PSNP 2023 Year End Awards

[DoctorDrPepper]

 

So no one made this again this year. This is a simple copy paste again, but next year i'll just make sure to be on top of this. It's really a great tradition we shouldn't let die. Once again shoutout to the original creator of this Dr_Mayus.

 

 

 

 

Welcome again to the annual PSNP Awards 

 

 

 

If you don't know what to do..here is the breakdown. For each award pick a game you play/platted this year (it doesn't have to have come out this year). Some will be the best...some the worst but all of it is meant to be fun and a way for us all to remember the games we have played.

 

For a trip down memory lane check out the previous events.

 

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

 

Hey, all those games that have 11 golds, 1 plat and like 6 stacks?...well this is the trophy for that.

 

Ahh, the It's Like Dark Souls plat. The game that had you pulling your hair out and cursing the gaming gods.

Which game had you pleading in the Status Updates for just one little thing to go your way?

 

Not necessarily a Platinum but a moment in a game where you sat back and said "I'm a Badass"

 

What game had you running around racking up kills? playing through 6 times? Trying to find the one item with a 0.01% drop rate?

What game did you just sink a ton of time into to earn that beautiful 

 

This one isn't opinion based...just what game in your backlog took you the longest (in terms of days, months, years) to complete.

 

This trophy is for the most fun you had playing online. Maybe it wasn't even for trophies.

Was it COD, or Fall Guys or some other game that you sunk hours into playing.

 

The complete opposite of the last one. Which buggy server, shitty campers, ridiculous online requirements

or complete deserted wasteland did you waste your time playing for that 

 

Which games has the most toe-tapping tunes. The game where the music doesn't drive you nuts while grinding out trophies.

 

We all have that game that we got from PLUS or off some digital sale. Which game did you just enjoy so much despite barely hearing about it before.

 

Usually reserve for some shitty AAA game with too much hype...but could also just be a game in a series you love.

Which game made you regret buying it and wished you could have your money and time back.

 

Simply put what is the best trophy image you earned this year.

Normally it would be a Platinum image but maybe there is some bronze trophy you earned that just had great image art.

 

 

Here is the award for the lazy developers that cannot figure out that trophy hunters might actually like to look at a nice trophy image.

 

Which Female character this year was your favourite to play as?

 

Which Male character this year was your favourite to play as?

 

This award isn't meant for your favourite game of the year...it is meant for your favourite plat. A favourite plat should be something that was a pure joy to earn.

It is one that you wish had multiple stacks so you could replay it to earn all the trophies again.

 

This is the opposite. This is the platinum that made you want to quit earning trophies. The one that was just a waste of your time.

Please go nuts and rip that shitty game a new one, you earned it.

 

Which game are you most interested in getting the platinum in 2022. 2023 2024 (I WILL FIX THIS NEXT YEAR I SWEAR). Go ahead and go nuts with your fantasizing.

 

Thank you again for participating in this fun event  Have a great year.

Edited December 29, 2023 by DoctorDrPepper

[DoctorDrPepper]

Here's my personal list.

 

 

 

 

 

Dredge

Just because it's not a massive challenge doesn't mean I don't love the hell out of this game. Cosmic horror fishing game. It's perfect.

 

 

Elden Ring

Had to do it again this year. I got that itch and it seemed like a great milestone

 

Star Wars: Tales From Galaxy's Edge

Playe this right before my first trip to Disneyworld going on the Galactic Starcruiser before it shut down forever and to be immersed in Star Wars in such a fun way really felt bad ass.

 

Minecraft Dungeons

When it was free on PS Plus this year I had a buddy that wanted to play with me, that somehow led to me getting all the dlc and grinding everything out for a full month. It was a great game to play while watching other things.

 

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

1000 questions answered takes a while. Especially when every game is a max 15 questions.

 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I haven't platinumed it yet but i'm still having fun murdering teens as Leatherface and feeding their blood to Grandpa.

 

Mortal Kombat 1

I just didn't like this game that much and thie online community for it sucks. Too many leavers in the middle of the best of 3 sets when they knew they were behind.

 

Persona 5 Royal

I've platinumed this game 5 times and the music still slaps hard.

 

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons

Best beat'em-up i've played in years. Loved the mechanic of picking who you fight and in what order, which adds new enemies and stages to subsequent levels. felt kinda like a roguelike in that aspect.

 

Final Fantasy XVI

Story was good, combat was boring. What a let down.

 

"I'm prouf of you my son" from "Buy the game, I have a gun" - Sheesh-Man

I like weird bullshit, i dont know what else to tell you here.

 

 

"Trophy Triumph" from Hogwarts Legacy

They finally make a giant openworld Harry Potter game and this is the plat? Disgusting.

 

Frey Holland from Forspoken

Sure her dialogue can be shitty sometimes in the beginning, but she grows into a better character and she's never not fun to play. Frey flows so well in her abilities. Really a great time.

 

 

Alan Wake from Alan Wake 2

I enjoy the dreamlike levels with Alan questioning reality so much. This game is my game of the year and alan himself is a large part of that (Saga too)

 

Marvel's Spider-Man 2

While Spider-Man 2 isn't my game of the year (it's 3rd on my list) Platinum wise it's the most enjoyable. Never stressful but always asking me to try everything. Insominac knows how to make a trophy list.

 

Hogwart's Legacy

It's a fucking shame because the actual game itself was a joy but this plat was a collectathon past the level of enjoyable collecting and into the thousands of useless shit that was copy pasted all over that stupid large map. Then it made you play the first 2 hours of the game 3 more times. Fuck this plat.

 

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Ichiban my boy, i've missed you.

Edited December 28, 2023 by DoctorDrPepper

[blue_blur_98]

Piece of Cake Award - The Sly Collection's mini game trophies barely required any effort. I spent more time playing the first level of each game to unlock the mini games themselves than I did earning the trophies tied to them.

 

It's Like Dark Souls Award - Crash Bandicoot was easily my hardest plat this year and in general. That game does not pull its punches, and it expects rushed, deathless runs of every stage on top of that.

 

Badass Award - Related to the above, clearing the Time Trial in Stormy Ascent for Crash Bandicoot's DLC trophies made me feel like a total boss. Despite its difficulty, it was actually a huge motivator to finish the rest of the trophies, because if I could do that, I could do anything.

 

Grind of the Year - Dreams. Dear lord, Dreams. The grind to Level 30 takes absolutely forever regardless of how you do it. Dreams was the top game of my PlayStation Wrap-Up this year, with 58 hours played. Almost all of those were dedicated to the Level 30 grind.

 

Finally Done Award - Toybox Turbos took me the longest to get back around to out of anything I've played thus far. I popped one trophy in 2017 while playing local multiplayer, then only finished the rest of it back in January. Just shy of six years!

 

King of the Internet - Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled appears on my PS Wrap-Up basically every year for a reason - it's just so much fun to play, even if the netcode is hot ass. I always love returning to it when I have PS Plus.

 

Worst Online Experience - I didn't have a particularly terrible online experience while trophy hunting this year, but Gravel was probably the closest to that. Servers are a total ghost town because nobody cares about Gravel in 2023, so I had to set up a boosting session, and when I was boosting, my entire console suddenly crashed out of nowhere. No idea what that was about - guess my PS4 didn't wanna play this anymore either.

 

Best Music - Rez Infinite's trance, techno and EDM beats kept me entranced and engaged the whole way through. It is an impeccable soundtrack, made even better by how it directly ties into the gameplay. Even if you're not interested in the game itself, you owe it to yourself to at least listen to its outstanding music. The Area X tracks were my favorite.

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year - Not a game I completed this year, but I'm shocked that not too many people talk about Lumines Remastered. It instantly became one of my favorite puzzle games due to its fun and addicting gameplay, wide variety of content on offer, and the unique sights and sounds you experience with every single skin. It's fantastic! Play it!

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year - Gravel. It's not terrible, but I don't think I've ever played a game as generic and forgettable as this. I'm genuinely struggling to remember a single thing about it other than it being really generic and bland. It was barely worth the $3 I paid for it. Just don't bother with this one; you won't get anything out of the experience.

 

Best Trophy Image - The Blue Bird trophy in Rez Infinite. Look at how sparkly it is!

 

 

Worst Trophy Image - Every single trophy in Woodle Tree Adventures Deluxe has a random screenshot of the game as its icon. You really couldn't do anything more than that? Seriously?

 

Best Female Character - I always liked how they let you play as Coco Bandicoot in the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, and made her play just as well as Crash does unlike her previous playable appearances. Even outside of the trophies that required you to play as her, I'd sometimes switch to Coco just for the hell of it.

 

Best Male Character - Sonic the Hedgehog. Come on. Look at my user name. This should be obvious.

 

Best Plat of the Year - Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back was far and away my favorite game to trophy hunt in this year. Despite my frustration with the extremely tight Gold Relic times, clearing the levels, collecting the Gems and going for those secrets that have been burned into my brain for so many years at this point was so much fun that it nullified that rage, and being able to Platinum the very first game I ever played was a delightful experience that I'm glad I saw to the very end.

 

Worst Plat of the Year - Gravel, for the reasons stated above. It really overstayed its welcome in no time flat, and I was glad to be done with it when it was finally over. If the Platinum trophy wasn't so easy and quick, I would have dropped it like a rock.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024 - Next year is the year I finally get inFAMOUS off my backlog. It's been there since 2018 and I need to get it done sooner or later. Seriously. I'm also looking forward to clearing up some other backlog games in 2024 like Rive and Lumines Remastered, and playing some new games I've had my eye on for a good while now like PAC-MAN World Re-PAC, Split/Second and Scarlet Nexus.

 

Thanks for hosting! It was fun to look back at my year of trophy hunting like this.

Edited December 28, 2023 by blue_blur_98
Typos

[voodoo_eyes]

 

Piece of cake

Can't really recommend this one. Was just a filler.

 

 

It's like Dark Souls

Not excessively hard, but it's got some annoying spots when not using the exploit.

 

 

Bad Ass

Was somewhat challenging for the first half of the game, and then it eventually becomes a slaughterfest.

 

 

Grind of the year

Just felt like a pointless slog at some point.

 

 

Finally Done

1 month, 1 week, 3 days

 

 

Best soundtrack

It was great back in the 90s and still is to this day.

 

 

Sleeper hit of the year

Thought it was going to be mediocre, and turned out to be one of the best games I played this year.

 

 

Biggest bomb

Not a bad game, but it just didn't turn out as good as I had hoped.

 

 

Best plat

Fairly straightforward with just a few collectibles and no excessive grindy nonsense.

 

Worst plat

Buggy pile of garbage that was not enjoyable to go through at all, even if it's a fairly easy plat.

 

 

 

Most anticipated plat of 2023

Not sure what else I'll decide to play throughout the next year, but those five are at the top of the list currently.

 

 

Edited February 26 by voodoo_eyes

[VersusCA]

Piece of Cake - My Friend, Peppa Pig. Not a lot to say here, I only played this for the Trophies vs. Cancer event. I don't think I'll play anything easier than this in the New Year.

 

Dark Souls Award - Fantasy Strike. I used glitches to help but I'm still so bad at fighters that this was probably the most challenging game of the year for me. I had weird amounts of trouble with the trophy requiring you to get a high combo, and also failed the longest Survivor mode 3 times (once was due to a crash).

 

Bad-Ass Award - Vanquish. The game is just full of these moments. It's not hard with the infinite grenade glitch but the movement and general controls are so satisfying that you end up feeling this way after most large encounters or boss fights regardless.

 

Grind of the Year - NBA 2k24 PS4. Grinding the 13 holographic cards was miserable. At one point I think I managed 1 from 200 pack openings. Never would've got this plat in 2023 if not for a handy glitch in pack odds + some good fortune. I went from 2 holographic cards after off-and-on playing for 2.5 months, to fully done in the span of about 3 hours.

 

Finally Done - Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov's Revenge. 1 year, 4 months and 1 week. It didn't take that long to do, it was just one of those games I did the online for and then came back to way later!

 

King of Internet - Star Wars: Battlefront 2. I mostly did the online co-op for my xp grind, playing as Bossk made it so easy and fun! I was quite consistently getting 15-20k score more than my teammates because Bossk has an incredibly overpowered set of abilities for fighting large waves of brainless AI. I also came to like using his sniper rifle, and I am generally NOT a sniper rifle person.

 

Worst Online Experience - NBA 2k24 PS4. Miserable pay to win online, 2k controls the entire market now so the progression is even more like a treadmill than ever before. Same old crap gameplay with cheesy moves dominating online. Grinding for the holographic cards and constantly failing to get even one was just awful. I'll do the PS5 stack because the holographic cards will carry over and make that trophy simple, and therefore I will be playing very little online, but will think quite a bit before I get next year's edition!

 

Best Music - Star Wars: Battlefront 2. Can't really go wrong with John Williams on the soundtrack.

 

Sleeper Hit - Hunting Simulator. I got it on sale to go with my list for Platinum Difficulty Challenge 2024. At first I thought it was bad, but the more I played the more I kind of liked it. I wouldn't suggest it to a great many people but it's slow-paced and relaxing for the most part.

 

Biggest Bomb - NBA 2k24 PS4. This is really the only game that I actually buy new every year so that I can get both stacks and a bit of in-game currency. Other new releases I will get from library or wait to go on discount. Generally I do not buy any game over 30$ CAD. However, with 2k because I buy the edition with both stacks it is something absurd like 120$ CAD. This year that got me the worst ever MyTeam mode, the same mediocre career, and identical gameplay to last year. Awful!

 

Best Trophy Image - I only looked at my platinums for these next two. Crash Team Rumble. I quite like the image of Crash sitting atop all the trophies, it's a lot better than most of my platinums which are just a thumbnail version of the game logo.

 

Worst Trophy Image - Madden 22. It's the EA Sports logo with absolutely nothing special or interesting added.

 

Female Character - Claire from Resident Evil Revelations 2. I like the game and she has always been my favourite character in the series.

 

Male Character - Bossk from Star Wars Battlefront 2. Was one of my favourite Star Wars characters back when I was more invested in the series, he's fun to play in this game and it's satisfying to dominate with probably the most obscure character in the game.

 

Best plat - Alpha Protocol. I like this game and wish we had both more modern-day/spy RPGs, as well as more RPGs that don't take 50+ hours to finish. The list isn't too demanding, no online, and yet still an ultra rare!

 

Worst plat - NBA 2k24. I've said all I can about this! I enjoyed or was neutral about almost everything else I did this year.

 

Most Anticipated - Silent Hill 2. Probably the most challenging game I have on my radar for the new year.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by VersusCA

[Helyx]

Piece of Cake: Hidden Cats in London (thanks @Leesider)

It's Like Dark Souls: Golem Gates (tough as nails RTS with no guides online)

Badass Award: Hell Warders (I have the fastest completion on EU version)

Grind of the Year: Zombie Army 4 (so. much. DLC.)

Finally Done: Alien Breed 3: Descent (10 years & 10 months)

King of the Internet: World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap (awesome co-op ARPG tower defense)

Worst Online Experience: Aliens: Fireteam Elite (playing with randoms is embarrassing)

Best Music: The Legend of Dragoon (so glad we got a re-release of this RPG)

Sleeper Hit: Ravenous Devils (Sweeney Todd simulator has stacks!)

Biggest Bomb: Horizon Forbidden West (DLC was just as bad as the base game)

Best Trophy Images: TMNT: Cowabunga Collection (best nostalgia collection ever?)

Worst Trophy Images: The Button Be (trophy images are almost as bad as the game)

Best Female Character: Kid (Chrono Cross Radical Dreamers)

Best Male Character: Isaac Clark (Dead Space Remake)

Best Plat of the Year: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (good clean fun)

Wurst Plat Ov Teh Yeer: Stranded Deep (everyone loves a sub 1-minute exploit, except trophy elitists)

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024: Killer Klownz From Outer Space

[Copanele]

Ahh the post that convinced me to fire up my own version of GOTY 3 years ago  would be a shame to not complete it here as well!

 

PIECE OF CAKE AWARD - SONIC THE FIGHTERS

Yes it doesn't have a plat, but even with one, if you ain't paying attention you won't notice when you hit the 100% for this game.

 

IT'S LIKE DARK SOULS - DEAD OR ALIVE 5

This game was NOT like Dark Souls. Dark Souls is fair and pleasant, like a summer trip in a park. This thing was hell  

 

BAD ASS AWARD - BEATING THE ARENA MODE AS ROUNA IN BLADE ARCUS EX

I had many "badass" moments in this year, closest being finally finishing the dumb Tournaments in Street Fighter 6. But ultimately I think the top was managing to beat a 30 levels Survival mode in a Japanese fighting game with a fox maid that is as useless as she is revealing.

Also shoutout to finishing Horizon Forbidden West without falling asleep.

 

GRIND OF THE YEAR - DIABLO II RESURRECTED GRIND FOR LEVEL 99

Platinuming this game took a grand total of 535 hours. At least 450 of them were grinding for that turd of a trophy 😅 

Having to do it on Hardcore (permadeath) mode didn't make the ordeal any easier

 

FINALLY DONE AWARD - OVERWATCH 2

6 years, 4 months and a "conversion" from Overwatch Origins to Overwatch 2. Also a crapton of DLCs added over and over and over again make this game one of the longest games I have continuously completed.
Thank D.Va's mech that the Blizzoids stopped adding DLC trophies on Playstation...

 

KING OF THE INTERNET - STREET FIGHTER 6

This is how you make a proper 2023 fighting game. I had the most fun playing this one online, nothing came close.

Granted, I don't play much online in the first place 😂

 

WORST ONLINE EXPERIENCE - STREET FIGHTER 6

Whoever went for this trophy knows of that message. Oddly enough, Tournament mode alone is the most ass online mode in the entirety of Street Fighter 6. Capcom insisted on having full online fully scheduled slot restricted tournaments...which simply don't work because of the servers overloading. It took an absurd amount of time for the tournaments to finally be ..."stable"...and that's a generous word, since you still randomly disconnect. But this time, Capcom doesn't turn tournaments off for 3 months in a row.

 

BEST MUSIC - METAL HELLSINGER

A rhythm based FPS where you blast demons on the sweet tunes of Stygium, Lacuna Coil or System of a Down. Yeah...I doubt anything could beat that in 2023

 

SLEEPER HIT OF THE YEAR - GHOST OF A TALE

 

This stealth simulator featuring a bard mouse came outta nowhere and steal all my attention (and most of my awards) with its charm. I have no idea where this game came from but I want more!

 

BIGGEST BOMB OF THE YEAR - HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST

I am especially referring to the "shitty AAA with too much hype" here. A boring, bloated, uninspired mess of a game that felt like a complete waste of time once you got tired of shooting the robo megazords. Gameplay was fun but...I did that in Zero Dawn already.

 

BEST TROPHY IMAGE - LEGEND OF THE JUNGLE (TUNCHE)

Out of all the trophies, the platinum for Tunche has the most "YAY YOU DID IT" energy of them all  

 

WORST TROPHY IMAGE - CORWID PUPIL (ZENO CLASH II)

Finishing the tutorial in Zeno Clash II gives you this "beautiful" trophy. And believe me, the image is the prettier than Metamoq himself, the character.

To be fair, the game is intended to be ugly, so...this is like a praise to Zeno Clash world  

 

BEST FEMALE CHARACTER(S) - BRIAR (Soulstice) and ELENA FISHER(Uncharted)

 

This honestly was the hardest category for me to pick. So, instead of thinking which one of them ladies deserve it, I'll say "screw it", both of them deserve the first place.

Briar is one of the most badass female characters in an action Hack&Slash, who would give Guts a run for his money,  and Elena is the one positive constant in any Uncharted game that I played so far (I only played 1, 2, 3), whenever she shows up I know I am going to enjoy Uncharted.

 

BEST MALE CHARACTER - WAR(Darksiders)/TILO(Ghost of a Tale)

Same premise as the "best female character", I simply can't decide. War is a walking mass of destruction and badassness, managing to single handedly backslap Heaven, Hell, corrupt Judges of the universe and the ghost of Mark Hamill. Tilo is a walking mass of stealth, singing skills and adorableness, managing to single handedly solve an island curse, bonk every rat guard in the head with bottles and do parkour like only Prince of Persia could dream of.

Both of them deserve a round of applause.

 

BEST PLAT OF THE YEAR - DIABLO II RESURRECTED

The bulk of the 2023 gaming time went into this platinum and it was by far the best one. 

The most amazing part is that even after the insane grind, I still wasn't bored by this game. Shows how much of a quality game Diablo II was. 

 

WURST PLAT OV TEH YEER - DRAGON BALL RAGING BLAST

In terms of gameplay, requirements and trophies...I have only one thing to say:

 

(fixed it for you @DoctorDrPepper  )

I know...for those who know me, this has become a running gag. THIS YEAR I AM COMPLETING MIRROR'S EDGE! 2021 2022 2023 2024 is the year lads, imma do it!

(whoever mentions Catherine gets reported)

 

Thanks for hosting this in 2023 as well  

 

[Rebourne07]

Piece of Cake: Unpacking Fun and highly recommend

It's Like Dark Souls: Hollow Knight My 10/10 for this year's Platinum Difficulty Challenge

Badass Award: Gran Turismo 7 Conquering those Gold trials was a major sense of accomplishment

Grind of the Year: Final Fantasy XVI Final Fantasy mode was a slogfest

Finally Done: NieR: Automata 4 Years, 4 Months

King of the Internet: Doom Eternal Battle Mode wasn't great, but the only true dedicated online multiplayer I did this year

Worst Online Experience: Mortal Kombat 1 A letdown compared to 9 and X, a small step up from 11

Best Music: Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Beautiful remastered soundtrack

Sleeper Hit: A Plague Tale: Requiem These games deserve Last of Us level praise and sales

Biggest Bomb: Mortal Kombat 1 Not terrible, but definitely disappointing

Best Trophy Images: Mortal Kombat 1 I really like the full screenshot trophy images

Worst Trophy Images: Gran Turismo 7 Sony exclusives should not be allowed to have barebones bronze, silver, gold icons like this

Best Female Character: Amecia (A Plague Tale: Requiem)

Best Male Character: Isaac Clark (Dead Space Remake)

Best Plat of the Year: Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin Always fun to platinum a FromSoft game

Wurst Plat Ov Teh Yeer: Final Fantasy XVI Legitimately not fun

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024: Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta

[MAUSZX]

Piece of Cake Award -  An EZPZ game but not a bad one at that.

 

It's Like Dark Souls Award - GOW Ragnarok, is not super hard, but there is a Valkyrie and a King that are really really hard.

 

Badass Award - Rumbleverse, getting all the trophies with no boosting at all. Did try and opened boosting sessions without success tho lol, but finally I did it.

 

Grind of the Year - having to play a second run just to get the full dark Alliance felt a little bit more tedious.

 

Finally Done Award - Well according to PSN and the Wrapup it was Graveyard keeper before december, because in december it seems I played this one more.

 

 

King of the Internet -  I been getting into this game so much that even tiktok recommeds me DbD streams.

 

Worst Online Experience - It wasn't bad, actually the game was good, but of course it needed improvement and balance, but it died before those patches so this will be the worst.

 

Best Music - I swear if you search for this game on youtube the first or second autocomplete stuff is the OST.

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year -  Tried it on PSplus extra, the game was removed so I bought it because I wanted to keep playing, did all the dlc and all.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year -  I didn't play a lot of bad games, but I guess the biggest $ bad game is probably Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Earthblood

 

Best Trophy Image - As a TMNT fan I had to pick any of the trophies from TMNT Shredder revenge. They are some pixel beauties.

 

 

Worst Trophy Image - Oh I have this one and worst of all is on my Milestones 😪Take a look at this Bambi princess nonsense.

 

Best Female Character -  Ellie from the Last of Us.

 

Best Male Character - Kratos GOW Ragnarok.

 

Best Plat of the Year -  Looking back even tho this game was not the best and it failed delivering to its potential. Man I had a lot of fun getting the trophies. One of if not my favourite genre did help tho.

 

Worst Plat of the Year -  Worst game, easy plat, I really bought this thinking it was going to be decent, man I should have done more research, probably the worst walking sim ever.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024 - Got it as a gift, I have been avoiding almost any information of this because I like to play games as blind as I can.

[disaster500]

Piece of Cake: Tales from the Borderlands. Telltale game, easy pick here. It is a good game though.

 

It's Like Dark Souls: DOOM 2. Beating MAP 29 on Co-op Nightmare difficulty is ridiculous. That took me 8 hours alone, and I probably got very lucky.

 

Bad Ass: DOOM Eternal. It's not hard, but beating the first Slayer Gate was when everything clicked for me. DOOM Eternal makes you feel like you're a god gamer.

 

Grind of the Year: Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition. I did a grand total of 8 playthroughs, 7 being different difficulties, and the last being a Vergil playthrough.

 

Finally Done: The Escapists. I got the plat in 7 years, 4 months. Good game though, very glad I came back for the plat (and the rest of the series too).

 

King of the Internet: Minecraft, I played it in online co-op with my brother. Minecraft's fun, self-explanatory.

 

Worst Online Experience: Worms W.M.D, one trophy bugged and I had to play like 80-90 online games to get a trophy for 50 games played. Thankfully my boosting partner was super kind, and was willing to stay and play the extra games until it popped.

 

Best Music: Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition. The 4 playable characters each have their own dynamic song which increases in intensity depending on your Style rank. This works so well with the fast-paced action DMC5 has.

 

Sleeper Hit: Tales from the Borderlands. Wasn't expecting much as I'm a gameplay > story guy, but I really enjoyed it.

 

Biggest Bomb: Just Cause 4? I still enjoyed this, as I'm quite good at picking games I'll like, but it was clearly below Just Cause 3 in many ways.

 

Best Trophy Image: The Outer Worlds. I don't know why, I just really like this one.

 

Worst Trophy Image: Ghostrunner. The image itself is fine, but it's not centred properly so it looks wrong.

 

Best Female Character: Julianna from Deathloop. You only play as her for the online part (2 trophies), but her interactions with Colt in the story are great. She's a great antagonist.

 

Best Male Character: Dante from Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition. If you've played the game, self-explanatory. Nero and Vergil were top-tier too.

 

Best Plat of the Year: Dishonored 2. One of my favourite series of all time, and the plat requires several playthroughs with different playstyles. The game's so damn replayable this kind of list is perfect.

 

Worst Plat of the Year: RAGE 2. I had 19 hours of gameplay, and over 4 hours of those (20% of total) was finding Spy Drones. These are untracked collectibles that spawn in one of three RNG locations, that fly away when you look at them. If you don't kill it in time, it'll fly away and you have to find it again. The rest of the plat was enjoyable. Like with Biggest Bomb, this isn't too bad as I'm good at picking games I'll like.

 

Most Anticipated Plat of 2024: Hollow Knight: Silksong, assuming it comes out in 2024.

[HaserPL]

Piece of Cake Award - Life is Strange: True Colors. Finish the game, here's your plat. And I really liked it too, so it's not even a badge of dishonor in this case.

 

It's Like Dark Souls Award - NFS 2015 Prestige DLC was the hardest thing I have ever done in a racing game. Anyone who tried or did Gold Medals will know what I am talking about. At least all the practice made me really good at the game which leads us too...

 

Badass Award - NFS 2015. After spending nearly 100 hours learning all the routes and most efficient ways of getting through every race, I was able to do almost all events in one take while streaming. I will never delete this from my channel, and I will treat it as a pat on my back whenever I feel like I need some motivation for the trophies.

 

Grind of the Year - Payday 2 on PS4. I still haven't finished it, but it took me 180 hours just to finish every trophy and reach Infamy 5 (it is like Prestige in CoD), and I still have 19 more prestige ranks to go. Yeah, it gets a bit faster with higher Infamy ranks, but still a painful grind, especially on the consoles which lacks a good game mode for grinding exp.

 

Finally Done Award - Driveclub. Took me 8 years to finally sit down and finish every DLC, but it was not too bad.

 

King of the Internet - The Last Of Us Remastered. Factions is awesome and I hope it will stay alive as long as I have the health to play video games.

 

Worst Online Experience - Payday 2 on PS3 is so broken that I nearly gave up on the game due to glitches and bugs. It was truly a painful experience, but luckily I had great company.

 

Best Music - Oxto, not a PS game but something I played through recently and I have the OST on Spotify nearly every day.

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year - Dead Island 2. After so many delays and all the changing of the development team a few times I thought the game would turn out a disaster, but it was one of the very few sandbox games I had a blast playing through. One of the extremely rare cases where I replayed a game after getting the plat, so fun it was for me.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year - God of War. I am a fan of PS3 GoW games and this just wasn't for me. Good game, but a huge disappointment for me.

 

 

Best Trophy Image -  Sifu has one of the most aesthetically pleasing trophy images I have seen in a long time.

 

 

Worst Trophy Image - Detroit Become Human on the other hand... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Female Character - Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy. She felt much more fleshed out than her MCU version, and the VA did a fantastic job.

 

Best Male Character - Joel Miller from The Last Of Us Part 1. Enough said.

 

Best Plat of the Year - The Last Of Us Part 1. 

 

Worst Plat of the Year - CarX Drift Online.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024 - We'll see.

[Beyondthegrave07]

Piece of Cake Award -

 

 

Pinball Heroes. It only took about an hour and a half and with the rewind features, this really is just play the game, rewind if you suck. I played a lot of easier games this year from the PS classic catalog, but this definitely takes the cake... or piece of cake in this case.

 

It's Like Dark Souls Award - 

 

MITSURUGI KAMUI HIKAE definitely gets this hands down. It's very much like an indie, arcade version of DMC and inferno mode where you can't get hit or you lose made this definitely a fun, challenging plat. Gold knights in particular are just so aggressive at times which made killing 15 in a row in groups of 3 really challenging. I got to 13 and 14th once and didn't clutch it out. Felt so sweet to finally get this one done before it leaves Extra.

 

Badass Award - 

 

As much as I want to use Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae again, I'm going to go a different route. Getting through the Dark Cave without the power of sight goes as my badass Award. It's essentially doing a difficult platforming section in the game without being able to see where you are going. I  was SWEATING BULLETS when I got towards the end of it and jumped for joy after completing it. Definitely made me feel like Daredevil completing it, haha.

 

Grind of the Year - 

 

Danganropa V3: Killing Harmony gets the nod for biggest grind. You essentially have to play the main story twice and play the board game side stuff 50+ times. Not to mention the money grind and the grind to get all bonds up to max makes this skyrocket to a 100 hour+ plat where most of it is pure tedium. 

 

Finally Done Award - 

 

Yakuza like a Dragon wins this award. I started the game in 2022 and was able to finish off the job in 2023. The Millennium Tower was no joke; the enemies there are straight up nasty. I took a little extra time leveling several jobs to make it easier, and honestly, I'm glad I did.

 

King of the Internet - 

 

Melty Blood Type Lumina is my type of online experience when it comes to trophies. Simply try it out. Absolute perfection. Not intrusive and easy to do. Wish every anime fighter was like this... (cough cough, Blazblue, cough cough)

 

Worst Online Experience - 

 

Note that I actually didn't get the plat for this, but I attempted a few times to try and do some online trophies and had zero luck and had zero fun playing through that glitch festival in pvp. 

 

Best Music - 

 

HEARTBEAT, HEARTBREAK, IT KEEPS ON POUNDING. HEARTBEAT, HEARTBREAK, YOU TELL ME GOODBYE! 🎶

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year - 

This is hands down one of the best stories I've ever been told in a video game, VN, TV show, manga, movie, etc. Holy shit, it was so good. It's criminal that this game doesn't have 1,000s as owners on this site, despite being an easy plat. The game tells the tragic stories of 3 characters from 3 different eras and all comes together in the final 2 stories. It's amazing how it all comes together in the end and was well worth it in the end! Not to mention this game comes with a prequel story which was just as good. I think if you are going through a rough time, buy this game. It's a story of tragedy and triumph and was a very inspiring read. Can't recommend enough!

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year - 

Fallout New Vegas. So many people praise this game, but the glitches in this are absurdly bad and made this MISERABLE to plat. I kind of wanted to put this under finally finished, but no, this definitely deserves to be the bomb of the year. The amount of freezes I had made me wonder why I came back to it. Lmao.

 

Best Trophy Image -

 

All the images are fucking gorgeous for Bloodstained RoTN, but the plat really takes the cake. The entire game was clearly made with a lot of love and passion, and I'm glad the trophy images got that exact same love. This should be the standard. 10/10 on the images.

 

Worst Trophy Image - 

 

All the trophy images are pretty lame for this. Just characters or items from the game, all black and white. I guess they aren't horrible, but let's not act like these are great...

 

Best Female Character - 

 

There was a lot of people I could choose such as Shionne, Maki-roll, Kaede, Gwendolyn, etc. However, no one saved my ass as much as Linca carried me through my first playthrough in Atelier: Escha and Logy. I was so incompetent in making items on my first playthrough, but luckily Linca was just a killing machine. Definitely need to give her the respect she deserves.

 

Best Male Character - 

 

"You are not an object." It's the best quote from Odin Sphere, and although, a lot of people don't like him as a character. I think his two sides make him an interesting, dynamic character. All the characters in Odin Sphere were well-written. 

 

Best Plat of the Year - 

 

P4G is probably my favorite game of the year, but most enjoyable platinum has to be Tales of Arise. They really revamped the combat in this one and has to be one of, if not the best action RPG I've ever played. The story is awesome, the cutscenes,  UI, etc are all top-tiered, and the trophy list was a tad grindy, but very fair for an RPG. As a whole, it's some of the most fun I've ever had trophy hunting in a game. Same for P4G as well.

 

Worst Plat of the Year - 

 

See biggest Bomb of the year.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024 - 

 

 

Must I say more? Already started it and having a blast. Looking forward to playing it every time I boot up the PS4...

[ShadowSkill]

Piece of Cake: My Friend Peppa Pig. A game for kids, I wondering why those pigs always rolling on floor laughing lol.

 

It's Like Dark Souls: Gran Turismo Sport. Server is going to close and have to win 91 races online in 3months. Hardcore and dirty players are still around. Sport is my first GT game, the circuit experiences are quite hard for me. 

 

Badass Award: Moving Out 2. Played with my sister and almost got all stages gold stars pro time on first try. Feel like we can move everything.

 

Grind of the Year: Dreams Universe. For the level 30 grind...z, at least left my PS4 afk for 30hours. I dont really like to play games people made for exp there, its not because they are bad, just lots are FPS games I cant play.

 

Finally Done Award: Demon Gaze II. 6 years, 6 months. Replayed from the start at least 3 times cause I always left it for so long and forgot the story.

 

King of the Internet: Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. Still playing it and almost 10000hours. Hardcored and New players still all around and the game can keep playing before new MHW comes out on 2025!

 

Worst Online Experience: Monster Hunter Rise.  I knew this is a NS game, the Hub like old mh games which only allowed 4 players there, this is the worst thing I cant play with all MHW guide mates together. Pick up group setting is also sucks, It wont show who in the quest before join. if someone left the quest they wont stuck the place so everyone can just come in and replace anytime, means you can get in a almost done quest easy for free loot like free riders...just played for 27hours and quited.

 

Best Music: Sayonara Wild Hearts

 

Sleeper Hit: The Forgotten City. Got it from PS Extra, a hidden gem.  Few FPS game I can finished, good philosophy story and let you think a lots.

 

Biggest Bomb: Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator. its a good game but with lots of bug.  Lots of player lost their hundred hours saves broken and cant recovered. I preordered this day one, a 50bucks indie game. The dev and debug team are terrible and working damn slow. They dont even tested the game and launched then just only force on fixing the PC version. Almost a year now they just giving 3 patches for console players to just fixed some minor bug. Stay away from Nacon Games I heard their games are buggy and they dont care to fix them. 

 

Best Trophy Images: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

 

Worst Trophy Images: The Artful Escape

 

Best Female Character: Resident Evil 4 Ada Wong

 

Best Male Character: Sea of Stars Garl

 

Best Plat of the Year: Sea of Stars

 

Wurst Plat Ov Teh Yeer: Haven. I was thinking to give it to Hogwarts Legacy but this game is more worst and very boring. Every places are like copy and paste. What you play is eat, sleep, clean, watching this couple talking craps recycle everyday. Played it on PS Extra and like wasted time.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024: Unicorn Overlord

 

[DrBloodmoney]

Ah, that time of Year again, where I am reminded of all the award categories I don't have in my own checklist, and think "I should really steal that category" 😆

 

 

 

 

Piece of Cake Award

 

Arcade Archives: Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 Plus

 

Winning both the Piece of Cake Award, and the "Most Preposterously Titled Game" Award in a single swoop - TtATGM2+ is actually a cool release of a largely forgotton arcade version of one of the best games of all time....

... and features one of the most brutally difficult challenges that has ever graced the sacred terominos...

...but like almost all Arcade Archives games, the actual trophies are a piece of cake!

 

 

 

 

 

It's Like Dark Souls Award

 

Tetris Effect

 

Took me the better part of 3 years, and something like 400 hours to plat, including a hell of a lot of pure practice for that one particular challenge (SS Rank on Tetris Sprint) but finally got that shiny plat this year, so has to take this spot!

 

 

 

 

 

Badass Award

 

Tetris Effect

 

Beating Sprint Mode with less than a second to spare!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grind of the Year

Fights in Tight Spaces

 

Brilliant game, but the grind to Lv30 is truly unholy - took about 20 hours to get to level 20, and about another 180 to go up the last 10 levels!

 

 

 

 

 

Finally Done Award 

Dante's Inferno

 

An absoulte abortion of a game - a dull, repetetive, blindingly shite GoW clone of the worst kind... made all the more of a pisser by the crappy Trials DLC.

The looming spectre of a shutdown, and a good buddy wanting to get this one completed finally gave me the push to get it done though...

...only about 13 YEARS after initially platinuming the game in like a day and a half!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

King of the Internet 

Tetris Effect

 

Tetris Effect again - there's not a single trophy associated with the excellent Multiplayer Modes...

...but that hasn't stopped me sinking over 180 hours into it this year alone, and so this can be the only possible winner!

 

It plays like a dream, is always populated, I suck at it... and I love it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worst Online Experience 

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2

 

The game that taught me that some folks simply WILL NOT READ in the "sessions" section of this site, no matter how clear you make it! 😆

 

All I wanted was to play some fun games of Puyo Puyo Tetris... but since the servers were a ghost town, I created a session. 

Not a "Boosting" session, a "Competetive" Session.

I didn't want to "boost". 

I didn't want wins handed to me, and I didn't want to give wins away... I just wanted a partner to play with properly!

The session made that VERY clear...

 

Someone joined, and I was elated...

...and they immediately began not even bothering to play, and just throwing thier games...

...then got pissy when I didn't do the same.

 

Eventually, I was forced to simply capitulate.

 

Could have been a fun evening, and instead, they decided a better use of thier time was to sap all the fun out of the game, and just soullessly tick off trophy requirements.

 

It sucked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Music

Hardspace: Shipbreaker

 

One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard, hands down - an amazing blend of southern gothic and country rock twang, that works in-game, and on its own!

 

Don't take my word for it though:

 

...see?

 

 

 

 

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year 

NORCO

 

I knew virtually nothing about this one - but that didn't stop it becoming one of my favorite games of all time, and easily one of the best written games I've played!

 

You've not heard anthing about it either, I bet...

...so do yourself a favour, and have the same level of surprise I had!

It's worth it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year

Far Cry 6

 

I played a few bad games this year, but most I wouldn’t call a "bomb", as they were smaller games with less expectation...

...but Far Cry 6 was a gargantuan failure, from a pretty massive franchise, and with a pretty massive budget!

 

A boring, soulless husk of a once great franchise, reduced to a pitiful thing, whose only purpose seems to be the game's own writers making fun of themselves and the game they worked on for its own lack of ambition and stultifying ineptitude.

 

 

 

 

 

Best Trophy Images

 

Fights in Tight Spaces

 

A great looking set of images in this one, following the excellent, unusual art-style of the game itself!

 

A few samples of great ones:

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worst Trophy Images

Twelve Minutes

 

A game with some positive elements among its (numerous) negative ones...

...but the trophy images are certainly not a positive factor!

 

Behold, the dullness:

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Female Character

Amecia de Rune - A Plague Tale: Requiem

 

She's likeable but not cloying, personable but not gullible, smart and cunning but not conniving, a good sister, a bad-ass, and a believable character with real and well crafted vulnerabilities, motivations, emotional and moral compass, and sense of duty.

 

 

Best Male Character

Ahti the Janitor - Alan Wake II

 

Is he a man?

Is he a God?

Is he a Building? 

Is he, himself, an Object of Power? or even an Altered World Event?

 

... I don't know...

...but is he fucking awesome?

 

Yes. 

Yes he is!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Plat of the Year

Viewfinder

 

A brilliant list of trophies, that are super fun to hunt, nothing insane or boring or grindy, and even a few clever clues thrown into the list itself - this one is pure joy to go for the platinum, from start to finish!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worst Plat of the Year 

Golf Club Wasteland

 

A fine enough list - made a total pain in the tits by the one "Iron Man Mode" trophy, which is a laborious, dull, tedious affair, with no place in this game, and which is totally antithetical to the enjoyment of the rest of the game!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024

Cities Skylines 2

 

Hopefully this one will actually release on PS5 this year, because it's easily my most anticipated game, and I was rather dissapointed when the console releases were postponed!

 

Fingers crossed!

Edited December 29, 2023 by DrBloodmoney

[Breakingthegreen]

I did my first one of these last year, and I enjoyed it, let's do it again.

 

Piece of Cake

Stranded Deep - Most people had this through PS Plus at some point (whether it was the current PSPlus Extra or Essential from a while ago.) For a while, there was a glitch that caused this platinum to be autopopped if you joined someone who had the platinum, and my disinterest turned into joy as I earned this Platinum in 16 seconds. Watching the mass boosting session was lovely to see.

 

 It's Like Dark Souls

Speaking Simulator - I didn't play any games I found that hard over the year again, but this was a game I gave up on last year and I eventually beat it this year...  I guess this is what I'm going with. It's a frustrating rage game that demands perfection from a system that constantly effs you over and I don't recommend it.

 

Badass Award

I was a Teenage Exocolonist - I wrote a guide for it! It's not the first guide that I've written, but it's by far the most in depth and also it's the first time written a guide whilst playing the game at the same time. It made the process much more fun and I'm very proud of the final product. 

 

Grind of the Year

Rumbleverse - It was between this and Crash Team Rumble, but I had to play both the PS4 and PS5 version entirely to get all the trophies. The break 100 blocks trophy was the deal breaker, if I was able to join my friend it would have been easy... this was not possible and everything was achieved legit.

 

Finally Done Award

Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves - The Pre-LBP2 Move and Co-op pack that has a completion time of 12 years and 6 months. I only got round to this because of of the 2023 Cancer Charity event, and it was fun, but one of the challenges made me and my brother go a little stir.

 

King of the Internet

Humanity - So many usermade levels, It's just too much fun to resist!

 

Worst Online Experience

Side Bullet - To the person who asked to be mutual boosting buddies, thank you for making this plat possible... also eff you for making this plat possible. This game was delisted within 3 weeks, and the server went down before 2 months. At least it's free. When I played it, there were basically only bots and a trophy that involves getting 2 kills in one was therefore near impossible.

 

Best Music Award

Synth Riders DLC - Lindsey Stirling - Is this cheating... Yes, but Lindsey Stirling is literally one of 2 concerts I've been to... Let me have this (not my vid).

 

 

Sayonara Wild Hearts - This game is (much like last years winner) a album that is presented as a game, it's great and I do listen to the soundtrack more than I care to admit.

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year

Inescapable - I'm playing this game right now and it's only got 67 players. I don't think it's gonna be my game of the year or anything, but I'm very engaged so far and the fact it's being ignored is a crime

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie - Similarly, Harmony only has a total of 77 players. Both of these are very engrossing visual novels with big ideas.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year

 Freddie Spaghetti 2 - Rage games can be fun, but they have to be frustrating. Freddie Spaghetti 1 was somewhat fun and managed to fulfil these humble goals. Why is the sequel a direct parody of the Office? It's not hard, it's not funny, it's got very little variety. The original wasn't high art or anything, but it was far better than this.

 

Best Trophy Image

Moss Book II - Oh my god! Quill is so cute! I think I'm gonna die!

 

Worst Trophy Image

Freddie Spaghetti 2 - Hey the lazy sequel had a lazy trophy image, this is literally the first game's platinum image, bit with that ugly little "2"

 

Best Female Character

Killer Frequency: Peggy Weaver - Your companion character in Killer Frequency, she is the beating heart of the game that effectively makes you want to play the game well since you don't want to disappoint her because she's just so likeable and warm. If you played Firewatch, then I'd say that Peggy is basically Delilah but with a more active role.

 

Best Male Character

 

Thirsty Suitors: Arvind (Jala's Father) - This picture alone says why I love this character, he's a rock, but during the cooking minigame you learn a lot about his backstory and he's got a hell of a backstory with multiple layers of regret and hidden depths.

 

Plat of the Year

Inscrytion - I rest that the Spider-Man games have designed their games to be the most fun to platinum as possible... So let that teach you how much I enjoyed completing Inscrytion, I rarely play multiple stacks of a game within a matter of months, but I did with Inscrytion, and I'm at the point I think I could complete the game as a competive Kaycee's Mod player.

 

Worst Plat of the Year

Halloween Puzzle - I don't know why this exists... and it required me to write down a lot of paper notes to do a tile matching game. I guess it's free, but I don't really care about it in the slightest.

 

Most Anticipated Game of 2024

Persona 3 Reload - There is no perfect version of Persona 3, Portable has better gameplay but worse presentation, FES has worse gameplay and better presentation. Reload seems to combine them (shame that FeMC won't be joining in)

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by Breakingthegreen

[Xylobe]

Piece of Cake

I have a few options for this award this year, but I decided on this idle/VN hybrid from npckc that I really enjoyed!

 

It's Like Dark Souls / Finally Done

This is the famously broken PS3 version, clocking in at over 10 years! If you go back to March on my forum profile, you'll find that I actually was pleading in the status updates, quite vocally, for sweet release from the 15th colossus' hard time attack.

 

Bad Ass

The entire game is a nonstop barrage of badass setpieces; the end of "Parallel Universes" sticks out as a particular highlight!

 

Grind of the Year

You'd think Monster Hunter Rise  would be a shoe-in for this award - especially with its Sunbreak expansion - but the arcane contrivances of Tales of Zestiria's equipment system feel less like deliberate game mechanics and more like magical thinking OCD.

 

King of the Internet

Monster Hunter Rise is, however, a shoe-in for this award, by virtue of being one of the only online games I put any time into this year.

 

Worst Online Experience

This one's a bit of a stretch, since I'd done all of the actually online trophies years ago, but it's the closest I have to an answer. Finishing this game's last trophy - currently my only one with sub-1% rarity - involves upwards of 10 hours of button mashing through trivia while doing other things. I'm lucky I didn't get an RSI.

 

Best Music

It's a tough call between this and Sayonara Wild Hearts, but 'This Devastation' really is a killer track!

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year

I ordered the limited-print physical of this game last year, since the "translation-based puzzle adventure" hook appealed to me, but I didn't expect to love it as much as I did! Fewer than 500 owners across both of its stacks while nearing its 5th anniversary is a travesty.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year

I absolutely adored the original Supraland when I played it last year, and was super excited to see the followup finally get ported to console. It's not the worst game I played this year by any means - it's actually quite good! - but it is the biggest technical disaster I've seen on console in a long time (maybe ever?). The save corruption issues are so severe that if anything goes wrong - actors not spawning, cutscenes not triggering, and so on, which will happen - you're starting the entire thing over from scratch, which is absolutely hellish for a secret-heavy metroidvania. Trying to keep track of what areas I had available and which collectibles I'd gotten on my fourth or fifth attempt at completing it was a nightmare. At least the PS5 version's trophies are all theoretically obtainable, which is more than can be said for the PS4 port.

 

Best Trophy Image

I got some great-looking plats this year, but Heaven's Vault's has to be my favorite. Most, but unfortunately not all, of its trophies are descriptions in the game's hieroglyphic script, which is an excellent touch. The platinum translates to "everything."

 

Worst Trophy Image

The plat for Between Time: Escape Room, which uses the same (very ugly) image as the trophy list itself.

 

Best Female Character(s)

 

Nova from Anodyne 2: Return to Dust and Raya from A Space for the Unbound.

 

Best Male Character(s)

 

Conway from Kentucky Route Zero and Claude C. Kenny from Star Ocean: The Second Story R.

 

Best Plat of the Year

A fantastic JRPG with a trophy list that encourages seeing everything the game has to offer without dozens of missables or lengthy grinds! They said it couldn't be done!

 

Worst Plat of the Year

The best thing about Ratalaika is that they get some great games ported to console that would otherwise never be. The worst thing about them is that, in most of those cases, they insist upon giving said games shit trophy lists that hand over the plat 15% of the way through the game. I'm sure that Garlic will be taking home this award next year for the exact same reason.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024

200-hour VR jigsaw puzzle grind

200-hour VR jigsaw puzzle grind

200-hour VR jigsaw puzzle grind

we stan

[reaperveteran86]

Piece of Cake: Gun Crazy. Ratalaika game, bought it cheao in a sale and got the platinum in a bit more than 10 minutes.

 

It`s like Dark Souls: The DioField Chronicles. Not the main game but the free DLC. An enormous jump in difficulty compared to the main game (especially the last mission).

 

Bad Ass: Not really a bad ass moment, but I finally got over 50% completion, which felt really good.

 

Grind of the Year: Accel World vs. Sword Art Online: Millenium Twilight. Over 120 hours playtime and only 30-40 hours of that was story. The rest was grinding for different things like titles, levels, blacksmith materials and money. Which means, fighting a 1 min. boss fight for a big chunk of the 80-90 hours grinding time.

 

Finally Done: Accel World vs. Sword Art Online: Millenium Twilight - again. 5 years and seven months.

 

King of the Internet: I used a free PSplus weekend to finally get the online trophies in Rogue Trooper: Redux and get the platinum that way (got all the other trophies in that game 2018/19) and some random player joined my game to make a horde defense mode trophy much easier for me.

 

Worst Online Experience: I don`t play online (except on free PSplus weekends to mop up a few online trophies).

 

Best Music: Signalis. I hear tracks like Die Toteninsel (Emptiness) even today to relax or at work.

 

Sleeper Hit: Succubus. The game gets a lot of hate for being from the same developers as Agony and a censorship similar to JAVs, but in my opininion the game is a fun and fast paced first person hack `n slash that is unapologetically edgy.

 

Biggest Bomb: Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden. Not a bad game but no comparsion to the first one (The Isle Dragon Roars).

 

Best Trophy Image: Capcom Fighting Collection. Every trophy image is a piece out of the artwork gallery of the game.

 

Worst Trophy Image: Front Mission 1st. I can`t really explain why, but something about the colors in the trophy images for this game is visually unpleasant to me.

 

Best Female Character: Elster from Signalis The shit, she goes through to find her co pilot and to remember a promise (can`t write more due to spoilers).

 

Best Male Character: Beyond the Grave from Gungrave G.O.R.E. A 2m. undead, clad in leather, with a cowboy hat, 2 pistols with unlimited ammo and a coffin full of different explosives originally designed by Yasuhiro Nightow of Trigun fame. Not the most characterly deep protagonist I played at this year, but definitely the coolest.

 

Best Plat of the Year: Ender Lilies . Quietus of the Knights. Metroidvania with beautiful artstyle and soundtrack. The story was good and the map had a lot of secrets to discover. The platinum itself was challenging at times but in a motivational and not in a soul crushing sense.

 

Worst Plat of the Year: Handball 16. I felt physically ill playing this game.

 

Most Anticipated Plat of 2024: Suikoden 1 and 2 Remaster. I really hope the collection gets a release date soon.

[Leon Castle]

 

Piece of Cake Award - Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Did die a few times but it at least was fun.

 

It's like Dark Souls - Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist Of Dusk DX

Fighting the Golem thing superboss was fine, went the wrong way about fighting the tiger wolf thing(had Linca instead of Keith still won), Goddamn dragon that acts like he's Akuma if he was a dragon man instead of a demonic human and f*** you you damn cheating brid with whale noises. No way in hell I do the Plus/PS Vita version.

 

Bad Ass Award - Fate/Samurai Remnant

A sword clash(well more like sword vs a superhuman fist clash) with a Berserker and win was bloody bad ass.

 

Grind of the Year - Mortal Kombat 1

No plat yet as I'm waiting for the Titan Battle of S3 to show, that Kameo XP grind was no fun, I regret not just doing that boring tower over and over to it was over LV 30 doing S2.

 

Finally Done Award - Dragon Ball: Battle of Z

The last DB game I had left before the Breakers.

Thank the Eternal Dragons it's finally over.

 

King of the Internet - Most fighting games

If there's online Trophies, the online working and not needing to go for the win is a win however...

 

Worst Online Experience - Dragon Ball: Battle of Z

This damn game is hard getting 8 players for the "Team" Trophies, not just finding them but also getting them in the same room.

 

Best Music - Star Rail

 

 

 

Sleeper hit of the Year - Star Rail

Did not think I would end up loving this game so much.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year - see worst plat

 

Best Trophy Image - Blazblue/Resident Evil 2

The best of this year's run.

 

 

Worst Trophy Image - Newer Atelier

Still the worst or boring might be the better word.

 

Best Female Character(s) - Izuna(Blue Archive) and Seele(Star Rail)

 

 

Best Male Character - Leon S. Kennedy(Resident Evil)

 

Best Plat of the Year - Star Rail

It was a semi-auto-pop but I started day one on phone/pc and moved and stayed on PS5.

The plat was easy as there's no clear Spiral Abyss-like mode Forgotten Hall trophy.

Will keep on playing and maybe it finally beats Genshin as my 2024 most played game(or lands in 2nd most played)

 

Wurst Plat ov teh Year - Dragon Ball: Battle of Z

Also my least favorite DB game of all time.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum(s) of 2024

For me it be

2 upcoming, 1 western release and one backlog I'm hellbent on plating before doing the rest of Atelier Dusk and more PS3 backlog games.

 

[ARIXANDRE]

Piece of Cake - Alan Wake 2. Other than the collectibles and the backtracking, straightforward and easy.

 

Dark Souls Award - Demon's Soul Remake. I didn't play as many hard games as usual in 2023, but I finally took the plunge into the remake on PS5. 

 

Bad-Ass Award - Final Fantasy 16's kaiju fights. You can tell all the budget went into those.

 

Grind of the Year - Lost Judgment and DLC, your typical RGG grindfest but we know what we're getting into. Did it for PS4 and PS5.

 

Finally Done -  Demons Souls Remake. Had to get this one out of my backlog. Happy I did. 

 

King of Internet - Battlefield 1 Since BF is dying, I just went back to this 2016 masterpiece. 2000+ hours logged after 100%.  Shoutout to Need For Speed Unbound. 

 

Worst Online Experience - Battlefield 2042 The Hazard Zone trophies are simply the stupidest thing ever.

 

Best Music - Final Fantasy 16. Can't go wrong with those epic orchestral songs.

 

Sleeper Hit - Chorus. This game slipt my radar but it's a blast to play, if you love space ship sims with story driven aspects. 

 

Biggest Bomb - Gotham Knights WB ditched free flow combat for button mashing and live service objectives.

 

Best Trophy Image - Tunic. Simple Link Fox does it for me. 

 

Worst Trophy Image - Hogwarts Legacy Platinum. Lazy design.  Could've been a bronze trophy image and we wouldn't know. 

 

Female Character -  Saga Anderson, Alan Wake 2. To be honest, I wasn't too hot on AW 2 but the characters are great. 

 

Male Character - Alex Casey, from Alan Wake 2. It's just OG Max Payne. RIP, James McCaffrey. 

 

Best plat - Spider Man 2. Can't go wrong with Insomniac platinums. Just fun. 

 

Worst plat - Gotham Knights. I picked my battles this year. This live service game drags the Arkham Legacy into the mud.

 

Most Anticipated - FF VII REBIRTH Don't care about the difficulty. Just inject it in eyeballs. 

 

Happy holidays and a 2024 to all the community. 

Edited December 29, 2023 by ARIXANDRE

[Treilio]

Piece of Cake Award - Pinball Heroes

 

Pretty simple list and currently my fastest platinum trophy at 1 hour and 14 minutes.

 

It's Like Dark Souls Award - Tetris Effect 

 

Hadn't played much Tetris before playing this game. I had platinumed Puyo Puyo Tetris, but that was much simpler compared to this, and I think I might of played some knockoff Tetris game on a web browser like 20+ years ago lol. When I started I was pretty bad, so I would say this platinum is definetly doable even if you have have never played Tetris before. I personally completed it on 1 month and 2 weeks 👍

 

Badass Award - All SS ranks (Tetris Effect)

 

Grind of the Year - 1 000 000 tetrimino rotations (Tetris Effect)

 

After I had gotten every other trophy in the game, I still had to spam the rotate button for 3 more days (I do not have a turbo controller). Fun fact: On the Xbox version of the game this was reduced to 100 000 rotations.

 

Finally Done Award - Killing Floor 2 (5 years 9 months)

 

Killing Floor 3 was finally announced this year and there were no more Christmas dlc trophies this year. Could this be the end?

 

King of the Internet - Crash Team Rumble

 

I think this was basically the only online game I played this year. I did enjoy my time mostly with it. Played around 150 hours and I leveled all the launch characters to max level + Ripper Roo. Never did play season 2 or 3, I wonder if it still has much players left.

 

Worst Online Experience - Crash Team Rumble

 

It had it good moments, but it had it's bad moments too! The game had lots of rage quitting when I was playing and I did get some hate mail too. Worst memory was probably when the game was available to play for free during a weekend and there were a bunch of new players. I was playing alone and my team had only new players, while the other team was a party of max level players. The other team only camped our score bank and didn't even try to score. That was not a fun match 🤕

 

Best Music - Alan Wake

 

Always have liked Poets of the Fall.

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year - Mundaun

 

Currently only 787 owners on Psnprofiles, more people need to play this game. It's a nice little indie horror game with a nice artsyle and a very nice atmosphere. Doesn't have jumpscares and the platinum is pretty simple too. I also always like hearing other languages that aren't English or Japanase in games. The spoken language is Romansh for those interested.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year - Alan Wake

 

This is now a 2nd Remedy game that I have played (1st was Control) and I really wish I would like it more, but I just can't! I would say this game is basically the definition of mediocre for me. It's not bad, but it could be so much better, and I felt the same about Control too.

 

Best Trophy Image - Mundaun

 

Worst Trophy Image - Coconut Dodge Revitalised

Yep all the trophy images are like this.

 

Best Female Character - Tchia (left side)

A very cute and charming protagonist. The game I would say is a mix of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey. You have the stamina system and the climb everywhere from Zelda, and then you have the capture mechanic from Mario, where you can transform to a bunch of different things to be able to move faster. Pro tip: Don't do the same mistake that I did. I tried to complete the starting island during the tutorial, when I hadn't unlocked the transformation mechanic yet. The transformation allows you to move alot faster!

 

Best Male Character - Colt Vahn (Deathloop)

 

The dialogue was my favorite part of this game. Was always looking forward to hearing a new piece of dialogue.

 

Best Plat of the Year - Humanity

 

Lovely puzzle game that I would basically describe as a modern take on Lemmings. It's now one of my favorite games ever and I highly recommend it!

Wurst Plat 100% ov teh Yeer - Chronovolt

 

Pretty much everything about this game is bad. It looks ugly, the game performance is shit and the story even ends on a cliffhanger, where the characters just basically say that they have to wait for the sequel to be able beat the bad guy of the game... the game of course never got a sequel lol.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024 - Dragon's Dogma 2

 

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is one of my favorite games, so I'm pretty excited for this! I have only watched the reveal trailer, and I'm trying to avoid seeing as much of the game as possible before getting to play it. Hopefully it doesn't dissapoint.

[AK-1138]

Piece of Cake Is Lie Comrade Shlaputnik: Flipy, that wonderful sub-one minute opus of complete unoriginality that I chose simply ecause because the trophy icon was wintry, and playing disposable trash at Christmas is what Jesus would have wanted... not all this gold, Frankenstein, and GRRRR hooplah. Insert joke about one handed gameplay and premature ejaculation here.

 

It's Like Dark Souls but Filled with Talking Animals, Giant Keys, and a Level of Writing Quality Roughly Commensurate to that of a Preadolescent Fragile X Baby: Kingdom Hearts III Re:Mind, being its predictably stressful yet doable self, but this time with a language barrier (which made sussing out abilities a veritable hell) and those weird ass Eastern button changes. Hours upon hours of losing and being frustrated by how close they came to replicating the fair and evergreen controlled chaos of KH2. And all just on Beginner difficulty. Even being more tactical about where to drop a Code or two didn't really shift the odds in my favour. With both lists done, I don't see myself ever doing Pro Code challenges ever again.

 

There Is No Such Thing as a Bad Ass, and I'm Not Even an Ass Person, I'd Probably Rank It #9 on My  List of Most Desirable Bodily Assets, Maybe #8 at a Push: Ghost of Tsushima is up there with the best of interactive televisual power fantasies. Whether sneak-stabbing your way through a Mongorian camp, slaughtering mooks in Rage Mode before they can even finish wetting themselves, or challenging enemies to a snickery-snackety standoff, you are never anything less than One Whose Ass Be Bad.

 

I was actually expecting this to go to God of War Ragnarök and good ol' Dados and his usual feats of godlike strength but it rather pleasantly turned out to be a more of a cerebral and pacifistic Ragnarök than expected. That, and I have to dock him some points for decidedly non-badass acts in the OG games. Boy, am I glad I began with the Norse saga... I don't know if I could buy into his attempt at redemption otherwise.

 

Video Game Busywork: The Leading Cause of Teeth Grinding - Yeah, so, Hogwarts Legacy, though I did love it dearly, definitely went overboard with the collectionating, and with inconsistent tracking ability too. The actual magic-fueled gallivanting itself was fun, but repetitive unskippable animations really slowed it down to a chore enjoyable chiefly in brief bursts, and barely passable PS4 optimization did not help either. Hardly the worst I've ever had... I even went the extra mile and completed the whole Collection, and the optional puzzle caves too. But if a choice must be made it's easy.

 

Mischief Managed: After almost three years of heavy duty bidage, I finally decided to call time on Assassin's Creed Valhalla after the final update was announced. I am currently embroiled in a massive tug of war with my muse over the best way to express my wide range of conflicting emotions. Watch this space. Or, uhh, that is to say, the Most Recent Platinum space. Suffice to say, I am glad to be Finally Done, though it didn't have to be that way.

 

(This is the part where I condemn and castigate any Positively Pathetic Pedants who would point out that Mischief is technically not Managed, as I still have the [thankfully largely autopoppy] PS5 stack to contend with, whenever that happens. Boo, and indeed, hiss!)

 

Internet Stannis: Though not an internet gamer guy by any means, I had to reach out to complete Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy... and hey, it was a decently fun time mucking about like in days of yore, even if only for the purely pragmatic purposes of popping a digital achievement doohickey. 

 

Internet Sociopathic Dragon Usurper Whose Inevitable Genocide Anyone With Two Brain Cells Should Have Seen Coming, and We Should All Be Glad She's Dead: So I spent like ten minutes popping the trophy for the tutorial for the online mode of God of War... Ascension, I think? Yep. Left no impression, good or bad. Popped the trophy, GTFOGOW'd. But given I've played, what, four games with online capability this year, it's a ISDUWIGAWTBCSHSCAWSABGSD winner by default.

 

I Think Maybe It's Muuuuuusic... Ja, It's Offenbach! You Stay Offa My Bach and I'll Stay Offa Yo--Okay, I'll Spare You the Spiel, You Humourless Boterhamburger: WILD CARD BITCHES! In a very contrived bid to shoehorn in a mention of my true Game of the Year, notably not a game with trophies or indeed a Sony game at all, the winner is Super Mario Odyssey... an instantly classic bit of business whose stylistic elements embody past, present, and future simultaneously and with ease. And hey, anything that might expose the young ones to musical realms beyond the invariably self-obsessed lack-of-accountability fuck-the-haters pap regurgitated by Generic Manufactured Pop Girl with the Expressive Range of Expired Jackalope Cheese #1,748 always gets some bonus points from me.

 

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!: Haha, you total dweebazoid, you didn't check the card pack thoroughly enough... it's ANOTHER WILD CARD BITCHES! Well, Odyssey surpassed even my lofty expectations by being one of, uhh, the most consistently fun and surprising games, like, fucking ever? Like, seriously? Evoking a feeling as close to time travel as we humans are liable to achieve as ling as Big Oil keeps those patents gathering dust in a vault somewhere. That's something pretty special, right there.

 

I'd like also to give a little shout-out to Super Mario Bros. Wonder for applying this very same approach to an old and worn formula (ironically creating the first Mario game to actually feel "New" in what, fifteen years?) with jaw-dropping levels of success, and never once betraying its roots. If only they could have gone that way with other series that are now soulless husks of what was. Oh well. Find the good things in life and hold fast to them... it's what the guy who used to live in our trash can used to say.

 

The Jay Sherman Award for Achievements in Stinkiness: So Outcast: Second Contact was a clunky hunk of chungus fungus that will cure your nostalgia sickness. Further details may be found elsewhere... but if into my post history you go, only pain will you find.

 

LOOKS LIKE SHIT: Hey, look, man... being a dyed-in-the-wool (I'm not even a sheep) Beacon o' Positivity, I am above leveling criticism at someone's earnest attempt at making art no matter their skill level. I do hereby announce my abstention from engaging in this loathsome and despicable practice. We, as a race, should strive for better.

 

...Uhh, coincidentally, I don't feel like wasting time sifting through my log and potentially reopening wounds in my soul caused by exposure to acrimonious aesthetic abominations. It's funny how life works out like that sometimes, huh?

 

LOOKS LIKE A GOOD: 

 

 

Living Legend (Ghost of Tsushima)

 

See, I can make a non-committal generic paragraph  that says nothing about anything too, if I really try! But you gotta know... sometimes words fail.

 

Superlative X-chromosomal Character: Oh you goshdoggedly pulchritudinous womenfolk never do fail to leave a guy spoiled for choice, now do ya? Whelp, a largely benevolent spirit such as I know always when to spread the love around... so this one goes out to a whole bunch of special ladies in my life such as Freya, Thrúd, Angrboda, Yuna (not that one... for once!), Lady Masako, Princess Daisy (be she elephantine or otherwise), Beffica Winklesnoot, Paula Polestar, Fon, Mavis Dracula, and of course, that slightly deranged but infinitely charming pancake afficionado, Samantha Boole! I love you all in ways as diverse and multifaceted as your hundredfold characterical complexities... and stuff.

 

Superlative Y-chromosomal Character: Atreus. Just... Atreus. I couldn't be more proud of him even were he my own son. In a world full of non-Atreuses (Atrei?), be an Atreus. Or at the very least, I don't know, Clarence Odbody or something.

 

Platinum of the Year: Yep, hate to sound like a broken record here, but Ghost of Tsushima really just plain is all that and more. A beautifully crafted list that sees you doing a bit of everything, and at a very measured pace. Rarely do you see a trophy's grade so perfectly reflect the effort you put into getting it... a bit of a lost art. And, as previously hinted at, the trophy art aesthetic is museum-worthy. The kind of Hunt that reaffirms a man's belief in the practice. What more can one ask for?

 

Shitinum of the Year: Again, I don't want a reputation for being Mr. Negative, so I won't dwell on it... but I would suggest you stay away from titles such as Crash Dummy, Outcast, and Goosebumps: Dead of Night... oh, apropos to nothing, you know how it is.

 

When You're Driving Through the Moonlight on a Highway, When You're Driving Through the Moonlight to a Dance, You're Breathless with a Wild Anticipation for Games and Trophies and Stuff Like That There: As my Reasonably Attainable Big Ass Dream for 2K24 is a PlayStationeth Fiveth, I'm looking forward to some exclusives such as AstroBoy's Playroom, Ratchet & Clank: Holy Lombax Boners, and Spidering Man 2: Arthropodic Boogaloo... hopefully they'll have the James Earl Jones/Tony Todd/Fatz Geronimo/Literally Anybody Else voice replacement pack for Moral Miles ready by that time. I'm also looking forward to replaying those metallic games about solid gears... anyway, it's looking like a really gear year ahead, and I wish you some of the best! May the Hunt never to you be a cun-SKELETON WARRIORS!!!

[Meikoro]

 

Piece of Cake

Quiz Thiz Germany: Bronze Edition - Well lucky i have not played that much EZPZ Games this Year and this was far the easiest. Just press the X button  a few tims and thats it. Funny that the actual Qiuz Question are good, but nobody read it

 

 It's Like Dark Souls

Milli & Greg - You will Die a lot. While its a classic Jump and Run / Puzzle Plattformer, the timing is verry tight in this Game. The Game has a Death Count for you as well.

The Same was it for CELESTE.

 

Badass Award

inFamous - I had only the Good Choise Route left for Platinum. But i still have done somehow bad thing in this Run. Since you not need 100% Hero anyway, except for a trophy one time. Playing as Bad Cole is still better.

 

Grind of the Year

J-Stars Victory VS+ - You need to complete the Main Story 4 Times. And its getting boring after the second time already. Allways the Same Fights and same Dialoges, nothing changes. And its not even short

 

Finally Done Award

Apotheon- I got the Game on PS+ when the newly PS4 has come out and there was not much to play, so i testet it out. It was bugged in the release version and i skip it for 8 Years. Its now playable and surprising good if you like greek mytholgy or God of War.

 

King of the Internet

Samurai Shodown- I have not played manny Online Requeired Games this Year. But had the most fun in this one.

 

Worst Online Experience

Phantom Breaker Omnia - Its just dead Servers when i was trying. The Game itself is ok, it has a lot of Meme's and funny Moments.

 

Best Music Award

Phantom Breaker Omnia- I just like the Ending Song / Credits.

 

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year

Islanders - I was playing it for the Complete every Genre Challenge, but it was surprising good. Had verry fun and its realy relaxing Game.

 

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year

Edna & Harvey: Harvey's New Eyes  - With the closing of our beloved Daedelic thanks to "Golum" (more to missmanagement from the Bosses), it was time to play the classic's from them. While Edna the Breakout was good already, i think the sequel was even better. Poki has do some fantastic Game and Music, esspaccily in its orginal German Dub. .- Du sollst nicht Lügen!

 

Best Trophy Image

Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars - Momentary Rest

 

Worst Trophy Image

STRAY - All Done - Seriously, i was expecting the Cat

 

Best Female Character

Tales of Arise: Rinwell- Your typical Next Door Girl with a typical Trauma and a typical Sidekick. What else i need to say

 

Best Male Character

 

Raging Loop: Haruaki Fusaishi  - This Guy lies. I mean a lot. And thats makes him sympathic.

 

Plat of the Year

 Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition- Well i have not play much Tripple A Games last Year. And this Game got me entertain the most.

 

Worst Plat of the Year

The Silver Age - I only play EZPZ for Events or Challenges, since they not worth the Time otherwise. While there are a good few surprise funny Games, this one is just mining Ores.

 

Most Anticipated Game of 2024

UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH II Sys:Celes January 25, 2024 Release - I realy, realy looking forward to the Story come to a end (hope), i know most Fighting Games have not a deep Story, but i think this one is worth it. Since the original Version on PS3 i was waiting for a sequel...

[Biscoito18]

 

PIECE OF CAKE AWARD: PUZZLE JOURNEY/HALLOWEEN PUZZLE

 

 

I love memory puzzles and these are free. If they keep releasing these games, I'll keep playing them. 

As long as they remain free. 

 

IT'S LIKE DARK SOULS: SONG OF HORROR

 

 

Technically my hardest plat this year. Some sites consider it 6/10, others 7/10. This is definitely the best "Lovecraftian" game I've ever played. Some survival minigames become almost impossible on the highest difficulty (aptly named H. P. Lovecraft).

 

BAD ASS AWARD: COMPLETED ALL MIRROR'S EDGE: CATALYST'S DASHES

 

 

Dashes are the biggest challenges in this game. There are 22 of them and you have to get three stars in all of them. Time is very tight and generally missing a jump or losing half a second in an animation means you've already lost. I thought I would never be able to complete them but then I got addicted to the challenge and when I least expected the Peak Performer trophy (image above), for completing them all, popped up. A cool detail is that it ended up being my 11,000th trophy without me planning it.

 

GRIND OF THE YEAR: MORTAL KOMBAT 1

 

 

It's a good thing that the first season of Invasions mode had a 3v1 fight that gave a lot of XP in a short time, but even so, completing the mastery of 5 kameo characters was a pain and took a few hours repeating the same movements.

 

FINALLY DONE AWARD: THE MEDIUM

 

 

I liked the presentation of this game and the Silent Hill vibe, but the gameplay is so boring that it took me 1 month and 3 weeks to have the patience to complete this plat.

 

KING OF THE INTERNET: MORTAL KOMBAT 11

 

 

I practically don't play online so MK11 is my best online game for the second year in a row since I had to do the 50 versus casual fights again to plat the PS5 version and, again, the online part worked perfectly.

 

WORST ONLINE EXPERIENCE: MORTAL KOMBAT 1

 

 

Ironically, the worst online mode also goes to MK. Mortal Kombat 1 is slowly improving but at launch, the online mode was a bad joke. Completely rushed and missing key elements.

 

BEST MUSIC: PARADISE KILLER

 

 

Great vaporwave songs perfectly matching the great vaporwave atmosphere of the game. The music tracks you collect around the island are the best.

Pure nostalgia for something we haven't even experienced.

 

SLEEPER HIT OF THE YEAR: GRAVEYARD KEEPER

 

 

In a short time I became addicted to improving my little church, selling my vegetable boxes, serving sandwiches and beer at public executions and of course, feeding carrots to the communist donkey. Very underrated game.

 

BIGGEST BOMB OF THE YEAR: LAST DAYS OF LAZARUS

 

 

By far the worst game I've played on PS5 so far. Nothing here makes sense or is entertaining in any way. It really looks like something made by an A.I. that doesn't understand humans. The graphics look decent at first glance until you notice the details, like how the characters don't move their mouths when they talk. The camera tries to hide it but it ends up being worse.

 

BEST TROPHY IMAGE: SONG OF HORROR (BEST TROPHY IMAGE) / LAKE (BEST SET)

 

 

No image captured better the feeling/style of its game like Song of Horror's plat. It's simple but it fits so well with the atmosphere. And the title "The Presence Waits Dreaming", in reference to Lovecraft, is the icing on the cake. Runners-up are Resident Evil 4, Sable and Red Dead Redemption.

Lake's trophy set, stylized as postage stamps, perfectly reflects the style of the game: small, focused and cozy. Runner-up is Haven.

 

WORST TROPHY IMAGE: MORTAL KOMBAT 1 (WORST IMAGE) / THYMESIA (WORST SET)

 

 

Those who unfortunately bought MK1 at launch like me had to spend weeks until the placeholder tiles for the trophies were updated to the real tiles (available since launch for the Xbox versions). And that's ok, they took their time but they did it. The problem is this ridiculous image for platinum. If you don't zoom in, you can't identify what it is. I can think of at least a dozen better screenshots.

I hate it when they use a single image for all the trophies. At least Thymesia changed the colors depending on the type of trophy but even so, it's pure laziness.

 

BEST FEMALE CHARACTER: ADA WONG (RESIDENT EVIL 4)

 

 

Any doubts about the quality of the voice acting in the main game were dismissed in the excellent Separate Ways DLC. Ada has never been more beautiful, deadly and sexy, even wearing a turtleneck. It's always a pleasure to play with Ada.

 

BEST MALE CHARACTER: LEON SCOTT KENNEDY (RESIDENT EVIL 4)

 

 

When looks combine with personality to create a 10/10 protagonist. This new version of Leon is the biggest star of the excellent RE4 remake. A perfect example of a character that women would love to be with and men would love to be him.

 

BEST PLAT OF THE YEAR: RED DEAD REDEMPTION

 

 

It was a long time waiting for a PS4 port of my favorite PS3 game that I couldn't get the plat at the time. This is my 200th plat with great pride.

 

WORST PLAT OF THE YEAR: STRANDED DEEP

 

 

Oh, the shame, the shame. But I couldn't resist. To be fair, the error was with the developers who released a buggy patch. I don't want to do something like that in 2024 but I probably will. 😁

 

 

MOST ANTICIPATED PLATINUM OF 2024: SILENT HILL 2 REMAKE

 

 

The lack of information is worrying, especially when taking into account how Konami has treated the franchise since the end of Team Silent. SH Ascension, released this year, is the WORST production in the franchise. I really hope Bloober Team does a decent job with this remake. Silent Hill deserves a big comeback.

[Duke_Ryle]

 

Piece of Cake - 

 

        

Great game.  Second time through and enjoyed it more this time around.

 

 

It's a Souls-Like -

I didn't complete any terribly difficult games.  Of the games I completed its probably the Stranger of Paradise Wanderer of The Rift DLC.  The floors without extra mode were a pain and required a good amount of planning.  

 

Bad Ass Award-

Sackboy: A Big Adventure - String it Together trophy.  I'm not very good at platformers and have very few on my profile, so I was very happy I was able to complete the Ripsnorter.  It took be 3 1/2 hours and I was soooo happy to get it done.  

 

Grind of the Year-  

 

 

The Quarry.  First platinum of the year for me.  I had two glitches that caused two extra playthroughs.  I did a blind playthrough, a playthrough for clues, a playthrough for tarot cards and the Bloodpact trophy (Bloodpact glitched), then did another playthrough for Bloodpact, then a playthrough for the Nobody's Fool trophy, then CORRUPTED SAVE DATA, then the massacre trophy and multiple cloud save reloads at the end of the game for various other trophies.  I had to sit through that long ass chapter 7 about 6 times.

 

Finally Done - 

 

 

Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara.  10 years, 2 months, 4 weeks.  This is my longest 100% completion this year.  I have longer platinums without 100% this year.

 

King of the Internet-

 

 

Watch Dogs.  I've only played two games with required online trophies so this wins by default.

 

Worst Online Experience-

 

 

Red Dead Redemption.  The other game with required online trophies.  Coordinating Pa-Pa-Pa-Poker is one of the worst things I've ever had to do online.  Stay up late, have trolls screwup a poker game, people dropping off after getting their trophy and not having enough people for the rest of the group.  It has it all.  That was the worst trophy.  There are a few others that were bad.

 

Best Music-

 

 

Guardians of the Galaxy.  Lot of great tunes coming out of Peter Quill's Walkman.  

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year-

 

 

Weird West.  I heard about this game before and was interested, then I kind of forgot about it until it was one of the free games in October.  Really glad I played it.  I had a lot of fun.  Great world building and I enjoyed the main quest quite a bit.  There were definitely some flaws; side quests and exploring optional locations were not great or rewarding, but it was a good game overall and I will probably play the PS4 stack in a couple of years.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year-

 

 

The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me.  My wife and I enjoyed playing most of the Supermassive horror games together this year. 5 games within a 6 month period.  Neither of us liked this one.  It wasn't very interesting, the characters, choices and plot were all so boring.

 

Best Trophy Image-

 

 

Weird West Platinum trophy.  I really like this platinum trophy image.   Although, if this category were for a game instead of one specific trophy I would give it to Dishonored which has excellent trophy images overall.

 

Worst Trophy Image-

 

 

I Am Setsuna.  Bask in the glory of the single trophy image used for all gold, silver and bronze trophies.  Such creativity.

 

Best Female Protagonist-

 

 

Jesse Faden in Control.  One of the best female protagonists I've ever seen in media.  Strong, confident, vulnerable, powerful, and well written.  Too many women written by men turn into shrews but not Jesse.  Also, I love how she isn't entangled in a romantic relationship or defined by her sexuality.  They aren't important to her motivations in the story and I love how it's not even touched on.  Very rare to find that in a female protagonist.

 

Best Male Protagonist-

 

 

John Marston in Red Dead Redemption-  What a character.  Great motivation, character development and humor.  Excellent use of sardonic humor with a great delivery.  Very well written.  I would always pay attention to his dialogue and find most of what he said either interesting or funny.  One of the most  memorable protagonists I've played.

 

Best Platinum of the Year-

 

 

Alan Wake II.  A toss up between Alan Wake II and Control, but Alan Wake II takes the edge.  I had so much fun playing this game.  There were so many weird and interesting aspects to this game, things I will think about and remember for a long time.  I also don't think I will play another game quite like it any time soon.

 

Worst Platinum of the Year-

 

 

Watch Dogs.  I hate this game.  It's a drab open world with drab characters.  Really repetitive and boring missions you have to do almost ad infinitum.  Race from here to here!  Knock out this bad guy!  Outrun the cops!  Tail this person! Replay one of these 4 missions over and over again 100 times in slightly different locations! 

 

My Playstation wrap up had this as the game with the most hours played this year, which makes me sad.  I completed half of it 9 years ago so at least I didn't have to suffer through all of it this year.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024- 

 

Got to be FF7 Rebirth.  I'm planning on playing Crisis Core and the OG FFVII early in 2024 in preparation for it.  Really can't wait.

[TalesofGaming]

Piece of Cake Award: A Building Full of Cats

 

This was a really cute game and I can never say no to more cat games. It only took me about an hour to finish.

 

It's Like Dark Souls: Lies of P

 

Just wanna say, fantastic game! Best Souls-like I've played so far.

 

Bad Ass Award: A Hat in Time

 

The platinum was pretty easy for this game, it was just getting all the Death Wish stamps that was difficult. I was really happy when I managed to get them all! 🥰

 

Grind of the Year: The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie

 

As a JRPG, of course it's going to be grindy. LOL

 

Finally Done Award: Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

 

5 years, 3 months...

 

King of the Internet: Moving Out 2

 

This was really fun to play with my best friend online. 🥰

 

Worst Online Experience: Human Fall Flat

 

The online still doesn't work properly...

 

Best Music: Drakengard 3

 

Keiichi Okabe did some of the music for this game and that man needs no introduction. One of my favorite pieces is the final boss theme.

 

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year: Röki

 

My friend picked this game for me to play and I quite enjoyed it! It was a really cute story.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year: Telling Lies

 

I did not enjoy this game very much. I thought it'd be more like Simulacra but it felt more like watching a movie. 😅

 

Best Trophy Image: Tales of Arise

 

Though I didn't enjoy the DLC very much, the trophy art does not disappoint. 🥰

 

 

Worst Trophy Image: The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie

 

The trophy image is basically the same as the trophy set image. 😅

 

 

Best Female Character: Zero (Drakengard 3)

 

Zero is just too gorgeous. I love her so much.

 

 

Best Male Character: Zenkichi Hasegawa (Persona 5 Strikers)

 

Zenkichi was a nice surprise in this sequel. Loved every minute of him.

 

 

Best Plat of the Year: A Castle Full of Cats

 

I enjoy point-and-click games a lot so this platinum was so relaxing to get through.

 

Wurst Plat ov teh Yeer: Shadow of the Colossus

 

I enjoyed this game but the platinum was annoying. 🙃

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2024: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

 

I'm still working my way through Remake but can't wait to get to this game next year! 😍

Edited December 30, 2023 by TalesofGaming