Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[Mori]

13 hours ago, Spaz said:

Akira is still my favorite anime movie ever made.

 

This might be an odd question, but could you explain why?

 

I watched it a few months ago, but it didnt fit with me. It's not even the fact that the anime is over 30 years old, I love Cowboy Bebop which had its 20th anniversary last year.

 

[Grotz99]

12 hours ago, Rune_Crys said:

I DO agree that pointless grindfest trophies need to be regulated. I can do "Get to Level 99" as the games I have those trophies have means of mitigating the grind. But if you force somebody to clean their toilet 1000 times, chances are you will get a revolt from me. I stopped bothering getting the moons in Super Mario Odyssey requiring you to get a 100-jump jump rope chain or keep a volleyball in the air 20 times. Jump King is the only reason I don't like FFIX. I played the non-trophy PS1 original and loved the story, but I do not ever see myself going for the Excaliber II - which requires you to do a 12-hour speedrun of the entire game. The fastest speedrun of FFIX is 9 hours plus. Don't believe me, go check out RPG Limit Break's videos.

Time is the biggest factor for me when it comes to getting trophies. It doesn't matter if it is difficult or requires multiple playthroughs as long as I enjoy the game, but grinding pointlessly at the end after beating all the extra bosses etc seems silly. Death Stranding is a good example of a recent game I played and looking at the trophy guide for the required time to platinum compared to completing the game was crazy, its like a 50 hours difference for 3 trophies. There are a couple of trophies that just require grinding by doing a ton of deliveries over and over, those kind of trophies I won't dedicate time to. As much as I love FF IX and wanted to get the platinum, the jump rope trophy and monster slaying trophy already made me decide that wasn't going to happen. I just have too many games to get to instead of wasting time on boring trophies.

 

Also, with my backlog and unearned trophy count where it is, it'll be tough to bring that down. I keep chipping away at older things to try to get it below 5500, but it seems to stay around there. I blame it some on DLC ?.

 

14 hours ago, Spaz said:

Back to topic, I was a huge fan of Dragonball Z. I basically watched all the episodes on Toonami on Cartoon Network, back when that station was good. Anime was always better at keeping a long and interesting story arc. Watched my share of Inuyasha, Big O, and several other anime shows.

Toonami was great when I was in jr high/high school. Cartoon network didn't use to be free where I live and when they included it with basic cable, it was the best thing ever. When I started to watch it, DBZ just got to Namak and it had Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star pretty much on repeat for a while. I would watch the shows after school and at late night, probably not the best idea for school, but whatever.

 

Some of the early Nickelodeon shows were pretty strange, but fun to watch. I pretty much went from Disney Channel to Nickelodeon to Cartoon Network as I grew up.

[Cassylvania]

On 6/2/2020 at 4:27 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Why not call it P5R? Anyway, I assume a guide is for later when you have more say in how to spend your time with what action, but you should be able to manage all of that without a guide.

 

Yeah... I can see why you might need a guide in the original version. This is a lot like the Atelier games. If you aren't keenly aware of how to manage your time, you could easily miss something. I'd still like to max most of my confidants, just for the extra bit of story, but I'm glad I'm not obligated to 100% everything.

 

About halfway through the second Palace now. I think it's safe to say that I like this game enough to make the platinum a milestone (like everybody else), so I guess I need to finish seven more games before I finish this. I'm thinking of starting A Plague Tale this weekend and then wrapping up Plague Inc. Then I guess TLOU... I dunno. Hard to plan that far ahead.

 

If there's one thing I don't really like about P5R (and this applies to most JRPGs I've played), it's that it spends too much time explaining stuff. This goes for both in-game mechanics and the story. I'm OK with weirdness. It's Japan, I get it. But when the story has to stop every few seconds for the characters to clarify what's going on, I start to get annoyed. I also get annoyed when the cat won't let me explore the town at night. ?

 

On 6/2/2020 at 11:35 PM, Rune_Crys said:

Cassy, let me say this: I don't like difficulty trophies or DLC trophies or online trophies, but the first hate is just my bias - I am not very good at adapting to difficult combat or situations. That's why I dropped Miles and Kilo after getting 48%, because some of those trophies were way too hard for me to do. But I know that people love challenging themselves. I just challenge myself in a different way.

 

That bad, huh? I think online trophies are my least favorite. They're usually the most grindy, the least fun, and they have a built-in expiration date. Difficult trophies are OK, I think, as long as the difficulty is in the spirit of the game.

 

On 6/3/2020 at 0:17 PM, Grotz99 said:

Time is the biggest factor for me when it comes to getting trophies. It doesn't matter if it is difficult or requires multiple playthroughs as long as I enjoy the game, but grinding pointlessly at the end after beating all the extra bosses etc seems silly. Death Stranding is a good example of a recent game I played and looking at the trophy guide for the required time to platinum compared to completing the game was crazy, its like a 50 hours difference for 3 trophies. There are a couple of trophies that just require grinding by doing a ton of deliveries over and over, those kind of trophies I won't dedicate time to. As much as I love FF IX and wanted to get the platinum, the jump rope trophy and monster slaying trophy already made me decide that wasn't going to happen. I just have too many games to get to instead of wasting time on boring trophies.

 

Yeah... If it wasn't for the fact that I like to watch movies while I play games, I probably wouldn't bother with trophies like that either. The only thing I'll say in their defense is sometimes it's nice to have a game or two that you can just pick up and start grinding. I call them fidget spinner games because they keep me occupied while I'm focusing on something else.

 

I don't really call them that.

[Rally-Vincent---]

9 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

About halfway through the second Palace now. I think it's safe to say that I like this game enough to make the platinum a milestone (like everybody else), so I guess I need to finish seven more games before I finish this. I'm thinking of starting A Plague Tale this weekend and then wrapping up Plague Inc. Then I guess TLOU... I dunno. Hard to plan that far ahead.

 

A short game with Tactical turn based combat and some time/relationship management ist Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs. Maybe that's something for you.

[Rune_Crys]

On 6/3/2020 at 8:17 AM, Together_Comic said:

Cries in original :'( 

Sorry! I didn't meant to insult you. I know a lot of people did platinum the original Persona 5. It's just that I would probably not because there are so many missable trophies. I didn't mean to be offensive, sorry again.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Rune_Crys

[Darling Baphomet]

12 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Yeah... If it wasn't for the fact that I like to watch movies while I play games, I probably wouldn't bother with trophies like that either. The only thing I'll say in their defense is sometimes it's nice to have a game or two that you can just pick up and start grinding. I call them fidget spinner games because they keep me occupied while I'm focusing on something else.

 

I don't really call them that.

 

God, remember when fidget spinners were a thing? And Gamestop had a Destiny 2 fidget spinner as a pre-order bonus? Capitalism is wild sometimes. I used to watch TV while playing games, but I haven't done that for a long while - I think being on ADHD meds for a bit has made it much harder for me to multitask like I used to, even though I've been off them for a few months now. Plants Vs Zombies was one of those - easy and grindable, doesn't really take much effort at all. I'd consider doing that with Battlefront 2, but you actually need to do semi well to score a lot of points.

[Eagle]

Hey, so I've been checking this thread for a while (even before I created an account here), and I just wanted to say: congratulations on having so many platinums and trophies in general. This thread seems to be one of the most (if not the most) popular trophy checklists around, and I think that could be attributed to your dedication and passion to this hobby, plus your witty humor. I know this sounds kinda cheesy, but whatever.

 

In fact, I wanted to create one of these myself, but I don't think it would be interesting, considering I'm a really slow player and I don't have much time to play due to school and all that.

 

Anyway, I wish you luck on your future games.

[AJ_Radio]

8 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

God, remember when fidget spinners were a thing? And Gamestop had a Destiny 2 fidget spinner as a pre-order bonus? Capitalism is wild sometimes. I used to watch TV while playing games, but I haven't done that for a long while - I think being on ADHD meds for a bit has made it much harder for me to multitask like I used to, even though I've been off them for a few months now. Plants Vs Zombies was one of those - easy and grindable, doesn't really take much effort at all. I'd consider doing that with Battlefront 2, but you actually need to do semi well to score a lot of points.

 

That wasn’t that long ago. 

 

There’s no point in preorders anymore. I used to preorder back in the Xbox 360 days, it made sense at that time because the games were more ‘complete’. Nowadays games, especially the junk Ubisoft cranks out feel incomplete when a game is released. It’s like we have to wait several weeks for the games to get finished, because a game on release day has a host of bugs. 

 

2K couldn’t even release an old game from past gen like Mafia 2 without having a trophy glitch and practically 100 graphical issues.

 

I’m affecting the publishing companies because I’m not paying them $60 plus $20 - 40 (Season Pass), but they don’t care. 

 

I’m too old for ADHD meds. Sadly this generation needs a lot of them, thanks to things like TikTok and everyone’s smartphone getting pop up messages every 30 seconds.

[Arcesius]

On 5.6.2020 at 8:01 PM, Cassylvania said:

If there's one thing I don't really like about P5R (and this applies to most JRPGs I've played), it's that it spends too much time explaining stuff. This goes for both in-game mechanics and the story. I'm OK with weirdness. It's Japan, I get it. But when the story has to stop every few seconds for the characters to clarify what's going on, I start to get annoyed. I also get annoyed when the cat won't let me explore the town at night. 

 

I don't want to start a rant about the game because I guess it just wasn't for me. There are many things I didn't like (and most importantly, I didn't like the gameplay, so that was a big deal), and I usually love turn-based JRPGs. But the one thing that I found really infuriating is precisely what you described right here. 

 

I don't even want to shit on the plot cause I actually liked it for the most part, but it really isn't all that deep... Still, you watch the story develop and understand what's happening, then you have the characters explain to you what's happening again and again, just in case you don't get it cause you might be 2 years old... and then you get home in the evening and the entire day is once more recapped in a mobile-phone text-message conversation.. I mean, COME ON, I GOT IT! ??

 

Anyways, I'm happy I played Persona 5, but it's definitely the last (and only) Persona game I will ever play. And I know I'm in the minority here, so it's my problem for sure, not the game's fault ? 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Arcesius

[Darling Baphomet]

4 hours ago, Spaz said:

There’s no point in preorders anymore. I used to preorder back in the Xbox 360 days, it made sense at that time because the games were more ‘complete’. Nowadays games, especially the junk Ubisoft cranks out feel incomplete when a game is released. It’s like we have to wait several weeks for the games to get finished, because a game on release day has a host of bugs. 

 

2K couldn’t even release an old game from past gen like Mafia 2 without having a trophy glitch and practically 100 graphical issues.

 

I’m affecting the publishing companies because I’m not paying them $60 plus $20 - 40 (Season Pass), but they don’t care. 

 

I’m too old for ADHD meds. Sadly this generation needs a lot of them, thanks to things like TikTok and everyone’s smartphone getting pop up messages every 30 seconds.

 

Yeah, I almost never preorder or even buy games full price anymore. One exception was Borderlands 3 because it's a childhood franchise, but even then, I could have easily waited to play it.

 

I'm definitely no fan of 2K - while it had many, many problems, one of Battleborn's issues was, apparently, 2K had tried to push it out before it was ready, resulting in its catastrophic release, mired with bugs and incompletion. And Battleborn still managed to be one of my favorite games. 2K's involvement isn't officially confirmed, but after Battleborn, Gearbox created its own publishing sector, and you can draw conclusions from that for yourself.

 

These big publishers only ever care about money anyway. Didn't the CEO of 2K say he doesn't even play games? Corporate greed is a cancer on the game industry.

 

I do feel like ADHD might be an adaptation to an age of technology, in a sense, since ADHD meds took away some of my ability to multitask like I used to. I used to be able to manage several conversations at once, all while browsing and such, now it's difficult for me to manage that.

[Rally-Vincent---]

1 hour ago, Arcesius said:

I don't even want to shit on the plot cause I actually liked it for the most part, but it really isn't all that deep... Still, you watch the story develop and understand what's happening, then you have the characters explain to you what's happening again and again, just in case you don't get it cause you might be 2 years old... and then you get home in the evening and the entire day is once more recapped in a mobile-phone text-message conversation.. I mean, COME ON, I GOT IT! 

 

I suppose it's for people who - unlike us - don't play for hours and hours almost every day of the week, so they recap stuff for players who pick the game up the next weekend.

[Xenoblast91]

On 2/6/2020 at 8:44 PM, Spaz said:

 

You never bothered to respond back to me after I sent that video to you via PM. Did you watch it?

 

Back to topic, I was a huge fan of Dragonball Z. I basically watched all the episodes on Toonami on Cartoon Network, back when that station was good. Anime was always better at keeping a long and interesting story arc. Watched my share of Inuyasha, Big O, and several other anime shows.

 

Western cartoons to an extent have always infused a little bit of humor, even if that wasn't the main premise in Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles. Swat Kats: The Radical Squadron was another cartoon I enjoyed growing up, but every episode was basically a one story plot involving a villain trying to take over the world/city. The 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon show defined a generation of kids, I was too young to really catch on to it until it's later years. As I grew older I came to accept that western cartoons and anime was like comparing apples to oranges, you can't make a proper comparison because they are two entirely different cultures.

 

Akira is still my favorite anime movie ever made.

 

Avatar: The Last Airbender was no doubt inspired by anime, the story arc was interesting and it took kids completely by surprise because it premiered on Nickelodeon. Nick was basically a station for witty, humerous cartoons that focused on comedy and teaching kids the values of life. Rugrats, Hey Arnold, Doug, Rocko's Modern Life, Ren & Stimpy, Rocket Power, Cat Dog, the list goes on. Nickelodeon was an awesome channel for kids. What it has today is a complete joke.

 

Cartoons were simply better in the 1980s and 1990s. A few from the 2000s were good, namely Avatar, Samurai Jack and a few others.

 

Answer you in PM. Excuse me for the delay, LOL. 

 

I remember fondly all those shows. Also with Cartoon Network, many of what I can recall build my tastes were Dexter's Laboratory, Kids Next Door, Samurai Jack, The Powerpuff Girls, Time Squad, Jackie Chan Adventures, Justice Leage, Batman Beyond and so many good more. 

 

By anime, Dragon Ball Z is basically the reason why I enjoy anime. That series is the inspiration of many, many, many other works, like One Piece, Naruto and Bleach, along many other games, shows and movies. And yes, I wasn't comparing them actually, but pointing out their differences and discrepancies. And tackle why some shows can be easier to stick with than rather to having 20 minutes of plot per episode. Having a coherent plot is something that I always praise. 

 

My favorite anime movie is Ghost in the Shell. Explores many philosophical themes and the aesthetics, even done almost 30 years ago, are absolutely gorgeous. Akira has many good visuals too, and the plot is also good. 

[Cassylvania]

15 hours ago, BRKs_Eagle said:

Hey, so I've been checking this thread for a while (even before I created an account here), and I just wanted to say: congratulations on having so many platinums and trophies in general. This thread seems to be one of the most (if not the most) popular trophy checklists around, and I think that could be attributed to your dedication and passion to this hobby, plus your witty humor. I know this sounds kinda cheesy, but whatever.

 

In fact, I wanted to create one of these myself, but I don't think it would be interesting, considering I'm a really slow player and I don't have much time to play due to school and all that.

 

Anyway, I wish you luck on your future games.

 

Appreciate it! And to think this all started just because I was feeling a little under the weather one day...

 

12 hours ago, Arcesius said:

I don't want to start a rant about the game because I guess it just wasn't for me. There are many things I didn't like (and most importantly, I didn't like the gameplay, so that was a big deal), and I usually love turn-based JRPGs. But the one thing that I found really infuriating is precisely what you described right here. 

 

I don't even want to shit on the plot cause I actually liked it for the most part, but it really isn't all that deep... Still, you watch the story develop and understand what's happening, then you have the characters explain to you what's happening again and again, just in case you don't get it cause you might be 2 years old... and then you get home in the evening and the entire day is once more recapped in a mobile-phone text-message conversation.. I mean, COME ON, I GOT IT! 

 

Oh, good. I'm not alone.

 

I had to take a break from the game. I was getting to the point where I wanted to start button mashing my way through dialogue because I knew they were going to take five minutes to say what could be said in one. But I do want to enjoy the story, so I'm going to try to be patient. One Palace, one platinum (in a different game). That's going to be my rule.

 

On 6/5/2020 at 2:12 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

A short game with Tactical turn based combat and some time/relationship management ist Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs. Maybe that's something for you.

 

Actually, I already bought it. Did you like it? I was originally going to do it for my knight-themed event, but the trophy guide scared me away. Looks like a lot of reading for a supposedly short platinum.

 

Speaking of Of Mice and Men...

 

Platinum #218 - A Plague Tale: Innocence

 

Yet another game with an unnecessary subtitle. I'm really getting sick of that. You don't need a subtitle if you're the only game in a series. Just call yourself "A Plague Tale." You don't need a vague word or concept after it. It's not like you're competing for that title with a million other plague-related games. You know how many there are? Three. A Plague Tale, Plague Road, and Plague Inc, which ALSO felt the need to add a subtitle. The REAL plague is this naming convention. What's wrong with simply numbering games? I'm fine with that. You want a sequel? Throw a "2" after it. Hey, there's even a number that comes after that in case you want a second sequel. And guess what? There are even more numbers after that. I know, devs. It's amazing. It's almost like our ancestors put together a system for labeling things in a way that makes sense. Stop screwing it up.

 

Anyway... Join Amicia, Hugo, Other Amicia, Other Hugo, buff Samwise Gamgee, and the rest of the Boxcar Children in everybody's favorite century, as the Bubonic Plague somehow becomes more terrifying than the real thing. I don't think you realize how horrifying rats are. Oh, sure, you shrug them off in most games. They're usually the first enemy you kill. It's just a rat, right? Have you SEEN a rat? No, I mean, in real life. Not a mouse, but a RAT. They're fuckin' horrible. I was once in the garage, looking for something, and I casually reached into a box to pull out what I thought was some knickknack or toy. I didn't even look at it. I had it in my hand for about ten seconds before I looked down and saw it was a DEAD RAT. IN MY HAND. NOW IMAGINE THOUSANDS OF THOSE, BUT ALIVE, AND THEY WANT TO KILL YOU. THIS GAME IS THE SHIT NIGHTMARES ARE MADE OUT OF.

 

To make matters worse, Amicia is useless. Well, no. Hugo is useless. Well, no. Let's just say that combat is practically non-existent in this game. They'll trick you into thinking there's combat (there's even a battle where you're taught to "dodge," even though I'm pretty sure you never dodge again), but you're no Joan of Arc. And I'm OK with that. I'm not usually a fan of stealth games or escort missions, which is about 80% of what you'll be doing here, but you get a lot of fun gadgets to play with. Amicia's only real weapon is a sling, but you can throw rocks, put out fires, distract enemies... Trust me. It's better than it sounds.

 

The story is good. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say it takes some liberties with what went on during that time period, and they may have sorta almost kinda copied Star Wars a little bit.

 

I know a lot of people don't like scary games, but there's only one thing I'd consider to be a jump scare, and it got me good. I don't even know if it was intended. The rest of this game is just...atmospherically creepy. Unfortunately, the rats are a little too silly to take seriously at times. The way they bunch up at the edge of a light source looks ridiculous. And don't even get me started on the ratnados...

 

I'm going to highly recommend this game to anybody who isn't bothered by disturbing imagery. I do think it's up there with Little Nightmares and RE7 in terms of grossness, but the story and characters make it worth playing. The trophies are also very fair. You get half of them for simply finishing each chapter, a quarter for doing a simple miscellaneous task in certain chapters, and the rest for crafting and finding collectibles. The only issue you might run into is that you could be forced to replay part of the game if you don't find enough crafting material to upgrade both your sling and equipment on the same playthrough. I didn't have that issue, but I was short on string, which meant I couldn't make the last alchemy upgrade (not required for a trophy). Just be diligent in your search.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Cassylvania

[Rally-Vincent---]

40 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

Actually, I already bought it. Did you like it? I was originally going to do it for my knight-themed event, but the trophy guide scared me away. Looks like a lot of reading for a supposedly short platinum.

 

Yes, I liked it. Quite a lot. The battles mostly aren't drawn out, and you can adjust the difficulty to your liking. You even can skip battles (which is handy for a cleanup playthrough after a blind first). The main story is nothing to write home about, the entertainment comes from getting to know your comrades and their backgrounds. I like the bonding part in games, most of the companions are well done. There is a humorous tone that suits the game well. The soundtrack is catchy, albeit there are not enough tracks.

 

As for reading, almost everything comes in small portions. Only the main story and particularly one quest are longer bits.

 

Only thing is doing some reloading if you don't like the outcome of compaion dialogue (no negative impact, but some answers reaise the bond while others don't). That's normal, though, isn't it?

[Cassylvania]

On 6/7/2020 at 3:41 AM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Yes, I liked it. Quite a lot. The battles mostly aren't drawn out, and you can adjust the difficulty to your liking. You even can skip battles (which is handy for a cleanup playthrough after a blind first). The main story is nothing to write home about, the entertainment comes from getting to know your comrades and their backgrounds. I like the bonding part in games, most of the companions are well done. There is a humorous tone that suits the game well. The soundtrack is catchy, albeit there are not enough tracks.

 

I'll move it slightly higher up on my backlog list. I've been organizing the games I own by the likelihood of me playing them. If it's a game I know I'm going to play soon, I download it. If it's a game I might play soon, I download it but put it in a separate folder. If it's a game I'm probably never going to play, I hide it from my PS library. That leaves me with about 70 games that I own but probably won't be playing any time soon. I'm thinking maybe this fall I'll get to Regalia (and Valthirian Arc, which I always think is the same game).

 

Alright. Was hoping to finish this yesterday, but the last scenario took longer than expected...

 

Platinum #219 - Plague, Inc.: Evolved

F-

See me after class.

 

20 hours to platinum, my ass.

 

First, what is it? Wikipedia says Plague Inc is a strategy-simulation game. I disagree. Plague Inc is a simulation model. You "play" as a pathogen, with a single goal in mind: to destroy the entire human race. To do this, you pick a type of disease, your starting country, and your abilities, transmissions, and symptoms, which you purchase using DNA points that you collect from infecting other countries. You then wait and see how the model plays out. There are basically two stages to this. In the first stage, you are trying to infect as many people as possible without being detected. In the second stage, the humans have detected you, so it's a race against the clock to wipe them out before they develop a cure. The only real gameplay is figuring out the best way to distribute your DNA points. Should you focus on non-lethal symptoms so you can remain under the radar, or do you want to give your little bacteria a better chance at surviving in cold environments? What's neat is that every disease has unique properties (similar to how they behave in the real world), and there are lots of scenarios that incorporate new mechanics or throw a spin on existing ones. This means there's no one universal solution, like Foul Play’s circle + square + square + square + square + square combo.

 

As you might expect, RNG is a major factor here. Almost every event, from where the Olympics are held to how quickly your disease spreads to remote islands, is based on luck. It reminds me of Bridge Constructor. If you've never played that before, it's basically a game where you're tasked with creating a bridge for traffic to cross. If the bridge holds up, you win. If not, it's back to the drawing board. My problem with that game, if you recall, is that sometimes you end up running the same model multiple times and achieving different results. That means if your bridge is CLOSE to holding up during the first run, it's probably worth trying it again because you may have stumbled upon a solution that only works some of the time. Imagine that in real life. You're an engineer and your boss is screaming at you that a shipment of Popeye's just went careening down the side of a canyon thanks to your shoddy workmanship, and all you can say is, "But sir, it worked 33.3% of the time in the simulation model!" Your ass would be fired. In Bridge Constructor, that is bullshit because everything is based on physics. You should not get different results under the same conditions. In Plague Inc, it makes sense because the human element can account for some of the randomness. Humans may intentionally or inadvertently do things that make your life as a disease harder (such as closing ports into a country or eliminating mosquitoes) or easier (such as hosting the Olympics in a country you're about to infect or not washing their hands). That doesn't make it any less frustrating to play, but at least it's more forgivable.

 

There's a meme going around that Greenland is the safest place to be during a pandemic because it doesn't share a land border with any other country and there is only one point of entry. If that port closes before you can infect Greenland, it's basically game over. Even if you're using a guide, expect to run some models with the same parameters SEVERAL times before you win. When you lose, it's usually because you didn't infect one of the island countries quickly enough.

 

Finally, some of the trophies are ridiculously obscure. I don't know how anybody even figured out how to trigger them. For example, the trophy Film Fanatic requires you to "recreate the setting of the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes film." What does that even mean? It turns out you need to start in the United States as the Simiam Flu (I figured that much out on my own) and lose, but only once the global human population has dropped below five million. That's not an easy thing to manipulate either. Maybe it would have helped if I had actually watched the movie, but I think I prefer better trophy descriptions.

 

I should also point out that some of the guides out there are incomplete. There are more scenarios now, and the DLC (which is free) is required for the platinum. I'd actually argue that the new scenarios are harder than anything in the main game. The Mad Cow Disease scenario took me about sixteen full runs, and I had better luck starting in India instead of the suggested Saudi Arabia, which I personally thought was funny.

 

Would I recommend this game? Nah. It's interesting to see how diseases can spread, but...it's the year 2020. I think we're all experts in that now.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Cassylvania

[realm722]

6 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Platinum #219 - Plague, Inc.: Evolved

F-

See me after class.

 

20 hours to platinum, my ass.
 

Finally, some of the trophies are ridiculously obscure. I don't know how anybody even figured out how to trigger them. For example, the trophy Film Fanatic requires you to "recreate the setting of the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes film." What does that even mean? It turns out you need to start in the United States as the Simiam Flu (I figured that much out on my own) and lose, but only once the global human population has dropped below five million. That's not an easy thing to manipulate either. Maybe it would have helped if I had actually watched the movie, but I think I prefer better trophy descriptions.

 

I should also point out that some of the guides out there are incomplete. There are more scenarios now, and the DLC (which is free) is required for the platinum. I'd actually argue that the new scenarios are harder than anything in the main game. The Mad Cow Disease scenario took me about sixteen full runs, and I had better luck starting in India instead of the suggested Saudi Arabia, which I personally thought was funny.

 

Would I recommend this game? Nah. It's interesting to see how diseases can spread, but...it's the year 2020. I think we're all experts in that now.

 

Hah, love your writing Cassy. I was actually looking at Plague Inc a few times it went on sale and was considering getting it. I really don't mind getting any <20 hour plats since they can be binged through even if I'm not loving them - but your post affirmed my suspicions that number was totally fudged. Since it's not really a story game I tried looking for some helpful trophy guides and as you pointed out, nobody has really bothered with that under-taking despite this being a fairly well known game. It's got a nifty platinum rarity but not so rare that I'd chase after it. I honestly love using your account as a comparison to mine given we've played a lot of the same games, and your account is pretty much mines but on steroids (x2 everything lol, I'm level 26, your level 42, I have 500ish gold trophies, you have 1000, you're closing in on 10k trophies total, I'm closing in on 5k). While I don't want you spoiling your future review - just a little question, how are you feeling on "My Time at Portia"? I've heard some good things but the art style really turns me off and I've heard some so-so things on the developers (could just be gamer rage though). 

 

As a side note - here's a little factoid for you that I thought was interesting. In terms of the "Trophy Checklists" sub-category on PSNProfiles, you have the #1 most viewed post.... by A LOT. Over 113k+ views to be exact. The 3 next that are closest? 34k, 30k, and 24k. None of those have been updated in 2020. Next one after that is at 18k. I love the little community you've built here chit-chatting about games and beyond - and you've sort of become the Wayne Gretzky with the distance between you and everybody else. Keep it up!

[Darling Baphomet]

10 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

There's a meme going around that Greenland is the safest place to be during a pandemic because it doesn't share a land border with any other country and there is only one point of entry. If that port closes before you can infect Greenland, it's basically game over. Even if you're using a guide, expect to run some models with the same parameters SEVERAL times before you win. When you lose, it's usually because you didn't infect one of the island countries quickly enough.

 

I played it on Android and it's definitely a fun game, but not one I'd want to platinum. I often start my virus in Greenland, or if not, in a central country with a port. My usual strategy is to become super infectious without lethal symptoms, so I can focus on spreading, then go lethal all at once.

 

10 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Would I recommend this game? Nah. It's interesting to see how diseases can spread, but...it's the year 2020. I think we're all experts in that now.

 

Oof, brutal! I had an ex who was following COVID before it got big. I thought she'd been overreacting at first, but time's proven she was right about this whole pandemic thing, although I don't think she's very happy about her victory.

[KingCuervo88]

seeing this thread reminded me of mine I had forgotten about that i haven't updated in 4 years... all the images are broken and i'd have to add almost 300 games/reviews to get caught back up haha... i'll just stick to reading yours instead
 

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by KingCuervo88

[Cassylvania]

12 hours ago, realm722 said:

Hah, love your writing Cassy. I was actually looking at Plague Inc a few times it went on sale and was considering getting it. I really don't mind getting any <20 hour plats since they can be binged through even if I'm not loving them - but your post affirmed my suspicions that number was totally fudged. Since it's not really a story game I tried looking for some helpful trophy guides and as you pointed out, nobody has really bothered with that under-taking despite this being a fairly well known game.

 

I really glazed over the issue with the time to platinum. The guides I saw estimated 16-20 hours, which I honestly think somebody at AGDQ would be hard-pressed to achieve. There are three types of trophies in the game. The first you get for beating each disease on the highest difficulty. There are at least a dozen of these and I had to do most more than once. The second are for getting three "stars" in each of the 25 scenarios. This is where I can forgive the guides a little because new scenarios have been patched in that are now required for the platinum. (This is also where a lied a little in my review because there are some universal solutions that you can use to finish about half of the scenarios.) The third type is like what I described for Film Fanatic, which are trophies that require a combination of luck, knowledge, and/or careful manipulation of the game's mechanics. You'll probably get some of these accidentally, but the others force you to deal with save-scumming and RNG. Consider the guides out there to be more like blueprints rather than 100% guaranteed walkthroughs.

 

I'd say Plague Inc is a 30-40 hour platinum, even with a complete guide.

 

12 hours ago, realm722 said:

While I don't want you spoiling your future review - just a little question, how are you feeling on "My Time at Portia"? I've heard some good things but the art style really turns me off and I've heard some so-so things on the developers (could just be gamer rage though). 

 

That's how I felt initially...until I started playing. The color palette is very easy on the eyes. I think that's one of the least talked about aspects of animation, but My Time at Portia is one of those games I could play for more than a few hours at a time without getting a headache. I'm assuming what you don't like is the character models (or the Fisher-Price look to everything). This is going to sound sacrilegious for me to say as a fan of the original Harvest Moon series, but I recommend playing as a girl. Their models are actually pretty good. Something about the lips of the guys creeps me out. But don't worry -- you can romance anybody, regardless of your gender. (In fact, you kinda have to if you want to platinum the game in a single playthrough.)

 

I don't know anything about the developers, but they left in (well, tried unsuccessfully to patch) a very easy to perform duplication glitch that absolutely shreds the time to platinum from 100+ hours to around 30. I'm using it to some degree. I have issues with the game, but they're minor. I'd say the combat is...kinda dull, the storyline isn't terribly exciting, and I don't like how you can't un-upgrade your farm. Maybe it's just me, but I like farming games in the beginning, when you have a rickety old cabin and a field overgrown with weeds and stone. I'm only on the second house upgrade and I feel like I just moved into a mansion. I don't have enough furniture to fill all that space, so it just feels empty, which goes completely against the homely vibe that I look for in games like this.

 

Still, I'd put it up there with the best farming sims. I don't know if it's better than the original HM games or Stardew Valley, but I like it a little more than Graveyard Keeper, which I thought was kinda gross.

 

12 hours ago, realm722 said:

As a side note - here's a little factoid for you that I thought was interesting. In terms of the "Trophy Checklists" sub-category on PSNProfiles, you have the #1 most viewed post.... by A LOT. Over 113k+ views to be exact. The 3 next that are closest? 34k, 30k, and 24k. None of those have been updated in 2020. Next one after that is at 18k. I love the little community you've built here chit-chatting about games and beyond - and you've sort of become the Wayne Gretzky with the distance between you and everybody else. Keep it up!

 

Wow, that's pretty cool. But Wayne Gretzky was actually good at the sport. This topic wouldn't be nearly that high without people reading it, so thank you, guys! Let's go for 200k. ?

 

8 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

I played it on Android and it's definitely a fun game, but not one I'd want to platinum. I often start my virus in Greenland, or if not, in a central country with a port.

 

The issue with that is it can be hard to spread due to the low population in Greenland and only having one exit. From what I've read, Saudi Arabia is usually the best, but it really depends on the scenario. I actually had the worst luck infecting the Philippines because they're so tiny and I forget about them on the world map.

 

7 hours ago, KingCuervo88 said:

seeing this thread reminded me of mine I had forgotten about that i haven't updated in 4 years... all the images are broken and i'd have to add almost 300 games/reviews to get caught back up haha... i'll just stick to reading yours instead

 

Well, welcome to the pile! That...really sounds dirty, the more I think about it.

 

You have so many games. How was the Saints Row 3 remake? And Maneater? I don't think I'll have time to get to them this year, but I scribbled them both down as games to keep an eye on. You also have a ton of POWGI and (my personal favorite) Picross games. I'm not sure I'll get around to Pic-a-Pix Color 2 or Block-a-Pix (or whatever else they come up with), but I'm glad to see you avoided Phil's Epic Adventure. That game has one of the most misleading platinum rarities I've ever seen. Almost 60% of owners have it, but I swear it's like a 100+ hour platinum. That's why I kinda wish guides had two times: one for using a walkthrough and one for actually playing the game.

 

Anyway... With both Plague games out of the way, I guess we can get back to TLOU and P5R. I might also need to figure out what game to do for #SOLVE and #LEARN. Anybody know any mystery or puzzle games that center around a disease or involve characters wearing a mask? What about a historical game like that? Maybe I should've put A Plague Tale under that category...

 

Oh, and while we're on the subject of A Plague Tale again... I watched Joseph Anderson's critique of the game last night. He really ripped the game apart for breaking immersion repeatedly, and he's not wrong. One of the dumbest things in that game is how Amicia ditches her torch every time she has to climb a small platform, even though she could easily recover it or hand it off to someone else. I meant to point that out during my review, but I was trying to avoid story elements, since I think that's the primary reason to play it. In the case of the torch, though... It has such a heavy focus in the gameplay that I think it's worth mentioning.

 

Given that APT is a AAA-looking game made by an indie developer and sold at an indie game price, I'd still recommend it.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Cassylvania

[Eagle]

On 09/06/2020 at 2:38 PM, Cassylvania said:

I really glazed over the issue with the time to platinum. The guides I saw estimated 16-20 hours, which I honestly think somebody at AGDQ would be hard-pressed to achieve. There are three types of trophies in the game. The first, you get for beating each disease on the highest difficulty. There are at least a dozen of these and I had to do most of them more than once. The second, for getting three "stars" in each of the 25 scenarios. This is where I can forgive the guides a little because new scenarios have been added since then, that are now required for the platinum. (This is also where I lied a little in my review, because there are some universal solutions that you can use to finish about half of the scenarios.) The third type is like what I described for "Film Fanatic," which are trophies that require a combination of luck, knowledge and/or careful manipulation of the game's mechanics. You'll probably get some of these accidentally, but the others force you to deal with save scumming and RNG. Consider the guides out there to be more like blueprints rather than 100% guaranteed walkthroughs.

 

I'd say Plague Inc. is a 30-40 hour platinum, even with a complete guide.

 

After looking at the trophy guide for Plague Inc., I'd say it's achievable within 20 hours if your RNG is always good, but the thing is: it's RNG. RNG is never good. This is why I think guides should display the average time a person who never played the game would get the platinum in, instead of the optimal time, because almost nobody will reach that time, either due to RNG or simply due to having no prior experience.

 

I played the game in Android back in the day, but, back then, my strategy level was equal to that of a potato. I'm curious to see how I would fare if I picked the game up nowadays, but I'd probably do so in Android anyway.

Edited July 4, 2021 by Eagle

[Mesopithecus]

18 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

Anyway... With both Plague games out of the way, I guess we can get back to TLOU and P5R. I might also need to figure out what game to do for #SOLVE and #LEARN. Anybody know any mystery or puzzle games that center around a disease or involve characters wearing a mask? What about a historical game like that? Maybe I should've put A Plague Tale under that category...

 

 

For #SOLVE I was going to suggest Virtues Last Reward but it looks like you already have Nonary Games done - maybe look into Zero Time Dilemma as it's the last game in the series, so not only would it fit the disease theme but would also be a nice series completion on your profile   Not sure if you have a Vita but it was on PS+ as a free game just before they ended PS3 and Vita games on the service.

 

 

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 9.6.2020 at 0:22 AM, Cassylvania said:

 

I'll move it slightly higher up on my backlog list. I've been organizing the games I own by the likelihood of me playing them. If it's a game I know I'm going to play soon, I download it. If it's a game I might play soon, I download it but put it in a separate folder. If it's a game I'm probably never going to play, I hide it from my PS library. That leaves me with about 70 games that I own but probably won't be playing any time soon. I'm thinking maybe this fall I'll get to Regalia (and Valthirian Arc, which I always think is the same game).

 

I assume the games you hide are Plus games? I can't imagine how else you'd have many games you won't play. My backlog is easier to manage. It's a stack of pysical cases and a couple of digital.only games. I put them all on my profile for anticipation.

[Cassylvania]

5 hours ago, BRKs_Eagle said:

After looking at the trophy guide for Plague Inc., I'd say it's achievable within 20 hours if your RNG is always good, but the thing is: it's RNG. RNG is never good. This is why I think guides should display the average time a person who never played the game would get the platinum in, instead of the optimal time, because almost nobody will reach that time, either due to RNG or simply due to having no prior experience.

 

I played the game in Android back in the day, but, back then, my strategy level was equal to that of a potato. I'm curious to see how I would fare if I picked the game up nowadays, but I'd probably do so in Android anyway.

 

They might be releasing more DLC soon. At least, that's what it says on the game's main menu. Not sure how up to date it is, but they have patched in some news feed messages that are...pretty relevant to the current global situation. My favorite is, "Child tells President that 'injecting disinfectants is Not Good.'" ?

 

And yeah, I could see someone spending a few hours on the Mad Cow Disease scenario alone, as even the best walkthroughs I've found have a low chance of success. That was added after some of the guides were made, though.

 

5 hours ago, Mesopithecus said:

For #SOLVE I was going to suggest Virtues Last Reward but it looks like you already have Nonary Games done - maybe look into Zero Time Dilemma as it's the last game in the series, so not only would it fit the disease theme but would also be a nice series completion on your profile   Not sure if you have a Vita but it was on PS+ as a free game just before they ended PS3 and Vita games on the service.

 

I'm actually doing that for #READ, but it's good to know it fits the disease theme! I was only doing it because I knew at least one of the characters wears a mask.

 

And I originally had it for #SOLVE, but I figured it'd be easier to find another relevant puzzle game than a VN.

 

14 minutes ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

I assume the games you hide are Plus games? I can't imagine how else you'd have many games you won't play. My backlog is easier to manage. It's a stack of pysical cases and a couple of digital.only games. I put them all on my profile for anticipation.

 

Mostly Plus games. I didn't even bother to add the free games this month to my library. They'd just be taking up space.

 

I wish there was such a thing as a reverse backlog. Like, it'd be a list of EVERY game released for the console of your choice, but you could remove games instead of add them. For example, let's say I've played TLOU or know for a fact that I'll never play it. I could just delete the game from the list. As new games are released, the list would be expanded, but you'd never have to scroll through games you've already removed. That would be huge to me because it would basically represent a collection of games I either want to play or might want to play, with games I already own, am currently playing, or never want to own filtered out. Maybe it could even have a button to combine stacks. To me, that's what a backlog should be.

 

I don't like wish lists because I never know where to draw the line. Nioh 2 is on my wish list because I want to play it. Journey to the Savage Planet...yeah, maybe. Days Gone? I dunno. Trials of Mana? The Outer Worlds? Death Stranding? At some point, I have to say, "No, I can't add every game to my wish list or it loses all meaning," so I end up with this cluster of games sitting in the ether between games I really want to play and games I haven't even considered or looked up reviews for. I just wish I had the option to go through games one at a time, select where I want to place it on my hierarchy of needs, and have that option be saved.

 

I guess it could be done on paper, but that would take a lot of time...

 

Anyway, I'm trying to think if I've ever bought a game that I then decided to hide. I'm sure I have. I don't do this often, but sometimes I'll buy a game on a deep, deep discount and then decide I'll never play it. Steam users have that problem all the time, I hear.

 

I like your idea of putting games on your profile before you begin them. I should try that. Next community event, install every game, sync to the server, and then start chipping away.

[Rally-Vincent---]

4 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

I wish there was such a thing as a reverse backlog. Like, it'd be a list of EVERY game released for the console of your choice, but you could remove games instead of add them. For example, let's say I've played TLOU or know for a fact that I'll never play it. I could just delete the game from the list. As new games are released, the list would be expanded, but you'd never have to scroll through games you've already removed. That would be huge to me because it would basically represent a collection of games I either want to play or might want to play, with games I already own, am currently playing, or never want to own filtered out. Maybe it could even have a button to combine stacks. To me, that's what a backlog should be.

 

Eh, I don't know. There are so many stupid games, but you wouldn't know until you did some research on it. It'd take much more time to maintain that list in a way that it'd be useful than putting the wants/maybes on a list - even more so because it would take me a year to play the few games that are on the list. I mean: 144 "games played" in ten years since trophies were introduced. I have 22 games on my watchlist plus everything that is already on my backlog, that's closer to two years than one.

[Grotz99]

45 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

I like your idea of putting games on your profile before you begin them. I should try that. Next community event, install every game, sync to the server, and then start chipping away.

I like to do this for ones I'm thinking of playing in the near future to give me a reminder. It's also nice to have a quick way to look at the trophies and the guides before diving in without searching for them each time. I usually just look at the start of the guides for the time its takes to plat/100% and what's missable. If they seem like something I don't want to play, could always remove them through the trophy system on the PS4.