DLC #178 - The Last of Us - Left Behind

It took a while, but we finally got round to some Single Player expansion content for the Last of Us. After my experiences with this game, here are some things I hoped I wouldn't see;

Collectibles, Optional Conversations, Missable trophies. We get all 3 here.

For this reason, I didn't play through Left Behind blind. I just didn't really want to play an expansion multiple times, for a game that took me almost 4 playthroughs to Platinum. That isn't a testament against the quality of the game, I just feel like I've exhausted it by this point.

Left Behind serves the purpose of adding some backstory and character development to Ellie, after your brief cameo with her during the main game. It isn't a very long experience, and you can tie everything up, including all 10 trophies, within a couple of hours.

You run the majority of the episode alongside Riley, Ellie's friend, who is also actually a Firefly, playing off a very clear conflict of interest dynamic between the two. There are arguments between them, but also obvious indications they are still great friends. If you were playing through this episode without any context, you'd be forgiven for believing that you were actually playing through some sort of demonstration of the game. 

The episode looks like it merges 2 different parts of the wider story together, and you play them out in parallel to one another. For the most part, you stroll through an abandoned mall at a leisurely pace, exploring the various corners of it, portraying the innocence of a couple of kids just having a bit of fun and games. The other part is direct from the main story, taken from the moment in the game where Joel is desperate for medial support after piercing his body through a stake, and Ellie is attempting to find some first aid to assist. This is where the odd combat encounter is thrown in, just to briefly remind you of the reality of what the Last of Us has always been - A survival horror game. Combat only makes up around 20% of the episode, where the rest is focused on just exploration, which is where it gives me the vibe of feeling like a demonstration. It was short, sharp and to the point, which is exactly what I wanted, and I felt the way it told 2 different stories from within the same environment to be very well executed.

There are 10 trophies added, and these can all be achieved within the roughly 2 hours you'll spend playing through the episode. You can earn 4 difficulty-related stackable trophies if you beat the episode on Survivor difficulty, which is already available from the outset, so there is no need to play through to unlock it like you had to do with the main game. The low emphasis on combat also helps here.

There are a series of missable trophies for the variety of interactions you have with Riley, whereby you have to win a series of different games, else you'll need to replay the episode should you lose. The same goes for the collectibles and optional conversations, which again, have trophies attached to them. I was at a point with this game whereby I didn't want to take any risks of missing something silly, so referenced a guide throughout as I went along. I never spoil anything here, but despite it's briefness, the episode does reveal a fairly significant link back to a major plot point within the main game.

Left Behind didn't exactly bring the game to new levels, but it was a nice punctuation to what was one of my favourite games within the Playstation 4 era. I'll look forward to Part II.

Platinum #129 - Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

It took a while, but Crash Bandicoot finally made it's presence known on latter generation consoles.

It began with the N.Sane Trilogy back in 2017. Not just a remake collection for the first 3 Crash Bandicoot games released on the Playstation 1, but also the catalyst for 2 brand new additions to the franchise in Crash Bandicoot 4 : It's About Time and Crash Team Rumble. Before both of these hit the timeline though, there was another remake.

Originally released in 1999, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is the remake of Crash Team Racing, a spin-off to the series that sees characters from the first 3 Crash Bandicoot games race around an assortment of exotic locations and tracks.

It's an excellent remake, full of nostalgia for those who recall playing the original title. It stays true to the original in every sense of the word, whilst taking the necessary leaps in refreshing, modernising and enhancing the game to be fit for the present day. The balance is absolutely spot on.

It contains most of the main game modes you could experience in the original. The Adventure mode is back, and plays a significant part within the quest towards the Platinum trophy, and you can still use Arcade, Battle and Versus mode to create your own races/events to stretch your imagination a bit further afield. The new additions also include Ring Rally mode and a fully fledged Online Multiplayer offering, though there wasn't any incentive within the trophy list to explore much of the newly added modes.

The gameplay sticks to the same formula that made it so fun in the 90's. Races typically contain a field of 8 racers, and the chaos is present in abundance as you pick up power-ups to use against your opponents to get the upper hand. It will demand a fairly high level of mastery if you want the Platinum trophy, but if you're just simply looking to relive the fun, it's also still true to it's pick up and play roots.

The environments are vast, colourful and bursting with personality, and the tracks range from simple to complex, with loads of hidden secrets and shortcuts scattered throughout. These elements of the game are the biggest beneficiary of the enhanced console power, finally allowing the landscapes to pop with vibrancy and really bring them to life - From Piranha plants ready to chew you up if you get too close on Papu's Pyramid, to Seals skating across the ice to stifle you on Blizzard's Bluff. It's a real treat to see such an iconic game get the remake treatment and it was a pleasure to get the chance to go through such a timeless classic all over again.

In regards to the trophy list, there are 48 trophies in total, including the Platinum trophy. Despite having a fully fledged Multiplayer offering this time around, this list is purely a Single Player experience, with all trophies spread across the game's various Single Player game modes.

The trophies are distributed well, encouraging the player to focus on the total package the entire game offers. The Adventure mode, Time Trial mode and Arcade Mode are all shown some love, but the trophy list does show an obvious bias towards the Adventure mode, so that's where we'll start here.

The "Galaxy's Fastest" trophy, awarded for Defeating Nitros Oxide in the Adventure Mode once and for all, requires you to effectively reach 100% in the Adventure Mode.

This includes meeting the following requirements; Winning all 16 main races, Beating each of the 4 Boss races to earn all 4 Gold keys, Obtaining all 18 time trial relics and Earning all 20 CTR Tokens. Once you've done all this, you'll unlock the ability to race Nitros Oxide one final time, and in turn, unlock this trophy. It doesn't seem like alot to get through, and in all fairness, it's not, but this was a bit of a funky journey, which I'll explain from start to finish, by firstly touching upon another specific trophy.

The "Yeee HAW!" trophy, awarded for Completing the Adventure Mode on the Hard difficulty, is where I originally attempted to start my progress towards the previously aforementioned "Galaxy's Fastest" trophy, but I eventually stumbled into an unforeseen issue which meant I had to find an alternate route towards the Platinum. I'll expand on that later, but whilst we're here, there are vital things to mention about hard difficulty in this game.

Firstly, this IS the true definition of hard. I've played through many games that promote their hardest difficulty level, and it ends up providing an experience that does not meet the advertised expectations. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is not one of those games, and there are two main factors that drive it's difficulty.

Firstly, you have to master the drift mechanic to perfection. The AI on the hardest difficulty level will smoke you if you don't consistently maximise top speed, and you can only do this through perfecting the art of drift boosting. To drift boost, you need to execute a drift, and when the drift bar reaches the top, you need to tap the shoulder button to boost at the exact peak of the bar. This will maximise the boost time, but if you miss it, you'll fail the motion. You can do this up to 3 times per drift, and you can't afford to drop your inputs at any point if you want to maintain a good enough pace to win most races. You will need to consistently do this throughout the whole race to give yourself a chance at winning. It's easy to perform as second nature once you've nailed the technique, but it has a steep learning curve and is difficult to master.

Secondly, this game has some of the most criminal rubber-banding I've experienced in any game. Racing games can be notorious for this, but I honestly believe CTR has some of the worst. You can perfectly drift boost for the entirety of a race, maintain the lead throughout, and then suddenly get overtaken at the finish line seemingly out of nowhere and end up losing. Or perhaps you'll get hit with the worst timed power-up, struggle to recover and then never gain first place back as the AI just develops a massive lead over you that quickly becomes insurmountable. 

Races are mostly won purely on luck, and rarely seem to actually be determined on skill, which seems incredibly backwards for a game that requires you to master a really tough game mechanic to overcome it's most challenging difficulty level, just to make it almost pointless to success. Sometimes I would play out a perfect race and still lose. Other times I would underperform, yet still win. It never really made any sense, and I just accepted I was completely at the mercy of the game and my progress was always driven by how kind the rubber-banding wanted to be to me.

It's a frustrating experience, especially given how much importance the game puts onto understanding the drift boost mechanic. Why expect me to put hours into perfecting an art when my success is just going to be determined by RNG anyway? It is easily my biggest criticism of the game.

This means there's quite the sense of relief reaching the end, but the problem was, I hadn't quite reached the end yet. I outlined the requirements above for reaching 100% and having the opportunity to defeat Nitros Oxide a second time, and this involves earning all CTR Tokens in order to unlock the Gem Cups and then beat those too, but this is where I became unstuck.

CTR Tokens are awarded for beating all 16 races again, whilst collecting the letters "CTR" hidden around the track, and they'll only count if you also win the race, which is where the catch lies. Races are tough enough to win on the hardest difficulty as it is - Then the game wants you to go out of your way to collect these letters whilst still somehow notching up a win. I quickly found this just way too demanding, and had to make a decision.

The decision was to drop a difficulty level down to medium and go through the whole game again, beating every race, and then cleaning-up on the CTR Tokens, Time Relics and winning all the Gem Cups on medium difficulty, which would help me acquire a number of additional trophies. This then finally allowed me to reach 100% completion and beat Nitros Oxide again for the "Galaxy's Fastest" trophy.

Beating the game on Hard difficulty should have been the end of the frustrations I'd experienced with Adventure Mode, but despite it being a complete cake-walk on Medium difficulty, to have to sink more additional time into a game that I should have had been able to just clean-up in the same way you would with any post-game content, was disappointing. This also had a knock-on impact with the Time Trials.

The "Gasmoxian Slug" trophy, awarded for Beating all of Nitros Oxide's times in Time Trial Mode, is arguably a more challenging feat than beating the Adventure Mode on Hard difficulty, and that's a big claim.

However, where the Adventure Mode puts you at the mercy of game mechanics that are mostly out of your control, the Time Trial Mode is much more heavily dependent on the players skill, and this is really where the mastery of the drift-boost technique comes to the fore.

Firstly, there are 31 tracks you'll need to beat Nitros Oxide's time on to achieve this trophy, and there is a necessity to complete 3 runs of each track in order to accomplish this. You'll need to post any time onto the leaderboard, which will subsequently unlock N Trophy's Time Trial, and you'll then need to also beat that in order to unlock Nitros Oxide's Time Trial, and then subsequently beat that too. So that's 31 tracks times by 3 runs per track, meaning you'll need to post a minimum of 93 Time Trial runs, and that is purely under the assumption you're going to do it within the minimum required number of attempts. You're not though.

Nitros Oxide is ridiculously quick, and you'll look at some of the times compared to what you may have already posted and wonder how on earth you're going to beat them all. Compared to N Trophy, he takes all the shortcuts, does not make mistakes and avoids all the track hazards - making his runs almost immaculate. That's the biggest difference between both sets of Time Trials.

The largest advantage you'll have is that you should have mastered the drift-boost mechanic, as you'll hopefully have beaten the Adventure Mode on Hard difficulty by this point. It's not a guarantee, but you'd like to think this is where most people would have naturally started. The biggest piece of advice I could give to anyone with this Platinum is to go into the Adventure Mode first, in order to prepare specifically for the Time Trials.

It's a fairly standard expectation with any Time Trial Mode that you may have to rely on persistence and copious amounts of trial and error, and never were those words truer spoken than they are right here. Some actually aren't too bad, but most of them require a perfected level of understanding on how to drift-boost and chaining these together in seamless manner. Any minor mistake or let up in momentum is more than likely a run-ender, and you'll need to be prepared to miss out by fine margins of times on many of these tracks. It is a task that really will make you suffer, and is the peak of testing the skills you've learnt from playing through this game.

Adventure Mode was tough, but tough for very different reasons. Nitros Oxide's Time Trials will genuinely push the limits of your skill, and creates a modest challenge that requires practice and patience. It's not just about how well you've managed to master the drift-boost mechanic, but also how well you've remembered the track layouts, where their shortcuts are and always making sure you can still avoid hazards whilst travelling at speed.

Just a final note on the Time Trials. Another part to having to run through the game again on another playthrough was the fact I also had to revisit and beat all the N Trophy Time Trials. This was due to the "Is everyone here?" trophy, which is awarded for Unlocking all characters from the original roster. You have to beat the Purple Gem Cup to unlock Fake Crash, which requires the collection of CTR Tokens - Something I've already explained couldn't be done on the hardest difficulty. However, you'll also need to unlock N Trophy, which requires you to beat him in all Time Trials. This meant repeating this feat over as part of earning this trophy separately, creating even more re-work than anticipated.

The rest of the list isn't too difficult outside of this. Adventure Mode will throw alot of progression-based trophies at you, as you defeat all the bosses, use the power-ups in certain ways and discover all the secrets of the variety of tracks you'll race on. The other modes outside of Adventure and Time Trial will require some minor dabbling at most, and should make for some light clean up.

However, the overall challenge presented is a steep one, and there are 2 distinctly different experiences at play for you to contend with. The Adventure Mode will often make you feel helpless towards the influence of your own progress, through it's awful AI rubber-banding and the Time Trial Mode is a genuine test of the skills you've acquired and will push these to their highest limits. This naturally sets the difficulty rating well above the average, but you have to also account for the extra effort required by beating the Adventure Mode for a second time, as well as the N Trophy Time Trials, which added a reasonable amount of time on top.

As an overall time estimation, I would say this probably sits within the 35-40 hour range, though this will largely depend on your luck within the Adventure Mode and how well you can get to grips with the demanding nature of the Time Trials. Either way, it's certainly the most challenging Crash Bandicoot title to date, easily surpassing anything presented within the Crash Trilogy.

Notable Trophies -

Yeee HAW! - Complete the Adventure Mode on the Hard difficulty.
Galaxy's Fastest - Defeat Nitros Oxide in Adventure Mode once and for all.
Gasmoxian Slug - Beat all of Nitros Oxide's times in Time Trial Mode.

Hardest Trophy -

Gasmoxian Slug

Beat all of Nitros Oxide's times in Time Trial Mode