cr1s

 #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

 #471 | 21,000th Trophy | 500th Completed Game

TrackMania Turbo

I'm very excited to add this platinum to my collection!  This was one long and grueling journey (spanning about a month and a half of irregular play in my case), but it was also equally fun and thrilling. It was a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled experience unlike any I've had in a racing game. There's lots of enjoyment to be had here, be it from racing on (and around) the various tracks and environments or slowly getting better at and eventually nailing those difficult tracks. The most I spent on a single track was 10 hours (#178), but there were plenty of tracks that took me hours to beat. My favorite tracks were the rollercoaster ones, whereas my least favorite ones were the tropical ones, even though the tropical environment was my favorite.

To summarize this game: it's fast and furious. Play it, enjoy it, curse at it, throw your controller(s) at it.

If anyone is actually wondering, no controllers were harmed throughout this journey, thankfully.

Time to consume some more BlazBlue greatness. I'm one trophy away from the platinum in Central Fiction, so I'm going back to it next. =D

[Deus Ex: Mankind Divided]

100% obtained!

System Rift was okay. It felt like it belonged in Breach more than the main game in terms of story, as you get to learn a little more about the Rippers.

A Criminal Past, however, was more interesting. It features Jensen going undercover in an Aug-only high-security prison with lots of engaging gameplay to be had, especially if you're going for all the trophies in a single playthrough. There's a trophy for completing the DLC without augmentations, which reminded me of the 'Factory Zero' trophy from Human Revolution's Missing Link DLC. Speaking of Human Revolution, this game gave me more of an itch to replay it. I got the Director's Cut version a couple of years ago but haven't gotten to it yet. I definitely look forward to replaying it sometime next year.

I'm going back to Hitman 2 next to play the actual game since I've completed all the Legacy DLC. I'm pretty excited to explore some more locations in the Hitman universe. =D

 #469 - Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

It's nice to play another Deus Ex game after all this time.  They did a good job of continuing the story from where Human Revolution ended, but the ending(s) leaves a lot to be desired. Much like its predecessor, there's a lot to explore (and loot) and it's really fun sneaking your way through or around each area. The graphics are superb and the game's different locales and environments are well designed. The voice acting is so-so, though. I'm not sure what went wrong there, but it's as if the voice actors were indifferent to their roles. And then there are a few technical issues here and there like some noticeable frame drops while you're running through Prague, but then again I don't have a PS4 Pro...

I thought Breach was okay. They basically took the NSN part of the game and made an entire mode based on it. Oh, but it's online-only and the servers are bound to go down every now and then. One annoying thing about it is that if you get disconnected while playing a level, you have to play it again. Not only that, but the game only tells you so when the level ends. It would've been nice if, you know, it did that while you were playing the level so that you could've restarted it right there and then. Thankfully, it only happened twice to me but if your Internet happens to have some issues then you can expect some annoyance there. As far as completion, it wasn't too bad without the Infinite Energy glitch. It seemed a little daunting at first glance, but it didn't take me long before I got the hang of it.

Another inclusion in Mankind Divided is a permadeath mode (unlocked after beating the game on any difficulty) with a trophy that requires you to complete the game on that mode. You get one save slot and can save as many times as you want, and if you die your save gets wiped. You can circumvent that by backing up your save, but you shouldn't really have any trouble if you know a great way to tackle each mission and take certain shortcuts that allow you to bypass lots of enemies. For example, that vent in Mission 5 that takes you immediately to the objective and the Ice Drill in Mission 13. You'll also get the choice between two missions at one point, so you can just choose the shorter/easier one in that case. You can also explore the three sets of apartments (that aren't in restricted areas) early on for some extra Praxis Kits, Biocells, and other goodies. Combine all of these factors and Permadeath Mode should be pretty easy.

That should cover all my major thoughts on the game. I still have the story-based DLC to play for the 100%, so I'll delve into that shortly. =D

[Deus Ex: Mankind Divided]

First playthrough completed with all eBooks + no kills + no alarms! All I need for the platinum now is beating the game on the highest difficulty, completing the two side missions I missed during my first playthrough, and taking that alternate path in Mission 13. I took my time with the game and had fun exploring its different locales, so the second playthrough will be more or less a speedrun. Given the main story's length and some of the shortcuts you can find, it shouldn't take long.

100% #29 - Worms

Another fun game in the Worms series. This one doesn't have that many weapons and utilities, but it features a neat slow-motion replay feature that fits the series considering how many explosions and flying worms you come across. I wish every Worms game had it now. The major issue I had with this game was the camera that seemed to move around on its own sometimes.

There isn't much to the trophies in this game. The twenty challenges took the majority of the time spent going for the 100%. They were fairly easy overall, with only the last three taking me several tries to complete. Moreover, there are a few quick online trophies and a tiny grind at the end.

All in all, I'm taking a liking to the series and will definitely play another Worms game soon.

-

Besides that, I've recently completed all Legacy trophies in Hitman 2. I had already played Hitman last year and had all the fun I wanted to have there, so I mostly used video walkthroughs to speed things up this time, especially since there's barely any noticeable difference as far as map design goes. Hitman Series' excellent videos cut the completion time of each Legacy pack to 3-4 hours, as they combine each Mission Story with a few related challenges. Highly recommended if anyone is looking to do the same thing I did, since this gets you close to Mastery Level 20 for each location by the time you finish each all of its Mission Stories. For the rest of the XP grind, I mostly did a Silent Assassin / Suit Only run (big amount of XP) and/or played "The Icon", "A House Built on Sand", or "Landslide" since those missions have trophies. I had to do a few more challenges for a couple of locations but overall, it wasn't much of a grind.

I look forward to starting the actual Hitman 2 in the near future, most likely next week. I'm taking a small break to play a couple of other games first so as not to consume everything at once, although I'll keep the stealth theme going by playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided in the meantime. With all the Breach trophies out of the way, I can focus on the main game now.