Monday, January 6, 2014

Here's the problem with Playstation trophies

The HD remaster of FF10 came out in Japan recently, and after taking a look at the trophy lists... well, I was kind of annoyed. The game is home to some of the most notoriously difficult and grating sidequests in gaming history, and completing them gives you BRONZE trophies. Worst of all is the "Heartstrings" trophy, which is awarded upon viewing the "Underwater Date" scene. Anyone who survives this deserves their friggin' platinum trophy.

Joking aside, remember that chocobo race in the Calm Lands where you need to get a time of zero seconds in order to get the sigil for Tidus' ultimate weapon? Bronze trophy. Dodging 200 lightning bolts in a row in the Thunder Plains? Bronze trophy. Getting all the ultimate weapons, which requires these two plus many, many more painful sidequests? Silver trophy. Now it makes sense that it should be at least one rank higher than the individual sidequests, but there's a very good reason why getting all the ultimate weapons gives you a silver trophy and not a gold one: look at the objectives you need to meet to get the gold ones! Getting all Al Bhed primers should NOT be gold, I'll concede that much, but look at the rest. Beating the game - easy enough, but I'll let it slide, because hey, it's beating the game. Beat Nemesis. Fill out the entire sphere grid with all characters. Beat Penance. I like to think that these should easily rank above getting all the ultimate weapons, as painful as the latter is.

Which leads to my point: three ranks (barring the platinum trophies you get for getting all the other trophies) are simply not enough. At least developers have more leeway with Xbox achievements and the scores they're worth. (Steam achievements have no rank, so there's no intelligence being insulted at any point.) But if trophy A is clearly easier than trophy B (or even, in this case, contained within it), and trophy B is easier than trophy C, then trophy A should be bronze regardless of how painful it is, then B would be silver and C gold. Which leads to freak occurences such as what we're seeing here. No way is the legendary lightning dodging sidequest equal to finding a single Al Bhed primer, recruiting Rikku in the party, clearing the Besaid Cloister of Trials, or watching this or that cutscene (well, this IS FF10, home to the Tidus laughing scene and the underwater making out session, so scratch that last one).

It goes without saying that had this been a brand new game, the difficulty of these trophies would've been harder to gauge, but this is a game that came out 12 years ago and had ample time to build a reputation as a completionist's worst nightmare. If you want to get it when it gets its international release... remember, it's okay if you can't even get all the bronze trophies. And you're probably not getting that platinum trophy either way (though I bet you some people will, despite the ridiculous time investment needed for that), so don't let it bug you.

20 comments:

  1. 1 thing I really hate is games like The Last of Us that have "Beat the game on Easy, Normal, Hard, Survivor, Easy+, Normal+, Hard+ and Survivor+" Sure beating Hard get's the Normal and Easy trophies but you need to unlock Survivor, the new game plus difficulties and Survivor+. Meaning a minimum of 4 playthroughs. While I did enjoy the game I don't think I could do 4 playthroughs to platinum it.

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  2. Hey slowflake, if you thought the moblin girl in wind waker was bad...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGAwWoyzrhI

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  3. I've never played FF10, so what's so bad about the Underwater Date scene and getting every single thing you listed?

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    1. Not sure what it refers to but if it's the scene where Tidus and Yuna kiss in the water, it's not worthy of a trophy because it's a mandatory scene 2/3 through the main story.

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    2. Just about all games award achievements for normal progress through the game, so it's nothing spectacular. If anything, it's kind of funny that of all the things they could've chosen, they went with THAT. Almost as if they were acknowledging how lunch-losingly atrocious it was.

      Anyway, if you've never played FF10 you probably wouldn't get anything I'm trying to say even with lengthy explanations, so I'm not even going to try. I will say this, however: getting the gold trophies aside from finding all the Al Bhed primers and beating the main story requires hours upon hours upon hours upon hours of grinding... even using a method that makes levels come in like water. Basically, imagine your typical RPG having a level cap many times as high as it is now, and even upon reaching that you barely stand a chance against the ultimate superboss (in this case Penance), unless, once again, you use a very specific strategy. And even doing THAT, the boss fight can take anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour. If there's anyone reading this that HAS beaten Penance, I'd like them to chime in and say how long it took from the start of the game.

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    3. I guess someone's going to mention the Yojimbo summon (who was enormously buffed in the International version, which the HD remake is based on), so I'm just going to beat them to the punch and say that if you have tons of money to sink into cranking up his happiness Pokémon-style, you can do that too. If you pay him enough (and choose the right option in a conversation when you first meet him), he can do an attack that will OHKO every last enemy in the game. Including that monstrosity with 12 million HP they call Penance.

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    4. Is 12 million an exaggeration? I wish I didn't have to ask that, but I watched a dorm mate doing 9999 hp of damage on enemies...

      I never played FF10, but I know about the laughing scene.

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    5. Yes, it is an exaggeration... in that it's an undershoot. The main body has 12 million, but it has two arms that have 500k each, and they keep regenerating. The guy who wrote the Penance FAQ on GameFAQs claims he took down both arms combined at least 80 times during the fight.

      And if you don't believe me when I say just the road to this guy is the longest thing ever, just read it for yourself. It's an 184 kb file. ALMOST 200000 CHARACTERS OF PLAIN TEXT JUST FOR ONE BOSS. Well, not really just one boss, he also details the run-up to it, but the whole thing is written with Penance in mind.

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    6. Oh, I almost forgot, you can deal up to 99999 damage with a Break Damage Limit weapon. You can either use the ultimate weapons for this, or just make your own. Neither process is easy, except for a few ultimate weapons such as Yuna's, which is relatively harmless to get.

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    7. I never played but have seen the International version. I got all the ultimate weapons and all summons but I never even bothered to grind to beat the monster arena or whatever it's called, some of which are on par with the dark aeons. Fuck...that. I barely have time/patience to grind a team in pokemon and at least then I get to see interesting results, but to play the same game with the same team (on a TV so you can't even multi task easily) for hundreds of hours on the same party of 3? I'll pass.

      FYI Google fucks up youtube yet again, now when looking at the subscribers you no longer see who uploaded what with text, it's all on a java pop up when you put the cursor over the thumbnail. You know, in case you were reconsidering your end-of-LPing for goodness knows why you'd come back to the present nonsense.

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    8. Yeah, I'd honestly say grinding money to max out Yojimbo's compatibility is a more effective way of beating these things. Not that I've ever done so, because you need a TON of money for that, but still.

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    9. Thing is, you don't really have anything to show for it. You put in 300+ hours grinding one way or the other (your way is most effective but the least satisfying and kind of defeats the purpose) just to tell a few nerds that you beat one bullshit hyperboss. The FF series got stupid with those since VII (I have never beaten a single one except Ozma from FFIX), and how about the one from FFXII Yiazmat who, while not as ridiculous, still takes at least 2 hours to beat when fully maximized, AND in all likelihood you're going to have to leave the area to heal at a safe point and restart where you left off. I mean, challenge is one thing, but an over-the-top grind fest just for a small chance of beating it IF you're LUCKY is bullshit. Just my two cents.

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    10. I can tell you from personal experience, the PS1 ones have NOTHING on the ones that came later. Beat all of 'em, no problem. Well, it took a lot of time for Ruby and Emerald Weapon, but otherwise... I haven't played anything past FF10, but even some of the crap the monster arena puts you through requires more time and monotony than anything that came before.

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  4. for reference i have a save that has 121 hours on. still haven't gotten 100%. still have to dodge lightning bolts, play a ton of blitzball, and finish up the monster arena. also tidus is the only character who has gone the whole sphere grid.

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    1. Do you happen to have a version (PAL or International) that has the Dark Aeons and Penance, out of curiosity?

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    2. unfortunately i don't. also i checked my old save for fun after having posted and my save has 192 hours not 121. my bad.

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  5. Reading all those comments gave me anger spasms again...
    In my 16+ years of life and gaming,NOTHING EVEN COMES CLOSE to being as difficult as the FF Superbosses,even after months of grinding.
    I just hope Square Enix doesn't put one in Bravely Default...

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    1. It's out everywhere but North America, and there are a bunch.

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