Playthrough Notes

[cckerberos]

I recently completed this and thought that it might be helpful to write up some comments on my playthrough given the rarity of the platinum. Except when stated otherwise, I followed the very helpful trophy guide faithfully (I'm putting this here rather than as a comment on the guide due to the length and because some of this is either subjective or not directly related to the guide). All told, the game took me about 40 hours (and I did as much side content as possible).

 

Be very careful with your saves. The game is unstable and will increasingly crash as you get further in. Things can also easily go wrong in quest lines so make sure you have a save from when you first entered a location just in case.

 

Character Creation, Leveling, and Party Makeup

My party consisted of two characters with the guide's 3 skill points/level build and two with the 4 skill points/level build. I also followed the guide's suggestion to give my two more intelligent characters a second combat skill. This worked out fine but in retrospect a second combat skill isn't really needed. I did not give my characters any quirks, although Delayed Gratification may have been worth it since your characters will be Level 40 or so by the time the game ends. Assault rifles and sniper rifles are the most powerful weapons so I had two characters specialize in each.

 

I never really got to grips with the Perks you gain as you level up and all of my characters ended the game with unspent Perk points. Full Metal Jacket, Watchman, Deadeye, Hardened, and Tinkerer were the only ones that stood out to me as useful. The same thing goes for raising attributes. I would recommend always keeping a buffer of unspent skill points for each character as they start leveling up so that you can respond dynamically to any situation that arises.

 

I used the guide's recommended party of Ralphy, Rose, and Scotchmo. I recommend giving characters a single point in Pick Locks and Safecracking to cover the time before you can recruit Scotchmo. Something important not mentioned in the guide is that you will be unable to use Rose during or after the final fight of the game for story reasons. So you should be prepared for that, either by replacing her with a different NPC or making sure that other characters have at least some points in Field Medic, Surgeon, and Computer Science. This came as a bit of a nasty surprise to me and I fought the final battle with person short and without any way to revive downed characters (the game is generally a breeze on Rookie difficulty, but the final fight is something you'll want a healer for). Also, I'll have to disagree with the guide and suggest you toss a few points into Leadership once you enter the late game. You'll have the points to spare and it's nice to not have your NPCs go rogue all the time.

 

Following the Guide

Here are a few comments relevant to each stage of the guide (mild spoilers follow but no worse than that revealed in the guide itself):

 

• Stage 2: After entering the Rail Nomads Camp and saving Ralphy, make sure to disarm the coffee can bomb that has been placed on the bicycle near where Jessie is standing before going to recruit him. If you don't, she will die, potentially making the Peace on the Rails trophy unobtainable.
• Stage 3: Make a clean save file before attempting to make peace at the Rail Nomads Camp as this quest is very easy to screw up. Once you rescue Jessie, make sure that Casey agrees to use the Golden Spike in the rails before returning to Kekkabah.
• Stage 5: This doesn't affect any trophies, but be aware that if you leave Damonta without destroying all of the robots in the town, when you return you'll find that every NPC has been killed (failing any side quests and locking out that content). For this reason, you should probably avoid accepting Red Baychowski's sidequest until this is done.
• Stage 7 (Rodia): The guide's approach to the Rodia trophies ( Under Old Management/ Hell Bent for Leather) works but following it will make you skip a lot of the side content in the town. So you might want to do the side quests in the town first. Up to you.
• Stage 7 (Angel Oracle): When following the walkthrough for the  Civilized trophy, talk to Tori Robinson between Steps 8 and 9 to find out about her plot. Otherwise Step 12 won't work.
• Stage 7 (Hollywood): The walkthrough for the  Religious Persecution trophy works perfectly, but using the shortcut described in Step 1 means skipping a fair amount of content. Players interested in the story should probably follow the game's intended questline and go through Los Feliz instead. You can then pick up the walkthrough after meeting the Church's leaders normally. Again, it's up to you.

 

Specific Trophy Notes

And finally, just a few minor comments on individual trophies:

 

 A Gentle Heart: You can sneak in and hack the computer terminals before fighting Tinker. Also, if you do too much damage to Tinker too quickly, the whole "surrender" thing doesn't work correctly.

 A Night to Remember: The chance to catch an STD seems to be pretty low. It took me at least 20 tries to get it.

 Not Monkeying Around: There's no need to carry the gorilla suit around with you in your inventory. Just stick it in your stash at Ranger Citadel and then take it out just before you hit the point of no return mentioned in the guide. You can also do the same thing for the books for  Wasteland Historian.

 Skin 'O Yer Teeth: Contrary to what's written in the guide, it doesn't look like this trophy can be gotten in a random encounter. I got it in Rail Nomad Camp, using the guard that comes to investigate when you shut off the power to the Meeting Hall (as described for in the guide's explanation for  Cat Burglar).

 Tasty!: After fulfilling the requirements for this trophy, the xp value of the Night Terror goes up to 3,200. So it's well worth killing it.

 They Walk Among Us: I also found the game too unstable to just leave it running overnight when trying to earn this trophy. It crashed both times I tried. So I recommend keeping the game running while you do something else and check in every 30 minutes or so to make a save.

 

[Salt_AU]

Thanks for this, I intend to revisit Wasteland 2 at some point soon, this will be helpful.