cr1s

This past week was quite eventful with several platinums added to my collection. It's been a while since my last status update, so I thought I'd make one and share a few thoughts on those.

 #485 - Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

Another great installment in the Yakuza series. It felt really nice to play a Yakuza game on PS4 with smoother graphics and performance. I have mixed feelings about a couple of aspects of the game (combat and ending) but overall, it's well worth playing. The platinum is by far the easiest and shortest one in the series. Nothing was difficult or time-consuming, only a little grind with the 100 Clan Creator wins (and XP), which wasn't even bad since the battles can be idled once you have a strong enough strike team.

I'm gonna take another break from the series now, but I'll definitely come back to it as I have 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 in my backlog.

 #486 - WRC 7

Pretty much the same accomplishment list as WRC 6, i.e. another grindfest. Thankfully, Super Special Stages count towards the 1,000 completed stages and the 5,000 km can be idled yet again. I liked WRC 6 better, though. The vehicles in this one had some weird handling...

 #487 - We Were Here

Not much to say about this game. I had some decent fun with the few puzzles it had to offer. Good thing it was free for a little while. I hope the others are longer considering their prices...

 #488 - BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle

I wasn't a big fan of CTB, but it was a decent fighting game all the same. The best thing about it is its large roster spanning multiple series. Why, there's even Yumi from Senran Kagura in there. She just had to be a DLC character, of course. x3

And last, but not least:

 #489 - BlazBlue: CentralFiction

After a bunch of tries, I finally beat SpeedStar Course C using Mai Natsume! I originally tried it with her a few months ago, but the furthest I got was 25 out of 32 defeated opponents before I took a break and got sidetracked by other games. Finishing BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle motivated me to go back to CentralFiction, and I fared a lot better this time. I'm excited to add a couple more fighting platinums to my collection, especially this one! =D

Many thanks to @Honor_Hand for the help with the multiplayer trophies in WRC 7, We Were Here, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, and BlazBlue: CentralFiction! \^w^/

 #481 - Yakuza 5 (PS3)

And with that, a tremendous journey comes to a close. It feels so great to obtain another Yakuza platinum and I gotta say, this is my favorite installment in the series so far. The way the developers craft each game is incredibly amazing. Story, gameplay, combat, locales, side content... They always pour so much love and care into the series, and this game is bigger and better than ever in pretty much every department. I'm glad we got Haruka as one of the new playable characters this time, especially considering how much she's involved in the series. I enjoyed her part of the game, be it her road to becoming an idol or the rhythm-oriented gameplay. Akiyama and Saejima (and Kiryu, of course) return from Yakuza 4, and we also have another new playable character called Shinada. Seeing all of their arcs unfold and eventually interconnect was a real treat. And that finale - man, that finale... 👌

Trophy wise, the platinum requires a ton of time, most of which is spent going for 100% in-game completion. All in all, it took me a little less than 200 hours between that, the Ultimate Battles, and the Extra Hard playthrough. So yeah, it was quite the time investment, but it was really enjoyable and I'm very excited to have reached the end goal.

I'm gonna play Yakuza 6 very soon because I gotta admit, I'm still craving some more Yakuza and 6 seems like the perfect amount to have after this one. I look forward to playing another one of Kiryu's installments in this unique series.

 #473 - Miracle Girls Festival

Lovely rhythm game by Sega that features cute girls singing cute songs from a varied bunch of anime. The song selection is solid, with most of the songs ranging from great to excellent. Moreover, it's well animated and runs very well on the Vita. I really enjoyed my time with this one and got to add many (hopefully great) anime to my Plan To Watch list that I might've missed otherwise.

As for the trophies, this game has one of the easier platinums in the genre. There are quite a few things that helped with that like not needing to complete all the Bingo Boards as well as the Help Items making some requirements a lot easier. Perfect for someone like me who's average at the genre.  It was a little grindy towards the end, but 'Innocent Blue' was an amazing remedy for that.

 #474 - Zombie Vikings

This game was certainly worth playing for the wacky humor.  There are lots of hilarious puns and moments to enjoy here. I also liked some of the level names, and the best ones to me were "King Fluffy's Snugglery" and "Mew York". x3 The co-op was another highlight, even though it had plenty of lag that produced many glitches - some funny and others annoying. That said, it was still some good fun overall. The combat was a mixed bag in that there are a lot of weapons but not much variety in the actual system.

The platinum was fairly easy and straightforward, and the 4-player trophies weren't that bad even with the lag. Thanks to @Honor_Hand for being my co-op partner throughout this adventure! ^w^

 #472 - Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Space Marine represents my first foray into the Warhammer 40,000 universe. This game being a hack-and-slash / shooter hybrid made me more interested in it, and I gotta say: it works really well. Awesome executions along with a great mixture of weapons make for plenty of exciting gameplay. There isn't a cover-based mechanic here, but there's still a good amount of cover throughout the game that you can stand behind and take your time with killing enemies from since they rarely rush or flank you.

With how rich the Warhammer 40,000 lore looks to be, I thought it was going to translate into the story here, but they've opted for a fairly simple premise that does a decent job of easing you into it:

The story - more or less. =P

From what I've read, there was going to be a sequel that would've likely materialized if it weren't for what happened to THQ afterwards. I'd definitely like to play a sequel or another game in the same vein, so hopefully someone picks up this formula one of these days.

The trophy list features two grinds: the "minor" one being completing all weapon challenges in multiplayer, and the "major" one being getting 40,000 kills across the entire game. The good thing about the former is that it only requires a maximum of 3 players, and I'd like to thank @Honor_Hand for his help with not just that, but all the multiplayer trophies.  As for the 40,000 kills, I used this method to "idle grind" the remainder of the kills after finishing all other base game trophies. It really is a godsend, especially since it doesn't need a turbo controller. Instead of "taping down" as the OP mentioned, I held it down and then stuck this in to keep it held down. It worked like a charm.  It took around 60 hours to reach the 40,000th kill, but I was able to do/play other things in the meantime, which was certainly nice.

As far as difficulty goes, the hardest trophy was the one for beating the first 4 chapters on Hard difficulty without dying or restarting a checkpoint. The shell loading area in Chapter 3 was the only troublesome part (mostly due to all those exploding enemies), and after practicing that area for a bit, I found out that the best hiding spot is behind the big container near the back, as it allows you to pick off the exploding enemies as they spawn with relative ease. Besides that part, Hard difficulty had a couple of other tricky parts, but it wasn't that bad overall - especially since you get 2 squadmates who stick with you throughout most of the game and are more than happy to take much of the beating for you.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with Space Marine. I'll look into the franchise some more in the future but from the little research I've done, it looks like there are a few other games I'd be interested in playing as well. =D