MarcusPunisher

Platinum # 180 - Lords of the Fallen 

I was finally able to finish this game after 3 full playthroughs with some strategic save slot use to make it faster, because it is a lot after even one playthrough. This post reflection is going to be completely different than what I usually do for one big reason. I can talk about the shallow story, boring characters, painfully slow combat, lack of creative enemies with bosses, choices that don't matter except the end one, lack of rewarding progress in NG +, and so on. Instead, I want to talk about something much more important and why this has so much significance for me.

I stated before that this might be the hardest platinum I had to go through, and it is why I put up this game for almost 8 years. This was the very last game that my older brother gifted to me before he tragically passed away. He and I shared passion for games that brought a lot of joy to our life. He introduced me to some really cool ones early on like Half Life 1, Max Payne, Deus Ex, Warcraft III, and so on. We would play co-op against each other, but also together. Being the older brother, he always blamed me whenever we screwed up. So being such passionate gamers, we always bought each other games for birthdays, Christmas, or for special occasion. I still remember the excitement when unpacking the collector's edition for Dragon Age Origins that my brother bought me, a game that still remains my all-time favorite. Losing him really felt like I lost my player 2 given as silly as it sounds, but his unexpected death still sticks with me to this day. I couldn't bear to even look at this game, let alone even finish the last remaining game I ever received from him for such a long time. It's the reason why I can't watch movies like Gladiator, which was his favorite and don't even start me on that ending of Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons. 

I set up a goal at the beginning of this year to reach 180 platinum trophies, which went faster than I expected. I finally got the courage to play this game and get the platinum for this personal milestone. This is why I don't talk about what is in the game itself, because not of that matters to me. I'm glad I was able to finish it and if anything, I dedicate this to my older brother, whom I shared so many loving memories and I am forever grateful for what you have done for me. I normally don't like to make downer posts, but I am making exception to this and the only time I get really emotional. We may be able to respawn multiple times in games, but we only get one chance in life.

Lord of the Fallen is the best circumcising game ever. I'm not joking. The animation attack from behind with a sword looks like you are chopping their wieners off. 😂

Alone in the Dark remake

- Controls similar to Resident Evil 2 remake

- Same writer for Soma and Amnesia: The Dark Descent

- Guillermo Del Toro collaborated on the monsters' designs

Platinum # 179 - Capcom Fighting Collection 

Here was a nice return to the past of arcade games. I haven't played them all like Vampire Hunter, but it was nice to see the history. Obviously, I have my Street Fighter 2 included in and I can have that on almost any version. I was surprised how quickly this platinum could be obtained. There were some real good tips online, with the save system being abused for every final boss and some I was able to discover like for Around the World trophy. It also becomes tremendously easy when there are dedicated buttons for special attacks and sliders to increase damage or lower difficulty. On top of that, NO MULTIPLAYER TROPHIES. Finally, a fighting game collection that I can stick in with the single player part to get trophies and pretend that I am good at fighting games. 😄

I don't have much else to say. You got 10 quality arcade fighting games that run top notch and it is appreciative of Capcom that they keep preserving these games on modern systems, with this one having an actual platinum. With the Shredders Revenge along with the TMNT arcade collection and DNF Duel, this looks to be a solid year for fighting and beat em up games. Now if Capcom could just release Alien vs Predator Arcade game, that would have been cool. 

Started my first playthrough for Lord of the Fallen. This might be my hardest platinum I have ever attempted. 🙁

Platinum # 178 - Deus Ex Mankind Divided

and 100%

Here is a game I thought I wouldn't platinum. I replayed the old Deus Ex and played Human Revolution for the first time over the course of this Summer to then lead to Mankind Divided. Skipped Invisible War, cause it was really hard to have it run on modern system. The first is still an absolute classic, Human Revolution is a nice follow up that suffers issues in the third act and little bit of jank controls. That leaves Mankind Divided and wow, I don't remember being this torn on a game that I love and hate at the same time.

The main MVP of this game is the hub world of Prague. It is not small, but not big at the same time, which actually works towards its benefit as the team at Eidos do a fantastic job of creating environmental storytelling. It is a lot of fun to explore this city and apartments to find little things that can relate to the overarching story. This is what I have been preaching for the longest time and it is the reason why these oversized open world games from Ubisoft and so on make me sick, as they often skip on the interesting environmental storytelling and instead cram the world with useless exploration. It weirdly felt like a breath of a fresh air and more of these types of games would be beneficial. I can't think of a moment where my curiosity was punished or when exploring the map was completely pointless, which is then further helped by the gameplay. The arsenal of augments and tool that help you navigate around the world are so much fun to use. Of course, there are plenty of vents to sneak around just like in Human Revolution, which can make sneaking around very easy, but it never feels like it is a cheap go around. I do appreciate the design of this futuristic Prague in 2029, but I do have a major gripe with something. As someone, who has grown up in Prague and speaks the language, I can very easily pick up on certain lines and the way the sentences are structured or spelled. If I designed a drinking around this, I would have to go through at least 10 bottles of whisky. I could tell on many occasions that certain lines were translated via Google translator (I actually tried that), resulting in some serious mumbo jumbo of sentences and even first grade grammatic errors, which does come off as lazy. I know that not everyone is gonna notice these mistakes, unless they speak the language, but it does break my immersion when playing this game. I also found it funny that suppose "Czech people" often have Russian and Bulgarian accents in these games, which can't be further from the truth. 

So the story part. Not much here unfortunately, as it all feels like a first act of something big, which was a dumb move on Square Enix's part, but they like money. It also doesn't help that the side characters who accompany the player feel like a massive downgrade from the previous game and range from either useless or boring. Some characters like Alex really needed to be fleshed out or given some quests to make them at least useful in something. It's weird, cause the side quests in this game feel much more interesting than the main story and they do flesh out some of the important parts of the overall worldbuilding in Deus Ex. Some of my favorites were collecting memory for Elena or solving a murder mystery that then continued in other quests with its own twist. These quests give you a great variety of options and ways to tackle them. Some can be played out entirely different even missing one single element that could give you some type of advantage. That kind of variety only comes two times in the main story. One feels very artificial and the second is the one where more routes can be explored, resulting in more varieties that feel earned. Because of the nature of this feeling like act 1, the game needs to stretch the length into a narrative that often has no point or is bugged by contrivance issues. It is most likely as a result of Square forcing to split this game in half, but this is the final product we got.

If you want to platinum this trophy - it's not that hard honestly, but you need to follow a guide to the T and make sure you collect the mandatory Ebooks along the way if you want to shorten your number of playthroughs. There are fair share of missables, especially in the side missions. Other parts will require you to make a save in order to complete a trophy, mostly killing somebody and reload back if you want to maintain your pacifist run. Probably the craziest one was to carry a golden penguin statue of all things from the beginning of a mission all the way before the end. I still don't know why golden penguin. In any case, follow the psn walkthrough, which helped me a lot personally, and you should have no issues

If you plan to 100% this - then get ready for some agony that is called The Breach. There are few that are included in the platinum section, but they are relatively manageable, but the added stuff is what makes this mode a living hell. What should have been an easy and fun time is turned into a chore, time wasting, microtransaction grabbing dog shit. If you are attempting all of the legitimately, then may all the Gaming Gods be with you, and I will pray for your salvation. If you however get this over quickly, do use the still functional glitch that will give you infinite energy. I did that in my last section and I actually had some sort of fun with that. You should not be ashamed for doing that, cause the glitch is not only useful, but necceseary to remain your sanity and precious time, since the developers who worked on this do not actually respect yours and don't wnat you to have fun. This is strictly designed to cash as much money from you as they can, given the level design that make some of these levels straight up impossible. You will be thanking the lord for the other DLC sections, cause those contain some actual strong stories and fun level design, especially Criminal Past, which takes place entirely in prison complex. 

I think I said all I could. Love and hate this game, I appreciate the challenging journey and Breach can go back to the pits of hell one day when those servers will be shut off, but not too soon so others can still complete the 100%. I will be amazed if we ever see some conclusion to this series, but miracles can still happen in gaming industry and from fans of the series, they definitely asked for this. 

Platinum # 177 - Lego Lord of the Rings (PS Vita)

I played this game before on my PC when it was released, cause my love for LOTR and the fact it was getting a glowing reviews was enough to buy this and I loved it. I expected some corners to be cut in the Vita version, but didn't expect to downright cut missions or boss fights like the one with Sauron. They did a pretty decent job of scaling the game enough and in some instances add different areas like in the battle of Minas Tirith, thus it makes up for the cut corners for the most part. I still take it over the exhausting parts of Skywalker Saga. It is still very enjoyable Lego game and probably my favorite mainly for my bias of the source material, which they treated well.

Platinum trophy was extremely easy to get, mainly because it cuts the multiplayer part of the other versions, and the collection of studs is very generous. Most of it requires 100% every area, which doesn't take too long and completing few misc trophies that are pretty straight forward. So, if you own have a PS Vita and are looking for straightforward platinum that is fun to achieve, do get this game, as it is pretty cheap on Ebay.