At first glance, you wouldn't expect any LittleBigPlanet game to produce a tough trophy list, though through the first few titles in the series, that hasn't exactly been true. Despite this, the racing spin-off doesn't really follow the form book, though there is enough to provide a slight challenge along the way.
The game still follows the convential story format of a typical LittleBigPlanet title, with a series of worlds with a handful of events to complete on each one.
These also provide some standard progression based trophies awarded for the completion of each planet, and the subsequent completion of the story mode at it's conclusion.
It's extremely linear stuff. You win the race, and then move onto the next until you complete the planet, and then it's just a matter of rinsing and repeating for the 7 planets in the story mode. You'll unlock a ton of trophies along the way too.
The "Story Star" trophy, awarded for Starring ever level in the Story mode, requires you to both collect all prize bubbles available and finish 1st place in every event. This is very similar to "Acing" a level in previous LittleBigPlanet games, though there are a few crucial differences that make it much easier in this game compared to the others in the series.
Firstly, every prize bubble in the game can be earned on your own, so there's none of those awkward 2, 3 and 4 player specific sections of levels that were present in previous LittleBigPlanet games that usually required some form of co-ordination and reliance on others to achieve. "Acing" a level also used to require getting to the end of a level without dying, which is replaced in the Karting version by simply winning the race, which is incredibly easy, despite some blatant rubber-banding AI, though this actually also works in favour of the player most of the time too, and allows for easy race wins. It's certainly much easier to win a race than it was to complete a level without losing a life.
The "Building The Imagesphere" trophy, awarded for Spending 24 active hours in Create mode, requires you to clock an entire day's worth of time creating levels. This is an awful long amount of time to spend making levels, and is easily the most arduous part of the entire list. It can be fun at first when you're experimenting with all the tools and different types of tracks you can make, but it fast becomes a grind and, even if you're always looking for creative new ways to make levels, the whole aspect of level-making isn't a particulary exciting process.
It is a returning trophy though, and if you do enjoy the creation side of the game, it probably won't seem too bad, though there's no escaping the fact it's still 24 active hours, which is more than a couple of sessions of playing the game. There are a small selection of other create mode trophies to unlock along the way, but this is the toughest trophy on the list by some distance.
Speaking of which, the "Crowd Pleaser" trophy, awarded for Publishing a level and having 10 different players complete the level, might not seem too problematic on face value, but with the amount of levels shovelled out throughout the game, any published levels can be quickly lost within the depths of the game's publication library, and unless you're a creative genius who manages to pull out some genuinely decent stuff, your sub-par levels will become one of many very quickly.
Levels based around quick plays or finishes for the purpose of unlocking trophies (such as the "The Adventure Continues" trophy, awarded for Completing 100 community levels), seem to be quite popular, as do levels that offer a "play for play" incentive, in the name of helping each other out, but there's still no guarantee you can get enough plays for any one level to satsify the requirements of the trophy.
Unfortunately, the game's list also possesses a couple of horribly broken trophies too, which, under normal circumstances, wouldn't be an issue at all to achieve, but as a consequence of their broken nature, they do become somewhat problematic.
The "Dive In!" trophy, awarded for Diving into 25 community levels and completing those levels, requires you to complete 25 levels using the "Dive In" feature.
Not difficult, on face value, but there are actually a couple of issues here. Firstly, the counter for how many levels you have completed is broken, and you may find yourself having to play through more than 25 levels before the trophy actually unlocks. This could be directly linked to the second problem, which is, because of the fact the "Dive In" feature will automatically throw you into random levels, you'll end up playing the same levels on a regular basis, which could possibly mean playing the same level on more than occasion won't actually count towards the trophy counter.
There is also a possibility it may just be glitched instead, but either way, you'll have to be prepared to play more than 25 levels to unlock the trophy, and the fact you can't control which levels you play makes it a somewhat frustrating experience.
The "Online Champ" trophy, awarded for placing 1st in 25 different online levels with other human players, despite also having similar issues attached as the aforementiond "Dive In!" trophy, also requires a strong element of skill, as you have to win 25 races against human opponents, which is a solid feat in it's own right.
Again, the counter is glitched, and you may have to win more than 25 races in order to unlock this trophy, but where the "Dive In!" trophy simply requires you to complete the level, this trophy requires you to win the race, and there has to be at least 1 human opponent present upon completion of the race for the victory to count. When you take into account the number of losses, along with the broken counter, you could end up playing a fair amount of races until you manage to unlock this trophy, though they will, at least, go towards the achievement of "The Adventure Continues" trophy, so it won't all feel like wasted time.
Despite not being as difficult as other titles in the LittleBigPlanet series, there are a few curveballs contained within this list, though most of the difficulty does sadly boil down to broken game design and glitchy trophies, rather than anything presenting the player with a genuine challenge of skill.
Spending and entire day in Create mode ensures a minimum overall completion time of 24 hours, and along with the Story and Online trophies on top, you can probably expect this total to at least double the timescale for completion, clocking in at around 50-60 hours in total.
If you can get over the frustration of the broken online trophies, and have the stomach to clock 24 hours making stuff work in Create mode, then everything else comes through simple progression by just playing the game, with a bucket-load of easy Story and adhoc trophies to help you along the way. The easiest Platinum from a LittleBigPlanet title to date.
NOTE: At the time of publication of this article, the online servers were actually due for permanent closure for this title, rendering the Platinum unachievable for those who had any outstanding online trophies.
Notable Trophies -
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| Story Star - Star every level in the Story mode Building the Imagsphere -Spend 24 active hours in Create mode Crowd Pleaser - Publish a level and have 10 different players complete the level Dive In! - Dive into 25 community levels and complete those levels Online Champ - Place 1st in 25 different online levels with other human players |
Building the Imagsphere
Spend 24 active hours in Create mode.
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