PSN Platinum Trophy Thoughts No.161 - No.170

Original post:
https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/81083-astray404s-trophy-shelf/

#161 - Tekken 7

Difficulty: 3/10

Surprisingly the trophy list is not grindy nor technically difficult, but the battle system is really hard to start with, which is the most challenging part for all FTGs. The offline mode is pretty freshman-friendly: I haven’t played any FTG before, but I have no problems beating the story mode using Heihachi and other characters due to the auto combo system, and for the treasure mode, it is not that hard to reach Warrior after being familiar with basic combos as long as I could block the opponent’s moves.

Only two things that I am confused: (1) Why would Namco put the left dodge and jump the same button? It makes me wanna get a Hitbox controller because it’s too difficult to “feel” the input time using PS4 controller, and there’s a chance to mistakenly press the up button; (2) Either the player or the opponent could perform a super-long combo, which could do a 50% - 70% damage. This sounds more reasonable in action games, but I feel it’s unfair in fighting games, even if the damage per hit is drastically decreasing as the combo number gets higher.

#162 - Gintama Rumble

Difficulty: 3/10

I’ve heard from the Internet that this game is glitchy, but fortunately non of the trophies got glitched. However I have to admit that this game is horrible: enemy glitched out of the map, frequent CE-34878-0 errors, extremely long recovery frame after attack and dash, frustrating boss battles, etc. Besides, it seems that the dev team had forgotten the most important thing: since this is a game for Gintama fans, how could they turn all those cutscenes into lecture slides? And for those in-battle character lines, at first I thought that those audio files were glitched out, but later when I re-check my controller speaker, those audios are played through my controller. sigh

I guess Bandai is almost equivalent to “LJN”, at least in anime game publishing…

#163 Midnight Deluxe & #164 36 Fragments of Midnight

Difficulty: 1/10

Cleaning my Ratalaika backlog…

#165 - Assassin’s Creed Rogue (PS4)

Difficulty: 3/10

Wow, another glitchy s**t made by Ubisoft and their programmers still didn’t fix the fatal glitch from the origin PS3 version. I followed the original PS3 trophy guide but the author didn’t mention the Templar armor glitch at all. Until I got the armor and fast traveled to my ship. All in-game huds were gone and it became uncontrollable except the right stick and option menu. Fortunately I’ve finished most trophies and I’ve uploaded the save yesterday so it’s acceptable for me to download the cloud savefile back.

Other than this glitch, the gameplay is as tedious as other titles in the AC series: clumsy character that couldn’t do jumping and climbing smoothly, collectables that waste your times, etc. That’s it, no more Ubisoft games.

#166 - Avicii Invector

Difficulty: 2/10

Not a fan of Avicii nor progressive house, but his music sounds great and fits rhythm game well. This game might be the easiest rhythm game I’ve played so far (not sure which one is easier, this one or Senran Kagura Bon Appetite), and it only has two problems: (1) The timing of perfect and great seems unstable. Even if I’m pretty sure that my timing is correct, it’s hard to get a 75% perfect on any track; (2) On higher difficulties, some Left/Right notes are not displayed, which somehow makes me uncomfortable due to extra mental efforts.

#167 - Guacamelee 2

Difficulty: 5/10

Guacamelee has been my most favorite metroidvania game for years, and this sequel is as impressive as the first one, but the gameplay’s mainly shifted to platforming, making it much harder than the first one. However, the most difficult holy hen stage is still beatable, although it seems frustrating at first. With dlc characters, hard mode is not challenging at all if you are familiar with boss patterns. An awesome game and I highly recommend it.

#168 - SD Gundam G Generation Genesis

Difficulty: 2/10

There are not many good Gundam games on PS4, especially a good Gundam game that I could enjoy playing offline only. As a fan of the UC timeline series, however, I pretty enjoyed playing this game. The playable content is solid, including stages and MS/MA/battleships from the most part of the UC timeline, from original 0079 to Unicorn, with Hathaway’s story in dlc, and other side stories such as MS Igloo and Blue Destiny. It took me around 150hrs to finish all quests and to finish some of them, save & reload to make sure hitting/dodging is necessary. Only two problems: (1) Bandai used the story of MS Zeta movies instead of the original Zeta TV anime, and (2) There’s one mis-translation in the quest menu.

#169 - Dark Souls 2 (PS4)

Difficulty: 4/10

I bought this several years ago but hesitated to actually try it, and now I can understand the debate regarding this game after playing it. The art is great, the map design is great, Majula is a great town, and the bonfire ascetic system also brings innovation on gaming experience. HOWEVER, this is a perfect example that a bad level design could ruin the gameplay.

1. The level design of No Man’s Wharf is horrible when compared to Cathedral of the Deep in Dark Souls 3. Both maps only has one bonfire, which is fine. In Cathedral of the Deep, you start from the bonfire, try different routes, unlock shortpaths, and eventually you’ll go back to the main bonfire, but in No Man’s Wharf, you start from the bonfire, run through most of the map, and unlock one shortpath at the end, which brings you back to the bonfire. There’s lack of complexity, and if you die before unlocking the shortpath, it could be frustrating to restart again and again.
2. It seems that those level designers loves spamming enemies in order to make this game difficult: If placing only one enemy here is too easy, let’s add more of them instead of redesigning the enemy’s AI pattern or the map. Most of the non-dlc bosses are much easier than normal enemies because obviously most of the death were happened during running from one bonfire to another bonfire, or from one bonfire to the boss. For example, Executioner’s Chariot at Huntsman’s Copse, and Demon of Song in Shrine of Amana, running to their fog gates are much frustrating than actually fighting them. Thankfully a specific enemy will disappear after being killed several times, but it’s still disgusting.
3. Those designers also spamming bosses: Royal Rat Authority, Royal Rat Vanguard, Ruin Sentinels, Gargoyles, Skeleton Lords… It’s just horrible without summoning a NPC.
4. Weird back-stab position. Sometimes when I facing enemies’ back and press R1, the back-stab won’t trigger, but sometimes when I facing enemies’ flank it triggers.

I’ll say that Dark Souls 2 is definitely not a perfect game, speaking of its level and battle animation design. However, compared to most 3A titles these days, it’s still enjoyable and worth to try. (especially 3 dlc stages)

#170 - Donut County

Difficulty: 1/10

Feel like this game is similar to Katamari since both of them are aiming at collecting objects while getting larger, in order to collect even larger objects. The final boss no-damage trophy needs some practice but it’s not frustrating. This game is somehow beyond my expectation.