Jens

I'm pretty sure about my multipliers, so before I forget about announcing them: Triple points: Tales of Zestiria Double points: Ys: Memories of Celceta and Warsaw I don't know if those will be my best choices in terms of math, but those are games I 100% intend to complete. And just one quick question. Would you prefer if we post a list of already started, but still open RPGs on the 1st of February or would you prefer checking that yourself? I've been slooowly chipping away at some RPGs in the last few weeks, so I have no idea yet where they'll stand two weeks from now.

I'd like to tag along. After a quick browse through my profile I see quite a bunch of RPGs coming (Tales of Zestiria, Warsaw, Swords of Ditto, Valkyria Chronicles 4, Ys: Memories of Celceta, Ys 9 probably), I should at least get something on the board Winning won't be possible, but why not check where I end up. I'll plan out my x2 and x3 on Sunday, if I get around to it even earlier.

Well why not. Memory Lane is a fun road to travel on. Piece of Cake: Gris It's easy and short. Collectibles are the only challenge in this game and even those weren't bad. Honorable mention goes to Pic-a-Pix because I cheated like I've never done before... last one for sure. It's Like Dark Souls: Rad It's kind of a proof that I didn't really play a lot of challenging games this year. It's not difficult on its own, but the learning curve, the tedious completion and scarce sources of information on the internet really turned the whole completion into a challenge. Tough to see it all the way to the end, that kinda sums it up. Honorable mention goes to Tokyo Xanadu, but only because we picked Hard for no reason and it turned the extra end boss into hell. Bad Ass Award: Slay the Spire You don't need any reflexes or mad skills, you just have to be willing to learn through lots and lot of failures. But once you get a deck going on one of the most difficult ascensions (difficulties, kinda)... it really makes you feel like your skull can't hold all that brain you just got. Honorable mention goes to Yakuza 6. Being done with all 7 games has a certain Badassery to it Grind of the Year: Red Dead Redemption 2 Nuff. Said. I don't wanna talk about it..... holy moly. Honorable mentions go to Tales of Vesperia and Yakuza Like a Dragon (this will be a bad one...). King of the Internet: Degrees of Separation Playing this game front to back with the one and only @eigen-space while having my first spoken casual conversation in English ever? That's no fair contest dude, easy victory! Honorable (!) mention to Castlevania: Harmony of Despair though. Without Briste and Cassylvania out there this would've landed in the garbage bin. Worst Online Experience: That online mode just sucked hard. I honestly don't get how people enjoy it, and I'm not trying to be elitist about it. Honorable mention goes to Fall Guys. Not because of the game itself, but all the kerfuffle it created.... this amount of toxicity was ridiculous. Sleeper Hit of the Year: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim I've only heard about this one by accident and man... what a unique game this is. I don't want to talk about it too much because it's probably best to experience without knowing too much about it. But that story dude... actually crazy. That's such an amazing effort, I don't think I've seen many like this one. Biggest Bomb: MediEvil I never experienced motion sickness in my life. But that performance + controls really made me feel bad... It's just so awkward in every way. Best Trophy Image: Medievil I only looked at platinums, but the whole list from MediEvil looks dope. If I would pick my top 30 images, all rarities included, MediEvil might take 20+ of those. Just throwing my second one in there (https://i.psnprofiles.com/games/ddf313/trophies/1Lb48e27.png) because I really like the mood of it. Worst Trophy Image: Gris The image itself isn't ugly, but from such an artistic game... that's kind of a letdown. Pretty much just failed to meet expectations. Best Female Character: Jill Valentine from RE3. It kind of wins by default. I played next to no games with female protagonists (at least talking ones) and well... she is one. I don't have very deep knowledge of RE overall so she just kinda got the job done as a protagonist... Well, what a glamorous victory that is, huh Best Male Character: Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia He's so different from all those "Gotta save the world!" dudes out there, it was kind of refreshing. Different while still checking of all the right boxes, nothing wrong with him. Best Plat of the Year: Yakuza 6 Not exactly because of the game on its own. But the whole history behind completing all 7 main series Yakuza games... That was a journey that won't be reached ever again and will definitely be THE platinum of 2020 for us. Worst Plat of the Year: Moonlighter Take needlessly long grinds, no counters and broken trophies and you'll have the most disgusting stew of the year! Kind of sad because I liked the game by itself, the platinum was almost unbearable though. Most Anticipated Platinum in 2021: Pretty much only Trails of Cold Steel 4 is planned. This one will end such a looooong series too, so it would defeat a big amount of competitors, if there were any

You're only glad because he's one step closer to Yakuza now, and we both know it! But back to the boss of this thread: Is that "I play complete series, back to back and in order!" something that's getting a bit cumbersome for you by now or are you still into it 100%? You seem to be going strong so far while not avoiding bigger series, but it almost makes me think that it starts feeling like work, just gaming-style.

I've heard that it's the biggest MMORPG since WoW Just don't bend the knee and pay those scammers out there, you'll be able to muster the patience. I'm just curious how long it'll take for that bubble to burst. The next wave of consoles will be bot-spammed too, so that probably won't help either. I just dislike it a great deal when companies openly invite scammers by announcing limited supply. Sony did the Nintendo thing and I'm not a fan.

That will most likely be my last post in this thread because every single platinum will feel a little less important after this one. Yakuza 6 is down and with that the whole main series. It would be kind of weird to just talk about Yakuza 6 on its own when the whole series is so much more. So I'll just say that: Yakuza 6 is kind of the buffet of Yakuza games. You can eat what you want and how much you want, but it's completely up to you. The completion requirements are so much lower compared to the other games, it's pretty simple. How much of an extra effort you want to do is completely your call. It felt kind of anticlimactic as a "completion package" because of that, but it's still a nice change of pace for once. The story has some odd twists and yes, cliches are plenty, but it was still as rock solid as always. I don't see anyone playing this one first (and that would be a bad idea I think), so my opinion on it is kind of not all that important to be honest If you stuck around for so long this one definitely won't be a disappointment for you. Maybe not your absolute favorite among all of them (probably on my... third place battling for it with Yakuza 1), but still absolutely entertaining. I only disliked a few things. The combat with this engine feels a little bit delayed, it's definitely less visceral than the older games. You can really tell the combat of Yakuza Kiwami 2, Yakuza 6 and Judgment apart from the rest of series. Not terrible by any means, but still a little bit less satisfying. And they kind of picked most of the minigames I disliked and made a little bundle of my "worst of" in terms of that, but you can easily ignore them, so it's not really a burden. It's still a miracle to me how a series with 7 humongous and pretty similar games (8 if we include Judgment) could keep my attention the whole way through. But it did... it did with flying colors. The Completion Lists were always extremely motivating, no matter what they demanded. The minigames were always fun to tackle, no matter how much effort they required. The stories turned a little cliche over time, but they still absolutely got the job done and were a big help in keeping at it (and made my girlfriend cry on numerous occasions, especially this very one). The side missions kept being bizarre and entertaining, the characters were always as likable as ever, it's just such a complete package top to bottom. Everything just clicks, it's like a very well-oiled machine. That mix of a serious crime thriller - story, absolutely bonkers sidequests and the grand completion package... the perfect trifecta right there. Just check a few profiles on this site. If you see one game completed you usually see those people going for the other ones as well, can't be a coincidence right? It's a treat and looking back on it I would easily take on Yakuza 7 - 12, no questions asked. And that's it. Very unlikely that another series will take the throne away from this one. That's just the perfect mix that resonated 100% with us. Yakuza 7 will happen, 99% sure about that, but this one is a chapter closed for sure. There's easily 10x as much to say about it all, but words won't do it justice. That's something you just have to try out for yourself.

Just shortly after talking about RAD and Risk of Rain 2 they got a sale... I took that as a sign of fate and bought both

Ripple Time!!

I mean... there is the separate trophy list for the original Persona 5 But I immediately get what you're saying. Persona 5 was quite the game changer for me too. When the credits come up after more than 150 hours and your first thought is "Aww... it's over already?" you might have found THE winner. And that with me not really being into Anime stuff whatsoever. But you'll be fine. You still have so many Ateliers to run and bread to synthesize. You won't run out of options in the near distant future

That's good to know. At least I've used it to clear the "Don't pick up any hearts" one, I'll take that as a start Do you know if there's any way to quickly reset that scenario in which you can get those trial items without having to watch the intro and tutorial again? Other than uploading and downloading your save file, that would always work I guess. That chance seems to be gone once you die and that would be quite the ordeal otherwise. Haven't tried it yet though. You're definitely not wrong. If Gungeon would have crashed at all I couldn't see myself going for that platinum back then because that would've been an even harder kick in the teeth. It's good enough at the moment to just slowly grind away to finally feel free switching to Hard again. Currently playing on Easy to secure a good streak of unlocks / grinding progress. And once more those are games I kept in the back of my head for quite some time now and I thank you for your recommendations I just try to avoid mixing too many rogue-lites at once because I have an easier and better time in those if I stay in the game with my brain. Once you understand the items, consumable / unlockable economy, gameplay loop and so on everything becomes easier. And my tiny brain can only contain so much of that information at once So it might be a little rogue-lite stop until Neon Abyss seems to be fixed (well, or dead, who knows), but afterwards I'll surely take another close look at the games you've mentioned. Especially Risk of Rain 2 seems to be an interesting option. I could really see myself wanting to play that one co-op with someone at some point in the future, that would be a unique experience for a rogue-lite. It's just a little complicated at the moment for various reasons. The more I hear about it from you guys the more I wonder how it went right by me as a rogue-lite guy myself. It sounds like it could be right up my alley, a slightly less frantic Nuclear Throne. But on the other hand... if a friend wouldn't have mentioned Neon Abyss I wouldn't have noticed it either. So I might just be a little out of the loop And let me take a second to mention that RAD and Risk of Rain 2 just got another sale discount today (over here in the EU at least). Your recommendations are hell on my time and wallet.

Well, guess you got me. Children of Morta was on the mental list for a while now, Rad is now sitting next to it And with Neon Abyss I'll just keep chipping away at the grindier stuff (999 runs in general, deaths, treasure chests, you name it) and maybe fluke into an Ares kill. But some serious completion-oriented play will have to wait for after the patch. One quick question though. The trophies that require you to not lose a heart during a run, or not picking one up during a run. Are they talking about completing a whole run to the very last endboss or can you "cheese" them on a new save file? Seems way easier to achieve when the end goal is only Argus.

Nope. I have seen the name pop up here and there, but I wouldn't have put it in the same basket as Neon Abyss and Co. To me it always looked like Hob. Worth a recommendation in your eyes? All other somewhat similar games I've played are The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, Slay the Spire, Wizard of Legend, Flinthook, Downwell (close-ish), Rogue Legacy (also close-ish).... and one black and white game on Steam where you play as a girl in a school (?).... I completely forgot the name of it and Google isn't cooperative.

So I definitely do not want or attempt to devalue your tip, if people REALLY struggle and just want to get it over with that might be helpful. I can see Gungeon being pretty stressful for people with completionist attitude being "stuck" in this game and never getting the hang of it. But if you really have to force that exact scenario in a game - and in a genre - that really builds on randomness and beating the odds you might just have picked the wrong game altogether. So I definitely wouldn't recommend jumping into this game with that mindset from the start because it kind of defeats the purpose of a rogue-lite. That learning curve of learning the items, getting further and further every single run etc. is the whole essence of this game, so at least give it a normal shot at the start.