Grotz’s Trophy Collection: Over a Decade of History

[Grotz99]

It's been a little while since I last updated this since I've gotten busy and started to throw in some vacation time. I actually had to go look at what I last posted to see where I am. Also, I've mostly been doing some trophy cleanup trying to push the unearned count to under 5k. You would think it would be easy with all the games I have barely started on my profile, but I get easily distracted other new shiny games easily. As I'm writing this, I sit at 5075 after making some strides with these games from my list:  Disc Jam, Hidden Agenda, Knack, Day of the Tentacle, The Golf Club and peppered in a little WRC 5. Of course I also lost some ground with Yakuza 3 (I'll finish all the mini games eventually), The Banner Saga (going to finish up this one), Concrete Genie (don't have the PS4 VR set) and Tales of Vesperia. I'll continue to work towards it, but I'm trying to work on the Gaming by Numbers event for now.

 

Now that I got that out of the way, I guess I can throw in a review or two...

 

428: Shibuya Scramble

Platinum #104 Honorary S.O.S. Member

Time to Completion: 2 months 1 week

Platinum Date: May 3 2021

 

This was a neat visual novel by the same people that made Danganronpa and since it's a VN, this will be short. You follow the story paths of multiple characters over the span of a day whom unknowingly end up intersect each other. The choices you make as you progress determine how the story progresses, but there really is only 1 right answer each time to get through the chapter. That being the case, there is a need to see every bad ending for the trophy and they have to be some of my favorite parts. I don't want to spoil any of them, but there is a case where one of the detectives gets stuck in a cat costume and the outcome is nothing like I would have expected. This is all done with live action photo/short video shots of actors (with the exception of one of the side stories). They do a great job with facial expressions though!

 

PGA Tour 2K21

Platinum #106  Tour Pro

Time to Completion: 1 month 1 week

Platinum Date: June 5 2021

 

A friend and I decided to pick this up since we were looking for something to play together after completion Demons Souls and had an itch for golfing. It luckily was on sale for around $20 and seems to hit that often. This has all the usual things a golfing game has with the career mode, online play with different modes and even the ability to create your own courses. We tried a couple of the custom courses people have created and they are quite silly. For instance, you can add multiple holes to a green, but only one of them is the actual hole. Playing some rounds online was fun, but that's all we were really able to do coop, I kind of wish they allowed for you to do that in career mode. Never the less, we had a lot of fun with it, especially when we played alternate shot (we are both on a team and take turns hitting the same ball).

 

Shortly after playing this, I decided to start up The Golf Club 2019 since I only had 3 trophies in it and was in the groove golfing. I think last time I played 2019, a few rounds into the tour I got stuck on a hill behind a green and got frustrated trying to get the ball out of there. Since these were made by the same studio, I figured I'd do a comparison. The main difference is the difficulty with the swings. Playing 2k21 first, you can set the difficulty to be as easy or hard as you like, with the easiest allowing you to see exactly how your swing is going and how much power it is going to have with the meter. It also allows you to do putting shot previews for every hole to see how they will end up. In 2019, you only get 5 previews in a round, but you can use them for any swing. The best improvement for 2k21 was the ability to adjust where you want the ball to land and it'll adjust your power meter accordingly. I had some trouble getting the right type of short shots when going for the green in 2019. The announcers are also a little more...vocal? Although they are also condescending pricks sometimes. In 2K21 you can also unlock individual clubs which let's you do some great customization for your set. If you want to have a hard hitting driver with little margin for error and a 3 wood with a ton of margin for error but less range, you can do that. In 2019 you can only choose a certain type of set.

 

Most of the trophies for this game aren't too bad except for the one where you need to complete a 18 hole course in par or under on legendary difficulty. Luckily there is a trick to get this easily. If you had to do this legit, you would need god like PS controller stick control. When I was playing I actually used 2 fingers to grip the stick when I swung, but could not do it anywhere close enough to be accurate on legendary difficulty, even golfing in real life is not that crazy hard. 

 

Anyways that's enough of me rambling on about my experience in this game, but I had a ton of fun with it, probably more since I had someone to coop with. Maybe I'll go back to the PS3 version now that I know the bosses and see how it holds up. I would also not be opposed to new DLC for this version...

 

The Good

• They polished up the golf swings from 2019 and added a great way to adjust difficulty
• Online play is a lot of fun
• A lot of customization options when purchasing clothes or clubs

The Bad

• IF you had to do the True Legend trophy legitimately, it would probably drive you crazy

The Ugly

• Not much to say here, the courses are pretty

Update:

Going to still work on cleanup, but probably slower as I work on the Gaming by Numbers event (currently at 3/10 completed). It was harder to find games this year to cleanup for this event so I'll probably be starting more new ones. I'm currently working on finishing up The Banner Saga and Danganronpa Another Episode for a couple more numbers. Luckily PGA Tour 2K21 took up the slot I was working on Hidden Agenda for, I don't how many more times I can slog through that game. I also bought the Mass Effect Legendary Edition and it has been staring at me ever since I got it to start it up. I haven't played it since the games came out on PC so long ago. Yakuza 4 is also on the horizon and it will count for a slot in the event if I finish it.

 

Here is what I have listed for the event currently:

0 - Vampyr (7640)

1 - Yakuza 4 (9901)

2 - Concrete Genie (9762) 

3 - PGA Tour 2K21 (11233) 

4 - Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls (6194)

5 - The Banner Saga (4205)

6 - Day of the Tentacle Remastered (4456) 

7 - Stick it to the Man (2587)

8 - Layers of Fear (4348)

9 - Mass Effect 2 (12909)

[realm722]

4 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

I don't want to spoil any of them, but there is a case where one of the detectives gets stuck in a cat costume and the outcome is nothing like I would have expected. This is all done with live action photo/short video shots of actors (with the exception of one of the side stories). They do a great job with facial expressions though

 

Great update! Was wondering where you had for the last month. I just have one small question with regard to Shibuya - it's a game I've seen on sale numerous times and have heard good things about but never decided to pull the trigger on a purchase, would you recommend it for someone even if I don't really care much for VNs? It seems the platinum is pretty straight-forward nonetheless.

 

But yes! Finish Banner Saga 1! I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

[Grotz99]

16 hours ago, realm722 said:

 

Great update! Was wondering where you had for the last month. I just have one small question with regard to Shibuya - it's a game I've seen on sale numerous times and have heard good things about but never decided to pull the trigger on a purchase, would you recommend it for someone even if I don't really care much for VNs? It seems the platinum is pretty straight-forward nonetheless.

It is a great visual novel that plays like a choose your own adventure book, but it is a pure VN, meaning that there is no point in the game where you control character movement or anything like that. For instance, in Danganronpa you have moments where you need to move around and investigate areas around the school between story moments, nothing like that in 428. The platinum is straight forward, but I had to look up how to get some of the bad endings and other hidden things.

 

That being said, I would recommend it as a great entry point if you want to give VNs a chance, but if you don't want to do the reading and skip through things, I wouldn't recommend it. Usually goes on sale for around $10.

[Grotz99]

Concrete Genie

Platinum #107  The Artist of Denska

Time to Completion: 1 day 11 hours

Platinum Date: June 11 2021

 

Had this game on my wishlist for a while then it was offered on PS+ a couple months ago. Decided to save it for the Gaming by Numbers event and it ended up being a shorter game than expected, but I had a great time with it. You start off as a kid who loves to draw in a danky looking town who gets bullied by other kids. Getting shoved out of the town, you meet one of your drawings (this is where the drugs kick in) and they ask for your help to make the town a more colorful and pretty place. To make your way through the town, you need to draw specific pictures, which require designs that you collect from your lost pages along the way, all the while trying to avoid the bullies.

 

To help you with moving objects or other actions, you use different kinds of drawn Genies. It actually took me getting use to the direction to start with for where the head is when making a genie, so most of the time, their heads were where your junk would be. The neat part is that they can only move along connected walls, which are sometimes blocked by some kind of black sludge that you need to remove. Although the first half is mostly some janky platforming and using the motion controls of the controller for painting, about half way through the game, it completely changes into a type of 3rd person shooter.

 

Nothing in the game was too challenging and it was fun roaming around the town tagging up the walls and collecting things. Most of the trophies can be collected during the initial playthrough, with the rest being collected in the post game as you can run around freely in town. There are 3 free DLC trophies as well, but they require the PS4 VR set, which I don't have. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a quick wholesome game. It gives you those feel good vibes as you are playing through it and expressing your inner artist (no matter how left brained you might be).

 

The Good

• Good use of the controls for painting
• Art direction of the game is awesome

The Bad

• Platforming in this isn't the best, but not as bad as early AC games
• No fast travel at the end to different areas for collectable cleanup

The Ugly

• The town before you take your brush to it!

Edited June 25, 2021 by Grotz99

[Grotz99]

Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

Platinum #108  Pragmatism's Last Reward

Time to Completion: 1 month 1 week

Platinum Date: June 21 2021

Wasn't really sure of the order of the Danganronpa games, but after playing through 1 and 2 I didn't feel like starting 3, which looks like it takes twice the time as both of those combined to finish. Instead, I started up Danganronpa Another Episode and going in completely blind like I do with visual novels, I was surprised in a good way. It still has that sort of visual novel feel, but with more puzzle solving and 3rd person shooter action. 

 

This game can take place pretty much anytime after Danganronpa and focuses on the characters Komarua Naegi (Makoto's sister) and Toko Fukawa/Genocide Jack (one of my favorite characters from the series). Without giving away too much of the story, it takes place in a secluded island city, which has been overrun with Monokumas and kids? You find out at the start of the story why it's just kids, but I'm sure you can guess what happened. For a game about kids taking over, there sure were some riskay parts, especially on the train at the end of chapter 3 (if you played it, you know exactly what I'm talking about). It's also interesting/lazy, but unless they were a main character or kid, most people showed up as silhouettes. 

 

The game play is mostly a 3rd person shooter using a microphone with different types of ammo that have different effects on enemies and objects. You can also switch to Toko, who tasers herself to force Genocide Jack to come out and slash up some bears. Throughout the game there are also puzzles that require you to beat all the enemies in a room, usually at once which will affect your chapter grade at the end depending if you do it the right way or how many retries you take. Usually you'll want to reload saves rather than retrying to get work on getting A ranks for chapters.

 

Like it's called, "Another Episode", it didn't really have a bearing either way on the main story of Danganronpa, but it was still a fun playthrough and side story. The trophies are not all that difficult, but it's annoying having to save up 10k coins, with the fastest to just save up from the start and not buy anything, but that means you don't get any upgrades. Upgrades weren't really needed, but might have made the battles go a little quicker. 

 

The Good

• Another nicely written Danganronpa game
• Pretty good mix between VN and action in this one compared to 1 and 2
• Genocide Jack is back!

The Bad

• Walking around in 3rd person felt a bit rigid.

The Ugly

• Puzzles can be a little finicky if you aren't precise. Sometimes the Monokumas would glitch and not get to where they are supposed to.

Update:

Wanted to get this update out of the way so I can make way for my next review: The Banner Saga. My reviews are usually shorter for games that either didn't awe me or were not terrible. The next review is going to take me some time to put my thoughts together for writing a longer one...

 

I just got to part 3 in Tales of Vesperia and it's basically at the do all the side stuff before the last boss push so I decided to take a quick break. Was debating between starting Judgement, Mass Effect or Yakuza 4 and decided to go with the quicker option, Mass Effect. The Nostalgia came rushing back to me in this game since I haven't played the series since they each were released for PC. This game sucked me right back in and I'm afraid I might jump to ME 2 and 3 before getting back to Vesperia, but I really shouldn't put it off that long since I would forget what I was even doing in that game. Tales of Vesperia is also a game I've come to terms with that I will not 100%...at least any time soon. it will require another full playthrough using a guide, which might be done during the speed run try and it'll take a lot of farming to get 100%. It's not a bad game, but the time commitment is a bit much for me.

 

In other good news, I did hit one of my goals of 1/3 of my games completed, currently at 114/142. I'm also slowly getting closer to under 5k unearned trophies, just need to stop starting new shiny games...

[Grotz99]

The Banner Saga

Platinum #109  The Banner Saga Master

Time to Completion: 1 month 3 days

Platinum Date: June 28 2021

 

Had to look this up, but I last played this more recent than I thought on PC, in May of 2016, shortly after The Banner Saga 2 was released. Since I bought the first one during a steam sale, I planned to wait for the next one to go on sale as well, of course my steam library was riddled with games I've been buying on sale and the idea of continuing the story fell to the wayside. After reading some reviews from people like @realm722, my interest in the trilogy rekindled and I found a PS4 physical copy of all 3 for about $17. Starting this up again 5 years later instantly reminded me what I liked about this game the first time I played it, although remembering the story was still a little fuzzy.

 

Everything about this game is well done considering it came from a small studio, not quite indie small, but small none the less. When you watch the credits, you'll notice it's actually mostly about the music that was created for the game, which was wonderful. The story telling and dialogue, along with the random encounters, gave great insight into the type of people that the characters were in your traveling herd(s) over the course of 7 chapters. Allowing you to make decisions which actually benefit or hinder your party makes you thinking chapters later if you really did make the right choice. Since the game can be carried onto the 2nd and 3rd Banner Sagas, it has me wondering what kind of impact I'll have going into those from the first game.

 

Although, you will have a 2nd chance to make different choices if you are going for the platinum as it requires at least 2 play throughs. Of course I messed up something in my first play through (someone just had to die to starvation and I didn't notice...) and had to do 3 playthroughs, but it was fine as I now have 2 saves with different end game choices on normal difficulty and 1 save on hard difficulty.

 

I am a big fan of turn based strategy games and this one has a great combat system. The interesting thing is, you would usually think to kill off as many enemies as fast as you can in these type of games, but that actually isn't a good strategy here, it's better to leave them weak and near useless since the turn system gives each side a turn no matter how many enemies are left to your team (until the last enemy is left then you just lay the beat down on them). For example, if the enemy has 2 fully healed dudes (strength is how much damage they can do as well as HP), one of them will have a turn after each of your unit's turns, while if they had 2 full strength units and 3 weak units, 3/5 of their turns would be pretty weak.

 

I was all about using the Varl (giants basically) as they had the most strength and defense, but they took up a 4x4 grid space compared to a human who takes up a 1x1 space. This worked great most of the time, but playing through hard mode I ended up having a decent mix where I can. Humans are great for range damage and Varl are pretty good meat shields. Of course I didn't realize how good range units were until it was late in my hard mode play through. The game overall isn't that hard, until you get to the last 2 battles. On normal, there are a few way to finish off those battles using your strongest troops, but on hard difficulty, you pretty much need to use archers (unless there is another strat someone knows). My archers were around level 3 (out of 5 max), but luckily my main Varl was level 5 with like 21 strength. It took around 30 attempts but I was finally able to clear the last 2 battles that were fought back to back and if your characters fell in the first battle, they were weaker in the 2nd. Not going to go into too much detail about these battles as I think it'll spoil them, but if you get stuck there, hit me up with a PM.

 

This game is an UR platinum, but only because of what I just described at the end of the hard mode. I would recommend planning for 3 playthroughs (1 blind, 1 normal for most trophies, 1 hard for the cleanup) and each run probably takes 8 hours. The guide on this site does a great job outlining what to do for each playthrough and there is a great guide on the steam forums (here) for all the different choices you can make in the game and the consequences.

 

I would recommend this if you enjoy some turn based strategy games with a quick story. You COULD just play the first one as it has a nice ending to sort of wrap things up and I can't comment yet on how the next 2 play out from there, but it's probably recommended to play all 3. The platinum rarity might scare completionists away, but it's really just the last 2 battles on hard that are tough. 

 

The Good

• Fun turn based strategy combat
• Great writing and story telling
• Decisions can make great impacts on the whole trilogy (as far as I can see so far, might not matter, but we'll see)
• Music is wonderful

The Bad

• Could take up to 3 playthroughs if you want to get the platinum and there isn't much that would be new in the 3rd.

The Ugly

• The last 2 battles difficulty curve goes over 9000...

 

Update:

I am looking forward to playing The Banner Saga 2 soon, but I got swept up with playing the Mass Effect Trilogy, another series I played on PC forever ago, for the gaming by numbers event. Between those 2 trilogies and the Yakuza series, I've been pretty busy gaming wise. Also added some other games to my list that I want to get to, including AI: The Somnium Files as I have been wanting to play that forever and bit the bullet to buy it on this last sale. I have some other quicker games I'll knock out in-between as well, just need to finish up most of Tales of Vesperia...

 

I am inching closer and closer to under 5k unearned trophies, but It's about to spike up again as I start 2-3 more games, currently down to 1 main game (that counts) right now which is rare. I also started Sayonara Wild Hearts, but unless you randomly get one of the trophies, you can finish the story and get gold rank+collectables in almost all the levels before unlocking any. Looking to maybe boost BlazBlue CT as well which will help my overall count.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Grotz99

[rjkclarke]

Great write up of Banner Saga!! I really enjoyed reading that. I've been interested in that game for ages. It sounds like quite a fun time. I'll have to see if there's a copy of all 3 games going here in the UK for a decent price. It goes on sale plenty on the digital store though, so I might end up going with those.

 

This is probably the thing I like the most about this specific area of the forums, is being able to read peoples own personal perspectives and experiences, with the games that they have been playing. It does usually end up giving you a pretty good idea yourself on whether you are or aren't going to enjoy something, based on the information provided. Always great to expand horizons and all that. I don't think I have anything quite like Banner Saga on my list personally - and I do like to dabble with a bit of experimentation.

 

Congrats on getting below 5K unearned trophies by the way. I know how satisfying that can feel, getting that particular little statistic cut down to a nicer size. Where are you at progress wise, with Tales of Vesperia? Some of that post game content can definitely slow your progress down somewhat, so if you are at that point I'd probably recommend breaking it up between other stuff. I did a lot of very long play sessions with that game, that was probably quite unhealthy, actually. Think I did the entire speed-run trophy in a day, which was a silly idea

[Grotz99]

22 minutes ago, rjkclarke said:

Great write up of Banner Saga!! I really enjoyed reading that. I've been interested in that game for ages. It sounds like quite a fun time. I'll have to see if there's a copy of all 3 games going here in the UK for a decent price. It goes on sale plenty on the digital store though, so I might end up going with those.

 

This is probably the thing I like the most about this specific area of the forums, is being able to read peoples own personal perspectives and experiences, with the games that they have been playing. It does usually end up giving you a pretty good idea yourself on whether you are or aren't going to enjoy something, based on the information provided. Always great to expand horizons and all that. I don't think I have anything quite like Banner Saga on my list personally - and I do like to dabble with a bit of experimentation.

 

Congrats on getting below 5K unearned trophies by the way. I know how satisfying that can feel, getting that particular little statistic cut down to a nicer size. Where are you at progress wise, with Tales of Vesperia? Some of that post game content can definitely slow your progress down somewhat, so if you are at that point I'd probably recommend breaking it up between other stuff. I did a lot of very long play sessions with that game, that was probably quite unhealthy, actually. Think I did the entire speed-run trophy in a day, which was a silly idea

Thanks for reading, it's ways nice to know someone looks at these! I'd check out the first Banner Saga If you find it for sale and see if you like it enough to follow through the rest. I'm unfortunately about 40 trophies from 5k and it's going to bounce up before hitting that unless I go knock out some random ones, but I have 2 games lined up that I want to start soon.

 

I played Tales of Vesperia between games and recently hit the 3rd (last?) part of the story. Took a break there to play through Mass Effect and jumped back in this week after finishing that game. I just opened up the last island and about to do some kind of big battle apparently. I wanted to wrap up the story before starting Mass Effect 2 or AI Sonium files but they are really tempting right now. The post game stuff will be in between other games when I don't mind grinding I'm guessing. I already came to terms that if I do go for the platinum, it'll be over a long time with the time required to get it. It's a great rpg, but the road to getting the platinum might tire me out, especially since I went in blind  most of this playthrough, except for the secret missions. Got a lot of other games begging to be played this year.

 

Ouch that must have been a 10 or so hour session for the speedrun.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Grotz99

[rjkclarke]

46 minutes ago, Grotz99 said:

Thanks for reading, it's ways nice to know someone looks at these! I'd check out the first Banner Saga If you find it for sale and see if you like it enough to follow through the rest. I'm unfortunately about 40 trophies from 5k and it's going to bounce up before hitting that unless I go knock out some random ones, but I have 2 games lined up that I want to start soon.

 

I played Tales of Vesperia between games and recently hit the 3rd (last?) part of the story. Took a break there to play through Mass Effect and jumped back in this week after finishing that game. I just opened up the last island and about to do some kind of big battle apparently. I wanted to wrap up the story before starting Mass Effect 2 or AI Sonium files but they are really tempting right now. The post game stuff will be in between other games when I don't mind grinding I'm guessing. I already came to terms that if I do go for the platinum, it'll be over a long time with the time required to get it. It's a great rpg, but the road to getting the platinum might tire me out, especially since I went in blind  most of this playthrough, except for the secret missions. Got a lot of other games begging to be played this year.

 

Ouch that must have been a 10 or so hour session for the speedrun.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm sure plenty of people read these. They are nice and succinct, with loads of interesting attention to detail. Well, don't worry too much about having over or under 5K unearned or anything. The important thing is you are getting to play games that you want to play right? I'm sure it will go below at some point.  I would imagine, if I was only playing games that were in my already started list on my backlog, I'd personally be having considerably less fun. (lot's of mine are online multiplayer, that I struggle to get motivated for ) So It's all about keeping that balance right? I'm not preaching obviously, I just think people should prioritise enjoyment over statistics, however nice, those statistics might be to have a look at every now and then. -  but I've seen plenty of people balance those things, or even directly find enjoyment from the statistics themselves.

 

It sounds as if you are probably about five-ish hours away from the end of the story on Vesperia, maybe a little longer. I can't remember exactly. There's one big dungeon and a few other area's but I don't think a whole lot else manifests itself story-wise from where you are. So it's entirely up to you if you want to crack on and get the story done before starting those other games. Although, to be fair Mass Effect 2 would be very tempting!

That's probably a great mindset to have by the way, for tackling the post game grind. It probably won't feel quite so arduous if you break it up between other games. That's actually what I'm planning to do with Star Ocean 4 whenever I go back to it, just basically do the odd bit of chip damage on it here and there whilst focusing on other stuff. Probably a good thing to in relatively blind though, the story was probably a more enjoyable experience that way. There's a lot of missable stuff that ends up revealing a lot of spoilers if you stringently follow a walk-through. Whereas, you don't get that problem really, from looking up the Secret Missions, the most you'll likely to learn is what the next Bosses name might be.

 

I think the speedrun took me - probably a bit more than ten hours like you said, so good call . I think I went out of my way to re-do a few of the events because I'd missed stuff on my first playthrough, so I tried to set some stuff set up so I wouldn't miss it again. They definitely packed that title with maybe a little too many missables. Excellent game though!

[realm722]

6 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

After reading some reviews from people like @realm722, my interest in the trilogy rekindled and I found a PS4 physical copy of all 3 for about $17

 

 

Woohoo! I enjoyed reading that. I'm very happy to see you largely enjoyed the game, and the only frustrating bit was the final major boss fight. I'll concede that it would have likely taken me a lot longer if I hadn't gotten an absurdly clutch Oddleif hit on the big baddie. If I re-call, the bridge fight took me a NUMBER of attempts (I wanna say 5-6) before I finally conquered it. 

 

I'm VERY curious to see what you'll think of the 2nd game. As someone who went in 100% blind (you mentioned it so I'll say it - but I had ZERO clue your decisions in the 1st game would affect things in the 2nd), so imagine my surprise by some of the events that transpired. My only warning would be making sure you have all your dudes with plenty of upgrade points saved up since you'll need it for a trophy in the next game. Oh, and I found the DLC RUTHLESSLY difficult and had to cheese the Cloud save like... 60 times. But you'll get there when you get there. Enjoy Sayonara Wild Hearts! It was one of the biggest surprise gems for me last year. 

[Grotz99]

16 hours ago, rjkclarke said:

I'm sure plenty of people read these. They are nice and succinct, with loads of interesting attention to detail. Well, don't worry too much about having over or under 5K unearned or anything. The important thing is you are getting to play games that you want to play right? I'm sure it will go below at some point.  I would imagine, if I was only playing games that were in my already started list on my backlog, I'd personally be having considerably less fun. (lot's of mine are online multiplayer, that I struggle to get motivated for ) So It's all about keeping that balance right? I'm not preaching obviously, I just think people should prioritise enjoyment over statistics, however nice, those statistics might be to have a look at every now and then. -  but I've seen plenty of people balance those things, or even directly find enjoyment from the statistics themselves.

I am one for balance when it comes to gaming. I set goals for myself, but the biggest one is to make sure I'm having fun. Went back recently for cleanup on Knack for example since I had like 3 trophies in it and found it to be pretty fun. Knocked out a good chunk of trophies, but took a break from getting the rest or at least bit more due to the fact that you have to find every secret in a single run. I really don't like having to follow video guides through a whole game if I can help it. With Knack, they made a terrible choice of not allowing you to get collectables to count in chapter select. I might go back someday, but there are other priorities. 

 

16 hours ago, rjkclarke said:

That's actually what I'm planning to do with Star Ocean 4 whenever I go back to it, just basically do the odd bit of chip damage on it here and there whilst focusing on other stuff.

Good luck with the Star Ocean RPGs, I played through The Last Hope International on PS3 and got a decent amount done, but the rest take soooooo long. I couldn't get into Integrity and Faithlessness, maybe if someone urges me with good reason to give it another go, I'll try it again. Neither of them compared to Til the End of Time for me.

 

16 hours ago, realm722 said:

 

 

Woohoo! I enjoyed reading that. I'm very happy to see you largely enjoyed the game, and the only frustrating bit was the final major boss fight. I'll concede that it would have likely taken me a lot longer if I hadn't gotten an absurdly clutch Oddleif hit on the big baddie. If I re-call, the bridge fight took me a NUMBER of attempts (I wanna say 5-6) before I finally conquered it. 

 

I'm VERY curious to see what you'll think of the 2nd game. As someone who went in 100% blind (you mentioned it so I'll say it - but I had ZERO clue your decisions in the 1st game would affect things in the 2nd), so imagine my surprise by some of the events that transpired. My only warning would be making sure you have all your dudes with plenty of upgrade points saved up since you'll need it for a trophy in the next game. Oh, and I found the DLC RUTHLESSLY difficult and had to cheese the Cloud save like... 60 times. But you'll get there when you get there. Enjoy Sayonara Wild Hearts! It was one of the biggest surprise gems for me last year. 

For some reason, I didn't have an issue with the bridge fights at all. My Varl were usually pretty beefy though. Are you talking about from 2 going into 3 for having points saved up? I don't think I saved many at the end of 1 for a couple playthroughs. I promise I'll start the 2nd one after I finish up the ME trilogy, Gaming by Numbers is pressuring me to finish those (and they are just awesome).

17 hours ago, rjkclarke said:

There's a lot of missable stuff that ends up revealing a lot of spoilers if you stringently follow a walk-through. Whereas, you don't get that problem really, from looking up the Secret Missions, the most you'll likely to learn is what the next Bosses name might be.

Forgot to add this, I didn't realize there was "side quests" until my friend mentioned it after I hit part 3. I did some accidently, but definitely missed a lot. But honestly, I had a great time with the story and the twist with this character really threw me.

Spoiler

Raven

 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Grotz99

[rjkclarke]

1 hour ago, Grotz99 said:

I am one for balance when it comes to gaming. I set goals for myself, but the biggest one is to make sure I'm having fun. Went back recently for cleanup on Knack for example since I had like 3 trophies in it and found it to be pretty fun. Knocked out a good chunk of trophies, but took a break from getting the rest or at least bit more due to the fact that you have to find every secret in a single run. I really don't like having to follow video guides through a whole game if I can help it. With Knack, they made a terrible choice of not allowing you to get collectables to count in chapter select. I might go back someday, but there are other priorities. 

 

That's great! I know there are plenty out there that end up hating trophies because it almost becomes like a job for them, so that's nice to hear you are making sure it's fun. I always think that's a bit of a silly implementation, to not allow collectibles gotten in chapter select to count towards your overall total. You'd think for a game that was released when Knack was, it would at least have implemented that feature... Clearly not though. I know what you mean about, not being too fond of following a video guide as you go through, it sort of hampers the fun factor a bit, especially if it's a first time playthrough. Especially in games with a lot of missables, it's too easy to get anxious about whether or not you've missed something.. Least that's how I get anyway haha

 

1 hour ago, Grotz99 said:

Good luck with the Star Ocean RPGs, I played through The Last Hope International on PS3 and got a decent amount done, but the rest take soooooo long. I couldn't get into Integrity and Faithlessness, maybe if someone urges me with good reason to give it another go, I'll try it again. Neither of them compared to Til the End of Time for me.

 

It's the PS3 one that I'll be doing  funnily enough. I haven't played Integrity and Faithlessness myself, but I've not exactly heard stellar things about it. It's one that I expect I'll pick up once I've played the others if I really feel like I want to have the whole series done or something, because I've heard Integrity and Faithlessness is quite limited on exploration, which is one of my favourite things about the Star Ocean series, so to see it gone would probably bug me a bit. Tough for anything to live up to Til the End of Time - that's a hell of a game isn't it, it's one I'm really looking forward to revisiting myself. Just an all round great RPG/JRPG even without the context of being part of a series, it's just very, very, well done. I think it would be on most peoples hypothetical lists of "JRPG's you should play"

 

1 hour ago, Grotz99 said:

Forgot to add this, I didn't realize there was "side quests" until my friend mentioned it after I hit part 3. I did some accidently, but definitely missed a lot. But honestly, I had a great time with the story and the twist with this character really threw me.

 

That's understandable to be fair. They aren't exactly sign posted, like they are in later Tales of' titles, they sort of just happen and they have some really funky windows of availability in some cases. There's not really any tangible way to track them in the game I don't think either. Just another example of gaming evolution I suppose, that we have to worry much less about things like that now!! I loved the twist with that character too, it really comes out of left - field, when you consider how they react throughout the majority of the game, it is one of those rare occasions where the reveal does catch you off guard a bit. It's got a really great story that one, I'd put it up pretty high amongst the tales of' titles personally, as far as story content goes.

[Grotz99]

Just started playing AI: The Somnium Files and realized that the main detective character you play as is named Date (pronounced dot-a basically) and I realized that is the same name as the detective in the Yakuza series as well. Tried to do some research on the origin of that name for detectives in Japan and it looks like there is also a detective in the anime franchise Detective Conan.

 

I wasn't able to find out the original source yet from my google searching, but does anyone else no where that name for detectives in Japan comes from?

[Grotz99]

Platinum #110, 111 and 112

 

Last time I played through the Mass Effect trilogy, I played each game as they came out on PC, which was 2-3 year between each game. Back then I noticed the changes, but with so much time between each one, it was hard to remember how much has actually changed. This time I played each one after another and although they made changes to help smooth out the gameplay, it was much more noticeable how much each improved over the other. From how much they reduced the vehicle usage and inventory management from the first to the 2nd and how they streamlined the ability specialization from the 2nd to the 3rd, as well as let you use any weapon no matter what in the 3rd, there was a lot of great changes as the games grew...except for 1. In ME3, it's like they took a page strait out of the Call of Duty AI difficulty handbook and decided that enemies with perfect accuracy grenade throws every 10 seconds was a good idea, especially when the beeping sound is very week and the flashy icon is sometimes hard to see. I'm not sure how bad it is on lower difficulties as I played through on insane, but it was extremely annoying.

 

The story was just as good as I remember it, but I didn't remember how enriched it was with the other characters contributing their stories and backgrounds. I made sure to do every side quest and activity in each game. Sure, some were for trophies, but I genuinely wanted to soak in as much of the games that I loved playing over 10 years ago. I started off this time playing as femshep, who for my wife, I made her look kind of like P!nk. As I usually do in my first playthroughs, I played as good...mostly. There were a few moments where I did not mind taking a couple renegade points. My love interests were a little all over the board, but need a little bit of that alien action so it was mostly Liara and Thane. (First time I played it back then as maleshep I hooked up with Tali...still didn't get to see her face...)

 

I started off in ME1 as an infiltrator so that I can play my usual role as a sniper, which ended up just annoying my wife with the absurd sniper rifle sound going off repeatedly, so i changed to an engineer in ME2 to play with ability and have a semi useful decoy bot. Having access to only the pistol and what I thought was useless, the sub-machine gun, it wasn't the best choice of weapons so I need to spam my abilities. Of course in ME3 it didn't matter what class you were, you can choose any weapons so I stuck to the engineer. I figured having a nice range of abilities and decoys was good for insanity difficulty as you don't get long to shoot and you can use abilities pretty swiftly from cover. The one ability that became paramount and helped me a ton was AI hacking. This allowed me to let them setup turrets and turn them to my side and was especially helpful in a very rough part on insanity where you have to defeat 3 or 4 Geth primes in a pretty small area.

 

Playing through the game on insanity wasn't as bad as I thought, but there was definitely some frustrating parts. The start of the game was a little rough before you have good weapons or abilities, but once you got those, it was mostly OK. In ME3 however, there was noticeably difficulty fights at max level and gear near the end (like the fight against the Geth primes). Your squad mates were usually fodder, but taking Garrus who is just a beast and some crowd control helped a lot. Once I had Tali, it was fun to use double engineer and just have drones all over the place.

I was able to finish this walk down memory lane 1 week before the gaming by numbers deadline came up and was glad I got to include them in that over the summer. Trophies weren't too bad, but you do have to pay attention for a few, at least it didn't require multiple play throughs. I don't exactly remember the old ending to the trilogy since it was long time ago and let's be honest, the original ending was a let down, but I did remember picking one of the three choices of how it ends. This time I went with the red ending, although I was seriously considering green for how silly that would be...

 

The Good

• Was great to play through the trilogy again and actually see the better version of the ending along with playing the DLC I never played the first time
• The changes for the Legendary edition were all good from what I saw and nothing too major to take away from how the games use to be

The Bad

• Nade spam on insanity was annoying
• There was a lot more combat parts than I remember, maybe not a bad thing, but it started to feel repetitive after 3 Mass Effect games in a row...

The Ugly

• Nothing that I can think of...

My thread made it to the 3rd page...I'm liking all the new people creating checklists as it gives more content to read though and I was waiting a bit to finish these 3 games. Since this is a well known series, I took a slightly different approach and wanted to just talk about my experience rather than add in review tidbits. Now what to play next...I promised that I would start The Banner Saga 2, so that is now installed and my disc drive is now occupied by it I feel more compelled to play since I hate swapping discs. My Yakuza and Judgement games are on disc and I have been itching to jump back into the series too. Needed a short game pallet cleanser though so I knocked out Hellbalde: Senua's Sacrifice pretty quickly which was a fun game. Also getting close to finishing my visual novel AI: The Somnium Files, once that is done I'll actually be starting Ace Attorney Chronicles on my Switch. Going to pepper in other small games, but I think finishing the Banner Saga before October would be nice, then it's scary game time  (actually really looking forward to this as I want to play Prey and pick up Resident Evil 8).

 

Also wanted to add that since my last posts, I beat Tales of Vesperia (not platinum yet since that takes so much more time), which was a great RPG and got me pumped to maybe pick up Tales of Arise earlier rather than later, but I want to see some feedback first from Tales veterans. From the demo, the combat looks great at least.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Grotz99

[Grotz99]

Clicking through the next page button in this area of the forums and I finally found this....at the bottom of page 4.  I guess it isn't too bad considering my last post was in August. I've done a good amount of gaming since then, but that's about when I got really busy with work so this fell to the wayside. There are also so many more amazing threads to read that I can't even get close to getting this section to be completely read and caught up on anymore, which is great. Due to my massive backlog of games I would like to play and the limited amount of time I have now a days, I changed my mantra when it comes to trophies. I will still be aiming to collect them and if I like the game enough or if they aren't super grindy, I will attempt to 100% games, but I have no problem now deciding to move on if they take too much time or I am just not enjoying it. My minimum is going to be at least getting an A rank in the game and I'm starting up old games on profile as well to do just that. Now where to start....

 

 

Although I did not platinum either of these, I wanted to discuss this trilogy, you can see my thoughts on the first game, that I did platinum, here. My original goal this year was to at least play up through the 2nd one, but I found that after a small break from playing the 2nd game, I wanted to play the third to see how it wrapped up. Since the gameplay doesn't really change much from the first game, this will be mostly about the story and will contain spoilers. Nothing major, but I strongly feel that you should play these games going in blind for the first playthrough.

 

The Banner Saga (TBS) 2 and especially 3 made TBS 1 look more like the preface to the whole story. All you knew from the first one is that you were running from a horde of perceived enemies, Dredge, and that there was a giant snake breaking down mountains. TBS 2 has you start off immediately after the first one sailing down a river with whoever was still alive trying to escape the horde of Dredge to get to the main human city Arberrang in hopes that it will keep your people safe. Sound familiar? It's the same premise from the first game, but this time there is more action and the story starts to unravel more. The neat thing is that the choices you make in the first game can carry over to consequences in this one, as well as the 3rd game. The best part about this one was though was the introduction to the Ravens, a group of mercenaries who will do anything for money, even when the world seems to be coming to an end. It introduced one of my favorite characters, Bolverk, a berserking Varl who can either be kind or a mean SOB depending on the choices you make for him. Being a little mean and making choices that benefit the Ravens was essential for a trophy and probably played best to his expected personality. When it came to combat, he was one of the strongest (maybe too strong for your parties own good). Due to dual wielding 2 axes, he was able to swing twice, but his 2nd attack would hit someone by him at random, even your own party, which I forgot numerous times...poor Folka was just trying to help provide him some defense! His ragtag group also encountered the most interesting characters I thought, such as the drunk axe thrower Oli. On the other side of the story, either Alette or Rook were leading their caravan over hills, through swamps and forrests and during this was introduced to what I believe to be on of the most annoying "enemies", the horseborn. These creatures are able to attack and then run away after or use pretty long range attacks. Although the overarching story for this didn't deviate much from the first one, it was each of the little moments that made this game memorable. The choices and interactions you had to make along the way would sometimes have dire consequences and that is why playing this game blind the first time through is such a treat.

 

TBS 3 takes a different approach than the first 2 and irregardless to what people thought, I thought it was a good direction to go. It again focused on 2 parties, one with the majority of the characters stuck in the city trying to help defend it or keep people from turning on each other and the other group trying to get to where the darkness began. I thought what happened in and around the city to be more exciting and each of your choices there would affect how long the other party had to move since the darkness is creeping in (you finally learn what the hell is happening near the end of this game). These choices also turn this in a Game of Thrones scenario, where I hope you weren't attached to too many of the characters, that is if you go in blind. I thought it was kind of a shot to the face when I found out that a choice you made in the first game decides the fate of one of the main characters, the bad version of that choice is by default if you don't continue from a save too. I also learned that while playing Alette, you apparently can't be too nice...

 

While you are working on the city with one group, the other is progressing through the darkness for an amount of time determined by the first group's choices. This management was tricky to get things done in a certain amount of time or make it to specific days and made you not only replay from the start of 2nd to last chapter, but even from choices in the first chapter and made me do what I hate to do and follow a guide to the letter. This is partly why I didn't platinum the 3rd game and didn't want it to sour my overall experience.

 

Unless I missed something early on in the story, I kind of wish they would have sprinkled in a bit more about wtf was going throughout it, rather than a big reveal at the end, but like I said, these games were more about the little moments rather than the overarching story. It was about getting to know and care about the characters you came across, even if you wanted some of them to die off. Although I didn't platinum TBS 2 and 3, I feel like one day I'll go back them, not sure about TBS 2 DLC though. I brought this up before, but I wasn't sure what the best way to play these would be, one at a time with multiple playthroughs for each one until the next or playing through the whole trilogy in one playthrough first. I went with the former, but now that I've done that I think actually playing through all 3 in one playthrough would have been better. Yes, it sucks to have 3 unfinished games on the profile for a while, but getting the whole story and having no idea what the consequences are as you are going would make this more enjoyable. After that using a guide from the start for the rest might not be so bad as you can plan out the whole journey. They at least made it better in TBS 2 and 3 so you can load saves from each chapter if needed.

 

This is probably a jumbled mess as I'm rusty at writing these things, but I wanted to get some thoughts about these games on here before I forget about them. Going forward, I'll probably stick to writing about games I complete as this is a trophy checklist. Hope this helps me go back and write some things for the games I did platinum in the past few months. I just got a decent amount of games I'm excited to play from the sales including Deathloop and Tales of Arise, but of course after drinking a bit last night I decided to play something slightly mindless and popped in Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory so I guess I'll be playing that now...Also started Yakuza 4 and every time I started one of these I'm just so excited to play them, but they are dense and will take time, it probably helped to have breaks between them. Also heard that Yakuza 4 is the least favorite, but so far I'm not seeing why, guess I'll find out when I complete it.

[realm722]

9 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

Unless I missed something early on in the story, I kind of wish they would have sprinkled in a bit more about wtf was going throughout it, rather than a big reveal at the end, but like I said, these games were more about the little moments rather than the overarching story.

 

Ayyy so happy to see you finally get around to convey all your thoughts! I 100% agree with this statement. While some people are enthralled by "the central plot" of a story, I find the in-between interactions to be much more intriguing. Whenever you finally reached another Menehir stone and got to rest and speak to a few characters, or those "oh shit stuff is going to go down" moments while waiting for the worst to arrive while in a city. Bolverk is fantastic! One of my guilty pleasures for character arcs is the "ruthless mercenary, but sometimes he can have a lil bit of a heart". I remember accidentally making him too strong and him winning at the end of BS3 O___O, and yea... being too nice with Alette... cost me her on my blind run in BS3  Still - glad you enjoyed the franchise and hopefully you can share in the fine work I partake in of blabbering about it and recommending it to everyone I see that HASN'T played it yet ?

[Grotz99]

On 12/17/2020 at 9:19 AM, Grotz99 said:

Decided to make a list of 50 games from my massive backlog, that will no doubt change, to aim to play in 2021. There is no way I'm going to get to all of these, but I figured I would look for some feedback as to what to prioritize. Most of these I will attempt to go for the platinum, but if they are simply not fun, I might fall short on the platinum for them. This list is either comprised of games I barely started in the past and they sit at a low percent on my account already or are games I haven't started yet. It doesn't include many short/smaller games, but I will no doubt pepper some in as time goes on. The hours are from https://howlongtobeat.com/ for completionist, so they might be a little off, but gives an overall idea of how long these games can be if going for the platinum/100%.

 

I was thinking of trying to knock some of my lower graded games up to at least an A (S if the platinum is in sight and the game is fun) as well when I feel like clearing up my unearned, but this list of games I actually want to play is pretty daunting, so we'll see how that goes. I do still have some I aim to finish up as well (KH2, RE7, Alien Isolation, etc) along with what I'm currently playing (Danganronpa 2, Hand of Fate 2, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor).

 

These are the ones I plan to play for sure from that list:

• Assassins Creed Odyssey - I play one AC game a year and this is the next one (also have the DLC already)
• Dragon Ball Z Kakarot - Already had a hard enough time choosing between Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and this before the end of the year
• Far Cry Primal - One of my oldest titles in this list, this year needs to be the year I actually play it
• Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - Really need to get moving on finishing this series
• The Banner Saga - Need to get this started
• Yakuza 3 - Have to keep my Yakuza going

 

Title	Platform	Hours	Status
Assassins Creed Odyssey	PS4	132	New
Batman Arkham Origins	PS3	40	Revisit
Beyond Two Souls	PS4	27	New
Chaos on Deponia	PS4	12	New
Crash Bandicoot	PS4	18	Revisit
Danganronpa 3	PS4	91	New
Dark Souls	PS3	106	Revisit
Dark Souls 3	PS4	92	Revisit
Demon Souls	PS3	80	Revisit
Deponia Doomsday	PS4	14	New
Dishonored 2	PS4	44	New
Dragon Age: Inquisition	PS4	100	Revisit
Dragon Ball Z Kakarot	PS4	53	New
Everspace	PS4	66	Revisit
Far Cry 4	PS4	45	New
Far Cry Primal	PS4	36	New
Get Even	PS4	16	New
Gravity Rush 2	PS4	55	New
Hidden Agenda	PS4	12	Revisit
Judgement	PS4	96	New
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep	PS4	96	New
LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens	PS4	31	New
Mafia 3	PS4	44	Revisit
Metro: 2033 Redux	PS4	22	New
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden	PS4	22	New
Need for Speed Rivals	PS4	32	Revisit
Nioh	PS4	94	New
One Piece Unlimited World	PS4	64	New
Phantom Doctrine	PS4	50+	New
Puppeteer	PS3	21	Revisit
Resident Evil	PS4	28	New
Shadow of Colossus	PS4	24	New
Slay the Spire	PS4	230	New
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness	PS4	106	Revisit
State of Mind	PS4	12	New
The Banner Saga	PS4	27	New
The Banner Saga 2	PS4	23	New
The Golf Club	PS4	34	Revisit
The Pillars of the Earth	PS4	16	New
The Witcher 3	PS4	173	Revisit
Tokyo Xanadu eX+	PS4	82	New
Torment: Tides of Numenera	PS4	48	Revisit
Titanfall 2	PS4	14	New
Uncharted 3	PS3	20	Revisit
Valkyria Chronicles	PS4	52	New
Vampyr	PS4	41	New
World of Final Fantasy	PS4	82	New
Yakuza 3	PS4	107	New
Yakuza 4	PS4	99	New
Yakuza Like A Dragon	PS5	89	New
Total Hours		2868

 

That's a lot of hours if I was to try to tackle all of these, almost 8 a day everyday of the year. Hopefully I can stick to this list and minimize spending this year, except for the PS5 of course, whenever that is available...

Alright, lets see how I did shall we?

 

Assassins Creed Odyssey - 100%

Dragon Ball Z Kakarot - 100%

Hidden Agenda - Played enough to where I got tired of playing through it over and over - 33/42

Slay the Spire - Still playing every now and then - 25/46

The Banner Saga - 100%

The Banner Saga 2 - 39/55

The Golf Club 2019 - 25/30

The Pillars of the Earth 100%

Torment: Tides of Numenera 41/53

Uncharted 3 - platinum (can't get 100% anymore with online trophies)

Yakuza 3 - 47/50

Yakuza 4 43/48 - was right at the end before New Years but beat it right after I got back.

 

Out of 50 games on that list, I played 12 to where I feel comfortable. But I did play some other great games this year including some from my backlog or new:

The Banner Saga 3 - 42/50 - decided to play this one soon after the 2nd to finish up the trilogy

Oxenfree - 100%

Resident Evil Village - 48/50

Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time - 100% - yay UR plat

Farcry 5 - 61/73 - not sure why but I wanted to play this over FC4

Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 - 100%

Cat Quest - 100%

AI: The Somnium Files - 100%

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - 100%

Mass Effect Trilogy - 100%

Tales of Vesperia - 36/54

PGA Tour 2k21 - 100%

Knack - 23/42 - beat it once

428: Shibuya Scramble - 100%

Maneater - platinum

Demons Souls (PS5) - 100% - I know I said PS3 version but ended up getting this.

Defender's Quest - 100% - yay another UR plat

Root Letter - 100%

Bugsnax - 100%

Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls - 100%

 

There are other random games I played for cleanup or to revisit, but I'd say this was a good list for the year. Not sure if I'll bother making a new list for this year or not, especially since I have 4 games on pre order already for the next 2 months. I'll still go back and see what I can clean up. Still working through Kingdom Hearts and Yakuza games. I did however plan to play 6 games for sure and didn't end up getting to Far Cry Primal or Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, but knocked out the others for the most part. I would have been playing KH BBS if I didnt end up getting Tales of Arise a month ago (amazing game so far btw).

 

In any case, we'll see how this year goes, still juggling 6 games currently...on Playstation, a couple on Swtich. Really trying to knock some of these out before February 18, we all know what comes then .

 

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Grotz99