squelchers and got 4 wins with them! I was so surprised, 4 wins out of 5 games, that's already better than March. next i tried the Tri-Stringer. I wasn't having as much fun with it, i could ink fine but i was having worse luck attacking and my teams and i only got 1 win during those 5 games. for the final 5 games i switched to a new weapon i bought, one from a type of weapon i haven't used before. I used the Explosher and once again my teams and I won 4 times. The only downside is that we failed to win the only 10X battle we had and we didn't play against Baby Chicks as much as we did against Bear Cubs.

Friday, April 19, 2024

Mobile Friday - Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat - Great Fighting Gameplay In A Game That Needs Work


For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out the newly globally released Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat. I Played this on my iPhone 14 Pro.

It was surprising when i saw in the charts Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat. it looks like it had been out either in beta or in out in a couple of countries for some time and now got it's full global release. But i hadn't heard of the game prior to it's release. 

I haven't played a Devil May Cry game since DmC on PS3 so i don't know what the story is at the start of this game and the game itself does a poor job of setting the scene. Once you start the game, download an additional 40MB of data and sign into an account, the game just goes and doesn't really stop until the end of the first chapter.

One of the issues with the game's story telling also applies to the games tutorial. both aspects of the game feel half finished at best because how both are implemented in the game are only half as effective. for example, with the story there are some fun cutscenes, that look low resolution, that are voice acted and match the level of gameplay well. But then the game tries to tell some story with text boxes on the left side of the screen, the same way it tries to add additional tutorial information. these boxes are small and are sometimes blocked by the dynamic island. It feels like a game designed on either other #Apple phones or #Android. The combat is so fast and fluid that my attention is solely in the middle of the screen watching it, not what's happening on the periphery.

There are a few things in this game that also feel not finished or not fully implemented. the next main one would have to be the gamepad controls. ASTRA: Knights of Veda, https://youtu.be/kzt0SEuitI4, has so far had the best implementation of gamepad controls and whilst i wasn't expecting Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat to copy it, i was expecting something more than nothing. When you start to use the controls, nothing changes on screen. the game doesn't tell you on screen what buttons do what. you have to go to settings, select the gamepad you're using, and read an onscreen picture. But even then the controls didn't fully work for me. there were times i had to manually touch the screen to progress so i gave up using the controller and finished the game using the touch screen controls.

It's disappointing that a game that's been worked on for so long comes across as being half finished. they got the core combat design and failed to build a game around it. I would like to say that maybe they can rework a lot of the game and bring it up to a better standard but i'm not so sure they can or will. Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat is fun to play, but not for long. but it might be worth keeping and checking what the updates to the game bring.    

Version 2.3.

Thursday, April 18, 2024

Demo Play Thursday - SaGa: Emerald Beyond On #PS4


For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of SaGa: Emerald Beyond, developed by Square Enix.

I've known about the SaGa series of games for a long time. But the only game in the series i know i played was Unlimited Saga on PS2, and even then i don't think i played too much of it. This recently released demo is a great way for me to check what a new game in the series looks like.

SaGa: Emerald Beyond does a poor job of presenting itself as a demo and what is included. near the start, at the character select screen, i didn't know if i was limited in character because it's a demo of it's a game where you need to unlock characters. I don't know how big the demo is in general and it doesn't say. so i don't know if i came close to the end or not.

A big highlight from playing this demo was the fantastic music from Kenji Ito. i really enjoyed listening to it and there are periods in this video where i'm not talking mostly because i'm listening to the soundtrack. The second highlight for me was the battle system. Whilst it wasn't explained the best, i did find the game's timeline based party focused combat system to be fun to engage with and by the end of the demo i was trying to add strategy to the commands being issued to make best use of it's timeline system. But it was the other systems related to combat that the game did a poor job in conveying and the commands available really needed a more in-depth explanation as to what each did. As did the level up system as i never really understood how it all worked and the game never explained it.

There were a few little frustrations with SaGa: Emerald Beyond but for the most part i could live with them. The one that annoyed me the most, and i complained about the most in this video, was the story taking place in the latter third. It was unrealistic, even for a fantasy RPG, and honestly came across as cheap. my character is an alien and yet no one treated him like one. the world was engulfed in ice, but the way my character talked made him seem callous like he only cared about his mission. it was like two stories were taking place at the same time and little to no effort was made to combine them into anything looking realistic. 

For me, the highlights of this demo weren't enough to get other the lows. It's a poor demo and i don't think it shows off the game great. there are too many unknowns as to whether this is just the game we were playing or if certain parts of the game have been removed from this demo. If you're interested in this game, maybe you've played one of the earlier games in the series, or maybe you're interested the battle systems, then this demo is worth playing. But for most others it's not one i recommend trying out.

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Backlog Conquering - Papo & Yo On PS3 - From Start To Finish


Welcome to Backlog Conquering.
Today's video is the long awaited playthrough of Papo & Yo on PlayStation 3 from start to finish. I played this game back in 2023 and completed it across 5 parts, which you can watch below. One reason i didn't combine all the parts back then was because this playthrough wasn't seamless. there are many times where i look around, make mistakes, and then understand what i need to do. At the time, i didn't think that would be satisfying to watch. I'm more content with how this playthrough went nowadays than back then but when i combined these parts i did cut 2 or 3 longer diversions where i was making a lot of mistakes and unfortunately those cuts are easy to spot. But please do enjoy watching the game and the story it's trying to tell. The music is fantastic, too, so maybe sit back and enjoy the soundtrack as i play. Or you can check out the credits at the end of the video.

Part 4 - https://youtu.be/2AmtDoudYak (You can skip this, it's just me stuck on one puzzle)

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Stories on Tuesday - Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz - Part 8


Hello and welcome to Part 8 of the new series here on QTE Gamers!

The goal with Stories on Tuesday is to play games with a heavy focus on their story. this can be Visual Novel games, like today's game, or it can be something more episodic. For me, it's a style of game i've not really explored. i have several games across a few platforms that i haven't played but i bought them because i wanted to. So now the time has come for me to experience these sorts of games.

Our debut game is Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz. I have the game on PS4 via DISC but i'll be playing the PlayStation Plus version of the game that's been downloaded to my PlayStation 4.

We continue in Silver Snow trying to find out what our Grandfather was looking for. In Part 7, https://youtu.be/QHY2p-Tb9jo, it was made clear that someone didn't want us looking around. We didn't have any more threats in this part, but it was clear that people didn't want to talk about it. A big possibility is that we may have a suspect in the old "Daedalus" case but it's unclear if this person is also a suspect in what happened to our Grandfather.

If you're interested in watching the stories unfold without my commentary, head over to Ko-Fi. there, you can subscribe to the "Stories on Ko-Fi" which will let you watch all the stories. This tier will always be one week ahead of the free video on QTE Gamer's YouTube Channel. Or, of course, you can head to https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers and donate via PayPal.

Monday, April 15, 2024

Cloud Monday - Black Knight Sword - Part 2 - Easy Is Better, But Saving Is A Pain


This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS3 version of Black Knight Sword via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

From Part 1, https://youtu.be/xdaueEIkV_M, we learned that this is actually the whole game and not just a DEMO like the store page says. we also learned the the Normal difficulty level is surprisingly hard, and the biggest thing we learned is that the game has a weird save system.

The fact that the game only saves at checkpoints continues to be it's biggest issue. I played Part 2 on easy and found it a much more normal pleasant playing experience. The amount of enemies and how much is needed to kill them feels right, like either this was the default normal difficulty and they decided to make the game harder or they did an amazing job rebalancing the game for an easier difficulty. I was able to progress through the levels quicker and it almost made up for the checkpoint only saves. But when i did die, it wasn't as much fun having to redo what i've already done as it was going forward and making progress. so whilst it is better, it's still not ideal.

The biggest surprise i stumbled upon is that there is a story, of sorts. it's just that you have to leave the game on the home screen for a little bit for the game to show it. So that's why i included it at the start of this video as i imagine many people, like me, might've not known about it nor even seen it.

But the story and better gameplay can't make up for how this game saves. It looks good and has some interesting ideas. but Black Knight Sword's save system is a fundamental issue so bad that it mostly negates all it's good points, as a game being streamed from the Cloud. This makes it hard to recommend, especially for those interested in the challenge that hard mode brings. Black Knight Sword isn't easy to play legitimately outside of the Cloud so that is a positive reason to give it a go. it's short length does work in it's favor. But the first time you're disconnected from the service and find you have to play through several minutes of enemies, platforms, and traps is probably when you should put it down and move on.