In terms of actual difficulty, this list doesn't really do much to overly challenge you (Strangely enough, you could easily argue the game gets more relaxed the further you play it). However, that is more than compensated by what ultimately turns out to be a huge grind-fest, packed with cumulative and collection based trophies for varying elements of the game.
The "Head Trauma" trophy, awarded for using every type of melee weapon on a zombie, is definitely the pick of these cumulative trophies, and the biggest stumbling block regarding these is the fact the game gives you no assistance in relation to which weapons you still need to use to fulfil the trophy requirement.
Granted, it isn't exactly hard to tick them off yourself, and they do thankfully carry over from one playthrough to the next, but there are almost 200 melee weapons in the game, and when you have to go through the list trying to find out which ones you still need to use, it just becomes a massive game of trial and error as you ultimately hope to hit that missing one. You can remedy this by keeping track from the very beginning, but I went for this trophy almost 4 years after I originally started the game, so I never had a chance other than doing it the hard way.
Thankfully, the volume required for most of the other cumulative weapon based trophies isn't anywhere near as bad, and the other stuff, such as spraying all Zombrex posters, retrieving all gifts and changing into every item of clothing is much easier, despite the fact they all have missable elements to keep track of, but if you make sure you don't miss those, you won't struggle too much with them, due to their much more manageable numbers.
The "Duct Tape FTW" trophy, awarded for creating all combo weapons, again, isn't tough by any means, and in reality, it only gets a mention here because it's one of the few trophies that has to be done in 1 playthrough of the game, and progress does not carry over. Some of the parts required for certain combo weapons can only be found from certain points in the game, but most of the parts are generously scattered around or can conveniently be found near workbenches, which makes things alot easier, providing you realise soon enough that it all has to be done in a single game.
This falls in tandem with the "Full Deck" trophy, awarded for collecting all combo cards. You can earn combo cards in a number of ways, through defeating psychopaths, saving survivors, discovering them from hidden posters around Fortune City and simply just crafting the combo weapon yourself, but many of them are exclusively awarded, so you'll need to make sure you know where to get them, especially true for the Tape it or Die combo cards.
The "Hero of Fortune" city trophy, awarded for saving 50 survivors, is where the game shines through with a rare element of skill. There are a total of 65 survivors to be rescued in 1 playthrough, which means you don't really have a great margin of error to hit the target figure. You'll need to plan which missions you should prioritise, especially due to the time limits applied to the game, and some missions can carry up to 4 survivors, so it's best to target those. Some missions won't even appear in some circumstances (More than 8 survivors already on the map, and some missions which are unmarked and don't even appear in the mission feed, for example), so it's important to keep on top of every mission, which can be a tough juggling act to keep up with.
On the subject of survivors, the "Data Miner" trophy, awarded for filling all entries in the notebook, requires you to encounter every character in the game. These cover main characters, survivors and psychopaths, and you'll run into most of them naturally going for the other trophies, but some are slightly harder to find than others.
Alot of these trophies do border on tedious, but the most tedious of all goes to the "Zombie Genocide Master" trophy, awarded for killing 72,000 zombies. Firstly, this has to be done in one playthrough, so you don't even have the flexibility of carrying the kills over, which is hard to take given the fact you could easily play this game through 15-20 times. Secondly, there is only one method for this trophy, to save up $2,000,000 and buy the SUV, and prepare for 7-8 hours of the most mind numbing gameplay you'll ever encounter. It simply involves driving around the Silver Strip, killing zombies and saving every so often in order to repair your SUV and do it all over again. As mentioned, it's dull and takes around 7-8 hours, which is basically a whole playthrough. Not fun.
Despite this game being very heavily emphasised on Single Player, there are a small selection of Multi-player trophies too.
Most of these are easy enough, but the "TK's Favourite" trophy, awarded for playing and winning in all 9 TIR events, is a difficult one to nab. This is mainly because the games are chosen at random, and theres no way for the payers to influence what comes next, meaning when you get down to the last couple, it can be frustrating waiting for them to appear, especially if you miss the chance by losing the round, and have to wait for the next opportunity.
Given the fact that the entire list is full of checklist heavy trophies, and the need to consistently keep track of everything effectively becomes a big game of trial and error, especially when you consider the amount of items that can be missed throughout the game, simply because they only appear during certain missions, or can be obtained from areas that need to be unlocked or visited once, it creates a challenging trophy list, albeit a mentally challenging one, more than anything.
Some skill elements do creep into the game at times, and it can be a very challenging game when you first start out levelling your character, but the sheer amount of time and the constant tedium and repetition are what makes this game truly hard to get through right to the very end.
The amount of trophies that rely on hefty accumulation and collection related tasks is ultimately very overwhelming, and it means you'll end up playing around 10-20 complete playthroughs of the game, which equates to around 100-150 hours, to grab the Platinum. The slightly skill based trophies present a fun edge to the game, but the spotlight is stolen by way too many trophies that just rely on tedium and sheer grinding that test your determination to the very maximum.
Notable Trophies -
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| Head Trauma - Use every type of melee weapon on a zombie Duct Tape FTW - Create all combo weapons Full Deck - Collect all combo cards Hero of Fortune City - Save 50 Survivors Data Miner - Fill all entries in the notebook Zombie Genocide Master - Kill 72,000 zombies TK's Favourite - Play and win in all 9 TIR events |
Hero of Fortune City
Save 50 Survivors
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