Platinum #116 - Metro 2033 Redux

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

Most of my gaming purchases have a certain basis of judgement to them. I don't tend to stray too far from what I know well, and the Metro collection was a new venture for me.

I never knew it was based off a popular novel going by the same name. I never knew the term "Redux" effectively meant "Remaster" and I never knew my Latin needed some work either.

The Metro Redux package includes the first 2 Metro games bundled into a single box, originally available on the Playstation 3, and Remastered for the Playstation 4.

Metro 2033 is the first of these two games, a First-Person shooter which sees you take control of Artyom, a soldier attempting to save the fate of the Moscow Metro, where survivors of a Nuclear war have taken refuge. The aftermath of the war has made the surface uninhabitable for humans due to high radiation levels and low atmosphere, mutated creatures and warring factions fighting for whatever spoils they can find. Arytom's goal is to rid Moscow of these dangers and restore it to safety for it's civilians.

The gameplay is fairly standard FPS. You go through linear levels, mostly within the Metro system itself, though you will sometimes venture to the surface for a change of pace. This isn't exactly an even split though, and I would say around 80% of the game is spent navigating the Metro system, usually at populated stations or via underground tunnels/sewers that connect them to one another. The game needed a more even split. The Metro environments are way too similar and lack identity, as are the segments exploring tunnels and passages in-between. The lack of variety within the environments you transverse make the game dull and less engaging.

I actually harbour the same feelings towards the other core elements of the game. The spread of weapons on offer lack creativity and aren't really that fun to use and the combat is hampered by bad AI and mundane execution that make it lack excitement. There are some more interesting gameplay mechanics. You'll need to collect air filters for your gas mask when you're exploring anywhere above the surface so you don't run out of oxygen and darker portions of the game require the use of night vision goggles, which require you to charge a battery in order to use them at full functionality. It is cool having to play certain segments out from a different perspective via night vision, and having to always be conscious of your air filter time whilst above the surface adds a strong element of survival, but it's not really enough to make the game stand out, and you get a finished product which leads to a very average FPS game.

Metro 2033 is purely a Single Player experience, with all 50 trophies distributed across various tasks within the main Story. There is a minimum requirement of 2 Play-throughs of the game, courtesy of having to play on both "modes", which is not to be confused with difficulty level.

The game needs to be beaten in both Survivor and Spartan mode. Survivor Mode is more focused on stealth gameplay, where resources are less abundant and the player may have to be more savvy with how they progress, whereas Spartan Mode has a much greater emphasis on combat where fighting is encouraged more often, with a higher distribution of resources, but more enemies to kill.

If you want a challenge, then the game will give it to you, and once you've chosen which mode you want to play the game in, you'll then be offered the difficulty level. These rank as Normal, Hardcore, Ranger and Ranger Hardcore, however, the trophies don't make you beat the game within a specific difficulty level, so for the purpose of unlocking the Platinum trophy, you have the freedom of choice, which is the reason the Survivor and Spartan mode trophies won't get a notable mention in this game.

I chose Normal difficulty on both occasions, and the game is rarely a challenge, regardless of whether I was playing through Survivor or Spartan mode. Most enemies are easy enough to put down and the checkpoint system is about as generous as any I've played in any game, never putting you too far back from the position you may have died in, so the consequences of death lend themselves to a much more care-free style of play.

I personally don't think the game is good enough to warrant 2 play-throughs, but it is at least only an 8-10 hour Story, so the overall experience fits into the "could have been worse" category.

The "Enlightened" trophy, awarded for finding the truth, is definitely the trophy to watch out for in this list, because it's doused in mystery and there are things you'll need to know about how you progress through this game in order to unlock it.

It's never made obvious to the player, and perhaps that's intentional game design, but Metro 2033 works off a moral system hidden away in the background, where certain actions you perform throughout the game will either grant or deduct moral points to or from you. This is never introduced, nor explained, relevant actions that lead directly to positive/negative consequences are never indicated when fulfilled and the amount of moral points required to achieve access to the correct ending are not measurable or visibly quantifiable. You just have to go through the game under the assumption that you've earned enough positive moral points, through mostly positive actions, in order to be able to choose the correct ending.

These actions range from the fairly obvious, such as donating currency to homeless people when prompted to do so or saving people from hostage situations, to the less obvious, such as finding hidden areas or interacting with enemies during nightmare sequences. You'll need to use a guide though, purely for how good the game is in keeping the moral system under wraps, and to also avoid the situations where you can potentially earn some negative moral points without realising it.

The theory behind this trophy is, the game ultimately comes down to a solitary decision that you make as the very final action. The "Dark Ones", seemingly an apparition of Artyom's nightmares that appear at frequent points throughout this game, are actually attempting to make contact to Artyom as a signal of peace, and protect him throughout various dangerous plot points in the game in an attempt to communicate this message. This is what the trophy description refers to as "finding the truth" - The realisation that the Dark Ones are a force for good and have helped Artyom reach the conclusion of the story.

The strategy for eliminating the threats now plaguing Moscow is to reach D6, obtain some vital documents on where to find nuclear explosives and plant these on the Tower ready for detonation. If the player has collected enough positive moral points, the final decision the player will make is whether or not to kill the Dark One that attempts to sabotage the detonation. To finalise the requirements of the "Enlightened" trophy, you need to shoot the detonator and NOT the Dark One that attempts to destroy it.

If the game has deemed that you have not collected enough moral points, you won't have this decision to make and will be awarded with the default ending, where Artyom shoots the Dark One and successfully triggers the detonation. Incidentally, if you do manage to accumulate enough moral points, but choose to shoot the Dark One anyway, you will also miss out on the trophy. Finally, if the game deems you to have not accumulated enough positive moral points, you will also miss the trophy and receive the same outcome. All of these scenarios will trigger the "If it's hostile, you kill it" trophy, awarded for becoming a true Ranger, which is effectively just any ending where you allow the detonation to commence.

It makes sense to marry both ending trophies up with the respective Play-throughs of Survival and Spartan Modes, dedicating one to each, but you'll need to follow a guide closely to make sure you get more than enough moral points throughout the game so you don't miss out on the chance to trigger the true ending. The opposite ending is much easier to achieve, as emphasised above through the multiple scenarios in which you can receive it - The fact the game doesn't give you any guidance regarding the moral system makes guidance essential. I made sure I carried out every positive moral action I could, and left nothing to chance, just purely because the game never makes it clear how many of these actions is enough to trigger the correct ending scenario. I'd like to think it's fairly lenient, but you're going to be best off just leaving nothing to chance.

Outside of the trophies determined by how the game ends, there isn't really much else that stands out here. The game opts out of Progression-Based trophies, which is unusual for Story-Driven games, and, as mentioned above, also excludes any difficulty-based trophies.

Instead, there is a very heavy focus on kill accumulation trophies, requiring the player to fulfil a multitude of different tasks tied to obtaining a specific number of kills with the games variety of weapons, as well as killing enemies in certain ways. Trophies that fall into this category, by my reckoning, account for around half of the entire list, which is alot to keep track of.

However, the game comes in clutch with it's checkpoint system, allowing you to farm these trophies extremely easily via the ability to just restart at the previous checkpoint and still count the kills obtained in doing so. You can exploit this really easily by replaying segments with loads of enemies until you've achieved the necessary amount of kills for a specific weapon or situation, and being able to reload each time will not only allow you to quickly move onto the next trophy, but also make your previous actions consequence-free, which is great for making sure killing too many people doesn't impact your moral points at the same time.

At one point during my second Play-through, I farmed 7 of these trophies within a matter of 30 minutes by just playing out a heavily populated segment of the game and reloading back to a prior checkpoint to constantly clear out enemies and continue my kill accumulation progress. It's a lifesaving, trophy-hunter friendly feature and given that some of these trophies require to reach up to 100 kills in some instances, it becomes extremely useful and definitely something everyone should take advantage of on their way towards the Platinum trophy.

It is perhaps important to note that, these trophies cannot be earned across multiple Play-throughs though, and progress will reset to zero if you begin a new game. However, this is where Chapter Select comes in to save the day. Any outstanding trophies post-game can be obtained within Chapter Select, which also includes the small handful of chapter-specific trophies the list offers out. You can also use this feature to go back through and obtain any of the 51 collectible diary entries you may have missed for the "Blogger" trophy, progress for which would also reset upon starting a new game, so it's imperative to highlight the importance of the Chapter Select feature and how it makes the clean-up process very easy for the player. This is typically how most games with the ability to replay individual chapters works anyway, but it's a great alternate option to the checkpoint farming method should you need/prefer it.

Overall, the breakdown of Metro 2033 is very simple. Play through the game twice on both available game modes, and match up both endings accordingly. There's no pressure to play the game to a certain difficulty level and everything you miss can be obtained through a generous checkpoint system that retains your progress no matter how many times you go need to go back. When you add in Chapter Select, it's a trophy list gifted to any trophy-hunter on a plate. Both runs should also only take you a combined total playtime of around 20 hours too.

The lack of explanation around the Moral system is probably the only aspect of the game that makes you figure anything out for yourself, and even that isn't really too difficult to understand when you've got a guide that points out the positive moral points you'll need to fulfil as you go through the game. There are a couple of missable trophies that cannot be achieved via Chapter Select to watch out for, but even these are still slightly forgiving and can be picked up at multiple points throughout the game. You would need to devote an entire Play-through to these in worst case scenario, but this is a minimum 2 runs anyway, so even that shouldn't be an problem.

Notable Trophies -

Enlightened - Find the truth.

Hardest Trophy -

Enlightened                                                                                                    Find the truth

Platinum #115 - Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 6/10

I'm not entirely sure what possessed me to believe that it was a good idea to go straight back in for another serving of Dead Rising 2, having played the original game right through to it's bitter end.

I think I may have had my arm twisted by a friend at some point, who would have convinced me to give the Co-op element a go. Naively believing that it probably wouldn't be that bad to put myself through a second helping, here we go again.

In fairness, Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record isn't actually that bad, but it is aided by a handful of gameplay changes that make this experience much more bearable in comparison to Dead Rising 2.

I didn't exactly dislike Dead Rising 2, but it was hard work, and the route through to the Platinum trophy was a big grindy chore I vowed I'd never get myself into ever again, but somehow, here we are.

This game takes place as an alternative plot to the same story of Dead Rising 2,but this time you view the events of Fortune City from the perspective of Dead Rising 1 Protagonist, Frank West, as opposed to Chuck Greene in Dead Rising 2.

The previously well-covered zombie outbreak from Dead Rising 2 is in full-swing, and Frank West's aim is to take advantage of the unfortunate events and use them to "get back in the game", by uncovering the ulterior motive underlaying the outbreak, spill the truth behind the incident and become a relevant journalist again.

The game, for the most part, still plays in the exact same way. The combat, movement and the core gameplay elements present in Dead Rising 2 still exist here. Combine items to craft overly powerful weapons that make a mockery of the games difficulty? Check. Horrendous survivor AI that will make you want to bludgeon them yourself? Check. Spend large periods of the game waiting for time to pass because the game insists that you play by it's rules? Check.

So, there is alot of crossover worth mentioning here, and in the interest of balance, the game is clear what it's about. It doesn't masquerade as a sequel. It retains the "2" for it's title and does feel like more of the same. A 2.5, if you will. There are some crucial additions/tweaks that come up big though, especially when it comes to speaking from a trophy hunting perspective, which we'll touch up as and when relevant, and one of these changes could include the trophy list, which, despite having sprinklings of  unwanted crossover, is fairly refreshed. Some of the things that made me dislike certain parts of Dead Rising 2 stemmed directly from the trophies and these have been mostly addressed here.

This is a big list that comes in at a total of 51 trophies, giving the player the option to complete them in either Single Player or Co-op experiences. A handful of these trophies do have to be obtained specifically in Co-op though, so you're going to need to rely on someone else to a lesser or greater extent.

How you tackle this list is exactly the same as you would with Dead Rising 2, going through the game and working through the case files in order to complete the main story on time to ensure that your game doesn't finish prematurely, whilst trying to fit whatever else you can in-between. The refreshed trophy list has stripped back alot of trophies that previously existed in Dead Rising 2 that would require you to dedicate entire Play-throughs to them, which has reduced the amount of time and runs required for the Platinum trophy.

I always felt that the biggest challenge behind Dead Rising 2 was the fact that it limited the player's flexibility in how they tackled the trophy list. The game has a pre-determined time limit to when it starts and ends, so you had to dedicate an entire run of the game towards getting 72,000 kills with little room for others. Then you'd have to dedicate an entire run of the game towards rescuing 50 survivors, which, again, would leave you little room for other trophies in-between. There are other examples of this, but you get the picture, and it quickly amounted to 5/6 entire runs of the game to achieve the Platinum. It was the list that wanted you to play the game to death and Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record is not that game, and I only had to actually go through this story again twice in order to achieve the Platinum.

You still earn loads of progression-based trophies, as you so commonly do with Story-driven games, but knowing I wasn't exposing myself to spoilers, I could research this list properly and understand exactly what would be required of me and waste little time in working on it as effectively as possible.

There are still trophies attributed to collecting combo cards in order to craft weapons, but you already know what most of these are and how to get them, because most of the combo weapons have been carried over from Dead Rising 2, with only a small handful of truly new additions.

The re-introduction of Frank West also opens up opportunity on the list for trophies related to taking photos using Frank's camera, which was heavily focused in the achievement list for Dead Rising 1. I counted 12 trophies here that make use of Frank's camera, which is over a fifth of the whole list, so the photography gameplay element is a big part of the refresh on this list too.

The "Purewal Memorial Cup" trophy, awarded for not consuming any meat, dairy or alcohol until the military arrives was where I started in terms of marrying up trophies with beating the story. It may seem like this selection of food groups severely limits your options, and in reality, it does, but as long as you're always conscious to being stocked up on orange juice, then you're rolling. Not only is it not any of the above, it also gives you great return on your health. You just have to make sure you always have surplus, because you don't want to be in situations where you fight certain bosses and desperately need health, but the items within your environment would infringe the requirements of the trophy, so always double check your inventory.

With Dead Rising 2, I'd have to jump straight back into a New Game and work out which trophies to get next, but I could now do that without starting over, and this was courtesy of the games biggest addition. Sandbox Mode.

Sandbox Mode just throws you into the Fortune City map and lets you do as you please without having to work against the games deadlines or time constraints, which are hugely distracting when it comes to focusing on other trophies you're trying to achieve.

The "Six Digits?!?" trophy, awarded for Killing 100,00 zombies is a great testament to this. In Dead Rising 2, it was 72,000, which you had to do within one Play-through of the game. No margin for error and no way to really catch-up if you were running behind, or off the pace for whatever reason. Of course, it'll take you longer to kill 100,000 zombies, but in Sandbox Mode, where I can just stop for a bit when I'm feeling bored or mix it up with other trophies to break up the monotony of the task, it's a much better fit for when they still insist on grindy, massacre-based trophies.

In regards to the trophy itself, 100,000 is still a heck of a lot, and will take you around 10-12 hours to reach this milestone. The methodology is still the same. Grab the Sports Car on the Silver Strip and race repeatedly up and down mowing zombies over on mass until the car wears out and you can jump into another area, before jumping back in and respawning everything. It is still just as tedious as it was first time round (or should that be around a third more tedious than last time?), but Sandbox Mode alleviates the pressure of having to get it done within harsh time constraints and it's important to not underestimate that. I actually still consider this to be the toughest trophy in the game. Despite Sandbox mode taking the pressure off, 10-12 hours is a long time to be doing such a boring and monotonous task, and they increased the requirement by 28,000 kills compared to Dead Rising 2.

The "Even More Help From My Friends" trophy, awarded for getting a gold medal on all Co-op challenges, is another addition to Sandbox Mode. Challenges are also a new element to the game and a refreshed aspect of this list that did not exist in Dead Rising 2, requiring you to complete 30 Co-op specific challenges to a Gold medal. Co-op challenges aren't integrated into the main Story mode, and have to be played in Sandbox mode exclusively.

The challenges range anywhere between easy to medium in difficulty, but the latter goes by the assumption you've got a good partner with whom you can communicate effectively. My initial attempts bought me to jumping into random Sandbox sessions with other players who either were more interested in ploughing through zombies with a lawnmower motor strapped to their head or just didn't understand the most effective ways to beat these challenges.

For example, in the challenge where you have to drink as much alcohol as you can in 3 minutes, the amount of units required for Gold is 30. You'll start being sick after 2 drinks, which massively slows you down to the point where you probably won't make it. So the twist to these challenges is to find ways to beat them using very specific methods. In this case, you'd both need to grab a sports fan outfit that makes you immune to being sick from alcoholic items. They're not all this intricate, but random players who aren't specifically in this for the Gold medals won't know this, so finding a like minded partner is essential. The Co-op challenges are an exact copy and paste of the Single Player challenges, but they just double the medal requirements to account for 2 people tackling them as opposed to just the 1. The Single Player challenges are a good way to cut your teeth so you know exactly what to expect as you move into the Co-op equivalents. 

The "Alpha v Omega" trophy, awarded for having Denyce attack and damage Sgt Boykin, seemed to be one of the toughest challenges in this list. I'd probably already awarded this one the "hardest trophy" accolade in my head. In reality, it wasn't actually that bad. Denyce is the very first survivor you encounter in the game, and she has to remain in your party without being transported to the safehouse right up to case 7-2, where you fight Sergeant Boykin. This is really just a matter of keeping Denyce safe from harm, and saving often to make sure you don't have to go too far back if disaster strikes.

There are a couple of genuine threats to this trophy though. Some Psychopaths deal hefty damage to survivors, so it is possible for her to die pretty quickly if she ends up the primary focus of any Psychopath fight. This is where being a high level really helps because you can take Psychopaths out fairly quickly, though even with this, there were a couple of times she took some big hits because I couldn't interfere fast enough. This is the primary reason I would tackle this trophy near the end of the list, so you can go through it in New Game+ with your maxed out character that makes light work of Psychopaths.

Also, prior to starting case 6-1, where you fight the Helicopter that TK attempts to escape in, if you try to take Denyce into this fight with you, she'll be automatically transported to the safehouse and won't make it to act 7-2 with you. This is a nasty little scenario that will end the run, so you need to be aware of it, and leave her behind in a safe spot where you can come back for her after you exit the fight. As with all survivors that get left behind in another part of the map, her health will begin to deplete gradually for as long as you're engaged in the Helicopter boss fight, so you need to also make sure you defeat it quick enough to get back to Denyce alive.

One final thing to mention, which was touched upon briefly above, the horrendous NPC AI will do it's best to work against you here. Dencye (and this is a common issue with any survivor) will just randomly stop following you from time to time, and it will require you to physically tell her where to go with a command prompt until you reach a new area whereby the glitch will magically fix itself, only to happen again at a random point later on. Even if you give her a gun to defend herself, which is highly recommended (the gun will never run out of bullets if a survivor is using it), she'll still need you to come back and help her whenever she gets grabbed by a zombie, which is something that I'm convinced purely exists to waste your time and annoy you. 

As long as you're aware of all of the above, there is a fairly painless route through to this trophy, but I would definitely recommend doing it once you've reached a certain level and your character can make light work of any enemy, especially psychopaths. The game gets incredibly easy to deal with enemies when you're of a higher level, so take advantage of that.

Just one final thing about the game in general. When going after certain trophies, especially towards the end of the list when you don't have much left to do, there is alot of dead time in this game. Just waiting for time for pass is still, unfortunately, a staple feature of this game. Whether that's to just simply progress the story, wait for opportunities to recruit survivors that only appear from certain points onwards, or get to a certain stage in the game for a trophy you can only achieve at that specific point. This was one of the things I didn't like about Dead Rising 2 and this is still prominent here. The trophies will make you reach certain points in the completion journey when all you can do is sit there and watch time pass, and that's just not a great experience.

There's no doubt that this a more palatable list than Dead Rising 2. When I challenged my own judgement about going through this game again, that was purely based on my experience with Dead Rising 2 - A game with a trophy list that felt laborious and exposed some bad gameplay mechanics that didn't lend themselves well to the trophy list they were paired up with.

On the whole, this has been addressed well in Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record and the same challenges simply don't exist here because, Sandbox mode, and the fact the game just simply doesn't shove loads of time-consuming trophies at you that require you to use up the full 7-8 hours per Playthrough just to unlock a couple of trophies at a time.

I only had to beat the game in it's entirety twice this time round, and I reckon I easily halved the completion time compared to Dead Rising 2's estimate of 80-100 hours, though it is admittedly difficult to give a true approximate of the overall completion time as the game tracks your progress absolutely nowhere. Whilst there is still a bit of overlap here and there, the addition of Co-op challenges and some new trophies with different requirements is enough to keep me fairly regret-free because I actually still kind of enjoyed it a bit. I can't even say I'd do it again with convinction anyway because Dead Rising 3 went back to being an Xbox exclusive and was never released for the Playstation.

Notable Trophies -

Purewal Memorial Cup - Don't consume any meat, dairy or alcohol until the military arrives.
Six Digits?!? - Kill 100,000 zombies. [Host Only].
Even More Help From My Friends - Get a gold medal on all co-op challenges.
Alpha Vs. Omega - Have Denyce attack and damage Sgt Boykin.

Hardest Trophy - 

Six Digits?!?!                                                                                                 Kill 100,000 zombies. [Host Only].

DLC #155 - Resident Evil 2 - Another Survivor

Having recently started tackling the Resident Evil 2 reboot for the Playstation 4, I did notice an extra bit of DLC containing a single trophy with a very vague description.

For not wanting to potentially expose myself to spoilers, I didn't read up anything about it and left my imagination to ponder what the solitary "Chasing Jill" trophy actually entailed.

The description just simply briefs you to read a letter left behind by Jill.

It turns out to be less cryptic, and much more literal. Whilst playing through Leon's campaign in the main story, there's a moment just after you escape the Police Station, and right before you enter the Sewers where you stumble upon a fairly obviously placed note addressed to Kendo from Jill Valentine.

You have to move through Kendo's Gun Shop whilst transitioning across to the Sewers via the Police Station, so it's not even as if the document is well hidden. It's actually just sitting there on a counter inside the store and all you need to do is pick it up and read it.

A very accidental completion. They don't come much easier than that.

Platinum #114 - South Park : The Fractured But Whole

 Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

The "Franchise Prequel", that's actually a sequel. Following on from the Stick of Truth, the Fractured But Whole is a direct continuation from the endgame of it's predecessor.

Dropping the Humans vs Elves craze in favour of Super-Hero Alter-Egos, Cartman has an idea to launch a new Super-Hero movie franchise, but after yet another disagreement amongst the group around how to make enough money to get the plan off the ground, we're suddenly presented with the perfect plot for some more South Park cartoony warfare. Coon and Friends vs The Freedom Pals will take you to all corners of South Park, torn between both parties in order to make it to the big screen.

The gameplay formula remains mostly the same in it's concept. Combat is still turn-based, though is much more expansive than before, with the ability to move freely across tiles on the battlefield being the most notable change, which adds layers of dynamism to combat strategy.

The RPG elements have also been retained, but hugely improved upon too. Characters have different move-sets, which can be mixed and matched to produce tons of variety in battle/squad combinations, which is a crucial element to progression. Moves, Summons and the ability to craft battle items using consumables also add to the variety of options within the players arsenal, and being able to collect DNA Strands and Artefacts, placing them in various character slots that become more available as you level up your character, all heavily contribute to the RPG feel. The vast array of options and character customisation really make it look like they've levelled-up the RPG experience.

It's a solid sequel that improves upon the original game in practically every element, which is also reflected in the 36 trophy-strong list.

I know you can technically beat the Stick of Truth in 1 Play-through, using some save-game trickery to reload at certain points and make alternative choices where multiple trophies are earned, but I played through that game twice anyway. I wanted to enjoy the story and had also missed a couple of trophies that I wasn't aware were missable until it was too late.

So, the big improvement on the trophy list for the Fractured But Whole is the fact that none of that exists anymore. Nothing is missable that can potentially force a second Play-through of the entire game, there aren't any split decisions to make during the Story which will block out certain trophies that make them unachievable if you make the opposite choice and everything you do miss can still be mopped up at the end once you've beaten the main story arc.

In fact, after a completely casual run focusing purely on beating the main story, just shy of 30 hours, I'd already unlocked 30 out of the 34 trophies required to achieve the Platinum trophy. This is a bit of trophy list anomaly, especially within story driven games. It's rare to unlock so many trophies through relatively natural progression and it was a bit of a surprise to reach the end and realise how far into the trophy list I'd gotten. When things come across this straight forward, it makes analysis somewhat challenging, but there are still a few main things to look out for;

"The Token Experience" trophy, awarded for Creating a Black character and completing the game on Mastermind Difficulty, will ensure you have to make the right decision at the very beginning of the game during character creation, and if you're to avoid a second Play-through. When you select the darkest skin tone, the indication is that you'll automatically play the game on the toughest difficulty, though it becomes quickly apparent that this is purely for comedic value and you actually choose the real difficulty at some point a little bit later. This is where you have to ensure you select Mastermind difficulty, so there are a couple of things to pay attention to here. I don't technically count this trophy as missable, as it's a decision that's made before the game even begins, and can be easily pre-empted as long as you do your research.

Mastermind difficulty isn't the highest difficulty setting in the game. It sits just below Diabolical. However, you may expect a tougher challenge than what you get in reality. There are a few challenging fights that will keep you on your toes, but finding the correct battle strategy was never more than a few tries away and once you discover artefacts and start to level your characters "might", these battles start to become a matter of going through the motions as you progress towards the end of the game.

Even after clocking the main story at around the 30 hour mark, which did include a little bit of digression here and there, the 4 trophies I had remaining only took me a further 4 hours to grab. To fit in with the aforementioned point around the lack of digression away from the main story, these included discovering and mastering every toilet in the game, collecting all 40 Yaoi posters for Clyde's Dad, unlocking all combat TimeFarts and finally, defeating Morgan Freeman.

Speaking of which, the "Farts Over Freckles" trophy, awarded for Picking a fight with Morgan Freeman and defeating him, is the best example of one of the rare times this game will seldom challenge you. He has 9999HP and some devastating wide-spread, one-hit moves which can take out your entire team if your positioning/strategy is caught wanting. He also has multiple battle phases you'll need to contend with, where he'll clone himself as a "Young" Morgan Freeman, as well as another phase where he'll use the "Soothing Voice" move to Charm a member of your team.

Before quickly touching upon the fight itself, it's important to note that, Morgan Freeman won't fight you if your character is still black, which is more than likely to be the case if you've been following the requirements of the trophy list as per "The Token Experience". Thankfully, you can change your skin colour via PC Principal, located at Crunchy's Microbrewery, and this will all your to initiate the conflict.

You should be fairly well-prepared by this point, but I made sure I bought alot of healing/revive items into the fight, which were definitely needed. His vast amount of HP means this is a long fight anyway, but they become longer when you get closer to the end and one attack takes out the whole team, so it's important to have healing items to hand. It's also important to chain together status effects which deal damage per turn. Anything that causes bleeding, shock or gross out will do, and it's also important to make sure these are consistent throughout the fight in order to continually whittle that HP down. The Morgan Freeman clone phase isn't too bad to deal with, but the second phase when he starts to use the "Soothing Voice" ability to charm your team is where I lost the majority of my attempts. Not only will this take a turn away from you per round, but the damage inflicted against your team is something you can't really afford with how powerful Morgan Freeman already is.

He's the real end boss for good reason, and the majority of the time dedicated towards trophy clean-up was specifically on trying to beat him. I spent around 3 hours attempting to do this, and when you consider the overall completion time of around 35 hours total, this ends up being almost where 10% of my time was spent.

Before I knew it though, that was it. The full trophy list clocked in a single 34 hour Play-through. No need to run around gathering tons of collectibles or worrying about what you might have missed along the way during the story, a stark contrast from the Stick of Truth, and certainly a welcome change of pace. I've always believed it's completely unnecessary to overload trophy lists with tons of missables, and some games are still guilty of that, so the change in direction for the sequel is refreshing to see. A much more traditional trophy list with clarity and no frills.

Looking back at my previous rating of the Stick of Truth has put me a tricky spot. I've perhaps slightly under-rated the Stick of Truth in hindsight, and there's no doubt the Fractured But Whole is a much simpler experience designed to make life easier for Trophy hunters in comparison to it's predecessor. My gut reaction was to give this a 4/10 too but can I really give them both the same score when I've already made the point that this is definitely a more casual experience? Probably not, though the Stick of Truth was rated without anything to relatively compare it to. I will nudge this down to a 3/10 though, as I believe that's the fairest reflection on both games. This is an easier trophy hunting experience and the scores of both games should reflect that as fairly as possible.

You can simply enjoy The Fractured But Whole journey as if trophies don't even exist and the progress you make throughout will be rewarded as you go along. Collectibles are hugely watered down compared to the original game too and everything can be polished off in a single play-through. Wins all round.

Notable Trophies -

The Token Experience - Create a Black character and complete the game on Mastermind Difficulty.
Farts over Freckles - Pick a fight with Morgan Freeman and defeat him.

Hardest Trophy -

Farts over Freckles                                                                                             Pick a fight with Morgan Freeman and defeat him                                                                                                                                    

Platinum #113 - Overwatch and DLC #155 Additional Characters 1 and DLC #156 - Additional Characters 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 10/10

I appreciate this is late, but there are legitimate reasons behind such lack of urgency, mainly around much uncertainty surrounding the future of Overwatch, and more specifically, what exactly Overwatch 2 would look like from a trophy list perspective.

It turns out, Overwatch 2 never got a brand new list after all, and the trophies for Overwatch 2 were a mere DLC continuation of this list, with tweaks made to the existing Overwatch trophy requirements for it's heroes - which has been symbolic of this game's life cycle.

Overwatch has been an interesting game to tackle and I'm going to review the Platinum trophy as well as the accompanying DLC packs that came with it all in one go, which is fitting for a game which has been somewhat unique in it's journey towards full completion.

Most of the challenges within the Overwatch trophy list don't necessarily stem from the trophies themselves, but are more to do with the infrastructure of the game and how this has evolved over time throughout it's lifespan.

This isn't a game I intended to finish this suddenly, but building up to the release of Overwatch 2, there was alot of speculation over how Blizzard was going to handle the trophy list of Overwatch 1, and after numerous flings with this game over the years, I felt the best course of action was to just dive in and grab the outstanding trophies, leaving nothing to chance.

For full disclosure, the main reason I'm rating this trophy list the maximum score possible is because I've done something I've never done before - Openly boost portions of the trophy list in organised boosting events.

I've always been a big advocate of giving games an honest shot, regardless of their difficulty, and I did do this with Overwatch. I managed to unlock the majority of trophies just naturally playing through the game and fulfilling their requirements in organic fashion, but there are alot of trophies that I feel are way beyond realistic expectations of most players in their requirements, and some of the changes Blizzard made to the design of this game became big barriers for trophy hunters, which I will elaborate on throughout this piece.

The notable trophies in this instance will simply be the ones I had to boost, and whilst these are by no coincidence also some of the hardest trophies in the list anyway, being bound by both time constraints and some awkward game design features, I felt this was the best way forward in the interest of full completion.

The main reason I'm bundling the DLC packs into this piece is purely because everything that can be said about the Platinum trophy is fully applicable to the DLC packs, which are just hero specific trophies for the batch of new characters that were added to the game post-release. They suffer the same challenges as everything else in the main list, so we can easily group them all together.

Overwatch is a Multi-Player only, First Person Shooter (actually referred to as a "Hero Shooter") with over 30 different playable characters, each with their own unique set of weapons, tactics and special moves. Game modes vary from escorting a Payload from point A to B and capturing specific zones on the map, all surrounded by fast and frenetic, run and gun gameplay.

The cast of characters is vast and adds tons of personality to the game, and each and every one of them brings something different to the table that keeps the game fresh and full of variety. Along with a unique graphics style, it all combines to make Overwatch an excellent title.

The main trophy list is large in size and contains 60 trophies, including the Platinum Trophy. Both DLC packs add a combined total of 22 additional trophies, with 12 and 10 respectively for each new pack, so this is a huge list all in all.

Of these 82 trophies, a massive 64 of these are dedicated to the 32 playable heroes in the game, with each hero having 2 hero-specific trophies in this list. The rest of the trophies are for random feats that can mostly be earned naturally through just playing out games, and these aren't really the main talking point here.

Before I go on to discuss the game design, previously mentioned for being the biggest challenge in regards to this trophy list, it is important to note that these hero-specific trophies themselves lie across an incredibly broad spectrum in their difficulty scale. Some of them are very achievable and some of them are incredibly tough and you can definitely make a strong argument for the Platinum difficulty rating being high enough without further consideration to anything else purely due to the requirements of some of these trophies in the main list. Some of the DLC trophies are even worse, and actually border impossible. 

Time constraints aside, I could have sat here forever and not achieved some of these trophies, such are the unrealistic expectations of their requirements, and I would actually go as far to suggest they somewhat ruin the game, especially if you're of a trophy hunting disposition.

However, that's just the tip of the iceberg here, and as previously eluded to, Overwatch is a game that has changed alot over time, and not necessarily for the better in context of trophy hunting.

For starters, some of the trophy requirements have been altered over time. This hasn't happened with all of them, and in all honesty, I don't know the level of regularity this has occurred across the entire list, but I do know the conditions for these trophies have been tweaked in accordance with ongoing game updates to the characters in the game, and thus, it makes true analysis somewhat implausible. 

If you'd already achieved the trophy under a previous condition, then this wouldn't have any impact, though just to add some extra confusion, the trophy description would still change and reflect it's most recent form, but I have no idea if some of these requirements made these trophies more difficult compared to their previous iterations or not.

Purely going by their achievement rate, some of these trophies I unlocked legitimately seem to be fairly rare, but did they become more rare because there was an adjustment that made them more challenging to accomplish? Or were they always a challenging trophy straight out of the box? I'm sure I could put together some very detailed analysis on this and draw some conclusions if I really wanted to, but the complexity of that punctuates this point nicely when it comes to reviewing trophy lists.

Secondly, one of the big changes Overwatch made to it's game design was the Hero queuing system.

When the game was first released, players had a freedom of choice amongst the entire character cast to choose whoever they wanted to use without restriction. This would sometimes create balance issues if the majority of players on the team decided to choose a certain class of character, of which there are 3 (Tank, Damage and Support).

They eventually changed this and made it a mandatory requirement to split teams of 6 into 2 of each role, and as a direct consequence of this, introduced a queueing system. If you want to play as a Tank or Support class, it's roughly a 2 minute wait, however, if you want to play as a Damage class, the wait times would be within the 15-20 minute time period.

I understand why they had to change this. If nobody wanted to choose a healing character, for example, the balance of the team suffers and you'd more than likely play out alot of uncompetitive games, but from a trophy hunting perspective, it's an absolute nightmare to have to queue for potentially 20 minutes, just to be able to choose a character you needed trophies for, and then to also face the possibility of not achieving the trophy you needed within that game. The game also does not have any lobby continuation, so after every game, you're thrown back to the main menu and have to join into the queue again, repeating this process.

This was a big driver for exploring boosting options. I didn't have the time to waste sitting in queues just to be able to attempt the trophies I needed for damage characters knowing that every time I was unsuccessful, I'd have to burn another 20 minutes in a queue waiting for another go at it. 

Finally, in another game feature that was changed further down the line, each hero is restricted to a single presence per game, so if you need trophies for a particular hero, but someone else chooses that hero and doesn't change, you don't have any options other than to hope they switch, which can also feel like you're wasting your time. Imagine queuing for 20 minutes, getting into a game and then someone else chooses the character you wanted to obtain the trophies for.

This is another deal-breaker for trophy hunters, and there was a time when players could choose to be the same character. Again, I understand why these changes had to be made, and developers only ever have the best interest of the overall gaming experience at heart, but it still doesn't make these points any less valid speaking from a trophy hunters point of view.

These all combine to make for a series of fairly challenging obstacles to overcome as a trophy hunter, and it is really difficult to assess this list speaking individually about certain trophies when these game design issues are the true barriers to completion.

Is this a difficult list anyway? I would say so. It has some extremely challenging trophies I don't think I would have realistically achieved irrespective of spending half my entire time with this game sitting in queues wating to actually play it, and that does still count for something here amongst all of this, so it's important to not lose sight of that.

It's difficult to nail down an overall completion time because the varied spectrum of difficulty and luck-based circumstances you need to find yourself in, in order to unlock some of the trophies within this list, is vast. Not to mention the amount of time you will accumulate waiting in queues to get into games along the way. Even if it wasn't for the time constraints working against a game whose fate was unsure ahead of the release of Overwatch 2, I still believe boosting would be a necessary evil to get this game finished within reason, otherwise you could potentially be here for a very long time.

This is a great game purely as a gaming experience, but it isn't trophy hunter friendly at all, and the wide spectrum of difficulty between some of these trophies creates a wild sense of imbalance. When you factor the above game design choices, that work against you as a completionist, then you are massively up against it here, and I'm defaulting this to the maximum score because of my conclusion that the most effective way to get this game finished was through boosting, which is something I've never done before for any game.

NOTE: The trophy descriptions for the Notable trophies may have changed throughout the course of the game's lifespan and could also still be further subject to future change.

NOTE 2: The Additional Characters 1 DLC pack has an Overwatch 2 trophy attached to it, which would technically make it incomplete, but due to confidence in this being a development error, this has not been considered and the pack has been treated as completed.

Notable Trophies - Overwatch Main list -

Rapid Discord - Get 4 kills or assists with Zenyatta's Orb of Discord within 6 seconds in Quick or Competitive play.
The Floor Is Lava - Get 3 killing blows while wall riding as Lucio without dying in Quick or Competitive play.
It's High Noon - Get 4 killing blows with a single use of McCree's Deadeye in Quick or Competitive play.
Slice and Dice - Kill 4 enemies with a single use of Genji's Dragonblade in Quick or Competitive play.
Hog Wild - Knock 2 enemies to their deaths with one use of Roadhog's Whole Hog in Quick or Competitive play.

Notable Trophies - Additional Characters 1 DLC -

Halt State - Pull enemies into 1000 damage with a single use of Orisa's Halt! in Quick or Competitive Play.
Overclocked - Amplify 900 damage with a single use of Orisa's Supercharger in Quick or Competitive Play.
Cratered - Hit 6 enemies with a single use of Doomfist's Meteor Strike in Quick or Competitive play.
Antipode - Hit 7 targets simultaneously with Moira's Coalescence in Quick or Competitive play. 

  

Notable Trophies - Additional Characters 2 DLC -

Served Up - Get a killing blow as Ashe on an enemy knocked into the air by B.O.B in Quick or Competitive play.
Window of Opportunity - Amplify 2500 combined damage and healing without dying as Baptise in Quick or Competitive play.
Event Horizon - Get 3 killing blows with a single use of Sigma's Gravitic Flux in Quick or Competitive play.
Focused - Earn 2 killing blows with a single use of Echo's Focusing Beam in Quick or Competitive play.

Hardest Trophy - 

Rapid Discord                                                                                                            Get 4 kills or assists with Zenyatta's Orb of Discord within 6 seconds in Quick or Competitive play.

DLC #154 - The Last of Us - Grounded Mode

For the purpose of immediate clarity, there won't be any detail involving the overall plot of The Last of Us in this write-up. This will, instead, be entirely reserved for the Platinum Difficulty review - as you'd normally expect for any game with a heavy story-driven experience.

It's a fairly rare occurrence to discuss the playthrough of a game whereby the actual plot itself isn't referenced, so I'll approach this purely from the perspective that assumes you have personal experience of playing through the story.

Ideally, I had it in my head that I wanted to be able to review the Platinum difficulty and Grounded Mode within the same post, in order to make this as seamless as possible, but I'm still going to need practically one more entire playthrough of this game in order to achieve the Platinum trophy, and I can't bring myself to follow that up so quickly after beating Grounded Mode, so this version of events will have to suffice.

It's perhaps just as well then that this DLC pack only contains 2 trophies, both related to the "Grounded" difficulty mode - which was patched into the game post-release, and topped off with 2 additional trophies.

The 2 trophies in question are simple by their requirements. You'll need to beat the normal Last of Us story on Grounded mode for one of them, and then beat it again on New Game + for the other.

Firstly, for maximum disclosure, I didn't beat this game twice in order to unlock both of these trophies. Having previously completed this game on two occasions, I was grateful for a shortcut I researched and was happy to call upon this by (sort of) beating the game just once and earning both trophies simultaneously.

To explain further, if you've already beaten the game on New Game + (which I had), you can complete the game in reverse, replaying the entire game via chapter select and choosing the Grounded difficulty as you go through each one. You will have to make sure you leave the Epilogue until last though - This is critical to this method.

The logic behind playing the game in reverse chronological order is that you don't need to go through the game twice in order to unlock both trophies - The reason this works is because you're playing the game through again with a New Game + save file, which will allow you to stack both trophies with a single playthrough when you've completed all chapters on Grounded difficulty, and then end by playing the Epilogue last, where trophies are usually triggered.

Further to this, one of the key challenges within Grounded Mode is that ammunition and equipment is meant to be extremely scarce, and that this is a large part of the challenge. By starting from the end, you'll begin the chapter with your inventory you had at the end of your latest playthrough, which also includes all your weaponry, and this is a big help. However, even with the extra weapons and ammo at my disposal, there are still several segments within this game that gave me a real challenge on Grounded Mode, so I dread to think what a "proper" run would look like.

Other challenges include lack of HUD visibility, so having to gauge health using your own intuition and when to use first aid kits, knowing these also come at a premium on Grounded Mode, is something you need to adapt to quickly, and judgement on when to use health kits could be the difference between life and death. Enemies also hit harder, and give you less time to escape from their clutches too, so expect to die a lot along the way.

On the whole, Grounded Mode is a reasonably solid challenge. My biggest difficulties came from certain parts of chapters where you're faced with alot of enemies and you've got a limited supply of ammunition to deal with them, so you'll need a diverse ranges of tactics to clear these areas, maybe using stealth, melee, crafting bombs/shivs for extra offense or hoping to scramble for additional ammo - all of this required me to learn through trial and error. I hit around 4/5 of these difficulty spikes where I'd spend some amount of extra hours on the game learning, on top of the normal 15-20 hour experience of playing through the game again, albeit in reverse order.

This equates to around a 25-30 hour experience, though I appreciate this may vary, as not everyone will struggle on the same areas as I did, but I would expect a certain level of consistency overall. This method, which allows you to unlock both trophies at once, is a genuine life-saver though.

It would have been rough to have to potentially go through Grounded Mode twice, without the benefit of obtaining your end-game inventory by going in reverse. My motives were purely based around burnout purposes, and I'll only need to play this game once more to finally finish as a consequence of relying on this method. Right now though, that's for another time.

DLC #153 - The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine

To round off the Witcher 3 experience, a final story-based expansion pack, similar in many ways to Hearts of Stone, at least from a trophy list perspective.

However, a very different, but equally excellent storyline acts as the foundations to Blood and Wine, re-affirming the stance that the Witcher excels within it's story-telling and development of a great plot.

This final instalment sees Geralt travel to the new land of Toussaint, called upon by the Duchess of Touissaint, Anna Henrietta, to fulfil a contract against a seemingly unstoppable Vampire killing off members of the Royal Guard. The investigation into these string of murders takes numerous twists and turns along the way, culminating in multiple endings depending on the various paths the player can take through to the end of the questline. 

The Hearts of Stone story was great, but Blood and Wine was even better for me personally, and made for the perfect end to a game that just seemed to keep ascending in quality right up until it's finale.

As previously mentioned, the similarities between both DLC packs lie within the trophy list, with a solid offering of 13 trophies again here, and as before too, a handful of these trophies are missable, relating to certain choices or moments within the main story quests that you'll have to keep on top of in order to make sure you potentially don't miss them.

This has been a consistent theme throughout the Witcher 3, including the main list, and is probably my only real criticism of the game. It's a shame for a title that contains such great stories that are a joy to watch unfold, that you have to read into the trophy descriptions if you're wanting to make sure you grab everything without the necessity to play through the story again for the fear of missing something.

This has led to me understanding certain plot points ahead of time as a consequence, which is something I would ideally loved to avoid entirely, but this game is long, and as I've mentioned before in other reviews linked to this game, I want to minimise repetition where possible for games that contain considerable length.

Of the 13 trophies here, 6 of them are missable, and of these 6, 4 of them relate to the main story arc, requiring you to perform certain actions which, if not fulfilled when required, will be bypassed entirely, with the only remedy being to hope you either have an earlier hard save to load up from, or just by simply starting again from the beginning. 

Two of these trophies also split at the final quest, where you get the option to choose to approach the ending of the story through two different ways and thus, granting a trophy for experiencing each ending separately. You'll need to make sure you retain a hard save right before you make this choice, and since it occurs at the very end of the game, failure to be aware of this will require an entire second playthrough, and even just the main questline alone is around a 10-12 hour experience.

Both branches are a good 2-3 hours each, and they both offer unique quest paths with great endings, so it feels right to do them justice and include separate trophies for them within the list.

Away from the main story, the remainder of the trophies are fairly standard. Some of them are attached to the new side quests on offer which introduce some expansions to the game, including the addition of a new Gwent deck named after the Skellige region, where you'll have to collect all cards, and experimenting with the new mutations feature, which also awards a trophy once you've completed the relevant side quest.

One final thing worth noting, obtaining any set of the new Witcher gear available throughout Toussaint will also grant you a trophy, but you'll also need about 30,000-40,000 in coin to be able to afford/craft all 5 new Grandmaster Witcher sets, so watch out for that and be prepared for the possibility of selling everything you own for the sake of the trophy, which is exactly what I had to do.

There is a possibility that you might need to purchase the crafting items, which will save coin, but some of these crafting items are expensive if you don't already own them, and each of the 6 items needed for a full set has a crafting fee on top. Luckily, I had alot of items hoarded in my inventory with enough value to afford all this, but I'm completely unsure what the contingency plan would have been had I needed to raise the majority of this money.

Overall, an excellent way to end the Witcher 3. It's one of the most polished and complete games I've ever played, and despite the missable trophies, not just here within this DLC offering, but across the game, being a little bit too frequent, it doesn't do much wrong.

This package floats somewhere within the 25-30 hours range, given the amount of side content the trophies away from the main story will require you to explore, as well as having to complete the game to 2 different endings. As long as you're aware to not miss anything that could set you back, especially before making the final decision of the story, and you've got enough coin/valuables to be able to afford a full set of Grandmaster Witcher armour, it's a fairly relaxed experience.

Platinum #112 - The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

After just over a year on from completing the first of two DLC packs for the Witcher 3, it felt like good timing to finally knock this one on the head.

Contrary to my own belief, there wasn't actually much to clean up on the Platinum when I finally re-visited the game, though I do remember the sole reason for completing the Hearts of Stone DLC pack was in order to maximise the efficiency of reaching level 35 for a trophy contained within the main list.

Rather than going through non-trophy related side content to reach this target, it just made sense to do it whilst I went through some of the DLC, and after reaching it during the Hearts of Stone pack, that was the main trigger to go on and finish the rest, starting with the Platinum trophy.

The Witcher 3 is an Action-based, open world fantasy RPG, which is a genre I'm not actually that well versed in, where you assume control of Geralt of Rivia, a monster slayer by trade more commonly known occupationally as a Witcher.

The story revolves around the search for his daughter, who is on the run from a force known as the Wild Hunt, and the journey will transverse you across a big game world with many different environments to explore and pillage. As well as the main story arc, there is a huge amount of additional content, typical of any open world game, ranging from side quests, exploration opportunities, looting and widespread NPC interaction.

The trophy list is large in size, coming in at 53 trophies, and is a fairly typical list for an open world game, with trophies being spread across a host activities within the game, as well as a healthy focus on the progression of the main story.

The "Walked the Path" trophy, awarded for Finishing the game on "Death March!" difficulty level, should be the primary focus of this entire list, simply for the reason that, the length of time you can expect to put into this game is worth great consideration if you're thinking about possibly doubling this, and playing through the entire game twice in order to just get used to a lower difficulty level before tackling the Death March difficulty.

In instances where the highest difficulty level is available from the outset, I will always look to take advantage of this for avoidance of multiple playthroughs, but I would make this point even more poignant for a game of this size.

As someone who has always believed in the quickest available route through a trophy list, especially when they're as long as this, multiple playthroughs wasn't an option for me and I was always going to go head first into this challenge and play through Death March straight off the bat in order to only have to beat the game once.

Predictably, this seemed like a bad idea at first, because the game kicks you all over the place in the early stages on this particular difficulty level. It's not until you start unlocking magic and character skills, which are key to combat, that you start to settle in more, and this happens round about level 10 onwards, and the difficulty noticeably begins to taper off a little bit thereafter, so despite an initial scare, Death March isn't really that bad, and nowhere near as intimidating as it may seem at first.

Combat is fairly straight forward, magic is a game changer when you understand how and when to best use it and you'll constantly be rewarded with better equipment to handle enemies with greater efficiency as you complete more and more quests. There isn't really much that can stop you in your tracks once you hit a certain point whereby all the tools the game offers you are finally at your disposal, and it turns out to be a fairly relaxed experience.

On the way through to this trophy, the list includes a total of 10 progression-based trophies triggered at certain points within the main story arc, and as you gain access to more and more side content, which are usually introduced through the story at some point, you'll also unlock some trophies naturally this way too.

One important general note; The game contains 11 missable trophies, where you have to make the correct choice during a questline, or where you will have to complete a certain quest before progressing beyond a specific point, at which moment, the aforementioned quest will disappear. However, where those seem fairly standard, the missable trophies can be very easy to miss if you've not done your research.

For example, you'll need to collect every Gwent card in the game, but some of them are only available at certain points, so if you miss just one, you'll potentially have to face the idea of playing through the game a second time, and whilst there isn't any obvious indication as to how many hours you've managed to put into the game, this isn't a short one, and I made absolutely sure I did my research and left nothing to chance knowing this.

As much as I enjoyed this experience, I didn't want to have to go through it again, purely for missing something because I didn't do the necessary investigation work before hand. Saving often and creating multiple save files is a great insurance to this, and whilst it may not necessarily be 100% fool proof, it will work out to be a good damage limitation exercise where the alternative without it would be to just start from the very beginning again, so I would recommend that at the very least.

The "Munchkin" trophy, awarded for Reaching character development level 35, is nothing really outside of the usual levelling based journey, however, it is important to note purely because I didn't reach this milestone after completing everything the trophy list required of me. This is ultimately the main reason I delved into the DLC before completing the main list.

There is probably enough content within the main game to get you there if you want to do it without the questlines offered by the DLC, but I didn't even consider exploring this option, because it made more sense to progress this trophy via the DLC and unlock those other trophies simultaneously.

Although, I didn't notice many outstanding quests once I was finished, and I was level 31 by the time I'd seemingly completed everything, so there is a slight chance you may need to find something to grind for experience, but this won't be a problem for completionists with 2 DLC packs to also further complete. After reading up more on this after falling short of level 35 and having to explore my options, you can apparently hit this milestone by doing everything the trophy list requires of you, but for whatever reason, this wasn't my experience of this trophy.

The "Master Marksman" trophy, awarded for Killing 50 human and non-human opponents by striking them in the head with a crossbow bolt, is the only trophy in this list that made this game start to feel like a bit of a grind. The headshot detection is wonky and it takes around 3-4 hours to farm these 50 kills because there's alot of fast travel required to respawn enemies in good farming locations.

I do want to use this trophy as a way to bridge into mentioning a rare occurrence - A considerably lengthy trophy list that never felt like a grind. I'm usually a huge advocate of time consuming trophy lists equating to difficulty, and there have been many games in the past that have scored difficulty points because there is a reasonable element of length to their overall completion time but I can confidently say I don't feel this way about the Witcher 3.

The amount of time attached to your save file isn't recorded anywhere within the game itself, and because I didn't complete this game within a single sitting, it really is hard to say, even roughly, what my estimate is in terms of overall completion time. Between 70-120 hours possibly, but I enjoyed every second of it and never felt like the game was beginning to wear me down. Not until I had to get 50 headshot kills with a crossbow anyway.

Regardless, It didn't matter at that point, because I was nearing the end and just polishing off the remainder of a list that had kept me engaged from the first trophy right to the last, and that definitely counts for something when taking overall difficulty score into consideration.

Thus, I've gone straight down the middle score-wise here. Irrespective of the fact this never really felt like a slog, the length of time it takes to complete should still be a factor to some extent, because there is still a reasonable requirement of effort here, just maybe not as much as there would be under usual circumstances for games this length where the grind often kicks in at some point, and this is a great testament to the game.

Death March difficulty doesn't exactly live up to it's name, despite some challenging early signs that eventually fizzle out, but the vast amount of missable trophies can be tricky to properly keep on top of if you're not fully prepared on what to expect, and any minor slip up could see you having to play-through the game again, which would be a tough break for most trophy hunters.

Either way, if you enjoyed this as much as I did, you'll have one of the most pleasantly time-consuming Platinum trophy experiences available, which is a welcome rarity.

Notable Trophies -

Walked the Path - Finish the game on "Death March!" difficulty level.
Munchkin - Reach character development level 35.
Master Marksman - Kill 50 human and non-human opponents by striking them in the head with a crossbow bolt.

Hardest Trophy -

Walked the Path

Finish the game on "Death March!" difficulty level

Platinum #111 - Metal Gear Solid V : The Phantom Pain

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 7/10

Perhaps a little surprisingly, this is only the second time a Metal Gear Solid game has made it's way into my collection, following Metal Gear Solid 2 from the HD Collection on the Playstation 3 a whole 6 and a half years ago.

The completion of which was actually roughly round about the same time I first started MGS5. If I recall, it was my intention at one stage to add all of these trophy lists to my collection, and there are a fair amount of them in existence.

However, and I don't think I ever officially concluded this, but I'll take this opportunity to do so now. I won't be going back retrospectively to grab any of them at this point. That includes MGS3 and Peace Walker from the same HD Collection I got the MGS2 Platinum from, as well as MGS4, which was released without trophies, and then later patched to include them.

I do still have Metal Gear Rising : Revengeance in the backlog, but to suggest MGS5 has completely burnt me out would be a great understatement, and has very easily influenced this decision to leave the untouched MGS titles exactly that way.

The Phantom Pain follows on events directly from the aftermath of Ground Zeroes (an MGS title I never actually played), where Snake awakens from a 9 year coma with the primary goal being to seek revenge for an attack that left Snake almost dead, and his forces decimated. This turns out to be at the hands of a Cipher group called XOF, headed up by Skull Face, the main protagonist of the game.

Skull Face's motive is driven by carrying out Cipher's goal to unite the world by destroying all non-American cultures through creating a vocal strain parasite capable of killing non-English speaking people by attaching to their vocal cords, and distributing this across the world in order to wipe out large groups on mass. Snake's mission not only becomes one of personal revenge, but also part of a wider mission to prevent the spread of this virus intent on wiping out the majority of the World's population.

This trophy list is large in size, clocking in at 43 trophies, including the Platinum, and this has to be one of the most labour-intensive games I've ever completed.

Not only is there alot of content within this list that encourages you to explore practically every single element of the game, but this longevity extends to levels of repetition that eclipses the majority of the games in my collection, and it all adds up to an overall package that, despite containing it's challenges, is mostly drive by time investment, and ends up being one of the longest Platinum trophies I've ever earned.

The most important thing to note about this game, compared to previous MGS titles I've played, is the direction. The Phantom Pain is a open-world sandbox MGS game, and although this wasn't the first game to take the MGS series down this path, and away from it's very linear roots, this was certainly the first MGS title I played from this perspective, and the game translates well across to this model.

The game still has a focal main story, which is spread across a series of 50 missions, taking place across 2 main locations (Afghanistan, and then later, Angola-Zaire), and this mode is where the vast majority of the trophies in this list are centred around.

The "Elite" trophy, awarded for Completing all missions with a S rank, is a staple favourite requirement from MGS games, and working towards this as you go through the game should be the primary focus.

Obtaining an S Rank requires a score of over 130,000 at the end of the level, with points awarded for a numerous variety of actions. However, the best results come through either time or stealth bonuses. Completing the levels quickly and/or without triggering combat alerts, reflex time or killing enemies are the best 2 ways to maximise points, but this is difficult to achieve initially, when you're exploring missions for the first time and don't have the relevant level of background knowledge in order to succeed, so the majority of my maiden playthrough was purely for casual purposes. I did find that, time became less relevant as long as I maintained maximum stealth, so this ended up being my uniform approach throughout the game, and this at least meant I came out of a small handful of levels with a first time S-Rank, but it wasn't many, and the majority required me to re-visit them to earn this trophy.

Once you've completed the 31 main story missions, you'll unlock 19 additional missions, which for the most part are direct copies of the original 31, but with an added condition, such as Extreme difficulty, where enemies deal way more damage, or Total Stealth, where any triggered alert instantly ends the mission. This is where some of the aforementioned repetition really hurts the game, because you end up re-visiting so many of these levels and their variants, the tedium starts to set in big time, and this extends into other tasks within the trophy list.

This is also the main reason why this Platinum took so long for me, and it may be important to point out that, I completely understand that there are guides out there that can show you how to beat a level within 5/6 minutes in order to achieve an S-Rank, which would have significantly helped the progress here, but as someone who's always wanted to not use a guide for certain things, this is something I didn't want to entertain. It therefore would take me well over an hour to beat a certain mission to S-Rank by just simply tackling it in my own way without any guidance. I appreciate it would have saved me alot of time off the overall completion, but I wasn't interested in shortcuts unless I could figure them out myself. If it took me over an hour to beat a level, but I managed to do so with perfect stealth and it still got me the S-Rank, then the question of whether I could have done it quicker was irrelevant to me.

What I will add though, was the fact that, there were a small handful of occasions where I would spend well over an hour trying to earn an S-Rank on a particular mission, only to complete it and find out I was way too slow, which negatively impacted the amount of points to the extent where it was perhaps only enough for an A-Rank, or I would get spotted by a random solider towards the end of a mission and lose my stealth points, which would have exactly the same level of impact. Though this thankfully didn't happen that often, it was the most frustrating part of trying to S-Rank some of these missions, and if it looked like there was a faster way to complete them, it did become quickly apparent as the missions unfolded in front of me, so it was never difficult to spot opportunities when they presented themselves.

Overall, it was a good challenge, and figuring out different ways to beat these missions with an S-Rank was a fun task which kept things fresh for as long as possible, though the inevitability of tedium through playing some of these levels multiple times did eventually kick in. However, the sense of reward for putting time into carefully beating a level, achieving the S-Rank for it and being able to do that without any guidance was great.

On top of this, there are also 10 trophies, which is around a quarter of this list, awarded for beating specific missions for the first time, so natural progression is awarded regulary within this list. You'll also be awarded for completing each of the 50 missions once.

The "Executed" trophy, awarded for Completing all mission tasks, is the next step beyond achieving S-Rank for every mission.

Each of the 50 missions within the story contains a number of optional objectives, varying anywhere between 2 to 8, adding an extra layer of replayability onto these story missions. Again, some of them will come naturally as you play through the story and focus on achieving those S-Rank ratings, but you can guarantee a fair amount of re-work here as you go back over these levels again purely for the purpose of this exercise.

The vast majority of these are not that difficult, and act merely as a checkbox exercise solely for the purpose of padding the depth of this game further, though some of them are reasonably challenging and make you tackle certain levels from a different angle to what you may have chosen to do when going for the S-Rank on them.

This was the point where the game started to wain on me on a little bit. Going for S-Rank was fine. I'd taken a long break from the game, so it felt fairly fresh, and I was taking the challenge in my stride. To then have to go back through all these missions again, just to fulfil some secondary objectives that I cared less about, was a bit dull. Some of these objectives are also structured in such as a way that you can't beat them all in just 1 additional playthrough of the mission, and will have no choice but to play them over a few times. There are also some that require you to play through large portions of the mission, just to reach the point of being able to fulfil the objective, and if you miss out, you'll have to play through from the beginning again. This is mostly regarding, but not limited to, the objectives that require you to listen to a final conversation between 2 people, which will require you to spend 15-20 minutes building up to that by following someone around the map and listening to all pre-requisite conversations. Nowhere near as fulfilling of a task.

Also, those 19 post-story missions, most of which are copies of the previous 31? The copied variants also have the exact same mission tasks, so the repetition really starts to hit you hard when you realise you're literally doing the same things over and over, to the extent to which I was desperately trying to find reasons to still be enthusiastic about this game, whilst progressing through this task.

Once this trophy has been unlocked, you will at least be done with the Story mode, though this is where you'll spend the vast majority of your time with this list anyway. However, the grind isn't quite over just yet.

The "Achieved" trophy, awarded for Completing all SIDE OPS, requires you to venture into the Side Ops mode. Separate to the Story, the Side Ops is a series of individual challenges contained within certain areas of the main story mission space, and requires you to fulfil a small handful of tasks across a total range of 157 Side Ops.

They'll require you to rescue prisoners, eliminate tank/heavy infantry units, clear areas infested with land mines and extract highly-skilled soldiers, amongst a few other things. Some of these tasks are duplicated as much as 20 times, and the novelty wears out pretty quickly as you realise this is yet another task purely for the benefit of padding depth to this game. Across the 157 Side Ops, there are around 7/8 different types in total, and even though I used these Side Ops to break away briefly from the monotony of replaying Story missions, the reprieve was just as brief, due to the staleness of this mode itself. They're effectively segregated versions of regular gameplay elements that already exist as part of the core game - Destroying tanks, extracting soldiers, rescuing prisoners, they all make up things you do as part of the main story anyway, so just to see these already existing gameplay elements stripped away into a completely separate mode and just labelled "Side Ops" is lazy and, if not for the fact necessary for the Platinum trophy, pointless too.

These Side Ops aren't particularly difficult, and they can beaten fairly quickly, but there's still a great volume of them, and they add to a trophy list that really didn't need to suffer any more from mindless repetition that offered little extra reward. I suppose you could liken them to the VR Missions in MGS2, though there are thankfully a hell of lot less Side Ops to tackle, which is something at least.

That pretty much covers the core of this list and going through these 3 trophies is the predominant focus of this game. Once you've covered off the Story mode to S-Rank, along with the mission tasks, as well as completed all Side Ops, there isn't much else to go into in regards to other game modes, however the list does cover alot of elements of the RPG angle to this game which are important to mention.

You'll need to Develop 300 weapons, fully upgrade Mother Base and reach level 50 with all staff units and when you're working towards any of those tasks, for which trophies are also awarded, there are 2 elements to consider.

The first one is resources. Developing weapons and base upgrades costs resources, which are naturally farmed over time or instantly whilst out and about in the open world completing missions. Once you have the resources, then they require development time to complete upgrades, so it's really important to always be conscious of this at all times. If you're not developing weapons or upgrading the base/staff in the background whilst playing the game, you're potentially burning time, and the last thing you want with a game of this length, is inefficiency when it comes to time management.

You don't want to reach the conclusion of this game and realise you still need to develop loads of weapons or Mother Base upgrades because you forgot to do them as you went along. They don't require any effort, but for a game that already takes a long time to beat, you really don't want to be wasting extra time at the end just waiting for upgrades to complete when you really should have been doing this in the background as you played through the game, so I feel this is a really important nugget of information to reveal. Always have something on the go at all times.

The "Deterrence" trophy, awarded for Developing a nuclear weapon, also fits within this criteria, and possibly even more so, given the fact that a nuclear weapon takes 24 hours of real time to develop. However, that's not why this is mentioned in this instance.

Once you have gathered the resources to create a nuclear weapon, and confirm the start of the process, you will be deducted 50,000 Heroism points, which will have a direct consequence on the "Hero" trophy, which is awarded for obtaining the codename "Hero", achieved at amassing 150,000 Heroism points.

It isn't exactly a deal-breaker, but it makes more sense to reach the title of "Hero" before you create the nuclear weapon, otherwise you risk having to clawback 50,000 heroism points for beginning the nuclear weapon process, which could unnecessarily prolong this task.

Onto the most important point of this Platinum. I know I've slightly mentioned the fact that this game takes a long time to complete, without actually quantifying this with a certain number, but truth be told, such length becomes a blur and I don't actually know how accurate my final total is. Going purely off the records screen on the main menu, I spent a whopping 269 hours on this game, and whilst I personally find it hard to believe I've spent that much time going after this Platinum, I have no justifiable reason to disbelieve it.

The main story isn't exactly short, and obtaining an S-Rank on all 50 story missions, as well as going after the secondary mission objectives, with the Side Ops on top, I can see how it builds up when you piece it all together as a larger picture, and whilst I haven't really mentioned any of it, there are a fair handful of trophies that require you to spend some reasonable time on extra-curricular content, such as capturing all 47 species of wildlife, and finding all Blueprints, Key Items and Invoices throughout the game world.

I would say 269 hours grants this game the title of my lengthiest Platinum ever, and even though I wouldn't say the challenge of the game is that high, that sort of length has to count for something, and as I mentioned at the top of this piece, this game did completely drain me when all was said and done. 

As someone who has believed since day 1 that length is always a factor in Platinum difficulty ratings, this is where the majority of the score for this game comes from, and I was pushing through some fairly intense tedium barriers by the end of this game. I appreciate it could, and will, be shorter for some people, but the insistence for me to complete this list with my own approach to S-Rank and mission objectives will have no doubt been the main contributor to a higher completion time. There is at least a mark or two for some of the S-Rank requirements of certain missions that are a little bit tougher, as well as some challenging secondary mission objectives to go through, but persistence was certainly the order of the day.

Notable Trophies - 

Elite - Complete all missions with an S-Rank.
Executed - Complete all mission tasks.
Achieved - Complete all SIDE OPS.
Deterrence - Develop a nuclear weapon.

Hardest Trophy -

Elite                                                                                                              Complete all missions with an S-Rank