This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Granblue Fantasy: Relink via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
After playing Granblue Fantasy: Relink across two videos, i will say that i do recommend streaming it from the Cloud. But, we did discover something about the manual saves in this video. When a quest is engaged, the best example here being when we we're taking out Goblins and saving people, we didn't have access to manual saves. the game switches to a save crystal system for manual saves. However, the game does also seem to use auto saves at checkpoints across the quest so if the 20 second disconnection warning comes up and there's not a manual save in sight, the auto save most likely saved after a boss fight or the unlocking of the next step of the quest.
This isn't ideal, but i imagine that if we're unable to save before being disconnected we're only going to lose 5-10 minutes of progress at most. with the combat and walking around being as easy as it currently is, this isn't much of an issue. it's not perfect, but it's manageable. so if you're looking for a good looking RPG with action combat, a smart tutorial system, and likeable characters then i'd recommend giving Granblue Fantasy: Relink a try and with it's Cloud performance being so great, i'd suggest trying it there and then deciding to either continue playing via the cloud or download it if you have space to do so.
For this week's iPhone Friday i tried The Land of Boggs from Buzzfeed on my iPhone 14 Pro.
I've been a fan of The Land of Boggs for many years now and enjoy watching their videos. when i saw, in their videos, that they have a new mobile game and that it was a runner i was keen to play it as i do like runner games. But The Land of Boggs: Decor Dash has some issues that prevent me from recommending it.
The initial presentation looks great, but it's a shame they couldn't get the voice actors to reprise their roles. the game does start with a tutorial for the basic controls, and then immediately stops whilst new things are still happening. as i've played a number of runners before i have a rough idea what's happening and what power-ups do, but the developers are making big assumptions here as there's a lack of information for the player throughout The Land of Boggs: Decor Dash.
For example, the game introduces an upgrade screen but never details what the upgrades do. do we need to upgrade an item 5 times to level them up or can the items only be leveled up 5 times to max. does levelling up the items make them stronger or does it only increase the time they're in use. i have no answers to this and the game makes no effort to tell me.
The same applies to the decorating aspect of the game. there's a tutorial on how to do it but the tutorial didn't mention that by doing it you increase your score multiplier. some items also have a +0.3 mark next to the and that's also not explained. i'd guess that's something to do with the score multiplier.
The running aspect of the game is fine but i'm concerned that there's only two stages. if there are other stages, i don't know how to unlock them. throughout this video i tried to run as far as i could in the main city stage and jungle stage to see what other stages would open up to me but i never encountered another one. In the city stage, because of the angle of the camera, there are moments when i couldn't see a car coming straight at me because of coins in the way and on both stages it was a little difficult to judge whether there was a gap i needed to jump or if it was just a different color. so even the running aspect of the game needs work.
I mentioned that the game doesn't have the voice actors from the video series but it may be more accurate to say actor as i didn't see anyone else from the show, just the Bogo character we play as. throughout the video i come up with ways that characters could be introduced and i kept waiting for one to show up. i don't know if there are other Bogg characters in this game and it's not made an effort to let me know.
For as much of a fan of the YouTube channel i am, i can't recommend The Land of Boggs: Decor Dash in it's current state. it feels incomplete and that i played a Beta version of the game that wasn't feature complete. it may be worth downloading and checking out what the updates bring to the game. but after 45 minutes with it i think i've seen all there is to see for now.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of CASSETTE BOY from Forever Entertainment.
I can't say i had heard of this game before i downloaded it from the PSN, but reading it's store page was really interesting. at first glance, the game looks to be a retro Game Boy style RPG but when you read it's store page it becomes clear that there's more to it than that.
This is a short demo and the game makes it clear that the final version that, i think, is out now could be a little different from this. But i feel we get a good look at CASSETTE BOY. the music was really nice, the graphics were mostly fine, apart from when our character who's mostly coloured white goes onto what appears to be white sand as it's hard to tell the two apart, and i thought the tutorial for the game mechanics was handled well.
This is a game where you need to go slow, talk to everyone, and then go forward using the information you just gained. in this demo, so it could have been changed in the released game, we're not provided with an obvious go here and do that. but by talking to people we know we're meant to get the sword, we know how much the shop deed costs so we should aim to get it, and we know that the locals are frustrated by the big rock so we should be looking at ways of clearing it out of the way.
But with this demo being as short as it is and the game's story being mostly unclear, apart from the moment to moment stuff i mentioned above, i really did feel that this demo needed a trailer to showcase the game. the demo shows off the early ideas so if you're interested in mechanics then this demo maybe enough, but i'm more interested in the story and i have no idea what it really is here and i don't think the game does enough to sell it to me. as for the mechanics, well moving the world to hide things is straight from Echochrome on PS3, which i did a playthrough of it's demo before https://youtube.com/live/KW2tikPtS8g, so for me it's nothing new and this demo showed nothing new to me in it's implementation. I kinda feel that players would learn more from watching a trailer than playing this demo, but playing the demo itself is a pleasant experience.
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 4 version of Anthem. i have previously played around 5 hours of this game back in 2019, but i stopped playing once EA announced they weren't going to update the game. The main reason for picking up Anthem now is that the game servers are going to be turned off on January 12th 2026. I started recording these videos before the servers were taken down so from Part 5 onwards, these will go live on YouTube AFTER the servers have been shut down. You can't play Anthem anymore as the game doesn't have an off-line mode, it was online only.
The main story brought our past back and it was tense all round. it was nice and felt believable. the tension it brought to Owen was also interesting, who had his own adventures in this part. But what ruined the moment was when we were on their Strider and the mission finished and we all spawned back at the Fort. there was no mention of this before we spawned, nor any video showing us making our way to the fort. we haven't even seen the "car park" for Striders at the fort. it felt disjointed and ruined the moment.
The current story i'm playing is Underworld Office: Ghost Story. i'm playing this on iPhone 14 pro.
Now i've played it, i understand how it works. so each video from this one going forward will be it's own chapter in the game. i will continue to blur out the advert at the bottom of the screen. there are full screen adverts during my playthrough and i will edit them out. this will mean that occasionally the music will skip or go from on to off abruptly where i've made the edit.
Chapter 4 had a plot twist and i was very interested to see where it would lead in Chapter 5. i was pleased with how things turned out. it would've been easy to allow our character to wallow in self pity and thankfully that didn't happen. it seemed like things were going to be ok until he came across the ghost energy on the subway once again. Whilst dealing with it didn't quite go to plan, the character growth of Eugene was nice and we got to see some backstory for Joan, who had some really cool moments. the next Chapter has us and The Boss together so i'm really interested in checking that out next.
There is a Maximus Cup this weekend in Tetris 99 on Nintendo Switch. The 51st Maximus Cup is for the upcoming update and DLC for the Switch game Animal Crossing: New Leaf. By getting 100 points, you can unlock it all.
Whilst i wasn't able to get my first win in Tetris 99, i was able to get 4th place twice! it only took 3 games to complete this cup. i added a 4th game but it wasn't as successful as the previous 3. i really enjoyed the music, it helped keep me calm even when things got really hectic. as i haven't had a top 10 in quite a while i was very surprised by how fast the game gets at that point.
For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Inkvasion from ChillyRoom on my iPhone 14 Pro.
I'll be honest, the name for this game doesn't really do it justice. i saw the name and thought it was going to be some sort of Splatoon style game on phones and that got me really interested. but when i checked out it's store page it revealed the game to be something else entirely. that's not a bad thing as i really enjoyed my time with this game.
From looking at the pictures, you'd assume that this is a city builder and you have to fight off enemies. that's kinda right, but you don't build one city in Inkvasion. the game is broken up into stages, like 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and bonus extra stages. each stage has it's own requirements to complete it. each stage has you start from scratch in a different location. in this video the basic goals were the same, build farms to get food, use food to get people, use people to get troops, use troops to defend your town to complete the stage. to get 3 stars for completing a stage there will be an additional task, and each stage will give you a ranking based on your score.
The game smartly has a pause button. the stages are all kinda bite sized and suitable for mobile playing, but having a pause button is great for when you have to put your phone down. it's also great as it allows the player to take stock. what is the stage like, how long until the first wave hits, and what do you have to do to get 3 stars. you're able to start building things whilst it's paused and when you go back to play things start. that aspect of it's design almost reminds me of the PSP/DS era where games tended to be bite sized or could be paused as you put the system to sleep.
Another aspect of it's design i liked was the art. the app store page describes it as a wood block art style and i can see it. Inkvasion does have an Asian feel about it. the music helps with this, too. the game was developed in China but i found the English translation to be great. but Inkvasion does have a few issues. the first one happens quickly, there is no guest account. you must create an account to sign in to play it, i chose to go with Apple. the game also did a data download without asking for permission or warning. thankfully it was around 28MB, but still it's kinda rude. I did think the tutorial was good and gave us some tips, but the first level you play after it isn't quite the same as the tutorial. the tutorial shows you using 3 troops but when you start the level you only have 2. so i went back to the troop menu to see if i missed something and instead of troops there were buffs, something that the tutorial didn't mention. As with many games, the home screen also didn't have a tutorial but it wasn't overly complicated to work out.
The biggest disappointment with Inkvasion, in comparison to other issues mentioned above, is that the game feels like a straight port from Android. the main difference between the Android and iOS platforms is that iPhones have a Dynamic Island and most Android phones don't. it seems like Inkvasion has done nothing to mitigate this on iOS so it often is covering something. most of the time it doesn't seem too important so it's mostly just visually jarring.
As i said at the top, i enjoyed my time playing Inkvasion. i barely made a dent into the game's content. i was playing in the first few stages of the first world in the first game mode. there is a lot of content here and the game is being supported with new content being added. i do recommend Inkvasion as i feel like it'd be good for beginners and for those who know how these sort of games work. it's design is great for mobile players, maybe more so for those familiar with portable games on other past platforms. Inkvasion may even make it into my Game of the Year list i enjoyed it that much. i certainly won't be uninstalling it anytime soon.
