The Endless Backlog and Trophy Checklist of Arctic Cress

[Arctic Cress]

Here it is, a bit earlier than I anticipated.

 

#164 Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen

The last major Vita release here in 2020. Of course, since I decided to play this series in timeline order I still have the other two games to go through, but it's a nice game to end out the Vita's lifespan. The game has an amazing story, one of the best I've played through on the Vita so far. Glad I waited to start here with the series, and if the sequels are of the same quality I feel that I will have a great time with this series. The game's strategy RPG portion, however, is very bare-bones and lacks any challenge even on Hard difficulty - though the bonus battle that unlocks after collecting all items makes it a little better in that regard. There's nothing much else in regards to the platinum, it's a very easy one to finish up.

 

I saw two games get new DLCs to push my completion further down (and one of those bugged the entire game), but it's still heading up despite the games I started to win my THL match by .1 points. (Utawarerumono helped, of course, with its 18 trophies earned in this period.) The smallest margin possible - glad I actually came through there. Here's the list of trophy updates:

 

Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz (New, +5, 5/22)

Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories (+11, 19/43)

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (+3, 20/35)

Mahjong Carnival [PS4] (New, +2, 2/12)

Pic-a-Pix Pieces [PS4] (New, +12, 12/25)

Pix the Cat (+5, 6/11)

 

Of all the games I thought about playing, I didn't expect to pick up Pix the Cat five years later, improve my high score by 350,000 points and finally place on the daily online leaderboard (which is empty, obviously). Was a nice surprise to finally make some progress in that game!

[Arctic Cress]

The last of a short series that took way too long to actually finish up.

 

#165 Arcade Game Series: Dig Dug

The last of the Arcade Game Series platinum trophies. Finished up Galaga earlier this year and the two Pac-Man games in 2017. Honestly, not sure why I waited that long on this one - none of the trophies are particularly difficult and only two (Rambler - Dig 1,000 spaces in a single play through and Centurion - Kill 100 enemies in a single play through) will take time using the cloud save trick to finish.

 

Not much to say about this one, or the trophy updates since it's only been three days since the above platinum. Maybe next time!

 

Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories (+1, 20/43)

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (+1, 21/35)

[Arctic Cress]

August isn't over yet! Here's the fifth platinum of the month.

 

#166 Pic-a-Pix Pieces (PS4)

It's a stack, so no big write up. Played it basically for some quick trophies for THL and a number in the Gaming by Numbers event.

 

Along with the 13 trophies from that game, there's a few small trophy updates.

 

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland DX (+1, 41/54)

Chaos;Child (+11, 19/34)

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (+1, 22/35)

 

See you next platinum.

[Arctic Cress]

No surprise what the next platinum happened to be, but it feels like I should have finished it earlier!

 

#167 Chaos;Child

As Robotics;Notes and Robotics;Notes DaSH are coming over next month, I thought that it was a good time to finally finish this visual novel off. After the main route concluded, I was thinking the game was just good, not great. However, getting through the alternate side routes and true ending afterwards elevated this game to one of the better VNs I have read, and definitely the best one since finishing AI: The Somnium Files earlier this year. Some of the reveals from the other routes made the game more interesting, and the true ending definitely links it up with the other games in the series. I do wonder if I should watch Chaos;Head at some point as I think the ship has sailed on an English release of Chaos;Head Noah, though hopefully the fan translation comes for that one. Regardless, I think this has topped my list of visual novel series and hopefully will continue to do so with the next installments!

 

I basically went from the last platinum to this one, so there are no other trophy updates. Maybe next time!

[Arctic Cress]

I usually have a lot of positive things to say about many games I play - here though, this game was just average. Nothing special, but still worth talking about.

 

#168 Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz

The Jake Hunter series has had very weird releases in North America, and this game is no exception. It was essentially shadow dropped onto PSN and the eShop by Aksys last year with barely any announcement - I only found it by searching the latest releases on the store one day, and purchased it the first time it went on sale. The game itself is really nothing special. Most of the reveals are pretty easy to spot and there isn't anything too spectacular. The game also has many things that really show the developers were not from New York, including the Celsius temperature in a newspaper, the lack of subways in the city, and the map looking not like Manhattan at all (and one of the backgrounds was clearly from Queens). It's a completely average game, which is par for the course with most of the Jake Hunter releases overseas. Not a game I would recommend playing unless you really like the series overall.

 

As for other games I'm playing, I'm enjoying the Tony Hawk remaster a lot. Feels very similar to the original releases that I played back then. Trophy updates:

 

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (+1, 23/35)

Final Fantasy VII Remake (+4, 27/54)

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (New, +4, 4/38)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (New, +15, 15/37)

[Arctic Cress]

Been a while. Here's another completion up on the list.

 

#169 Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories

The game tries to hype up how it allows you to create your own experience after the earthquake, but that's pretty much a lie - the game itself is completely a straight linear experience with barely any significant choices until near the end. Any story from the game itself just seems disjointed as many parts are never referenced again, even in the epilogue where many loose ends are finished. The survival mechanics are basically just tacked on, and you can go throughout the whole game without actually eating, drinking, or using the bathroom and nothing bad will happen. I am not exactly sure who this game was trying to appeal to, but it certainly was not myself as there was very little to excite me here. At least the ending theme is very good, and some of the dialogue choices can be intentionally (or unintentionally) hilarious. This game was originally cancelled all the way back in 2011. Honestly, it probably should have stayed that way, as this game is an embarrassment charging full price for what it brings to the table and I do somewhat regret my purchase.

 

Anyway, enough of that game. I waited until I had the DLC in it done, which was OK overall. The mock fighting game was pretty funny at the end. Trophy updates are pretty numerous as I played a whole bunch of games since! Here's the list.

 

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland DX (+1, 42/54)

Block-a-Pix Deluxe [PS4] (+4, 36/56)

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (+3, 26/35)

One Piece: Unlimited World Red (+1, 11/57)

Plague Inc: Evolved (+7, 55/58)

Puyo Puyo Champions (New, +6, 6/45)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (+3, 18/37)

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (New, +9, 9/44)

Yakuza 3 Remastered (+3, 11/50)

[Arctic Cress]

I don't have much to say about this one, but here it is.

 

#170 Donut County

Pretty cool platinum image, though! Anyway, the basic gameplay is to drop stuff in holes for a couple hours and a platinum comes out. There's some minimal puzzle solving but nothing that would be difficult for anyone to solve. It's basically the definition of an average game, and because it's so short I advise picking it up in a sale if you're interested. Basically just played this for some quick trophies for the current TrueTrophies event Leap Frog - today and the previous two days.

 

Nothing big other than the above platinum, just some miscellaneous trophies for the same event.

 

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (+1, 5/38)

Puyo Puyo Champions (+12, 18/45)

Sakura Wars (+2, 10/45)

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (+2, 11/44)

[AJ_Radio]

Massive backlog. 
 

Tempted to get Tony Hawk, however the one trophy making it an ultra rare platinum seems to put off a lot of people from doing it.

[Arctic Cress]

On 9/26/2020 at 8:55 PM, Spaz said:

Massive backlog. 
 

Tempted to get Tony Hawk, however the one trophy making it an ultra rare platinum seems to put off a lot of people from doing it.

That really didn't matter to me, I enjoyed the original games so it was an easy purchase for me. I will probably not get the platinum myself, but it's fine.

[Arctic Cress]

Anyway, I got a platinum that I didn't expect I would be able to. Let's get to that one!

 

#171 Jack N' Jill DX

No, not that one. I don't think anyone on this website couldn't finish that game.

 

#172 Kill la Kill: IF

One of the oddest anime tie-ins, coming about five years after the anime's release. The game is a pretty basic arena fighter with two short story modes, which tells an alternate story to the actual anime, and a few challenges similar to Smash's Multi Man Melee modes. Since I watched the show way back when it was on Adult Swim, it was nice to have an English dub added to the game since I was more familiar with those overall. All in all, it was surprisingly enjoyable to see these characters again and I had a good time playing through it, for the most part (the versus match farming and the S-ranks were just annoying). As it spoils a good amount of plot points from the anime from throughout the entire series, it's recommended to watch that first (and why would you play this if you haven't anyway?)

 

Quite a few trophy updates otherwise, as the previous TrueTrophies event as well as the current one has kept the trophies coming in. Neither of these games above were even on the trophy list from the last update, even!

 

Block-a-Pix Deluxe [PS4] (+1, 37/56)

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (+3, 29/35)

Gems of War (+3, 69/87)

Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms (+3, 21/36)

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (+1, 31/51)

Mahjong Carnival [PS4] (+1, 3/12)

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (+3, 8/38)

Sakura Wars (+4, 14/45)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (+3, 21/37)

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (+2, 13/44)

 

Right now I'm focusing on raising my completion rate, so no new games after I added the two games I just completed. Hopefully I will keep that going for the time being.

[Arctic Cress]

The second half of a game from last year is finally finished up.

 

#173 Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms

The second half of the Hakuoki duo-logy on the Vita. Started this back on the previous year's TrueTrophies score challenge and finished it up during this year's one. As far as the game goes, the historical setting and characters do a good job of telling the story. Unfortunately the main character is a doormat and barely does anything in every single route of the game, a disappointment from what happens in the first half. For the platinum, it's a standard visual novel list having you see all the endings, see all the CGs, and unlock all the encyclopedia entries. Nothing too difficult, just a lot of time with thirteen routes to traverse through.

 

I also finished up Papers, Please on the Vita. I had already done the game on the PC so it was basically a replay, but I was surprised at how well they managed to get the game on the Vita even with the Vita's touch screen being unreliable at times. Still a pretty good game.

 

Papers, Please (New, +13, 13/13)

 

As the TrueTrophies challenges continue to come, so do the trophy updates. Some of the games I started I really didn't want to bother with much, but whatever. Here's the updates:

 

Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition (+1, 64/81)

DJMAX Respect (+4, 69/104)

Farming Simulator 19 (New, +7, 7/24)

Gems of War (+4, 73/87)

I am Setsuna (+2, 10/50)

Mahjong Carnival [PS4] (+6, 9/12)

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (+5, 13/38)

Punch Line (New, +19, 19/50)

Sakura Wars (+8, 22/45)

Song of Memories (New, +11, 11/37)

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (+3, 16/44)

Yakuza 3 Remastered (+2, 13/50)

 

Hakuoki itself got 15 trophies to make it a very even 100 trophies since the last platinum. Hopefully another game gets completed quicker next time.

[Arctic Cress]

After finishing that VN in the last post, I had also started two more VNs. So I obviously had my next game completed be a 3rd VN and not one of the two I started.

 

#174 WILL: A Wonderful World

An interesting visual novel where you play as a god that can change the storylines of humans and fix the mistakes they make to lead them towards a better ending. While I found the overarching plot to be somewhat lackluster with an ending I didn't really like, all of the individual storylines in the game were extremely interesting - and watching them continually fail by making dumb mistakes was pretty funny as well. I think this visual novel is worth reading because of the individual storylines and not the overarching plot. Also, while you might need a guide to finish the trophy list, it isn't required to get any of the endings - the entire game is basically trial and error and you'll find your way towards the end by just rearranging the stories until it works. Definitely worth a play if nothing else - though there are some extremely heavy themes and it's not for someone easily disturbed.

 

That's really it. I had to start it to clear a bonus in the current TrueTrophies event, and also some other games were updated to help with that as well:

 

Gems of War (+1, 74/87)

God Wars: Future Past (+1, 14/32)

Gravity Rush 2 (+3, 21/48)

Mahjong Carnival [PS4] (+1, 10/12)

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (+1, 17/44)

 

Now I should probably work on those other 2 VNs I started. Cleanup never ends.

[Grotz99]

On 10/28/2020 at 6:03 AM, Arctic Cress said:

After finishing that VN in the last post, I had also started two more VNs. So I obviously had my next game completed be a 3rd VN and not one of the two I started.

 

#174 WILL: A Wonderful World

An interesting visual novel where you play as a god that can change the storylines of humans and fix the mistakes they make to lead them towards a better ending. While I found the overarching plot to be somewhat lackluster with an ending I didn't really like, all of the individual storylines in the game were extremely interesting - and watching them continually fail by making dumb mistakes was pretty funny as well. I think this visual novel is worth reading because of the individual storylines and not the overarching plot. Also, while you might need a guide to finish the trophy list, it isn't required to get any of the endings - the entire game is basically trial and error and you'll find your way towards the end by just rearranging the stories until it works. Definitely worth a play if nothing else - though there are some extremely heavy themes and it's not for someone easily disturbed.

 

That's really it. I had to start it to clear a bonus in the current TrueTrophies event, and also some other games were updated to help with that as well:

 

Gems of War (+1, 74/87)

God Wars: Future Past (+1, 14/32)

Gravity Rush 2 (+3, 21/48)

Mahjong Carnival [PS4] (+1, 10/12)

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (+1, 17/44)

 

Now I should probably work on those other 2 VNs I started. Cleanup never ends.

I've gotten in VNs lately and this one has been on my wishlist for a while, I'll probably grab it once it's on sale. Currently, I'm playing through Danganronpa 2, as I just finished the first one a week ago. Looks like you've played all the VNs I've already played and I've been looking at getting 428: Shibuya Scramble and AI: The Somnium Files once they go on sale again. Are there any others you would recommend?

[Arctic Cress]

21 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

I've gotten in VNs lately and this one has been on my wishlist for a while, I'll probably grab it once it's on sale. Currently, I'm playing through Danganronpa 2, as I just finished the first one a week ago. Looks like you've played all the VNs I've already played and I've been looking at getting 428: Shibuya Scramble and AI: The Somnium Files once they go on sale again. Are there any others you would recommend?

 

Danganronpa 2 is great, I assume you'll want to continue the series with V3 when you finish that. UDG and the anime aren't required for the story in V3, so you can safely continue onto that one without any spoilers. I enjoyed V3's story a lot but the platinum is really ridiculous (especially compared to the other two games), so I haven't finished that one's trophy list.

 

You've already picked one of my favorite VNs in the ones you're buying on sale so I'll suggest another one - Steins;Gate is one of my favorites overall. It's available on PS4/PS3/Vita and if you like that one, there's plenty more in the series to check out as well.

[Grotz99]

8 hours ago, Arctic Cress said:

 

Danganronpa 2 is great, I assume you'll want to continue the series with V3 when you finish that. UDG and the anime aren't required for the story in V3, so you can safely continue onto that one without any spoilers. I enjoyed V3's story a lot but the platinum is really ridiculous (especially compared to the other two games), so I haven't finished that one's trophy list.

 

You've already picked one of my favorite VNs in the ones you're buying on sale so I'll suggest another one - Steins;Gate is one of my favorites overall. It's available on PS4/PS3/Vita and if you like that one, there's plenty more in the series to check out as well.

I have steins gate on my list as well but heard you need to watch some of the anime. Which one of those 2 is your favorite? They were both made by the group that did nonary games, which so far is my favorite series of vn. 

 

I have danganronpa 3 bought as well (bought during the threat of them leaving the store) and already look forward to that next after I platinum 1 and 2.

[Arctic Cress]

Anyway, another platinum. Insert your own joke about completing this game during an actual pandemic. I've heard quite a lot of them already.

 

#175 Plague Inc: Evolved

Definitely one of the hardest completions in a while - the platinum requires all official scenarios to be completed with 3 biohazards and all diseases on mega brutal difficulty. Also, with all the updates the game has gotten the platinum becomes harder as they add the new diseases and scenarios to the trophies to make them even more difficult. Both take some precise strategies to complete, and sometimes the RNG just goes against you and you fail anyways. The Mad Cow disease scenario being the most egregious example, as it took over 30 plays just to roll the ideal scenario and get the 65,000 points needed to get 3 biohazards on the easiest difficulty. Other than that, the platinum requires some various random events that require you starting from various countries to fulfill specific purposes. None of them are particularly difficult, but sometimes it takes a while for the event to pop up - or the cure happens before the event concludes. Regardless of how hard the platinum was though, it's still a fun strategy game to mess around in once in a while. Might play some of it later on the PC as it's much better with a mouse than a controller.

 

There was no break between the last platinum and this, but I got a few trophies after the platinum for a short update.

 

Song of Memories (+1, 12/37)

Sword & Fairy 6 (+1, 9/46)

Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (+2, 19/44)

 

That's it for now! Maybe a VN completion next.

[Arctic Cress]

One more platinum for the pile... or many?

 

#176 Punch Line

I will admit that I bought this mainly because Kotaro Uchikoshi is the writer and I pretty much buy anything that he writes these days, with some of my favorite visual novels from that batch. However, even he can have a dud sometimes. While this game definitely has the twists that Uchikoshi loves writing in to his visual novels, I think this game suffered from being a visual novel adaptation of an anime series rather than the usual of being the other way around. The main puzzles that are in this title are only present in less than half of the episodes and are very front loaded, so the game turns into a straight visual novel for over half the game - I get that they couldn't change the storyline too much as the story was already set, but it makes it feel like a mess when reading through it. Despite all this, I still found it to be worth a read if you like Uchikoshi's works - just not on par with a lot of his other visual novels.

 

As you might notice when looking at my profile, there's a lot of Ratalaika platinums that I just received from doing a team-based TrueTrophies challenge. These won't get write-ups or pictures here, I'm just going to list them outright.

 

#177 Jack N' Jill DX (PS4)

#178 Super Destronaut DX (PS4)

#179 Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet (PS4)

#180 Blind Men (PS4)

#181 Metagal (PS4)

#182 Super Destronaut DX (Vita)

#183 Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet (Vita)

#184 Blind Men (Vita)

#185 Metagal (Vita)

 

36 Fragments of Midnight (PS4) (New, +6, 6/12)

Inksplosion (PS4) (New, +3, 3/14)

Mekabolt (PS4) (New, +3, 3/15)

 

And there might be more coming, as I didn't finish them all... eh. Back to other games, which includes a new KYC game and some other updates:

 

Atelier Rorona DX: The Alchemist of Arland (+1, 43/54)

Grand Kingdom (+1, 26/46)

Puyo Puyo Champions (+5, 23/45)

Robotics;Notes Elite (New, +10, 10/50)

 

Hopefully we don't get another challenge that requires something this annoying.

[Arctic Cress]

Added 2 more easy platinums.

 

#186 Mekabolt (PS4) as with the other Ratalaikas won't get a writeup. It's just another indie puzzle platformer that isn't very good. However, I will do a writeup for

 

#187 Wordsweeper by POWGI

Definitely one of the better POWGI games and one I enjoyed playing to 100%. It's sort of a cross between a crossword puzzle and minesweeper in that each black square has the letters for all of the squares next to it, and you have to use those to fill in the grid completely. My only complaint is the weird difficulty selection - some Hard puzzles were ridiculously easy, even compared to some of the Easy and Medium puzzles. It just seemed odd to get to the later puzzles and still get a layout that I easily finished under one minute.

 

I also finished one game to 100% with no platinum:

Mahjong Carnival [PS4] (+2, 12/12)

 

Terrible controls on the PS4 compared to the version on the Vita, but it's to be expected with the PS4's lack of a touch screen.

 

Trophy updates:

 

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (New, +14, 14/56)

Apex Legends (+1, 10/12)

Black Desert Online (New, +2, 2/20)

Crypt of the NecroDancer (+2, 7/42)

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (New, +4, 4/42)

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout (+1, 30/35)

I am Setsuna (+4, 14/50)

Inksplosion (+7, 10/14)

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (+2, 33/51)

Puyo Puyo Champions (+3, 26/45)

Robotics;Notes Elite (+5, 15/50)

Rocket League (+4, 76/88)

SoulCalibur VI (+20, 38/49)

 

A lot of new games and significant progress, especially from SoulCalibur VI where I came back and basically played the entire story mode. Reminds me of SoulCalibur II's Weapon Master mode, a bit.

[Arctic Cress]

Another Ratalaika finished, but it requires going through the entire game so I'll give it a good writeup here. Also, a rare fighting game platinum from me.

 

#188 Inksplosion

Boy is this game really terrible. I normally have decent skill at two stick shooter games but this one took a while - mainly because of the switching gun mechanic where it gives you a random gun for every round. Most of the guns are efficient but the rocket gun is a complete useless piece of garbage when you get it. The colors in the game, which is one of its features, also makes it very difficult to see the enemies' bullets, especially the really small ones. Thankfully because it is a Ratalaika it is over pretty quickly even after doing a bit on each mode - PS4 tracked my time as just over an hour, which seems correct.

 

#189 SoulCalibur VI

SoulCalibur VI rewinds the story back to the events of the original SoulCalibur and presents a whole new bunch of storylines from many characters. The platinum requires viewing the entire storyline of both the 20 original characters and Libra of Soul, which is similar to SCII's Weapon Master mode with a created character and a visual novel-based storyline. Most of the trophy list requires a number of tasks to be completed in Libra of Soul, such as completing Geralt's sidequest line, collecting 100 weapons, raising all towns to level 4, among others. As I said in the previous post, the Libra of Soul mode reminds me a lot of SCII's Weapon Master mode, which is another one of my few fighting game platinum trophies. I had stopped at 18/49 trophies a year or two ago - TrueTrophies had a bonus in their GTTSC challenge for 20 fighting trophies in a week and this game was practically the only choice I had besides some random trophies in the P4 Arenas. After those, the only trophies left were in Libra of Soul or online - one of my friends and I decided to play at 3 AM EST when no one was online and matched up easily to trade wins for those.

 

It's only been a week, and I got no trophies last night, so there isn't much else to update. I did manage some interesting trophies though, including a Tricky Towers one that has eluded me for some time.

 

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (+1, 5/42)

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (+5, 38/51)

Tricky Towers (+1, 20/30)

Edited November 24, 2020 by Arctic Cress

[Arctic Cress]

This one took way longer than I was ever expecting it to, considering how much I liked previous games in the series. But better late than never!

 

#190 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

Put this down way back in 2016 for really no reason at all while the other games in the series kept getting released and I just never tried to catch up. Finally beat the game earlier this year, and finished my NG+ Nightmare run today to finish off the platinum. After finishing Sky FC and SC years ago, I expected this to be more of a world building title to introduce ourselves (and the characters in the game as well) to Erebonia, which is exactly what this was. While I still found it mostly interesting throughout the game, it's obvious that there's a lot more here to set up future titles, which is what I'll find out shortly since I've already linked my save to CSII and started that game. The platinum, like every Trails game, is filled with missable trophies and almost assuredly requires a guide to collect everything, most notably character notes, books, and hidden quests. Also to note is the bonding trophies from each character - I managed four on the initial playthrough and set it up to have the other eight choices ready to go at the end of the NG+ run.

 

Another TrueTrophies challenge has setup my trophy log to look like a ridiculous mess as it was a spelling bonus challenge with the first letter of earned trophies. Managed to finish it off before working on finishing Cold Steel up, and then went right to it afterwards.

 

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (+1, 15/56)

36 Fragments of Midnight (+1, 7/12)

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland DX (+1, 44/54)

Deemo Reborn (+1, 42/46)

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (+2, 7/42)

Dynasty Warriors 9 (+1, 17/44)

I am Setsuna (+1, 15/50)

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (New, +1, 1/51)

Puyo Puyo Champions (+2, 28/45)

River City Girls (New, +1, 1/30)

Team Sonic Racing (+2, 29/52)

Terraria (+1, 6/39)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (+2, 23/37)

 

Many of these games only come out for these challenges now... helps to have a lot of unfinished games for them, I guess?

[Arctic Cress]

Been almost a month in the books since the last platinum, but here's an Ultra Rare platinum for the collection.

 

#191 Rocket Arena

This is some 3rd-person multiplayer shooting game that was given out for PS+ this month - not the best, but it was fun for some time. Though even with crossplay enabled almost everyone I saw was a PlayStation player so I'm not sure how well this game is actually doing. Trophies include getting one competitor to level 100, five of them to level 25, and then getting 100 KOs with the 10 starting characters. Takes around 25 hours to finish, though I made use of the two double XP weekends that happened since the game was given out to speed up the leveling.

 

I also completed a game on the Vita, and used a tip on TrueAchievements so I didn't need a chess engine for the gold trophy in it, which saved me a good amount of time. Also finished Death Come True on the PS4, which was an interesting but short adventure game.

 

Death Come True (+14, 14/14)

Pure Chess [Vita] (+4, 13/13)

 

Since the TrueTrophies event is still going on, there's been a long list of trophy updates, and here they all are:

 

Block-a-Pix Deluxe [PS4] (+7, 44/56)

Catherine (+2, 31/50)

Catherine: Full Body (New, +8, 8/56)

Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten (+1, 9/51)

Ghost of Tsushima (New, +2, 2/60)

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory (New, +40, 40/45)

Link-a-Pix Deluxe [Vita] (New, +12, 12/23)

Magical Beat (+14, 14/15)

Mahjong Gold [PS4] (New, +1, 1/12)

Puyo Puyo Champions (+3, 31/45)

River City Girls (+5, 6/30)

Rocket League (+1, 77/88)

Sakura Wars (+14, 36/45)

Samurai Warriors 4 (+1, 26/54)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (+1, 24/37)

 

Good chance that the next platinum is in this batch somewhere!

[Arctic Cress]

Another 2020 game to add to the collection!

 

#192 Sakura Wars

A surprisingly good game! I played the only other localized game in the series back on the Wii and was not a fan, so I was wary of this one and instead got it as a gift for my birthday. The musou-like battles are definitely not as appealing as the strategy RPG ones in the other games, but they definitely go by much faster - which has its advantages, as the character development and story is the main focus of the game. Unfortunately for the platinum you have to clear every story battle with every character, but that still doesn't take too long anyway. It's also important to keep a guide handy as each intermission has bromides that can be quite hidden without help (there is a way in-game for clues, but it's in a riddle for each intermission) plus many trophies require relationship points with all the characters as well as your party members. Overall, I still enjoyed going through the story - it was surprisingly good after I was disappointed with the other game in the series I played. I also enjoyed playing koi-koi for five hours or so - but that's a given, as I've enjoyed doing so in every Yakuza title to date.

 

I also got #193 Wordsweeper by POWGI [PS4] due to TrueTrophies events as usual, but I won't be writing anything in for that one, as I completed the Vita version up above.

 

Also completed Magical Beat, and by completing it I mean I pressed the L and R buttons a lot. I'm not sure how I would manage to beat the game otherwise - I only managed to get to the 5th enemy playing normally.

 

Magical Beat (+1, 15/15)

 

It's only been a week, but I still managed a lot of trophies, as you can see below.

 

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (+4, 19/56)

Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland DX (New, +3, 3/29)

Broken Age (+3, 7/45)

Farming Simulator 19 (+2, 9/24)

Gems of War (+1, 75/90)

Link-a-Pix Deluxe [Vita] (+4, 16/23)

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (+1, 14/38)

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 (New, +21, 21/43)

River City Girls (+5, 11/30)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (+2, 26/37)

[Arctic Cress]

Two platinums here, one being a leftover Ratalaika and one being a good rhythm game!

 

#194 36 Fragments of Midnight

This game is a perfect hour long game that really shouldn't have a platinum, but it's a decent game that takes a little bit of platformer skill to finish within the six minute time limit the game requires for the finish. I managed to finish in 5:30 on my first clear, so that was really all the game needed. Just needed to collect enough shards to die with which just padded out the game length. It's not a bad game, just really shouldn't have a platinum in the first place. It is weird though to see a Ratalaika platinum near 80% though, most of these are much higher!

 

#195 - Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

Taking the base game in Theatrhythm and turning it into a similar rhythm game for the Kingdom Hearts series makes for a very good game. Even me, whose Kingdom Hearts knowledge amounts to Kingdom Hearts I's plot up to Hollow Bastion and the Kingdom Hearts in a nutshell videos by Just A Pancake, found a lot to like from this game. Not a fan of Melody of Memory's accuracy-based score system, as it really cheapens the worth of a full chain overall and I found myself getting FCs with points below other runs where I didn't hit all the notes, but hit the ones I did with better accuracy. Overall though, this is an easy rhythm game especially compared to a lot of the titles I tend to play in this genre. The platinum requires a bit of a grind with its 100,000 enemies defeated trophy, but it's not much of a problem. Hope you like Xehanort's boss battle theme! (No, I don't plan on returning to Kingdom Hearts I HD's play through any time soon.)

 

Been over three weeks since a trophy update here, and I played a lot of random stuff to finish the 12 Days of Christmas trophy event on TrueTrophies to continue my streak of passing every challenge on that site. Here's the updates:

 

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (+5, 24/56)

Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed [PS3] (+1, 27/46)

Apex Legends (+1, 11/12)

Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland DX (+2, 5/29)

Beyond: Two Souls (+1, 7/46)

Block-a-Pix Deluxe [PS4] (+2, 46/56)

Catherine: Full Body (+7, 15/56)

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (+6, 13/42)

Dynasty Warriors 9 (+2, 19/44)

Gems of War (+1, 76/90)

Ghost of Tsushima (+3, 5/60)

Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match (+3, 18/37)

Grand Kingdom (+3, 29/46)

I am Setsuna (+12, 27/50)

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (+3, 4/51)

Level 22 (New, +9, 9/21)

Link-a-Pix Deluxe (+3, 19/23)

Mahjong Gold [PS4] (+1, 2/12)

One Piece: Unlimited World Red (+1, 12/57)

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (+2, 16/38)

Puyo Puyo Champions (+2, 33/45)

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 (+20, 41/43)

River City Girls (+1, 12/30)

School Girl/Zombie Hunter (New, +15, 15/41)

 

Slowly chipping away at that completion %. Can I get it to 75% before the next KYC starts? That's the goal for now!

[Arctic Cress]

The sequel to one of my rarest platinums is finished!

 

#196 Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 (PS4)

Everything about it is exactly like the first game, even the platinum trophy image is the same. The only difference is a new story mode that is somewhat frustrating at times. Other than that, there's basically nothing new if you already have the first game. Skill battles are pretty dumb. I don't really have much to say about this one.

 

It's only been four days since the KH platinum so there's not much else to update. Continuing to chip away at that completion %, up to 0.4%+ for the month.

 

Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey (+1, 17/45)

Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match (+1, 19/37)

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (+3, 14/51)

[Arctic Cress]

Definitely a personal 2020 game of the year candidate with this next platinum.

 

#197 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

I'll be back to update this writeup later, but know this - it's an excellent sci-fi plot mixed in with a decent real time strategy battle system. Definitely worth your time if you like either of those things. Natsuno is best girl.

 

There's only one other game that got trophies because I was concentrating on 13 Sentinels, so there's not much to cover. Maybe next time!

 

Black Desert Online (+2, 4/20)