This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS3 version of Legasista via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
Legasista is a game i own on PlayStation 3 but not one i remember starting so whilst this isn't a Backlog Conquering video it's adjacent to that playlist as well as this Cloud Monday playlist.
Some of the PS3 RPG's i've played for this playlist have done well and been fine streamed from the cloud. in Legasista, you're able to save before you go into a dungeon and, if you turn it on in the options, the game will auto save when you come out of the dungeons. but at the moment i've been unable to save whilst i'm in the dungeon. so far, i've only been doing tutorial dungeons so there's a chance that when i get to the "real" dungeons the situation will change. you'll have to come back for part 2 where i hope to make it that far into the game.
I had a solid stream from the cloud today and noticed no visual artifacts in the video we were watching. there was maybe 1 or 2 slight audio blips, but other than that even the controls were good today. If i were to get macro blocking, there's a good chance it wouldn't matter too much. the background assets repeat frequently, so if some of them were a bit blocky because of the macro blocking, i would still be able to understand it as those assets are used elsewhere. The characters don't have fine detail, but they do make great use of lighting and are quite big on screen, so whilst it would be noticeable, we would still be able to understand what's happening. the text tho is my main concern. there doesn't seem to be a way to make it bigger and i've been unable to bring up the text log of what's been previously said, even tho it's in the options. with the game audio in Japanese, and no way to change that, macro blocking in the text could be detriment to the story.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Nuclear Gladiators 3000 from Turbo Napalm.
I've played a few games like Vampire Survivors on mobile as part of Mobile Friday and just in my free time, but Nuclear Gladiators 3000 is the first time i've played one on consoles. the big concern i have with these games is that things can get crazy, not just in terms of difficulty but also in terms of explosions and stuff happening on screen and the worry is always can the platform i'm playing it on handle it. thankfully, after playing the DEMO i can say that the Switch was fine playing Nuclear Gladiators 3000.
With it's rocking soundtrack, it makes a good first impression. it's going after a certain 80's vibe and i think pulls it off, tho i would've like the odd sax solo or something similar to The Transformers Movie. Nuclear Gladiators 3000 also does a good job in explaining what the goals are and how to play. i do feel that for the first couple of runs, this could all be simplified and then when you get your first sponsor things could then open up more.
The goal seems simple enough. you defeat wave after wave of enemies until trying to survive for 3 minutes to get to the next stage. by blowing things up and doing combo's, the audience gets more enthusiastic. by defeating enemies, you're able to level up weapons and abilities in a run. when the run is over, you're scores and audience values are converted into Freedom Bucks. these can be spent on permanent upgrades which will help you go further in the next run. But as you'll see in this video, i was never able to survive for 3 minutes on the third stage. the leap from second to third stage seemed a little too big.
As a demo, it's fun to play and worth checking out. But there is a downside to it. there is no trailer nor any screenshots. there's not even a message from the developers. so all i get to use is one character. i don't know how many others there are, how many stages there are, or sponsors. the demo succeeded in showing me the game mechanics but failed in showing me what the game has to offer.
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.
Our new game is the PlayStation 3 version of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy from the 2012 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy that remastered the games and brought them into HD. This series is my first time playing any of the games from the initial trilogy, tho i have played the PSP game Daxter.
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 part started with me choosing the other option from Part 10, that gave us the game over. this is a bit more of a happier part, in comparison to the previous few, but it's still frustrating watching Es make the same mistakes as before and not trusting those around her enough. But it does seem like she has forgotten why she's back so maybe we can cut her some slack.
This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Digimon Survive via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
In the first Part, https://youtu.be/kjyaV_4XsyY, it was clear how good the game's save system was. it was an Auto save that's pretty clear to see on screen when it's in action, typically before/after a talking set piece, and there's also the manual save option which can save the game at a specific point in a conversation. when we start this Part, we load right in to the middle of the conversation we left the game before.
When there's only a 20 second window to save before being disconnected from the service, being able to save and knowing when the game itself last saved is crucial and Digimon Survive does a great job at it. One of the reasons i feel like it's one of the better games we've played via the Cloud also comes down to the game's art style. none of the Digimon we've encountered so far has fine detail. their art style is simple and relies on expressions. if the game was to suffer from macro blocking, so instead of fine detail we get larger squares of color, there's a higher chance of such squares not getting in the way of the Digimon's design. their character models are large so there's a higher chance of the squares appearing in color anyway. the subtitles on screen are also rather large. if macro blocking were to occur in the subtitle box it would be obvious, but it's unlikely to obscure the whole world due to the size of it so for the most part text should be legible enough. if things did get rough then it's easy enough to pause and maybe even save and wait for this macro blocking to pass.
The visual novel style of gameplay also lends itself to being played from the cloud. this game has a "Backlog" feature, something fairly common amongst visual novels, where you're able to look back at text already spoken. so if there was macro blocking obscuring text you're able to check what it actually said. I think you're also able to check what was set in a cut scene, if you had to end it to save, but i haven't tested that out.
Digimon Survive isn't a large install, the PSN Store say's it's 6.34GB so for many installing it will be a sensible option. but i do feel that playing it from the cloud is just as good of an experience. there is one added benefit for those who sometimes forget what they've installed on a console and that's whilst the icon will be on the home screen no space is taken up. so if you do forget to uninstall it when it leaves PlayStation Plus, it'll take up no space and you can add the icon into a "To Buy" folder as a Wishlist" of sorts on your console.
This weekend is November's Eggstra Work Event in Splatoon 3 on Switch. I have felt terrible since Friday with a migraine and general queasiness, so i was unable to Live Stream during the weekend. i got out of bed for a little bit to take part in the event. i got 10 matches done before i gave up due to general fatigue. my highest score was 139 in my tenth and final match. i don't know if this is good enough for bronze. let me know in the comments what your scores were!
