Golem25's Trinket Cave

Golem25 · August 3, 2021

Update 23

Two days late because I had to move house and my broadband provider dragged their heels getting the internet hooked back up. Alas, here we are.

July's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #95 - Call of Juarez: The Cartel

Ace of Spades - Collect all other trophies.

37,058 Owners - 2,242 Achievers for a percentage of 6.05% (average completion; 26.69%)

Enjoyment; 6/10

Difficulty; 3/10 (that's with the invincibility glitch - possibly a 5 without)

Trophies; 4/10 (perfectly fine list brought down by forced co-op)

Fuck shit tits ass dicks balls; 10/10

Full review here

Just the one? Just the one, yep. I'm repeating myself now. The harvest has not been bountiful at all these past two months as unlocking Platinum Trophies took a backseat to milestones and the increasingly infamous 127-Trophies-a-month streak. Did I extend it last month? Well, let's have a look at the games I suggested on July 1st as my pool to take 127 from and see if my Trophy totals line up. Number of available Trophies in italics, number of Trophies that I ended up unlocking in bold;

Tropico 5 (64*) (64)
Hitman 2 (72) (50)
Yakuza 0 (1 or 2) (1)
Grand Theft Auto V (9) (9)
Call of Juarez: The Cartel (3) (3)

That adds up to 127, so the streak has now gone on for eleven straight months - August will be the big anniversary! I am still intent on not continuing it past December, and I'm pretty sure this is a Playstation record now anyway (do prove me wrong if you know more than I do).

July's lone Plat was from the hilariously awful CoJ: The Cartel on PS3, which I had set up and mostly finished in June. Tropico 5 was my 'new' game of the month and played to full sinle player completion, which leaves just the 7 easy multiplayer-related Trophies. I still haven't resubbed to Plus because, let's face it, who would when the monthly selection is so incredibly poor, so that Platinum will have to wait until Sony finally includes a worthwhile game or two again. Once Tropico was done, I went back to Hitman 2 which I consider a bit of a cheater game/series. I have hundreds of hours sunk into the modern games on Steam, so getting the Trophies is quick and easy thanks to previous experience and some excellent savescumming tactics. I even had a session in the middle of the night where I popped over 20 Trophies in just under an hour.

I decided to use Hitman 2 because I needed to free time this month for my house move (I. Hate. Packing. And. Moving) and for Grand Theft Auto V. I had neglected the Heist Trophies that were added well after release (at a point where I had long shelved the game) and with Rockstar's announcement of PS3 server closure in December, I wanted to get the 100% ASAP. A combination of a boosting Discord (for the tougher heists) and randoms (farming Platinum awards) got me there well under the 20 or so hours the guide said I needed, so I'm quite happy to shelf the game once more. Forever, this time.

And in terms of Yakuza 0, I finally bested all the Climax Battles which were the last true obstacle standing between me and the Plat, and have already gotten through the hardest parts of the Legend playthrough in the final few days of July (I finished GTA ahead of schedule). Just need a few more hours to finish Legend, and then I will be playing the waiting game in terms of getting to 99 Plats; Yakuza 0 will be number 100, can't wait.

Statistics update;

I'm splitting the Statistics and Roadmap sections because this is my thread and I enjoy the arbitrary changes of format. But mostly because it makes sense to have them separately.

Let's see where I'm at on the leaderboard;

59,601st in the world overall (up from 60,468th, target; top 55,000)
928th domestically overall (up from 943rd, target; top 800)
87th domestically for Vita (no change, target; top 100)

Could have been worse, could have been better. Pleased to see no change on the Vita front (which is dormant for me now and will remain so for a while still), and marginal increases in the other departments. However, the fact that I can get 127 Trophies in a single month - which I think is a whole lot! - and only gain 15 places on the Dutch leaderboard is pretty insane. Because you're working with a smaller base of players, the distances from one position to the next get a lot longer (where even a single Bronze will jump you up multiple places on the World ranking) so I reckon I will be working towards that top 800 for a long while still. Getting more Platinums would help massively though, thanks to their recently increased value.

Now for a real big drop, let's check in with my rarity percentage; we finished June sitting on 35.46, which was a new record for me. I spoke of achieving my dream to reach a 34.XX value, and thanks to 120 of my 127 July Trophies being lower than my average, I've lobbed off over half a percent! That's ridiculous! 34.93! Making Don't miss the train my current mean Trophy. That's a change of .53 percent on a collection of nearly 5,500 Trophies! But I'm not complaining at all, I love it. I do like to believe that the rarity percentage is perhaps the best way on PSNP to measure the quality (subjective, of course) of a player's profile, so I am really proud to be sitting at such a low percentage, even if that number is partially built on former PS Plus titles that had their average rarity pulled down by hordes of normies. As you'll see from the roadmap, though, I reckon we'll hit a tidy new record this morning.

Since this is the Statistics section, I'd also like to point out that my efforts to balance my 'Trophies by time' graph has borne fruit this month.

For 21 out of the 24 hour slots in a day, I now have at least 100 Trophies unlocked. This... doesn't really mean anything, isn't worth anything, and is the result of me forcing myself to wake up in the middle of the night, but by jove does it somehow get the dopamine flowing in my brain. Just 4 AM, 5 AM, and 6 AM left - since I'm planning to move to a timezone ahead of my current one in by a few hours in the future, I'm sure those will be populated over time. Instead, I'll try and focus on 10 and 11 PM plus 12 and 1 AM. If you view my Statistics yourself and you are in a different timezone, the graph may look a little different (the month streak should be fine though, as I only ever start on the 2nd of each month and finish by the 29th).

Roadmap update;

And now for the roadmap update, we have a pool consisting of old and new games to choose the 127 from! Let's have a look at their titles and number of available Trophies;

Plague Inc: Evolved (58)
Hitman [2016] (69)
Persona 5 (3)
Hitman 2 (18*)
Hitman 2 - Additional Expansions (1*)
Yakuza 0 (1)

Funny this; Plague Inc - this month's new game for me - and Hitman [2016] have exactly 127 Trophies between themselves. However, I'm intent on cleaning up Hitman 2 and its Expansion to the point where both only have one Trophy left (hence the * for both those titles). I'm saving one final Trophy for each of them to nicely line up the whole Hitman trilogy later this year. I'll likely start Hitman 3 next month, and I'd like to have all five (H1, H2, H2ex, H3 (PS4), and H3 (PS5) ) in sequence on my profile, which can only be done if I 100% them one after another.

While much is in flux still due to the number of Trophies available being greater than my monthly quota, a few things are set in stone; Persona 5's Platinum will be my 5,500th milestone and Yakuza 0 will be my 127th Trophy of the month, as I expect to finish well ahead of August 31st leaving me ample time to finish up the Legend playthrough. I'm also keen to make sure that I 100% Plague Inc, so I should actually be able to unlock two Platinums this month. And because out of the available pool of 150 Trophies only 29 are above my average rarity, I'm expecting to go even deeper into the 34.XX territory this August. I've put off getting extra PS3 consoles off for now (I wanted to do Far Cry 2), as I just don't have the time to use them in conjunction with the streak.

One final, general note; I moved into my previous home on August 1st 2020, and vacated it on July 31st 2021. In that timespan, I unlocked 1463 Trophies (including 31 Plats and 63 Ultra Rares). One month of 66 Trophies (accidentally breaking a six month streak of 65 Trophies a month, perhaps a blessing in disguise) and eleven months of 127 Trophies. It all started with Serial Killer and ended with Anti-Survivalist. I'll miss that place, even if the new one is bigger, perhaps better, and in an attractive city.

The Trophy account for my new tenancy, another one year affair sadly due to work commitments, started last night with Not in the Guidebook, and I can't wait to see where it ends!

Edited August 3, 2021 by Golem25

Golem25 · September 1, 2021

Update 24

Can you believe it's already September? Time flies when you're stuck on a rock 6600ish miles from the rock you actually want to be on! Let's see what I got up to in August.

August's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #96 - Plague Inc: Evolved

Fully Evolved - Unlock all other Trophies

13,895 Owners - 1,057 Achievers for a percentage of 7.60% (average completion; 23.67%)

Enjoyment; 3/10 (7 w/o glitches)

Difficulty; 4/10

Trophies; 4/10 (heavy RNG)

EZ Neurax wins; 10/10

Full review here

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #97 - Persona 5

Legendary Phantom Thief - Earn all trophies.

209,098 Owners - 21,456 Achievers for a percentage of 10.26% (average completion; 39.73%)

Enjoyment; 8/10

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 7/10 (good mix of stuff)

Haru got too little screen time; 10/10

Full review here

Why yes, finally a double Platinum month after having just popped one each in June and July. Persona 5 was a game I had all but completed a good while ago, whilst Plague Inc was this month's 'new' title. I mentioned as much in last month's roadmap when discussing the 127 Trophy streak, so let's see if my expectations lined up with reality. The figure in (parentheses) are the number I had available per title while the number in (bold) is the actual number I unlocked.

Plague Inc: Evolved (58) (58)
Hitman [2016] (69) (47)
Persona 5 (3) (3)
Hitman 2 (18*) (18)
Hitman 2 - Additional Expansions (1*) (1)
Yakuza 0 (1) (0)

That's 127 alright! Which means the streak is now a full year old! ????????????

Unless anyone can prove otherwise, I consider this a (completely meaningless) world record. Took some ridiculous dedication and a whole big helping of OCD, but that plateau on the Monthly Activity graph is totally worth it. As said before, four more months of the streak to go until I lay it to rest. September and October will be doable, but I might struggle in November and especially December. We'll see how things go but I'm keen to be able to say I've kept the streak not just for 12+ months, but for an entire calendar year as well.

Putting future prospects aside for now, August was an enjoyable month; the first in my new home, with Plague Inc being the first Plat to be popped. A quick and relatively challenging little title, but unfortunately most of the frustration I had with it came from dumb Trophy requirements and - especially - the glitched save system. Because of that, I cannot possibly recommend it to anyone else. Persona 5 I only had to spend half an hour on, which admittedly was 25 minutes more than I expected. I had the Craftworker and Drink Fanatic Trophies left but as it turned out I was short on one type of material for the former. Had to grind it out in Mementos in the middle of the night to pop the Platinum as my 5,500th Trophy, which sadly isn't a milestone on PSNP.

The remainder of the Trophies for August I squeezed out of my leftovers from Hitman 2 and by starting up Hitman (2016) - essentially redoing all the DLC of 2 for the third time (having previously 100% it twice on Steam). Of course, this meant that I was able to quickly steamroll through everything the game had to offer, while also setting up the remaining Trophies to be quickly popped this month.

Statistics update;

As per usual, a new month means new places on the Leaderboards, so let's see how I'm getting along;

58,413th in the world overall (up from 59,601st, target; top 55,000)
908th domestically overall (up from 928th, target; top 800)
89th domestically for Vita (down from 87th, target; top 100)

I'm not worried about the overall world leaderboard as I continue to make steady progress, but to earn 127 Trophies (including two Plats) and only gain 20 places on the domestic ladder is disheartening. I'll need another 6 months at this rate to get into the top 800, realistically a fair few more as the higher you get, the bigger the gaps between ranked players becomes. And it looks like the inevitable Vita slide continues with two places dropped. To be fair, I am at peace with that - I more than reached my goal by going as high as 86th. I'm sure I'll pick the Vita up again though, perhaps even this month....?

I always value my average rarity stat the most out of everything on my profile. In June, I was sat on 35.46. In July, I smashed my goal of going into the 34 percent range by landing on 34.93 at the close of the month. And now, thanks to Plague Inc, Hitman, and the natural gradual drop in rarity from my already unlocked Trophies becoming less common, I am sat on a very handy 34.66. Again, I consider that very impressive - especially seeing as my goal is to just stay within the 34 percent range at the moment. Actually dropping into 33 would be really cool, but would it be worth it when this means I have to be ultra selective with the games I play? I don't think so. Nonetheless, I will enjoy the drop in rarity for as long as it lasts.

Roadmap update;

As for the roadmap update, I have some new titles to harvest my usual 127 Trophy quota from;

Hitman 3 for PS4 (82*)
Hitman (21*)
Jacob Jones & The Bigfoot Mystery (20)
LEGO Star Wars III (16)
Tropico 5 (8)
Yakuza 0 (1)

An eclectic mix to say the least. The * for the Hitman games denote the fact that I want to keep them as close to (but not at) 100% as possible. That way, I can 100% all five parts of the World of Assassination Trilogy (2016 - 2 - 2 ex - 3 PS4 - 3 PS5) in sequence one after another, which will look nice on my profile.

Now, my trouble is this; I have two guests from my extended family coming in from abroad to quarantaine in my home, and their presence will limit my playing time. For one because I can't just sit there and grind Trophies like a clown while they are there, and for two because I expect both to be playing the PS5 in my stead (but on a separate profile for sure). They will arrive on the 12th and stay for about twelve days (possibly more), so I'm facing a real challenge this month. I want to pop the 21 remaining Hitman Trophies in the next day or two, then run through Hitman 3 as quick as I can, and then see where that all leaves me. Ideally I will be at 103 when the boys arrive (damn, that's gonna be hard work), at which point I could just spend the hour or two needed on Jacob Jones to get me near 127.

The fact that my 100th Platinum milestone is still coming up also complicates matters. I want to pop the Hitmans (Hitmen?) in sequence, but neither can be my 100th as I am reserving Yakuza 0 for that. As such, I must either get not a single Platinum before I finish Hitman 3 (making the two versions of Hitman 3 my 98th and 99th Plats) or pop both Tropico and LEGO Star Wars so that Hitman 3 x2 become my 101st and 102nd. Does that sound confusing? Because even I'm getting confused now. I've been putting off LEGO Star Wars for ages because that game is just awful and need a boosting partner for Tropico so I'll have to see how things shape up.

I've also resubbed to Plus, by the by. I think Overcooked, which is rumoured to be the PS5 game, wouldn't be horrible but I will laugh and cry if Hitman 2 is one of the PS4 games. I have only nine PS4 titles on my profile - what are the odds one of them gets picked for Plus, right?! On the flipside, Hitman 2 being pushed onto normies like this will likely dunk its rarity even further down the toilet, which I obviously don't mind.

Whatever it will be, do enjoy your month, folks!

Heather342 · September 1, 2021

Congratulations on your recent platinums ?

It looks like those PS plus games are confirmed. If you need an extra player for Overcooked let me know. I love that game, it was my first PS5 platinum ?

Golem25 · October 1, 2021

Update 25 (my favourite number)

October! Good grief, where has the time gone?! September is fully behind us now, so it's time to for a quick retrospective before training our sights on the horizon once more.

September's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #98 - Tropico 5

Tropico 5 Platinum trophy - Collected all other Tropico 5 trophies

213,576 Owners - 4,703 Achievers for a percentage of 2.20% (average completion; 10.17%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 4/10

Trophies; 8/10 (beautiful tiles, good names and requirements, forced MP)

Glory of El Presidente; 10/10

Full review here

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #99 - Until Dawn

A Symphony of Horror Trophies - You collected all Gold, Silver and Bronze trophies in
Until Dawn

511,705 Owners - 90,147 Achievers for a percentage of 17.62% (average completion; 28.63%)

Enjoyment; 6/10

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 4/10 (repeated tiles, only 19 Trophies, but decent requirements)

Inches of snow; 10/10

Full review here

Two more Platinums for the hoard to take me to 99 in total. You know what that means.... next month will yield the big 100! Years in the making, and it's finally here. Exciting stuff, but let's look at last month's forecast and see where I got my monthly dose of 127 Trophies from. The figure in (parentheses) is the number I had available per title while the number in (bold) is the actual number I unlocked.

Hitman 3 for PS4 (82*) (80)
Hitman (21*) (20)
Jacob Jones & The Bigfoot Mystery (20) (0)
LEGO Star Wars III (16) (0)
Tropico 5 (8) (8)
Yakuza 0 (1) (0)
Until Dawn (19)

Yes, that last game there was this month's surprise package after I realized that - following Tropico 5 - I had 19 Trophies left to take me to 127. I preferably needed a Plat included and Until Dawn's list had exactly 19 trinkets on it, so it was effortlessly included into the rotation via the PS Plus Collection on PS5. I had great fun with it, as I did with all games I played this month. Mopping up in Hitman [2016], going through Hitman 3 (which was a slightly disappointing experience compared to the first two games), quickly boosting Tropico 5's multiplayer with @COME_AND_GET_ME7, and going far outside my comfort zone to play a horror game in the form of Until Dawn. The 127 streak is now 13 months old, three months to go until the end of the year.

Statistics update;

With a new page ripped out of the calendar, we also have new leaderboard placement - let's have a peek;

56,844th in the world overall (up from 58,413rd, target; top 55,000)
876th domestically overall (up from 908th, target; top 800)

As you can tell, I have taken out the PS Vita goal due to my continued inactivity on that front - the continued slide towards the exit from the top 100 is just too depressing when everyone passing me is just spamming Ratalaika games. Progress on the other two fronts is encouraging, however - my gain on the national ranking was over 150% bigger than the jump in August, while I jumped over a 1000 places on the world leaderboard. One would hope I can reach my target of 55,000 in November, but if not, at least cracking that number this calendar year still seems to be a sure thing if I can keep up my current pace.

As for average rarity, I finished August on 34.66. A month on, and I am at 34.47 - quite happy about that. Six new Ultra Rare Trophies were added thanks to Tropico 5, while Hitman [2016], Hitman 3 (PS4) and Until Dawn are all relatively rare lists which helped to bring the average down further still. Hitman 2's appearance on PS Plus has made its rarity fluctuate, which I suspect may have been a net negative on my march further down the scale, but in the long run it should have a positive effect - we all know the effect being given away with Plus has on games, even when their Trophies were rare to begin with as is the case with Hitman 2.

Roadmap update;

As for the roadmap update, October's 127 will come from a very select group of games;

Yakuza 0 (3)
Hitman 3 for PS4 (1)
Hitman 3 for PS5 (81)
Yakuza Kiwami (42)

This is going to be a very interesting month; Hitman 3 for PS5 will be entirely auto-popped based off the PS4 list, which will leave a whole lot of time for the remaining Trophies for the rest of the month. This affords me a unique opportunity to burn through a very long Platinum, which I am keen to spend on Yakuza Kiwami (about 80 hours according to the guide). I bought the game on release and kept it shrink-wrapped for this very moment, but as I emigrated in the meantime it was still in my home country. I had it sent over to my current location a week ago but it still hasn't arrived - starting to sweat it, really, I need that game here to make the most of the ample time this month will afford me.

Reason for Kiwami being chosen is A. because I really like Yakuza as most everyone knows by now and B. because my 6,000th Trophy is coming up in December and it'd be nice for that to be Yakuza 6's Plat. Of course, I don't want to play these games out of release order hence why Kiwami needs starting and finishing as soon as possible.

Other than that, not much to report currently. Having guests over for most of this month ended up being hardly a problem as I could neatly fit Hitman in before they came, and then wrapped up Tropico and Until Dawn during the short stretch of days where they were away. I added Overcooked to my library from Plus and expect to Plat it in November, but the new batch of games (Hell Let Loose, Mortal Kombat, and PGA 2K21) looks like a massive dud to me. Really, only the golf game might be given a go in 2022 once I'm done with my streak. For now though, let's get that big #100 popped! Finally!

Edited October 2, 2021 by Golem25

realm722 · October 1, 2021

I always know it's the start of a brand new month when I see an update by you :D. Congrats on the Tropico 5 and Until Dawn platinums! Tropico isn't a cakewalk and while its' plat rate is a bit inflated since it was available on PS+ I still feel like it would be < 8% even if it hadn't become widely available.

May I say that the plateau is coming along wonderfully - but I did want to ask you a question. Based on the fact that prior to this streak your max trophy popped in a month was 123, I don't imagine it's been too much of an issue but have you ever felt yourself "limited" or thinking "oh dang I wish I could play more but I don't want to pop any more trophies" due to the 127 trophy limit? OR is it the perfect amount to fit into your schedule that works for you? I ask since I have a general guideline of tryna complete 4 games a month, but if I complete a 5th I won't hold off until next month to complete it just because I wanna stick to that routine. Hope that made sense hah.

MD_91 · October 1, 2021

I've enjoyed reading through this thread over the last hour, the roadmap updates have made it easy to catch up on your progress over the last year (and your interesting ~~obsession~~ focus on stats)

Congrats on the incoming plat #100

Golem25 · October 2, 2021

13 hours ago, realm722 said:

I always know it's the start of a brand new month when I see an update by you :D. Congrats on the Tropico 5 and Until Dawn platinums! Tropico isn't a cakewalk and while its' plat rate is a bit inflated since it was available on PS+ I still feel like it would be < 8% even if it hadn't become widely available.

Who'd have thunk a guy as into statistics as me would post an update on the first of every month like clockwork! In the end Tropico was easier than I anticipated, but that's probably because I really committed to the learning curve and figuring out the game's economic systems. I 100% understand why so many people dropped it like a hot potato when it was on Plus, but sticking with it really is a rewarding experience. Have to say that the 8 to 9 percent range sounds believable, considering where the slightly harder Tropico 6 sits nowadays. I'd probably be down for it coming to Plus, but I can already hear the moans from the general public.

13 hours ago, realm722 said:

May I say that the plateau is coming along wonderfully - but I did want to ask you a question. Based on the fact that prior to this streak your max trophy popped in a month was 123, I don't imagine it's been too much of an issue but have you ever felt yourself "limited" or thinking "oh dang I wish I could play more but I don't want to pop any more trophies" due to the 127 trophy limit? OR is it the perfect amount to fit into your schedule that works for you? I ask since I have a general guideline of tryna complete 4 games a month, but if I complete a 5th I won't hold off until next month to complete it just because I wanna stick to that routine. Hope that made sense hah.

It's a bit month-by-month for me whether the streak is limiting or not. Whenever I start a month, I think 'Oh lord, 127 really is a lot' but then once I get to the magic number I usually have a good week left, which at that point is just a very welcome period of downtime from Trophy hunting to avoid getting burnt out. Very rarely do I wish I could play more as a result. When I had a 65-a-month streak going in the first half of 2020, that was when things felt really limited considering that's just one full list plus change. With 127, it's around two-and-a-half lists which seems to be my sweet spot - I have a very busy job on top of not being to play when my significant other is around, so I have way less time to invest than many others. Getting to the limit is always a massive relief.

14 hours ago, MD_91 said:

I've enjoyed reading through this thread over the last hour, the roadmap updates have made it easy to catch up on your progress over the last year (and your interesting ~~obsession~~ focus on stats)

Congrats on the incoming plat #100

Thank you, always surprising to see people who haven't previously been in the thread stop by. I must be doing something right - and different - among my cohorts. It has been two years since starting Yakuza 0 - and almost 13 since popping my first Trophy - so it's high time this milestone is reached.

Golem25 · November 1, 2021

Update 26

Like clockwork, the first of the month arrives.

October's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

P L A T I N U M # 1 0 0 ! ! !

Yakuza 0

Where It All Began - Obtain all other trophies.

88,969 Owners - 3,706 Achievers for a percentage of 4.16% (average completion; 30.09%)

Enjoyment; 10/10*

Difficulty; 8/10

Trophies; 10/10* (actual Trophies for tiles, great names and requirements)

Friday Nights spent playing this game; 10/10

Full review here

The hundo. The triple digits. The double zero. The big one. 100 Platinums and counting, with the latest coming this past month. As predicted, Yakuza 0 unlocked to mark the milestone mere minutes after Stuff of Legend dinged to bring me to PSN level 410. Not bad for someone who unlocked their first Platinum back in 2009 and spent years away from Sony's digital ecosystem. Ironically, just last week, I got a job offer from the last company any Playstation enthusiast would want to work for (no prizes for guessing that one correctly). Probably turning it down for now as it'd necessitate me to emigrate to a fourth country of residence (although I could do worse than Dublin, Ireland which is where they want me to go), but I can't discount it happening in 2022. Not this current calendar year though, because we still have the 127 streak to uphold.

I doubt anyone really expected me to falter in keeping my meaningless streak going - let's check out the forecast from the September update and see whether my predictions as to where I'd get my Trophies from were accurate. The figure in (parentheses) is the number I had available per title while the number in (bold) is the actual number I unlocked.

Yakuza 0 (3) (3)
Hitman 3 for PS4 (1) (0)
Hitman 3 for PS5 (81) (80)
Yakuza Kiwami (42) (44)

No surprises this month; Hitman 3 for PS5 was largely autopopped thanks to my earlier efforts in the PS4 version, which was the first step of the masterplan that will take me to a worthwhile milestone for my 6,000th Trophy. I want it to be the Plat for Yakuza 6, but I needed to slog through the rather long and difficult Kiwami beforehand, which would be tough to do while still upholding the 127-streak. As such, I had planned the massive 80 Trophy autopop from Hitman for this past month, which would give me pretty much all of September to get through Kiwami's toughest parts. The car chase on Legendary, the Climax Battles, 100% completion, and Haruka's Whims. I'm proud to say I've passed them all save for the last handful of Substories for 100%, which I couldn't complete as their respective Trophies would take me over 127.

Statistics update;

We're a month on from our last glance at the leaderboard, let's see how my goals are coming along

55,790 in the world overall (up from 56,844th, target; top 55,000)
857th domestically overall (up from 876th, target; top 800)

Marginal increases on both fronts, but these were fully expected; this month had but a single Platinum included, and only a handful of Golds - let me tell you, once you get this high up the leaderboards, you really can't rely on Bronzes even when you pop a hundred a month like I do. November promises to feature as many as five Platinums, so I expect to surpass the worldwide goal and creep much closer to the domestic target. Although..... I say domestic, but I haven't been back to the Netherlands in years. The fact that Sony does not allow us to change the region of our accounts is ridiculous. I don't want to compete with the Dutch, I want to take the fight to the Brits! For as long as I am still here, of course....

Then what about rarity? We wrapped up September sitting at 34.47, and currently my profile reads 34.31. That's slow-ish progress, but in all actuality it would mean that at my current pace I would dip into 33.XX before year's end at this pace. That'd be ridiculous, and I can tell you all right now that it's definitely not happening. I'll probably do much better than a .16 decrease in November (all games I listed are below my average), but Yakuza 6 will account for almost half of the December batch of 127. It's the least rare of the Yakuza games and will easily add .10 if not more. But I shouldn't complain, my long-term goal was to stay within the 34.XX range. Going into 33.XX would be surpassing it but I've never held it to be as set-in-stone as the previous target was.

Roadmap update;

For October I cannot rely on autopops anymore, so we're looking at a much more diverse lineup of games;

Yakuza Kiwami (11)
Hitman [2016] (2)
Hitman 2 (1)
Hitman 2 Additional Expansions (1)
Hitman 3 for PS4 (4)
Hitman 3 for PS5 (4)
Overcooked: All You Can Eat (43)
Beat Cop (33)
American Fugitive (47)
First Class Trouble (???)

New games are in bold.

I have Overcooked from Plus and will at least add First Class Trouble from the November collection. However, it looks like a poor and very janky early access game trying to cynically ride the coattails of Among Us, and I have no faith in it at all. If the Trophy list appears doable when it becomes available, I might slot it into my schedule but it is very likely that I will skip it entirely. Kiwami will be finished up first tonight or tomorrow night for Plat 101, then all five Hitman lists will be cleaned up for Plats 102 and 103. Overcooked will be started but perhaps not finished as I will need to get a boosting party together. That would total 66 Trophies, with Beat Cop adding 33 for 99. At that point I will need to still dig into America Fugitive as well, which has some really tough bits.... November may prove to be one of the toughest months of this entire streak. I have Jacob Jones on Vita as an emergency bandaid if need be, but what I really need is more time as I have two big projects at work that need doing.

Aaaaaaand.... that was it for this month. It's going to be a real challenge, but I've always fancied those; personally, professionally, and clearly in video games as well. I encourage everyone to make the most of this November and to enjoy the pivot of Autumn to Winter as we slowly close out another beautiful year. Now if you'll excuse, I'm going to talk to the big ol' corporation about that job offer. Perhaps under the right circumstances....

Golem25 · December 1, 2021

Update 27

As with all things, a logical endpoint must be reached. Welcome to December.

November's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Yakuza Kiwami

KIWAMI - Obtained all trophies.

128,250 Owners - 3,956 Achievers for a percentage of 3.08% (average completion; 22.79%)

Enjoyment; 10/10*

Difficulty; 8/10

Trophies; 10/10* (actual Trophies for tiles, great names and requirements)

Majima's in a trashcan; 10/10

Full review here

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hitman 3 [PS4] & Hitman 3 [PS5]

World of Assasination - Complete all 47 trophies. [PS4]

World of Assasination - Complete all 47 trophies. [PS5]

11,794 Owners - 1,977 Achievers for a percentage of 16.76% (average completion; 27.79%) [PS4]

15,689 Owners - 2,366 Achievers for a percentage of 15.08% (average completion; 25.24%) [PS5]

Enjoyment; 7/10*

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 6/10, lots of repeated requirements across levels and reliance on challenges

Hokkaido on PS5; 10/10

Full review here

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

American Fugitive (NA version)

Justice Ain't Always Legal - Collect All Trophies

1,395 Owners - 126 Achievers for a percentage of 9.03% (average completion; 18.97%)

62 Owners reached 100% Completion (= 4.44%)

Enjoyment; 8/10

Difficulty; 3/10

Trophies; 7/10 (a nice and diverse list, you can tell they put some thought into these)

Using the train to outrun the cops; 10/10

Full review here

Wow-ee, no fewer than four Plats in a single month - my highest tally since April! And less than half a dozen naughty auto-pops in the mix here, meaning that almost the entire batch of 127 has been earned through proper sweat. Such delight, coupled with the Trophies-a-month streak having survived its 15th month to enter its very final stretch as this December will be the last month I force myself to adhere to it. But before we look forward, we look back; November ended up being a very quick month for me as I was done on the 18th, leaving almost two full weeks to refresh my mind away from video games. I did play quite a few hours of the Call of Duty Vanguard free weekend a few days later, but overall I'm recharged and ready to go once more tonight/tomorrow.

As always, we had set out a roadmap last month, so let's see how closely I stuck to it. The figure in (parentheses) is the number I had available per title while the number in (bold) is the actual number I unlocked.

Yakuza Kiwami (11) (11)
Hitman [2016] (2) (2)
Hitman 2 (1) (1)
Hitman 2 Additional Expansions (1) (1)
Hitman 3 for PS4 (4) (4)
Hitman 3 for PS5 (4) (4)
Overcooked: All You Can Eat (43) (33)
Beat Cop (33) (21)
American Fugitive (47) (47)
First Class Trouble (18) (0)
Plague Inc: Evolved (3) (3)

Trophies taken from ten whole lists which might be a new record for me, but the first six of them were all short cleanups after I strategically left easy Trophies from having played through the games previously. Yakuza Kiwami through Hitman 3 for PS5 I all finished within the first three days of the month, which says it all. From there on, I had the whole month ahead of me to burn through Overcooked, Beat Cop, and American Fugitive, which clearly paid dividends as I only needed 15 further days to get to my quota via a combination of the three of them. Plague Inc had three unnecessary DLC Trophies added which I also decided to finish off, while First Class Trouble was left in the cold. I didn't even claim it from Plus. After looking closely at it, I was abhorred by how poor of a game and concept it is, shamelessly ripping off Among Us while slathering over a cheap retro-futuristic veneer. That game is having it servers shut down within two years guaranteed, and I'm glad I had no part of it whatsoever.

Statistics update;

So, I did get four Plats, but how did those factor into my leaderboard positions?

54,025 in the world overall (up from 55,790th, target; top 55,000)
840th domestically overall (up from 857th, target; top 800)

I finished way higher on the global ranking, but having gained no Trophies for 12 straight days has naturally seen me fall again, out from the 53,000s back into the 54,000s. No worries though, I will be back there before long. I might have lost about 5 places on the Dutch board in that time, and getting to my goal of 800 this calendar year still is now pretty much impossible. I'm almost 4,000 points out from that rank, and I cannot gather that much from the games I am planning to play in December. I suppose this just shows how restrictive the Trophies-a-month streak can be; you're forced to sit idle as the floor falls out from under you in the second half of the month.

As for rarity, that statistic that is oh so important to me, we've seen another big leap! I ended October on 34.31% and today - on December 1st - I'm sat on 34.10%. I can smell the 33.XX range now, but I don't think I will get there - again, because of the games I am planning to play. Pretty much all of November's Trophies were below my rarity average so really pulled it down, but over a third of December's prospected pops are above it - I suspect I will get as low as 34.05, and fall ever so short in the end. Not to worry though, I'm not retiring at the end of the year - that pursuit will simply continue into the new year.

Roadmap update;

November was a real mess with Trophies from no fewer than ten lists! For December, we're keeping it nice and focused to round out the year and the streak with five games;

Beat Cop (12)
Yakuza 6 (59)
Madden NFL 18 (41)
Overcooked: All You Can Eat (10)
I have no clue what game will be fifth (5)

Four Plats and the start of a fifth game to get me to 127 - it's a shame I will need a fifth for that, but that's life. In terms of rarity, Yakuza 6 is the big problem; an average of 50.44% makes for grim reading, but thankfully Madden NFL 18 is quite rare while the leftovers of Beat Cop and Overcooked are also nice and low. Still, it likely won't be enough even with the natural increase in rarity I get from all those old PS3 and Vita Trophies.

As for the choice of games, I got a second copy of Yakuza 6 (first copy is a sealed Collector's Edition) so I can time its Platinum to be my upcoming 6,000th Trophy which is coming due this month. It's the easiest and shortest of the Yakuza Plats, so I am not too worried about planning its fourty hour runtime into my month (where the much longer Yakuza's 0 and Kiwami were smeared out across multiple months). Madden should only take 12 or so hours (touch wood) according to the guides and was only a few quid - very well-timed for me as well as I am really enjoying the current NFL season and the battles of my Fantasy team (thanks for this weekend, Jaylen Waddle!). If I can get Madden's Plat unlocked, it will be my 6th Ultra Rare of the year - setting a new record to beat the five UR Plats I achieved in 2020. Fun little added goal, that.

I think it will be a tough month - way tougher than November - due to real life constraints and the amount of time I have available, so for the last time, lend me all your strength for the 127 Trophies streak! The finish line is just on the other side of Christmas, let's do this!

Edited December 1, 2021 by Golem25

Golem25 · January 1, 2022

Update 28

Even an end has a start

December's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #105 - Beat Cop (NA version)

Platinium - Platinium

409 Owners - 47 Achievers for a percentage of 11.49% (average completion; 22.03%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 1/10

Trophies; 7/10 (Lots of hidden missables, fair bit of humor, but a little crass)

I can't see the broken lights; 10/10

Full review here

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #106 - Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (NA version)

The Song of Life - Obtained all other trophies.

32,268 Owners - 5,819 Achievers for a percentage of 18.03% (average completion; 50.44%)

Enjoyment; 10/10*

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 7/10 (tiles below the usual standard, requirements too easy)

Manly tears; 10/10

Full review here

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #107 - Overcooked! All You Can Eat

Legendary Chef - Complete all Trophies

19,568 Owners - 2,733 Achievers for a percentage of 13.97% (average completion; 29.96%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 3/10

Trophies; 8/10 (fun tiles, names, requirements, but -2 for forced online)

Multitasking; 10/10

Full review here

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #108 - Madden NFL 18

Madden NFL 18 Master - Congratulations on earning every Madden NFL 18 trophy!

79,419 Owners - 1,649 Achievers for a percentage of 2.08% (average completion; 20.66%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 4/10

Trophies; 6/10 (lots of RNG, dull tiles, some requirements not well thought out)

JETS JETS JETS; 10/10

Full review here

A farewell to an old friend:

In February 2020, I was bored and picked up a few Vita games. I earned 65 Trophies that month, and in March, I once again earned 65. I kept going. For no reason at all other than the fact I thought it interesting to get the same number of Trophies month after month. COVID-19 struck, I had all the time I needed to continue, and the months flew by.

In Augut 2020, I had gotten my 65 for the month after importing my old PS3. I was cleaning up the Ultimate Challenges in Yakuza 3 so I could start September with a nice Ultra Rare pop for beating them all. Except I misread. I didn't need to beat them all, just play them. So, when I played the final one to see how tough it might end up being.... you guessed it, a 66th pop. Thinking things over, I decided to not continue the 65 streak but just raze through the many unearned Trophies I still had.

In September 2020, I ended up with 127. Not a special number to me, it's just how many I earned before I figured it was enough. Then in October, I earned 127 more. And in November. And in December. And in January 2021. And February. And so on.

With December 2021 now finished and the last having been said of 2021, it is time to lay this streak to rest. Sixteen months of 127 Trophies per month. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Because I needed to see if I could, never asking whether I should. It has been tough at times - challenging like some of the games that contributed to this huge pile of trophies - but here I am. What a plateau.

If you check my Statitics page now, you'll see that it has cratered. Back to 0. And it won't return to 127 in January. While hugely rewarding, having to get exactly 127 a month has been strenuous at the best of times. Carefully planning out which games I play, plotting out how many hours I have available on a given day, when to stop and how to avoid popping certain Trophies to make sure I don't go over my total. Heck, whenever it looked like I was ahead of schedule, I tried to leave a set of really hard and/or time-consuming Trophies for the end of the month so I could use my remaining time optimally, while keeping the easier Trophies for the next month for an early boost. I'd save just before a final boss, just before the final collectible, or in a location or level where I could quickly and easily swoop up a gameplay Trophy or two.

But enough is enough. I still enjoyed the whole streak, but it's time to relent, to breathe, and to try and savour things a little more. No more rushing to meet an arbitrary deadline, instead taking my time with a game. Elongating that plateau might be possible, but it's not worth it anymore - when it never really had that much value regardless. So, where it started on September 1st at 8:36:11 GMT with All Rounder, it ended on December 23rd at 6:59:15 AM GMT with Madden NFL 18 Master. 2032 Trophies in total. 1359 Bronzes, 447 Silvers, 184 Golds, 42 Plats. 62,955 Points on the leaderboard. Thanks for following along, everyone!

The year in review:

Besides seeing off the streak, we've now also consigned the entire calendar year of 2021 to the history books. A few quick figures;

1524 Trophies unlocked in total (12 times 127)
1,027 Bronzes
325 Silvers
140 Golds
32 Plats
47,355 Leaderboard points
37 Ultra Rare Trophies
New rarest ever Trophy (ModNation™ Legend)
Most ever Plats in one year (previous best: 22 in '20)
Most ever UR Plats (6) in one year (previous best; 5 in '20)
Most Trophies ever in a year (previous best 964 in '20)
Biggest ever cut in average rarity (36.34% at the end of '20, 34.15% today)
Three milestones (5,000th and 6,000th Trophy, 100th Plat, all Yakuza-themed)
In terms of Trophy level, I went from 44% through level 374 to 4% through 418.

In terms of the leaderboard, I made massive jumps;

In 2020, I finished 78,617th in the world overall. In 2021, I finished 52,359th (gained 26,258 positions)
In 2020, I finished 1,173rd domestically overall. In 2021, I finished 808th (gained 365 positions - exactly one per day!)
In 2020, I finished 121st domestically for Vita. In 2021, I finished 93rd (gained 28 positions, although I got as high as 89th place during the year)

I also got myself onto a game-specific leaderboard by being the 48th person to unlock the Platinum for Beat Cop (NA Version).

The month in review:

I had a very neat and organized list of games and Trophies to unlock in December, and I stuck to the plan to a T. The figure in (parentheses) is the number I had available per title while the number in (bold) is the actual number I unlocked:

Beat Cop (12) (12)
Yakuza 6 (59) (59)
Madden NFL 18 (41) (41)
Overcooked: All You Can Eat (10) (10)
I have no clue what game will be fifth (5) [Grand Theft Auto III] (5)

That's laser-like precision, I dare say.

Statistics update;

As always, I had my two targets for leaderboard position. Cruelly, I fell just 930 points short of achieving the domestic goal in 2021 still. However, with my newfound freedom from here on out, I expect to clinch it in January still.

52,359 in the world overall (up from 54,025th, target; top 55,000)
808th domestically overall (up from 840th, target; top 800)

Much more important is my average rarity, which was 34.10 to end November. As I had feared, Yakuza 6 had such a strong effect on it (with its rather common Trophies) that I finish December with a loss - I can't remember the last time this happened! I am sitting on 34.15 right now, and while it isn't a goal per se, I am keen to hit the 33.XX range sooner rather than later. It's definitely possible though - I fell as low as 34.04 in December before Yakuza 6 came waltzing in.

Roadmap update;

With the end of the 127 streak, I can be a lot more relaxed in terms of what I do and when I do it. Nonetheless, I have some big plans for 2021. For one, I want to keep pushing my average rarity down, my completion (95.13) up, and try and make up some lost ground on the Vita leaderboard with a recent purchase. The most bold capers in my book, however, centre around two PS3 games; Grand Theft Auto IV and Far Cry 2.

Yes, indeed; both have sub 1 percent Plats, and I have the ambition to unlock both (and 100% GTA IV) in the first three or four months of the year. I will buy a second screen and console to do GTA IV first, before buying a third screen and console to then do Far Cry 2 (you need three PS3s for a full self-boost). It's going to be gruelling but I'm up for it. Once one or both are out of the way, I also want to finish my boost for F1 2010 which can be done with a long grind on two consoles.

But before I tuck into those, I want to get at least two more Madden Plats and Platinum Grand Theft Auto III (original edition). As such, here is the list of Trophies I am looking at for January;

Madden NFL 19* (39)
Madden NFL 20 (39)
Madden NFL 21 PS4* (29)
Madden NFL 21 PS5** (29)
Grand Theft Auto III (24 out of 29 remaining)
Grand Theft Auto Vice City (34)
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (33)
Ratchet & Clank PSV (35)
Ratchet & Clank 2 PSV (35)
Ratchet & Clank 3 PSV (33)

* = Still need to buy

** = have free PS5 upgrade but need PS4 disc to access

Yes, indeed: I managed to get my hands on a physical copy of the Ratchet trilogy for Playstation Vita. Cost me 50 bloody Pounds, but by Jove I have it. That's close to 4,000 points for the Vita leaderboard if I Plat all three games. I also bought the original version of the GTA Trilogy before Rockstar pulled it from the store for the inferior 'Definitive' Editions, so there's more retro goodness to dabble in. I still have LEGO Batman 3 and Jacob Jones for the handheld as well, but I expect to not touch those for a while still.

And with all that out of the way, the last thing left for me to do is to wish all of you wonderful people a very lovely 2022. I hope it will be a terrific year no matter what you are hoping to achieve on Playstation or in real life, and will cross my fingers for you to exceed all your goals! All the best! ?

Golem25 · February 1, 2022

Update 29

Oh God It's Already February Edition

January's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

None!

Yes, indeed - January was a month of endings and new beginnings. The 127 streak is officially done, I only unlocked 66 Trophies in January. My streak of Platinum months is also done, I didn't unlock a single one for the first time since May 2020! I did say I was going to stop letting my OCD control most of my free time and that's exactly what I managed. A shame, perhaps, as I certainly could have managed to extend the streak for one more month, but it's good enough as is at 16 months.

Of course, the number 66 is not without symbolism; the last month prior to the streak I finished on.... 66! So as it began, so it ended. I'm really going to try not to fall into another silly streak now! January's Trophies came from the following games;

Madden NFL 20 (30)
Grand Theft Auto III (17)
Grand Theft Auto IV (19)

Those 66 did include no fewer than nine Ultra Rare Trophies, bringing my total to 170. In the end, really, most of my time was spent on cleaning up Grand Theft Auto IV (which was the source of eight of those URs) which gave me my very first timestamped Trophy back in 2009 but was stuck on 24 Unearneds for the past eight or so years. I bought myself a second PS3 for boosting purposes as the infamous Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic Trophy (my new third rarest Trophy overall) requires a massive grind of 24 hours plus another massive idle grind/glitch grind for Wanted. if you partner up with someone online - using a second PS3 cuts those 24 hours in half while for the XP needed I just needed to set up some rubberbands 19 times for one hour stretches. Honestly not too bad in hindsight, and while using the checklist for Petrovic is a nightmare, I think GTA IV's reputation is worse than it deserves. Not that I'm complaining about all these rare trinkets, no sirree!

You might see a cheap TV and an extra PS3; I see precious hours of my life saved from boredom

Statistics update;

Now for some sadder news; just after new year's, I was *this* close to reaching the top 800 domestically only to be suddenly overtaken by about fourty people out of nowhere! I still don't understand why as I've never seen that happen before overnight, but it does leave me in a massive lurch and an actual decrease in my ranking month-on-month domestically - the first time that has happened since early 2020! I'm now sat in the following positions;

52,359th in the world overall (no change from 52,359th , target; top 50,000 [NEW])
850th domestically overall (down from 808th, target; top 800)

Yes, incredibly enough, despite 66 Trophies I did not gain a single place on the world leaderboard. Even though I am reaching lofty heights, I had expected at least a bit of improvement. Falling 42 spots domestically, meanwhile, is just a massive kick in the teeth. I was 930 points short of #800 on the Dutch ranking on January 1st - now that it's February 1st, it's 4,995! That's almost five full games worth of points! But, I won't despair or let this get me down - I just gotta put my back into it and keep grinding out the games and points to beat my former compatriots, starting with what I hope will be a small Platinum rain this month.

At least my rarity goal was finally met; as you may remember, I was sat on 34.15 come the end of December. Today, I am at a very smart 33.98, which goes to show just how useful those Ultra Rares are. It was only ever my goal to get into the 34 percent range, so to exceed this and go as low as 33.XX is just incredible - one of the top 20 or so lowest averages among PSNP regulars, I'm sure. I'm planning to continue tackling tough and long games where possible, so while I don't want to commit to reaching 32.XX any time soon, I do hope to keep lowering the rarity bit by bit as the months pass by.

Roadmap update;

I did mention a small Platinum rain for February, which I am hoping to accomplish by completing the following games. The number in parentheses represents how many Trophies I have available/left per title;

Madden NFL 19 (39)
Madden NFL 20 (9)
Grand Theft Auto III (7)
Grand Theft Auto IV (5)

That's a total of 60, and considering most of the hard work for the latter three has been done already (including the tough-as-nails Gold Star in GTA IV's DLC) I think my chances of getting all four popped this month are quite good. Four Plats alone are already worth 1,200 leaderboard points, so surely I will be creeping closer to my domestic goal again. Beyond the foursome of title outlined above, I also have plenty of PS Plus games to tackle (Wreckfest is near the top of the pile in that regard). What is more likely to be my next step, though, is using that second PS3 once more, this time to finally boost Far Cry 2 which I have been putting off forever. I will need a third PS3 even for that endeavour, but self-boosting would cut the gargantuan grind required down to about 40 to 50 hours if I'm lucky. Considering the Plat for that game is sat at 0.62% rarity, it's worth pursuing. Now let's just hope the servers hold out for just a little longer and I don't delay the boost again!

Hope everyone had a terrific start to the year, by the by - I think we all have much to look forward to for the remainder of the year ?

Edited February 1, 2022 by Golem25

bert2301 · February 1, 2022

Was GTA IV hard? Like the base version of it?

Golem25 · March 1, 2022

Update 30

Can you believe it's March already Edition

February's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #109 - Madden NFL 19

Madden NFL 19 Master - Congratulations on earning every Madden NFL 11 trophy!

56,425 Owners - 1,330 Achievers for a percentage of 2.36% (average completion; 18.28%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 4/10 (Longshot & Triple Crown)

Trophies; 4/10 (lots of RNG, dull and reused tiles and Trophies)

Bullfrogs; 10/10

Review found here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Madden NFL 20 (No review)

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #111 - Far Cry 2

Iron-guts - Earn the highest honors

272,414 Owners - 1,693 Achievers for a percentage of 0.62% (average completion; 15.89%)

Enjoyment; I don't care/10

Difficulty; 9/10 (more to do with quantity rather than challenge)

Trophies; 1/10 (MP segment ruins a good SP batch - no, wait, fuck the diamonds)

Sense of 'Oh thank God it's done'; 10/10

Review found here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #112 - Grand Theft Auto III

King of Liberty City - Unlock all trophies.

55,413 Owners - 9,202 Achievers for a percentage of 16.61% (average completion; 24.72%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 3/10 (Offroad challenges were annoying)

Trophies; 6/10 (straightforward list making good use of key art for icons)

Pets-overnight.com; 10/10

Review found here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #113 - Grand Theft Auto IV + 100%

Taking A Liberty - Unlock all trophies.

55,413 Owners - 9,202 Achievers for a percentage of 16.61% (average completion; 24.72%)

Enjoyment; 8/10

Difficulty; 7/10 (Gold Star)

Trophies; 7/10 (unique tiles, fun requirements until you go Online)

HEY COUSIN; 10/10

Review found here

Wow guys and gals, just wow. 66 Trophies including zero Plats in January, only to strike back with no fewer than five Plats - of which FOUR are Ultra Rare! - included in the 65 Trophies I unlocked in February! Indeed, looking at my stats page you'll find that I've booked-ended my 127 Trophies per month streak with the same numbers that opened it; 65 Trophies in July '20, 66 in August '20, and then back to 66 in Jan '22 and 65 in Feb '22. I'm not too keen on another streak but we'll see what happens.

The big news is, of course, two of the Plats I've added to the collection; Taking a Liberty and Iron-guts, two holy grails of the PS3 era in terms of Platinum Trophies, with the first being the crowning achievement for Grand Theft Auto IV and the latter being an immensely satisfying reward for suffering through the Hell that was Far Cry 2's multiplayer. Both are sub 1 percent rarity, and hav transformed my rarest Trophy showcase quite dramatically, as seen below;

You know you've had a good month when four out of the five Trophies that were previously your rarest have been pushed out by new ones. I quite like this change, especially since I have four sub 1's now, instead of just the lonesome Modnation Racers Road Trip Plat. I will miss seeing that gorgeous WipEout 2048 Plat, which has topped my list since all the way back in 2013 but progress halts for none now, does it? So too does my gaming budget overcome any obstacle, clearly, as both Far Cry 2 and GTA IV were made possible by some extensive... let's call it investment on my side;

Geez, back in 2008 when I got my PS3 (and I still have it, it's the one in the bottom left) I could never have imagined that I'd one day own three, but here we are! The two extra ones cost 65 GBP each, while I also had to buy that smaller screen for what I think was 20 GBP, plus a HDMI splitter for another 6.50 or so to allow for relatively easy switching between two consoles on the larger screen - saving me from having to buy a third screen.

These extra consoles were a Godsend, allowing me to cut the online grind for both GTA IV and Far Cry 2 by over half their lengths had I required others to grind with. GTA ended up only needing a few quick boost sessions for team matches, while Far Cry 2 I was able to do completely solo - and thank God for that because it still took over 50 hours. I will credit Ubisoft for keeping the servers online, but they are in such poor condition that at the best of times you need to log in and out of PSN 10 times before they finally let you connect to a lobby, and even then you need to re-log in after five matches or the lobby will crash and boot you out. Oh dear, oh dear. More about my troubled relationship with Far Cry 2 can be found in the rambling review I wrote straight after finishing the grind, which involved close to 10,000 kills performed in a variety of situations across 27 awful weapons that break and require replacing during matches. I applaud anyone brave enough to boost its multiplayer with actual, other live players, because I would have gone mad if I was forced to spend more time just sitting there, grinding away.

But hey, the future is now; both Plats are now in my collection and are real badges of honour, forever associated with my name and profile until Sony pulls the plug on PSN. Yay!

Plats aside, the Trophies I gained last month came from the following games in the qualities listed in parentheses;

Far Cry 2 (4)
Grand Theft Auto III (7)
Grand Theft Auto IV (5)
Madden NFL 19 (39)
Madden NFL 20 (9)
Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (1)

That lone Motorstorm Trophy was made possible by having three PS3s and a PS5 - you can read how I unlocked it here in the Latest Trophy Thread - so another benefit of having invested the dough to get GTA IV and FC2 done.

Statistics update;

Moving swiftly on to the Statistics part of the update, it has been a slightly frustrating month on the Leaderboards;

51,258th in the world overall (up from 52,359th, target; top 50,000)
824th domestically overall (up from 850th, target; top 800)

Good progress on the world board, but domestically I still am not where I want to be, and no matter how many Trophies I unlock I seem to keep chasing the top 800. I am 2,940 points behind the guy in 800th place, although that is nicely down from 4,995 this time last month. However, at the start of Jan I was within a thousand points until suddenly thirty people jumped over me. The grind will have to continue, but I clearly still need to make up more than two full Trophy lists (about 1,300 points each).

Average rarity, meanwhile, has fared a lot better. 34.15 on Jan 1st, then 33.98 on Feb 1st, and now, today, March 1st, I'm sat on 33.78%! Lobbing a full .2 points off of that statistic while sitting above 6,000 Trophies total is no mean feat, I'd like to think. And with another few rare-ish lists on the hitlist for the coming month, I would think we can celebrate a new record low on April 1st...

Roadmap update;

That brings us to the Roadmap, which is not particularly set in stone for this month. I have a few games in the backlog thanks to PS Plus, as well as a little bit of clean-up to do from the PS3 era, but after the Herculean tasks I accomplished in February I am intent on leaning back a little and just doing stuff I feel like this month. Currently I am eyeing up the following games, with the number of available Trophies in parentheses;

F1 2010 (2)
Grand Theft Auto Vice City (34)
Madden NFL 21 [PS4] (29)
Madden NFL 21 [PS4] (29)
The Sims 4 (51)
Wreckfest [PS5] (21)

I do have to add in that I still do not own Madden, and that I still don't know whether the Sims 4 is even playable on PS4 after an update broke it a while back. Sure, there are some other games deeper in the backlog like Subnautica and Abzu as well as a slew of Vita titles, but as said, I'm just going to play whatever I want and that'll likely be Vice City before anything else. I like to think I've very much earned it after a lot of hard work over the past year and a half, and especially after a brutal February. However, since I have the extra consoles now and should put them to good use before selling, I am likely going to intersperse my playthrough of Vice City with solo-boost sessions for F1 2010 - another Ultra Rare Plat from way back when. I reckon I may need 20 or so hours to get it unlocked, so if I can just do an hour or so a day for two weeks.... anyway, having that Plat added to the collection would be another real testament to my ability to suffer through godawful boring grinds.

I'll keep you all posted, have a lovely month ahead both on Playstation and outside of it!

Edited April 1, 2022 by Golem25

Golem25 · April 1, 2022

Update 31

A quarter of the way into the year Edition

March's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #114 - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Kingpin - Unlock all trophies.

68,670 Owners - 7,726 Achievers for a percentage of 11.25% (average completion; 22.47%)

Enjoyment; 8/10

Difficulty; 3/10

Trophies; 7/10 (nice use of key art, congruent theme, but screw Take the Cannoli)

Owners of Lonely Hearts; 10/10

Review found here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Subnautica (No review)

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #116 - F1 2010

(Game icon not playing nice with the forum background at all - I swear it's there)

Complete - Congratulations. You've completed F1 2010

99,673 Owners - 1,399 Achievers for a percentage of 1.40% (average completion; 21.57%)

Enjoyment; 6/10

Difficulty; 6/10

Trophies; 6/10 (tiles are okay save for the Plat, requirements are okay until you get to the MP grind)

Backmarker teams; 10/10

Review found here

Hi everyone, it's the first of the month so, like clockwork, we've another one of these updates. Always good to start a month by looking back at the exploits undertaken on the previous page of the calendar.

All my promises of 'Oh no, I won't get pulled into ANOTHER Trophies-a-month streak' seem to have been false as I nabbed 65 of them in March, mirroring the number unlocked in February and in half the months of 2020. March has been extremely busy and stressful for me, so I wouldn't have gotten that many more anyway and thus it made sense to just stay at 65. Those were drawn from the following games per last month's rodmap - the figure in (parentheses) is the number I had available per title while the number in (bold) is the actual number I unlocked.

F1 2010 (2) (2)
Grand Theft Auto Vice City (34) (34)
Madden NFL 21 [PS4] (29) (0)
Madden NFL 21 [PS4] (29) (0)
The Sims 4 (51) (0)
Wreckfest [PS5] (21) (11)
Subnautica (18) (18)

That last game was this month's surprise package. I still had Subnautica stashed from the 'Summer of Play' or whatever it was called promotion from last year, was familiar with the game from having played it on Steam, so that Platinum was clinched real fast. Spent less time than I expected to Platinum Vice City (which seemed a lot bigger and longer back in the day, goes to show how far gaming has come and how much modern games have spoiled us), and finished the online self-boost grind for F1 2010's Platinum. Once again, thanks to having multiple PS3s that was done a lot quicker than it normally would take, and it makes such an Ultra Rare Plat taste all the sweeter (it was tied for my tenth-rarest Trophy overall when it unlocked). The PS3 doesn't do Trophy screenshots so I just captured the moment myself;

I've stashed the PS3s away for now, and will likely sell the spares as I don't have any other games left that really benefit all that much from self-boosting.

Statistics update;

Remember when I said I wanted to be in the top 800 of the Dutch national ranking on PSNP? Remember when I thought it'd take a while, but that I should be able to get there?

50,002 in the world overall (up from 51,258th, target; top 50,000)
808th domestically overall (up from 850th, target; top 800)

I got as close as 802nd this month before hitting the 65 Trophies mark, and I've naturally slipped back down the rankings since. 1,020 points separate me from position 799, which remains the goal for now and to constantly be mucking about in this range without hitting the target is extremely frustrating. Lats month I was close to 3,000 points away, so at least the deficit has been reduced by almost two thirds. And at least I went well into the top 50,000 worldwide during this past month, although natural slippage in the tail end of the month saw me fall out again - as I was writing this post in fact! I went from 49,997 to 50,002! Not that I'm too concerned, the worldwide places are gained back relatively easily. I absolutely want to have both goals ticked come the update on May 1st, and will have to think about what the next targets should be to replace them.

As for my average rarity, I'm pleased to report that this month's batch of Trophies has once again provided a positive impact; I started March on 33.78%, and I finish on 33.68%. I've made bigger jumps in the past, sure, but I am absolutely not going to complain about another full tenth of a percent coming off of that figure. The first two full lists I'll tackle in April are quite rare so we're going to keep pushing on this front.

Roadmap update;

Talking about the roadmap, we've got the following on tap;

Wreckfest [PS5] (10)
Madden NFL 21 [PS4] 29
Madden NFL 22 [PS5] 29

A rather succint list if I'm being honest, but let's just start with these and see how far we get. These three combine for 68 trinkets total, so getting the full 100% on all three will put my nascent streak to rest before it becomes too restrictive. Glad to now finally tuck into Madden 21, as I finally got a (surprisingly cheap) physical copy again. I've had a really rough time personally/professionally these past few months and I need some serious distraction, so it might be that reach for my typical comfort blanket of a Yakuza-styled game. I have Judgment (PS5) and Kiwami 2 shrink-wrapped, and both would fit the bill.

I was also planning on going through my PS Plus backlog as I was aware that my subscription would run out in the next few months or so. The offerings this year have been generally poor but I figured I could surely squeeze a few Plats out of them, but then Sony dropped that lame duck announcement of the revamped PS Plus, with three distinct tiers. I was content to go into Essential until my sub expired and then re-sub for cheap when I found a deal / saw a month with actual good free games, but then I noticed two things. A. that PS Plus Premium (the highest tier) was double the cost of the Essential / lowest tier, and B. that all existing PS Now subscribers would automatically be made Premium for the duration of their Now membership. Sony had cleverly pulled the purchasing options for multi-month and year-long Now subs from most PSN stores.... but not from the Dutch store.

Long story short, I am now subscribed to PS Now until whenever PS Plus Premium launches, at which point I will be a PS Plus Premium member until March 29th 2027. For the cost of an Essential sub. I love sneaky little deals like this, even if you could argue I'm a sucker for buying in despite knowing little about the game catalogue included with Premium and having not really planned to be a permanent Plus subscriber. But what's done is done, so I get to look forward to a nice, big catalogue of games to choose from in a few months. I do hope I'll play enough of them to have made these years of subbing worth it, but we'll find that out in due course.

Everyone enjoy your month! I hope it will be the best yet this year!

Golem25 · May 1, 2022

Update 32

Can't wait for Eurovision Edition

April's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #117 - Wreckfest [PS5]

Master of Crashes - Collect All Trophies.

36,899 Owners - 5,798 Achievers for a percentage of 15.71% (average completion; 24.97%)

Enjoyment; 2/10

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 6/10 (very short list, little creativity, but it's all perfectly functional)

Couches on wheels; 10/10

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #118 & Platinum #119

Madden NFL 21 [PS4] & Madden NFL 21 [PS5]

Madden NFL 21 Master - Congratulations on earning every Madden NFL 21 trophy! [PS4]

Madden NFL 21 Master - Congratulations on earning every Madden NFL 21 trophy! [PS5]

22,130 Owners - 713 Achievers for a percentage of 3.22% (average completion; 16.42%) [PS4]

8,294 Owners - 453 Achievers for a percentage of 5.46% (average completion; 16.14%) [PS5]

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 4/10, copy+paste job, lots of glitches, narcissistic Plat tile

I played the same game 5 times; 10/10

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #120 - The Sims 4

Ultimate Sim Guru - Earn All Trophies.

225,508 Owners - 16,767 Achievers for a percentage of 7.44% (average completion; 11.68%)

Enjoyment; 5/10

Difficulty; 1/10

Trophies; 9/10 (honestly, this is near perfect - varied requirements, unique tiles, no BS)

What does Woohoo mean; 10/10

May 1st today, which means it's either Labour Day or Labor Day, depending on what part of the Anglosphere you are from.

May was a relatively good month for me - we aren't quite on pace to match the number of Platinum Trophies I unlocked in 2021, but with another four in the bag (including another Ultra Rare) it has been a valuable page of the calendar for me. I gained 119 Trophies throughout April, distributed across the following games;

Wreckfest [PS5] (10)
Madden NFL 21 [PS4] 29
Madden NFL 22 [PS5] 29
The Sims 4 [51]

Cleaned up Wreckfest from March, finished the same Madden game twice over, and finally pulled the Sims 4 out of the backlog for a quick but relatively rare list. Overall, not quite back to 127 Trophies in a single month like my old streak, but at the very least I managed to avoid continuing the 65 Trophies-a-month streak I had going in February and March. Bullet dodged, for now, and I hope I can keep it that way seeing as my work is so incredibly hectic that I absolutely can't properly allocate time to silly Trophy goals currently. I think slowly continuing to crawl towards my 7,000th milestone - which I want to dedicate to Yakuza Like a Dragon's Platinum - should be good enough for the time being.

Statistics update;

My intended Leaderboard goals had been frustrating me for many months, but this April I finally broke through a long-coveted threshold; after having previously gotten as high as 801st (December '21), I am now officially within the top 800 of Dutch players on PSNProfiles. Yes, yes, 800 isn't a particular high or cool number, but it was the goal I set myself so being able to finally reach it after many delays and drops down the rankings feels genuinely good. Let's be very specific with where I've left off at the end of April;

48,277 in the world overall (up from 50,002th, target; top 50,000)
791st domestically overall (up from 808th, target; top 800)

Yes, that's both goals clinched! It's good to see I can still lob off actual thousands of places on the worldwide board in a single month (although not for long, as the margins will get larger as I continue my ascent), but domestic progress really did slow down. Still, 17 places up to take me into the top 800 is nothing to complain about. Although I will now put myself at further risk of frustration, I am going to introduce two new goals; top 45,000 worldwide, and top 750 domestically. Ambitious at my current pace and schedule (work really is horrendous, and has been since January), but I do always want to aim high. I'll be lucky to reach the former goal in three to four months, and the latter goal in roughly the same timespan. On the domestic ranking I'm currently 4,355 points behind the 750th ranked guy, quite the deficit to overcome. Going to promise myself now, if I get there, my next goal will be to simply stay in the top 750.

Elsewhere, my average rarity experienced another massive drop - mostly thanks to the Sims 4, which has a lot of rare Trophies on it and very few common ones. I finished March on 33.68, then Wreckfest and both Madden lists took me to 33.45, and then the Sims 4 on its own pulled me down to 33.29, with naturally increasing rarities across my collection lobbing one more hundreth of a point off to leave me at 33.28. Could I actually factually somehow sneak my way into the 32.XX% range? Watch this space?

Roadmap update;

So, the roadmap. I mentioned previously that I stacked five years of PS Now to prepare for PS Plus Premium come June 22nd (HURRY UP), but only in the past few days did I properly look at the games on offer with the existing service. Streaming games isn't an option for me, but as most games can be downloaded I made a quick selection to copy to my HDD;

Everybody's Gone To The Rapture (19)
Star Wars Bounty Hunter (13)
Heavy Rain [PS4] (57)

Rapture is a walking sim I've been intending to play for a while now. Bounty Hunter is one of my favourite games of the PS2 era, but one that was exceptionally difficult for 10/11 year old me - playing it now and getting the 100% (including a sub 1 percent Trophy!) would be... I don't know, just a big feat, a big milestone to me to show how far I've come in terms of being fearless and tackling hard games. Heavy Rain I never played on PS3, but it's on Now and might be a good laugh to play.

It's a bit of a meagre list - especially as I am still putting off completing LEGO Star Wars III for no real reason (I just don't feel like going back to my PS3 after the hundreds of hours I spent cleaning up other games over the past year and a half) - but who knows what else might pop up as a surprise. If the Season Pass goes on sale again, I might start LEGO DC Super Villains, or maybe LEGO Batman III, although I already have so many LEGO games on the list anyway. I've also really been meaning to play another Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio game again, and am eyeing either Kiwami 2 or Judgment [PS5] but want to see if either will be on Plus before unwrapping my sealed copies. Those games are the closest possible thing to a comfort blanket for me, Kamurocho and the other cities are just such delightful distractions from the misery of real life.

Whatever I decide, though, we'll see where we are at 31 days from now! Have a good May, everyone!

realm722 · May 5, 2022

On 5/1/2022 at 5:51 PM, Golem25 said:

Rapture is a walking sim I've been intending to play for a while now.

Checked your profile and congrats on the platinum! How did you find it? It's one of the games I've avoided due to the fact it's been described as an "insufferably slow" walking sim and while I like playing different games outta my comfort zone, I don't care that badly about earning a 15% rarity plat if it's going to be a miserable slog.

Golem25 · May 7, 2022

On 05/05/2022 at 1:09 AM, realm722 said:

Checked your profile and congrats on the platinum! How did you find it? It's one of the games I've avoided due to the fact it's been described as an "insufferably slow" walking sim and while I like playing different games outta my comfort zone, I don't care that badly about earning a 15% rarity plat if it's going to be a miserable slog.

Just finished typing up my mini-review in the Latest Plat Thread, and the long and short of it is that it is incredibly slow, exceptionally uninteresting, and really just not worth playing.

I had never played a walking sim on PS, definitely outside of my comfort zone too, and I actually felt a little robbed with how poorly the game respected my time. I get why they made you so slow - any quicker and you'd be able to speedrun the whole thing even quicker due to a significant lack of content - but besides some pretty views it just doesn't offer anything worth engaging with while you're slowly hobbling through a map devoid of life. Would definitely pass on it, and am very, very glad I played it through PS Now rather than spent a few bucks on it.

Golem25 · June 1, 2022

Update 33

Jubilee Edition

May's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #121 - Everybody's Gone To The Rapture

This Pattern is Mine - Earn All Trophies.

184,923 Owners - 32,679 Achievers for a percentage of 17.67% (average completion; 23.44%)

Enjoyment; 3/10

Difficulty; 1/10

Trophies; 5 (tiles are nice but this is essentially a collect-a-thon with some stupid misc. Trophies)

What do the numbers mean, Stephen; 10/10

https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/187-most-recent-platinum/?page=2142#comment-2551293

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #122 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

The Key to San Andreas - Unlock all trophies (the use of cheats will disable all trophies).

145,500 Owners - 18,623 Achievers for a percentage of 12.80% (average completion; 20.78%)

Enjoyment; 8/10

Difficulty; 3/10

Trophies; 8/10 (good use of key art for tiles, balanced list)

I'll have two number 9s, a number 9 large, a number 6 with extra dip, a number 7, two number 45s, one with cheese, and a large soda ; 10/10

Review found here

Hello, it's the first of the month once more! Time for an update.

May was a relatively good month for me - we aren't quite on pace to match the number of Platinum Trophies I unlocked in 2021, but with another four in the bag (including another Ultra Rare) it has been a valuable page of the calendar for me. I gained 119 Trophies throughout April, distributed across the following games;

Just two new Platinum Trophies to add to the collection this time around, as two of the five games I played this month are simple 100% lists while the fifth game I'm not quite done with yet (and saving for a milestone at that). I nabbed 119 Trophies in total - gee whiz, that's the exact same number as I did in April, I just can't help myself! - and they are distributed across the following games

Everybody's Gone To The Rapture (19)
Star Wars Bounty Hunter (13)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (33)
Judgment [PS5] (42 out of 47)
Abzû (12)

Started the month with a quick - and dreadfully boring - Platinum in EGTTR which really was a horrid slog but thankfully was 'free' with my PS Now subscription. To anyone reading this; don't bother giving the game a try, it's not worth the effort. Moved on to SW Bounty Hunter, one of my favourite games on the PS2 even though I only managed to beat 5 of its 18 levels back in the day; returning to it, beating it, and unlocking all its Ultra Rare Trophies (including one sub 1 percent Trophy even!) was a really amazing feeling and helped me realize how far I've come in terms of facing down challenges - in games and in life in general. I then moved on to San Andreas to complete the classic GTA trilogy on PS4, before jumping onto Judgment - it had been a while since my last Yakuza game, after all. It's all but ready to be Platted, but I'm saving its Plat for my 125th milestone which I expect will be due in July. Finally, Abzû was a quick band-aid to boost me up to 119 Trophies unlocked in May, just so I have another little plateau on my Stats page.

Statistics update;

Let's see here. Last month I finally busted through my target of being in the Top 800 Dutch players on the leaderboard, and given how long it had taken me to reach that threshold, I expected May to be a month of consolidation. But that's not how things turned out to be, looking at the figures;

47,086th in the world overall (up from 48,277th, target; Top 45,000)
762nd domestically overall (up from 791st, target; Top 750)

Instead, however, with my Trophy haul, I've actually made quite a jump up. In fact, I am only some 800 points away from the Top 750! As such, I am actually optimistic I might turn that page on the leaderboard this very month! That's a lot quick than I expected, as last month I suggested it'd take me three to four months, whereas if I get there in June, it will have taken me less than two. Pretty impressive stuff. However, I am planning on once again gunning for 119 Trophies this month (because I really, really, really can't help myself) and I suspect I can only fit a single Plat in that batch. So, it won't be the most valuable month ever in terms of points and I might fall just short - we'll have to see!

Over on the other frontline I'm fighting at - the average rarity Statistic - I've further good news to report. On March 31st I sat at 33.68, then on April 30th I got to 33.28, and then yesterday on May 31st I reached 33.11! Half a percent taken off in just two months, wow! Looking at the Roadmap, I might just have a cheeky little shot at reaching 32.XX, that would be amazing. Reading back to the start of the thread, I was as high as 37.62 in February 2020! Real testament to strength that I've managed to dip this low, with new record lows month on month!

Also, fun fact; I now have more Rares than Commons (which are now only my third biggest group of Trophies behind Uncommons and Rares)

Roadmap update;

Since we're on the topic of the Roadmap anyway, the journey I chart for myself here will largely determine whether I get to 32.XX. Currently, my targeted games are as follows;

LEGO DC Super Villains (76 available)
Metro 2033 Redux (50 available)
Judgment (5 available)

Now here's the conundrum; I want to get 119 Trophies again, but LEGO and Metro alone will take me over that number so I will have to leave one of them un-Platted. I can't Plat Judgment either as I need two more Plats to put me on 124 - ready for that 125th milestone. And that's not all! If the PS Plus leak is proven correct today, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl will be one of the monthly games for June, and I might just have a go at the PS4 version if it's included - that's another 25 Trophies to add, but the benefit is that they will get that trademark PS PLUS RARITY BOOST™ from all the casual players trying it and not going for the Plat. Bit of online boosting involved, but shouldn't be too bad from the looks of it.

If I go down the Nick route, I'll likely play and Plat that first, then play and Plat Metro, and then all of a sudden I'd be at 124, ready for Judgment. As you can tell, with just a few games you can have many different permutations in just a single month. With that being said, I hope everyone will enjoy June's pleasant weather, and the long weekend if you've got it coming up! Also, this time next month, many of us will be enjoying the, uh, 'new' PS Plus! Looking forward to having a lot of choice and still not knowing what to play next!

Edited June 1, 2022 by Golem25

Golem25 · July 1, 2022

Update 34

Hafway through 2022 Edition

June's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #123 & Platinum #124

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl [PS4] & Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl [EU] [PS5]

Leave Everything to Me! - Collect all the trophies [PS4]

5,512 Owners - 1,073 Achievers for a percentage of 19.47% (Rare) (average completion; 32.82%) [PS4]

3,004 Owners - 605 Achievers for a percentage of 20.14% (Uncommon) (average completion; 31.10%) [PS5]

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 4/10 (reuse of key art, but uninspired requirements)

I played the same game twice; 10/10

Full review here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #125 - Judgment [PS5]

The Greatest Detective - Obtained all other trophies.

6,600 Owners - 438 Achievers for a percentage of 6.64% (average completion; 21.88%)

Enjoyment; 9/10

Difficulty; 8/10

Trophies; 8/10 (challenging but mostly fair list, icons are a downgrade)

PRESS S TO SPIT ON CLIMAX BATTLES; 10/10

Full review here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #126 - Metro 2033 Redux

Platinum Trophy - Get all Trophies.

170,060 Owners - 21,634 Achievers for a percentage of 12.72% (average completion; 29.10%)

Enjoyment; 8/10

Difficulty; 4/10

Trophies; 7/10 (straightforward list, nothing too frustrating - but also no creativity)

Is that a Librarian? Oh shi- ; 10/10

Full review here

Is it July already? It's July already. Dear me, where has the time gone? Future receding, past increasing, regrets mounting..... anyway, Trophies!

Four Platinum Trophies to report this past month, so I dare say June qualifies as a good 'un, plenty of leaderboard points to go around when you complete three full lists, finish a fourth off, and get 90% of the way through a fifth. And all of that in the span of, once again, 119 Trophies. That number was taken from the following games in the following (quantities):

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl [PS4] (25)
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl [PS5] [EU] (25)
Judgment [PS5] (5)
Metro 2033 Redux (50)
Syphon Filter [PS5] (14)

It was a quiet start to the month until the PS Plus games became available, with both stacks of Nickelodeon being included with the subscription for free. Two very quick and easy Plats, I must say, even with a few online Trophies in the mix. They only require you to play - crucially not win - matches and that led to situations where you'd be matched with an opponent online only to have both player suicide themselves as quick as possible to get to the next match. Can't have been a nice experience for the normies, that.

Once those two were wrapped up, I had 124 Platinum Trophies to my name meaning that I was ready for my milestone, and Yakuza series spin-off Judgment was exactly what I wanted to celebrate the occassion with. I had left a few Tophies open from last month, all ready to be popped, meaning that it was a quick and cheerful end to a very long and sometimes rather tough Platinum. Loved the game, highly recommend it.

From there, it was onto Metro 2033 Redux. I played the original version of the sequel, Last Light, on PS3 when it was free with PS Plus, and it was good to return to the series. 2033 Redux was free with PS Now, which I stacked until 2027 to give myself cheap membership of PS Plus Premium, where both 2033 Redux and Last Light Redux are still available. Both worth playing I might add, and 2033 was another very, very enjoyable Platinum. Terrific game, do try it out some time.

That had left me at 105 Trophies for the month, so to celebrate the launch of the new versions of Plus and to brag about being a member of the highest tier I went and downloaded the PS5 version of Syphon Filter. It's a PS1 game from 1999, with Trophies and save states tacked on. The controls could have used some extra work as using the left analog stick makes the player character waggle around as if he's drunk, but other than that it was a really interesting experience to play such an old game. Didn't mind the graphics, although some of the design constraints of the time were very frustrating - you actually had to navigate menus to change weapons! Once I got to 14 Trophies unlocked I put the game down, as that left me at 119 for the month - expanding that streak to three now.

Statistics update;

I love seeing numbers go up and down, don't you? So many to keep track of on each player's stats page, it's my favourite part of this website. Given that I've just added four new Plats to the collection, let's see how big the jump I've made on the leaderboards is;

45,291th in the world overall (up from 47,086th, target; Top 45,000)
725th domestically overall (up from 762nd, target; Top 750)

That target of getting into the top 750 domestically? Smashed it, bruh. 37 Places in one month is an exceptionally long way to have gone, and I'm now safely nestled in the spot I want to be which is just massive considering I was outside the top 800 as recently as May! And jumping 1795 spots on the worldwide leaderboard is pretty damn crazy too, leaving me extremely close to smashing that goal as well. Progress on the domestic board was slow for quite a while already but worldwide still sees these huge 100+ spot jumps, which makes me wonder just how far I can go. Into the 30,000s maybe? Not going to aim for that any time soon, but an adjusted goal might be in order should I slip into the 44,000 range in July.

As for average rarity, I finished May on 33.11%. One month on, and I'm sat at 33.04%, which is a very modest improvement. A bit of stagnation almost considering that I took off, on average, almost a quarter of a percent in both April and May. I blame the change mostly on the fifty Nickelodeon Trophies; PS Plus monthly games tend to be rarer than they should be about six to twelve months after they were given away, but in the short term they are usually much more common than they should be as all the Trophy hunters piled on en masse. That's what happened here, and I fully expected it, so it's not like I'm massively disappointed. Neither stack has cracked 40% average completion which is actually better than I predicted, and I hope that they will reach a peak somewhere in July (if they haven't already) before they start their slow descent downwards.

Of course, the big question now is.... can I hit 32.XX in July? Surely, right? It's just 0.05% away!

Roadmap update;

Well, if I want to harbour any ambition of getting there, I'll have to choose my games wisely. On tap this month we have the following games, with the number of available Trophies for each shown like (this)....

Syphon Filter [PS5] (2)
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan (31)
LEGO DC Super Villains (76 available)

Oh look, another month of me claiming I will finally play that LEGO game! I swear it's turning into the new Sims 4 for me, honestly. Quick calculation shows that the above three games only hold 109 Trophies, so I will have to scrounge up a further ten from somewhere else to get to 119. Or.... I could settle for 109, as I was thinking of maybe doing a decreasing streak (119 in month X, 109 in month Y, 99 in month Z, and so on) to have a weird slope on my stats page.

But, in order for that to work, I'd need to unlock 99 Trophies in August, and I don't think I can quite manage that. For just over two weeks in August I will be on a tropical island somewhere south of the equator doing things that mostly don't involve Trophies, which leaves a very short timespan to do anything at all in. Sure, I will bring my Vita (yup, giving that old dear a whirl again) but I think I'd rather try and relax for once. But actually, that's of more concern for the next update.

I think I will have a go at 119 in July still, although which game I will use for those remaining ten Trophies is still up in the air. With PS Plus refreshing twice per month for higher tier members - at the start with the monthly Essential games, and halfway through with more Collection/Classic games - I might just get a pleasant surprise thrown my way. But hey, still clearly much to think about! Enjoy the upcoming month, everyone!

Edited August 1, 2022 by Golem25

Heather342 · July 1, 2022

Awesome progress last month ?. If you need a hand with that shared story trophy in Man of Medan then let me know. I've already done it but happy to help you if you can't find another player ?

Golem25 · August 1, 2022

Update 35

Packing Edition

July's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #127 - The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan

Total Shocker! - Collect all Trophies

49,741 Owners - 3,999 Achievers for a percentage of 8.04% (average completion; 27.06%)

Enjoyment; 6/10

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 5/10 (frustrating collectathon thanks to the nature of the game)

Spooky skeletons scare me; 10/10

Full review here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #128 - Syphon Filter [PS5]

Excellent work, Agent! - Unlock all other Syphon Filter trophies.

2,983 Owners - 622 Achievers for a percentage of 21.17% (average completion; 24.85%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 6/10 (Nice tiles, generic and straightforward requirements with no frustration)

But what is the Syphon Filter, actually?; 10/10

Full review here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #129 - Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell

Scorched Savior - Unlock all other Syphon Filter trophies.

293,424 Owners - 27,575 Achievers for a percentage of 9.40% (average completion; 24.09%)

Enjoyment; 6/10

Difficulty; 3/10

Trophies; 5/10 (typical 'do everything in a sandbox'-list, betraying a lack of content)

Vacuum stomps; 10/10

Full review here

Hello there! Back for another monthly update, I see. Every post in this thread is a reminder to tear off a page from your calendar, and today, it's time to rip off July as we're fresh into August. Never thought I'd get this far into the future, a far cry from the scared teenage boy who first fired up his new PS3 in late 2008 and first learned about Trophies.

Three new Plats to add this month, which back then would have seemed like a herculean achievement to my past self - it took me just about a full year to unlock my first Plat back in the day (the original Borderlands) as back then, they were a lot harder to come by. But nowadays, I just bang them out one after another - and in July, that applied to the following three games - the figure in (parentheses) is the number I had available per title while the number in (bold) is the actual number I unlocked:

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan (31) (31)
Syphon Filter [PS5] (2) (2)
LEGO DC Super-Villains (76) (40)
Saints Row: Gat out of Hell (46) (46)

Wouldn't you know it? Those add up to 119! Again! That little plateau got a little bit longer again, I just can't help myself. It's going to end at four, but more on that later.

I started the month with Man of Medan, which was a part of PS Plus Extra originally but was then given away as part of PS Plus Essential as Sony once again double-dipped on the offerings across their subscription services (except now across tiers of Plus, rather than across Plus and Now). I had paid it absolutely no mind as part of Extra, but knowing that a lot of people would be playing it via Essential, I figured now would be the opportune time to bang out the forced co-op Trophy on its list. @Heather342 kindly offered to help as she already had the Plat but I didn't want to impose, so banged it out with someone who also still needed it. That game is so incredibly slow-paced, and what with having to replay it one too many times to satisfy all Trophy requirements, I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have.

Syphon Filter took all of five minutes after I played through it in June so can't add much about that game, and LEGO DC Super-Villains is just another LEGO game, albeit at a much bigger scale than the Vita ones I played previously. Bit shocking to see how little they've changed the formula since the original LEGO Star Wars on PS2. Saints Row was a pretty blatant asset flip, and another pretty shady example of Sony playing fast and loose with its services; it had been pulled from Now before it merged into Plus, and was now added to Plus Extra under the guise of being 'new' to package. So, overall, in terms of gaming enjoyment, not the best month for me. But on the other hand, all of these Plats came through the paltry sum I spent on cheap Now subscriptions being converted into PS Plus Premium, so it all worked out for me. While I've always disliked subscription services, I think the value really is there when you're only paying five Euro per month - couldn't buy and re-sell these games without incurring a cost lower than five smackers. (Syphon Filter alone, being digital-only, guarantees that much).

Statistics update;

Right, numbers. Hated them in high school, slightly more comfortable with them nowadays. Firstly, where did I end up on the leaderboards....

44,687th in the world overall (up from 45,291th, target; Top 45,000) GOAL ACHIEVED ?
713th domestically overall (up from 725th, target; Top 700) GOAL ADJUSTED

Now I have a slight case of triskaidekaphobia, so I'm a bit miffed to be on 713 and see an 87 on the world leaderboard (87 is 100 minus 13.... maybe I'm worse than I thought with this number) but it is what it is (is it? It is). But hey, it's progress on both counts and I smashed my goal for the world leaderboard. 604 Places gained in a month is still very much break-neck speed, but it's not as fast as I used to go, and whenever I don't unlock anything for a few days, I see myself drop like a rock. I'm getting so high up that there are way more active players around me, thus requiring more effort, and a higher share of Golds and Plats as opposed to just Bronzes to keep climbing within the monthly quotas I set myself.

That's perhaps best observed via the domestic Dutch board. Sure, I'm pleased to have gained 12 places, but that's shockingly few for a month's work including three Plats worth 300 points each. I'm gunning for the top 700 now, but I'm 1205 points away from it at the moment - that's almost a full game's worth of Trophies. It looks like one of the guys just above me has privated his account now so I'll be 712th later today, but I'll slip quick enough again. There's likely no way I'll get to 700, but again, more on that later....

For now, let's chat about my average rarity; last month I spoke of wanting to reach the perilous depths of 32.XX%, having finished June on 33.04%. And wouldn't you know it? With the four games I played this month all having an average rarity below my target, I've managed to wiggle my way down to 32.96%. I'll happily take that, considering I'm closing in on 7,000 Trophies total meaning that it's becoming harder and harder to take large chunks of rarity off with each new Trophy - on the plus side of that, this also means it becomes harder to raise my average with common Trophies. I do think I could have gone lower still this month, but with both stacks of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (Plus Essential freebies last month) having reached a high point of rarity this month, it just wasn't meant to be. I've observed them starting to dip again, so that will be an extra boost to my efforts for July. I'm not delusional enough to think I'll hit 31.XX% any time this year or perhaps even during this first half of the decade, so for now the goal will be to remain anywhere in the 32.XX range with, ideally, a small dip every month.

Roadmap update;

Now this is where things get interesting; August 2023 represents a challenge I have not faced since starting this thread.... I'll be on holiday for most of it! 16 Days in total, travelling to and staying on a non-specified tropical island somewhere in the Southern hemisphere. Now I could and likely will bring my Vita, but I feel like I need a bit of a break from Trophies and none of the games I have on tap for it (Jacob Jones, Ratchet Trilogy, LEGO Batman 3) currently really appeal to me. Streaming via Plus Premium also isn't supported on the island so that leaves me with little to do, although it might just be the boost I need to get over the somewhat drab month I've just had.

Tonight and tomorrow morning I will clean up LEGO DC Super-Villains for its remaining 36 Trophies including Plat, but then.... likely nothing for two weeks. You can imagine what that will do to my leaderboard position, and I still don't know what games I'll play once I return. Yakuza Like a Dragon is coming to Plus Essential, but I bought the physical game on release anyway and it is perhaps too early to start it up as I am planning to use its Plat for my 7,000th milestone (Like a Dragon was called Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 in Japan, hence why I've picked it). I'll only just have cracked 6,750 once I finish the LEGO game.

The 119 streak will also end, as there's no possible way for me to jump from 36 unlocked Trophies up to 119 in the week or so left in the month when I return from holiday - that's 83 Trophies I'd have to pump out in addition to catching up with work and self-development. No way. So, likely, I'll lock myself to 65 or 66 again and re-evaluate my quota come the end of July.... can't believe I'm planning another streak already, my OCD really is too strong. Regardless, the roadmap currently looks like this;

LEGO DC Super-Villains (36)
Maybe Yakuza Like a Dragon [PS5] (63)
Maybe Jacob Jones (20)
Nothing else!

Knowing that Madden 23 is coming out I might keep an eye out for cheap copies of the PS4 and PS5 versions of Madden 22, but ultimately, I think my only hope is the selection of new titles for Plus Extra and Premium that will be added halfway through the month containing something that doesn't take too much time. If not, the LEGO Plat will be the only new addition for August.

But should I be complaining? I'm going to one of the most gorgeous islands in the world (been there before so can confirm) for incredibly festive reasons, so I should just keep mum and get on with it. There are more important things in the world than digital trinkets on an expensive piece of plastic hooked up to your telly! I'll show some pictures next update, and the change to my leaderboard positions should be quite interesting too so I hope to see everyone again come September 1st. Have a wonderful, wonderful month ahead ?

Golem25 · September 1, 2022

Update 36

Unpacking Edition

August's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #130 - LEGO DC Super-Villains (EU)

Here's to Mischief - Collect all the trophies

45,845 Owners - 8,313 Achievers for a percentage of 18.13% (average completion; 23.76%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 2/10

Trophies; 6/10 (tiles and titles fun enough, requirements okay but boils down to a collectathon)

SHAZAM!; 10/10

Full review here

Hello once more! I've survived my tropical ordeal and am back in this corner of the world - I insanely regret my decision to step back on the plane, I much preferred staying below the equator, but it is what it is. Having spent just over two weeks away from my PS5 will naturally have had an impact on my Trophy journey this past month, so let's see how things stand as we head into a fresh month.

Just a single Platinum was added in August, and "only" 65 Trophies overall. My little streak is broken, but a new one may have dawned considering I've been on two separate 65-Trophies-a-month streaks previously. No matter what the future brings, August is in the books now, with my Trophies spread across the following games; the figure in (parentheses) is the number I had available per title while the number in (bold) is the actual number I unlocked:

LEGO DC Super-Villains (36) (36)
Tour de France 2021 [PS5] (41) (29)

Just the two games, one finished before I left, and the other started once I returned. And nothing done on my Vita, because I ended up leaving it at home - I figured that my holiday really should be a holiday, with no Trophy worries - or any other worries - on my mind. I had wrapped up the LEGO game by the time I clambered onto the plane, and only once I returned did I pick out the Tour de France game from the PS Plus Extra collection. I enjoy cycling - both riding my own bike and watching it on the telly - and getting to try a recent game in this long-running series was quite interesting, even if it devolved into messing around with the editor as is so often the case with sports games. I'm really rather close to unlocking the Platinum. That will be wrapped up in the next few days, but it remains to be seen which other games I draw in....

Statistics update;

And now for the interesting bit. The massive increase in one-minute Platinums being released in the past few months has thrown the leaderboards in flux, with both climbing and maintaining your position becoming increasingly difficult when you're not spamming four stacks of Fump Gump or the Armadillo J or whatever these spam titles are called. My 65 Trophies in August resulted in the following changes;

44,772nd in the world overall (down from 44,687th, target; stay in Top 45,000)
714th domestically overall (down from 713th, target; Top 700)

So, 65 Trophies including one Plat is not enough to hold your position this high up on the leaderboard any more. Both categories show a very minimal drop, but drops they are all the same. Not just that, but this time last month I was 1205 Trophy points away from the top 700. Today, I am 2385 points away. That's almost a full Trophy list's worth of difference, a further testament to how the leaderboard is changing. Clearly, if I only unlock 65 in a given month, I can only climb further if there are more Plats, more Golds, and fewer Bronzes in that selection.

On a more positive note, my average rarity stat has lowered quite significantly; I finished July on 32.96%, and am currently sat on 32.77%. 0.19% is a lovely decrease across just 65 Trophies, but I am cognizant of the fact that my two stacks of the Nickelodeon platform fighting game contributed massively as well, with both dropping by close to a percent. No matter what game I play next, I think I've dug deep enough into the 32.XX range to now not have to fear going back into 33.XX, at least not on the back of just a single game.

Roadmap update;

Welp, what to do next. Continue with 65 Trophies a month, or go straight back up to a higher number? That is one question. What games to play next? Beyond finishing Tour de France 2021, that is another question. Currently, I'm thinking of the following;

Tour de France 2021 [PS5] (12)
Zombi (21)
Yakuza Like a Dragon [PS5] (63)
Need for Speed Heat (43)
Syphon Filter 2 [PS5] (??)
Madden NFL 22 [PS4] (17)
Madden NFL 22 [PS5] (20)

That's a decent selection, but ultimately just my current thoughts - no telling whether any of these will be included. Zombi is a dreadful title originally released for the WiiU but it is available with PS Plus Extra and has an Ultra Rare Plat to chase. Yakuza needs to be done within the next 200 Trophies I unlock for my milestone, but I don't want to start it too early. Need for Speed Heat will be available as a monthly game with PS Plus Essential, and Syphon Filter 2 will be making its way to PS Plus Premium and would be a nice addition to my collection after having played the original game not too long ago - its Trophy list has yet to be revealed. And the Madden games I've had my eye on for a while - Madden NFL 23 is out now, and there are cheap copies of 22 floating around so I might grab one or both.

Ultimately though, all of these combine for way more than 65 Trophies, so we'll see what I get up to. I have to stop doing these silly monthly streaks anyway, and now would be a good time considering how the leaderboard is evolving. Or maybe life will throw another curveball my way, and I'll be lucky to get to 65 again. Maybe Zombi is such a poor game that it will suck out the last remaining bit of motivation I have left! Whatever happens next, I hope you all have a wonderful month as we head into the final third of the calendar year - take care, now!

Golem25 · October 2, 2022

Update 37

South coast Edition

September's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #131 - Tour de France 2021 [PS5]

Tour de France 2021 - Obtain all trophies

659 Owners - 43 Achievers for a percentage of 6.53% (average completion; 10.2%)

Enjoyment; 8/10

Difficulty; 3/10

Trophies; 2/10 (just one tile, recoloured per Trophy type, and endless repeated requirements - copy+pasted from previous years too)

Jumbo-Visma Riders; 10/10

Full review here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #132 - Zombi

The Ultimate Survivor - Earn every Trophy in the game

244,019 Owners - 8,105 Achievers for a percentage of 3.32% (average completion; 17.70%)

Enjoyment; 6/10

Difficulty; 4/10

Trophies; 4/10 (good tiles, little imagination, difficulty Trophies DO NOT STACK!)

Wow, this is exactly like real life London; 10/10

Full review here

Greetings! Bit of an odd one this month! No working laptop around on the first and second of the month so I couldn't do my usual timely update, so here we are on the third! I do apologize for this unforgivable transgression.

With the entire month spent not on a tropical island but in regular ol' Blighty, I should have a little bit of progress to show for my efforts; 65 Trophies, just like in August (ANOTHER STREAK HERE WE GO AGAAAAAAAAAAAIIIII-), and two Platinum Trophies of which one is Ultra Rare and the other Very Rare. That's a win in my book, with last month's Trophies spread out across the following games - and remember, kids; the number in parentheses is the number of Trophies available in the game at the start of the month, while the number in bold is the amount I unlocked....

Tour de France 2021 [PS5] (12) (12)
Zombi (21) (21)
The Last Guardian (24) (20)
Shadow of the Colossus (38) (12)

Ah yes, the usual 'I predict a few games for the upcoming month, then play something else entirely' spiel, how very unexpected. To my credit, I did have Zombi on my list from the previous post, but The Last Guardian and Shadow of the Colossus are entirely new additions, never mentioned anywhere in this thread previously. I've forgotten the exact specifics of how they ended up on here, but it was along the lines of seeing The Last Guardian on PS Plus, seeing that it had an Ultra Rare Plat that looked achievable, and then enjoying it enough to give Shadow of the Colossus a try off the back of it! I need just five minutes of clean-up for TLG to unlock the Plat while I am in the middle of my first playthrough of SotC, and both will be duly picked up again this week. TLG has its issues but is overall a fine experience (and a lot better if you don't play for the Plat, I imagine) while Shadow of the Colossus has been incredible so far - even though it's the remake, I can tell why it is held in such high regard.

30 Trophies are available between those two games, meaning that - should I want to continue my streak (and let's be honest, we all know what's going to happen) - I'll have to find a game to give me the remaining 35 to get to 65. But more on that later.

Statistics update;

First, let's see whether I like how a set of meaningless numbers on my profile changed this month. With the recent onslaught of ten second Platinums (Stroke the Dog, anyone?) being added to PSN, climbind the leaderboard has proven immensely frustrating, but it looks like I've managed the smallest amount of improvement;

44,177th in the world overall (up from 44,772nd, target; stay in Top 45,000)
703rd domestically overall (up from 714th, target; Top 700)

The margin on the world leaderboard is minimal, but I will happily take it. As for the Dutch ranking, a solid step up and the closest I have been so far, but crucially still not where I want to be. No doubt that getting two Plats this month helped, as did unlocking most of The Last Guardian's short list (more Gold Trophis, fewer Bronzes which helps in terms of points). It would be really, really nice if I could finally get there in October.

As for rarity, this time last month I was at 32.77 whereas now my Stats page is showing 32.64. Very good news indeed, another drop of a full tenth of a percent and change! I got as low as 32.62 before starting Shadow of the Colossus, the story-related Trophies for which are quite common and dragged me up by a little once more. Finishing that list and the last few stragglers on The Last Guardian's should push me as low as 32.59, I hope, but there's a good chance the other game I intend on playing will counteract that and drag me to a net loss (or should that be gain?).

Roadmap update;

So, two lists to finish and a Trophy quota of 65 - what's the plan? I'm going to go for....

The Last Guardian (4)
Shadow of the Colossus (26)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon [PS5] (63)

Indeed, I'm thinking it is finally time to get around to Yakuza LAD - known as Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 in Japan. And that number in the title is exactly why I have it on tap now, as I am approaching my 7,000th Trophy - which I insist will be LAD's Platinum. When I finish The Last Guardian and Shadow of the Colossus I will be on 6,888 and considering Yakuza is a lengthy game, it may take more than a month to unlock 61 of its Trophies while saving one last misc. Trophy for the Plat. By starting it now and parting it out across two calendar months, I should be able to not only unlock the Plat in time for the milestone but also keep my budding streak going! Clever thinking, huh? Shame it's in service of my terminal OCD.... hey ho, it is what it is!

I'm also eyeing Superhot, which will be a monthly game for PS Plus Essential subscribers, and Need for Speed Heat - which was given to subs in September - alongside a few other titles, but they will have to wait until November at the very least. I pre-ordered Yakuza: Like a Dragon and have been dying to play it, so you can imagine I'm very keen to finally sink my teeth into it! Roll on October, here's hoping everyone has a very successful, enriching month ahead!

Golem25 · November 1, 2022

Update 38

Seasons of change Edition

October's Platinum Trophies

Spoiler

Platinum #133 - Shadow of the Colossus

The Horned Boy - Acquired All Trophies

285,640 Owners - 22,863 Achievers for a percentage of 8.00% (average completion; 21.90%)

Enjoyment; 9/10

Difficulty; 6/10

Trophies; 8/10 (great mix of requirements, challenging but fair, decent tiles save for the creepy Plat)

Bruh that ending doe; 10/10

Full review here

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #134 - The Last Guardian

The Last Guardian - Collect all other trophies.

163,202 Owners - 5,191 Achievers for a percentage of 3.18% (average completion; 10.83%)

Enjoyment; 6/10

Difficulty; 3/10

Trophies; 4/10 (Very unintuitive collectibles, forced into multiple playthroughs)

*indistinct yelling at griffon*; 10/10

Full review here

Hi everyone, back to updates on the first of the month again after last month's aberration (how dare I post a day late - I hold myself to higher standards than that!). Even though I failed in that regard, I did continue my streak once more; 65 Trophies, no fewer, no more, in October to add to the tally which really is getting close to 7,000 total Trophies now! That was the third month in a row, so we are well and truly on our way again. From experience I know that most of the time I hit 65 way before the end of the month, but with a potentially massive change in my life upcoming, even that low number might become hard to stick to. Nothing's confirmed yet, but perhaps more on that big change next month....

For now, what was the spread of the Trophies I unlocked in October? As always, in parentheses is the number of Trophies available in the game at the start of the month, while the number in bold is the number I unlocked....

The Last Guardian (4) (4)
Shadow of the Colossus (26) (26)
Yakuza: Like a Dragon [PS5] (63) (35)

Coincidentally, that's 1:1 the forecast I made at the end of last month! Such prescience, huh? Almost like I'm in the driving seat of my own gaming habits. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed Shadow of the Colossus, which may well be the finest Playstation exclusive available on the PS5 right now, and enjoyed Yakuza LAD - which is the first full turn-based RPG in the series - even more than I expected! Which is high praise, as I'm not a massive RPG guy. The Last Guardian was mostly just painful, but it was really just five minutes of cleanup that needed to be done. Those three games together accounted for the full 65 quota, including two tasty Plats of which one is Ultra Rare - my ninth and likely last for the year. But that's where the good news ends....

Statistics update;

Look, we know where we are at with the Statistics; I want to climb the leaderboards but I can only unlock a certain number of Trophies per month while the ever-increasing deluge of 1 minute Plats are increasingly dominating the upper echelons of the rankings. As such, I have the following to offer in regards to how my positions have changed this month;

44,178th in the world overall (down from from 44,177nd, target; stay in Top 45,000)
708th domestically overall (down from 703rd, target; Top 700)

Incredibly, I only lost one single place this month worldwide! Just one! What are the odds, right? Imagine if I'd had actually stayed exactly level! I mean, I'm not happy eating a loss of rank, but when it's just the one spot this high up, I can hardly complain, can I? The development on the domestic board is less entertaining, a rather steep drop that occurred fully in the second half in the month, as I had actually gotten as high as 700 on the day I finished SotC and TLG. Slow progress with Yakuza and my monthly cap then saw me tumble. Considering I did achieve the goal - if only for a single day - it must be feasible to get back there and plant myself firmly in the top 700, but at this rate I don't expect to ever see 650 as a milestone. It is what it is, unfortunately - I will only play what I want to play, and refuse to go for low effort games just for a quick win. Nothing against the people who do buy certain types of games, but it's not me, and I also won't let it spoil the fun; I'm going to keep at it, and get there on my own terms.

It'd be nice to present some good news after all of the above, and indeed I have a small, small improvement to report for my average rarity stat; it's 32.62% now, which is 0.02% better than last month's 32.64! A very minimal drop, but honestly I was expecting an actual increase seeing as Yakuza's Trophies are all pretty common and my suspicion that I would be unlocking the easier half this month, with the rarer half in November. Now that split did turn out to be true, but seeing as The Last Guardian still had three Ultra Rares left to give and the majority of SotC's list is relatively rare, it was enough to counterbalance Yakuza's share of the quota. Being to show month-on-month progress is something I'm really proud of - I can't even remember the last time my rarity actually went up, must be 2020 at least - so it's good to have kept that streak alive.

I actually went as low as 32.57 before I started Yakuza, so let's see if I can match or even exceed that in November with the games I'm planning on playing....

Roadmap update;

I have Yakuza to finish, and the 7,000 milestone for which I will use its Platinum is coming up, but won't be reached until December. As such, a bit of accounting magic is needed to make up the numbers for November

Yakuza: Like a Dragon [PS5] (28, but can only unlock 26 for now)
Grand Theft Auto Vice City: Definitive Edition [PS4] (34)
Grand Theft Auto Vice City: Definitive Edition [PS5] (34)

Yup, Vice City. Again. Twice. I played the Trophy-enabled PS2 Classics version earlier this year, but with the horrific-looking Definitive Edition being added to PS Plus Extra - but only until February 2023 - I want to play and Plat both the PS4 and the PS5 so as to never have to buy either. I'm a big fan of the old saying to never put off until tomorrow what you can do today, so the better I get those two out of the way, the better. Arguably I'd enjoy them more if I play them further into the future - further removed from my previous playthrough - but it is what it is.

That being said, I still have a massive grind to go through in Yakuza as I'm only sitting at level 86 with Ichiban and his pals (and only two jobs above 50), so I'm going to have to invest a fair few hours grinding out levels. The game's biggest challenge, the Final Millenium Tower dungeon still awaits me, and there's no telling how quick I can get through it, but considering I only have to unlock the Plat somewhere in December to keep my 65 streak going, I *should* be able to manage. I may have to double-dip and unlock the easier Trophies of both Vice City stacks this month if I run out of time, and it does seem that this will be the first month wherein I don't unlock a single Plat since January 2022. Not a streak I'm happy to break, but ultimately the 7,000 milestone is too important to me. Yakuza Like a Dragon was released as Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 in Japan, hence why it is perfect for this specific number.

The PS Plus Essential games for November aren't really my bag so those are out of the question, and the PS Plus Extra games aren't announced yet I believe, so it's like I'm going to have to be content with Yakuza and Vice City only this month. Just as well. If I can pull that big personal thing off this month, I'll have some great news to share on December 1st.... we'll see!

Happy hunting this month, folks! Be sure to keep warm but don't use the heater too much now!

wajbsb · November 2, 2022

On 01/03/2022 at 1:18 PM, Golem25 said:

Update 30

Can you believe it's March already Edition

February's Platinum Trophies

Reveal hidden contents

Platinum #109 - Madden NFL 19

Madden NFL 19 Master - Congratulations on earning every Madden NFL 11 trophy!

56,425 Owners - 1,330 Achievers for a percentage of 2.36% (average completion; 18.28%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 4/10 (Longshot & Triple Crown)

Trophies; 4/10 (lots of RNG, dull and reused tiles and Trophies)

Bullfrogs; 10/10

Review found here

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Madden NFL 20 (No review)

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Platinum #111 - Far Cry 2

Iron-guts - Earn the highest honors

272,414 Owners - 1,693 Achievers for a percentage of 0.62% (average completion; 15.89%)

Enjoyment; I don't care/10

Difficulty; 9/10 (more to do with quantity rather than challenge)

Trophies; 1/10 (MP segment ruins a good SP batch - no, wait, fuck the diamonds)

Sense of 'Oh thank God it's done'; 10/10

Review found here

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Platinum #112 - Grand Theft Auto III

King of Liberty City - Unlock all trophies.

55,413 Owners - 9,202 Achievers for a percentage of 16.61% (average completion; 24.72%)

Enjoyment; 7/10

Difficulty; 3/10 (Offroad challenges were annoying)

Trophies; 6/10 (straightforward list making good use of key art for icons)

Pets-overnight.com; 10/10

Review found here

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Platinum #113 - Grand Theft Auto IV + 100%

Taking A Liberty - Unlock all trophies.

55,413 Owners - 9,202 Achievers for a percentage of 16.61% (average completion; 24.72%)

Enjoyment; 8/10

Difficulty; 7/10 (Gold Star)

Trophies; 7/10 (unique tiles, fun requirements until you go Online)

HEY COUSIN; 10/10

Review found here

Wow guys and gals, just wow. 66 Trophies including zero Plats in January, only to strike back with no fewer than five Plats - of which FOUR are Ultra Rare! - included in the 65 Trophies I unlocked in February! Indeed, looking at my stats page you'll find that I've booked-ended my 127 Trophies per month streak with the same numbers that opened it; 65 Trophies in July '20, 66 in August '20, and then back to 66 in Jan '22 and 65 in Feb '22. I'm not too keen on another streak but we'll see what happens.

The big news is, of course, two of the Plats I've added to the collection; Taking a Liberty and Iron-guts, two holy grails of the PS3 era in terms of Platinum Trophies, with the first being the crowning achievement for Grand Theft Auto IV and the latter being an immensely satisfying reward for suffering through the Hell that was Far Cry 2's multiplayer. Both are sub 1 percent rarity, and hav transformed my rarest Trophy showcase quite dramatically, as seen below;

You know you've had a good month when four out of the five Trophies that were previously your rarest have been pushed out by new ones. I quite like this change, especially since I have four sub 1's now, instead of just the lonesome Modnation Racers Road Trip Plat. I will miss seeing that gorgeous WipEout 2048 Plat, which has topped my list since all the way back in 2013 but progress halts for none now, does it? So too does my gaming budget overcome any obstacle, clearly, as both Far Cry 2 and GTA IV were made possible by some extensive... let's call it investment on my side;

Geez, back in 2008 when I got my PS3 (and I still have it, it's the one in the bottom left) I could never have imagined that I'd one day own three, but here we are! The two extra ones cost 65 GBP each, while I also had to buy that smaller screen for what I think was 20 GBP, plus a HDMI splitter for another 6.50 or so to allow for relatively easy switching between two consoles on the larger screen - saving me from having to buy a third screen.

These extra consoles were a Godsend, allowing me to cut the online grind for both GTA IV and Far Cry 2 by over half their lengths had I required others to grind with. GTA ended up only needing a few quick boost sessions for team matches, while Far Cry 2 I was able to do completely solo - and thank God for that because it still took over 50 hours. I will credit Ubisoft for keeping the servers online, but they are in such poor condition that at the best of times you need to log in and out of PSN 10 times before they finally let you connect to a lobby, and even then you need to re-log in after five matches or the lobby will crash and boot you out. Oh dear, oh dear. More about my troubled relationship with Far Cry 2 can be found in the rambling review I wrote straight after finishing the grind, which involved close to 10,000 kills performed in a variety of situations across 27 awful weapons that break and require replacing during matches. I applaud anyone brave enough to boost its multiplayer with actual, other live players, because I would have gone mad if I was forced to spend more time just sitting there, grinding away.

But hey, the future is now; both Plats are now in my collection and are real badges of honour, forever associated with my name and profile until Sony pulls the plug on PSN. Yay!

Plats aside, the Trophies I gained last month came from the following games in the qualities listed in parentheses;

Far Cry 2 (4)

Grand Theft Auto III (7)

Grand Theft Auto IV (5)

Madden NFL 19 (39)

Madden NFL 20 (9)

Motorstorm: Pacific Rift (1)

That lone Motorstorm Trophy was made possible by having three PS3s and a PS5 - you can read how I unlocked it here in the Latest Trophy Thread - so another benefit of having invested the dough to get GTA IV and FC2 done.

Statistics update;

Moving swiftly on to the Statistics part of the update, it has been a slightly frustrating month on the Leaderboards;

51,258th in the world overall (up from 52,359th, target; top 50,000)

824th domestically overall (up from 850th, target; top 800)

Good progress on the world board, but domestically I still am not where I want to be, and no matter how many Trophies I unlock I seem to keep chasing the top 800. I am 2,940 points behind the guy in 800th place, although that is nicely down from 4,995 this time last month. However, at the start of Jan I was within a thousand points until suddenly thirty people jumped over me. The grind will have to continue, but I clearly still need to make up more than two full Trophy lists (about 1,300 points each).

Average rarity, meanwhile, has fared a lot better. 34.15 on Jan 1st, then 33.98 on Feb 1st, and now, today, March 1st, I'm sat on 33.78%! Lobbing a full .2 points off of that statistic while sitting above 6,000 Trophies total is no mean feat, I'd like to think. And with another few rare-ish lists on the hitlist for the coming month, I would think we can celebrate a new record low on April 1st...

Roadmap update;

That brings us to the Roadmap, which is not particularly set in stone for this month. I have a few games in the backlog thanks to PS Plus, as well as a little bit of clean-up to do from the PS3 era, but after the Herculean tasks I accomplished in February I am intent on leaning back a little and just doing stuff I feel like this month. Currently I am eyeing up the following games, with the number of available Trophies in parentheses;

F1 2010 (2)

Grand Theft Auto Vice City (34)

Madden NFL 21 [PS4] (29)

Madden NFL 21 [PS4] (29)

The Sims 4 (51)

Wreckfest [PS5] (21)

I do have to add in that I still do not own Madden, and that I still don't know whether the Sims 4 is even playable on PS4 after an update broke it a while back. Sure, there are some other games deeper in the backlog like Subnautica and Abzu as well as a slew of Vita titles, but as said, I'm just going to play whatever I want and that'll likely be Vice City before anything else. I like to think I've very much earned it after a lot of hard work over the past year and a half, and especially after a brutal February. However, since I have the extra consoles now and should put them to good use before selling, I am likely going to intersperse my playthrough of Vice City with solo-boost sessions for F1 2010 - another Ultra Rare Plat from way back when. I reckon I may need 20 or so hours to get it unlocked, so if I can just do an hour or so a day for two weeks.... anyway, having that Plat added to the collection would be another real testament to my ability to suffer through godawful boring grinds.

I'll keep you all posted, have a lovely month ahead both on Playstation and outside of it!

Massive, massive congratulations on the Far Cry 2 plat! It's something I need to do myself, but I hadn't considered the possibility of self- boosting and I wondered if you had any advice - other than "don't do it you fool, are you insane?". Which, I mean, I possibly am but being as you've done it already, only as insane as you, maybe! ?

I realise that it's kind of not helping you if you give me advice, given that it might affect the rarity of the trophies, but I'd appreciate any feedback!

I've already got "War Party" so there's that ?

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