Popular Post realm722 Posted February 24, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 24, 2021 (edited) Game: Bully Analysis: WOO BUDDY! We have a prestige game on our hands ladies and gentlemen. I bought Bully for $8.99 back in late August 2020, and boy am I excited for this review. Why is it a landmark event? Well quite simply, this is the first Rockstar game I have ever played in my life. That's kind of a big deal given they're one of the biggest video game developers in existence - and I figure I should offer some explanation as to why - I don't really do any of the typical genres they're in. Shooters like Max Payne? Pass. Grand Theft Auto? Not for me chief. Red Dead Redemption? Tampoco. But going back into my mental archives of delighting in NerdCubed's Bully Complete Series from 2012? That was something I could get behind. I remember adoring that series when I watched it coming on 9 years ago, and what better time to revisit it than replay the game as it's set to complete it's 15th year anniversary considering it released in October 2006. I had my personal reservations if it would "hold up" even as someone who never played it when it debuted. Open World games have changed greatly across the last 15 years, and while it's not like I've been playing them left and right (Ni No Kuni, inFamous First Light, Arkham City, Arkham Knight, Spider-Man, and Horizon Zero Dawn would all prolly most fit in that category of open world games) - I feared the journey may be a bit tiresome. Soooooo.... how'd it go? At the beginning, I really didn't enjoy it. In fact - for essentially the entirety of Chapter 1 I kind of felt "this was... what people were dying for when they ask for Bully 2?" In hindsight, that judgement was harsh. It took me a bit to adjust to the brutal frame-rate when sprinting early on, that I eventually just got used too and it never bothered me again. But given the relatively clunky slingshot auto-aim, the combat which is fine for the purposes of what the game is going for, and the typically brash/crass cutscenes involving Jimmy, Gary, and Petey... I wasn't enjoying the game much for the first few hours and just going through the motions. But woooo did that change once the world truly opened up and you could travel to Bullworth Town, Old Bullworth Vale(oh the Carnival, I love the Carnival), and of course New Coventry. All of a sudden you went from being in this tight box that was the school to being able to hijack a bike and piss off to wherever you please. Little by little as I played it, it hit me where people got their enjoyment for this game and why the nostalgia and desire for a sequel is so great. Bully does not have a SINGLE mechanic it does brilliantly or feels "great". But it's willingness to offer a buffet palette of mischievous deeds makes it wonderful to get lost in. Honestly - I don't think there's one single thing that Bully does that I can't think of another that does better. But the amalgamation of all the features it offers is what makes it special. Where do I even begin? You can give anybody you please a wedgie. You can harass and insult, quite literally, everybody. You can throw stink bombs. You can hijack a bike off an elderly lady. You can slingshot from a rooftop where you're untouchable. You can use your spud-gun or flair gun to wreck havoc on your dorm-mates. You can lay down marbles and pull the fire alarm to se people fly everywhere. You can ram down an entire cities worth of citizens on your bike. You can skitch a ride on your skateboard on the back of a car. You can egg cars. You can talk to girls, give 'em flowers or chocolates, and make-out with them in broad daylight. You can ride down the stair handles on the way up to the academy. You can start a food fight. You can plant fire-crackers in the toilet. You can hide in a trash can or a locker, lock-pick lockers, and stuff bullies/nerds into those lockers. You attend classes. Those classes unlock skills that can normally enhance your skillset to be more of a buffoon. You have legitimate relationships with your teachers. You can play carnival games at the fair. You can go BMX racing OR go-kart racing. There is damn near nothing limiting you in this game from living out your dream of being a spiteful teen in middle America raising hell for whoever crosses your path - and that makes this game so damn wonderful. Racking up trouble points was hardly a bother given whenever the opportunity presented itself, I would find a way to cause chaos and enjoy the mayhem that ensued. But rather than merely just be a fun sandbox, I've gotta say - I really enjoyed the story of Bully. OR at the very least, I enjoyed all the arcs it went for and it's general premise. The idea of conquering the "four factions" that initially despise you when you first arrive? Love it. You've got the nerds (typical DnD, hell they're still around today), the preps (rich kids who are high and mighty, with the caveat there's a lot of inbreeding), the greasers (fairly out-dated reference in all honesty but I enjoyed it), and the jocks (athletes on the football team and such). One by one you win each of them over (and also date girls from each lol - Beatrice, Pinky, Lola, and Mandy. Finally Chapter 5 deals with your reputation that you've built up over the previous 4 chapters being torn-down by the "Townies" who've been led against you by Gary. Yea, Gary's the one kid at the start who gives you somewhat the time of day - but in the end betrays you because he's looking to run the school himself. You take him down in the end and reign supreme with Petey!(good ol Petey). Was every story mission phenomenal? Far from it. I still have nightmares from trying to collect all the girl underwear during the Mr. Burton mission... I was caught, 16 times by the headmistress? Oh and the asylum mission bailing out the English drunk teacher and Johnny Vincent later on? I hate those orderlies. Someone send Batman in there to give them some treatment like it's Arkham Asylum all over again. But all in all, I'd say that while the story missions weren't great mechanically a lot of the time, they provided some nice variety and generally ushered the narrative along where it needed to go. TROPHIES - I'm going to suggest something for all 7 people who haven't played this game yet. I do recommend looking at the trophies before playing. That way, as you play, you can passively go about taking care of the trophies needed. Why give 50 wedgies all at once at the end when it feels like a checklist you're marking off, when you can instead keep it in the back of your mind - hey, give someone a wedgie here and there and it'll add up as you play through to the end? Same with egging cars, insults, picking flowers, kissing girls, mowing the lawn, running paper routes, kicking soccer-balls, and so forth. It wonderfully helped me balance the transportation meters traveled between the skateboard and bike that resulted in minimal grinding towards the end. I think in general the trophies are very well done, encouraging you to explore and experiment with all the systems, without demanding you to find all 75 rubber bands OR gain a full 100% completion(I capped out at around 92% by the time I was done). The 160k trouble points may seem daunting, but once you pass Chemistry 5, you can make infinite fire-crackers in your dorm, pull the fire alarm, cause madness, run outside to re-set the body count and re-fill your ammo to do it over and over again. I earned the 23.89% rarity platinum in just 6 days and 23 hours, and my final in-game time was that of around 19 hours - which is right in line with what the trophy guide says it should take. THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE - 1) I hated the camera so often while playing. It made sneaking in the girls dorm a nightmare. I'd honestly preferred to play the game in 1st person given it's refusal to traverse through walls making some sections impossible, it's easily responsible for why I failed missions a handful of times. 2) Speaking of missions, some of the old-school game design is very present here. Having to re-do the ENTIRE mission because it just hit 2AM? OR getting sniped in some fashion like falling off a high building at an inopportune time leads you to having to go all the way back to the Asylum again.. just miserable. 3) I hated the frame-rate early but got used to it as time went on. 4) As for the story, I don't understand how Gary is a constant in Chapter 1, 100% absent for Chapters 2-4, and then makes his big emergence at the end of Chapter 5. Surely he could have been inter-woven into the story in a more eloquent fashion to not merely be there for the start and the end. I thought in general the game didn't age too terribly, some jokes(Petey's harassment specifically) prolly looks poor in hindsight but I mean... the game is named Bully, what'd you expect? Now, could a modern game have you literally sneak into the girls dorm and take pictures of the lead cheerleader naked just to post them all over town? Prolly not - even if in the end you end up helping her and covering them up. 5) Aside from that... the Shop clockwise/counterclockwise I swore bugged out on me a few times. 6) Maybe an unpopular opinion? I did not care for the "4th area" unlocked in Blues Skies Industrial Park. I 1000% why it was there, it fit with the narrative and theme of these trailer-park / blue collar workers getting their revenge.. it just wasn't fun to muck about in. My recommendation? Imagine if you unlocked a frigging ZOO there and got to mess about? I think that would have been delightful and as memorable as the carnival. 7) OH, and finally before I forget, I HATED how there were no subtitles. Unless I missed something completely, kind of inexcusable that wasn't added when the game was added to the PS4 library. BULLY 2? - Talk about Bully 2 happens prolly with as much frequency as "when does Half Life 3 drop?". It happens A LOT. But seriously... in order to make a game nowadays in the modern era for a high school kid would be downright bizarre. I think you could make it happen, but the landscape has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. Hell, you'd be hard-pressed to find a teenager that genuinely knows what a greaser is apart from that movie John Travolta is in. So how would it work? If you wanna go the 4 factions route - in my mind you can do weebs(this would be a riot), the "every cause is my own" woke club(I mean, it's Rockstar, they gotta be fair), the alt-right 4chan gang(thank you YouTube), and I guess... jocks/athletes never went out of style did they? But see, the trouble is - so much of "the culture" is online only now, a lot of the stuff wouldn't translate to a very fun gameplay experience. Sure GTAV has elements of the online mode on your cellphone and such but it's just not... the same, as some of the mischief you can cause in-person where the original Bully draws inspiration. Perhaps that's why the bailed on development in that 2017 period. But, the solution could be to stage the game in an older era and work from there with all the added elements you could create given how much more of a behemoth of a studio Rockstar has become over the last decade and a half. We shall see. People are dying for GTA6 yet given the cash cow GTA5 still is they have no need to press on something that isn't an absolutely guaranteed success. I appreciate them as a studio now, from the subtle details of having kids you interact with in the game also be interact-able in the real-world(chattin' up Lola and Mandy like it's nothing) to the wonderfully detailed stats page... it was real Rockstar. Thanks for the journey! Panda Score: 7.8 / 10 Spoiler Just some bonus notes I made while playing Bully: Wow this frame rate when you decide to run…. Uhh, so 5% of the way in - the cynicism for 2006 is on point for Rockstar Hate how there’s no subtitles Beat up Russell at the end of Chapter 1, then Gary is against us Now in Chapter 2 the town opens up - the game should get more fun now! “You want me to kill Darby Harrington” Weed Killer quest is funny I’m starting to get the appeal of the game more having now wrapped up Chapter 2 (I cheesed the Darby fight by hitting him with the slingshot 200 times) but it’s basically a school sim where there’s not a single great gameplay element, but there’s so much of them plus the environment just kinda drags you in…. FINALLY FINISHED COOK’S CRUSH…. Got busted like 6 times tryna complete it cuz I wouldn’t pull the fire alarm and such to distract the teachers “Panty Raid” is an atrocious mission… got caught like 15 times Win Lola, beat up Johnny and the greasers to wrap up Chapter 3 I forgot the Asylum mission where you bust out Mr. Galloway to help Miss Phillips Beat Chapter 4 by beating up all the jocks at the football field I do love the contrast of Jimmy going from being new kid outcast to king and reigning over all the cliques Beat up Gary to wrap up Chapter 5, win everybody back over and yea! Story is done! Overall, I quite enjoyed it! It doesn't hit a 8.0 rating or above for me just cuz the moment-to-moment gameplay doesn't have been fascinated quite in that same way, plus there's some high 7's I really love(Slime Rancher, Spider-Man, A Hat in Time, Hollow Knight) that all I would say generally fall into this category for great games - but don't hit those piques of those above for me to rate them higher) Edited February 25, 2021 by realm722 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingofbattle8174 Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 I completed this game for the 360 and it was my second time playing it. It is still one of my fav games of the PS2 era and I agree that it just allows you to do so much and is just one of those games that are a blast to play. When I completed it, my worst part was the arcade games and getting that 100%, which the 360 version does require. Along with a trophy for 20 gentleman kisses. Oh and the English class, while not cheating. Everything else though is great. I am glad you got to enjoy it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted February 25, 2021 Author Share Posted February 25, 2021 (edited) On 2/13/2021 at 2:36 AM, Copanele said: Beautiful massive text as always I have a friend who constantly recommends this game for me and always said "you will love bears after this game" without explaining why. Guess now I know hahah. Also thoughts and prayers for when you will start Jotun amazing game but MY GOD the RNG will kickflip you. My bad Copa for taking forever to respond lol, I just wanted the next page on my cabinet to have a review instead of a reply hence the wait. But yes! I loved the war bear and if you want more games in general with lovely war bears, I cannot recommend it enough given my next game that I'm targeting my 125th platinum for is Banner Saga 3! Amazing bears in that game that genuinely offer a huge advantage if you utilize them correctly. As for Jotun, wooooo boy am I nervous. I think after BS3 I'm gonna try one of the first two really difficult games in Furi - simply because I heard that it's a bit more manageable due to being able to play with the cloud save. Either way, I expect to get my ass handed to me. But I 100% DO want to play and platinum Jotun this year as it'll give me an excuse to justify and finally purchase Spiritfarer(same developer as Jotun/Sundered) since that game captivated me since I first laid eyes on it. 16 hours ago, kingofbattle8174 said: I completed this game for the 360 and it was my second time playing it. It is still one of my fav games of the PS2 era and I agree that it just allows you to do so much and is just one of those games that are a blast to play. When I completed it, my worst part was the arcade games and getting that 100%, which the 360 version does require. Along with a trophy for 20 gentleman kisses. Oh and the English class, while not cheating. Everything else though is great. I am glad you got to enjoy it. Hahaha the arcade games are pretty fun! Nut Shots and Monkey Fling took a few attempts at first but by the 4-5th attempt I had them nailed down. Honestly, Consumo was far and away my favorite and I earned the high-score on my 1st attempt. I wouldn't have minded needing the full 100% given it's just a fun world to hang out in, and while doing a collect-a-thon of the rubber-bands and such would have been a bit tedious, it also prolly would have made the plat a decent bit rarer than it is. Overall I'm quite happy with my first 2 months of 2021 trophy hunting. Completing 5 games in both January and February, but with this huge indie sale I'm tempted to pick-up 7-8 titles that'll easily keep me occupied until past the summer time given the backlog I still have to sort through. Edited February 25, 2021 by realm722 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted February 27, 2021 Share Posted February 27, 2021 Oh damn, NOW I read your Bully review (stupid phone) and boy oh boy! I am not big on Rockstar games, but this game now caught my attention, it does sound like the crazy amount of fun only past Rockstar can achieve. And the way you described the game...reminds me of Tony Hawk's Underground 2...for some reason I don't know why, sounds like the same crazy requirements. I agree however, I don't think Bully 2 will be as well received today. There's just a different culture nowadays (boo ) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted March 2, 2021 Author Share Posted March 2, 2021 (edited) Game: Beyond Eyes Analysis: I bought Beyond Eyes when it was on sale recently for $2.99, right around the end of January 2021. Eh, let's not beat around the bush on this. I bought it since it was a cheap and easy 100% that I like to play every month. Thus far in 2021 these have been on duds, and even dating back to 2020 I think the only 100%'s I truly enjoyed were Journey, Cel Damage HD, Sonic Mania(after a great amount of struggle), and Abzû. Still, let's be fair to this game and give it a fair shake. You play as this young girl who lost her eyesight in an accident involving fireworks. You wander through the world as it slowly appears around you from the white void of nothingness into revealing the lay of the land. You'll come across trees, bushes, fences, rivers, pathways, bridges, etc... and you'll encounter a few animals such as chickens, dogs, and geese along the way. During this journey you'll have experiences with your beloved cat Nani as you try to chase them down, as well as experience "truth reveals" which is essentially two sounds that appear similar, but end up being different things. Instead of a car running, once you get close it'll be revealed that it is in fact a lawnmower. Instead of a fountain, it'll be a sewer train, and so forth. Honestly, pretty decent representation of what I can imagine blind people go through when adjusting to different environments. There's 6 chapters in total but you can easily breeze through the game in an hour and a half. I personally achieved the 39.20% rarity 100% completion in just 1 hour and 56 minutes. Not quite good enough to reach the fastest achievers list but still pretty solid. The big reveal at the end after you've tracked down your old cats collar is.... he's passed away and you discover you're at a cemetery. Damn. The developer, Tiger & Squid are currently working on their next game(haven't released anything since and this game out in 2015) - and even tho I'm cautious given the complete lack of gameplay present in this one, this screenshot honestly looks pretty decent. It's supposed to form part of their new game series "Trails of Life" but I'm afraid they may have gone radio silent since those posts on their Facebook are from 2018. I hope they do alright tho, the visuals are pleasant - they just need to build something on top of that. Panda Score: 5.8 / 10 On 2/27/2021 at 3:35 AM, Copanele said: Oh damn, NOW I read your Bully review (stupid phone) and boy oh boy! I am not big on Rockstar games, but this game now caught my attention, it does sound like the crazy amount of fun only past Rockstar can achieve. And the way you described the game...reminds me of Tony Hawk's Underground 2...for some reason I don't know why, sounds like the same crazy requirements. I agree however, I don't think Bully 2 will be as well received today. There's just a different culture nowadays (boo I recommend it! You can pick it up for $9(Rockstar refuses to go below this point, trust me, I've seen it go on sale 8+ times never cheaper) as it goes on sale semi-frequently. Even if you don't end up being the biggest fan of it, it's at max a 20-hour experience. I also need to play some of the old Tony Hawk games! I know they're near and dear to many but they just never entered my sphere of influence when I was younger. Edited March 2, 2021 by realm722 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted March 2, 2021 Author Share Posted March 2, 2021 Game: Banner Saga 3 Analysis: I bought Banner Saga 3 for $8.74 back in early November 2020, the same time I bought BS2. This is the culmination of the trilogy and before we go any further, a few things. Here is my Banner Saga full review. A 8.6 rating, platinumed back in Oct. 2020. Here is my Banner Saga 2 full review. A 9.1 rating, platinumed back in Dec. 2020. Please Hear My Supplication - The Banner Saga Trilogy is quite possibly my favorite video game trilogy.... of All-Time. I'm torn between it and the Batman: Arkham series. But since this game has such an unbelievably small amount of players on PS4(I get it, it's a fantasy tactical role-playing game on consoles), before I spoil anything here is my statement in bright bold increased sized font to hopefully captivate the audience of those who want to embark on an incredible journey. Please play the Banner Saga series. It is a phenomenal endeavor covering the journey of a people in dire circumstances. It has marvelous set pieces, a lively atmosphere, characters you'll get attached too, and is utterly gorgeous to gaze at (LOOK AT THE ART WORK). It is criminal how this game has only 1.2k owners on PSNProfiles. I understand it's the 3rd in a trilogy, but the 2nd game fell off a cliff sales wise compared to the 1st and I cannot fathom why. It is the platinum with the 3rd fewest achievers in my entire catalogue with me being the 114th person to platinum it according to the website. Just, do me the favor of AT LEAST playing the 1st game and seeing if it's within your tastes. I'm telling you that I had not heard a single droplet of information regarding this franchise until it's composer, Austin Wintory, casually mentioned it in passing on a popular podcast he does, Play, Watch, Listen. I cannot believe that was how I discovered what I now consider to be one of the greatest gaming franchises I've ever played. Well, I've made enough of an appeal as is to get others to play this game. Let's get on with the proper review! (Obviously, full spoilers ahead, buckle up boys and girls!) Where we left off - (ok so this is where I have to admit I DIDN'T carry over my innocent BS2 playthrough as my inital BS3 play-through since without even knowing what I was doing, I was playing as Rook, sided with Rugga, and basically agreed to commit genocide against the varl to bash my way into Arberrang, thus, my initial play-through of the game was on a stock BS3 file with Alette as my savior, alright, enough blabbering). Let's play a fun game shall we! Let's take a snippet from the predictions at the end of my BS2 review and see how well they stack up with how things actually ended up playing out in the sequel. Quote What are my predictions for Banner Saga 3? Well... for Alette/Rook's crew you end up inside the Arberrang's walls but I dunno.. will you actually spend meaningful time there? How would they manage the fights / battles other than different species fighting you outside of the walls? Something tells me early on something "big" is gonna happen that's gonna force us to basically abandon and head further south... is that even possible? I think the king is dead no matter what given how Rugga poisoned him. That opens the door for Rook/Alette to become the new #1 in charge for all these people and creatures. Do you get to speak to menders working at Arberrang? Maybe? I am about 99% sure that the other "crew" you manage will bed led by Juno. I say this because Juno is literally the games icon on the PS4 homescreen - just as Bolverk is for BS2, it'd be weird if she wasn't finally playable in the 3rd installment. I imagine it's her, Eyvind(I don't think he died at the end?), and Iver, and maybe some weird stragglers you pick up try and figure out what's behind the purple portal and yea... I kinda have no clue after that. I imagine you'll run into Ubin at some point (there's a reason he detoured after meeting the horseborn - in case you made the varl got extinct, he's still gonna be kicking it and you'll find him!) - and I imagine there is an ultimate "happy" conclusion where you as a Rook and Oddleif or Alette and Egil reign supreme as king/queen of the new world as it's saved (I think Juno will be given the choice to be good or bad - she had a line about that in BS2 where she said she doesn't know where her destiny lies as hero or villain, I imagine that's cause the player will be making the choices by then) So how'd my predictions turn out? 1) You DO spend the entire 3rd game in Arberrang. I should have realized people are gonna be people, lots of the fights with Alette/Rook's caravan are you having to fight off Rugga's own men who are your furious, along with the powerful families within the immense city. Later on, there are fights against the dredge(including the Sundr Ruin and Eyeless comes back in the 21st chapter), finally wrapped up by the warp towards the end of the game. I thought the encroaching darkness would force us out but the valka create a light force-field around the city to preserve it for as long as they can. 2) King Meinholf IS dead no matter what you do, I was correct! 3) You don't actually speak to any new major figures while you're there besides guys like Petrus and Gudmundr. There is no new mender revealed, but rather Zefr(valka from BS2 with the Ravens) comes on over and aids the group towards it's end. 4) The other crew was kinda led by Juno? It's more-so led by Iver but Juno is playable in the game so count it! 5) The "weird stragglers" end up being mind-controlling the Ravens and finding Castaway/Eirik/Valgaard/Alfrun. 6) Ubin DOES return at some point(fighting Ruin) 7) There can be a happy conclusion if you play your cards right, but it's not quite presented in the same way as a new king or queen being enshrined. Plus, instead of Juno being given the choice to be good or bad, it's more-so Eyvind. Still, I think I did okay on these predictions all things considered. My Initial Play-through Thoughts and Feelings - Once you're playing a series you're really hyped for, does anyone else get scared that it may let you down? I just wanted the series to keep being excellent and feared it was perhaps the newness and freshness of the series that made it great in my eyes, and that I wouldn't love it as much the 3rd go-around. Thankfully, those fears were quickly quelled once I saw the familiar faces of Oddleif, Hakon, Canary, Aleo, etc... I just love 'em man. Early on you have to be careful with your dialogue choices. I protected Canary and defended her despite the fact she slaughtered a village of men in Tolir. I aided Petrus when he had his needs, but so incredibly stupidly, I AGREED to unite my banner with Rugga since I thought making deals with disgusting men was simply a necessary part of Banner politics. In it's midsts, I had to continue making my way through Arberrang aiding it's walls with important decisions to build up our crew before the eventual doom would arrive. Once the Sundr Ruin showed up, I had to make sure I didn't piss off Hakon and the varl and lose them for good. I ended up losing out Fasolt(who was a jerk btw), but maintained the rest. Once we got to Chapter 20, the game sort of hits it's apex. As Alette, here I am with Rugga ready to make this deal, and Oddleif refuses to allow things to take place peacefully as she obviously hates this dude, who wouldn't? You come to a pivotal moment deciding or not to let the dredge reside within your walls as they too are struggling and weeping over eventual damnation. Rugga then gives you an ultimatum - open the walls, or don't. I accepted. You proceed with Alette through a cutscene, the typically excellent Banner Saga writing paints a very visual image... and then it happens. A man, who's face you don't even recognize, as he was just some guy, proclaims "you're gonna kill us all" and launches a spear through your chest. You feel a pain in your chest, warm blood, and collapse to the ground. I killed Alette. It was over. I honestly kinda didn't wanna continue playing at that point due to the grief of Oddleif and yet... in times like these, we have no choice to but to continue onward. For her sacrifice, you do earn Bastion who's one of those giant Dredge and WOW is he fun to play as. You do what you can in Arberrang but the city is now broken, and there is now a countdown clock for Iver's caravan to make it to the White Tower on time. Depending on how well you managed your clansman, fighters, varl, walls, and supplies - you can return to Arberrang as many as 5 times being backed up all the way to the kings throne room. On my 1st play-through, I returned 3 times and lost a few good fighters like Deridru and Tryggvi in the process. But that would pale in comparison to the slaughter occurring on the inner earth. Swapping perspectives to Iver/Juno/Eyvind's crew - You end up descending further into the darkness in order to make it to where you need to go - the center of the earth. Eyvind and Juno have a plan to un-do a lot of the destruction, uhh, they may have caused(horniness will make you do some wild things). In order to be protected while you traverse through the darkness, she mind-controls the Ravens using Juno's jedi powers to make it appear as Bolverk giving the commands. Soon, they realize what's up and agree to go along for now due to the fact if they step out, they'll become warped and unrecognizable. While traveling you find 3 survivors, Eirik(WAR BEAR BRO), Valgaard, and Alfrun(who is the greatest new character in BS3, a witch who knows mending powers but is not a mender). She's curious to find out more about Iver, and you soon come make it a Godstone where you can recruit a Stoneslinger(I did) and discover that Iver is basically considered the Bellower(BS1 final boss) for the Dredge. He killed Bellower and Raze's baby. Yet Iver, because he's best varl, didn't bask in the glory and praise he received for slaughtering a sundr when it was found in the cold helpless and defenseless. He refused to become King's kendr, and instead opted for the quiet isolated life of Skogr. As your procede, Bolverk will catch up with you and you'll have to make a leap of faith into the depths of the inner-world, a world for the dredge, which happened after the valka made a deal with them to have peace after the wars between men and varl. During this moment, you can "Trust Folka's Intuition" or shove her out of the way of Big Daddy Bolverk. I opted for the latter, and it ended up saving her life as there's no coming back from whence he came. The 21st chapter sees you all making the final rush home to the Ivory Tower to un-do all of this. Dytch makes a series of stupid decisions that lead to fights, I didn't ring the bell, and once you make it there you finally have everything explained to you by Juno of what's transpired. Basically, due to the fact Eyvind made Juno kinda immortal after she was executed by the menders council, the world's gone cuckoo crazy! There's a frigging serpent! Chaos! Madness! and to fix it, Eyvind needs to seal away Juno forever in the sun where she'll walk for eternity. OUCH! That sucks, and that automatically told me I need to be careful what to say to Eyvind towards the end of the game. At the final fight vs Bolverk, I DIDN'T rush him which meant it became a 3-wave battle. That ended up being a huge mistake as I died on the last enemy as I ran out of good reinforcements and lost to a frigging stone-slinger as the last enemy standing. This meant MY ENTIRE TEAM DIED except Iver, Eyvind, and Juno. We make it to the end, I talk to him, pick mostly decent choices, but the clutch decision was to say "Eyvind, this isn't what Juno wanted." when the serpent tries to tempt him into leaving half the world in darkness but allowing Juno to die and not suffer a life of immortality. I'm glad I got the ending I did, as much as it sucked Alette died, it meant no life could spring from the survivors and those huddled around godstones across the Banner Saga landscape. The 2nd Play-Through (a.k.a kill everything and damn near my entire team) - The Easy mode play-through! In order to achieve the rarest trophy(fight 30 battles) and Scrape By (complete the game with 16 characters or less) you're going to need to assassinate a whole lotta folks. I enjoyed this even as I breezed through a lot of it quickly - I pissed off Canary and Hakon along with all the varl, got basically every side character killed at every turn when possible, and ultimately ended backed up all the way in the throne room of the King before I stupidly lost the 3rd wave of the fight to Bolverk at the end with Iver's crew. I was also going for Looter(fight all waves of every wave battle) and despite the fact I lost, the trophy popped at the end anyway. This led to me only needing the Hard mode play-through without losing a single time in battle, along with "Guided" which meant keeping every hero alive! I only had to re-load 3 times, once because I actually lost and the other 2 times because I put "Monster-Slayer" Hero title on Iver which makes him OP, but I stupidly put him in position to get whittled down health-wise and suffer injury. This meant for the final battle he was -6 in health, but thankfully Krumr as "The Last Standing" Hero title along with the rest of the gang carried me to the end. Since this game is rather niche, here are some websites I used for trophy help. This one is phenomenal and has info on every decision in the game, in-depth battle strategies as well. Also this one. AAAND this one. I earned Banner Saga 3's 9.00% rarity platinum in just 4 days and 7 hours. I am the 9th fastest achiever on the website according to PSNProfiles so that's a pretty neat bonus! Final Thoughts - I love this series. Look at how much I write about them? Shouldn't that be enough of an indication for you? I know the reviews and nauseatingly long but I simply can't help myself when talking about these games. Even on my 3rd Hard mode play-through I would read through the dialogue sequences even though I knew what they already said just to due to how wonderfully they're delivered. Alfrun is a magnificent addition as this woman who makes you second guess what the valka are exactly doing, and with good reason, as the dredge wanted you dead for what you did to Bellower/Raze's baby, and even hired varl like Griss to attempt to hunt you down. The moment of "oh crap" when "Arberrang is Broken" was still real for me the second and third go-around. I thought the addition of the wave combat system was very awesome, if a bit unfeasible on hard mode, on normal I dabbled in it and enjoyed the reinforcements system to better make use of the wider roster. I didn't expect much more of a revolution upon the gameplay systems that had already been well-established but the small tweaks here and there were appreciated. I've seen some criticism about how the game was shorter than the first two(in part due to the fact a lot of the content in Chapter 21 is optional depending on how well you allocated all your resources). I don't care. Better an exhilarating 8-hour experience than a mind-numbing 16-hour experience in my mind. All in all, Stoic Studio, the game developer behind this trilogy made something truly remarkable. They were founded by 3 ex-Bioware employees(boy am I glad did they get out when they did), and what they've concocted here is nothing short of magnifcient. For a small studio(of less than 30 employees) in Austin, Texas to make games as brilliant as these, they have my personal promise that I will play WHATEVER they create next following my experience with this franchise. Thank you for breath-taking voyage of Alette/Rook/Iver's trials and tribulations and until whatever comes next! Take care! Panda Score: 8.7 / 10 Spoiler HERE ARE ALL OF MY THOUGHTS ON BS3 LIVE AS I A WAS PLAYING THROUGH IT, LIL BONUS CONTENT 1st Play-Through, Blind: I”M HYPED LESSSGO!!!! Fresh save with Alette since I just wanna experience the game without restraints or even caring about trophies, that’ll be for subsequent playthroughs if need be Petrus and King Meinholf have let the people in… I wonder why? I like Petrus, the guards at the end of BS2 were bonkers, he’s gotta be fairly trustworthy, if loyal to the king Uh oh… Canary the Horseborn and her kind MERKED dudes at Tolir, she doesn’t get why people are mad about that I decided to protect her because we’ve all done some bad stuff in our past… plus, she’s Rank 11 bro I don’t wanna fight her she’s one of our best fighters Ohhhh Fasolt doesn’t like us… Walker or Seethe? Like Bellower or Eyeless? Oh no. End of Chapter 16, on to Chapter 17 Yo… Juno is controlling Folka’s mind? THATS NUT, RAVENS GON BE MAD LOVE this Alfrun Witch lady’s look The varl bailed on me because I wanted to opt for the oil barrel strategy, that sucks Sided with Rugga even tho I hate him for the simple fact there’s been enough death.... time to make amends even if it pisses Oddlelif off I’m happy Ludin has turned around since the beginning UBIN SHOWS UP TO FIGHT THE SUNDR Folka hates us and I can’t blame her, Hilde at the Godstone cool design More dredge army! Oh and Alfrun is awesome We got some weird eggs lol Iver was the one who offered to go along with Juno hmmm... Alfrun exposes how the valla made a deal with the dredge to teach them reading and weaving Bersi and the Skogr connection... hmm... I know why Folka loves Bolverk, I remember BS2, but I can’t let her get slaughtered as she put his axe back in his hand, IMA PULL HER AWAY I GOT A TROPHY BUT DID I MAKE THE RIGHT CALL????? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO DID I JUST SACRIFICE ALETTE BY OPENING THE WALLA AND CALLING RUGGAS BLUFF DAMMIT MAN Arberrang Spared: 19 days, is that decent? I’m so mad at myself for letting Alette die. WHY DIDNT I JUST KILL RUGGA UGGGFHHHHH Zefr.... I hope you know what you’re doing Man - one extra detail that I feel I should mention - Banner Saga does a magnificent job of making you FEEL like there are epic wars and battles happening with all the drawn extra enemies in the battle zones, Joseph Anderson Witcher 2 video point 19 days is SURELY enough even tho I goofed with the eyed beast and moving parallel to the white tower over the ice SERPENT LEAVE US ALONE Is... Juno dead? 8 days left for Arberrang... uhh... Well Juno just explained to us why the world has fallen into madness, in part due to her Eyvind Id say Alfrun stops Iver to talk about Eyvind/Juno, I don’t freaking know man - I genuinely trust them to be doing the right thing to resolve all this, and Alfrun is just a bit sketchy even tho I dig her look We bought.... 1 day LOL We rekt warped SUNDR Eyeless in the basement We bought 4 days time! Hopefully enough? We actually freaking lost the battle vs Bolverk at the Ivory Tower.... Sjoborn was the last one left but we just didn’t have enough to take down the last apostate dude on the other side AHHHHH I think I convinced Eyvind to do the right thing? He didn’t take the serpents deal... put Juno in the darth sun OH SNAP ROOK AND ALDIS AND ALETTE ALL TOGETHER AGAIN AWWWWWW THATS THE END? FORREAL? I thought it we would be 24 chapters instead of 22 but damn man... Wow I can’t believe it’s really over - we’ve seen it all the way through and damn... 26 of 49 possible trophies unlocked on the 1st play through, now for the fun of sweeping it all over again! HARD MODE PLAYTHROUGH TIME: MAYBE OUR LAST TIME PLAYING BANNER SAGA???? WE SHALL SEE - tryna for Guided, no hard battle losses, Bat out of Hell, AND Restless, let’s see if we can do it! We’re gonna have to sacrifice Alette so…. First 3 battles in and 0 deaths. Alette’s Overwatch is so OP even with no Monster Killer as it just dwindles enemies down. Rolling with Griss, Hakon, Canary, Egil, and Aleo as the team thus far - curious how we’ll manage with Iver’s caravan and also when Alette dies for Bastion Iver’s caravan is gonna be rough towards the end I imagine… buy Eirik’s war bear will be helpful I believe, and Eyvind’s lightning is so OP “Lost” the 1st hard battle on Chapter 19 but I re-loaded, stupid Eyvind hit Krumr for 7 strength points and I ran out of time to kill all the warped basically Alfrun is such a great character, amazing 3rd game addition That dialogue sequence with Bersi is one of the best in the series, damn man Iver with Monster Slayer is so OP and he’s single-handedly winning me fights right now, his fight on Ridgehorn single-handedly saved me WE DID IT! MADE IT WAY TIME TO SPARE AND BEAT BOLVERK AFTER RUSHING HIM! PLAT ACHIEVED! WHAT A RIDE! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grotz99 Posted March 3, 2021 Share Posted March 3, 2021 On 3/2/2021 at 10:03 AM, realm722 said: Snipped for space. Here is a question now that you have gotten the platinum for all 3 and I'm sorry if this was mentioned, but I skipped some of your review until I complete them. Do you think it would be best to do one play through going through all 3 games then go back for another playthrough for the rest of the trophies or is it easier to concentrate on one game at a time? I would like to do a blind run on them all, even though I played the first one on PC forever ago. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted March 4, 2021 Author Share Posted March 4, 2021 4 hours ago, Grotz99 said: Here is a question now that you have gotten the platinum for all 3 and I'm sorry if this was mentioned, but I skipped some of your review until I complete them. Do you think it would be best to do one play through going through all 3 games then go back for another playthrough for the rest of the trophies or is it easier to concentrate on one game at a time? I would like to do a blind run on them all, even though I played the first one on PC forever ago. Oooooooh that's an interesting question. I didn't get the trilogy all at once, but I purchased BS2 and BS3 at the same time and yet I still waited over 2 months to move onto the 3rd installment for the simple fact that 1) I wanted to savor the taste and "spread out" the greatness of it instead of binging through it completely at once. Hmmm.... honestly, doing a blind play-through and carrying over your save to each one may be one of the better options - for the simple fact, if you're willing to go back and play them again for the rest of the trophies, you'll be far more experienced and know what to expect - plus you could play with a guide to make all the "correct" choices in order to enact certain outcomes you want. I'd honestly say go for it blind and come back to them! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted March 6, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 6, 2021 (edited) Game: Furi Analysis: Technically, I bought Furi: Definitive Edition for $5.49 in early February 2021. Grab your juicebox kids, this is gonna be a trip. (WARNING - WARNING - THE 1ST PARAGRAPH IS FULL OF GAMER PETTINESS. IF YOU HAVE ANY RESPECT FOR ME, DON'T READ IT) So why did I decide to play Furi? Guys, it finally happened. I hate to say it, but it did. I have been trophy hunting solidly since the mid portion of 2018 and it finally contaminated me as well... I'm salty about a trophy becoming more available to a wider audience. What game? The Stardew Valley platinum. Due to the recent 1.5 update(which as a side note - is freaking insane Eric Barone is STILL giving out free updates for that magnificent behemoth of a game), achieving the "Fector's Challenge" trophy which asks you to beat the bullet hell mini-game in "Journey of the Prairie King" got 10x easier with the available cloud saves now available. I PERSONALLY THROUGH BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS, and many evenings of attempting the perfect 20 minute run achieved it back in August 2020. It had a <1% rarity platinum back then, yet now since the update it's climbed to 1.22% rarity, and I imagine it'll reach as high as a 2-3% as more and more people catch on. I am salty over this. Am I a hypocrite? Yes. I mean, I used the invincibility glitch in Hollow Knight. You can save scum in Dead Cells and Slay the Spire. You can iCloud cheese Banner Saga 2 DLC's and all the Arcade Games such as Pac-Man. But this one was different. I EARNED THIS 100% FAIRLY and it was my most impressive plat yet... and now it's kinda diluted. To console myself, I say "well, all those other games people knew about the loopholes going on, if they opted to do it legit that's all well and good but they knew the alternative. Stardew Valley basically left a gauntlet of a challenge for 3-4+ years... and just made it easier, now. Not the same." Argh.... what're gonna do? In the face of these catastrophic event - I felt the need to prove to myself my skill as a gamer again. Enough baby non-ultra rare games. We needed a sizable challenge. I was planning on playing Furi maybe towards the back end of 2021 knowing it would kick my ass but I'd start feeling antsy since it had been in my backlog for awhile. But not anymore. I wanted a challenge, was willing to get destroyed in the face of it, but wanted a proud platinum achieved within the first 3 months of the new year and well... Furi is the best game I've played in 2021. The Initial Playthrough - It's funny how much entering with the correct mentality can completely alter the way you experience a game. I entered Furi expecting it to obliterate me , and don't get me wrong, even the 1st fight which is by far the easiest against "The Chain" will KO you a few times as you're just learning how to move about. But I didn't get a Game Over until the 3rd boss -"The Line", and only reached 20 KO's by the 5th boss, yet he didn't KO me either. Admittedly, I wasn't parrying a SINGLE attack, and instead dashing to avoid damages, hitting from a distance when possible with the bullet gun and I was surviving even if it wasn't all that impressive. Knowing the game was fairly short I thought to myself "Eh, if this is Furi and I haven't game over'd a single time and I'm close to being halfway done, maybe the rarity really was just insanely inflated cuz of PS+ Users." aaaand then i faced "The Song". Then "The Burst". Then "The Edge". Here are my final, Furi 1st run through the game statistics. Of those 6 hours, I'm going to boldly suggest that 4 hours and 30 minutes of them were dedicated to those 3 bosses. The Burst and her damn sniper gun completely befuddled me, so much to the point that her line: "I like the way you take me out of my comfort zone." got engraved in my skull. AND OH MY GOD THE EDGE. Remember, I had spent the entire game NOT parrying bosses, just dashing away from him. He must have handed me 60-70 of the KO's I suffered. But thankfully, due to amazing game design, I learned to parry by the end of the game fighting him, and it would have been impossible for me to beat the game on Furier if I hadn't learned to parry him on Furi. The final boss, "The Beat", was done on my 1st try and felt like a breathe of fresh air(despite the fact we're a monster who killed snow girl. The Star was a bit tricky at first but after learning how to use the full laser beam and finding safe zones in her attacks, she wasn't too bad. I was enjoying the game at this point, but now it was time to get miscellaneous trophies and start practicing. Miscellaneous Trophies, Practicing Bosses, Speedrun, and Furi S Rank - A lot of random trophies have super rare percentages, but I imagine it's because a lot of people never even bothered to try for them. Hitting a guardian 10 times with a boost hit, accepting The Song's compromise, etc... all very easy. But do you know what was the hardest trophy in this game? Not either S rank on normal or hard difficulty, but rather "Untouchable" - which requires you to beat a guardian without taking a hit. It took me 3 hours of concentration against "The Chain" in order to unlock it as at one point or another I would stupidly take a single hit here or there. Little did I know, that was going to be the biggest obstacle for me to the platinum, and that's the key I wanted to emphasize for those who maybe haven't touched Furi due to it's difficulty. Furi is a kind game, difficult? Yes. But it's forgiving, and doesn't ask perfection from you - just to learn the mechanics and be persistent, and by doing so, you will be rewarded. After practicing enough on the Furi Practice Mode to get at minimum a B rank on each guardian(and lemme tell you, The Burst and The Edge were the hardest ones for me - I decided to attempt the Speedrun. Here was my time at 1:02:38. Due to how much practice I had on the hardest fights, they ended up being not that difficult! After feeling good about myself and only managing I think 12 knockdowns in the entire run, I tried for the full Furi S Rank. Here were my results - 1:34:14, 6 knockouts, 226 hits, S Rank! I couldn't believe how well I had played down the stretch. With how much practice I had fighting in the latter rounds, the fear of the game destroying me evaporated. Instead, I found myself grooving to the incredible music each boss offered, repeating their lines back at them as if we were apart of this chaotic theatrical performance, and damn, soon enough I realized why this game was so beloved by so many despite the initially intimidating difficulty factor. The Final Boss - S Rank Furier Run - I had done everything else the game had to offer, there was no more putting it off - time to play it on Hard mode. My strategy was advance in the story mode and after completing each boss, quite, and do the following one in Practice Mode so it was fresh in my mind all of their attack patterns. Honestly, the first 2 weren't so bad. I did them once in practice, got the gist of the changes, did it in the story and through 2 bosses only had 2 knockouts. But oh lord... the 3rd boss? "The Line" on Furier took me 2 hours to practice before beating it consistently. Barely at that. All those bullets in the final phase plus the oncoming wave attack makes it simply impossible to completely avoid damage in my mind. I just shot and prayed, and eventually I got past it. The 4th and 5th bosses weren't too terrible, and while I performed well in practice vs "The Song", I mustered up a D rank with 3 knockouts in the actual story mode fight. For the life of em I couldn't handle her duel laser beam attack + her stupid blue wave that she does with 0 telegraph. Finally, the Burst's finally phase killed me... 4 times? In practice runs. But I did it 1st try while handling the story, and while the Edge kicked my ass for 50 minutes practicing it, the fight is so short it makes retrying not so frustrating. I beat him relatively quickly as well and before I even realized it... I was done. I had beat Furier in 1:44:00, 12 knockouts, and 328 hits later - the platinum was achieved. In just 3 days and 9 hours I achieved it's 1.59% rarity platinum, and my 2nd rarest non-sports plat on my entire profile, with the aforementioned Stardew Valley plat being the rarest. To Sum It All Up - I love Furi. Please, play it. The difficult may initially seem daunting but if you go in with the right mindset of knowing it'll kick your butt, but you'll practice until you become a bad-ass, you'll slowly realize why it's received all it's praise. Personally, some of the extra elements of the game besides the combat itself are delightful. I LOVE the window dressing of a story. It's not much, but it doesn't need to be a 40-hour cinematic thriller. You're a bad dude who's been chained up and all these "good" guys are tryna stop you. Don't let them. I love The Hand's "For my son, for all of us, I am bringing you back." I already mentioned The Burst's flirtatious "comfort zone" comment, and even more so then that, the gorgeous neon colors and blood-pumping music all combine for a marvelous experience. My personal favorites tracks are "6.24", "You're Mine", and "My Only Chance". There's just so much to the soul of this game I think anyone with even moderate gaming capabilities will recognize it's brilliance. If you haven't played it or hell, if you have but wanna hear a wonderful review, listen to Joseph Anderson's review of Furi. He normally doesn't gush about games and rather does critiques, but even this game had him fawning over it for the first 16 minutes. In terms of criticisms... what's there to say? I kinda wish you could skip the walking segments but I know why they're there. I've played a lot of great games to start 2021 but Furi is the crown jewel at the moment, achieving my first 9.0 rating of the year and it receives my table-thumping recommendation of "PLAY IT!" I can't wait to enjoy The Game Bakers next game, "Haven" which released in December 2020 when it goes on sale for $15 or less and in the future see what else their creative minds have in store. Panda Score: 9.1 / 10 Edited March 6, 2021 by realm722 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted March 10, 2021 Author Share Posted March 10, 2021 Game: Madden NFL 21 Analysis: I did not buy Madden 21. Instead, I bought EA Play for $0.99 on it's discount offer for the next month! Normally $5 a month, got it for a $1! It's expired now though. So, I don't enjoy Madden like I used to. Sadly, it has become inundated with "ULTIMATE TEAM" propaganda upon the wahzoo where there's 107 OVR 7'8 tall Diamond Galaxy Chad Henne's you have a random chance (<.00001% chance) of obtaining via packs. (to someone who knows nothing about sports games, that statement is nonsense, I hope those who do know sports got a lil chucke out of that) walking about where you have to get your moms credit card in order to compete with children online. That just ain't for me. It's sad, I look back at my collection of Gamecube games with NFL 2k3. With my entire Xbox 360 collection filled with every Madden from every year it released when it was the relevant console. Hell, I don't need to look much further back then the early start of the PS4 era where I owned Madden 25 - Madden 19 physical edition.... and now that's stopped. For the last 2 Madden's, I haven't bought them physically. and honestly? Probably an AMAZING financial decision. Seriously, these aren't my main games anymore. It doesn't make sense to buy them day 1 for $60 when I can play the game for $1-$5, sure, a few months down the line once the NFL Season is over but having played the gameplay in this edition - it feels like I'm not missing out on much. Perhaps that's not fair, I played strictly for the trophies this go-around and thus did not touch MUT and rather avoided it like the plague since it was no longer required like it had been in previous years. Still, that didn't stop them from spamming mid-game advertisements about how Spongebob Squarepants jerseys are available and can be claimed now. sigh this is what getting old feels like. After muddling about in the Play Now mode to get a few trophies, I switched my focus to the Franchise and honestly had some fun there. I did a Fantasy Draft with the Jets to move them out of New York cuz Screw the Jets and anybody who likes 'em. (look at my avatar BUDDY) I drafted Justin Jefferson and incidentally unlocked the hidden dev trophy, and in an effort to clean up also ensured he won MVP and ROTY by letting him score 12 touchdowns on the Patriots one week. I relocated them to Mexico and the rest was history. Switching gears to Face the Franchise, this is EA's latest and greatest worst atrocious awful interpretation of doing what the NBA2k franchise did with MyPlayer a bunch of years. There's cringy as all hell cutscenes with Rich Eisen, your agent, "The Heartbreak Kids" rivalry QB you deal with in Tommy Matthews, and more Days of our Lives tier drama in this fun new mode! I skipped every cutscene when plausible. I set the difficulty down to rookie and arcade, ran 4 verticals, and scored a touchdown EVERY play I was in control of before utilizing SuperSim trying to get out of the sewage from as quickly as possible. Unbelievably, you have to play through 8 years of a career and become the "GOAT" of the NFL in order to unlock all the trophies. Mercifully, the game only asks you to play "big" moments here and there like when Teddy Bridgewater gets hurt (got drafted to Carolina, honestly pretty realistic) or the team Roquan Smith of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers started a rivalry with me(and I lit his defense up for 105 pts both times in the regular season). I also beat the Chiefs twice in the Super Bowl. Was I having any fun doing this? Eh, more like a mindless task while listening to some Netflix movies. I watched Crazy, Stupid, Love and guess what! SHOCKINGLY good and 10x better than your typical "romantic comedy"(honestly if you don't even enjoy rom coms, dabble in it, you'll honestly be surprised it has a hell of a cast from Steve Carrell to spunky Marisa Tomei) I love Ryan Gosling as a jerk. Check it out! Anyways, after that - I had a few trophies left. I did Comeback City and got 17 sacks with Myles Garrett for the Unblockable trophy and the press corner deal. I then did the Super Bowl trophy via the Online League with the Chiefs, and finally for Head-to-Head, I got help from the wonderful legend @deathandwar92 who played a quick 1-min quarters game on an Online Franchise for me to unlock the 3.63% rarity platinum in just 1 day and 10 hours! Could have popped it about 7-8 hours earlier, and yet somehow still managed to be the 20th fastest achiever on PSNProfiles. Cool! While Madden is in an abysmal state for my own personal tastes, I like this method of me being able to revisit it each year on the cheap for as quickly as possible and consistently scoop up my easiest ultra rare platinum of the year. As for the rest of my subscription for the month(I already cancelled it so it doesn't renew) - is there anything I should play? I know Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order is some peoples favorites but I've heard bad stuff about the collectibles and the map navigation in the clean-up and I'll be honest... I don't care for Star Wars. OR it's baby's Dark Souls combat apparently. I'll probably avoid everything else on the service for now given I have other games I wanna play more right now. Well that's all for now... it's been awhile since I've written a post on something other than a review for a game I platinumed so maybe that'll be what I post next! Panda Score: 5.8 / 10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted March 11, 2021 Share Posted March 11, 2021 21 hours ago, realm722 said: After muddling about in the Play Now mode to get a few trophies, I switched my focus to the Franchise and honestly had some fun there. I did a Fantasy Draft with the Jets to move them out of New York cuz Screw the Jets and anybody who likes 'em. (look at my avatar BUDDY) I drafted Justin Jefferson and incidentally unlocked the hidden dev trophy, and in an effort to clean up also ensured he won MVP and ROTY by letting him score 12 touchdowns on the Patriots one week. I relocated them to Mexico and the rest was history. ? 21 hours ago, realm722 said: I know Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order is some peoples favorites but I've heard bad stuff about the collectibles and the map navigation in the clean-up and I'll be honest... I don't care for Star Wars. OR it's baby's Dark Souls combat apparently. I didn't think it was that bad. I mean, the game is amazing (I liked it more than Marvel's Spider-Man), but there are way worse collectibles and maps out there. I think it was only the ice cavern that got on my nerves. I'd play a sequel in a heartbeat. Wish EA would let someone else make an NFL game. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ_Radio Posted March 11, 2021 Share Posted March 11, 2021 34 minutes ago, Cassylvania said: Wish EA would let someone else make an NFL game. The best we can hope for is something that is the equivalent of NBA Jam. Still loyal to the sport but throws reality out the window for fun gameplay. I still have the one NFL game that EA didn't make on the PlayStation 2. Madden is a joke at this point. Completely boring, the same dull gameplay over and over, barely anything new. It's purely a money maker to cater to football fans. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted March 12, 2021 Author Share Posted March 12, 2021 (edited) Do you(or anyone) care about being a member of the "100% Club" on certain games? First of all, before answering the question - what the hell even is the 100% Club? Click on any game here on PSNProfiles. Here's an example for the game Tricky Towers. At least on desktop mode, you have "Trophies", "Leaderboard", and then the key "100% Club" which we'll be covering today. What does this tab entail? Amongst all users registered on PSNProfiles - amongst that group, it is judged who were the "First Achievers", the "Latest Achievers", and the "Fastest Achievers". "First Achievers" is kinda cool if a bit tainted since it's almost quartered off for people who exclusively are willing to pay the Day 1 price on new games, but it's also impressive for the perspective that there isn't an abundance of trophy information on collectibles or other details, ESPECIALLY if it's a more obscure game, and not AAA-tier that'll it receive guides on Day 1 from guys like PowerPyx. "Latest Achievers" is kinda worthless cuz eventually, everybody gets bumped off that list with the exception of if it's a game so rare / difficult that not enough people will play out, or a case where the servers go obsolete. Not really all that special since whenever you platinum a game - you'll appear on it for a period of time. But what about in my opinion... is the most precious and most coveted - Fastest Achievers! It's like speedrunning, but for the weird sub-genre of trophy hunting speedrunning! This can be done by anybody at any time - and if you're quick enough, you can get your name enshrined next to a game for years to come. Granted, these is the small caveat that while doing it your 1st time playing a game is impressive, there will inevitably be accounts that come along and have already platinumed it, now simply tryna get their name at the top. Those people are still ridiculously impressive - but I think it's extra special if you end up here with your 1st experience through a game. So now that we've covered the 3 categorizes... let's see how I stack up! For the purposes of simplicty, I will be listing every game I appear as the "First" or "Fastest" achiever and we'll be skipping "Latest" since who really cares. First Achievers for RealM722: Madden NFL 19 (24th) - August 14th, 2018 FIFA 20 (11th) - October 5th, 2019 Banner saga 2 (49th) - December 8th, 2020 Fastest Achievers for RealM722: Unholy Heights (49th) - 6 days, 20 hours Silence (32nd) - 10 hours, 39 minutes FIFA 20 (8th) - 1 week, 4 days Battleship (28th) - 1 day, 46 minutes Slay the Spire (12th) - 2 weeks, 1 day Beholder: Complete Edition (33rd) - 1 day, 22 hours Beholder 2 (30th) - 1 week, 12 hours Banner Saga 2 (12th) - 3 weeks, 2 hoursMLB The Show 20 (4th) - 1 week, 4 hours Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland (5th) - 4 days, 3 hours Shu (7th) - 1 day, 23 hours Banner Saga 3 (10th) - 4 days, 7 hours Madden NFL 21 (21st) - 1 day, 10 hours Updated as of March 11th, 2021 at 9:48PM EST First Achievers - WOW! I am honestly shocked I have more than 1 game here on this list. Why? The only games I almost ever buy are on sale, for far cheaper than their asking price on release date. Even if a game really attracts me (Spiritfarer for example) - I'm not paying $30 for it on Day 1 when I know I'll enjoy it just as much a year and a half later at half the price. That's no indictment against people who buy games new - the game industry NEEDS people like that in order to sustain itself, but that's just no my lane. To see I've got a Madden and a cheeky Banner Saga 2 (solely because of that brutal DLC) is pretty funny. That FIFA 20 though? WOW I busted my ass for that one. Like seriously, it was almost non-stop 24/7 and I could have gotten it even sooner if there wasn't for that damn glitch regarding the Volta football that locked me out of the servers for well over a day preventing the continued grind of the OVR in that mode. I think at my apex I was... 4th? But I just can't compete in my life to finish 1st. I don't have a way to get the game early - as opposed to others who already had the plat before the game officially even "released". I had to shell out an extra $20 to pay $80 total just to get the little headstart that I did. I'm still impressed my 'fastest achievers" is still 8th despite the fact I didn't have a trophy guide I was following and basically popped all the trophies based on past years experience with the games. The online Div 4. requirement is huge since you can't just be fast, you have to be very skilled at the game too - and given it's my 2nd rarest platinum on my entire account, pretty chuffed that for eternity (or until this website ceases to exist) my name will be up there. Fastest Achievers - This is more like it! This doesn't even account for the fact that past games I've been listed up here (Chess Ultra, Rogue Aces, Madden NFL 20) I've since been bumped off as newer and faster players surpassed me. Lemme say - I never, with the exception of FIFA 20, ever set out to end up one of these Top 50's. By pure coincidence I managed to rack my way up through a number of these lists. I imagine I'll be bumped off Unholy heights and Silence with time. The fact Battleship is up there is hilarious - fairly mindless quick run. Slay the Spire? I USED TO BE 1ST. Was it solely cuz they had just dropped DLC which reset the 100% club, and conveniently happened while I was playing it? YES, but who care - I USED TO BE THE KING. The Beholder games are just obscure, that's pretty much the only reason I'm that high up. The Banner Saga games are a bit more popular - but I also adore them which adds to the incentive I have for devouring them. Uhh..... my highest ranking is MLB The Show 20th at 4th? That's kinda surprising given I just stumbled about my first 2 days playing it. Harvest Moon is insanely time-consuming and I optimized the last few ending trophies, hence why I finished so high. Shu is obscure and finally the Madden games I know very well inside and out. Still, I'm pretty happy with these accomplishments. Let's answer the question - should you, should anyone care about this? Listen, you do you, boo. But in my opinion, don't kill yourself trying to end up on these lists. Don't buy a game Day 1 solely to end up on it OR try and speedrun one specifically you know nothing about blindly going in. You're likely to end up frustrated or disappointed when someone is inevitably slightly faster since they had some trick up their sleeve. But it IS a pretty nice extra bonus caveat for those of us who just like to play through games efficiently once we know what we're doing. Hell, if for whatever reason you decided to start a fresh account(like a PSYCHOPATH) and wanted to replay some of your favorite games - maybe tryna aim for this list could be pretty fun. But for the majority of us who play through a game once and then move on forever, view it as finding that extra $5 bill in your sofa you didn't even know you have. You wind up with it? Awesome. Ya don't? Didn't bother you beforehand anyway. Been awhile since I posted something that's not a review - hope ya enjoyed. I'm stuck in Patapon hell at the moment (WOW I hate this game), so next post may be awhile... Edited March 12, 2021 by realm722 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 Sweet topic to read! Well, for the "Should anyone go for 100% club" usually, if you go after games that you enjoy (like old games remastered for PS4 for instance), sure why not! Go wild! Starting a new account just for those leaderboards sounds abit overkill in my opinion but whatever makes the player happy I guess! Now personally, I followed the 100% club for only one list, one game : First Achiever, Guilty Gear. The original 1998 version relaunched for PS4. Yes I paid way more than it was worth but I was a man with a goal and I managed to get it. For EU list at least. I tried to do the same with Turok 2 but I wasn't feeling like playing the game on Hardcore mode from the get-go, wanted to relive the mad experience so I abandoned that thought. Enjoyment comes before leaderboards. But as "Fastest Achiever" goes...that would mean SPEEDRUNNING. I absolutely 100% detest speedrunning. I can't stand it and would avoid it like the plague. Ironically I have games with speedrun based trophies in my backlog, really thinking if I should even bother with them. Never speedrunning, so I will never be top in Fastest Achievers for any game ever. I leave that for people with better planning capabilities than mine 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted March 20, 2021 Author Share Posted March 20, 2021 Game: Patapon Remastered Analysis: I bought Patapon Remastered for $7.04 all the way back in late August 2020 - the final game from that 6-game purchase day that I had yet to play. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I did NOT think it was possible. No - I mean, I thought it would happen with a game eventually, perhaps Jotun giving the RNG nonsense I've heard suggested on top of it's laughably hard difficulty, or hell - perhaps something like Furi which was known to be brutally difficult. But Patapon? Seriously? A game that came out on the PSP all the way back in the year 2007? That feels like a lifetime ago - and somehow, this freaking stupid adorable maddening game where you control a buncha little circle soldiers where you slaughter your neighbor in red (Zigotans) managed to be by far the most frustrating trophy experience I've had since Sonic Mania. (shameless plug - here's my Sonic Mania review from August 2020). But my god man - I don't know what I expected but it wasn't this. I'll be honest, Patapon was a game I saw a lot of love for whenever it showed up here and there on sales, and it's dedicated niche following always sang it's praises. It felt like one of those games where if you played it and loved it, you were one of the cool gamers. You have unique tastes. You're cultured. You wear cardigans. I want to be friends with you. So I decided to take the plunge and purchase it since I figured, "it's a 10% rarity platinum but the estimated time on the trophy guide only says 4/10 difficulty and it takes 15 hours, how bad could it be?" Narrator: Worse than he could ever imagine. So why was Patapon so frustrating? Uhhhhhhh, I must be the most tone deaf sack of crap since Roddy White because my lord could I just not maintain a rhythm or beat of the drum for the LIFE OF ME. Do you know what happened when I entered fever mode? Fever Mode would end. There was no continuation of the fever, and instead it led to that constant deflating "huh whaaaa?" sound from your little pons baffled at your utter incompetence. I knew this had some rhythm game elements, I didn't know the ENTIRE game was a rhythm game. Maybe that makes me an idiot. You know how you have to move? You have to keep a rhythm. You know how you attack? Make a different rhythm combination. It's only 3 buttons you'll ever be utilizing at one time with △, O, and ▢ with the occasional X for some unbelievably rage-inducing "miracle segments". But... man. If you're like me, and don't play rhythm games - know going in this'll likely be a 30hour ish platinum for you. Due to the amount of practice I had by the end while grinding for mithril, by the end I had gotten so good I could keep the rhythm even during fever mode while looking away and browsing for something on my laptop - but early on you will feel so inept that you'll wonder if you can ever achieve the "maintain fever mode for 1 minute" trophy. It does get better, but you're going to feel lost. There were multiple times where I honestly felt - "uh... am I ever actually going to ever be good enough to beat this?" Such as the desert segment where you need to use again and again the rain miracle with the befuddling "X - X X - X X" timing multiple times in order to stay alive. OR the battle with the worm Zaknel and it feels like you simply can't survive without the "run away" feature which unlocks way too late in the game in my mind. OR the battle with tearing down the Zigotans castle cuz they KEEP BREAKING YOUR DAMN CATAPULT EVERY DAMN TIME STOP IT YOU JERKS OR YANNO WHAT HOW ABOUT THE TIME THEY WANNA HAVE YOU JUGGLE THE WINDMILL MIRACLE WHILE FIGHTING AN ONSLAUGHT OF ZIGOTANS THAT ARE BUILT LIKE RICHIE INCOGNITO AND YOU HAVE TO WATCH ON HELPLESSLY AS YOU'RE UNCOORDINATED GETS THAT CRUSHING "MISSION FAILED" RED TEXT FOR THE 19TH TIME THIS MISSION GOOOOOOOD DAAAAAAAAAAAA- Yea. It's a lot. It didn't help that I generally followed the advice of the trophy guides I saw and they said "play through the game normally". But those people assumed I was not a baby boy. I didn't know you could upgrade your yumipons, yaripons, and tatepons. So here I was with my basic ass tier 1 Level pons tryna beat these mega-bosses and I can't fathom why I keep dying, and it turns out, you're supposed to use rarer and rarer materials you find to make stronger pons known as rarepons. The order goes - Pyokala, Gekolos, Mofeel, Tikulee, Mogyoon, and Barsala. At the time - you'd at best be scrounging with some level 2 tier items so I did what I could, and the game got slightly easier until I hit one of the walls like I mentioned above (did I mention the cart escorting mission with Meden? OR the mission to rescue her?) This meant you had to also learn how to play the 5 mini-games you can unlock. Use this from the Patapon Wiki. They give you basic tips on each one and turned them from impossible to easy for me. The tree one I mastered after a bit, the crop / watering one is still a 50/50 crapshoot where sometimes I goof up horribly if I'm not staring at the edge of the screen. The mountain baby one is cute and I love the tunes, easy to do when staring at the rhythm sheet - the groove to the soup making mini-game is AWESOME and a banger, and finally the anvil one at the end for the rare weapons gets much easier once you practice it over and over again. and that's really the heart of this game to be honest. It's not ungodly difficult... at least not once you pour hours and hours into learning the rhythmic beats. But at the start when you're just learning, you'll feel like you're playing in a straight-jacket handicapped by your own brain from being incapable of getting yourself out of that situation. I do have some final points I want to make. Shoutout to @TheDblTap. I used his "platget guide" for Patapon and it was a life-saver for me. I didn't feel alone anymore going through my struggles when learning how to get specific trophies or just generally feeling frustrations with specific levels. "Divine Collection" did not glitch for me, I just made sure to craft 1 ultimate weapon, save, do 1st hunting mission, come back, create another weapon, save, do another hunting mission, etc... "Variety is Overrated" is hella easy - just use your yaripons to destroy a boss like Gaeen at a low-level. "One Marches On" can be done on the 1st hunting level. "Pata-Pata-Almost" had me very annoyed as it was my last trophy and I goofed up like 6 times fighting Dodonga, either not getting his health low enough or killing him two times going a little "too far" each time. But finally I got it. In order to obtain 9 mithril, DON'T USE ANY you find if you find it naturally. I personally never did so I had to grind it all out at the end. From level 4-12 gaeen I managed to get one on each fight - not consecutively of course. I got the first 4 back-to-back-to-back-to-back, and then for the 5th it took me fighting him.. for 1 hour, resetting if I didn't get it by the end by loading a previous save, and then getting it. This happened several times - and to make it all the more infuriating, my electricity went out 3 times while grinding this morning and made me lose a 6th mithril I had gained before saving. That's the story of my life with this game - pure frustration. But having been through all that... I get the love for it. Your pons chanting "pata pata pata pon!" is adorable. The mini-game mascots are freaking cute. The music when you DO maintain a rhythm is outstanding. It's such a unique concept. But I don't love it like the people who adore this game do. In fact, I hated it for the first 5-8 hours. But then I accepted it, as I did with Sonic Mania. I earned the 9.80% rarity platinum in 1 week and 2 days, which is peculiar given it really felt like a 3-week game. This will go down as my most frustrating platinum of 2021 - with the one exception being playing a game more frustrating, but in that case I'll have likely suffered an aneurysm so there would be no end-of-year awards. I'm gonna take the weekend off from video games and just enjoy some good ol' March Madness. Take care everyone. Panda Score: 6.4 (Same score as Sonic Mania, at one point a 4.9, at it's nicest a low 7.0 - but a mid-6 is the fairest score) 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDblTap Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 @realm722 Wow, thanks for the shoutout, man! I do not miss the days when I was working on this plat. I just remember sitting on the carpet in front of my TV, trying to get as close as I can to the point I was focusing on, so I couldn't possibly mess up the timing. I spent hours on end getting redder and redder until finally pulling it off. I'm glad my trophy guide at least helped to ease the pain for you in your run at it! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted March 27, 2021 Author Share Posted March 27, 2021 (edited) Game: CrossCode Analysis: I bought CrossCode for $13.99 back in late December 2020, played the first 3 1/2 chapters in January of this year, and the rest of the game in March. CrossCode is the greatest video game I have ever played that I did not love, and it is criminal it is not talked about more often. Spoiler-Free Section - LISTEN. YOU. HEAR MY PLEAS. If you love pixel art, a gigantic open world, dungeon running ala old school Zelda, delightfully intricate puzzles, and an enthralling combat system, all with an overwhelmingly wholesome, positive, fluffy cast of characters that will thaw your cold dead heart, YOU NEED TO PLAY CROSSCODE AND NOT READ A SINGLE WORD THE REST OF THIS REVIEW. I don't mean to be hyperbolic when I say this - it is a crime that this game is not talked about in the same vein as other indies such as Hollow Knight and Celeste - and there's a reason why I cite both those games. I am floored by their brilliance, and while I may not quite love them as much as the fanbases who adore them do, I can still recognize it and say "how on EARTH did this small indie studio put this together". CrossCode is of that echelon. Perhaps it's more talked about in gaming scenes I'm not really apart of, but the only peep I heard about it from was Joseph Anderson, who cited it as his Game of the Year for 2018. It appears as though I'm not alone as the entire fanbase is equally puzzled for why the game did not get as much traction in the mainstream as some other indie counterparts. I have a few theories as to why, and I'll go further into that later, as well as why I don't love it but this fact is undeniable - there is so much to the soul of CrossCode that even if it's gameplay elements may not be for you, you cannot walk away from it without being at least mildly impressed. Synopsis of CrossCode - You play as a girl named Lea. You're thrust into this video game world known as CrossWorlds, and you'll scamper about it unlocking different lands, attaining powers and elements, and making friends along the way. You don't quite know how you got here, and you can't really speak outside of a few basic words, but despite all of that you'll become an endearing companion to characters such as Emile, Tronny, Apollo, Joern, etc... throughout the game you'll have the goal of attaining 4 key elements - fire, water, wave, and shock. You'll attain these by completing dungeons that feature combat sections as well as mystifying, intricate puzzles rooms regarding these elements you collect along the way. There'll be a slow revealing of the main story - and things... to put it lightly, aren't as they seem. You, with the help of your crew, look to solve the strange things happening to you and hopefully achieve a peaceful resolution for all involved - but be careful, considering at the end you can end up getting the good or bad ending depending on how investigative you are. Along the way you'll have cute side challenges that you can dabble in if you wish. Honestly, the games scope looking at it from afar is very intimidating. There are just... so many materials, you'll look at your circuit tree and wonder how on earth you're expected to cap it out (Hint: you won't be able to), there's gear emphasis, hidden chests scattered all over the place, side quests, and just this slow realization of what you've just embarked on once you start opening things up - this world is enormous. But here's the best part - since I know we're all trophy hunters here if you're on this website, CrossCode doesn't ask you to do any of this if you don't want to. In general, the rewards aren't the best, all you have to do to unlock 98% of the trophies is the main story - that's it. Why I Personally Didn't Love CrossCode - (POV: You Speaking) What the hell has this review even been up to this point. You came out of the gate saying you didn't love it, yet you've spent the last two full paragraphs gushing about it and suggesting we should all play it. MAKE UP YOUR MIND MA- I know, I know - I'm all over the place, I'm not trying to be so obtuse, but I need to be honest with myself. This has more to do with me than anything on the games' end. In order to properly explain it, let me cite a quote of my own(what a douche) to explain how I enjoy video games: Quote Written by yours truly, Mirror's Edge Catalyst Review - March 10th, 2020 - Now - I will say - this game taught me something about games that I enjoy that I'll remember moving forward. My enjoyment from video games comes from knowing the task and trying to accomplish it well - INSTEAD OF not knowing what I need to know and discovering the "AHA!" moment. Such as a dash like the scenic route. I don't get a lot of fun out of spending time trying to find the optimal route. My enjoyment comes from knowing the optimal route and then trying to complete said task. Definitely will be something I keep in mind for the future. My own favorite games list is evident of that. Dead Cells is the definition of a rogue-lite, knowing what to do, and trying to concoct the perfect run. Slay the Spire is the same. Sayonara Wild Hearts asks you in many ways to master it's rhythm and play the short levels over and over again. Furi is FANTASTIC proof of asking you to become an expert at a specific boss fight that it's almost like a dance. CrossCode.... isn't that. That doesn't mean it's bad. Persona 5, Pyre, and Stardew Valley are proof of games that I enjoy that don't ask for perfection and can be beloved from a exploration / narrative perspective. But a huge part of CrossCode is the lengthy dungeons you'll be dealing with (Temple Mine, Faj'ro Temple, So'najiz Temple, Zir'vitar Temple, etc...) and these dungeons include gigantic puzzle segments and... I just don't love puzzles. No matter how well designed they are. I need a beautiful game like The Witness to keep me intrigued in them - and even then it's pushing it. I didn't enjoy it so much to the point that I played from January 20th - January 22nd, and then dropped the game for 2 full months before coming back to it this week, and blazing through it with the help of a Neoseeker guide for the puzzles. I know, I know - kinda lame for those who play games without guides but I still wanted to enjoy the combat, story, and other pleasant elements this delightful game has to offer. and it really is majestic, but damn - I have to admit that's a pretty huge flaw if I personally dislike an aspect of it so much I dropped it for so long despite enjoying other elements. Hell, the game can be very challenging at times - but there are sliders you can enable that decrease the amount of damage you take + slow down puzzle speeds to make the game a good deal easier. I enabled some of them for sections, and it still offered me a sizable challenge. A big compliment to this game is I did ZERO grinding for all 58 levels I earned while playing the main story, outside of 10-15 minutes at the end to get from lvl 51 to lvl 53 before tackling the final Chapter 10. That's wonderful and I felt the need to mention it in case grinding in a huge action game doesn't sound like your cup of tea. I blazed through the game basically solely focusing on the main quest and it lasted me 24-25 hours. I imagine it can easily ballon to 40-50 if you decide to play without a guide, plus explore side quest stuff and collecting all chests / enemy reports if that's your sorta thing. Why Isn't CrossCode More Popular? - Well for 1) Popularity isn't the greatest trend for whether something is good or not. The most sold games every year are GTA5, Call of Duty, and FIFA. Even wildly beloved titles in God of War and Ghost of Tsushima pale in comparison. But in terms of the indie scene, I think pixel art is a hard sell for some. I think the fact it was in Early Access for years took away the chance for it to become this new fresh hit that captivated the hearts of minds for so many at once. I think the puzzles may not just be my cup of tea, but also not the cup of tea of many others. This is not the greatest barometer of success but let's test - here are the # of reviews on each of these games on Steam. #1. Stardew Valley (285,564 - Overwhelmingly Positive) #2. Hollow Knight (126,226 - Overwhelmingly Positive) #3. Celeste (31,621 - Overwhelmingly Positive) #4. Banner Saga (11,096 - Very Positive) #5. CrossCode (8.958 - Very Positive) Isn't that insane? I mean - SV got hugely mainstream popular that celebrities even talk about playing it, but to see that CrossCode has a little more than 1/4 of Celeste's reviews is mind-boggling to me. It may not have the absolute peak of some of the other games, because lemme tell you - there are some fantastic titles in that bunch... but I think it should have around 20-25k at least - I adore Banner Saga but I acknowledge a real-time strategy game like that is always gonna be more niche. CrossCode had everything it needed to be a mainstream hit and it... wasn't. Final Thoughts - I love that I can say I've played this game as part of repertoire. It's a niche title, especially on console - that I feel hopeful that there will be at least 1 person who reads this post that decides to pick it up becomes of me. The smooth as butter combo you can do with combinations for combat feels amazing and if I couldn't convince you any more than I already have, you give a lot of hugs in this game. Oh - AND there's laser bridges. There's a lovable orange French girl who's your bestie. An overly competitive grasshead dweeb who views you as his rival. Just... it's such a nice time. I kinda wish I had paced myself more given it's a pleasant game you could easily have last you for close to a month if you just committed to playing an hour an evening to hang out with your buddies in CrossWorld and chill. There's no death murder gauntlet where you're cursing at your friend who betrayed you and it gets nasty just a wholesome group to chill and role-play with. I'm going to add a spoilers section below that will contain full spoilers of my moment-to-moment thoughts while playing. As for trophies, the final one that's not main quest related can be earned extremely easily in New Game+. All in all, it took me 2 months and 4 days to earn the 24.62% rarity platinum. I hope you all enjoyed my reading of a more niche title and we've got some big milestones coming soon as I have a very special game in mind for my 6,000th trophy that I can't wait to play given the phenomenal time I had with the original game from the same developer. Apart from that, I'm going to go pop some champagne over the Heat getting Victor Oladipo and the Dolphins parlaying Laremy Tunsil into MORE 1st round draft picks (Tua 4 Life, let's get him Ja'Marr Chase / Kyle Pitts / DeVonta Smith) Until next time, au revoir ma chéries! Spoiler DO NOT READ IF YOU DONT WANT FULL SPOILERS BUDDY BOY CrossCode Notes: yo so this is like a dream since cosmic star heroine left me wanting more and this pixel art is GOREGOUS man opening introduction on the ship, blowing up containers, fighting a frigging giant hermit crab for the 1st boss Now around Level 4 after having beat the end of the “arena level I guess?” Section, and they just introduced circuits and WOW this game has a lot of mechanics man Lol it’s adorable how Lea with her horns can only say “Hi” and “Lea”, like the way they’re handling a silent protagonist Green haired herb bruh accusing us of cheating for being level 4 (lol we did get a level-up on the hermit boss so he’s right) Chapter 3 opens up the game a huge amount - fighting a bunch of hedgehogs and cows, I lost to the green-haired speromancer 5 rounds to 2… got frigging rekt man Now at Bergen and wow…. This game is mammoth with so much. All the materials, circuits, etc… I love French girl’s love of laser bridges - but I’m very intimidated but how huge this game may end up being Now have the chance to join some weeb’s guild even though I didn’t want to FIRST TIME PLAYING SINCE LATE JAN, ITS NOW MARCH 10TH - LETS PLAY! Using Neoseeker guide for remainder of Chapter 4 cuz I’m lost in Temple Mine FINALLY back playing properly on march 22nd, let’s finish frigging temple mine! Okay so I’ll be honest - I didn’t love the atmosphere of the mine and that’s prolly what made me check out on the game 2 months ago, it goes on way too long - but I got through it all and fought a pretty great boss at the end of it all Hey I nearly got lost wandering from Bergen back to Founder’s HQ but I did it and passed the quiz! The games still quite charming and has a positive atmosphere Wow end of chapter 4! Cool! I’ll try and play more frequently between chapters so I don’t end up completely lost like the last break… say, a chapter a week or so? What’s with the weird penguin in the mountains dream scene? Desert zone and damn… Emile got chewed out for her real life assignment, and we’re in a FRIGGING COMA? Random guess: She’s in a coma cuz she didn’t wanna leave this CrossWorld? Awwwww I feel bad about doing the Maroon Tree quest without Emile Buying steel mail gave me +320 HP, I stomped this green haired dude 5-0 get REKT FAJRO TEMPLE DONE WE KILLED THE FIRE MOTH MAMA Hugging Emile over moths Hologram Frobbit gets destroyed, Emile just…… exploded Bruh this… elemental dude just obliterated us - and we were having fun with the raid! Actually pretty freaky Schneider can’t take off his CrossGear to stop playing Oh…. Are we one of the game developers sister? Leah? And he put us in a coma for his work or something while experimenting? Okay they confirmed it right away. But he went missing? WE ALL went missing? Shizuka… kinda hot - but besides that, wha? We’re a program / copy? No music for this Vermillion Wasteland section feels WEIRD Hug Lukas got that Vincent underwear from Catherine That Gastropolis boss was awesome OH NO LUKAS? WAIT WE’RE BACK ON THE CHAPTER 1 SHIP? We’re an Evotar Emille ain’t the only one confused - I guess that Lukas was a copy maybe? YO THAT FIGHT AGAINST GREEN HAIRED DUDE WAS HARD WON 5-4 BUT DAMN Ayyy Joern and Apollo form a party with us! I really dig the idea of the Basin City being based in the jungle - Hey we helped the Shad and now it’s time to get on with the temples! Tronny has Emille and Lea make up The Shock and Wave element temples were solid, a bit tricky for some and I thought the manta Rays were hella annoying but good puzzles man… what a game Bruh this bear creature entering the infested heart is scary looking Sephisloth is an AMAZING name for an enemy boss - that was well worth it Bruh the Ape / Whale boss is amazing. But the ape may be the hardest fight in the game yet Samurai fight and all the golden bug trials were pretty cool I beat Shizuka, 5-2 sit down girl Ayyyyyy we finally found Satoshi Yo so they tortured evotars for highly confidential information? Hmmm…. NOOOO REAL SATOSHI DIED? THIS IS EVOTAR SATOSHI? I’ll be lvl 53 entering this final stretch of Chapter 10 - hope it doesn’t give me any headaches Aye the whole crew rallied around me even though they know we’re an AI! Awww man I think we got a crush on Evotar Schneider That Creator fight was mental Gautham is its bruh What a frigging game man… my goodness - how is this not more well-known? - One Punch! Is the only trophy that doesn’t unlock for playing the main story - and all I did was while stuck at 4,825 trophy points - I got all the chests in Temple Mine, found all landmarks in Sapphire Ridge, started a New Game+ and unlocked Sergey Hax, got it 1st combat encounter and the platinum was mine! Panda Score: 7.9 / 10 (It is just a smidge below Hollow Knight, but it deserves all the love in the world alongside it) Edited March 27, 2021 by realm722 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted April 1, 2021 Author Share Posted April 1, 2021 Game: Octodad: Dadliest Catch Analysis: I bought Octodad for $2.99 back in mid-January 2021, and lemme say, I was very pleasantly surprised with it. So let's start off with a little bit of a tangent. I don't really care for the "hah wow look at this zany game!" that ends up barreling into the mainstream of video game culture online. What am I referring to? Well, the latest phenomena was "Untitled Goose Game". I'll pick it up eventually when it goes as cheap as $5, but that should give you a decent idea. The cute game with a funny concept that ends up being the joke that gets played out, to the point where people are tryna give it "Indie Game of the Year" or something. Some other games I think you could lump into this category when they've just so beaten to death by YouTubers include Happy Wheels or Among Us. I'm sure they're fun games - I have 0 desire to ever play them personally due to how oversaturated they've become, and thus maybe 5-6 years down the line, as in the case of Octodad, I'll finally play it at my own pace. I'll say - I don't remember quite how popular it got, but it definitely stood out in my mind as a relic from the past that got relatively well known for such a small studios 1st game, and to see it released in January 2014 - and when you search it into YouTube you see the giants of Marklplier, Jacksepticye, iHasCupQuake, etc.. all with several million views on this game from 7 years ago - it appears my memory has not failed me! So, enough old man talk. I quite liked it! It's delightfully goofy. It's no wonder the creators, studio Young Horses went on to create Bugsnax as a launch title for the PS5 that's been fairly well received and I can't wait to play it when I get my new console (which, for the record, I HAVE been trying for the last 3 months with 0 success). It's not exactly re-writing game design but the controls are surprisingly tight once you get the hang of them. You can flop about like an absolute lunatic and barrel into every object in your path but for the platforming navigation in some of the later levels such as on the ship when you're naked OR during the final fight vs the chef - you can be surprisingly precise managing both of your limbs to path through narrow scaffolding. When I was going for the miscellaneous trophies even while goofing up an accidentally flicking the wedding ring way past Scarlett's head all you can do is chuckle. I think my favorite level is a toss-up between Mission #3 at the grocery store OR Mission #8 on the ship tryna get back to your family. None of the trophies are at all difficult to learn, if you accidentally miss one you always have chapter select and the game has a very generous checkpoint system that makes it easy to repeat specific sections if you mess up (talking to you - mission #2 take out all the weeds in the garden without stepping on any of the flowers!) I earned the 12.22% rarity 100% in just 2 days and 23 hours. Short and sweet is exactly how I want to enjoy the few 100% games I dabble in each year and Octodad is a front-runner to be the best one I've played thus far in 2021, and prolly one of the best All-Time behind the likes of Risk of Rain, Journey, and Abzü. Panda Score: 6.6 / 10 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted April 5, 2021 Author Share Posted April 5, 2021 Game: Manual Samuel Analysis: I bought Manual Samuel for $1.99 back in late January 2021, along with a bunch of other super cheap games and wow - this was 50x better than I thought it'd be. Listen, I do my best to try and play quality games month in and month out despite being a trophy hunter. I have not succumbed to the temptation of buying up a bunch of 90%+ easily obtainable rarity platinums. I generally try and play stuff I think I'd enjoy and not let trophy hunting be the focal point. But occasionally I'll see a game exactly like this one on sale. A cheap $2, its' trophy guide says it'll only take 3 hours, and it's only a 3/10 difficulty? Who cares that I think the art style is gross and it's an adventure game, for a game with a 12% rarity plat I've gotta check it out - and if I hate it, meh at worst I have to stomach a game I don't enjoy for a short session. All of this is to say, that despite the fact I played BACK-TO-BACK games with wonky controls controlling the main character (Octodad, Samuel), and despite the fact much of the humor in this game resolves around a gross art style with humor centered around vomiting, pissing, pooping, and playing a reprehensible character in absurd circumstances... I enjoyed it, man. Not even a fake enjoying it - the 2nd playthrough of the game was genuinely fun. You play as Samuel, a scumbag son of a CEO who gets dumped by his girlfriend, gets hit by a truck, and dies. Thankfully, Death who's a skater bro tryna do a kick-flip offers you a day of life for 24 hours to tryna gain your life back. Sadly, you have to MANUALLY control all your limbs, your breathing, your blinking, your spine, etc... and it can create for some hilarious sequences where you accidentally do the splits, have your back thrown out, turn blue in the face, or any other absurdity you can imagine. You end up working at your dads company, let out a bunch of evil robots, you try and stop the, they blow up and kill an orphanage containing 300 children, you die again, you fight the S himself, and you get your soul and the 300 kids back in the end - along with an at least partially decent relationship with Death. My favorite chapter was prolly #3 (Sam Awakes at his home) - and I legitimately was stunned when the orphanage was blown up that it left me impressed, but they had to pull it back at the end there or else that woulda been gutsy as hell. So playing through the main story once is easy, you don't even have to worry about trophies since a 2nd playthrough in co-op must happen no matter what you do. But instead of doing that straight away, I focused on the hardest thing about this game in order to platinum. The Time Trials! Yea, there's frigging time trials in an adventure game. Initially, you're going to be infuriated by some of the random RNG of your back being thrown out at the worst time, causing you to do splits, and wasting time. Juggling breathing, blinking, with whatever task you're trying to handle from putting green energy in the robots or tryna shoot them out in the "Sam Blasts!" section will be ridiculously tricky at first - but with patience and practice comes perfection. I got the first 3 trials done on the 1st day I played - and Sam Awakens prolly took em the longest since it's where I really mastered the technique of handling all of Samuel's different faculties. Sam Drives is very easy once you learn how to handle the clutch(this bugged out on me on my 1st playthru cuz my controller is a lil busted, it's a known bug!). Same Shows Up is only difficult because of the speech bar challenge, but with enough practice you'll get the RNG to pass. Sam Works took me a bit, but once you master the timings of when to breath/blink in-between activities and rushing for the door, it's easy. Sam Blasts is prolly the hardest - but knowing going in how difficult it'd be I didn't get frustrated when I didn't get it my first 7-8 attempts. Eventually a magical run came together where I timed the MG and missile charges very well against all enemies, and beat the Maid Boss with 4:35 remaining. The final "Sam Dies. Again." I achieved on my 2nd attempt with 2 seconds to spare after I re-learned the final boss patterns. With the hardest trophies out of the way, doing the 2nd playthrough was super quick due to the fact I had mastered the controls. I got every Hashtag, and got to enjoy the commentary of the narrator since he actually says different stuff if you skip every cutscene in the game which I loved. Before I knew it, it was over - and I had achieved the 12.86% rarity platinum in 2 days and 1 hour. Shoutout to the developer Perfectly Paranormal for being a cool set of dudes and making a fun, unique short little game. It struck the perfect balance of not over-staying it's welcome and having your attain a certain mastery of the controls to make it a worthwhile platinum. Panda Score: 6.85 / 10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted April 9, 2021 Author Share Posted April 9, 2021 Game: Axiom Verge Analysis: I bought Axiom Verge for $7.99 back towards the very end of December in 2020, and wow - no wonder it's received all the love I've seen since it released in 2015. I feel like there's no reason for me to lie about why I enjoyed this game - the frigging gameplay man. I have a list of YouTube videos I want to do a deep dive of watching in order to properly reflect upon the story, I know there's different time dimensions and all, different planes of existence, but honestly in giant ass purple text I'm gonna put the simplest way I can summarize the entire games plot. This is my way of saying "you may love the story, I didn't really pay much mind to it, and yet I loved my time with this game anyway." Giant robot mommy's need science man to kill his former self in order to make things right. I won't expand upon any of that and let your imagination run wild about what it could mean. But seriously, what a fun metroidvania man! I had heard wonderful things for ages but didn't expect it to have such an expansive list of items, weapons, and upgrades. Let me give a brief explanation that'll serve as minor spoilers but is best exemplified in the various coat upgrades. Early on, you can't dash - all you have is your basic walking animation with a jump. Eventually, after killing Uruku, you get the basic modfiied lab coat. This allows you to slip through one-block wide barriers teleporting through them. Cool! Now you have so many more options to go... and then you realize later on you pick-up the trenchcoat, which allows you to dash and teleport through 2-wide blocks while moving, which means it can be used for going upwards, downwards, etc... as opposed to just side-to-side - and now you can even do it mid-jump! Finally, the 3rd and last upgrade is the red coat, which allows you to do all that you did previously but also allows you to smash through blocks - which even further expands your traversal mechanisms. This isn't the only way the game accomplishes this, you have your laser drill, field disrupter which allows you to glitch enemies, the passcodes, a frigging grappeling hook, and an adorable drone that will eventually become one of the best methods of traversal due to the fact 1) It can sustain enemy damage without depleting your own health and 2) It can be launched in hard to reach places and then when you get th teleport-to-drone upgrade, make moving so much easier. It's a fantastic list that even then I think has room to grow - but gives you that wonderful progression feedback when you go back to old areas you had beaten and can fly through them as opposed to struggling as you likely did early on. But moving on from items, let's talk about weapons! Axiom Verge has 23 weapons in total. That's a mind-boggling amount given the scope of the game - and how many other games will offer you 3-5 at maximum. Of course, there are a number of duds in here so I'll mention my favorites. Axiom Disrupter is your base weapon and is great for pretty much the whole game. Kilver is one I'm personally fond of since it can be a perfect way to cheese enemies through blocks when they can't hit you. Vorang is wonderful for getting a huge spread of shots fired, even if it's a bit weaker - good for the annoying ass flies and bat enemies you'll find in Edin. Firewall is good at firing downwards at an enemy that's beneath you - as well as for cheesing some of the sentry's when you glitch them to become block-like. Ion Beam is fantastic at taking at a line of enemies in a horizontal room, Orbital Discharge can likewise be used to take out tons of enemies that are hugging the ceiling or floor due to the way it's shots move, and finally there's the flamethrower that's so broken it's okay since it's one of the last weapons you receive - plus, if you're not using a guide you're gonna have to backtrack hardcore in order to find it, but it makes the final boss fight a complete joke. All in all, a great batch here for those who like to experiment! So we've talked items and weapons - now let's discuss environment and enemies! In total there are 9 zones. Eribu is where you'll be starting off and it's a good starting area to get your feet wet given there's nothing too scary. Absu contains some slightly more annoying enemies in the form of the Jellyfish and pink/purple donuts but you'll be fine. Zi is where you'll eventually hit an area where you'll be unable to backtrack thanks to an unusually large jump, but earning a grappelhook later on will make returning to old areas possible. The Scorpiant's are obnoxious but there are easy methods to deal with them. Kur is arguably one of the most iconic locations in the entire game given this BANGER (it's jarring at first but I absolutely love it). Here you'll be dealing with those little laser beam urchins that are surprisingly difficult to handle if you don't glitch them. Cyberdogs, annoying boulders and armadillo's, but once you get accustomed it won't be too much of a struggle. But good lord do you want me to talk about the place that kicked my ass the most? Freaking Edin man. Will O' Wisps, the freaking blade flower enemies, the tiny annoying ass flies and bats that'll whittle down your health like it's nothing in an instant - I died over and over here again, and thank goodness for the checkpoint close to it's exit to Indi OR I don't know if I could have had the stomach of walking back time and time again after getting my ass handed to me. The sentry's in E-Kur-Mah suck, the obnoxious little green parasites that deplete your health at a ridiculous rate are also a pain but infrequent enough they shouldn't be too ingrained in your memory. By the end, Ukkin-Na and Mar-Uru honestly have easier enemies with how much you've likely built up your arsenal by the end, the robot sentry's and laser enemies pale in comparison to some of the stuff that crushed you earlier. All that's left to mention is the boss fights and wow, this may be one of the weaker elements of the game for one simple fact. My lord can they ALL be cheesed. I mean, not all of them but when I watched a playthrough for the speedrun - this guy made the game look like a joke. Xedur is easy but he's the 1st boss, fair enough. Telai seems like this huge, painful boost in difficulty from the 2nd, he killed me like 10-12 times - and then I realized you can just run into him straight through, take damage twice, but then destroy him untouched since he never turns around to fire at you, lol. Uruku same ordeal - you can run through the pink goo, take a few hits, but then sit on a glitched block to spam him to death. Gir-Tab is cheesed with a specific weapon where you take 0 damage. Vision and Aborted Clone are story boss fights, aka 0 challenge. Ukhu is prolly the hardest boss fight in the game? Sentinel is easy to avoid the laser and tank a few hits, and the final boss in Athetos has some cool sentry enemies but not really enough expanded upon it for a final boss. If someone said the weakest area of Axiom Verge for them was the boss fights, I'd have no objection. Definitely something that can be polished up on the sequel (more on that later) All in all, I loved my time with Axiom Verge. It doesn't hit everything so far outta the park that I can say it's in my 9.0 range of games, but the core gameplay elements here are what made it a blast. Even with no sprint button, the fact the game respects you as a player to figure things out and have fun with the options given to you is sensational. I adore the soundtrack, and normally I'm kinda meh on them when people say "the soundtrack is awesome!!" - nah, I really enjoy AV's especially. But... what about trophies? Lemme give you some pointers bud. If you have 0 issues playing with a guide, I HIGHLY recommend this text guide via Neoseeker's, Bkstunt and Haeravon. Outstanding guide and while the focus is on the info, you can read through their text how much they adore this game. That'll help you get 100% in everything. During that play-through, GLITCH EVERYTHING. I was kinda doing it but thankfully I checked the trophy description like 40% of the way through my playthrough and realized there was a missable enemy on a boss fight. I played all the way through to the end, didn't have it popped, retraced through Kur and Ukkin-Na, before it finally popped on a Yellow Sea Sponge in Zi. Save yourself the headache and glitch every enemy you see and use this list! Finally, the "hardest" trophies. A normal run on speedrun mode trying not to die, complete it in 4 hours, and don't unlock more than 40% of items. Here's my run stats. I achieved that by following this guide on YouTube. Nice and relatively quick as opposed to the one on the PSNProfiles guide - just please note, DO NOT SAVE after making the big jump in Zi, you need to use the save / teleport loophole when quitting back to the main menu in order for the run to work. Aka - don't start unless you're guaranteed a free 30-40 minutes to get up to that point in the 1st playthrough. I had to waste a 40+ minute run because I didn't realize that. Still, the hardest thing won't be the time or items, but rather not dying. I backed up to my save to the cloud at every opportunity. I died a number of times on the Uruku fight and had to restart Athetos three times. It's do-able though. All in all, I earned myself the 4.71% platinum rarity in 6 days and 21 hours! Axiom Verge is a fantastic game, and when you realize just one man (Thomas Happ) created it - it really makes you wonder what the hell every other game studio is doing. I'm so happy a sequel is in development and Axiom Verge 2 is set to release at some point in 2021 - I honestly think the ceiling for this genre is still quite high, and can't wait to see what Happ comes up with next! Panda Score: 8.0 / 10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted April 12, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 12, 2021 (edited) "The Games That Got Away", - A List of Games I Couldn't Platinum / 100% I will NEVER have a 100% completion percentage on PSNProfiles. It's a blessing in disguise in all truth. I think there's something incredibly admirable about someone who who goes out of their way to maintain a 100% completion total on their account, ESPECIALLY if you can find that they're going out of their way to play difficult games as well, not just trying to make a figment of imagination impressive percentage when in reality they're getting fat on empty calories playing a bunch of easy games to impress that total. It'd be like if LSU in the NCAAF playing a bunch of Division 2 programs, yea, congrats I guess, sure woulda looked a hell of a lot more impressive going 10-2 if your two losses were against Florida and Alabama tho. Regardless, the over-whelmingly majority of my posts cover games I've conquered. No matter how difficult or easy, simple or complex, I like to word vomit my thoughts in front of your eyeballs to tell you what I thought about my experience. It's pretty fun! But I'd like to take a bit of a detour from that routine and discuss my failures instead of my conquests. At the time this is being written (A rainy Sunday on April 11th, 2021 at around 5 o'clock) - I have 174 games played on my profile, with 154 games fully 100% completed. That means there are 20 games where I've failed to attain all trophies. These are their stories. "They're Not Actually Difficult, It's Just DLC" Graveyard Keeper (84%, 63/76 trophies) - This has a pretty simple explanation. I haven't decided to fork over the $10 required in order to pay for the Strange Sins DLC. It's nothing against Graveyard Keeper personally - it's just that it was such a gigantic grind to reach the base platinum that I wasn't really feeling up for an extra 20 hours on top of what I had already played to that point. Plus, I heard some rumors that extra DLC was coming at some point, will it trophies? Maybe, maybe not - but if it does I'd rather kill two birds with one stone. So in all honesty, not really a game that got away from me as much as one I'm letting survive until I eventually cave and go for the kill in the future. Island Saver (61%, 13/23 trophies) - I'm gonna be salty on this one. Do you know what I utterly despise? Getting a relatively cool game that's 100% free on the PS Store, and then months down the line they decide to release paid DLC for $5 that has trophies on it. Listen, I enjoyed Island Saver for what it was well enough, a kids game teaching about banking with some Slime Rancher / Viva Piñata inspiration. I love both those other games, this one kinda likes the depth necessary to make me wanna pay $$$ for a free game. Annoyed it ruined the perfect green split on my profile, eventually as with GK I'll cave in and pay for it BUT I'M NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT AND NATIONAL WESTMINISTER BANK SHOULD KNOW THAT. A Hat in Time (72%, 28/38 trophies) - Until about two weeks ago - this was a whale I had slain, eaten, and pooped out. Now Hat Kid's come back from the dead to piss in my cereal (heh). Of all the games here - this is the one I'm MOST likely to return to soon. I originally earned the platinum back in August 2019, and given it'll soon be over 2 years since I played it, I have 0 qualms returning to such a delightful platformer. I was originally a bit worried that it may have ridiculously hard challenges, but it seems that there's a Celeste "assist mode" that at least makes the stamps easier to obtain if you keep failing. I'll probably have a good time returning to AHiT so sometimes it's nice to have things un-100%'d to return back to! "Uhh... I Wasn't Trophy Hunting Back Then, Whoops!" FIFA 14 (57%, 26/42 trophies) - My memory is a bit foggy here but it appears I quite simply didn't care for playing Ultimate Team that FIFA. The over-whelming majority of the trophies deal with that in and Pro Clubs - and I was pretty much a strictly Career Mode player back then, specifically as a Manager. It's a shame since it's such a relatively easy FIFA platinum as well at 3.82% that it just slipped through my fingers as the servers closed back in October 2017 - and I really started going for trophies in 2018. Oh well! Madden NFL 25 (65%, 30/41 trophies) - Hah it appears FIFA 14 wasn't the only game I didn't care for with regard to it's Ultimate Team. Basically all the trophies I didn't unlock are in reference to MUT, and the hardest if the bunch is winning a MUT Super Bowl. I dodged all of those and didn't even bother, and even while the latest trophy achiever in that category did manage it in Dec. 2020, I have 0 interest in going back and grinding my way up for a mere chance of getting the 1% plat in a 7-year old sports games. Madden NFL 15 (73%, 32/39 trophies) - Essentially the exact same story as Madden 25. Didn't play MUT, and it requires you to simply make a MUT Super Bowl. Such a shame I didn't even dabble in these modes man, as that's an easy <1% platinum. Most recently pooped just like the last in Dec. 2020 but screw that noise to be honest. FIFA 15 (80%, 33/46 trophies) - Did you guess FUT? Cause there's some FUT related trophies, but also an extra unbeliavbly annoying "Extra Effort" trophy which requires you to score from the ground, and while I'd prolly be up for it if the game just released, it's a 6-year old sports games man. Could I still go for it? Maybe if I had the determination and willpower if someone tryna maintin a 100% account, but as the next section will prove - that is a completely impossibility for me. "NBA2k Platinums Are Impossible and I Hate It" NBA2k15 - NBA2k18 (ranging between as low as 38% to as high as 64%) - On an over-whelming amount of trophy hunters accounts, you won't find an NBA2k game on it. Unless you're out here looking at grimydawg___'s mind-boggling determination to grind out the platinum or even pop them on the odd year they aren't glitched. So what sucks about them? In NBA2k15 it IS possible - only 26 people out of 117k+ owners have bothered but technically if you're psycopath you could have the whole "Kit and Kaboodle" in your trophy cabinet, too bad it requires you to complete a borderline unfeasible MyTeam collection for most players, as well as getting skilled enough in online play to "Win All 10 Games of Greatest of All-Time in Play Now Online". Which essentially asks you to be perfect at the highest level of competitive play in 2k being the equivalent of Division 1 in FIFA. I can't think of anything more miserable than trying to cheese my way to the top. Oh, 2k17 also has a glitched MyCareer trophy which makes the platinum unobtainable on top of it all. In all the series that have been harmed such I switched from sports games to trophy hunting variety gaming, NBA2k has been hit the hardest. I own NBA2k19 and 2k20. I haven't played them despite the fact I got them BOTH for free. Why? The impossible trophies. I COULD play them on a 2nd account but why bother? 2k20's trophy was slightly more obtainable but it had a ridiculous MyTeam trophy requiring a bunch of card collecting and 2k21 has currently not been earned thus far needing 594 stars in "Domination" which is just... A LOT of basketball games against the CPU. In other words, I'm good with not playing a NBA2k game until they lower the difficulty on these - and I prolly won't cave until then unless the Heat get a Big 3 era dominant run where I'll just be too invested to not play. "Screw That" Need for Speed (96%, 43/46 trophies) - I consider myself a pretty diligent trophy hunter. I'll bust my gut for a trophy going for the platinum, hell, I'll go hard for most DLC as long as it's not completely unreasonable. This DLC list IS completely unreasonable. A 1.06% ultra rare bronze trophy that requires you to "Win Gold on All Prestige Events". That doesn't sound too hard for a game with a 26% rarity platinum, until you realize it's PSNProfiles Trophy Guide describes it as a 9/10 difficulty, 100 hours, and literally says "It's high time for the hardest one. The Prestige Mode is really for masochists and determined persons. At the beginning it's recommended that you do all 41 challenges at least in bronze. At this point, don't focus on beating times and records, just do all events to be familiar with all the modes, routes, and the game physics. After that, you can try to get golds. " That's gonna be a no from me. dawg. "Umm... That Sounds Like An Awful Time" Kingdom Hearts 3 (84%, 46/52 trophies) - I didn't hate KH3. In fact, I enjoyed it a good amount - and I was one of those people who played the original 2 games, waited forever for the 3rd game to drop - and when it did, I platinumed it within a week and thought it was a solid 7/10 quality tier game. Didn't quite live up to all the hype and anticipation we had for it, but in what way could it possibly have done so? So I was happy with this 100% and fairly straightforward plat, and then they dropped the Re:Mind DLC - which for it's hardest trophy asks "Reach the highest PRO code merit rank" and it's been given a 8/10 difficulty with 30 hours of playtime. Not as impossible as Need for Speed's DLC but... do I wanna go through that? Do I wanna pay $30 for a DLC in order to bash my head against a wall tryna get anime boy Sora to take down the darkness in a certain fashion and achieve a high score? I last played it in Feb. 2019 and that impulse has not kicked in for me - and I don't think it will for the foreseeable future. Cities: Skylines (50%, 44/104 trophies) - Cities: Skylines is one of the most fascinating games I have on my profile. It is one of only TWO non-sports game that has left me inept enough to not attain the platinum. The other is further down this list. Here's the thing, and @Cassylvania will know what I'm talking about - do you know what doesn't sound fun? Buying a bunch of $15 DLC packs for some miscellaneous trophies, waiting for the 1 in a billion chance that I get the "random natural disaster" to pop which sounds AWFUL, as well as above else - I don't wanna freaking leave my Day 1 Playstation 4 on all-night tryna grind out the 1001 nights trophy before my Playstation 5 gets here (I keep trying guys, it's still not happening). It's just a bunch of nasty, money-hungry, grindy ass trophies. AND I LIKED THIS GAME! I played it A LOT, prolly 50+ hours worth in order to obtain all the others and yet the trophies have just killed my mtoivation regarding it despite the fact I originally played from July 2018 - Sept 2018. Will I go for the platinum one day? Honestly, probably. If I get a PS5, leaving my PS4 on for 2 weeks straight to earn the plat wouldn't be so impractical. I also have the annoying 95%+ city happiness for 5 years trophy but I could scrounge my way around that. Now, will I ever bother with all the DLC? If I haven't gone for KH3, whaddya think? "I Failed. I Wasn't Good Enough. I'm Sorry." FIFA 16 (87%, 45/49 trophies) - Do you know what it means to be on the edge of greatness and come up short? For the following 4 years worth of FIFA's - I ended up being good enough. But not for FIFA 16. Why? I got invested in FUT VERY LATE, to the point I didn't build up a very good coinbase, and as a result - I only have 1 draft token. What did this mean? In order to earn the missing trophy of winning an Online FUT Draft - I needed to win it in one go and quite simply... well, I didn't lose - I CANT FIND A FREAKING MATCH BRUV. I joined an unbelievably full PSNProfiles group chat for PS Messaging and despite 30+ members or so - I couldn't get a game, prolly cause it was mostly Europeans. I'd love to finally lose and have my dream killed for good, but given the completely ineptitude of the servers in finding me a match, I deleted the game from my PS4 and the annoying ass install time from the disc has killed any remaining motivation of mine. I could go for it and the Pro Clubs trophies, but I just don't care at this point. FIFA 16 beat me, fair enough, I got it back and kicked it's ass for 4 years straight right thereafter. MLB The Show 16 - (91%, 22/24 trophies) - This one doesn't hurt as badly as FIFA 16 or the other two games on this list for the simple fact that listen - A LOT of people weren't good enough for this platinum and the one absurd trophy it asked of it's players. The trophy "Victorious - With a single draft class, win 20 games in Diamond Dynasty Battle Royale." What does that mean? In essence, you must win 20 out of 21 games on an online competitive mode which if you lose two times, you have to start all over again. Yes, some players have earned this trophy as recently as July 2020 - but I just don't care enough to sit through what would be required in order to earn it. Unlike FIFA 16's FUT Online Draft, I never even bothered trying to win 20 out of 21 games online. I simply don't play or know baseball sports games well enough to compete in that field. Honestly, my peak for this game when earning the "Legendary" trophy which is ALSO brutally difficult at 3% ultra rare tier but yea... it took me 3 weeks of trying to earn that one, you can only imagine the failures I would have suffered trying for Victorious. MLB The Show 19 (90%, 21/23 trophies) - Here we have my most recent failure! Of all the games I started and played in 2019 - this was the ONLY game I failed to platinum. Why is that? Because of the "Welcome to the Chip" trophy requiring players to reach the Championship Series Division in Ranked Seasons in Diamond Dynasty. Listen, I played this game for a MONTH straight in September 2019, I loved this game, this is when I was in the midsts of trophy hunting and posting regularly on here, and somehow, this DD mode managed to sucker me in and have it be my only game for a month with FIFA 20 around the corner and... I'm just not good enough man. You need 800 points - by the time I quit I was down at 400, with a full diamond squad and after losing points I couldn't be arsed. Recently, like 3 weeks ago - i tried for it in case some noobs were playing and if I got a few wins, I'd try for it. I was demoted down to Spring Training 200 tier, played some dude with a full diamond squad, lost 6-3 after battling for a few innings, gave up some homers to 99 OVR Frank Thomas - and then discovered he was a 400-tier player and gained a whooping +11 ranked points for beating me. Screw EVERYTHING related to trying to earn that plat now. I'm not trying no damn Discord to scrape my way cheesing to it by having a bunch of fake accounts from 15 other dudes tryna get this trophy feed me wins. I mean, if you did that - respect, you have more patience than I'll ever have. The Last Guardian (84%, 20/24 trophies) - I have been fortunate in life to not have suffered through the experience of the "girl that got away". But I feel like I've found the video game equivalent in my experience with The Last Guardian. But only if the way I felt about that girl was like Ben Affleck in Gone Girl. I hate The Last Guardian. I hate Trico. I hate the stupid boy. I hate the stupid teal tablet that conveys that stupid teal light to fire out that stupid lightning bolt out of Trico's stupid tail. I hate the unresponsive clunky controls. I hate the constant tutorials even 4 hours into the game telling you how to hang on ledges. I hate Trico not listening to your commands and choosing to sniff his ass. I hate the painful enemy segments where you jump around like a moron. I hate the frame-rate drop. I just... despise this game. and yet, I have beaten the game, from start to completion, 6 TIMES!!!!! 6 EVERYBODY! I have games here I love that can NEVER even dream of being re-played but due to this games moronic trophies, I'm looking at a full extra play-through at the bare minimum. Why? The 1st I played for the story, that was a mistake. The 2nd I played to get all the barrels and stick Trico's stupid head in every hole. The 3rd I think I tried for the miscellaneous or something like "don't let Trico's spears stick in him for awhile" and it DIDN'T POP. The 4th I don't even remember, and the 5th last July 2020 I earned both the "Lightning Emissary" and "Untouchable Emissary" trophies requiring you to beat the game in under 5 hours as well as do it without dying. I've apparently done the two hardest trophies but I have the GOD AWFUL "Hear every hint" trophy as well as the idiotic "Intensive Care" trophies left. I don't want to sit there and suffer through the slow ass moronic kid reflecting on his life telling me how to get a barrel or jump up to a ledge. Just the thought of sticking through and suffering all over the game again at a snails pace makes my skin crawl. This is my white whale. I need to pop it for a milestone in order to motivate me, because I will never have the motivation otherwise to stomach through this utter abomination of a video game by my own free will. Godspeed to whoever bothered to read this and good night. Edited April 12, 2021 by realm722 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted April 17, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 17, 2021 (edited) A Guy You Don't Know Judges Series He'll Never Play So there's a lot of video games guys. You'll know if you're like me and will browse every sale that releases tryna find the latest gem - and while it's awesome that we have such a buffet selection to choose from, there will inevitably be games we simply can't play due to the fact there's just not enough hours in the day. As a result, I've decided to make this post in dedication to some of the pillar game franchises out there that I either 1) Don't have any desire to play myself or 2) Would never really wanna play in the first place. This list is gonna be a bit of a doozy since there's A LOT of peoples favorite video game franchises on here. I'm a bit of a weirdo in case you guys haven't realized, frigging Unravel is in my Top 5 games of the Playstation 4 generation. So if you see one of your favorite gaming experiences on here, for as much as I can be motivated by peer pressure on an online forum... I'm just not touching these. But I do have some nice things to say about them, so here they are! BONUS NOTE: I'm not listing any shooters since I just don't play 'em (aka no CoD, Borderlands, Destiny, Wolfenstein, DOOM, etc..) The Uncharted Series Why? This is quite possibly Playstation's most iconic franchise? At least one of the longest lasting and beloved. I've never seen a full playthrough of any of them, but the fact that Uncharted 2 is still discussed even nowadays as one of the biggest mantle-changing transitions as Playstation 3 took the baton back away from Xbox 360 is pretty significant. I know Uncharted 4 is very beloved and is considered to be a great culmination of the dynamic between Nathan Drake and Elena Fischer. Hell, I even own a copy since I got it as part of a 4 for $20 bundle from Gamestop. So what's holding me back? Well for one, each of the original 3 games having that "Brutal" DLC trophy isn't helping - along with the fact the 4th game has an ungodly difficult multiplayer that many have been carried through thanks to a god-tier player. That's not a good argument not to play them - you can stomach missing out 100%'s for some awesome games but eh... it's just not calling to me. They seem like action Indiana Jones set pieces with some basic puzzles and general shooting mechanics. Maybe one day, but with how many games I have high up on my list - the fact I have the entire series already owned and waiting to be played, it'll be on the back-burner for awhile. The Assassin's Creed Series Why? First of all - let's acknowledge my amazing joke of suggesting that the AC series started with "Origins". I mean, it was a pretty gigantic turning point for the franchise given the change to more drastically gigantic open worlds and exploring different environments, but the AC series is very long, dating back to the original in 2007. I've done some very mild dabbling in exploring the lore regarding Ezio and Desmond. I know there's something with templars. I will say, I love the idea of the games exploring these gigantic landscapes from the past, first Egypt, then Greece, now with Vikings in Valhalla - it seems they're still ripe with plenty of ideas if they ever wanna do their best impression after Ghost of Tsushima of making a game set in Japan, or there's a lot of untapped potential in the Latin America colonies. But... not for me. Don't care whatsoever for the stories and they seem to have the same reputation of being too bloated. I don't play a lot of open world games but that's gonna have to be a no from me chief. The Yakuza Series Why? I LOVE the Yakuza games. I have seen a full Yakuza 0 play-through on 2 occasions. The first a YouTube playthrough by NicoB and later a play-through on Twitch by Joseph Anderson. The games are an utter delight, and @Copanele who recently wrote a full review of Y0 loved it. I think Kiryu's amazing from his adorable helping on side missions to working his way up through the ranks, and compared to Uncharted or AC - I actually have seen a lot of the story up through Yakuza Kiwami 2. But this is a behemoth of a series, that only with the latest release went with a new protagonist, and while I enjoy the games and their balance between super serious Japan mafia to fun side stories where you help old ladies and bet on underground cat fights, I don't personally wanna go through the time investment for it. For anybody who does - this is an AMAZING journey to embark on and hell, you'll pick up some skills in Mahjong and karaoke along the way. Maybe, just maybe on day - I myself will play Yakuza 0. It's the most iconic in the series IMO, and it's so cheap at $5 on sale, but that day is far in the future. The God of War Series Why? The beloved hack-and-slash series that completely swapped up it's gaming genre in a reboot that turned Kratos into a dad, made him serious, and kinda made us completely forgot about that time he chained up that naked lady to a lever and just straight up murdered her in the 3rd game. Cool! I've seen the full series played out thanks to Joseph Anderson streaming it for his eventual review of God of War. I've gotta say - the first 2 games seemed quite lack-luster compared to where the series eventually arrived. I thought GOW 3 was incredible with the sheer scope it had and you clearing through one former Greek god after another, with the ultimate culmination involving Pandora's Box and Zeus. I thought the 4th game struck a wonderful balance between being a technical marvel to also having fun-to-watch gameplay. My question is... how the hell are they gonna explain how Kratos lived and got from the end-of-the-world in Greece to the eventual coming of Raganrok? We'll see. But yea, 0 interest in playing them - too violent for my cup of tea! The Danganronpa Series Why? I too have been contaminated by the Danganronpa series. For those who are normal, it's a series where you have a group of high schoolers (16 students!!!) and they're locked in a doomsday scenario where a white and black bear makes them kill each other one-by-one, you need to solve the murder mysteries, and you can cultivate relationships with them and such. It's honestly an amazing concept - and the fact these games have humongous dedicated fanbases even after all these years of release is evidence of that. I've seen all 3 games to completion, once again thanks to Joseph Anderson (in case you can't tell - I kinda like this guy). They're mostly visual novels outside of a few mini-games and investigation scenarios, so why not play them? WOW these platinums are convoluted, lol - they have these ridiculous School Mode side-modes and everything, and I enjoyed the series don't get me wrong, def check them out if you can stomach anime nonsense and can find a good streamer, but this ain't no Persona 5 where I'm gonna sit through it myself. The SoulsBorneSekiro Series Why? This may be my most controversial take yet. All the games thus far are beloved for some, but I know the Dark Souls' fanbase that is arguably the most iconic game of the 2010s given the genre and games it has spawned (Nioh, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Surge, Ashen, etc...). I've done some very mild dabbling in viewing each series - though I've never properly watched a full playthrough. I saw Northernlion play the remastered Demon's Souls for a bit - I've looked at some amazing speedruns for the Souls games given how difficult they are - but in terms of seriously understanding all of the bosses and learning the in's and out's - I've never bothered. Why? Eh, games are too spooky man. I don't mean in the sense that they're scary, but if I'm gonna play a boss gauntlet with difficult combat, I'm gonna want it in the flavor of a Furi or Jotun, not dark and medieval-like. I will make one concession, maybe, MAYBE, I'll try out Bloodborne given it's one of the free games for having a PS5 and paying for PS+. But no promises - I know the games are amazing, but they're not for me chief. The Grand Theft Auto Series Why? The most iconic video game franchise, ever. Grand Theft Auto 5 is specifically on another echelon with how successful the online has been. People joke that they'll be in their 70's by the time Grand Theft Auto 6 rolls around, but to be fair - why on earth would they make a sequel given what they'd have to risk? The expectations are going to dwarf even that which game with CD Projekt Red and Cyberpunk2077 - they're going to take their sweet time with GTA6 polishing it as much as possible until their publisher forces their hand. So why don't I wanna bother with one of the biggest franchises ever? Easy - 1) The humor is nothing within my ballpark. That crystalized cynicism was a lot fresher when these games released - and given I remember the story being extremely negative back in 2013, it can't have aged that well to nowadays. 2) The violence ain't for me chief. If I were able to dabble with a game in this vein, it'd probably be one of the Watch Dogs. But I know that'd make some GTA fans laugh me out of the room given the chasmic gap between the two series. So there you have it! A bit of a strange post - but I have a few reasons. 1) I don't post a lot of typical mainstream games on here and I figured I'd offer a bit of an opinion on some of the larger franchises in case anyone wondered what I thought of them. But 2) I've finally... played a Final Fantasy game. Well, to put it more aptly, I'm in the midsts of playing the FF7 Remake and WOW I am shocked by how much I'm loving it right now. Like, the gameplay is frigging awesome, I'm very much enjoying the core characters (Barret's awesome, my heart is torn between Aerith and Tifa) and yea man! I'm so glad this is my first experience with this titan of a franchise. But there won't be a review for quite some time given how humongous it is - but the status midway thru Chapter #8 is glowingly positive. Thanks for reading and until next time! Edited April 17, 2021 by realm722 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ_Radio Posted April 17, 2021 Share Posted April 17, 2021 Let me just say that you are far, far behind on all of these franchises. You have a different perspective. A lot of sports games on your trophy list, most of which I couldn't care less about, even the MLB the Show franchise is beginning to look and feel stale. That shitty gold trophy in MLB the Show 19 was just the trophy designers trolling, which is why I skipped it and will never play it on my trophy profile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted April 17, 2021 Share Posted April 17, 2021 Awesome post as always! You know, I kinda get where you're coming from with those series I don't want to play Uncharted either because I honestly miss Indiana Jones. And Persona series, I don't think I have enough years left in me to finish them all. And for the other series, you have a very good point. Starting all the AC games now... uhh thoughts and prayers. Soulsbornekironiohknack2unlimited... If you don't like the concept of any of them, most likely you won't like the others either. And yakuza(thanks for the tag XD) - first one was brilliant, mwah, as I mentioned... Took well over 150 hrs. And that's just Yakuza 0!!!! 7 more to go + a spinoff. Yeah no idea where I wanted to go with the reply but I enjoyed the reading Never gonna touch Kingdom Hearts myself either ? keep 'em coming! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted April 21, 2021 Author Share Posted April 21, 2021 (edited) So I've realized I'm kind of a jerk and don't reply enough to the people who bother to reply on my posts. My bad, sometimes I don't have enough to say in response so I don't - but I should try to do so more often. On 3/10/2021 at 9:55 PM, Cassylvania said: I didn't think it was that bad. I mean, the game is amazing (I liked it more than Marvel's Spider-Man), but there are way worse collectibles and maps out there. I think it was only the ice cavern that got on my nerves. I'd play a sequel in a heartbeat. This has made me reconsider! I'm debating whether or not I wanna bother for the FIFA 21 platinum (it's... a grind, but I have FIFA 17-20 plats sooo....) and if so, I may wanna start dabbling in The Last Jedi just to get my feet wet. I thought Spider-Man was def in the high 7's for me but didn't love it as much as many others did but even then that's a pretty high recommendation - so thank you! On 3/12/2021 at 2:11 AM, Copanele said: Sweet topic to read! Well, for the "Should anyone go for 100% club" usually, if you go after games that you enjoy (like old games remastered for PS4 for instance), sure why not! Go wild! Starting a new account just for those leaderboards sounds abit overkill in my opinion but whatever makes the player happy I guess! Now personally, I followed the 100% club for only one list, one game : First Achiever, Guilty Gear. The original 1998 version relaunched for PS4. Yes I paid way more than it was worth but I was a man with a goal and I managed to get it. For EU list at least. I tried to do the same with Turok 2 but I wasn't feeling like playing the game on Hardcore mode from the get-go, wanted to relive the mad experience so I abandoned that thought. Enjoyment comes before leaderboards. But as "Fastest Achiever" goes...that would mean SPEEDRUNNING. I absolutely 100% detest speedrunning. I can't stand it and would avoid it like the plague. Ironically I have games with speedrun based trophies in my backlog, really thinking if I should even bother with them. Never speedrunning, so I will never be top in Fastest Achievers for any game ever. I leave that for people with better planning capabilities than mine I have not been around long enough to describe what you mentioned (I started trophy hunting on PS4, maybe I'll have more options on PS5) - but I could 1000% see the enjoyment in that. if you told me I could rush to be the 1st in Pyre or something knowing all that I knew? I'd have a blast doing so. Getting 1st in the world on ANY game is super impressive so awesome job on the guilty gear - you're still enshrined all these years later! Fair enough too on hating speedrunning, sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it - really depends on the game (if I know it super well, it can be a ton of fun tryna go as quickly as possible like those fellas on Twitch do making Mario backwards spin all the way thru Bowser's castle) On 3/24/2021 at 11:59 AM, TheDblTap said: Wow, thanks for the shoutout, man! I do not miss the days when I was working on this plat. I just remember sitting on the carpet in front of my TV, trying to get as close as I can to the point I was focusing on, so I couldn't possibly mess up the timing. I spent hours on end getting redder and redder until finally pulling it off. I'm glad my trophy guide at least helped to ease the pain for you in your run at it! Definitely! You have a very cool website - and you can easily tell the amount of effort you put into it. Whenever I play games in the future that are a lil more niche than the super mainstream you've become one of my new primary sources alongside PSNProfiles and Playstationtrophies for help! On 4/17/2021 at 1:58 AM, Copanele said: Awesome post as always! You know, I kinda get where you're coming from with those series I don't want to play Uncharted either because I honestly miss Indiana Jones. And Persona series, I don't think I have enough years left in me to finish them all. And for the other series, you have a very good point. Starting all the AC games now... uhh thoughts and prayers. Soulsbornekironiohknack2unlimited... If you don't like the concept of any of them, most likely you won't like the others either. And yakuza(thanks for the tag XD) - first one was brilliant, mwah, as I mentioned... Took well over 150 hrs. And that's just Yakuza 0!!!! 7 more to go + a spinoff. Yeah no idea where I wanted to go with the reply but I enjoyed the reading Never gonna touch Kingdom Hearts myself either ? keep 'em coming! Hahaha yea... Persona's a monster. Here's the thing tho - they released Persona 4 Golden on Steam as it was previously exclusive to Vita, but I'd LOVE to be able to play it if it ever get re-released on consoles. I saw a streamer handle a full playthrough, and I'd stomach the gameplay to enjoy all the atmosphere of it all. But they're behemoth of games... here's hoping Persona 3 gets a remaster one day, and the original two games are a far cry from where the series is today so we'll likely never see them get a new coat of paint for modern audiences. and yup! I'm not even one of those people who is obsessed with playing a series in order. I played the Batman: Arkham series in an idiotic fashion ---> Knight, Asylum, and then City. I played Guacamelee! 2 before Guacamelee 1. But as I said, it's those core concepts keeping me away. I'd definitely consider dabbling in Yakuza 0 one day but as you said... 150 bloody hours with so many games left to go, at least you'll always have something to play in-between fighting games. ? Oh and as for KH - I don't blame you. I played the original two on the Playstation 2, loved them, but even I have 0 desire to play them even for trophies in the modern age with how demanding their platinums are. Thanks for the love as always on my posts and I have another in the series of gasbaggy articles coming up regarding "The Dangers of Hype" all inspired due to the very next game I'm gonna post. Edited April 21, 2021 by realm722 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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