Apple Arcade - Still Mobage, but better?

[Bebpo]

iOS13 officially came out today with Apple Arcade, the $5/month game pass type thing with some exclusives. First month is free. Grabbed Sayonara Wild Hearst, new Chu Chu Rocket, What the Golf and some Skateboard thing to start.

Also there's bluetooth support for X360 and PS4 controllers now. Haven't messed with this but will later.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is neat, but I'm also glad I didn't pay for it on here. Gameplay is ultra-simple and I really dislike the lack of accuracy of touch movement even if it's just moving left/right. Will try this with a controller and see if I like it better. Music/Style is aceeee, but gameplay is just a simplistic runner. I do appreciate that if you die you instantly restart from like 2 seconds before with infinite lives otherwise I'd probably get frustrated. Can't see this lasting more than a couple hours and then I'll just listen to the soundtrack but seems worth a playthrough.

What the Golf seems fun. Heard it compared to Katamari and can see that a bit. I'm pretty early so hoping it gets more complex later.

[Bebpo]

Ok, pairing a dual shock 4 took like 5 seconds and now suddenly mobile games actual have real controls. Sayonara Wild Hearts instantly became about 10x better and I could actually get good scores! Now I just need one of those clip attachments for a dual shock 4 to hold the iphone above it because otherwise the screen is too tiny on a phone even on a stand to play with a controller. Too bad there's no TV-out.

ipad on stand + controller should be great, but ios13 isn't out for ipad OS until September 30th and my ipad is Air2 and probably not up to playing some of these.

[CatsCatsCats]

Whaaaaa you can pair an xbone controller finally? That’s pretty neat

[bork]

Sayonara Wild Hearts LP soundtrack (and physical copies of the game for PS4 and Switch) are up for pre-order on Iam8Bit, btw.

[Joe Molotov]

Square Enix thing

https://gematsu.com/2019/09/square-enix-releases-daily-life-and-adventure-rpg-various-daylife-for-apple-arcade

[bork]

"Various Daylife?"  Sounds...exciting...?
 

[Joe Molotov]

Don't forget you're here forever.

[Tuckers Law]

I can’t knock square’s word game titles, at this point I find them oddly endearing.

“What do we want to call this one?”
“Kingdom Hearts Phi: Alpha into Remix Edit Particular, 2.71 Edition”
“That’s perfect, it’ll sell millions!”

[Bebpo]

Pretty far into What the Golf. Game is pretty good. Usually the first stage of each hole is just introducing a concept with no challenge and play more like Katamari Damacy, and then the 2nd and 3rd versions of the stage are the challenge gameplay and play like a real challenging game that is sometimes overly frustrating or near impossible but often pretty fun (and it's non-linear so just skip the bs holes).

Lot of content in this game. Made me check out the developer Triband and they've also got this Keyboard Sports game they made as a 2016 Humble Bundle prototype game and they're expanding it into a full length title for Steam release this year:



Seems like a good developer. I will check that one out when it is up.

[Joe Molotov]

Unfortunate abbreviation of the Secretary job's ability

[Bebpo]

So I got this running on my ipad air 2 and most of the games run pretty good. That + DS4 is much better than tiny iphone screen + DS4.

Exit the Gungeon - This is pretty great rogue but super fucking hard.

Shinsekai - Woah, this is legit the best game I've tried on the service. It's a Metroidvania by Capcom and it's really creative and high quality. The sound and music is fantastic and great sense of exploration. It's also the most non-mobile game I've played on mobile. Feels like a really good XBLA/PSN $20 title from the era when stuff like Shadow Complex was coming out.

Spidersaurs - Shitty Wayforward Contra. I've never played a Wayforward game I liked despite their many, many games. Great art, but their gameplay always feels hollow to me.

[Bebpo]

What the Golf's final stage is bugged and you can't beat the game >< otherwise this is a great game. Lots of variety and difficulty ramps up and tons of stages. Some really good parodies of video game culture and kinda a love letter to videogaming if it was made in the style of Katamari Damacy.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

SUPERPUTT was probably my favorite of the video game parody stages

[close]

[Rman]

Did you connect a controller, Bebpo?

[Bebpo]

They just added a couple new games to this.

Did you connect a controller, Bebpo?

Yup. Using a controller for everything that's not touch-based.

[Bebpo]

I tried Chu Chu Rocket 2. It didn’t have the chuchu rocket song anywhere. Was sad and quit.

[bork]

It didn’t have the chuchu rocket song anywhere.

 

[Bebpo]

Oh wow, I clicked on one of the newly added games Pilgrims and it turns out it’s a new game by my favorite devs at Amanita Design! Played about an hour and it’s pretty great adventure game using cards for inventory as you trade stuff as a pilgrim.