The Story of my Life (Not Really), As Told by the Platinums I’ve Earned in the Last Eight Years [Working Title]

[Cave Johnson]

I’ve been part of this community in my own (antisocial) sort of way for the last seven, almost eight years (going by join date), so I figured I’d finally make a checklist. I’ve thought about it many times over the years, but it seemed like a lot of work, so it didn’t end up happening. However, rather than just yelling into the void that is the “Most Recent Platinum” thread, I thought it would be better to start recording my experiences with games in a more personal way. However, there is one problem that I only thought of a solution to recently. How am I to chronicle everything that came before? 156 platinums isn’t a lot, but it is a lot to write about if I’m just starting now. What I came up with initially was to put earlier platinums into sections ordered chronologically, each with some kind of commentary or explanation of what was going on at that time. This seemed like a good idea until I actually started trying to do it, then I realized that most of these games don’t go together. Not only that, but trying to remember some of the finer details has proven to be impossible for my bad memory. 

 

Instead, I’ll be grouping sets of games together and trying to come up with at least a title, while only adding commentary some of the time if I feel I have anything worthwhile to add. As for the later platinums where I actually wrote something about them in the “Most Recent Platinum” thread, I’ll archive what I wrote here, and to make it more interesting, I’ll also try to add some commentary to what I previously wrote (if I can think of any). [This will be an ongoing process; at the time of writing this, that part is currently unfinished.] In the early days I only wrote a few sentences for each platinum, and I didn’t do that from the beginning either; in fact, I didn’t start doing more detailed write ups until relatively recently. I’m sure there’s no way this will all fit in one post, so it will probably take at least two posts to fit everything from platinums #1 - 150. Of course, I’ll be using spoiler boxes to condense everything into a more accessible format, rather than creating an incredibly long wall of text. 

 

Note: It’s probably better to consider this thread as a constant work in progress; if I waited until I felt it was finished before posting it, it would exist only as a word document on my computer forever.  

 

Platinums #1 & 2: “The Beginning and How I Got There” [August 2013 - April 2015]

 

Spoiler

#1 Tales of Xillia 2
#2 Tales of Xillia

 

To explain this part, I’ll have to go even farther back first. I first got into Tales games at around age 16. Before that, I became interested in RPGs after a few years of slowly playing through some of the classics in my early teenage years—Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy I, and then Final Fantasy IV. Not long after that, I saw my sister playing Tales of Xillia, and it caught my interest. Up until that point, I hadn’t played any action RPGs, so this was a completely different experience for me. Tales of Xillia was also the first RPG I played on a seventh generation console; I was a bit behind on the times, I know. Suffice to say, I got really into it, and in about a week’s time, I had already done most of what there is to do in Tales of Xillia. After that, there’s a gap in both my trophy log and memory, so bear with me for this next part. I didn’t earn a trophy for about six months, so whatever I was doing wasn’t documented on PSN. Back then, I still played PC games often, so that was probably it. Anyway, somewhere in between that time my PS3 died, and all my data with it. I got a new PS3 somewhere in between that time, and started up Tales of Xillia all over again in May 2014. Once again, I got really into it, this time playing it even more extensively—as is evident from the new trophies I (inadvertently) unlocked. At this point I still didn’t care about trophies; that was still about 10 months away. Fast forward to the Tales of Xillia 2 NA release date, and this is where things escalated further. I played the absolute hell out of Xillia 2 when it first came out. It’s not quite evident by the timestamps, but on the first day I played it until nearly 7AM, went to sleep for a couple hours and was up playing it again by 11. At this pace I finished the game rather quickly, and following that, I began a Tales marathon in which I played almost every game in the main series.

 

Was I interested in trophies yet? The answer is still no (this explanation is taking a lot longer than I thought it would). During this time, I was playing multiple Tales games across different platforms constantly. I can’t remember the details exactly, but at one point, I was playing Tales of Phantasia on an emulator, one of the PS3 Tales games, and random Tales spin-offs on the PSP (completely in Japanese, which I understood absolutely none of at the time). Needless to say, I was obsessed. Fast forwarding again, this time to mid May 2015, I picked up Xillia 2 again for reasons that I don’t recall, and set out to complete the game further. After a few days of playing, I discovered that I had almost every trophy, and I guess I thought to myself, “Why not get the rest?”. So that’s what I did, and I unlocked my first platinum on March 17th, 2015. After that I did the same for the first Tales of Xillia, unlocking the platinum a few weeks later on April 8th, 2015. 

 

Platinums #3 & 4: “Unknowingly Diving Further Into Weebery”  [June - July 2015] 

 

Spoiler

#3 Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed
#4 Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1

 

While it may seem hard to believe, at the time I played these games, I really had no clue how far I was going into “weeb territory” (back then, I had never even heard of Akihabara). I was unknowingly on that path after playing too many Tales games, but I digress. My sister had a copy of the game, and I guess I ended up playing it under the (false) presumption that it was an RPG. While it was quite a departure from anything I had previously played, I liked the gameplay, which can be very hit or miss from what I’ve seen. It definitely takes some getting used to, and the controls feel rather clunky and slow at first. [In a future post I will talk more about the game at length—I recently platinumed it for the third time and made it my 7000th trophy.] I got really into it, played the hell out of it for about eight days and got the platinum. At the time, I was surprised at how easy it was to platinum compared to the only other two I had; unlike Xillia and Xillia 2, it wasn’t a 100+ hour endeavor. I further learned about this from the next game I played (and platinumed), Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1.

 

[Side Note: I’ve never liked that it’s called “Neptunia” in English, which is why I rarely refer to the series that way. I don’t know why it was changed, but I suppose “Neptune” doesn’t really work that well in English—the first thing that comes to mind for many people is probably the god of the same name. “Hyperdimension” doesn’t work as a way to shorten the name of the series either, because it’s not even consistently part of the title.] 

 

I first learned of this game through Steam, and back then, it was a very different time. While it’s hard to imagine now, JRPGs were rare to find on Steam and on PC in general (especially in English). Falcom had previously given up on releasing their games on PC in Japan, but in 2012, they gave the western PC market a chance. Through Xseed, they released Ys Origin on Steam, and everything changed. It was successful enough to warrant an English release of Trails in the Sky FC on Steam (another Falcom RPG) later on (2014), which had sold poorly upon its initial western release for the PSP in 2011. While not the sole cause, I don’t think it is a stretch to say that Falcom and Xseed had a hand in the trend towards more Japanese games appearing on Steam. 

 

I skipped some details, but the initial point of this was to explain how I knew of Hyperdimension Neptunia. It had mostly positive reviews, and it looked interesting enough, so I went out and bought Re;Birth1 for the Vita—with my junk PC at the time, I wasn’t confident it could run any games released in the last ten years or so. Like with Akiba’s Trip, I played it a lot and got the platinum in eight days. 

 

Platinums #5 - 9: “A Brief Return to Tales / How I Starting Using PSNProfiles, and then a Lot of Nepping” [End of May - Late August 2015]

 

Spoiler

#5 Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
#6 Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: V Generation
#7 Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2
#8 Hyperdimension Neptunia PP
#9 Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed

 

As part of my Tales marathon, I had started playing Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World back in September 2014. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I’d say that most of the criticism it gets is deserved. With my newfound interest in platinums, I picked up the game again about eight months after I initially finished it. Over the next month and a half, I slowly chipped away at it while also playing other (mostly Nep) games. Unlike now, I often switched between several games rather than sticking to one until completion, which makes recalling the details difficult for me. Since I’m going in order of when I earned the platinum for each game rather than when I started them, this list is actually somewhat achronological in that regard. While going for Dawn of the New World's platinum, I used the guide on PSNP, which is how I found the site. Why I made an account and started using the forums later on, that I can't remember. Anyway, after well over 100 hours, I finished Dawn of the New World, and was able to focus on playing the rest of the Nep Re;Birth trilogy and the spin-offs. At this time, only three spin-offs existed: Action Unleashed, PP, and Hyperdevotion Noire—crazy, I know. 

 

Platinum #10 “Resident Evil (I couldn’t think of a good title for this one)”  [End of March - Late August 2015]

 

Spoiler

#10 Resident Evil

 

Platinums #11 - 13: “Persona 4 and Less Importantly, Fairy Fencer F” - Late September - Late October 2015

 

Spoiler

#11 Persona 4: Dancing All Night 
#12 Fairy Fencer F
#13 Persona 4 Golden

 

Platinum #14: “First Atelier Game / Unknowingly Diving Further into Weebery Part II: No Turning Back” November - December 2015

 

Spoiler

#14 Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland

 

Platinums #15 - 17: “Finishing off Remaining Nep Games (at the Time)” Late October 2015 - February 2016 

 

Spoiler

#15 Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart
#16 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 
#17 Megadimension Neptunia VII

 

Platinums #18 - 21: “Resident Evil 0 and the three PS3 Nep Games” - Mid February 2016 - End of March

 

Spoiler

#18 Resident Evil 0
#19 Hyperdimension Neptunia
#20 Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2
#21 Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory

 

Platinums #22 - 24: “Nights of Azure, First 100%, More Resident Evil, and Oneechanbara Z2 (None of this goes together)” [April 2016]

 

Spoiler

#22 Nights of Azure
100% #1 Risk of Rain
#23 Resident Evil Revelations 2
#24 Onechanbara Z2: Chaos

 

 

Platinums #25 - 35: “New (at the time) Nep Spinoff, Atelier Dusk Trilogy (and Sophie), First VN (Steins;Gate), Senran Kagura, Finally Finishing Soul Calibur II, and One of These is not Like the Others (Doom)” [Mid May 2016 - End of August]

 

Spoiler

#25 MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies
#26 Doom
#27 Atelier Ayesha Plus: The Alchemist of Dusk

 

#28 Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book

 

 

I didn't quite get the screenshot as I planned, but it's close enough.

 

This was my first post of many in the “Most Recent Platinum” thread. I didn’t have anything to say then, but at least I had a good screenshot. When I platinumed the DX version much later on (#144), I tried to recreate the same screenshot.

 

#29 Atelier Escha & Logy Plus: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky

 

I find it surprising that the platinum for this game is about 10% more common than Atelier Ayesha Plus. Maybe it's just me, but I thought Ayesha Plus was easier. The hardest thing for me was beating the level 99 version of the final boss. I did it on my first playthrough, so I didn't have access to the items exclusive to Logy. I also missed the elixir base, which didn't help.

 

I don’t even remember writing this (that will be a recurring theme throughout this checklist). What the hell was I even saying? Ayesha Plus is definitely harder—I only had problems because I had a dumbass approach to the final boss.  

 

#30 Steins;Gate

 

None of my milestones were planned, but I'm glad that such a great game ended up being my 30th platinum.

 

Who cares? Nothing to say here really, this was just a pointless sentence so my post wouldn’t look bare, I guess.  

 

#31 Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea

 

Not quite as easy as Atelier Sophie, but still one of the easier Atelier platinums. The plus version seems like it is going to be great, mostly because it corrects a serious problem the last two games had. (Ayesha not being in the game) Seriously though, not including the main character from one of the past games is disappointing. In the Arland games, Rorona was in all three of them, and Totori was also in Atelier Meruru. They should have done a similar thing for the Dusk games.

 

There was originally an image in the middle (probably of Ayesha), but image links from the old version of PSNP are often broken, as I’m just starting to find out. 

 

#32 Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus

 

My last few trophies were in multiplayer, and it wouldn't allow me to take a screenshot on the results screen. I couldn't screenshot the platinum, so I took this screenshot of Hibari instead: [broken image link]

 

I promised a screenshot of Hibari, but the old version of this site has once again failed me, so have this gif of Hibari instead: 

 

#33 Senran Kagura Estival Versus

 

Slightly more difficult than Shinovi Versus, due to the trophy that required buying everything from the shop. Still easy, though.

 

Another boring filler sentence… next. 

 

#34 Soul Calibur II HD Online

 

After two years and four months, I finally got this. I could have done it earlier, but the online was completely dead. I set up a gaming session on here, and found someone pretty fast. It only takes about a half hour or less for two people to boost the online trophies.

 

#35 Senran Kagura Bon Appetit! (Hanzo x Crimson Squad)

 

Another easy platinum. Completing 200 songs wasn't too bad, but it's a pretty stupid trophy for a game that only has 20 songs. I didn't really plan the platinum screenshot, because I had no idea when the trophy would come up. I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out though: [The following image link is surprisingly not broken, but… it’s probably better not to open it on a device that is currently visible to others.]

Spoiler

 

 

Platinums #36 - 44: “Untitled (for now)”

 

 

Spoiler

#36 Time and Eternity

 

I didn't think this game was really that bad. It got pretty bad reviews, but reviews rarely affect whether I buy a game or not. My next platinum might be Tales of Hearts R, if I can finish it in four days. Once Trails of Cold Steel II comes out, that's all I will be playing. 

 

I’m not sure why I was going easy on this game here. I appreciate that they were trying to do something different, but the end result was not good. The gameplay is complete ass, the story is okay, but riddled with horribly written comedy that falls miserably flat most of the time, and going for 100% completion is not fun in the slightest. 

 

#37 Tales of Hearts R

 

Almost two years later, I finally went back and finished it. Tales of Hearts R was my first vita game, and the reason why I got a vita in the first place. The vita I played it on first was linked to my sister's account, so I didn't get any trophies the first time I played it. Later on, I started it on my account with the intention of getting the platinum. I can't even remember why, but about halfway through, I quit. With that done, it's time for Trails of Cold Steel II.

 

I did in fact finish Tales of Hearts R on time, as can be seen here.

 

#38 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II

 

The first milestone that I actually planned (my 2,000th trophy). Now it's time to finish Gauntlet, and hopefully keep my sanity in the process.

 

Did I keep my sanity in the process? Perhaps the fact that I was trying to platinum Gauntlet without automating any of the grind meant I had already lost it. 

 

#39 Gauntlet

 

About a year ago, I looked at the trophy list and figured I wouldn't even bother trying to get the platinum. Fast forward to a month ago, and I started playing the game again for some reason. I somehow came to the conclusion that I had to finish it. After killing thousands of enemies, killing food, eating food, and even killing myself, it was finally over. 

 

#40 Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls

 

Probably one of the easiest Nep platinums. It only took around 30 hours, which is around the time it took me platinum mk2. Platinum screenshot:

 

 

 

#41 Final Fantasy Type-0 HD

 

I didn't really care for this game. I was pretty much sick of it by chapter 7, so I just used the leveling trick to get Deuce to 99. After that, she destroyed everything with the power of music, and nothing even stood a chance. Without Deuce, I probably would have never got through this game. The platinum screenshot didn't work out as I planned, so I am just going to post this one of Deuce instead: [Broken image link]

 

“I didn’t really care for this game” still holds true, though now I probably wouldn’t say it as nicely. Actually, let me fix that right now: This game fucking sucked in just about every aspect; it’s shit. There we go, done. 

 

#42 Valkyrie Drive: Bhikkhuni

 

Some of the challenges were annoying, and the 5 million exp trophy was a boring grind, but other than that, this was an easy platinum. 

 

Low effort, but I suppose I managed to sum it up it in one sentence decently. 

 

#43 Atelier Totori Plus: The Adventurer of Arland

 

This game was easier, and surprisingly a lot more fun when I was strictly following a guide. On my first playthrough, (about ten months ago) I didn't really know what I was doing, and I did a lot of things wrong. When I got to the final boss, I didn't even stand a chance. My items and equipment were just terrible. At that point, I didn't care anymore, so I gave up and moved on to something else. I decided to give it another try a little over a week ago, and I'm glad I did. Now it's time to play Meruru Plus (again).

 

#44 Atelier Meruru Plus: The Apprentice of Arland

 

This is probably the hardest Atelier platinum, mostly because of the Makina Domain. The extra bosses are even worse than Ayesha Plus, since you have to fight all five of them in a row. If you leave the dungeon, they will always respawn. I managed to do it by piecing together several different ultimate equipment and item guides, and by figuring out some of it on my own. It was actually kind of fun, and made me appreciate the alchemy system more. I like the dusk games more overall, but my favorite alchemy system is the one in Rorona and Meruru Plus. Platinum screenshot:

 

 

 

Platinums #45 - 50: “Untitled II”

 

Spoiler

 

#45 英雄伝説 空の軌跡 FC Evolution [Trails in the Sky FC Evolution]

 

A million hours of idling later, I have the platinum. A 100 hours played trophy makes no sense for a game that is half that long. To make things even worse, it has to be in one playthrough, as hours do not carry over into NG+.  I'm tempted to start SC right away, but I'll probably finish Steins;Gate 0 first.

 

#46 Steins;Gate 0

 

2nd best game of 2016 for me. If you liked the original Steins;Gate, then there's no reason not to get 0. I have to admit, I was skeptical at first. I thought, "Does Steins;Gate really need a sequel?". After playing it, I'd say the answer is a definite "yes".  Also, the soundtrack, much like the first game, is amazing. Just listen to the main theme: [Dead Youtube link, new one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC2JQlnmkLI]

 

This time Youtube failed me rather than the old version of PSNP (was this even the old version anymore? [December 2016] I don’t recall when it switched over.) I also just realized that I referred to the reader as “you”—0/100, unprofessional, F.

 

#47 Gravity Rush Remastered

 

I never even posted anything about this game in the “Most Recent Platinum” thread, an apt display of how little I care about it. Gravity Rush wasn’t bad, but I found that it didn’t live up to the hype and was a mostly forgettable experience. 

 

#48 Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax

 

Despite not liking fighting games much, Tomoka being in the game was enough to convince me to buy it. I'm not very good at fighting games either, so the score attack and time attack trophies were pretty hard for me. It took me so many attempts, that I didn't even need to grind for the 10,000,000 damage trophy. Everything else was pretty easy, except for the one online trophy. I had to set up a gaming session to get it, because the online in this game is completely dead.

 

Ah yes, this game. I seem to have conveniently left out the part where at one point, I got so pissed I picked up my entire computer chair with one arm, then punched it repeatedly with the other. Not my proudest moment, but I haven’t got this pissed at any game since—there’s something about fighting games that really boils my blood in a way other games can’t. 

 

#49 Gal*Gun Double Peace

 

At one point, I almost gave up on platinuming this game. I took a break from it for a few days, and when I came back to it, I realized it wasn't that hard. Perfecting the bosses is actually really easy, when you're not trying to do it on expert. Ekoro, Kurona, Patako are the hardest ones. However, if you fight them on beginner, it's so easy it's almost a joke. The two rarest trophies are really grindy. Collecting the data for every girl gets really repetitive after a while, as you need to play some of the same stages over and over again. I couldn't have got through it without listening to music.  

 

#50 英雄伝説 空の軌跡 SC Evolution [Trails in the Sky SC Evolution]
 

I can't think of any game more deserving of being two milestones (50th platinum and 2500th trophy). It could always change sometime in the future, but right now, without a doubt, I can say that this is my favorite game of all time. I can't really decide if I like the original version more or not. The Evo version is fully voice acted, which I think adds a lot to the game. In fact, the main reason I bought FC and SC Evo was for the voice acting (and I can't deny that I wanted the trophies as well). I mostly prefer the soundtrack of the original version; some of the new versions of the songs just can't compare to the original. "Hamel" and "The Merciless Savior" are two good examples of songs that were much better in the original version. The only trophy I had a problem with was the one for using all arts. There is one art that always freezes the damn game... "Around Noah" or something like that. I managed to get the trophy by using that art last. Platinum screenshot:

 

 

 

Platinums #51 - 62: “Atelier Stacks and More Games That Are Only in Japanese”

 

Spoiler

#51 Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

 

I don't really have much to say about this one, but Resident Evil 7 was a lot better than I expected. When I first saw the demo, I thought the game was going to be some Amnesia/Outlast bullshit, which I hate. Thankfully, it wasn't like that at all (except for a few short segments like the second video tape). I still have almost all the DLC trophies to get, but I probably won't do those for a while. 

 

The last sentence didn’t age well; six years later and I barely played any of the DLC, nor do I have any intention of going back to it. Maybe one day? (Probably not.)

 

#52 劇場版 魔法少女まどかマギカThe Battle Pentagram

 

I bought this game almost immediately after finishing the anime, which is now one of my favorites. As for the game, it's action with some RPG elements (like leveling up and status elements) and all the story scenes are in the format of a VN. The platinum isn't at all difficult, and I never really felt bored, even when grinding to level 99.   

 

#53 Atelier Shallie Plus: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea

 

I don't have much to say about this game, since it's not too much different from the PS3 version. It's definitely an improvement over the original, though. One of the main problems I had with the original was Ayesha and (less importantly) Logy being completely absent from the game. The way Gust handled the returning characters in the Dusk games was pretty terrible. Based on the changes they made in Shallie Plus, they realized they made mistakes (or just listened to fan complaints, I don't know).

 

#54 Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk

 

I don't really have much to say that I haven't already, since there aren't many differences from the plus version. The main one is the lack of the extra bosses, which is fine with me. While I actually enjoyed fighting them, I don't think I'd want to do it again. Like the other Dusk games (especially the non-plus ones) it's an easy platinum. 

I kind of underestimated how difficult it would be to play an Atelier game in Japanese (synthesis is really hard when you can't read the language) so I had to use the plus version as a reference... and by that, I mean I pretty much had to play both versions at the same time. It was worth it though; playing Atelier Ayesha without Marina would have felt wrong. 

 

“I don’t really have much to say that I haven’t already” is a convenient line, I suppose, but it doesn’t make sense when what I’ve said already is… nothing. The first platinum I posted in the thread was Atelier Sophie (#28), and Ayesha Plus was (#27), which I never posted about.

 

#55 Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey

 

Another easy Atelier platinum. I could have done it a lot faster, but I spent a lot of time trying to get the best weapon/armor traits. Thankfully, it's not necessary for the platinum, because the drop rates are even worse than in Atelier Shallie. Aside from that, Atelier Firis is a lot of fun. While I liked Sophie, Firis is a much better game in just about every aspect. The time limit is back (sort of) but it wasn't that difficult. I still had 100 days or so left when I got the fifth recommendation. After passing the exam, there is an unlimited amount of time to do character events, explore, synthesize, etc. This is easily one of my new favorite Atelier games. Platinum screenshot: 

 

 

#56 お姉チャンバラZ～カグラ～ With NoNoNo!

 

That's two platinums in a row now with "congratulations" spelled incorrectly. Ignoring that, this game wasn't much different from Z2. The story mode is noticeably shorter, but that's actually a good thing if you're going for the trophies. The trophies are pretty much the same, with most of them being related to quests. I don't remember needing to grind as much though (fucking yellow orbs) It took hours of playing chapter 15 over and over just to get a needlessly high number of orbs. Seriously, you could probably buy everything in the damn shop ten times over with that amount of orbs.

 

#57 Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky

 

 

#58 英雄伝説 空の軌跡 the 3rd Evolution [Trails in the Sky the 3rd Evolution]

 

Somehow, I managed to platinum this game in two playthroughs. In every other Kiseki game, I had to do a third playthrough due to me forgetting to scan at least one enemy... Overall, I'd say it was much easier than FC and SC. The biggest difference is probably that there are very few missables, unlike the previous games. As for the game itself, I'm not really sure what to say. It was even better than I thought it would be, which is saying a lot, since I had expected it to be great. The ending is perfect; I don't think Falcom could have possibly ended the Sora trilogy any better.

 

#59 Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland

 

Rorona Plus was the first Atelier game I played, and I loved it. On its own, the original version isn't a bad game. However, playing the plus version first probably makes the original seem worse than it actually is. There are a lot of improvements in the later games that are not present in this one, making it painful at times. Instead of being able to access all requests in one place, you have to go each character and take their requests individually. You can't access items from the container either, unless you're in the Atelier. If you want the platinum, you'll be repeating this process many times. Also, you can't skip the credits. This wouldn't be that big of a deal, but there are so many endings that you'll be waiting for those credits to end well over ten times.

 

#60 Persona 5

 

I could've platinumed Persona 5 nearly a month ago, but I wanted to make it a milestone, even if it is a fairly unimportant one (60th platinum). I'm sure there have been many posts in this thread detailing how great this game is, so I'm not even going to bother. Well, that and it's been over a month since I finished my first run, so whatever I had to say I pretty much forgot by now.

 

#61 Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland

 

There's not much to say about this game; it's pretty much the same as the plus version. In fact, the trophy list is exactly the same. It took me about 40 hours, which was much shorter than the first time. Now it's time to start Meruru (again).

 

#62 Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland

 

With that, I've now platinumed every Atelier game. One thing I certainly didn't miss from the Plus version was the Makina Domain. The Plus version of Meruru is probably the hardest Atelier platinum, but take away the Makina Domain, and it's the easiest of the three Arland games. Now I'm not sure what to do... The next Atelier game won't be coming out for a while, but I'm really looking forward to some other releases from Gust. Blue Reflection and Yoru no Nai Kuni 2 will definitely be day one purchases for me. 

 

Platinums #63 - 73: “Stacking Kiseki Games to Fill the Void of no More Localized Titles Left (at the time), Finishing Off Rocksmith 2014, and Some Other Unrelated Stuff”

 

 

Spoiler

 

#63 Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed [Vita stack]

 

The PS4 version of Akiba's Trip was one of my first platinums about two years ago. I felt like playing it again, so I bought the Vita version a week ago. For some reason, it was cheaper to buy it new from the UK than it was to buy it used in the US. As for the game, I feel like one of the few people that actually liked the combat system. It's far from perfect, but something about it is just fun to me. Akiba's Trip is also now my fastest platinum (4 days, 11 minutes).

 

#64 Tokyo Xanadu

 

"For I have dined on honeydew, and drunk the milk of paradise." References no one will get aside, Tokyo Xanadu is yet another great game from Falcom. Despite being an action RPG, it's much more like Kiseki than it is like Ys. In fact, the graphics are pretty much the same as Sen no Kiseki, but improved. The bonding events, character notes and quests are nearly the same as well. The combat system is kind of like a 3D version of Ys Oath/Origin, and is closer to what I think the 3D Ys games should've been like.  As for the localization, it has way more typos and other errors than it should have. I find it hard to believe that anyone actually proofread the script. Seriously, you'd have to be blind to miss some of this shit. The platinum description is a great example: "Obtain all trophys." Also, no audio plays during the true ending credits. Hopefully this will be fixed in the PS4 version.

#65 ガールズ＆パンツァー 戦車道、極めます！

 

I didn't expect to finish this so fast, but getting the conversation trophy went better than I thought it would. With a guide, it's fairly easy. Without one, it would probably be impossible. There are 100 different conversations, and some of them can only be triggered in a very specific way. If they are interrupted, which can happen rather easily, it won't count. Also, there's no in-game way to keep track of which ones you've heard already.  Complaining aside, I had a lot fun playing this game. Shortly after watching the anime, I somehow found myself already buying the game (no self-control, I know). I'd highly recommend it to anyone who liked the anime, as the game is pretty much a slightly abridged, playable version of the anime. Unfortunately, it seems to be a bit rare now though, so good luck finding it for anything less than 60 USD or so. I don't have anything else to say so... パンツァーフォー！

 

#66 Rocksmith 2014

 

I don't think I'll platinum anything more rare than this, at least not for a long time. Contrary to the name of the platinum, you don't have to be that good at guitar to get the platinum. Or at least I don't think so, since I've never considered myself to be very good at guitar. The hardest trophy for me was scoring 10,000,000 points in Hurtin' Hurdles. It took me 100 tries or more, I can't remember the exact amount since I did it 10 months ago. There are quite a few grindy trophies (complete 500 missions...) which is part of the reason it took me so long. 

 

#67 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡 [Trails of Cold Steel (AS stack)]

 

A combination of things led me to platinum this again. Feeling hyped for Sen III, I looked up the Japanese version of the first game to find that it was only around $20 on ebay. I mainly got it for the voice acting, but I couldn't resist stacking the trophies as well. I managed to get the platinum in two playthroughs, but I did screw up getting two character notes. I only had to speed through chapter 4, 5, and the beginning of 6 again on a different file (I save a lot). The voice acting only being partial is a bit disappointing, but that's probably because I'm kind of used to the Evo versions. It was still a lot more enjoyable with it, though. As a result, I think I love Fie even more now, lol. I got the Japanese version of Sen II recently, and I'm looking forward to playing it with voice acting next. 

#68 Nurse Love Addiction

 

I had known this game was on Steam for a while, but when I heard about a possible Vita version, I decided to wait. Initially, I was going to wait for a sale since it is digital only, but... well, that didn't happen. Aside from some reviews I read on Steam a long time ago, I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew it was a yuri VN, and that's all it really took for me to buy it. It's not quite what it seems, though. I won't go into detail because of spoilers, but depending on the route, some seriously crazy shit can happen. Some of the bad endings are a good example of this. After all, this game is rated M, but it's not for the reasons you'd think... As for the trophies, they're easy (unsurprisingly) since it's a VN. However, they're pretty stupid. Why would they make picking the wrong choice for each ending a silver trophy? It should have been the opposite. You know what you get for picking the right choice? Nothing. I guess you could say that you get the good ending trophy later, but getting more trophies for screwing up is just dumb.

#69 Blue Reflection

 

Damn... I'm not really sure what to say. I was very surprised by this game, and I mean that in a good way. I somewhat knew what to expect since it's a Gust RPG, but aside from a few similarities, it's nothing like Atelier. It took me about 45 hours to beat the game/get the platinum, but I'm pretty slow when it comes to RPGs. That was enough time for me to get attached to the characters though...

Like most newer Gust games, Blue Reflection is an easy platinum. Most of the trophies are story related and not missable. In fact, I think the only trophy that can be missed is for crafting everything. I couldn't figure out how to unlock the last few items, but thankfully there is a guide for that specific trophy. I would've never guessed that all you had to do was enter a different area to trigger a quest. 

#70 Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online 

 

I could've finished this sooner, but I got the LE two days late. I wasn't surprised though, since none of the LEs I've bought from the Idea Factory store have come on time... Complaining aside, this is probably the best spin-off in the series. At least to me, anyway. The previous two action games can't even compare to it. When I got the Action U platinum, I put the game back in its case and never touched it again. With 4 Goddesses Online, I actually wanted to keep playing it after getting the platinum. There's still more stuff I want to do, and I'll probably go back and grind to level 200.

 

I can't think of many negative things to say about it, other than the playable characters. Half of the characters that should've been playable... just aren't. At first, it seems like they made it that way so they could sell them as DLC later, but they didn't. I honestly would have preferred that over what we really got, which was nothing. Also, I've heard the online sucks. I can't confirm that though, nor do I really care, since I don't have plus. It didn't quite work out as planned, but here's the platinum screenshot: 

 

 

#71 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡Ⅱ [Trails of Cold Steel (AS stack)]

 

A little over a year later, I have platinumed this game again. I didn't miss scanning any enemies this time, so I didn't have to start a third playthrough. I somehow screwed up getting Alfin's link level to 5 on my second playthrough this time, though. Thankfully, all I had to do was load a previous save and go through Act 2 again. I managed to speed through it in about two and half hours, but it's pretty easy to do when you only have one thing to keep track of.

 
As for the game... well, I already knew exactly what to expect, since I've already played it. Sen no Kiseki II is easily one of my favorite games, and it would be in at least my top 5. I don't love it as much as Sora SC, but it's pretty damn close. I'm not sure when I'll get Sen III, though it will most likely be when it is localized. I kind of want to import it now, but I don't know if it would be worth it, since I wouldn't be able to understand most of the story. Also, I wasn't paying attention at all to how many trophies I had, so the trophy for obtaining all recipes is my 3500th trophy... lol. 

 

#72 Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon

 

I gave up on waiting for the 1.01 patch, and of course, it came out a few days later... I'm glad it finally got updated though, since it made getting to level 50 a lot less time consuming. The last few games I platinumed were easy/short, so I'm kind of glad this game took more effort. And yes, 30 hours is a short platinum time (to me, anyway). My final time was around 69 hours, but I'm sure it can be done much faster than that. 

 

For the most part, Nights of Azure 2 is better than the first game. The combat is much better, except for the way weapon switching is handled... but I'll get to that later. Having (mostly) human characters as support instead of four servans feels like a huge improvement. However, only having two servan slots doesn't work well with the game's weapon system. Most of the servans are "tied" to a certain weapon. In other words, you can't use that weapon unless you bring them along, which takes up a slot. There are also four servans tied to certain actions, which can get you to shortcuts, treasure chests, and are sometimes necessary to unlock more servans. Taking one of them along also takes up a slot, of course. Did I mention that you can't switch them without going back to the hotel? Not only that, but it wastes a whole damn day to go back. Even if you have 10 minutes left on the clock, it all goes to the fucking void as soon as you go back to the hotel. It would have been nice to freely switch between areas until the time ran out. Also, I thought maybe I was remembering it wrong, but I listened to the soundtrack of the first game while grinding to level 50... and wow, the first game's soundtrack destroys the second one. It's not that the music is bad in Nights of Azure 2, it's just that the first one had a far superior soundtrack.

#73 The Evil Within

 

I'm not really sure why I didn't play The Evil Within sooner. I've known about it for years, and I even saw my sister play some of it. If I had seen more of the game at that time, I might have played it then. Speculation aside, I ended up liking this game more than I thought I would. I plan on playing the second one soon, but I feel like taking a break after going through Akumu mode. As for the trophies, clearing Akumu mode is undoubtedly the hardest part of platinuming The Evil Within. There are some annoying chapter specific trophies, and getting all the collectables is pretty time consuming, but all of that is nothing compared to Akumu. I don't have a screenshot, but it took me 17 hours, and I died 445 times. I didn't use a walkthrough for Akumu, but I did look up a few parts that I just couldn't figure out. A lot of people seem to say that chapter 6 is the worst, but personally, I thought 10 and 11 were much harder than 6.

Platinums #74 - 93: “Dark Souls and Project Diva Take Over my Life For a While, Playing Zero and Ao no Kiseki with Fan Translations, More Disappointment From Tales, and Attempting to Play Sen no Kiseki III With no Translation”

 

Spoiler

#74 Dark Souls

 

After hearing about Dark Souls for years, I finally played it. But then again, who hasn't heard of it? It seems that any game that is remotely difficult will be compared to Dark Souls. Whether it's a "joke" or not, I'm really tired of games being called "the Dark Souls of (insert something here)".

 

Anyway, I really loved this game. Once I got into it, which didn't take long, I couldn't put it down. It pretty much consumed my life for the past two weeks, but I don't regret any of it. I went in as blind as possible for most of the game, which created some ...interesting situations. In search of the second bell, I went to the Catacombs. Side note: fuck the catacombs, fuck skeletons, and especially bonewheel skeletons. All I had to go on was what the NPC at Firelink Shrine said. I believe he said something about the depths, and me (being the idiot that I am) thought he was referring to the Catacombs. Little did I know, he was talking about the actual location called "Depths". When I got to the Tomb of the Giants, I was about ready to throw my game disc out the fucking window. Eventually I gave up, and found out through a simple google search that I had no real reason to go there yet. As for the trophies, I got them all offline. I couldn't have done it without the five pages worth of checklists I had. In total, it took me about 120 hours to get the platinum. Most of that time was my first playthrough though, which took forever compared to my subsequent ones. This game is much shorter when you know exactly where to go.

#75 英雄伝説 零の軌跡 Evolution [Zero no Kiseki Evolution]

 

I loved this game, but I ran into quite a few problems, mostly with the trophies. I could've finished this sooner, but it seems that the game itself was opposed to me getting the platinum. I never had any problems with the other Kiseki Evo games, but this one... First of all, it froze quite often. I'd say it froze about 10 times throughout my three playthroughs, usually during battles. The absolute worst time was when I had nearly beat the final boss, and it froze. I'm not quite sure that's the best way to describe it, though. After using an art, the sound effects became completely muted. Not only that, but every action was severely delayed after the sound effects stopped working. For example, if I used an attack, nothing would happen for about two minutes, then the attack would happen. I went on trying to win under these bullshit conditions, but eventually the game couldn't take it anymore and froze completely. Needless to say, I had to fight the final boss all over again. And to top it all off, the only reason I needed to beat the final boss again was due to a trophy not unlocking when it should have. When I beat the game on nightmare, I only got the trophy for clearing the game on nightmare. It should have unlocked the hard trophy as well, but it didn't. Here are some screenshots of when I had the points for clearing nightmare, but not hard: https://i.imgur.com/CqfZALW.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zUVkFXP.jpg

 

#76 Demon’s Souls

 

Because I heard the servers were closing soon, I started Demon's Souls about two weeks ago. I don't really care for the PVP or co-op, but I like the other online features. I ended up playing offline most of the time though, due to connection problems. I never had a single problem with connecting to the servers in Dark Souls, but it rarely ever worked for me in Demon's Souls. Playing offline is actually better for getting the trophies anyway; controlling world tendency is impossible online.

 

#77 Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin

 

After some annoying grinds (killing the mad warrior 30 times, getting 30 sunlight medals, etc.) I've finally got all the damn magic. I seriously had five pages worth of checklists for all of the magic... I even set the font size to 10, and it still took up five pages. The majority of them can simply be purchased, but the ones that can't often require quite a bit of effort to obtain. A few of them are missable as well. I screwed up getting the ones from Navlaan on my first playthrough. Of course I'm going to pull a lever if there's a message next to it telling me not to. That just makes me want to do it more... Anyway, I don't like to use magic of any kind, so doing all this feels like I'm just collecting a bunch of worthless scrolls for a trophy. Complaining aside, I had a lot of fun with this game. It's the first souls game I played entirely without using a shield. I got my ass kicked in the beginning, but I slowly adjusted. After finishing Dark Souls II, I've come to the conclusion that running around like a maniac dual-wielding is more fun than using a shield.

 

#78 Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash

 

Platinuming this game was just about the last thing I expected to do today. Apparently, I was much closer to finishing it than I thought. Half of the trophies are just an incredibly boring grind, so I avoided doing them for months. As much as I've complained about the grind, it's still nothing compared to Gauntlet. While I'm sure there are worse grinds out there, I've yet to go through any grind that even comes close to Gauntlet's kill trophies. As for the game, I didn't really care for it. Hell, I can't even remember what happened in the story. All I remember is that it was so damn boring that it felt like a grind all its own. While the gameplay is completely different, PBS feels like more or less the same shit as Estival Versus. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I'm not exactly a fan of that game either. I really hope that the next game is more like SK2 and Shinovi Versus, which are the best games in the series (imo, of course).

 

#79 Tales of Berseria

 

I beat Tales of Berseria nearly a year ago, and did most of the post game stuff. I went back to get the remaining trophies a few weeks ago, and I was soon reminded of why I quit the first time. The item collector trophy, getting all the titles to level 2, and the dumb 200,000 tales coins trophy... it's nothing but a bunch of grinding. Like I always say, I couldn't have got through it without music. If I had to kill "baloons" for five fucking hours without listening to music, I'd lose my mind. It's been a year since I actually played the game, so I'm struggling to remember most of the details. I have a good idea of how the story begins and ends at least... I don't know if I mentioned it before, but my memory isn't all that great. One thing I didn't forget was how great the characters are. Magilou is easily my favorite character, but Velvet isn't far behind. I had a hard time choosing my party initially, but eventually I went with Velvet (of course), Magilou, Eleanor, and Rokurou (though sometimes I swapped him out for Eizen). I have nothing against Laphicet as a character, I just didn't like using him in battle.

 

This is probably the last Tales game I'll platinum for a while. I don't see myself going back to Symphonia, Graces, or Zestiria any time soon.

 

#80 Miracle Girls Festival

 

I got this game recently after seeing a post in this thread, which reminded me to buy this. I've been meaning to buy it ever since I saw that it had songs from Yuru Yuri, Kiniro Mosaic, and GochiUsa. It took me a bit to get accustomed to the gameplay, since I'm more familiar with rhythm games like DDR and Guitar Hero. In those games, all the steps/notes come from the same place, and go the same direction. In Miracle Girls Festival, the buttons can come from just about anywhere, much like the Project Diva games. In fact, the gameplay is identical (as far as I know) to those games. The platinum isn't hard at all; it's probably the easiest one I've done in a while. Unlocking the full versions of songs on extreme is annoying, but thankfully there's an easy way to get around that. I played the game so much that I didn't need to idle for the 24 hours played trophy.

#81 Warriors All-Stars

 

I wasn't expecting to get this platinum tonight. I was very surprised (and glad) when I saw the trophy pop up. The last trophy I needed was the one for completing all the missions. Unfortunately, there's no reliable in-game way of seeing which have been completed. I didn't know this until I had done almost everything. In other words, I had to print out a checklist and go through nearly everything over again. As you can imagine, I got really tired of this game after a while. This game is a lot of fun when not going for the platinum. I enjoyed it initially, but there's just too many endings. It also doesn't help that I don't care for these furry-esque designs. I just couldn't give a shit about any of the original characters, especially not when this is basically the story: The furry dimension is full of incompetent fucks who can't save their own world, so they forcibly summon people from other worlds (hence the crossover) to help them out. Of course, I didn't buy this game expecting a compelling story, nor did anyone else (probably).

 

#82 初音ミク -Project DIVA- f

 

After playing Miracle Girls Festival, (and enjoying it a lot) the obvious thing to do next was buy the games with nearly identical gameplay. I was hesitant at first, since I've never really cared for vocaloids in general. I decided to give it a chance anyway, and I'm glad I did. I ended up liking most of the songs, surprisingly. Tengaku is my favorite song by far. I've played it so many times that I can almost perfect it on extreme. Last time I tried, I got one safe :/ The trophies are fairly easy; you only need to play one song on extreme for part of a trophy. The rest is mostly grindy stuff, like the dumb art collector trophy. That was the last one I needed for the platinum. It took me nearly 30 minutes of cycling through loading screens to get the last few images. I've already started playing F 2nd, but I will definitely come back to the first one at some point.

 

#83 Dark Souls III

 

I recently noticed that I was close to 4,000 trophies, so I waited a few days before getting the platinum. I didn't have anything else planned, so Dark Souls III was the obvious choice. Well, that and I've really come to love this series over the past few months. Farming for the covenant items was the absolute worst part of the platinum. It took somewhere between 10 and 15 hours (rough estimate) to get them all. The drop rates for the proof of a concord kept and the vertebra shackle are bullshit. Other than that, I had a lot of fun going for the platinum. Even hunting down all the magic I'm never going to use is fun, in a way. Attempting to speedrun the game in NG+ and NG++ is something I've liked doing since the first Dark Souls. It feels great to destroy all the bosses that kicked my ass the first time around.

 

As for the game, I'm not sure how I'd rank it. The first Dark Souls is still my favorite, but Dark Souls II and III aren't far off. The bosses in III were some of the hardest in the series (for me, anyway). Keep in mind that I don't use any magic, shields, or NPC summons. These dumb self-imposed challenges probably make it harder than it needs to be, but I just feel I have to do them. A certain boss at the top of the castle made me quit the game for nearly three weeks. When I finally went back to it, I realized I was approaching it wrong, and I beat them after a few tries. I still hate that fight, though. I also had a bad time fighting Aldrich and Pontiff Sulyvahn.

 

#84 Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd

 

78 requests later, I have the platinum. I already complained about this in a status update, but I thought I was done with requests after completing the 50th one. Of course, there had to be a stupid fucking cuckoo clock that only unlocks after completing 78 requests. When I realized I had to do 28 more, I wanted to quit. It also doesn't help that I completely ignored the diva room for the first 30-40 hours. I figured I could just do it all at once later on, like the first game. Unfortunately, vocaloids can only be given one gift every 10-15 minutes. This slows everything down by a lot. Aside from that, there isn't much to say about the trophies. It's basically the same trophy list as the first one, except unlocking everything takes twice as long.

 

#85 Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match

 

The platinum is fairly easy. Clearing all the extra matches on extreme is probably the hardest part, but it's far from impossible. Grinding to level 80 was quite boring, as was getting all the decals and tank colors. The spend 20 hours in matches is kind of dumb, since I was only at about 15/20 hours even after doing everything else for the platinum.  Overall, this game feels like quite an improvement over the first one on Vita. The story scenes are more in the format of a VN, rather than just being screenshots from the anime. That was the biggest problem I had with the first one. It seems odd to me that they put so much work into having 100 unique conversations, yet couldn't make simple VN-like portraits of the characters. Aside from that it was basically a game adaptation of the anime, and a very well done one at that. The story mode in Dream Tank Match is done differently. It's more like a recap of the movie, with all the characters involved discussing the events of it. The story mode was definitely the highlight of the game, but the domination battles were great as well. Also, thanks to Leon Hasegawa (again), there is a trophy guide out for this game now. The guide came out when I was pretty much done with the platinum, so I didn't use it. However, he did help me out a lot while I was playing the game. Without his help, I never would've guessed that the first story match was the best place to grind just about everything.

#86 Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F [PS3 stack]

 

Yeah, I already stacked it. My sister owns the PS3 version of F, so I knew I'd end up stacking it eventually. I didn't expect to do it so soon, but a few things led to this happening. After playing F 2nd on PS3, it was hard to go back to playing the first one on Vita. 60+ hours of using the PS4 controller later, the Vita buttons felt really small in comparison. Well, that and I'd rather not wear down the buttons on my Vita; replacing a controller is a lot easier. Anyway, I made it more interesting this time by trying to get the platinum as fast as possible. I could've done it faster, but it took forever to get the last picture for the art collection trophy. I got 5th place on the fastest achievers list with my time of 3 hours, 48 minutes.

 

#87 Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings

 

I would've got this platinum sooner, but I kept getting distracted by other games. Much like the previous games, the platinum is fairly easy. I'm pretty sure that only the endings are missable. I got the true ending first, which locked me out of getting any of the other endings. Luckily I had a bunch of backup saves, so I didn't have to start over. The DLC for this game is bullshit. It didn't ruin my enjoyment, but it pisses me off that Ilmeria and Lucia are DLC characters. Not only that, but the season pass costs 80$... It's worth 30$ at most, if you ask me. It also bothers me that Plachta and Corneria are not playable characters, not even as DLC. Drossel and Fritz are just kind of... there. Sure, they have some important events, but there's no good reason why they couldn't have joined either. At the very least, Plachta should have been able to join the party. A character that important not joining makes no sense to me.

 

As much as I've complained, I still really liked the game. Unlike Atelier Shallie, it feels like a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. Though I guess there wasn't much to conclude, so it would have been hard to screw up. Having twins as the main characters was an interesting idea, and I thought it worked very well. I prefer Lydie, but Suelle is great too. The other new characters aren't bad, (Mathias and Alt) but I never used them because I'd much rather have the returning characters (Sophie and Firis) in my party.

 

#88 英雄伝説 碧の軌跡 Evolution [Ao no Kiseki Evolution]

 

Surprisingly, this only took two playthroughs. There is actually a useful guide on Gamefaqs, which I wasn't expecting. The trophy for clearing the game on hard thankfully unlocked along with the nightmare one. In Zero, only the nightmare one unlocked for some reason. I still don't know if it was a glitch or not, but at least it didn't happen in this game. The "play 100 hours" trophy is back, and it still sucks. This wouldn't be a problem, but hours played do not carry over to NG+. I had to load my save from my first playthrough and leave it up for almost 20 hours. Unlike Sen, all the final bonding events can be seen in a single playthrough. I missed nearly all of them on my first run, since I didn't pay much attention to how they worked. One other thing: This game has more trophies than any other ones I've played, not counting DLC. There are 57 trophies (counting the platinum).

 

#89 ラブライブ！ School idol paradise Vol. 1 Printemps

 

Not much to say about this; it's Love Live, and it's a rhythm game. That's about all I needed to know for me to buy it. I wasn't even sure what the differences were between the three volumes when I bought them. In fact, I still don't know. My guess is it is just the three "main" characters and some exclusive songs. It seems like the three volumes really could have just been one game, but buying all three games still cost me less than most games, so I can't really complain. Well, that and I'll get two more platinums out of it. The platinum is incredibly easy. That said, I probably wouldn't have figured some of this shit out without a guide. Some of the events, and one ending, require you to do... absolutely nothing. I certainly wouldn't have thought to pick the songs and not hit any of the notes (or whatever they're called).  

 

#90 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡III [Trails of Cold Steel III]

 

Where do I even begin? Sen no Kiseki III is by far the best PS4 exclusive I've played. Nothing else even comes close. Even with my limited ability to read Japanese, I still found it to be really enjoyable. I learned quite a bit from this game, and it inspired me to work harder on learning the language. I plan to work on that while I wait for Sen IV, which I have already pre-ordered. 

My first playthrough took 150 hours, which is the longest it has ever taken me to finish a single player game. I'm sure much of that time can be attributed to me trying to read the dialogue. That doesn't mean it's not a long game, though. Going purely by numbers, Sen III has the longest script in the series.

 

As for the trophies, it's a fairly standard Kiseki list. Get all treasure chests, beat the game on nightmare, a number of different battle related trophies, etc. As always, I did my first playthrough without a guide, and saved dealing with the trophies for later. My second playthrough took 46 hours and didn't quite go according to plan. I missed two trophies: The one for getting all character notes, and the one for getting all treasure chests. The character note one wasn't much of a problem; I only missed one note at the very beginning of Chapter 2. Unfortunately for me, the treasure hunter trophy is one of the worst trophies to fuck up on. It's 100% my fault, because the way I went about trying to get it was admittedly rather half-assed. I had to start a third playthrough to get that trophy, which took 16 hours. I did it properly that time by printing out a checklist and following it very carefully. Adding all three playthroughs together, it took me 212 hours to get the platinum. This is also my 90th platinum, and Sen IV will be my 100th.

 

I know a lot of people are waiting for the localization, so I won't say too much about the story. I will say this, however: If you are waiting for the Sen III localization, play the other games in this series! If you haven't already, of course. I can't stress this enough. Events from the earlier games are only becoming more and more relevant. Not only that, but you are missing out on some of the best games this series has to offer.

 

#91 ラブライブ！ School idol paradise Vol. 3 Lily White

 

I almost can't believe how easy that was. The most annoying part of the platinum (live missions) only has to be done once, which I already did in Volume 1. The unlocked songs carry over to the other two games, so that part of the game can be completely ignored. Again, I don't have much to say about these. Anyone who likes Love Live will probably like these games. The gameplay isn't the best, but it's not bad. It's also one of the easier rhythm games I've played. 

 

#92 Bloodborne

 

I'm glad that's over. Don't get me wrong, I liked the main game and most of the DLC. Going for the platinum, however, felt like the opposite of fun at times. This is entirely due to the awful chalice dungeons. Not only are they incredibly boring and repetitive, but the last one has what I think are two of the worst bosses in the game. Pthumerian Descendant and Bloodletting Beast are second only to Laurence, the First (c-word) in being the worst. But enough complaining, I'd rather talk about what I liked. My favorite weapon was the threaded cane. The whip form is really good, but I used the initial form just as much. I beat Amygdala in the defiled chalice on my third try because of this weapon. I don't normally like playing defensively, but being very careful while using the whip form made that fight relatively easy. I also used Ludwig's Holy Blade a lot in NG+ and the chalice dungeons. I love using greatswords (two-handed) in Souls games, so the greatsword form of that weapon felt really familiar to me. I didn't use it until the very end, but the Holy Moonlight Sword is yet another awesome weapon. I had to level up nine times to use it, as my arcane stat was only six. It was the only way I was able to beat Laurence in the DLC.

 

#93 ラブライブ！ School idol paradise Vol. 2 Bibi

 

This was written about in the same post as Vol. 3 (Platinum #91)

 

100% #2 Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone

 

Platinums #94 - 100: “Stacking Souls Games (Already), Remembering Why I Don’t Like Symphony of the Night, and Attempting to Play Sen no Kiseki IV With no Translation”

 

Spoiler

#94 Demon’s Souls [AS stack]

 

Going through Demon's Souls again was a lot of fun, even though I just platinumed the NA version six months ago. It's crazy to me how much replay value this game has. It's second only to Dark Souls as my favorite souls game. I plan on getting all the stacks, which isn't that many compared to some games. Now I just need Demon's Souls (EU), Dark Souls Remastered, and Dark Souls II (PS3).

I already complained about this in a status update, but trying to get pure bladestone to drop is definitely the worst part of the platinum. I wasn't as lucky this time around; it finally dropped after killing the black phantom skeleton 175 times. It's still not nearly as bad as farming for the covenant items in Dark Souls III, though.

 

#95 Dark Souls Remastered

 

Initially, I wasn't planning on getting this game until later. Going through Demon's Souls again changed my mind, and so, here I am. First, a few things about the changes in the remaster: Weapon level matchmaking is dumb. It didn't seem to affect me much, though. I got summoned pretty frequently on most bosses. Some early screenshots of the remaster made it look somehow worse than the original. While actually playing it, it didn't seem all that different visually (in a good way). The best part about the remaster is definitely the improved frame rate. The original certainly had frame rate issues in some areas (especially Blighttown and New Londo). The trophy list is identical to the original, so not much to say about that. It was a lot easier this time around, unsurprisingly, since I already knew what to do. I played online more this time as well. By the end, I had something like 60 sunlight medals. I'll probably make another character (strength build this time) for screwing around. Invading people with the Great Club was a lot of fun in the original.

 

#96 Dark Souls II

 

Now there's just one stack left to get: Demon's Souls (EU). It'll probably be a while before I feel like doing it again, though. Anyway, I had a great time going through Dark Souls II again. It has its problems, (soul memory...) but it's still a damn good game. I like Dark Souls and Demon's Souls more, but Dark Souls II is above Dark Souls III and Bloodborne in my personal ranking of the series. Heresy, I know. I tried to help people online this time, but not many people are still playing the PS3 version it seems. Despite that, there was no shortage of people that needed help on Smelter Demon. Of the 17 sunlight medals I got, 15 were from that boss. For the bell keeper covenant, I had to kill the NPC 29 times. I had the ring on the entire time, but it only found one person to invade... Also, I only got invaded a few times throughout the whole game. It only happened in Iron Keep while I was waiting to be summoned, too. One guy actually invaded me (I killed him) then summoned me a few minutes later to help him beat Smelter Demon, lol.

 

#97 Bullet Girls

 

I imagine there aren't many third person shooters on Vita, and the few that are probably aren't Japanese games. Bullet Girls, however, is one exception. I didn't know much about it other than what I'd read online, and I saw some gameplay... probably. I don't really remember. It's unlike any other shooter I've played; instead of shooting enemies to kill them, you shoot them to kill... their clothes. If that sounds weird, you should see what happens when you "question" the girls. Joking aside, the platinum was fairly easy. I have to thank Leon Hasegawa once again for his excellent guide, which made it easier. The worst parts were grinding points and getting two different bras to drop (yes, bras). I grinded most of the points while playing Project Diva X, lol. Playing the songs on Easy is boring, so I played those with one hand while playing Bullet Girls with the other.

 

#98 IA/VT Colorful

 

This took much longer than I thought, but that's probably because I haven't played it much in the last two weeks. I was slowly chipping away at the last few trophies during that time. Playing all the songs on Easy is probably the worst part of the platinum. Normal is easy enough; Easy is just painfully boring. Step up play on Hard is the hardest part, but even then there were only a few parts where I got stuck and had to retry a couple times. As for the game, it often gets compared to Project Diva—and I can certainly see why—but it is actually quite different. The d-pad, for example, counts as four different buttons rather than being mapped to the same inputs as the face buttons. The notes are on a "track" of sorts, but that doesn't mean it's easier. There are often multiple tracks at the same time, and they move around a lot (especially on Hard). I wanted to get a better platinum screenshot, but it didn't go exactly as planned:

 

 

 

#99 Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood

 

"Word of warning though, that Platinum will be tough to get." - PS Blog

 

Well, shit. They couldn't have been more wrong. This isn't an easy platinum, but it sure as hell isn't a hard one either. With these games there could have been much more difficult trophies, like some good old speedrun trophies—I know everyone just loves those. Instead, there is a trophy for eating a peanut... and that's only the beginning of the dumb miscellaneous trophies for Symphony of the Night. Anyway, I had a great time going through these games again. I know I never shut up about it, but I'll always prefer the older linear Castlevania games. I, III, IV, and Rondo of Blood are my favorites. Because of this, I have mixed feelings about Symphony of the Night. Playing it again somehow made me appreciate it more, though. Maybe I'll even try out some of the other games now.

 

#100 英雄伝説 閃の軌跡IV [Trails of Cold Steel IV]

 

With that, I have every Kiseki platinum (again). It's hard to talk about almost anything in this game without spoiling something, so I won't say much. The trophy list is basically the same as all the other ones. Complete all quests, get all treasure chests, collect all quartz, etc. It took me 200+ hours, but I'm sure it could be done in half that time. Surprisingly, I didn't screw up my NG+ run and managed to do everything in two playthroughs. The platinum screenshot is just the save screen, so here's a picture of Fie instead:

 

 

 

Platinums #101 onwards will be in the next post, mainly because I have no idea what the character limit for a post is, and I'd rather not find out the hard way. 

Edited April 4, 2023 by Cave Johnson

[Cave Johnson]

Platinums #101 - 130: “Slow Progress in an Era of Severely Declined Interest” [December 2018 - Late November 2020]

 

Spoiler

#101 Demon’s Souls [EU stack]

 

I can't believe how lucky I got this time. The first crystal lizard I killed in 4-2 dropped pure darkmoonstone, and the first one I killed in 3-2 dropped pure moonlightstone. Not only that, but it took 48 attempts to get pure bladestone. That's immensely faster than last time, which took about 160 kills of that goddamn black skeleton. Also, my final in-game time was 15:27. Far from speedrun time, but that's much faster than my first two times platinuming it. If Demon's Souls gets remastered, I'll gladly play it again. Even if it doesn't, I'm sure I'll be replaying it at some point.  It's one of my absolute favorite games, and second only to the first Dark Souls (a very close second) as my favorite Souls game.

 

#102 Senran Kagura Estival Versus [JP Vita Stack]

 

*crickets* [I didn't write anything about this? I'll have to double check.]

 

#103 Persona 4: Dancing All Night [PS4 Stack]

 

At first, I couldn't remember why I didn't play this more when it came out. I love rhythm games and often play them long after getting the platinum. However, I shelved this game almost immediately after getting the platinum the first time. It only took about three songs for it all to come back — the music sucks. Before the torches and pitchforks come out, allow me to clarify; the songs themselves are fine, but most of the remixes are shit. It seems many of them follow the same template: strip out everything that makes the song good, add in some unnecessary drum machine sounding bullshit, and throw some awful effects on the vocals. Fucking brilliant, really. The "Snowflakes" remix is pretty good though; I'll give them that one at least. Anyway, enough ranting, let me think of the positives... well, the story is decent, and the gameplay is fun. I'd rather talk about Persona 5 Dancing instead, since it's basically everything this game should've been. Moving on:

 

#104 Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight

 

When I only had a few trophies left, I noticed that I was close to 5,000. This is actually another reason why I platinumed P4: DAN again, but I'll get back to that in a moment. Due to a lack of planning and/or awareness, I had nothing lined up. I needed 56 more trophies, which would've taken a lot longer had I got them from some of the other games I've played recently. It was then that I remembered P4: DAN—not only was it 40 easy trophies, but I also wanted to play it again anyway. It was perfect (except for the disappointment I felt when I remembered why I didn't play it that much in the first place...). Once again, I got the platinum and shelved the game soon after. Figuratively rather than literally this time, since it's digital. Didn't I say I was going to talk about P5D? Oh, right. 

 

I prefer Persona 5 to 4 in almost every way, so it's hard not to be biased when talking about the spin-offs. Even so, had the roles been reversed, I doubt I'd prefer P5D. Yes, the remixes really ruin the game that much for me. Moving on, P5D fixes the biggest problem I had with P4D. The songs are kept intact, and not butchered by atrocious remixes. There are remixes, but the original versions of those songs are also in the game (except for a few). It's not entirely accurate to say there is no story. There's nothing like the story mode in P4D, however. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, though. Instead, it has been replaced by social events. There are eight for each character, and it takes quite a while to unlock and view them all. There isn't much to say about the trophies; much like P4D, they're incredibly easy for a rhythm game. There's no real grind to speak of, either. Anyway, I still haven't played Persona 3, so I won't be playing the spin-off anytime soon. 

 

#105 Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f [Vita stack]

 

This is my third time platinuming this game (as I mentioned before). It's funny how I went from "well, I don't really like vocaloids" to "this is one of my favorite rhythm games". It's truly a shame that more games weren't made in this style. Future Tone just isn't fun with the controller; the arcade version is way better.

 

 

 

#106 Bullet Girls 2

 

In short, it's a very well done sequel. The story mode is twice as long since there is a separate scenario for the original cast and the new characters. Of the new characters, I like Jerii the most (technically "Jelly", but neither really sounds like a French name). In a lot of ways she's just the typical "foreigner" character, but that's fine with me. While she is French, the writers didn't seem to get that quite right…

 

 

As for the trophies, they're more or less the same as the first game. I feel like I didn't have to grind as much, though that could be due to the longer story. In other words, more missions = more money/underwear drops by the end. As with any grind, I got through it by listening to music. In total I think it took about ten albums worth (yeah, I'm using that as a unit of measurement) to get the money necessary to buy everything and get all the underwear.

 

#107 God Eater Resurrection

 

It took me a bit to truly get into this game, but I couldn't stop playing once I did. About 120 hours is what it took to get the platinum, most of which happened over the last few weeks. I wouldn't call it easy, but it wasn't nearly as hard as I was expecting (based on what little I had read about beforehand). I can count the number of times I actually failed a mission on one hand. One thing this game reminded me of is that my ability to read Japanese is... not so great, to say the least (I'm working on it). I could follow the story fine, but trying to figure out bullet crafting was pretty much impossible. I could've got the localized version, but... dub-only? Yeah, no thanks. Anyway, I did manage to create a few basic bullets that I stuck with for the entire game. The damn things didn't see much use, however, since I always go with melee over ranged (when possible). 

 

#108 超次次元ゲイム ネプテューヌRe;Birth1＋ [Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1+]

 

It's hard to believe it's been almost four years since I played the original on Vita... I didn't realize how much I missed these games until I started this one a few weeks ago. It even made me buy the exact two games I said I didn't care about/probably wouldn't buy (Brave Neptune and VIIR). Now that I've sold my soul to CH, would it be too much to ask for an actual new game in this series? That said, I'd buy Re;Birth2+ and 3+ if they ever happen without a second thought. Yeah, I know I'm part of the problem... For those who don't know, this game didn't get localized for whatever reason. Playing it with Japanese text made me realize that I didn't really miss IF's shitty localization, anyway. My only complaint is that they seem to have upscaled everything but the text. It's very noticeable when looking at the character names, but it doesn't make them any harder to read, either. There's not much else to say since it's more or less the same game with a few enhancements. One cool addition is that all three members of the active party now walk around together in dungeons. The only problem with this is that it is three times the amount of footsteps. Seriously, why the fuck are the footsteps so loud? It was fine once I turned my SE to 20%, but still, that's not something I should have to do. 

 

The trophies are basically the same as before; the only difference I noticed was the level up trophies. The characters that were DLC originally are now part of those trophies. They also require getting to level 100 instead of 99—a completely negligible difference. Getting 100 million credits is still a trophy and is just as pointless as it ever was. Thanks to the colosseum I got it done a lot faster than I was expecting. Platinum screenshot*:

 

 

 

*Not actual platinum screenshot. It should've unlocked then, but I guess it starts to count the credits upon leaving the results screen.

 

#109 勇者ネプテューヌ 世界よ宇宙よ刮目せよ！！ アルティメットRPG宣言！！

 

Yes, that is actually the title. To shorten things a bit, I will be referring to this game simply as "Brave Neptune". It was only $20 on Amazon, so I figured I'd just import. Not even a week later it was announced that the western release would be delayed... I guess it should've been obvious; there's no way Idea Factory Intl. could ever localize a game that quickly. At first, I thought it was odd that a developer I've never heard of from Canada was going to make this game. Wait, Canada? You're telling me Canada makes games? (Insert lame joke here about maple syrup, Rush, etc.) Joking aside, I'd rather have just about anything over yet another Tamsoft action game. I don't know if my expectations were just really low or what, but I found this game to be quite enjoyable—except for the combat, but I'll get to that in a minute. Exploring the various areas/dungeons, jumping around, and collecting (mostly) pointless orbs is all good. The combat kind of drags down the whole experience, though. I'm not even sure what to compare it to... it just sucks. It's very simple, and not in a good way. The most complicated part takes place outside of battle; 95% of the battle is won before it even starts by having the right set up. There are very few options when in battle, meaning that you'd have to see the future/use a guide to have the right skills equipped. Later on, all it comes down to is spamming the right spell with Noire and healing when necessary. I had to lose on purpose to get the trophy for getting a game over, that's how easy this game is. I don't want to spoil anything about the story, but I will say this: It feels very much like a Nep game, and I mean that in the best way possible. Story wise, it's one of the best out of the spin-offs (imo, of course). It was interesting to see "Chrome" have a completely different role in the story than usual.

 

#110 God Eater 2: Rage Burst

 

I'm glad that's over. I started this right after Resurrection, which was not a good idea. As much as I liked the first game, it was just too many hours of the same thing in a row. The gameplay is basically the same; the main difference being blood arts, which do change things quite a bit. It also didn't help that I greatly prefer the story and characters of the first game. I liked Livie a lot, at least (partially due to Kanemoto Hisako). She doesn't show up until late in the story, though.

The trophies are more or less the same as Resurrection. Soloing a survival mission on the hardest difficulty was laughably easy this time thanks to blood rage. It also made killing the Crimson Orochi a joke. Without any special setup I could usually kill it in under five minutes. I somehow had enough tickets, so obtaining 400 articles of clothing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I don't really care to say anymore; I just want to move on from this game. I'll get God Eater 3 eventually, but first, I need a break. Platinum screenshot: 

 

 

#111 Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

 

It's a bit early to say, but so far Sekiro is my favorite game released this year. I liked it so much that I played through it every time for the different endings. That said, I don't have anything against backing up a save to get the other endings. In fact, I did that for one of the endings in Bloodborne. The difference being that Sekiro is worth playing that many times (Bloodborne isn't :p). The hardest part of NG+ was fighting the final boss every time. I eventually got decent at it; on NG+3 it took me about four or five tries, which is better than NG+ where it took 40 minutes, and my first run that took several hours of dying.

 

While there are some similarities, Sekiro is most certainly not a Souls game. Even though I was well aware of this, it was hard to adapt at first. I never liked blocking or parrying in Souls games, and always just relied on dodging. I quickly learned how that doesn't work at all in Sekiro. Lady Butterfly and Genichiro are the two bosses that forced me to learn the game. I think I finally "got it" after dying dozens of times to those two. That doesn't mean the rest was easy, though. As for the rest, I'm going to hide it because of spoilers:
 

Spoiler

Just when I thought I had learned the game, I got to Guardian Ape and got my ass kicked all over again. Once I knew what to do, it was actually a fairly easy fight. Firecrackers help a lot on the first phase, and deflecting his main combo then using the spear makes the second phase a joke. Knowing this made the "rematch" with the ape no problem; it only took two tries. Both versions of Corrupted Monk felt like nothing compared to Owl. Speaking of which, Owl seemed to be the only boss that got more difficult on NG+. Even with max vitality he can easily kill in two hits. I missed fighting Owl 2.0 on my first run, so I had to fight him on NG+. I'm not sure if it would've been harder or easier to fight him on my first playthrough, but either way I'm sure it wouldn't be easy. It took me at least an hour of dying before I finally won.

As for the bosses I didn't like, there weren't many. Divine Dragon is an excellent boss fight visually, but not much else. By NG+3 I was really sick of this boss. It's incredibly easy until the very last part, which seems luck-based. Not only that, but dying means having to go through the boring first phase again. I'm not a big fan of Demon of Hatred either; thankfully it only has to be fought once for the platinum. It took me far less time to beat than the final boss, but it was a lot more frustrating (and not much fun at all). I think it's important to have variety, but I greatly prefer most of the other main bosses.

 

#112 Nurse Love Syndrome

 

I'm glad I read this after Nurse Love Addiction; going in the reverse order would have felt disappointing. Nurse Love Syndrome is so much better that I'm not even sure where to begin. It is a lot longer, and not at all in a bad way. For reference, Nurse Love Addiction is listed as being 10-30 hours on VNDB, while Nurse Love Syndrome is 30-50. It starts out kind of slow, but only gets better from there. I actually got less sleep a few times because I told myself to "quit after this scene" only to go through four or five more. I never thought I'd say this, but I think Sayuri's route is my favorite. It was between her, Nagisa, (even though she has a few screws loose, to say the least) and Mayuki (mostly because of Sakura Ayane). Sayuri was completely unlikable at first; at the time I never thought I'd end up caring about her so much.

 

The localization has its problems, but it doesn't ruin the game or anything extreme like that. The biggest problem is the text spacing. Seriously, how the fuck did someone look at this and think there were no errors? There are  so many text boxes that look like this  sentence. How hard is it to hit the goddamn backspace key? Another thing that drives me nuts is the inconsistency. So many localizations have this problem that "localization" and "inconsistent" are practically synonyms in my eyes. Let's look at this scene:

 

If they're going to insist on translating "manga" to "comics", then just fucking do it; don't half-ass it. This is the kind of shit most people won't notice nor care about, but it makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Another thing that pisses me off is how Kaori refers to Nagisa in the text (this isn't something that can be demonstrated with a screenshot). While she actually calls her "Nagisa senpai", the subtitles simply have Kaori calling her "senpai". Isn't this the exact opposite of how localization should be done!? Leaving Japanese in the subtitles instead of making it how people actually talk to each other in English; it's fucking brilliant, really. While I'm complaining, I'd like to add one more thing: first name/last name order stupidity. For fuck's sake, just leave it the way it is said. For example, hearing "Sawai Kaori" and reading "Kaori Sawai" is dumb. I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant, but it's so annoying to see this shit over and over again. Where are all the competent editors? They don't hire them for localization work, that's for sure.

 

#113 Shining Resonance Refrain

 

A "shining" example of mediocrity. I think half my motivation for platinuming this game was so that I could make that awful pun. Did I need to platinum it to do that? No, but I just hate myself, I guess. I wanted to like Shining Resonance, but there's too much dragging it down; not even the 11/10 voice cast (that's probably where much of the budget went) could save it. That made it far more bearable, though. Mizuki Nana is not only in my top five seiyuu, but also one of my favorite singers. When I finally got Excella's ending, it made it all feel worth it… kind of.

 

The worst part of Shining Resonance is probably the combat system. It's slow, boring, and simply a mess of unbalanced bullshit. Unlike Tales, there is no cool down after using an item. Skills seem to barely do more damage than regular attacks—making them basically worthless. Aspects were a good idea, but are mostly unhelpful. For example, raising attack by 10% doesn't make much of a difference. Most of the good aspects aren't available until late in the game, and will likely require rare drops to make. It doesn't help that the drop rates in this game are ass. All of this is only the beginning; I didn't mention the dumb as rocks AI, cheap boss fights, and inactive party members get 0 exp. And of course, there's a part that requires two specific party members. Didn't level those two guys? You're fucked. Have fun grinding, which of course, is also shit. Now I feel like I'm reliving some of it by writing this, so I'll stop.

 

I don't really care to say more; I'm done with Shining Resonance, I've shelved it, and I'm glad it's over. The platinum screenshot is just a black screen, so instead, here's the most beautiful thing that can be seen in the game(Excella's smile):

 

 

 

#114 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel [EU stack / PS4 version]

 

Since I've been taking a sort of break, (if you can even call it that) this is the only platinum I've bothered with in the last three months. With this, I now have every Kiseki platinum (for now). For whatever reason, Sen I is the only game in the series that has three lists. I don't have much to say at this point other than I love this game and this series. Going for the platinum in each game is more or less the same thing; it's time consuming and sometimes even stressful due to the various missables. Even so, I'll probably try to get any and all platinums they throw out in the future.

 

#115 God Eater 3

 

God Eater 3 fixes many of the problems I had with the second game, but screws up different things in the process. The first problem is noticeable right before the game even starts; the character creation. In eight years, it has barely improved. The graphics are on a completely different level than before, and yet, the character creation is just as basic as it ever was. Secondly, the difficulty is so dumbed down from the previous games that it's almost insulting. This could have been fixed by having a difficulty selection, but no such thing exists. It seems there was an attempt to balance the overall difficulty by making certain things less useful. Skills are now laughably bad; the percentages at which they affect stats makes them almost negligible. Bullet customization is just as confusing and uninteresting to me as always, but there is one major change that I noticed: rather than using OP, custom bullets have a limited number of uses per mission. Half as many health items can be carried, stun grenades are less useful... I could go on, but none of it really matters. Why? Because all the Aragami are made of glass in this game. At least, that's what it seems like. Complaining aside, I think it's important to note the positive aspects of the game (formatted as a list because I don't care to elaborate right now):

 

- Multiple burst arts equippable at once
- Dive mechanic makes getting around a lot faster
- Environments and Aragami look great with new graphics
- Phym is cute
- Dual audio (finally) so I didn't have to import again
- Better characters than God Eater 2
- No bullshit filler "story" missions like God Eater 2
- Music is not quite as terrible as previous games
- Guns are useless 'cause fuck 'em
- I didn't mean for this to turn sarcastic halfway through, but did you know that "equippable" isn't actually a word? Weird.

 

#116 Atelier Lulua: The Scion of Arland

 

For a sequel that never needed to exist, Atelier Lulua is actually a pretty good game. If anything, it deserves to be its own game rather than a shoehorned sequel to the Arland trilogy. I wouldn't be surprised if Atelier Lulua originally was a standalone idea or was scrapped at some point. Then, for whatever reason Gust deemed necessary, it was reworked to be a sequel to Arland. At first, I thought Gust was playing it incredibly safe by going back to something familiar. However, not long after that they released Atelier Ryza, which is a completely different direction for the series. So, what the hell is Gust doing? I have no idea. Given the apparent success of Ryza, I don't think we'll be seeing Arland 5 anytime soon. Maybe it'll come out another decade from now when they've run out of ideas.

 

#117 Resident Evil 2

 

 

#118 Risk of Rain 2

 

I mainly bought Risk of Rain 2 on PS4 to earn the trophies, much like I did with the first one. Stupid, I know, but that's what happens when I'd rather play it on PC, yet want to get the trophies as well. I initially bought Risk of Rain 2 on day one of early access (on Steam). I played it a lot at first, but got distracted and never followed the updates. Months later it was on sale (for PS4) and I ended up buying it. At first the game seemed harder, though most of the trophies were rather easy to obtain regardless. The biggest challenge is both "The Long Road" and "Deicide". I nearly gave up on these trophies at one point. Thanks to some advice I received from the forums here (and a bit of persistence) I was able to get the platinum.

 

#119 Doom

 

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and bad Doom ports." - Benjamin Franklin

 

Did I buy this just because it's Doom with a platinum? Yes. After the disappointment that was Doom Classic Complete, I was glad to see that Doom was finally getting not just one, but two platinums (Doom II). Unsurprisingly, most of the trophies are easy, dumb, or a combination of both. The only challenge here is completing the game on Nightmare (co-op only). I'm glad they included local co-op, but that's it; there's no online play at all. Seriously, what year is it? Aside from one or two levels, my brother and I breezed through the game on Nightmare. It was much easier than I was expecting; Doom II, however...

 

#120 Doom 2

 

Nightmare in this game is no joke, even in co-op. The new enemies (burn in hell, chaingunners) make a huge difference. Not only that, but in the first Doom only three episodes (24 levels) need to be cleared. This time all 30 levels must be completed. The worst levels were 20 (Gotcha), 25 (Bloodfalls), and 29 (The Living End). The Living End is the ultimate test of patience and persistence; luck is involved too of course. It must've taken one, maybe closer to two hours for that level alone.  I should probably mention some things about the port: Better than Classic Complete, but still shit. When these ports were first released, they required logging in to a Bethesda account... to play an offline game. This was later removed and was only there ""accidentally"". They've only just now fixed the aspect ratio and framerate (60 FPS) in a recent update. These are basic features that should never be an update several months later, but rather included at launch.

 

There's no reason to get this other than the trophies (or for those who don't like playing games on PC). The PC version is so much better it's laughable. It can be bought for cheap on Steam or elsewhere, then there's access to all the source ports and community made content anyone could ever need. That, and the controls can actually be remapped. Online play is also available with the right source port. 

 

100% #3 Doom Classic Complete

 

I finally went back and finished this mess. With this, I am done with bad Doom ports. Never again will I play through TNT or the abhorrent "Master Levels". If I feel like playing Doom, I'll stick to PC. 

 

#121 Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World

 

I'm glad that's over. While this is an interesting spin-off, the trophy list is absolutely terrible. There isn't a single trophy for any of the endings. I know it's a spin-off, but an Atelier game not having any ending trophies is just wrong. That aside, the entire list is simply one long grind. Win 5 battles, win 50 battles, win 300 battles, etc. Repeat this pattern for various tasks in the game, and that's the whole list. The platinum is surprisingly common for how much of a grind it is (27.81% at time of writing). The audience for the game is mostly dedicated fans of the series, I'd guess. Despite being a shared list, there are only a little over 2100 tracked owners on this site.

 

Atelier Nelke starts off slow, though it does become more interesting after the tutorial section. Even for those unfamiliar with this type of game (like myself) it's very easy in the beginning. Later on there is much more to manage, making it feel like a chore at times. Perhaps I was taking it too seriously, but at one point I needed two pages of handwritten notes to keep track of everything. Towards the end, however, it becomes easy again thanks to deluxe buildings and super fairies. Because of this, it took well over a month just to finish the story. Oddly enough I ended up playing the game a lot more after that. In a little over a week, I powered through the remaining grind with music as my only real motivation.

 

#122 Resident Evil 3

 

I actually platinumed Resident Evil 3 over two weeks ago. Even now, there's not much I'd like to say about it; I don't feel strongly about the game either way. I figured I might as well throw it in since I got another platinum recently. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered.

 

#123 Persona 5 Royal

 

Initially, I hadn't planned on playing Persona 5 Royal anytime soon. Assuming it would be like Persona 4 Golden, it wasn't a priority for me. While I like Persona 4 quite a lot, I don't think the additional content in Golden adds much to the experience. Anyway, I ended up borrowing P5R from my sister when she wasn't playing it (obviously). At the time, I had finally gone back to finish the affection grind in Project Diva X (still doing it as I type this). Any excuse not to go through that bullshit for a few hours sounded good to me. The point I'm trying to get to here is that the additional content only makes the game better, contrary to what I expected. Aside from some new events, it's more or less the same as the original until beating the (former) final boss. Due to this, I wouldn't recommend Royal to those who have played P5 recently. It's been three years since I played the original, so it wasn't a problem for me. The most I can say without spoiling anything is that the last palace is very different from the rest of the game (in a good way).

 

I tried to do some things differently to change the experience a bit. However, I couldn't seem to change my ways that easily. First, I considered romancing a different girl, but I just couldn't; partially due to seiyuu bias I will always pick Futaba. Speaking of which, I have to add that the voice cast of Persona 5 can only be described as legendary. That aside, I did switch out Ryuji for Yusuke in my main party, but other than that it stayed the same until the last palace. My main party this time was Ann/Yusuke/Makoto until the end, where I switched to

Spoiler

Ann/Sumire/Akechi.

#124 Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X

 

There are so many negative things I have to say that I'm not sure where to begin. Project Diva X is the final nail in the coffin for this series on consoles. No, I'm not counting Future Tone, an arcade game that was ported to PS4 with no regard for how it will feel to play with a controller (note: only the actual arcade version is fun). Instead of one last game with all the songs from the previous titles plus some new ones, there is a half-assed "story" and a pathetically small song list. There are only 30 songs, which already sounds bad. However, it's even worse than it sounds, as six of those are medleys. Initially, one might think this was done purposefully to sell a bunch of song packs as DLC. At least that would've been better than what really happened: there are two DLC songs. That's it. When compared to a game like IA/VT Colorful (60 songs), which likely had much less of a budget to work with, "pathetic" might not be a strong enough word.

 

I think it is important to look at a game and its trophy list individually; it doesn't make sense to me to dislike a game just because the list is terrible. When it comes to this game, I don't think it's entirely correct to say that I hate it. It's more like I resent it for being such an abhorrent send-off for this series. On the other hand, I absolutely despise the trophy list. It's an absurd grind that demands way too much time relative to the low amount of content this game has. The guide on here says 70 hours, but that has to be some kind of joke. It's easily 100+ hours of bullshit. Maybe with god-level luck, skipping everything, and aiming for the platinum from the very beginning it can be done in 70 hours.

 

#125 新次元ゲイム ネプテューヌＶⅡＲ

 

After way too long, I finally went back and finished this. I'm not entirely sure how it ended up this way, but I guess I got distracted by other games and kept putting this one off. There are a lot of negatives to list, like the fact that VIIR is mostly a downgrade from the original, or that it never needed to exist in the first place. However, instead of writing some long-winded rant about why I hate the game, myself, and the trophy list (it sucks), I'm going to try to focus on the positives.

Even though it's a re-release with pointless VR sections added and questionable gameplay changes, the story and characters are mainly the same. I should add that it's been quite a few years since I played the original. Because of this, there's a strong chance I could be remembering some things incorrectly. Personally, I'd rank VII as the third or fourth best game in the series. A few downgrades aren't enough to make it terrible; it's still a good game. Nepgear saying 「ぴょん」 when jumping is really cute. Actually, Nepgear in general is just cute, and Uni as well; I love them both. That has nothing to do with what I was talking about before, but halfway through writing this I stopped caring.

Anyway, this ended up being my 125th platinum. I didn't have anything else lined up nor did I care to platinum something else. I still have a lot of love for this series, (the main games, at least) so I'm okay with it. Platinum screenshot:

 

#126 Yumeutsutsu Re:Master

 

Though it moves away from nurses entirely, Yumeutsutsu Re:Master is another yuri VN from Kogado Studio. It fits right in with the others as a seemingly normal setting where weird shit (sometimes supernatural) happens depending on the route.

Spoiler

It's all fun and games until someone pulls a gun, someone gets stabbed, shot, etc.

While I had some idea of what to expect, Kogado really surprised me this time. Yumeutsutsu is not only a huge improvement over Nurse Love Addiction, but also manages to be even better than Nurse Love Syndrome. To me it is nearly a yuri masterpiece, second only to Flowers Natsu-hen. I'm not going to mention much relating to Re:After. Since it primarily consists of continuations to the routes in Re:Master, basically everything is a spoiler. Something I can mention is that they actually gave Honoka a route in Re:After. She should have had one in the first place, but at least Kogado fixed their mistake.

With each route being written by a different person, there's a lot of variety. Every route goes down a completely different path with very few repeated scenes (once past the common route part). While Marie's route seems a bit short, the other three are about as long as the routes in Nurse Love Syndrome. In fact, they might even be longer.

I ended up going with Nana's route first. Of course I went for the seiyuu character named Nana (she's nothing like that Nana, though). Speaking of which, her route was written by the same scenario writer responsible for Flowers; a significant part of why it is so great. Nearly all of the route is viewed from Nana's perspective. It's easy to see why given what's going on at the time; Nana is going through some complicated stuff, while Ai only has one thing on her mind: Nana (lol). Seeing Nana warm up to Ai despite her insecurities is both adorable and heartwarming. If I had to pick I'd say this is my favorite route, though I'd also cheat and say it is tied with Saki's route.

I didn't give much thought to the order I read the other routes. I did save the one I thought would be considered the main route for last, however. Next, I went with Marie's route, which I mentioned previously as seeming shorter than the others. Coming from Nana's route, it felt a bit disappointing. It's still good though, and is on par with the quality of the other routes. In one aspect, Marie's route actually beats all the others: it's the only one that shows

Spoiler

marriage.

My other favorite (Saki's route) was the third one I read. The most "normal" of the four routes, though I suppose none of them really are. Saki is a unique character (from what I've seen, at least) that makes this route, which is basically about writing a script, both funny and interesting. She is an eccentric scenario writer who isn't exactly the most likeable character at first. That quickly changed, however, and Saki ended up being my favorite character. Her impromptu speeches that don't really mean anything, often as a result of arguing with the director (Kokoro) never get old. The way she shows interest in Ai early on is very different from Nana and Marie; those two were hitting on Ai nonstop in the common route (again, lol). Their relationship (Ai and Saki) develops very slowly, but when it finally advances is one of the best scenes in the game.

A great quote from Saki that is unfortunately marred slightly by typos: 

 

 
Kokoro's route… I'm not even sure where to begin with this one. A line is crossed that I'm sure some would rather not see crossed. After reading thousands of chapters of yuri manga this concept in fiction isn't new to me, nor am I bothered by it in the slightest. The following screenshot says everything for me:

 

Spoiler

That aspect of the route aside, it's by far the most unique one. The direction it goes in was not something I expected at all. There's not much to discuss without bringing up spoilers, and I don't care to go into too much detail. I mean, the odds anyone has read this far are already low, and if I start putting a bunch of paragraphs in spoiler boxes, no one is going to read that shit. Did I mention that Kokoro is incredibly cute? Here is a rare moment of her smiling, along with an apt description of Eureka Software by Ai:

 

 

#127 Yumeutsutsu Re:After

 

#128 DJMax Respect

 

I tried the demo back whenever the hell that was on a whim, and ended up buying the game. Without some of the DLC, I don’t think I would’ve got the platinum. For those who are unfamiliar with DJMax Respect, the rarest trophy (besides the platinum, obviously) requires 50 missions to be completed. Most DLC packs add more missions, which increases the amount of easier missions, thus making the platinum easier. I don't have the patience to put up with the bullshit gimmicks in some of the missions, and others are way beyond my skill level. Trophies aside, DJMax Respect is probably one of the best console rhythm games currently; I’m sure I’ll be playing it off and on for a long time.

 

#129 咲-Saki-全国編Plus

 

"Girls with Magical Abilities playing Mahjong and lots of panty-shots that can't be called panty-shots because THERE ARE NO PANTIES."

- Description of Saki (manga) from Dynasty Scans  

Before watching Saki I knew absolutely nothing about mahjong. It was surprisingly interesting despite not knowing what the hell was going on in the first season. At some point after that I started learning how to play mahjong, which of course led me to getting this game. While going for the platinum I was still very new to mahjong, but even then this is not a difficult trophy list. The legendary quote, 「麻雀って楽しいよね」is now part of my profile as my 6000th trophy.

 

#130 Demon’s Souls [PS5]

 

Initially, I wasn’t planning on getting Demon’s Souls (PS5) at launch, but things changed and I ended up borrowing my sister’s PS5. This is my fourth time getting the platinum for Demon’s Souls. In case that doesn’t make it obvious, Demon’s Souls is one of my favorite games.

 

 

Platinums #131 - #144 “Slow Progress as a Result of Going Back to College / Learning Japanese Properly” [January 2021 - June 2022]

 

Spoiler

#131 Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout

 

For me, something seemed to be missing in Atelier Ryza; it’s hard to explain. There are many positive aspects to it, and yet, I couldn’t quite get into it. One thing I can say for sure is that I don’t like the combat system. I like that Gust is always trying to change things up, but sometimes the end result isn’t the best. At least the alchemy is good this time around (as it usually is).

#132 Persona 5 Strikers

 

Whether it is considered a sequel or a spin-off I’m not really sure. Regardless, Persona 5 Strikers is a decent spin-off. Were it supposed to be a sequel, then it’s not a worthy follow up to Persona 5 (especially not Royal). Without spoiling anything, some aspects of the plot become really stupid at the end. More specifically, I’m talking about certain antagonists and their motivations. Also, a certain backstory is incredibly idiotic and impossible to believe. The combat is alright I suppose, though forcing elements of persona into musou could’ve gone better. I would’ve preferred it if the combat were more like a standard musou game. This disappointment is actually what led me to get Warriors Orochi 4 (more on that later). On a more positive note, Sophia and Zenkichi are fantastic additions to the cast. Sophia is adorable and Zenkichi (partially due to Miki Shinichirou) is just awesome.

 

#133 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III [Localized version stack]

 

When I played the Japanese version I could understand maybe 10% of the text. I read plot summaries and character pages on the wiki to better understand what was going on, but that’s not quite the same as actually experiencing the story through the game. Because of that I figured I might as well play the localized version now that it had been a while. NISA doesn’t have the best track record, but at least no ””contracts”” stopped them from including the original voice acting this time. Bitter comments aside, I still love this series despite Sen IV not being all that great (to say the least). Without spoiling anything there is a certain plot device that I hate; that’s all I will say about it. 

 

100% #4 Yuru Camp: Virtual - Lake Motosu

 

#134 Warriors Orochi 4

 

Unsatisfied with Persona 5 Strikers not being a proper musou game, I sought out one to play shortly after. Naturally, I chose a spin-off where I didn’t know 98% of the characters. Many of the seiyuu were recognizable to me, so that’s how I formed my teams most of the game (lol). I seem to really enjoy musou games, yet never play them for some reason. I’m hoping to change that starting here. At some point soon I’ll go back and finish the DLC. 

 

#135 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV [Localized version stack]

Going through this game again, my opinion hasn’t changed. It’s hard to explain; there seems to be something missing, or that it simply could have been better. One thing I know for certain is that I don’t care for [major spoilers]:

Spoiler

“the curse”. It’s a weak plot device that drags down the whole story for me. Using it to explain the tragedy of Hamel is an unnecessary retcon that feels almost insulting. 

 

And yet, here I am with the platinum once again. Despite my issues with Sen IV, I wouldn’t consider it bad, just disappointing compared to how high Sen III set the bar. If anything, what I find to be the most disappointing aspect is the severe drop in quality when it comes to the music. The soundtracks of Sen III and IV contain some of the worst, most forgettable songs I’ve ever had the misfortune of hearing in a Falcom game. Now that I’ve finished Hajimari I know the situation seems to be improving, however. I can only hope that they leave the cacophony of bees and chickens out of Kuro no Kiseki.

 

Because this is the end of this arc, here are some unorganized stats and opinions (no sarcasm or anything):

 

Hours spent on this arc: 1000+
Times a chest was missed, requiring another playthrough: 2 of 3 (can't remember exactly)
Times Chrono Drive and La Forte were casted: probably 10,000+
Best girl: Fie
Best guy: Crow
Worst character arc: Cedric
Best character that started out as a gag character and actually became good: Duvalie
Coolest guy that does whatever and doesn't give a fuck: Rufus
Bitch I want to see get turned into salt: Mariabell
Worst place to live: Crossbell (because of all the shit they have to go through)

 

#136 Resident Evil Village

 

I didn’t care much for Resident Evil VII, so I wasn’t in any hurry to start this one. Thankfully, Village is better in just about every way. As I sit here writing this I can’t think of a lot to say about it, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That at least means that there aren’t any glaring issues I feel the need to rant about.

 

#137 Musynx

 

I had been meaning to get Musynx for a while, and a (sort of) recent sale convinced me to buy it. Given that it’s an indie game there are some flaws I’m willing to overlook, but some are just bad. First, there is no option to sort songs whatsoever; a very basic feature in most rhythm games. Second, and this the absolute worst, there is no option to disable or at least change backgrounds. The songs are divided into six sets, each set containing its own background and associated note skin. The first one sucks, two and three are manageable, four is okay but too bright, five is completely terrible, and six only has three songs, so whatever. Not being able to disable some of these backgrounds, which are an assault on the eyes, is unacceptable. As if that weren’t bad enough, some of the accompanying note skins make it hard to read the notes. Even with the speed turned up, it can be difficult to discern whether something is a chord (two or more keys at the same time) or just a few notes close together. 

 

I should also add that support for Musynx on consoles seems to be dead. From what I can tell the PC version still gets updates, while the in-game DLC shop is still empty on consoles. These problems are why I’ve barely touched the game since getting the platinum. Because of the awful backgrounds / note skins I rarely feel like playing anything outside of sets 2 and 3. Even then, I'd rather play a better game, like DJMax.

 

#138 Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound and Debriefed

 

“Not for everyone” is a good way to describe Akiba’s Trip, and that applies even more so to the first game. “But wait, isn’t this the second one?” No; to add to the confusion, the two games in this series aren’t numbered in English, and the first game was released long after the second one outside of Japan. There’s also Akiba’s Beat, which doesn’t really matter (it’s an awful game that is best forgotten). Moving on, the gameplay in Akiba’s Trip seems to be very hit or miss from what I’ve seen. Personally, I enjoy it, so I knew I had to get the original at some point. For others, as in those who didn’t particularly like the gameplay in Akiba’s Trip 2, I absolutely wouldn’t recommend the first game. Since it was the first attempt from the developer at making something like this, naturally it is rough around the edges (to say the least) compared to the sequel. For those who liked the sequel, it’s worth it to give the original a chance, as it is more of the same (albeit not as good). Before saying anything further, I should clarify that graphically speaking, this is a really low effort “remaster”. For those who don’t know, the original version of Akiba’s Trip was released on PSP in 2011. If anything, the newer PS4 version is more like a port. Put simply, everything looks like complete ass. The models look a bit better, but I can say almost for certain that the textures are 100% the same as the PSP version. For me, it seemed there weren't any other problems related to the port; I never experienced any bugs, glitches, or crashes of any kind.

 

As for the platinum, it’s not quite as easy as the second game. This is all thanks to holic, which sucks (not the song) and is easily the worst part of Akiba’s Trip. Playing the game on this terrible, cheap difficulty is necessary to get the platinum. Thankfully it can be manageable, but not without a lot of grinding. Without getting a +999 weapon and a +999 set of clothes, it’s absurdly unfair; every enemy is a massive damage sponge that takes a million hits to strip, while the player character gets annihilated after getting smacked a few times. This can still be experienced to some degree even with max equipment. In fact, max equipment on its own isn’t enough, as using temporary buff items is almost a necessity. I had to figure out some of this through trial and error, since there were very few guides available at the time (this is my second “most recent platinum”, although it was back at the end of August last year). Fortunately for anyone attempting the platinum now, there has been a guide available here since October. There’s even a comment from me included where I accidentally used a phrase wrong, immortalizing my idiocy in the guide. [I should really see about getting that fixed.]

 

100% #5 Doom 64

 

#139 英雄伝説 創の軌跡 [Hajimari no Kiseki]

 

Despite finishing the main story forever ago, I finally got the platinum recently (unlike Akiba’s Trip, this one is actually recent). While I did finish the main story first, I was unable to make much progress on the platinum before Kuro no Kiseki came out. Initially I had planned on getting the platinum in Hajimari first, but real life got in the way, so that didn’t happen. Long-winded explanations aside, it took me a whole seven months to get the platinum (most of which was spent not playing the game, obviously). It’s a fairly typical Kiseki trophy list; open all treasure chests, beat the game on nightmare, monster notes, recipes, character notes, finish minigame with VR support, split watermelons, etc. Okay, so maybe not those last two things, but the rest are the usual trophies one would expect from these games. I’m not sure how character notes work, but they seem to be a lot easier; just from finishing the game and all of the side episodes, I got 100% of the notes without a guide. Treasure chests are still missable, but fortunately there are only 203 of them (which is nothing compared to the horrifying 500+ in SC). 

I won’t say a lot about the story, since it won’t be out (officially) in English for at least another year. [That may or may not be an excuse to write less, but whatever.] At first, I wasn’t keen on the idea of “Sen the 5th”; I just wanted to see the next arc already. My skepticism, however, quickly disappeared once I actually played Hajimari no Kiseki. I should first admit that my opinion is likely swayed by all the fanservice for the previous games in the series, as well as some of the returning characters. That said, my favorite route was the one with “C” as the main character (and the picnic squad). [Spoilers for Sen IV and early spoilers for Hajimari (identity of C)]:

Spoiler

Some fans will probably never forgive Rufus for his actions in Sen IV, but somehow, I never really disliked him. You know what they say: “You can’t call it murder if they were already dead.” - Rufus Albarea (probably) Anyway, I certainly didn’t expect him to be one of the main characters of Hajimari, or any other Kiseki game for that matter. His route was the story I didn’t know I wanted to see, and it was very well executed.

 

Platinum screenshot*:

 

 

 

*Not actual platinum screenshot. The real one sucked, so I made this quick edit. Fie is the best. 

 

#140 英雄伝説 黎の軌跡 [Kuro no Kiseki]

 

I’m really behind on updating my most recent platinums, so I’m going all the way back to four months ago. Though I got the game on release, it took months before I felt I had the time to sit down and actually play it extensively. On top of already being a long game, I tried to read all of the dialogue, which I usually gave up on if there were too many kanji I didn’t know. This makes going through the game take at least two times longer than normal for me, but at least it’s good practice. I'm not going to go over the story since this series is two whole games behind in the west, I'm having trouble recalling the finer details, and of course, I didn't fully understand it either. Once the PS5 version comes out and I play it using the spreadsheet translation, I should be able to give a more detailed write up then. I’m barely going to comment on the trophies this time around, since they’re more or less the same as every other Kiseki game. There are slightly more differences due to the alignment system I guess, though even then the trophy list isn't that different. Aside from some missables as always, there’s not a lot to worry about; nightmare on NG+ is just as easy as previous entries. I didn’t plan the platinum screenshot, and I inadvertently got some NPCs playing mahjong in it. All of the tiles are blank upon closer inspection (that or they’re all haku tiles), so I don’t think anyone has to worry about Falcom adding mahjong to Kiseki… yet. 

 

 

#141 Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroine’s Infinite Duel

 

Another platinum from four months ago, except this technically goes way farther back. I got some of the trophies over three and a half years prior. I believe I got some of them in order for a milestone to end up how I planned it, but then got distracted and never finished the rest. I finally got tired of leaving it unfinished, which is why I’m talking about it here. I don’t actually remember why I bought this game in the first place. Considering that I don’t particularly care for fighting games like this, nor was I familiar with most of the characters, it doesn’t make sense. Regardless, I was determined to go back and finish it. When I did, I was surprised to find out that it was a lot easier and shorter than I expected. I started up the game after years of not touching it, and in just a few hours, I already had the platinum. I can’t think of anything else I care to say about the game; I barely recall buying it, after all. It was okay I guess? I’m certainly not qualified to speak on the quality of the gameplay, so I couldn’t review it in that aspect. I suppose all I can say is that I got the platinum, shelved it, and moved on. 

 

#142 Soul Calibur VI

 

Yet another platinum from four months ago, and it’s also another fighting game. This makes more sense, however, as I like Soul Calibur; it’s a rare exception to my general disinterest in fighting games. I grew up playing the hell out of Soul Calibur II and (to a slightly lesser extent) III. When I finally had the chance to try IV and V later in life, I was massively disappointed by both of them. I don’t know how anyone thought going “all your favorite characters are gone and / or dead, here are their replacements” was ever a good idea. Who the hell wanted to see that shit? Not me. That applies more to V than IV I believe, but I can’t really remember and don’t care either. After these negative experiences with the previous two titles in the series, I was naturally skeptical of Soul Calibur VI. I gave it a chance anyway though, since my sister had it (she also played II and III a lot “back in the day”). As it turns out, VI is a huge step in the right direction for this series. Story wise it’s best described as a reboot, which was a good idea considering how IV and V screwed everything up. 

 

While I played Soul Calibur VI quite a bit around the time it first released, I lost interest in going for the platinum at some point. I put it off for months, then months turned to years, and it ended up being three years and three months later when I finally got the platinum. Unlike Nitroplus Blasterz, Soul Calibur VI requires a lot more for the platinum. Before going back to it, I’d say I was about half way done with the requirements for the single player trophies. Thankfully, I had the sense to get the online trophies back when the game was still new, so that wasn’t a problem. Overall it’s not a difficult platinum, just a bit time consuming and somewhat boring. Sealing 30 astral fissures (trying really hard not to make a joke about a different kind of fissure) can be frustrating, but I quickly learned to skip the ones with cheap bullshit gimmicks and wait for more reasonable ones to show up. Doing this made this trophy a joke, albeit somewhat of a grind. I found that Libra of Soul got dull rather quickly in general; the main story mode was better and didn’t drag on too long. It’s not that big of a deal though, since I wasn’t exactly expecting a compelling story from a fighting game. I also tried to get into playing ranked matches online, but I lost interest fairly quickly. Even though Soul Calibur is an exception, I suppose I’m just not that into fighting games. 

 

#143 Elden Ring

 

Here’s a platinum from (around) three months ago instead of four: Elden Ring. This game needs no introduction, as one would have to live under a rock (literally, not figuratively) to not have at least heard of it in the last few months. I want to start out by saying that I did in fact like the game, because the way I’m about to write about might make it sound like the opposite. This is in part due to my frustration about how Elden Ring could’ve been nearly perfect, but missed the mark in a few areas. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s still a great game, and I’m sure I’ll replay it many times in the years to come. 

 

Initially, I wasn’t keen on the idea of Elden Ring being open world, and after playing it, I’m still not. I thought that the “let’s make every goddamn game open world period” or “open world craze” for short, was dead, but apparently I was wrong. When it finally does die, I sure as hell won’t be attending the funeral, nor will I be shedding any tears. I personally don’t believe that Elden Ring benefits from being open world; were the world condensed and most of the boring “chalice dungeons 2.0” type of stuff removed, nothing of value would be lost, and the game would be better as a result. There’s a huge gap between non-linear and open world, or in other words, a game doesn’t need to have a stupidly big world with hundreds of different places to go in order to be non-linear. It also seems like a huge oversight from the development team that the NPC side quests follow the same format as previous Souls games. With the massive world Elden Ring has, trying to find NPCs after they move somewhere else, often with no hints about where they’re going next, doesn’t work. This was slightly fixed later on in an update by showing NPC locations on the map, but it’s far from a great solution. Speaking of which, some of these side quests were quite clearly unfinished at launch. Though this was also fixed in an update, it’s a bad sign that indicates development was rushed in some areas.

 

Some of the following complaints likely stem from the way I play Souls games; I never use magic of any kind, shields, or summon anyone, NPC or otherwise. I prefer to use some kind of sword, either heavy or light, equip light armor, and rely only on dodging to avoid damage. I felt I should note this first before going into what I want to talk about next. Regardless, I think my criticism is at least somewhat justified. Perhaps more so than the game being open world, what annoys me the most in Elden Ring is the balance. Put in simple terms, the balance of this game is fuckin’ wack. It almost feels like the NA version of Castlevania III, in that even the smallest and most insignificant enemies inflict a stupidly high amount of damage (Elden Ring is absolutely nowhere near as difficult, however). Not only that, but this never seems to change much at all, regardless of level or equipped armor. Armor in particular, as well as whatever defense stats it’s tied to seem nearly worthless. Even with the heaviest armor and the best defense boosting talisman equipped, rats will still chew through it like it’s nothing. There’s no incentive to use lighter armor, as the difference between the fast roll and mid roll is negligible. Using heavy armor and getting slightly more defense, however miniscule the increase, is preferable. And what about poise? Also worthless. While I wasn’t expecting nor wanting it to be as ridiculous as the first Dark Souls, being able to at least tank some hits would’ve been nice. Going back to rats again as an example (fuck rats), it seems they can easily stagger the player on the second hit, no matter the poise. They’re far from the only enemy that seems to do this, too. What good is poise if it’s broken so pathetically? It’s basically a meaningless number that isn’t worth paying attention to. 

 

When it comes to the bosses, that’s one part of the game that I feel was balanced quite well …aside from a few exceptions, anyway. Rather than “tough, but fair”, they’re better described as “dumb and bullshit”. [Just as a precaution, I’ll be putting the names of bosses in spoiler boxes.] The first boss that stood out to me as being poorly balanced was

Spoiler

Radahn.

This boss hits absurdly hard and is annoying to fight, but I guess adding a bunch of NPC summons and calling it a day was someone’s idea of making this fight “balanced”. Far from impossible, but certainly not a fun time.

 

Spoiler

Maliketh,

despite not taking that many attempts to take down, felt far more frustrating to fight than the previous boss I mentioned. This cheap fuck inflicts a status ailment that reduces max HP and causes damage over time, and of course, also spams attacks and has next to no openings. Taking away the cheap aspects of the fight would leave it with nothing; some manner of difficulty would have to be implemented properly rather than tacking on cheap garbage. I found it was easier to approach this fight by playing stupid, or in other words, mindlessly running in and attacking seemed to work far better than trying to dodge and play properly. To me, that seems to indicate that the “difficulty” of the boss was designed poorly.

 

My least favorite boss and the last one I’ll complain about is

Spoiler

Malenia.

This goddamn [word I can’t write without it automatically being turned into a heart] takes “dumb and bullshit” to a new level unrivaled by the previous bosses I mentioned. There was a thread on here calling this boss the worst Souls boss, and I think that might not be far from the truth (disregarding some of the “quantity over quality” bosses in Dark Souls II). Absorbing health upon damaging the player, scarlet rot, two phases, reading inputs, and a bullshit wombo combo that goes on forever and is incredibly punishing if not dodged perfectly… it doesn’t get much worse than that. Despite the fact that some bosses took me many more attempts to beat in Dark Souls III and Bloodborne (playing the DLC on NG+ was a mistake) than this one, at no point in either of those games did any boss feel as cheap. After about 40 attempts, I gave up. This was the only boss I used the mimic tear on, and while I’m not proud of it, I don’t regret it either. It was hilarious to watch as the bitch got destroyed with no chance of fighting back. At that time it seemed our roles were reversed; my character was the one who was overpowered and cheating instead of the boss.      

 

Before moving on I want to address the trophy list, which is disappointing. With how much there is to do in Elden Ring, I expected trophies requiring more completion, such as defeating every single boss. That would’ve been a pain in the ass, sure; I won’t deny it. In fact, were that the case I’d probably be complaining about that right now instead. However, I’d still rather have a more complete list than the actual lackluster one. Screw it, make it take 200 hours, 300 hours, whatever, I don’t care—I’d still do it.

 

100% #6 Love Live! School Idol Festival ~After School Activity~ Wai Wai! Home Meeting! 

 

Slight rant incoming: 

 

Half-assed cash grab ports are a recurring theme with Square Enix, and the Love Live PS4 game is no different. As an example of why it is half-assed, the timing itself is off, and though it can be adjusted, it's idiotic that anyone has to do so in the first place. I suspect it has to do with the fact that the arcade buttons differ from that of a PS4 controller, which creates this discrepancy. Speaking of which, another problem that comes from this arcade port is that it’s basically unplayable as is. What I mean by this is that the UI does not translate to TV screens, not even smaller ones. I’ve talked enough about this previously, so I’ll just say that the fact that I wrote a short guide on how to make the game more playable speaks for itself. Not only that, but one year since release, there have been no new songs, sales, or any significant updates. This game could have been so much more, but instead they used the end of the arcade version’s service as an excuse to sell fans this overpriced bullshit. It's free to play for no other reason than to charge ridiculous prices to own any songs other than the base ones. There's no discounted bundle for buying all of them, and it would cost a few hundred dollars to own them all. Compared to Project Diva: Future Tone, or any other rhythm game for that matter, these prices are absurd. 

 

And what about the trophy list? Of course it sucks; it's just as half-assed as everything else. There's a trophy for playing songs 999 times, which sounds like the worst one. ...but that's actually wrong. Believe or not, the grind is actually worse. Getting all the skill cards for μ's and Aqours on average is going to take a lot more than 999 plays. This is all thanks to the way skill card drops are poorly implemented. Upon getting a duplicate skill card, the original one will gain a level until it reaches a max of 10. At this point, one would expect that it is no longer possible to receive duplicates of a card that is max level. That would make too much sense though, so it's still possible to get pointless duplicates, which will happen over and over again. The only good news here is that this awful grind can be somewhat automated. One skill card always drops after playing any song, even if every single note is missed. It took around two weeks of doing this for several hours a day before I got all the skill cards. About every two minutes I had to select “restart song”, so it wasn’t bad in that regard; it’s possible to do just about anything else while (almost) automating the grind. I should also note that I also played the game normally quite a bit beforehand, meaning that the grind would otherwise take even longer than what I described. At the end I was glad to have it done, but I hardly felt any sense of accomplishment. Early on, I got the two full combo trophies, and they’re nowhere near as difficult as the rarity might suggest. I felt more accomplished getting the following two all perfects than I did with any of the trophies.

 

 

#144 Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book DX

 

A few months back I got the Atelier DX pack on sale, which very well could’ve been the last time it’ll be seen at that price. I’ve played every Atelier game twice starting with Rorona because of the plus versions. The Mysterious trilogy, however, didn’t have plus versions, so I only played those once. That was the case until now, anyway. Back in May I started Atelier Sophie DX, which was almost six years after I played the original. With my memory that’s easily enough time to forget all of the finer details, and perhaps more. Once I started it, I quickly remembered just how enjoyable Atelier Sophie is. As with most other Atelier games, it’s basically iyashikei anime in the form of a game; there’s no possibility of feeling even the slightest tinge of sadness while playing these games. Atelier Sophie is of course no different, and in addition, the soundtrack accompanies this idea competently with an array of great tracks from the Gust sound team.

 

When compared to the Dusk trilogy that came before it, the plot is more in the background this time. It’s not as unimportant as Atelier Rorona, but not quite as involved as Atelier Ayesha, for example. The character events are more important, and make up the majority of Atelier Sophie’s content story-wise. As usual, there is a colorful cast of characters each with their own story. They differ quite greatly, from a girl looking for clues about where she came from and her dad (he went to the store and never came back, apparently), to a guy trying to find a cure for someone who has partially become a monster. While I think these events are all worth viewing, regardless of trophies, I suppose the best part about this is that one could only focus on the characters they like. Don’t like a character? Then it’s possible to never advance their story and hardly hear from them at all. This isn’t an option when going for the platinum of course, nor would I recommend it.

 

 

…I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of taking this out of context.

 

The alchemy system this time around is a huge improvement over whatever the hell was going on in Atelier Shallie. In Atelier Sophie, I could easily spend hours synthesizing; figuring out how to move a trait from one item to another and creating the best accessories, weapons, armor, and items is immensely fun to me. Early on in my playthrough of the DX version, I got a bit carried away synthesizing, and my party became absurdly overpowered. I fixed this somewhat by turning up the difficulty all the way, and I kept it that way until I got to some of the extra bosses—they really don’t screw around on the highest difficulty. Speaking of difficulty, as per the trend beginning with Atelier Ayesha (not the plus version), the platinum is relatively easy. With no time limit and only one missable trophy, there’s not a whole lot to worry about. One of the extra bosses can easily destroy an unprepared party even on the lowest difficulty, but it’s still nothing compared to the bosses in the plus versions of Meruru and Ayesha. 

 

I tried to recreate the same platinum screenshot from the first time I platinumed the game, and it ended up being more or less the same (from what I remember):

 

 

Platinums #145 - 152: “Trying to get to Platinum #150 and Trophy #7000 Before the Fall Semester Starts” [June 2022 - Mid August]

 

Spoiler

#145 New Game! The Challenge Stage!

 

I recently finished New Game (the manga) after learning almost a year late that it had ended. At the same time I happened to see a slight ending spoiler, which actually made me want to read it more. This also made me remember that there is a VN that never got an English release. I decided to get it while not being sure if my ability to understand Japanese was good enough yet, but I figured there was only one way to find out. As it turns out, I was able to understand the dialog a lot better than I initially thought; it is nowhere near as complicated as a Kiseki game, that’s for sure. The best parts of this VN, as well as New Game in general, are the character interactions. The good thing about this is that these scenes aren’t all that difficult to understand, though I did have to pull out a dictionary for terms relating to game development occasionally. Also, aside from Aoba’s thoughts / narration, every scene is fully voiced, which made it easier to understand. 

 

As for the VN itself, New Game! The Challenge Stage! (two exclamation points are necessary) is somewhat of a spin-off that expands upon an early point in the story of the source material. It takes place shortly after Aoba joins Eagle Jump, near the completion of Fairies Story 3’s development. She is assigned as the art director of DLC for the aforementioned game, which never happens in the anime or manga. In that sense these events are probably not considered canon, but either way, it wouldn’t make much of an impact on the overall plot of New Game. There are also a few reused scenes from the source material, but aside from those, everything else is exclusive to the VN. Due to this, I definitely wouldn’t consider it as a good entry point for the series—there isn’t enough introduction to the characters or setting. These kinds of spin-offs aren’t made for that purpose in the first place though, so it’s not a problem.  

 

The music is alright; it's just sort of there without really standing out. I wasn't even going to mention it at first, but I had to comment on this particular track. After hearing it for hours, I eventually realized that it sounds kind of familiar. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but I can't help but think it sounds to be heavily inspired by "Green Onions", which is funny to me. I never imagined I'd be comparing any part of a VN soundtrack to Green Onions, yet here I am doing exactly that.  

 

I’ve mentioned that New Game! The Challenge Stage! is a visual novel several times already, and while that is true, there is slightly more to it. There is something that can be called gameplay, and… it’s not very good. In fact, were I to list the pros and cons of this game, the gameplay would likely be the only con. This gameplay relates to Aoba’s work as art director of the DLC, which I mentioned already. Each day of the week, the player chooses to have Aoba interact with one of her co-workers (the main cast) once in the morning, and once in the evening. This advances the development of the DLC by increasing parameters depending on which characters are chosen. For those familiar with New Game it should be rather obvious; selecting Hifumi or Yun increases the character modeling parameter, Nene increases debugging, Hajime increases motion, etc.

 

The problem with all of this is that a great number of events are tied to these parameters, quite illogically. Naturally, one would expect that the goal was to keep them somewhat balanced for the sake of developing the DLC. Instead, they are tied to seeing a character’s events, and ultimately to ending up on their route. Yeah, that makes sense; while at work, be sure to prioritize consulting others for personal reasons. The worst part about this is that due to the nature of the gameplay, a separate playthrough is required to see almost every character’s route, and there are eight of them. As if that weren’t enough, there are also additional ending scenes that can occur after the credits, which are of course also tied to the same parameters. I should also mention before continuing that on the weekends, events between Aoba and one of the other characters can occur by choosing one location to visit per day, such as the mall or the park. Thankfully this isn’t random, as which characters are at each location is shown beforehand. While I’d hardly call the weekend section “gameplay”, I don’t have a problem with it. If anything, it’s closer to how the game should’ve been structured. 

 

Looking at the platinum rarity, it might seem odd that a VN has a 32% platinum. From this, it can be undoubtedly inferred that it is more difficult than Elden Ring (43% platinum). Kidding aside, there’s a genuinely good reason for the relatively low rarity. As I previously mentioned, it takes several playthroughs to see all of the routes—one for every character almost. In a more typically structured VN this wouldn’t be a problem; all previously read text could be skipped rather quickly. In this particular game however, there is a DLC development period that cannot be skipped through in any way. For each route, it is required to go through the monotony of the DLC development process every single time. After a while, it starts to feel like a grind, a word I never thought I’d use to describe a VN. This is unfortunate, because there is no shortage of great content to see—it’s just that said content is stuck behind some odd design decisions.

 

On my first playthrough I tried to see Hifumi’s route, but failed to get anything other than the common route ending. This was before I started using a guide and was unaware of the importance the development parameters held. Note that while each character has a “route”, it’s not quite romantic, as one might expect based on other visual novels. This series, however, undoubtedly has pairings that are basically established, and are very much so pushed by the author himself: Aoba and Hifumi, Kou and Rin, Hajime and Yun, and Nene and Umiko. Speaking of which, (slight spoiler for the end of the series)

Spoiler

while it’s unfortunately not shown in the manga, the author confirmed that Kou and Rin get married after a time skip at the end of New Game. 

 

[I’m trying really hard not to go off about yuri here, but it’s difficult when this game would continually push these pairings.] As is evident from my profile cover image [now former profile cover image], I really like Aoba x Hifumi. Hifumi’s route has many great moments between the two of them, and I like that regardless of the route, Hifumi seems to always want to be close to Aoba. 

 

 

Good "friends" holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. 
 

A similar effect can be observed on other routes, where the established pairings are unaffected. It's not a coincidence that in Hazuki's route, when she has the other girls wear wedding dresses for a photo shoot, the characters are paired like so: 

Spoiler

 

I rest my case (okay, I'll stop now).

 

Overall, I'd highly recommend this VN to any fans of New Game that have a decent understanding of Japanese. The odd attempt at incorporating gameplay isn't good, but it's only a minor problem; it's the only real con, whereas everything else belongs under the "pros" side of the list.

#146 Neptunia Virtual Stars

 

“Join Neptune and the other CPUs as they team up with the new VTuber group MEWTRAL to battle against the evil Antis in this shooter and hack-and-slash game created to c̶a̶s̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶V̶T̶u̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶r̶a̶z̶e̶ celebrate 10 years of Nep.” - Wdog-999

 

The introduction in the trophy guide summarizes this game better than I could, and does so in only one sentence. I could probably just leave it at that, but l suppose I should add my own experience with the game. It’s (annoyingly) part of my nature to be somewhat of a contrarian, so I had no interest in VTubers after witnessing the rise of Kizuna Ai, then seeing the rapid increase in popularity of VTubers in general. Because of this, I know next to nothing about VTubers, and went into the game mostly blind in that respect. I was able to at least recognize a few of them by name or appearance, but as for how or why—well, I’m not going to elaborate on that. Either way, no real knowledge of VTubers is required, though being a fan of some of them likely would’ve made the game more enjoyable (to some degree). I say “to some degree” due to the limited role VTubers have in the game, which I’d imagine would be disappointing to most fans; they mainly show up on loading screens, and to offer (mostly pointless) support in battle. Anyway, I bought this game solely because it is a Nep spinoff, and I more or less got what I paid for. 

 

Oddly enough, this game has two completely different styles of combat that can be switched between at will. When controlling any of the usual four main characters, (Neptune, Noire, Blanc, and Vert) the combat is somewhat of a third person shooter, whereas the four original VTuber characters utilize a hack and slash style reminiscent of past (mediocre) action spin-offs. It’s possible to play almost the entire game using only one of them, which is what I did. While I liked the original VTuber characters, I couldn’t bring myself to play as them because of the gameplay. I felt as if I were playing Action Unleashed or Blanc vs. Zombies, and I could do without experiencing that again. The hack and slash style as a whole seems to be underpowered relative to the third person shooter style, further making it less appealing. Maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance, but I didn’t care then, and still don’t care now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the hack and slash combat was recycled from one of the previous entries and tacked on later as a sort of afterthought. Regardless, balancing both the dungeons and enemies so that they work with two entirely different kinds of combat would be very difficult to pull off, and I certainly wouldn’t expect that to be done well in one of these spin-offs.    

 

Given the choice, I decided I’d rather take my chances with the newer style of combat. Unfortunately, it’s also not that great. I played the entire game with aim assist off, which I wouldn’t recommend. I should’ve swallowed my pride and left it on, but that’s just who I am. The difficulty this added to the game is negligible, and if anything, it made some flaws more apparent. Put simply, the hitboxes in this game aren’t good. With larger enemies it’s hard to notice, but becomes very obvious when trying to take down some of the smaller ones. One such enemy, which is basically the twitter logo with sunglasses and a rocket launcher, is annoying to hit; it’s possible to shoot this motherfucker right between the eyes and still miss somehow. There's also a fly enemy that spams projectiles and is similarly difficult to hit, but I can't remember its name right now. This is where auto aim likely would’ve helped had I used it.   

 

The trophy guide for this game rates the difficulty as 2/10, and I’d say that’s accurate. None of the bosses posed a threat whatsoever, and the whole game in general was a breeze. There’s hardly any post-game to speak of; rehashing bosses from the main story doesn’t really add anything to the game. At this point I’ve nearly run out of things to say, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I don’t care to say more about this game. For me, I felt the main story was just sort of there; I didn’t dislike it, but I couldn’t get invested in it, either. Once I got the platinum, I shelved the game almost immediately. It suffers from the same problems as many of the other spin-offs in this series—limited character roster, lacking in content, subpar gameplay, etc. I’m trying not to be bitter here, but that’s easier said than done when on paper, the series looks like this:

 

 

I know, I’ve been complaining about this for years. Would it kill them to make a new game that is part of the main series, though? With the way it’s being avoided, perhaps they do think they would die from it. At least the recent crossover with Senran Kagura is pretty good; more on that in a moment. Also, after seeing many of the loading screens I mentioned earlier, and this video [dead link now] in the Neotube Plaza, by the time I finished Virtual Stars I may have sort of, possibly, maybe, kind of, perhaps taken an interest in Mitsurugi Lia. I wanted to say that “I refuse to concede!”, but I’m already subscribed to her channel, and am listening to her cover versions of songs as I type this… goddamnit.  

 

The last part of this aged so poorly that I felt the need to add the strikethrough effect to the text. I watched a few of Lia's streams but never went beyond that and mostly forgot a few months later. After recently hearing about some of the sketchy shit going on at Wactor—supposedly Lia was treated favorably, while other talents were fired and doxxed for speaking out about Wactor—I'm glad I never became a fan. It's a shame, because I really liked her singing voice, but whatever, that's in the past now. On the more positive side of things, at the time I wrote about this game, I had also become interested in Fubuki—something I didn't note for whatever reason. I watched her archived Majora's Mask streams, as well as some of her past mahjong streams over the course of a few months. The fall semester had just started around then, so I didn't have a lot of time and didn't delve too deep into her other stuff.

 

Fast forward a few months to near the end of the semester, and I turned to Youtube to procrastinate—oddly enough, considering I rarely use Youtube otherwise—and now there were VTuber clips in my recommended section as a result of watching some of Fubuki's streams. (It's not hard to figure out where this is going.) One thing led to another, and next thing I knew, I had become a huge fan of Pekora—I love her so much I can't put it into words. Yeah, this is who I am now...

#147 Neptunia X Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars

 

Senran Kagura seems to be more or less dead as a series, so I was surprised to see it make a comeback in this way. Combining these two series, which differ greatly in terms of story, setting, and gameplay, resulted in a Nep action game that is worthy of being described as “good”. While it does have some of the same problems I mentioned earlier, most notably the lack of playable characters, it’s on a different level than the mediocre action games that came before. I guess it took being paired with Senran Kagura to finally get an action game that doesn’t suck. Taking some of the best aspects from both series, this crossover feels more like a Senran Kagura game when it comes to the gameplay and setting, whereas the story doesn’t. 

 

  

An example of the more “nep-like” dialogue present in this game. The localization can also be a bit stupid at times, but that’s nothing new. 

 

Overall, I’d say the story is better than Virtual Stars, but not by a whole lot. Part of this is due to the fact that it all feels like a huge missed opportunity. Seriously, where the hell are all the characters? There are only four playable characters from both series—Asuka, Homura, Yumi, and Miyabi from Senran Kagura, and the other four should be obvious. (There are also two new playable characters, which I’ll cover a little bit later.) The possibilities for character interactions could’ve been endless, which would’ve led to far more interesting scenes. Instead, this aspect of the crossover feels either half-assed, rushed, or maybe some combination of both. At the very least, they could have offered some characters as DLC. In fact, that’s typically what one would expect to happen in a case such as this—leave out characters, then sell them back as DLC later. A shitty business practice, sure, but I’d rather have that than nothing. I find it puzzling that these spin-offs never utilize this tactic. Gacha games have already proven that some will throw hundreds of dollars at a game just for a chance to get their favorite characters, so paying somewhere under ten dollars or so for one guaranteed character is hardly unthinkable in comparison. I know there’s a big difference between mobile games and a single player console game such as this one, but even then, I think my point still stands. Anyway, I already criticized Virtual Stars enough, so from here on out I’d rather focus on the positives in this game.

 

 

This seiyuu joke strongly appealed to me. For those that don’t get it, I threw together a quick image to make it easy to understand. 

 

Going back to the two new playable characters, Goh and Yuuki, I didn’t call them “original characters” because only one of them is. According to the wiki, Goh “is a genderbent version of the amnesiac protagonist of Shinobido: Way of the Ninja”. This reference would’ve been completely lost on me had I not heard about the characters prior to playing the game. She is fun to play as thanks to her quick attacks and skills with (relatively) little endlag. Yuuki isn’t based on any existing characters as far as I know, and her character design is quite something, to put it one way. She’s voiced by Miku Itou, which I likely wouldn’t have guessed based on Yuuki’s appearance. Regardless, she does a fantastic job, and is probably the main reason I came to like the character so much. It’s never explained why, but Yuuki wears cat ears and a tail, and has huge… claws that she uses as a weapon. Unexpectedly, she ended up being my favorite character to play as, although I wish her skills would’ve had less endlag. This problem isn’t exclusive to just her though, as this game has a slight problem with endlag that can’t be cancelled. [Wait, “cancelled” is usually spelled with one “l” and not two in American English? I must be a failure of an American, because “canceled” looks horribly wrong to me.] 

 

 

Neptune referencing Final Fantasy IV, much to the confusion of the other characters.  

 

This is the part where I’d talk about how the trophies don’t demand enough, but that’s not quite true this time. The only real problem I have with the trophy list is that there isn’t a trophy for reaching max level with all characters, or at least one of them. Only requiring one character to reach level 50 seems lame to me. What happened to the pointless grind trophies that serve no real purpose? I know this sounds sarcastic, but I’m being (somewhat) serious. Rather than shelving this game soon after getting the platinum, I took it upon myself to level every character to 99 (max level in this game). It took about an additional seven to eight hours of grinding after finishing Yomi Training at somewhere around level 64. I split the grind up over three days, so it was nothing. Do you know why I did this meaningless grind? “Because I felt I had to.” [I got inspired to throw in a completely unrelated game reference of my own.] Anyway, speaking of Yomi Training, I had heard about its difficulty long before playing this game, which allowed me to be somewhat prepared for it. Contrary to what I heard about it, these missions were rather easy. I can imagine why they might have seemed difficult at first—with how easy the rest of the game is, a difficulty spike like this one can be jarring. Even so, the platinum difficulty shouldn’t be any higher than Virtual Stars. As I sort of mentioned previously, my highest level character (which was Yuuki, of course) upon finishing the last mission was around 64. With Yomi Training being that easy then, were someone to take the time to grind to a higher level, I’m sure it would become almost impossible to fail. 

 

After these two games I’m almost caught up with all of the spin-offs again. I haven’t played Neptunia ReHashVerse yet, either, whatever that counts as; I’ll be waiting for a sale before I buy that game for a third time. Maybe one day there will be a new title in the main series, and I can finally shut up about it. I wouldn’t count on that happening though.

#148 Onee Chanbara Origin

 

I somehow missed this game when it first came out, then learned of it, forgot at some point, and finally bought it upon seeing that it was on sale recently. From what I’ve played, the Oneechanbara series is some of Tamsoft’s better work, so I was interested in this remake of the first two games in the series. My first experience with Oneechanbara was Z2 Chaos something like six years ago, which feels like a lifetime ago at this point. About a year later I got Z Kagura (JP only), and despite basically knowing no Japanese at the time, it didn’t really matter (the story is a relatively unimportant aspect of these games). With nothing new happening in the series for years, I mostly forgot about it until the release of Origin.

 

Though this game is subtitled “Origin”, it doesn’t clearly explain why there are zombies, or to what level the world has been compromised by this outbreak (or whatever it is). Perhaps I missed something, but regardless, it doesn’t really matter. Nothing good will come from critically analyzing a plot that isn’t meant to be taken seriously. The main character this time around is Aya, who should be recognizable to anyone who played Z Kagura or Z2. I guess because it’s a remake, the seiyuu cast is different from previous entries in the series. Aya, for example, is now voiced by Youko Hikasa instead of Yuuko Kaida, who now voices the main antagonist Eva, weirdly enough. While I prefer consistency, it’s not a problem as Youko Hikasa has almost as much experience, and is very capable of voicing strong female characters. Anyway, the first half of the story follows Aya as she searches for her sister, Saki (another character in Z and Z2), who unsurprisingly joins up with Aya for the second half of the game. Kagura and Saaya aren’t present, which is unfortunate, as this game could’ve used a few more characters.    

 

I should note that Oneechanbara Origin is actually a remake, and isn’t just an upscaled port. [This isn’t a genre I have a lot of experience with, so bear with me as I can’t compare it to much else.] Graphically speaking, it’s about what one would expect from these games—certainly not perfect, but good enough. The way it is structured has an almost arcade feel to it: short story scene at the beginning of the level, kill everything, boss fight (sometimes), another short story scene at the end, move on to the next level and repeat. One playthrough only takes a few hours to complete, maybe three or four at the absolute most. This isn’t entirely a bad thing, as it takes a minimum of three playthroughs for the platinum, though I would’ve preferred the game to be a bit longer. In fact, Origin seems to be somewhat lacking in content relative to Z and Z2. There are ten extra DLC missions ($3.99) which are a good addition to the game, but probably should’ve been included in the first place. 

 

Despite not having much experience with hack and slash games, I somehow had the seemingly dumb idea to start the game on hard. As it turns out, however, it’s not that difficult. I had an easy time on my first playthrough even though I tried to parry every boss and made a lot of mistakes in general. The only real difficulty spike wasn’t until the final boss, who does five times more damage than every previous boss for some reason. This can easily be offset by using health items, which I have to say weren’t balanced well. They almost feel like cheating in a way; these items can be purchased in the middle of battle and used with no limitations whatsoever. Overall,  Origin feels quite a bit easier than I remember Z or Z2 being. Infinite Survival is the most difficult part of the game but is barely required for the platinum, and it is partially related to what I’ll cover next.  

 

Now it’s time for my favorite corner (not really) where I complain about the platinum not requiring enough. The most baffling thing about this game’s trophies to me is that there is an optional character, Lei, and unlocking her is not tied to any trophies whatsoever. Unlocking her is kind of a pain, but worry not, there’s DLC for that; for the low price of $3.99, Lei can be unlocked immediately. What a deal! (/s) I have to admit that’s fairly clever, though. Making a character annoying to unlock, then offering an instant unlock for a cheap price isn’t a bad idea, businesswise anyway. I didn’t fall into this trap myself, but I did think about it for a moment. Ultimately, I decided against it; at that point I had already paid $3.99 for missions that should’ve been in the game, so I wasn’t about to pay another $3.99 for a character that is actually in the game.

 

This is where Infinite Survival comes in. For the platinum, it is only necessary to clear floor 51. To unlock Lei however, it is necessary to clear floor 100. This isn’t quite as bad as it sounds, because it’s possible to start from floor 51 after clearing it once, thankfully. What makes Infinite Survival more difficult than the rest of the game in general is that the shop is not accessible. Not being able to buy a virtually endless amount of health items makes conserving health and using other means of healing a necessity. Clearing the first 51 floors is easy enough; I managed to do it after my first playthrough of the game with no real strategy. I wanted to unlock Lei sooner, since unlocking a character later when there’s nothing left to do would’ve felt pointless. 51 through 100 is a different story, though. Up to three rings can be equipped, and selecting the right ones is vital to surviving. I attempted it despite not having some of the better rings, and it was rough; I barely managed to take down the boss on the 100th floor. Dying there would’ve meant having to start from 51 again, which of course made it more stressful. From my experience, I’d highly recommend at least getting the Xtasy ring first to anyone attempting this. 

 

Completing all quests is another part of the game not required for the platinum, unlike Z and Z2 (from what I remember). Instead, there is only a trophy for completing five, of which there are 15 in total. Though they are called “quests”, they’re mostly just pointless grinds, such as successfully parrying a certain number of times. I plan on going back and finishing the remaining quests regardless, but I would’ve preferred a more complete list that required completing all of them.

#149 ご注文はうさぎですか？？ Wonderful party！

 

Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka?? Wonderful party! is a spin-off visual novel in the same vein as the New Game VN I talked about a month ago. The similarities aren’t coincidental, as both were made by the same developer. Unfortunately, this also means that it has the same problem as New Game’s spin-off visual novel: gameplay that it really could’ve done without. There’s a lot of great content to be seen, but once again, they really make the player work for it—which would be fine if it weren’t a boring, monotonous grind. One positive that comes from this, I suppose, is that it screws over VN skippers (lol). One lame ass guide for the game that doesn’t even refer to the characters by name reports that the platinum takes six hours. As a side note, I don’t like to use the c-word often, but the way this guide gave instructions like “select blonde-haired girl” made me cringe. Six hours is a long time considering everything is being skipped in this (cringeworthy) estimation. In order to explain what takes so long, I’ll have to go over how the game is structured.  

    

 

Obligatory “looking up at the sky” background that is in every visual novel. 

 

There are five main sections to this game: the main story scenes that happen regardless of anything else, a minigame of sorts (the gameplay it could’ve done without), Cocoa handing out flyers with one other character from the main cast, a sleepover event where Cocoa, well, sleeps with either Chino, Rize, Chiya, or Sharo (I tried to make this not sound suggestive), and Cocoa’s days off, in which the player selects two places to trigger an event with another character (very similar to New Game! The Challenge Stage!). Of these five, the biggest problem is unsurprisingly the minigame; everything is slowed down by it, making it a drag to see every route and scene. Said minigame goes something like this: emotionless clones of the same three women sit down and wordlessly order a drink. Chino somehow understands these orders and prepares these drinks at an impossibly fast speed, while Rize just stands there cleaning the same part of the counter over and over for some reason. Or so it seems, but as it turns out, she’s also receiving the drink orders telepathically and is prepared to remind Cocoa of what they are if necessary. Since it’s not America, screwing up orders or taking too long doesn’t result in angry customers yelling or trying to fight the staff; give a customer the wrong drink or take too long and they’ll just leave. Maybe having to subdue angry customers would’ve made for a more interesting minigame? Trying to serve coffee while some Waffle House type shit is going down would be an interesting, but odd beat ‘em up style game.

 

 

I find it funny that Chiya joking about taking responsibility by ritual suicide (seppuku) is passable in an A rated game (the lowest rating from CERO).

 

Over analyzation and kidding aside, this minigame is just a simple memorization game. In the beginning it’s very easy, and the difficulty increases so slowly that little thought is required until the last few days. Up to four mistakes can be made each time—a very generous amount—in order to clear the minigame for that day. Only one mistake can be made when going for an A rank, but thanks to Rize’s memorization skills, there’s no real difficulty to speak of. At the cost of five seconds, every customer’s order will be shown for a moment by tapping the hint button. Each time there’s 120 seconds to serve the target amount of customers, and even on the last day that’s plenty of time. I suppose it may be more accurate to say that the problem is not with the minigame itself, but how many times one has to go through to see everything this game has to offer. One full playthrough requires completing this minigame about 20 times, and there are five main routes. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for another problem, which is the way the scenes that accompany handing out flyers were implemented. This section always follows the completion of the aforementioned minigame, and involves choosing a character (Chino, Rize, Chiya, or Sharo) for Cocoa to hand out flyers with, then picking an outfit for them both to wear. Some of these outfit choices are rather illogical; I can’t see why Cocoa would be wearing Fleur de Lapin’s uniform while handing out flyers for Rabbit Horse House, but whatever, that’s not the real problem here. 

 

 

One of many great CGs that come from these “handing out flyers” scenes. 

 

There are eight outfits in total, four of which are unlocked by seeing the good endings of the four main routes. Every outfit has four associated scenes that can only be viewed by choosing that outfit five times in one playthrough. The first scene upon choosing one is generic and is the same across all outfits, while the subsequent four are different. I wish I had known this from the beginning, but I didn’t consult a guide until after I had finished viewing the four main routes. I tried to use each outfit equally before that, which was the exact opposite of what I should’ve been doing. This meant that I had to go back and skip through over half the game 16 times to see every event. It’s possible to see all the events for two outfits on one partial playthrough, so that’s four outfits times four characters for a total of 16 partial playthroughs… Some of these scenes are arbitrarily not part of the scene gallery (100% is required for a trophy), making the platinum not quite as demanding. Either way, I wanted to see every scene—while short, the comedy of these scenes was done well, and I found that they were all worth watching. 

 

 
Compared to New Game, GochiUsa is lighter on yuri subtext, and I wouldn’t say there are quite “established” pairings. There are a lot of cute moments between the main cast, though. 

 

As with New Game’s visual novel spin-off, I would only recommend this game to fans of GochiUsa that have some understanding of Japanese. It’s not a good starting point for the series, nor is it meant to be, so it’s best to go with the manga or anime first. With a platinum rarity of 36%, this is another VN that’s harder than Elden Ring, so be careful of that (/s). 

#150 Blue Reflection: Second Light

 

It feels like forever ago that I first played Blue Reflection, although it was actually a bit under five years ago. I appreciate what Gust was trying to do with the first game, even though it has a few flaws that are hard to ignore. Despite the popularity of the magical girl genre in manga and anime in the last few decades, this genre hasn’t seemed to crossover into video games much at all (aside from games based on an already existing work). Blue Reflection is basically the combination of this genre and a (sort of) turn-based RPG. The combat not being very good, as well as the use of recycled exploration areas suggests that the budget and/or time weren’t quite there to fully realize the idea. However, thanks to the story and characters, it was a memorable experience that I look back on fondly. With the way the game ended, I didn’t know what to expect from a sequel, nor was there any way of knowing there would be a continuation at the time. Years later, a sequel was announced—I wouldn’t be writing this otherwise—and while I was excited to get it, the release date wasn’t at a good time for me. The release date was towards the end of my second semester of college, which was when I took a few too many units and barely had time to do anything. I got the game a few months later, but didn’t end up starting it until June. I knew next to nothing about it, as I hadn’t been following any news regarding the game very closely. Avoiding spoilers wasn’t a problem for a niche game like this; there is a very low chance of seeing spoilers without specifically seeking them out. Speaking of which, I will keep this as spoiler-free as possible, and anything containing actual spoilers will be noted as such and put in a spoiler box. 

 

Moving along from this needlessly long preface, Blue Reflection: Second Light is in fact a sequel to the first game, but the connection between the two games is purposefully not clear in the beginning. The game starts with Ao, the main character, on her way to class. I know how it seems—this is yet another Japanese game with a high school setting—but the setting is quickly shown to be different than it appears. Ao arrives at school only to find that something is not quite right. No one seems to be around until she sees an unfamiliar girl in a classroom, Kokoro. Ao then finds out that instead of actually arriving at her school, she has somehow ended up at a different school, which is of course in the middle of nowhere and surrounded completely by water. Nothing is visible on the horizon; there’s only water as far as the eye can see. In addition to this, aside from Ao and Kokoro, there are only two other people there with them, Rena and Yuki. This is where Second Light differs greatly from the first Blue Reflection. The structure of the first game was more typical of what one would expect from the magical girl genre, in that the main cast lived fairly normal school lives, and fought as magical girls (generally) outside of school. In Second Light, a very important part of the game is unraveling the mystery of the situation Ao and the others have found themselves in. 
 

 

Ao (left) and Kokoro (right). Put simply, Ao is outgoing and somewhat mischievous, whereas Kokoro is shy and always kind to everyone.

 

To add to the mystery, everyone but Ao can’t remember much of anything. I know, “Amnesia?! How cliche can you be?!", is what I thought too, but I think it was actually handled well. I like that the biggest trope, which is the protagonist having amnesia, was avoided. While the reason behind every other character losing their memory isn’t revealed for a while, most of them don’t stay that way for long. In fact, a huge part of this game involves the girls regaining their most important memories, which I’ll address soon. Outside of the school the four girls find themselves stuck at, there is a bridge leading across the water. This bridge leads to “the faraway” as it’s called at that point of the game. With no other options, they decide to explore this unknown area, despite being warned that it is dangerous by an odd chat AI named ReSource. Unsurprisingly, it does in fact turn out to be dangerous. The girls encounter monsters and awaken to their powers as “reflectors” (magical girls, basically), except for Yuki, who is unable to fight, much to her dismay. 
 

 

Best girl Rena’s victory animation. She’s always serious and often scolds the jokesters of the group (Yuki and Ao) as a result. Though Rena is easily embarrassed and usually hides it with anger, she’s also (brutally) honest and has no trouble speaking her mind most of the time.

 

The music that plays when in the first part of the faraway is beautiful, somewhat haunting, and kind of chaotic all in one. This area is an unusual landscape that defies logic, making this track fit perfectly. At first, I expected most of the game’s exploration to take place in the faraway, like one long, single dungeon that is explored throughout the whole game. As it turns out, what is called “the faraway” in the beginning is created from Kokoro’s memories, and as one could probably guess, going through this area allows her to regain her memories. Ao and others then come up with the name “heartscape” to use instead of “the faraway” soon after. For each character that has lost their memories, there is a heartscape that they must traverse to reclaim those memories. This results in an interesting variety of environments to explore that differ greatly depending on whose memories they are made from, a huge step up from the first Blue Reflection’s recycled areas. Heartscapes don’t appear on their own; each character needs some kind of catalyst that is related to their memories to trigger the appearance of one. After the completion of Kokoro’s heartscape, the important game mechanic of building facilities around the school is introduced. “Facilities” is somewhat of a confusing description, since these so-called facilities include anything from a telescope to a food stand. These are conveniently built with the power of magic, imagination, item drops from enemies, and items collected while exploring. Building facilities is an integral part of the game that triggers both the appearance of heartscapes and characters. They also can give useful stat boosts passively, with some being too useful—late game facilities are largely responsible for destroying the balance of the battle system (more on that later). Thanks to Yuki’s “extreme school makeover” idea, the importance of these facilities was discovered accidentally.  
 

 

A glimpse into Yuki’s weird, but very endearing personality. She gets along with Ao due to them being on a similar wavelength, but she also gets along well with Rena in spite of their differences. 

 

Another important aspect of facilities—I’m still not done talking about them—is their role in date events. Yes, they are actually called “dates”. These are short events in which Ao hangs out with one of the other girls, with one of the facilities being the center of the event. Going on dates increases a character’s talent level, which is necessary to unlock a number of different skills and stat boosts. Characters that can’t fight in battle, such as Yuki, have skills that increase the stat boosts of facilities; based on what I noted just earlier, it’s easy to see how this could affect the balance of the battle system. Evident by there being a trophy for going on 100 dates, there are a ton of these events. They add some much needed humour, heartwarming moments, and/or cute moments to this game, where things get progressively darker as more is revealed. Many of these dates consist of Ao flirting with the other girls; seriously, she is absolutely relentless in hitting on almost every other character. Only a few girls that show up later on are capable of turning things around and making Ao feel embarrassed instead. 
 

Picking the second option in the above image leads to the dialogue below it. Shiho is the first character aside from the original four to be introduced, showing up shortly after clearing Kokoro’s heartscape. She may seem plain, but there are unexpected sides to her character, as seen in Kokoro’s past memories. 

 

Shiho appearing after Kokoro’s heartscape isn’t a coincidence, as the two of them were friends as kids. Soon after, Shiho’s heartscape appears, and then it’s time to get her memories back. Visually speaking, this is one of my favorite heartscapes. As with the previous one, the terrain is illogical, like something one would expect to see in a dream. The overall design greatly differs, with the sun shining brightly on a vast body of water, in the middle of which there are train tracks and even a train station—and what I’m describing here is only the first section. The music that plays here accompanies this area flawlessly; this time, it’s aptly beautiful and a bit somber, with no part being chaotic or haunting. Moving on, shortly after clearing Shiho’s heartscape, a person relevant to her memories appears, just like with the last chapter. What I’m getting at here is, the pattern that began with Kokoro’s heartscape set the standard for the rest of the game. It may sound formulaic—and I suppose it is—but there are enough twists and turns on this formula that keep things interesting throughout the game. I also don’t believe that being formulaic is inherently a bad thing; what matters is that it doesn’t feel formulaic. To me, being reductive and saying something like “in this game you just do x and then y happens” isn’t persuasive criticism. In the same vein, I find it puzzling when a game is criticized for being repetitive. At their core, most games are repetitive, but again, what matters is whether or not they feel repetitive. That aside, the completion of Shiho’s heartscape leads to the first major appearance of a returning character from the first Blue Reflection. I wasn’t sure if this counted as a spoiler at first, but the opening clearly shows every character that is part of the main cast, so it’s not a spoiler as far as the developers themselves were concerned. 

 

 

As the main character of the first game, Hinako needs no introduction. This is one of my favorite exchanges between her and Ao.

 

Before moving on, there’s one thing that’s never addressed in the game that I want to bring up. As shown by their respective heartscapes, Kokoro’s most important memories are of her and Shiho as kids, while Shiho’s most important memories are of her meeting Hinako later in life… that’s awkward. For anyone who has played the first game, what transpires in Hinako’s heartscape shouldn’t be surprising. Regardless, it’s still kind of depressing to go through. Relative to some of the later chapters though, this is only a warmup; magical girls and suffering have often been indivisible for a long time now (before Madoka despite what some [incorrect] people would have others believe), and Blue Reflection is no different. I’m not going to go through and summarize every single chapter, as it becomes difficult to talk about anything while avoiding spoilers—well, that and I’d rather not write a 20 page essay on this game. Also, recounting this game chapter by chapter has made me realize that both the fourth and fifth one don’t follow the pattern I described earlier. The fourth chapter is about Rena’s heartscape, and she is not a new character at that point, nor does she have anything to do with Hinako or her heartscape. 

 

 

Not strictly related to the fourth chapter, but Rena’s in it, so it counts. This is yet another great moment from a date event.  
 

By this point I already liked this game a lot, and I couldn’t have guessed that it was about to get even better. Chapter four is one of my favorite chapters, so much so that I ended up watching through all of it again on my second playthrough. When I first started this chapter, I really liked the direction things were going at the beginning of Rena’s heartscape. The first section of her heartscape likely resembles reality more than any of the previous ones, but that’s not to say that it’s boring. The second and third sections take more creative liberties with the environment, resulting in some fantastic scenery. Once again, I also have to mention the music, which is another great track. Like the previous tracks, it not only fits the area, but also the story told through memories within the heartscape. It differs from the previous heartscape themes in that it sounds far less somber—and with my lack of musical knowledge, I can’t explain it much better than that. As I progressed through the chapter, I didn’t expect anything to be confirmed or plainly stated. [I’m being really vague here, because I’d hate to spoil it for anyone else.] Once I got near the end, I couldn’t believe Gust actually went through with it and did that. There’s no beating around the bush, and it’s not open for interpretation. My only complaint is that this subplot is only half finished at the end of the chapter, and it takes quite some time before it is continued. Although I never forgot, the next few chapters did manage to distract me from my impatience. As I mentioned, the next chapter breaks away from the formula again, this time with a heartscape appearing first for a then unknown character.

 

 

One of my favorite quotes from Kirara, who manages to perfectly capture how I feel about sports here. I previously noted that Ao and Yuki are on a similar wavelength, whereas I’d say that Ao and Kirara are on the same wavelength. After a few date events, it’s clear that they have a similar sense of humour, and many of their interests align. 

 

Kirara doesn’t make much of a first impression, though that’s only due to her being unconscious in her first appearance. The other girls then have to help her recover with a sort of medicine made from strong emotions. This requires them to go back to their respective heartscapes and collect a particularly embarrassing memory. For them, the worst part is that when collecting these memories, everyone else also views the memory. Naturally, this results in some great comedic scenes, a short departure from how serious things were getting previously. The bitter taste of embarrassing memories wakes Kirara up, and then she’s fine. Kirara is the second character who is unable to fight, which I found disappointing. Sure, there is a good story reason for it, but I’d prefer it if every character were usable in battle. She’s not the last character that can’t fight, either. In fact, of the remaining three characters I’ve yet to mention, only one of them is able to fight. One good thing that comes from this, I suppose, is that it’s already difficult enough as it is to choose a party; choosing only three characters out of nine would’ve been rough. This is still an improvement over the first Blue Reflection at least, where there were only three main characters who took part in battle.

 

 

A convenient screenshot that happens to have the next three characters in it, along with an excellent quote from Uta. Hiori (middle) and Mio (right) are sisters that both show up in chapter 6, and Uta is introduced in chapter 7. 
 

Now that I’ve (very) roughly summarized the first half of the game, I’d like to move and focus on other aspects of the game. So far, I’ve covered most of how the gameplay works aside from the battle system. One of the weakest parts of the first Blue Reflection was its battle system, with the lack of balance making it seem unfinished. MP or whatever it was called automatically restored to max after every battle, a very odd design choice that killed the balance of regular enemy encounters. With no need to conserve MP, regular battles became a joke after unlocking higher level skills. The battle system in Second Light is both different and better in just about every way. It’s best described as turn-based, although that’s not entirely correct. Unlike a more traditional turn-based battle system, enemies will continually attack if the player were to sit there doing nothing. In that aspect only, it’s similar to the active time battle system in Final Fantasy IV; nearly everything else is different from any games that I’ve played. There is no divide between regular attacks and skills/magic, with everything costing “ep”—the closest thing this game has to the commonly seen MP in other RPGs. Opposite of the first Blue Reflection, ep always starts at 0 and slowly goes up during battle. Each character has their own ep, which can recover at different rates depending on the character. The amount of ep that can be recovered is directly tied to each character’s “gear”, a value that begins at one in every battle and automatically goes up as skills are used. At gear one, it’s 1000 ep, 2000 ep at gear two, and so on. Reaching gear three is when each girl will transform—they’re magical girls so it had to happen eventually. As characters ascend gears, they will also have access to more powerful skills. The highest gear is five, which will rarely ever be seen outside of boss battles. 

 

 

Ao doesn't stand a chance against Mio (CV: Reina Ueda). The way she lovingly says Ao's name at the start of date events makes my heart flutter, and my name’s not even Ao (obviously).

 

For most of the game, I really liked the battle system. The only problem is that the balance falls apart around the last few chapters. I’m usually not one to complain about a game being too easy or hard, but the last few chapters have that exact problem. Towards the end, the battles become too easy with no good way to adjust the difficulty. Changing the difficulty setting is not an option, as hard is not selectable until clearing the game. Maybe I’m remembering it wrong, but I believe it was possible to select hard in the first Blue Reflection even on a first playthrough. That leaves only one other option, which is to try to figure out what’s breaking the game and fix it. That’s a lot of work to do just to make the difficulty more balanced, something the player should never have to do. I don’t care if a game can be “broken”, whether it’s through cheap tactics, exploits, or glitches; generally it’s not a problem, as these kinds of things aren’t going to happen by mistake and can be easily avoided. It is a problem, however, if a game breaks itself simply by playing normally. Facility stat boosts combined with passive skills that boost their effectiveness seem to be the problem from what I could tell. Unlearning passive skills isn’t possible, making that not an option. Putting facilities in storage disables their stat boosts, but they need to be placed to trigger date events, creating a different problem. One would have to put every facility in storage between battles, pull them out to trigger events, then put them away again. Who the hell is going to do all that? That’s also assuming two things: one, the cause of the problem is in fact what I described, and two, the cause has been figured out by the player. Perhaps I’m overanalyzing it—this is just a long-winded way of saying that the combat is good, but falls apart towards the end.   

While I’m still on the subject, I’d like to go over a few more aspects of the game that I consider to be flaws. Aside from the balance of the battle system, the most notable flaw would have to be the requirements for getting the true ending. There aren’t any choices that matter, nor is there any difference from raising every girl’s talent level. The only thing that has to be done is simple, but also a puzzling design choice: play the whole game over again. Why make the player do this? Nothing changes until the end of course, and it only adds about ten seconds to the ending. For the purpose of not spoiling anything I won’t explain why, but these ten seconds do in fact change everything. Even so, it’s kind of ridiculous to have to go through the entire game again for such a short scene. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if it weren’t for the way NG+ works. Nothing carries over except for talent levels, and (insultingly) only half of the points are kept; a second playthrough isn’t as quick as it should be thanks to this. While another playthrough is necessary to get the platinum, that still doesn’t justify this odd true ending requirement. Furthermore, for the majority of people who don’t care about trophies, I doubt they would go through the entire game again—a quick Youtube search is a lot less time consuming. 

 

 

How I felt after finishing the game. Despite how it may seem out of context, this comes from a comedic scene and isn’t a spoiler. 
 

I’ve hardly mentioned the trophies, with the reason being that there is not a whole lot to talk about. The trophy list is fairly standard, requiring almost everything to be completed (with the absence of difficulty trophies). There is a separate trophy for each character that involves maxing their talent levels; the cause of having to do two playthroughs. As noted previously, there is nothing fast about going through this game in NG+. When aiming to max every character’s talent level, it’s even slower. Since talent levels are only half carried over, it’s necessary to complete just about every request and go on as many dates as possible all over again. As tedious as this sounds, I was able to get some enjoyment out of my second playthrough simply by waiting; I waited about a month before starting my second playthrough, and I’d highly recommend doing something similar to anyone going for the platinum. Instead of it feeling like a boring grind, I had a good time slowly going through the game again. I also ended up watching quite a few of the story scenes, and told myself I wouldn’t cry this time—which was... not true (“I must be a pretty big masochist”). As a side note, I seem to get emotional rather easily when it comes to stuff like this, so experiences may vary. This was supposed to be about the trophies, so I’ll also add that I saved one trophy in order to get the platinum later. I rarely plan milestones that far in advance, and even then it can hardly be called planning; it’s more like I notice a milestone is coming up, then try to come up with something that fits into what I was going to play anyway. 

 

 

Throughout this whole mess, I feel like I haven't given Ao enough credit; she's truly great as the main character, and her interactions with the others improve just about every scene. I won't say who she's talking about in the above screenshot, but it's exactly what it sounds like and isn't the result of taking a few sentences out of context. 

 

In case it wasn’t clear already, I really love this game; I’d put it somewhere in my top 30, possibly top 20 favorite games. The improvement over the first Blue Reflection is truly incredible, and went far beyond what I expected. With the sequel, aside from a few flaws, Gust seems to have fully realized the idea they had for this series. If it were to end here, I’d be satisfied, but I’d also love to see how they can further improve it. Although I wasn’t the biggest fan of Atelier Ryza, if its success means Gust can put more time and money into their other IPs, then I’m all for it. Nights of Azure in particular could use some work; I believe the full potential of that series has yet to be realized. With that, I’ll finally end this “essay”, which is mostly a disjointed mess of my thoughts. I had intended to finish this sooner, but things happened and I slowly added more and more over time. If I waited, I’m sure I could find more to expand upon, but it has gone on long enough as it is.

#151 Akiba’s Trip 2
#152 School Girl/Zombie Hunter

 

Platinums #153 - 156: "More Slow Progress as a Result of Focusing on College / Being Distracted by Other Things" [Mid August 2022 - End of March 2023] 

 

Spoiler

#153 Quake
#154 英雄伝説 黎の軌跡II Crimson Sin [Kuro no Kiseki II]
100% #7 Yuru Camp: Virtual - Fumoto Campsite
#155 Kandagawa Jet Girls
#156 Samurai Maiden

 

Platinums #157 - ?: "Giving the Dragon Quest Series Another Chance After 11 Years (it's not like I was influenced by Pekora or anything)  / Playing Through the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters [April 2023 - ] (In Progress) 

 

Spoiler

100% #8 ドラゴンクエスト [Dragon Quest]

100% #9 ドラゴンクエストⅡ 悪霊の神々 [Dragon Quest II]

#157 Final Fantasy IV

#158 Final Fantasy

#159 Final Fantasy II

#160 Final Fantasy III

100% #10 ドラゴンクエストⅢ そして伝説へ… [Dragon Quest III]

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Cave Johnson
Added outline for platinums #151 - 160

[AihaLoveleaf]

Love to see that you finally set up a checklist. ? 

 

Interesting to hear about the timeframe that you became a weeb within; my "moment of weebening" is such an old event that you can probably find records of it in cave paintings, so it's interesting to hear an account from more recent times.

 

Also interesting to see what your thoughts were years ago on games that I'm just now getting around to, as well as games I'll be getting to eventually - like Sega Hard Girls and 4GO.

 

I'll be back to read the other half when you finally post it.

Edited April 4, 2023 by AihaLoveleaf
Typo

[Honor_Hand]

Nice. Cool to see Cave starting his own checklist. =D

That MRP thread is quite an endless void, isn't it? That's why I often opt to post my stuff through status updates instead. And chronicling everything back is quite a pain. I reckon that's part of the reason why I chose to keep my checklist dead instead, lol. I would rather focus on what's to come for the time being.

I noticed you have something interesting going on here while recounting your platinum experience in some of these games. As in, what you wrote about them then, and what you wrote now. Granted, only a few of them had this, but I thought about mentioning it here because I found it amusing. I didn't read all the entries, but I did find some interesting tidbits here and there as I went over the whole thing. For example, I can see your start with the Tales of Xillia games (which I've yet to play the second entry), Time & Eternity being ass (it was! So much potential flushed down the toilet, literally), your time with Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax (that score attack and time trial were, indeed, the hardest parts of that game), Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky's tumbleweed (lol), you enjoying the Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online spinoff (I also went through that one not too long and it was damn solid), your grind complaining on SK: Peach Beach Splash (which was grindy, but I still enjoyed that one a good deal for what it was, you know. I wouldn't mind the devs revisiting that idea), and Bullet Girls clothes-killing antics (totally sounds like my kind of game!).

 

But yeah, this looks like a fun checklist to follow. Will look forward to any future posts from you here. Cheers!

[Cassylvania]

Cool stuff. Some people were fortunate enough to start these checklists early in their account's life, but most of us started several years in. You're actually starting with twice as many platinums as I did, so I can only imagine how hard it is to have to go back and try to figure out where your mindset was at the time you were earning them. I think grouping them together makes the most sense.

 

I like seeing the Atelier stacks. Deep down, I think we're all weebs.

[DrBloodmoney]

Man, this is shaping up to be a hell of a checklist! Nice work so far - love the layout!

 

I know how much of a mountain it can feel like you are getting ready to climb, starting one of these so far into the life of a profile ?

 

… but there’s only one way to climb a mountain, and that’s one step at a time!

 

[Cave Johnson]

On 4/4/2023 at 11:56 AM, AihaLoveleaf said:

Interesting to hear about the timeframe that you became a weeb within; my "moment of weebening" is such an old event that you can probably find records of it in cave paintings, so it's interesting to hear an account from more recent times.

 

Also interesting to see what your thoughts were years ago on games that I'm just now getting around to, as well as games I'll be getting to eventually - like Sega Hard Girls and 4GO.

 

Back when I first played Akiba's Trip, I never would've imagined that about seven and half years later I'd walk the same streets that are in the game; it's crazy how things can change. Regarding that there are quite a few details I've yet to add, but that will come eventually. There's a lot more details and commentary I'd like to add in general, especially to some of the older stuff I wrote. I'll probably focus on that once I finish archiving everything up to 150.

 

On 4/7/2023 at 1:11 PM, Honor_Hand said:

I noticed you have something interesting going on here while recounting your platinum experience in some of these games. As in, what you wrote about them then, and what you wrote now. Granted, only a few of them had this, but I thought about mentioning it here because I found it amusing. I didn't read all the entries, but I did find some interesting tidbits here and there as I went over the whole thing. For example, I can see your start with the Tales of Xillia games (which I've yet to play the second entry), Time & Eternity being ass (it was! So much potential flushed down the toilet, literally), your time with Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax (that score attack and time trial were, indeed, the hardest parts of that game), Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky's tumbleweed (lol), you enjoying the Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online spinoff (I also went through that one not too long and it was damn solid), your grind complaining on SK: Peach Beach Splash (which was grindy, but I still enjoyed that one a good deal for what it was, you know. I wouldn't mind the devs revisiting that idea), and Bullet Girls clothes-killing antics (totally sounds like my kind of game!).

 

Going back and commenting on what I wrote previously seemed like a funny idea to me, so I'm glad it could be entertaining in some way. Eventually, I'll have something written for almost every game, but that's still a work in progress. Weirdly enough, I never wrote anything the second time I platinumed Atelier Escha & Logy, which is why I put the tumbleweed gif as a sort of joke/placeholder. Bullet Girls is pretty good, but the first two games are only in Japanese on Vita and might be expensive to import these days (I'm not sure). While I haven't played it yet myself, the third game (Phantasia) is also on PS4 and has a version with English subtitles though. 

 

6 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Cool stuff. Some people were fortunate enough to start these checklists early in their account's life, but most of us started several years in. You're actually starting with twice as many platinums as I did, so I can only imagine how hard it is to have to go back and try to figure out where your mindset was at the time you were earning them. I think grouping them together makes the most sense.

 

I like seeing the Atelier stacks.

 

There was always the option to start earlier, but I do have a bad habit of procrastinating, so this is how it ended up. Thankfully I at least wrote a few sentences for most of these platinums a long time ago. Without that, I'd be really lost on where to begin with all of this. 

 

I own the DX versions of the Mysterious trilogy, so I'll also be adding Firis and Lydie & Suelle to the list one day. I can't seem to keep up with this series anymore though; I'm only about halfway through Ryza 2 right now, and I don't even own Sophie 2 yet. 

 

7 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Deep down, I think we're all weebs.

 

Perhaps, but to what extent that's true, I'm not sure. In my case, playing a lot of Japanese games resulted in me deciding to major in Japanese, and here I am now, taking my fourth semester of the main language class. I think most people don't end up going to that extent, lol. 

 

6 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Man, this is shaping up to be a hell of a checklist! Nice work so far - love the layout!

 

I know how much of a mountain it can feel like you are getting ready to climb, starting one of these so far into the life of a profile 

 

… but there’s only one way to climb a mountain, and that’s one step at a time!

 

I thought it looked bland in its current state, so I'm glad to hear that. Maybe at some point I'll add some fancy banners; that's not a priority right now though. From what I've noticed, people are more likely to read something with eye-catching images, or at least in my case that's true lol. I feel like I'm more likely to read through someone's post in the Most Recent Platinum thread if there's a screenshot of the game and/or platinum. 

 

It would be less of a big deal if it were simply a matter of copy and pasting everything, but I end up having to reformat a lot of it, and putting spoiler boxes inside of spoiler boxes that then go in more spoiler boxes can get tiresome. I suppose it's a good thing that I didn't keep up my original pace of earning platinums—had I done that I might've had well over 200 platinums to write about by now.