After an intense platinum in Nine Sols, I decided to mellow it down with a few easy platinums. I chose Venba to start, because I thought it was a quick cooking game. I WAS WRONG! While cooking was the central element, it was primarily a visual novel covering culture, identity and both the experiences of immigrants and children both in a country to immigrants. It was both beautiful and sad watching the slow development of the distant that developed between Kavin and his parents only to then come around for a truly sweet and beautiful moment. I can’t tell you how much I highly recommend this masterpiece. Now, I’m going to go call my mom and tell her how much I love and appreciate her.

My last few platinum have been fairly easy platinums, so I started to have a craving for some challenge. Que, Nine Sols coming on to PS+. I originally heard about this game through a group of YouTuber speed runners having it be apart of their multi world archipelago. Shout out to CJYA, SmallAnt, GrandPOOBear, Fir, AstralSpiff, failboat, dellamie, CraftyBoss925 and Moarf23.

This style of game normally isn’t my cup of tea, as I really struggle with mechanics in Metroidvania/Soulslike games. But, I absolutely loved this! It being a 2D platformer style massively helped with the Soulslike struggle. It was interesting and very reminiscent in play style to Hollow Knight with enough of a divergence to make it its own.

All in all, most of the bosses were actually not that bad. Aside from 3, I could usually beat the boss in about 5-10 attempts. The 3 that caused the most difficulty and rage were Lady Ethereal, The Fengs and EIGONG.

Lady Ethereal is the only boss besides Eigong who has 3 phases. Between her clones and parry chaos, I probably had 30-40 deaths before I finally beat her. I ended up memorizing her combos so well that I could almost constantly No Hit her phase 1 and 2.

The Fengs were hard primarily due to the second phase of the fight. When the second phase starts, you effectively change from fighting 1 enemy to fighting two and being unable to attack one of them. When Nuwa adds to the battle, you are now facing melee and ranged simultaneously. I’m sure that I died 25-30 times before I finally beat them.

Final, Eigong was an intense shift in style. She attacks so frequently, that room to attack her is small and rare. I ended up looking for builds and advice to finally get a strategy in order to beat her. Additionally, since I chose the true ending first, she had 3 phases to get through in order to win. Phase 1, I likely died 25-30 times before I finally got the patterns down. For Phase 2, I likely died 35-40 times before I was able to adjust to her substantial shift in attacks. Phase 3 was about 15-20 deaths before I was able to the two additional attacks of the phase. In total, I can estimate about 75-90 deaths before I finally beat her. (Also yes she is the reason for the post title.) Funny enough, I got so good at her patterns, that I was able to consistently No Hit her Phase 1 and beat Phase 2 with maybe 2 heals. When I had to fight her again for the normal ending, I did it first try since it doesn’t include Phase 3.

Ultimately, I absolutely loved the challenge after all the easy/easyish platinums. The story was fun, gameplay was challenging and characters compelling. All in all, I had a fun time, and it will be a while before I come back to plat the PS5 version. Now, I’m going to clean up some of my easier and shorter platinums for some cooldown.

In time for Resynced!

Two great games to add to the completion list!

Had a blast with Brutal Legend, and sunk so many hours into Minecraft I thought it was a bout time I got the 100%. It is one of the few games i own digitally also 😓

It a cute game and i love it i will doing episode 2 soon i did see there more trophies but some are just the same as the first and originally i was going to do both of them then show you but I probably work on something else so now this is my 34th platinum

With a time of 1hr 43 mins 15secs platinum achieved.

I grew up on Xbox chasing achievements and watching my Gamerscore climb. That number has always felt like more than stats. It is my history as a player.

I finally did something with that obsession.

I submitted an “Xbox Achievement Awards and Tiered Loyalty Program” concept to Xbox Player Voice, a player first awards and loyalty system built on achievements and Gamerscore.

The idea is:

• Real world trophies and plaques for big Gamerscore milestones

• Tier levels that reflect years of play

• Digital perks and recognition for players who have been here grinding for a long time

This is not about free rewards. It is about being seen, and about Xbox honoring the time and passion players have already invested into the ecosystem.

If you care about achievements and Gamerscore, I would really appreciate a read, a vote, or feedback:

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/383fec97-556b-f111-9b48-6045bd818e39

(Link can be buggy, but if you go on Xbox Player Voice and search “Xbox Achievement Awards and Tiered Loyalty Program” it should pop up.)

It finally done it was a good game it still had it bugs but still enjoyed but that one trophy was so annoying the one with the ships but did it this my 31st platinum

For someone who has never seen the movies, this makes me want to. The story is interesting, the gameplay is fun and the contention between the themes of man vs machine is captivating and reminiscent of other games, like Detroit Become Human.

My only critique, is that it was occasionally a little buggy in both the miscellaneous trophies and gameplay. For example, one trophy requires you to blow up a motorcycle rider while they’re riding. The rider blew themselves up and the trophy still popped. Another was the shoot an enemy in the crotch (yes that is the real trophy) and it only triggered the trophy after like the 25th crotch shot.

Outside of that, the platinum was a fun, thought provoking and gung-ho experience that was very enjoyable and fairly easy. I definitely recommend it for those who haven’t experienced it yet.

Extremely strange twin-stick shooter which parodies other games! Fun but can get boring.

This clip doesn't do it justice, more of a minigame inside it.

I think overall there were only two levels that genuinely got to me, other than that, I never really spent more than 20 minutes on a time trial. I would say Crash 1 is a little harder as a whole, especially with some levels being extremely longer than the longest Crash 2 level. Like it a lot, but I like Crash 1 just a bit more. 7.5/10