PSNP 2020 Year End Awards

[EcoShifter 834]

Piece of Cake Award

Not a 0/10 in difficulty but among the easiest. Unlike other games that people deem easy without factoring in the necessity of a guide, for this game no guide is needed to achieve its platinum, which largely contributes to this game being listed here.


It's Like Dark Souls (The title of this award should receive a name change)

 

Simply both the hardest game and platinum trophy received, especially since I've had nearly no experience from the last generation installments. The WipEout series is known for its infamous difficulty within the racing genre.

Bad Ass Award

The series already naturally embodies the player being a badass, allowing nearly anything the mind can think of. It's the culmination of multiple badass moments in this game that puts it above anything else.

 

 

Grind of the Year

The grind is so awful that I needed a couple of the free Zeni (game's currency) giveaways from the game devs to receive the related trophy for the platinum. And I don't feel bad about it because in addition to doing most of the work, the $20,000,000 requirement is incredibly absurd.


King of the Internet

The is the most positive experience I've had with online gaming during the year, due not only to non-toxic, reliable, and helpful online players but also the least amount of connection issues like lag and forceful exited sessions. 

Worst Online Experience

.

There is no better game for this award than this specific Naruto game, and that probably won't change even to deathbed. The community, general balancing, community, recurring unsuccessful dev fixes, community, netcode, community, pay to gain significant advantage, community, bugs/glitches, community, lack of quality of life features, community and whatever else exceeds not only anything I played during the year but in my life as a whole, across games of any genre and any platform. The colossal amount of disrespect, cowardliness, pettiness, and uselessness from players (e.g., highly excessive teabagging, rage-quitting, legitimate cheating, camping, running away entire matches, other unsportsmanship behavior, and teammates who lack fundamental knowledge, common sense, and teamwork), the recurring game-breaking and game-changing bugs, and so much more, was immensely disgusting, pathetic, and exasperating.

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year

Part of my experience with this game was already described recently.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year

 Despite the increase in terror that makes the game feel closer inline with popular survival-horror ones and the gameplay finally being at least up to modern standards—with stealth mechanics here seen in prior stealth games, like moving through tight spaces and hiding in foliage, combat mechanics previously seen in Tomb Raider and Dead Space, like stagger animations from precise limb attacks, and some more—the plot and cast and many aspects included under those areas has just been boring and unmotivating, especially for an adamantly story driven game. Things like the game's bleakness and grim tone haven't been the issues (if so, little in comparison), it's just the unengaging plot and character moments. Despite my latest criticisms with Shantae's m.recent installment, it is not chosen over TLOU:P2 because I still relatively enjoyed the game while just deeming it as inferior to past releases in a lot of cases.

 

 

Best Trophy Image

Typically, I wouldn't list a platinum trophy that uses a PlayStation platinum icon, but this differs from usual and is at least one of the better looking images that especially doesn't use an in-game graphic for its platinum trophy image (as far as im aware), from the year. It's also awesome how 1:1 the design of this image is to the game's art-style. 

 

Worst Trophy Image

As bad as logo/title based images, constantly reused images, non-creative images, etc, are, at least they're visually clear from a presentation point of view. But this image here is suppose to depict a mine that was shot in midair, and it doesn't do a good job at that.

 

Best Female Character
Aloy

Best Male Character

Peter Parker/Spider-Man

 

Best Platinum of the Year

 Ultimate Shifter 

Favorite enough to have been carefully saved as a future milestone at a previous point in time.

 

 

Worst Platinum of the Year

 Master of All

 

The quality of the game itself + its Emblem collectible bug that requires a complete progress reset—btw i'm aware of the video guide that glosses over one of the twenty emblems and instead shows 19/20, but that legitimately was not my actual problem; one emblem was simply non-existent (I went through each level three times at least to make sure)—that makes this the worst platinum of the year. 

 

Most Anticipated *Game* of 2021

Dying Light 2 (if it releases) or Horizon Forbidden West (incase DL2 doesn't release)

 

- - -

 

The beginning of 2020 was ground-breaking, between actually starting off with a new Q1 game (first month of the year), got what is probably my hardest platinum trophy of a different game (within the same month), and ended up completing some notoriously difficult games that I had given up on/or taken multi-years long break from ([Prototype]'s and Call of Duty Classic's and Uncharted 4's 100%). While I did get a decent amount of more platinums after all the ones I had gotten early in the year, the rest of the year was padded by procrastination and return to old games for their multiplayer/pure fun, which was regressive and counterproductive. This is one of my weirdest years, especially considering I didn't obtain even a fair amount of 2020 games but only a few. Although, Dying Light 2 was suppose to release this year, and it would have added to my platinum/game count. So I could have had a much, much better second half/finale if I hadn't kept neglecting my backlog.

Edited January 2 by EcoShifter

[RedSkyKing 439]

PIECE OF CAKE AWARD

Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Future Tone DX

I had quite a few easy plats this year, but they at least required some skill, even if just a little.

All this game required was playing a few select songs and watching the music video of said songs. Some other things like using photo mode and starting a song on extreme but not actually having to beat it. I spaced this game out over a couple days just because I didn't want it to be my fastest plat earned.

Besides all that, it's a very fun game that I revisit quite often.

 

ITS LIKE DARK SOULS

Armored Core: Verdict Day

Funny enough this is a FromSoftware game for anyone who's unfamiliar with Armored Core, so yeah it makes sense.

The biggest hurdle was learning the extensive customization. Figuring out what build I wanted to make, then reviewing stats for each part/weapon, going through testing to see how it felt. Yeah most of my time was spent in the garage working on my mech, which isn't a complaint.

With the help from the community I finally overcame this game's learning curve and it felt supper satisfying.

On top of all that, beating the game on hardcore without dying definitely earned this spot.

 

BADASS AWARD

Armored Core: Verdict Day

Back to Armored Core.

The online aspect of this game was focused on territory battles, but since it's dead (aside from the few that still play) it was a lot easier to do what you wanted since no one was around to guard or attack territories. I teamed up with three others to do some grinding but we ended up finding another group of players that was guarding their territory. This group was notorious for being a bunch of sweats. None of us were expecting this encounter, and I sure as hell wasn't mentally prepared.

An intense 4v4 ensued. In the end we won with me and another teammate still alive.

It's hard to explain exactly how I felt in that moment but the fact I was seeing results from the dedication I put into this game which resulted in destroying a well known team felt pretty badass.

 

An honorable mention.

Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae

A hack'n slash where on the hardest difficulty you die in only one hit. Not too bad until you get to the final three levels and you basically have to perfect parry, which takes frame perfect accuracy.

This is how I felt by the end of it.

 

GRIND OF THE YEAR

Predator: Hunting Gounds

The grind to get 1,000 predator claims (kill finisher) was just ridiculous. Playing normally took waaay too long because you were never guaranteed to get any. The balancing between fireteam and predator was all over the place. One match you could get 2-4 claims if you played your cards right, or none at all. Oh yeah, and I almost forgot the queue to play as predator was always 10+ minutes. So of course the quickest method was boosting in a private match, which had it's fair share of problems. Constant disconnects, especially with a full lobby (4 fireteam and 1 predator). I'll cut out a lot of the details, but everything that could go wrong with boosting happened. By the end of it I roughly played over 1,250 matches. I hated myself by the end lol.

 

An honorable mention.

Front Mission Evolved

Leveling up to rank 70 in a dead online took a considerable amount of time. To accommodate for everyone's time zone the group would play every Saturday which only stretched the time out making it take a lot longer then it could've taken

 

KING OF THE INTERNET

Warface

I could easily nominate Armored Core again, but instead I'm going to go with...

I had a lot of fun playing this with friends! I felt pretty confident while playing too.

 

An honorable mention.

Uno

Some of the most fun I had playing with friends!

 

WORST ONLINE EXPERIENCE

Fall Guys

The constant disconnects, lag, latency, it was just horrible. And when it would work there were so many annoying players that took the fun out of it. Sure, there were moments where I had fun, but those moments were few and far between.

 

SLEEPER HIT OF THE YEAR

Left Alive

This game died out very quickly due to it's abysmal reviews upon release. Really nothing is good about this game. Muddy graphics, awful voice acting, broken AI, repetitive gameplay. When I say broken AI, I mean they either see you through cover and know exactly where you are, or you can stand ten feet away with your gun drawn and they don't see you. Enemies will sometimes hilariously run past you when alerted to hide behind cover a mile away only to then forget you exist, and calmly walk back to their post. You can kill a soldier right next to another and they don't seem to care as long as you're behind cover. This is a survival stealth game by the way. But for me it was one of those it's so bad that it's good experiences, plus it reminded me of when some PS2 games felt awkward and clunky and I guess in that regard I felt nostalgic.

 

BIGGEST BOMB OF THE YEAR

Predator: Hunting Grounds

This game had potential to be amazing! Great concept but horrible execution. It felt like it was rushed out the door with only three maps that all looked identical and one gameplay loop. It got old really fast. It was buggy, had glitched trophies, and was horribly unbalanced.

 

BEST TROPY IMAGE

There are so many that I thought looked really good, it's hard to pick just one. I'll choose my top six 😝

 

WORST TROPHY IMAGE

It doesn't look bad per se, but it's the game's title and every trophy has the same image so it's just lazy.

 

BEST FEMALE CHARACTER

Ann Takamaki (Even though you don't really get to play as her)

What happened to her at the beginning of the game really made me feel bad for her and her friend, and I like how she was able to rise above it. Although every character went through their own challenges and came out a better person, Ann's made me really sympathize with her.

 

BEST MALE CHARACTER

Peter Parker

What's not to love about this guy?

 

BEST PLAT OF THE YEAR

Persona 5 Royal

Okay this was a tough choice between Armored Core, Spider-Man, and Persona 5 Royal.

Thinking back, the game that had the biggest impact on me was.....

Amazing story, characters, and gameplay. Loved every second of it!

 

WURST PLAT OV TEH YEER

Predator: Hunting Grounds

Surprised?

 

An honorable mention.

Atomine

A rouge-like that felt very empty and got boring very fast.

 

MOST ANTICIPATED PLATINUM OF 2021

I'm just looking forward to spending time with these characters.

[Gretchen27 1,157]

Piece of Cake

The Grand Tour Game

Movie night + mobile racing game. Got a little tedious grinding the power up trophies, but I liked the game. 

 

It's Like Dark Souls

Just Cause 3

Finicky controls for very precise challenges & straight up glitches make this a proud, albeit challenging, platinum & 100% for 2020. 

 

Bad Ass Award

Batman: Arkham Knight

I'll admit it, never thought I'd get good enough to platinum this game. It felt so good when I did though. 

 

Grind of the Year

Resonance of Fate

Not my longest platinum for the year (that'd be Monster Hunter at 300hr+), but this one felt the longest because of the repetitive battles. Loved the game overall. 

 

Queen of the Internet 

Monster Hunter World

One of the best group of randoms you can come across is in MHW. People are helpful & work great together. 

 

Worst Online Experience

Just Cause 3

I don't play many online games, & technically, I didn't do the online in 2020. But I remember what a pain in the neck it was to send, receive, & beat call outs. A pointless feature for a single player game. 

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year

Marvel's Spider-Man

Yeah, this is more on me for taking so long to play it. 

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year

Bad Apple Wars

Got the day one edition, thankfully cheap, of what looked to be a promising VN. Instead, was treated to boring, shallow characters in a lukewarm story with no investment appeal. Makes me wonder why some VNs get passed over for localization, but this one gets the green light. 

 

Best Trophy Image

Resonance of Fate

Actually, the whole list for the story portion makes a neat collage. Check it out here. 

 

Worst Trophy Image 

Batman: The Enemy Within

Repeat images counting each chapter. Not an ounce of effort. 

 

Best Female Character

Leanne - Resonance of Fate

Kickass protagonist to play as last year. 

 

Best Male Character(s)

Kiryu/Majima - Yakuza Kiwami

I'm not taking sides, you can't have one without the other. The words Kiryu-chan followed by an annoyed growl are imprinted on my brain. 

 

Best Platinum of the Year

Monster Hunter World

The time I didn't realize I'd put in hunting those crowns. If I can get them here, I can get them for Iceborne. 

 

Worst Platinum of the Year

Drive Girls

Could have been a Gameboy title from graphics to replay ability. Horrendous "do everything" requirement for a poor game. 

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2021

Yakuza Kiwami

First time with the series & fell in love with it. Tough platinum I'll be chipping away at. 

[ArtikSkarab 269]

With 54 games completed this year, let's see what stood out.

 

Piece of Cake Award

Word Maze by Powgi

This game was my first introduction into the world of POWGI and I can totally see why so many people are obsessed with those games with

extremely simple puzzles and so many stacks. I will probably only check out more of them if they're on deep discount.

 

It's Like Dark Souls Award

Yakuza 5 (PS3)

The Yakuza games are usually well known for their difficulty/annoyance factor (6 being an exception) and Yakuza 5 wasn't any different.

Some of the Ultimate Battles being really difficult, some minigames being really annoying (especially pool and batting cages).

Still, it was a great experience and I will try to continue clearing this series out (3 down, 5 to go).

 

Bad Ass Award

Yakuza 5 Again

Yakuza is also known for it's over the top moments and Yakuza 5 has a pretty good selection of them.

From colloseum death fights to fighting an actual super powered grizzly bear, my most 'Damn!' moment was the finale of Chapter 1.

The mere idea of Kiryu, professionnal badass, going solo versus at least 100 Tojo clan yakuza is pretty cool already,

but the fact that, in the middle of the fight, Kiryu just casually sidesteps two ROCKET LAUNCHERS that explode in some cars behind him just seals the deal.

 

Grind of the Year Award

Caravan Stories (the Non-Asian Stack)

While technically not a Plat, the Grind for the 10000 battles trophy was legitimately took me 2 weeks of leaving my console on auto-battles whenever I wasn't actively playing:

an average of 12 hours a day, so around 150 hours of nothing (and that's the easy way of doing it).

 

King of the Internet Award

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late

I'm not one for really playing online, so I'll go for the least painful online experience I had and that was Under Night as the

only online trophies requirements are play, not win, 1 ranked match and save the replay. That's it.

 

Worst Online Experience Award

Project Cars 2

 

On the other side of the spectrum, the online trophies for Project Cars 2 are really boring to do.

You will require to do at least 350 races and, in those, a lot of clean laps. Even if you do 1-lap races, it will take a while.

 

Sleeper Hit of the Year Award

Coffee Talk

A lot of people know the game Va-11 Hall-A, but there was a similar game realeased in January called Coffee Talk that is really similar and I had never heard of it.

While it's story and characters aren't as good, the spirit is still there and I would recommend most people to play through it.

 

Biggest Bomb of the Year Award

Tie on difenrent Axes: Scribblenauts Showdown & Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

I will put up those two games for different reasons.

 

On the first side, Scribblenauts Showdown is a terrible party game that dosen't use the Scribblenauts concept well and is a slog to play through.

 

On the other side, I went through Hellblade and really didn't like my experience through as I found it

boring and not that remarquable, while also being barely able to hear/understand the game.

I then looked online and found out that the whole game is a metaphor, that fact is never represented in the actual game,

and that I missed the fact that this game relies on you wearing headphone throughout the experience.

Even then, I probably still would not have enjoyed my time through.

 

Best Trophy Image Award

Best Plat: Senran Kagura: Burst Re:Newal  -  Favorite Image: Steins;Gate (Open the Steins Gate)

The Senran Kagura plat image is really sharp, but that Steins Gate trophy really encapsulates the atmosphere of that game and why it's so great.

 

Worst Trophy Image Award

Zero Time Dilemma  -  Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroine's Infinite Duel  -  The Witch and the Hundred Knight  -  God of War II

Turns out I cleard 4 games this year that have the same ''Let's make every trophy the same thing, but change the color!'' mentality.

 

Best Female Character Award

Julianne ''Jill'' Stingray - Va-11 Hall-A

Jill's story was a treat to go through and, even though the game is reliant on your choices, Jill has a lot of backstory and sass.

Runner-ups: Hikage (Senran Kagura), Baiken (Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator 2)

 

Best Male Character Award

Carlos - Zero Time Dilemma

While Carlos look like the most generic action man ever,

he's a really caring firefighternwhose head is always on his shoulders and has some of the hypest plans of the game.

Runner-ups: Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza 5), Connor (Detroit: Become Human)

 

Best Plat of the Year Award

Yakuza 5

 

While not my favorite game to go through 100%, the Plat itself has so much variety and cool things to do that I still had a great time playing it.

Good thing most of the Yakuza games have similar style trophy lists!

 

Wurst Plat of the Year Award

Scribblenauts Showdown

 

I was debating between this and Project Cars 2, but PC2 has good gameplay at least. This game has no redeeming quality.

 

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2021

As a big fan of both the Yakuza series and RPGs, I can't wait to get my hands on this game.

[ZoutjeNL 1,908]

I am a little late on this one but letter late then never right? According to my spreadsheet I earned 39 platinums this year... with some grindy ones. Due to Covid I played a lot and I hope that I game less in 2021 and actually can progress more with my study/work. See you next year! 

 

Piece of Cake Award

Donut County - As someone who doesn't really play many ''easy'' games this one I heard so many people talk about so I figured to try it out. It was a short and sweet experience! It will probably be my highest achieved plat on my account.

 

IT'S LIKE DARK SOULS

Dark Souls II Scholar of the First Sin - I could have picked multiple games here such as Nioh or Nioh 2 but sticking to the ''core'' From Software games I picked DS2 SOTFS. Already completed the trilogy previously on PC as a huge From Software fan I really enjoyed DS2 again. It was even more fun than the first time around. I still don't find it the best game in the trilogy but I don't think it gets the credit that it deserves, it is still a great game.

In general I am planning to play more Souls like games and finish DS3 this year. I am also planning on playing Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Lords of the Fallen and The Surge to name a few. I NEED my Souls itch. 

 

BAD ASS AWARD

Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor - Commanding Orcs and slaying them without hesitation is pretty badass. Another game that caught me by surprise how fun it was and  unlike many players I enjoyed getting the 100% a lot. For me the trials were not so bad. With Shadow of War being free on PS+ I might give that a go in the future. 

Grind of the Year

MHW Iceborne - This was by far the easyiest award to hand out. My goal was to plat both MHW and Iceborne in 2020 and it really burned me out. This grind was the longest I have ever done and I don't think I will ever go for such a grind again. I have played Monster Hunter games since the PSP and have been always been a fan... but these trophy lists are one of the worst in existence. Whenever MHW 2 gets announced I really hope there won't be a gold crown trophy again. 

 

KING OF THE INTERNET

 

MHW/Iceborne - In general I rarely play Multiplayer games and I think the only one I played actively this year was MHW. What can I say? This community is one of the nicest in existence. Everyone is so helpfull and it is cool that you play with people from all over the world. The community is really the highlight of Monster Hunter.
 

WORST ONLINE EXPERIENCE

None - I simply haven't played any online games except Diablo 3 (which I played solo) and MHW. I haven't had bad experiences so I can't hand out this award to any game. 

 

SLEEPER HIT OF THE YEAR

A Plague Tale Innocence- Not enough people speak about this game. Being released at 2019 and being a cheapskate I was patiently waiting untill this game dropped to 20 euro. It peaked my interest for a while and this double AA game really surprised me. The story really shines here and the setting is magnificient too. It is more a story driven/puzzle game which is not usually the kind of games that I play but I can recommend this game to anyone! Another benefit is that this game has a relaxing and easy platinum to boot. 

 

BIGGEST BOMB OF THE YEAR

 

 

Cars 3 Driven to Win - As someone who really likes cartoon/kart racers I tought Cars 3 seems pretty fun right? Oh man I was wrong. The game is really repetitive.. for the first few hours it is fun and all but after a few hours you realize that you are basically doing the same and you have to do it on like 20 different tracks. Because of boredom I had to force myself through this one. I played about half an hour a day and I didn't even touch the game for two whole months. I had a lot of fun playing Cars in my childhood on the PSP but this one... a stinker. 

 

BEST TROPHY IMAGE 

Crash Bandicoot - As someone who loves the Crash games it gives a smile to see crash handing me that trophy. Feelsgoodman. 

 

WORST TROPHY IMAGE

 

LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues - Man this platinum trophy image makes me throw up. Honestly I am happy that the LEGO platinum trophy images are a lot better these days but this one I really dislike. 

 

BEST FEMALE CHARACTER

 

 

 

Aloy - What an amazingly loveable character Aloy is. I really like her personality a lot. Also Ashly Burch being the amazing voice actress this was just exceptional. One of the best in the industry if you ask me.

 

BEST MALE CHARACTER

 

Geralt of Rivia - A very deep character with so much style. Geralt is the perfect witcher character with amazing relationships and a badass attitude. The voice cast is once again amazing.

 

BEST PLAT OF THE YEAR

 

Nioh 2 - What an amazing sequel to already a fantastic first game. As someone who craves for Souls like games Nioh 2 perfectly fits that criteria. Improving on almost all aspects of the first game I had a blast completing the platinum. I hear critism that the game doesn't do a lot of things differently from the first game but for me improving on all the great aspects is all that matters. A game doesn't have to reinvent the wheel if the base is already strong as it is. With all new additions as in new awesome weapons, bosses and Soul cores it does enough to make it worthwhile. I still need to finish the DLC as I was waiting for everything to be released so I am excited to hop back into it! 

 

WORST PLAT OF THE YEAR

 

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne- As already mentioned at the biggest grind this was just awfull to plat. The grind and the RNG aspects is so terrible. I really hope with the next installment that the trophy list is not in the same vein as mhw/iceborne. I can't take another grind like this one. 

 

MOST ANTICIPATED PLAT 2021

 

Dark Souls III - I started Dark Souls with DS3 back when it was released on the PC. Secretly Dark Souls 3 is my favourite out of the trilogy because of this. This game changed my gaming life and I am so gratefull that I deceided to give the Souls games a shot. I tought it would be impossible to beat and that I wouldn't enjoy these type of games but man I couldn't be more wrong. Other games that I am looking forward to are: Batman games (replay), Cuphead, The Messenger, Resident Evil 3 and playing Warzone with my friends on PC. I never liked BRs but I am again gratefull that I tried it out and having so much fun playing with my friends. My suggestion to people reading this: try out genres or games you don't usually play. Who knows what you might end up liking.

Edited January 2 by ZoutjeNL

[Dr_Mayus 16,308]

OK, I am super late as I was hoping to plat a few more games before the end of the year (got 2 more). Thank you all for participating again this year. It was a crappy year but at least we got to play some good (and terrible) games.

 

Piece of Cake Award

My Name is Mayo - PS4

 

I mean how could I not give it to this game. Not only is it Mayo...but it was my second time playing it.
 

I don't think I have to explain this game...but it was my 300th plat

 

 

IT'S LIKE DARK SOULS

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate

 

OK, not really a hard game but I didn't play anything tough this year. The bosses were still a challenge though so I don't feel bad putting this here.

 

BAD ASS AWARD

Ok, this will also go to PixelJunk and squeaked in right at the end. I was fighting the final boss for like the 2 dozenth time. The thing is the boss fight takes forever and the final stages are just shit flying everywhere.

 

So I was battling the final form which has oil, fire and water coming at different times. I got hit by the fire, which would be instant death if it gets you to the floor, but it push me against the wall instead and I was able to somehow keep floating long enough to get hit by the water and get a second wind which allowed me to finally beat the boss.

 

I don't know how that happened but I am claiming Bad Ass for it 😎

 

Grind of the Year

Kingdom Hearts: Rechain of Memories

 

First plat of 2020 and I knew back in January it would win Grind of the Year. I almost gave this to Erica but Kingdom Hearts also has 6 playthroughs and a ton of extra grind to get all the cards and level 99. This game is relentless in the grind so it deserves this award.

 

KING OF THE INTERNET/WORST ONLINE EXPERIENCE

I am giving both of them to PixelJunk Shooter for 2 reasons.

 

1. This was the only game I played all year with any online

2. The online is so terrible I didn't bother to try and plat this game for 6 years...only to find out that you can self boost and the online became better.

 

The online is still garbage and luckily I found a way around it.

 

SLEEPER HIT OF THE YEAR

Ovivo

 

I was planning on doing a second Alpha Plat Rain so I ended up buying this game for the O but decided against doing that again and instead got to just enjoy this really cool indy game. The game is beautiful and relaxing and a definite recommend for anyone that wants a good easy plat.

 

 

BIGGEST BOMB OF THE YEAR

God of War - PS4

 

OK, FLAME SHIELDS UP.

 

I love the GOW series but I found this to be just a plodding mess of a game. It never felt like God of War, Kratos was more mopey than angry, I didn't like the open world aspect (especially the terrible map system) and so much was locked off for future games.

 

I really wanted to like this but just couldn't get past all the changes they made to the franchise.

 

 

BEST TROPHY IMAGE 

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom

 

OK, true story. I first rented this game almost 10 years ago because I liked the plat image

 

Finally decided to plat this game (after attempting it over the last 10 years) and the plat image is still gorgeous.

 

 

WORST TROPHY IMAGE

LEGO Ninjago Movie: The Videogame

 

Has a Lego game ever had a good plat image?

 

 

BEST FEMALE CHARACTER

Persona 4: Dancing All Night

 

I actually didn't like the story in DaN but I at least got to play as 1/3 of the Trinity again

 

BEST MALE CHARACTER

 

Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight

 

Just like Chie, was happy to be able to give this award again to Yusuke. Easily my favourite male character in any Persona game. So sad, so hungry

 

BEST PLAT OF THE YEAR

Bioshock - PS4

One of my favourite plats on PS3 and still one of my favourite plats on PS4. I just love everything about this game and was happy to make this plat 299 (since Bioshock was also plat 99).

 

 

WORST PLAT OF THE YEAR

LEGO Ninjago Movie: The Videogame

 

Ugh, Sony gave this game for free during the beginning of COVID and man what a slap in the face. Seriously this game just sucks...all of it...none of it was fun.  I don't want to talk abut this shitty plat anymore.

 

MOST ANTICIPATED PLAT 2021

Pretty excited for Danganronpa 3 and Cat Quest 2.

 

Not sure what else I plan to plat this year but those should be fun

 

 

 

[zadorvp 6,427]

Late again this time

 

PIECE OF CAKE AWARD

Spoiler

Astro's Playroom on the PS5. A fantastic game, but also super easy to get the platinum in. Pure PlayStation nostalgia with fun references to first and third-party games such as Crash Bandicoot, FFVII Remake, and Until Dawn.

IT'S LIKE DARK SOULS

Spoiler

Once again, didn't play that many tough games. Crash Bandicoot was probably one of the most difficult ones out of my plats, played it for the Push2Plat podcast event. It was still fun to get back to a great remaster of one of my childhood games

BAD ASS AWARD

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Probably just running around in the high power level areas in AC Valhalla while being severely underlevelled

GRIND OF THE YEAR

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Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories. Finally finished getting a platinum for this game (though on the PS4 release instead of the PS3 game :P) and it sure was super grindy to get Sora and Riku to level 99 (especially Riku). Played the PS4 versions of almost all the other KH games too this year, so I guess I could say all of them collectively get this one

KING OF THE INTERNET

Spoiler

Best online experience was definitely Little Hope. Had tons of fun playing it in optional co-op with several people Also had fun playing Avengers, Hitman 2, and Temtem, and did some Friday the 13th sessions on November's Friday 13

WORST ONLINE EXPERIENCE

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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition. What a letdown of a remaster. No plat, no quality of life changes to make it more comfortable for co-op, region locking, no couch co-op, story progress in co-op, co-op trophy progress, etc.

SLEEPER HIT OF THE YEAR

Spoiler

Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories. One of my top 5 games of the year for sure. A fun kooky Japanese game in the Disaster Report/Final Escape/Raw Danger/Zettai Zeshumei Toshi franchise that sadly I've seen a lot of people (some who usually have good taste in games) pass without even looking at.

BIGGEST BOMB OF THE YEAR

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Marvel's Avengers, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered and Lego Movie 2 all shall share this one I still enjoyed two of them (Avengers and Lego Movie 2), but there's no denying they were not as good as they should have been... I still need to get back to FFCC at some point.

BEST TROPHY IMAGE

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WORST TROPHY IMAGE

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BEST FEMALE CHARACTER

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Eri from Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Got to love using office supplies as weapons to deal massive damage

BEST MALE CHARACTER

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John from Little Hope. Ichiban Kasuga would get this otherwise, but I didn't want to have both entries be from the same game

BEST PLAT OF THE YEAR

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Nexomon: Extinction. From start to finish, a fantastic platinum journey to go for and a great monster catching game entry.

WURST PLAT OV TEH YEER

Spoiler

The Casebook of Arkady Smith. That awful, awful minigame

MOST ANTICIPATED PLATINUM OF 2021

Spoiler

Hmm, there's plenty of possible ones... God of War: Ragnarok, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Suicide Squad, Gotham Knights, Digimon Survive, Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes, Hogwarts Legacy, It Takes Two, Gollum, Psychonauts 2, etc.

 

As for last year's "most anticipates plats" entry from me... got the plats for Dark Crystal and FFVII Remake, did not yet get the Avengers plat, Digimon Survive did not get released yet again, and FFCC ended up not having a plat

 

[ParkestNight 13]

Piece of Cake Award - Cat Quest

 

For such a short game, I unexpectedly enjoyed Cat Quest quite a bit. The gameplay was simple but addicting, and the cat puns were 👌

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

It's Like Dark Souls - LittleBigPlanet

 

This overall isn't a hard game, but acing all levels (complete without dying) was a huge challenge for me since I'm not great at platformers. I'm especially proud because the gap from my first trophy to the Platinum is a little over 10 years!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Badass Award - Yakuza 0

 

Kiryu and Majima can fight multiple waves of grunts and stand dominant over yakuza clans, but they can even make normally mundane activities badass; karaoke, dancing, picking up a phone - you name it, it's badass! I highly recommend Yakuza 0, it's a great game with an awesome story.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Grind of the Year - inFamous

 

Objectively, Yakuza 0 should be the recipient of this award; however, I'm putting inFamous on here just because it took me literal years to move past the dread and finally chase down the last few Blast Shards I was missing.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

King of the Internet + Sleeper Hit of the Year - Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

 

Like many, I got this with PS+, and at best I expected to play no more than a round or two. Well, the joke's on me since I immensely enjoyed Fall Guys; I made new friends and put so much time into it that the only trophy between me and the Platinum is, of course, Infallible (which I have since given up attempting). 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Worst Online Experience - Borderlands 3

 

I don't play too many online games, and Borderlands 3 honestly isn't that bad. I just had trouble with awful lag and being unable to join other peoples' games, which hasn't been a problem I've encountered in recent years until Borderlands 3.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Biggest Bomb of the Year - The Division 2

 

I got The Division 2 when it was on sale for 3 or 4 dollars and I had fun with the story despite the repetitiveness. However, later when the game introduces you to the next World Tier and sends you off to do the same story missions but with slightly different enemies - that's when I checked out. It was an unsatisfying, dull end to an otherwise decent experience. To be fair though, I probably did myself a disservice by playing exclusively solo.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Best Trophy Image - Root Letter ("Found SHIMANEKKO")

 

Cute cats > Platinum trophies

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Worst Trophy Image - Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II ("Padawan")

 

There's nothing wrong with the image itself, except it does remind me of an especially annoying former - thank God - classmate of mine whose daily rituals included LOUD and NONCONSENSUAL Jar-Jar Binks impersonations (for what godforsaken reason, I have no clue).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Best Female Character - Freya from God of War (2018)

 

A character with a tragic backstory, having undergone numerous trials and tribulations. She helps you throughout your journey, but in the end is devastated by your direct actions.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Best Male Character - Goro Majima from Yakuza 0

 

I had difficulty choosing between him and Kiryu, but I personally found Majima's backstory and main narrative more engaging than Kiryu's. His character had more depth, and ultimately him focusing his resolve to save the life of a woman he didn't know was very engaging and heartbreaking.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Best Platinum of the Year - LittleBigPlanet

 

It was between this and Yakuza 0, but I figured it taking 10 years to get the Platinum made LittleBigPlanet a more significant achievement. To my sadness, I lost my 100% story save, but I have the Platinum to remember it by. Thanks, LBP - you were great. Also - thanks, Sony - for getting hacked and having customer data stolen, then feeling bad enough to offer LBP as compensation, I guess?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Worst Platinum of the Year - Alone With You

 

Right off the bat, I think this game is neat-o; however, I think it is an example of a game that suffers for having a bad trophy list. It's not difficult, it just requires multiple playthroughs in a story I didn't feel had enough choices to differentiate the branching paths enough.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Most Anticipated Platinum of 2021 - God of War: Ragnarok

 

I loved Kratos' return in 2018's God of War, and I cannot wait for more, especially after the after-credits scene.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Edited January 3 by ParkestNight
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