Tips for the Platinum

[whitelion1256]

Heya, I thought I'd share a few tips (things I wish I knew before starting) that helped me get the platinum (no real spoilers). Hope it helps someone.

First of all, know what you are getting yourself into. A casual playthrough of the game will look like an action/adventure game, however, getting the platinum will convert the game into a collecthaton (Think Spyro but with a more mature vibe). There are 1000+ spirit clumps to gather plus around 200 other things to collect including relics, voice logs, jinzo statues, tanukis, etc. I completed the story at the 18th-hour mark having completed all but the tanuki hunt side-mission, roughly 50% of the spirits gathered, and most of the magatama obtained (I did not really bother with the relics before the mop-up phase). I obtained the platinum in roughly 33 hours of play time (2-3 spent afking for the parades). As you can see, there is a decent grind at the end to gather everything. To me, the traversal was fun and I didn't find it too tedious, but that's your call to make.

1) By far the most important thing, and I cannot emphasize that enough, every chance you get, do the Hyakki Yako (visitor parade). Save before it, lower the difficulty if you have to, but clear it every time you spot it. You need to do this a total of 8 times and this is by far the most important thing you should prioritize to cut down on your mop-up time. For reference, I did not know about this, and so by the time I completed everything else I had done 5 out of 8. It took me roughly 2-3 hours of afking and around 30 minutes of actively searching for the parades to get the remaining three. Moreover, I'd advise that every 30-40 minutes of playtime, jump to Shibuya Scramble Crossing and check if there is a parade at the crossroads. The sooner you get done with those, the easier your life will be. There are a lot of theories 

2) Outside of the parades, the only other thing that is locked behind random spawning events is the spirits from the cubes but for me, they spawned quite frequently and I was pretty much done with them before even completing the story, so I'd advise going for them if you see them but don't worry too much about it.

3) While on 99.9% of the games, I'd recommend playing them on the hardest difficulty, I'd advise against it here. The main thing is that you do not get xp from mobs and you are gonna get essential traversal skills way later than on other difficulties. This will make the game take moderately longer. Furthermore, the combat is a bit simplistic and there really isn't too much to master. Moreover, the highest difficulty just seemed to make the mobs huge bullet sponges rather than anything else. Playing on Hard is a good compromise between having some form of challenge (though the game is still very easy) and having the ability to mop up the grind reasonably.

4) Getting the Amenotori X upgrade makes your traversal significantly faster, though it's a hefty investment, so I'd recommend getting it as early as possible in the mid-late game. Word of caution, the skill is a bit finicky to use, but you'll get used to it eventually. 

5) Pick the food bags from the ground since some of the consumables needed for the trophy are random drops from them. I got this naturally, so be mindful of this, but don't stress it too much.

 

6) You can complete chapters 5 and 6 twice or wait to collect all spirits and then complete them once for the trophy to complete the game after all spirits have been done. I chose the first and I did not regret it. Once you complete the game, you get a set of beads that basically remove the need to go to phones to deposit the spirit. I thought it was handy, though I assume it wouldn't have been the end of the world to collect the spirits without it as well. Completing the two chapters again with skipping the cutscenes took only 15 minutes anyway, so ultimately your choice which way you wanna go on about it.

7) I might have been the only one that didn't see it immediately (might have been in a tutorial as well), but when you talk to the cats that collect relics, you can press a button to track the relics which tells you where to look for them. Going to the place, using spirit vision, and looking for abnormal things is how I approached it, though there are youtube videos if you need further help.

8) The combat trophies are very easy, however, keep in mind that you need to do 200 quick purges and 50 bow kills (at least 20 headshot ones). The only other one that might need some setup is to pull 5 cores at the same time, but it can easily be done in the late game. Using your ultimate ability in the parade is how I got mine.

9) If you are missing the trophy for killing all visitors by the end of the game, you have probably missed the yellow or the red minions that need to be stealth killed for it to count. There are static locations where they spawn, so just go there and stealth kill them, nothing too bad.

10) Donation boxes are useful and can get you most of the way through collecting the tanuki and jinzo statues, but I had to resort to Powerpyx's guide at some point since strangely not every shrine has a donation box and I did not find the collectibles in those zones naturally.

 

If you reached this far, thanks for reading and good luck on your journey

Edited April 2, 2023 by whitelion1256

[Larzz]

Just started, so this is much appreciated! 

[Rhav__]

I would also suggest to try to not use fast travel that much. Something you are going to do for most of the time in this game is searching for collectibles, and they are scattered literally everywhere. So ( at least from my experience ) even if i had to go from point A to B several times i would always choose to not use fast travel so that i could take all the collectibles i missed from previous explorations. Great tips by the way

[ZenaxPure]

Good advice in general but one thing I'd throw out in regards to the combat: take the time to get good at parrying. Enemies actually aren't really bullet sponges (even on hard) once you get a feel for it. Perfect parrying a normal sized enemy that uses melee attacks (which is probably like half the enemies in the game) causes the enemy to be staggered and if you attack it (preferably with the water attack since it's stronger, wind usually takes like 2 or 3 hits) you can knock it down to the ground. If you've unlocked the appropriate talents, enemies on the ground can be instantly killed regardless of their HP, or, if they're too far away/combat is too hectic to go in for the insta-kill you'll still do 2x damage to them.

 

Buffed up water weaving and perfect parrying everything you can is really strong, a lot of enemies can essentially be killed with just 1 attack and a follow up. More importantly though the upcoming update to the game is also adding a counter attack, so I suspect learning to parry will become even stronger.

 

On the outside the game looks like some sort of magic slinging FPS but it mechanically has a lot more in common with melee action games. You get a big leg up if you take the time to learn enemy attack patterns and take them head on.

[nycxi]

On 02/04/2023 at 4:41 PM, whitelion1256 said:

By far the most important thing, and I cannot emphasize that enough, every chance you get, do the Hyakki Yako (visitor parade). Save before it, lower the difficulty if you have to, but clear it every time you spot it. You need to do this a total of 8 times and this is by far the most important thing you should prioritize to cut down on your mop-up time. For reference, I did not know about this, and so by the time I completed everything else I had done 5 out of 8. It took me roughly 2-3 hours of afking and around 30 minutes of actively searching for the parades to get the remaining three. Moreover, I'd advise that every 30-40 minutes of playtime, jump to Shibuya Scramble Crossing and check if there is a parade at the crossroads. The sooner you get done with those, the easier your life will be. 

 

What trophy are the parades for? Because i didn't see them mentioned in the trophy guide so i've basically been skipping them all ?

[Zarkhal]

14 hours ago, nycxi said:

 

What trophy are the parades for? Because i didn't see them mentioned in the trophy guide so i've basically been skipping them all

 

It is related to the trophy of 100% of the spirits. To reach 100% beyond the spirits that are in the streets, there are 3 specific groups:

1. From the cubes that we have to protect
2. From the city underground
3. And from the parades (whenever we complete a parade, some spirits appear to capture)

Edited April 4, 2023 by Zarkhal