DLC #156 - Tom Clancy's The Division - Expansion I - Underground

It's been a few years since I played The Division, and the last time I re-visited this game, I spent a stint with it in order to unlock the Platinum trophy.

Having already completed the Last Stand DLC pack prior to this, it was a game I knew I'd only be able to play in limited spells.

Just to re-iterate what I wrote about The Division in my Platinum Difficulty review, I don't think The Division is a bad game, it's just one of those games that's better consumed in smaller doses. It's fairly average, and where the Last Stand DLC did give some much needed variety to the game with some PvP emphasis, the Underground goes back to the PvE formula that drives the main game, and the copy and paste execution of the Underground just feels like the ultimate form of content padding.

Upon purchase, the Underground opens up as a new section of the Base of Operations. Based on the concept of the New York Subway system, you're tasked with going deep within to clear enemies in a horde-mode style of gameplay where you need to make your way through various levels completing objectives and clearing waves of enemies as you go. You set these missions up yourself, with each mission built up of "phases", which are just individual segments with a specific objective designated to each one, and these can be linked together for up to 3 phases in any one mission.

The overall goal is to complete these missions and obtain experience points, upgraded loot and grab collectibles along the way. It's fairly unspectacular and has practically no novelty value - This is effectively just fighting your way through hordes of enemies, pushing through to completing fairly arbitrary objectives, which is exactly what you spend your entire time doing in the main game. Same enemies, same environments and the same loot. Infact, none of the loot I picked up was better than what I already had, which didn't really matter anyway because there isn't much of a challenge for higher levels, so better loot would have made this even more of a mundane exercise than it was already.

You can tackle these missions solo, or as part of a wider group of up to 4 players. It's at least a bit more interesting in a group, and you're going to be putting the hours in, so my recommendation would be to play with others wherever you can. 

The package contains just 5 trophies, and the recommendation to play in a group does extend as far as completing a 3 phase operation with 3 other players for 1 of these trophies, but the quest to full completion runs through 2 main trophies;

The Beast Below - Reach Underground Rank 40.
Gone Spelunking - Retrieve all 55 Audio Logs and 25 UrBex Diaries the Underground.

"The Beast Below" Trophy, awarded for Reaching Underground Rank 40, is ultimately the end goal of this package, and you'll be completing missions in order to accumulate enough experience to reach the highest level.

A total of 341,200 EXP is required for Rank 40, and this is accumulated in 3 primary ways. Completing phases is where the majority of experience points are handed out here, and the payout of experience points per mission will depend on a variety of factors. These include the difficulty level chosen, the number of phases included within the mission and any modifiers applied during the set-up process. Modifiers are referred to as "directives" and apply certain restrictions/conditions to the player that add certain elements of challenge to the mission, for example, removal of the mini-map or a shock charge that disables the player upon firing too many bullets at once. 

A 3 phase mission on challenging difficulty with the maximum amount of directives applied, will net somewhere within the region of 7,000 to 8,000 experience points per run, but it is important to note you don't have immediate access to the full range of options from the outset, and you'll need to gradually rank up in order to unlock the ability to set-up your own missions on higher difficulties with all directives available to choose from. You will be able to assist other players missions who have these options available, but you won't always be able to rely on this, so levelling progression may be staggered depending on these circumstances.

I ended up playing through 86 phases to reach Rank 40, and when you calculate a rough estimate of around 15-20 minutes per phase, this equates to around 21 hours of game time. There does need to be further consideration for failed phases, but this usually occurred when players left the game, and were seldom down to the difficulty of the mode, which is incredibly easy with a maxed out soldier with powerful gear. The phase needs to be finished for the experience points to count, so these would go down as lost time.

The other 2 primary methods for earning experience points are for killing individual enemies and you'll be granted experience points for every enemy killed within the mission to the tune of around 30-40 EXP per enemy. You'll also earn the experience points for any enemies your teammates kill, which is a massive relief. The final method for obtaining experience points is for picking up collectibles;

The "Gone Spelunking" Trophy, awarded for Retrieving all 55 Audio Logs and 25 UrBex Diaries in the Undergound, will award the player 300 EXP for every collectible gathered, which means 24,000 experience points are up for grabs through completing this task.

It is vitally important to realise that you need to ensure you're conscious to grabbing these collectibles as you go along completing missions. There are 80 in total, and I only needed to complete 86 phases to reach Rank 40, so this would become an unnecessary post-rank 40 task if you failed to tandem these trophies together.

Each phase contains 1 collectible to obtain somewhere. These are randomly generated, and will always be a unique collectible you have yet to obtain, so the you won't need to worry about duplication. Their spawn rate is guaranteed up to a certain point, so if you feel like you've missed one, make sure you expand the map and look back over where you've just come from. They can be well hidden, but it'll definitely be there somewhere, and will become missable once you advance into the next phase.

Once I'd collected all 55 Audio Logs, I had 3 Photographs to go, but this is where the collectibles cease to be guaranteed. For whatever reason, once you have the maximum number of collectibles for either the Audio Logs or Photographs, the remaining collectibles become completely random in their spawn rate, and I started playing through phases without finding any of the collectibles I still needed. This is apparently deliberate through design, and this is why I had to play an additional 6 phases. That isn't that many, and I only needed 3 Photographs once I'd hit 55 Audio Logs, but it's quirky and throws you off. An additional 6 phases isn't terrible, but spawn rate is completely random so I can't promise you wouldn't experience something completely different.

The Division isn't a good enough game to get away with releasing uninspiring DLC packs that are purely built to prolong the games life cycle, and this was eventually a bit of a struggle. Working towards Rank 40 along with grabbing collectibles as you move is a fairly natural route to full completion, and you'll get the other trophies along the way.

It clocks in somewhere between a 25-30 hour experience as per the calculation above, but this includes a fair chunk of waiting in-between mission set-ups and failed attempts. I didn't really enjoy it. It felt pointless and unnecessary, with enemies, environments and mission objectives you'll have seen and done before.

It oddly reminded me of the Mad Moxxi Underdome Riot DLC from Borderlands 1, which you can draw alot of parralels from. Fend off waves of the same pointless enemies, work towards unrewarding objectives and pick up redundant loot because you already have the best loot the game has to offer. That was boring, and so is this, and completion was a welcome relief.

Platinum #117 - Cuphead

 Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

There's definitely a lack of representation of Indie games within my trophy collection, and although it's something I've never exactly vowed to fix, we are getting better at it.

Cuphead is a run-and-gun, side-scrolling game with a fairly basic narrative. You control protagonist of the same name, Cuphead, who makes an agreement to help the Devil in response to racking up too many debts at his casino (You can also choose to play as Mugman, though differences between the two are purely aesthetic).

The Devil offers Cuphead an out - Recover the souls from fellow debtors in order to pay off Cuphead's own debt, and spare himself from the Devil's fate.

This starts a sequence of continuous boss fights, which make up the majority of the game, though these are sometimes interspersed with run-and-gun, platforming levels that break up the pace of the game.

Just to explain the basic premise of how these boss fights work, given the fact they are practically the make-up of the entire game, each boss has multiple phases. When they take enough damage in any given phase, they'll transition into the next one, which usually evolves/changes the boss into a different form with a different set of attacks. This process repeats until you beat the final phase, and ultimately end the boss battle.

The concept is very simple, but executed brilliantly thanks to fast and frenetic gameplay, the ability to purchase new powers and supermoves through progression and an array of varied, interesting characters, all with their own personalities and unique fighting scripts.

Cuphead will punish you, but in addictive fashion. Some of these fights will require mastery of patterns and strategic thought, understanding the best loadouts to beat certain bosses, as well as reliance on cold, hard motor skills. Reaction time, quick-thinking and adaptability are required in abundance in order to make sure you outlast your opponent and progress towards the end of the game. Coupled with beautifully rendered rubber hose style graphics, it's a truly unique offering that will test your abilities to their highest level.

The trophy list is medium in size, coming in at 29 trophies, spanning across the entire Story-based journey as you venture through the Inkwell Isles - A map broken down into 4 different areas. The first 2 isles contain 5 bosses each and the third isle contains 7, as well as 2 run-and-gun levels in each. The fourth and final area is slightly different, but will ultimately lead you to the game's conclusion.

The "Beat The Devil At His Own Game" trophy, awarded for Completing the game on Expert, is the ultimate goal of this entire list. The path to full completion runs solely through this trophy - You'll firstly need to beat every single boss in the game on Normal difficulty. This is because you'll need to pass this requirement in order to unlock the Expert version of that particular boss, so there are 2 full Play-throughs required as a minimum. However, this is not applicable to the 6 total run-and-gun levels - There is a different trophy for that which we'll go into soon.

On the initial Normal difficulty run, this acts as a good way to get accustomed to the game. The bosses, generally, don't seem to scale in terms of difficulty as you progress deeper into the game, and I've seen different opinions on the challenge of some bosses compared to others, so I would conclude the standout challenges are all down to individual experiences.

You'll unlock the majority of the trophies you need within this Normal difficulty run, including a handful of trophies for beating each boss, as well as obtaining an A-Rank for each individual isle. Achieving an A-Rank might seem like a challenge in itself, but it's easy enough to clean this up when you've played each boss on Normal and have a better understanding of their phases and attack patterns. An A-Rank will require you to beat the boss within a certain time limit, finish the fight with a certain number of lives remaining, parry at least 3 objects and use your Supermove - They're fairly standard actions that you'll perform in most fights anyway and I generally found that, as long as you beat any given boss within the time limit, the rest would follow.

Further to this, the ranking system is split down to include + and - rankings for each letter, so obtaining an A-Rank can also include A-, meaning you will have a slight margin for error, and won't need to fulfil every objective on the board to it's maximum requirement. The highest ranking you can earn for a level is S, which you'll only need to achieve for 1 level for an individual trophy elsewhere.

Being able to beat the game on Normal difficulty, as well as achieve an A-Rank for each boss, allows for ideal preparation to finally take the game on in Expert difficulty - And the game does take a noticeable notch up from Normal to Expert. Bosses attack patterns are less predictable and more frequent, they carry more health and additional enemies will fill the screen.

The biggest challenge is adapting. The elements that change from Normal to Expert require a step up in turn from the player. Quicker reaction times, better situational awareness and a necessity to learn different attack patterns. These demands can also be quite steep from boss to boss and you get into situations that just simply boil down to continual practice with a lot of trial and error in order to get past them.

If it isn't an enemy you just simply don't see that gets you, it'll be something else. An attack pattern that looked different to the last time you ran it, a phase in play that requires extremely intricate movement or even simply a lapse in concentration. The game can be extremely unforgiving and whilst it's true everyone will face different challenges, the struggles remain the same and this is a genuinely tough challenge from start to end.

The game includes a death counter, which is always an ominous sign of expectations. Mine clocked it at 1281 deaths by the time I'd achieved the Platinum trophy, and whilst I don't really know how that benchmarks against the norm, the journey was as rough as a 4-figure death count sounds. The game punishes error and lack of focus, and you'll need to have reached an excellent standard of mastery on this game to beat it on Expert difficulty.

Once I'd beaten the game through on Expert, I only had 2 trophies remaining, supporting the point that this game is a very straight-forward journey, from a road-map perspective at least.

The "Pacifist" trophy, awarded for Completing all levels without killing an enemy, specifically refers to the 6 run-and-gun levels which have been briefly mentioned above.

These levels are where you can collect coins in order to purchase abilites and Superpowers from Porkrind's shop, which are essential to progression throughout the game as you figure out the best methods on how to beat certain bosses, but for the purpose of this trophy, you have to beat all 6 levels without killing an enemy.

This is tricky because these levels are designed to be run-and-gun, so having to navigate them without firing a bullet flips the challenge on it's head. You have to navigate levels in a side-scrolling fashion, and reach the end goal without losing all your lives, and clearing enemies by dodging them, as opposed to killing them. It helps to equip the Twin Heart charm, allowing you to start with 2 additional hit points, which you'll definitely need for this exercise.

Most of these stages also contain mini-bosses, which you can only bypass by activating your Superpower. Invincibility will allow you to get past these bosses without having to kill them, so it's also essential that this is equipped and you'll need to also make sure you earn enough parries along the way in order to fill your super-meter and activate your Superpower when required to do so.

The first few levels allow you to ease yourself in, but they do become more chaotic, and my progress slowed down fairly quickly, with the trophy taking around 5 hours in the end, which is a modest amount of time to complete just 6 levels. There's alot of trial and error involved and the majority of this time was spent on the final 2 levels, which definitely escalate in difficulty as you get further down the line and reach the end.

It's nowhere near as tough as beating the main story on Expert mode, but it gives you a different kind of challenge on top.

Cuphead is a unique game. A simple concept that creates challenge through simple ways. It's frustrating, angering and tough in equal measure, but I never really felt turned off by it, no matter how bad things may have seemed. Some of these bosses felt unbeatable on Expert mode as my dedication towards beating them exceeded hours, but I will always be of the belief that perseverance always prevails in games like this - Games that contain a death counter for reasons purely to measure the level of sacrifice you've put in, in order to achieve success. It might require a bit of good fortune along the way, such is the nature of how this game pans out with its highly volatile randomness, but you always need a bit of luck when trial and error is a key ingredient to progression.

The game will prepare you well to tackle it on Expert mode by making sure you clear every boss under Normal difficulty first, and seeing the rest of the list unlock along the way is a good motivator as you consistently see tangible progress towards the overall goal.

I'm not sure on a time estimation, as I played this game over multiple spells, and the amount of time you'll spend per boss will vary extremely. I'd like to think breaching well over the 1000 death mark is a sign of a solid, committed effort, and when you divide the total deaths of 1281 by the number of boss fights - 38 with 19 bosses in total across 2 playthroughs of the game - then you get an average of 37 deaths per boss.

This is an unrelenting fist-fight from start to finish. Prepare to go in head first and never look back. It's a rollercoaster experience with a solid reward awaiting those with enough guts to persevere to the very end.

Notable Trophies -

Beat The Devil At His Own Game - Complete the game on Expert.
Pacifist - Complete all levels without killing an enemy.

Hardest Trophy -

Beat The Devil At His Own Game                                                      Complete the game on Expert