Grotz’s Trophy Collection: Over a Decade of History

[kingofbattle8174]

It always good to play something to get into the mood of the season. I did that too, by trying to finish up Black Mirror and starting Maneater. The creepy vibe and ghosts are good for the first and great gore satisfaction for the other. I enjoyed Soma too as I just finished up recently as well. 

 

my other picks off of my fall list

 

Stranger Things 3: 

 

Midnight Sanctuary:

 

Until Dawn:

 

Bully: 

 

Lego Harry Potter Yrs 1-4 

 

Doctor Who VR:

 

Nightmares From the Deep 2:

 

Until Dawn Rush of Blood: 

 

Batman VR

 

Mary Skelter

 

Seasons After Fall

Edited September 16, 2020 by kingofbattle8174

[jonesey46]

On your last of us 2 spoilers.

Spoiler

I took from it that you weren't supposed to take sides in this story. What you said about not liking Ellie for what she was doing in Seattle is exactly what Abby was doing in Jackson.

 

Ellie's 3 days in Seattle is something Abby already went through, hunting for revenge. Abby's 3 days is what happens after the revenge, knowing that it didn't solve any problems and a true sense of purpose needs to be found, in her case, Lev. Ellie has already experienced that with Joel, but will only be able to experience it again after she lets go, which she does at the end (thank Christ). 

 

I hated the thing at first but I really came around to it once it all clicked. 

 

Also strong disagree on Abby being involved in Part 3. Part 2 is Ellie's story, Abby is only there to facilitate that story and her arc was complete at the end judging by the title screen at San Catalina. 

 

Edited September 17, 2020 by jonesey46
added spoiler thing

[Grotz99]

 

Spoiler

1 hour ago, jonesey46 said:

On your last of us 2 spoilers. I took from it that you weren't supposed to take sides in this story. What you said about not liking Ellie for what she was doing in Seattle is exactly what Abby was doing in Jackson.

 

Ellie's 3 days in Seattle is something Abby already went through, hunting for revenge. Abby's 3 days is what happens after the revenge, knowing that it didn't solve any problems and a true sense of purpose needs to be found, in her case, Lev. Ellie has already experienced that with Joel, but will only be able to experience it again after she lets go, which she does at the end (thank Christ). 

 

I hated the thing at first but I really came around to it once it all clicked. 

 

Also strong disagree on Abby being involved in Part 3. Part 2 is Ellie's story, Abby is only there to facilitate that story and her arc was complete at the end judging by the title screen at San Catalina. 

I had a feeling that you would give me a good reply and you are right ?, we just didn't get to see Abby's vengeance side. The story overall was about just that, grief, vengence and acceptance. You really don't take sides, it was pretty terrible going for both of them. I really just liked the story parts for Abby a little better, but like you said it's during her "moving on" period. Abby also didn't have to wipe out dozens of people to get to Joel, but again we don't know if that is true and can you imagine how many people might want revenge on Ellie now? I do remember the playful kid Ellie was in the first one and what she was like with Dina and her kid and I hope that she is able to continue on with her life. But in doing that, what would next game be like, these aren't made to be cheery, they are during desolate times in which people do what they need to in order to survive, which is usually pretty grim. Even in Left Behind, it started out great, but turned dark really quick. So everyone will be thinking what will her next hurdle be? Is there ever a light at the end of the tunnel? Ellie is already pretty desensitized, but hopefully breaking down and realizing what she has done throughout that game will change her.

 

So, as for not liking Ellie as much as Abby, I feel like we saw we saw a side of Ellie going far beyond just revenge, she pretty much ignored her friends when she should stop and go back, even after hearing about Dina's pregnancy. Even when things seemed good, she dropped that life pretty quick (well at least 1 year?) after they did finally go back, but I outlined why that happened. Playing her was definitely cringey at some points. I also didn't feel like her anger against Joel was totally justified, but he really did suck at telling her the truth, so that's probably on him. I guess I worded it wrong as it wasn't about not liking Ellie as a character, but not liking how she took the situation and acted, especially since the history we had from the first game. But it wouldn't have been such a great story otherwise.

Even though I have those feelings about the game and the characters, I really liked it overall. The characters were put into those roles to make us feel what they feel and get a real grasp on the gravity of the story, which they did a great job of portraying.

 

@jonesey46I remember you saying you dropped it pretty quickly and outright hating it. I do look forward to your thoughts and to a part 3 either way. If anything I can see some DLC to fill in the Firefly stuff afterwards.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Grotz99

[jonesey46]

12 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I had a feeling that you would give me a good reply and you are right , we just didn't get to see Abby's vengeance side. The story overall was about just that, grief, vengence and acceptance. You really don't take sides, it was pretty terrible going for both of them. I really just liked the story parts for Abby a little better, but like you said it's during her "moving on" period. Abby also didn't have to wipe out dozens of people to get to Joel, but again we don't know if that is true and can you imagine how many people might want revenge on Ellie now? I do remember the playful kid Ellie was in the first one and what she was like with Dina and her kid and I hope that she is able to continue on with her life. But in doing that, what would next game be like, these aren't made to be cheery, they are during desolate times in which people do what they need to in order to survive, which is usually pretty grim. Even in Left Behind, it started out great, but turned dark really quick. So everyone will be thinking what will her next hurdle be? Is there ever a light at the end of the tunnel? Ellie is already pretty desensitized, but hopefully breaking down and realizing what she has done throughout that game will change her.

 

So, as for not liking Ellie as much as Abby, I feel like we saw we saw a side of Ellie going far beyond just revenge, she pretty much ignored her friends when she should stop and go back, even after hearing about Dina's pregnancy. Even when things seemed good, she dropped that life pretty quick (well at least 1 year?) after they did finally go back, but I outlined why that happened. Playing her was definitely cringey at some points. I also didn't feel like her anger against Joel was totally justified, but he really did suck at telling her the truth, so that's probably on him. I guess I worded it wrong as it wasn't about not liking Ellie as a character, but not liking how she took the situation and acted, especially since the history we had from the first game. But it wouldn't have been such a great story otherwise.

Even though I have those feelings about the game and the characters, I really liked it overall. The characters were put into those roles to make us feel what they feel and get a real grasp on the gravity of the story, which they did a great job of portraying.

 

@jonesey46I remember you saying you dropped it pretty quickly and outright hating it. I do look forward to your thoughts and to a part 3 either way. If anything I can see some DLC to fill in the Firefly stuff afterwards.

Absolutely. I really came around to it on my second play through.

 

Spoiler

I found myself enjoying Abby's gameplay bits a lot more than Ellies as they were a lot more action packed. Maybe that was on purpose?

 

I'll never rate it above Part I but that's only because that game makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside and came at a really influential time of my life. But hats off to ND for doing what they did with 2 cause no one else could have pulled that off. It's not the game that I wanted but I'm so glad they did it.

 

To add another point about Abby and Part 3. I was very matter of fact in my last post but the truth is no one knows what ND's plans are. I just feel I've finally got a good grasp on Part 2 and have come to really understand what they were going for, but if Abby is involved in Part 3 then all that goes away and I'll just have to put my hands up and say "I have no fucking idea what is going on anymore" ?

 

[Grotz99]

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

Platinum #81 Ace Attorney Trilogy

Time to Completion - 2 months 1 week

Completed Date - September 21 2020

 

After a little over 2 months of playing this a little bit before bed most nights, I finally wrapped up this judicial visual novel. I found that playing visual novel type games like this or TellTale are great before going bed. They don't get my gaming adrenaline running and I can be half asleep while playing. This includes all 3 Phoenix Wright games which took a lot longer than I expected, with my speed of reading of text, although it generates a little slower on screen than I would like and if you hit the X button again it usually shows all of it, but sometimes skips to the next part if you're not careful. The story does continue between games, so it's best to play them in order starting from you being a noob attorney fresh out of school and into the defendants seat. I can't really compare this to being a lawyer in the real world, but if this is how it is done, I missed out taking that career path.

 

You spend most of the game dealing with zany characters as either witnesses, defendants or even prosecutors who apparently try to find the defendant guilty at any cost. Each day is a cycle between being in court and peeling apart witness testimonies with contradictions to show that they are lying and investigating crime scenes for clues. Eventually you get the ability to dig into people's lies or withheld information while investigating, which requires providing some evidence to make them talk. Most choices in this game are around what evidence to provide at the write times to the write people, some of which actually took a lot of thinking or trial by error, but you only get a limited amount of mistakes (thank you being able to save at any point in the game). It felt pretty good though when you slammed your hands on the table and pointed harder than ever have when you found out the answer and crippled the prosecutor's case, their reactions are pretty humorous. Also, the judge is pretty useless overall and I have no idea how he got into that position. Some of the stuff that happens in the game is a bit out there, but this is fiction it added a neat (confusing sometimes) element to the game.

 

Overall the game was pretty fun and I liked the dialogue as well as solving mysteries (hence all the Sherlock games I've played >.>). I looked up maybe watching the anime, but it looks like exactly what I played, although it might be interesting to hear their voices. To save time I did lookup the missable trophies as spoiler free as possible, especially the ladder one, since it spanned over the whole trilogy (the guide on this site does a good job). 

 

The Good

Fun cases to solve, especially the last one, with very unique characters. Had great dialogue and it is hard to actually get stuck on a case, but sometimes takes a lot of trial and error, as the choice isn't exactly clear for what text box to present evidence on during testimony.

 

The Bad

Some trophies are highly missable and would be a pain to go back through games/stories again if they were missed.

 

The Ugly

Would have been nice if there was a way to make the text appear quicker rather than hitting X a second a time and potentially missing some conversation pieces.

 

Update

On the update front, I'm doing a terrible job bringing my unearned trophy count down as I started Risk of Rain 2 this past weekend, which is a fun roguelike 3rd person shooter. I finished my first playthrough of The Outer Worlds and it is an awesome game made by the company that made my personal favorite Fallout game, New Vegas. I usually have a hard time jumping in for a second playthrough for a few trophies right away, but as I played through the first time I kept wondering what would happen with the choices I didn't make (as I usually play good the first run, but really wanted to be a dick to some of the characters in this game). I started the 2nd playthrough on supernova difficulty not only being a dick, but being dumb as well (intelligence is set to 1). It was a rough start learning how to be more careful during combat, but I got the hang of it now as I'm leaving the first planet. I'm also slowly chipping through Metro Last Light for a no kill good ending, about halfway done with that playthrough. I'm looking to play Danganronpa 1 and 2 Reload as my next visual novel probably and keep it to a before bed type of game. Resident Evil 7 will be my first October scary game, which will help being down my unearned trophy count.

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Grotz99

[jonesey46]

I just 100%ed Resi7 the other day and it's honestly become one of my favourite games. I hope you have a good time with it. 

[AJ_Radio]

A lot of good games on your trophy list.

 

Sometimes I picture myself as being someone else having their trophy thread and in my head I'm going "Why aren't you playing this game I'd be dying to play it again!".... which is usually a few unfinished games on someone's list.

 

The Outer Worlds looks pretty interesting. I wonder if people think of it as an alternate version of Fallout.

[Grotz99]

10 hours ago, Spaz said:

A lot of good games on your trophy list.

 

Sometimes I picture myself as being someone else having their trophy thread and in my head I'm going "Why aren't you playing this game I'd be dying to play it again!".... which is usually a few unfinished games on someone's list.

 

The Outer Worlds looks pretty interesting. I wonder if people think of it as an alternate version of Fallout.

There are a ton of unfinished games on my list as well as in my backlog. I try to balance them out, but new games seem to win lately. I'm playing RE7 next, so that'll help bring down that unearned trophy count a little. Tides of Numenera and Hand of Fate 2 are some that I want to revisit. Witcher 3 I'm thinking of going back to soon as well, not sure why I stopped in the middle of it, its a good game.

 

The Outer Worlds is made by the same company that did Fallout New Vegas (my favorite Fallout). It is very similar to Fallout and I'll post about it once I finish it here soon.

[AJ_Radio]

4 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

Witcher 3 I'm thinking of going back to soon as well, not sure why I stopped in the middle of it, its a good game.

 

The Outer Worlds is made by the same company that did Fallout New Vegas (my favorite Fallout). It is very similar to Fallout and I'll post about it once I finish it here soon.

 

Some of the missables can be a pain but it's otherwise a fantastic game. It's one of those very rare cases where I did not mind spending over 100 hours of it.

 

People have told me Outer Worlds is better than Fallout 4. Didn't really like the game that much. Spent over $100 on it because I bought the game the week it came out and bought it's Season Pass, so have to get to it eventually.

[Grotz99]

The Outer Worlds

Platinum #82 The Outer Worlds Platinum Trophy

Time to Completion: 3 weeks 23 hours

Completed Date: October 1 2020

 

From the studio that made my personal favorite Fallout game, Fallout New Vegas, comes Fallout in space. The Outer Worlds takes place in a space colony which is far enough away that when humans travel to it, they are put into stasis or some kind of cryo freezing chamber. They don't really go into why the colony was established much, but they find out quickly that it is not a paradise that they left Earth to create. So what kind of hero do you get to play this time? That depends on the story path you wish to take, but the short answer is you're some rando that was woken up from stasis by a mad man and sent on a mission to help wake up the remaining settlers, which are most of the brains of the colony, so they can find a way to help sustain the colony on more than some canned "tuna". When you start to explore the planets, you find out there are full of murderous creatures and humans all over and most of the buildings look like they popped up from parts used from the ship they landed with, not much different than the environment from Fallout. There is at least one nicer area of the game for the higher class citizens.

 

The gameplay is the same as the more recent Fallout games, It's an FPS that you can enable limited bullet time and you cause bodies to explode into limbs or disintegrate in a pile of ash. Sneaking allows you to get big critical hits using a melee weapon as long as you're not spotted. There were also a few unique science weapons that you can search for, which did something a little extra like mind control or knock the enemy into the air, but were weak on damage, which made them great companion weapons. The combat mechanics did not change much from the Fallout games, but what did improve was the stability. I'm not sure if they tweaked the engine used in Fallout or made a new one with the same framework, but this game didn't crash on me once. Although, I am using a first gen PS4 and the load times are atrocious, with easily enough time to go to the bathroom or make a sandwich. Load times aside, the part that really made me enjoy this game was the dialogue and choices. It's rare that I'm willing to jump into a second playthrough of a game immediately after the first, especially when the first took around 25 hours to complete, but while going through my first playthrough as a goody-goody (usually my first runs are more morally just), I was thinking about what the other dialogue choices would lead to if I was being a dick. I don't know what it was about the NPCs in this game, but they did a good job at making me not like them. For example of how terrible of a person I was my 2nd playthrough, there was a quest where a lady wanted you to find her son who ran away. When I found him, he refused to go home so what was the meanest choice I can choose? I told him if he didn't go home I would beat the money out of his mom. Once he got home and I received my money as a reward, I told him in front of his mom that he could go run away again now that I got her money. There were some other moments like this one, usually I try to go as far as possible with dialogue before I have to outright kill someone.

 

With my first playthrough being on normal difficulty and playing as an honorable hero type fighting back against the oppressors of society, my second playthrough was as someone who just didn't give a F about the colonist and was a true mercenary out to make some money to buy....premium canned salt tuna? The second playthrough was done on Supernova difficulty as a dumb character (1 int stat), where you had to make sure you ate, drank and slept regularly or your stats would fall. This was a little annoying at first since you had no money to start with and a bottle of water was like 40 bucks. Of course this led to stealing, but also led to really accelerating the story to make some money. With pieces of rags used for armor and a pee shooter of a gun, it was a challenge to get through the first few quests of the first planet, but it really started ease up as you progress and get talents that work around soloing (without companions). Oh yeah, did I mention that in Supernova, if your companions die in battle, they are dead for the game? I tried a few different things to get them to be targeted less and still help in combat, but nothing seemed to work, so I made Parvati, the first companion you get and have to take with you, passive so she just sat there watching my ass get shot at. As for being dumb, this is required for a specific trophy where you have to make a really dumb choice later in the game, you know what I'm talking about if you've seen a speedrun video. Being dumb also opened up new dialogue choices which made me not only seem like a jerk but a Neanderthal a well and the NPC reactions were pretty funny sometimes. Other than being able to only save on the ship and rarely get autosaves, Supernova difficulty wasn't all that bad and I completed it at level 24 (out of 30 being the max level).

 

After finishing the game the first time, I decided to get the season pass for the 2 DLC. Peril on Gorgon just came out in September and I think the 2nd DLC is out sometime early next year. This DLC added a new planet to explore with a decent story line, where you find out how certain people became the way they are in the game (I know, super vague, but I don't like to put in spoilers and if you played it, you know what I mean) and you can now get to level 33. The 3 levels were gained pretty quickly and didn't help too much, seeing as your skill maximums went from 100 to 150 and you only get 10 points per level to invest, so 30 more points....meh. They also made the enemies a lot faster and harder to kill to help skew the difficulty and add a new challenge, but nothing too bad. There are a few new science weapons, but tbh I didn't try them out as I got them near the end. Overall, the DLC was worth the $12.50 (if you get the season pass technically), but it has one glaring flaw. This DLC has trophies for 4, yes 4, different endings. You can't actually reach this DLC until about 2/3 the way through the main story, unless you cheese or rush the planet of Monarch. I can see there being 2 trophies for different endings since that is the minimum amount of playthroughs people usually have, maybe even 3, but 4 different ones for a DLC? I know this is a complaint about trophies, but I think it's silly to have one for each ending. Luckily there is a good spot you can save and reload then each one takes maybe 30 minutes each. I almost missed one of them, but had a lucky autosave, before I looked up and found out there were 4 endings. Playing this on Supernova would be pretty rough so I'm glad I knocked it out in my normal playthrough.

 

The Good

Great dialogue and most are actually voice acted. There are some very different decisions you can make to change the outcome of the story ending, but the end location itself is the same either way. This game had no crashing or hiccups compared to the Fallout engines used in the past. I had no problem doing 2 full playthroughs in a row with this game which says something.

 

The Bad

If you are trying to ignore spoilers completely, there is a chance you'll miss some trophies and almost have to do a third playthrough. I just had to save and do 2 different routes 2/3 the way through my 2nd playthrough to get both trophies for 1 decision. Saving often helps, but there is a minimum of 2 playthroughs you should play anyways. Other than that, the combat gets a little tedious.

 

The Ugly

The load times on the first gen PS4 are awful, even when you need to just load into your ship, which isn't that big. Everytime I forgot to take something off my ship or forgot to sleep I cursed at screen since it meant 2 more loading screens.

 

Update:

Really liking Danganronpa and curious to see where the story goes, just got to chapter 3. Started Resident Evil 7 and I can't believe I put this down 2 years ago after playing about an hour into it, I must have been such a wuss. RE7 is great, the graphics and atmosphere do an awesome job of being creepy. The boss fights are fun and interesting (just killed the 2nd main person?). As I play through it this first time, I keep thinking what it's going to be like on madhouse difficulty and I think it's going to be pretty hard as I die at least a few times on each boss or use more resources than I want to. If they keep this same formula for RE8, I'll be really excited to play it (might be at the rare preorder level). For times where I just want to shoot things, I'm working through Risk of Rain 2, which is a very fun and relaxing roguelike, the music is awesome.

Edited October 6, 2020 by Grotz99

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 6.10.2020 at 7:57 PM, Grotz99 said:

 As I play through it this first time, I keep thinking what it's going to be like on madhouse difficulty and I think it's going to be pretty hard as I die at least a few times on each boss or use more resources than I want to.

 

It's not that bad on a second playthough, you'll know a lot of what's coming, when to save up for what, and the tactics needed. One particular Boss fight was really nasty, but that was more about scarce resources combined with aiming under pressure.

[Grotz99]

Grim Fandango Remastered

Platinum #83 Number Nine Ticket

Time to Completion: 5 Years 5 Months

Completed Date: October 15 2020

 

Been in the mood to knock down my unearned trophy count a little and stumbled upon another game that I had 5 trophies in (others being RE7 and Metro Last Light that I'm working on) that I decided to complete. Grim Fandango is an old school puzzle game set in very early 3D space developed by Lucasarts back when they were making awesome games. This doesn't exactly fall into Halloween themed game for this month, but it could be considered part of Dias de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) for the day after Halloween, so close enough.

 

It starts off as you playing Manny, a travel agent working off a debt in the 8th level of the underworld, helping new souls get to the 9th level by different transportation methods based on what they did when they were alive. Depending on how good you were, you can get to the 9th level by car, boat, train etc with the cheapest being a walking stick with a compass attached. Now, you are probably thinking this is just sounding like a travel agent simulator game, but that was just the very beginning of the game and I thought it was a neat concept. Shortly after you work your super exciting job, you start to realize something is amiss at the company and you plan to find out what it is. This leads into a 4 year journey as you are on the lam from the syndicate and others. What, you thought I would go into the story for all 4 years? You know I don't like giving away story in these reviews. All I will say is that you end up in some very different places that make you wonder why not just hang out in the 8th level, what can the 9th level offer? That quickly turns into finding out that it is time to GTFO. Just because you are dead, doesn't mean you can't die again...permanently.

 

The game play is pretty rough with the movement controls, which is probably due to using tank controls that is required for a trophy (playing the whole game with tank controls). It was hard enough to tell where to go without having to fiddle with the controls to get there. I thought tank controls meant using 2 joysticks to control the movement, like 1 for each tread on a tank, it was not that. It's hard to explain, but it was not great and I can see why I got frustrated before. The other little gripe I had was trying to select objects or people when there's a few in the same area, need to see where you're character is looking very closely, making it easy to miss things. You can tell this game was made for the PC as a mouse would be so much better. The graphics weren't bad for how old the game was, but sometimes it was hard to really see things that you needed, like ladders.

 

Time for the real meat of the game, the puzzle solving. This game requires you to do some really lateral thinking when it comes to solving it's puzzles. I'm not one for hints on games like these and it really shames me to say this, but after spending hours wandering around trying every item with every interactable person, place or thing using those damn controls, I had to look up hints sometimes. Usually it was an item that I couldn't see in the first place or something I missed, like this one spot where there is a coffee pot sitting on a double hot plate and it depends which side of the hot plate you interact with and the one with the coffee pot required a very specific spot to stand for some reason, I just kept interacting with the plate that had nothing on it and thought it was nothing. Sometimes it was just because the puzzles were so out there. This happened a bunch in the first year of game time and became less as I got use to what they are looking for where I didn't have to use it in the 4th year (except for that damn coffee pot). Year 2 had a lot going on which probably took the most time trying to brute force a puzzle (using every item you have on you with everything you can), but was the most interesting to me, and you get introduced to a ton of new characters. The characters were great and all pretty unique with great voice acting (not sure if that was a remaster thing or if they had voices in the original).

 

Overall it was a good game and although it's a little dated (Windows XP game era), it held up quite well. The trophies required you mostly just exhausting some dialogue options with other characters and there are some very missable ones. My advice if you want to play spoiler free is to make a new save at the start of each year and once you finish the game, go back to those saves and go back through the year with the trophy guide, should be quick when you know the solutions and turn off tank controls. Otherwise the guide on this site does a good job of limiting spoilers for puzzles.

 

The Good

This game makes you really think outside of the box. The story and characters are pretty interesting. Voice acting is great.

 

The Bad

I give the graphics a pass because of the era this game is from, but it is a little hard to see things on a tv that you need to interact with. It is not always clear unless you get about 2 feet from a 55" inch screen. It's sometimes annoying trying to select something in an area that is crowded with things. Again, this was made for computer for those reasons probably and did not port well to console.

 

The Ugly

The Right Way trophy for playing the whole game with tank controls can die in a fire, then die again once it gets to the underworld.

 

Update:

This ended up being longer than I thought, but here's what else I have going on. I'm making my way through Danganronpa 1 and the story just started to get real interesting (on chapter 5). Danganronpa might slow down a little though because I started a new creepy game, Alien: Isolation. I want to play this game in the dark and since my office (video game man cave) isn't ready yet, I need to play this late at night with the lights off after my wife goes to bed, since she doesn't want to watch it ?. I'm also working on the rest of the RE7 trophies, being about halfway through my speed run, which I can play anytime now that I've played through it once before. When I need a break from any of those games, I jump into Risk of Rain 2 for a run every now and then chipping away at those trophies.

 

Also, no I didn't give up on Metro Last Light, it's just one of those games where it's great the first time you play through it then playing for the trophies brings it down a few notches. I'm currently on the Chase level (20?) and for people who have gone for the no killing trophy before know that this is a pain. Some places say it's safe to kill them, some say it's not safe, ultimately I'm trying to survive through it without killing anyone. I just really don't like having to follow a guide and checklist I made on excel to get through levels for every moral point. Really makes the game not fun, especially with how some points are buggy and took a few attempts.

 

Forgot to mention, but I finished Whispering Willows. A little side scroller puzzle game I picked up for a couple bucks years back during another Halloween sale. It's more of eerie than creepy, but was a fun small game to play for a break. Anyone else playing something creepy during this season?

Edited October 16, 2020 by Grotz99

[kingofbattle8174]

I also can attest to that the tank controls are horrible and it sucks that they linked a trophy to using it. I thought the humor and story were good though, I played it on Vita so that worked pretty well for the most part. There were only a few parts where I got really stuck like the forest area. All of these games by Lucas Arts were a treat to play though overall.

[AJ_Radio]

I think more people need to understand that Grim Fandango is an old game now. The original came out back in 1998, so obviously a lot has changed since then. Modern gamers will find the tank controls hard to get used to.

 

For me, Grim Fandango was a terrific old school point and click. Somebody needs to remaster/remake all the classic LucasArts point and clicks, they were truly a treasure trove for the PC back in the day. Sadly, I don't think we'll ever live to see all the classic LucasArts games get a much needed remaster.

 

If Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle all got remasters, I don't see why other old point and clicks couldn't get the same treatment.

[Grotz99]

On 10/18/2020 at 1:08 AM, Spaz said:

I think more people need to understand that Grim Fandango is an old game now. The original came out back in 1998, so obviously a lot has changed since then. Modern gamers will find the tank controls hard to get used to.

 

For me, Grim Fandango was a terrific old school point and click. Somebody needs to remaster/remake all the classic LucasArts point and clicks, they were truly a treasure trove for the PC back in the day. Sadly, I don't think we'll ever live to see all the classic LucasArts games get a much needed remaster.

 

If Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle all got remasters, I don't see why other old point and clicks couldn't get the same treatment.

The controls just didn't match what my definition of tank controls were. I thought tank controls meant using 2 joy sticks to control the direction, holding both forward made him move forward, holding left stick forward and right stick back would make him turn right etc. I think the more annoying part was that when the aspect changed in different areas, it wasn't always clear what direction to hold the stick until you got moving, moved back into through to the previous zone or elevator multiple times.

 

Day of the Tentacle was awesome as well and I really do enjoy games with more of a puzzle aspect than reflex or "twitch" gaming (not the streaming platform) now a days. I hope that some company gets the rights to remake more of these point and clicks. 

[realm722]

Phenomenal write-ups man. I really love extensive reviews(in part because I'm a long-winded gasbag) but also because sometimes a simple trophy difficult rating or score doesn't do it justice how someone is gonna enjoy a game or not. 

 

On the Outer Worlds - great job on the platinum. I don't play FPS but that's a properly tricky platinum at sub <10% with the DLC taking it to being sub <1% now. Completing it on Supernova difficulty is extra nice. From what I've heard about the game, I think it's fair to say it got a little bit overhyped just because when it released, EVERYBODY was taking the piss out of Bethesda for Fallout 76 - and many propped this game up in combination with that. Overall, given the fact you didn't mind playing it through 2 times - happy you enjoyed it!

 

As for Grim Fandango, agree with you on it being very dated in some aspects. I played with a guide because I don't care for point and click games adventure logic, but still managed to enjoy the game world atmosphere and dialogue. Great recommendation on making a new save at the start of each different year as well for missable trophies!

[AJ_Radio]

8 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

The controls just didn't match what my definition of tank controls were. I thought tank controls meant using 2 joy sticks to control the direction, holding both forward made him move forward, holding left stick forward and right stick back would make him turn right etc. I think the more annoying part was that when the aspect changed in different areas, it wasn't always clear what direction to hold the stick until you got moving, moved back into through to the previous zone or elevator multiple times.

 

Day of the Tentacle was awesome as well and I really do enjoy games with more of a puzzle aspect than reflex or "twitch" gaming (not the streaming platform) now a days. I hope that some company gets the rights to remake more of these point and clicks. 

 

Agree.

 

I would be pissing in my pants from happiness if the old Indiana Jones point and clicks from LucasArts got remastered. Cmon, they can make some money out of them. I fucking love the Indiana Jones franchise, even if the last movie wasn't that good.

 

24 minutes ago, realm722 said:

On the Outer Worlds - great job on the platinum. I don't play FPS but that's a properly tricky platinum at sub <10% with the DLC taking it to being sub <1% now. Completing it on Supernova difficulty is extra nice. From what I've heard about the game, I think it's fair to say it got a little bit overhyped just because when it released, EVERYBODY was taking the piss out of Bethesda for Fallout 76 - and many propped this game up in combination with that. Overall, given the fact you didn't mind playing it through 2 times - happy you enjoyed it!

 

Does Outer Worlds do a lot what Fallout was -SUPPOSED- to do? I would love to have a post apocalyptic RPG where things like karma, reputation and perks actually mattered. 

[Grotz99]

14 hours ago, Spaz said:

Does Outer Worlds do a lot what Fallout was -SUPPOSED- to do? I would love to have a post apocalyptic RPG where things like karma, reputation and perks actually mattered. 

They made Outer Worlds pretty cut and dry as far as karma is concerned. You can be a goody-goody or a complete dick and it does not really change the outcome, even though your followers might complain, they still follow you no matter the choices you make. You get perks every couple of levels and none are based on how you conduct yourself. There are a few major story changing decisions throughout the game that can change the ending, but that's about it. Although, there is 2 different progress bars for factions. You can get a faction to like you, but then if you piss them off enough, the 2nd bar fills to a point that they will attack you on sight and I'm unsure how to lower that bar.

 

I was hoping there would be some differences other than rewards/reactions from how you handle quests or choices, but it doesn't change the outcome at the end, except for the major few choices you get while playing through. I remember Mass Effect had a good way of handling this and it was fun to see your characters looks actually change depending on if your meter went toward bad or good, but it's been a long time since I played it so I could be remembering the system in that wrong.

 

15 hours ago, realm722 said:

On the Outer Worlds - great job on the platinum. I don't play FPS but that's a properly tricky platinum at sub <10% with the DLC taking it to being sub <1% now. Completing it on Supernova difficulty is extra nice. From what I've heard about the game, I think it's fair to say it got a little bit overhyped just because when it released, EVERYBODY was taking the piss out of Bethesda for Fallout 76 - and many propped this game up in combination with that. Overall, given the fact you didn't mind playing it through 2 times - happy you enjoyed it!

I'm not sure if Outer Worlds got as over hyped as other games that year like Death Stranding. Fallout 76 was a flop (which apparently is better now after all the changes) and this game just seemed more polished than Fallout games usually were. I enjoyed the dialogue the most in it and it was great that they took the time to do voice acting for like 95% of it. It's been a long time since I didn't mind doing a 2nd full playthrough of a game immediately after the first (except for TLOU2), but the story changes were enough with the options and I wanted to see what outcomes I can get by being dumb and evil, which made for some great dialogue. I did however skip a bunch of side quests on the 2nd playthrough and ended it at level 24 instead of 30+, which made it a good amount shorter.

[Grotz99]

Metro: Last Light

Platinum #84  Platinum Trophy (super original trophy name)

Time to Completion: 6 Years 7 Months

Completed Date: October 22 2020

 

This is one of those games where I should review it based on it's actual merits after beating it on a blind playthrough first then review it after I get the platinum and I will try my best to go through both in this personal review. Metro: Last Light takes place in Russia with a setting that looks like what would happen if the Cold War went badly. I think this is technically the 2nd game in the series, with Metro 2033 being the first, so I might not have all the backstory, but you get bits a pieces of the past events as you go through. As for the main story of this this game, you play as Artyom, a Ranger for The Order who sets out to find the "Dark Ones", which is a type of being that survived the nuclear attacks and looks to rid the world of humanity, and unravel some of the mystery of his past. Most of the time, you travel underground in the metro railway systems where you'll encounter other people and factions who either want nothing to do with you or are just trying to kill you, usually the latter as there are multiple factions fighting over the Metro. Although, when you stumble upon a town that doesn't have people who want to capture or kill you, it is really filled with life and they went to great detail to show what it would be like to live during those times. There are times you need to travel on the surface, which are irradiated in some places still, but most of all the air is toxic which requires you to wear a gas mask and watch the time you have left on filters so you can switch them out.

 

The first playthrough I did was pretty much blind as I just wanted to enjoy the atmosphere this game had to offer. I took my time wandering around the towns, eavesdropping on conversations and finding/stealing military grade rounds, the currency in this game which can also be used to deal a lot more damage when loaded into a gun. There is no difficulty related achievements for the platinum in this game (there are for DLC), so I played through on normal. This was a decent difficulty to play through as I did die a good amount (although, mostly from stupid stuff like falling in water) while trying to figure out how to do certain parts or kill some bosses, which come in the form of mutant creatures. The story path is pretty linear for where you need to go, which means there wasn't too much exploring, but when you did, it had interesting pieces from the past. You can be sneaky through most of the game and avoid most of the combat and I really did try a little at the start, but who doesn't want to shoot Nazis or gangsters who are trying to rape someone? I had a pretty good time playing through it the first time and unsure why I didn't pursue it 6 years ago when I tried it out, I guess I thought it was going to be too scary? By the way, this game isn't really that scary, but in some areas could be creepy, especially if you have arachnophobia. Yes, there is a difference between creepy and scary. Creepy is like that moment in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where Willie walked through the dark secret passage and put her hand in the wall to pull the lever covered in gross bugs, where you are pretty sure there is no danger. Scary is like when you are being hunted by something you can't see and worry for your life or something threatens you unexpectedly.

 

Playing through the first time normally, the game probably took about 12 hours. I really just made sure to use every weapon for a trophy since my next run was going to be for not killing any humans. You can kill the mutant creatures, but it I think there is at least 1 gun that you only have a chance to use on killing humans. If you look at my profile, you'll notice that some of the games I get close to completing 100%/platinum on that I have trophies for just playing through the games again. I usually take a break once I get all the trophies for one playthrough and then rarely jump into another playthrough, unless it is quick or I really liked the game and it has another route to take (like The Outer Worlds). I jumped back into this for a second playthrough right after for 2 reasons: my fat PS3 has very little space on it so I need to delete games I downloaded and after the first playthrough I thought this would be quick. Also, on that note, I play through my PS3 games a lot slower than my PS4 games. My PS3 is up stairs in the office and I usually just play it when my wife needs the tv downstairs and it's not too hot to sit in an unairconditioned office.

 

You know that feeling you have when you put something together, like a new computer from scratch using parts, or rewire something and once you finish you flip on the switch hoping everything works after all your meticulous hard work? That is what the ending of the second playthrough of this game felt like for me, but after like 20 hours of work and no going back to troubleshoot the problem...

 

The second playthrough is doing something I really don't like to do, especially after this play through and it's probably why this platinum is ultra rare. I aimed to knock out 4 trophies during this since they all had to be done during one play through: kill no humans, get the good ending by having enough moral points, use every instrument and collect every diary entry. I had to make a spread sheet for the collectables and the moral points. The moral points alone were a pain as there was no way to really track how many you have or how many are required for the good ending. The game is also very buggy when it comes to getting the moral points and some might work in this version of the game and not in the PS4 version and vice versa. There was a point where you need to walk through an area and make sure to listen to 4 conversations and you get a point at the end of the 4th. Well, it took about 5 times of trying to get it to finally register (you hear a sound and your screen has a subtle white flash) and it took like 20 mins per try. There was definitely some points where I thought it just wasn't possible and skipped and no guide has a great idea on how many points you really need so I just had to hope that I got enough by the time I reached the end. Some points required doing a whole level stealthily, which you are supposed to for the most part anyways since you don't want to get into combat and accidently kill someone, but some parts required serious reloading.

 

The 2nd pain in the butt thing was making sure not to kill anyone and there are many discussions online about what is ok to kill and what isn't. If you take a filter off a knocked out person's mask, does that kill them? (It doesn't for future reference) Basically, if you got into combat you had to punch out everyone. Some levels were said to be OK to kill people, but it was reported that the trophy didn't pop at the end of the game when they did. I took no chances and luckily this was on the easiest difficulty. One of the levels in the last 3rd of the game has you riding in a rail car getting shot at. The best you can do is time out your healing syringes to live to make it onto the train. Sounds easy enough right? Well, once you pass a certain point, the game autosaves and if you don't use the syringes correctly through that part, you'll die before making it on the train. It's sad to say, but I had to reload a cloud save if that happened to try again, which by the way they put a once per 24 hour download period on ?. There was a few other areas that were bad, but the autosaves weren't terrible. If you killed someone by accident, to be safe you needed to reload a save as well or at least restart the game and load the last checkpoint right after.

 

Once I got to the ending and saw the Shadow Ranger trophy pop, I had a great sigh of relief, but didn't see the good ending trophy pop yet as it was playing through the ending I saw in my first run. I was like damnit, I knew I should have gotten those 2 moral points that I missed 3 levels ago, but my cloud save was before that point so I was going to go back to it if this failed. Luckily, the good ending came through as I saw the trophy pop for it. I don't like to save scum, but for this game I made an exception, due to accidently killing or terrible check point saves and for how long it took to go through the game very meticulously.

 

Putting aside the gripes I had in the last few paragraphs, which are really just related to me getting my first ultra rare platinum?, the game is a pretty solid FPS with a great atmosphere. I probably won't get the DLC since it won't ever go on sale and there is obviously a ton of other stuff on my account to playthrough first, but this was another nice game that I had 5 trophies in for years to get knock out some unearned trophies with. The majority of the trophies were not bad and can be knocked out in chapter select if you didn't get them through the game, but the game does require 2 playthroughs. I do have Metro 2033 Redux on PS4 which I'll get around to sometime to hopefully flush out more of the story with. Now onto the TLDR section.

 

The Good

Another good post-apocalyptical shooter with great atmosphere and good graphics (for PS3). Lots of attention to detail put into the environments. Great dialogue between the characters and even in the environment that you can eavesdrop on. Stealth mechanics are pretty good, but I'm pretty sure that most enemies are just blind and can't see well in the dark, which is strange since they live underground all the time. First Ultra Rare Platinum! (see if it stays that way)

 

The Bad

The story isn't flushed out too well about what you are actually set out to do, but this might be my fault for not playing Metro 2033. Maybe it's more about the journey? Replacing filters seemed like more of a gimmick, but I usually was diligent enough to find plenty during my searching.

 

The Ugly

Going for Shadow Ranger and D3 trophies can be frustrating as they are buggy and there is much debate around what works for them. Pretty much need to use a guide and be very patient to get the moral points. These made going for the platinum not fun at all. Without cloud backup saves, this would be even more frustrating.

 

Update:

With Metro: Last Light out of the way on my PS3, I'm thinking what's next for that console. Do I try to tackle the rest of the Gran Turismo 5 trophies? Do I go back to the Uncharted series and finish up Uncharted 3? Or do I play some mindless hack n slashing in Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires? I'm leaning towards some hack n slashing with Dynasty Warrior 7 Empires currently.

 

As for PS4, I finished my playthrough of Danganronpa 1 and started with the extra stuff grind, probably do some of that while playing through Danganronpa 2. I also finished my speed run of Resident Evil 7 so I just have 2 trophies left which require beating it on Mad House difficulty. Been messing around a little in Nex Machina, which I had a couple trophies in for the longest time, but it's fun to play in short bursts. Been doing a pretty good job on my unearned trophy count this past month. Started my last game for the month, Alien: Isolation, this game is legitimately scary. I don't get how the 100 deaths to alien trophy is very rare, I've died like 20 times each mission it's in. Usually I would get frustrated and upset, but the tension is so good and it feels amazing when you get a moment to breathe once your adrenaline goes back down. True testament to the old Alien movies. I should have no more new games started until next month when I get to play something that's been on my mind for a while, Yakuza Kiwami 2!

Edited October 25, 2020 by Grotz99

[AJ_Radio]

I heard Metro: Last Light has glitched trophies on the PS3, so I just bought the Redux package which comes with both Metro: 2033 Redux and Metro: Last Light Redux. 
 

Good solid games. More people need to play them. 
 

If Fallout was America’s take on a post nuclear, post apocalypse world, Metro is Russia’s answer to that. 

[Grotz99]

I feel like it's been a little while, but wanted to write an update, this time it's a double feature.

 

Star Wars Episode 1: Racer

Platinum #85  Now THIS is Podracing

Time to Completion: 1 Week

Completed Date: November 9 2020

 

Do you remember watching Star Wars Episode 1 when it first came out with your dad and the only positive comment coming from him is about the pod racing? Well, that's how I remember watching it for the first time and I agreed, as silly as the rest of the movie was, the pod racing was pretty awesome. Star Wars Episode 1: Racer first came out for the N64 and did a great job with the systems hardware to make you feel like you are actually going over 500 MPH through 12 ft wide caves and canyons. This game is still just as fun 20 years later.

 

The tracks start by taking place on the very well known Tatooine and then go to space prisons, swamps, Cloud City and others. As you win, you gain credits that allow you to upgrade parts, but as a hint I'd say stick to the junkyard parts as the retail parts are way over priced and the droids can repair your parts anyways, this is actually important for the last trophy I go which is to get all the best parts equipped, as you won't make enough money to buy all of them new. Only a few of the tracks took multiple tries with one track taking me a decent amount of practice to get down and having perfect execution at the start of each lap. In the last series, you race on a track in the clouds which has 2 levels to it, in case you fall off the first level you'll land on the second. Spoiler alert, you do not want to fall to the 2nd level after the first turn. Since it is the last series, the other racers are usually pretty close behind you and even when I think I had the lead in the last lap and falling to the second level would still be ok, I went from first to seventh by the time I came back up and was with the other racers. It's all about the first turn in that level and controlling the brakes. Otherwise the game was a lot of fun and not that difficult, made for a nice break in between Alien Isolation missions.

 

The Good

Great racing game with the Star Wars theme. The controls feel good as well.

 

The Bad

Some of the tracks get really dark and due to the polygon positioning and textures, it's sometimes hard to tell if you're going the right way or running right into a wall going 600 MPH.

 

The Ugly

Not much to say since this game is a port from the N64 days, but there is one part I got stuck on during a 0 gravity tube after hitting a rock, there was no way to reset the pod and I couldn't go forward so I had to restart the race. Luckily the longest a race gets is about 8 minutes. Also sometimes you hit parts you feel like you should make it over just fine.

 

Jak II

Platinum #86  Done Done Done

Time to Completion: 2 years 5 months

Completed Date: November 18 2020

 

Welcome to Jak II, Jak goes through puberty. After the first Jak game, the developers got some feedback that he didn't really tailor to older kids and they gave him some attitude and made the atmosphere very dark throughout the game. In this sequel, Jak is dropped into a facist ruled city from time travel gone wrong and decides to help the resistance liberate it while finding a way to get back to the timeline he came from.

 

This is a fun 3d shooter platformer that seemed more challenging than the first game. I have died plenty of times and had to retry levels a lot more than the first one. The real challenges though come from the challenges for getting orbs, it's what stopped me from playing for a bit and just playing a challenge or so every once in a while, especially the racing (around town) and shooting range ones. Well, I finally completed all of them and got all the orbs. There is a few games I want to clean up before the end of the year, and none make me as happy to clean as this %50+ platinum. The reason the platinum is so high is that it can be cheated and platinumed in 5 minutes.

 

This is another old school game so I don't like to review on the controls or graphics, but I will say that I enjoy other certain 3d shooter platformers involving a lombax more. I'm not sure when I'll play Jak III, but I hope that it is better than this one and maybe goes back to being a little more light hearted. They added abilities that Jak can acquire, but I didn't see them as all that useful. 

 

The Good

A good amount of challenge for a shooter platformer.

 

The Bad

The atmosphere and Jaks attitude switched in a weird way from the first game which made this game pretty gloomy and I don't think it was an improvement over the 2nd. I barely used his abilities as I felt they weren't required and just using a gun was usually safer.

 

The Ugly

Not much to put here for a ported PS2 game. 

 

Update:

Now that those are out of the way, I wanted to mention 2 much more interesting games that I played through and have not platinumed yet. During the Halloween month, I played through Resident Evil 7 and Alien: Isolation, which are both sufficiently creepy. I haven't played a RE game since RE5 on the PS3, which took a different route completely from the other RE game I played before it, RE4. RE7 brought back the core part of the series, which is having limited resources to investigate an incident while dealing with creepy things. I was pretty freaked out when I first tried it about 2 hours in then decided to try it again this year and after I got use to hearing doors close randomly I pushed through to the end of a creepy night fighting mutated family members. If RE8 is anything like 7, it might be a day 1 SE for me.

 

Alien: Isolation went on sale during October and I really liked the movies, but the last alien game had some issues and kind of dashed my hopes of having another good Alien game. After getting some quick feedback though, I ended up buying it to play during the season and was not disappointed. The first 10 or so missions were legitimately creepy, as you're only defense to an alien hunting you is to hide or distract it, once you're seen, that's it. Playing this in the dark was the way to go and I would recommend headphones or decent volume on speakers. The alien isn't the only creepy thing in that game either, the androids are also creepy in their own way. The story was awesome and it really did stay true to that feeling you get in the Alien movies.

 

I hope to platinum both of those games, as they just need one playthrough more on each and then I'll give a more in depth view, just wanted to recommend both of those for now as they are fresh. In the meantime I finally started Yakuza Kiwami 2, which I've been looking forward to. I'm about half way through the story and all the side content/completion list. I took a quick break as I remembered that I have Shadow or Mordor on my list and I should knock out the online trophy at least, but ended up getting a ton of trophies in the few hours I played it, really knocking down my count. I just finished chapter 2 in Danganronpa 2 and it was my favorite so far in the series. After beating my first playthrough of Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires, I decided that I didn't feel like starting another run through right now, as I need at least 5 more, so I popped in Far Cry 3 to try the coop trophies once more. Due to them being bugged and I'm too lazy to find someone to play with, I picked up both controllers and made it through another level somehow. Some levels depend on luck where the items spawn that I have to run back with while being shot. I have 3 more to go for the platinum. I just ordered Dragon Ball Z Kakarot so now I'm debating for my possible last game of the year between that and Jedi Fallen Order, along with trying to clean up other lingering platinums I have going this year (KH2, RE7, Risk of Rain 2, etc). I might not make it to another game with the holidays going on...

 

Wanted to add that I noticed that Borderlands 3 is getting a 2nd season pass as I keep looking for the first one to go on sale, that game is becoming a never ending pit of unearned trophies.

 

Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween and will continue to during these holiday seasons.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Grotz99
BL 3 DLC

[Grotz99]

Yakuza Kiwami 2

Platinum #88  YAKUZA KIWAMI 2

Time to Completion: 1 month 1 week

Completed Date: December 13 2020

 

3D Streets of Rage soap opera...

Ever since I beat Yakuza 0 almost 1 year ago, I've been sucked into the story of Kirya Kazama. The end of Yakuza 0 actually made me shed some tears and although that hasn't happened for Yakuza 1 and 2, they still do a good job of bringing out the feels. Yakuza 0 was when he was a 20 year old punk first learning about the Yakuza world that he has grown up in. Yakuza 1 is when he is 37, after serving some time in prison, and returns to the Tojo clan. Now, 1 year after Yakuza 1 took place, Kiryu is just a civilian trying to live his life, but an unfortunate incident occurs and drags him back in to helping out the Tojo clan when 1 man, Ryuji Goda - the son of the patriarch from the Omni Alliance (not sure if they own the hotel chain or not...), decides to stir things up to see who is the best dragon.

 

Some of the same characters from Yakuza 1 make an appearance in this one to help Kiryu along the way as well as some new friendly faces. Although the police know that Kiryu was ex-mafia, they understand that they can't just arrest him and it's best to help out the lesser of 2 evil sides. This brings in Kaoru Sayama, a lead detective who takes Kiryu into her custody as they figure out what Ryuji is up to. She has her own backstory that ties into the events that are unraveling though which involves another foreign mafia. This is already probably starting to sound confusing so I'm probably going to stop here for describing the story, just know that there are a good amount of twists and turns.

 

Although Kiryu is under police supervision, it doesn't stop him from laying the smack down on anyone who gets in his way with over the top combat and awesome heat actions (super moves you can use when your heat bar fills up). The difference in this game from the last 2 games is that I found myself finding and using weapons a lot more. Weapons in these games have limited amount of uses and usually require repairing, but I would just use them up and throw them away since they were all over the place and you can keep any you pick up or take from enemies if you stash them. Looking down the list of heat actions you can perform, there was definitely one I had to try, but required the right spot. Basically needed to find a spot on the bridge to throw someone off of it, and not just into the water...

Here's a video for your viewing pleasure:

 

Like the other Yakuza games, the voice acting is amazing in this. Everyone is so passionate, it really draws you in and pumps you up. I don't think it could ever be the same with English voice acting. 

 

Oh...the places we go and the minigames we play...

Like the previous 2 games, this one takes place in the Kamurocho and Sotenbori areas in Japan, both riddled with people needing help and mini games you can play. Going for 100% completion of the list required less this time from minigames than I was use to. The only minigames that gave me some trouble were the batting cages and karaoke, even then only 2 songs took about 5 tries each to get over 90% on. The batting cages were required not only for the completion list, but also to unlock 2 abilities. There's an endless mode you can grind out for points, but with how terrible I am at the mini game, I found it easier to just do one of the expert challenges which netted 100 points each time (needed 3000 for both abilities). They brought back the hostess club minigame which I actually really enjoyed in Yakuza 0 and added a new mini game called Majima Construction. Majima Construction was run by Kiryu's friend/rival Majima, who is just a crazy F***er. The story for this minigame is that Majima decided to go legit and have his clan start up the construction business, who he told to just look up how to build buildings on the internet. Although, he chose to build on prime real estate and others were going to have none of that and tried to hinder his efforts, which leads to a tower defense type of minigame but you control characters and their abilities like a rts. Also, during this game I actually sat down and read the rules for Mahjong and feel like I actually know how to play it pretty well. After knowing how to play, it is quite fun and I might revisit 0 and 1 to do the completions for it, as I'm hoping to one day get the platinums for them. Shogi is like chess but I still get confused by the piece movements, luckily there was just one challenge to do for it.

 

Platinum Journey

Unlike the first 2 Yakuza games, this one seemed much more obtainable (obviously given the rarity). The completion list was a lot more approachable and they changed the climax battles to bouncer missions. Bouncer missions were sets of missions with 3 difficulties you had to complete for each. They allowed whatever gear you wanted to wear and weapons you wanted to bring, as well as supplied weapons in them. I did these more in the post game premium adventure mode so they were fairly easy, but man did they drag on, there was probably 25 too many. The last couple actually required me to use some stones that would resurrect you with full health and break when you died. You can buy a lightsabre and gun with infinite uses once you beat the game and the gun really makes everything easy. I speed ran through Legend mode after getting everything else and just used the gun, probably took 3 hours, but made it trivial. The rest of the trophies were pretty self explanatory and you mostly gain through natural progression. There is no missables, like there are in Yakuza 0, so you just need to beat the story twice and do all the things to finish the completion lists, side stories and mini games.

 

The Good

Another great heart wrenching story with fun mini games and entertaining combat. They didn't change the formula much from Kiwami 1, but they didn't need to. Majima side story was an interesting glimpse into the mind of Majima. The mini game requirements weren't too strenuous. Addition of Majima Construction mini game. The voice acting is amazing. 

 

The Bad

As entertaining as the heat actions are, the base combat doesn't offer much more than a usual pattern of . The enemies don't give up pursuit as easily anymore, but I guess that's why there is drink machines everywhere since you just have to interact with one and they stop trying to catch you.

 

The Ugly

I honestly can't think of anything, this is a revamped version of the second Yakuza game and it looks and feels great. 

 

Update

I did platinum one other game before this, but since it was a POWGI game, I decided to just omit it. I decided between Star Wars Jedi and Dragon Ball Z Kakarot to start Star Wars Jedi. So far, it is a fun game and plays like an easier souls game. I heard people complaining that it was hard, but I'm not seeing that (maybe because I played Sekiro and parrying is easier in this?). Since my friend started to play Hand of Fate 2 avidly, I decided to jump back in so we can talk about deck combinations for the challenges, which I had 4 left for some reason when I stopped and I beat the next 2 pretty easily...maybe because I wasn't trying to just unlock tokens at the same time during the challenge? I'm going to slowly work towards that platinum. Speaking of slow platinums, I finally got through chapter 3 of Danganronpa 2, these seem to drag on longer than the first game's chapters (chapter 4 gets stranger). I was working on the Farcry 3 coop levels using 2 controllers and I'm not sure if one of my controllers is broken but whenever I would use R3 to sprint, it would sometimes cause the character to jump/crouch/shoot/change gun/reload all at once. They are tough to do alone, due to picking crap up to carry to a location while getting shot at, but I have 1 left and decided to rotate my office for painting the other half and haven't set my PS3 back up yet. Other than that, I got Shadows of Mordor online trophy out of the way and will probably go back to finish it up the rest soon, whittling down that unearned counter.

 

Hope everyone has some fun safe holidays. I don't think I'll be starting anymore new games before the end of the year, but I will make a list of what I aim to play in 2021.

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Grotz99

[realm722]

48 minutes ago, Grotz99 said:

Yakuza Kiwami 2

Platinum #88  YAKUZA KIWAMI 2

Time to Completion: 1 month 1 week

Completed Date: December 13 2020

 

-snip-

 

Great job on this! I'll say that Yakuza is one of those series I honestly like to watch more for a playthrough on YouTube than play myself (simply because of all the time you'd have to dedicate in 0 and Kiwami to minigames) - but they're undeniably a favorite for so many, and I love how they toe the line between extremely serious life/death ramifications to goofing off and having a fun time with the ridiculous circumstances Kiryu finds himself in sometimes. Given the fact that the first 2 games are ultra rare plats while this one is at 11% (still no slouch) - well done! Looking forward to your review of Danganronpa as the games are... a trip to say the least. 

[Grotz99]

19 hours ago, realm722 said:

 

Great job on this! I'll say that Yakuza is one of those series I honestly like to watch more for a playthrough on YouTube than play myself (simply because of all the time you'd have to dedicate in 0 and Kiwami to minigames) - but they're undeniably a favorite for so many, and I love how they toe the line between extremely serious life/death ramifications to goofing off and having a fun time with the ridiculous circumstances Kiryu finds himself in sometimes. Given the fact that the first 2 games are ultra rare plats while this one is at 11% (still no slouch) - well done! Looking forward to your review of Danganronpa as the games are... a trip to say the least. 

If you ever watched the anime Berserk (I know it's old, but so am I) Yakuza reminds me of a part early on in the series where he defeats 100 soldiers single handedly. But then there are parts where he is teetering on death from a slip up. My favorite moments in Yakuza games are when he gets into a mini game and has this silly seriousness to it (if that's a thing). For example, there is a urinal minigame for peeing at the right pressure and you can adjust it to meet whatever criteria, when he's about to start he gets super serious. I also love the voice acting, which I think I'll add into my last post, it is so over top awesome.

 

I might end up reviewing Danganronpa once I beat the story in 2, since the grind afterwards takes some time and I want to talk about the story. So far, I'm not sure what to think of the second one though. The first seemed really probable, where the second one so far is a little out there and just seems a bit unrealistic. I know it's not suppose to be realistic, but the tone just seems more silly. Also, I felt more vested in the characters in the 1st one compared to the 2nd, there seemed to be more interactions to get to know them.

[Rally-Vincent---]

On 14.12.2020 at 9:40 PM, Grotz99 said:

I did platinum one other game before this, but since it was a POWGI game, I decided to just omit it.

 

So you left out the best game? How was Alien: Isolation? Did you like it?