The Endless Backlog and Trophy Checklist of Arctic Cress

[Arctic Cress]

Like I said 12 days ago, I got a new platinum. Also a trophy milestone as I hit trophy #6,000.

 

#82 Life is Strange: Before the Storm

Even with the voice actor changes (it's not really a big deal overall), it's still an enjoyable adventure through Arcadia Bay that showcases the beginning of the relationship between Chloe Price and Rachel Amber, which is only referenced in the original game. Unfortunately it doesn't do much other than that and I was hoping to find out more about Rachel leading up to more of the events that Chloe talks about in the first game, but it doesn't go that far. Still, I highly recommend it if you liked the first game at all.

 

Also, I finished more 8floor games that I started during THL. Only five left before they're all 100%.

 

Mahjong Gold (+2, 12/12)

Pirate Solitaire (+5, 12/12)

 

Other than the above, I did in fact beat Yakuza Kiwami, and really haven't been doing anything else. Been kinda stuck in a gaming rut overall. Hopefully starting up another game can help with that, it usually does.

 

Day D Tower Rush (+3, 11/12)

Gem Legends (+1, 8/12)

Mahjong World Contest (+2, 11/13)

Medieval Defenders (+3, 7/12)

Royal Defense (+1, 8/12)

Yakuza Kiwami (+9, 25/55)

 

On 1/10/2018 at 10:44 PM, StingX2 said:

Arti get an avatar my friend

 

nah

[Arctic Cress]

#83 My Name is Mayo

 

Whatever. I'll be honest and say I did it for the Sony Rewards points.

 

Finished one more 8floor game to finish up all the ones I feel like completing now.

 

Mahjong World Contest (+2, 13/13)

 

Started a few games - God Wars: Future Past reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics in its gameplay, and Night in the Woods was an interesting surprise (that many people have been telling me to play). Started Saints Row: The Third for the online trophy, and we found out that it actually didn't affect anything but whatever. I also finally got the Gems of War trophy that has been in the works for five months, but there's still more DLC trophies added since so I'm still not done, unfortunately. Beat Hue and all that's left are the beakers. I will get that done soon. For Yakuza Kiwami I'm working through Haruka's requests and made it all the way up to SSS, but hit a roadblock in billiards.

 

Atelier Shallie Plus: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (+4, 18/39)

Gem Legends (+2, 9/12)

Gems of War (+2, 40/41)

God Wars: Future Past (New, +7, 7/32)

Hue (+6, 11/12)

Medieval Defenders (+1, 8/12)

Night in the Woods (New, +15, 15/32)

Saints Row: The Third (New, +3, 3/81)

Yakuza Kiwami (+4, 29/55)

 

[Arctic Cress]

Oh right, this topic exists. Been almost two months without another platinum to add to the pile.

 

Well, that ended on Sunday.

 

#84 Persona 5

Pretty cool platinum image. Perfect for what I think is the game of the year for 2017.

 

Most completed games here were from the event over at TrueTrophies where I now have a medal stuck on my homepage for playing a bunch of Arcade Archives games. What an amazing accomplishment. Hue, at least, is a game that was a very interesting puzzler that has a few problems (like the last puzzle glitching on me once) but the overall game was enjoyable.

 

Arcade Archives: Bomb Jack (New, +9, 9/9)

Arcade Archives: Double Dragon (New, +9, 9/9)

Arcade Archives: Shanghai III (New, +9, 9/9)

Arcade Archives: Super Dodge Ball (New, +9, 9/9)
Hue (+1, 12/12)

 

There's a ton of trophy updates thanks to KYC and other events. I'm not going to go over any of these too much.

 

Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey (+2, 5/45)

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory (New, +11, 11/46)

DJMAX Respect (New, +8, 8/42)

Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & The Monster Seal (+2, 26/31)

Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky (New, +2, 2/45)

Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star (+2, 35/53)

Gal*Gun: Double Peace (+1, 12/39)

Gravity Rush 2 (+8, 15/48)

Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational [PS3] (+1, 4/38)

Medieval Defenders (+2, 10/12)

MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death (New, +2, 2/37)

New Little King's Story (New, +6, 6/50)

No Man's Sky (+2, 25/28)

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 (+1, 9/19)

Psycho-Pass Mandatory Happiness (New, +18, 18/36)

Royal Defense (+2, 10/12)

Saints Row: The Third (+2, 5/81)

Sky Force Anniversary (New, +2, 2/14)

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (+7, 15/36)

Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment (New, +1, 1/54)

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (+1, 16/47)

Yakuza Kiwami (+10, 39/55)

 

Perhaps the most surprising entry is still New Little King's Story after deleting and redownloading that game too many times. Turns out it ran like trash anyway, so it wasn't a very enjoyable purchase. Most of the KYC games weren't very good overall and I won't be going back to these anytime soon. Probably later this year when I need something to play.

I'll see what I'll play in the future after I finish Psycho-Pass. Some things on the list have been up there incomplete for far too long.

[Arctic Cress]

That's another one down.

 

#85 PSYCHO-PASS: Mandatory Happiness

No idea what I was getting into here since I had never heard of Psycho-Pass prior to playing this, so I knew nothing about the setting or characters - though now I'm pretty interested in watching the anime later on. The platinum is a pretty standard VN list of progressing down a number of routes, collecting all the true endings, and seeing all the CGs. It would be a lot better if a lot of the content was different, but it basically boils down to only a few scenes different in each route while the rest of the story stays relatively the same. It's still enjoyable to read through, but it does wear on you after a number of times going through the same events, which is why I took a few weeks between the two characters' routes. The last ending was a nice surprise though as it actually does something different with the story for one last twist, which is definitely welcome.

 

I did nothing else except starting MLB the Show 18, but I'm already behind in the season, whoops. At least I have a good portion of the trophies already.

 

MLB the Show 18 (New, +6, 6/29)

 

Time to start cleaning up this list. I'll figure out where to start tomorrow.

[Arctic Cress]

THL started a few days ago so it was time to actually do something. Tackled a game from my Spring Fling event list to finish it off.

 

#86 Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash

I do like the platinum image here, but the game is not good. Its gacha-based level up system creates a hassle in leveling up any of your skill cards, weapons, or characters, which is what makes the game fun in the first place. It takes way too long to get to a point where the game is actually fun to play. At least I have all the NA Senran Kagura platinums again (except Estival PS4, which I'm not going to buy the same game again) so that's something. Well, until the Burst PS4 remake comes out.

 

Not much else, as I'm concentrating on single games for the first time in practically forever. Just a few updates to two Vita games.

 

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory (+1, 12/46)

MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death (+1, 3/37)

 

Nothing that important, just progressing the story in both. Will continue these event lists to clear up more games on my profile in the next update.

[Arctic Cress]

The next platinum is a game I started for the Twelve Days of Christmas event over at TrueTrophies for the 9th challenge, and finally finished it over here for the Spring Backlog Challenge. It's just over the new limit for THL so it was the perfect time to go through it.

 

#87 Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (Vita)

I found the game to be a pretty solid platformer, all things considered. Initially, when I was playing through the first few levels I was not very interested in the game and did not play much of it for a long time. Once I unlocked more of Sly's abilities, though, I started to enjoy more of the game, just enjoying the exploration aspect and using the new abilities to their best advantage. The boss battles also improved the further I got in, except for Panda King who is probably the easiest of the five. Mz. Ruby's boss fight was probably my favorite because I do enjoy a rhythm base battle even in a platformer like this one. Only annoyance in the game were the two races, they took up more time on the two than any other level in the game, and I definitely wasn't a fan of the controls. I do not know when I will continue the series from here - I have not heard very positive things about the other games in the trilogy, plus I will need to clear more space on my Vita for them. Sly 1 is pretty small compared to the other two, and they all download separately unlike the Ratchet collection and the Jak collection.

 

That's my 4th platinum this month. I can probably get another one, too, but I also completed another 8floor tower defense and this one is probably the worst of the group. It deserves no explanation.

 

Day D Tower Rush (+1, 12/12)

 

Finally, some miscellaneous trophies in a few games. Also, Cosmic Star Heroine released on Vita this week, so I dove in and unlocked quite a few trophies to start off. Might use that as the 5th platinum this month!

 

Cosmic Star Heroine (New, +6, 6/34)

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory (+1, 13/46)

DJMAX Respect (+2, 10/66)

[Arctic Cress]

Did not manage to complete this game in April, but it becomes my first platinum trophy for May instead.

 

#88 Cosmic Star Heroine (Vita)

Pretty cool platinum displaying the logo of the game. This game is a nice throwback towards many 16-bit RPGs, you can see a bit of Chrono Trogger and Phantasy Star influences as you play through the game. I haven't played much of the Phantasy Star series myself, but I did enjoy Chrono Trigger back on the SNES so playing this game was a no-brainer. I contributed to its kickstarter a long time ago, got the PS4 version, and sat on it while I waited for the Vita version to release, which it finally did last week. I think it's the perfect game for the Vita and definitely doesn't overstay its welcome. The platinum also has you explore fully a few more areas than usual for sidequests and bonus bosses which can be quite challenging on higher difficulties (I played on the second highest difficulty except for the first battle). I also enjoyed the many references to Zeboyd Games' past titles, since I also played through Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World on my PC (and found them to be enjoyable as well).

 

No other big updates, as per the usual now. My completion % is slowly heading back up after KYC 6 destroyed it, which is always nice. I'm also unsure of what to work on for my next platinum but I'll figure something out.

 

DJMAX Respect (+1, 11/66)

MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death (+1, 4/37)

MLB the Show 18 (+6, 12/29)

 

I actually found the first challenging boss in MeiQ at the beginning of chapter 4... time to grind, I guess.

[Arctic Cress]

THL continues, and with it brings another platinum.

 

#89 Pic-a-Pix Color (Vita)

One of my favorite genres to play through in video games are definitely puzzle games, and Picross is one of my favorites in the genre. The best game so far I've found is Picross 3D: Round 2, which used a similar color mechanic (two colors, blue and orange) to form the shape. Here in Pic-a-Pix Color, multiple colors are used in each puzzle to form a 2D shape, and each color used is noted on the sides of the puzzle. The difference here is that while Picross 3D: Round 2 integrated it in a way that still made the puzzles challenging, Pic-a-Pix Color happens to make many of the puzzles easier. When there's only 5 lines that have a black color and you have a black 5 to place, it doesn't take much thought to place it down, for instance. Many colors can be eliminated this way in a lot of the puzzles, which diminishes the challenge a bit. Still, the game is pretty solid with 150 puzzles, giving one a good 10-12 hours of Picross to play through.

 

A lot of other games have been started for THL purposes (and this isn't all of them, but I'm not at home at the moment to sync the Vita). Here's a few of them so far, along with a few other games.

 

Devious Dungeon (New, +11, 11/24)

DJMAX Respect (+3, 14/66)

Mahjong (New, +1, 1/10)

MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies (New, +5, 5/36)

MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death (+1, 5/37)

 

Nothing too hard to complete overall, though.

[Arctic Cress]

It only took five years.

 

#90 Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory

I'm not really sure why this game took me five years to finish. I did get burned out for a while after trying to play through the entire trilogy within a few months, but I just... never went back to it after getting the Normal Ending. Not too bad of a game though it does require a lot of grinding for both the platinum and to progress in the game, but it all finally got finished. Will probably move on to the PS4 game now that this is finally finished.

 

No other completions, but here's the other half of the games that I started to beat MrUnknown in our THL match (which I did) so it was all worth it. Time to work on the completion % again.

 

Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey (+1, 6/45)

Broken Age (New, +2, 2/45)

Devious Dungeon (+7, 18/24)

MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies (+5, 10/36)

Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds (New, +15, 15/37)

XBlaze Code: Embryo (New, +4, 4/39)

 

MegaTagmension shouldn't take much time, neither should Broken Age (besides the speedrun, that might be difficult), Phantom Breaker is tough for me but I shouldn't have much of a problem if I keep leveling up. XBlaze is a visual novel and that's all that needs to be said about that. Should be some good stuff to play in the future months.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Arctic Cress
typo

[Arctic Cress]

And why just stop at one platinum today?

 

#91 Devious Dungeon (Vita)

Another short game that's perfect for the Vita, this is a nice indie dungeon crawler/action RPG hybrid. Only sixty-five levels of a randomly generated dungeon to go through, but it's perfect when you just need something simple to play. Platinum is very easy (just beat the game with a handful of random collection trophies mixed in), though I beat it too quickly and didn't get the amount of resurrections or keys needed for all of the collection trophies. A few more levels and deaths took care of that after beating the game and seeing the ending.

 

No other trophies besides these since the last platinum, but that should change for the next game!

[Arctic Cress]

It's deja vu all over again.

 

#92 Devious Dungeon (PS4)

Not as fun going through it again and I'm not a fan of playing it on the PS4 as opposed to the Vita. It's not the only game that I got through THL that has a separate PS4 platinum, and I'll get to the other one at some point as well.

 

Finished a good amount of 100% games instead during the month-long platinum break. One free game, one game I've played through twice before, one I started because of this year's THL and one of the annoying 8floor games I started. There's only two more unfinished 8floor games so I might be able to finish them all soon.

 

Machinarium (PS4) (New, +12, 12/12)

Mahjong (+9, 10/10)

Minefield (New, +11, 11/11)

Royal Defense (+2, 12/12)

 

Other than the two above, I didn't start any new games, instead making progress in the many games I still want to play through.

 

Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey (+5, 11/45)

Demon Gaze (+2, 9/41)

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory (+1, 14/46)

DJMAX Respect (+10, 24/66)

Gems of War (+4, 44/46)

Megadimension Neptunia VII (+3, 5/35)

MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies (+17, 27/36)

MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death (+1, 6/37)

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 (+1, 10/19)

Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds (+8, 23/37)

XBlaze Code: Embryo (+21, 25/39)

Yakuza Kiwami (+7, 46/55)

 

Working through the other games I started over the past few months, with big jumps in trophy counts for XBlaze, MegaTagmension, DJMAX and Phantom Breaker. I will probably get back to Demon Gaze when I finish the wave of other dungeon crawlers I've started. Gems of War... almost finished with all the DLC this game has thrown at me, but I know there's going to be more coming so I'm probably never done. MegaTagmension and Yakuza Kiwami (along with Gravity Rush 2 and Persona 4 Golden) are my choices for the Camp Wannalottaplat, so I'll be concentrating on those over the next few months.

[Arctic Cress]

Another Neptunia spinoff goes down as I continue to work through the games I started during THL.

 

#93 MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies

Here the platinum image is just... the same as the front cover of the game, with the background changed to make it look more peaceful. Not a bad choice.

It's definitely a lot more polished than its predecessor (Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed) was and it's a lot more enjoyable to play through than that game. The story is also a lot more enjoyable - the title makes it seems like a horror game but it's actually more of a comedy as the Neptunia characters stumble through making a zombie movie. It's nice to see a lot of the characters throughout the series actually appearing under one game even if it is a spinoff - Dengekiko, Famitsu, Plutia, Peashy, and Uzume are all playable in this. The platinum isn't difficult at all, either; there's no grinding out lily ranks like the trophy in Neptunia U, instead the only frustration might be from grinding out the treasures, since some bosses have a low drop rate on the items needed. It shouldn't take more than an extra few hours afterwards, though. Overall, it's a pretty enjoyable spinoff. I doubt we'll get anymore Vita Neptunia spinoffs anymore given the status of the system, but I still have two Re;Births to play through so there's still some Nep-Nep left for it.

 

Not much else since it's only been six days, I spent some time with Yakuza Kiwami and Gems of War trying to finish those up. Of course, Gems of War got another 3 DLC trophies since my last update in this topic, as usual.

 

Gems of War (+3, 47/49)

Yakuza Kiwami (+3, 49/55)

 

Finished up the substories in Kiwami and unlocked all of Kiryu's abilities, so the last things to do are to finish the completion list and Haruka's requests. I'm around 84% finished with the completion list with all the adventure stuff already completed. I'll be getting one more Gems of War trophy tomorrow once my invasion sigils reset but afterwards the only trophy left will be the level 500 one, and my character is still below level 300. It's still a long road up there, so I might just wait for more DLC to drop before I attempt that one.

[Arctic Cress]

I finally decided that I wasn't going back to Final Fantasy XV anytime soon and deleted it from my PS4's hard drive, freeing up a good amount of space. This gave me the hard drive space needed to get this platinum.

 

#94 Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone DX

I've already played through this game twice with its Japanese and English download copies, so there's not much else to be said here. The trophy list for this one though considers only the songs that were released as DLC originally since the original version had trophies regarding the rest of the songs. Since there were only 15 songs that needed to be played, this platinum did not take long at all. I think I had more problems navigating the menu and figuring out how to place stickers than actually playing the rhythm game.

 

Just a few small updates. As expected, I got the last Gems of War trophy I'm willing to get at this point and shelved it for the time being. Pushed Fate/extella up to an A rank by completing a few more sidestories. Started Tiles, which is a fun little puzzle game that has some interesting depth to it, and has the bonus of having user-created levels to keep the game fresh. There is the trophy on its list that has a 0.00% rarity here and I've already seen why given how the game plays. I'm not sure I'll be able to get that one myself, either, but I'll definitely try for it.

 

Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star (+2, 37/53)

Gems of War (+1, 48/49)

Tiles (New, +12, 12/19)

[Arctic Cress]

Getting swamped in new visual novels coming out. Time to start by finishing up this one.

 

#95 XBlaze Code: Embryo

They could at least have changed it to Congratulations instead, as is it just looks weird. Anyway, this isn't a very good visual novel. The main character is ridiculously annoying and makes some of the most bonehead decisions ever, and you aren't even given any choices to stop him from doing so. The game is supposed to be connected to BlazBlue's story but there is a very loose connection with Es' appearance and a few ancestors of some BlazBlue characters, but that's really it. The Grimoire in this game is apparently not even the same one that Ragna has, so I'm not sure what even is the point of this game even existing. Perhaps the sequel will shed a bit more light on this, but to be honest I'm not too excited about starting it after how lackluster this was. I'm getting closer to #100 anyway, and I have something special lined up for that.

 

Completed another 8floor game as well. There's only one unfinished 8floor game left on the account, but I'm content with leaving it there since it's well ahead all the other games they've made. Also, it's a pretty difficult completion compared to the others.

Medieval Defenders (+2, 12/12)

 

A few random updates to games. I finally got another trophy in Sonic Adventure 2 after letting it sit near the bottom of my trophy list for six years. I don't think I'm interested in collecting the emblems again after doing it on the GameCube, but I'll probably wrap up the story one last time. MLB the Show 18 confuses me since I got the call up to MLB in Road to the Show mid-season but the second cutscene didn't appear, so no trophy. I'll have to try it again. I got a few DJMAX trophies after finally figuring out some of the requirements, thanks to the nice guide that was published. Viewed the credits and picked up some DLC trophies. Somehow managed to have my first eagle in World Invitational PS3 to be a hole-in-one, which was weird. Starting to go through the trophies in that one. Finally, finished the Completion List in Yakuza Kiwami, which is a pretty massive achievement on its own, but there's still more to be done for the platinum. Going to work on that over the week.

 

DJMAX Respect (+4, 28/76)

Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational (+5, 9/38)

MLB the Show 18 (+8, 20/29)
Sonic Adventure 2 (+2, 4/15)

Yakuza Kiwami (+2, 51/55)

Edited July 9, 2018 by Arctic Cress

[Arctic Cress]

THL in full swing, so some duplicate games are going to come up here. Starting with this one.

 

#96 Pic-A-Pix Color (PS4)

I mean, the other version is still on this page, so I don't need to go through it again. It's picross, the colors make it easier, etc. Not too much to say about it again.

 

Started a new game, and continued a few as usual.

 

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory (+1, 15/46)
DJMAX Respect (+6, 34/76)

MUSYNX (New, +16, 16/27)

Persona 4 Golden (+2, 39/50)

Starwhal (+1, 17/23)

 

Yes, sixteen trophies. Completion took a hit because none of them are the five gold trophies so it's only 33%. Pretty much all of them are achieved through just playing repeatedly so they'll come as I continue through. I stalled out on Persona 4 Golden at some point a while back because I had played the PS2 version in the past and I wasn't too interested in going through again. I made it to the new content and finished the added dungeon in Golden, which had an interesting gimmick attached. Probably the best dungeon in the game, honestly. Got a few miscellaneous trophies in DJMAX Respect, mostly collection stuff (though I did finally clear 8-button Arcade). With that Starwhal trophy my entire rarest trophy box on my page is all Starwhal trophies. It's not that hard, though, especially if you have a turbo controller. I'll get through Hacker's Memory by the end of the year. Hopefully.

[Arctic Cress]

*dusts off old topic*

Didn't get back into the swing of things for a while even with THL, and now it's over for good. I took most of the month off from getting trophies but managed to get this before the end of the month.

 

#97 Word Search by POWGI (Vita)

He looks happy.

 

It's exactly as it says in its title: a word search game. 324 puzzles and really a good game to just relax and play through. Nothing special overall, but I enjoyed my time with it. Not sure if I'll play the PS4 version too since I used the touch screen for 100% of the words and it would seem odd to use a controller. A game like this was made for a touch screen like the 3DS and Vita have.

 

No other completions, but a lot of other trophies and games started even with taking a half month off. There's still another full month of trophies in there, though.

 

A Hat in Time (New, +7, 7/28)
Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (+3, 21/39)

Cosmic Star Heroine (PS4) (New, +15, 15/34)

Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (+2, 25/41)

Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Venus (New, +7, 7/50)

DJMAX Respect (+13, 47/76)

Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star (+8, 45/53)

Gravity Rush 2 (+2, 17/48)

Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational (PS3) (+4, 13/38)

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2: Sisters Generation (New, +11, 11/41)

Iron Sea Defenders (New, +4, 4/12)

MUSYNX (+8, 24/27)

Muv-Luv (New, +11, 11/16)

Royal Defense: Invisible Threat (New, +6, 6/12)
Sly 2: Band of Thieves (Vita) (New, +11, 11/36)

Squares (New, +13, 13/15)

Trackmania Turbo (New, +18, 18/49)

Yakuza Kiwami (+2, 53/55)

 

Muv-Luv is practically already my next platinum. I am halfway through Unlimited now and while Extra wasn't anything special, Unlimited has so far exceeded what I expected of it given what I've asked other people about it.

I got Yakuza Kiwami up to the point where I can repeatedly die on the car chase, most commonly to the stupid truck. It'll take a good number of tries to get past this one, I've already failed at least 10 times now (which still isn't as many tries as it took to get past that stupid billiards match for Haruka).

I've insulted 8floor quite a lot in this topic, and Iron Sea Defenders is just another lazy copy and paste job, but they actually put some thought into Royal Defense: Invisible Threat which kind of blindsided me when I started it. Everything is available to start and the game starts off by introducing a troop that's immune to the tower that breaks every other one of their games. Weird to see an actual challenge coming from one of these.

MUSYNX and DJMAX Respect were just waiting to get in sync with each other as I wanted to start the 6K part of MUSYNX once I finally finished pushing 4B to 70% in DJMAX Respect. Finally did that, so I'll be playing these as per usual.

I decided to go ahead and finish all the substories in Extella. Special shoutout to Medusa's substory, the ending is hilarious and needs to be seen if you like the franchise at all.

Most of the other trophy gains aren't as important. Some PS+ games, some platformers that I am still bad at, and no comment on DoAX3.

[Arctic Cress]

Anyway, like I said, my next platinum is

 

#98 Muv-Luv

You don't really get that clear of the emblem anywhere in the game, so it's nice to see it up close.

 

Muv-Luv Extra, the first half, is just not a really good game. It's a pretty basic dating sim and everyone is pretty much a walking stereotype of some anime cliche. Took me a good few weeks just to get through the first route and then another five to push through the rest despite skipping all the already-seen dialogue. Muv-Luv Unlimited, the second half, is much different and sacrifices most of the dating sim elements to actually craft a much better story and is more interesting overall. Most of the routes in Unlimited are exactly the same with only minor differences, but that's the trade off, I guess. I actually enjoyed this half of the story compared to Extra and went through the whole thing in a few days.

Obviously Unlimited left me with a lot more questions about what is going on, so I assume these will be answered once I read Alternative. Going to have to free some space on my Vita for this as it's well over 3 GB for Alternative while Muv-Luv is around 2.2 total. Though I kind of want to get my 100th platinum beforehand because I feel like when I start Alternative I'm not going to want to play anything else until I hit the ending there.

 

There's only one other trophy I got during this time, and it's an 8floor game so I'm not going to talk about it. Short update YEAH

 

Iron Sea Defenders (+1, 5/12)

[Arctic Cress]

In the end, I couldn't wait too much longer. My next platinum, naturally, is

 

#99 Muv-Luv Alternative

Good platinum image. You won't get it until you've read through the visual novel, though.

 

What more can be said about this visual novel that already hasn't been said? It's truly a work of art that takes all the events one experienced in both Muv-Luv Extra and Muv-Luv Unlimited and then repeatedly smacks you multiple times over the course of the second half of the story, with chapter 7 being the biggest emotional highlight and probably the best chapter overall. It's a shame that it requires another twenty-five hours in a much lesser visual novel to get the full effect here. Still, if you have the chance, I highly recommend it after you play through the original game. It's definitely one of the best visual novels I've ever read, up there with Steins;Gate, and it will definitely not disappoint.

 

I'm aware that the next platinum is #100 and I've already decided on what it will be. I will probably also line up trophy #7,000 with it for the double milestone.

 

Many of the trophy updates below are results of me trying to clean up some of the lower letter ranks I've collected along the way. I actually managed to finish a run of Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 and Gems of War got some new DLC that I've played a bit of, as well.

 

Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Venus (+6, 13/50)

Gems of War (+2, 50/54)

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2: Sisters Generation (+1, 12/41)

Iron Sea Defenders (+3, 8/12)

Sky Force Anniversary (+1, 3/14)

[Arctic Cress]

One hundred platinum trophies and seven thousand trophies overall.

 

#100 Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland

Pretty happy looking platinum image there.

 

It's been quite the journey to reach one hundred platinum trophies on PSN. I decided to make the milestone special by going back to where it all began with platinum #1 - the original Atelier Rorona. Almost seven years ago now at this point. Having completed many games even before I got a PlayStation 3 made it easy to start hunting platinum trophies when I finally did get one. I also lined up this trophy perfectly so it would also be my 7,000th trophy - a double milestone. I doubt I would have thought seven years ago that I would ever get close to this point - certainly since it took me almost two years to hit ten platinum trophies.

Replaying this again made me get hooked on Atelier games again. I can easily lose hours into any of the Ateliers from the PS3. Even with the many playthroughs I've played through Rorona already with the original and this game (I only did a second playthrough of this to get the platinum - the original playthrough of this Plus version was back in 2014) I still managed to get hooked and finally find ways to beat the superbosses required for this platinum. I also managed to have all the endings queued up at the end of the regular story, something I never managed to do with the original game. Now though, it's time to head towards two hundred platinum trophies, and hopefully it won't take seven years this time.

 

No other completions, but I did play a lot of games thanks to a spelling challenge on TrueTrophies. Finished it just before I got this milestone platinum.

 

428: Shibuya Scramble (New, +3, 3/27)

Cosmic Star Heroine (PS4) (+2, 17/34)

Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Venus (+3, 16/50)

Deemo: The Last Recital (+7, 17/19)

Final Fantasy XIII-2 (New, +3, 3/32)

Gems of War (+1, 51/54)

God Wars: Future Past (+2, 9/32)

Persona 4 Arena (+1, 35/51)

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (PS3) (+2, 45/56)

Saints Row: The Third (+1, 6/81)

Shenmue HD (New, +11, 11/29)

Sky Force Anniversary (+1, 4/14)

Super Stardust HD (+1, 12/17)

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA (+1, 4/51)

 

Obviously I think PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale will be in line for my next platinum, not by my own choice but due to the server closure it's best to get this done now. I'll start going for the online over the coming week. (I already have the ranked match, thankfully, heard there were some bugs with that.) One of the big gains on that list is Shenmue HD, which has a ton of early trophies that are easy to get. I still haven't gotten the first story-related trophy (and probably won't for another few trophies) because there is a lot to do in-game. The other is Deemo: The Last Recital, finally beating the game and its small side-scenario unlocked after beating the game. The last two trophies involve ad-hoc mode with another person who owns the game so I doubt I'll be getting either of those anytime soon, if ever. I'm liking 428: Shibuya Scramble so far, though I wish there was fast-forward to get through the parts I already read after I've unlocked a bad ending. So far, that's my only complaint.

[Arctic Cress]

It took a server closure to finally push me to finish this one off, and surprisingly it was much easier than I expected.

 

#101 PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (PS3)

If only the game were as polished as the platinum trophy looks. I don't know why I bothered to play through this game twice, because it's still not very fun. Anyway, it took only about a hour to finish the online with all the people trying to also get the online out of the way. Didn't even need to boost anything except Friendly Competition, as most people on my friends list have finished it and deleted it. Arcade is a waste of thirty minutes as always.

 

Just a few trophy updates, it hasn't even been a week since I got 100. Nothing special so far.

 

Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Venus (+1, 17/50)

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory (+4, 19/46)

Shenmue HD (+5, 16/29)

Edited October 15, 2018 by Arctic Cress

[Arctic Cress]

I underestimated the time I needed for this, but I still managed to get to the end of it.

 

#102 Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory

It's a shame they didn't change the trophy image, as it's the same as the first game's platinum. Well, whatever.

The game itself focuses on an alternative set of characters while elaborating more on some characters that didn't get as much screentime in the original game. I didn't find the overall storyline that exciting though and I think that's why it took me a while to push onward in this, while I beat the original in a much shorter timeframe. It's more of the sidequests that get more interesting as you complete them, which is also a similarity to the original. Speaking of the original game, both games have the exact same battle system with no differences that I noted (piercing skills have some defense now but it isn't a big issue). If you liked that game, you'll probably like this one! My main problem and why it took so long was the hacker's rank grind - I was Hacker Rank 13 when I restarted and had to play through two thirds of the game just to push it up to 20 for the trophy. Luckily with the Acceleration and High Security hacker skills to boost movement speed and eliminate random encounters made it not take more than 15 hours total, though it was still very annoying to go through everything again.

 

The other updates. Not much to say here, really:

 

Final Fantasy XIII-2 (+2, 5/32)

Gems of War (+1, 52/56)

Rocket League (+1, 71/88)

Rogue Legacy (+3, 12/30)

[Arctic Cress]

Lightwood Games continues to release games that I enjoy for the Vita, so here's another one.

 

#103 Word Sudoku by POWGI (Vita)

It's a collection of 240 Sudoku puzzles, unlike regular Sudoku it uses words instead of numbers (but you can switch it to numbers if you want) and each one of the 240 puzzles is based on a single word. For the platinum you only have to complete 50 of the 240 puzzles, but I did all 240 anyway because I enjoy Sudoku puzzles. There's not much to be said about this one otherwise, hopefully the next platinum is something to talk about more!

 

I joined KYC8 this time around, so I sacrificed any chance I would get to 80% completion to instead play more games that came out this year. As you can see, a lot of new games were started over the month, and there's still more to come!

 

DJMAX Respect (+1, 48/83)

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (New, +4, 4/59)

Dynasty Warriors 9 (New, +11, 11/44)

Gal*Gun 2 (New, +18, 18/37)

Shining Resonance Refrain (New, +10, 10/48)

SoulCalibur VI (New, +15, 15/49)

Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum Session! (New, +26, 26/43)

Yakuza Kiwami 2 (New, +6, 6/59)

[Arctic Cress]

As is evident by my profile, rhythm games are one of my favorite genres. Here's one that flew under the radar a bit this year.

 

#104: MUSYNX (Vita)

MUSYNX is a rhythm game by the Chinese developer I-Inferno, and is similar to the DJMAX series in which you have four or six lanes of notes moving towards the bottom of the screen in sync with the music. I've been playing a lot of DJMAX Respect over the year so it seemed like a good fit to start, though it took a while to complete because of a few annoying trophies. Overall, the game itself has some great tracks and is a lot of fun. I have a few complaints, though - the Vita version is very badly ported and has a tendency to crash often when loading things. That happened way too many times for my liking. The game also has a few tracks that have the speed of the notes switch randomly without warning during the song, which makes it annoying to full combo said tracks. So if you decide to pick it up, I recommend the PS4 version, unless you're going to stack the platinum, of course.

 

The other updates this time include the rest of KYC 8, as well as some miscellaneous stuff. I joined the TrueTrophies 12 Days of Christmas Challenge for the second year in a row so there's some tasks I need to complete for that as well.

 

Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (+3, 7/59)

DJMAX Respect (+1, 49/83)

Fill-A-Pix: Phil's Epic Adventure (Vita) (New, +20, 20/30)

Final Fantasy XV (+6, 60/91)

Gems of War (+1, 53/56)

Persona 4: Dancing All Night (PS4) (New, +14, 14/40)

SoulCalibur VI (+1, 16/49)

STAY (New, +5, 5/28)

Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum Session! (+1, 27/43)

Valkyria Chronicles 4 (New, +2, 2/36)

 

Nothing too big. Finishing up Comrades for FFXV before the server closure is the only thing I'm really concentrating on right now.

[Arctic Cress]

Second rhythm game for RHYTHM GAME MONTH.

 

#105 Taiko no Tatsujin: V Version

This is an interesting one because at the time I played through most of it, I wasn't sure I would be able to finish it. I was stuck with only seven Oni songs cleared and the trophy requires thirteen (actually twenty-five, but playing on Shin-Uchi mode allows you to make each song count twice). After playing the PS4 Taiko game I was able to clear this one off for good. I delayed it a bit to make it line up for the Vita Anniversary community event, coinciding with the Vita's anniversary in Japan on December 17th (though it was still December 16th in my time zone, it was the 17th in Japan). I really enjoyed the tracklist from this one, especially the Falcom songs and the varied Vocaloid tracks that didn't make it into future games. It seems when Sega made Project DIVA X they took all the Vocaloid tracks present here and put them in that game for some reason as well.

 

It's only been a week, but I got a ton of trophies, mostly in rhythm games. And finished up FFXV Comrades before the server closure, so that's a nice bonus.

 

Final Fantasy XV (+4, 64/91)

Gems of War (+2, 55/59)

THE iDOLM@STER MUST SONGS (New, +17, 17/40)

Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (New, +11, 11/42)

Persona 4: Dancing All Night [PS4] (+14, 28/40)

[Arctic Cress]

A little late on this update, but here's the 3rd rhythm game platinum of the month.

 

#106 Persona 4: Dancing All Night [PS4]

Since I already did it on the Vita it was a pretty simple task to finish that I fell asleep while playing at one point. The story is just very boring, but I love the music which is an important part for any rhythm game. Still, with Taiko, DJMAX, and Miku sporting 60+ tracks in their rhythm games compared to this game's small amount, it's definitely lacking overall. Getting the collection with the Amazon price error ($60 for all three) makes it somewhat worth the money at least, but that's not available for everyone. I think this should be picked up in a sale once one comes around.

 

Since I was late in updating this, I got some more trophies in the days after. Mostly going for the TT challenges and not doing much else.

 

Gal*Gun 2 (+8, 26/37)

Steins;Gate [PS3] (New, +6, 6/42)

XBlaze Lost: Memories (New, +21, 21/40)

Yakuza Kiwami 2 (+4, 10/59)

 

In hindsight, I really should have just played XBlaze Lost: Memories for both the PS+ challenge and the collectables challenge. Though it's probably the worst game I've played this year so who knows if I would have even bothered.