Most Recent Platinum

[distressedjazz]

#102 
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage

[Revvie]

#271

 

Master of seasons
Unlock all trophies for "Seasons after Fall".

 

Spring is the best season.

[starcrunch061]

Well, here we go again:

 

Plat #450 - My Aunt is a Witch (Vita)

 

 

My Aunt is a Witch Platinum

Good job! Completed all tasks!

 

Well, here we are. This is it. No fooling - this is the worst game I have ever played. 

 

I know, I know. "But what about Orc Slayer?" Nope. Not even close to this. "Well, what about The Unknown City?" Getting closer, but at least you moved around a bit. "But what about Dragon Fin Soup?" Ehh...I didn't play enough of that to judge, though it probably could contend. But this game has it all. Shitty mechanics? Check. Long, pointless story with atrocious localization? Check. Technical potholes even Carl Lewis couldn't leap. Check.

 

Let's start with the good. The single good thing I can say about this game...is that the art isn't offensive. It's hardly stellar, but it's passable. 

 

And now...here we go. First, technical issues. The game runs more poorly than any game I've played, save for Dragon Fin Soup (which crashed 5 times before I even got to the first town). As a VN, you are expected to read text, but it advances terribly slowly. Adding to this, sometimes the images simply vanish. This is usually an indicator that the game is going to crash; in any case, if this happens to you, DO NOT SAVE. (More on that below). Just turn off the machine and start again. There is nothing explaining the controls. That's OK - the control is relatively simple...except that sometimes, it just doesn't work. The first time I played the game, I saw there was an "S" and an "L" on the screen. Simple enough, right? No - neither of the on-screen buttons did anything. I tried to tap them. I tried to move the cursor over them. Nothing. Then, the whole thing crashed. That was my intro to this turd.

 

Why did I say DO NOT SAVE? Well, if this game crashes while you are saving (which happens), it can erase all of your data. It's true - it happened to me twice. This is the reason that a game, which would take maybe an hour to play while rushing through text, took me two months to plat. It's a disaster.

 

Now, let's get to the game. Even if everything was perfect, this game would be lackluster effort. The story follows a bespectacled lad as he learns about his magic heritage from the titular aunt. Pretty original, huh? We learn that his mother was also a witch, though his stepmother is apparently all-encompassing evil, because she dares to require him to observe table manners and clean his room. Seriously. Harry Potter's muggle family was a bunch of jerks. But this kid (whose name I cannot remember - that tells you how forgettable this tale is) has a stepmother who...seems to want to raise a productive member of society.

 

By comparison, the aunt is the worst person in the world. Ostensibly a teacher, she has in fact caused the death of multiple apprentices. But this time? Well, she'll get it right. You meet a cat during the proceedings. Apparently, he was the aunt's boyfriend, but he pissed her off and she turned him into a cat. It's unclear if this is due to infidelity or thievery (or both), but the game apparently thinks that a cat thief is absolutely hilarious. They refer to this over and over and over again. Neptunia is a multi-dimensional character compared to this. 

 

Anyway, I'll get back to the story in a moment, but first, let me say that the localization is terrible. TERRIBLE. I expect that a Russian game on the cheap will be rendered in the universal language of broken English, but this one really pushes the bounds of good taste. Moreover, at some point, the translator gets confused, and the wrong character will say lines. At one point, our Harry Potter wannabe started saying "meow". And while that was a funny mistake, at times, it makes things incredibly confusing. 

 

The game is mostly a VN, but occasionally, you do have point-and-click or QTE activities. The QTE is fine, if simple. But the point-and-click is disastrous. Sometimes, it seems impossible to find the appropriate place to click on an item. At one point, I was trying to click on a teapot. I had to click almost a centimeter above it to get a reaction. But you'll crave these excursions as a break from the pointless text that is delivered (literally) one line at a time. No fooling. Even when a single character is speaking, you get one sentence at a time. 

 

And the icing to top this shit cake? The game isn't even finished. You suffer through this pointless dialogue, and what's the reward? "To see the conclusion, buy the next game in the series!" I find it hard to believe there will be a next game, but are you kidding me? There's like two hours of game here. You're telling me that you couldn't even end the game proper (and yes, you end on a cliffhanger).

 

The trophies are absolute junk. Most of them are easy, but one requires you to play the game twice. It has no effect on the ending whatsoever. There is a single, mundane activity that controls two trophies. The activity happens at the beginning of the game, and the trophy pops at the end. Unbelievable (and as far as I can tell, it can have no effect on later games either).

 

Even for $.99, this game is 100% trash. Avoid at ALL COSTS.

 

Plat #451 - .hack//G.U. Last Recode

 

 

King of the World

Obtain all trophies.

 

People who like the .hack series tend to like the original tetralogy over the later trilogy. I don't know why. GU had much more going on, and despite being only three games, was a longer, fuller experience. Whatever.

 

I enjoyed this game on PS2, and was happy to see it remastered on PS4. Recently, I picked it up at 90% off. It was fun to revisit. This game is exactly as you remember, if you played it back in the day. There are a couple of changes here and there, but nothing drastic. It plays well, though at one point, it caused a hard crash of my PS4. Unfortunate. Still, I enjoyed it, playing through most everything (I even took the time to get every item in the game). There is an added volume 4. Calling this volume 4 is a stretch; it's about two hours long, even if you watch cutscenes (I think you could finish in half that without them). However, it does provide a worthy epilogue to the story (which ended terribly originally). I also liked Haseo's new outfit. He has a 6-pack that extends the length of his upper torso. Badass.

 

Plat #452 - Yakuza: Like a Dragon

 

 

The New Dragon

Obtained all trophies.

 

I was hesitant to try this game for a long time. While I love Yakuza, and I love turn-based RPGs, this game had a lot of fanboy stink on it. Cries of, "Best JRPG ever!" really put me off. I mean - come on.

 

After finishing, I can honestly say that...this might be the best turn-based JRPG I've ever played. I can say without question that, gameplay-wise, this is the game that Dragon Quest XI should have been. Like a Dragon wears its inspiration well. So much of this game is indeed like a Dragon (Quest), even down to small details like the silly theme that's played every time you get a new party member. The class system here is fantastic; the special Essence moves learned within them are worth the price of admission just for their cut scene. I laughed out loud as foreman Kasuga called the workers to meal time, or host Kasuga built a champagne tower that evoked applause from his enemies...and then crashed it on them.

 

The minigames (always excellent in Yakuza) do not disappoint. Karaoke is back, and solid. Darts has changed a bit, for the better. Baseball remains fun. There is also a few vehicle race games. They are solid as well. There is a large minigame where you build a business empire. Quite fun. In short, there are plenty of worthy distractions as well.

 

The story is...hilariously stupid, even for Yakuza. The plot twists are so ridiculous that you'll likely be laughing at serious moments. Battle is great. The enemies take serious inspiration from Dragon Quest. Expect to see enemies dancing jigs...for no particular effect. Another enemy might wind up for a home run swing at you...only to fall over like the trolls in DQ. Thwack is...remarkably deadly here. Thank goodness it doesn't show up often. On your side, there are team attacks, special class-based attacks (as mentioned above), and the like. Battle can be deadly (and it WILL be deadly should you choose to beat the True Final Millennial Tower), and it sometimes is cheap, but it's always fun. Oh, and as you beat enemies, you "collect" them, in a pokemon-like fashion. This gives you bestiary, which is quite fun to read. 

 

Oh yeah, one major negative: load times are unacceptable. I played a physical version of this, which had an install size of 53 GB, and it still took forever to load basic things. 

 

I know that a lot of longtime Yakuza fans were unhappy with this release, due to its different direction, and I respect that. But if you like turn-based RPGs, BUY THIS GAME. Seriously. It's a blast.

Edited September 7, 2021 by starcrunch061

[Viper]

 #246

NASCAR Heat 5

All Trophies

 

This was my first NASCAR game since the PS2 days (I want to say NASCAR Thunder 05 or 06 was the last one i played), back when EA had the license, before they were literal spawns of Satan. Grew up with NASCAR, so used to play the games every year, then just kind of stopped caring. 

 

Overall, I'd say the game was enjoyable. I definitely played it more as an Arcade racer (Easy settings, Easy AI, a few driving assists), but even then if I didn't find those car setups on Youtube, I wouldn't have gotten very far...the default setups in this game are abysmal and trying to win races on them is a skill in it of itself. The game was mostly easy with the setups...I like feeling like a prodigy, just coming onto the scene as a Rookie in every class and just winning every race. 

 

While there's a trophy for completing 10 full careers, you only need to actively play...and win...4 of them, one for each division...Dirt, Trucks, Xfinity Series and Cup Series, after that everything can just be simmed. And overall you need to get 200 wins, which can be time consuming. 

 

The real shit take for this game is that there's quite a few glitched trophies. ALL the trophies pertaining to owning a team glitched on me, if it wasn't for the fact that I had a cloud save from the day before I'm not sure I'd have this Plat right now. And the worst of all completing all 20 Challenges...literally the only out right difficult part of the game. The trophy for completing half of them glitched on me as well, replaying a completed challenge made it pop, so I got lucky there. But there was one challenge in particular...Challenge 11, that nearly made me give up on this Plat, I don't know how many times i attempted it before finally doing it today...rage was at an 11 for sure. 

 

Overall it was cool to revisit a NASCAR game. Apparently there's another coming in October, NASCAR '21: Ignition...might give that one a whirl when it hits a sale. 

[BlinkWinkel]

(post deleted)

Edited June 22, 2022 by BlinkWinkel

[voodoo_eyes]

#560 - Grey Skies

 

 

This is one hell of a terrible game. It is jank, controls are clunky, hitboxes are bad, no options menu for sound, terrible checkpoints, can't skip cutscenes. The worst game I played this year, which I thought for sure In Rays of the Light would walk away with. Not even close, this is absoulte trash, and not worth the 6 bucks I paid for it.

 

Do yourselves a favour, skip this one as well as the other game of the series (Darker Skier), because from what it looks like it's just as bad as this one.

 

 

Enjoyment: 2

Difficulty: 3.5

Edited September 7, 2021 by voodoo_eyes

[rjkclarke]

Platinum #327

Final Fantasy IX (PS4)

 

Heroes of Gaia
Collect all trophies.

 

 

This review has essentially been twenty years in the making – fingers crossed it won’t actually take twenty years to read. A game is a sum of all of its parts though, so I’ll do my utmost to cover as much of it as I can. Twenty years you ask? Unfortunately, yes – I never deliberately avoided this game either, it just sort of passed me by.  I always have wanted to play it, but here in the UK getting hold of a PS1 copy of Final Fantasy IX, certainly where I live at least was always a big problem – at least one for a reasonable price that is. Now that I have played it, I can absolutely understand why it was rare, and why people wouldn’t want to let this absolute treasure out of their sight. It isn’t like I couldn’t have played it until recently either, I’ve owned the digital version on the PS3 since at least 2014 I think, and I’ve had this PS4 version since the day it came out – in fact it’s been installed on my console for that entire time, but it’s taken me until 2021 to actually start it – and now here we are. Somehow I managed to remain pretty much spoiler free for twenty years, so you won’t find any spoilers here. I’ll talk about certain characters and their relationship to one another and things like that – but I’d hate to spoil this game for anyone who has also managed to remain spoiler free all this time. I know I’m not the only one who managed that.

 

I don’t feel like I really need to elaborate on what Final Fantasy IX is - that part seems a little obvious. It does feel slightly different to almost every other Final Fantasy game though. I suppose that’s a holdover from the fact this game is treated as a retrospective look at the series by the developers. In that regard, Final Fantasy IX has an almost nostalgic and celebratory feel to it, in much the same way that the anniversary titles in the Tales of’ series often do.

 I said this same thing when I was writing about Final Fantasy VIII – but they really don’t make them like this anymore. I can’t understate that enough. I don’t think games necessarily should still be like this now either, but modern video games could learn a lot of important lessons from Final Fantasy IX, which hopefully I’ll be able to elaborate further on as I go into greater depth as we go.

 

Of the many, many departments that Final Fantasy IX absolutely excels in. Probably the area it shines the most is the story and the characters. Whilst I’m not specifically going to mention the story, that’s just to keep people from spoilers. It cannot be understated how good the story is in this game. If you haven’t played it before and you eventually do, I’m sure you’ll understand why. In a series that is filled to the brim with articulate and fascinating stories, in my opinion Final Fantasy IX sits absolutely close to the top of the tree. I used to be firmly in the camp of Final Fantasy VIII (yes I did mean to put VIII – that’s not a typo) is the best PS1 era Final Fantasy game. Now that I’ve played Final Fantasy IX, there’s no question in my mind – it is without a doubt this.

 

Another element of Final Fantasy IX, that can’t be ignored – is the incredible amount of life the developers brought to the characters without even the use of voiced dialogue. It’s truly marvellous how much they manage to do with so little. One of the best examples of this is through Vivi – the black mage character. If you’re making a barebones analysis of his character from a distance he’s good hearted, naive and a little timid. These aren’t easy qualities to imbibe without the use of voiced dialogue – yet, in the case of Final Fantasy IX it’s done in such an organic and believable way that you can’t help but be impressed by it. It’s the very small attentions to detail that really make Vivi as a character stand out – and by small, I mean small. Vivi has very slight inflections in his dialogue boxes which really add deeper dimensions to his character, an occasional “b-but” instead of a “but” or just a long sequences of pauses, where you’re made aware he wants to say something, yet doesn’t, they all go a long way. This isn’t exclusive to Vivi, subtle animations, inflections in dialogue and movement amongst the other characters really elevate them without relying on voice acting.  All these tiny attention to details, end up adding a wide variety of depth to the characters as a whole. For me, it really is the small things like that, that make all the difference, there are even subtle changes in Vivi’s animation and the sound design applied to his movement that help differentiate him from other characters. I just can’t help but be impressed by how much effort was injected into this.

 

You didn’t think I was just going to mention Vivi did you? I haven’t forgotten the others; I just think Vivi is one of the best realised characters, in almost every department – due to this it seemed pertinent to focus on him first. Final Fantasy IX’s protagonist Zidane has now become one of my personal favourite protagonists across the entire series, even looking at him from a purely objective point of view, and taking my opinion out of the equation entirely - I still think he’d rank incredibly highly amongst an already stellar roster of protagonists. For me, the thing that sets him apart from other protagonists in the series is that his character is very much set in stone from the outset. Due to this, the other characters are allowed their own time and focus, to overcome their own personal struggles, whilst Zidane supports them – which when you think about it, is almost the inverse of how much of the character interplay in the Final Fantasy games tend to be. It’s usually the members of the party that end up being the support network for the main characters, whereas in this games case, they all depend on him to an incredibly strong degree – which the story does explore as it progresses.

 

Part of the reason that I enjoyed Zidane so much as a character, I think – was due to how much he reminded me of Han Solo. Not to look at of course (I don’t recall Han Solo ever having a tail), but they both inhabit so many characteristics that make them viable and interesting hero characters. Both are headstrong, and rebellious – yet when push comes to shove, they both, know to do the right thing at exactly the right time. There are a few moments that especially reminded me of Han Solo – there’s a scene in The Force Awakens when Rey states “I’ve never seen anything this green before” and it’s the pitying look of sadness etched across his face that reminds me of a few moments Zidane has with Vivi later on.Whilst you don’t see any complex facial animation from Zidane, the way he looks down and the absent minded way they use pauses in the dialogue are so effective in reinforcing the point that he desperately wants to say something, but he can’t quite bring himself to. I thought that internal conflict was really interesting.

 Zidane also had a very distinct edge to him too, a suave charismatic edge, that naturally screams cool – way more than the Warrior Within version of the Prince of Persia could ever dream of. That edge is something other RPG protagonists tend not to have. I think you could also draw the comparison between Han and Leia to the relationship between Zidane and Dagger. Although – that is more of a general comparison.  As I think the Zidane and Dagger relationship is much more Shakespearian in nature.

 

In a game like this, that contains a whole raft of memorable moments, many of which venture into both the melancholic and joyous territories. It’s always pleasant to have at least one comic relief character. In this games case, it comes in the form of Quina the Blue Mage – which is a character a friend of mine expected me to find really annoying, yet I found them to be one of the personal highlights of the experience, I laughed out loud on multiple occasions at some of Quina’s dialogue. You could make the argument at times that Steiner falls into the trap of being a bit of a buffoon of a character, but as you play the game it becomes clearer and clearer that Steiner has self confidence issues and a certain pomposity for some very specific reasons. I’ll leave that untouched though for those who haven’t experienced the game. It was a bold decision to have several anthropomorphic characters in Final Fantasy IX – there are at least two just purely amongst the party members in Freya and Amarant, but many of the supporting characters and antagonists themselves fall into this category. I thought this was a brilliant decision as it made these elements of the game feel that much more organic, when you see them all over the place instead of just one or two characters in a tokenistic fashion, as some games can sometimes fall into the trap of doing.

 

However, I have got to be objective here, and I can’t really ignore the fact that due to how the developers have chosen to tell this games story, it often times means that certain characters get much less prominence than others, due to not taking part in the action for long periods of time due to story developments. To be honest, changing anything about the way the story is told would be a real shame, so less character development for a few individuals sort of becomes a necessary trade off ultimately. I think it’s a sacrifice that was necessary, because I don’t think I’d personally like to see anything changed about the way Square Enix decided to tell this story. It does mean as a result that characters like Amarant, Quina, Freya, Eiko and Steiner get much less development than others, but they are still – with the exception of Amarant very well fleshed out individuals. Amarant isn’t though, he’s the only character that really feels a little superfluous, and he doesn’t add a whole lot. I often wonder what Amarant is too, I’m assuming – like with many of the characters being human and animal hybrids, that he’s an Echidna – Human hybrid. At least he’s not one of the Hippo characters in this game; I found their cold dead eyes fairly unsettling on occasion. I couldn’t look directly at them.  Anyway, it’s surprising really when you consider Amarant appears on the box art, it ends up being one of those situations where he’s much more interesting to look at than he is as a functional part of proceedings.

 

I know I’m not the only one that does this, giving voices to unvoiced characters – this bit is purely for a bit of fun to add some light heartedness to this write up. Due to there not being any voice acting, I ended up characterising all of the characters with voices of my own. I suppose I’ll let you into a little surreal corner of my mind, and talk about the voices I gave to some of the characters. These were often me doing them out loud as well by the way. So in the case of Quina I gave them the voice of Bizzarro from the 1990’s animated Superman cartoon, it just seemed to fit the inquisitive but often silly antics that they get up to. To Amarant, I gave the voice of Brad Garrett – not just any version of Brad Garrett either, specifically his voice of Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond, which seemed to best fit his dour negative attitude that he seemed to always have.  Kuja – one of the characters who is very integral to the story, I gave the voice of Kelsey Grammar, or at least my best impression of it. Within Final Fantasy IX there exists a lot of theatricality, so I felt like a strong voice like Grammar’s really fit Kuja’s character.

 

On theatricality - I often thought as I played through this that film director Akira Kurosawa might have very much appreciated Final Fantasy IX, which might seem a strange thing to say. Yet, Kurosawa was incredibly fond of Shakespeare, which is incredibly evident across the majority of his filmic output, unfortunately as he died in 1998 he would never have had the chance to experience it, even if he’d wanted to, he would have been 90 at the time of the games release – and whilst I like to think I’d still be open to playing video games at 90, who knows if he would have done. There are many Shakespearian tropes, found all over Final Fantasy IX; I didn’t expect this at all going into this game. Funnily enough though, it ends up being one of the games strongest features, as it expertly weaves elements of both Shakespearian comedies and tragedies into its plot – misdirection and misinterpretation end up being one of the constant sources of humour in this game.

 

Even when viewing the visuals and the art style of Final Fantasy IX in the context of 2021 – it still looks astonishingly good. Final Fantasy IX also in a deliberate decision by the developers decided to return to a medieval style setting, which at the time must have been a bit of a departure for those that had gotten used to the artistic aesthetic found within Final Fantasy VI-VIII. I don’t think the remaster itself is particularly impressive; I mean I haven’t obviously played the original so I don’t quite feel qualified to say that. I appreciate that I can play this version, so I certainly can’t complain about that part. Yet, from people who have experienced the original, I’ve heard that they only really bothered to remaster the characters themselves. You can tell too, because you quite often have very crisp looking party members and NPC’s looking almost painted onto  a fairly pixelated back drop, I understand that Final Fantasy VIII Remastered was released much later, but that game did a much more effective job of making all of the visual elements seem much more uniform than they do here.

 

That’s the limit of my negativity towards the visual element of Final Fantasy IX. It’s not something you can really ignore though, especially in the pursuit of objectivity. What really DOES stand out though, is the excellent direction from Hiroyuki Ito. This game perfectly epitomises why silent cinema, has always worked and to some extent will always work – it might sound clichéd, but the term “a picture is worth a thousand words” absolutely applies to this game (I bet you’re sitting there thinking “why couldn’t he have just posted four pictures then, instead of making us read all this”). Because of this Final Fantasy IX remains a tremendous shining example of how effectively you can tell stories with just images. A huge amount of the images found within cutscenes and key story moments, are outrageously memorable. I suspect if I’d played this in 2000 I’d still be thinking about them now, on and off. The use of framing, colour and cinematography, are of a standard that honestly wouldn’t look out of place amongst some of the finest examples in film. Its singular shots like that, that often stay with you the most. The Binary Sunset from the original Star Wars has remained so memorable to me for years and years, for this very reason. Imagine my surprise when I saw some stunning cinematography in a twenty year old game. I found it impressive in Final Fantasy VIII, but that’s impressive on a different level, one that pushed the limits of the technology at the time, which end up being memorable for a different reason. Whereas, the visceral and often disturbing images found in Final Fantasy IX is the kind you wouldn’t quickly forget in a hurry.  

 

I believe, when I wrote about Final Fantasy VIII fairly recently – that I thought that game was Nobuo Uematsu’s best work from the PS1 era. I’m taking that opinion back now, and I’m going to just kick it through a plate glass window. I still love that soundtrack, don’t get me wrong – but this musical score is on a whole different level as far as the quality goes. There is something, just so majestic about the musical score in this game, that whatever hyperbole I might try and come up with probably wouldn’t do it justice. It simply just excels on a multitude of levels. When the game wants you to feel something, whether that is sadness or joy – you’ll absolutely feel it. There’s a lot of subtlety to it in fact, there are a few very clever manipulations of musical scores you’ve previously  heard that have just been slightly twisted and tweaked to really – well,  enhance the off kilter atmosphere that those areas display. It’s particularly effective in the upside down castle dungeon. Aspects of it feel much more grandiose than those found in previous titles. I was pleasantly surprised when doing a little research for this write up, to see that this was actually Uematsu’s favourite score that he composed for Final Fantasy. He certainly sent the PS1 era Final Fantasy games out on a high, that’s for sure. Melodies of Life, has now become one of those tracks that I immediately associate with a specific game – in much the same way I can’t really think about Final Fantasy X without hearing that haunting morose  trickle of To Zanarkand. 

 

This might seem unusual to some people. Well, more unusual than someone writing so in depth about a game that is nearly twenty one years old. Is that going into this game I knew for sure that I was going to love the gameplay, or at the very least elements of it. Having long been a fan of Lost Odyssey. A game which shares the same system of attaining skills that Final Fantasy IX does. I’d always really enjoyed that aspect of gameplay, one that really rewards exploration and experimenting with the games equipment system to learn the requisite skills that can give you the perfect edge in combat against your foes. Whilst Final Fantasy IX’s interpretation of that system, has slightly less depth to it, it’s still very impressive when you remember that this game came out in 2000. I can’t go into too much depth, because if you’ve played a turn based RPG before, you’ll absolutely know what to expect here.

 

 Mini games have always been a part of Final Fantasy – yet I still don’t think I’ve come across a Final Fantasy game that has quite as many as IX does. It’s commendable really, how many there actually are, many of which are fairly missable and you wouldn’t naturally find unless you specifically went out of your way for them, as they have a very short window of opportunity between story events.

This is unfortunately also one of the areas the game does suffer a little bit in. The inclusion of another card game in this title might not have been the best idea in hindsight. As much as Tetra Master is a perfectly sound and sometimes enjoyable card game, it just doesn’t quite hit the highs that its predecessor Triple Triad from Final Fantasy VIII did.  It would be like if in the hypothetical “The Witcher 4” – they decided to just ditch Gwent altogether and go with something completely new, which would be fine, if that thing was better, instead of making you want to retread old ground with Gwent. Unfortunately in much the same way, Tetra Master makes you long to be playing Triple Triad.

 

Final Fantasy IX did a very good job of making each individual party member feel unique, it means that you can essentially decide to find a favourite team and adapt your strategy accordingly, or you can explore everything the characters have to offer, and choose the best options accordingly. There really is, that much depth to the mechanics of each character in that regard – all of them are viable, even Amarant, because I used him quite a lot doing the speedrun for Excalibur II.  In this regard the game offers the player so much more choice than I expected. Despite the fact Quistis is one of my favourite characters from Final Fantasy VIII she’s actually quite useless as a functional blue mage, because her skills are dependent on her limit break. I was so pleasantly surprised to find that Quina is actually a useful Blue Mage (it’s always been one of my favourite classes), as the only prerequisite for using the skills is losing a little bit of MP.

 

One new addition to the gameplay is the Active Time Event system, which is something I find genuinely baffling that it wasn’t ever brought back for future Final Fantasy instalments. For anyone that is familiar with the Tales of’ series it essentially is the Final Fantasy equivalent of the skit system from Tales of titles. It’s such a welcome addition in this game, and it’s one that ends up adding an incredibly rich layer to an already superb story. They serve as a way to focus on very small events that are running concurrently, and focus sometimes upon the party, but other times upon smaller characters and NPC’s that you become very familiar with. I thought their inclusion added such a rich vibrancy to the world. They made it seem much more lived in and bedded down, than perhaps other titles do. I feel like sometimes travelling through a World in a Final Fantasy title feels like a rushed holiday, where you only really stop somewhere for a short amount of time, without taking much in. Not always, but sometimes. So the inclusion of these ATE’s really adds a lot of believability to some of the locations you visit as a result.

 

So – We need to talk about Kevin, I mean trophies, yes that’s what I meant. I need to talk about those. Honestly, I suspect this games trophy list is one of those things that are the blocker for people actually starting this game. No, it wasn’t what stopped me playing it either, I’m still genuinely unsure what that was. In the pursuit of Final Fantasy IX’s gorgeous platinum trophy – and it is gorgeous, it looks so much better than the other brown coloured ones you pick up along the way; in essence though, you’ll need two playthroughs to get the platinum. One get everything playthrough, and a separate one to get a specific weapon that’s tied to a speedrun in under twelve hours. Now, I’ve definitely over simplified that, you will need to follow a guide, don’t worry though there are plenty out there that are pretty much devoid of spoilers and will only tell you the basic information - like get an item from here or be mindful of this event that is coming up. It’ll really help though, because this game is absolutely littered with missables, at almost every corner.

 

If I was going to give anyone advice, before you do anything else – make sure you get the jump rope trophy done as soon as possible. It’s annoying (which is honestly an understatement), it might take a long time depending on your skill level, or in my case my stubbornness not to use the PS4 remote play script. That feeling I got upon finally reaching 1000 was such an adrenaline rush. I’ve also posted some tips here if anyone was thinking of playing this but had gotten stuck on that section, that thread is filled with amazing advice, I ended up using a mixture of several things to get me through it.  Still, you’ll thank me later, because your enduring memory of this wonderful game won’t be constant failure at a ridiculous mini game, if you do it first. That jump rope trophy isn’t the worst thing in Final Fantasy IX though, oh no. That horrendous distinction goes to the 10,000 kills trophy Bloodlust. A trophy so egregious that I genuinely found myself, on a few occasions at least - questioning why I was even bothering. The trophy list itself might not be very good, but the game absolutely is.

 

I don’t think I could have made it any more obvious that I think this game is absolutely worth anyone’s time. Fan of the series or not, it’s just an incredibly well crafted game, timeless even. Whilst the game isn’t perfect, and let us be perfectly honest for a minute, what actually is? Some of the greatest films and video games ever made contain some form of problem or another. That’s just the nature of life.

For something that is over twenty years old – this game is truly something special – and I think it has officially become my second favourite Final Fantasy title. Final Fantasy X is going to take a lot of beating.

If playing Final Fantasy VIII recently made me fall in love with the series once again – then Final Fantasy IX has reminded me why, I’ll pretty much always love this series, no matter what unusual direction that it takes.

Edited September 7, 2021 by rjkclarke

[Zuggha]

ENDER LILIES: QUIETUS OF THE KNIGHTS



End
Earn all Trophies

[SKiL_Clash]

Platinum 182 

Assassins Creed Liberation.

 

Probably one of the more boring AC Games. (Obviously because it was a Vita game) I finally managed to get another AC game down. Now on to AC Rouge.

[damage_6-9]

#971- ZJ the Ball: Level 4

#972-Reflection of Mine • AS

#973- ZJ the Ball: Level 1• NA

#974-Space Intervention • NA

#975- ZJ the Ball: Level 2 • NA

#976- ZJ the Ball: Level 3 • NA

#977- ZJ the Ball: Level 4 • NA

#978- Robozarro • AS

#979- Tower of Dragonasia

(...trophy #28,000 & PSN lvl 950)

 

[Darghel]

#117 Panzer Dragoon (Panzer Dragoon....REMAKE!)

Difficulty: Very easy but very....very....very...VERY long

Time to Complete: 1 week and 6 days for a total of 100 hours

Recommended: It's easy but again, it's looooong

Total Score: 700/1000

 

You know, this game is so short, I'll be short too. 

 

- The game is fun but takes 1 hour to complete (about 45 minutes to be realistic)

- The trophies are easy and you can do all of them in 2 or 3 playthroughs.

- Then there's the 100-hour trophy which you'll need to AFK in the main menu while occasionally banking your hours.

 

There, concluded

Edited September 11, 2021 by Darghel

[TenebraZero]

 #81

Final Fantasy IX

Heroes of Gaia
Collect all trophies.

 

Enjoyment 9

Difficulty With cheat enabled 7/10 ; without cheat 10/10

 

 

 

 

#82 

Scarlet Nexus

Woven Red Threads
Obtained all trophies

 

Enjoyment 8

Difficulty 3/10

 

 

 

 

 #83

Ghost Of Tsushima

Living Legend
Obtain all trophies.

 

Enjoyment 9

Difficulty 3/10

DLC difficulty 7/10

 

 

 

 

 #84

Death Stranding

Greatest of Great Deliverers
Obtained all Death Stranding trophies.

 

Enjoyment 10

Difficulty 4/10

 

 

 

 

 #85

Ratchet & Clank (PS4)

The Hero of Heroes
Collect every trophy in Ratchet & Clank

 

Enjoyment 8

Difficulty 3/10

 

 

 

 

 #86

Ratchet & Clank : Rift Apart

Masters of the Multiverse
Collect All Trophies

 

Enjoyment 8

Difficulty 2/10

 

 

 

 

 #87

Odin Sphere Leifthrasir

Odin Sphere
Obtained all trophies!

 

Enjoyment 8

Difficulty 2/10

 

 

 

 

 #88

13 Sentinels : Aegis Rim

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
Acquired all trophies!

 

Enjoyment 6

Difficulty 2/10

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by TenebraZero

[JAK-KRIEG]

 #604 - Trine 2: Complete Story 

I really enjoyed it the ambience, music and what a beautiful game.

 

 Trine 2 Hard 

 

[Jamescush147]

  Platinum 270

Pirates of the Enchiridion
Collect all trophies

31.15% Uncommon

 

Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion

Platinum
1 week, 4 days, 3 hours

 

Finished my third Adventure Time game! Yes I'm including the Lego Dimensions dlc. ?

[percy547389126yv]

#902 Toon War

[skeggah]

Platinum #224 

Dark Cloud (PS4)

 

I actually had a really good time with this one. It always scratched me the wrong way that I couldn't manage to beat it like 20 years ago, redemption is here!

 

Platinum #225

Disney Pixar's Brave (PS3)

 

I thought I'd nab this quick and easy game from PS-Now, and I actually had some fun with it, the endgame grind for $$$ was not particulary vicious either.

 

[MrGarland]

Platinum 116 My Hero One's Justice 2

 

 

 

Difficulty: 3/10 (6/10 or higher without patches)

Enjoyment: 8/10 (excluding Mission Mode and collectible trophies)

 

The first MHA game was a positive surprise. I'm not much into anime/manga based games, but I still decided to give it a try and I'm glad I did. It was a blast.

 

Then we have the sequel. It's pretty much the same game as the first one, but with a bunch of new characters, modes and some changes to gameplay. For example, your sidekicks can also use Plus Ultras during matches, though they can't finish your opponent. Not only that, but if you use certain teams in matches (for example, Bakugo, Kirishima and Kaminari), you can perform a devastating Plus Ultra All, where all three characters take part in dealing damage. Of course, you can do this with any team, but if you want to pull off a special one, it has to be a team of certain characters like the ones mentioned. You'll see at least a few of them in the game.

 

Originally I started this in 2020. Back then, I managed to get most of the trophies out of the way, but then I encountered something that made me give up. The unbalanced difficulty. From what I can remember, the opponents were pretty tough to beat and this alone made me give up, especially the Mission Mode. After several patches, I decided to resume it. Now, it's much more playable, though it might be too easy at times.

 

Speaking of patches, one of the new features that was added were the subtitles, be it after the matches or when using Plus Ultras. It's nice to know what the characters are saying, but when using Plus Ultra level 2, only the one at the beginning has subtitles. Did they forget to translate the rest? They also added the English dub, which is cool. I personally prefer the Japanese dub any time, though I want to say there's nothing wrong with the former one. It's just how I prefer things.

 

As for the rest of the game, I'll give a brief introduction about other modes.

 

Spoiler

First, we have the story. By the time I started this, I had just finished Season 3. Because I wanted to avoid spoilers, I skipped all the cutscenes and dialogues, though the final battle and the ending did spoil a little. Also, what's with all the chapters featuring gang members and thugs? I wouldn't mind that so much, except that you fight them more than enough. Luckily, they're easy to defeat and also very predictable. Especially that attack where they charge towards you with a knife, though the ones with guns are a little troublesome.

 

Then there's Arcade, which was optional in the first game, but mandatory here. All I can say, it was nothing but a grind. Not the worst one I've done, but still kind of boring. It was somewhat entertaining, as I had a good chance to learn and master the characters I never used before, both old and new. Not to mention, the dialogue between the characters when you defeat them is sometimes fun to read.

 

I also mentioned this once, but I'll say it one more time. The worst opponent I faced was Kendo Rappa. Every single time I faced this bastard, he took it seriously. Sure, some other opponents were also a pain to deal with, but this guy was the worst of all. His moves, which are a combination of Muscular and All For One, are lethal. I only lost once to him, but thankfully, you don't lose anything if you continue.

 

If the grind for Arcade wasn't bad enough, Mission Mode takes the cake and it was easily my least favorite mode. Let me quickly explain how this works: your goal is to defeat all the characters on the map in order to complete the mission. If you're defeated at any point or one of the opponents destroys the area, you'll fail. Also, the characters on your team will lose points (though this doesn't happen in the first few maps). Should it drop to 0, you have to recruit them again. It's that simple. There's also a couple of catches this mode has.

 

First of all, you can recruit characters by using the coins you earn by playing the game. Not only that, but you can also level up your characters and set the stats to your liking after completing the mission. I mainly focused on strength, but HP and defense were on equal and pretty close to strength. Second, you fight one round per opponent, which is a blessing compared to the Arcade where you fight 2-3 rounds and you can't change this. Keep in mind that your health carries over between matches, so don't get too careless, even though there are recovery items on most of the maps. Finally, every mission has a reward which comes in the form of cards. These have a variety of special effects, be it increased damage, removing certain characters from the map and so on. In other words, you'll have to think carefully which cards to equip since you can only equip 5 at a time. Many of the maps are pretty easy, but the later ones are quite long and that's the reason why I didn't like this mode too much.

 

How did I tackle this mode? Simple. By using the character I was the most comfortable with, which was Endeavor. He may not be the most liked character in the series, but there's no denying that his moveset is pretty cool. For example, his  and  Quirk specials (flamethrower and fire balls, respectively) are very useful. The former one slows the opponent if they're performing an unblockable attack and also deals good damage, while the latter one stuns them if they're dashing. Not to mention, there are times when the opponent takes more damage against melee, but they take less damage from Quirks. That's where he comes in handy. I'm sure it works with any other character, but I didn't test this.

 

With all that said, this was pretty easy to complete. The only hard mission was Survival which I already talked about. Simply put, at the start of every round, you lose 1/4 of your health and you have to face a total of 9 opponents. Since your health is at 1 HP when you reach the 4th opponent, you want to deal as few as possible. It took me a couple of tries, but I was able to clear it.

 

I'm also going to include something I mentioned earlier. During my journey for platinum, I learned some strategies for a couple of characters, which I'll share here. I don't know how well they would work against other players, but they do work against the CPU and some of them are pretty much impossible to avoid.

 

 

Stain: If you're lucky enough to fill the Plus Ultra gauge to max, you can pretty much make your opponent unable to attack by doing this: press the  +  to unleash the Plus Ultra level 1 near the opponent. When it hits, it stuns the opponent and knocks them on the ground. After that, press the  to hit them and unleash it again. You can do this three times in a row. It's pretty cheap and it's not too powerful, but whatever works. I didn't know about this until I played as him and had a chance to do this when things didn't go as planned.

 

Eijiro Kirishima: Hit the opponent once by pressing the  and then immediately unleash Plus Ultra level 1 with  + . From what I can tell, this attack is pretty much impossible to avoid if done from close range, given how fast he attacks. If you do it this way, the opponent can't escape from it.

 

Denki Kaminari: Same as above, but he also has his own specialty. He can charge to make his electric moves more powerful, as long as he's not interrupted when doing so. The downside is that it only lasts for a while and once it ends, leaves him vulnerable for 1-2 seconds. However, if it happens when the round ends, there won't be a penalty. I know this, because it happened to me once.

 

Gang Orca: Just like the ones mentioned, you can do the attack+Plus Ultra combo. Alternatively, you can also unleash it when the opponent is far enough, as that move has a pretty good range.

 

Hawks: The only character that has to be bought from the in-game PS Store. I'm not kidding. I looked from the actual Store, but he's nowhere to be seen. What the hell? Anyway, he was easily one of my most used characters in the game. Mainly because of his move set. Especially his  attack, where he grabs the opponent and sweeps the floor with them. Literally. Also, if you want to play cheap, you can press the  to shoot feathers at your opponent. That is, if you want to finish them from afar.

 

Itsuka Kendo: I might as well consider her as an OP character. At least for the Arcade. Not only is she strong, she's pretty fast too as I managed to clear all three routes in about 30 minutes. So, yeah. If you want to win easily against CPU, this is one character you want to get.

 

 

I also have to give a special unhonorable mention about one thing: the Collector's Edition (shown below) just sucks which I bought on a fair price. The figurine and the steelbook were good, but everything else wasn't. I also have to dislike how oversized the box is. Cyberpunk 2077 was also large sized, but at least it was more reasonable and had better stuff.

 

 

And that's all there's to say. It was fun to experience the world of MHA again, but I'm done with fighting games for a while. Having to mash the buttons got tiresome towards the end of my journey, but especially in Arcade Mode. I'll get back to the game every now and then whenever they add the last few characters, just to check them.

 

With all that said, it's time to say the famous words once again: Plus Ultra!

 

I'm also going to include a couple of other images I got, besides the usual platinum screenshot. And yes, that was my team for Mission Mode.

 

 

 

 

 

Next project: finishing Code Vein once and for all. After that, time to start something new. Something that I've been planning to play for a long time.

Edited August 20, 2022 by MrGarland

[ZoKu08]

GRID

#254

 

Undisputed

Earn all other trophies

 

7.14%

Very Rare

[Yoey_666]

 

 

 

 

and 

 

#487 - Bloodborne

[Squarevii87]

Platinum #165

 

11-11: Memories Retold

 

[geunc]

  #126: Ghostrunner

 

 

Difficulty: 7

Enjoyment: 7.3

[AgentSmiz]

Platinum 128: Hades


Heard good things about it since it was released and it lived up to the expectations. Very addictive gameplay that always made me want to go back for one more run and tied that into the story well. God mode does make the platinum a bit easier but even then, it's still challenging due to the randomness of runs. Thoroughly recommend.

Never did get used to the bow weapon, mind. Once I unlocked the Twin Fists, there was no looking back.

[damage_6-9]

#280-  

Legends of Talia: Arcadia

 

..my first PS5 plat..... bit of a grind, well 32 seconds is a bit .... ?

[Suminya]

#310 - 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

 

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
Acquired all trophies!

 

Time: 2 days, 8 hours (27 hours 50 minutes 51 seconds, according to the Autosave)

Difficulty: 2/10

Enjoyment: 10/10

 

Spoiler

 

 

#311 - Kawaii Deathu Desu (PS4)

 

Platinum Idol
Collect all other trophies.

 

Time: 5 hours, 48 minutes

Difficulty: 2/10

Enjoyment: 5/10

 

Spoiler

 

Edited September 9, 2021 by Suminya

[ArabianSwordsman]

             
 

                      #400: Pumpkin Jack

 

A pretty cool game! It plays like an indie version of the game medievil. Took me 4 hours and half of it was looking for collectibles. I had fun but there’s one section in a forest involving a maze and I highly recommend just using a guide. It’s brutal and every wrong turn is an automatic death. Other than that it was a fun time.