Topic: The Trophy Discussion Thread

@WCB @redd214
To be honest, Bastion was another game in my backlog which didn't get it's hooks into me either -so similar to you both! However, as I knew it wasn't a long game, I made a conscious effort to clear at least one level (@30mins) every time I had some gaming time. Within a couple of weeks I had completed the game twice and just had end game challenges to grind. Some were a bit frustrating but were also probably the best part.

Congrats to @redd214 @velio84 on the Horizon plats, you both made a short order outta that! Congrats to @Sorteddan too, yeah those idol challenges were tricky to be sure.

Platinum #76 - Operation Tango - decent little co-op game that fair play.

@Sorteddan Nice one 👍

@colonelkilgore Good job as well. My wife wanted to play this but as it's not couch coop then we've not been able to. My mate who borrowed my PS4 should be returning it soon so we'll finally be able to give this a go.

@colonelkilgore ...and to you too!
Yeah got there in the end bud.
Out of interest how many you on for the year? Now that we're two months down, you still on track for 100 before 2023?

@RogerRoger @Sorteddan cheers guys 👍

@Sorteddan so it’s 6 for the year so far… and I’m very nearly there on Horizon Forbidden West too (just need to find like 5 free hours from somewhere). It’ll slow down after that though as I’ll be playing Elden Ring which I’ve heard is 150+ hours, so I’ll be happy if I get that wrapped by the end of April. If I manage to pop the plat on everything I got lined up in 2022 I’ll hit by 104 the end of the year (so I can essentially ‘fail’ on 4 and still make it… 🤞 for 104 though 😉).

@render lol, let me know if you make it through without getting a divorce mate… it can get a little heated 😅

@colonelkilgore I tried to play Operation Tango but couldn’t figure out how to couch co-op with my wife. Think she maybe needed her own plus account or something. Didn’t labour too hard over it though, but hearing that it’s decent gives me the motivation to figure it out!

Knowing how much you appreciate From Software, I am well and truly excited for you to start Elden Ring. Maybe we can somehow fit some co-op in, to make up for Ashen.

@Jimmer-jammer to be honest I’m not sure that couch co-op would be possible on Operation Tango as each role sees totally different things and it’s main usp is nurturing effective communication between the two players. If it was split screen, you could simply look at what the hacker/agent is seeing and it would negate all the struggle/fun.

It would be a real interesting tool for marriage counselling though, I can only imagine how the missus and I would’ve handled it (ie not well 😅).

So, I’m hoping to get around to starting Elden Ring next week(ish)… so, give me a wee bit to find my feet with it and yeah nice one, I’d be all for it 🍻

@colonelkilgore Heated sounds like pretty much everyday for me and the wife but I guess this adds an extra dimension to that 😆

@Jimmer-jammer How are you finding Elden Ring? I've tried not to look too much at the specific thread as I don't want to see too many spoilers but from the odd things I've seen such as the poll today it seems people are split on the difficulty compared to other souls games. Surely can't be harder than Kena 😉

@render I’ve been dipping in and out of the ER thread and yeah, it seems like the game as a whole is “easier” by virtue of the open, more malleable way you can approach it. Yet some of the bosses, especially the late game ones apparently, are being touted as more difficult than average for FromSoft. I wonder if it’s just that there’s a false difficulty spike felt on some bosses since the world feels relatively easier otherwise.

Honestly, I thought Demon’s Souls was fairly ‘open’ in the sense the archstones could be done in any order you wanted. But I guess ER is even better at checkpointing and being able to go a different route if you hit a wall.

@Th3solution I found the same with Demon's Souls and really like that ability to choose where to go next and give you options if you'd hit a wall. It felt like there was a good deal of freedom with it even though it was a linear game. I'm interested to see how that translates to ER though as the world is so much bigger, and the choices much greater. I think it's a formula that should scale well though.

Those late game bosses sound like they are going to be a real challenge but I suppose you at least have the chance to level up by then and find some good gear.

@Th3solution @render In Elden Ring there are things like the statues which act as respawn points outside of graces (Elden Ring's version of bonfires) and gaining a health flask when you defeat a group enemies in a area, which makes things a bit more bearable. It can still be unforgiving at times, but most of time in my experience you can explore the open world to level up a bit.

@colonelkilgore With some of the experiences my wife and I have had simply moving furniture, perhaps this one’s best left alone. 😂

@render It’s hard for me to talk about Elden Ring right now without sounding like some hopped up hype man but it really is incredible! If you have any plans to play it, then I will say no more…Concerning difficulty, I fall hard into the ‘let From Software do their thing with the genre that they created’ camp. It’s tough, but never insurmountable. Just be sure to have a few months set aside for it, it’s a colossal beast of a game.

@JohnnyShoulder @Jimmer-jammer I'm gonna be hopping on board that train once I'm done with Horizon so it's good to hear that you guys are enjoying the game. I'm happy to have the challenge and agree with what Miyazaki was saying about the enjoyment of overcoming hardship. It's great that From can still make games the way they want without getting pushed down the path of implementing something they don't want to.

Likewise it's a shame if someone buys ER and never finishes it but I bought Returnal last year knowing that I might not get to the end and even though I did I would have been happy just to have the experience. I mean most of the games I used to play back in the 8/16 bit days I wouldn't have finished because they were ridiculously hard - mainly due to technical issues rather than actually difficulty - but I still enjoyed them.

@render honestly, more than any other ‘Souls’ game before, there is so much to explore, to find and to do, that even a novice player could glean 10’s of hours of enjoyment from Elden Ring without ever approaching the end. Heck, I’m not even sure yet that I’ll see the end of this thing! What the game game succeeds so well at is providing a fertile environment for the player to generate an experience that is truly their own. Your own epic adventure.

@Jimmer-jammer So is the story or narrative very good? FromSoft are never known for their polished storytelling. Is this pretty much the same type of dark fantasy lore with random NPCs and some vague end of the world threat? Or is there actual story beats that lead you along a certain mainline path?

@Th3solution As a fairly vocal critic of From’s garbage plot, Elden Ring is actually better. NPCs are way more talkative and you come across a lot more of them. Still not sure about the main plot but it’s at least more interesting than the older games.

@nessisonett Ok, sounds good. I wasn’t expecting The Witcher 3 level narrative, but I figured it’s is likely more fleshed out than the other games. But after reading a lot of peoples’ posts, it seems like the wandering about can be (and is designed to be) so randomly and unique to each player that the main storyline must be fairly loose and vague, in that FromSoft way.

@Th3solution I think @nessisonett covered it pretty well. The only thing I’d add is that the history of the world is perhaps better explained, with some legitimate politics at play. With that said, this is very much your own story.