Utnayan backlog challenge: part 2 ends Jan 31

Zelda: Spirit Tracks is so goddamn awful. Phantom Hourglass has the same annoying stylus controls that give you elbow cramps (meanwhile, the D-Pad and analog stick are just sitting there DOING NOTHING) but Spirit Tracks adds all kinds of new even-more tedious shit. Not only do you have to use the stylus for moving/attacking/dodging (good luck with that), you have to use the notoriously terrible 3DS mic for a lot of stuff too. Like playing the musical instrument for the game. This kind of thing was way better when it was just key presses. Here, you're blowing into the mic and all kinds of random stuff is happening, repeat 5-20 times until you luck out and it registers the sound correctly. There are tons of other tedious things, the list would just go on and on. There's one big "evolving" zone you keep having to go back to throughout the game and it's a PITA.

I honestly can't believe how awful and un-fun this game is. Probably the least-fun game I've played this past year and that's against some stiff competition. However, it's one of my 3 remaining Zelda games, and I told myself years ago that I was going to finish that entire series. The two after this are good, just need to get through this one. I'm about halfway and it's been pure misery so far. Like "play for a little while and seriously question why I'm putting up with this" misery. It's bad, very bad.

I'll add a few positives: The music is very good and resembles Wind Waker's OST. Zelda is WAY more present in this game than in previous games, and she adds a ton of life to the script. The dungeons are fairly brief and generally well-designed and make sense. It's just the other 90% of the game outside of the dungeons that is horrendous.

Falstaff said:

So I started Black Ops 3 last night to try and crank out another one before the end of the month... and it is not good. FPS campaigns are usually enjoyable and easily beatable over a few nights, but man I'm just not sure I even want to finish this.

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I like COD campaigns too but I haven't tried any Black Ops because I heard so much bad stuff about their campaigns.

I liked the single-player campaigns in Ghosts, Advanced Warfare, Infinite Warfare, Vanguard, Cold War, and really liked WW2. The big glaring omission is the Modern Warfare series which I definitely need to go through whenever 3's remaster is out.

Tried to do the Modern Warfare (2019) campaign for this challenge, and like I mentioned earlier in the thread, the game just DOESN'T WORK. Took ages to get it to even know that it had the single-player installed, and then the game would cut to black screen randomly. I read that it was a problem with HDR TVs, so I tried it on a non-HDR TV and it went back to saying data packs were missing, so I just gave up at that point because nothing made sense anymore. I basically wasted a day trying to get the single-player campaign to work right, and left empty-handed. Amazingly bad especially for a game from 2019.

Finished GotG. Encountered quite a few bugs that required me to load last checkpoint, which was annoying. Decently enjoyable, but would benefit from a much tighter physics/engine. Thing always felt super sluggish.

Seananigans said:

Finished GotG. Encountered quite a few bugs that required me to load last checkpoint, which was annoying. Decently enjoyable, but would benefit from a much tighter physics/engine. Thing always felt super sluggish.

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how many total trophies you snag on the way through?

Regime said:

how many total trophies you snag on the way through?

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All but 6. I missed a chapter 1 costume so I don’t think I’m going to plat, I’d have to replay the entire game I think.

Seananigans said:

All but 6. I missed a chapter 1 costume so I don’t think I’m going to plat, I’d have to replay the entire game I think.

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Like no walkthrough just jam it through and you’ll get a bunch?

Regime said:

Like no walkthrough just jam it through and you’ll get a bunch?

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Half the trophies are “can’t miss” progression trophies, another 1/4 are stuff you’re extremely likely to do. I’d say there are ~10 you have to go out of your way for, give or take.

If going for plat/100%, You’d want a guide for the collectibles and outfits though, as if you miss those you gotta re do the entire game AFAIK.

Guardians of the Galaxy was on my shortlist for this challenge, but I can't find the game anywhere! Got it like two months ago at half price and didn't get to it in the first contest. It has completely poofed. I know it's around here somewhere, and I gotta say, this is pretty bizarre. I've never lost a game before either.

In any case...


Finished Mega Man 9 with Protoman. This was HARD. Guy dies in 2-3 hits from bosses and there's no shop to buy items.


I also have Mega Man 10 Protoman on my list but it's under 3 hours on HLTB so I'll skip it for now. I imagine it's a lot easier than this one, which took me all day.

Just noticed I'm coming up on my 50th platinum trophy. It'll probably be either Code Vein or Rift Apart, maybe GOTG if I can find it.

Time for a quick trip down trophy memory lane:


Fallout 4 not being at a full 100% really bothers me. Like a lot. I need to find out what I'm missing and go do it. Not a fan of the game, though, and I put in as much time as I could stomach (plus another 20 hours or so). I think I just legitimately reached the end of my rope with that one and simply could not continue.

Aside from that we've got the Bioshock trilogy here which I'm proud of. I also have 3x plats for the PS3 versions and was happy to double-dip.


Platinuming the God of War series is another one I'm proud of. These were also pretty damn hard. I found that most of them have 1 or 2 ultra-difficult trophies that usually involve the Trials of something or other. The good thing about GoW1-3 is that they're so similar that I was able to bounce between them and eventually get all 3 done that way. Obviously I crossed the finish line out of order (3-1-2)


Got Ascension too, which is also a really tough plat. I haven't played GoW 2018 yet...yeah I know, I need to do that, but it's on a list with like 10 other games I need to check out from the last couple of years. I haven't even played Breath of the Wild or Witcher 3 yet.

The two Mega Man X Legacy Collections were really fun to plat. A lot of people were mad that the games were split into two sets like that, but I'm not, 'cause it meant two platinums. I'm still working on the classic series Mega Man Legacy Collections, have them at 76% and 80%. There are no plats for those, for some reason, which sucks, plus they're WAY harder than the X Collections.


I'm due up for a Final Fantasy series replay but I don't see it happening for another year or 3. Been saying it for several years already, but it's a massive undertaking to go through the whole series. When I do it'll definitely be with their latest remastered releases so I can plat all of them (7 onward, anyway). Hopefully by then 1-6 will have Pixel Remaster releases on console too.


Demon and Dark Souls, original PS3 versions. I've got Bloodborne and almost every Souls game platinumed in both their original and remastered forms, except Souls 1 Remastered and Souls 3. Saving both of those, for what I'm not sure.


I even checked off the portable God of War games in their PS3 port form. Fallout 3 was waaaaaaaaay more fun to plat than FO4. New Vegas was also a blast. New Vegas has this 50's-ish kind of Twilight Zone aesthetic while FO3 feels like the grandiose Terminator future game I've always wanted, scrounging for supplies in a post-apocalyptic city. FO4 by comparison feels bright and peppy and boring, I don't know about that one.


My very first platinum trophy, from November 2009. I got this one a day or so after my first girlfriend dumped me because her parents pressured her to, that was pretty awful. Then a day after THAT she came over and apologized profusely so I forgave her and we got back together. Were together for a while longer but I never fully got over what happened and it eventually led to our undoing because I didn't trust her anymore. Still remember this time period ultra-vividly.


Here's my first real platinum, since Terminator Salvation on PS3 is basically a "gimme" plat (you can get 100% by just beating the game on Hard without worrying about anything else).

Bioshock is such a sick game, and the platinum isn't too difficult. It's a blast and adds some more replay value to it.

Crone said:

Never was super into puzzle games so stayed away from Bioshock series, but now you're telling me I should be getting into it?

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Naw, you have way more than enough on your plate already!

The Bioshocks aren't really puzzle games though. They're more like the Metroid Prime series, sort of first-person adventures. I like the first two and their focus on booby traps and strategy of that nature (or you can just bulldoze through). The hacking minigame is as close as it gets to puzzles (something a lot of modern games do, to varying effectiveness). And yeah, the hacking minigame gets annoying fairly quickly but it's mostly annoying due to the frequency it pops up. It's a pretty simple minigame.

Utnayan said:

You should definitely play all three Bioshock games. At the very least, 1 and 3.

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I'm one of the people who also likes 2. It has the deepest and most interesting combat/gameplay, IMO. Also the best DLC, by far.

Weird thing is, if someone's only gonna play two of them, I'd recommend 1 and 3. Rapture is a tremendous setting, Columbia is a tremendous setting, gotta see both of them. Bioshock 2 is just more Rapture. I almost can't tell the difference between 1 and 2 in terms of levels. Like I can't remember which one had Point Prometheus. Putting aside the samey-ness of the world in 2, I think 2 is criminally underrated and that 3 was a big step down from 2 in gameplay depth.

In other news, I dropped my plan to play Resident Evil 1+2 this week (been trying to get to those for a while). Started 1, got lost a lot in true RE fashion, realized I don't have the time/patience for that game at this moment.

Aiming at Spirit Tracks as my big goal for the week. It's been on the backlog for so incredibly long that if I can defeat it here, it'll be a huge win for me. Also the game is shockingly un-fun for Nintendo and Zelda. I'm probably around 60% of the way through it, have 3 dungeons left. The vast majority of the game is the between-dungeon stuff, though.

Also playing Vanquish Remastered on the PS4. Never played the PS3 original but it was on my "things to buy if you ever see it cheap" shortlist for a while. I never did see it cheap, which is just as well because later it got a remaster and I got it for like ten bucks. Absolutely outstanding game, shocked it didn't get more publicity or any sequels. It's like Gears of War if it were much faster and more frenetic, and the stages feel like real war zones. I recommend this one for sure.

Janx said:

Erronius I'm going to be disappointed if this doesnt show up in here as completed.
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V Valos just gifted that to me this weekend, ROFL

And...well...I guess I'm fucking Hitler, then

Erronius said:

V Valos just gifted that to me this weekend, ROFL

And...well...I guess I'm fucking Hitler, then

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I feel like Hitler-Fucking Game is one of the signs that we're entering the world of Idiocracy. Actually there's literally a show on TBS now that features a guy getting hit in the balls by all kinds of crazy objects.



In any case, just beat Vanquish. What an awesome game, probably the most fun I've had lately playing anything. If you like Gears of War, check this out. It's basically a much-faster Gears. Just be sure to grab the laser beam and lean on that for the whole game.

Edit: Also, the evil president in the game looks a lot like Hillary Clinton and graphically commits suicide at the end. Not condoning that, just found it kind of interesting that the devs went that route. Game came out in 2009 so while it was in development Hillary was likely still the presumptive next president. It's also possible it wasn't intentional and they just happened to make the evil US president resemble her, who knows.