DLC #134 - Bioshock Infinite - Clash in the Clouds

From the moment I died for the first time within this DLC, and chose an option that read "Restart from the last checkpoint", believing this to mean from the start of the current wave I was on, only to actually be taken back to the very beginning lobby and lose all my progress within that arena, I knew this was going to be a bumpy ride. It felt like a decision that set the tone.

Clash in the Clouds is the first of three DLC packs for Bioshock Infinite, a wave-based combat mode that sees you battle through increasingly more difficult arenas, whilst earning money by completing waves, and being able to upgrade weapons, vigors and abilities in order to cope with the increasingly more demanding tasks ahead.

There are 4 arenas in total, with 15 specifically designed waves for each one, for a total of 60 different waves throughout the content. You start as if you're a new character playing a brand new game, and beating waves will earn you money which you can use to gradually upgrade weapons and vigors, which will strengthen your character and better equip you for the latter arenas, which scale in difficulty. You also get gifted infusions between waves in order to increase your shield, health and salt capacity.

There are 10 new trophies added as part of this package, with 4 of these corresponding to just merely finishing each individual arena. You have unlimited lives to reach the end, so this is just an exercise that comes down to how long it takes you to progress, and the bare minimum of just passing through each arena shouldn't take longer than 3-4 hours. This is the easy bit.

Overall though, as a wider piece, this is a challenging package, with a difficulty set to a default of "Hard" which cannot be changed, and every type of enemy you've already seen throughout the main Bioshock story is accounted for and thrown at you. There is a noticeable spike in difficulty after the first arena where your upgrades just suddenly don't seem to be relative to the challenge, and you will find yourself farming the earlier stages of this DLC for money in order to improve your weapons and vigors to be able to stand up for yourself in the tougher arenas. However, once you've maxed out all the upgrades for weapons and vigors, it does become more manageable, but still not exactly a trouble-free experience.

It also doesn't help that you'll need to spend a considerable amount of money on unlocking all of the additional gallery content contained for another trophy within the list, and in hindsight, I should have saved this until the end when it turned out I had loads of surplus cash, rather than spending it early when I needed it more, so perhaps some ill-judgement on my part too which made the earlier progress somewhat slower.

The other trophies are awarded for smaller tasks that you should get naturally as you move through these arenas, and there will be plenty of chances to go back through as you drive towards the main goal in this list;

Blue Ribbon Champ - In CitC, completed all Blue Ribbons Challenges.

The "Blue Ribbon Champ" trophy, awarded for completing all Blue Ribbon Challenges, is what makes this package come to the fore, and is both a genuinely challenging, but also frustrating experience at the same time.

To start with the challenging part, there are 60 Blue Ribbons in total to earn, and a Blue Ribbon is achieved through fulfillment of a specific task provided to the player at the start of each of the 60 waves. This corresponds to 1 Blue Ribbon for every wave across all 4 arenas, and the range of tasks is very varied.

My approach was to just casually play-through the arenas and unlock the prior trophies awarded for simply beating them, and seeing how many Blue Ribbons I could unlock along the way without trying to be conscious to their requirements. Most of these seemed to tick over relatively nicely at first, and this was a trend that continued right up until around the 45 Blue Ribbon mark, and whilst there was always that expectation I would reach a point where some of these tasks would begin to stand out and halt my progress, some of the tougher ones were either hard to execute, or either seemed to be driven by circumstantial luck, or by discovering ways to fulfill these requirements differently to what was actually stated.

For example, I discovered the objective to "defeat every enemy with the weapon they're using" still registered when you used the Undertow vigor just to knock them off the map instead, but not until I had spent hours attempting to frantically run around and find a specific weapon to kill an enemy with as per the objective only to die and have to go through the whole arena again. It didn't make sense, but it thankfully still worked, even though I had to spend a lot of time to discover an alternate method.

This wasn't always the case though, and the following objectives are the ones I ended up seriously struggling on;

• Duke and Dimwit Theater (Arena 2) - Wave 13 - Defeat 5 enemies with a single Devil's Kiss blast.
• Raven's Dome (Arena 3) - Wave 13 - Defeat all enemies while they are distracted with a Booker decoy tear.
• Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Wave 2 - Defeat 2 enemies who are riding Sky-lines with traps.
• Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Wave 5 - Defeat both Handymen while they are electrocuting a Sky-line.
• Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Wave 7 - Defeat two enemies with the Fireman's suicide attack.
• Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Wave 10 - Defeat all enemies only using the sniper rifle.
• Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Waves 11 - Defeat all enemies while they are distracted with a Booker decoy tear.

This doesn't quite paint the full picture though, and as previously mentioned, there are some big frustrations with the game design that also make this more difficult than it should be.

The biggest one is the fact that, every time you pass a wave, but you don't fulfill the requirements for the Blue Ribbon challenge (dying will also instantly fail the challenge too), you will have to go through the entire arena in order to reach the wave you still require the challenge for, just to have another attempt. This is a seriously big oversight and causes alot of unnecessary rework in the instances where the Blue Ribbon required is situated within the latter waves of any given arena.

Some of the challenges listed above I struggled on occur within later waves, and there is always that psychological edge that brings some pressure knowing you don't have any leniency from the game when you work up towards a certain wave. For a game that uses the chapter select feature so well within the main trophy list to mop up any excess trophies, to see them completely abandon the ability to replay a wave, just for the benefit of not having to slug through an entire arena just to get another shot at an outstanding challenge, is disappointing. It eventually makes it feel like you're spending a lot of dead time with the DLC, and even the incentive for money runs out eventually, so you really do feel like you're just going through the motions when you get down to the nitty gritty of those 2 or 3 Blue Ribbons left, which isn't fun after the 6th, 7th or 8th failed attempt at a challenge, which seemed to be a regular occurence.

The other big frustration is the fact that the game will register actions of enemies and count them against you for certain challenges, prematurely voiding them.

For example, in a wave where the challenge states "Defeat the enemies using only Vigor traps", enemies falling off the landscape via their own accord, or enemies wielding heavy weapons, such as RPG's, and causing friendly fire splash damage, will go against you and provide you with the failed challenge prompt. I wouldn't say it makes less sense than having to play through an entire arena again, but it is frustrating to know you're being penalised by the actions of questionable AI.

This is a rocky road for numerous and varied reasons, and will take you somewhere within the region of 12-20 hours in total to beat, hugely dependent on the above factors. It is an experience blended up of challenge and annoyance, and completion is met with relief more so than satisfaction, though it is a good feeling to eventually knock off an increasingly elusive Blue Ribbon challenge, even if the incredibly tedious repeatability does wear you down. I actually had a lot of fun pursuing this list, but the nuances do leave a bittersweet aftertaste.

I haven't had an experience with Burial at Sea yet, which is next up, but I would be suprised if Clash in the Clouds somehow wasn't the peak for Bioshock Infinite's DLC offering.

Platinum #102 - Crash Bandicoot 2 : Cortex Strikes Back - (Part of the Crash Bandicoot N'Sane Trilogy for the Playstation 4)

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

Originally released on the Playstation 1 in 1997, came Crash Bandicoot 2, the second title remade within in the 2018 N'Sane Trilogy.

There are alot of parallels to draw from based on previously reviewing Crash Bandicoot here, both in terms of game design and the trophy lists, so there may be some echoes along the way, and the aspects present within this list that are different don't really do much to influence a massively dissimilar experience to the first game on the route towards the Platinum trophy.

As always, I like to pad these out for the benefit of doing the review justice, but don't want the danger of feeling like I'm treading alot of old ground because of the fact the previous list in the series was so similar. I might have to officially coin such circumstances. I'll call it something like "Uncharted-Syndrome", perhaps.

Just like Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2 is a moderately sized list, clocking in with the same total of 25 trophies, along with exactly the same process map towards full completion.

The "Cortex N' Adequate" trophy, awarded for Defeating Neo Cortex, will cap off the end-game as you progress through the very loose story which involves Crash being manipulated into collecting crystals on behalf of Dr Neo Cortex for his plan with ulterior motives, which was stifled in the first game.

The story actually specifies that 25 crystals are required in order to garnish enough power for Dr Neo Cortex and his assistant, Dr N Gin, to reach maximum capacity with the Vortex they're creating for their grand plan, which, incidentally, is also the number of levels within the game, and one short of the amount of levels contained with the original Crash Bandicoot.

As you go through each warp zone within the game, you'll earn a host of progression related trophies for defeating each boss within that particular warp zone in the build up to the final boss fight, located in warp zone 5, where you defeat Dr Neo Cortex and unlock the final story-based Gold trophy. Each of these individual warp zones contains 5 levels, and there are 5 warp zones in total, which is where our nicely rounded figure of 25 crystals comes from. Each zone also culminates with a respective boss fight, which gives us 30 levels when you add them all together. The way you progress through the game is a carbon copy of Crash Bandicoot, both in terms of game design and how the trophies are awarded as you move through the story.

Earning a crystal merely requires completion of the level, which is the easiest part of the game because speed and death are irrelevant (for now, at least), so giving the story the once over achieving what you can is a good starting point, and will naturally progress you along towards the other aspects of this list. If you're conscious of attempting to collect Gems too, you will minimise the required amount of rework when you go back through the game, so this approach is also advised.

It is important to note one big difference from Crash Bandicoot. There are actually an additional 5 hidden alternate levels, and discovering each of these will unlock a further 5 secret trophies. They are very well hidden as secret exits within the main 25 story levels and are placed within a sixth zone. They do also have crystals attached to them, though they do not influence progression within the main story, but you will be required to grab the gems and relics from them if you want the Platinum trophy, so they are still very relevant in the bigger picture.

Once you manage to get through the story for the first time, which is a very leisurely task, the end-game process is also exactly the same, where the attention then shifts focus onto collecting Gems and Relics in a bid to finish off the rest of the trophy list.

The "Laser Powered Vengence" trophy, awarded for Earning 42 gems, holds the exact same concept from Crash Bandicoot, though this is a noticeable step up in quantity from 26 Gems in the first game. This is due to another big difference within Crash Bandicoot 2 where certain levels have seen the introduction of a "Death Route", which is effectively a checkpoint you must reach at some point within the level without dying, to then access the Death Route and reach an alternative conclusion to the level that awards another gem. This duplicates the amount of gems you can earn from certain levels, hence the uplift in quantity, and is therefore not the same as the 1 gem, 1 level approach from the first game.

The requirements for the other Gems are still the same. Break all boxes within a level and complete it in order to obtain the Gem. Coloured gems are also back, and these still require you to beat 5 specific levels without dying whilst obtaining all boxes within a single attempt, just to slightly elevate the challenge in the same way the original game did. Obtaining coloured Gems also still unlocks previously sealed off areas within other levels that can only be accessed after having obtained the corresponding coloured Gem, so you'll be going back and forth to work these puzzles out again too.

Multiple Gems exist within 12 levels (not including levels with coloured Gems), so the Death Routes are used to a greater extent here. A few of them are responsible for some of the more challenging parts within the game too, whereby you have to advance past the Death Route checkpoint in some instances, to clear more of the level ahead, and then eventually backtrack to activate the Death Route and finish the level. This is a new concept that does elevate the challenge a touch compared to the original Crash Bandicoot, but still not the main challenge within this trophy list at the same time.

The "Wumpa-Burner Engaged!" trophy, awarded for Earning 27 Relics (gold or better), is still the toughest aspect of this game, providing further evidence of the continuity shown between both Crash Bandicoot lists thus far.

Unlike the Gems though, there haven't been any changes to the way Relics work. You are still awarded a Sapphire, Gold and Platinum relic depending on times posted for each level, and the requirements for earning one are exactly the same. You must beat the level as fast as possible in a single attempt without incurring death, and you can pick up boxes along the way to stop the clock and improve your time. Times are set and performance is rewarded a Relic depending on speed.

I mentioned in the Crash Bandicoot review that there didn't seem to be much consistency in the target times between the levels, and where some of these levels were much more lenient in terms of timescales chosen to qualify for at least a Gold relic, some are much less forgiving and don't allow any sort of margin for error. Crash Bandicoot 2 is exactly the same in this regard.

It's not so much of a problem, but you can find yourself in a good flow and then suddenly hit a brick wall out of nowhere, and the tough speedruns will have you spending a reasonable amount of time perfecting your run in order to find a route that works best and eventually get you that Gold relic. The good news is, there wasn't anything massively over the top that had me stuck for hours on end, but the challenge has translated over from the original game in the exact same way where the majority of this is fairly straight forward, with a small smattering of genuine challenge, which again makes it the hardest trophy within the list.

I also mentioned in the Crash Bandicoot review that, despite the odd difficulty spike, the trophy requirements do still significantly assist the player, due to the fact you aren't required to earn a Platinum relic for every level, and if this was the case here as well, and this trophy was somehow different to the original game, then this would also make this list a significantly more challenging one. I only ended up with 3 Platinum Relics, which was a worse performance than the 5 Platinum Relics I scored on Crash Bandicoot, so the perspective is still an important thing to point out.

The remainder of the list should pose no greater problems, and most of it will come naturally along the way as you focus on the main tasks outlined above. It's another good list to pad out the Gold trophy count too.

In terms of overall difficulty, I feel as though there are so many similarities between both Crash Bandicoot and Crash Bandicoot 2, it's hard to justify rating them any differently from one another. There isn't anything within this list that blatantly makes it stand out in comparison to the first game.

Despite the fact the "Death Routes" do add an extra dimension of challenge, and also subsequently way more Gems to unlock, this doesn't necessarily equate to a more challenging experience because, regardless of the difference in quantity of Gems, both lists still boil down to a small selection of stand-out levels, so they're effectively equal in that respect anyway.

The same sort of logic applies to the Relics. Though the quantity is of a much similar amount between both lists, it does just come down to the odd few levels that provide that "practice makes perfect" approach compared to the rest of the game, and a small dose of trial and error will eventually see you through anyway. The fact there was also no change in the lenient requirements of Relic collection is also a big deciding factor on the overall difficulty rating again.

Completion time for Crash Bandicoot 2 is slightly higher, clocking in at around 20-25 hours, and this is something that the additional amount of Gems to collect does influence, but regardless of the challenges that lie in wait, it's hard to vouch for a higher rating for a list that can still be completed with such a modest timeframe. If I rated games in increments of .5, there may just be enough of a case to sway a slightly higher rating here, but not quite enough to be adding whole points on.

Notable Trophies -

Cortex N. Adequate - Defeat N. Cortex.
Laser Powered Vengence - Earn 42 Gems.
Wumpa-Burner Engaged! - Earn 27 Relics (gold or better).

Hardest Trophy -

Wumpa-Burner Engaged!
Earn 27 Relics (gold or better).

DLC #133 - LittleBigPlanet 2 - The Muppets Premium Level Pack

It's been a while since I've revisited LittleBigPlanet 2, and whilst there are good reasons for that, they're becoming harder to ignore, and the final 2 packs left beyond this will be finished the moment I can bring myself to acquire the extra peripherals needed to complete the respective lists.

In the meantime, the Muppets Premium Level Pack does not require such acquisition, and follows the same mould as the DC Comics Premium Level Pack (For the most part, at least).

The DC Comics theme is now replaced by The Muppets theme, along with a cast of authentic characters in full costume and a host of new creation options to gather via prize bubbles scattered around within each stage. The levels make use of the new Attract-O-Gel feature too, which allows your Sackboy to walk on ceilings and walls, adding a new element of gameplay that is creatively integrated into the new handful of Story levels.

The pack adds 7 new levels to the sub-stories section of LittleBigPlanet 2, broken up into 5 main levels and 2 additional survival challenges, accompanied by 7 new trophies to unlock along the way.

LittleBigPlanet DLC trophy packs have never been overly challenging, and this one is no different. The primary focus will be the Gold "Standing Ovation!" trophy, awarded for Acing all 5 Muppet Story Levels, which are fairly easy to go through without dying, as long as you take your time to analyse your next steps before your proceed. The final stage, where you fight the Phantom boss, is a little tricky, but once you learn the attack patterns, it shouldn't take too long to nail down. You will also unlock an additional trophy for simply beating all 5 levels, acing not required.

The other trophies will require you to meet a minimum score threshold within the 2 new survival challenges, both of which are very easy to achieve the required score from, and there is also an Online requirement to beat 5 user-created levels that feature Attract-O-Gel.

One key difference between this pack and the DC Comics Premium Level Pack worth noting though, is the fact that there isn't a trophy requirement to unlock all prize bubbles within the DLC this time round, which removes the necessity to have to go through all those secret areas contained within levels which require 2-4 players to unlock the additional Multiplayer dependent prize bubbles. This makes this journey much more straight-forward and means your pure focus can be on just beating each stage without dying. It also means that full completion of this pack can be achieved on a solo basis.

This meant I could unlock all 7 trophies within a single sitting, clocking in at a total of just under 2 and a half hours. A very quick and easy list.

Platinum #101 - Bioshock Infinite

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 6/10

It's a been a while since a Bioshock game graced these pages. Bioshock 1 and 2 were some of my earliest Platinum trophies, as the 3rd and 26th respectively. That's a big gap when you consider the fact all 3 Bioshock games to date were originally released on the same platform, and there was only a 3 year gap between Bioshock 2 and Bioshock Infinite.

Bioshock Infinite takes on a different flavour to the previously underwater themed Bioshock games, where you play as Booker DeWitt, who is tasked with rescuing a little girl called Elizabeth from a sky-themed metropolis called Columbia, from the hands of the game's main protagonist, Zachary Hale Comstock.

This is a large list, totalling 51 trophies, and switches the series back to being a purely Single Player experience, as you go through the Infinite story with no other game modes accounted for. The list for Bioshock titles has remained fairly varied as the series has progressed, and Infinite presents a host of differences not previously seen within other Bioshock games.

There are a large portion of progression based trophies as you work through the story, which is a fairly modest 10-12 hours in length, difficulty dependent.

Most of the other, non-progression trophies, can be earned naturally along the way, and there are vast opportunities to earn the majority of them without requiring much thought and given the fact you'll need to play the game through twice in order to unlock the Platinum, it's better to see what you manage to unlock naturally first time round and take in the story, then work on everything else on your second run.

The "Scavenger Hunt" trophy, awarded for Completing the Main Campaign in 1999 Mode without purchasing anything from a Dollar Bill machine, is the hardest trophy in this list. The player must first beat the game once on any difficulty in order to unlock it though, which is why it is a necessity to play through the game twice if you want the Platinum trophy.

1999 Mode is a step up from the game's most challenging difficulty, where enemies deal significantly more damage and are tougher to kill. The main distinguishing factor of 1999 Mode is the fact that every death comes at a cost of $100 for the player to be revived, and if you don't have the spare cash, then you'll be returned to the main menu and have to reload from the start of the last chapter. Not being able to use a Dollar Bill machine on top of this means you cannot purchase ammuntion, health packs or salt (which is used to charge up vigors, which are effectively like tonics from the previousy Bioshock games).

It labels itself as a "hardcore" experience, but in all honesty, the worst thing that can happen is, you may have to redo small portions of the game when restarting a chapter. It's a bit of a stretch to call itself a "hardcore" version of the game I've come to know from experiences with games like Dead Space, which will show no mercy on the player and end your game if you die at any point. Even not being able to use a Dollar Bill machine is more of a challenge of making sure you don't accidentally purchase an item from them, rather than actually being stuck for ammunition, health and salts, all of which are provided in abundance throughout. You are allowed to use other vending machines like Vigor and Weapon upgrade stations, which is something to be careful of, but generally, shouldn't be much of a problem.

However, the game does start to throw you around a little bit towards the end, and this is where 1999 mode's difficulties start to shine through. I was coasting through this game right up until about 3/4 of the way through, and had it set in my head that this was somewhere in the region of a 4 or 5 out of 10 Platinum, and I was suddenly halted in my tracks by a couple of standout segments in the game. There is a series of fights with Lady Comstock, whose ghost haunts you and her special ability is being able to revive the dead, which means you have to fight off hordes and also try to kill her at the same time. It's very overwhelming and you have to fight her on 3 separate occasions. The final fight provides more of the same, where you have to defend the Zeppelin, and is also about fending off hordes long enough to make your escape. The true difficulties of 1999 mode are apparent when you're fighting against large groups of enemies, because your health depletes quickly and it takes much longer to reduce their numbers.

It isn't exactly a "hardcore" experience though. The consequences to death aren't punishing enough for that, but it will test your skills to at least make sure you don't have an easy ride to completion. It also cannot be left unstated the importance of having access to Elizabeth's support either. Once you have access to her, and she is fighting alongside you, her tendency to generously support you is a game changer. She'll find money, health, ammunition and salts at very regular, and often dire times of need and it alleviates alot of bad situations.

Despite Bioshock lists being very varied throughout the course of the series, one of the constants that has remained is their fondness for collectible related trophies, and Infinite is loaded to the brim with collectibles in the form of Voxophones, Infusions and Telescopes/Kinetescopes.

The "Infused with Greatness" trophy, awarded for Collecting every Infusion upgrade in a single game, is the most notable of these collectibles, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, and this is more of a general note, for a game that has so many collectibles (147 in total), it doesn't do a great job of tracking them for the player. Voxophones are recorded in the in-game menu, yet Infusions are not, and these are the most well hidden collectibles in the game. Infusions are used to upgrade your health, shield and salt capacity, so these are not just optional, but very critical to progression as you hit some of the more challenging parts of the story.

Infusions are also easy to miss because they're either contained behind optional side quests that require you to find an item that corresponds to a secret code/message, which will then unlock an area of the game you would not have been able to access previously. In some instances, you'll see the code/secret message before you pick up the item to decipher it, and therefore have to backtrack to a previous area. Infusions are also very commonly found behind locked doors that need to be picked by Elizabeth, and if you don't have enough lockpicks to unlock a certain door, you cannot grab the Infusion you need, and because of the games very linear nature, you won't be able to revisit certain parts once you move onto a new area of the game.

Despite the game having a chapter select feature, which can help you go back and grab alot of the collectibles, the trophy description eludes to a very important difference, which is the fact this has to be done "in a single game". With Voxophones and Telescopes/Kinetiscopes, chapter select will bail you out if you miss any of them, which is something the previous Bioshock games did not offer. All collectibles in both previous Bioshock games had to be collected in one Playthrough, which is exactly what this trophy mirrors, and which is why Infusions are the standout collectible. This also ties into another trophy called "Raising the Bar", which requires you to max out either health, shield or salts when distributing infusion upgrades, and it is realistically possible to collect every infusion in the game, yet not max out any particular attribute. If this happens, you'll be running through the game again as per the same condition of having to fulfill it in a single game, and Infusions not being available through chapter select.

All other collectibles also carry over across playthroughs, though there is no way to tell which ones you have and which you need, and even though Voxophones are tracked in the pause menu under their own heading as you progress through a single playthrough, previously acquired Voxophones do not appear, so you'll start with a blank list regardless. Telescopes/Kinetiscopes, just like Infusions, are not tracked either, which almost makes chapter select pointless because you'll more than likely not know which ones you need. The collectible tracking is not handled very well by the game at all, and you're better off collecting everything within a single playthrough and sparing yourself the inconvenience of trying to work out what you may have missed.

Chapter select is very good for the clean up operation though, and the list contains alot of trophies where there is potential for chapter select farming, with cumulative kill totals for the games various weapons, environmental novelties such as tears and Sky-lines and use of vigors, though 2 full Playthroughs of the game will be more than enough to take care of these. 

There are also stacklable trophies for easy, normal and hard difficulty, and even if you choose not to play through on hard first time round, 1999 Mode will unlock everything else upon completion (including another trophy for just beating the game in 1999 Mode without any additional parameters), so your first Playthrough doesn't really matter difficulty wise, which may be something to bear in mind if you wanted a more relaxed journey to focus on as many of these trophies as possible before running with 1999 Mode and leaving yourself as little to do as possible. I found it bearable enough to run collectibles in my 1999 run and grab most of the outstanding trophies I had left with very minimal need for chapter select.

1999 Mode is the main challenge here, and even though the game is very collectible heavy like it's predecessors, it's only really the Infusions that should give you problems. The addition of chapter select negates the previous necessity in Bioshock titles where you had to collect everything in 1 Playthrough, which was a headache to manage, and is subsequently alleviated here as a consequence.

It doesn't really lay a glove on the difficulty of Bioshock 1, and is more akin to that of Bioshock 2, scoring the same mark out of 10. Bioshock 2 had an easier Single Player offering, but more of the difficulty within that game lent towards the Multiplayer portion of the list, which is absent within Bioshock Infinite due to the exclusion of an online mode. 1999 Mode does lure you into a false sense of security with sudden peaks in difficulty towards the end of the game, and the Infusion collectibles could prove to be problematic for a couple of trophies without the advantage of being able to gather them via Chapter Select post-game. However, everything else in between can be naturally picked up within 2 Playthroughs, and you shouldn't need to rely too heavily on chapter select to finish the list.

The game ranges somewhere within the 25-30 hour mark for completion, and although 1999 Mode will eventually stand up for itself a bit, there are tougher Single player games out there, and as long as you can keep on top of the collectible management, this should find it's way into your collection relatively trouble-free.

Notable Trophies -

Scavenger Hunt - Completed the Main Campaign in 1999 Mode without purchasing anything from a Dollar Bill machine.
Infused with Greatness - In the Main Campaign, collected every Infusion upgrade in a single game.

Hardest Trophy -



Scavenger Hunt
Completed the Main Campaign in 1999 Mode without purchasing anything from a Doller Bill machine

DLC #132 - Destiny - Rise of Iron

Fresh off the back of the Platinum trophy for Destiny, comes the other half of the DLC content after The Taken King, which is a much smoother journey to finish off the series.

Rise of Iron tells the story of a group of guardians who sacrificed themselves to ensure the secrets of a material called SIVA were contained within the Old Temple (which also acts as the new social hub for this content), only to be discovered by the Fallen some time later, who want to experiment with SIVA as a form of body augmentation.

When tasked with finding a way to stop this, it turns out the Fallen already have access to SIVA and have been using it to create new forms of themselves (called "Splicers"), and need to be stopped.

There are 7 new trophies within Rise of Iron, awarded for completing a broad range of tasks and activities, and just like The Taken King, there is some solid variety accounted for here as the package touches upon most of it's new additions with the small selection of trophies on offer.

Of the 7 new trophies available, 2 of these are awarded for progressing through the new Rise of Iron questline, which will see you defeat Aksis and end the SIVA threat. For a main questline though, this is quite short, and will take you no longer than a couple of hours to complete, containing just a small handful of quests.

The package also spreads the remainder of the trophies well across the variety of other newly introduced content, which includes a couple of new side quests, the newly added Supremacy game mode to the Crucible arena (think Kill Confirmed from the Call of Duty Series), and the new Wrath of the Machine Raid.

None of the additional quest-related trophies are anywhere near as convoluted or long-winded as they were in The Taken King, with a much more simple and linear approach taken this time around, though despite this, it is still important to mention a couple of trophies specifically;

Student of History - Activate all Iron Lord Artefacts.
Splicer God - Complete the "Wrath of the Machine" raid on heroic difficulty.

The "Student of History" trophy, awarded for Activating all Iron Lord Artefacts, requires you to collect and attune a total of 8 new Artefacts added specifically for this DLC.

The method is relatively simple. You'll need to accept a quest from Tyra Khan at the Old Temple which requires you to fill up a "good deeds" meter to 100%, by completing public events and killing enemies, which will grant you 1 of these artefacts. You can farm the Archon's Forge, another new addition specific to this DLC, which is effectively an arena mode where you have to clear a series of enemies including a boss, which will grant 5% towards the meter for every arena event you clear successfully, plus whatever volume of enemies you manage to defeat during the event on top of this (Every 10 enemies tops the meter up by 1%). 

This will take between 1-2 hours each time, purely through cycling events at the Archon's Forge, and once you've filled the meter, you can turn the quest in and retrieve the artefact. However, you're only entitled to 1 Artefact per week, and the options for which Artefact you can have are provided to the player on a rotational basis, with 3 different Artefacts up for grabs each week. This means you'll have to come back for 8 different weeks in total in order to collect each Artefact and trigger this trophy, and you'll also need to make sure you pick up a different Artefact each time. The trophy is looking for you to grab each of the 8 Artefacts on a unique basis, and not just 8 of any combination.

Apparently, you can switch between your 3 character classes, and grab 3 different artefacts per week, which can shorten the journey down to just 3 weeks, but I found Archon's Forge to be too grindy and boring to dedicate that much time in one sitting towards it, so if you find that to also be the case, you'll need to be patient and allow an 8 week lead time to unlock this trophy. I was perfectly fine with logging in for just an hour or two to fulfil this trophy over the course of an 8 week period, and didn't see it as an immediate necessity to grind this out as quickly as possible by jumping between 3 different character classes and grinding out anywhere between 3-6 hours in a single sitting.

Either way, it's important to outline this trophy because of it's "ahead of time" nature, and the fact you need to account for a certain level of advanced playing time with the game as a consequence, and will also require somewhere in the region of 10-15 hours alone when you add it all up collectively.

The "Splicer God" trophy, awarded for Completing the "Wrath of the Machine" raid on Heroic difficulty, adds what you may have come to expect at this point based off previous experience, and the same rules apply as already mentioned regarding Raids. Again, I won't get into the details, for not wanting to say too much of the same thing already discussed previously among the other pieces related to Destiny that have already been written about. Where Raids are very varied in terms of their individual challenge, the logic in terms of trophy strategy is exactly the same for each one, and the approach does not need to change, irrespective of which Raid you're tackling, so there is nothing furthermore to add.

Just to quickly note though; In my opinion, Wrath of the Machine is an easier Raid than King's Fall, but it still took me 3-4 hours to beat it on Heroic difficulty, and you'll still need to get together a fireteam of like-minded players, preferably a full squad of 6, but this can be done with 5 if necessary, along with being able to dedicate a reasonable amount of time to running through it in one-go.

Rise of Iron certainly puts Destiny on the downward curve in terms of difficulty. Trophies related to both the main questline and applicable side quests are very easy to just go through the motions with, where The Taken King presented some stiffer challenges. The Raid is an easier one within this package, but will still require solid levels of teamwork and co-operation, as well as a little bit of endurance, and as long as you don't mind having to keep on top of the "Student of History" trophy, and spending a few hours a week plugging away at this to keep it ticking over for a while, then this is by far the easiest trophy list within the Destiny collection.

As a time estimate, and this is also taking into account the cumulative total of all the sessions you'll need to grab 8 Artefacts, this is around a 20-25 hour list, and if you've made it this far after both the Destiny main list and The Taken King DLC, then there's nothing here that will stop you.