Makilio's Trophy Checklist

[EpicNogg4]

Updated to include Armello.

 

#33: ...Happily Ever After

 

Armello is a Board game created by the League of Geeks, and it was one of the three options for the poll for PS+. Sadly, this game didn't win, and many people missed out on it. As for the gameplay, I'd say it's somewhat similar to Settlers of Catan, so there's much fun to be had if you have a good group.

 

Things I liked:

• Variety. Every character has their own distinct play style, all of which are enjoyable to pursue. The game always feels fresh thanks to the pre-game equips, multitude of cards, and the inherent randomness of board games.
• Actions during others turns. This is my biggest gripe during most board games; my friends (boyfriend included) take forever during their turns, so it's nice to be able to plot my own mischief and see it through during their turns.

Things I disliked:

• Nothing. This game is a masterpiece in my eyes, and I commend the folks at LoG for creating it. Expansions/DLC would be fun, but I'm definitely going to spend several hundred hours on this anyways; it's just that good.

 

I definitely recommend this game to everyone, especially those that have friends/family that they could play it with.

Amazing trophy collection mate

Yeah I'm loving Armello right now and almost got the plat, also working on the trophy guide. May I ask for some tips on the " Lemur Neeson " trophy.

[Makilio]

Amazing trophy collection mate

Yeah I'm loving Armello right now and almost got the plat, also working on the trophy guide. May I ask for some tips on the " Lemur Neeson " trophy.

 

Thanks  

 

As for Lemur Neeson, you'll definitely want to boost to prevent headaches; one of my games, we just happened to all get the cards we needed for it, so we just went for it.

 

Player getting boosted: should go for quests increasing their Wits & Magic and continuously draw Magic cards hoping for a Glamour spell. They should be using/burning every card until they get one. I'd recommend using Amber and continuously exploring for this, so you'll have a higher chance to get a follower while you wait for Glamour (in case you fail to get one from quests). Afterwards, I recommend wasting cards until you get either all of one die type (Shield, etc.) or Call of the Worm / Shimmer Shield.

 

Everyone else: should go for quests to increase their Wits & Fight and continuously draw Trickery cards for Bribery. While doing this, they should be collecting gold from settlements/exploring, as it costs 5 gold to activate.

 

Once everyone gets their cards, Amber should equip her follower and end her turn next to a settlement that doesn't have a peril. The player with Bribery should use it on the settlement and end their turn near another player/Bane/guard. Amber should then fail to pass the peril which should be easy if you prepped your hand. The player that stole the Follower should go into battle and burn every card aside from the Follower, leaving it unequipped. This will guarantee that Amber will be able to steal it back and reequip it.

[Makilio]

Updated to include Dark Cloud 2.

 

 #34: Past, Present, and Future

 

About the game

Dark Cloud 2 is an Action RPG that was originally released for the PS2 and created by Level-5. The game follows Max and Monica as they attempt to save the world in the past, present, and future.

 

Things I liked:

• The story. While it's not intricate, it flows together nicely and everything begins to make sense as you wrap up in the final chapters.
• Spheda. Definitely the best part of the game right here; I'm definitely biased since I spent an absurdly long time playing Spheda back when this was on the PS2, so I was glad to see that my skills were still there. For those curious, I cleared every floor using a Swan, but I'd recommend switching clubs based on distance.
• The music. While there aren't many tracks, I do love the few that exist, especially the music for the floor right before the boss.
• Georama. It wasn't as fun as I remember it (probably because I already knew what to build and where, but I had a blast figuring out town layouts as a kid). It's also an interesting concept that I hope comes back if DC3 is ever made.
• Fishing. One of the few games that manages to have an enjoyable fishing aspect. If you want to do it leisurely, there's the regular rods, and for those that want to constantly focus, there's the lure rod. I can't think of an RPG that has a better fishing system than this.

Things I didn't like:

• Monica's monster forms. They're completely useless and are a pain in the butt to level up. I was worried they would include a ridiculous trophy like "get all monster forms to level 99" or something, but luckily we can stop after one gets level 76. There's a lot they could've done with this, and they just didn't.
• Spheda's implementation. While I adore the game, I'll admit they did a terrible job in introducing it to the player. You get access to the game in chapter 3, which is undoubtedly contains the hardest courses (unless you're skilled with the Albatross), and the dungeons in chapters 1 and 2 are pretty close in difficulty as well. If you're going to attempt the mini game, it'll be extremely frustrating since you'll probably continuously fail. To top it off, you have to clear the floor each time you want to play the game on it, which is kind of ridiculous. It's clear that Spheda was an after thought during development.
• Chapter 8 and its medal requirements. I forgot how much I hated the Zelmite Mines until I got back to it. Having to fight multiple King Mimics with LEGEND isn't fun when you're hit for over half your health every time you try to hit it for a small amount.
• Monica's back story because she doesn't have any. She's the daughter of Raybrandt, and that's about it. I love her character and her design, but there's really not much to her, especially in Chapter 8 when she's like "let me go with you for the fun of it lol".

Overall, it's a pretty fun game that has some poor implementations that can easily be improved if a sequel were to happen. It was one of my favorite RPGs on the PS2, and I'd say it aged well. I definitely recommend it to anyone that's a fan of RPGs that haven't been able to play it yet.

 

Also, I cleaned up the main post since I'm doing more in-depth analyses on individual posts, but if anyone's curious about a game that happened before I started this, I'll add them somewhere on the first page.

[Makilio]

Updated to include Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth.

 

 #35: Perfect Sleuth

 

About the game

DS:CS is a monster-catching/training JRPG created by Media Vision, and follows Takumi/Ami and their friends as they try to solve crimes using the power of Digimon.

 

Things I liked:

• The storyline. Despite being really slow for the first half of the game, I really liked how everything tied together once it picked up. Also, the characters are pretty awesome, especially Nokia. The game's definitely more character-driven than story.
• The music is amazing. I actually put Nokia's and Kyoko's themes on one of my playlists because I liked them so much.
• Difficulty. You can make it as easy as you want (lowest difficulty + broken digimon), or as hard as you want (hard with terribad digimon), which is nice if you want a challenge or to breeze through the story.
• Monster collecting. Digivolving and de-digivolving to unlock everything is pretty addicting.

Things I didn't like:

• Digimon medals. There's nothing more fun than 500 collectables that combine the thrilling concepts of missability and RNG-luck. Most of my time was probably dedicated to collecting them. Veedramon's medal just didn't want to appear for the longest time.
• Online battling. You can't battle your friends, as the battles are "random" (as in you'll be paired against AI with stupidly high stats that'll steamroll you or one of the top-ranked players despite only < 30 battles). Also, the connection is terrible; you'll spend more time looking at connection error messages than actually battling. Really disappointed that I can't battle the boyfriend, so the amount of playability decreased drastically for me.
• Terrible translation. Honestly, I'd label this as worse than Hollow Fragment's translation. Some of the translation is too exact and sounds awkward at times. Also, some of the Digimon names are in Japanese while others are in the English, which makes it hard to keep track of who's who. I lost a lot of time while collecting medals because they weren't consistent (they'd be using the Japanese name in the inventory and battle, but English in medal procurement and item description). Honestly, they need to choose one naming style and stick with it, especially for people like me that aren't that familiar with them.

Overall, I liked the game, and I recommend it to anyone that's a fan of Digimon and monster collecting games, but there's quite a bit that could be improved on in future titles.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Makilio

[Makilio]

Updated to include Disgaea 3 (Vita edition)!

 

#36: Platinum Trophy^dood

 

About the game:

This is the Vita port of the 3rd game in the Disgaea series by Nippon Ichi. The story follows Mao and associates as they don't play hooky at a school where attendance is frowned upon (I seriously question why a school like this would exist... who would fund this? Definitely not Gorgeous).

 

Since I've already played the PS3's version, my opinions will be primarily around the new aspects of the game.

 

Things I liked:

• So many characters! The fact that you're given all of the PS3 version's DLC for free in the post game makes it worth buying a second time. Sure, half of them are monsters for no reason (Gordon's given a pass though for obvious reasons), but at least you can use some of your favorite characters from NIS's other  fun universes. Also, prayers to Marjoly, who is never seen again after this game.
• Stella/Rutile. I liked the idea of a rival school, although at this point, I'm wondering how their netherworld has a functioning society with the state of their education system. Anyways, new characters are always welcome for me, although I would've liked seeing Rutile return in Disgaea 5.

Things I didn't like:

• The new Command Attack dungeons:
  • Survival mode was pretty boring and easy; I really don't see any point of playing it once you unlock Pleinair and the F150+ trophy.
  • Item World reminded me of how annoying Disgaea 1's item world was, with all of its islands and high terrain, making it pretty tedious to get below the 100 command requirement. I had to reset several times until I got reasonable layouts; I even had one floor that required ~60 commands to clear because of how vast and disconnected the floor was.
  • Class World wasn't too bad, but the later floors were a pain with several 6-requirement Geo Panels that required brute force for a reasonable clear. Honestly, I probably won't touch these dungeons again when I continue playing.

Overall, I liked this version a lot more than the PS3 version simply because of the free DLC characters, and discovering how great it is to play Disgaea on the go. Since I'm being mostly mobile lately, thus not having long access to the PS3/PS4, expect my next few games to be of the Vita variety.

[Makilio]

Updated to include The Sims 3.

 

#37: Master of Simology

 

About the game

The Sims 3 is the PS3 port of a popular life simulation game created by EA, where you're free to enslave a poor family until you're bored of them then kill them off in a method of your choosing.

 

As someone's that played most of the Sims games on PC, I'll be focusing my opinions between this game and the PC version of Sims 3.

 

Things I liked:

•  

 

Things I didn't like:

• The controls. Despite playing it for about a week, the controls never really became intuitive to me, as I'm still fumbling with pressing the right buttons to get to the menu I want. It could just be me, but I didn't like it.
• Pausing. Everything you do pretty much paused the game, which really slows down the pacing of the game dramatically. Personally, I tend to play Sims at least on the 2nd speed if I'm micromanaging, but I feel that even on the 3rd speed, the game's too slow with a pause every other second.
• The AI of your sims when you're not on the lot. As soon as you leave, they'll stop whatever they're doing and turn your house into a mess. One thing I liked about the PC version was that you could micromanage your Sims all over town without a problem, but after coming back to a destroyed house several times, I simply confined my Sims to just work and the house.
• Newspaper. Can't cancel it for some reason, so there's a mess in the front of the house, and if you have any Neat Sims, they'll want to do nothing but clean it up.
• Glitchy trophies. I had to redo several trophies, as well as delete game data because the trophy didn't pop with the associated in-game achievement.

Seriously, the port of this game is pretty embarrassing when compared to the original. If I didn't get this for free, I'd want a refund. If you want to play Sims, stick with the PC versions.  I guess the one nice thing that came from playing this is the UR platinum and the fact that I'm craving an RPG again.

[Makilio]

Updated to include Atelier Rorona Plus (and officially break my hiatus):

 

#38: Complete

 

About the game

Atelier Rorona is the 11th installment of the Atelier series created by Gust (yes, Mana Khemia counts). It is the first game of the Arland arc, where you follow Rorona, a girl with a pie fetish, as she is training to become an alchemist.

 

Things I liked:

• Alchemy + trait system. These weren't present in the first Iris game (the one I'm most familiar with), so I liked that items could differ vastly by the traits they possess, as well as what items were used during creation. For example, a really weak meteor could do around ~100 damage per activation, whereas the last one I created was capable of doing 4500+ per turn when upgraded into an Infinity Meteor. Having to think about what you're doing and how you're doing it was a nice learning curve that I welcome and would like to see in other RPGs.
• The characters and their endings / plot: I loved the interactions between Rorona and her supporting characters, especially when going for Astrid's ending, as you see all of their struggles and each character slowly get fleshed out, which in return helps flesh out Rorona as a great protagonist. When I did my second run, which consisted of ignoring all character flags and going solely for Millionaire and Pie endings, I could see how irrelevant you can make a character, which I guess is nice if you really hate one.
• Assignments. It's an interesting way of moving the game along, as there's always something to strive for.
• Sterk. Look at them abs. More games need males with revealing outfits.

Things I didn't like:

• Duplicate assignments. While it's nice since you're allowed to focus on other aspects of the game instead of worrying about your assignment, but turning in more barrels isn't exactly engaging. There's other ways of giving the player more time to focus on character development.
• No free reign after Overtime. I'd like to be able to do what I want after I unlock everything and fully break the alchemy system without having to worry about a time constraint. Maybe lock trophies and prevent post-Overtime data from doing NG+ to prevent easy trophies? I dunno.
• Blood Elemental. Nobody warned me about her and I was vastly under-prepared the first time I ran into her, so while not a complaint about the game, it's more of a warning of her existence I guess.

 

Definitely a great game that I recommend to other RPG-fans. I began working towards the platinum because I wanted to make room for Oreshika on my Vita, but now I'm deciding on if I want to play Atelier Totori instead, decisions, decisions...

[Makilio]

Updated to include Tricky Towers.

 

 #39: Grand master wizard

 

About the game

Tricky Towers is a physics-based tower building game that lets you cry alone or with friends/strangers. It was created by Weirdbeard Games in Unity.

 

Things I liked:

• Access to both local and online multiplayer. This is a huge plus for me, as it's hard to be a gaming couple without local co-op games that we both enjoy, and it lets us invite friends over as well. Developers need to definitely bring this aspect back to their games.
• The trials are pretty fun up until the last few survivals. Those only brought me tears and frustration.
• The avatars are cute and make cute noises.
• The music was adorably great as well.

Things I didn't like:

• The golden spell book. Honestly the most time consuming trophy for me was RNG-based, despite my lack of skill. I spent several hours each day for the last week trying to unlock it. I spent less time on the other trophies combined. Didn't help that I was doing it in online multiplayer and I saw other players get it back to back several times too.
• Trial 50 without losing a heart, but that's a given. Screw big block physics.

It's a pretty fun, yet challenging game. I'll continue to keep playing it on and offline since it's such a great game. It also got me my first <1% rarity platinum, which was going to be Mugen Souls, but stuff happened, and I postponed that.

[Remilia Scarlet]

Love the NIS love you show. I saw you had one of the Nep games. I recommend mk2 through V-II and the other Vita games. Plat them all dude! Also, major kudos on inFamous 2!

[Makilio]

Love the NIS love you show. I saw you had one of the Nep games. I recommend mk2 through V-II and the other Vita games. Plat them all dude! Also, major kudos on inFamous 2!

 

Been a fan of NIS for about 12 years now (man, time flies with great games, haha). I've been eyeing all of the Nep games when they're on sale, but I've been lazy with my purchases   I'll make my way through the remakes eventually, although I do want to play the originals as well to have Nisa in my party.

[Remilia Scarlet]

Been a fan of NIS for about 12 years now (man, time flies with great games, haha). I've been eyeing all of the Nep games when they're on sale, but I've been lazy with my purchases I'll make my way through the remakes eventually, although I do want to play the originals as well to have Nisa in my party.

Out of the NIS games you've played, which is your favorite? I have to say Neptunia Victory for me -I've certainly put more time into that one than the other NIS games I own!

Edited August 20, 2016 by Rin Kagamine

[Manuelito]

• Access to both local and online multiplayer. This is a huge plus for me, as it's hard to be a gaming couple without local co-op games that we both enjoy, and it lets us invite friends over as well. Developers need to definitely bring this aspect back to their games.

So true man! That's one of the reasons I have started playing games. It's so sad that many games are excluding the couch play... Nice trophy collection and damn, I'm officially jealous about that 35% average rarity! GG

[Makilio]

Out of the NIS games you've played, which is your favorite? I have to say Neptunia Victory for me -I've certainly put more time into that one than the other NIS games I own!

 

Phantom Brave, as it's the one I've put the most hours into over the many years. It also helps that they gave me a free copy of the Steam version for testing as well 

 

So true man! That's one of the reasons I have started playing games. It's so sad that many games are excluding the couch play... Nice trophy collection and damn, I'm officially jealous about that 35% average rarity! GG

 

Everyone I've talked to misses couch co-op; we probably need to be more vocal about it. I've been eyeing Foul Play lately since it has couch play and apparently has a great storyline. And thanks, I have dreams of dropping it to as close to 30% as I can.

[Makilio]

Updated to include Siralim (100%)

 

 

About the game

Siralim is a randomized dungeon-crawling game created by Thylacine Studios in Gamemaker (well, I know that Siralim 2 was, so I'm assuming the same for the first game). You play as the king of Siralim and raise monsters to do your bidding. The game plays similar to the original Dragon Quest monsters with Disgaea's crazy number system added to it, so it's a huge grindfest.

 

Things I liked:

• There's ~320 unique monsters, each with their own unique passive ability, with potential of using another monster's passive as a second passive. You unlock them via tiers and grinding. You're bound to find several monsters that you really like, and you should be able to create a viable somewhat acceptable team composition.
• Endless grinding. You're allowed to level your monsters up as much as you want, as the hard level cap is not feasible, so if you want a full party of level 100,000+ monsters, you're free to attempt that feat.
• Unique perks. In addition to being king, you're also some sort of magician, which allows you to spec into various attributes and game modifications. There's no limit on points either, so you're free to fill up the skills with caps and then go wild on unlimited skills.

Things I didn't like:

• No sense of progression. The enemy monsters' levels scale according to yours with a function depending on floor level and your monsters' level. Because of how this works, you'll be grinding the same few floors (typically 1-3) for a majority of your time. Sure, you're getting stronger, but is that apparent to most players? Probably not since that floor level isn't getting any higher.
• Enemy scaling. Going with the previous point, enemies' stats will out-scale yours as you continue down through the dungeons, to the point where they're ridiculously high compared to yours. Does this mean there's a finite point of floor progression? Not necessarily, as certain team compositions aren't dependent completely on your monsters' stats. This means if you want to keep progressing, most monsters are not going to make the cut and you can create a 3-tier list for the monsters: Ridiculous (6x paranormal slimes), viable monsters, everything else (trash).

Overall, it's not a bad game, especially for a first by a small indie group, however it does have glaring problems that can push away most people. Fortunately, it appears most of the problems with the game were fixed in Siralim 2, which I'm pretty excited for the PS4 port. If you were a fan of DQM and Disgaea, I'd recommend taking a chance on this game, especially if you can find it for sale. If you're still on the fence about it, I'd recommend looking at Siralim 2 and wait for its release (or play it on Steam).

[James_Tonto]

You've got one of the best trophy collections, I've come across. A good respectable collection, with a number of respectable platinums. I'm particularly impressed with your Disgaea platinums, I enjoy those games myself, but have yet to fully complete/plat any of them yet. Of the Disgaea games you've completed and platted, how would you rate them trophy-wise? I.e, most difficult to easiest? It seems Disgaea 5's trophy list didn't take too long to beat.

[Makilio]

You've got one of the best trophy collections, I've come across. A good respectable collection, with a number of respectable platinums. I'm particularly impressed with your Disgaea platinums, I enjoy those games myself, but have yet to fully complete/plat any of them yet. Of the Disgaea games you've completed and platted, how would you rate them trophy-wise? I.e, most difficult to easiest? It seems Disgaea 5's trophy list didn't take too long to beat.

 

Thanks, but I don't know about best 

 

As for Disgaea, I'd rate them difficulty-wise: 4 (PS3) > 3 (PS3) > D2 > 3 (Vita) > 5. Since I haven't attempted 4 (Vita) yet, I shouldn't really place it, but judging from the trophies, it'll probably be equal to the PS3 version, depending on how difficult the new storylines are. Disgaea 5 is pretty easy, especially if you plan for it, as you can complete it within 24 hours. Disgaea 3 Vita's platinum is also pretty short since they removed the pirate trophies, and I was able to complete it in about 35 hours.

[Makilio]

Updated to include Dragon Quest Heroes

 

#40: Glory Hunter

 

About the game

Dragon Quest Heroes is an Action RPG created by Square Enix and Koei Tecmo, featuring a small part of the cast from the Dragon Quest series. The game revolves around Luceus and Aurora as they save the World Tree from its woes and blights. It's a fairly easy game for those that have played any of Koei Tecmo's previous games, but hey, that's what DQ's creator wanted since he's bad at action games.

 

Things I liked:

• The game itself. It's a combination of two of my favorite developers with characters that I grew up with (I was one of those weird kids that preferred DQ over FF). Here's to hoping we get the second game in the west, along with other developers joining forces with KT.
• Jessica/Yangus. DQ8 is my favorite out of the entire series, so I thoroughly enjoyed them (and with Angelo coming in DQH2, I'm excited).
• Sex appeal. There's something for everyone, and that's what I love about DQ.

Things I didn't like:

• Healix. Worst character in any game series hands-down. 
• Easy difficulty. I know they wanted it accessible to those that have never ventured outside of JRPGs, but I'd like to see something with a difficulty reminiscent of the horror known as DQ2. Not very likely, but a guy can dream.
• Terry. Don't get me wrong; I loved him in DQ6 and kid him in DQM, as well as this game, but when you have a character that is tiers above everyone else, there's a balance issue hiding somewhere.
• S l o w m e n u s p e e d s a n d w a i t i n g. It's not unique to this game; in fact, it's been plaguing this series. We don't need all this waiting, nor do we want to see the quest lady clap her hands until she gets arthritis. The alchemy guy and priestess are just as bad, but at least their hands will be fine.

 

Overall, a pretty good game with some flaws, although I'm still excited to play DQH2 to give some love to Angelo and Carver. I also played this game to hype myself up and get into the DQ spirit for the upcoming DQ Builders, and let's just say I can't wait.

[AJ_Radio]

Very nice. More respectable than my list of trophies which are mostly well known AAA titles, and I'm guilty on doubling up on games that were already easy the first time around.

 

If you can I would definitely go for Terraria and Tales of Symphonia although both are very time consuming.

 

Considering your list and taste in games I'm a bit surprised you have Sly Cooper Thieves in Time and Uncharted 3. Neither are too difficult and should be doable in a few days.

Edited October 6, 2016 by Spastic

[Makilio]

Very nice. More respectable than my list of trophies which are mostly well known AAA titles, and I'm guilty on doubling up on games that were already easy the first time around.

 

If you can I would definitely go for Terraria and Tales of Symphonia although both are very time consuming.

 

Considering your list and taste in games I'm a bit surprised you have Sly Cooper Thieves in Time and Uncharted 3. Neither are too difficult and should be doable in a few days.

 

Thanks, and there's nothing wrong with AAA titles. Everyone has their own tastes  .

 

I chip away at Terraria every once in awhile, but I just don't like the controls it has on the Vita (also, my right cursor sticks a bit, which gets irritating with the cursor), but it'll happen one day. I actually hate Tales of Symphonia, but I got it to play co-op with someone who was interested in it, although my friend quickly lost interest with the storyline, and since I've already played it before, it's not too high on my priority list. However, I have most of the newer Tales games that I plan on playing, so maybe I'll knock out ToS when I go on that binge.

 

The only reason Sly is on there is because of my pre-trophy hunting days, but yea, it's not something I care for, but I can thank Plus for it  . Uncharted 3's DLC is keeping me at bay, but one day I'll get the courage to 100% it. If I get the platinum first, it'll just sit there mocking me, but from what storyline I've played, it's pretty enjoyable.

[AJ_Radio]

Thanks, and there's nothing wrong with AAA titles. Everyone has their own tastes  .

 

I chip away at Terraria every once in awhile, but I just don't like the controls it has on the Vita (also, my right cursor sticks a bit, which gets irritating with the cursor), but it'll happen one day. I actually hate Tales of Symphonia, but I got it to play co-op with someone who was interested in it, although my friend quickly lost interest with the storyline, and since I've already played it before, it's not too high on my priority list. However, I have most of the newer Tales games that I plan on playing, so maybe I'll knock out ToS when I go on that binge.

 

The only reason Sly is on there is because of my pre-trophy hunting days, but yea, it's not something I care for, but I can thank Plus for it  . Uncharted 3's DLC is keeping me at bay, but one day I'll get the courage to 100% it. If I get the platinum first, it'll just sit there mocking me, but from what storyline I've played, it's pretty enjoyable.

 

Thanks, really appreciate the input.

 

I considered Terraria but when it comes to 100-200+ hour games with a bit of skill and luck involved, I really start to lose it. Also I would avoid playing on the Vita unless it's a quick easy game or a solid platformer (God of War, Sly Cooper). As for Symphonia, well same situation.

 

It's not that these games are difficult like Vanquish or Super Meat Boy would be but but the time I fully complete a game like Terraria, I could have 10 more platinums added to my profile. It's my bad habit that I buy easier games because I love the sound of that ding especially when it's a platinum. Maybe, someday, but not in the immediate future.

 

I personally enjoy Sly Cooper as the series has some of the most fluid, down to earth platforming I've experienced in recent memory. In Sly Thieves in Times there are collectibles that help greatly if you got a Vita to go along with the PS3 version but I'll see it when I come around to it.

 

I just did the two online trophies for Uncharted 3 last night and it was practically all high levels. My game came with a free online pass so I was pretty much thrown in with the high levels who are probably boosting their way to 100 percent completion. If you do plan on fully doing this it's going to take 100 - 200 hours of your time. I fully understand why Grand Theft Auto V would have this because this is the time needed to reach level 100 if you do it slow and legit. You get a platinum for all your troubles, but the Uncharted 3 DLC? Ugh.

 

Maybe when I get fiber or cable internet hardwired into the console then just maybe I'll do the DLC. But that's wayyyy too much work.

 

Plus I think I messed up any chance of 100 percent completion on my profile because I have a missing timestamp from Welcome Park.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Spastic

[Makilio]

Updated to include Dragon Quest Builders.

 

#41: Perfection 

 

About the game

DQBuilders is a sandbox building game created by Square Enix that has all of the charm you'd expect from the Dragon Quest series. The game is pretty short (consists of 4 chapters, each smaller than the last). The storyline itself is essentially a tutorial for the real game (endless building and collecting on Terra Incognita), as you unlock more recipes and ingredients the more story/challenges you complete. Totally not a rip-off of Infiniminer.

 

Things I liked:

• Dragon Quest charm. Everything you've grown to love about the series is still accessible, although in smaller quantities and spread throughout the chapters. My personal favorite being Chapter 3 for obvious reasons.
• Building and exploration. Being able to build the towns up in my way was pretty fun, and each chapter has several islands that are pretty large with secrets. I haven't played much of Terra Incognita, so I can't attest to its expansiveness, but I assume it's a decent size as well.

Things I didn't like:

• Night time. I couldn't see anything outside of the character unless I was holding a torch, then I could see the surrounding tiles. On top of being blind, you're constantly chased by 1-2 ghosts, makes accomplishing anything at night a pain. Why not just sleep at night and not worry about it? Timed challenges aren't friends with that idea, and the night is pretty long, so you're missing out on a lot of time for that day. Night honestly ruined Chapter 2 for me, as it always seemed to line up with me travelling through the bogs.
• Enemy AI and its relentlessness. Really only a pain in Chapter 4, where I was chased constantly by everything but the docile enemies, regardless of how far away I got from them. Didn't have this problem in the other three chapters.
• Storyline. While the plot made sense, it wasn't that great for a Dragon Quest game. Not making exceptions because it's a spin-off title.
• Monster Masher. I had to grind 300 monsters post-storyline just to unlock the trophy. This isn't really a game where you just want to kill monsters for the fun of it (see below point).
• Combat. The combat is really basic and boring: hit an enemy, then move out of the way when they retaliate. Once you get to the end of Chapters 3 and 4, you're given an alternative method, which involves ramming into everything until it dies, but that's it. Also, the one combat skill you pick up in Chapter 1 is completely useless.

While there are a lot of things I didn't like, most of them were minor complaints. Overall, it was an okay game, and I'd recommend it to a fan of either the DQ series or sandbox building games. Terra Incognita is probably a lot of fun once you finish the storyline, so I'll give it a try as I wait for World of Final Fantasy's release.

[Makilio]

Updated to include Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God.

 

 #42: Master the Way of Curry

 

 

About the game

Sorcery Saga is a roguelike game created by Compile Heart and ZeroDiv. The storyline follows Pupuru and her quest to keep a local curry shop from losing business when a franchise comes to town. 

 

Things I liked:

• The banter between characters for theatre items. It was nice to get more background outside of the storyline.

Things I didn't like:

• The characters. Aside from Pupuru, none of the characters are remotely likable, and she's not that interesting of a character either.
• Kuu. He gets a special mention, as his entire purpose is to annoy you as much as possible. He's your "guest" character that follows you throughout dungeons. If he's knocked out, you're not able to progress, and he has a tendency to put himself in as much danger as possible. The best way to describe his AI is if you had to walk a blind dog that suffered from dementia and had insufferable hunger. When he kills an enemy for you, you miss out on half the XP. If he can put himself in a position to die or suffer a lot of damage, he will prioritize that.
• No difficulty. Seriously. On a scale from 1-10, with 10 being Hannah Montana's plat, this game would be a 1. By the time you're finished with the first dungeon, you should be strong enough to handle the final boss in the post-game with no issue. The point of monsters aren't to kill you, it seems, but to annoy you. None of them are lethal, but they're bound to aggravate you by manipulating your equipment/inventory. Definitely a stark contrast to most roguelikes, so I'd recommend against this for beginners (you'll pick up way too many bad habits), and veterans will be bored quickly.
• Constant internet connection. For some reason, someone thought it'd be smart to require the DLC costumes to be connected to the internet to use them. What makes matters worse is that it constantly checks for a connection even when you don't own any DLC. This leaves the game prone to crashing when overloaded from dungeons/monsters and a shaky Wi-Fi. I had to play with Flight mode on to be able to traverse through the 256-floor dungeon.
• Fickle AI. The AI seems to break for monsters in hallways, where you'll see all of the monsters moving back and forth constantly in one hallway. Also, Kuu's AI is broken in hallways, near treasure chests and obstacles.
• Items. About 90% of the 731 items are useless garbage that actually do not do anything. Some of the item descriptions acknowledge this fact. The grind for weapons/shields is also pointless (and also take up 80% of the time for the platinum), as you don't get stat buffs from them (not like you need them), so you're just grinding weapons/shields for the fun of it.
• Music. Not a fan of any of it, aside from the boss theme. I don't like putting games on mute at all, but the fact that I had to mute this (when Mugen Soul's sitting at 370 hours with the music still playing), speaks for itself. The monsters also make annoying noises when they die.

Overall, a terrible game that found its way to my favorite genre, and I'm glad that I can finally delete it off my Vita. I can't recommend this game in the slightest.

[Makilio]

Updated to include #43: Final Fantasy XV (as well as the formatting of OP; I'll get around to other posts eventually)

 #43: The World Wanderer

 

About the game

Final Fantasy XV took awhile to be made (10+ years or something) by Square Enix. Unlike the previous entries in the series, this game is an ARPG rather than a JRPG or MMO, with only Noctis as the playable character, and the story primarily revolves around his ascension to the throne.

 

Things I liked:

• The aesthetics of the game. The landscaping is beautiful, the food cooked by Ignis looked appetizing, and the music was lovely. All around, it's a very beautiful game.
• The storyline. While it wasn't great, it's hard to deny it was a nice plot. Pretty much every character was likable (or respectable if you weren't meant to like them).
• Weapons. Being able to choose from a large array of different weapons was nice. Everyone's bound to find a weapon style that fits them. 

Things I didn't like:

• Chapter 13. Just getting this out of the way. It lasted way too long, and while you're supposed to share feeling of hopelessness and annoyance with Noctis, it sort of just dragged on. The rest of the game sort of flies by, and then this chapter never seems to end.
• The pacing of the plot. The first half of the game consists of going to Altissia and lasts awhile. The second half blinks by except for Chapter 13. For a game that took that much development time, I'd expect a plot with better balance.
• Empty world. Sure, it takes several minutes between each town via driving, but there's really not much in between. There's the occasional monster, but unless you're travelling at night, you could get lonely.
• "Imperials above us!" Never gets old as it's constant once you start Chapter 2, and it typically only happens if you're hunting ingredients or fighting. Quite a few times I had 2-3 waves of imperial soldiers drop in on me before I was rewarded XP. They're really a nuisance. 
• Enemies have way too much health for no reason. Basic battles seemed to last awhile for some reason, and boss battles were even worse (you know the one: Adamantoise). There's no reason an enemy should have 5 million health and incapable of doing damage except to be a time sink. In fact, I wasn't even looking at the TV for the last 20 minutes of the boss fight because I simply didn't need to. The fight wasn't engaging in the slightest.

Overall, Final Fantasy 15 was a good game, but it has its flaws and honestly, I expected a bit more from it. I'll come back to the game since I bought the season pass, so hopefully, they put something great in.

[James_Tonto]

15 hours ago, Makilio said:

Updated to include #43: Final Fantasy XV (as well as the formatting of OP; I'll get around to other posts eventually)

 #43: The World Wanderer

 

About the game

Final Fantasy XV took awhile to be made (10+ years or something) by Square Enix. Unlike the previous entries in the series, this game is an ARPG rather than a JRPG or MMO, with only Noctis as the playable character, and the story primarily revolves around his ascension to the throne.

 

Things I liked:

• The aesthetics of the game. The landscaping is beautiful, the food cooked by Ignis looked appetizing, and the music was lovely. All around, it's a very beautiful game.
• The storyline. While it wasn't great, it's hard to deny it was a nice plot. Pretty much every character was likable (or respectable if you weren't meant to like them).
• Weapons. Being able to choose from a large array of different weapons was nice. Everyone's bound to find a weapon style that fits them. 

Things I didn't like:

• Chapter 13. Just getting this out of the way. It lasted way too long, and while you're supposed to share feeling of hopelessness and annoyance with Noctis, it sort of just dragged on. The rest of the game sort of flies by, and then this chapter never seems to end.
• The pacing of the plot. The first half of the game consists of going to Altissia and lasts awhile. The second half blinks by except for Chapter 13. For a game that took that much development time, I'd expect a plot with better balance.
• Empty world. Sure, it takes several minutes between each town via driving, but there's really not much in between. There's the occasional monster, but unless you're travelling at night, you could get lonely.
• "Imperials above us!" Never gets old as it's constant once you start Chapter 2, and it typically only happens if you're hunting ingredients or fighting. Quite a few times I had 2-3 waves of imperial soldiers drop in on me before I was rewarded XP. They're really a nuisance. 
• Enemies have way too much health for no reason. Basic battles seemed to last awhile for some reason, and boss battles were even worse (you know the one: Adamantoise). There's no reason an enemy should have 5 million health and incapable of doing damage except to be a time sink. In fact, I wasn't even looking at the TV for the last 20 minutes of the boss fight because I simply didn't need to. The fight wasn't engaging in the slightest.

Overall, Final Fantasy 15 was a good game, but it has its flaws and honestly, I expected a bit more from it. I'll come back to the game since I bought the season pass, so hopefully, they put something great in.

 

Congrats on Final Fantasy XV. It's a game I'm personally looking forward to playing. Given how long it took to develop, I'm hoping for an enjoyable experience, My Brother bought me a copy for Christmas, but I plan to wait awhile, before playing, as I heard Square-Enix already wants to implement some changes, to fix some of the flaws you mentioned, like the pacing and that 13th chapter. Given how Square kept changing their minds on what this game was going to be, I consider a miracle it came out as solid a game as it has. It seems that Square learned from FFXIII and decided to stop making things so convoluted.

 

I'll hopefully plat this game someday myself, alongside, classic Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X/X-2, Type-0 and XII. I dunno if you've played XII before, but it's one of my favourites and I personally consider it, highly underrated. 

[Makilio]

39 minutes ago, James_Tonto said:

 

Congrats on Final Fantasy XV. It's a game I'm personally looking forward to playing. Given how long it took to develop, I'm hoping for an enjoyable experience, My Brother bought me a copy for Christmas, but I plan to wait awhile, before playing, as I heard Square-Enix already wants to implement some changes, to fix some of the flaws you mentioned, like the pacing and that 13th chapter. Given how Square kept changing their minds on what this game was going to be, I consider a miracle it came out as solid a game as it has. It seems that Square learned from FFXIII and decided to stop making things so convoluted.

 

I'll hopefully plat this game someday myself, alongside, classic Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X/X-2, Type-0 and XII. I dunno if you've played XII before, but it's one of my favourites and I personally consider it, highly underrated. 

 

Thanks, and it's definitely an enjoyable experience, as I didn't worry about trophies at all until the post-game. It's definitely a nice change in design from the XIII trilogy so I think you'll really enjoy it as well.

 

I haven't played XII yet, in fact, it's the last game of the series that I haven't played and know next to nothing about, so I'm really excited for the remaster!