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Platinum #137 Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (platinum, 100% on DLCs and most of the Titles)First of all, I got this platinum done some time ago (1,5 months ago to be exact), so please excuse me for posting this now. I tried to finish writing this, as well as the platinum post, as quickly as possible, but because I've been busy with everything else, I had to delay posting them until they were finished and I was satisfied with both of them. Took me a long time to do so.Another reason why it took me so long to write both of them was the fact that I suffered from burnout after I got the platinum from this game, so I had to take a break from writing, but especially from gaming. I honestly couldn't do much gaming related because of that. No other game has managed to do that before. Luckily, it only lasted a few days. After that, I resumed writing, though I had to take a break every once in a while and give some time to other things. I also gave the PS5 a test run, but more about that later.The reason for burnout? It's not platinum. It's not 100% on DLCs. It's because I did five S rank playthroughs, as well at least five extra playthroughs for the Titles before the final one, and that certainly took its toll. When I originally started this game, I planned to collect all of them. However, when I put it on hiatus, I gave up on that. After I resumed it and started to enjoy it again, I decided to resume my original plan. Did I succeed? For the most part, yes. You can see my results in a moment. Before I talk about the game itself, let me give a quick introduction of my journey.Nine years after buying it, more than six months of planning and several weeks of hard work after resuming it, I've finally managed to get the platinum from a game that was meant to serve as my 100th platinum milestone. And that game is obviously this.I originally bought it in early 2013, but I didn't start it until 2020. While I did get most of the trophies done, there were two things that made me give up: the no damage battle against Armstrong in Sam's DLC, as well as some the VR Missions. I kept failing on both things, lost my patience and decided to give up. I just couldn't handle everything the game was throwing at me and I had to put it on hiatus. If I had started this when I first bought it, I would've most likely rage quit and give up on it. Then again, I was very young back then, so what can you say?Sometime after giving up, I planned to resume it multiple times, but couldn't do it. Then, when YouTube recommended a certain video out of nowhere (see below), I decided to resume this after some planning and try again. It was a long journey, but with a lot of patience, practice, knowledge and some luck, I managed to conquer this. Overall, I wouldn't say it was that hard as the trophy guides say, but I can't say it was easy either. Yes, I made things easier for myself by using the Fox Blade, but even so, there were some tough parts, like certain VR Missions where you can't use this "cheat" sword or the Sam VS Armstrong battle (No Damage trophy in particular). There is one thing that helped me through this journey and that's the official strategy guide which was a tremendous help. Say what you want about those, but I valued that a lot.But what about the game? Is it good? Yes. It's really good. It has some flaws, like the camera being annoying at some points and strict time requirements in certain VR Missions, but other than that, it's really well done. It has great sword mechanics, addictive gameplay, awesome boss battles and a memorable soundtrack. Shame there won't be a sequel or a remastered version. It deserves both of them. As long as Kojima and Konami are still on bad terms, neither will happen.In case some people might ask a few questions, I might as well give an answer.- Would I do the platinum again if I ever got another chance? Possibly, since I can still memorize many parts of the game, though there are a few parts I'm really not looking forward to doing again, especially Ranked Battle #2 in File R-04. That part on Revengeance was an absolute pain to get through. Not as hard as VR Mission 18, DLC VR Mission 27 or Sam VS Armstrong battle, but still.- Would I do it without the Fox Blade? I could give it a try and challenge myself since that thing pretty much breaks the game. Still, it's pretty fun to use since you're practically invincible (against regular enemies. It doesn't work on bosses, though).In the end, I'll consider this as the 2nd hardest platinum I've done. To me, Crash 4 still stands as the hardest one, since that game tested me in so many ways, not just my patience. This, however, mainly tested my skills in certain parts, as well as my patience, although rarely when compared to Crash 4.The last thing I have to mention are the Titles. As I mentioned earlier, I could've achieved the platinum a long ago, but I wanted to get something else besides the platinum and 100%. That would be Titles. You don't need to collect these unless you're a completionist, but I decided to do it anyway. I guess I wanted to challenge myself, as well as achieve something that I'd be satisfied with, but I could also say that getting them gave me some good practice for certain VR Missions, as well as preparing me for S rank Revengeace playthrough. Still, I enjoyed them (for the most part). Even the speedrun/difficulty/no deaths Titles were pretty easy, thanks to Fox Blade. I'm sure I would've got those without that, but I'm taking shortcuts whenever it's possible.In total, I must've done at least 10 playthroughs (in the main game) to get all trophies and most of the Titles. That's why it took me so long to get this done, besides taking breaks for other reasons. For the record, I'm not going to get the last four Titles I'm missing, at least not now. Even though I've spent so much time on this game, I've seen enough action, cut limbs and memes, so I'll say goodbye to this game for now. I'll come back someday and get the rest of them, but right now, it's time for other projects. At least I can say that I'm proud of owning the title of Master of Thunder, as shown below.Please excuse the poor quality of the images. Other than my smartphone, I lack a good camera. Otherwise, here are my final results.Spoiler
Oh, and the video I mentioned? It was this. This video was enough to give me some motivation to try again and I'm glad I did. After that, more and more videos started to appear which further increased my motivation. Although that's a good thing, the downside is that, even though I've managed to get this done, something tells me the memes won't leave alone for a while. Ugh...
Platinum #138 Astro's Playroom (platinum and 100% on DLC)
Since I got the previous game done, I decided to reward myself by finally setting the PS5. It had to wait for almost six months in the box before it was its turn. Naturally, the first PS5 platinum had to be this. Just like Astro Bot Rescue Mission, I enjoyed this one as well. So many references to Sony's consoles, as well as to certain game series. Honestly, you can't help but love it. Now, onto the game I've been looking forward to very much which is Scarlet Nexus.One last thing. Remember my PS5 status update? I mentioned that once I'd start using it, I'd also get the covers edited. I ended up buying black covers, because the white ones don't suit me. But what's on them, you might ask? Since I've already started using the console, I might as well reveal the design I had in mind.SpoilerWhy these? I wrote about my thoughts about this series in December 2021 in another thread, but I'll give a short version here. Ever since I first finished watching it from Netflix in 2020 (though it's not there anymore or in Crunchyroll), it quickly became one of my favorite series. Not only that, but some of the scenes were fixed or changed a bit, compared to when it first aired.* It even had a certain song in that one episode Crunchyroll couldn't use, though I won't blame them for that. Finally, it has helped me through these difficult times we're living, for several reasons. From the first time I watched it, to this day. Naturally, I had to decorate the covers with something I truly enjoy. Finding the latter image with good quality was hard, but luckily, the printing shop found it from a rather unusual place: Twitter. Once I saw the designs, I was overjoyed. They were better than I thought. If it wasn't for that, I'd have to come up with a backup plan (not related to that series, though). Also, that PS logo looks cool on it, don't you think?As for the console itself, it's great. There are some features I miss from the PS4, like What's New and giving likes whenever a friend earns a trophy or such, but that's pretty much it. Even though I've started using the PS5, I won't abandon the PS4. I still have games I'm going to play on that console. I could play them on the PS5, but that's how I prefer to do things.* I first watched it from Netflix and when I watched it from Crunchyroll for the last time before it was removed from there as well, I noticed some differences in several scenes.Yes, I paid so much attention that I memorized that much. I even took screenshots to see if I was correct. My eyes didn't deceive me.And that's all there's to say.