PSNP 2021 Year End Awards

[voodoo_eyes]

I didn't plat anywhere near as many games as I did in the previous years, as I've been more in the mood of just trying out a bunch of games, so my pool of games to pick from is a bit more limited.

 

Piece of Cake

Gun Crazy - by far the easiest and shortest and also one of the shittiest games I played this year.

 

 

It's Like Dark Souls

Hitman Blood Money (PS3) - Some of the missions were a pain to get through, and yes, this was more difficult to me than Wolfenstein New Order on maximum difficulty.

 

 

Badass Award

Hitman Blood Money (PS3) - Yeah, this award also goes to this game. Finishng a mission on professional difficulty along with the silent assassin rating was like a relief every time.

 

 

Grind of the Year

Assassin's Creed Odyssey - As much fun as these "new" AC games are, boy are they never-ending. Excessive amount of side-stuff to do. The DLC was especially exhausting, which is why I'll stick to only the base game for this series from now on. I also never really enjoy the DLCs all that much.

 

 

Finally Done

This one is kind of a tie.

 

Hitman Blood Money took me 1 year and 4 months to complete, but that's only because I started it as part of the KYC event, playing it only for a few hours then. When I returned to it to actually actively focus on it, it took me maybe 2 or 3 weeks.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey took me 4 months to fiish, but I probably put like 130+ hours into it.

 

 

King of the Internet

Far Cry New Dawn - This may be the only game with Multiplayer that I plated all year, so this wins by default. As such there is also no "worst" online experience, as the online co-op in this was solid.

 

 

Best Music

Far Cry New Dawn - This was a relatively easy pick. Not a lot of games I played this year stood out with their music.

Honorable mentions go to One Punch Man A Hero Nobody Knows and Terminator Resistance.

 

 

Sleeper Hit

Dead or School - I did not expect to enjoy this game as much as I did. I bought it kind of on a whim, and ended up being pleasantly surprised.

 

 

Biggest Bomb

One Punch Man AHNK - This was the most boring and most bland fighting game I ever played, and I played a lot of them.

 

 

Best Trophy Image

Terminator Resistance

 

 

Worst Trophy Image

Suicide Guy: Sleepin Deeply

 

 

Best Female Character

Life is Strange: True Colors - Steph

 

 

Best Male Character

Life is Strange: True Colors - Gabe

 

 

Wurst Plat Ov Teh Yeer

Grey Skies - Absolute trash. I've played a handful of really bad games this year, but holy shit this one would need a special category of it's own.

 

 

Best Plat of the Year

Wolfenstein: The New Order (PS3) - This was a really tough pick, because there were at least two other games, taht I think are just as good (AC Odyssey and Far Cry New Dawn). Wolfenstein won, because it had no MP and no long as hell grind.

 

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2022

 

That's a tough one. Currently I'm planning to make Ghost of Tsushima my 600th platinum. So unless I end up playing a game that I enjoy more until I get to that milestone, that's going to be my most anticipated plat I guess.

Edited December 23, 2021 by voodoo_eyes

[Dr_Mayus]

Phew, now that is Christmas is over i can go over everyone's lists.

 

Some interesting picks, this is why i like doing this as you never know what someone will choose.

 

I have decided to do a plat rain for 350 so i am done platting games for the year so i hope to get my list done tonight.

[MarcusPunisher]

Piece of Cake Award

Goosebumps: The Game

I could pick other games that were very easy to platinum like Sly Cooper or Life is Strange True Colors, but I went with how long it took me and this one was by far the shortest. Not much to say about the game itself, I remember playing it just to add more platinum so I could round Resident Evil Village as my 125th platinum. 

 

It's Like Dark Souls

The Evil Within Two

This game took me while to play, cause I decided to ignore the added cheats and tried to reach the platinum legitimately. I started with the 2nd hardest difficulty to unlock the next one, which was very challenging and yet a lot of fun, cause I love survival horror games done right. My first playthrough ended with a great experience and I was ready to tackle the highest difficulty. At least I thought I was, cause the classic mode is unforgivably punishing. It takes away all the upgrades and it leaves you with standard weapons with no ways of improving it. I went in and out pulling my hair in some sections and taking constant breaks to recharge. Not to mention that I suffered a repeated crash in one section that was common so that too took at least 2 years of my life. I eventually managed to scrape by and it is a wonderful accomplishments, that I would not want to go through anytime soon.
As for the game, I found it to be a major improvement over the first one, where it actually knows what genre it wants to be and I cared about the main character who was actually a human this time around. Mad respect to Shinji Mikami to let the director of the The Evil Within 1 DLC's work on this, cause his vision and this game made me interested in this franchise again and based on the ending of this one, I am actually looking forward for a potential 3rd entry.

 

Bad ass Award

Resident Evil Village - Legendary Cowboy

I should have probably included The Evil Within 2 You asked for it.....Again trophy, but I wanted to include Resident Evil Village in some capacity and anyone who has played this mode can back me up on this. Getting the last S ranks in the mercenary mode was a pretty tough challenge that required a lot of patience and calculating exactly where each enemy position is to get the highest score possible. I am also not very good in first person shooters so that's why it was more difficult for me. After hours and hours of attempting the last maps, I actually became so knowledgeable on them that I was able to breeze through it like John Wick and get the highest score two times in the row, cause I was also aiming for the lightsaber unlock (btw, it's not worth it so don't bother). That made me feel like a total bad ass. ?

 

Grind of the Year

Persona 5 Strikers

This was one of the games I was mostly looking forward to this year and I had a good time with it, not like Royal last year, but still pretty good. That was until it came to the grind for the External Bonds trophy. That took insane amount of time to complete, more than it should when there is not much to do post game. You can see on my profile that it took me almost a month to finish, way longer than I anticipated. It somewhat sour the experience on the game unfortunately, cause it felt like pointless stretch. A lot of people seem to go for the platinum so maybe I am crazy and it's not as dauting as it looks so who knows. 

 

Finally Done Award

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

There quite few games where I was able to go way back in my backlog and finally finish it like Darksiders 2 and Mass Effect Andromeda, but the category stated objective time limit so I judge it from that standpoint. So after 7 years and 2 months, this award goes to Diablo III Reaper of Souls a game that I used to play a lot back in the day, but completely lost interest in it. I'm not sure if my preference changed or if it is the current view I have for the company, but I was not in it as much. I will say however that it was a lot of fun to play as the newly added Necromancer, cause that was my favorite class in Diablo II. Not sure if I will tackle Diablo IV when that comes out, if it even comes out given the current state in Blizzard, but I will always have a fund memory for this game.

 

King of the Internet

Far Cry 5

I was little worried about getting the online trophies for Far Cry 5, but I was lucky to get a decent experience. I found a random group that was boosting trophies as well and I directly messaged them for help. We helped each other out and are helping to this day in other games. That made the experience go more smoothly and some the custom maps are actually designed very This turned out to be a very good experience and actually a lot of fun in some places so this easily takes the awards for me.

 

Worst Online Experience

Assassins Creed IV Black Flag

Same can't be said for this game and its online experience. I've heard some horror stories and I can see why now. Even if you get with a dedicated group, you have to time it to seconds and pray to all Gaming Gods that you all get connected at the same map together. Plus, sometimes the servers would not run a whole day, putting our entire session out of the window and not to mention that the grinding becomes very repetitive the more you level up. Absolutely horrible experience and if you are still waiting to get this done, I highly encourage to do it right now just to get it out of the way.

 

Best Music
Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD

This is a tough one to pick as there many games I could list here like Nier Replicant, Persona 4 Golden, Cyberpunk 2077, and 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim. Ultimately, I have to go with my heart and the soundtrack I've been listening the most even after I beat the game and that is Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD soundtrack. I am a sucker for this type of music and even after playing the game for hours, I never grew tired of it. I can listen to it whenever I go out, read a book, go to gym, and so on. It is probably controversial to pick this over the other entries I mentioned, especially Nier, but I love those soundtracks as well it's just in the end I have to pick one. 

Sleeper Hit of the Year

Cyberpunk 2077

Yep, I'm not crazy, I'm going with this. If you look pass the lies the higher ups feeds us and the noticeable bugs that this game is sadly filled, there is a good game here with a great story and worldbuilding. I was surprised how engaged I was in the main narrative and side quests, which are on part with Witcher 3. I was never on the hype train and I instead wanted to judge the game we had. I am not denying any of the faults like I explained in my extended thoughts on my profile and the game is not perfect playable, but I think it is unfair to brush this game off as a bad product, which it is not. I do encourage people to give this one a try as it feels much more realized than the other boring open world titles from Ubisoft and there is some genuine creativity with the story, the world, and the characters, which was equally praised in the Witcher series. 

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Oh boy, I finally decided to platinum this game after just playing through Mass Effect Legendary Edition and this game just makes me sad nowadays. I remember picking it up at ridiculously low price and try to see if it is that bad. It didn't make me happy, it didn't make me frustrated, it didn't make me angry, I just felt so empty inside while playing. For it to come out so bad as it did not only because of the bugs, but the way it treats the source material is something astonishing and it completely killed the series for me if ME 3 did not already. Shallow and empty is the words I would used to describe this and I am at least glad that after obtaining the platinum I never have to touch this game ever in my life.

 

Best Trophy Image

Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Platinum Image

I could honestly pick up any image from Nocturne, but this with an army of demons behind him looks so great.

 

Worst Trophy Image

Resident Evil Code Veronica Steve ???

An image with Steve Burnside is an obvious choice for me. If you don't know who that is, just look up video compilations on Youtube and you will understand.

Best Female Character

Kainé- Nier Replicant

This was probably the hardest one to decide as there were so many great choices for me to pick from all the games I played this year (which means more strong female characters in games lol). In that case, I like to give a mention to these characters from their respective games like Naoto Shirogane(Persona 4 Golden), Panam & Judy(Cyberpunk 2077), Natsuno Minami(13 Sentinels Aegis Rim), Tali Zorah vas Normady(Mass Effect series), Komaru Naegi(Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls) and Sophia(Persona 5 Strikers).
As for my pick, I decided to go with Kainé from Nier Replicant. I found her to be pretty unique through the game and I don't use that word lightly. There are so many layers that are gradually uncovered that make her more than just a bad ass slicer with a swear mouth like a sailor. There are also hints at her character that uncover more about her if the player pays enough attention and more about her makes more sense, even to the point of her swearing and her choice of clothes. I have to keep this vague as possible and I wish I could talk about more without spoiling it, but hats off to Yoko Taro for making a very interesting character that became my favorite in the game and that I could learn more about as I was playing through the game

 

Best Male Character

Demi-Fiend - Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD

This entry was very obvious for me, cause from the moment I played the game I knew he was going to end up my favorite the whole year. I will once again give some honorable mentions like I did before with characters like Sebastian Castellanos(The Evil Within 2), Leo & Vincent(A Way Out), Zenkichi Hasegawa(Persona 5 Strikers), Kerry Eurodyne(Cyberpunk 2077), Kanji Tatsumi(Persona 4 Golden), and "The" Murray(Sly Cooper series).
Anyway, award goes to Demi-Fiend. The journey this character has to endure through the course of his game and being a silent protagonist on top is ridiculous how much I related to the character. He was turned into a semi demon without having a choice or any input and was forced to fight for his survival to subsequently change the course of the world when he was just a normal Japanese highschooler. Not to mention his design, which is just so simple yet so cool looking it might be one of my favorites. I don't know if this protagonist can be topped in the series, but SMT V comes very close to that with his cool design as well. I just hope Demi-Fiend will one day gets a well deserved break before demon hunters like Dante or Raidou come after him again.

 

Best Platinum of the Year

Persona 4 Golden

I had a hard time deciding on this one as there were quite few platinums that I am proud of this year. Some of them are better than the other and some were harder than the next one. My four main runner-ups were Persona 4 Golden, Nier Replicant, Resident Evil Village and Cyberpunk 2077. I have to give this to Persona as it was one of the main reasons I decided to get PS Vita again and platinum this game alongside other Vita titles that I missed. The story, the characters, and its message also mean a lot to me and it is something that will stick with me for a long time, similarly to Persona 5 Royal. If the rumors about Persona 3 getting an HD port to consoles is true, I will be more than excited to platinum that as that entry is my favorite in the Persona series and if Golden eventually drops on PS4, I will be more than happy to go over it again.

Worst Platinum of the Year

Life is Strange True Colors

Congratz Live is Strange, you are on my worst for the second year in a row. While it was not as terrible as the second one, the story still suffers from convoluted plot points that the developers desperately try to distract you with some emotional moments that are not earned and the characters feel bland through out the course of the game. The biggest offender was charging a full price for this, which is complete nonsense and you can get a value somewhere else. I honestly don't like to shit on the people behind this specific game, as there was some genuine attempt, but it's still far from anything good. At least you are not offensively bad as David Cage or the previous game.

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2022

Hades

I started this game already, but I haven't make any serious attempt to progress further. However, I am very intrigued by the gameplay and the design, plus I am a big sucker for Greek Mythology so anything with that setting will make me immediately interested. Just like The Evil Within 2, I wanna try to do this legit so wish me luck. As for some of the newer titles coming next year, I have no particular game I want to tackle so hopefully in time there will be something for me.

[zadorvp]

PIECE OF CAKE AWARD

Spoiler

Any of the several auto-pop stack lists. Ignoring those, probably We Were Here.

IT'S LIKE DARK SOULS

Spoiler

Murder Mystery Machine for its annoying deduction system. Nothing else was difficult this year

BAD ASS AWARD

Spoiler

Nothing specific comes to mind, there were probably some moments in Outriders or Hitman 3. Outside of those, there are scripted story moments in games I played that made me feel bad ass (such as Life is Strange: True Colors and Guardians of the Galaxy).

GRIND OF THE YEAR

Spoiler

Destiny Connect: Tick-Tock Travelers, Langrisser I & II, Legend of Mana, Nexomon, Tales of Arise. Any of those for any of their grinding parts

FINALLY DONE AWARD

Spoiler

Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4) took 2 years, 6 months to finish to 100% so I could do the Remaster stack

KING OF THE INTERNET

Spoiler

Friday the 13, House of Ashes, It Takes Two, Outriders, Star Wars: Battlefront II, Temtem, the We Were Here games were all great. House of Ashes or It Takes Two were probably the most fun experiences.

WORST ONLINE EXPERIENCE

Spoiler

House of Ashes and We Were Here games get to go on this one as well due to connection issues at launch for the former and at times for the latter. Outriders also had some severe bugs that made it so you had to avoid playing online for a while.

BEST MUSIC

Spoiler

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory.

SLEEPER HIT OF THE YEAR

Spoiler

These were some of the best games of the year and I wish more people would play all of them: Beholder 1 & 2, Blacksad: Under the Skin, Buried Stars, Chaos;Child, Chicken Police, It Takes Two, Last Stop, Raging Loop, Nexomon, Psychonauts 2, State of Mind, The Darkside Detective games, the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, Where the Heart Leads, Wintermoor Tactics Club. I also played Gnosia and World's End Club on Switch, both were great too.

BIGGEST BOMB OF THE YEAR

Spoiler

I don't regret buying any of the games I bought, but Sword and Fairy 6 as well as Murder Mystery Machine were sources of some major frustrating moments. Oniria Crimes is also impossible to plat, but I knew that going in already.

BEST TROPHY IMAGE

Spoiler

WORST TROPHY IMAGE

Spoiler

BEST FEMALE CHARACTER

Spoiler

Alex Chen from Life is Strange: True Colors.

BEST MALE CHARACTER

Spoiler

Salim Othman from House of Ashes.

BEST PLAT OF THE YEAR

Spoiler

Raging Loop (played properly instead of using the cheat method) and Psychonauts 2 were trophy-wise amongst my favourites to complete.

WURST PLAT OV TEH YEER

Spoiler

I liked the game, but Where the Heart Leads was the most annoying platinum to complete this year.

MOST ANTICIPATED PLATINUM OF 2022

Spoiler

Depends on what releases next year, a lot of my "most anticipated 2021 plat" games didn't even release this year So, maybe Gollum, Digimon Survive, Gotham Knights/Suicide Squad Hogwarts Legacy, or the Devil in Me for next year?

 

[Maverick6146]

Piece of Cake: Pretty Girls Klondike Solitaire: unfortunately the fake boobs grew tiresome quickly

It's Like Dark Souls: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered: Fuck IW and their stupid running record.

Badass Award: Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout: If you spent time doing alchemy (and I did) you would need to turn the difficulty to highest for certain trophies.

Grind of the Year: Scarlet Nexus: ran the same map for about 40 times.

Finally Done: XCOM: Enemy Unknown Plus: Stuck on Impossible opening for about half year

King of the Internet: Deathloop: A friend helped me and I helped another friend and we are done!

Worst Online Experience: N/A

Best Music: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: Loved 80s music

Sleeper Hit: F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch: The CN voice over is using accents from different regions of China. Added lots of flavor to an already fun game.

Biggest Bomb: Cyberpunk 2077: I am not complaining about glitches etc. and I didn't have much. But almost everything this game did, GTA 5 has done better (Except P...s and public hair, maybe)

Best Trophy Images: 

Worst Trophy Images: 

Best Female Character: Jill in RE3 (Gamora in GotG for 2nd)

Best Male Character: Don't care them too much so N/A

Best Plat of the Year: Nioh 2: But I definitely wouldn't go through the grinding again.

Wurst Plat Ov Teh Yeer: The bunker: If I had the platinum, Werewolf: Earthblood would be here.

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2022: Mass Effect 1: It would become one of my milestones.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Maverick6146

[KazaneHime]

Piece of Cake Award - Abzu

Tranquil and simple game, I enjoyed it.

 

It's Like Dark Souls Award - Souls Games

It might be cheating, but I did four different soulsborne games in 2021 and couldn't select one alone to focus on here.

 

Bad Ass Award - Hitman 3

This game was an absolute masterpiece at making you feel like a complete badass. If only the shortcut trophy didn't glitch, I'd have the plat.

 

Grind of the Year Award - Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness

Everything in this game was a terrible grind.

 

Finally Done Award - Tales of Symphonia

Seven years and eight months after starting, I finally have the plat for this! I'm only missing 2 Tales plats now.

 

King Queen of the Internet Award - Overcooked! All You Can Eat

Since I do not like competitive online games, this was the one game that I enjoyed playing online the most.

 

Worst Online Experience Award - Human Fall Flat

The servers literally would not let @TalesofGaming and I play together except for one fluke. Invites don't work, and even public games we can see are completely different.

 

Best Music Award - Bloodborne

Completely fantastic music; I loved it.

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year Award - Cat Quest II

I loved the original, and this one was a fantastic follow-up. With local co-op!

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year Award - Sword Art Online Re: Hollow Fragment

This game is simply the fanboy's dream of a harem and the girls of SAO fawning over you. I was disgusted by the ways the girls were portrayed. Beyond that, it wasn't even that fun of a game—lots of grinding and long dungeons without anything interesting.

 

Best Trophy Image Award - Abzu (Reflection)

It took me a while to decide on this. I like trophy images with intricate details but also not too crowded. This image fits the vibe of the game as well.

 

Worst Trophy Image Award - Tales of Symphonia (all trophies)

I'm not too fond of it when Symphonia and any other game use one image for every single trophy.

 

Best Female Character Award - Lady Maria (Bloodborne)

This award also took me some time to decide. Even with the great characters in other games, Lady Maria made me love her in the span of one boss fight. Easily the most epic fight in the entirety of Bloodborne.

Special mention to Tsugumi Nazar from Scarlet Nexus. She is simply precious.

 

Best Male Character Award - Law (Tales of Arise)

Law is just a wholly lovable idiot. He grew on me after being annoying at the start—just a good kid at heart.

 

Best Plat of the Year Award - Tales of Arise

Tales of Arise was an absolute blast to platinum, and I wish it were longer.

 

Worst Plat of the Year Award - Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness

This game was an absolute pain. There are multiple playthroughs without NG+, drop rates for required items, and crazy grinds.

It'll probably be after a very long break that I ever tackle another Star Ocean platinum.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2022 Award - Elden Ring

I'm so ready for this game.

[Jordio]

Piece of Cake - Sly Minigames

Just some random extra minigames that were packaged with the Sly Cooper Collection. But only with the psychical copies, so I had to buy PSNow to play this lol. Tied for 2nd fastest completion of this "game" by 4 seconds at 5 min 34 sec, which is pretty cool. 

 

 

It's Like Dark Souls - Celeste

Yes, I know you can just use assist mode and breeze through the game, I did this when getting the plat. But I only did that after completing the game, without assists, on Steam, and let me tell you this was one of the most difficult games I've ever played. And it was worth every second.

 

Bad Ass Award - God of War III Remastered

How can you not feel like a badass tearing through the entire Greek pantheon? And the final fight with Zeus was just icing on the cake.

 

Grind of the Year - Clicker Heroes

I am always surprised by how much active play is required by these idle clicker games; I really should have respected the UR on this game more before I started it. But hey, I like clicker games for some reason, so it wasn't too bad, just grindy. 

 

Finally Done Award - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (10 years, 3 weeks)

This game was where I got my first ever trophy back in 2011. I didn't get into trophy hunting until this year and I was lucky that my past self had played the multiplayer a bit so I could still plat this. Very happy to have this platted 10 years later.

 

King of the Internet - None

I didn't play any multiplayer this year except for one game, and that doesn't get this award...

 

Worst Online Experience - Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

The multiplayer trophies in this game are bad enough with Abstergo Employee of the Month and Download Complete, but it's made worse when you can only work on them if the servers are being kind to you that day. For real, these servers sometimes just say "No" and when you need a boosting group of 6, it is so frustrating. Also, grinding to level 50 takes like 20 hours of play and you just stand in a circle and stun each other over, and over. I'll be so happy when I'm done with this.

 

Best Music - Celeste

The music in Celeste is incredible and you should go buy the soundtrack. I especially like the B side remixes.

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year - Astro's Playroom

I was able to secure a PS5 this year and didn't expect the free game that it comes with to be any good. I was completely blown away with the amount of detail and thought that was put into this game. It's a fun little platformer that's a massive nostalgia bomb the whole way through.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year - Jak II

Other than the story, I have nothing good to say about this game. I have spoken at length about how much I dislike this game and won't get into it again.

 

Dishonorable mention to inFamous Second Son.

 

It's like Sucker Punch forgot everything about what made the first two games so great. The characters are bland, the side missions are boring and repetitive, and the fact that your choices make almost no difference to the story just killed the game for me.

 

Best Trophy Image - The Pride of Fastoon (Racthet and Clank: Into the Nexus)

I just think this looks really cool with Ratchet in the Nether armor. The border is also great and a good theme among all the trophies.

 

Worst Trophy Image - Any trophy from God of War 1, 2, or 3

They are all the same just being the logo in whatever color the trophy is, bronze, silver, gold, or platinum. Super boring and really unfortunate since the trophy names are all really good and clever.

 

Best Female Character - Madeline (Celeste)

Celeste with a third award, and it deserves it. I could have chosen Aloy here, but I just liked Madeline's growth and characterization more. The way her mental health struggles are portrayed and the feelings she experiences are very real. They're not solved immediately and even by the end of the game she is still working through them, but that's how mental health struggles work. They don't just go away after accomplishing a goal, you have to still keep working on them. In the words of the Jogging Baboon from Bojack Horseman. 

"Every day it gets a little easier... But you gotta do it every day -- that's the hard part. But it does get easier."

 

Best Male Character - Ezio Auditore da Firenze (Assassin's Creed)

I finally finished playing through the Ezio trilogy this year and Ezio easily ended up my favorite male protagonist of the year. Watching him go from a young, punk, rich kid set out for revenge, to a wise, sharp tonged, old man was great. He was always calm and calculated, but did what had to be done for the good of the creed.

 

Best Plat of the Year - Horizon Zero Dawn

I picked up this game seriously in December of 2020 and did not play anything else until I completed this and the DLC (minus NG+, gonna do that this month before Forbidden West). I absolutely adore this game and would complete it again in a heartbeat. I love the world, the exploration, the combat, the characters, the lore. I just love this game. This game may not be my first plat, but it is the reason I started trophy hunting, so it easily gets my plat of the year.

 

 

Wurst Plat of Teh Yeer - Sonic Generations

I've said it before, this game casually 6/10, this game going for completion 2/10 and that might be generous. You have to play every level just too many times and add in that it is so easy to miss a red ring even when you're following a guide due to there being no checkpoint reset and having really mediocre controls. Oh and there being 90(!) challenge acts. This game was the first that made me question trophy hunting. It's not my worst game of the year, but it's easily the worst plat.

 

Most anticipated platinum of 2022 - 

1. Horizon: Forbidden West

2. God of War 2018 and Ragnarok

3. Ghost of Tsushima

4. Uncharted 4

I am so pumped to play all of these games. Forbidden West is definitely my most anticipated new game for next year but I've wanted to play God of War 2018 and Ghost of Tsushima for a while now. I'm excited to finally play Uncharted 4 since that's a great series, but I am not looking forward to the multiplayer trophies.

 

All in all, great first year of trophy hunting for me. Played some really good games and not too many bad ones and have a lot to look forward to. Thanks @Dr_Mayus for hosting this cool recap award event. I love reflecting and discussing my past played games.

 

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by HungarianBarbarian

[EcoShifter]

(As always I procrastinated posting this on time 3 months ago when I started and just stopped, even though I don't say too much here -) 

 

Another sort of comfort year wherein I played older games too much and less of the new releases (plus I got a new non-PlayStation console last year). There will definitely be a lot more new games listed this year, though. That said-

 

Piece of Cake:

Easy platinum that doesn't even require a guide. It's even easier than the platinum trophy from the two other series this game takes the most influence from, Jak and Daxter and Medievil. I would also have to say, while not bad, it's surely a weaker overall game than its inspirations.

 

It's Like Dark Souls:

Knockout City - The hardest platinum earned in 2021, but there is quite a bit of difficulty to some of the trophies as well. It's not just an "easy" long-grindfest. Bugged trophies also contributed to the difficulty, like when a difficult task was done once but not counted for, requiring the situation or one similar to it and task to be repeated!

 

Badass Award: 

N/A - Honestly have a large variety of very badass moments spread across a lot of games (including most listed here), some recorded and some not, single player and online games. Can't really pick one. Actually. . .

 

I forgot about this one when I first thought of this award... I don't know where I'd rank this among all my badass moments, but this one is up there. So firstly, I wasn't an experienced red/blue orb stage player when I had done this. I was a rookie at this point in time. I played StH3 as a kid, sure, but I mainly stuck to the regular levels. I'm seen here contemplating how to conquer this unfamiliar challenge, which I actually made harder than it normally is, all while at the max speed setting and doing everything on the fly. The video does the rest of the talking.

 

Grind of the Year: 

(. . .) Among the multitude of other grind based trophies, one particular one required needing to play the game and doing all the daily contracts for a little over a month, and that utterly stupid trophy dragged out the platinum's acquisition and made the journey feel longer than it needed to be.

 

Finally Done: 

Those infamous fucking Dunwall City Trials, man... it's finally done and over... after all these years. As frustrating as it all was, especially Back Alley Brawl ?, it was fun and especially rewarding.

 

This accomplishment has also given me full completion of this (amazing) series. As a dedicated series completionist, this is really great.

 

King of the Internet:

 

Among the constant, large post-launch support since its 2016 release (just as with titles like Rocket League and Dying Light), really just the addition (finally!) of the best saiyan transformation, Super Saiyan God, was added this year for CaCs! (The others had already been added prior.) And the online population is of course active and still going strong. Parallel Quests, Raids, and PvP also just never stops being fun, whether with randoms or especially friends.

 

Worst Online Experience: 

While hackers have been toned down, new content is still being added, and ... balance patches are somewhat frequent, the game is still plagued by an abundance of other issues, e-especially, technical. The objectively, undeniably horrible matchmaking, probably the worst consistency of crashes (which often results in uneven teams, and there is no late join system) any game from the same generation has seen (not an exaggeration—I've had what has to be over 100 crashes at this point, and the community are constantly reporting them as well), and lack of some much needed quality of life features, are just some of the (many) reasons this game deserves this award.
 

Best Music: 

No surprise seeing a Sonic game under this award. Incredible soundtracks, from the menu theme to stages to the final boss. The award is deserved even moreso after they added the fully toggleable option between old and new music, and addressed the audio mixing issues from launch. 

 

Sleeper Hit:

 

I can't put the right words together to properly explain this one. Instead, I'll leave here two of some of the greatest reviews I heavily share the same views with and read on the site: an older one by @JoaLoft and a recent one by @Darling Baphomet. Although I will say that this game served as the perfect counterbalance (the yang to my yin) to my Biggest Bomb of the year (Darling Baphomet's review touches on this shared perspective as well), which was played right before it. 

 

Biggest Bomb: 

. . . 

I had a gigantic unfinished review started on this game earlier in the year too but couldn't be bothered to finish it, just like the game itself in 2020, which I had to force myself to play it again in 2021. Everytime I was optimistic and thought the game was seemingly getting better, it just wasn't. This hasn't changed in retrospect either. Even on the gameplay side there are some notable disappointments (which have more weight in a sequel than say a brand new IP) beyond the improved restrictive/limited controls from the first game: several questionable A.I (enemies and companions) design choices (like companions literally taking the player's cover spot in places made for one person), a couple of disappointingly dated stealth designs that wasn't even changed from the first game (i.e., melee attacks from behind having no stealth system and them triggering an instant detection situation of all the enemies in the area, both of which these things have been rid away with in other stealth related titles released even prior to this 2021 sequel-game), and the seemingly infamous player's progression reset design—midway into the game—which didn't do the later half of the game a favor.

 

Best Trophy Image: 

N/A (maybe later)?

 

Worst Trophy Image: 

N/A (maybe later)?

 

Best Female Character: 

N/A? Almost all of the ones I had played as were avatars and from character creators, and I don't feel listing ones from games I revisited to mess around in appropriate.

 

Best Male Character: 

Deacon St. John

Truly a high quality and dually misunderstood character (in his world and the real-world...) who can most certainly stand among any popular characters from other critically acclaimed (AAA, first party, whatever) games and those of the same genres (Lee Everett, Joel Miller, Arthur Morgan, etc). This character is a defining example not to judge a book by its cover, and there there's a lot of beautiful depth beyond the initial surface/first third of the game with him, some of which also unfolds through those optional collectibles (e.g., Copeland's Broadcast, Audio Logs, etc). @AK-1138 touched a bit on the nuance and depth the character has on the first page, which is really cool to see here.

 

Best Plat of the Year:

 

The trophy list is fun, better designed than a lot of its AAA and openworld peers, and surely makes you appreciate and learn more about the game and lore than you would have when not going for its platinum. The platinum itself is actually a nice real-world reference and ties into the main character's design/background. It's also at least two steps above something like "Platinum"/"Platinum Trophy"/"Completionist" and generic titles "Savior/Master/Strongest/etc of..." 

 

Wurst Plat Ov Teh Yeer: 

Didn't think I'd put this here... Awesome game (that's much better on PC) and a decent port, but... considering the dev mode exploit, poor optimization in areas (which affected the gameplay and platinum hunting experience), and the disappointing platinum name ("Platinum Trophy"), it's fair to put this here.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2022:

Hopefully the correct spelling of (unless a better title than) "Concordance Officer" from Dead Space (remake).