Phyrexian Librarian's Card Catalog of Platinums

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #186 - Arise

 

A touching story of love, loss, grief, and hope, with gorgeous visuals and a lovely calming soundtrack... unfortunately marred by messy controls and a bad camera system.

 

Verdict: Just OK

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #187 - Kena: Bridge of Spirits

 

I feel genuinely conflicted about this game. It looks absolutely stunning, with a level of CG animation and a beautiful worldf that would be right at home in a Pixar movie. But the game itself is... pretty average. It feels like they took aspects of Immortals, Pikmin, and Dark Souls, and tried to smush them all together. The plot is paper thin, the platforming is inconsistent, and the combat is deceptively hard, with super aggressive enemies and incredibly small parry windows. Even on Normal difficulty the game is a challenge; on Master it's an exercise in frustration.

 

Kudos to the studio for a very ambitious first title, but this isn't convincing me to pick up their second.

 

Verdict: Just OK

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Puzzle Platinum Roundup, "This Game Is a Metaphor for My Depresson" Edition apparently

 

Platinum #188 - The Gardens Between

 

A fun little puzzle game focused on moving time back and forth. Cute art style and good music, but it's somehow even shorter than I was expecting. But it's also free on PS+, so it's a fun diversion.

 

Verdict: Just OK

 

Platinum #189 - Gris

 

Another one you just play for the art and music, which is absolutely stunning. The journey around handpainted watercolored worlds to soft piano music is a delight, but the actual game itself is pretty surface-level. It's also the most explicit "this game is about grief" game I've ever seen, and I dunno if you've noticed, but there are a lot of those.

 

Verdict: Recommended

 

Platinum #190 - Life is Strange: Before the Storm

 

I genuinely don't get why this franchise is so beloved. It's a visual novel where every character is a cartoonish cliche of themselves, the animation is off, the voice acting is inconsistent (Episode 2 is strong, but it sounds like everyone in Episode 3 is on painkillers). Early in this game, a character straight up tells Chloe "Spike bracelets? You're trying way too hard." and I think that sums up my feelings pretty well. The game is trying so hard to be important and meaningful and it just... isn't. Maybe I'm just too old.

 

Verdict: For Life is Strange fans only

Edited March 7, 2023 by PhyrxianLibrarin

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #191 - Horizon: Forbidden West

 

Oof, rough luck, Guerrilla Games, dropping your huge console exclusive the same week as Elden Ring. I think everyone was way too hard on this game, and the release timing may be a big part of why.

 

Months after the events of Zero Dawn, Aloy sets off to the west to hunt down a backup copy of the master control system, to try and regain control of all the terraforming AIs that are still ravaging the planet. Along the way, she gets involved with fighting off a tribal rebellion, Sylens' group of agents, and a group called Far Zenith with incredibly advanced technology. How all of those groups relate to each other is... well, it's a lot. The story is all over the place with some bizarre twists and turns. It's one of those plots where it only works because everyone is hiding important info from everyone else, and a single conversation would literally solve everything. 

Spoiler

You spend the entire game thinking the Zeniths plan is to wipe out Earth, and only right before the final boss do you discover that they were going to leave as soon as they got a copy of Gaia. Then what was the point of any of this?! Both groups could have worked together to create two copies of Gaia, save Earth with one, and let the Zeniths take the other! Are we the baddies?!

The inconsistent voice acting doesn't help; Angela Bassett and Lance Reddick are criminally underused, and Ashly Burch seems to deliver most of her lines in an impatient whisper. It makes Aloy come across as if she's mad at everyone around her for bothering her and not going along with all of her schemes, despite never giving them any actual reason to.

 

It's a bigger, more complex, safer version of Zero Dawn. Loads of question marks on the map, most of which are skippable unless you're a completionist. Lots of new mechanics have been introduced, some of which (machine combat) are great and some of which (melee combat, a boardgame for some reason) are terrible. It's much more difficult than Zero Dawn, with fewer overpowered weapon/armor options and less ability to use stealth and traps. Fighting more than one machine at a time is quickly overwhelming, as the game handles spatial awareness pretty badly.

 

All of these flaws existed in Zero Dawn, but the increased scope and complexity make them more obvious, not less. It's not a bad game, it's just... a regular video game. If you're not already invested in the franchise or genre, there's nothing here to hook you.

 

Verdict: For Zero Dawn fans only.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #192 - Ghostwire: Tokyo

 

A very stylistic romp around a mostly empty downtown Tokyo, blasting enemies with bad FPS mechanics and picking up the OVER TWO THOUSAND collectibles. The game has such a great aesthetic and such a cool concept, and sadly does nothing interesting with either one.

 

Verdict: Just OK

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #193 - Tchia

 

This game makes me want to move to the South Pacific. Just eat coconuts and fish and listen to beach music all day, but instead I'm stuck here in front of a computer. We're doing it all wrong!

 

A very light, nearly combat-free, Breath of the Wild inspired trip around New Caledonia, where the developers are from. Take a break from all these dark and gloomy games and support your local (or not so local) indie devs.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #194 - Risk of Rain 2

 

The original Risk of Rain had a super simple yet incredibly addicting gameplay loop; explore the map, pick up random powerups, fight off enemies, find the teleporter to the next level, repeat until you die or become powerful enough to instakill the entire map. This game takes the gameplay loop, powerups, enemies, and sense of humor, and ramps up the insanity by bringing it all into 3 dimensions.

 

If you've enjoyed the first, you'll immediately get and enjoy this one. For everyone else, I dunno. It's strangely addicting, but the gameplay loop falls off around level 8-9 when you're either dead or immortal, and it's pretty monotonous from then on. Maybe Survivors of the Void will bring in some new ideas (if it ever actually gets released on consoles).

 

Verdict: For roguelike fans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #195 - The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope

 

Ugh, what a mess. They fixed the most egregious character animations from Man of Medan, but everything else is worse. The writing is disjointed and sloppy, the characterization is dull, there are virtually no actual choices to be made within the game, and the whole "cursed town" plot is both more interesting than, and completely undermined by, the actual plot. I still can't believe Supermassive pre-committed to making EIGHT of these things.

 

Verdict: Not Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #196 - Alan Wake Remastered

 

This is a real oddball of a game. You run around the town of Bright Falls, Washington, fighting off the possessed townsfolk with a flashlight (and also guns), constantly narrating to yourself... but are you? Bright Falls tends to attract artists, and blurs the line between their artistic creations and reality. Have you just pulled a Stephen King written yourself into your own novel as a fictional character?

 

The gameplay is surprisingly tense and jump scary, with very effective use of lighting and set pieces. The narration gets extremely wordy, but I guess that's to be expected from a game about an writer. The game really makes you feel like an underpowered middle aged author who's completely out of his depth, so good work to Remedy I guess!

 

Verdict: Recommended

 

Platinum #197 - The Quarry

 

This is more of a follow-up to Until Dawn than Supermassive's other games. The character models and animations have jumped up to photorealistic, the plot is less dumb, the voice acting is vastly improved, and the connections between cause and effect seem less arbitrary. Like the first one, play it with a crowd for a fun horror night movie romp!

 

If you go for the platinum, though, you need at least 3 playthroughs, and that's where the game really falls apart due to the lack of meaningful choice. Almost none of the dialogue affects the plot at all, you still can't skip or speed up the nearly 8 hours of cutscenes, you can't chapter select until you beat the entire story. Some of the writing is a complete disaster, and by the third playthrough, the plot holes become impossible to ignore.

 

Verdict: Just OK

Edited June 4, 2023 by PhyrxianLibrarin

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #198 - Sackboy: A Big Adventure

 

I never really got into the LittleBigPlanet series like other people did. Sackboy is a cute mascot, but it all felt too transparently "we can sell merchandise of this!" to me. Playing his PS5 debut doesn't do very much to convince me otherwise.

 

It's an adorable 3D platformer with a smattering of collectibles that unlock levels in the hub world, Mario Odyssey style. Don't let the aesthetic fool you; this has some brutally hard levels and challenges, especially if you're trying to platinum or 100% it. The physics get very floaty at times, and the game is clearly meant to be played in co-op, with multiple Sackboys tackling the worst parts together. It's not Crash Bandicoot hard, but it's still a rage-inducing experience.

 

Verdict: Just OK

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #199 - Humanity

 

A puzzle game that's right up my alley. You run around a geometric world, guiding streams of people with instructions on how to find a path to the level exit, with lovely synthwave beats in the background. Good puzzle games present with you with puzzles that look impossible, and then make you feel like a genius when you solve them, and this does exactly that.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #200 - Outer Wilds

 

A rare case of a game I go back to and play again for a second platinum, but I wanted this one to be a milestone so it would be on my profile for good.

 

It's really hard to talk about Outer Wilds without spoiling it, and the less you know about the game going into it, the better. It's a game about exploration, and puzzle solving, and pulling at the edges of a mystery until you unravel a truth bigger than you could ever imagine. Hop into your trusty rocket ship and go explore the Solar System. Read the logs. Decipher the old messages. It's clear that something important was happening long ago in this system... but what? And why? Can you finish the work they started? Should you even try? Are you the least important creature in the universe, or the most important?

 

This is going to be a stronger take than I usually make, but if you're reading this and you haven't played Outer Wilds yet, take the weekend and do it. You won't regret it.

 

Verdict: GOAT, Highly Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #201 - Lake

 

It's pretty much exactly what it says on the can. Drive around a lake in the 1980's Pacific Northwest, deliver mail, and... that's basically it? There are no real stakes and no real consequences to anything you do... is that the point? That sometimes we just need to enjoy where we are, not where we're going? The devs were clearly going for a hygge-style lesson about small town living, but it comes across like it was made by aliens trying to understand human communication.

 

Verdict: Not Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #202 - Return to Monkey Island

 

The original LucasArts adventure games were a huge part of my gaming childhood, and Monkey Island might have been first on that list. I'm happy that Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman had the chance to make another one after being cut out of the franchise for decades...

 

But much like Tim Schafer making Psychonauts 2 nearly identical to Psychonauts 1, this is nearly a carbon copy of the exact same type of game they made over 30 years ago. The art style is fine (Guybrush suffers the most, all the other character models look great), the writing is fantastic, and either I'm much smarter or the puzzles aren't nearly as hard as I remember. But I found myself wondering the whole time... is this it? Is this what I was so obsessed with as a child? There's no real depth to it at all, it's just a silly pirate adventure where nothing really matters, including the "plot." Maybe it's for the best that these franchises were left behind.

 

Verdict: For Monkey Island fans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #203 - Nobody Saves The World

 

A very off-the-wall dungeon crawler from the makers of Guacamelee, you can see the humor and art style influence really come through.

 

The core mechanic is pretty addicting; transform into different forms with different abilities, complete challenges to unlock new forms and abilities, and then mix and match them all together to complete the various dungeons and puzzles around the overworld. But once you're used to the gimmick, you begin the slow grind of leveling every form up to S-Rank, and the game starts to get pretty tedious. Good for a single playthrough, but not a particularly fun platinum to chase. Wait until it goes on sale again.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #204 - Trek to Yomi

 

Aesthetically, this game is gorgeous from top to bottom. The black & white scheme, strong film grain effect, and camera usage make the game feel like it was ripped right out of a post-WWII Kurosawa-era samurai epic.

 

Gameplay-wise, it's a mess.  The aesthetics make it incredibly difficult to see what's happening on screen, with your character sometimes being a tiny speck in a huge background. The combat is both shallow and sloppy, with a huge variety of elaborate combos, and no reason to use anything other than the very first stun combo you learn, because it's too dangerous to try anything else. The game is constantly dropping inputs and changing the timing of both your and your enemies' attacks, so every combat encounter is a combination of rote memorization and blind luck. You need incredibly precise timing and positioning to survive the higher difficulties, and the game doesn't give you the tools for either.

 

Verdict: Not Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #205 & 206 - Life is Strange 2 & Life is Strange: True Colors

 

Ready for some LiS hot takes?

• Life is Strange 2 is actually fine, and not worse than the other Life is Strange games. It's slower by choice, which isn't the same as being boring. It's a smaller story, focused on the relationship between your main characters, instead of learning your own power set. The nature of the story means you have new characters every chapter, which does impact your ability to get attached to any of them. It's impossible to separate the game from the politics of what it was like in America in 2016; maybe you had to be here at the time to get it. There's an entire sociology paper about how gamers could relate to a teenage girl, but 
• True Colors fixes all of the worst problems with the series; it's shorter, the plot is much more succinct and obvious, the voice acting and character animations are wildly improved. It really lays the "small town nostalgia" on thick

I don't think either of these games are "good," but they at least know what they're trying to do, and deliver on them. Free is absolutely the right price for this kind of thing.

 

Verdict: For Life is Strange fans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

#207 was short and #208 was a replay, so let's get to the big one.

 

Platinum #209 & Trophy #10000 - God of War Ragnarok

 

The 2018 relaunch of God of War is still one of my favorite games of all time, and the sequel builds on everything that made the first one great.

 

Three years after the events of the first game, the Nine Realms are deep in the grip of Fimbulwinter. Kratos is doing his best to mind his own business and keep his son safe, but Atreus is obsessed with the prophecies of Ragnarok, and the role he plays in them. Inevitably, the war comes to their front door, and the theme of the original trilogy comes back to the forefront; whether it's possible to change your fate. Can Kratos be anything other than the god-killing monster he was in Greece? Can a person change their destiny, or does trying to change it simply fulfill the prophecy they were trying to fight in the first place? Odin is willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to know the future and to prevent Ragnarok; is he on your side? Or is he on his own side?

 

The expanded world of the nine realms, now with nine actual realms you can visit, is deep and gorgeous and easy to get lost in. The combat is visceral and extremely satisfying, with even the new weapon adding a lot of fun new variety. The inventory system still has a lot of "number go up" mechanics, but there are so many builds possible that there's something for everyone. And no spoilers, but the new combat companion kicks ass.

 

Will we see God of War Part 3? I mean it seems inevitable, but the setup is a lot less clear this time. Maybe after 15 years, Kratos is ready for his last adventure.

 

Verdict: Highly Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #210 - Deathloop

 

You wake up on an beach, and the only thing you know is that some lady named Julianna is hunting you, and that every morning you wake up back on the same beach. Eventually you uncover the basic plot; your name is Colt, the island is occupied by a handful of powerful and eccentric characters, and the only way to break the loop is to kill them all in a single day. But how do you do that when they all have their own schedules and never meet up in person? By becoming the master of time (and guns)!

 

I love a good time loop game, there's something very satisfying about learning the inner workings of the loop and bending causality to your whim. Deathloop puts some very unique spins on that formula by adding roguelike elements. You have four different areas to go to and four different times to visit, and you have to figure out how the actions you take in one place impact the events of other places. As you loop around and around, you can take your favorite powerups with you into the next loop, until you're practically unstoppable. But as with all time loops, the real upgrade is knowledge.

 

Aesthetically it's a bizarre 70's blacksploitation inspired acid-trip, which is fun but does get exhausting eventually. There are still a few technical issues; the dialog between Julianna and Colt (and there's a lot) overlaps badly, and the game crashes at the menu kind of often. But kudos to Arkane for taking the basic first-person stealth play of Dishonored and putting a truly original spin on it.

 

Verdict: Recommended

 

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #211 - Cult of the Lamb

 

Does anyone remember Happy Tree Friends? The old web cartoon about cute woodland creatures who murdered each other in incredibly graphic detail? Because Massive Monster, the developers of this game, clearly do.

 

A bizarre combination of base-building micromanagement and rogue-like dungeon crawling, with an aesthetic that's full of both adorable marketable animals and eldritch abominations. It shouldn't work, and yet with some very clever and addicting feedback loops that are clearly inspired by mobile games, it does. The Relics of the Old Faith has rebalanced and expanded a lot of the game's combat, and significantly increases both the difficulty and length of the game compared to when it first came out. Unfortunately, it also makes the endgame feel a lot more grindy; feel free to drop the difficulty, as eventually the gameplay loop is too monotonous to also be frustrating.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #212 - Chorus

 

I can't remember where I saw the description of "it's like Control but in space," but it's pretty apt!

 

Fly around a collection of absolutely gorgeous space vistas and asteroid belts, join up with your local resistance cell, and take down the cult that is trying to erase free will from the galaxy, but that you were also a member of in the past? The plot is basically gobbledygook, and just a pretense to zoom around in a sentient fighter ship, blasting faceless entities from another dimension. And that part is incredibly satisfying, combining tactile weapons with zany space powers and the ability to drift in three dimensions. If anyone remembers Descent from back in the day, this is like a modern reinvention of that.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Indie Platinum Roundup!

 

Platinum #213 - Unpacking

 

A very quick, lighthearted lesson in environmental storytelling. Discover a person's life through the stuff you have to find space for as they move from home to home in the various stages of their life. Alternates between meditative, sweet, and infuriating, as the main character packs her boxes like a crazy person.

 

Verdict: Just OK

 

Platinum #214 - The Wild at Heart

 

Explore the mysterious Deep Woods, meet bizarre characters, collect forest sprites, and boss them around in a clearly Pikmin-inspired tale of kids trading in their sad real lives for exciting fantasy. It's a little bit twee, but the gameplay and puzzle solving makes up for it.

 

Verdict: Recommended

 

Platinum #215 - Cloudpunk

 

Basically a visual novel about our impending corp-owned future, and one crazy night as a delivery driver. The main gimmick is the "voxel" art style, a kind of 3-dimensional pixel art that lets you treat every single tiny cube as a separate light source. This creates a very unique aesthetic to the neon grimyness typical of cyberpunk stories. But the rest of the game is just a lot of driving from point A to B, and then back again, while narration plays in the background. It gets old fast.

 

Verdict: Just OK

 

Platinum #216 - Tacoma

 

From the makers of Gone Home, and very much the same style of game, although much more interesting. Explore an abandoned space station, piece together recreated memories, and try to figure out what actually happened to the crew. A bit of technical instability, but you can beat it so fast it's barely even a factor.

 

Verdict: Recommended

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by PhyrxianLibrarin

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #217 - Spiritfarer

 

A sweet, sad, lovingly hand-animated management game about shepherding souls into the afterlife and keeping them happy during their journey. Emotionally and graphically, it's beautiful, and conveys some truly important lessons about how much you really can (or should) bring with you as you move throughout your life. Sail the seas, build a crazy boat full of gardens and windmills and foundries, keep your passengers fed and comfortable, and explore the rich and deep world of purgatory. As a 20 hour cozy management game, it's a delight...

 

... But the game isn't 20 hours to platinum. It's a whopping 40 hours, most of which is spent repeating the same mindless tasks over and over again, and keeping meticulous notes about all the stuff you have to do that isn't actually tracked inside the game. A small handful of quality-of-life improvements like better upgrades and in-game tracking would make it far less tedious, but the game eschews that in favor of even more repetition. Your passengers are wildly unappreciative of all the work you do, to the point where by the end you can't wait to throw them off the ship. And in the lore of the game, does that mean you can't wait for them to die? Is that really the message? Wow, that's bleak.

 

Verdict: Just OK

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #218 - Chants of Sennaar

 

A fantastic little puzzle game about learning languages as you climb a tower and unite the people living in it. Yeah, it's a bit on the nose, but it's presented in such a captivating manner and art style, you fall into the world without realizing it, and come away feeling like some kind of polyglot genius, like the best puzzle games. If you liked Return of the Obra Dinn, you'll like this as well.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #219 - PowerWash Simulator

 

 

I can't blame the devs for this one, they got me. I thought this was going to be a nice relaxing game to play while catching up on podcasts. Instead, it's a migraine inducing pixel hunt with terrible physics that feels like someone gamified their 3d modeling homework. The game literally has only two controls, "move" and "spray water", and it manages to be bad at both of them.

 

This is just one in a whole collection of "meme games", where the simple fact that they exist at all is the joke. But the thing about meme games is that, first and foremost, they still have to be functional games, and this just... isn't. Laugh at the fact that someone made a game where you play a power washer, and then move on.

 

Verdict: Not Recommended