Most Recent Platinum

[JoaLoft]

 

#297 - Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

 

Following up with my previous platinum trophy of Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, I present to you another webslinger in action with Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

 

Miles Morales, having acquired the same powers as Peter Parker in the main game (sorry about that mini-spoiler), takes over from the OG Spider-Man during the holidays as he heads to Europe on a freelance assignment with his girlfriend, MJ. Which means that de facto, Miles is now the only superhero protecting NYC from any threats. In the aftermath of the previous game's story, energy corporation Roxxon steps in to build new facilities to power the city through revolutionary technology. Soon after, Roxxon is under attack by a mysterious assailant called "The Tinkerer". Miles must face the new threat as Spider-Man while simultaneously juggling his personal life involving his mother, his best friend Ganke (who knows about his secret identity and helps design gadgets for him) and his old high school friend Phin.

 

First of all, Spider-Man: Miles Morales feels more like an expansion than a full game. This is a trend which has been kicking in recently with Sony where they take products which are not worth the full price and launch them as full new releases. This already sets the tone for the rest of this platinum trophy post, but I do wish to elaborate on a few points before I tell you why this game felt a bit disappointing in general.

 

The core gameplay hasn't changed. NYC is covered in a blanket of snow - definitely pretty to look at and swing through - and the Christmas decoration gives it a special atmosphere you usually wouldn't encounter in an open world game. Unless you roam through Red Dead Online during the holidays, which is also beautiful, admittedly. Aside from the bio-electrical attacks, everything remains the same. You clear out hideouts, find collectibles and unlock new suits. The combat is still great, thanks to its impeccable blueprint, and same goes for the stealth mechanics. But nothing felt fundamentally new, which adds to the feeling that this could have easily been a large expansion for the previous game.

 

One major piece of criticism that deserves to be addressed, is the lack of some serious villains. The first game had a bunch of iconic Spider-Man villains. Aside from Rhino making a cameo appearance here and there, this game focuses on two main antagonists. The first one is the Tinkerer, who does bring more of a narrative punch in the second half of the game. The second antagonist is the CEO of Roxxon (swear to God, I even forgot his name), and he is such a generic tool bag that from the first glance you could immediately point and say: "yup, he's one of the villains in this game", and he only cements his reputation as an uninteresting character by how incredibly poorly he is written. Full of himself, no charisma, yelling at employees, covering up faulty equipment issues, willing to commit murder... He's honestly one of the worst forgettable villains in a big superhero story because of a lack of an interesting personality.

 

Everything stands or falls with the story in this entry. How does Spider-Man: Miles Morales hold up? Well, it's a mixed bag. The first story missions were a chore. Embarrassingly, I admit I fell asleep (!) after four story missions. The month of August was a busy time for me, so that could have attributed to it, but the lame story missions only contributed to that feeling of numbness. I felt like I played on auto-pilot at times, and that's a bad sign. The story does however get more interesting and the climax is strong. It delivers. It's just a shame you have to eat your way through some really bland and dry cake before you get to the sweet and moist center.

 

In conclusion? I do not recommend Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, unless you pick up the bundle with the Remastered version of the original game. The game is designed well, it's a polished product. As a standalone purchase, however, it does not bring enough innovation to the table. It certainly plays well, but lacks into hooking you early on. Furthermore, the story bogs often in the first half and one of two main villains looks like he was a drawing board reject who escaped from the cutting room floor and snuck his way into the full production stage like a self-entitled snob.

 

I wish I didn't have to be this harsh on a game which has been crafted with a lot of polish and attention. But if you can't follow-up with a full purchase - and I feel the need to underline you pay full price for this spin-off - after Marvel's Spider-Man which was great on so many levels, and you deliver a game which is on par in terms of gameplay mechanics, but you present cookie-cutter side activities, underperform in the villains department (in a superhero game, no less) and develop a lackluster first half of the story, you essentially have given us an inferior product.

 

Spider-Man deserves better than just half of a really good game. It deserves an amazing game from start to finish, no matter its status as a mainline entry or a spin-off. This was not it, unfortunately.

 

Most frustrating trophy - ...

 

NONE!

 

The only "annoying" trophy is the New Game Plus one, where it forces you to play through the entire game again after having finished everything else. But considering everything carries over and you can even play on the easiest setting, or just focus on the story missions and rush to the finish, this game didn't have any real frustrating trophies.

[percy547389126yv]

#1,489 PS5 version of Platty Bird

[percy547389126yv]

#1,490 PS5 version of The Jumping Coffee

[BlitzkriegHottie]

It's been quite the indie stravaganza.

 

1. Trine 4

What a Nightmare!

Rarity: 40.38%    

 

The latest entry in the franchise makes it pretty clear that they still have it and that they are more than eager to learn from their mistakes. I actually want Trine 5 now. 

Trophy wise this is the most simple list ever. Every trophy is "beat level x" followed by "collect all items in level x". Feels good to not need to look at a trophy guide at all.

 

Game Rating: 7/10

Platinum Difficulty: 2/10

Time to platinum: 15h

 

 

2. Celeste 

Heartbeat

Rarity: 29.23%

Managing to be better than T4 only by a minuscule margin, Celeste delivers originality in a genre you'd think has no room left for innovation. Also, "Resurrection" slaps. 

Trophy wise it can be cheesed with Assist Mode but for the love of God, don't use it on the main game! It isn't that hard, play the main story as it was intended, don't ruin the fun. Use Assist Mode for the B sides and C sides if you want to (like I did), but beat the game legit!

 

Game Rating: 7/10

Platinum Difficulty: 3/10 (AM turns this into a joke)

Time to platinum: 12h (using AM for B and C sides)

 

 

3. Seasons After Fall

Master of Seasons

Rarity: 45.79

 

I love indies but that doesn't mean anything will get a pass. Want to have a chill time with nature and cute animals? Well, better look elsewhere because playing SaF is only a repetitive, annoying and uninspired chore from the start. How could they miss their own themes and target audience so bad?

 

SaF in a nutshell: Get all seasons for the ritual -> Oops ritual failed, go back to the same areas -> Wanna get the true ending? Go back to the same areas yet again and get more secrets. Adding insult to injury, once you unlock a point of interest in a level a cutscene plays showing said PoI but the game does such an awful job at showcasing it that you'll waste your time running around in the big empty levels just tying to find it.     

 

Platinum wise this is very easy: no difficulties, no combat (again, this was suppossed to be a chill game) and nothing is missable (other than your time, that is).

 

Game Rating: 4/10

Platinum Difficulty: 2/10

Time to platinum: 9h

 

 

After no-lifing through one month of Plus Extra I can only say that it's been quite the fun ride. Many indies to choose from to the point that I had to get another month so no-life September here i come! You can bet your ass I'm going to get every penny's worth! 

 

[Brainswashed]

Elden Ring  PS4 Version

Difficult: 6/10

Fun: 10/10 Masterpiece 

Time: 40+hr ( solo with a few boss coop )

 

it’s such amazing game you can actually get all trophy in 1 playthrough 

and there is one weapon missable ( Bolt of Cransax ) and easy to find or if you miss it just let your friend give it to you

( you can obtain trophy All legendary weapon + all talisman ) from friend if you don’t need to collect them by yourself 

i collect them by myself then i give them to my friend but should not +1.2.3 .. etc must without upgrade and he obtain the 2 trophy only ( Sorceries & incantation - should collect them by yourself cause there is no way to take them from friends & you need enough items to upgrade your weapon +10 ) if you doing this trophy in way to plat you only need defeat the rest of boss to get platinum with 3 ending 

 

Important note : do Elden Lord Ending & Age of the Stars at first before you kill last boss Elden Beast then do backup and go make Lord of Frenzied Flame and platinum is yours . happy hunting

Edited September 6, 2022 by Brainswashed

[Undead Wolf]

 #418 - Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

Earn all Trophies in the game.
"You. Are. The. MAN! (Unless you are a lady. In which case, I apologize.)"

 

To start with, I've got to say that the trophy descriptions in this game are great as you can see from the example above. ? It's a reflection of the humour present in this game as a whole which I enjoyed a lot. I find that most modern games that go for a comedic tone totally miss the mark because the writers seem to believe that "loud = funny", and it ends up just being extremely cringe-worthy and obnoxious. Not the case with this game though! It made me chuckle quite a lot. Here's one of my favourite scenes from the game as an example. It's a parody of the games industry as a whole, with the main character, Matt Hazard, being fully aware that he's in a video game. Not an original concept, but I thought they executed it really well.

 

The gameplay itself is nothing to write home about. It's pretty much a run-of-the-mill third person shooter, just with the addition of stuff like powerups and some interesting weapons like a water pistol. ? The enemy types are pretty varied though since they're all from Matt Hazard's previous games (and what a long and storied history he has). So in one encounter you'll fight some cowboys dual-wielding revolvers, and in the next, you can go up against some 2D Wolfenstein-looking German soldiers. ? It's pretty cool.

As for trophies, they were pretty simple. Lots of misc ones for getting kills with various weapons, blowing stuff up, picking up powerups, etc. Some of them hard to be farmed by checkpoint restarting, but they don't take long. I guess the big one is beating the game on Maximum Hazard difficulty. There were a few tricky spots, but nothing I'd really call frustrating. It was a fun list to trophy hunt. Oh yeah, and one other thing I'd like to mention about trophies is that I like how the dialogue directly references getting them in-game. I remember a few games from this generation that did similar things, but I don't think I played anything from the PS4 or PS5 gen that has done anything like that. I kind of miss it.

This game is really underappreciated imo. I would absolutely recommend it, especially if you've been playing video games for a long time so you get all of the references.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Undead Wolf

[RebelsHeart]

?  Platinum  #100  ?

 

Fallout New Vegas

 

 

 

A game I've been saving to platinum ever since I started it on PlayStation 3 back in 2018.

I've been a big fan of the game ever since it released and I really wanted to give this special game a special place on my trophy list.

 

The game itself + trophies aren't too hard to obtain if you're well prepared and know what you're doing.

The only thing I've sadly had tons of problems with were the lag and stuttering this old game suffers from when the save file gets too big.

I didn't let that kill my fun though.

 

I saved the ''The Courier Who Broke The Bank'' trophy for last since it sounded like a fun challenge to end on.

(( It actually wasn't fun, but it is what it is ))

 

Anyways, I managed to give my favorite game a special spot on my list and I feel very accomplished.

Can't wait to hit the next milestone!

 

 

 

And don't forget...

 

Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter 

 

[Maenta]

Nexomon 1. I love that series even if it is simplified compared with Pokémon, for example. The humour in it (and the breaking the fourth wall) makes me giggle every time and I love the art style. Not every ‘mon is amazing but there are a lot of cool designs. I’m going to move on to Nexomon: Extinction next but I think this is going to take me significantly longer to Platinum because of the more complexities added compared to the first game. Also there are more ‘mons to find lol.

[StraightVege]

 

Party like it's 2024

 

  #304

Continued from previous posts: [1] [2]

 

 

Man, this poor little dragon fella never gets a moment's rest! After the mess those mammalian weirdos dragged him into last time, Spyro's just trying to catch a deserved nap back in his homeworld, until a malevolent sorceress sends her reluctant apprentice, discount Lola Bunny Bianca, to steal all their dragon eggs. In typical evil sorceress fashion, she requires dragon magic to maintain her youthful immortality, and she's willing to kidnap 150 unhatched babies to accomplish this. Of course, our scaly, quadrupedal protagonist never tires of headbutting bad guys, so he doesn't hesitate to dive down the rabbit hole into "The Forgotten Realms," on a mission to reclaim those misappropriated eggs. Watching these tiny, adorable goofballs hatch when Spyro finds them is among the game's highlights, since they all look and behave differently, at least until you begin to notice the exact same personalities repeating.

 

Actually, I ended up enjoying this one more than my (likely faulty) memories of its progenitor led me to expect, so much that it might have dethroned Ripto's Rage as my favorite, although this is really too close to call. Each level's unique themes are more well-realized than ever, the script is at its funniest in the trilogy, and it pulls out all the stops for the sake of gameplay variety. Seriously, Year of the Dragon has everything but the kitchen sink: top-down shooter levels, on-rails shooter sections, FPS areas, side-scrollers, boat and submarine battles, UFO dogfights, skateboarding courses, boxing, and more! There's a veritable smorgasbord of minigame diversions to partake in, and while the quality of this "do all the things" approach is definitely mixed, I can't deny that it adequately breaks up the usual routine of frolicking around on all fours. The fact that it seemed noticeably easier to control everything compared to the PS1 version probably helped in winning me over, too.

 

Another aspect which impressed me is that Spyro retains his ability progression from Ripto's Rage—this is a fairly rare design choice, considering how many follow-up games will find any excuse to make the player earn their powers all over again. Being able to headbash, swim, and climb right from the get-go feels really good and logical. Unfortunately, although Spyro already learned everything there is to know about movement from Moneybags in the previous game, the avaricious ursine nevertheless returns, to swindle him out of even more gems. In this instance, he primarily functions as the sorceress's jailer of four new playable characters, obligating Spyro to pay for their freedom. And just when I thought this crook couldn't get more loathsome.

 

Yes, for the first time, Spyro has assistance from allies other than Sparx the Dragonfly on his quest. Early on, he meets a kangaroo explorer by the name of Sheila, and with her springy legs, she can time double jumps to reach incredible heights Spyro couldn't dream of. Next, he runs into Sgt. James Byrd, the secret agent penguin, equipped with a homing rocket launcher. Byrd is able fly infinitely, affording him better freedom of movement than everyone else. Even farther along, Spyro makes a third friend, in the form of a quite articulate yeti, called Bentley. This massive gentleman is probably the most straightforward to play as, since he mainly just smashes stuff with a giant club, but he can also use it for the purpose of reflecting projectiles back at enemies. Finally, Spyro becomes acquainted with the rather eccentric lab monkey, Agent 9, a scatterbrained creature who's purpose in life is to blast the sorceress's minions with his laser pistol. 9's segments play akin to a variety of shooter genres, most often a rudimentary third-person shooter, where he occasionally gets the opportunity to toss some grenades as well.

 

While each of them provide a very different experience than controlling Spyro, I think only Sgt. Byrd and Agent 9 are unique enough to contribute anything worthwhile to the game. When forced to play as the slow and limited Sheila or Bentley, I often found myself eager to slip back into my comfortable, reptilian skin. Overall, it's interesting how the developers lacked confidence that the familiar Spyro gameplay loop could carry this third installment on its own, and so decided the solution was to throw every genre at the wall to see what sticks. None of it is glaringly bad, though, so I can't complain. However, I sometimes missed the focused simplicity of the preceding entries.

 

As you may have gathered by reading these posts, my recollection of the original PS1 trilogy is too unclear to determine whether or not the Reignited versions are a "definitive" replacement for the dated classics, but they're certainly fine games in their own right. For the most part, I had a marvelous time on this trip down memory lane, and I truly hope we'll see new Spyro titles in the future, which turn out at least as good as these. When it comes to 3D platformers, folks usually have a franchise they're particularly attached to, frequently Mario, Ratchet & Clank, or Crash Bandicoot. Personally, I was always a "Spyro guy," and it was nice find out this hasn't really changed with age. I always appreciated the way Spyro's unorthodox character design makes you underestimate him at first glance, but you quickly learn that appearances can be deceiving, as he's a force to be reckoned with.

 

Well, that's the trilogy squared away! Better late than never, right? Darn, if only this screenshot had caught the cute dragon hatching. ?

 

 

Edited September 5, 2022 by StraightVege

[Motik_UA]

 №1050 

MediEvil PS4 

 

[No longer here]

#175 - Red Dead Redemption 2

 

Rating/Enjoyment: 10/10

Difficulty: 5/10

Time: 200+ Hours

PSNP Rarity: 2.35%

PSN Rarity: 0.1%

 

AND THERE IT IS BOYS MY MILESTONE FOR 175TH!!

 

Had to go back to imo the greatest rockstar game ever! I know the trophy list sucked, but I had an emotional connection to this game and knew it had to be apart of my collection. The story,  the well-written characters, the music, the cinematics, the unpredictable open world, I can go on all day on high of a standard this game put out! Yeah the game be try to be super realistic with the hunting and health system, but honestly it means nothing compared to the quality in front of you. The game is more about its immersive into its atmosphere, gameplay and made you feel like you were part of the Van Der Linde gang! Till this day the protaganist is a gold standard and is certainly one of my favorites. The online is ...whatever, I'm glad I got some help with it and made it go by quicker than it should've. I can go on all day about this game, but most of us know how masterful this game was ?

[Nauticus87]

#660 - Descenders (EU)

Platinum rarity: 1.29%

100% rarity: 0.37%

 

Was recommended this game a long time ago but never got around to trying it as I heard there were issues. A procedurally generated downhill racing rogue-like game. Pretty unique. I won't lie, the first few hours I played this I almost regretted it, I had multiple game crashes and a few times where my rider just went through the ground and ended runs (though it did get me the 'go 100kmh' trophy as my rider hit 600kmh flying through space and time). But, at some point it just clicked. Became more stable. Less crashes. No crashes for hours. I started getting into it. Majorly into it. It felt so exhilarating getting better, fighting through the frustration of a failed run.

 

I still didn't think I'd get the platinum. The perfect run was eluding me, I had nearly done it on my second time getting to the end, every attempt after that felt worse. The frustration of doing a perfect run for 20-30 minutes only to fail on the last thirty seconds was heart-breaking. Yet I was determined. The day I got it I yelled out, fist-pumping the air, and at that moment everything just went so smoothly. Nothing was beyond me, not even the 100%. In the end, I managed to sneak in a fastest achiever spot too.

 

To those who decide to go for it, I will say that I heavily disagree with the trophy guide here saying this is only a 5/10 difficulty. I would put it at about 8/10 for the platinum and 9/10 for the 100%. A really good game worth playing, so long as you can persevere through a few technical hiccups here and there.

 

 

[percy547389126yv]

#1,491 PS4 version of Tales of Arise

[Septic_Phlegm]

Resistance: Burning Skies on the PS Vita.

 

Nearly didn't attempt this because the online (required for 1 trophy) was totally dead, I would sit for hour after hour waiting to get in an active lobby...

 

Anyway, my patience with the game paid off, what I will say is that the game is fairly decent, quite short, decent graphics but diabolical script/voice acting which if I am being honest is probably the worst I have ever seen in a video game.

 

The gun play was top notch, very easy to aim and very responsive overall.

 

My scores...

 

Fun 7/10

Difficulty 2.5/10 (a couple of bosses took a couple of attempts)

Time to complete: Maybe 8 hours at a very slow take your time pace, could be done in half that I am sure.

 

I do recommend this game, but that 1 online trophy can be a nightmare... and the fact you have to buy a pass in order to basically go online and get 1 trophy is like selling the platinum trophy to gamers.

 

Taking all of the above into account I would rate Resistance: Burning Skies in 2022 a solid 6/10 let down only by the dead multi player and terrible script.

[Starrk_01]

Plat #210: Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4)

 

Third Yakuza game done this year. Mini games weren't too bad, though Toylets can go to hell (or the literal toilet). Also wasn't a fan of the Majima Construction side mission, but got used to it once I had the right people for the team.

[X_Wizi_X]

 #193 Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands

 

 

Sand Master
Unlock all other trophies

 

Edited September 5, 2022 by X_Wizi_X

[percy547389126yv]

#1,492 PS4 version of Drag Journey

[percy547389126yv]

#1,493 PS4 version of The Jumping Coffee: TURBO

[percy547389126yv]

#1,494 PS4 version of Pretty Girls Four Kings Solitaire

[slender_adrian]

 

 

 #101

Difficulty: 4/10

Enjoyment: 10/10

Grind: 1/10

Time: 178 Hours

Rarity: [Very Rare 8.4% / Uncommon 36.88%]

 

"Thank you. For guiding me here."

 

Elden Ring what can I say about despite being a incredibly good damn game, not a masterpiece and by far no the best Fromsoft game but it is a excellent game. 

The way I played Elden Ring was based on exploring like most of us played and I never seen a world created in such a beautiful way, this is a Miyazaki and a Fromsoft game so you can expect a magnificent world, the artistic department of this game is amazing, compared to other worlds of the souls games Elden Ring feels alive and is a world that still breathes not like Dark Souls where the world is very depressing and falling apart, being honest on my first 20 hours of the game I was expecting to see a village or something similar, I loved that change in tones (although I prefer the dying worlds of ds hehe). I heard in a podcast a phrase that really made me laugh but it was true, it was that anywhere you look in Elden Ring is a wallpaper and I totally agree, the world for Elden Ring is a work of art, you really can tell is handcrafted, there's not a single place in the game that is copy pasted, anywhere you go is different and there is not a single tree that looks out of place. Even the dungeons which are content to fill more the game have a little something that distinguishes it from one another, truly one of the most beautiful games I played. The OST was amazing too, not the best but it was epic as hell. And the Lore, ahhh my favorite aspect of these games the Lore, well seeing George R.R Martin create the bases of this world made the game had a more mature and serious lore in my opinion, although I still have no clue what the hell is going on sometimes haha. But having the main plot on betrayals was awesome. I'm going to be honest, I fell in love with this game, but it wasn't what I was expecting, this is a open world dark souls and don't get me wrong I love it, I always thought how would it been having a dark souls in a open world and I know a lot of people was expecting just that but I was expecting a Fromsoft open world game if you know what I mean, I wish in the future Fromsoft and Miyazaki separate more from the ds formula, I love these games, and the story and world building they have but I would wish to see more games like Sekiro or Bloodborne in the future. 

 

It took me 137 hours to beat the game and due to how the world is insanely big I really don't see myself replaying this game in a long time like others souls. Some people say this is the easiest souls but I don't agree I still think that dark souls 3 is the the easiest souls game, and I really don't recommend Elden Ring for a first souls game.

 

My list for favorite and hardest trophy bosses, characters and my first thoughts of the game:

Spoiler

Favorite Bosses

1.Radagon

2. Radahn (this is my favorite boss fight and is the most epic moment in the souls games)

3. Malenia

4. Maliketh

5. Horah Loux

 

Hardest Bosses

1. Malenia

2. Mohg

3. Radagon / Elden Beast

 

Favorite Characters:

 

1. Alexander 

2. Hewg (this man almost made me cry, that last moments of him broke my heart, especially when he calls you his Lord, those words made my day)

3. Ranni

4. Blaidd

5. Melina 

 

Malenia and Mohg background:

(Posted and written at the moment of getting the respective boss trophy, I wanted to add it to this post)

I knew that I was straying the main quest path but I wanted to check both of these areas. The Haligtree is my favorite area of the game so far and the most challenging. One of the few things I heard about Elden Ring was that there was this Malenia Boss, which was hard as hell and I thought it was going to be the last boss but apparently these bosses were optional, so I might have an idea who's going to be the final boss, (my guess is Marika).

 

Malenia boss fight is the equivalent of Ornstein & Smough, I hadn't got this frustrated on a boss since I fought that duo back in the day for my very first time, I literally didn't know what to do against Malenia so I gave up on her and I was like "I'm done, I'm going to beat the blood dude instead" o boy the second I entered the boss fight I got even more frustrated haha since Mohg was probably the most cheapest boss I seen so far in the game, After getting destroyed so bad my morale went down and I rage quitted. The next morinng (today) I fought Mohg and in a couple of tries I got him, that second phase was annoying and honestly the only hard part of the fight. 

 

Malenia the undefeated swordswoman, this girl is missing one arm and it's legs besides that she's rotting too and still she gave the most difficult fight I could imagine. The thing with Malenia is that she heals if she hits you, with all her moves ahhh, and it has one crazy move that basically means death, there are ways of avoing it but it's pretty hard. Remember that Sekiro boss Demon of Hatred, that was basically a bloodborne/dark souls boss, well Malenia is a Sekiro boss in a game with dark souls mechanics haha, so you get the picture, although this fight can go 1000 times easier if you use the summoning mechanic (ashes). Despite that, Malenia is the most badass boss I've seen in the soulsborne games, and one of the hardest. Huge respect to her for giving one hell of a fight.

 

(First thoughts, previously posted and written, I wanted to add it to this post)

I have played for 15 hours already and oh boy my feelings are mixed, this game is brutal and it looks amazing even on a ps4 but there are 2 aspects that really disappoints me, the first being that the core of the combat mechanic is literally the same of DS3, all the darks souls games feels different from each other so playing ER with the combat mechanics of DS3 really disappointed me, and the second and what really annoys me is that ambient music, I haven't been this annoyed by music since I played Kingdom Hearts, it's so boring and repetitive that I had to turn down the music volume almost all the way, I don't know what happened here, Sekiro did an amazing job with ambient music, but so far I really hate the ambient noise of Elden Ring.

 

 

 

After 178 hours the Elden Ring is mine! I still can't believe this is my platinum 101, man it doesn't feel real. Elden Ring's plat is one of the easiest plats of the souls games (of course I'm talking if you do everything on your own), all you have to do is plunge into this beautiful world... and to have a lot of free time haha. I'll say Dark Souls, Elden Ring and Bloodborne are top 3 easiest plats, Elden Ring has very few missables (I think there's only one missable) and the best part is that there's no useless grinding! Its a very enjoyable plat surprisingly, just play the game and get a few things.

 

These 178 hours were amazing, I'm very happy to had the chance to play this game, maybe one day I'll get the PS5 version plat and who knows maybe I come back to this game if a dlc pops haha. This is a beast of a game, I don't recommend it for a first souls game, but it's a must play 100%

 

 

THIS PLAT GOES FOR HEWG! A TRUE LEGEND!

 

 

[greenzsaber]

 

Ganryu 2

 

The worst 'good' game I've played this year. The game itself could have been good... if it wasn't riddled with many head-scratching bugs and glitched trophies that absolutely ruin the experience. To add insult to injury, the game wants you to do challenges like beat the game deathless and complete the game in under 70 minutes, but NONE of these trophies were able to be acquired when it launched. A later patch fixed some, but not all of the bugged trophies, then fast forward to today, all bugged trophies have finally been fixed. But guess what? THE GAME'S STILL BUGGY. The latest patch actually introduced some NEW bugs such as being unable to jump occasionally and dying when going too high up the screen. 

 

On the other hand, the platinum isn't too difficult, especially with cloud saves, and the game isn't very long, so it's a quick 'ultra rare' plat if you're into those. Just be prepared to deal with the game not functioning correctly at times. Definitely wouldn't recommend paying full price for this either. Wait on a deep discount for this one, as I can see it getting as low as 80% off by next year.

[Cave Johnson]

[Platinum #150] Blue Reflection: Second Light

 A Special Girl
Obtain all trophies.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

In case it wasn’t clear already, I really love this game; I’d put it somewhere in my top 30, possibly top 20 favorite games. The improvement over the first Blue Reflection is truly incredible, and went far beyond what I expected. With the sequel, aside from a few flaws, Gust seems to have fully realized the idea they had for this series. If it were to end here, I’d be satisfied, but I’d also love to see how they can further improve it. Although I wasn’t the biggest fan of Atelier Ryza, if its success means Gust can put more time and money into their other IPs, then I’m all for it. Nights of Azure in particular could use some work; I believe the full potential of that series has yet to be realized. With that, I’ll finally end this “essay”, which is mostly a disjointed mess of my thoughts. I had intended to finish this sooner, but things happened and I slowly added more and more over time. If I waited, I’m sure I could find more to expand upon, but it has gone on long enough as it is. Next time I’ll cover another recent platinum and milestone (7000th trophy), one that I was originally going to include in this post before it became an essay. 

[percy547389126yv]

#1,495 PS5 version of The Jumping Coffee: TURBO

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#1,496 PS5 version of Tales of Arise

[Redgrave]

#254: Woven Red Threads - Scarlet Nexus

 

I had looked forward to playing this for a while since the gameplay looked cool. Or at least Yuito's did since I liked that he had a sword and could throw objects with his mind which kind of made me think of The Force Unleashed. I found it to be a pretty enjoyable game even if the story did kind of lose me near the end. Not that it was bad but I got confused on what was happening and why. But yeah it's a fun game and I liked the companion characters as well. Like I mentioned with Yuito his gameplay is kind of the hack and slash but with being able to throw objects with your mind which I found to be pretty fun and makes me wish at the very least for a remaster of The Force Unleashed games. On top of that the combat flowed pretty well and only felt like it got repetitive at the end where the game has an "asset reuse" dungeon where you just fight waves of the same enemies but up until that point I liked it.

 

Kasane plays slightly different where she has like sharp blades that she can throw and do crowd control stuff with along with being able to also throw objects with her mind. And in order to keep things feeling fresh both Kasane and Yuito have different perspectives of their stories which only starts to merge near the end so at least for the most part you do see something different with one or the other. You also see sort of different stories with the companions as well from their Bond Episodes. Along with all that though the soundtrack was pretty good as well and I liked how for some bosses it would get more intense after each phase.

 

None of the trophies are really difficult and there is no difficulty trophy in the game but I played on Normal for my Yuito playthrough anyway. There is a trophy for doing 30 quests in the game even though there are only 64 in total for both characters however the quests themselves aren't really anything unique and are more just "Go here and defeat a certain enemy a specific way" which kind of sucks because I would have liked some side-quests that helped with the world or character building although I guess for the latter that's what the Bond Episodes are for. Other than that there isn't much of a grind which is pretty easy to do in post-game and the only other thing you have to work towards is giving gifts to all the companions which I made sure to do during the rest phases so I didn't have to really farm that either.