Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10By simple virtue of the fact this game isn't called "Grand Theft Auto" or "Red Dead Redemption", this is one of Rockstars lesser known titles.
Originally released on the Playstation 2 in 2006, Canis Canem Edit (renamed for it's release in Europe to be "softer" than it's North American counterpart "Bully"), was later released in this form on the Playstation 4 as a downloadable title. It is a straight port, retaining the same gameplay mechanics, content and graphics as the original game.
As with all Rockstar titles, this is a story-driven sandbox game, where you take control of Jimmy Hopkins, a deliquent child exiled to Bullworth Academy to pursue his education (as well as dominance of the school). The list is about medium-sized, with 38 trophies in total, and in truth, this is an incredibly easy Platinum trophy, sometimes plagued with a grind or two along the way, but mostly a leisurely stroll to full completion.
The "Graduate" trophy, awarded for Completing Chapter 5, concludes the main story's 77 missions, and this is an easy journey from start to finish. There is no difficulty setting applied to the game and the missions are quick, easy and very basic in concept, which equates to a very straight-forward experience. There are a series of trophies also awarded upon completion of each chapter leading up to the final one too, so there are rewards for incremental progression present too.
The story takes up a large chunk of overall completion time, clocking in at around 10-15 hours, during which you'll naturally earn a lot of the other trophies within the list along the way. Without any reason to specifically mention any of these trophies in particular, there is a large element of grind attached to this game, which will catch you out if you don't do your research beforehand. This involves accumulating a varying degree of distance covered on multiple forms of transport, including the bicycle, skateboard and on foot, and it may be that you heavily favour one of these to the extent that you reach the end-game and find yourself spending a lot of additional time just travelling around specifically to cover ground using the modes of transport you previously may have neglected. 100 kilometers on the bike, 100,000 metres on foot. These are big totals that need to be worked on as soon as you begin the game.
This list heavily favours this approach throughout, and extends to other activities within the game too, including running 30 errands, delivering 50 wedgies, kicking 100 footballs and knocking 200 people out. It all seems a bit unnecessary and devoid of inspiration, but these kind of gradual accumulation trophies make up around 60% of the entire list, so, as a collective, they're worth mentioning.
The "Sharp Dressed Man" trophy, awarded for Purchasing 250 clothing items, could also fit into the above description, but there are extra elements to this trophy which mean it requires a mention. First and foremost, this will require an accumulation of money to the tune of around $3,000. Completion of certain main story missions will reward a cash prize, but most of these funds will come from extra-curricular activities such as paper rounds and lawn mowing, so this involves a bit of grinding for money on top.
It's also important to be smart with money too, and not senselessly burn it on aspects of the game that won't influence this trophy, such as haircuts and playing arcade games. It also helps to spend it wisely. You don't need to buy every clothing item in the game to fulfill the requirements of this trophy, so it is unnecessary to spend money on the most expensive items as soon as you see them, otherwise you'll be in a situation where you need to spend more time accumulating further funds to purchase the full 250 items you'll need to trigger the trophy.
The "Problem Child" trophy, awarded for Amassing 160,000 trouble points, will require some post-game grinding. Out of many of the things the game's statistic screen tracks for you, this is unfortunately not one of them, but 160,000 is a big total, and you'll more than likely reach the end of the game still needing this trophy.
The issue with amassing trouble points lies in the fact that causing trouble will get you collared by authority figures, such as school prefects and police, who will bust you causing you to "respawn". This makes it a very stop/start process with little continuity. The fact that trouble points can't be tracked anywhere either means you don't actually know which are the best actions to perform in order to quickly maximise the amount of trouble points you're amassing at any one time. There are more serious offences you can commit in comparison to others, which are easy to work out with a little bit of trial and error judgement, but you're in the dark until you see the trophy pop, which for me was about 3 hours after the original end-game.
As a general rule of thumb when rating the difficulty of trophy lists, I tend to rate on a scale of 4-10, saving the exceptions for games that barely contain enough of a challenge to be considered any higher up the scale. This is exactly where Canis Canem Edit fits.
In comparison to the normal expectation of a Rockstar sandbox game, it isn't very vast at all, and you won't even need to complete the game to 100% in order to unlock the Platinum trophy (It actually sits at around the 93% mark, but there are thankfully a couple of annoying collectible strands that are neglected from this, which cuts down a handful of extra hours which would otherwise be required if 100% was necessary for the Platinum).
The difficulty curve of the game is non-existent, and despite a small selection of grindy trophies which you'll have to make sure you begin accumulation on quickly, this is a nice easy Platinum to add to the collection. My overall completion time according to the statistics screen was 22 hours and 48 minutes.
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| Graduate - Complete Chapter 5 Sharp Dressed Man - Purchase 250 clothing items Problem Child - Amass 160,000 trouble points |
Sharp Dressed Man
Purchase 250 clothing items
