Mobile Friday - Disney Pixel RPG - A Basic Gacha RPG That Needs A Little Work

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Disney Pixel RPG, from GungHo Online Entertainment, on my iPhone 14 Pro.

There was a lot of excitement surrounding this game when it was announced so i took a step back from it and didn't learn what it was. so i go into this not knowing much more than what the screenshots in the app store show.

Unfortunately, Disney Pixel RPG starts with a bad first impression as i had to download extra data. it wasn't as much as some other games, but it was more than i would want to download over a mobile network. it did warn that the game was going to do this download, but it didn't warn about this eating into mobile data, some games have started to provide that warning and recommend that such a download be done over wi-fi.

Next is a basic avatar creator and then we're thrown into gameplay. it's here that the game tells us what it's story is and i think it does this fairly well. once we're told about it we're put into a combat scenario and shown how to fight in Disney Pixel RPG. the controls can be set to auto or each character can be given instructions. a cool feature is that we're shown is that you don't need to go into a menu to set a command, you can flick the screen in a certain direction to command a character. But it also shows how basic some parts of the game are. there's no "battle music" or "victory theme", it all just feels generic music when you're in a world.

After this the tutorial mostly stops. it's weird that Disney Pixel RPG's tutorial had been great up to this point but then just drops us in the home world. other than some basic party stuff, there's a lot of the menus not talked about. an example is how i was completing missions throughout this video but had no idea where that section was. things were happening in combat that weren't being explained, mainly status conditions. things like this were making the game feel old, like it should've come out a few years ago.

The Gacha mechanic is another example of this. games still have it, but some of the better games find a way to incorporate it into the game world. In Disney Pixel RPG, it feels like a separate thing from the game's story, just like how games used to have such a feature. It's also not as flashy as most modern mobiles games.

a weird thing about Disney Pixel RPG is how it uses abbreviations. none of them are detailed. some can be worked out or at the very least guessed, like i did with LBrk Eff guessing it was Level Break Effect. but next to it is a "i" button that doesn't show what the abbreviation meant. There were some others i had no idea what was being abbreviated. 

In it's current state, Disney Pixel RPG is playable and fine. but it's not hard to see issues. i found the High Graphic mode seemingly broken, what looked like place holder text behind final text, and sounds far to loud and annoying. i highly recommend tuning the sounds as Disney Pixel RPG has some basic sounds that can be piercing and annoying. there are aspects of it's design that are also frustrating, like it never shows in numbers how much health we have left. Or that our team has a power level but the enemy doesn't so we don't know if we're about to waste energy fighting an enemy we can't win.

Version 1.0.3 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Card-en-Ciel On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Card-en-Ciel, from the developers Inti Creates.

Reading the eShop listing for the game, i was interested in the game. i thought the story idea was different and i was curious how the card mechanics would work. this demo seems to be from the start of the game and i think it's a great start. the tutorial, the story, the mechanics are all introduced smartly and in a way that feels right for the universe.

After playing an hour, the only thing that felt off was that the text on screen didn't auto scroll and that there didn't seem to be an option to turn it on. This is an older demo but it felt quite polished, which leads me to think that perhaps the Japanese release of the game has already happened.

One great feature of this demo is how it does the tutorials. it doesn't just put up a block of text, there's a video showing it in action. the text could have multiple pages, each with their own video. but what i thought was really cool and something i don't remember seeing else where was how the videos could be made full screen. i've played plenty of games where the picture/gif/video used in the tutorial is small, but here, the ability to make it full screen really felt modern and something that other developers should be looking at implementing. 

This first hour is basically the tutorial for the game and each point seems to add a new mechanic to the game. each one isn't huge, but by the end it did feel like there were quite a few things to think about each turn. i don't know if it's a case of too much too soon or just too much in general. i enjoyed the simple mechanics at the start where each card could either do an action or move your character. i thought this was an interesting twist but then the game adds cards which, for example, can be used to avoid an enemies attack and counter them.

After my hour with Card-en-Ciel, i'm genuinely impressed with it. this demo is the start of the game and it shows that Card-en-Ciel is an approachable game that has a good first hour. i would recommend people trying out the demo first. this is a game that ties together a few different genres like card battling, visual novels, and rpgs. fans of each of those may like Card-en-Ciel and this demo is a great place to start.

Backlog Conquering - Poison Control On PS4 - Part 2 – The Third and Fourth "Belles' Hells"

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.

Part 2 continues on with the story. we previously did the first two Belles' Hells and they weren't too difficult, nor were the stories behind them that bad. the two I did today, they were much harder. not just in difficulty of playing them but also the stories behind them. There will be a Part 3 as i expect there to be more twists and turns in the story as we progress further deeper into hell.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/zYr-gRR3IOc

Switch Funday - The New Denpa Men - My First Hour

Welcome to Switch Funday!

This week i checked out the free to play game The New Denpa Men, from  Genius Sonority. The Denpa Men series is something i'm vaguely aware of from the 3DS but i've never played any of the games. going into this Nintendo Switch version i didn't know what to expect so i was surprised when it revealed itself as a free to play game.

After playing it i looked it up and my thoughts whilst playing the game make sense. something i say a few times is how the game feels old. graphically it's fine, but for a free to play game the tutorial is surprisingly light and very little of what the game is is explained to us. the way the game works and why is not explained to us in a way that makes me think it's a console game and part of a series, whilst the free to play mechanics and microtransactions make it feel like a mobile game.

It's also slow, with an introduction that does little to get across what the world is. all i know is that there is legendary loot, which appears to be from the earlier games, and we're after it so we won't be bullied any more. 

The gameplay aspect is more similar to a dungeon crawler. the two locations we've been to so far are varied and give the game a more casual feel. But the game makes it very clear, repeatedly, that if you are wiped out in the dungeon you loose all the loot. if you teleport out of the dungeon you can keep your loot but as you haven't finished it you can't continue the story. 

Combat is not explained, but thankfully it's not too difficult except that resources at the start are scarce. so i immediately ran into issues of health and AP (magic abilities). this is kinda compounded by the choice of Denpa Men in my party, but seeing as it wasn't explained to me who i should bring with, let alone which ones i should catch, i imagine this is a situation that many may find themselves in. most modern mobile games rarely leave the start of the game to such luck

After an hour, i've come away feeling like i've not really even started the game. so i may come back next week to see if things improve with an extra hour of play time. but if i was to judge the game after this hour, i wouldn't recommend The New Denpa Men. it doesn't bring anything new whilst also feeling old and unwelcoming, designed for those who played the 3DS games. The Denpa Men's celebrations, or lack there off, when winning a battle sums up my feelings after playing this.

Version 2.0.10 played

Online Saturday - Foamstars - Now Free To Play, No PlayStation Plus Needed!

For Online Saturday i'm back with Foamstars, from SquareEnix and Toylogic. Foamstars is out across PS5 and PS4. I'll be playing the PlayStation 4 version of it. 

The game is now Free to Play. not only is the game free to download, it doesn't require PlayStation Plus to play it. the game has been updated a few times since i last played it back in May, https://youtu.be/SCjUS_FTOKk, so i also found the recent changes beneficial. the biggest change i appreciated were the regular game modes being grouped together so when you're looking for a game it can be any of those modes.

Mobile Friday - Punko.io: Tower Defense - A Successful Combination Of Roguelike And Tower Defense

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Punko.io: Tower Defense, from Agonalea Games, on my iPhone 14 Pro.

It's a combination of a Roguelike and a Tower Defense game. it's always interesting to see which elements of a roguelike are used and how they're used in combination with tower defense. At first glance it may look similar to  Kitty Keep, which we previously looked at https://youtu.be/aQNjKxIjSJg, but Punko.io: Tower Defense is not an idle game and each of the roguelike and tower defense elements are controlled more by the player than the computer.

The roguelike element of the game makes criticizing it a little difficult. one of the goals with that play style is repeatedly dying and working out what elements are repeated, learning how the loop works, and slowly making progress. But, seeing as Punko.io: Tower Defense starts off with telling us something wrong, i think it's fair to criticize the game's poor tutorial. Punko.io: Tower Defense starts straight into a level and we're soon instructed to choose a card or upgrade, but we can't upgrade as there's only 1 playable card. then the tutorial stops. if the game is going to have a tutorial, it should be correct, but for it to then stop and leave us alone is unfair to new/unfamiliar players. it may work on a console market which has more "seasoned" players but the mobile market is more casual. the game should at least ask if we want a tutorial, fix the first command, and offer some extra information to help new players.

The tutorial for the home menu is better than the gameplay one, but itself still has issues. near the end of the video i get a key, but at no point does the game tell me where or what to do with it. i thought i would be unlocking some sort of gatcha area but the forth unlock was evolution. i had to guess that the key unlocked a chest and that chest was in the shop. but i was surprised that i had two sets of keys for another chest. i can understand, to a point, why the gameplay may have less information, but the home menu aspect of the game needs to be better.

When it comes to equipment i'd argue that Punko.io: Tower Defense gives us too much information. the way the equipment aspect of the game works feels old and poorly executed. when you get 1 item, then it's fine, but as soon as you get more than one of the same item, it's difficult to manage. in the video i showed an example with shoes. i had one equipped and then got a second one. both were "good" quality. but there's no way to compare their basic stats. you have to look at one, remember, close, click on the second, and then compare. that might be manageable for HP stat, but both items have a long list of "Grade Skills" that unlock as you upgrade them, leaving us with much more to remember and making a quick task take longer. Many games have Quick Equip button that'll simply equip the items with the highest stats and that would work here. but the game needs to present the Grade Skills better.

Punko.io: Tower Defense's core gameplay loop is simple and effective. the character art is stylised and cool. graphically it's nice to look at, play, and it didn't heat up my phone. it mostly does ok with the Dynamic Island but at times it's off by a few pixels. for a lot of players it's a good game to have. but it's not the most approachable game, it feels like it was designed and made for a more experienced audience. the non-gameplay side of the game feels too basic and not as well designed as the rest of the experience and so sticks out because of that. i would recommend Punko.io: Tower Defense as no two runs would be the same, but it does need a little more work.

Version 1.0.0 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Metaphor: ReFantazio - Prologue Demo On PS4

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of Metaphor: ReFantazio - Prologue Demo from Atlus.

Going into this demo, i didn't know anything about the game. i had somehow missed previous trailers and news about it. so other than it being an RPG, i didn't know what to expect. So i went in with no real expectations, it was all up to the demo to showcase itself.

And it did a fantastic job at that. the demo appears to be the first few hours of the game, tho it admits there are some changes from the retail game. The demo is quite open about it being a demo and that the aim is to showcase many aspects of the game. it's also clear that our save from this demo can be carried over into the final retail version.

one of the cooler features of this demo is the difficulty choice. if your focus is story, then choose that mode. the demo makes it clear that you won't die from battles. the other difficulty levels revolve around how difficult the battle aspect of the game becomes. i did this demo on normal and after this hour and a half i'd say it's probably fine to keep it at Easy and focus more on the story. the fights are fine, but they don't add much to the game beyond the style the game already oozes. 

This game has soo much style and design i would argue that perhaps it has too much. there were a few moments where there was a load for some flashy stylish thing that only lasted a few seconds before there was another load back into the gameplay. On a PS5 where load times may not even exist this may work better, but on PS4 it felt more like a waste of time. 

For me,  the biggest shock was how poor i thought the story telling was for most of this video. but this could be explained due to Atlus cutting some story elements from the demo. But the story bounces from the present to the past, from one group to another, and often there was very little linking anything that was happening together. it took about an hour for all groups to be tied into the story together and for things to start feeling more harmonious. But once it got going i really got into it and enjoyed it

I would recommend the Prologue demo for Metaphor: ReFantazio. beyond the main story that's told, we get glimpses of something entirely different teased as the game asks for our name like we were another part of it's story, rather than us controlling characters. Having many difficulties makes it approachable to a wide audience, and there seems to be a lot here to play.

On PS4 i'd say that it plays great. there are some cutbacks that are noticeable but they don't really affect gameplay. for example, the main city we're in at the start looks big and interesting, but there aren't as many people around as you'd expect. the loading was better than i expected and the game uses a very short walking anime to help cover the loading of a new area of the city, so it feels like this PS4 version itself got attention rather than it being a straight port from PS5.