Phyrexian Librarian's Card Catalog of Platinums

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #221 - Dysmantle

Turns out there's a whole micro-genre of "survival except everything in the map can be broken down and re-used as a resource" games, with Minecraft at the obvious top of the pile. I like the concept of the game, but this is another example of a great 20 hour game and concept being artificially stretched into a 40-60 hour grind. A small handful of quality-of-life improvements would make this a lot more bearable, but instead, they just make the game longer and more repetitive.

 

Verdict: Just OK

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #222 - Sea of Stars

 

From the studio behind The Messenger comes another love letter to the 8 and 16-bit era. But instead of a Ninja Gaiden-esque platformer, this one is a Chrono Trigger inspired top down RPG!

 

Turn based combat is back, with Super Mario RPG-style timed attacks and Chrono Trigger-style combos, and a fun mechanic about interrupting your opponents spells if you can figure out the right combination of ways to attack them. It provides some real variety to what would otherwise be incredibly monotonous combat. I'm a sucker for modern game design combined with pixel-art as an aesthetic choice, and through that lens, the game is beautiful and has some truly creative uses of its art style. The music might be one of the big highlights,

 

But Chrono Trigger is still considered one of the best games of all time because of the story, and that's where Sea of Stars falls short. It hints at a world with a lot of backstory, but you rarely get to see any of it, and are instead just told stories about it by NPCs. The two main characters have effectively no personality and are functionally identical, although I get why they had to be. The plot is... I dunno, something about suns and moons and parallel timelines? You're told that your mission is saving the world, but somehow, it never really feels like anything you're doing is that important.

 

After 100%ing the game, I realize that I have a lot less nostalgia for this era of gaming than I thought I did.

 

Verdict: For nostalgic gamers only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #224 - Thymesia

 

What an odd little game. The inspiration here is obvious, particularly Bloodborne's aesthetic and Sekiro's parrying, and it's wrapped up in a small little package that you can get through in a weekend. And it adds some very cool mechanics about stealing opponents movesets and more build variety than you'd expect from a game where you can't actually change your weapons. If you're a Soulsborne fan, this one's worth a look, especially if you already have it for free.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #225 - Control

 

Add another one to the list of "games so good I played them twice." An X-Files/SCP inspired shooter through a brutalist architecture government building, investigating paranatural objects and looking for your brother. The walls and paths shift and re-arrange as you fight back the interdimensional entities trying to take over our reality, and if your shapeshifting gun doesn't cut it, you can always psychically rip chunks of concrete out of the wall and throw them at your enemies.

 

This one deserves to be played in glorious 60fps with all the particle effects turned on for maximum spectacle. And the Ashtray Maze still slaps. Easily my GOTY 2019.

 

Verdict: Highly Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #226 - Hades

 

So I guess roguelikes, and adding roguelike modes to non-roguelike games, is the hot new trend in video games huh?

 

Supergiant's take on the genre is exactly as slick as you'd expect from the company behind Bastion and Transistor. The wide variety of tools, abilities, god powers, and weapons help add variety to the repetitive gameplay, but the game is hampered by each run being very fast, and not actually that unique compared to previous runs. The useful powers are broken enough that there isn't as much reason to experiment as this format needs; pick your favorite weapon, pick your favorite 2-3 gods, and you're basically good to go. You can turn up the difficulty slightly, but nothing really forces you to change your strategy or adapt; you do exactly what you were doing before, just for longer.

 

The hand-drawn art style is lovely, the music slaps, and the dialogue is well written and well performed (which is good, because there's a whole lot of it, and the dialogue story system is the reason this game takes so long to platinum). It's a fine addition to the genre, but unfortunately it isn't going to bring in anyone who wasn't going to play it already.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #227 - Going Under

 

First plat of the year!

 

So you play a marketing intern at a definitely-not-San-Francisco tech startup with questionable ethics and leadership, and dive into the lower levels of your corporate parent building to steal resources and prevent your own company from going bankrupt. I have never felt so seen.

 

It's very tongue-in-cheek and self-aware, and the animation style and music are both very silly and perfectly match the tone of the entire game. It's not particularly deep, as the good skills are very busted and the runs don't have a lot of variety. But I always appreciate it when a game doesn't take it self so darn seriously.

 

Verdict: For roguelike fans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #229 & #230 - Oxenfree & Oxenfree 2

 

I rarely regret buying games, but I really wish I'd known these were basically a 2D version of Life is Strange, which I've made my opinions on very clear before. The watercolor art style is lovely, but mostly you just walk around an empty world slowly interacting with items and triggering lots and lots and LOTS of dialogue, and almost none of your choices have a real impact on the story. A game this simple shouldn't also be this unstable.

 

Verdict: Not Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #231 & #232 - Deliver Us Mars & The Invincible

 

Walking sims in space! Hey storytellers, now this is how you properly do a walking game!

 

Two different takes on a similar theme; alone and stuck on a hostile planet, you need to unravel the mystery of what happened to everyone, and find your way off the surface. Deliver Us Mars follows up on the theme of a climate-ravaged Earth, and the hard decision of whether it's worth saving. The Invincible goes back to a retro 1960's Cold War atompunk aesthetic that I really like, and serves as a kind of prequel to the classic sci-fi novel of the same name. Both of these are linear narratives with some very light puzzles to solve, but they excel at what they're trying to do: make you feel like a very small person in a very big universe.

 

Verdict: Both Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #233 - NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139...

 

Drakengard has always been a strange series, and Nier even more so. It's mostly an action RPG with a little bit of genre-blending, and a dream-like artistic style that reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus and Dark Souls. But the combat is really messy and grindy, the mechanics aren't well defined, and though the voice acting is above average, the plot is nearly incomprehensible unless you dive deep into Drakengard/Nier lore, most of which isn't actually presented in the game itself. Throw in the classic 2010's era gaming trends; grinding for upgrades with impossibly low drop rates, the prerequisite fishing minigame, the huge empty maps with nowhere to explore, the mindless fetch quests that make up 90% of the content and really make the lack of meaningful story obvious.

 

It's really unfair to judge Nier through the lens of Nier Automata, a truly badass and beautiful action RPG that was probably my GOTY 2017. But it's kind of impossible not to; this game is such a bizarre experience, we're lucky they let Yoko Taro make a sequel at all.

 

Verdict: For NieR superfans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

I need a break from long games; Puzzle Platinum Roundup!

 

Platinum #234 - Carto

 

A cozy puzzle game about world exploration, where the puzzle gimmick is that you can literally re-arrange the world like a puzzle to access places you can't otherwise get to. Great hook, adorable art, and quick enough to beat in a single session.

 

Verdict: Recommended

 

Platinum #235 - Tinykin

 

I've never played Pikmin, but I apparently really like this style of game where you command an army of Little Guys each of which do different things, and you have to use them in creative ways to explore. Too many collectibles, but considering that finding collectibles are basically what the whole point is, I get it.

 

Verdict: Recommended

 

Platinum #236 - The Entropy Centre

 

Another room-based puzzle platformer, like Portal and The Turing Test. The gimmick in this one is that you can rewind objects backwards in time along their paths, which is really hard to explain until you see it in action. Also a fun and spooky Deliver Us The Moon-style narrative of figuring out how to save the world, or whether it's even worth saving. The dread that comes up when you get to the final levels, and understand the situation, is truly special.

 

Verdict: Highly Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #237: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

 

I'm not super into Star Wars lore (I was always more of a Star Trek fan), but I get the impression that Order 66 created an awkward situation for Lucasarts. How do you tell cool stories about the Jedi, during a time where they're all either dead or in hiding? Easy; it turns out that like a whole lot of them actually survived!

 

Another safe AAA sequel, except this one does seem to fix some of the jankiest parts of its predecessor. The gameplay is still rough at times and very "video-gamey", but it looks beautiful, the performances are excellent, the plot has some fun twists I truly didn't predict, and it continues to be immensely satisfying to tear through stormtroopers with a lightsaber.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #238 - Spirit of the North

 

I'm... not sure I get this game. You're a fox, and you wander around an empty Arctic world lighting up statues and interacting with spirits and curing some kind of infection in the land, and then the game just kind of ends? It's a very pretty chill romp, but sadly forgettable.

 

Verdict: Just OK

 

Platinum #239 - Roki

 

A very aesthetically cool point & click adventure of a girl who gets sucked into a land of Scandinavian mythology looking for her brother. The puzzles are tricky without being Sierra-level frustrating, and all the animations are incredibly cute! Unfortunately, a few missable trophies mean that you should probably use a walkthrough.

 

Verdict: Recommended

 

Platinum #240 - Sable

 

I think most people skipped this because of the absolutely terrible performance on the PS5. And don't get me wrong... it is terrible. But if you're willing to look past that, it's a very chill walking sim with a full world of characters, calming beats to study to, and an amazing cell-shaded art style that you can easily get lost in. It's a shame most people will never have the patience to experience it.

 

Verdict: Recommended if you have a high tolerance for glitches

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #241 - A Plague Tale: Requiem

 

Amicia and Hugo continue their search for a permanent home and a cure to Hugo's sickness, and end up on the trail of the previous carrier of the magic disease that causes rats. But once again, there are dark forces at work trying to use Hugo's power for their own ends. Truly, only next generation consoles are capable of rendering this many rats!

 

Talk about a sequel that didn't need to exist. The gameplay is identical to the first; you alternate passing through lovingly rendered areas of the 14th century Mediterranean, huge fields of guards to sneak past or kill, huge fields of rats to avoid, and occasionally both at once. A handful of new combat options help you get more creative with stealth and combat, but this isn't a FPS, and trying to go in sling-blazing is still a quick way to get game over.

 

The bigger issue is that the characterization takes a huge nose-dive, and our main characters manage to destroy any goodwill they earned in the first game. Every time Hugo gets even slightly upset, the city he's in gets completely wiped out by a huge wave of rats. Everyone (even Hugo himself, a literal child) understands how dangerous he is, except for Amicia, who insists on dragging a living weapon of mass destruction around the land chasing both actual and metaphorical dreams. She constantly telling Hugo that the rats aren't his fault, but they are, she knows they are, and by the end of the game after so much death and destruction, you have to wonder if any of it was worth it.

 

The first game ended on a small hopeful note; this game takes that hope and throws it directly into the garbage. If this is their setup for Plague Tale 3, I think I'm good.

 

Verdict: Just OK

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #243 - Ultros

 

Hoo boy, this is... a lot.

 

A quite literally psychedelic trip through an alien spaceship that's housing some kind of eldritch being, and there are time loops, and metaphysics, and lots of big important-sounding philosophy monologues. It's a classic case of style (of which there's a LOT) over substance (of which there is some, but not enough). The art style is the main reason people noticed this game, but in a game genre where ease of navigation is paramount, the sheer overwhelming-ness of the art actually makes the game harder to play.

 

The gimmick here is the planting system; as the game progresses, you find seeds, and each seed grows differently, and eventually you can splice parts of plants onto other plants and change the way they grow. As you explore fully, you start to realize that maybe you don't have to kill every boss after all, and the game becomes more of a 2D gardening sim than an action platformer. But the issues around lack of visual clarify persist, and the mechanics don't hold up to hours of eye strain getting a leaf to show up in juuuust the right place to access a new area.

 

By the time it was over, I just needed to sit in a dark room for a while.

 

Verdict: For Metroidvania fans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #245 - Assassin's Creed Mirage

 

I'm not really sure who asked for this. Was Basim's backstory a huge burning plot hole after Valhalla?

 

The smaller, denser world and increased focus on stealth are both appreciated after the open world games. But I wouldn't call this a "return" to form of the old-style AC games. It still has all the same mechanics as Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla, you can still go in swords blazing if you want, the assassin tools are fun but never actually necessary. Basim is an utterly forgettable protagonist who seems to have no strong opinions or beliefs of his own, and then is shocked when people take advantage of that. Maybe this is just a temporary pause before Ubisoft's new live-service AC game. But they intentionally took a year off to refine Valhalla instead of feeling obligated to release a new AC game every holiday season. They didn't have to release this at all.

 

The best Assassin's Creed game is, and continues to be, the Hitman trilogy. Play that instead.

 

Verdict: Just OK

[ProfSeajay7]

On 4/8/2021 at 2:51 PM, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe - See you in 2033

Worst trophy ever.

 

Great trophy list, though.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #248 - The Pathless

 

Kind of a very stylized combination of Shadow of the Colossus (empty world, big boss battles) and Immortals Fenyx Rising (environmental puzzles all over the place), with a few fun tricks to make running around the map less of a slog than either of those games. I don't think you can strictly speaking "die" at any point, and the puzzles aren't super taxing, so this is a great game to slot in between larger, more serious titles.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[jonesey46]

Man you play a lot of great games! And a lot of indies I would really like to check out. 

 

Great checklist! I look forward to reading more.