Platinum Journey Review

[allerburn]

Hi

 

I couldn't find much information on the game when browsing through a previous sale so thought I'd add my experience in case it's helpful to anybody else. This is a great deck building game with a lot of charm. The game felt very reminiscent of Hearthstone so anybody who enjoyed that will like this. The game requires 4 playthroughs so there isn't too much to worry about in terms of missable trophies but learning from my mistakes will hopefully make your journey more efficient.

 

There are no walkthroughs but there is some excellent information on most of the trophies on the trueachievements.com website and an excellent thread written by @Finch_III which will cover 90%+ of the trophies.  The thread also includes some great advice on using Catula as your 'main'. I agree with this as tempo decks work extremely well in this game due to bad AI.

 

Fun: 7/10

Difficulty: 4/10

Playthroughs: 4

Time: 15-20 hours

 

Trophies to read up on before playing:

There are four trophies that are worth keeping an eye out for throughout your journey:

• A Clean Map - Complete Every Side Quest in the Game: not too difficult as all the quests for each chapter are shown on the map but I managed to mess this up in my first playthrough. Be very careful when working on quests using other people's cards. I stupidly forgot about this and traded away one of the cards locking out future quests and required a second 100% playthrough. A 100% playthrough takes in the region of 8-10 hours compared to a speed run which can be done in about 3.
• Queen of the Hill - Complete the Game in Challenge Mode Without Losing a Match: this trophy isn't too difficult once your familiar with the mechanics but appears a little glitchy. I completed this requirement twice without it popping. I had to delete all of the save data and complete a new run for this to pop. This may have been because save files carry over when starting a new game on an existing slot and I'd already done 3 runs by this point. My advice for this trophy is to complete as many quests that don't involve battles as you can so that you can improve your deck. Any signs of trouble, load the previous save on your turn to make sure the loss doesn't register.
• Best Friends Forever - Become best friends with Yolanda, Cedric, Sam and Ashley: the reason you'll need 4 play throughs. Your best friend is determined by who's house you go to at the end of each day. For each playthrough aim for a specific character and visit their house.
• Who's a Good Boy - Own a Tiny 4/4 Dog: can only be achieved by changing the rules in your favour. I couldn't find any information on this trophy so hopefully this will help someone. I achieved this by changing the rules for hidden minions and applying a hidden sticker, plus a health and attack sticker.

Queezy - Bike shed on Thursday (Health +1)

             Fluffles - Playground on Thursday (Health +1)

             Labrat - Library on Thursday (Attack +2)

 

Summary:

The journey to platinum can be split into 3 main parts. 

1. 100% playthrough on story mode and using the freeplay mode at the end to get a lot of the battle related trophies
2. Go for queen of the hill trophy
3. Speed run your last two playthroughs to get the remaining best friends needed

 

Conclusion:

This is a great game for those who love deck building games. The game is very enjoyable but becomes a bit tedious on the last couple of playthroughs. The game has a lot of heroes which can lead to interesting deck building options but you'll likely not need to refine too much as the game isn't particularly hard. I'd recommend this game if you can find it on sale.

[Finch_III]

Great review. And thanks for the name-check! 

 

I still haven't actually got the platinum for this yet .... Still need the Best Friends trophy. I've done the conditions, but I think I've messed up with some of my saves across PS5 and PS4. So another playthrough or two before I get it *sigh* 

[PotrikBerger]

I too struggled with the queen of the hill trophy. I played three playhthroughs on challenge without losing a match and still it didn’t pop. Once I had all other trophies I deleted all saved data and played through again without ever using the dashboard method of leaving game if a match looked as though it was going against you. If I needed too, I only ever quit during my turn through pressing the options button and then reloading the auto save.

 

only tip I can really give is going against most of what little info on web there is about what deck to use. Most reports say catula works the best, but I found this deck was weak to powerful lethal decks and any decks which had lots of stealing items to take away your hello spitty cards. The deck I used to get the challenge trophy used the starting champion which boosts defender cards. I increased health and attack of all defenders and reduced their cost through rule changes and put an orange sticker on a hello spotty and a purple mutation that makes your champion lethal and able to hit twice. By end game nearly every card in my deck was a defender and I was winning all matches (even the challenges on day 5) with barely ever turning mega. Putting lethal stickers on defenders with high health makes most matches very short. Putting lethal on a fenix card pretty much makes you unbeatable. I found this deck to be way more powerful and way more consistent than catula deck.