Cassylvania's Miserable Little Pile of Platinums

[Cassylvania]

@Nighcisama Lotta things here, so...

• My solution to the mine was running up to the entrance on my horse, turning him sideways, and then quickly dismounting. If you position yourself right, the horse will block the entrance, making it harder for the bandits to chase you. One time, they knocked me unconscious but didn't kill me, and I woke up in the corridor with no enemies around. That allowed me to create a save right before the cutscene. Unfortunately, I only had 4 health and no potions, so I had a hard time with the fight. And then when I did win, I got the infinite loading screen. I'm convinced the game doesn't want you cheesing that battle.

• It's extremely stupid to have a trophy that requires not killing anyone, if you're also going to have mandatory battles that require killing everyone to advance. From what I heard, you didn't used to get a game over if "too many" allies died, so you could let Radzig and other essential NPCs finish the battles for you. 

• I'll have to think how to handle the other siege battles. It's just Vranik and the final mission, right? Vranik could be a pain because I remember you only have a couple allies during one stage of the fight. The final mission... Honestly, I spent 90% of that kiting a single enemy in the courtyard. I think I was trying to work on some trophy at the time, and he was making life very difficult for me.

• I have mixed opinions about the DLC. I played them in conjunction with the main game and thought they were fine. From the Ashes was...a waste of time (the concept is good, but the execution wasn't), but I enjoyed A Woman's Lot. The tournament is a good way to get combat experience. It's just annoying that the game alerts you every time there's a tournament being held. I don't like seeing "OBJECTIVE FAILED" flash across my screen whenever I don't feel like showing up.

• The Royal Edition (supposedly) got rid of a lot of the bugs. It still takes a while for some clothing to clip in. When I open the menu screen, Henry is almost always floating in the air above his horse, and I have a lot of quest items in my inventory that seem to be glitched. Like Theresa's nails. I never gave them to her at the beginning of the game, but she acted like I did. Later on, I found those nails, and now they're just sitting in my inventory as a constant reminder of how I couldn't even get five minutes into the game without experiencing a glitch.

• You already know my feelings on the Monastery questline. That's up next on Hardcore. 

• King Charming seems buggy, but in a good way for me. I didn't have over 80 reputation in one or two major cities, but it still popped. Maybe your reputation in Pribyslavitz counts towards it?
• The trophy list definitely doesn't lend itself well to a single playthrough, which is unfortunate, because the game doesn't lend itself well to multiple playthroughs. Unlike Skyrim, it's not like you're going to have a vastly different build each time you play the game, so a second or third playthrough is ultimately going to feel repetitive. I think they would have been better off staying clear of missable trophies. There are enough trackable things in the Statistics tab to fill out a trophy list.

16 hours ago, det_gittes said:

I got excited initially but now I see that these fans are not a solution for me because in my case I never had any problem with the perfomance of the console (no freezing or shutting itself off), the only problem is the noise of the fans. Well, I guess I'll have to put up with the noise after all. I wonder if PS5 will handle its noise significantly better.

 

Yeah, I have zero solutions to the noise problem. Back in 2008, I believe, I spent a lot of money to build a gaming PC, but it was so freakin' loud that I'd get a headache and sometimes just turn it off so I could sit in silence. I have the same problem now with the PS4. I'm actually wondering if I could put in the basement and run an HDMI cord up through the ceiling, into the closet, and through the hole to my bedroom. That's actually how my router is hooked up now. I should have a long enough HDMI cord, but I'm not sure the wireless controllers will work. There's also the issue of, you know, going downstairs if I want to play a different game.

 

As if I'll be playing anything but KCD for the next three years.

[Dauersack]

5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

• It's extremely stupid to have a trophy that requires not killing anyone, if you're also going to have mandatory battles that require killing everyone to advance. From what I heard, you didn't used to get a game over if "too many" allies died, so you could let Radzig and other essential NPCs finish the battles for you. 

Agreed, and yes at least I didn't have to deal with that so this battle was the easiest, still tricky because Runt was such an asskicker this time around.

5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

.

• I'll have to think how to handle the other siege battles. It's just Vranik and the final mission, right? Vranik could be a pain because I remember you only have a couple allies during one stage of the fight. The final mission... Honestly, I spent 90% of that kiting a single enemy in the courtyard. I think I was trying to work on some trophy at the time, and he was making life very difficult for me.

Theres also the Talmberg ambush, the retaking of the area before the gate, the 2 annoying as hell Trebuchet battles and then theres the worst and final battle. Thats not gonna be fun.

5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

• I have mixed opinions about the DLC. I played them in conjunction with the main game and thought they were fine. From the Ashes was...a waste of time (the concept is good, but the execution wasn't), but I enjoyed A Woman's Lot. The tournament is a good way to get combat experience. It's just annoying that the game alerts you every time there's a tournament being held. I don't like seeing "OBJECTIVE FAILED" flash across my screen whenever I don't feel like showing up.

From the Ashes definitely was a waste, basically it was 1 big fetch quest and over in an hour if you already had the gold for it. Can't share personal experience with the others, but most people said they are also quite short for their asking prices. I do not try to get these until I find a guide that shows me the optimal way to get these done as quickly as possible because I do not have the patience for this game anymore to experiment around with it.

5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

• The Royal Edition (supposedly) got rid of a lot of the bugs. It still takes a while for some clothing to clip in. When I open the menu screen, Henry is almost always floating in the air above his horse, and I have a lot of quest items in my inventory that seem to be glitched. Like Theresa's nails. I never gave them to her at the beginning of the game, but she acted like I did. Later on, I found those nails, and now they're just sitting in my inventory as a constant reminder of how I couldn't even get five minutes into the game without experiencing a glitch.

I doubt the game will ever be in a really acceptable state, some bugs and glitches just seem there to stay, definitely makes me wanna avoid any other game this studio produces.

5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

• You already know my feelings on the Monastery questline. That's up next on Hardcore.

Funny thing about that, if you have the tubeworm perk you might starve to death in this questline because sometimes you can't eat. They only made eating possible in one specific bowl, and if that ones already taken you are kinda out of luck for the day.

5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

• King Charming seems buggy, but in a good way for me. I didn't have over 80 reputation in one or two major cities, but it still popped. Maybe your reputation in Pribyslavitz counts towards it?

Lucky. I had to travel back and forth between the inn and the city many times to trigger the (rare)random encounter on the road between the two places and help the soldiers with a bandit fight. Took forever to get even one, and I needed several, after you had one of the encounters you had to skip forward 10 days to make it possible to spawn again, that shit took hours until I was done with it.

5 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

 

• The trophy list definitely doesn't lend itself well to a single playthrough, which is unfortunate, because the game doesn't lend itself well to multiple playthroughs. Unlike Skyrim, it's not like you're going to have a vastly different build each time you play the game, so a second or third playthrough is ultimately going to feel repetitive. I think they would have been better off staying clear of missable trophies. There are enough trackable things in the Statistics tab to fill out a trophy list.

I mean you could try different builds, but except the normal melee slugger they all kinda suck. Even weapons feel the same, and if a sword feels the exact same as a mace or axe you know there was very little care put into the games combat. The worst is that you can't even change the story, every decision is inconsequential and will lead you to the exact same points, with characters that survived this time around never having any further purpose. Well at least that horrible trophy list lead to it being ultra rare because so many people probably read it and decided to not even bother with it.

[Rally-Vincent---]

Speaking of bugs and the Monastery: In my Merciful run, I had a wonderful bug. The blood you need to get from the kitchen to fake that guy's death (I forgot his name) was not spawning. The list you write it on was there, but the blood never appeared. In my desperation, I got into fisticuffs with him and accicentally killed him, but luckily, his death did not register as kill in the stats.

[Cassylvania]

23 hours ago, Nighcisama said:

Theres also the Talmberg ambush, the retaking of the area before the gate, the 2 annoying as hell Trebuchet battles and then theres the worst and final battle. Thats not gonna be fun.

 

Did you do the optional tasks (the ones required for Talmberger)? From what I understand, doing those tasks raises the morale of your army, making the battles easier. I did all of them except find a priest (because Godwin is a bitch) and the potions (because I'm not doing alchemy 60 times), and I beat those battles on my first try with minimal effort. Like, seriously. I think I punched two bandits, and then I accidentally followed Davish back to camp instead of that fat guy, so I didn't even get to the trebuchet until they were almost done.

 

20 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Speaking of bugs and the Monastery: In my Merciful run, I had a wonderful bug. The blood you need to get from the kitchen to fake that guy's death (I forgot his name) was not spawning. The list you write it on was there, but the blood never appeared. In my desperation, I got into fisticuffs with him and accicentally killed him, but luckily, his death did not register as kill in the stats.

 

That's a lucky break. I heard you can also run him over with your horse and it won't count as a kill. If letting him go wasn't an easier solution, I would've tested that theory.

 

Not a lot of cheese needed in the later game, but I did find a way to save scum. For some reason, the game doesn't delete your save file when pause the game and go to "Save & exit to menu" (like quick saves usually do). So, if you're out of Savior Schnapps, are sick of waking up in random places (thanks to Hardcore's Somnambulant "perk"), or just feel like abusing developer oversight, that might be a solution. You just gotta put up with more loading screens.

 

Oddly enough, killing chickens in this game seems to be totally okay. Guards don't arrest you and it doesn't count as a kill. (I know animal kills are allowed for Merciful, but I wasn't taking any chances.) So, go ahead and punch a bunch of chickens, roast them over a fire, and sell them to the local butcher. That's how Henry saved Bohemia!

 

Actually, it's the Somnambulant perk I have to thank the most. As annoying as it was being transported all across the map when I was just trying to save the game, there was one point where I woke up in the middle of a gang war in Skalitz. I hid in an attic, as I am wont to do in such situations, and watched them murder each other in the streets. Once the survivors had cleared off, I ran outside and picked the corpses cleaned. I got about 3,000 G-bucks from that detour, which funded most of my Hardcore escapades. That's making the most of a bad situation.

 

So, where do we go from here? Well, despite my best efforts, we're still a few trophies short of the platinum. I fucked up on several trophies on both playthroughs, so I'll have to use backup saves to try to get them. It's a good thing I have about four hundred saves per playthrough.

 

By the way, I wrote this whole post while hiding in the basement of the armory during the last battle. You do NOT have to participate. It just takes...um...four AVGN episodes and one tutorial on how to draw hands.

[Dauersack]

17 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

 

Did you do the optional tasks (the ones required for Talmberger)? From what I understand, doing those tasks raises the morale of your army, making the battles easier. I did all of them except find a priest (because Godwin is a bitch) and the potions (because I'm not doing alchemy 60 times), and I beat those battles on my first try with minimal effort. Like, seriously. I think I punched two bandits, and then I accidentally followed Davish back to camp instead of that fat guy, so I didn't even get to the trebuchet until they were almost done.

I honestly do not remember anymore, but what I do remember is the battles not being noticeably difficult on a non hardcore playthrough, but a true pain in the ass on hardcore. Could be related to the optional tasks, or just the game wanting to turn this into a 1 vs all to create the illusion of an actual challenge. Curious to see how they will go for you, I definitely regretted combining hardcore and mercy runs together during the later battles.

[AJ_Radio]

I will definitely hold off on Kingdom Come Deliverance.

 

I got too much shit on my backlog to add any time consuming game to my list. I have a bunch of open world games that will take some time, and the one I'm playing now is a bit time consuming. Pray to the RNG gods I don't get hit with the infamous Scavenging glitch.

[Cassylvania]

9 hours ago, Nighcisama said:

I honestly do not remember anymore, but what I do remember is the battles not being noticeably difficult on a non hardcore playthrough, but a true pain in the ass on hardcore. Could be related to the optional tasks, or just the game wanting to turn this into a 1 vs all to create the illusion of an actual challenge. Curious to see how they will go for you, I definitely regretted combining hardcore and mercy runs together during the later battles.

 

I'm going to assume they either patched it (yeah right) or doing those optional quests makes a huge difference, because I didn't have any trouble. I went into the ambush completely naked (because I had to dump all of my armor to carry the meat back to camp), waited for a bandit to go down so I could steal his armor, and then hung back to see how many enemies my guys could take down without my help. I never got a game over. The gate, the ambush, the trebuchet (where I went the wrong way and missed the whole battle)...even the last mission. As soon as I climbed the ladders, I made a beeline for the armory, crouched in a corner, and put my controller down. Again, I was just trying to judge how much actual fighting I would have to do. But forty-five minutes later, the battle was over. I'm pretty sure only the essential NPCs were left.

 

I actually pulled an all-nighter to finish the game, which I don't think I've done since college. It's stupid that you have to do some of the DLC just to beat the game, but at least it's a short one. During my initial playthrough, I stole my opponent's dice at the bandit camp and won the tournament...um, fairly. This time around, I was having none of that. I pickpocketed the key, ran up to the chest, and grabbed everything inside. The bandits weren't too happy, but I positioned my horse in front of the door, which kept them occupied long enough for me to slip out the back. I then proceeded to get my horse stuck in a tree and then ride off a cliff on my way back to Rattay. It's amazing how little I've learned about navigation in this game.

 

I watched the final cutscene, counted five trophies, and then crashed hard. I think it was around 7:30 in the morning.

 

6 hours ago, Spaz said:

I will definitely hold off on Kingdom Come Deliverance.

 

I got too much shit on my backlog to add any time consuming game to my list. I have a bunch of open world games that will take some time, and the one I'm playing now is a bit time consuming. Pray to the RNG gods I don't get hit with the infamous Scavenging glitch.

 

The guides I read made it sound like it was a sub-80 hour platinum, with each DLC pack taking a few extra hours. I think I'm over 200. This was like early 2000's MMO levels of addiction. I don't think I'm going to play another game like this for a long time.

 

Good luck with Mad Max. I'm not touching that one. I think I liked the original movie, but I hated Fury Road. I don't get why it won all of those awards. It was loud and dirty and not something I'd want to look at or visit. Basically, downtown Philadelphia. If the game is anything like the movie, I'll stick to 15th century Bohemia.

 

Five trophies to the platinum. Do I finish it off, or move on to something else?

[Rally-Vincent---]

29 minutes ago, Cassylvania said:

Five trophies to the platinum. Do I finish it off, or move on to something else?

 

I'd finish it off. My guess is you're short under three hours to the Plat. I assume you have the saves for all of them, so buy a good horse in Uzhitz stables for the Talmberg race. The Robber Baron quest doesn't take long if I remember correctly. Depending on how you solve it, leg it if you get into - and win - the duel. Alcoholic is easiest from a late save where you have the funds to buy a lot of alcohol. Theresa should be no problem, and Firestarter you get from a save from the first mission for your Blacksmith father.

 

 

[Mori]

1 hour ago, Cassylvania said:

Five trophies to the platinum. Do I finish it off, or move on to something else?

 

Stay strong, resist the temptation. HK for #200!

[AJ_Radio]

2 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

The guides I read made it sound like it was a sub-80 hour platinum, with each DLC pack taking a few extra hours. I think I'm over 200. This was like early 2000's MMO levels of addiction. I don't think I'm going to play another game like this for a long time.

 

Good luck with Mad Max. I'm not touching that one. I think I liked the original movie, but I hated Fury Road. I don't get why it won all of those awards. It was loud and dirty and not something I'd want to look at or visit. Basically, downtown Philadelphia. If the game is anything like the movie, I'll stick to 15th century Bohemia.

 

Five trophies to the platinum. Do I finish it off, or move on to something else?

 

The game you're playing is nothing like Runescape or World of Warcraft was. I probably spent collectively 9000+ hours on Runescape and around 1000 - 2000 hours on World of Warcraft. Both games were based on grinding and doing daily quests. Never again, I just don't have that level of patience anymore.

 

Mad Max is not a bad game, it just suffers from some serious glitches. I also noticed the Scrap Crews don't always work, and trying to sign onto WBPlay is easier said than done. Completely terrible social media service in comparison to uPlay which Ubisoft has. I never had issues with uPlay.

 

That doesn't mean the film was bad, it's just not your cup of tea.

 

Why would you move on to something else if you're five trophies off? Especially since that's pretty much all you've been playing this past month? Stick to it, your hard work will pay off sooner or later.

[Cassylvania]

That's two votes for yes and one vote for no. Here I am standing in front of my dad during the first mission. All I have to do is punch him and...

 

Wow. Really? You can't hit your own father?

 

Let's try Ma.

 

...OK, fine. I guess that makes sense. They're not going to have your own parents call the guards on you.

 

Oh, hey, is that a FISH I see in the market square?

 

Platinum #200 - Kingdom Come: Deliverance

 

Do you know where you were on 11/11/11? I do. I was standing in line at Best Buy on my lunch break from work, buying my first copy of Skyrim. I went home, made a Nord named Tebow, and spent the next few years trying to figure out why Dark Souls was the better game in every conceivable way. I think, even at the time, I was bit by the hardcore bug. I wanted an RPG that felt real. Like, if I was really going up against a fire-breathing dragon, what would it be like? Would I be a god, or would I get my ass smeared across a hillside?

 

Around the time the real Tim Tebow was leading the Broncos to a playoff win over the Steelers, I was listening to some people talk about their adventures in Skyrim. I told them that my character was a cleric who used a bow, but he wasn’t very good at using a bow. One of them looked at me and said, “No, YOU are not very good at using a bow.” Then I punched him. No, not really. But they didn’t understand why I’d want to play a character who wasn’t an all-powerful killing machine, or why I’d want to roleplay in the first place. And the more I played Skyrim, the more I realized that the game really isn’t a good RPG. It’s fun, and you can sink a lot of hours into that world, but it’s not designed to be realistic. Food and sleep are optional, you can chug potions during battle, and the cold never bothers you anyway. The only way to pretend you’re anything less than a superhero is to…well, pretend. You have to purposefully gimp yourself. Don’t loot that strong armor. Don’t use that legendary weapon. Don’t specialize in every area, even though some of the quests demand it, and don’t abuse all the mechanics in the game that are broken. If you want to be a commoner, you have to act the part. Pretend that you are living an ordinary life, that you can somehow make a living picking flowers and selling deer meat, and that the game’s mechanics allow you to do this. In reality, the only thing stopping you from being a god is…yourself. I guess that’s pretty deep.

 

You know what my favorite part of Skyrim is? The first three hours. No, not the stupid tutorial that you’re forced to play through every time. It’s when you leave that cave and have the whole world to explore. That feeling you get when you run east of White Run (because screw the main quest) and encounter bandits for the first time. It’s actually scary because you don’t know how to fight and you don’t have a full set of armor. There’s a legitimate danger there, that you could die and lose…oh, I dunno. Four minutes of progress.

 

Why do I bring this up? Because Kingdom Come: Deliverance is the Dark Souls of Skyrims. (Yeah, I said it.) Henry is a worthless sack of shit. Having the best armor and weapon in the game doesn’t make you a juggernaut. It makes you slightly less likely to end up as fertilizer for the Bohemia countryside. You know how you get better? Practice. No, actual practice. You get your sorry ass beat by a trainer until you learn how to handle a weapon. Isn’t that right, Rey? If you want to stand on the shoulders of giants, you have to learn to walk first. That’s…probably how that phrase goes.

 

Even then, though, battle is never easy. You can kinda cheese it (like most things in this game) by clinching. Once you have the appropriate perks, you can get win a clinch, get off a free hit, and then repeat. The AI doesn’t seem to know how to handle that. But until you reach that point, combat is scary. And honestly, even 200+ hours into the game, I never felt comfortable taking on more than one opponent at a time. It’s just too easy to get comboed to death.

 

Do I make it sound like the game is really good? It has issues. It deserves much of the criticism it has received. Bugs are rampant, trophies are glitchy, and I’ve had a few times where the game crashed or NPCs didn’t do what they were supposed to do. Some of the side quests are boring, and I’m not sure how I feel about the voice acting or facial animations. Everything feels a little off. Like a straight-to-DVD Disney movie. This is the kind of game you’d want to play for the story, the hilarious quests with Father Godwin and Sir Hans Capon, the realism, and the experience of roaming what is honestly one of the best-looking worlds I’ve seen from a small studio. I do think I prefer Skyrim’s world (snowy areas are magical in video games), but Bohemia is beautiful. I really like how you can pan the camera around while you are riding your horse. Assuming that, you know, you are on a path and don't accidentally open your map because your horse may go careening in any given direction.

 

Now, would I recommend this game? I’d say no. And the reason I say no isn’t because it’s bad or buggy or takes a long time and multiple playthroughs to platinum. It’s because if you’re not already 100% sure you’d like a game like this, it’s probably not for you. But if you’re like me and you really like getting immersed in a world that doesn’t center around you (and you can forgive its many flaws), grab a chair and prepare to learn that Charles IV, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, had a long and successful reign.

 

Edited February 10, 2020 by Cassylvania

[Grotz99]

Congratulations on sticking with it and getting the platinum! If it wasnt for all the little annoying things you talked about before with the game and the level of dedication required to platinum it, I would really consider playing it after your very nicely written and entertaining review. I played a lot of skyrim and finished most side quests before finishing the main story line a year later and know exactly what you mean by becoming too powerful.

 

As for Mad Max, it's not a bad game and doesnt really follow the movies. It's basically about taking over the wasteland with 3d streets of rage combat mixed with twisted metal. I must have gotten lucky as I didnt know about the glitch when going for the platinum.

 

Also, I really shouldn't read these forums when I'm in bed getting ready for sleep...your Frozen reference made me lol and I woke my wife. 

Edited February 10, 2020 by Grotz99

[VigilantCrow]

Awesome! Well done

[AJ_Radio]

On 2/9/2020 at 9:03 PM, Cassylvania said:

Do you know where you were on 11/11/11? I do. I was standing in line at Best Buy on my lunch break from work, buying my first copy of Skyrim. I went home, made a Nord named Tebow, and spent the next few years trying to figure out why Dark Souls was the better game in every conceivable way. I think, even at the time, I was bit by the hardcore bug. I wanted an RPG that felt real. Like, if I was really going up against a fire-breathing dragon, what would it be like? Would I be a god, or would I get my ass smeared across a hillside?

 

I personally think Skyrim was one of the most overrated games to have hit the PS3/360 consoles. When I was still playing the Xbox 360 in my early 20s in 2011 - 2012 I played a bit of Skyrim, and never quite understood the mass appeal of it. Every popular YouTuber from PewDiePie down to your average Let's Play moron who made videos was making Skyrim footage. Some people ended up making hundreds of episodes on Skyrim on YouTube going as far as two - four years after the game was released. Just..... how?

 

Skyrim was a buggy pile of shit back in 2011 and that was when I really started noticing Bethesda was simply making buggy games without really testing them for glitches/bugs. Fallout 3 had issues as well back when I played it around 10 years ago, Fallout New Vegas at least was interesting in what it offered. I forgave Bethesda with Fallout 3 because at that time they were still sort of new to the whole RPG, console gaming business.

 

Dark Souls is better fine tuned. Graphic wise, Dark Souls far and away beats Skyrim. The learning curve is steep, and back in 2011 a lot of people struggled to reach Anor Londo. It rewards the player for being patient, and punishes the player who is reckless and is rushing through it's content. Skyrim has a learning curve yes, but it's not what most people think.

 

Skyrim to me was hugely overrated. The Last of Us in comparison deserved all the praise it got. Don't get me wrong, Skyrim was done much better than the travesty that is Fallout 76. But I just find it amusing that thousands of people, including a couple here on PSNProfiles, just decided to jump on the hate bandwagon on Bethesda. When the fact is they've gotten away with buggy piles of shit for years, ever since Fallout 3. Yeah, they may not be bad games, I would argue that they would be great games if not for the bugs/glitches.

 

It's like all the assholes back in 2012 who immediately jumped on the 'I hate EA' bandwagon, without noticing that EA was shit for years before the masses really started taking notice. Now for the past couple years those same types of people are on the 'I hate Bethesda' bandwagon. Years before when Skyrim and Fallout 4 were released, they were like "Bethesda is a good gaming company".

[ZoutjeNL]

Well done Cassylvania, that is quite the milestone for number #200. I never liked the appealing of the combat in KCD and the bugs that came with it. I applaud your perseverance, the game looks though as nails and is a long 100%. I know you said you don't know what to play next after this long objective. Maybe something smaller in between? 

[Cassylvania]

Thanks, guys. I know some of you are disappointed that Hollow Knight didn't make it as #200, but I'd rather platinum games as I play them, rather than holding off for milestones. It just seems more genuine that way.

 

On 2/12/2020 at 7:59 AM, Spaz said:

I personally think Skyrim was one of the most overrated games to have hit the PS3/360 consoles.

 

A lot of people gave it a pass back in 2011 because it was Bethesda. "Yeah, but" was the usual argument I'd hear from people. I'd point out some flaw or oversight in the game, they'd briefly acknowledge that it existed, and then they'd proceed to give me a dissertation on how it doesn't matter and the game is still GOTY material. It usually involved the word "mod." Trying to get somebody to defend Skyrim without using that word is like trying to get somebody to defend Trump without mentioning Obama or Hillary. ?

 

Anyway, there is one good thing I'll always say about Skyrim: you're going to get your money's worth. I think I've bought it...maybe three times now? Once on PC, once on PS3, and once on PS4. I enjoyed it every time. There are very few games on the market that you can play for 200+ hours and still want to keep going. Mods help for sure, but you can't really argue against the game's replay value.

 

10 hours ago, ZoutjeNL said:

Well done Cassylvania, that is quite the milestone for number #200. I never liked the appealing of the combat in KCD and the bugs that came with it. I applaud your perseverance, the game looks though as nails and is a long 100%. I know you said you don't know what to play next after this long objective. Maybe something smaller in between? 

 

I'd say the game is longer than it is hard. Combat becomes a little broken once you realize the AI has no solution for clinches or master strikes. As long as you can avoid fighting more than one enemy at a time, you shouldn't ever lose once you have the right perks. I just wish the developers had put more care into the trophy list (especially the DLC packs). There was no reason for some of those trophies to exist. If I were to do it all over again, I'd go for a one playthrough platinum, which would include everything from the DLC, except Hardcore Mode. You could probably do Hardcore Mode in a single sitting if you know what you're doing, have the map memorized, and aren't trying to avoid killing anybody. The problem, though, is you'd have to be very careful with your progress during the first playthrough. You'd want to avoid learning how to read before doing From the Ashes (which you can't finish you have a lot of money AND you'd have to avoid triggering the Pestilence side quest), you wouldn't want to raise your Drinking skill until you progress far enough in A Woman's Lot, and you'd want to get as far as possible in the main story without killing anybody. Then you could make a backup save, finish the campaign for Merciful (and Virgin), and then reload the save to do every possible side quest (for Completionist and the grindy trophies). That's probably the quickest way to 100%.

 

Honestly, if there was another version of the game (preferably WITHOUT the DLC), I wouldn't mind trying to platinum it again. I bet I could get the fastest spot.

 

But yeah. My next game is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. No, this time I'm serious -- see, I already started it. And I gotta say... About ten minutes into the game, I had to put my controller down and cry. Why has it taken this long to make a good Star Wars game? I know people really liked KotOR, but that was seventeen years ago. The PS3 was still in development. I was in high school. People thought Attack of the Clones was a good movie. These were dark times.

 

I know the post-game stuff is supposed to be a pain, but...thank you, EA?

Edited February 13, 2020 by Cassylvania

[AJ_Radio]

6 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

A lot of people gave it a pass back in 2011 because it was Bethesda. "Yeah, but" was the usual argument I'd hear from people. I'd point out some flaw or oversight in the game, they'd briefly acknowledge that it existed, and then they'd proceed to give me a dissertation on how it doesn't matter and the game is still GOTY material. It usually involved the word "mod." Trying to get somebody to defend Skyrim without using that word is like trying to get somebody to defend Trump without mentioning Obama or Hillary. 

 

Anyway, there is one good thing I'll always say about Skyrim: you're going to get your money's worth. I think I've bought it...maybe three times now? Once on PC, once on PS3, and once on PS4. I enjoyed it every time. There are very few games on the market that you can play for 200+ hours and still want to keep going. Mods help for sure, but you can't really argue against the game's replay value.

 

Yeah I get that Skyrim without the bugs/glitches was probably a pretty decent game. I played a chunk of it myself back in 2011 - 2012 when I was a Xbox 360 gamer.

 

I definitely felt things could of been a little bit better. After a while a lot of stuff felt the same. Dungeons felt like they were in the same format, some NPCs felt like carbon copies of each other, etc etc. Fallout 4 is basically Skyrim done in the Fallout universe, only Bethesda managed to make it a bit more boring. Their games have progressively gotten worse as far as overall content goes. Fallout 76 should of just been a continuation of Fallout 4, or at least be a proper game on it's own, like Fallout New Vegas was to Fallout 3. Instead Bethesda made it an online only game that was and still is a travesty, then everybody starting bitching about how much Bethesda sucks.

 

Was Skyrim a bad game? No, not at all. But Skyrim was the game when fanboys started coming out of the woodwork, blindly defending anything Bethesda did right up until Fallout 76 came out.

 

Bethesda today is doing what EA of the past did.

 

It's just.... meh. I'd actually rather play Kingdom Come Delieverance, despite you giving it a bit of a negative review, which is a shame because it had a lot of potential when it came out two years ago.

[Mori]

20 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Thanks, guys. I know some of you are disappointed that Hollow Knight didn't make it as #200, but I'd rather platinum games as I play them, rather than holding off for milestones. It just seems more genuine that way.

 

Dont worry, after all it's just a milestone. As long as you finish HK at some point, it's all good.  

[Cassylvania]

On 2/13/2020 at 8:44 PM, Spaz said:

It's just.... meh. I'd actually rather play Kingdom Come Delieverance, despite you giving it a bit of a negative review, which is a shame because it had a lot of potential when it came out two years ago.

 

Oh, it's a fantastic game. One of the best RPGs out there. Most of my complaints come from how the trophies were designed, which I know isn't a top priority for most developers. The bugs are...forgivable, in my opinion, given the size of the game and the fact that none of them are game-breaking (that I experienced anyway). It's basically a more realistic Skyrim, which is all I ever wanted. It just took me eight years to find it.

 

Anyway, I guess we can get this one out of the way now.

 

Platinum #201 - Dragon Quest Builders 2

 

So...um...this was a game... where you build stuff...on a quest...to maybe stop a dragon...for what I assume is the second time... Yeah, guys, I don't remember. This is what happens when you leave a couple of easy trophies and then play KCD for five weeks straight. I couldn't even remember the controls. Kinda sucks too because I thought I had everything I needed for the platinum, but I only had the recipe for the cursed armor, not the actual cursed armor, so I had to farm materials for a few minutes and it nearly cost me my Valentine's Day platinum. Either way, let's just say my review for this game lives in my past posts, and instead we'll discuss the artwork of the platinum image.

 

This is one of the better plat images I've seen. It features two characters, who I think are like the default male and female avatars you could have for this game. I'm not sure why the girl is so much shorter than the guy. I'm also not sure what their canon names are. I typically go with the default names because...well, I dunno. It just usually feels like you're playing a discount version of the hero if you're not using the original name. I mean, I once played Ocarina of Time with "Linkle" as name of the main character. This was before female Link was a thing. It's not like that was an original name anyway. Gender bending is kinda weird, though. Have you seen of the artwork on DeviantArt? You should look some time. Actually, maybe don't do that. But Linkle does look a lot like female Dragon Boy there. They both have blonde hair, blue eyes, and pigtails. I should've named her Linkle. I mean, I clearly went with the girl here. The guy looks like a wannabe Chrono. That's Chrono from Chrono Trigger. That may or may not be his canon name. I personally named him Carl because I think Chrono is a stupid name, and also the girl's name in that game is Marle, which isn't even a real name or something the average person could pronounce, so I started calling her Marie, which is honestly what I thought her name was, given the text on the 3DS was so small that the lowercase L looked like an I, and the fact that Marie is a name that a normal person would have, so I actually ended up restarting the whole game just so I could name them Carl and Marie, which is now kinda what I wish I had used for DQB2, since Linkle also looks like Marle. But I named her Lily. She looks like a Lily.

 

Um... OK. Let's pretend that was a review. Good job, team!

 

[Cassylvania]

I don't always do NAP reviews, but this one needs some discussion.

 

Not a Platinum #25 - Dragon's Lair Trilogy

 

Dragon’s Lair is a franchise that first appeared in arcades in the 1980’s and was animated by the legendary Don Bluth. You might know him best for his work on An American Tale or The Land Before Time, but he also directed Anastasia, one of the most underrated Disney movies of all time. I don't think I have to tell you how instrumental this guy was in inspiring me as a kid. Man, he's gotta be up there with the likes of Chuck Jones, Hanna-Barbera, Mike Judge, and Hayao Miyazaki.

 

If you need any more proof that real life and CGI cannot compare to hand-drawn animation when it comes to capturing emotion, look no further than the 2019 live action version of The Lion King. What a soulless travesty. I just got around to watching that a few days ago and it made me rethink this whole idea of reimagining classic Disney movies. I really hope Mulan does better. If they can’t do my Asian doll justice on the silver screen, there’s no hope for the future.

 

Anyway, my parents never had time for me as a kid, so I spent a lot of time at daycares. One of those daycares used to take us on field trips about once a week. Usually somewhere local, you know, like Chuck E Cheese or the water park or this roller skating rink down the street. I actually hated that roller skating rink because I broke my leg there trying to do a spin, like they do in the movies. It turns out it’s a lot harder to turn on your skates when you’re not on ice. So, every time they dragged us to that place, I would walk right past the rink with my shoes still on and hit up the arcade. I didn't care that all my friends thought I was a loser. I wasn't going to risk my life putting my skates back on.

 

Now, one day, I was at the arcade with one of my friends -- let’s call him Joe -- and he saw I had $2 bill in my wallet. For those of you who don’t live in the US, those are relatively uncommon. Somebody (either my father or uncle or grandpa) had given it to me for good luck. But Joe, you see, was an asshole. He told me I should spend that money at the concession stand. I didn’t want to, but he said he wouldn’t be my friend anymore unless I did, so I decided to order myself a blue raspberry snowcone. I handed the cashier this $2 bill and -- God, I wish I could have taken a picture of his face -- he looks at it as if I had just handed him a calculus textbook. He says something to his co-worker and then goes to find his manager. These two savants couldn’t possibly be more than thirty years old collectively. But they have their backs to me for an uncomfortable amount of time and I’m starting to think to myself, "Oh, crap, they’re going to call the cops." I’m totally expecting FBI agents to kick down the door any minute and drag me out in handcuffs. As if I don’t have enough traumatic experiences from skating rinks, right? But the line is getting longer and finally this high school dropout comes back, puts my perfectly legal tender in the cash register, and hands me about $3.00 in change, simultaneously making it one of the best and worst transactions I had as a kid. I’m not even sure what he was thinking.

 

Um…where was I? Right, the game. If you spent as much time in arcades as I did as a kid, you knew about Dragon’s Lair. It was amazing. I mean, the animations were great. The game itself was terrible. Dragon’s Lair was like the microtransactions of the 80’s. Every arcade machine back then was designed to suck you dry faster than a well-paid pro…um, vacuum cleaner. You'd put in a quarter, play for about two seconds, and somehow die five times. I don’t even know how that’s possible. You could play pinball without using your hands longer than you could Dragon’s Lair. They might as well have called the game Don’t Blink, because your reaction time had to be superhuman. And you'd never get to enjoy the animations. That is why I want to learn Japanese. I don’t understand how people can watch Japanese anime with English subtitles. You might as well be reading a book. In fact, I was looking for a movie to see over the weekend, and I didn't even want to consider Parasites because I knew the majority of my time would be spent focused on the tiny text at the bottom of the screen. How is that fun?

 

That’s the problem with this game. It’s too fast-paced to keep your eyes anywhere but on the indicator. In theory, I guess you COULD watch the animations and quickly try to reason out which way you’re supposed to move your character or when to swing your sword, but I feel the delay would have to be about half a second longer. Just try to imagine the most unforgiving QTE you’ve ever seen. That’s Dragon’s Lair. And it was purposefully designed that way to force you to memorize every sequence…which, of course, meant spending your entire allowance on retries. But once you knew what buttons to press and when, you could basically beat it every time, making you the coolest nerd in the arcade. And isn't that every kid's dream?

 

Well, get ready to relive those days all over again, because this port brings absolutely nothing new to the formula. You do have a few gameplay options that I don’t think were available in the arcade version (like whether you want to hear beeps or not), but you’re still going to burn through lives like a kid with matches. When I think of all the money I’ve wasted in arcades over the years…

 

Oh, but this is a trilogy, so you also get to play through Dragon’s Lair 2, which is a little more forgiving on the timing of individual button prompts...at the cost of the entire game being one long QTE (as opposed to a series of shorter, randomly-generated rooms). Good luck trying to follow that. I tried to pay attention to the flashing indicators on the screen, but how can you when there’s so much going on? And yes, I know you can just "watch" the game to see what happens, but then it’s not really a game, is it?

 

The third game is Space Ace, which is also a long QTE, but the checkpoints are more generous. I'd say it's probably the easiest of the three.

 

I don't really see a reason to recommend this game. Maybe if it becomes free on PS+, but I still think you're better off just watching the animations on YouTube or something. It'd be like me asking you to watch Game of Thrones, but then I sit down between you and the TV and make you play a game of checkers.

[AJ_Radio]

You’re trying to make it sound like Dragons Lair was heavily flawed compared to other arcade games. 

 

It was and still is unique, particularly in a time when arcade games were extremely difficult and were designed to take your quarters.

 

If I recall correctly you are a few years older than me @Cassylvania. I had very little exposure to arcade games as a kid. There was an old arcade spot in the shopping mall I used to go to back in the 1990s but it was already on its way out by the time I really got into gaming. 

 

Mortal Kombat and Virtua Fighter were probably the last great games to hit the arcades. After that the focus was more on console gaming as arcades were losing their appeal. Once the N64/PS1 generation came around there wasn’t any real purpose to really hit the arcades unless you were wanting to play some good old fashioned titles with your friends. 

 

You tried Dragons Lair, found it’s not your cup of tea, you beat the games and moved on. I’ve played the first game a few times in the past but never got anywhere close to beating it.

 

Probably going to skip on these games. I got too much shit on my backlog to take care of.

 

But at least you have a honest review on them. I always like reading your elaborate reviews.

[Cassylvania]

On 2/20/2020 at 9:52 PM, Spaz said:

If I recall correctly you are a few years older than me @Cassylvania. I had very little exposure to arcade games as a kid. There was an old arcade spot in the shopping mall I used to go to back in the 1990s but it was already on its way out by the time I really got into gaming.

 

I got a couple years on you, but I remember going to arcades until I was a teenager. I thought only rich people had consoles. I mean, I guess between me and my family, we eventually had every major Nintendo/Sony/Sega console, but I don't remember anybody having a very big video game collection. I think I had around a dozen games for the N64, which was a record at the time. Before that, if you wanted to play something new, you either went to the video store or an arcade.

 

Dragon's Lair wasn't the only flawed arcade machine, but it ate quarters faster than most. You were probably better off with the claw machine. ?

 

Well, as you guys can see, I jumped back into another Atelier game. That makes six within the past year. At this rate, I might actually be playing them faster than they can pump them out.

 

I'm also trying to get into this XFL thing. I missed the first week, but I watched one game last weekend (with the sound off and my attention elsewhere, admittedly), and it seemed OK. Got the Vipers and the Roughnecks on now. That's seriously their team names. Unfortunately, there are only eight teams and none of them are from around here, so I'm not really sure who to root for. But it won't be the Vipers. They look like a can of Sprite.

 

What do you guys got going on this weekend? Got any new games coming up that look good? I got my eye on Langrisser I & II, which reminds me of Fire Emblem. I'm just a little bummed out by the completion percentage on the Japanese version. It looks like an easy platinum.

[Rally-Vincent---]

4 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

Got any new games coming up that look good?

 

I wish... my next Plat is a milestone, but almost everything that could be it is way into 2020.

[Sword]

19 hours ago, Cassylvania said:

What do you guys got going on this weekend? Got any new games coming up that look good? I got my eye on Langrisser I & II, which reminds me of Fire Emblem. I'm just a little bummed out by the completion percentage on the Japanese version. It looks like an easy platinum.

Two weeks ago you guys were talking about Skyrim. It's currently the next game I'm going to plat... finally. Let me tell you this is not an easy road. I'm used to grinding games, playing long JRPG's and the like, but for some reason this game has never "clicked" fully with me. I've bought this game like 4-5 times now over the years and never even made it past the main game and defeated Alduin once. It's one of those games I pick up and put down so often I've never 100% it. I just don't like using mods or hacks in any of my games and I feel that's what most people use to make this game "good". The first couple dozen hours are pretty fun, but then it kind of just drags on for me after a certain point. More or less a rinse and repeat thing for hours and hours and hours on end. Finally got into the jist of things where I explore 5-6 locations a day and then just stop. Now that my map is being fleshed out more and I can fast travel places, I think I've made it over whatever hump was preventing me from 100% this game. Still though, the fact that there's an actual mod for a unofficial patch release to fix a bunch of crap Bethesda never would is beyond me. I'm extremely worried about the 15 Daedric Artifacts because if a bug or a glitch happens during them, I'm screwed on earning the trophy. The thing that really bugs me about this game, that really takes the immersion away: I'm supposed to be some mythical dragonborn, I do great feats of valor and the people still treat me as though literally nothing I do matters other than "oh snap you're a dragonborn haha nice". Whatever.  

 

So, that's my weekend. Roaming Skyrim, fighting really uninteresting dragon battles by standing in its face and pressing the attack button without moving. *shrug*. I'm hoarding ingrediants so I can abuse the alchemy/enchanting scheme to make some really ridiculous potions for smithing and enchanting OP gear. I haven't used it yet because I want to do the main story "legitimately"... but once I finish it, I'll have no quarrels abusing these mechanics to speed up the rest of this game. Working on finishing the Companions quest line, then going to do the Civil War questline for the first time in years of owning this game across multiple consoles. lol

 

For games coming up... I hate to sound like a broken record but I'm really looking forward to Final Fantasy 7 remake. The game came out a year after I was born, on a system I never got to play, so I've never played the original FF7. I know a lot of people are nostalgic about it and will analyze every inch of the game to make a judgement call on it. For me though, it'll be my first ride through FF7. I've never bothered to learn the story or the characters, which is funny due to how cult culture the game seemed to be. Makes it all the more fun to come into it knowing absolutely nothing beyond some of the characters names. I really hope it's a great game and not just milking the fans for money, because I actually want to enjoy it. I really hope the trophy list that comes with the game is worthwhile. Maybe a little grind here or there, but nothing too ridiculous. Crossing my fingers.

 

Another game on my radar (not immediately coming up though) is Tales of Arise and its my personal game I'm most excited for in 2020. Extreme fan of the series over the years, despite the fact it's never really stuck with most people. It's nothing too special or ground breaking (series wise). Typical JRPG stuff... but it was one of the first series I ever played with Tales of Symphonia being my first entry in the series back on the Gamecube. Unfortunately I'd never got to own my own PlayStation back then so I missed out on a lot of the intermediate series titles, like Abyss or Xillia. I've had to live those series through watching playthroughs of other people doing it. Now that I do own a PlayStation though, I'll never have to miss a title again. Lol. The next game is finally getting a much needed engine upgrade (looks gorgeous) and their mantra seems to be blending the old and introducing the new. Most of the "Tales" formula has been pretty much the same over the years. Their attitude towards not being afraid to introduce new things gives me hope that the game will both look gorgeous, function well and introduce some new things to the series. It'll be a platinum I'll proudly wear on my profile for years to come... if the game is good. If it's Zesteria levels of bad though, I think my heart would break. I have Beseria, Vesperia and Zesteria in physical form boxes but I haven't played them yet because I don't want to be in the middle of one of them when Arise releases. I'll be swapping over to it INSTANTLY. Lol.  

Edited February 23, 2020 by SanctifiedSword

[Cassylvania]

15 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said:

I wish... my next Plat is a milestone, but almost everything that could be it is way into 2020.

 

#100 is a big one. Why not use Erica? I hear it's a good game.

 

32 minutes ago, SanctifiedSword said:

The thing that really bugs me about this game, that really takes the immersion away: I'm supposed to be some mythical dragonborn, I do great feats of valor and the people still treat me as though literally nothing I do matters other than "oh snap you're a dragonborn haha nice". Whatever.

 

Your thoughts on Skyrim echo my own. But even though I don't think it's a good game, I had fun with it. What you might try doing is a little trick I learned from playing Kingdoms of Amalur: if you're not enjoying the game, try skipping through all the dialogue and inserting your own story instead. It's amazing how your opinion can change once you stop trying to force yourself to care. With KoA, I was about halfway through the game when I accidentally skipped some dialogue and decided not to reload my save to read it. (An OCD problem I still have to this day.) One of the ways I used to overcome that problem is to subject myself to more of the same, so I started skipping other lines of text here and there until I wasn't reading anything at all. My enjoyment grew exponentially. And it wasn't because I was playing less of the game -- it was because I had isolated the part of the game that was really good, which was the combat, and focused only on that. I've heard other people say similar things about Dragon's Dogma and Dragon Age, but I enjoyed the story in both of those games.

 

A good litmus test is to ask yourself, "Would I care if this NPC died right now?" If your answer is no to the majority of the characters in the game, then the writers probably did a terrible job with storytelling. That's where Skyrim falls apart for me. Even if you can get over the illusion of choice the game has when it comes to "being whatever you want," I never once found myself interested in any character in that world, except for maybe Cicero and Nazeem (and for all the wrong reasons). That's why I would randomly go on killing sprees and then reload my save. Yes, I'm glad the game allowed me to do that, but it made me realize I was getting more enjoyment out of breaking the story the writers had created than getting immersed in the plot. Compare that to -- yeah, I'm going to say it -- Dark Souls, where failing to save Solaire leaves a pit in my stomach. Heck, they had perfected that in Demon's Souls. I know I've said this before, but my favorite battle in that game (maybe ANY game) is Maiden Astraea. When you walk into that fight and she's all, "This is a sanctuary for the lost and wretched. There is nothing here for you to pillage or plunder. Please, leave quietly"... I still get chills. Those games are on a completely different level of storytelling when it comes to Bethesda.

 

As for Final Fantasy... You know, I've only played two games in that series: the less popular Tactics game (FFTA) and World of Final Fantasy, which is probably just as bad as me only playing Far Cry Primal in the Far Cry series. I kinda would like FF7 to be my first real introduction too. That was the one everybody used to talk about when I was a kid. I know a little about the characters and the story, but not enough for anything to be ruined. Whether or not I get to it this year is sorta up in the air. I also really like JRPGs, but they can be extremely time-consuming.

 

The Tales games are interesting. They're actually a big reason why I play Sony games, even though I don't have a single one on my account. A while back, I made a (very temporary) switch to Xbox, and I picked up Tales of Vesperia because I heard it was one of the best JRPGs on the console. Playing through it made me want to go back to PlayStation because I realized how much I loved the genre, and Xbox is sorely lacking in that area. If I ever have the time, I'll probably play another Tales game. You guys will have to tell me which one to start with.