Platinum difficulty, length, & number of playthroughs?

[mr2k_pdh]

Could someone who's gotten the platinum trophy, or is close to getting it, answer any of the following questions:

1. How difficult is the game to platinum?
2. How long does it take to platinum?
3. How many playthroughs does it take to platinum?

 

Thanks.

[rdhight]

From browsing the Steam guides, it looks both long and difficult.

 

Every level must be completed several times to complete mutually exclusive badges — speedrunning, hardcore, pacifist, using certain methods to kill your target, high stealth, etc. And a bunch of other one-off tasks.

[Leon Hasegawa]

On 9/17/2017 at 9:37 PM, mr2k_pdh said:

Could someone who's gotten the platinum trophy, or is close to getting it, answer any of the following questions:

1. How difficult is the game to platinum?
2. How long does it take to platinum?
3. How many playthroughs does it take to platinum?

 

Thanks.

 

I can't answer the first two questions since it depends on players' skill and opinion, but I think it's not so hard since you can spend a few hours in every mission to finish Hardcore mode and speed-run glitch works well. The game is hard because you use PS4 controller, if you use a mouse and keyboard like PC version, it should be easier. At least 2 runs (playthroughs) per mission to collect all badges (in-game achievement) due to badge conflict.

 

No missable trophy because of mission/stage selection.

There is a way (glitch) to manipulate in-game timer (clock) which makes the speed-run badge is a joke; however, you still need to complete the mission on Normal/Hard.

1. Start a mission
2. Create a manual save data at beginning of the mission (timer should be 1 or 2 seconds)
3. Play the mission until you almost reach the time limit
For example, the time limit is 15 minutes, just play the mission until you reach 14 min 30 sec or so, but do not reach 15 minutes.
4. Auto-save (or manual save) before reaching time limit such as 14 min 30 sec
5. Restart the mission
6. Load the first manual save data (1-2 seconds)
7. Load the latest save data (auto/manual save) then the timer should be 1 or 2 seconds. 

Repeat step 3 to 7 if the mission may take you 2-3 hours.

Note: All save data must be in same playthrough of the mission, otherwise it doesn't work. For example, you start a mission (Playthrough A) then create a manual save data A. For some reasons, you decide to restart the mission and continue to play it (Playthough B), then you create an auto/manual save data (Save B ) because you almost reach the time limit. But the timer won't reset if you restart the mission, load Save A, and then load the latest save (Save B ) because they are in different playthroughs.

 

You can check your progress by looking at the badge condition (if you already finish the mission once to make the list available). If speed-run badge condition is red, it means you accidentally pass the time limit. In this case, you need to do Step 5 and Step 6, then pick the save data which you haven't reach the time limit. After that you can repeat step 3 to 7 until you complete the mission.

In case you want to do legit speed-run playthrough; however, as you can see that the timer is still counted even you load a previous save data (such as 10 minutes ago). Just go back to the main menu or restart the mission, then load that previous save data, it should go back to the timer when you created this save data.

You should not try to unlock most of badge in one playthrough because it's almost impossible to get them all anyway because of badge condition conflicts. Play the mission at least twice in order to knock down some badges, or make separate save data to do the badges later because the badge looks like trophy, it won't disappear once you unlock it even you haven't completed the mission. Here are some useful links:

1. Badge recommendation for every mission
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHa...yxgBclQ/videos

2. Tips
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - Gameplay Tips and Tricks

3. Developers' location (you don't have to finish the mission in order to save your progression)
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun developer locations - Album on Imgur

4. Legit speed-run
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...Wi3gjoTWMjx4Tf

Since this person played the game on PC which is easier than console version because of control and camera, you can use it as reference such as strategy and route.

5. No kill/cheese playthrough (some missions)
https://www.youtube.com/user/panzerrunner/videos

6. Achievement guide (Release the Kraken achievement is not available for trophy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSaDG4eEC0M

Good Luck

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Leon Hasegawa

[mr2k_pdh]

2 hours ago, hasegawa2010 said:

Good Luck

 

 

Thanks for the help.

[Grondziu]

It's difficult to say how hard it is. Game itself is awesome, but to achieve some badges may be problematic. If you want to play the game by yourself, you'll probably play every mission twice or thrice and spend a few hours on each of them. But the game is brilliant, I hope this genre is going to be revived cause I really miss it.

[MrTacoNinja]

This game is sooooo frustrating... yet so goddamn addicting! No game has ever sunk its hooks into me like this one has.

[sephiroth4424]

Are the controls similar to Desperados 3? I really liked that game and want to try this one, but i want to play with the controller, not with keyboard or mouse

[realm722]

On 9/17/2017 at 10:37 PM, mr2k_pdh said:

Could someone who's gotten the platinum trophy, or is close to getting it, answer any of the following questions:

1. How difficult is the game to platinum?
2. How long does it take to platinum?
3. How many playthroughs does it take to platinum?

Thanks.

 

I think @Leon Hasegawa covered everything but I figured I'd throw in my results as a modern-day player a good few years later.

 

How difficult is the game to platinum? I scored it a 5.1/10 difficulty. The game has a ridiculously generous quicksave system that makes it so you're able to perform trial-and-error again and again for however many attempts you need before accomplishing a task. Some of the challenges for the medals that the game throw at you is wild but with a handy guide upon replaying levels, nothing should prove too difficult for even average players. On the initial playthrough(blind run), you'll die/reload plenty but that's the fun of a tactic game such as this.

 

How long does it take to platinum? It took me 47 hours. There are a few qualifiers to that. 1) I did a blind run on all 13 levels. No looking at guides or anything. If you from the outset try to get medals and follow guides, I imagine you could cut that down to as 30 potentially albeit hampering a lot of the game's appeal and mystique. 2) For the remaining medals, I DID use guides as provided in the Trophy Guide. Without them, if you were trying to learn all the medals blindly, I imagine it could balloon into the 60-70 hour area. 

 

How many playthroughs does it to take to platinum? I personally played each level 3 times. 13 x 3 = 39. Of course, there was some minor clean-up for some miscellaneous trophies and killing the devs in each level but it took me under an hour to do that. I would recommend saving frequently in many different spots in each level to make the clean-up even faster. 39 plays for 13 levels sounds like a lot but while the first run may take you 2+ hours, speedrun trophies are frequently sub-20 min once you see the strategies out there. 

 

In case someone is reading this for the first time, Shadow Tactics is one of the best games I've played this year and I HIGHLY recommend it even if you're not familiar with the tactical genre. I wasn't either, and pretty much the only tactical experience I had before playing was The Banner Saga Trilogy (which I also love). 

[Grondziu]

On 29.11.2021 at 3:12 PM, sephiroth4424 said:

Are the controls similar to Desperados 3? I really liked that game and want to try this one, but i want to play with the controller, not with keyboard or mouse

 

Generally yes. I can't recall any major differences. It's the same publisher anyway. Both games are quite intuitive