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 game Puppeteer. this game came out in 2013 and was developed internally by Studio Japan. this game can be played in 3D and with PlayStation Move controllers, but for this series i'm playing with the DualShock 3.
the first two parts cover the first act of the game. in this part i decided to see how long a video would be if i did the whole of an act so this is Act 2. as ever, it was just fun to watch the story unfold. i did find some of the platforming a little awkward. it's not quite as satisfying as i would like. thankfully, the combat and puzzle element to the game is good. the boss fights here are all very different from each other and just as fun. they're not overly complicated but still quite epic to be part of.
This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS3 version of Bit.Trip Presents... Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.
I lost the original Part 2 recording, so i had to do another recording. that's why more progress has been made since part 1. this was the first Cloud Monday video to be recorded via my replacement laptop so hopefully things like volume will become more consistent now.
In Part 1, the experience was good when conditions were perfect but on the whole it wasn't a great streaming experience. things were better in this Part but it seemed to highlight a different problem. i don't actually own the game to do the comparison, but i thought that the game seemed to suffer from stutters more in this part. this meant that my timing was off more than i would like but also that the audio wasn't as good as it could've been. this means that, across both parts, it's difficult to recommend streaming Bit.Trip Presents... Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien for those who have a PS3 as you can buy the game from the PSN store. But if you'd rather not pay or don't have a PS3, streaming it is perhaps fine at best and not really worth it if your streaming conditions aren't great. the game is built around timing and audio, and when things are perfect it feels amazing to pull it off. but when things begin to stutter or when the audio isn't quite as good, it does eat into the overall experience. Runner 3 isn't available to stream, but if it's available to download, i'd recommend doing that more than this.
For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Cosmic Royale from Eden Games on my iPhone 14 Pro.
My search for another good racing game on iOS continues, with EigenGauge https://youtu.be/AeqoQvM7STs still probably the best i've played, as Cosmic Royale has little about it worth recommending. It's a Fall Guys style game but in karts, so it's not even a true racing game.
The only tutorial the game has are skippable pictures that barely cover the controls and what to expect from the game. each stage, as you enter, gives a basic hint as to what will happen, but ultimately the game fails to tell us how to play the game and expects us to find out as we play. but playing the game wasn't that great.
with no tutorial at the start, we're dumped on the home screen where nothing is explained. i went to start hoping that a tutorial will be there but instead i ended up on an empty track with another countdown starting and then i was whisked away to another track, this time with other riders on it, and expected to race.
Once the track was finished i noticed something strange. as soon as i crossed the finish line, the game immediately stopped the race and moved onto the next one. the top 16 would progress to the next round but i didn't finish 16th so i began to think that it stopped because i was the only human player to in the race. this was confirmed later when i tried Rank mode and did 1 race. the points i got for it were enough to take me top of the leaderboard...of one...just me.
The game hasn't been updated in 4 months and with my experience i'm guessing that the player count has dropped significantly or is non existent. I'd like to say i found a hidden gem, but the only positive i could think of were the tracks themselves. i was surprised by how bland the karts and characters were. it started to feel like that maybe they were ai designed because of how generic and simple they looked. I didn't enjoy how the karts controlled either. i tried changing the controls in the options, but the handling characteristics of the karts just didn't work for me. i found them too twitchy and hard to control, and when you pair this with track hazards that move quite quickly, it started to become easier to just bang the kart against the wall and wait for it to go rather than try to dodge it.
I can't recommend Cosmic Royale and i can say for sure that it won't be replacing Squad Busters, a game that's not longer being supported by it's developers, as the Friday live stream game on #iPhone.
For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Judero, from developer Talha and Jack.
one of the most striking things about Judero when you first see it is the art style. everything in game was originally hand made and animated using stop motion. this was then put into the game and used as assets. so it certainly has a unique feel about it, when compared to the vast majority of games released. the thing that didn't quite work for me were how the characters looked. the enemies being as they are was fine, but for most of the characters we saw it just didn't work for me.
Whilst i'm talking about things that didn't work, i found that a lot of the conversations we had were people felt needlessly wordy. i genuinely questioned in this demo whether we were getting story stuff, philosophy stuff, or just crazy stuff. Even though i'm from England, some of the English used wasn't too familiar so i would've appreciated somewhere there being a quest list to help me better keep track of what's what. in the town i visited in the demo i was chatting with one guy and i'm not sure if they gave me a quest to do or if it's banter. again, even if it's an optional thing, i would've liked something telling me if it's a quest or not just to help me keep better track of things.
One thing Judero did well was the tutorial. when we start the demo we have a companion and because of how it's written it feels like we've been together for a while. our companion helps out as our tutorial guide and for the most part they're good. but when the tutorial is over, the game uses the in-game world and a bit of story telling to make this change feel natural in a way i greatly appreciated.
Combat was mostly fine and it felt quite fluid. but every now and then i'd get caught up in trees and it became less clear what was happening, or it was difficult to spot the spawning bugs in dark areas. the boss fights were a little challenging at first but i managed to defeat all of them in the demo in a satisfying way.
For me, the demo could be better as i don't have an idea what the overall story is, if there is one. for a game being based on folk tales, i didn't learn if this is a game where i deal with individual stories with no overarching story or if this has one overarching story and the folk tales are used to tell it. so whilst the combat was fun and the enemies were cool, because i don't know how long it is or what the story is i come away from this demo with it being on a wishlist rather than an immediate buy for me.
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 game Puppeteer. this game came out in 2013 and was developed internally by Studio Japan. this game can be played in 3D and with PlayStation Move controllers, but for this series i'm playing with the DualShock 3.
In this part i finished the first act. it seems like each act is broken into 3 parts. in Part 1 i finished the first part of the act so in this part is completed the Act. Puppeteer is very watchable. it's so easy to watch, the characters are easy to hear, i'm really having a great time with the story. we got a lot more of the story in this video revealing that maybe one of our goals is to save 4 individuals.
This week's new Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS3 version of Bit.Trip Presents... Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation4.
This was recorded whilst i didn't have a computer. This was made on my iPhone 14 Pro using it’s microphone, iMovie, and the video I recorded on to SD Card.
This is a game i have previously played before when the service was PlayStation Now. personally, i really enjoyed playing this before so i was happy to show it off in this, and part 2. this rhythm game doesn't have you repeat a beat or press on a beat, instead the music is created by how well you're doing in the game. the levels are not long and typically can be completed in a couple of minutes. there is a checkpoint around half way which you'll restart to once you cross it, you'll restart at the beginning until you do. all this happens without any loading.
But there's no manual saving whilst playing these levels. the game auto saves when you leave a level, so in the best case scenario that's every few minutes. As the video quality degraded, it did get more difficult to play. whilst our character is big, and so are the enemies, as this is a platformer of sorts it's judging our jumps or blocks or attacks that becomes the biggest issues. But even tho this wasn't the best showcase of the game, i would still recommend checking it out.
For this week's iPhone Friday i tried MONGIL: STAR DIVE from NetEase on my iPhone 14 Pro.
I would've played this game sooner if it wasn't for my previous laptop breaking. i had always been curious about how the game would combine character summons with monster collecting and using. Whilst there is an additional data download at the start, there's little to complain about with the opening to MONGIL: STAR DIVE.
The tutorial is perhaps where things could be improved, but even here i thought that it went at a good pace and the initial tutorial about moving characters was tied very well into the story and world. as things unlocked through this playthrough, there were additional tutorials for each new thing including showing us an on screen button that previously had a red dot on it but i hadn't checked out as yet. combined with the relaxing, but not slow, pace of the game i would say the opening to MONGIL: STAR DIVE is very approachable as even though it's a big game it never felt overwhelming. as i played, it was easy to keep going.
I was genuinely surprised by how funny i found this game. i'm not say it's like watching a comedian, but the way the characters interacted with each other when the spoke was funny, some of their facial expressions matched perfectly the tone of the voice acting, and for the two main characters i started with it really came across that these are people who have been working together for a while.
In some respects, i feel that the game's combat has been undersold on the app store page and even with the in-game tutorial. the combat is fluid without feeling too fast, there's spectacle and restraint in some of the larger attacks, but what i really enjoyed was the teamwork on display. switching character to character didn't mean only 1 character on screen at a time, it meant that initial character i picked could continue for a little bit whilst this new one jumped in and attacked or i could bring in the healer to heal the first character i was before that character jumped away. i never noticed the combat stuttering because it was too much for my phone.
The overall performance of MONGIL: STAR DIVE was great. i was surprised by how fast the loading was at times. it really made it pleasant to play and keep on playing. the game has struck a good balance between visuals and performance. i've played some games that focused on great looking characters or great look world with a compromise on either the other or performance. with MONGIL: STAR DIVE, i never felt wowed by anything looking stunning, but everything looked like it had the same level of detail and the world felt cohesive.
I had a great time with MONGIL: STAR DIVE and i would highly recommend it.
