[EVENT] PSNP Kaleidoscope Challenge! 2023 [ENDED]

[JayDeLosDioses]

OOOOOOOH WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA.

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS! 

Honestly, The Cosmic Shake is a fantastic game. It's has been a fun nostalgic ride for the 11h it took me to complete the game.

The trophy list isn't as bloated with collectibles than the other list is either, instead you get fun little challenges in the game.

Highly recommended, you should play it too! 

[Alternatewarning]

AI The Somnium Files  - White

Ahh, I love this game!  To me it's a nice mix of mystery, weird, puzzles, and just a fun game.  The puzzles were very weird and followed their own sort of logic but overall I liked it.  I have a few minor nitpicks but some of those are personal preferences.  Overall I would suggest it to anyone who likes visual novels

 

 

White - AI: The Somnium Files 

Yellow - Marvel's Midnight Suns 

Tan - Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace

Orange - Neptuna: Virtual Stars (In Progress - Story / On Hold)

Red - Final Fantasy XIV - Stormblood (In Progress - Trophy Hunting) 

Pink - Sakura Wars (In Progress - Story / On Hold)

Maroon - The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

Purple - Hyperdimention Neptunia V (In Progress - Story / On Hold)

Deep Purple - Digimon Survive 

Blue - The House of Fata Morgana

Light Blue - God of War: Ragnarok 

Green - Gorogoa 

Light Green - Donut County 

Brown - London Detective Mysteria (In Progress - Story / On Hold)

Grey - Kingdom Hearts 2.8 A Fragmentary Passage (In Progress - Trophy Hunting / On Hold)

Black - Spider-man: Miles Morales 

[DrBloodmoney]

Another entry for my Second card, courtesy of A Plague Tale: Requiem!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second A Plague Tale game is a huge step up from the first - the story is good and well told, the voice work is very well done (used the French audio, as I really like the actors playing Amicia and Hugo in French,) and the environments are probably the most beautiful looking ones I've seen in a game, period!

 

Gameplay is good - the combat and stealth are a little finicky at times, but the puzzle elements of avoiding the rats are more variable and interesting this time out, and with the story and the pacing being much better, it's hard to get bogged down on that. 

 

Prop to the game for having a near-permanent child companion who is not annoying or irritating - Hugo is a sweet kid who's relationship with his big sister is really well done, and the pair make for a very engaging pair!

 

 

Fits for Brown pretty well, so no "colour justification" needed!

 

 

 

Completed Cards:

 

Rainbow 1:

[Taruta13]

So I seriously apologize, this update should have come much sooner...

 

 

I have platinumed the entire Pixel Remaster FF series and I must say FFVI was the epic ending. The pixel remaster of Kefka was much cleaner and looked more authentic, still saw his iconic cackle. But all in all, the game did okay... sadly, I screwed up and missed a chocobo stable in the World of Balance. This game punishes you HARD for missing locations. Had to replay the entire Floating Continent again.

 

Not to say I wouldn't do the games again in a heartbeat, I really enjoyed this series, but it's time to move on.

 

I've been playing a lot of FFXIV lately so this next update will take a long time, and I still can't find any good RPGs with red or green in them. Do plan on having Rogue Galaxy be blue and World of Final Fantasy be yellow as well as a Kingdom Hearts game be Gray.

 

Won't be leaving FFXIV anytime soon, but forgeeaboutit... I've half a year left to go and this is my second card.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Taruta13

[rjkclarke]

 

Thought I should update my one singular completion I've gotten that I can add to this card... I really ought to stick to one game, and finish that, it's very unlike me to be flitting around from game to game. Nevermind, whenever I get there I'll have a fairly decent head start on a second card, just from doing bits and pieces of DLC this year.

 

I'm throwing in my latest completion as Dead Synchronicity, and I'm going to throw it into Purple, and move Last Day of June into Deep Purple, as they seem to fit more appropriately in those slots colour wise.

 

Dead Synchronicity is an incredibly interesting point-and-click adventure game - it's incredibly bleak, and incredibly dark, but nonetheless I thought it was a very worthwhile experience. I wrote some thoughts about it in a status update, which I'll paste into a spoiler bubble if you wanted to read them .... That is of course optional, I just assumed people would like the option of not having to see plenty of paragraphs of me rambling.

 

Spoiler

I'm a little bit late to actually talking about this one.... but hey, I'm here now, and I know I keep saying it, but I actually need to get back to a more regular stream of actually posting things on here again, instead of every few weeks.... Anyway, game talk time.

 

Dead Synchronicity is a very curious little game, and little, really is an accurate descriptor, as it's very short - does that make it bad? Absolutely not, and I think Dead Synchronicity is worth anyone's time. The problem is, it's hard to really sell the game to people, as it's not a game that you're going to come away from feeling happy. This is absolutely not a happy game, but it's a fascinatingly told story.

 

Whilst Dead Synchronicity falls nicely into a gameplay loop of point-and-click adventures, it's a whole lot more than that. When you think point-and-click adventure type puzzle solving, if you're familiar with that sort of genre then you'll have some idea of what to expect, you're probably thinking slightly eccentric and unusual, outside of the box thinking for puzzle solving. That is present here, yes, but it fits so perfectly with the black as night tone that this game is presenting.

 

One thing that this game does fantastically, is illicit a specific feeling. I can't think of an instance since playing This War of Mine, where the process of a game giving me agency as the player has made me feel quite as uncomfortable as this game does. If you ever play this, you'll see what I mean when you're tasked with rescuing two children from being killed by an oppressive state.

 

This is going to seem like a very to the point statement but....... The way this game builds intrigue and lore is very well done, and whilst not every element of it is executed perfectly, I'd very much play it if a sequel ever got announced, without hesitation.

The game also features an absolutely fascinating art-style, with elements of expressionism, and just an altogether unusual feeling, where every character just looks a bit "broken" or "wrong".... Complimenting this really well is such an interesting soundtrack, that's admittedly a little all over the place tonally, but so well done I can forgive it. You get as broad a spectrum of music as Ritchie Blackmore inspired guitar pieces, and flashback sequences featuring synth work similar to Paddy Kingsland's best work on classic Doctor Who.

 

So with only two colours left on this initial Rainbow, it looks like it's time to start heading towards a Maroon and a Brown..... And yes, it still makes me sad I can't make jokes about either side of my board looking naked anymore. So I'll just settle for my usual "It's fantastic seeing all of those slots getting filled in"

 

Shut up Rob.... you idiot , is likely what you're thinking, so I'll do just that!

[Doodlebawp]

Progress! Knocked out pink, deep purple and light green since my last post. 

 

I loved the original Rogue Legacy and lucky for me Rogue Legacy 2 is a perfect match for deep purple. If you fell in love with the original like I did the sequel is just as enjoyable.

 

Only three colors left. I'm looking forward to playing The Artful Escape but I think I'll have to swap out blue and brown for different games. Slogging through the final trophies for Hogwarts Legacy and Sackboy sounds miserable. If only SEGA would drop the damn price on Sonic Frontiers a little more ?.

 

[DrBloodmoney]

1 hour ago, Doodlebawp said:

 

I loved the original Rogue Legacy and lucky for me Rogue Legacy 2 is a perfect match for deep purple. If you fell in love with the original like I did the sequel is just as enjoyable.

 

 

Damn - that was fast on RL2!

 

I'm looking forward to this one myself - remember loving the first one!

[Taruta13]

15 hours ago, Doodlebawp said:

If only SEGA would drop the damn price on Sonic Frontiers a little more .

 

I actually got my Sonic Frontiers on the digital store on sale. But Kingdom Hearts III is my #1 priority right now. If I had to deal with Sora in Kingdom Hearts 4, I had better get his priorities in order. Put it on the PS5 and it loads faster.

[graphic_violins8]

Red down with Far Cry 3 Classic!

 

[Finch_III]

It's just over the mid-point of the year, and I'm slightly over mid-way through my grid. I might even be able to put together a second Kaleidoscope with other games I've played! 

 

 

The additions since my last update are Dead Cells (purple) and Plague Inc: Evolved (Maroon). 

 

Both games from my backlog, so it was nice to clear them off! 

 

[plimaz-]

Cuphead was a very fun and challenging plat! Expert Wally Warbles still haunts my dreams tho

 

Halfway done! I'm accepting suggestions for the rest of the colors if anyone has any lol

Yellow: Cuphead

 

 

Spoiler

White - Judgment
Yellow - Cuphead
Tan - 
Orange - Like a Dragon: Ishin!
Red - 
Pink - 
Maroon - 
Purple - 
Deep Purple - 
Blue - Ratchet & Clank
Light Blue - Untitled Goose Game
Green - Bugsnax
Light Green - Donut County
Brown - 
Grey - Hollow Knight
Black - 

[zizimonster]

Would it be wrong if I put this for either maroon or light green?

 

 

P.S. Been a while since I posted in this thread.

[DrBloodmoney]

6 hours ago, zizimonster said:

Would it be wrong if I put this for either maroon or light green?

 

 

P.S. Been a while since I posted in this thread.

 

ha - of all the games out there, you happened to pick one of the few that was used as an example in the OP ?

 

Only good for Pink or Maroon I'm afraid - the lettering and the border are so bold, I think it's impossible to argue the green or brown as the dominant colour.

[Alternatewarning]

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood ✅ - Red

Finally got a nice group to help me finish O12S which was the last one I needed!  Slowly working on platting this game but MAN is it long.  'The game you will never finish' for sure...

 

 

White - AI: The Somnium Files 

Yellow - Marvel's Midnight Suns 

Tan - Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace

Orange - Neptuna: Virtual Stars (In Progress - Story / On Hold)

Red - Final Fantasy XIV - Stormblood ✅

Pink - Sakura Wars (In Progress - Story / On Hold)

Maroon - The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

Purple - Hyperdimention Neptunia V (In Progress - Story / On Hold)

Deep Purple - Digimon Survive 

Blue - The House of Fata Morgana

Light Blue - God of War: Ragnarok 

Green - Gorogoa 

Light Green - Donut County 

Brown - London Detective Mysteria (In Progress - Story / On Hold)

Grey - Kingdom Hearts 2.8 A Fragmentary Passage (In Progress - Trophy Hunting / On Hold)

Black - Spider-man: Miles Morales 

[Xylobe]

 

Two more completions on the board with (the transparent) Supraland: Six Inches Under for light blue and Monster Monpiece for tan. I don't have a lot of time so I'll keep things brief: the former is quite good, but falls short on some things that made the original Supraland so great, and has such severe and persistent save corruption issues that it's impossible to recommend (after my fourth reset, I only managed to complete it by speedrunning the 100% in a single sitting). The latter is a Satanic fusion of my two least favorite types of games: card-based and way too horny. I powered through because the backlog hungers.

 

I have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking at for most of my remaining colors, but I'm faltering a little bit when it comes to brown. I'd love some recommendations, if anyone has them!

[zizimonster]

Stories Untold for maroon.

 

Players 'round here showered this game with praise, so I had to pick it up while it was on sale. The game combined text-based adventure with a bit of walking simulator. The best part about it was its sound design -- definitely the best I've witnessed. Ever.

 

[D4T-V4UL7_HUN7R_]

Tis a update once again. I completed this Humanity game, although I'm not sure if it should be in purple or black but its purple for right now. Anywhos, I loved this game. It was not stupidly difficult like some other puzzle games I have played, and had just the right amount of levels. The last half of the game was so fun seeing the hundreds of little peoples battling it out with their laser swords/guns. The soundtrack was pretty great as well. I would rank this as the 2nd best game I've played this year, under RE:Village. Definitely recommend if you enjoy puzzle games ?

 

[videogmr101]

 

 

Finally posting my first update to the challenge with Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure, looking forward to filling out more often than once every 2 months

 

[Taruta13]

It's a long time coming...

 

 

Finally got a Kingdom Hearts on the board as my Grey entry. (Yeah, it's a silver logo, but that's as close to Grey as I can get.) I made this my 200th platinum just today. Happy Independence Day to all you Americans out there, and to those of you not American, I wish you a happy middle of 2023!

 

Yep, this is the middle of the year, so I have to be a little more aggressive in the latter half of 2023 since I only have five and a half months to complete this card. This has been a great event so far and I think this second card more than redeems partly the mess of cop-outs I did for the first. (Also, hunting shiny Pokemon. Big mistake, never doing that again, although shiny Fennekin could have been Surprise Traded now as it's a Grey Pokemon. )

 

On 6/4/2023 at 9:27 PM, Taruta13 said:

Rainbow Flowchart:

Light Blue: Asdivine Cross (Apr. 16)

Orange: Disgaea 4 Complete+ (Apr. 25)

Purple: Asdivine Saga (Cinco de Mayo)

Deep Purple: Ambition Record (May 7)

Pink: Final Fantasy II (May 10)

Black: The Last Campfire (May 12)

Light Green: Final Fantasy III (May 14)

Tan: Ni No Kuni (May 27)

Brown: Heirs of the Kings (June 4)

Maroon: Final Fantasy VI (June 21)

Grey: Kingdom Hearts III (July 4)

 

[JungleCat20]

Will this work for a second card?

 

[graphic_violins8]

Up to number 3 with We love Katamari in Light green!  This iso ne of those ones that could have gone any which a way but I think this is the way to go.  Working on Final Fantasy XVI, Sekiro and Klonoa right now, all of which I'd like to finish for this.  We'll see which one wins I guess.

 

[RustyBacon13]

Ok, I've finally got 3 more to add. Haven't updated in quite a while. Don't how everyone is getting 2 cards, lol I might not even finish 1. Great job everyone!

 

White -  Arkham City (Catwoman DLC)

Finished this in January and thought i was just gonna keep it in my back pocket but since I take so long to finish games, i may as well just add it in. I took my time with all the DLC maps and this was my last one. What a slog that was

 

Deep Purple - Deliver us the Moon

I love this kind of experience, Just a chill, enjoyable time discovering what went on, Just spent a bunch of time driving  and running around on the moon surface, The Easter eggs were a nice surprise too.

 

Light Blue - Biomutant

A decent enough time I suppose, Problem is, there are so many other better games of this type out there to spend time with. The world building and dialogue isn't much to shout for but still fun for what it was. Good thing it was free, don't think I would have been happy if I had paid full price for it though.

 

@DrBloodmoney hope my color choice is ok. the common choice for Biomutant is Brown and Witness for Light Blue but I always thought the Witness island had a more dominant green and Biomutant has a more dominant light blue background. What do you think? This ok?

Also, I already have Peaky Blinders at Brown, so there's that ?

 

https://imgur.com/VuRTvTL

https://imgur.com/VuRTvTL

https://imgur.com/VuRTvTL

[MD_91]

Just wanna check this will be good for light green?

Edited July 5, 2023 by MD_91

[DrBloodmoney]

9 hours ago, JungleCat20 said:

Will this work for a second card?

 

It does, and I've added you as the first Prestige level 1 Rainbow to the OP.

 

 

However... 

...I would request (not demand, but request)... that you cool it a little on the shovelware on your cards from this point.

 

There's no issue using one or two to fill out missing colours, or difficult to find colours to finish another card, but let's not have any more full shovelware rainbows, okay?

 

I'm still not going to negate any game from inclusion - the rules are the rules, and I don't want to change them mid-event...

... however, that's your second full card of non-games, and while they are acceptable for inclusion, the fact that you are now leading the event using these, streaking ahead of everyone else using exclusively products that are not really worth writing anything about, or for anyone else to discover does rather undermine the spirit of the event.

 

I'd remind you of this early post:

 

On 16/12/2022 at 7:49 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

The only thing I'd say is, ideally, I'd like people to maybe discover some good games through this event, so it would certainly be more fun if most of the games someone picks would be at least something worth saying a little something about.

No one has to write anything about their games, (and I'm not asking for a 5000 word opus!), but ideally, a quick couple sentences saying whether they liked the game, and if they recommend it would be awesome for everyone else to discover some good games... or avoid any stinkers! ?

 

As far as trophy practices go - anything is fair game -  Replays / Autopops... even Shovelware if that's your thing... 

... and I could totally imagine someone needing one or two final colours to fill out a rainbow, and using such games in a pinch... just... try to do it in moderation!

 

I certainly won't be "denying" games from inclusion for any of those things... 

...but the event is more about finding good games and having some fun, so if someone's full list was all games that are currently, say, filtered out by the site's Shovelware filters - that would be acceptable.... just a little silly!

 

As long as they are broadly within the colours, I'm not going to object to them...

...but in the end, events like this one are only as fun as people make them, so blasting through and getting the whole rainbow finished in a day with 16 "1-minute plats" is probably not going to be of much value to either the person doing it, or anyone else ?

 

Cheers ?

[PotrikBerger]

32 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

On 16/12/2022 at 7:49 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

The only thing I'd say is, ideally, I'd like people to maybe discover some good games through this event, so it would certainly be more fun if most of the games someone picks would be at least something worth saying a little something about.

No one has to write anything about their games, (and I'm not asking for a 5000 word opus!), but ideally, a quick couple sentences saying whether they liked the game, and if they recommend it would be awesome for everyone else to discover some good games... or avoid any stinkers! 

 

As far as trophy practices go - anything is fair game -  Replays / Autopops... even Shovelware if that's your thing... 

... and I could totally imagine someone needing one or two final colours to fill out a rainbow, and using such games in a pinch... just... try to do it in moderation!

 

I certainly won't be "denying" games from inclusion for any of those things... 

...but the event is more about finding good games and having some fun, so if someone's full list was all games that are currently, say, filtered out by the site's Shovelware filters - that would be acceptable.... just a little silly!

 

As long as they are broadly within the colours, I'm not going to object to them...

...but in the end, events like this one are only as fun as people make them, so blasting through and getting the whole rainbow finished in a day with 16 "1-minute plats" is probably not going to be of much value to either the person doing it, or anyone else 

 

I totally missed the fact you were actually interested / wanted some mini feedback on the games. I haven’t included any review of any games I’ve played on this thread, but have posted a review for nearly all of them on the ‘latest platinum thread’. So apologies for that. I did consider copy and pasting to this thread early on, but decided early on this wasn’t the place to air my views. I understand now I got this wrong so will do better in the future!

 

And thanks again for putting a card together for me. Still very much appreciated mate, was a class touch from you to help someone is so woefully inept in using the interweb ?

 

ive copied and pasted the review for the last game I completed below. I would say this is an unusually low score from me. I have got a very open mind and play an eclectic range of games, but this one in particular I just found dreadful. I promise a lot of my reviews are far far more positive than this one lol

 

Lake (PS5)

 

Anticipation - 2/5

Not that high really. Main driver for playing this was the fact its game tile was light green and therefore could be used in a challenge event here on PSNP. But I do have a fondness for narrative driven games so was more than open to giving this one a go since it became part of the subscription service.

 

Enjoyment - 1/5

Its sooooo bad. So very very bad. Has to be the dullest narrative I've EVER come across in any narrative game I've ever played. I mean its mind-numbingly dull. I get a simple story may well be the point of the game, but it is still possible to make a vaguely interesting story whilst keeping it simple. For me this one fails spectacularly in every area. The story is almost unbelievably dull. There is nothing to it at all. No intrigue, no jeopardy, no hook and perhaps most importantly, absolutely no fun....in any moment....in any part of the game. Its almost astonishing just how bland this is. And bland is almost giving it too much praise as that implies its agreeable in a  small way, perhaps even charmingly gentle. Its neither of these things. I'm struggling to think of a worse game I've played in recent times.

 

Retrospect - 1/5

Ive re-read back the above a couple of times and wonder am I being too harsh? No, I'm not I've decided. The characters are not interesting in any way, in any moment. The story is ridiculously dull. Monotonously so. The gameplay....well they just shouldn't have bothered, its a 3 hour repeating fetch quest. Wearisome like I haven't before experienced. Even though this is an incredibly short game it managed to make me feel like Ive been playing it for a week. Even the music in it is completely unremarkable. I'm struggling to find a single redeeming feature of this title and its been a long, long time since I've played anything remotely uninteresting and soul-sapping as this. Truly awful in every single regard.