RealM722's Trophy Cabinet

rjkclarke · December 22, 2021

What a hell of a read!

Add me to the list of folk who pretty much read anything that you decide to write here - and I don't see that changing any time soon, it has been a constant source of interest, and I'm looking forward to whatever strange and esoteric games you bring to our attention next year.

I said to you a while back, that it's always refreshing to be able to read someone's opinion on a game you liked, but they didn't and when they are written as eloquently as yours are - you can't help but go " I don't agree, but I can absolutely see why they didn't like it, well said!" You did such a good job of that with Armikrog, which I totally get why you didn't like, and I liked it for almost the exact reasons that you didn't, yet I still enjoyed reading about your thoughts on it regardless.

I look forward to our inevitable debate over The Last Guardian once I get to it in 2022, because I suspect as I love Shadow of the Colossus I'll probably more than likely forgive that CatDogBird being an absolute fanny, and just shrug my shoulders and go " well he's an animal I guess"

I'm sure Drippy will be overjoyed at the tidy prize he won courtesy of Realmyboy!! He's a really infectious character, one that I fully expected to irritate me a bit, but he's just so damn charming, that you can't help but love him!

Final Fantasy VII was always going to pick up the top prize, but I'm so glad that that game spoke to you in a similar way to how the original did all the way back on the PS1, so in a way it proves that whatever form that story takes, it can still hook people in the same way.

It's too tempting to pick out specifics from this whole thing, but I'll leave it at that, I loved the whole thing.

I'm planning to put my own little end of year post together in the next week, so you'll get shouted out quite a lot in that, I've played quite a few awesome games as a result of either your own awesome recommendations, or your review inflaming someone else's interest, then piquing my interest again, like a long chain of awesomeness! So well done for that!

Thanks for the shoutout by the way! It's been a blast being able to pop in contribute and have an awesome thing to read on the regular, and I look forward to that going into the year ahead!

Edited December 22, 2021 by rjkclarke

Cassylvania · December 22, 2021

I don't always comment, but I always enjoy reading your long posts. I'm also glad you finally got around to playing my girl Shantae! A few thoughts as I read through your review, as I don't think I've ever talked about the series...

One of the things I've always appreciated about WayForward is that even though Shantae and her friends are clearly sexualized, it's done more in a comical, light-hearted way than the usual perverted stuff you'll get in anime. Most of the content in the game is like that, like you said. It just comes across as very inoffensive.
The jokes are hit-or-miss. I personally like Squid Baron, but I can see how the fourth wall breaks can be annoying. (They do that with his character in every game in the series.)
The Shantae series is the reason I don't have a separate category for "Metroidvania" games in my checklist thread. Risky's Revenge is the only one that I think belongs in that genre. Pirate's Curse is...iffy. The most recent ones are 100% action platformers, as far as I'm concerned.
You picked the hardest game in the series to start with. You'll have a much easier time with Half-Genie Hero and Seven Sirens, if you decide to play them.
Every Shantae game has a solid trophy list. Sometimes you have to play through the game one too many times, but it never felt like a chore to me.
"Run Run Rottytops" is my favorite track in the series. Even if the trophy associated with it suuucks.
I stand by Pirate's Curse being my favorite in the series. It's hard to say now because it's been so long since I played it, but I think they made Shantae too OP in the newer games.
Shantae for Smash!

You're making me question whether or not I should recommend Pirate's Curse now.

Destructor-8 · December 23, 2021

On 21/12/2021 at 2:26 AM, realm722 said:

RealM722's Games Played in 2021 Year-In-Review

Whether y'all just made a one-off comment for browsing a specific game and had helped me thanks to a useful guide or tip OR were a frequent follower in this weird corner of the internet where we all care about trophies and making dedicated personal checklists about them, I sincerely appreciate all y'all lovely folk for your kindness and charity. This is one of the few bastions of online interaction I have left where I still feel like I get to partially know a bit more about the anonymous user on the other side. I hope everyone is doing splendid and can enjoy a peaceful end to the year before 2022 rolls around. I'm currently enjoying my yearly JRPG to end the year and am off to a wonderful start and can't wait for it to be my first review come the new year. Until then!

Thanks for the mention! It's great to read your in depth reviews on games & it looks like you gave a decent rating to a few of the games that I plan on playing in the future so it's good to know that I probably enjoy those. I look forward to more reviews that you do in the future as your are always great.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Destructor-8

realm722 · December 24, 2021

On 12/21/2021 at 8:58 AM, Arcesius said:

Happy to re-read the nice words you have for Furi (and Jotun... those are nice words you have for Jotun, right? ?), and it's always great to see how a single game can resonate with someone on such a level as FF7R did with you

Thank you for the kind words - and yes absolutely on Jotun! I highly recommend it to people who enjoy a good challenge and getting a little bit better each time while playing a boss. I looked back through your thread(thank you for the beautiful organized OP that made it a breeze to find ) to find your review and had fun reliving the game a bit from your fresh eyes after having played it.

On 12/21/2021 at 2:11 PM, YaManSmevz said:

My wife also binged on Jane the Virgin not long ago... which means I also binged on it. At first I thought it was cheesy and silly, but then I remembered that telenovelas are supposed to be like that (fond memories, man.. those things seriously got me through puberty?) and before long I was enjoying it right alongside her. Even still when one of us are sweatin somethin the other's like "inhala... exhala..."

This made me so happy to read haha, Jane the Virgin is a BRILLIANT couples show. I also need to state for the record that I was #TeamMichael forever and always.

On 12/22/2021 at 1:52 PM, rjkclarke said:

I look forward to our inevitable debate over The Last Guardian once I get to it in 2022, because I suspect as I love Shadow of the Colossus I'll probably more than likely forgive that CatDogBird being an absolute fanny, and just shrug my shoulders and go " well he's an animal I guess"

I think as Arcesius said, the game would be 10x more bearable if the developers didn't choose just the most bizarre and infuriating trophy list I've ever seen concocted. It's like they were cackling to themselves about what specific weaknesses of the game would be worst exposed and said "these dummies are really gonna have to do all this if they want the platinum muahaha!". Like making a sports game where the trophy is listening to 100 hours of sports commentary. OR an action/Fromsoftware game and there were trophies like: "spend 5 hours reading lore from the in-game books". Why would you highlight THAT part of your game? It'll be a fun discussion regardless

On 12/22/2021 at 6:24 PM, Cassylvania said:

You're making me question whether or not I should recommend Pirate's Curse now.

After my review, I decided to go ahead and scout some opinions by Shantae fans on YouTube and was really surprised by how much the series had changed over the years. Pirate's Curse was a huge switch-up from the previous games with the animal transformations and I'll admit that I easily understand how this one is the favorite of the series for many. In a weird way, I've appreciated the game more since finishing it than in the moment while playing it? I absolutely love the soundtrack and made a stupid Tua highlights video to the tune of Spiderweb Island's music. At some point when the games go on sale in the future and some time has passed, I'll 100% pick up Half-Genie Hero or Seven Sirens.

realm722 · January 7, 2022

Game: Island Saver (DLC Update - Fantasy Island)

Original Game Review: Here is my original review of the free game Island Saver from back on June 8th, 2020.

So my first game that I've completed in 2022 isn't technically a new one. Rather, Island Saver was a nice and cheap game produced by developer Stormcloud Games. They worked in combination with NatWest (a real banking company in the United Kingdom) to make this strange but surprisingly not awful kid's game teaching the basics of banking and importance of cleaning up polluted environments. I likened it to a mix of Slime Rancher + Viva Piñata Baby Edition™. Sadly, this free game and its developers were very astute in finding a way to get money out of me despite getting the original game for free and that was by including a paid DLC update with trophies! Yea... I'm not proud that I succumbed to these tactics either but I was sick of having this easy peasy 100% uncompleted on my profile. Plus, I could rationalize the $5 cost of the DLC with trophies as giving a lil nod to the developers making a not-completely-ass console game that was free. Was it worth it in the end?

Would I recommend Island Saver: Fantasy Island? Eh. I mean.. it's more of the same. If you didn't like the base game, you won't enjoy the DLC as what it honestly does is just offer more of the same. There are some more animals. You have to go clean up some more islands, and you get two different ridable mounts. I will say, given I hadn't touched the game in a year and a half, I can acknowledge there is something therapeutic about the simplistic design and slowly but surely picking up all the polluted plastic, metals, and glasses in your Succ Vacuum™ which breathes life into the habitat once it's all cleaned up. It's pretty easy to see why kids would enjoy it. The trophies are ridiculously straightforward. Just play the game normally while picking up the easy-to-find scattered golden eggs and you'll earn 100% in less than 2 hours. I'll admit I got lost for a little bit since I didn't know how to progress buying the seeds (click the options button ya dummy) as well as not knowing the button to press to deploy the builder drone (triangle ya dingus). My weirdest criticism would be that there aren't enough actual garbage posts to receive ALL of the garbage you find on any one island. They fill up too quickly. What does this force the player to do? Pick an isolated area that isn't forced to be 100% cleared (I choose the little path to the fire zone where the Dragon island is) and just DUMP THAT PLACE FULL OF TRASH. Any trash leftover I couldn't throw away in the containers on a specific island? Run here and dump it. That has to be a metaphor for the way nations have resorted to dealing with their waste in real life. Nonetheless, I'm happy I got the easy 4.82% rarity 100% completion in a whooping... 1 year and 7 months now! I don't think I'll be ending up on any fastest achievers leaderboards anytime soon. Happy to be back and I'm very much looking forward to my next real review of the 1st new game of 2022!

Panda Score: 6.5 / 10

Fantasy Island DLC: 6.5 / 10

realm722 · January 8, 2022

Game: The Forgotten City

Analysis: I bought The Forgotten City for $23.99 back in late October 2021 and boy do I just love everything this game is trying to be for the game's industry.

I need to preface this with two very important disclaimers. 1) I already knew what this game was before playing it. I had seen a YouTuber play through the game to completion (CohhCarnage) in its entirety. I then watched my own sister play it in real life and earn herself her 1st ever platinum (I'm very proud). This is all to say that I bought the game anyway, at a premium price(it was on sale but compared to most games I buy, $24 is amongst the higher echelon of games), BECAUSE I wanted to support the developer and think that what they crafted here is beautiful and I want to see more games try to follow in The Forgotten City's footsteps. 2) I believe this game is experienced at its absolute best knowing as LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. It's FANTASTIC if you love some good dialogue and narrative that explores interesting concepts. You are NOT here for the gameplay. Those who can enjoy visual novels and mysteries will have a good time. It is remarkably short even if you don't use a trophy guide (no more than 10 hours) so I understand why someone could be hesitant on the $30 price tag but believe me, the game is worth it. If that hasn't convinced you, give me one paragraph to sell you on it revealing minor spoilers.

(Minor Spoiler Paragraph to Sell You On The Game If You Aren't Convinced) - You're a person who has ended up lost in an unknown land. You can pick your backstory which can mildly change some perks that you'll get to enjoy while playing the game. You explore ruins of a... hah, you guessed it - Forgotten City, and end up being transported to a place in time where you get to interact with Romans and other citizens of that time having to put up with one another in an on the surface utopia. But things are not as pleasant as they seem. There is a belief that if one person commits a sin, the entire city will suffer and die. Some live by it and would never consider crossing it. Some think it's fake. You'll find both good and reprehensible people during your explorations, and will be given the task to prevent the rule from being broken. What if you fail? No worries. There's bloody time looping mechanics! You retain all your knowledge and belongings from previous runs and it can create for some remarkably humorous moments with each character. Lemme say this - the game is NOT repetitive in the sense that it makes you complete tasks you did previously over and over again if you run out of time. I loved the creative solution they found for it. You'll always be able to focus on the next objective or lead, and slowly but surely, work your way to the end goal. I personally think the topics, subjects, and characters explored are exceptional. I think the voice acting is spectacular. Some have found the facial animations to be hit-or-miss. I personally think it's great whether it's genuinely great or a bit off since that's just good for an easy laugh. The one thing I wouldn't recommend the game to somebody for? If you love hitting SQUARE to make the bad guy die, this game isn't for you. The gameplay/parkour is clunky as this was originally a Skyrim mod. I hope this convinced somebody who hadn't had this game on their radar to check it out. Now let's get into some MAJOR SPOILERS and talk a bit more in-depth about why I love it so much.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

1) The Characters - Salve, friend! It's extremely difficult to express how much this game lives or dies with its characters in order to breathe life into the world. I enjoy exploring pretty landscapes and appreciate the depth and detail that went into creating so many authentic elements that fit into the time period that the game takes place, but if the characters were lackluster, this review would have been over by now. The Forgotten City strikes the perfect balance between having a cast that is both ridiculously lovable and utterly abhorrent. Galerius is the best boy to have best boy'd since Conner from Detroit: Become Human. He is the HEAVY favorite to win the "Best Man" category for the 2022 Game Awards and I'm currently also enjoying Sylvando from DQ11 which should tell you all you need to know about how brilliant he is. Not just with how he'll complete tasks for you in-game once you've done them which makes him resourceful and useful, but also the fact he's a deeply sympathetic character knowing his horrid backstory. He has a frigging crush on Priestess Equitia. How can you not love him? I love how they both get together in the cannon ending, fan service be damnded. On the other hand, you've got some genuinely repugnant character. Desius is the Classic Capitlistic Prick who WOULD exist in a town of such stringent rules. Malleolus and Domitius try to bully their way to power. The giant twist at the end when you realize Magistrate Sentius is a genuine freak is utterly delicious. All of it balances out so well with one another you begin to understand just how it took 4 years to create this game(aside from the ridiculously small dev team of 3 people). Then you have people who fall somewhere in the middle of just trying to live their lives in peace such as Vergil, Lucretia, Georgius, Horatio, Ulpius, Duli, and so forth. Naturally, some will stand out more than others due to their importance to the narrative but I think this is a genuinely delightful cast that just about anybody can fall in love with once you spend some time in their world.

2) The Topics Explored - Have you ever wondered how it would go for you if you had to discuss genuine philosophy with someone thousands of years ago? How utterly earth-shattering some of the things we have taken for granted in terms of our modern understanding compared to what was commonplace in their time. TFC finds a good balance between genuinely exploring those topics and offering some enlightening and thought-provoking discussions that could take place while also being willing to dabble in the goofy side of things as well. One of the best demonstrations of this is the discussion you can have with The Greek Hermit Philospher. As he's lived in isolation, all he wants is one good last philosophical debate. Why not humor the poor man? Can you truly define right and wrong for an entire people? If you can't, and you believe it should be deemed to each individual, what's to stop a man from abusing his wife if he believes that to be "right" in his eyes? If you think he's wrong, you don't actually believe what you stated previously - and you believe your moral compass is superior to his. What makes you so special? The game is chock-full of this stuff with the various characters. But can also enjoy some levity when you can explain to a priestess what memes are. I'll acknowledge that this stuff isn't for everyone but DAMN if it isn't right for me and I could gobble up more games exploring theoretical scenarios like this one as long as they reach the lofty heights The Forgotten City achieved.

3) If You Have A Great Idea, Don't Screw It Up. - The Forgotten City Doesn't. What do I mean by that? For as much as I love the characters, narrative, and plot - the game could have so easily ruined itself by bogging the players down with unskippable lines, forcing the player to do tasks over and over again, or just being generally less polished than it ought to be. I've seen some strong criticism for another time-loop game, Twelve Minutes for falling short in many of these aspects. How did TFC not bungle this? Well for one, essentially every line of dialogue is skippable which allows you to FLY through this game if you're trophy hunting while also being generous to get back to different dialogue branches and allowing you to pick different options. As opposed to having to complete repetitive tasks - your boy Galerius saves the entire city from itself and does in 5 minutes what it likely took you 5+ hours to accomplish. The game has a brilliant quest system that allows you to highlight individuals and locate them within the city, since the clock is always rolling, characters may be in different places depending on the time of day. I was initially going to critique the game for this before realizing just how helpful and handy highlighting a quest is in order to help you locate Equitia when she's in her house or Rufius when he's grabbing a bite to eat at Aurelia's place. I also would be remiss if I didn't mention how wonderfully woven different side quests tie into one another. Virtually zero moments in the game are completely unrelated with one another. You can get into Malleolus villa by jumping in from the hole created by Ulpius OR by using the golden bow to climb up the vine. You can gain access to the upper cisterns with the golden bow vines OR getting the key from Duli after freeing him. You can save Fabia on the FIRST loop if you parkour your way from the side and read the sign on the shrine before triggering the cutscene with her. It's such a nice touch as it allows each player to have their unique story and sequence structuring compared to putting the player on a linear path from which they can't deviate. I absolutely love it and more games should aspire to this level of player freedom.

4) My Most Memorable Moment - My most fond memory of this game won't be from when I was playing it. It was during an evening where I was watching my sister make her way through the game and reach the point where she had to swap out a fake golden bow for a real one after coming to an agreement with Desius. You'll end up in an underground section and end up in a palace that was previously inaccessible from the outside. Thus far, there had been no combat or imminent dangers to the player's safety. So imagine my delight when my sister let out a shriek of panic when the very first gangly golden statue came running at her. I wish I had recorded it. She was so petrified by the game that after pausing it as the creature came running at her and a 10-minute debate, she made me play through this entire section of the game as we slowly crawled past each corner sniping the statues as they came at us. Thus far she had felt the game was "alright" but didn't understand why I was so insistent on her playing it(I had pretended I didn't know what the game was about but had seen the YT let's play and knew she would enjoy it). This was when the game reached vaunted status and she officially started to love it despite being terrified. After getting through the section and meeting Naevia, the game really opens up with the golden bow and she had fun checking out each of the mysteries that were left before the big reveal of talking to The God of the Underworld and such. It's crazy to me how a section so heavily criticized on this game (admittedly the bow combat isn't great) will end up being what I most remember about when I think back about TFC just because I got to experience some secondhand terror.

In case I didn't mention it enough, the game looks utterly gorgeous in Unreal Engine 4. Look at that view. You can pick up items just to LOOK at them. The developers must love themselves some Shenmue.

My Biggest Gripes - I think the biggest complaints about the game are all fairly minor. There are loading screens in-game which feels like a serious blast to the past. This was the first "PS5" game I've technically played and the loading times were extremely quick so they weren't much of a bother, but on PS4 they are quite brutal. We're talking a full minute of loading before being able to move on to the next section and that can feel like an eternity if you're just trying to wrap some things up in the endgame. The running/platforming is quite clunky. I felt this worst of all while climbing up the sewers to reach Sentilla. Took me a good while to actually learn how to jump across to the vines since if you aren't facing the controller upwards, your dude will just fall down and potentially kill himself if he doesn't land in the water which happened to me once. There were some minor glitches (I opened a door and started falling into the void right before meeting Naevia, thankfully I made a save just beforehand so I didn't lose much time) here and there but all things considered, the game is polished well enough. If a game like this ever had great combat - it'd rule the world.

The Trophy Experience - Since I knew everything about the game going in, I decided to try and complete the game in a fairly quick fashion. This sub-2-hour guide by @IBadDriverI is phenomenal. The game is ridiculously quick to fly through if you know where you need to go and unlock certain dialogue options. Yet, even as I was speedrunning, I found myself listening to some of the best dialogue sequences in the game just because of how well they're delivered. Eventually, I focused on all the different miscellaneous tasks needed as there are a HUGE amount of missables. Thankfully, the game is so short that I still believe you should experience a blind playthrough(at the very least to the canon ending). Minimalist is a bit of a pain and I nearly botched it by going too slow on my 1st loop and not talking to Ulpius. You can't save him if you don't talk to him before he jumps the first time. So this forced me to loop a 3rd time after stealing the medicine for Lucretia and I had nominated Galerius as Magistrate after saving everyone else. The problem is - Duli will break The Golden Rule once you get the greek plaque when Galerius wins and I couldn't find a way to get in there before the cutscene popped such as in IBadDriverI's guide. So what'd I do? I PHASED THROUGH THE WALL. Shoutout to the PSNProfiles guide for the nifty tip. Once I got the trophy, my mind rested easy as the rest is a cakewalk. Lemme say the game can be unintentionally HILARIOUS when you have a gun after picking the "Soldier" option at the very start. Shooting Sentius in the face is pure gold(hah, get it?). I had to have Aurelia reject me and went full Redditor immediately taking her out afterward in order to speed through the 10 loops needed for another trophy. It's kinda awful in an Undertale sense how quickly you can go from loving Galerius to blowing his brains out in 2 seconds as that's the quickest way to loop once you're in the clean-up phase. Let's not think about it too hard before Flowey hears us. All in all, I earned the 39.64% rarity platinum in just 3 hours and 31 minutes. This makes me the 6th fastest achiever on the leaderboards! It's also my first PS5 game completed and my Level #470 rank-up trophy!

Would I recommend The Forgotten City? HELL YES. 100%. BUY IT FULL PRICE AND SUPPORT THE DEVELOPERS. I've gushed about the game enough as is, but I think it's worth every bit of praise I've showered upon it. I'm honestly skeptical whenever anybody says "I wish I could forget I watched/heard/played this piece of media so I can experience it all over again" but those words genuinely perfectly encapsulate how much I wish I could experience TFC all over again. It's a tight-knit, borderline-perfect experience. It's not the same once you know all the tricks and it's why the game won't score as an all-timer for me since it's never quite the same after your first time. Still, I do have the ability to live vicariously through YouTubers / Streamers experiencing the game for the first time and enjoying their reactions. This is one of the rare few games that whenever I see somebody who's content I enjoy playing it (Joseph Anderson or Tim Rogers to name a few) I will 100% love to experience the game all over again just to get a hit of what it was like the first time I discovered it. While the year has just begun, I feel very comfortable in saying that The Forgotten City is an unforgettable experience and will undoubtedly rake in at least a few awards come the end of 2022.

Panda Score: 8.8 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.1 / 10

YaManSmevz · January 8, 2022

Yoooo I bought The Forgotten City right before I left for work today after seeing a third trustworthy opinion gush over it, and now here's a fourth. It's damn near at the front of the line at this point!

Also excellent work dude!

realm722 · January 18, 2022

Game: Lovers in A Dangerous Spacetime

Analysis: I bought this game for $5.99 at the very end of December 2021 and talk about a surprisingly simple ultra-rare platinum!

Why this game? Honestly, @rjkclarke is entirely responsible for this one. I had seen LiaDS on sale for $5 numerous times over the past few years and never bothered with it since I had hardly ever seen anyone write something concrete about it and it seemed a little bit fishy that an ultra-rare could be completed so quickly. Of course, I didn't know back then that the game had been available for PS+ subscribers back in 2017 (2 years prior to me really starting to care about trophies) and thus I never downloaded it. Yet rjkclarke spoke so glowingly of it I thought it'd make the perfect fit for my attempt at a full 12-month streak in 2021 of attaining an ultra-rare platinum per month.

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is a game that is INTENDED to be played co-op locally but you CAN easily play and platinum this game in single player. I personally did the latter since uhh... no one to play with. Turns out, it's still a pretty enjoyable experience! The core gameplay loop is with your crew of 2 (in my case), you must balance the various systems on your ship as you explore the galaxy to save scattered bunny rabbits from damnation in space's emptiness. You do this by steering the ship, firing weapons on the various sides, managing shields, and of course checking the map to see where you're going. It doesn't sound like much, but even on Beginner difficulty, you can quickly get overwhelmed by enemies if you don't have someone managing shields at all times. That's why I personally opted for the strategy of always 1) Having my cat/pig CPU companion always manning shields and 2) Always high-tailing it out when enemies spawned unless the game FORCED me to fight. In which case, I'd park the ship in a corner where enemies couldn't hit me on one side and it'd be fairly easy to pluck enemies off as the majority of the rest of my ship would be protected from enemy fire. I imagine with an inexperienced fellow player, you could have some fun barking demands at what they need to do. As far as I know, there are zero consequences from dying other than having to start from just before the level took place so it's not like they'd cost you a full campaign if they were playing poorly. I quite liked all the systems! My biggest complaint? Your ship is about 30% slower than it should be. The game can hit an extremely glacial pace when you're exploring for all 10 bunnies (5 are only needed to proceed, 5 are bonus, but you need to find all 160 for a trophy) - the maps are so big that getting from one end to another can take much longer than you'd like. This is made worse by elements that will slow you down further(snow, white dwarves) later in the game. Levels can take from 12-18 minutes depending on map size. There are 4 per campaign with a final boss. It's not terrible. I didn't hate it. But I did wish it was faster. Definitely, a podcast/background movie(I saw Mr. Right on Netflix, it's a 6/10 but Anna Kendrick is wonderful) game if I've ever seen one.

Trophies - This game has a whooping 8 ultra-rare trophies which would have you think it's actually a fair bit difficult. It's not. Outside of 1-2 trophies, this is a cakewalk. "Earn One of Each Type of Ship Badge" is simple since just use the new ship once you unlock it. There are 4 campaigns. I personally choose the two new ones for each of the final two campaigns and had no trouble defeating them despite their higher difficulty. "The Spice of Life" is easy and just go for it when going for "Gemologist". You don't even need to hit the boss with the weapon charge. "Love Is All You Need" can be done in a 20min campaign run in clean-up after collecting all the bunnies. "Perfect Date" can be done in tandem with "Fight With Care, Bear". This was the hardest trophy in the game for me. I did it VERY early on when my skills weren't very tuned but even with my CPU friend manning shields, I kept getting plucked off for one dumb tick of damage if I let the fight go on too long. My advice? Choose the 1st ship, and reload the save until you can get a Power Gem+Metal on your left weapon. This makes it a missile bomb you can control. You can obliterate the bear's health in less than a minute by firing off over and over again before they start launching too many rockets or teleporting around the map. After 50 minutes' worth of effort, I got it in a handful of attempts. The other annoying trophy was "Underwater Expedition" because the boss's head needs to be COMPLETELY underwater in the center and since I had zero weapons that could fire through water, it made it a pain in the ass. My advice? Use Beam+Power Gem and steer the ship while putting your CPU companion on the weapon with those upgrades shoved into the water. Hope they have good timing and the trophy pops. This one would honestly be much easier with a real-life companion since they could drive the ship into the water bubble while you aim, and you'd know when to cease your fire if his head wasn't completely submerged(unlike the CPU). Every other trophy? Baby material. You could do it in your sleep.

Would I recommend Lovers in A Dangerous Spacetime? Sure! It's a neat little game that doesn't overstay its welcome in the slightest. I personally found it quite soothing the first time around exploring every inch of the first few maps to find all the bunnies as they're not hidden in the slightest. I think it can be a little bit on the slower side, but as I said with some background entertainment going on it's the perfect leisure activity. I imagine the game would be much more chaotic on higher difficulties but given everything can be achieved on Beginner, I didn't bother. All in all, it took me 2 days and 22 hours to earn the 3.51% rarity ultra-rare platinum. My in-game time according to my PS5 profile says it took me 7 hours of playtime which is probably one of my fastest ever for a game of this percentage. Check it out and if you can't take my word for it, check out rjkclarke's review!

Panda Score: 6.8 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 3.6 / 10

realm722 · January 19, 2022

The Sky Isn't Falling - Talking About Microsoft's Game Studio Acquisitions

Back in March 2021, it was announced that Microsoft paid $7.5 billion dollars for ZeniMax Media, the home of Bethesda Softworks. Some initially held their breathe that despite this monumental purchase, maybe, not all future Bethesda games would be Xbox-exclusive. Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, shot that down by saying they'll be exclusive to "platforms where Xbox Game Pass Exists." Which is a hilariously roundabout way to say they won't be on Playstation. With this purchase, iconic franchises such as Fallout, DOOM, Wolfenstein, Rage, Elder Scrolls, The Evil Within, and all future Arcane games (studio behind Prey, Deathloop, Dishonored) have almost positively seen their last entries on Playstation consoles. It's a heavy blow for those who love those franchises and play on Playstation. But less than a year later, today (Jan. 18 2022) it was leaked that Microsoft would also be making an exorbitant purchase of nearly $70 billion dollars for Activision Blizzard. While most recently known for their lackluster desire to resolve their sexual abuse scandals, they're also the owners of gigantic franchises such as Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, StarCraft, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater & World of Warcraft just to name a few. Given the relative proximity of these two mammoth purchases, it has a lot of gamers up in arms. You will inevitably find lamenting over the abysmal anti-trust laws in the US, some stuff about late-stage capitalism, begging for Sony to retaliate with a purchase of Square Enix or some other publisher, and more nonsense amongst the rubble.

The Sad Reality - Xbox has been largely unfruitful in all their localized efforts to produce compelling, 1st party, Xbox exclusive games for the better part of the last decade. At the very least, the disparity has been most grossly noticeable during the Playstation 4 / Xbox One Era. While they do have Halo, Forza Horizon, the Ori games, Gears of War & Microsoft Flight Simulator... there's not much else(stay away from me Sunset Overdrive fans). They've failed in this department and it makes me patricularly sad given Rare created one of my favorite games of All-Time in Viva Piñata back when I owned an Xbox 360. They got bogged down with the idiotic idea of the Kinect (which in hindsight, I fell for, and the tail end of that 7th generation of consoles made me lose my love of console gaming(in no small part due to 3x red rings of death) for awhile while I was in the Minecraft vortex, until coming back when PS4 released). Sony fans meanwhile enjoyed mainstream success of numerous titles. But the king of the ladder isn't always king. Usually, there's a retaliation. PS1 and PS2 blew up. But then slided with PS3 to cede to Xbox 360. PS4 responded leaving Xbox in the dust. We're at that time when the pendelum is supposed to swing again - and this is Xbox's way of doing it. They're going to spend their way to greatness as they failed to get there internally. Most people won't love it. It's much like how sports fans will root for the team "built through the draft" rather than "bought through free agency" (I remember it most from fighting with Spurs fans online during the '13 and '14 Finals) It's not a humble, endearing, relatable story. It's the big bully throwing their wallet around and it was the inevitable reality given Microsoft wasn't going to just "give up" on consoles. They're not Sega. They're the 2nd biggest company in the world.

What It Means For You - I genuinely feel for Playstation fans who've likely lost some of their favorite games in all likelihood in a franchise going forward. I'd be sad if they purchased Atlus, or Square Enix, or.... actually that's kinda it lol. I don't really play many AAA games by gigantic publishers that would be gobbled up in these sorts of transactions. You could make the argument 12 of my top 16 games listed are indies. With the exceptions being Final Fantasy VII, Persona 5, Gravity Rush Remastered, & FIFA. Still - if I may, this may not be completely terrible for some of you. I'll make a bold prediction? Call of Duty will NOT be Xbox-exclusive. It's simply too mainstream gigantic in my mind. This isn't an "Elder Scrolls". CoD is up there with FIFA and Madden for being one of 2-3 games that your everyday-gamer-bro purchases and plays yearly. I know it's $70B, but I genuinely don't think Xbox would pass up all those sales for a game of that magnitude and think "Game Pass subscriptions on PC + convincing gamer bros to go Xbox over Playstation will be worth it in the long run". Maybe I'm wrong. Everything else though? Yea... it's not ideal. Maybe it's time to invest in a lil nifty gaming PC if you're a fan of these developers. Alternatively, betray your bloodkin and get an Xbox Series S in 2-3 years when they hit $200 in all likelihood and enjoy the 4-5 games exclusive to their hardware while avoiding paying full price for any of them since they'll be on Game Pass? Not a terrible idea.

What It Means For Me - Almost absolutely nothing. I'm just being honest. I have not played a single Bethesda game in my entire time on Playstation 4. Their games simply don't appeal to me. As for Activision? I guess I played the Spyro Remastered Trilogy and have the remastered Crash Bandicoot Trilogy in my backlog thanks to the PS+ catalog but they're hardly a big hitter for me either. I've been fortunate enough to be left unscathed by these big transactions. I'll also say, I don't want Sony to "retaliate" my spending ridiculous $$$ on some of the remaining publishers. I much prefer Sony's friendly, build a long-term relationshup with a company and then in the future potentially acquire them (seen with Insomniac Games & Bluepoint most recently). I wouldn't want other consoles to be deprived of games that should be enjoyed by everyone. Sony doesn't need to acquire console exclusives like Microsoft did. They're doing just fine at the moment. Plus, most importantly of all, while Sony has big bucks, they DON'T have Microsoft big bucks. We're gonna need like another 500 Spider-Man movies for them to get in that ballpark.

What The Future Holds - For as much fury as an acquisition like this will receive, I think Microsoft is done for now. (I probably would have said this after the Bethesda purchase so that shows you what I know). But seriously, I don't see them spending BILLIONS of dollars on any more future game publishers or studios for the next 3 years minimum. Maybe they'll acquire 1-2 "small" ones in the next year or so and people will continue to groan about our corporate overlords but the reality is even the Yankees have a spending limit. This was Microsoft positioning themselves for the next generation. They're locked in now. Starfield, new Elder Scrolls, Overwatch content, next Diablo, etc... Here's hoping we're safe. If this is Xbox's "big comeback" and they take market share from Sony, I'm not gonna shed any tears. I'd honestly be excited for how Playstation would respond to take back the throne. Competition is good. You never want either one of these companies to get too comfortable. Having them keep each other on their toes is best for us all and let's hope we get some great games out of it.

Platinum_Vice · January 20, 2022

Howdy Realm, just wanted to drop in quickly...

I first came across your checklist when you made that other checklist about your favourite checklists... (checklist, checklist, checklist)

I've really enjoyed reading quite a hefty amount of writing from yourself over the last month or so as a result of that. I really like that your own voice and personality comes through in your writing. It's quite unique like that as it's almost like I'm entering your stream of consciousness every time I come here. I also really like that you sprinkle in little articles that aren't game reviews because you just want to talk about something else.

You've reinforced my desire to play Furi, The Banner Saga, Islanders, Slay the Spire and Spiritfarer... and if I enjoy TBS, I'll also check out Ash of Gods based purely on your own recommendation. So... thank you, I'm going to add myself to your followers so I can keep lurking away!

realm722 · January 20, 2022

Game: The Deer God

Analysis: I bought this game for $2.49 back in late August 2021 and I finally got around to playing it. Get ready for a whole lot of info on a game you know likely nothing about.

Why this game? Honestly? The reason I purchased it was 1) It was cheap. 2) It had a pretty decent platinum rate (15%). 3) It didn't seem like it'd take that long. That was enough for me to take a flyer on it. Why did it sit on the back burner for so long? Because of some dreaded posts that pointed out how some of the mechanics in the game were glitchy and could cause some trophies to bug out. I do not do bugged/glitched trophies. I suffered enough with Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and those idiotic harvest sprite cutscenes not popping. Yet, back in October, I remember scrolling through @DrBloodmoney's thread and finding a review of the game. I thought to myself "eh... if Doc did it, I imagine it can't be that bad." Given I was still missing a 3rd platinum for January and the eternity that it is taking me to complete Dragon Quest 11, it was time for the Deer God to step up to the plate. How'd he do? Well....

I began playing the game virtually blind. After a brief initial cutscene (there's actually some voice acting in this which stunned me), you're a baby deer. A fowl. The issue? I didn't know how to interact with characters or eat as the game explains NONE of that. I saw my food bar (green in the top left) slowly whittling away. This trophy guide from PlaystationTrophies is VERY helpful and I recommend those about to dive in take a brief glance beforehand as the game doesn't explain much and I don't get much fun from discovering core mechanics on my own. I tried clicking ⬇ on the D-Pad and it did nothing. I had to hit the TOUCHPAD of all things in order to eat plants and interact with NPCs. The general gist of the game is this - 1) Don't die like an idiot as a baby deer without any lives since it only delays your progress. This was VERY hard initially for me as you're a weakling as a baby and there are death spikes EVERYWHERE that instantly kill you. 2) Run right. Always. Eventually, the game will spawn what you need to progress. Simple as that. I played casually and whenever I came across a shrine, I would use this helpful video to learn what the hell to do as otherwise the game is way too obtuse for the solutions for some of them. These give you powers. You need all 10 of them for a trophy! There are also bosses you must kill. They're hidden, but they'll pop up eventually and you'll know when they do appear as an obvious boss health bar appears when you face them. I should mention, the story is ridiculously short. You can beat it in 30-40 minutes just running right if you know what you're doing. All of the miscellaneous nonsense is where most of your time will go in this game.

Time To Be Honest - This game... isn't very good. There's a lot I didn't like about it. The simple fact is, it feels like it's just barely holding itself altogether. At any moment, I'm convinced I'm going to glitch the game into infinity and have a permanently un-platinumable title on my resumé. Let's go through what I disliked. 1) The idiotic, glitchy, 10th power-up lightning shrine. I tried this 10 times using the methods mentioned HERE, HERE, and HERE. They all DIDN'T work for me. I was starting to get antsy. What did I do for the solution? SHOVE THE BLOCKS ON TOP OF THE PURPLE LIGHTS. IT THEN IMMEDIATELY WORKED AND THE TROPHY POPPED. Don't ask me why. Don't ask me how. I was just relieved to see the trophy popped. 2) The death system. Wow, this system is ass. Early on, with zero "deer heads" (which are like a lives system from the early 2000s-era of games), you will reset your progress back to a baby deer if you ever stupidly fling yourself into spikes. The funny thing is, once you're an adult for long enough, you'll rack up so many deer lives the sheer difficulty of the game disintegrates and death becomes a minor 10 seconds inconvenience. 3) "Collect 25 eggs." "Find 10 turnips." "Collect 10 skunk cabbages." These trophies are all nonsesical. Why? The way you get items in this game is by hitting bushes/barrels/killing bosses. But if you hit these bushes/barrels WITHOUT a "clover" (an item drop you can get), you'll get barely anything. What does this mean? Even after running 50k meters and beating the game, getting all powers, etc... I didn't have the materials for these trophies. The reason? If you don't get a clover from a bush/barrel - it's really hard to get another one since their drops from bushes without a clover are atrocious. Wanna know the loophole I found? Find one of the 3 random boss battles. There's usually a cave entrance. Go inside, pop a Snake Venom, kill it. Collect items. Go outside. QUIT TO MAIN MENU. Go back inside cave. BOSS RESPAWNS. This allows you to farm the boss for items infinitely. I got the items in no time after this. This is also HUGELY helpful for the "Cow Tipper" trophy which asks you to kill 10 cows. I was at 104 days in my save. I had only seen 2 cows previously. The solution? Find a barn. Kill cows. Quit to main menu. Log back in. Do over and over again until enough cows spawn and you get the trophy. Otherwise, this trophy will singlehandedly extend your play-time by 6-7+ hours due to RNG.

Would I recommend The Deer God? I think this is a pass for most of your honestly. Listen, there are some decent elements here. It's cool to be a deer with powers. The "combat" is bare bones as hell but passable. It's kinda interesting to just... play as a deer. The constantly randomly generated world as you run to the right is fine if a bit uninspired after 2 hours. Doing some of the random trophies like riding a train was cool. But I don't think I can properly say I enjoyed the game. It was a mindless background activity to have my attention on while listening to my backlog of Play, Watch, Listen podcasts that I was catching up on. For a "mindless" game, the glitchiness/silliness of the trophies wore on me a bit. It's not difficult. It's just more trouble than it's worth. I think that's why while I agree with Doc's review that the game is a "meditative/artful experience" vs. an attempt at a challenging platformer, the meditative and relaxing elements just get ruined when I'm tired of holding right just to see a bloody cow spawn or the final boss dungeon I need. I earned the 15.54% rarity platinum in 1 day and 3 hours. Maybe this is the sort of game that I'd view better if I didn't care much for trophies. But I also likely would never have touched it without being a trophy hunter so... live by the trophy, die by the trophy?

Panda Score: 5.9 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.8 / 10

On 1/19/2022 at 10:44 PM, GonzoWARgasm said:

You've reinforced my desire to play Furi, The Banner Saga, Islanders, Slay the Spire and Spiritfarer... and if I enjoy TBS, I'll also check out Ash of Gods based purely on your own recommendation. So... thank you, I'm going to add myself to your followers so I can keep lurking away!

Aww, thank you man! I've seen you randomly drop a like on reviews from months ago here and there and it makes me feel a bit more normal given I do the exact same on other people's checklists on here when I'm curious to see how they've felt about a game ?. My writing process got a lot better entering 2020 and there's a part of me that wishes I could go back and do some of my 2019 games better justice. I have an extremely poor memory and it frustrates me when I'm not able to recall how I felt about something so I try and pour all of myself into a review when the time comes. Sometimes it makes for a decent read haha. All of those games are ones I adore and I really believe after briefly scouting your profile (Mass Effect) you can come to adore the TBS Trilogy as I have. The dudes who made it were ex-Bioware employees! Feel free to pop in any time and also DM me if you have any game-specific questions for trophies too!

Edited July 26, 2022 by realm722

DrBloodmoney · January 20, 2022

7 minutes ago, realm722 said:

I remember scrolling through @DrBloodmoney's thread and finding a review of the game. I thought to myself "eh... if Doc did it, I imagine it can't be that bad." Given I was still missing a 3rd platinum for January and the eternity that it is taking me to complete Dragon Quest 11, it was time for the Deer God to step up to the plate. How'd he do? Well....

Haha - after that review, I feel like I should offer an apology or something ??

The fact is, we do kind of agree - I think in all the ways Deer God tries to be a meditative, zen experience, it succeeds. Every time it tries to be a game... it fails.

I have to admit - I did very much enjoy the visuals and the feel of it - the simple sensation of jumping around as a deer, and admiring the scenery I liked... but yeah, the scattershot mishmash of genres and the odd pacing is a problem, and the less said about the "combat", the better!

realm722 · January 27, 2022

Game: A Hat in Time (DLC Update - Seal the Deal & Nyakuza Metro)

Analysis: I bought both of these respective DLCs for $5 apiece coming out to $10 total. I originally played through the base game in August of 2019 and wrote a review on here in Oct. 2019. My general thoughts were "hey that was a super fun, cute, 3D platformer that was well-done and had some really great moments in some of the boss fights with some occasional less than ideal sections such as Subcon Forest." I enjoyed the game, but I wouldn't consider it a personal All-Time favorite like it has become for some people. Have these DLC packs changed that opinion? Let's break them down one by one.

Nyakuza Metro DLC - Nyakuza Metro provides the 6th and final hub world of the game as far as I know. It's a super cute concept. Imagine you're in a subway and instead of trains busying about, they're not run on fuel but rather cat power! You have to explore each level and find the various timepieces in order to satisfy your Cat Yakuza Boss. Along with finding timepieces, you'll need to buy the necessary colored metro passes in order to gain more access to the world. All of the challenges and tasks here are decent. Considering I had spent more than 2 years away from the game, I was just enjoying learning Hat Kid's basic moveset again, as well as all the functions of her different hats. None of these challenges were too difficult and a lot of the timepieces can be found by just paying the help desk 100 pons for a direct path. There are 10 to be found in total. You'll be able to fly through this while collecting the necessary trophies since the relics aren't that tricky to find if you're properly exploring and the stickers can be easily completed with this guide. I don't think it's a bad DLC, just more of the same in another fine setting. If I had to give it a score, we'll give it a 6.8 / 10 for just being a nice return visit to the game after so much time has passed.

The Arctic Cruise - The Arctic Cruise is technically the 5th hub world you'll unlock and there are half the timepieces available here. You're on a cruise ship run by a bloody walrus! I've gotta be honest, I was VERY confused about how to get around the ship when I first started playing. How do I get over there? Where's the captain? Why is going across the pool deck such an inconvenience? HOW many doors are there? This becomes a particular pain with the "Minimum Shippable" trophy that tasks the user to complete a series of tasks running from one end of the ship to another in a quick amount of time to ensure the walrus captain doesn't get upset. I failed to get the trophy twice on my first two attempts. By the third attempt, I had a good familiarity with the ship and knew where I needed to go each time. My biggest complaints here would be that one room in particular - the vertical green garden room - is a HUGE pain in the ass to quickly ascend with the limited pathing given. You fall off at an inopportune moment and it can absolutely kill your time. I properly enjoyed this hub world a bit less than Nyakuza Metro since the challenges were a bit less fun, the pathing was a pain (the sunken ship final task... ugh... some of the camera hell on that cruise ship when Hat Kid is falling sideways is completely disorientating). Combined with the fact the novelty of returning the game had worn off a little, I'd give this one a slightly lesser score of a 6.6 / 10 for not bringing that much of a fun challenge to the table. Thankfully, the final section of the DLC made it all worthwhile.

Death Wish Challenges - GOOD LORD IS THIS WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR WITH THIS GAME. Oh my god, this is SO MUCH FUN. What are Death Wish challenges? Essentially, the jerk contract scammer from the Subcon Forest has another scam he wants you to fall for and gives you a huge array of tasks to complete. Remixed levels, extra hard bosses, no-jump level challenges, time limits on rift challenges, and overall provides a huge step-up in difficulty compared to the base game. It is magnificent. Now, I will add - there is an "Assist Mode" you can turn on that elevates your health from 4 hits to 8 hits AND allows you to regenerate your health if you stand still for long enough. I turned it on. I still had a blast with the challenges. Unless you're an expert at the game or have played it a lot recently, I think you can still have a ton of fun here making the same adjustment. This section was a joy since it was fun to play more difficult levels with a unique twist and the developers essentially saying: "you want pain? Come get it." That ramped-up Windmill challenge kicked my butt and I had a blast while getting my ass handed to me. The revamped bosses? LISTEN TO THIS MUSIC. Now take a 20-minute break. NOW IMAGINE LISTENING TO THIS DURING THE FINAL BOSS. The music is disgustingly good and the boss fights with increased difficulty are astonishingly enjoyable. Seriously - @realm722 - please remember you dummy, make a "Best Boss Fight" Award for the end of the year just so I can give the award to A Hat in Time - Death Wish Challenge DLC. Some of the challenges were tedious (Snatcher's hit list, finding EVERY pon/collectible in the community rifts, Snatcher coins) but they all shouldn't take too long to complete. My two biggest complaints with this DLC would be 1) It's idiotic how all the hub worlds reset to their beginning and I was forced to unlock all of Subcon Forests and the alternate paths in Alpine Skyline. Made getting certain Death Wish Challenge items a complete pain in the ass. 2) THE FREAKING IDIOTIC EMOTE BUTTON "L3" THAT THEY ADDED. Listen to me, please, if you're gonna play this - YOU CAN DISABLE IT. I foolishly pushed forward ignoring how it would frequently make me take damage as my hat kid could no longer move but there is an option in the menus to turn it off. PLEASE DO SO. I died on the very last Snatcher fight in "Seal the Deal" due to the fact I hit it at the most inopportune moment. Wish it had never been enabled from the beginning as I must have hit it accidentally 50-60 times while playing through all the DLCs. This is easily an 8.3 / 10 DLC and the best of the lot.

Would I recommend A Hat in Kid: Seal the Deal & Nyakuza Metro DLC? Absolutely. Simply because of how fun the Death Wish challenges are. This is DLC done to perfection. It offered everything I could have wanted to be added to the base game and makes it accessible for all those who are coming back to the game after a hiatus and for that I absolutely love it. It took me a few days to complete these DLCs and I noticed my total time according to the PS5 time tracker jump from 15 hours total play-time to 31 hours. So around 16 hours in this DLC? That sounds about right given the trial-and-error I suffered through and having to backtrack through some of the hub worlds again. My final stats now say it took me 2 years and 5 months to achieve the 1.72% rarity 100% completion. Not too shabby! If you haven't already, get some A Hat in Time in your life as it's pretty much Super Mario 64 if you just turned Mario into a know-it-all spunky gal!

Panda Score: 7.9 / 10

Panda DLC Score: 7.7 / 10

realm722 · February 1, 2022

Game: The VideoKid

Analysis: I bought this game for $1.24 back in mid-October 2020 and what a surprise of a gem it turned out to be!

Why this game? Honestly, it was a cheap and relatively easy 100%. I didn't go in expecting much and I was very surprised by how perfectly this game suits my tastes. It's an endless runner.... but it's not. There is a destined, clear ending. Let's call it a finite runner! The entire game can be beaten in a handful of minutes. Your job is to get there without hitting anything once. I'll openly admit this - the game is NOT fair. As in, it'll throw obstacles in your way that you could not POSSIBLY know how to dodge until you die to them 1-2 times. This is seen most blatantly with the 2nd sewer pipe and having to hit the switch before a train hits you, OR discovering what things can be jumped on and what cannot be jumped on OR the very end when the evil red car starts shooting things at your skateboard to knock you off and you have and unless you have the reflexes of a cat there's ZERO chance you'll realize this on your first attempt. The good news? While there is some randomness, the general layout and "obstacles" the game throws at you stay the same. This means that with enough experience, you'll be able to know where you should typically be the majority of the time. I personally opted to ALWAYS stick to the sidewalk unless there was an oncoming pedestrian. I'd switch to the "middle" lane, but virtually never ventured into the far-right third lane. After about 55 minutes of woeful attempts of mostly dying between 10-25%, I started to go much further and eventually beat the game for the very first time.

Would I recommend The VideoKid? Absolutely. If a trial-and-error challenge sounds like your jam, I think you can have just as good a time with this as I did. After beating the game the first time, you'll need to go back at it and beat it two more times. Thankfully, with your wealth of knowledge getting back to the end shouldn't be so tricky. Scooping up the 30 videotapes for a trophy on a single run initially seemed very daunting for me given there are sometimes obstacles that make it IMPOSSIBLE to complete the throw (big-headed pedestrians). Still, there are more than 30 and I got this on my first attempt so just keep trying it. Aside from that, literally, all the other trophies relate to earning enough $$$ in-game to purchase cosmetics. Making it to the end and scooping up the key gems that earn $50 (2nd sewer, far left and the train jump) will have you earn the trophies in no time. I personally earned the 24.81% rarity 100% in a mere 1 hour and 43 minutes. That places me as the 5th fastest achiever on PSNProfiles and 33rd overall first achiever. It's quite surprising to me how underplayed it is given qualtiy and the fact the game has been out on PS4 since 2017. It's sweet and simple and provides the exact sorta loop and experience I'd like to get out of a 100% completion. It'll also be a wonderful reminiscing of the '80s for many of y'all since you'll find the game's interpretation of Jessica Rabbit, Big Bird, Ducktales, The Terminator, Chucky, Jack the Ripper, the Ninja Turtles, etc... all walking throughout the world as obstacles. Check it out!

Panda Score: 7.0 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.7 / 10

realm722 · February 1, 2022

Game: Maquette

Analysis: I got Maquette for free due to being a PS Plus+ member during the month of March 2021. It's the debut game from developer, Graceful Decay.

Why this game? Pretty simple, it was a super easy and straightforward platinum to kick off the month of February. I like colors. Maquette at first glance has very pretty colors! I knew it was a puzzle game which meant I'd keep a guide close by given the fact puzzle games aren't really my thing. Surprisingly, a love story was also thrown into the mix which I really did not expect. I thought I had hints of Ginnifer Goodwin in the female lead but it actually turned out to be Bryce Dallas Howard. The male voice actor is Seth Gabriel. As it turns out - they're married in life! Let's hope this game doesn't foreshadow anything! It's all cute and fluffy early on and while I've read some criticism online that their banter was "corny"... I have to disagree. If you've ever heard people who are lovey-dovey, a lot of the stuff that's cute between them does not sound as charming if you're not one of the implicated lovers involved. That's not to say that there aren't examples of grand gestures of love that are endearing to all OR that any criticism of the dialogue can be covered by this veil but I honestly didn't find anything egregious that made me say: "they only did one take of that exchange didn't day." As for the puzzles... they're neat! Maquette has this really cool core feature where... there's always a bigger fish. and by fish, I mean, world. It's reflected in the image above. You see the pink circular building? There's a small one inside it. The "big" one is really inside an even BIGGER building. The vast majority of the puzzles revolve around this concept of swapping back and forth between the "normal-sized" world and the "Tacko Fall-sized" world. I thought it was quite charming if a bit incredibly janky at times. Multiple times you'll build bridges to cross over some gap and a lot of the time the placed item won't line up that well unless you place it meticulously in the perfect position. I don't believe it ever bugged out too egregiously for me.

Would I recommend Maquette? Eh sure, why not? It's the most tepid recommendation I can give but the game is incredibly quick to fly through and it's easy on the eyes so why not? If you're not into love stories or puzzles or easy platinums, I'd say pass on it. Some other general notes that popped into my mind were 1) I really appreciated how the game rapidly increased your movement speed when venturing into the "HUGE" world as otherwise, your walking speed would have been SOOOOOO slow. 2) If Maquette was a smoothie, I'd be tasting a whole lot of "What Remains of Edith Finch" in my drink. Not merely referring to the way the game will pop up random messages in the environment for the player to read, but in several other aspects as well. I liked it. 3) I think my favorite thing from the entire game in all sincerity is the OST. Good lord, that opening level music of "San Franciscan Nights"? That was groovy as hell. Did a great job of setting the tone of the game from the outset and it was not the only time the music intertwined beautifully with the gameplay. Finally, in terms of trophies - it's really as straightforward as it gets here. A couple odd missables in each level that can be cleaned up within minutes thanks to Chapter Select. There's a tremendous guide by Trozenator on here that walks through the game and even has a helpful speedrun guide for each level as yes, there are speedrun trophies in this calm experience. I'd say enjoy the game on the 1st play-through as I did and then speedrun afterward where you know where everything is. None of them should give you any trouble except for "The Spiral" which has an insanely jank puzzle about 3 minutes in that killed my first 3 attempts. I finally got it on the 4th try. Everything aside from that is smooth sailing. Overall, I earned the 32.65% rarity platinum in 2 hours and 55 minutes while discovering that "Maquette" means "Model" in French.

Panda Score: 6.4. / 10

Panda Difficulty: 1.7 / 10

Troz · February 4, 2022

On 2/1/2022 at 4:23 PM, realm722 said:

There's a tremendous guide by Trozenator on here that walks through the game and even has a helpful speedrun guide

Thanks for the shoutout! I'm glad my guide was able to help you!

YaManSmevz · February 4, 2022

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

Game: The Forgotten City

Ayo I been meaning to respond to this one now that I finally completed the game.

First of all, love the whole sister's first platinum thing, and that you got to witness her enjoyment of completing the entire game, that sounds like an awesome experience! I converted my sister when we were pretty young, so while she's not a trophy hunter (she's stayed on the Nintendo course) I can definitely relate!

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

Galerius is the best boy to have best boy'd since Conner from Detroit: Become Human.

Facts.

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

Desius is the Classic Capitlistic Prick who WOULD exist in a town of such stringent rules. Malleolus and Domitius try to bully their way to power. The giant twist at the end when you realize Magistrate Sentius is a genuine freak is utterly delicious.

And Aurelia's bitch ass! I love that when you find out about her little scam you can be like "I already know you're a horrible person, so fuck off." The whole twist with Sentius was brilliant, it was pretty horrifying to see what he'd been up to. And equally rewarding to shoot him in the face!

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

All of it balances out so well with one another you begin to understand just how it took 4 years to create this game(aside from the ridiculously small dev team of 3 people).

That blew my freakin mind. I remember how it lets you know that from jump street, like they were so proud of this accomplishment (and rightly so!) that they couldn't help but share that astonishing feat. If I were to pick three friends and try to embark on something like this, the end result would be nothing close to this level of quality, trust - we'd probably end up making something like that E.T. game from '82 and spark another video game crash?

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

Have you ever wondered how it would go for you if you had to discuss genuine philosophy with someone thousands of years ago? How utterly earth-shattering some of the things we have taken for granted in terms of our modern understanding compared to what was commonplace in their time. TFC finds a good balance between genuinely exploring those topics and offering some enlightening and thought-provoking discussions that could take place while also being willing to dabble in the goofy side of things as well.

They did a great job with this. Like when you're asking Sentius about the city in the beginning and he points out the similarities between his and your time, or the hilarity of Equitia equating memes to hieroglyphics!

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

How did TFC not bungle this? Well for one, essentially every line of dialogue is skippable which allows you to FLY through this game if you're trophy hunting while also being generous to get back to different dialogue branches and allowing you to pick different options. As opposed to having to complete repetitive tasks - your boy Galerius saves the entire city from itself and does in 5 minutes what it likely took you 5+ hours to accomplish.

YES. This game could've been a real drag to complete once you'd gotten an ending or two, but this was a brilliant bypass. Then when I consulted a guide after my first couple of playthroughs I saw there's a way to finish without even bothering with the golden bow. Like they really thought out how we could have so many ways to play this game, it's so impressive.

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

So imagine my delight when my sister let out a shriek of panic when the very first gangly golden statue came running at her. I wish I had recorded it. She was so petrified by the game that after pausing it as the creature came running at her and a 10-minute debate, she made me play through this entire section of the game as we slowly crawled past each corner sniping the statues as they came at us.

I love this???

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

There are loading screens in-game which feels like a serious blast to the past. This was the first "PS5" game I've technically played and the loading times were extremely quick so they weren't much of a bother, but on PS4 they are quite brutal.

Yes they are. I was surprised at how long they were - I wish I had timed them, they seriously felt like snack makin/bathroom breakin length.

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

The running/platforming is quite clunky. I felt this worst of all while climbing up the sewers to reach Sentilla. Took me a good while to actually learn how to jump across to the vines since if you aren't facing the controller upwards, your dude will just fall down and potentially kill himself if he doesn't land in the water which happened to me once.

That happened to me more times than I'd care to admit! And dying sucks because it would take another minute or so before you could resume! The first time I died was from taking for granted there would be railing or something while going up to where Ulpius and Lulia were via the stairs by where you start. Definitely a rude awakening!

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

Thankfully, the game is so short that I still believe you should experience a blind playthrough(at the very least to the canon ending).

On 1/7/2022 at 6:59 PM, realm722 said:

I'm honestly skeptical whenever anybody says "I wish I could forget I watched/heard/played this piece of media so I can experience it all over again" but those words genuinely perfectly encapsulate how much I wish I could experience TFC all over again.

Agreed pretty hard on both counts. This game genuinely made me not want to go to a guide right away, I was just so fascinated and too engrossed to really care about guides or trophies or anything like that - I just wanted to know what happened next! Ugh. Great game, and again a great review, sir!

realm722 · February 7, 2022

Game: Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age

(WARNING) (PLEASE READ BEFORE CONTINUING) - This entire review is jampacked with spoilers. END, END, SUPER ENDGAME SPOILERS. The IMAGES have spoilers in them. This is going to be my most self-indulgent, incoherent, bloated review to date, and lemme tell you that is SAYING SOMETHING. This review is for me than any prior one I've written. I do not want to EVER forget how I felt about this game and this is my way of permanently stamping my thoughts into existence. If you want the TL;DR - This is one of the greatest video game experiences of my lifetime. It's one of my Top 3 favorite games I've ever played on Playstation consoles. I believe everyone should play a game like this in their lifetime. Why not Dragon Quest 11? If you want an utterly gargantuan game with characters to fall in love with for the next 80+ hours of your gaming life - I can't think of many superior to DQ11. Let us now proceed with the review (the first 3 paragraphs are spoiler-free if you want more of your appetite tingled) (If you don't care about spoilers, I believe the "Veronica", "Gameplay", "Things I Didn't Like About DQ11", Story Acts 1-3", and "Comparison Finale" are the best portions of the review. Thank you)

Analysis: I bought the physical copy edition of Dragon Quest 11 (Edition of Light) for $17.00 back in September 2021.

Why Dragon Quest 11? This is my very first mainline Dragon Quest game. I originally played the fusion monstrosity that was Dragon Quest Heroes back in May 2019. I also enjoyed Dragon Quest Builders in Oct. 2019 and the even grander Dragon Quest Builders 2 in Aug. 2020. I remember enjoying just how gigantic in scope they were. They had neat enemy designs, stories with heart to them, and a level of depth that laid clearly evident just how much the developers poured their heart and soul into their creation. But I held off on one of their mainline entries for the longest time. One of the reasons is that I just don't like to get too committed to enormous games very frequently. I enjoy variety in my gaming life since deviating away from being a sports gamer and humongous 100+ hour JRPGs stifle that variety in the same way the new iteration of FIFA or Madden would, just with more grinding and side quests to handle. Still, I had set myself the goal of each year, at the very end of it, to enjoy a buffet RPG. In Dec. 2019 - it was Persona 5. In Dec. 2020 - it was Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. After scouring the market, I felt it was time to bathe in what was the supposed greatness of Dragon Quest 11. I say "supposed" since I distinctly remember Tim Rogers review of the game that I watched well over 2 years ago. I have not seen that review since then. It is, in my opinion, one of the greatest reviews on YouTube of lathering a gaming franchise that has been a part of someone's life for decades with love. I wanted to experience some of that firsthand. So here I went.

The Loop of DQ11 - Do you want friends for the next 80-100 hours? Do you want a world rich in lore that feels genuinely lived in to be directly impacted by you and your party's actions? Do you enjoy children's stories told in a fashion to appeal to your adult sensibilities and bask in their sincerity? Do you... just wanna hang out with some buds and enjoy life? Dragon Quest 11 is the greatest example of purity in a game I think I've ever experienced. Purity is the perfect word to describe it. This game loves you and wants you to love it back. I don't know how much more plainly I can state that. You're going to experience life-shattering events within the game but have a cast and crew that'll help you along the way to stay on your feet. I'll admit that I was on board from the very outset. It took me a moment to adjust to the moment-to-moment gameplay of turn-based combat once again. Persona 5 has a masterful control scheme that allows you to reach what you'd like to use within 1-2 button presses at most. Dragon Quest 11 is far more old-school in this regard. Still, once I settled in - I got to enjoy it for what it was. The game isn't going to pose much of a fight against weaker enemies. If you're not just rushing past everything and heading straight to the objective, you'll level up at a reasonable rate and be able to handle most bosses with relative ease until the latter game. While enjoying this gameplay, you'll experience various "arcs" in the story centered around characters and towns that typically last for multiple hours. This game is BEGGING to be your daily 1-2 hour play session in the evening before going to bed. It is so cozy, so warm, and so loving that you can't log off without feeling a little bit better than you did before you started playing.

I Am In Awe At The Size Of This Lad - Thus far I've used the words "gargantuan", "gigantic", "enormous", and "humongous". Let's try another - Dragon Quest 11 is a behemoth of a video game. It's quite possibly the largest "story-focused" game I've played in my entire life. Not in terms of pure gameplay, of course. My final play-time according to my PS5 Profile was 88 hours (which puts it as my 7th most played non-sports game after Rocket League, Stardew Valley, Scrabble, Slay the Spire, Batman Arkham: Knight & City). Those games all had repetitive gameplay loops or side missions (such as Batman's combat challenges) that greatly extended the play-time. DQ11 is built different. The sheer scope boggles my mind even as I write this review. This game is going to become a part of your life in a way you can't fully realize until you begin playing it. I started playing the game on December 20th. I finally platinumed it on February 5th. I genuinely thought I'd be finished by mid-January but the way the game continued to reinvent itself and expand is a testament to Square Enix's insistence on making this game special. The game didn't need to be this expansive and generous. Yet they did it anyway. I've never played a game that's done anything quite like it but am so grateful that they ignored all common sense and persisted in their efforts. If you want to be smothered by a game that hits you with one layer after another, play Dragon Quest 11.

(SERIOUS ENDGAME SPOILERS FROM HERE ON DOWN BUCKO)

Veronica's catsuit is my favorite thing in the entire game. She wears it during intense, dramatic, and emotional cutscenes. It's absurd and I love that the game allows and encourages you to have fun with it.

A game of this ilk cannot stand on its own if it doesn't have characters you don't adore and care for. I loved the party of DQ11, so let's cover each of them one by one!

Tua - OR as you'll know him, "The Hero". I named him Tua since when I started playing the game, the Dolphins (whose starting QB is Tua Tagovailoa) were riding a 6-game winning streak and had crawled back to .500 at 7-7 following starting the year at 1-7. Since then, they got obliterated in a must-win game @ Tennessee and fired their head coach(who this week decided to sue the team and allegedly had the owner offer $100k to lose games in 2019). That's not relevant to the game whatsoever, but I warned you this review would be self-indulgent. Basically, you're The Luminary. You're kinda a chosen promised one sent to deliver the world of Erdea from the darkness. Your mom was hot. She got killed by monsters who raided your home kingdom. You grew up in the small, quaint town of Cobblestone. Barely a footnote of Erdrea. Yet, you grew up here with your adopted mother, Amma & your childhood best friend Gemma. She's your small-town cutie who you may or may not have a thing for depending on how you wanna interpret the vibes climbing up Cobblestone Tor during the opening sequence of the game. You have a cute labrador named Sandy as well. One of the key details is the Hero doesn't actually have a personality of his own. He doesn't speak. People kinda love him since he has these baller Luminary powers and they feel drawn towards him. It works for the purposes of the story and while I typically prefer a main character who has some attitude, you can subtly make him do things that suggest there is a soul inside of him like when the game playfully allows you to say "NO" when characters are in desperate need for your help. I typically didn't do this, but one distinct time that stood out to me was when I initially refused to help Prince Faris in Gallopolis and replace him in the Sand National. They're not "real" choices but the fact the game lets you see characters panic or correct you for saying "no" as if the Hero is being sarcastic or sassy is appreciated given the relative "on-rails-ness" of the plot. Aside from that.... he's the promised one. He loves his friends and his friends support him in kind while traveling through hell and back and remaining a united front. He's our vehicle through which we immerse ourselves and for that, he'll be forever memorable.

Erik - Erik is the very first character who'll become a member of your crew after you got locked up and thrown into a dungeon in Heliodor. He's a thief, but he's a better individual than the reputation that follows him. I'll be honest, of all the characters in the party, I think Erik was my least favorite. That doesn't mean I think he's a bad character, but rather the rest of the unit is so strong that his sometimes... stupid-sounding voice actor made him sound like too much of an airhead at certain points for me. You can have Erik use a variety of weapons and while through the majority of the game I had him utilizing knives and hitting enemies with a sleeper move, I eventually swapped him over to boomerangs and GOOD LORD do I recommend you do the same. It's kinda funny how much your appreciation for a character can go up because of how useful they become to you during gameplay. Here's my tip - switch Erik over to boomerangs as soon as you can and never let him switch off. Towards the endgame, his "Divide" ability combined with "Double Down" and "Critical Claim" became essential in order to do damage on some of the biggest bosses in the entire game. Aside from that, he also has an arc where he has amnesia and forgets who he is, discovers his long-suppressed brutal upbringing of being forced into slavery by vikings alongside his sister - and abandoning his sister after she was turned to gold by a cursed necklace that he gifted her. WOW. Talk about family drama amiright?

Serena - I simp for Serena. She's lovely. She serves as the more passive, calming, and serene sister in comparison to her twin Veronica who we'll cover very soon. Her main role during gameplay will likely be as your best healer. While there is an option to switch her over to spears, it seemed very redundant given that's the department Jade would cover. I understand the game purposefully gives you these options to experiment rather than lock you into a specific playstyle with each character but given when she joins your party as the first special magic-user with healing capabilities, I imagine she got funneled into this role for the majority of players. She's incredibly compassionate, caring, and has a deep love for all of the friends but especially her sister and the Hero given her life mission was to accompany and protect us as she forms part of the Sisters of Arboria. Her arc experiences immense tragedy. Let's reveal a shocking moment - Veronica freaking dies. She loses her. I didn't think in a million years that would ever happen in a game like this but she sacrificed herself in order to save the others. I can't believe I didn't realize this during the obvious (in hindsight) cutscene of Serena asking Veronica when you camp at the First Forest right before reaching the heart of Yggdrasil but it was hugely impactful. Serena's strong. She forged onwards. She cut her hair. I personally liked it long but she's still a cutie with it short. I think her single most memorable characteristic for me will be her playing the harp and the gorgeous melody that floods my brain whenever it pops up on my Video Game Music playlist. She is special, I adore her, and anyone who speaks ill of her can get bent.

Veronica - I think Veronica is my favorite character in the entire game. I think. About 40% of it is the catsuit presented in the image opening this section. That image comes from the scene when you confront King Carnelian (who's really a deep dark evil sith lord impersonating his body) and I could not stop cackling to myself over how ridiculous she looked. Veronica is SUPER SASSY. She's not afraid to insult others to their face and tells things plainly as they truly are. She isn't actually a small girl. She's the same age as Serena but shrank due to shenanigans with some monsters trying to sap her power away from her. I LOVE her small stature. There's a brief moment in the game where the "Seer" appears and she grows to be full-sized at the same height as Serena and I DEEPLY disliked it. She looked weird. Stretched out. Her face didn't match anymore. I feared that these would be long-term consequences and she'd be grown-up for the rest of the game but thankfully she shrank back to her midget form and I love her all the more for it. As mentioned in the Serena paragraph, Veronica sacrifices herself for the crew and the entire act of the game after beating the "mainline" campaign is actually going back in time and saving her so she doesn't even actually need to sacrifice herself. My jaw smashed through the floor when I realized what the game was actually asking me to pull off. Once again, the absurd scope from earlier sears into my brain. I am genuinely fascinated how the developers knew to choose her to be the one you had to go back in save. I loved Veronica and missed her banter. If it had been Erik or Rab or Sylvando or Hendrik... the sacrifice would have seemed just. Serena or Jade? There would also obviously be a motivation to go back and they would have worked. But they choose... the small sassy magic girl? I love the design decision and I wasted no time with side quests in the initial post-game since my #1 goal was to add her back to my party. She'll forever stand out for me as a truly special character... oh... and... leave her with a heavy wand. Her "Magic Burst" ability single-handedly carried me through many of the final fights in Angri-La and did like 5k damage on the final ultimate boss Calasmos. She may be small but she hits like a goddamn TRAIN.

Sylvando - This may be the most controversial paragraph of the entire review. I ENJOYED Sylvando’s company. He’s sassy as hell and I love the general confidence he carries with himself no matter the activity. But I think he’s a bad case of me being “spoiled” by the droplets I had heard about him standing out in the game from past reviewers. He was deemed BEST BOY from before I even put the disc into my Playstation 5. This means I was expecting hilarious/memorable scenes from him and it didn’t feel as organic as they did with Veronica for example. He’s still wonderful, and I love how time and time again he’s willing to face the Hero in competitions from the horse race in Gallopolis to the fighting tournament in Octagonia. He lends you his frigging ship which is huge for movement in the game! He has some “daddy issues” which make themselves evident in Puerto Valor since he ran away from his home and father Don Rodrigo to perform in the circus. He is one HELL of an entertainer but abandoned the knighthood he was originally set out for in life. Rodrigo’s a good guy(cares for his traveling happiness crew after the world is in ruins) I think another reason Sylvando fell a little bit underneath expectations is I never figured out a way to properly use him, even in the endgame. I initially had him with whips since that seemed like the obvious best option, but after feeling meh about them I switched him over to knives when I moved Erik to boomerangs. He was just okay in that role. By far the two most frequent moves I used with him were “That’s Amore” & “Oomphle” to significantly boost the attacks of other party members. I have no doubt there’s probably some great, heavy damage dealing strat with him that I missed out on it but I was unfortunately not able to take advantage of it during my playtime.

Rab - You first meet Rab when you make it to Octagonia and he’s teamed up with Jade. I’ve gotta be honest, I was extremely skeptical that Rab was going to end up becoming my least favorite and least used party member when I realized he was likely going to join the party. How the hell are they going to make an old man interesting amongst exotic circus boy, celestial magic twin sisters, hot new chick, and… Erik? To my surprise, my appreciation for Rab grew greatly as the game progressed. For one - he’s your grandpa! Yea, he’s your deceased mother’s father. It’s incredible how you were able to reconnect with him and he’s able to give some backstory on what happened at your birth with the council and your father Irwin. He saw Dunsdrasil fall. I love his Scottish accent and his voice actor did a tremendous job throughout the entire game. In terms of his quirks, I think it’s freaking hilarious he’s a dedicated subscriber to the bunny girl magazine and it manifests itself multiple times throughout the story, most of all at Angri-La with his former master. There's even a brief dialogue you can have with a random NPC when you're sent back to the night Dundrasil fell and you can talk to a maid complaining about him hiding the magazines from Eleanor. His meditation scene when he was SUPER skinny had me fearing HE was going to be the one to die and we’d be motivated to press on after the death of our gramps (which likely most players would have been willing to accept). Instead, he sees you, his boy, fulfill all of his potential. It’s beautiful. In terms of gameplay, I had him on Heavy Wands, switched to Claws for a bit, and switched back to Heavy Wands after not enjoying Claws. His “Pearly Gates” and “Multiheal” must be by far the most frequently used moves of mine. He’s very helpful on all fronts and was featured predominantly in the party against Unweening Pride & Calasmos final boss fights.

Jade - Jade is a sweetheart who will kick your throat in if you try to get too cute with her. She was a traveling companion of Rab’s and essentially serves as the Hero’s older sister in a way. That’s kind of a weird disposition given the fact Jade is the most “sexualized” character of the main cast. It’s not absurd, nor to the same lengths as say Ann in Persona 5, but the fishnet leggings during the Casino phase where she’s calling Hendrik, “Henny-Wenny” as well as being able to put her in a bikini or bunny girl outfit for a side quest in Puerto Valor for an old man on the beach…. I think those accounts speak for themselves. Still, she’s awesome. She kicks Erik’s ass the first time you meet her. She jumped off a cliff to protect the Hero when you get separated from the others. She’s also King Carnelian’s daughter. Her dad kinda sucks even when he’s not being possessed by a demon lord. I laughed out loud when Mordegon impersonating Carnelian did not react like he should have being reunited with his daughter. In terms of her gameplay, Jade is spectacular. I kept her with spears the whole game and loved her for it. She had 0 magic use capabilities and that’s just fine with me. Her “Multithrust” along with the ability to do massive amounts of damage with her fists suited my playstyle perfectly. She was a constant contender to be in my party and even got my final combat action of the game when her “Multifeet” move killed Calasmos once and for all.

Hendrik - SURPRISE! I warned you there would be spoilers. Yea, the guy at the start is insufferably “loyal” to the king and on your ass for essentially the 1st half of the entire story actually turns out to be a key party member by the end. I thought honestly between the two, Jasper would be the likeliest to be won over in the long run. That turned out to be VERY wrong lmao. He has blind loyalty to the king and ends up getting betrayed by him(Mordegon) when the world falls into darkness. I’m not really the biggest fan of “knight/soldier” type personalities but Hendrik won me over surprisingly quickly. A specific moment that stands out for me when I started to enjoy his company was when visiting Rab in his “zen” state an Angri-La and him flipping out and knowing the bunny girl magazine edition by his side. From then on, my love for him grew given he was the first character I gave a “greatsword” to use and GOOD LORD UNBRIDLED BLADE with significantly boosted attack single-handedly carried me for the majority of Act 1 and Act 2. You’re talking about doing 400-700+ damage and while its usefulness admittedly dissipated in the post-game content, I’ll never forget how essential he was for some brutally difficult fights. He could also be used extremely well for defense but I thought a badass gigantic sword and teeing up the killing blow for the Hero was what fit him the best.

Other Characters - The sheer amount of characters with stories and arcs in this game means I need to refine my thoughts of a lot of them down to mere sentences in order to avoid this review exceeding a 10,000+ word count. Let’s go from my memory. Gemma’s hella cute. I think it’s adorable you can marry her in the post-game and it makes perfect sense the small-town Hero would wanna stay local long-term and build a family. Her feelings for you when you’re celebrating at Heliodor Castle are adorable. Derk’s a chill dude who's “gone straight” and helps out in Cobblestone by the end of the game. I honestly didn’t love any of the Gallopolis Royal family from Prince Faris to the Sultan. The Sultan himself seems like he has some skeletons in the closet if you went digging. Jasper is a dirtbag. Vince Vanquish is unintentionally(?) hilarious and I thought his VA was brilliant. The various fighting squads from Whambelina & Cinderella to the Golden Boy were all well done. Michelle the Mermaid. Good lord man. I could not handle the rhyming. I’m scarred from Child of Light. Mermaids constantly rhyming and that arc went on about 30 minutes longer than it should have. Dora the Demon Lord Explorer. I thought Frysabel & Krystalinda were some of the best side characters in the game and I greatly enjoyed Snifelheim’s dynamic of the two of them ruling over the city and reconciling their differences. Blue John lives in a cabin down by the ocean. I want Grand Master Pang to spank me. Mia is honestly alright. I didn’t quite love her arc as much as some of the others - but this could be my preference for others ahead of Erik speaking. Miko is hot. I’d let her turn me into a monster. The Watchers are bizarre Teletubbie-like creatures and I do not trust people who cannot communicate in anything other than upper case letters. There are characters from past games (I think?) Featuring in Erdwin & Serenica which is so freaking cool - I can’t imagine being a fan of the game and enjoying the vastness that is this game into crossing over with previous ones. While I may like some more than others, the characters at the crux of DQ11 are what elevate the game to the pedestal with which I’ve placed it on. Somehow, there’s still a hell of a lot more that needs to be covered.

Dragon Quest 11 is purity embodied in a video game. The gorgeous landscapes and towns still look incredible for a game released in 2017 and is the heavy favorite to win "Best Art Style" for the 2022 Game Awards

While the characters of DQ11 are a delight to be around, the game wouldn't feel the same if the environments and towns you're asked to explore didn't live up to the same billing. Thankfully, I can say that Dragon Quest 11 has some of the greatest video game towns I've ever had the pleasure to experience. So much so that I decided to rank each of them one after another. Keep in mind, this is me NOT including the overworld in-between sections such as the Zwaardust, Champs Sauvage, dungeon levels, or scattered insulas around the overworld. If it did - this list would be over 30-40+ places long.

#1. Puerto Valor - The home of Rodrigo y Norberto. I love Puerto Valor. So much so that I was extremely disappointed when the crew did not stand up here for much longer on our first pass through the town in order to have the canal opened up for traversal with our boat. The town is rich with a Greek aesthetic of many whites and blues while the citizens actually speak Spanish. You'll get to meet Sylvando's father, Don Rodrigo in later visits and it's also the home of the first casino you'll encounter in the game. More on that later.

#2. Snifelhim - As mentioned earlier in the "Other Characters" section, Snifelheim enjoys one of my favorite arcs between Queen Frysabel and her nemesis Krystalinda. The fact the two overcome their odds and Frysabel demonstrates a great kindness in offering her a position to help direct the kingdom was seemingly idiotic at first as I fully expected to come here at a later point and save the city again from ruin but that never came to pass. The snow region of the world in general from the Snaerfelt to helping Mia's sister from her obsession with gold was one of the comfiest portions of the entire game.

#3. Gondolia - Gondolia takes great inspiration from Italy with how you can legitimately use the gondolas to traverse the city. It's uniquely constructed with a central platform towards the end main strip of the town and it'll be where you fend off Jasper the first time you encounter him. It's overall extremely pleasant and sets the right tone for one of the hallmark cities in the game even if not too many memorable characters emerge directly from it.

#4. Octagonia - One thing you should know about me is I am a complete sucker for a fighting tournament/arena arc. When I watched Hunter x Hunter, I wished the "Heavens Arena" arc was swapped with the "Chimera Ant" arc in length. I have been clowned for this take. I still believe it in the deepest crevices of my soul. So when I discovered what the game was doing with a fighting tournament to earn the Rainbough I was immediately hooked. You'll meet a bunch of goofy characters, and even after they close up the Octagon and switch to a casino, this was my casino of preference for earning many of the accolades needed for a trophy. My one criticism of the town would be the traversal is a little bit inconvenient given how there's a "top" and "bottom" section to the city but once you know where everything is it didn't serve as much of a hassle on return visits.

#5. L'Académie de Notre Maître des Médailles - I've obviously known Mini Medals to be a thing in Dragon Quest games due to my experience with spinoff titles. I fully expected them to be used to purchase unique goods in some side vendor in an upcoming town. What I did NOT expect was for there to be an entire University dedicated entirely around the medals and it'd be an all-girls school run by an older gentleman. That just goes to show you how DQ is just different in terms of the ways they create things. There are normal school-girl-sized attendees with a mix of monstrous(literally, monsters you fight in the game) sprinkled in as classmates. I was amazed by how ridiculous it was and it fits perfectly with the style the games seeks to achieve.

#6. Hotto - Where you initially meet the Sisters of Arboria. There's also a jerk called Noah here who kinda doesn't watch his daughter carefully enough but he's kinda irrelevant to why I enjoyed the town so much. For one, there's a spa. You can change out of your normal gear and go to the sauna. You can also work your way around to the women's side of the spa and get yelled at if you emerge from there. Little stuff like this regardless of how insignificant it is slowly snowballs your love for this game. Miko the Mistress is a saucy lady who runs a cover-up scheme regarding her son who has turned into a monster also calls this place home. It's such a nice little town which also coincidentally ended up being the first place in the game that I earned my initial puff-puff(which I later learned is kinda a euphemism for a woman massaging someone's face w/ their breasts)

#7. Cobblestone - Your humble hometown. Cobblestone experiences hell and back throughout the events of Dragon Quest 11. You’re beloved by all the townsfolk and are sent off to visit the big city. Your actions cause the town to be destroyed and left in ruins with the townsfolk (from what I thought initially) all being murdered. Even though this is a DQ game and it was done offscreen, I still felt like it was possible the game could go this dark. Instead, they were actually all locked up in the dungeons of Heliodor but hey - the Hero didn’t know that! In ruins, it becomes the home during the start of Act 2 and temporary headquarters as the world is in shambles. Finally, in Act 3, you can rebuild it from the ground up recruiting members such as Derk and the Wrestling Bros in order to bring it to its former glory and live there in your childhood home with Gemma. It’s beautiful.

#8. Angri-La - This is considered the monk location of the game. The High Lama is a small child who runs the monastery and while it is one of the less open town locations, it offers some wonderful visuals and is the home of Grand Master Pang (lady who spanks Rab) and the Field of Disciples which is where some of the hardest challenges in the game take place in order to unlock certain rewards. It’s also where you find Rab after your entire crew is scattered following Mordegon taking power and stripping you of the power of the Luminary.

#9. Heliodor - Heliodor serves as the first major town you visit in the game and honestly outside of your return visit when you’re victorious after “turning back time” - it’s not one you’re going to spend much time in otherwise as you’ll be a fugitive on the run from the law. It’s probably the most “bland” city compared to all the others but for an opening setting it fills the role it needed to play.

#10. Arboria - The home of Serena & Veronica. I honestly really dig Arboria’s aesthetic. It’s definitely a celestial, holy city with special properties and it makes sense how these sisters would eventually have the huge task of aiding the Luminary. The reason it ranks this low is due to the fact it’s remarkably small in scope compared to many of the others listed above. I would have loved to have been able to explore their elaborate childhood home or enjoy some unique mini-game to be found here. But that would be selfishly asking for the generous game developers to sacrifice themselves even further for something wholly unnecessary.

#11. Nautica - Nautica is the underwater world of Dragon Quest 11. It’s the home of the mermaids! Honestly, the controls here aren’t too bad. You can’t actually go too much off course while in human form - but when you become a fish after the world falls into darkness? OOOH so THAT’S how you speak to the shark armor vendor. I remember passing through here and thinking: “we’re gonna get some spell that lets us speak to animals at some point” but instead we became a fish and chatted him up that way to purchase his goods. The Queen is pretty chill even if she has the same rhyming problem as the rest of them. The movement as a fish is… fine. It’s not great, but it’s serviceable and there isn’t much of a necessary plot to be here aside from your recovery and attaining Lorelai’s Harp.

#12. Phnom Nonh - I nearly forgot about Phnom Nonh when compiling the list. It’s honestly got a pretty enthralling opening arc with Dora and the woman in the painting slowly absorbing townsfolk and visitors. She turns out to be a complete monster tricking people into worshipping her. We kicked her butt. Thankfully, the people of Phnom Nonh are quick thinkers and managed to change their marketing strategy from “Visit the holy woman mural” to “check out the spooky evil woman who abducts people” and was able to keep the tourism campaign churning. You also return here with Sylvando’s boys in Act 2 but aside from that and the couple that cares for you at the inn - not much else to say.

#13. Lonalulu - For whatever reason, of all the arcs there are in this game, the “Michelle the Mermaid” and “Kai” plot stands out in my mind for going needlessly long. This is not a brisk game. It will have lengthy, drawn-out sequences. I enjoyed the vast majority of them. But bouncing between the Strand and Lonalulu and fighting the giant Tentacular and back and forth again just grated on me a bit. It’s not terrible, the city itself is a fisher town with inspiration for Hawaii and I loved firing off the cannon on top of the mountain cliff time and time again but I wish it hadn’t peaked with the opening story of the cursed mermaid story being told by the elderly woman and only go down from there.

#14. Gallopolis - Despite the fact that you meet Sylvando at the Circus here, Gallopolis is probably my least favorite city in all of Dragon Quest 11. I did not especially love any of the core characters, Prince Faris is a whiny baby in an immediately difficult spot considering the royal expectations he has as Son of the Sultan but it’s fairly narrow in scope and you end up getting tricked on a puff-puff from a cute bunny girl to her burly older father. I enjoyed the races for what they were (your horse controls hilariously, I think Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland had the same control scheme) but given the fact the town is a 6/10, it speaks volumes about how well the rest of the cities were put together for this to rank last in my personal rankings.

I wish I had kept the freaking catsuit on Veronica in this scene. I cowered out since I didn't want to die to Calasmos again and needed her at full strength with those Magic Bursts but imagine how hilarious this picture would look.

Now that I've talked ad nauseam about the characters and world, let's get to some of the core gameplay elements that shape form the foundation of Dragon Quest 11.

GAMEPLAY - Classic turn-based combat has gotten a bad rap in recent years for being "antiquated". After years of serving as the mainstay for RPGs, many developers have moved away from it in an effort to incorporate some real-time elements. Dragon Quest is unique in its insistence to remain loyal to the formula and is beloved by those who appreciate its tradition and don't want it to "follow the norm" of a more mainstream gameplay design. I am someone who prefers real-time combat. I like constantly being engaged by the enemy. It's why games like Going Under & Dead Cells rank ahead of Slay the Spire despite me believing that SoS is a masterpiece in terms of game design. With that being said, if you don't completely despise the notion of turn-based combat, Dragon Quest 11 is a wonderful game to experience the simplicity at the fundamental core of this gameplay loop. If you're anything like me, you'll wonder if moving around during combat will allow you to dodge/evade attacks or increase your damage depending on your proximity to the enemy. It doesn't. It's purely visual. I think it's neat they included that option anyway! While the majority of fights in the game with normal enemies will virtually never pose much of a threat (and in all likelihood serve as a huge inconvenience more than anything), I can say that there are specific moments during the game that I felt euphoria from conquering a boss that had been kicking my ass. The game is "easy". You can go ahead and grind levels elsewhere if you just want to be stronger and conquer the enemy with sheer numbers, but for some sections, I refused to grind and insisted on beating the enemy by making wiser choices with my attacks. The two biggest fights that stand out in this fashion for me were the "Gloomnivore" fight as well as the battle with Hendrik in ruined Heliodor Castle. Some of the later fights can be ruthlessly difficult even with boosted-up gear. My point is this - I understand how this could be a very hard selling point if you're a FromSoftware fanboy and think all games should aspire to be enthralling on a moment-to-moment basis. But there is more to games aside from that. Dragon Quest 11 is the perfect encapsulation of an older formula executed so damn well that it can even turn the heads of former opposers.

SCAVENGING / FORGING - While traversing about the world of Erdrea, you will frequently find random shining blue spots on the ground that signifies there is an item/ingredient that can be collected. If you're anything like me, this will trigger a "That's So Raven" flashback to the "Trinket Ultimatum" of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. You are going to start sniffing out these shiny spots like a pig would sniff out truffles. If you're in specific need of an ingredient after 30ish minutes have passed you may "ZOOM" your way to that area of the world and collect the ingredient again to ensure you are maximizing your turnover rate. The post-game in Dragon Quest 11 will SUCK if you ignore these during the majority of your normal play-time in favor of "collecting everything at the end". DO NOT DO THAT. I am very thankful I was consistent in frequently picking up every and any blue shiny item that appeared on my screen. This made the "forging" section for endgame items, armor, and accessories a breeze given the tremendous catalog of items I had compiled. Forging can only be done at campsites (or also at the end Trial Isle in the endgame but that's so deep into the game it's not even worth this brief of a mention). You use it to craft equipment that can usually not be bought at shops or vendors. It's a mini-game that involves balancing the necessary temperature and power bashes in order to achieve a perfect score and forge the best possible item. Early on, you'll suck at it. As you level up and can craft better equipment, the mini-game will get easier offering more "flourishes". There is something oddly therapeutic and satisfactory about crafting a "PERFECT +3" weapon or armor piece. You'd think it would get annoying or be something unnecessarily obtuse that of course a JRPG had to element for some godforsaken reason but I actually quite enjoyed it. I underused this mechanic greatly during my first 40-50 hours as I didn't upgrade my equipment enough due to a fear of running out of "perfectionist pearls". You can use them liberally. There's an option to buy them at the Trial Isle in the endgame. One unique factor I do want to not forget to mention is the GAME KNOWS IF YOU TRY TO CHEAT. TRUST ME, I TRIED. if you forge an item - and it comes out crappily, and you try to reload your save or even quit to the dashboard and restart the game, the FORGE WILL BE INELIGIBLE FOR USE. I thought that was hilarious. All in all, the fact the game allows for such a vast array of armor sets that can change the appearance of your characters (as featured in the above photo) is another demonstration of DQ's extreme generosity.

CASINO - I NEEDED to dedicate a section of this review/diary to the casino. I was super intimidated by this entire mini-game when I realized it was necessary for a trophy and some key elements of the game that offered different upgrades and unlockables. I know nothing about poker, and while casinoes are some of my favorite settings in video games - the fact that DQ11 was magnanimous enough to offer full-on mini-games from roulette tables, to poker, to slot machines, to SLIME QUEST is just... I can't even describe it. NOBODY would have complained if this wasn't implemented. There's no "I can't believe the Square Enix developers were lazy enough to not even include an entire CASINO BRANCH MINI-GAME SECTION in Dragon Quest 11". Yet they did it anyway. Thanks to this brilliant tip, after 50+ minutes worth of effort and numerous restarts due to losing all my tokens landing on the treasure chest and absurd THREE times - I earned the 1,000,000 coin jackpot. I kept at it and earned a 2nd one less than 20 minutes later. I also left Slime Quest on AUTOPLAY and lifted some weights while collecting some of the remaining accolades. I have no doubt there are likely users who dedicated tens of hours to the casino and I do not blame them. It's the Gwent of JRPGs!

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT DQ11 - I know this is an odd section to place my few gripes with the game but I wanted to include it since for as much as I've lionized the game in this review, there are some small complaints I have to levy against it and air in the open. The vast majority of them have to deal with functionality and user-friendliness. 1) Why do I have to click X or down the D-Pad during cutscenes? Why can't the cutscenes just... play normally. Is this a setting I could have changed and didn't realize? I would have liked to just enjoy seeing the characters banter with one another without needing to always have my hand on the controller. 2) Any "exclamation point" in the world has a clunky, slow animation. Climbing up ledges. Crawling underneath boulders. Climbing up ladders. It's slow. It doesn't feel great. I much prefer FF7R's "just hold the stick in this direction and the game will do the action for you" as opposed to having to halt your momentum. 3) I wish there was a way to speed up battle entrances and battles themselves. Ni No Kuni 1 also had this problem. Listen, I love the game Square Enix. I know how many ungodly man-hours you must have poured into creating it. But I REALLY don't need to see the fancy intro animation when I'm farming Hooper Dupers for money or Vicious Penny Pincher's for mini-medals in the endgame. Let me speed it up like Persona 5 gives me the option to do while holding the start button. Please and thank you. 4) The entire item inventory management system sucks. It's slow. It's inefficient. I NEVER used items for the ENTIRETY of the main play-through (except for Pep Pips while XP farming towards the end) due to how clunky this system was and not wanting to be bothered with organizing 30HP healing Medicinal Herbs into my 600+ HP characters inventory. It's a jumbled disaster and surely there's a more efficient way to handle it than the one they implemented. 5) Some story arcs DO drag on. This game is meant to be enjoyed at a calm, relaxing, pleasant pace. But I'm tired of hearing Michelle the Mermaid cry about her lover damn it. 6) Due to the inherent nature of turn-based combat, instead of accepting a challenge and trying to "play better", I resorted to grinding for an easier challenge in the late post-game. While I respect and enjoyed the turn-based system for what it was, that "loophole" was too tempting for me to ignore when the Infernal Serpent was blocking my way in the Snaerfelt in the post-game. Rather than try to play better, I ignored him for 5+ hours and came back and destroyed him easily. I never did something like that in FF7R. 7) I hate how you have to fall every time in the "Cryptic Crypt". There is no straight path to the end. This sucked most in "The Disciple's Trial". These are relatively minor complaints in the grand scheme of things and should not hold you back if everything else I've described sounds appealing to you.

TROPHIES - You may look at the 22% platinum rate of Dragon Quest 11 and think "hey that's really not too shabby at all how hard could it be". While DQ11's platinum isn't a painstaking experience, it sure as hell ISN'T a cakewalk. The game is going to ask you to do much of the side content and gather/forge many weapons and accessories in order to access all of the content. I greatly appreciated how each huge story beat would have a trophy attached to it and it would allow you to genuinely feel your progress after a landmark event. You'll want to make sure you're fighting battles frequently to gain XP, utilizing Pep powers, gathering materials, crafting appearance alternating equipment, and just in general handling the side quests the game throws at you whenever you settle a town from whatever previous grievances were affecting it. The game does not ask you to complete all 60/60 side quests but rather 40/60. It DOES ask you to reach level 99 with all characters, earn 10 accolades from the casino, handle various "collectibles" such as the crossbow bullseye in various regions as well as speak to the weather-foreseeing cows scattered about the land. Drustan's challenges won't be easy and the majority of them need to be conquered for side trophies (marrying Gemma, getting Serena's appearance set) as well as prepare you for the Wheel of Hama's challenges. Somehow, the rarest trophy in the game is "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" which is 5% rarer than the 2nd rarest trophy. If you've done well-gathering items throughout the 70+ hours before the true endgame content, this shouldn't be too much of a hassle for you. I think a high 3, low 4 difficulty rating would be fair for a game of this ilk. Especially considering that if you keep failing in a boss battle, there's a handy strategy you can inevitably find online that'll turn a once challenging fight into a straightforward victory in most cases. It took me 1 month and 2 weeks to earn the 22.30% rarity platinum.

MISCELLANEOUS - This section will contain a series of jumbled thoughts that I didn't know where else to place in this post. 1) I didn't speak enough about Pep powers. They're so fancy and elaborate and unique. Your party members will randomly go "Super Saiyan" during fights and become capable of these devastating attacks/buff capabilities that can single-handedly swing an intense battle. I still don't know how they fully work but they're essential for the endgame XP farming strategy and I likely underutilized them far too much during my playthrough. 2) The sense of progression the game offers. Early on, you'll notice random "Red doors" that you don't have access to open. I figured you'd get a key down the line that lets you open them. I was correct! This "Magic Key" lets you access and obtain key recipes and weapons that are a huge step up from your normal gear. There's an "ultimate Key" you unlock in the even latter game that repeats this effect for a 2nd time. Numerous times throughout your game you will find areas you can't access but will keep in the back of your head like you're playing a Metroidvania. I had it with the random bizarre "dark seal" lock on the underground areas by The Warrior Rest's Inn. 3) I didn't mention enough of the many key, heartwarming scenes. You free the Hero's passed father from being tortured by a demon. The game is so dense it's impossible for me to mention all of them and some of the greatest boss fights(like the spider underneath the orphanage) slipped my mind while writing but they're phenomenal. 4) Somehow, this isn't the full edition of Dragon Quest 11. There is a "Dragon Quest 11 Definitive Edition" that released on Playstation 4" in December 2020. I did not play it. There's even MORE content with individual content for each party member, a 2D mode, marriage options, orchestral mode, "Tickington"... I can't fathom MORE content in this game but Square Enix managed it. I won't even play it firsthand but I can say I'll be YouTube deep-diving many of the story moments as soon as I publish this review.

Could you imagine if the developers had added a catsuit for every character in the game? Imagine Rab mourning about Erdrea's numerous lives lost and holding his silver chalice with some cat paws

I've buried this section as deep down as possible. It's time to get into the preposterousness of Dragon Quest 11's size, scope, and story. The game is divided into 3 sections.

ACT 1 - For the first 30 hours of your play-time, you will enjoy what is "expected" of a wonderful, huge JRPG experience. You'll bask in the various arcs, slowly add to your cast of friends, and become familiar with their unique quirks and personalities. Virtually all of the locations mentioned in the "World Tour" section will cross your path. The game has been overwhelmingly positive aside from you being arrested, hunted, and your hometown city of Cobblestone being torn to shreds. The game is essentially on the upswing the rest of the way with you helping various towns and adding Veronica/Serena, Sylvando, and Jade/Rab to your crew. After some handholding, you'll be given access to the "Rainbough" and are given the objective to run about Erdrea gathering the random necessary colored orbs from different factions in order to access the Tree of Life. This is when the game "opens up" so to speak and you can travel on Sylvando's boat, handle side quests, and just genuinely enjoy the gameplay loop at the core of DQ. The culmination of this arc comes when you arrive at Yggdrasil and are expected to take hold of the Sword of Light and fulfill your destiny. You're preparing yourself to take down the dark one. All of a sudden - Jasper shows up and kicks your ass. You can't fight him. You don't stand a chance. Not only do you lose, King Carnelian being possessed by Mordegon shows up and TEARS YOUR HEART OUT STRIPPING YOU OF YOUR POWER AS THE LUMINARY. He turns the "Sword of Light" into a darth vader weapon and Veronica dies saving your crew from perishing. You have lost. Your power as the Luminary. Your friends. and you failed as the supposed "Chosen One".

ACT 2 - For the next 20ish hours, you will have to live in a ruined world. You recover in Nautica as a fish as the Queen tries to save you from one of the six "Spectral Sentinels". She and her people perish as they hold out to protect you and deliver you back to the surface. As you are alone, you return to Cobblestone and discover it has become a refuge led by Hendrik who serves as the aid to the newly recovered King Carnelian. You now embark across the devastated land to find your friends, if they're still alive, and try to find a means to avenge your fallen friend. This will include discovering a super "Quadraslash" power at Angri-La with Rab and Grand Master Pang that became one of my most frequently used moves in the game. You'll help Erik recover his memory. You'll find Sylvando and his traveling band of boys trying to bring joy to a world lost in despair. You'll free Octagonia from being run into the ground as a corrupt casino and salvage Jade from her vampire form and being over seductive. Serena cuts her hair in mourning over her sister. I NEVER expected to encounter any of this in a Dragon Quest game. I felt the 30-hour runtime by the time I was reaching Yggdrasil was a bit quick and imagined there must be some "twist" but to see the full consequences of Mordegon coming to power was something else entirely. The game also lays the groundwork of past hours in the form of Erdrick and Serenica who were the Heroes of Old who could not fulfill their objective and how you must do your best to recover where they left off. Eventually, you manage to find a frigging flying beluga whale in Arboria and ride up to Havens Above. From there, you eventually become strong enough to crash through the Fortress of Fear and take down the final boss once and for all. You fulfilled your destiny. You saved the world. While you and your friends bare the scars of a once condemned land and lost a dear friend in the process, you've saved the world from eternal darkness. Now it's time to reap the rewards and enjoy the simple 10-hour post-game clean-up.... right?

ACT 3 - WRONG. For the remaining 40 hours, you have the opportunity to engage in Act 3. Turning back time. Not in a figurative sense, but in a very literal way you transport to a place and time before you lost to Jasper and let the world fall into the hands of Mordegon. You go back to a time before Veronica had to sacrifice herself. You go to "The Timekeeper" and this weird wavey strung-out version of Casper the Ghost allows you to leave your friends behind, defy their wishes, and retain all of your prior knowledge to prevent the world from ever being lost to darkness in the first place. WHAT ON EARTH MAN. WHO THINKS OF THIS. JUS-. WHAT. HOW. I remember thinking "there's no way the game is ACTUALLY gonna let me do this. They rolled the lengthy credits. This is just a quick 2-3 hour detour at most." But dammit if they didn't pull it off. You defeat Jasper rather than losing to him at the World Tree. King Carnelian pulls up and is HELLA thirsty to get his hands on the "Sword of Light" but you play keep away from him and he's subtly salty about it. There's an entire celebration made for you at Heliodor where you're reunited with old family friends but of course, Carnelian the Creep tries to sneak into your room at night and touch your sword. He gets denied. He gets mad. He reveals his true form. I died at this boss fight and had to re-do the entire prior section which was lowkey kinda annoying. You defeat him and Mordegon is no more. Game over, right? Veronica is saved. Erdrea is saved. Now we do post-game content right? WRONG. All of a sudden, in the middle of the sky, appears Erdwin's lantern. This is hella spooky. In a nutshell, THERE'S ALWAYS A BIGGER FISH. MORDEGON WAS NOT THE FINAL BOSS. SOME JERK CALLED CALASMOS IS. You get to run around the world re-doing a lot of the events you did in Act 2 with subtle twists. I completely forgot Sylvando only met his father in Act 2 and you go through the sequence of him being afraid to meet his father again. You do all of your XP grinding here, engage in the various "Trials" by Drustan, kinda somewhat experience the origin of characters from Dragon Quest 3 (according to Wikipedia, I'm ignorant on the lore) - and dres your flying beluga whale in golden armor in order to finally takedown the darkness evil god once and for all to officially finish the game. No game I've ever played has done something like this. Nor do I think I will ever play one that has so many twists and turns and just keeps GOING long after you thought you had reached a satisfactory conclusion.

Could you imagine if they let you put Morgana, a cat, in a catsuit? OR hell put Barrett and his gun in a catsuit. Every game from now on should have players eligible to be put into catsuits.

This section is going to be something unlike any other I've done in a review for a specific game. I personally feel that these three games stand out amongst all others in terms of being sprawling JRPGs that have impacted me and sit atop the throne of my favorite games of All-Time on Playstation consoles. It seems just for me to determine how DQ11 compares with these other two titans. (Side Note: Ni No Kuni honestly has a lot more in common with either of these titles but it doesn't reach the same high's in my mind)

Final Fantasy 7 Remake vs. Dragon Quest 11 - FF7R burst onto the scene last year for me in April and May of 2021. I thought it'd be a decent 7/10 experience playing the brand new big action game that Sony just added to PS+. Instead, it turned out to be my favorite Playstation game of All-Time and the future sequel(s?) that are yet to come are easily my most anticipated games for the foreseeable future. How does it compare to DQ11? For one, it's hardly a fair comparison. DQ11 manages to fit all 3 of its incredible acts and narrative into one cohesive game. FF7R at the moment is at most the first few hours of an All-Time great game in Final Fantasy 7. The magnitude and "closure" each game offers are wildly different. In terms of the characters and world, I greatly enjoy both of them. It feels like choosing between my favorite children. While FF7R's crew is smaller (at least for the time being) than DQ11's - they're allowed a more consistent focus for the majority of the narrative while DQ11 offers more variety and vastly different landscapes to Midgar's steampunk aesthetic. What ultimately serves as the difference maker between the two is the gameplay loop. I love Final Fantasy 7's real-time action combat mismatched with abilities. I love the harmony found between the different playstyles of the melee Cloud/Tifa and ranged Barrett/Tifa. The challenge the game offers, especially on the Hard mode playthrough is particularly memorable for me even as we approach a year after my completion of the game. I think this ultimately places FF7R above DQ11. While I loved the journey Dragon Quest offered, I wouldn't be itching to go back to this turn-based combat in order to bask in all the other elements of the game that I greatly enjoy. FF7R is a game I'd love to revisit specifically to enjoy the combat system. It's a significant difference and while I'd completely understand someone deciding differently, FF7R retains their rightful throne at the top of my trophy checklist.

Dragon Quest 11 v. Persona 5 - I think it'd be fair to say Persona 5 is the very first JRPG I truly fell in love with. I discovered it during a Playstation Access video, watched NIcoB's playthrough, played it myself, and enjoyed it immensely despite knowing all the twists the game would throw at you, and then watched Joseph Anderson stream a full playthrough on his Twitch channel. I've easily dedicated 200+ hours of my life to consuming Persona 5 content. It also is more tightly related to DQ11 due to the closer proximity in party size as well as overall scope with both being turn-based. The characters? I honestly think I prefer Dragon Quest 11's. While Persona 5 goes for a darker, edgier tone while still retaining some of the aspects of friendship - I love DQ11's overall wholesomeness and diversity in characters. Joker probably beats the Hero. Ryuji beats Erik. But after that? Sylvando and Yusuke is a TOUGH split. But I will take in a LANDSLIDE the likes of Veronica/Serena/Jade/Rab/Hendrik over Ann/Makoto/Futaba/Haru/Morgana. In terms of the world, while wandering about Shinjuku and Akihabara is nice, I prefer DQ11's fantasy setting. With these two advantages, is it a landslide victory? Not quite. Persona 5 greatly excels in the sense that it provides amazing convenience options to players that DQ11 sorely lacks. There's a "rush" option that allows you to zoom past unnecessary conversations and fights that you should win with ease. The overall button selection layout for doing damage is modernized to perfection while DQ11 drags behind. I think it'd be easier for me to replay Persona 5 over Dragon Quest 11. It's a very tough decision.... but I'm ranking DRAGON QUEST 11 OVER PERSONA 5. Why? Because I simply appreciate the vibes more in the former. Less high school. The world feels more "lived in" with hundreds of NPCs you can talk to that are so "unnecessary" in the grand scheme of things but like a trickle of water over a long period of time make your appreciation for the overall liveliness of the world grow. I have no doubt I could replay this game in a number of years and find a number of things I didn't pick up on my first time through. It's THAT dense. Still, Persona 5 has nothing to be ashamed of remaining in my Top 3.

The Future for Dragon Quest Games - I imagine I am not alone in this being my very first mainline Dragon Quest game. Dragon Quest 10 was a MMORPG released back in 2012. I've heard it's good, but MMORPG's just aren't my thing. Dragon Quest 9 was released in 2009 on the Nintendo DS and while I try to maintain my Nintendo bashing to a minimum on this thread, I don't love them like a lot of people my age and thus don't have the means to play it. That means we're going all the way back to Dragon Quest 8 in 2004 on the Playstation 2 to find the last true main single-player focused DQ game released on Sony consoles. That's NUTS. I wish I could play it. DQ7, DQ6, DQ5, and DQ4 as well. Sadly - Square Enix has only ported the original three games and those are strictly for the Asian region. I loved the compilation found at the end of the credits that displayed all the various games once you met the Yggdragon at the end and hope I'll be able to sample some of the games that culminated in this masterpiece's eventual release. If not, I'll gladly settle for a Day 1 purchase of Dragon Quest 12 whenever that drops within the next 5 years.

Would I recommend Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age? 1000% Yes. If I dedicated this many words to tell you no, I think I'd have to be put into a straight jacket and sent to a psych ward the very moment I pressed "Submit Reply" on this post. This is a game for All-Time. Loving characters, a gorgeous world, suitable combat, and an astonishing scope creates one of the most memorable gaming experiences of my lifetime. I consider myself a Dragon Quest from here forward and truly hope those who've held back from JRPGs decide to check it out if my review hasn't beaten you into submission by now. I think given the times we live in, people sometimes need a game like this to rip them away from some of the cynicism and harshness that can strangle our lives if we're not careful. DQ11 more than any other I've played can be a friend for those who need it if you're willing to incline your heart and let it in. This abomination took 6 different writing sessions across 3 days and 6 1/2 hours of total writing/editing/proofreading time. I am depleted and am ready to flush this game from my soul and revisit it in a few months' time. Hope all you beautiful people are doing well and we'll talk more soon.

Panda Score: 9.58 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 4.1 / 10

Spoiler

Dragon Quest 11 NOTES:

Officially started playing on Dec. 20th, 2021 (Mon) - super excited for our end of year JRPG! 2020 was Ni No Kuni, 2019 was Persona 5, let’s enjoy!
I’ve heard great things about Sylvando - he’s the circus dude IIRC
Oh man I forgot how wonderful the DQ music is on this intro!
Naming my save profile “Tua” and not turning on any Draconian quests
There’s an invisible dude just… walking
I don’t trust dudes in funny hats. This council is evil.
IS THAT OUR MOM? OUR MOM IS HOT
Yo this game is GORGEOUS man… I love it.
Yup that’s us… we bare the mark. And we love to stare at giant trees
Gemma - “do myself a mischief?”, heh
Seriously Gemma? You couldn’t fend off 3 blue tiny slimes?
Sandy the Dog is low-key the MVP tank for taking all these hits
COME ON HERO PULL UP GEMMA YOU WEAKLING
OH SNAP HE JUST LIGHTNING SNIPED AN EAGLE
That’s nice of the game to skip us all the way back down on our way back
We’re Cobblestonians?
Just discovered there’s no fall damage free falling in our own town lol
Amber’s our mom?
Reincarnation of the luminary?
My dude is a freak. Tearing up barrels and tryna get into peoples homes in the middle of the night
So Gemma is our hometown girl before we went worldwide? Damn.
I love the SMACK sound effect when you get “Quest Completed”
“Old Chalky” hmmm
Dunstan wants me to go to King Helodier and politick for Cobblestone bruh
Did this b!tch in the castle just say my outfit was “musty bumpkin look is really in right now!” WOMAN
Carnelian seems like a jerk
The King doesn’t know all of the provinces in his kingdom? Dirtbag
Jasper saying “my liege” has me liking him already
LOL that sure did a 180 real quickly.
Oh so our coming means the Lord of Shadows, the Dark One is also on the way? Piss off Hendrik
Hahaha the trophy is funny “received a warm welcome from Heliodor”
Is this the thief the NPCs were talking about from earlier?
Phew, thank goodness he’s Batman and didn’t kill him!
This dragon lair running sequence is some real junior crew game design
Erik with a K? Let’s jump off this cliff bro
I’ll watch this baller opening sequence again man, no skip for me
Why is this invisible jerk popping up in the castle and now on a fence?
Derk? Red Orb? Do I need to collect 7 red gems?
Bribery and babes in MY kingdom? Oh hey there’s Ruby!
I’m ashamed to admit how long it took me to find Derk’s shop
Yo that’s Derk’s wife? Derk’s wife is hot! She calls him magnificent
Poor Erik is lamenting losing his partner in crime
Yo this poison slime is not fun, am I poisoned until I heal?
Wow has Tricky Devil been watching Fullmetal Alchemist turning that man into a dog?
Took down Tricky Devil with Prep Powers. First real mini-boss basically?
YOOOOO booting the game up the following day, and this game has a freaking RECAP of where you’re at in a “Here’s what’s happened so far!” section. That’s AMAZING
Everyone in Cobblestone forgot about me? Seriously?
Did they get brainwashed by the King or Hendrik?
THEY SENT COBBLESTONE BACK IN TIME? THATS GEMMA? WHA
We finally hear us speak! As a kid but still!
Chalky Awww…..
Lol I forgot we were traveling with Erik for a sec
OH NO COBBLESTONE
It’s kinda surprising there was no sobering scene with Amber/Gemma… they’re dead no? Too dark for Dragon Quest?
Reading our letter from mom
Used the eggeskeletor in Kingsbarrow to get two items. Cool transformation
Did Hendrik seriously just tell his guy to crossbow my horse in the butt?
So now we’re in a. Desert area. But Hotto seems quite pleasant!
Oh… does everyone here speak in haiku?
Does the little red riding hood girl know us?
LOL paid 20 gold for puff-puff and went thru the women’s area in the bathhouse and got yelled at. Hilarious
This little twerp is named Veronica. She’s gonna be a handful
Serena is her older sister? I love the name Serena
LOL Erik read my mind about saying Veronica too is also a little girl
Wow… so Veronica is really Serena’s age, but in a child’s body
Welp… Hero died during that fight against Erik. *sigh*
Sisters of Arboria speaking in unison is freaky
Erik explaining to Serena/Veronica that Connie’s dad sells info to “people in his profession” is gold
Managed to craft the Healer +3 from having the light edition game and reworking it… +10 health per turn seems real nice!
Did we just get puff-puff bamboozled in Gallopolis? Is puff-puff a euphemism for….
We’re having a discreet conversation at the… circus?
HERE’S OUR BOY SYLVANDO! BEST BOY APPARENTLY?
Lemme guess, The Sand National and the Prince can’t ride for jack?
Yup. Expected. Time to fill in for him and win.
SYLVANDO IS OUR COMPETITION??? SERIOUSLY?
1ST PLACE! 1ST TRY! 22.93 SECONDS BEST TIME BABYYYY
Poor Prince Faris… his father is a jerk
LOL I said “no” to his request and got a “please, please, please”
Both Serena and Veronica make good observations on him
We killed the Slayer of the Sands but he broke free, and I think it’s because Sylvando chained him up and did it in a way that would PROVE he would break free just to expose Prince Faris, the jerk
LOL when I read the map on the road to Gondola it said “Hero reads the sign, but he can’t cuz he’s on the wrong side!”
10:05 playtime in… level 16, arriving at Gondolia. I think that’s a decent pace?
Why does Beningno the child talk like a full grown man?
With 5 party members, I’ve settled on Hero/Erik/Serena with Sylvando and Veronica swapping out when they get low on MP
I quite enjoyed the grotto section, really feel like my guys are doing good damage now
Veronica saying honey >>>>>>, piss off jerk Jasper
NOOOO ERIK
Sylvando’s fire lick defeats Jasper!
Hehe I like how Sylvando’s captain is a buff guy but with a pink hat
We just got saved from a gigantic squid thanks to a bunch of merchants
Shoutout to Doge Rotondo!
I did not know DQ11 had an open-world quite like this… it reminds me SOOOO much of Ni No Kuni 1
Damn… this game is MAMMOTH
Octagonia is a Southern town?
MMA - Masked Martial Arts heheh
We’re the first number called? Of course! We’re the protagonist!
OH DAMN WE’RE WITH HER???? HELL YEA SON
What the hell did this old man just say to get the showman to change?
Vince Vanquish? This dude? Seriously?
Everybody’s hyping up Vince but who was his partner in the last tournament and why aren’t they getting any praise?
Erik just got BTFO by Jade. RIP.
Why aren’t Serena, Veronica, or Sylvando in the tournament?
Jade tryna plant the seed of discontent between me and Vince?
The Beaty Queens didn’t stand a chance, time to face Jade & Rab in the final
WOAH! THAT WAS AN UPSET! TIME TO TAKE ON STERLING SYLVA
Down goes Sylvando, sorry I had to do you like that buddy
GET REKT RAB/JADE - GET CHOPPED
DID VINCE GET POISONED? WHA? WHO WOULD DO THAT?
WHAAA? VINCE? You would betray me like this and feed Jade to spiders?
The Scooby gang is here to save the day and Miss Jade!
Ooooh Vince didn’t get poisoned, it’s the bad effects of his steroids
Well that spider just got BODIED… those poor fighters
LOL Sylvando yelling at you angry is gold
3 lightning strikes from me and Vince 4x misses and he’s done for. RIP
Are you kidding me… I KNEW the Rainbough would get stolen
Oh nvm it’s good ol Rab and Jade shenanigans
Damn Dundrsadil… where his parents died. Where the princess of Heliodor died
OH SNAP RAB IS OUR GRANDFATHER? SERIOUSLY?
I was honestly skeptical of how they were gonna make Rab a compelling character as an older man to the party, now I’m 1000% invested w/ him
Oh so Jade’s basically our sister? Interesting….
Did we really fall off a cliff? And Jade hopped in after us?
Aww
We just stole Hendrik’s horse. That’s pretty gangster.
Mordegon? Is that gonna be the final boss’s name?
I love Veronica
I absolutely adore this crew. Somehow I think Erik is the worst of the bunch
Here we go - now we need to find 4 different colored orbs, lol
Don Rodrigo does not sound like a typical Dragon Quest NPC
IS THAT SYLVANDO’S FATHER? Early theory just based on his reaction
Puerto Valor reminds me of Greece… OH AND THERES A CASINO?
Sylvando is being sketchy
Some dude on the beach wants me to put Jade in a bunny girl effort. I’ll oblige
YEP! Don Rodrigo is 1000% Sylvando’s father, some maid mentioned he had a son but he ran away from home
We ended up on a weird island and there are MERMAIDS?
Michelle the Mermaid? The hell?
Is this girl rhyming?
“I will give you your life if you give me your soul.” Uh oh
Quite the terrifying tale auntie
WOW that Tentacular boss fight was tough. 6k XP well deserved. Thank goodness I had Rab in w/Sylvando y Jade as a healer
I get where Kai’s coming from and why he wants nothing to do with the mermaid
Mermaids live for 500 years? Nice!
She just grew legs… dawg…..
Thanks to Michelle’s sacrifice our ship just went under water… wow!
Okay now there we’re in Nautica and a shark shipowner won’t understand me, quick question - how the heck is the UNDER WATER BANK familiar with how much money I’ve invested in banks on the surface?
So I followed the Queen’s instructions and ended up at this Academy. Is this where I turn in the mini medals I’ve been collecting?
Now at the temple looking city… did Veronica just suggest Erik was distracted by a mural of a lady?
Oh my goodness… DORA WAS A SET-UP THE WHOLE TIME? That’s awful
Does Dora have the same VA as Michelle the Mermaid? Lol
I did NOT expect Demon Lord Dora to manifest itself from this lil story
Hah… the girl is named Dora-in-Grey - brilliant
That was a fun fight! Her charm made Serena get KO’d but Tua revived her
Oooh that’s awesome! We got the magical key! Is this the key that’ll open all the red doors that have been locked for us thus far?
Hah I love how the town pivots from a fortune giving mural to a terrifying one to keep commercializing the town and drawing interest from the public
23 hours in, level #31 - I figured I should offer a few thoughts now that the game has officially opened up
I am VERY much enjoying the game. The atmosphere is lovely and it feels like a bed-time story each little slice of the game in all these little hub worlds. The game is MAMMOTH and I love it for that. There’s an obscene amount of things to do
I really dig the Hero’s crew, and the combat while still turn-based is mildly engaging and passable for me to let all the other elements shine through. I like it more than Ni No Kuni’s. I wish the button prompts were better than Persona’s in terms of convenience, but I like the characters hitting vs. the collectible personas in those games.
Some things I don’t like are some of the stilted overworld movement to interact with things, they constant fear of missing out on ingredients, the constant needing to hit X at each dialogue box, and sometimes the glacial back-and-forth nature of some stories (mermaid/Kai arc did this the worst of all thus far IMO)
Right now the game is scoring a 10/10 in the “hangout-a-tude” factor which is HUGE for a game of this ilk. We’ll see how my opinion changes as we press onwards
We just destroyed the Condor’s Crag and all of The Eerie Eyrie. Ended up earning the silver orb for it so hey that’s awesome!
After being lost for quite some time bouncing around the map, I finally found snowy Snifelheim!
This girl Frysabel is the QUEEN of the city? Just out here chilling? (Heh)
That’s funny how the game always gives you the option to say “no” even though it’s always a forced “yes”
“Professauras” is a hilarious enemy name
I was very incompetent and got lost in the Royal Library, welp
I obliterated Jorumun 1 v. 1., get rekt Hendrik
Uh oh… evil witch lady froze us in ice. Prediction: She has cleavage!
Purple witch lady… yea there’s enough there. Of course.
Looooool did Veronica’s fireball really make her piss off that easily?
Had to go back thru the Royal Library again and DAMN, the queen + sorceress are working together
LOOOOL Veronica glaring at Frysabel
Girls with glasses = good, girls when they remove glasses = bad
Krystalinda cheesing moving 3-4 times per turn. Luckily Serena/Tua healed
Never trust ANYONE who ever asks you to come “a little closer”
Veronica is a girl boss and no one can convince me otherwise
I love the resignation in Krystalinda’s voice.
WOW she got off quite easy for borderline MURDERING an entire town
Snifelheim Castle has a creepy basement cage. Will we end up in there at some point?
LOL Rab’s bunny girl magazine hehehe
Oh snap - Arboria is Serena and Veronica’s home!
I’ve heard of Erdwin before…
Hahaha Serenica is Veronica/Serena
I put Jade in the school girl outfit and uhh… she’s still wearing it in cutscenes
Serena playing the harp >>>>
Oh wow the 6 orbs made rainbow road! Let’s get our go kart
Is getting to Yggsdrasil at lvl 36, 30 hours in making good time?
The way people talking about this heart of Yggsdrasil is a lil sus
OH SNAP WE JUST GOT SHOT WITH DARKNESS
OH YOU JERK JASPER DIDNT WE WRECK YOU ONCE ALREADY
Damn we really couldn’t touch this dude with his dark aura
WHAT? Did Hendrik and Heliodor just seriously pull up outta NOWHERE
Woah… the king killed Hendrik. King is Mordegon. WOOF
OH MY GOODNESS HE’S STICKING HIS HAND IN OUR CHEST
HE JUST RIPPED OUT OUR FRIGGING HEART AND BECAME THE LUMINARY
THIS CUTSCENE IS RIDICULOUSLY HIGH QUALITY THO
He now has the Sword of Light…. HE DESTROYED THE LUMINARY THING?
This dude just stabbed a tree… oh no…..
Um… the tree just DIED. Dude. What.
A bunch of sea animals looking at us? Oh the mermaids saved us!
WHA WE’RE A FISH NOW? HUH?
“Tua has lost the power of the Luminary.” welp…
We’ve been knocked out for months? Holy cow…
Marina dropping bars showing what happened to the world, amazing VA
So the flames left are our old party members? I dig it
LOL poor Blue John
OOOOOOOOH THIS IS THE FISHING HUT DUDE FROM WAY EARLIER IN THE GAME COOL!
Who is this hero fellow? Hendrik maybe? Sylvando?
GEMMA AND SANDY ARE ALIVE?
This “one good man” HAS to be Hendrik - he’s ripe for redemption
LOL called it - of course it’s him. Congrats on the come-up Hendrik
The headless honcho was such a cupcake dawg.
Lol just destroyed that black dragon beneath the castle sewers
WOW that Tyriant fight legit knocked me out… took a 2x pep’d up attack and died cuz I didn’t heal enough, got it on the 2nd attempt tho
We got Hendrik on the team now! Of course! A full party of 8!
Pang Lai? Hmm…….
Oh… these monks sure don’t like Heliodor
Bald kid as High Lama
Erdwin and Morcant eh?
Our grandpa got spanked 10,000 times with the naughty stick bruh
LMAOOOOOO I WAS NOT EXPECTING HENDRIK’S REACTION THE BUNNY GIRL MAGAZINE LIKE THAT
Did Rab freaking die?
I did not expect Rab to have such a severe… transformation. You can see his ribs.
Who snap the hot foreseeing lady is Pang? She’s the one who spanked Rab all the time?
Quadraslash ranking up to 300 damage is pretty crazy
Get freaking rekt Mordegon. Hot Grand Master lady taught us how to survive
Back after not playing the last 3 days… excited to get back into things!
I just pulled up to the medal school since I had 35 stamps, uhh.. does Moredgon not care about education? Why hasn’t he attacked HERE?
On our way to Phnom Now and there’s a giant cat harassing a dude
HEY THERE’S OUR BOY SYLVANDO!
Oh no… this town Ian’t so bustling at the moment
Avarith can’t pronounce the letter S
Lmao Sylvando gave him some poop
Avarith got obliterated by Quadraslash+Pearly Gates x10
It’s so fortunate all these evil demon lord monsters don’t actually kill the humans they capture and instead just put them in cages
Oh no Sylv’s daddy issues…
Good to see we’re off to Puerto Valor - knew we had a little more terrain to dig there
LOL matching father/son outfits for Rodrigo y Norberto
THE SEER JUST FLICKED US ON OUR FOREHEAD THE HECK
We defeated The Restless Night. Take a nap, son
Oh snap is that our frigging dad????
Damn there’s baby Jade! And our mom was hot!
LOOOOL this is such a small detail I love - in Dunsdrasdil castle I went to the room opposite of where Jade/Eleanor are, and found Rab’s place. He has a diary talking about being proud of Irwin taking over as king and a maid talks about him hiding his magazines under the bed again. I love this game.
Who the heck is this King Gustaf?
Rich people are evil. These kings be like: “LOL it was just a test we wanted to see if you were down to kill your son”
Oh no Irwin getting stabbed by Mordegon
“Succulent Suffering”… Gloomnivore… you tryna get it?
Okay… this Gloomnivore fight is HORRIFIC. I’ve died TWICE now. Sent ALLLLL the way back to the Warrior’s Rest Inn.
ALL HAIL KING HENDRIK! MY GOODNESS!!!! Topped off his strength with a strength ring + collared necklace +3 and significantly raised his attack with Sylvando and did multiple 500+ attack damaged shots with unbridled ability to OBLITERATE THIS JERK HOLD THIS L
Gotta admit - Gloominvore hardest boss in the game thus far
I gotta also admit - I never expected to meet our dad this entire game
OOOOH SNAP WE THE LUMINARY AGAIN! ZAP POWER IS BACK!
“BRUV!” Who is this clown?
Quite the unique monster running Octagonia…
Lol so the casino slot machine is just rigged in our favor I presume? Getting some monsters wins from all 7’s for 1,500 tokens to 10 free spins and 10x silver liquid metal slimes
Lol 7’s in a row jackpot - that’s 10,000 tokens baby!!!!
Oh dayum Jade……….. them fishnets
Henny-Wenny? I’m not sure I like this Jade… just not sure.
BOOGA? A FOOL NAMED BOOGA?
“This den of iniquity”, Hendrik that was hella herb-tier
“Jinxed Jade” hell yea brother
Okay Booga is a legit monster turning humans into monsters
Wow that Booga fight was HARD - didn’t die, but all my MP was gone and all four of Tua, Hendrik, Sylvando, and Rab were sub-50 health
DAMN JADE THAT WAS SCARY
Aight Jade saying Henny-Wenny even after stopping being a Vampire is gold
Erik… what’re you doing in the base of the ship?
That Alazarin fight also wasn’t a cupcake… Jade got rekt at the end no XP
Oh no… a “gold fever”, Snifelheim was in a pandemic before it was cool
Oh no we’ve gone full The Forgotten City! THE MANY SHALL SUFFER FOR THE SINS OF THE ONE
Erik had a sister and they were treated slaves by the vikings
PAUSED with Erik being pissed off at the West of Snifelheim, it’s time to go ahead and aim for a milestone and to take a break from the DQ11 vortex I’ve been in. Shouldn’t be too long before I’m back (Jan 6th, 2021)
We’re back (Jan. 11th, 2021), golden enemies descending on Snifelheim
Wow these gold statues fight like baby charmin
Yo, Erik’s sister Mia is hot
Oh damn… Erik gifted his sister a necklace that turned her to gold WOOF
I ain’t saying she a Gyldygga…
That Gyldygga fight wasn’t easy - but we won without any members going down!
WHA ERIK’S GOLD NOW?
Oh hey and Mia finally not breeding greedy breaks the curse, cool!
Wow that auroral serpent was not easy… Hendrik carried us with that unbridled attack
YOOOOO THERE’S MY GIRL SERENA LESSGO!!!!
NOOOOOOOO IS VERONICA SERIOUSLY DEAD? THERE’S NO WAY
Damn I know it’s inappropriate but Veronica & Serena’s mom(Alma) is hot!
I adore that love song by Serena… lovely lyre tune
Ooooooooo that Serena/Veronica cutscene now I remember… it did stand out oddly enough
Oh Serena….
She cut her hair? Damn…
Did we just fish up a FRIGGING BELUGA WHALE?
I can’t believe Veronica is really gone man. She was my favorite.
So this flying whale is cool
The Sword of Light eh?
LOOOOOL THAT LITTLE SHADOW DUDE JUST CLIMBING UP RAB
Holy crap this cutscene with the lantern above gallopolis is wild
Wow, Miko is hot! (We’re in Hotto now)
Miko is a fraud. Tatsunaga lives.
LMAO Miko just got CHOMPED
650+ damage from unbridled blade Hendrik vs. bosses is a joke. He gets OOMPHD’s and it’s a wrap
Went with a Tua/Hendrik/Serena/Rab group against Tasunaga and did well enough
This puff-puff in the Battleground… uhh… WOW SHE CRAZY
LOL bouncing off the clouds suspended above the earth, that’s hilarious
We got the ore! Time to go and forge the sword
We’ve got the Sword of Light… is this the final dungeon? Mordegon’s crib in the sky?
Yo this demon lord has a frigging 10 PACK MAN
Indignus? More like this dingus amirite
HENDRIK CARRY JOB YET AGAIN! Srena/Tua died, down to Hendrik/Rab, but these unbridled blade’s after getting OOMPH’D are just OP
YOOOOOO THAT DUNGEON WAS LONG
OH MY GOODNESS IS IT REALLY VERONICA? PLEASE
Oh no… this is Mordegon using her… asking us to die…
43k XP from that Jasper Unbound fight… WOOHOO! Serena
Jasper: “I just wanted to be like you..” And Hendrik is like let’s keep it moving
KING HENDRIK TAKES DOWN THE LORD OF SHADOWS WITH AN UNBRIDLED BLADE SHOT
LORD OF SHADOWS & MOREDGON DESTROYED
Serena was CLUTCH with some 2x spell multi heals + Tua pep power with Rab finished ‘em off
Clutch whale and wow this is a high res cutscene!
PLAY THAT TUNE SERENA
What a freaking game man…. And that was just the main story! I can’t wait to keep hanging out in the world to clean up all the remaining trophies I have left
Final Stats: Level 51, Play Time: 51:53 - not bad IMO!
Finding the Wheel of Time was a piece of cake with this trinket hunting Ive been doing all game
This blue small jerk with the long arms has still gone unexplained
To save Veronica we’d have to turn back time uh oh
This game is actually MENTAL, the fact we’re going BACK IN TIME to before Mordegon took over to try and stop him… WHAT A FREAKING GAME MAN LESSGO DO THIS LEMME KICK MORDEGON’S ASS
I missed hearing your ranting Veronica
Jasper is like: WHAT THE HELL HOW DID HE READ THAT
LMAO JASPER DIED TO 3 UNBRIDLED BLADE’S BY TUA after I re’speckd him from a sword guy to a great sword guy - RIP
There are no morgues in the DQ universe since people just evaporate when they die
King Carnelian sure is keeping up appearances as Mordegon lol
LOOOOOOL MORDEGON FORGOT TO REACT TO JADE, HIS DAUGHTER
TUA HOW ARE YOU NOT STOPPING JADE FROM GETTING CLOSE???????
I am going to be very upset if Tua knowing Mordegon is inside King Carnelian ever gets jumped by “surprise”. It’s like… c’mon bro. YOU SHOULD KNOW
What’s going on in here? THE KING JUST TRIED TO TOUCH MY SWORD AT NIGHT
I have Veronica in a cat suit and in every cutscene it is freaking HILARIOUS
Veronica in the cat suit while Carnelian is laughing LMAO
Alrightie… we defeated Mordegon. Died the first time fighting him which sucked since I didn’t save at the priest. His “kafuddle” confused all 4 of my team members and we just wiped. Backup group couldn’t do enough damage to kill him. This time tho we got good RNG
THE DARK TIME KEEPER WAS EVIL? OOOOH NOOOO
Huh… Mordegon looks like… the Seer?
Yo the Watchers just leveled our guys up! What a legend!
OH DAMN VERONICA IS A GROWN WOMAN AGIN! WOW!
Veronica looks hell weird as a grown up…
Serenica: Time to make like a tree and spread out!
Oh damn Erdwin got stabbed in the back there
The Seer isn’t a lady, it’s Morcant?
Damn we blinged out Cetacea…
Okay WOW - I deeply underestimated just how mind boggling gigantic this game was. The freaking twist of going back in time and NOW we gotta face Catalamos as the final big baddie… but there are these trials in Zwaardust. I still have SO much of the game to go. What a freaking game man. Just…. HOW DO YOU EVEN MAKE THIS WITHIN 10 YEARS? I’m pausing for now (Jan. 13 2022) and need to go play two other games before coming back but I think DQ11 will be in my life until mid-February to be honest, and I absolutely love that.
Defeated Blind Hatred in 18 actions instead of the 25 needed, nice!
Defeated Unfathomable Anger in… 30 actions out of 30 actions! Wow!
Lmao tried to marry Gemma but Durstan said no, I’ll take Ogler’s Digest then!
Damn we just saved Miko’s son with the lumen essence as it’s part of the process to get the perfect sword of light or whatever
Typing as of Jan. 28th… haven’t played since Jan. 17th. Let’s dive back into things!
Just got the every crossbow and puff-puff trophies!
Helping out Vince in Octagonia to fight the old MMA stars… lets do I!
Phew that was on a 5 v. 5 fight! Good stuff, the pep move nearly took us all out
Malicious Archatgon was a tough fight… Hendrik with another carry Oomphle + Unbridled Blade
WOW…. I cannot defeat that malicious serpent in the snaerfelt. I wiped TWICE and nearly lost 200k coins before reloading. We’ll fight that at lvl 65 later minimum
Alright we defeated Jormurr with Kazap… wiped the 1st time, took him down fairly easily the 2nd time
Woohoo! We returned Cobblestone to its old self by bringing Derk, Jormurr, the Wrestler boys, & Noah!
WOOOOOOOW… that “Sheer Decadence & All Consuming Greed” fight was the hardest and most annoying in the entire game. Took me 5 attempts. Idiotic how long the fights can go if you don’t focus on greed and his stupid gold statue move. Finally beat him with Brightsplitter + oomph’d Unbridled Blade w/ Hendrik but needed to get lucky without the evil eye / boogying / golden statues hitting me. Did it in 36 moves which is less than the 40 needed. Time to marry Gemma
Hell yea we spent the night with Gemma. Good thing I did all those puff-puff’s pre-marriage
Lmao just spent the last hour in the casino and FINALLY hit a jackpot, 1 million tokens baby!
LOL won a 2nd jackpot and got the casino 10th accolade great stuff!
Ended up back in Puerto Valor again and forget Sylvando’s issue with his dad
Now officially in the post-game grind… doing quests/getting all the crew armor sets, I did the XP level up method and WOW is that amazing. Went from lvl 67 to 72 and 72 to 76ish which is stellar. Was able to destroy that serpent in the Snaerfelt. Get rekt buddy. Also finally got the Typo G0 to spawn it wasn’t IN the frozen fjord but that lil section that was inaccessible due to the serpent
FINALLY DEFEATED ABJECT TERROR & DARKEST DESPAIR! Phew… that Magic Burst from Veronica OP as hell Did it in 37 actions too
Lmao finally visited Angri-La and met Pang… Rab with his bunny girl magazines
Obliterated “The First Trial” in 6 turns with Tua and then Rab/Veroncia
Obliterated “The Second Trial” in 8 turns w/ Tua, Jade, then Rab/Veronica
Obliterated “The Third Trial” in 12 moves w/ Tua, Jade, Hendrik/Erik, Rab/Veronica
Defeated “The Fourth Trial” in 19 moves, w/ Veronica/Sylvando/Serena, Hendrik (MVP hatch man’s) y Rab, Jade/Erik, and Tua
While I still have a few other things I need to get done like the Final Trial and all the outfits and 90 mini medals, let’s go ahead and fight Calasmos! We’re level 87, I think it’s strong enough to take down the final boss
LMAO NOPE I got my butt kicked, let’s go ahead and save Irwin again
Destroyed him, I’m now very close to the end. I’ve gotten my characters leveled up to the mid-90’s and have just 1 outfit left to get, 1 final trial, and then… the final boss Calasmos. That’s crazy.
Damn we DESTROYED “Overweening Pride”. Those Skull Ring +3’s made the fight a cupcake w/ Tua, Erik, Jade & Rab. Did it in just 38 actions!
Hypanova Sword, Dynamo Dagger, Galaxarang, Aurora Stave, Split-Pot Poker, Gringham Whip, Xenlon Claw, Galaxy Axe… DAYUM!
BOOOOOM! FINAL TRUAL CRUSHED! LESSGO SON! 29 MOVES WE CALL THAT BEING CLUTCH!
Time for… the final battle man. I’m HYPED! LETS DO THIS!
IT’S OVER!!!! JADE WITH THE CLUTCH MULTIFEET AT THE END FINISHES IT!!!!! SHE THE MVP!
I should also say 4x magic burst by Veronica was also monster clutch for 5k damage in total
It’s not a JRPG until you kill a god at the end and they’re mad they got beat by humans
Awww that’s so cute. A callback to when we defeated Mordegon but Veronica perished and wasn’t there to tell us we should be celebrating. She does it here at the finale
Oh damn the timekeeper lady is HOT lessgo
LOL the Teletubbies came to the aid of the dragon lady
OH SNAP THE HERO GETS TO BE NAMED ERDRICK, MIGHTIEST OF HEROES
That is so freaking cool how the final credits show moments from the old games
It’s really over…. wow. That is one of the greatest videos games of All-Time. I need to collect my thoughts. But what an adventure.

realm722 · February 12, 2022

Game: Apotheon

Analysis: I bought Apotheon for $5.24 back in mid-November 2021 and my goodness have I been waiting forever for it to go on sale. A 4-year gap between sales!!!

Why Apotheon? The game caught my eye while randomly browsing PS Prices one day and I liked how it was a fairly brief yet difficult platinum. When I had heard that ProZD's first-ever voice acting role was as Zeus in the game, it also added to my intrigue. I had no idea what gameplay loop it offered and figured that a contributing factor to the rarity was the fact it had been offered as a PS+ game for users all the way back in 2015! I wasn't variety gaming back then so I missed the boat. Thankfully, it finally went on sale again, and what a surprisingly enjoyable experience!

You play as Nikandreos and are given the assignment of killing the Greek gods for they have abandoned your people. Despite being a mere mortal, you do pretty well for yourself in terms of holding your own! I'm not a Greek mythology buff. I know vague references to what each god represents and some small fragments of stories but there are those who have far more knowledge about it that may appreciate some of the ways the stories are presented. (OR get angry about them. @Copanele) I will say that I was very impressed how each unique character with a core story plot had voice acting and the cutscenes were solidly done so as to not interpret the player's control too much.

What really fascinates me about Apotheon is the gameplay. Let's get this out of the way - the combat is extremely janky/clunky. This is not a smooth experience. There are so many different aspects the player can be controlling from his shield, to how you aim your weapon, to the way the character is facing, and a huge variety of weapons for both melee and ranged combat that can take different amounts of time in order to properly wind up. You're likely going to struggle for certain sections early on that force you into fights. I know I struggled on Warrior difficulty. The good news? The game gets easier the more you play it and honestly, for most sections, you can sprint past enemies before they reach you if you're focused on just completing the objective. There IS weapon durability which forces you to experiment. As well as a sequence in the game where you lose ALL your items and have to start from scratch. I found that I had a great preference for spears due to their ranged ability. Knives are far too short and let you get hit easily. Clubs have too much of a wind-up animation. Swords are also adequate. There will be times when you'll need ranged weapons due to a super quicky enemy(such as one on a horse or a wolf) OR a gigantic enemy where hitting them in the shins will do no damage. I found bow & arrow to be the best course with the alternative of a javelin if you have no better options. I quite enjoyed the cycle the game offered and towards the end, I had gotten so comfortable that the jankiness from the beginning didn't rear its ugly head too frequently.

I think the greatest compliment I can offer Apotheon is that for such a short experience relatively speaking(earned the platinum in 10 hours), it made me feel remarkably "comfortable" very early on. The game clearly indicates where you need to go at all times. There are two "hub" worlds that allow you to access the worlds of the different gods in Agora & Acropolis. You'll slowly add to your god powers over time offering you new abilities. The end goal is to kill Zeus. There are side quests you can do along the way (the game is VERY subtle about them. You're just supposed to stumble into them. I did Dionysus quest shockingly early on) Some are so obtuse I can't fathom anyone discovering them without looking up a guide. The game does a great job of offering variety. Artemis' world had me terrified and fighting for my life against a dangerous wolf since I was still learning the mechanics. Poseidon's world has a neat ship movement map. Apollo has you break out and eventually take him down. Hades' world is dark and with enemies that will slowly sap your armor. Athena's is a platforming nightmare. There are puzzles and challenges that ensure the game stays fresh without ever dwelling too long on any one aspect. This made the game feel extremely brisk and like I was flying through it right which is a great compliment to a game of this ilk.

Would I recommend Apotheon? Absolutely. It's such a delightful niche title that while it may take a little bit for you to get used to the unique art style(which is gorgeous) and combat, you'll settle in eventually. I very much appreciated the masterful trophy guide produced on here by @StrickenBiged. The advice given at the start is on point. The absolute best / most efficient way to 100% the game is waiting until you defeat Zeus for the very first time and right before descending from Olympus, going and cleaning up everything you didn't do while playing through the levels normally. You'll have unlimited lockpicks (which you'll need PLENTY in order to access all areas) as well as Zeus' thunderbolt upgrade which makes common enemies no more of a nuisance than a pesky fly. Seriously. Combat becomes a joke with the weapon and no enemy will ever both you again with how quickly you can take them down. Many of the miscellaneous trophies can be done SUPER quickly which you may not have realized while playing. One thing I love that the developers did was make the map accessible by holding the touchpad. This allows your character to move and view the map while heading to your destination. It also puts in plain view unopened chests that you'll need for a collectible trophy. Even if they're off on a "hidden" path, the chest will be in plain view which meant I didn't even need to use a guide. That's amazing! A game did collectibles in a convenient and uncomplicated fashion! Who woulda thunk it? The final trophy I had left was to defeat the game on Olympian, and while that would have been a fine task given I enjoyed the game, there's a simple loophole you can use to get it within minutes of beating the game on a lesser difficulty. Honestly, it's one of the best surprises of the year thus far and I'm super happy I finally played it. I earned the 6.03% rarity platinum in 2 days and 2 hours. Now time to go read @DrBloodmoney and @Trumpet_Boi_208 's reviews of the game that I held off on until now. See y'all next time!

Panda Score: 7.7 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 3.4 / 10

Copanele · February 13, 2022

Glad you enjoyed the game ? yep, I am the textbook "gimme a proper story or I am going to rage" guy ? and Apotheon did good in that department at least imo.

The collectible part is true, I forgot about it! It truly was one of the few games where collectibles weren't a hindrance and were accessible from the get-go. This game had quite a few interesting points that made it memorable.

sccorp84 · February 23, 2022

Sorry, it could be funny question for many of you, but: how to activate the trophy cabinet view in profile?

I have only "rarest trophies" and "trophies milestone" in my profile site (of course with premium membership):

https://psnprofiles.com/sccorp84

This all-star guy for example:

https://psnprofiles.com/ikemenzi

has the trophy cabinet.

Am I blind or something? I can't find this option in settings.

Glad for help, have a nice day!

Edited February 23, 2022 by sccorp84

realm722 · February 28, 2022

So It Has Been A While.....

Obligatory. Howdy, everyone. It's been a little bit. Much longer than normal. While I consider myself to be a gremlin of sorts on PSNProfiles mostly sticking to the cave that is my Trophy Cabinet and the cabinets of others, I typically check the forums once a night before bed just to stay in the loop with everybody. I like checking out what new indies Cassy's enjoying, what Copanele will be raving or ranting about next, and inevitably trying to beat DrBloodMoney to his latest review if it just so happens to be one that I'm actively trying to finish ?. After wrapping up Apotheon, I was dabbling in Rogue Legacy given I had an itch to scratch for roguelikes and it fit perfectly into my schedule given the fact I'd need an ultra rare platinum for the month of March and don't want it to be too close to Hades which I'm aiming to be my 175th platinum. I've enjoyed it for being one of the first of its kind and the rapidly quick gameplay loop made it a very cozy game to play while enjoying podcasts. But I knew I wouldn't finish it in time before the big boy game dropped of course....

Horzion Forbidden West!

Yea, I know, I know. Sadly for the Guerrilla Game devs, they've had the RUTHLESSLY brutal coincidence twice now of releasing a week before what many people consider to be "The Game of the Year". In 2017, Zero Dawn released on Feb. 28 while Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild dropped on March 3rd. It didn't even get a week of shine before the latter captivated the gaming discourse and STILL pops up frequently in conversations out of the Playstation-sphere frequently. Now in 2022, Forbidden West released on Feb. 18 and Elden Ring, the most anticipated Soulsborne of All-Time released on Feb. 25th. it truly doesn't get much worse luck than that. Thankfully for the Guerrilla team, I AM here to talk about their wonderfully engineered game. Seriously. I have SUCKED this game down with a MILK STRAW. It has consumed my life over the past week. Some of that is for the good, a little bit of it is for the bad. But why spoil the review now? Basically - expect another Giga review. Not quite DQ11 size. But still enormous. There's a lot of cloth to cut with that bad boy.

But what could have possibly happened over these last 2ish weeks warranting an "it's been too long" post?

* The Rams defeated the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI, 23-20

* LeBron James hit a game-winner to take the All-Star Game

* I become utterly obsessed with this WW2 channel by Indy Neidell

* I watched Die Hard for the first time. Holy CRAP that movie's awesome! (8.45 / 10)

* Russia decided to invade Ukraine and Putin is a monster. (If you want good articles on the war, please read Timothy Snyder. He's a historian and does not do sensationalism).

Huh. Times flies when you're killing widemaws. But seriously. That last one is horrifying. I do not do well with constantly consuming TV coverage / social media feeds of atrocities as while it's important to stay informed, it can consume and gnaw away at you if you don't control your habits. Hence, I recommend reading as opposed to diving into the endless media feeds that will inevitably form a pit in your stomach. Still, hope if there's anyone here who has even read a single post of mine from Ukraine is doing what they can to stay safe. Otherwise, it's good to be back and I have a lot of catching up to do on y'alls threads. 'till next time!

realm722 · March 3, 2022

Game: Type:Rider

Analysis: I bought Type:Rider for $1.59 in early February 2022 and I am happy to report that it fulfilled just about everything I wanted out of a 100%.

It's the start of another month (wow... we're already almost at the 1/4 mark of 2022. Time's scary, man). A new month means a new super short game to try out, with Type:Rider being my latest endeavor. February honestly really surprised me with The VideoKid which turned out to be a surprisingly fun trial-and-error experience. How does T:R fair? Honestly, it's a pretty solid platformer. You control these two balls and maneuver about the 9 levels included in the game ensuring that you collect all 26 letters along with the 6 asterisks and hidden ampersand in each level. The good news? The levels are surprisingly quick to get through. I can happily report that I never felt any one section was dragging on too long and while there are a few jumps/collectibles that will have you saying "I should be over with this by now." the moderate amount of challenge offered is appreciated in an otherwise brisk experience. The "story" of Type:Rider is pretty cool. You learn about the history of writing from the era of hieroglyphics to when Helvetica as a font reigned supreme and everything in-between. There's actually a trophy for reading each of the books you get after having collected an asterisk that goes into a bit of detail regarding each of these anecdotes. Despite the fact I initially did it just to get the trophy to pop, I actually found myself reading some of the stories included since they captivated my attention. Some examples include how "Times New Roman" became the dominant font in printed newspapers due to its compact design to save space while still allowing for optimal readability. I, like most people, don't think a lot about fonts but whenever you decide to learn a little bit about such a niche subject such as typography, you end up coming away surprised by how interesting it can be.

Would I recommend Type:Rider? Sure! Why not? You're talking about 2-4 hours of commitment depending on how skilled you are at maneuvering two balls. The base levels themselves shouldn't offer too much of a challenge. The final "bonus" level is a Comic Sans meme level that has zero checkpoints and took me 20ish minutes worth of effort in order to complete which is far longer than I'd like to admit. There's a "speedrun" trophy on the opening level which is a cupcake to do on your second go-around, but the hardest trophy in the entire game has to be "Desperado". It took me 35 minutes' worth of attempts. It's pathetic. I know. I couldn't believe how much I kept screwing up. Initially messing up rolling on the "O" before the sniper starts shooting at you. OR goofing up on minecart section inexplicably as it tips over and sends your balls hurling to their death. OR the electrical spikes that come at you at an unreasonably quick pace which from behind are absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to dodge. OR the time that I made it to the final section of the final level and inexplicably died on the lever that retracts back and forth. It's not hard. I'm just an idiot. I think it's a solid platformer with a unique twist and allowed me to listen to Drake's "Passionfruit" on a loop while I got annoyed at my own incompetence on the no-death run. There's a super helpful playlist on YouTube that I found from the PSN Profiles trophy guide by @new-stirum94 that I also recommend if you want to have it on hand with you while playing. Overall, I earned the 12.45% rarity 100% completion in 3 hours and 46 minutes.

Panda Score: 6.3 / 10

Panda Difficulty: 2.6 / 10

On 2/23/2022 at 2:23 PM, sccorp84 said:

Am I blind or something? I can't find this option in settings.

I don't think you meant to ask this in my thread bud but I believe it should be found in the right-hand corner of your PSN Profile. Right below where it says "Level History", "Forum Profile" on the main page, and the icons of your latest 12 trophies, I have an option that says "Edit, Large" by the Trophy Cabinet. Open the spoiler below to see what I mean.

Spoiler

Edited March 6, 2022 by realm722

realm722 · March 4, 2022

Explaining the Method to My Monthly Gaming Madness

Do you curate an elaborate list of games you'll be playing one by one with a complete understanding of knowledge months in advance? Probably not. Despite my quirks, I've managed to avoid descending into that pitfall of obsessiveness thus far. Still, I am also not someone who plays whatever I want at the spur of the moment. I like having a general idea of what games I'd like to target for completion each month factoring in their length, difficulty, quality, and inevitably how long they've been sitting on my digital gaming shelf since their purchase. I've frequently read other players recommend others that they should not "work towards their backlog" and players should just "play what they feel like" since "playing video games is all about fun". Sure. You do you, boo. I tend to have a good time with most games since having completed 200 games during the Playstation 4/5 era, I have a pretty good sense of what'll be great and what'll be just fine and adequate. Still, it's important to experiment. Branching out from your preferences and avoiding what you always "feel like" playing can offer some gaming variety in your life. I don't think I would have ever tried out games such as The Banner Saga, Furi, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Enter the Gungeon, The Messenger, Transistor, Guacamelee, CrossCode, and so forth had I not "ventured" outside of my comfort zone. Those are some of the highest-ranking games on my list and it's why I've come up with the idea to disclose my formula to the public. Why do I play these games? Why in this order? With what goals in my mind?

1) The Monthly Starter 100% - Dating back to February 2020, I have made a specific effort to seek out at least one 100% completion, non-platinum game each month. Typically earned on the first of a month but on occasion a day or two later with the latest being a week, the goal of this is to serve as a monotony breaker from the likely "gigantic, sprawling, mammoth" game I had been playing to close out the previous month. These are games that are typically extremely short, unique in concept, and generally don't get the shine in general due to their brevity and obscurity. They get even less shine here on PSNProfiles since for some users if a game doesn't have a platinum, it's not even worth playing. So now that we know why I play them, where do I find them? Simple, every time a major sale occurs, I sort by some of the cheapest games available and scan for a reasonable 100% completion by searching the name of the game on here. If it's reasonable, not too long, and looks decent - I'll almost always purchase it. At the time of writing this (March 4th, 2022), the game "Thomas Was Alone" would be a perfect example of this. I would purchase had I not already played it back in April 2020. What have been the results of this effort? Honestly, I'd be lying if I told you it has been the most fruitful endeavor. Since the implementation of this formula, only 2 games (Journey, The VideoKid) have scored in the 7/10 range. Nothing has achieved an 8/10 or higher. Meanwhile, 7 games have in the 5/10 range in that same timeframe. Still, the positive experiences from games such as Wandersong, Abzü, and Octodad make me want to continue with their incorporation. Plus, given how mercifully short they are, sometimes it's fun to have a game to rip to shreds on here on occasion (cough Dear Esther cough)

2) The Short Platinum - Typically, immediately after the 100%, I will want to follow it up with a short and sweet platinum that shouldn't take more than a few days to complete. On some occasions, they can be completed in hours. This has been observed in 2022 with Maquette and The Forgotten City distinctively. In the months prior you have The Adventure Pals, Kamiko, Flatland Vol. 1, Songbird Symphony, Snake Pass, Shape of the World, Desert Child, Minit, & Manual Samuel that all apply. These games can range wildly in their platinum % completion from as low to 10% to as high as the 40%'s. The idea isn't really the difficulty, but the amount of time it takes to complete. Meatier than a 100%, these games have offered some pleasant surprises. Islanders & Desert Child were delightful surprises with their unique gameplay and distinct style. The latter has an absolutely stellar soundtrack. Stikbold! proved to be a fun detour into dodgeball. Not all of them are exceptional and the majority fit into the 6/10 tier but due to their brevity, it gives me a headstart to dig in and really enjoy the final two categories of games on this list while still experiencing an ideal 4 games per month.

3) The Ultra Rare Platinum - The name could not get any more obvious. This category of game is meant to serve as a constant challenge for my gaming skills and prevents me from getting fat on cupcake games that last 4 hours. It is the antithesis of the first two categories. The key here is that games in this category can vary greatly in length. In recent months, Apotheon(ok not a UR but it's 1% off c'mon), Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Going Under(100%), Rez Infinite, The Last Guardian, Ash of Gods, Moonlighter, Superhot, Jotun, Enter the Gungeon, Axiom Verge, Furi, & Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland all qualify. Some of these games are super short yet unique challenges that were offered on PS+ and thus inflated their rarity (Apotheon, LiaDS) but still had me enjoy their experiences. Others are mammoth, gigantic games that consumed me for what felt like an entire month such as Ash of Gods and Enter the Gungeon. Others are ruthlessly difficult and fall somewhere in the middle. I gave myself plenty of leeway to complete Furi and Jotun thinking they'd quite possibly take me 2-3 weeks, when they ended up taking 3 days(Furi) and 1 week(Jotun). Overwhelmingly, I enjoy the majority of these games. it's hard to engage with a challenge that you don't enjoy. Rez Infinite dragged on a bit and I have negative feelings towards Moonlighter with hindsight due to some stuff that went on in real life but on the whole, this category will continue for the long term.

4) The Mid / Long Range Desirable Platinum - What the hell does that mean? It's an obtuse way of saying, "yo these are the games I would play if I had to give up everything else." If I no longer had the time to do any of the prior 3 categories, these games would still be the ones I played in the remainder of my spare time. These include Horizon Forbidden West, Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age, A Hat in Time, inFamous Second Son, Spiritfarer, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Haven, The Banner Saga 3, MLB The Show 20, and Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. Further titles like Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight, Batman: Arkham Knight, Slay the Spire, and Persona 5 also qualify. These are "my" games and ones that I think I'll greatly enjoy. With a few odd "misses", I typically have a blast with them since many are beloved by the gaming community at large. Some of them take tens of hours to complete. Some aren't that difficult trophy-wise. It does not matter. They're the games I love the most and my version of a "cheat day" in gaming while I attempt to branch out and play other stuff.

So there you have it. The RealM722 Gaming Formula. How much longer will it remain in place? Who knows. I think I'll always play games but there may be a consolidation of categories at some point in the future. As long as I'm having fun writing reviews and playing, I'll be around here until Sly Ripper kicks me out.

realm722 · March 6, 2022

So there's one last post that needs to be made on this thread before it ticks over to a new page and since I would hate for my elaborate HFW review to get buried at the very bottom of a page - I figure I'll briefly mention some upcoming article ideas I have in mind to write about apart from my typical reviews after I've played a game.

"200+ Games In Hindsight - What Did I Get Wrong? - With over 200 games completed, it feels quite justifiable to actually take a brief glimpse at all my ratings over these 3+ years and say, with perspective now, "I feel differently about this game now than I felt after having played it." Some games would jump tiers and others would fall in them. I think I'm not alone in saying that I've had my opinion of a game degrade or increase over time compared to how I felt after I played it. Especially as my gaming repertoire grows in variety.

"I Care About Graphics" - One thing that I'll very frequently find said about the gaming landscape is - "oh man graphics don't matter GAMEPLAY matters". Those people aren't wrong. Gameplay is king. But damn if it doesn't help if games are gorgeous to look at. I enjoy plenty of indies but there is an undeniable spectacle to jaw-dropping games that take a billion dog years to create that absolutely still have a special effect on me compared to more cartoonish/art style dependent games.

"Do All Games Need An Easy Mode?" - This is a real underrated subject I've been itching to talk about for a while now. It's floored me that on here, Twitter, Reddit, & YouTube that nobody ever talks about the difficulty in games and whether or not extremely games that tend to offer a sizable challenge should have a mode that aids players that are less skilled than their veteran counterparts. I really think there's a lot of unworked terrain in this field and I think I can get the movement for this discussion started on this little boat of mine. This is a joke pls don't @ me

Now with that out of the way, here's my 3rd largest review ever!

RealM722's Trophy Cabinet

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

realm722

realm722

realm722

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in

Recently Browsing 0 members