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| This seems about right |
A few weeks ago I recounted the 5 platinum trophies in my collection that are my favorites and would sit on the front of my shelf if they were…you know, real. They all either earned their spots because they demonstrated the completion of a difficult challenge or just stood as the pinnacle of a brilliant game. But that’s the fuzzy side of platinums. The truth is not every platinum is equal and some represent an exercise in patience if nothing else. It’s games like the following that have made me reconsider my gaming habits and vow to not waste my time with so many better options out there. Here are 5 platinums I earned but, looking back, we’re totally not worth the time commitment.
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| What's the point of this many characters when they all play the same??!!! |
Platinum Name: True Warrior of the 3 Kingdoms
More Apt Platinum Name: Shut-in of the 3 Kingdoms
I’ve made references to my nostalgic ties I had to the Dynasty Warriors series a few times before, all of which were definitely severed on the road to this platinum. The single player campaigns themselves aren’t too bad, and the conquest has its moments, but the sheer amount of garbage to swim through to get this trophy is just cruel. The combat feels repetitive just playing with one character, but after having to play with every one of the ten thousand in the game and maxing out their skill trees, I was fairly concerned that my square button was going to break from being mashed so constantly.
Despite the brain scraping grind fest it is to max out the skill trees though, maxing out your bond with every character sends things over the edge. Companions are pretty much worthless thanks to poor AI, so increasing your bond with them is incidental if anything. Sometimes characters will visit towns in which speaking to them will help, but their arrival is random and sometimes you have to just rely on luck, which blows when you’re waiting for one freaking guy to show up and I’m stuck talking to Lu Bei for the hundredth time.
Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 7/10
Just Cause 2
I’ve made references to my nostalgic ties I had to the Dynasty Warriors series a few times before, all of which were definitely severed on the road to this platinum. The single player campaigns themselves aren’t too bad, and the conquest has its moments, but the sheer amount of garbage to swim through to get this trophy is just cruel. The combat feels repetitive just playing with one character, but after having to play with every one of the ten thousand in the game and maxing out their skill trees, I was fairly concerned that my square button was going to break from being mashed so constantly.
Despite the brain scraping grind fest it is to max out the skill trees though, maxing out your bond with every character sends things over the edge. Companions are pretty much worthless thanks to poor AI, so increasing your bond with them is incidental if anything. Sometimes characters will visit towns in which speaking to them will help, but their arrival is random and sometimes you have to just rely on luck, which blows when you’re waiting for one freaking guy to show up and I’m stuck talking to Lu Bei for the hundredth time.
Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 7/10
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| Need more explosions!!! |
Platinum Name: Winner Take All
More Apt Platinum Name: Winner Blows A lot of Shit Up
I hate to bad mouth this game because it’s really great. To this day, there has yet to be a sandbox which rivals Just Cause 2 in sheer scope and, despite that, getting around is super easy thanks to the grappling hook and infinite parachutes. The story is lame and thankfully didn’t take itself seriously, and the combat is fun enough in the GTA sort of way. On the flip side, it's annoying having to find all the vehicles in such a large world and some of the combat trophies are a down right pain, but the Perfectionist trophy sends things over the top and plants Just Cause 2 on this list.
There are a lot of things that blow up in this game. A lot. And having to blow up 75% of them is a grind if there ever is one. I literally spent hours traversing the map, just trying to find things to blow up. Hours. And thanks to the previously mentioned scope of the game, it wasn’t always easy to find them. There isn’t exactly a glowing arrow floating over a gas tank that’s planted in the middle of a mountain range. I enjoyed Just Cause 2 but finishing that trophy just left a bad taste in my mouth.
Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 4/10
I hate to bad mouth this game because it’s really great. To this day, there has yet to be a sandbox which rivals Just Cause 2 in sheer scope and, despite that, getting around is super easy thanks to the grappling hook and infinite parachutes. The story is lame and thankfully didn’t take itself seriously, and the combat is fun enough in the GTA sort of way. On the flip side, it's annoying having to find all the vehicles in such a large world and some of the combat trophies are a down right pain, but the Perfectionist trophy sends things over the top and plants Just Cause 2 on this list.
There are a lot of things that blow up in this game. A lot. And having to blow up 75% of them is a grind if there ever is one. I literally spent hours traversing the map, just trying to find things to blow up. Hours. And thanks to the previously mentioned scope of the game, it wasn’t always easy to find them. There isn’t exactly a glowing arrow floating over a gas tank that’s planted in the middle of a mountain range. I enjoyed Just Cause 2 but finishing that trophy just left a bad taste in my mouth.
Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 4/10
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| Good luck getting in here, bub |
Platinum Name: Platinum
More Apt Platinum Name: Assfuck
I, like 10 billion other gamers out there, enjoy the occasional shooter and picked up World at World because it was going for dirt cheap online(being almost a year old by the point I played it) and the platinum requirements didn’t look too bad. And they weren’t. Until the last battle sequence on Veteran. I’m not sure if was “Downfall” or “Heart of the Reich,” but there is a section where you’re with your other bros storming the front of the government building, bullets flying around like they're going out of style. I don’t mean to sound whiny, but that section is simply unfair and poorly designed. If you’re going to only allow the player to take one or two shots before dying, you gotta design the boards around that mechanic. And that ending sequence wasn’t.
On a recent survey Dorkly did about the worst scenarios in video games, one of the ones that made the cut was the infernal “not realizing you’re fighting enemies that will respawn indefinitely and wasting all your health and ammo trying to finish them all off” convention, which is what happens at that point in the game. Enemies will keep pouring from an unseen spot and, unless you reach a certain point on the map, they will keep coming. That’s all fine and good, but when you can’t stick your head out of cover for two seconds without dying, things go from challenging to frustrating quickly. No matter how many Germans I gunned down, the next batch was right behind them preventing me from going forward without getting a face full of lead and it was more luck than anything else that I was able to get forward enough to stop the oncoming horde and make them spawn further back. But that was after several hours of screaming every four letter word at my TV. Nuns around the world wept.
I, like 10 billion other gamers out there, enjoy the occasional shooter and picked up World at World because it was going for dirt cheap online(being almost a year old by the point I played it) and the platinum requirements didn’t look too bad. And they weren’t. Until the last battle sequence on Veteran. I’m not sure if was “Downfall” or “Heart of the Reich,” but there is a section where you’re with your other bros storming the front of the government building, bullets flying around like they're going out of style. I don’t mean to sound whiny, but that section is simply unfair and poorly designed. If you’re going to only allow the player to take one or two shots before dying, you gotta design the boards around that mechanic. And that ending sequence wasn’t.
On a recent survey Dorkly did about the worst scenarios in video games, one of the ones that made the cut was the infernal “not realizing you’re fighting enemies that will respawn indefinitely and wasting all your health and ammo trying to finish them all off” convention, which is what happens at that point in the game. Enemies will keep pouring from an unseen spot and, unless you reach a certain point on the map, they will keep coming. That’s all fine and good, but when you can’t stick your head out of cover for two seconds without dying, things go from challenging to frustrating quickly. No matter how many Germans I gunned down, the next batch was right behind them preventing me from going forward without getting a face full of lead and it was more luck than anything else that I was able to get forward enough to stop the oncoming horde and make them spawn further back. But that was after several hours of screaming every four letter word at my TV. Nuns around the world wept.
Infinite spawning enemies is a stupid design choice(in my humble opinion) for this game and the veteran run feels like more of a grind than it has to be. To this day, the thought of World of War is synonymous in my mind with getting plowed from behind and shall remain so.
Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 6/10
Final Fantasy XIII
Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 6/10
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| You and I will be seeing alot of each other... |
Platinum Name: Ultimate Hero
More Apt Platinum Name: Ultimate Waste of Time
More Apt Platinum Name: Ultimate Waste of Time
Although I’m sure there are a bunch of people in Japan that ate this game up with a spoon, I fall into the camp (as I’m sure most do) that felt Final Fantasy XIII was a colossal disappointment. With crap characters, an overly complicated story, and a path with less to explore than a paper bag, it was a pretty but ultimately a forgettable experience. Or, at least it would have been if hadn’t been for the Treasure Hunter trophy.
Since some weapons can only be obtained by upgrading a few which require super rare materials (I’m looking at you trapezohedrons) farming you will do. I spent days running back and forth farming Adamantaimais, my fingers crossed each time hoping the numbers favored my plight and, obviously, often they didn’t. I actually enjoyed the combat system, but repeating the same fight over and over again hoping for a rare drop sucked the little positives I had to say about the game. Screw this game and cash-in equal that followed.
And this is the same company that made Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger!!!
Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 7/10
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 7/10
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| Fuck it! Destory the PKE! I DONT CARE ANYMOREEEE |
Platinum Name: Platinum Trophy
More Apt Platinum Name: Poor Descriptions
While definitely not an AAA title by any means, I actually enjoyed the single player campaign. The proton beam mechanic is decent and the script, inked by Harold Remus himself, is generally funny and feels like it belongs in the Ghostbusters universe. It doesn't have the polish as a lot of games out there do in terms of design, especially this section towards the end fighting a bunch of stone cupids which kill you in one hit, but definitely a solid game and deserving of better than the hot pile of garbage Sanctum of Slime is. In the end though, any good feelings I had when thinking back to playing Ghostbusters: The Video Game are overshadowed by two large roadblocks which will go down as some of the most difficult bronze trophies out there:
Gozer’s Most Wanted & No Job Too Big.
Gozer’s Most Wanted & No Job Too Big.
Motherfuckers.
For "Gozer's Most Wanted", players need to "successfully complete every job in every location." The problem is that the word “successfully” is rather vague. The truth behind this abomination is that you have to satisfy what seems like quite random conditions in these jobs, since a lot of them are horde mode-ish. Combined with a very limited online community, getting people to play on the job you need on the map you need can take long enough, not to mention hoping you can satisfy the conditions to make the job “successful” in the first place isn’t a cake walk. There’s nothing more devastating than waiting twenty minutes for someone to join your game only to have things go poorly and having to wait again for another shot.
"No Job Too Big" isn’t bad at first glance either, just having to capture all the “most wanted” ghosts that randomly pop up during the multiplayer. The problem is that the appear rate behind some of these ghosts are a little non-existent rather than random, and I was literally left playing for hours upon hours just hoping the stupid ghost I needed would show up. And it would be one thing if the multiplayer was fun. It really isn't. But on I played with dreams of the sparkling trophy. I scoured the interwebz and followed everyone’s cockamaney theories on how to make these piles of ectoplasm appear when really it was just blind luck.
Mass hysteria. Dogs and cats living together.
