Although it's not unusual for me to be years behind in most cases when it comes to finally finishing off games, this hasn't normally applied to the annual installment of FIFA, with which I have been very punctual with, but there are valid reasons for why this has taken so long, and subsequently caused a backlog of FIFA installments, which are to be shortly discussed further.
Minus the exception, this list fits in line with the direction of difficulty which most FIFA games have moved towards within recent history, with a large number of very menial tasks awarding trophies, covering a healthy range of different game modes.
FIFA Ultimate team, Pro Clubs, Online Seasons and Career mode are all covered to varying degrees, as well as EA Sports Football Club Activities, which is a newly introduced central hub to interact with people on your friends list, by rating, commenting and sharing articles on a news feed about what they're all doing in the game. Barring what we're about to discuss, it is a very easy trophy list.
So, what took so long? There's nothing naturally grindy in this game, first and foremost, which some of the earlier FIFA titles were culpable of, so it isn't a question of having a sink a minimum amount of time into the game in order to achieve the Platinum trophy. When I use the term "naturally grindy", I mean something of a similar nature to a levelling venture or playing/winning a certain amount of games.
The "Extra Effort" trophy, awarded for scoring from the ground, requires you to score a goal whilst your player is lying on the floor, which sounds very inconspicuous, but is absolutely far from it.
There isn't a mapped controller output to make your player take a shot whilst they're on the floor. It just seems to be a case of hammering the "shoot" command button and hoping for the best, but observing the very normal outcome of absolutely no reaction to the ball whatsoever 99% of the time. It seems to be a random animation triggered by unknown variables, other than the fact you have to be lying on the floor somehow, whether that be through a slide tackle, or being felled by an opposing player.
The best tactic to approach this with is to have a second controller, which you will require for this Platinum anyway, and set up an exhibition match, with both teams controlled by the user. It is advisable to tweak certain pre-game variables, such as shot power and shot accuracy sliders, to make sure your shots have a greater chance of resulting in a goal, and also to ensure games are set to the maximum half limits of 20 minutes. If that final detail doesn't emphasise the point that you could be spending a while on this trophy, nothing else will.
From that point onwards, the fun commences. The idea of controlling both teams is that you can drop the ball as 1 of the goalkeepers, and use a player from the opposing team to tackle him from specific angles, win the ball, and hope that, during the motion of the slide tackle, you can trigger an animation that extends this motion into a goal-bound shot, and it's all pre-determined by luck.
You'll most likely experience situations whereby there is no output whatsoever, which is the most common occurrence, but also other scenarios such as committing a foul on the goalkeeper, or watching the goalkeeper automatically jump straight onto the ball in order to regain possession once you've attempted to dispossess him. The combination of the above makes for a very frustrating experience, and one that explains the drought of FIFA Platinum trophies within the last few years, though this is purely because I wanted to unlock them in sequential order, and not because I got lazy with the other FIFA titles in between.
I would often come back to the game, spend a good few hours attempting to achieve this trophy, only to be an afternoon lighter at the end with nothing extra to show for it. When I mentioned above about how this trophy isn't "naturally grindy", I meant that, because there isn't a specified end goal, you can't put a time-frame upon completion, so you never feel like you're making progress until you actually achieve it, and also have to accept that the amount of time this may take to achieve is open-ended.
As is always the case with trophies based on trial and error, this will be quicker to achieve for some people than others, but for me, there were many wasted sessions trying to achieve this trophy, which certainly have to be accounted for when assessing this entire list. There were long spells this game went untouched for months, where I just couldn't bring myself to revisit it, but I still came back to it least a dozen times before I finally managed to complete this game, so it was extremely rewarding to finally fulfil the requirements of the trophy.
It seems somewhat irrelevant to discuss anything else in truth, but for the purpose of a balanced review, there are a few more trophies we can talk about;
The "Stylin" trophy, awarded for enabling a custom Free Kick or Penalty Style for your Virtual Pro, requires you to unlock a specific play-style by completing certain in-game accomplishments within Pro Clubs mode.
In order to enable a custom Free Kick style, you have to score 2 free kicks with your pro player in Pro Clubs matches, and in order to enable a custom Penalty style, you have to score 10 penalties with your pro player in Pro Clubs matches, both of which are conditional to a number of factors, such as being awarded a penalty/free kick to begin with, but then also having to score it. There's also the small matter of being elected to take the free kick/penalty by the game, which is usually delegated to the person with the best stats for the related skill.
Naturally, the more people in the game, the less likely you are to be nominated for free kick/penalty duties, so it makes more sense to play in smaller lobbies. It's better to set up a Pro Club with a friend and play together, which will significantly increase the amount of free kicks/penalties you take, simply because there are only 2 of you present, which is the minimum number required for a game of Pro Clubs.
Initially, I angled for the approach of playing cup matches, because they can sometimes go as far as being decided on a penalty shoot-out, which is probably the easiest way to accumulate 10 penalties, along with anything extra you might get in-between, but I actually managed to score 2 free kicks before I scored 10 penalties anyway, but it still took me 42 matches, so there's a decent amount of effort required to obtain this trophy.
The "Tag Team Back Again" trophy, awarded for playing seasons with a guest, requires the aforementioned secondary controller, so if you haven't purchased an extra one, you'll need to do so, or perhaps borrow one if you can, but this is more of a heads up for the purpose of addressing the need for additional peripherals more than anything else.
If you detract the "Extra Effort" trophy, you can lobby a case for this being one of the easiest FIFA titles to date, coming in at around 3/10 in difficulty. If you're luckier with this trophy, it won't be much higher than that, but the degree of difficulty rating will very much depend on your experience with this solitary trophy. I have seen people put in writing that this is a 10/10 for them because they simply gave up on it, which is tough to see happen.
After over a dozen separate sessions solely focused on this trophy way after I had completed the rest of the list, and a handful of occasions that saw me put this game on the backburner time and time again, to the point where I still haven't completed FIFA 16 or FIFA 17, purely because I wanted to be able to review these trophy lists in chronological order, the difficulty absolutely did increase as a consequence of this.
It was an extremely satisfying Platinum trophy to unlock though, and the perseverance thankfully paid off. I would estimate I spent around 20-25 hours on this trophy alone, aiming to spend no longer than 2-3 hours per session on this trophy, purely to make sure it didn't drive me insane. The difficulty rating has scaled upwards from 3/10, finishing at the point where I managed to unlock the "Extra Effort" trophy.
A hard fought Platinum, if not the most difficult on an overall basis. FIFA 16 and 17 to follow shortly.
Notable Trophies -
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| Extra Effort - Score from the ground Stylin' - Enable a custom Free Kick or Penalty Style for your Virtual Pro Tag Team Back Again - Play Seasons with a Guest |
Extra Effort
Score from the ground
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