Thinking about GTAV's endings and how to improve them.

 

Hello everyone. Recently, I was re-watching GTAV's story on Youtube and was thinking about the endings. One thing I noticed is that many people choose C and C is widely considered the Canon Ending. Which is fair but I wonder why people didn't choose A or B as much. I feel the idea behind them are pretty good but the execution is lacking but almost there to being great.

Let's start with Ending A: Something Sensible: Kill Trevor.

The idea behind this ending is actually quite solid. Trevor has been such a loose canon and liability that he's jeopardizing the future of the squad here. Franklin and Micheal are using that as a justification to kill Trevor.

And the first 3/4 of GTAV's story does a really good job in showing how there's truth to that. For example, In the mission "Three's Company", he refuses to evacuate Micheal because he hasn't killed enough IAA agents to which Micheal shouts "I knew you were a liability You Turd!". In "Caida Libre", he kidnaps Patrcia because he felt he wasn't compensated fairly by Madrazo. This results in Micheal getting excited from Los Santos and the plan to rob the Union Depository getting put on hold until after Derailed. Even the whole Merriweather Heist. The whole point of that mission was to show how Trevor wasn't suited to be a leader.

But I have 2 issues with the way Ending A itself plays out. The first is that Franklin doesn't have any reason to kill Trevor (I will discuss this more later) and that Trevor was essentially on "good behaviour" for the past couple missions. I feel this dilutes the feeling of "Trevor's going to ruin this" that is justifying the mission.

I feel it would have been better if during the past couple of missions, Trevor continues to make mistakes. Like, let's say he deviates from the objectives and picks fights with the police or Merriweather or the Triads and isn't doing a good job at keeping a low profile. You can a go a step further and have him lose some of the money along the way (it wouldn't be the first time. See the Merriweather raid). So now, that's something Weston brings up to Franklin/The Player as a possible reason when it's time to make a choice. That if he doesn't kill Trevor, he could bring down more heat and lose the money. So even if the player likes Trevor and hates Weston, they may be tempted by the Money and end up rationalizing it the same way Franklin is doing it now. A rare time when both the player and characters are in synch in GTAV's story.

Now for Ending B: The Time's Come: Kill Micheal.

The intention behind this ending is to make Micheal's story come full circle. He starts the game by betraying his crew in Prologue so he could escape the criminal life and retire with his money and keep his loved ones safe. So the game here ends with Franklin betraying Micheal so he can escape the Criminal Life and retire with his money.

But the obvious problem here is that once again, Franklin doesn't have any reason to kill Micheal. And unlike Trevor, Micheal isn't as much of a liability and loss canon that you can rationalize killing him. Plus, the story spends a good amount of time showing how Micheal and Franklin end up caring for each other. An especially poignant moment is in the "Paleto Score Heist" where Micheal pushes Franklin into the train first for his safety despite Franklin not having the money on him. Showing how Micheal cares for Franklin here.

This would be a hard ending to improve and justify given the story so far. But if I had to make suggestions, I feel the story should have had it where Franklin's life gets significantly harder as a result of Micheal's situation with the FIB and he can't really take it anymore. This is something the game tries to sorta do. The line Frankin gives afterwards is "You wake up one day, and your legs... They just give, and you just can't run anymore" but I feel it's not enough.

Like, imagine if because Franklin is associated with Micheal, there are goons sent to his house just like the mission "Meltdown". Or imagine if there were attacks on Tanisha, Tonya, Lamar and Denise. Or that Franklin now needs to keep a low profile and can't enjoy much of the money he earns now because of the situation.

So in the ending choice, Ending B could be framed by Haines as "look, you're a smart kid. But I know working with De Santa has made your life much harder. You have to deal with constant attacks on you and your family. If you kill Micheal, We promise they'll stop. We'll even pay you [extremely large amount of money] if you do it. Plus, consider this. Micheal already betrayed his crew that considered him family once to save his own skin. What makes you think he won't do the same to you?".

I think this would be sufficient to make ending B feel more enticing.

Now for the fan favourite: Ending C: The Third Way: Deathwish.

The idea here is solid on paper. The squad put aside their differences and survive an onslaught designed to kill all of them from the combined forces of their enemies. Then, they split off and kill each other's antagonists as to not get the other suspected. Like, everyone knows Franklin has beef with Stretch. If Franklin were to go and ice him, everyone would likely go after him. But since Stretch's crew don't know who Micheal is and Micheal has no connection to Stretch, if Micheal kills them, then Franklin isn't a suspect and Micheal can disappear more easily after doing the deed.

My problem here is more the timing here. The way the mission happens makes it appear that the squad could have done this at any time. That they didn't need to wait until the end to do this and it wasn't that much of a stretch to do it.

This would be hard to improve as I feel it would involve tweaks to much of GTAV's story before this but if I had to make suggestions:

The first would be the premise of the main plot. Currently, GTAV doesn't really have a "main story progressing events" and the characters don't really have goals to push towards. They kinda just do whatever the next mission says.

So the first change would be that from after the mission "Fame or Shame", Micheal's goal is to rob the Union Depository. He tells Trevor and Lester not to go kill Weston and Haines just yet because with the heists they offer them at first, they can save some of the money to use for the eventual Union Depository Heist. This would explain why Trevor wouldn't go and immediately murder Haines or something since they need to play them for the Big One.

The second change would be during the mission itself, the squad use some of the tools and gear they collected along the way like the Juggernaut Suits or Getaway Car or Helicopter. This would better indicate that they are prepared now to stand against the Deathwish.

So yeah, these are my suggestions for improving GTAV's endings. What are y'all thoughts on these?

Robbery Bob 1 and 2: Really fun mobile puzzle/stealth games

Hello everyone. Today I want to quickly go over 2 stealth puzzle games on mobile I really liked and recently completed. Robbery Bob 1: Man of Steal and Robbery Bob 2: Double Trouble

 

 Let's start with the first game. RB1 is a top down stealth puzzle game where you play as the titular Bob. The story has Bob getting into trouble and needing to help out a figure by breaking into houses and stealing a particular item and then escaping. Bob's basic controls are that you can slowly sneak by moving the left virtual stick, run by holding a Run button while moving which makes sound which nearby NPCs can hear and is limited by Bob's stamina. You also have buttons for any contextual actions like boxes to hide in or items to use. One cool ability Bob has is a "fast forward" button which speeds up the game allowing you to speed up some tedious parts of stealth games like waiting for an enemy to pass which keeps the game flowing well.

And that's mostly it. Most of the challenges in levels comes from the creative way levels are laid out. Levels contain multiple rooms containing various traps, cameras, guards, dogs etc. and from additional challenges within levels. If the player is seen, an alarm is triggered where guards come swarming in and if they catch Bob, the level ends and you have to retry. Levels are generally quite short, clocking in around less than 2 minutes each making retries fairly quick and painless.

Levels themselves can be quite fun to crack using Bob's basic moveset as you look for the pattern between guards and cameras and sneak past. Each level has 3 optional objectives that award bonus stars upon completion. These are to complete a level without ever getting spotted, steal all x items in the level and complete the level under a specified time. Though, I found that was pretty easy to do in RB1. I occasionally had to some replay levels to get the "find all items" one but for the most part, it was kinda easy to get all 3 bonus stars in one run. Still, the levels themselves are quite varied and the difficulty curve does ramp up well.

The game also gets a lot of mileage out of its basic moveset. For example, if you run into a door, Bob slams it open which can attract guards from far away allowing you to lure away guards from their posts. Or if a pet dog sees Bob, they will instantly take a liking to Bob and slowly walk towards him which barking which can draw attention. Bob would need to close a door on the dog to break line of sight which can solve certain puzzles in levels such as getting pet Dogs to follow Bob and bark to attract guards away from their posts. Guard Dogs chase Bob on sight and will cause a mission fail if they catch him so the trick is to have them chase Bob until their leash is extended and then wrap around so their leash gets tied around furniture in a level so they get stuck. Some Levels can have teleporters and conveyors which you have to push a box onto and hide in as it moves past the visions of certain cameras and guards.

Bob doesn't have any normal ways of taking out enemies so the game encourages the player to try and ghost their way through levels which is a lot of fun. There are optional items in the game like a decoy mouse which can lure enemies away or a rotten doughnut that if an NPC sees, they will consume it and then immediately run for the nearest restroom. These can be bought with the money Bob earns from stealing items during levels or purchases via microtransactions. There's also a basic upgrade system that allows Bob to upgrade his reach, sneaking speed and stamina with coins that do help make later levels more manageable.

Being a free to play game, the game has implemented some monetization practices. For one, the game quite likes to bombard you with frequent ads. I mostly played this game when my phone had WiFi turned off as a result. The other is that you can buy items and costumes to help as stated earlier. But fortunately, I never found them to be necessary. There are some additional level packs you can buy if you want but I found the base game to be more than sufficient for me.

The story is quite charming and silly. Namely consisting of Bob being forced to break into and steal various items for other characters such as Divorce papers, an MMO disc in beta (good luck playing that mate), leggings etc. Some of the comedy comes from Bob misinterpreting what was asked of him. Such as Bob mistaking what he's supposed to steal for a wedding shower and stealing shampoo. The story not being too serious does allow it to be a nice bit of levity in between levels. Each set of levels is broken up into chapters consisting of a different character Bob needs to help for whatever reason. Each Chapter also consists of a motion comic with no dialogue establishing what's going on (with some nice art) with the levels themselves containing basic but still charming dialogue between the characters.

So yeah, that's Robbery Bob 1: Man of Steal. The game also has a free to play sequel on mobile called Robbery Bob 2: Double Trouble. Sadly, there aren't 2 Bobs like the title would suggest. It feels like "More Robbery Bob content". Which isn't a bad thing.

The first main change I found, and immediately disliked, were the controls. RB1 used a floating virtual stick which meant that no matter where your left thumb was, as long as it was somewhere to the left of the phone, you could control Bob's movement. But RB2 makes it such that the left stick is fixed to a specific point on the bottom left side of the screen. I found it rather hard at first to adjust since I would place my thumb a bit higher than where the controls were located and either Bob would not move or move up. I did eventually get used to it but I would have loved an option to switch to RB1's controls here.

Aside from that, RB2 is quite the step up in challenge and variety from the first game. The optional challenges that were quite easy to get in the first game are now much tighter in the sequel. Even getting the "complete under x seconds" one requires full on speedrun strats at times. I found myself often being happy just getting 1 or 2 stars and moving on.

Though, the game makes getting 3 stars more important now. Later missions now require a certain number of stars collected to be unlocked. As opposed to the prior game where just completing the level was enough. In addition, some levels you get 3 stars in unlock a "secret" version that you can replay with a modifier attached like "once you get the main treasure, Bob leaves footprints behind and makes loud noises", "Bob occasionally sneezes or falls asleep" or "Bob needs to collect puppies instead of treasure". These levels only judge you on time to complete. So there's a lot more content and challenge for the player this time around.

Levels are also more varied. Some levels have a new gimmick where Bob can mind control certain pet dogs using a machine and use them to draw attention and lure guards to certain rooms or buttons.

The game also changes how upgrades are handled. Instead of purchasing flat upgrades, you now collect suits/costumes that give an individual perk and upgrade that instead. Personally, I kinda dislike this change. It makes Bob feel weaker and less capable because you can only upgrade one of his traits at a time. Plus, given how expensive the other suits are and how much harder the levels are, it makes the experience a lot less fun.

 So yeah, that's the Robbery Bob games. They are also available on Steam and on Apple TV. I haven't played the Steam version but I have tried out the Apple TV version and found the text in that version to be scaled really small. As someone with rather poor eyesight, I wouldn't recommend that version.

 

Still, I'd recommend checking both games out. They are free and aren't too massive downloads. They are a really fun series of stealth puzzles. Just, make sure you have your WiFi switched off when you play them.

 

Next up for me is probably all of the Spider-Man games on Nintendo DS. See you then.

Horizon Forbidden West Platinum

 Hello Everyone. I recently got the platinum in Horizon Forbidden West and would like to talk about it.

Overall, it was easier than I expected to get the platinum. It was about par with the platinum in Horizon Zero Dawn. The biggest change I noticed was that there were fewer "collect 100% of a collectible" type trophies. Only some activities like Tallnecks, Rebel Camps, Hunting Grounds, Fight Pits and Cauldrons ask you to complete 100% of their specific activities. Many of the other collectibles only have a "collect just x of them".

So it is possible to get the platinum without having to do 100% of the game. Which I appreciate. Many open world game trophies often drag as they ask you to spend a long time looking for collectibles (I remember God of War 2018 in particular was really tedious towards the end). HFW seems to try and keep the 100% collectibles to activities that significantly reward the player like Tallnecks or Cauldrons, or have a story component like Rebel Camps. Granted, it still takes about as long as Horizon Zero Dawn's trophies though.

 In addition, there's only really one sorta missable trophy "All Machine Types Scanned - Encountered and Focus scanned every type of machine". (Horizon doesn't have the most the creative trophy names) Because of the 43 machines in the game, 2 of them, The Specter and Specter Prime, only appear in certain missions so if you forget to scan them, you miss out. But apparently, in one of the patches, they no longer count since they automatically scanned. I haven't tested this out as my final Machine left to scan was a simple Grazer, one of the first docile machines you encounter. I missed this one because they don't spawn outside the starting areas of the map and there's no quests tied to them. So a little embarrassing there. But at least the trophy doesn't require you scan or even kill every variant of a machine as some machines can have like 3-7 variants.

There are 4 rather annoying trophies to get: "All Acquisition Machines Killed, All Recon Machines Killed, All Combat Machines Killed and All Transport Machines Killed". That's because the game doesn't track which of machines from the categories you've killed. You'll have to cross reference between a machine's entry in the notebook and how many machines you've killed on the statistics page to cross reference.

As for the rest of the trophies, they aren't very notable. They're either "do this story quest", or "do this optional side questline", or "craft/upgrade x things y times". Which are ok. Personally, I think it would have been better if the game swapped out some of the less interesting trophies that you'd get anyway (like "reach level 20/30/40/50") for more gameplay related ones as way of pushing the player towards trying out different tactics and ideas. The game has stuff like "Used all Elemental States- Inflicted every elemental state on an enemy at least once" and "Unlocked 3 Weapon Techniques- Unlocked a Weapon Technique for 3 different weapon classes". I like these types of trophies because they encourage the player to try out stuff in the gameplay which they could use in regular play. If I could suggest some replacement trophies, I'd have one for "Shock a machine's battery pack so they explode" and "Use Purgewater to inflict a status on a machine that it's normally resistant against" and "Inflict maximum damage to an enemy in the Plasma State". Stuff like that as a way to teach players more tricks.

So yeah, if you want a pretty simple platinum, Horizon Forbidden West is a good pick.

As for the game itself, it's good. I feel it's about par with the first game. HFW does have a lot of improvements like the new weapons and enemy types, and more customization. But also feels more bloated in places which drags down the experience. 

Let's start with the story. I had a really odd sinusoidal time with the story. The opening was great and really hooked me. I loved the idea of Aloy being under pressure and trying to live up to Sobeck and her interactions with Varl. But then the story sorta puts that on hold to deal with Embassy stuff which feels a lot like filler. Even Aloy herself is bored and unhappy at having to do that. Then my excitement picked up with the introduction of the rebels and how they use machines as well as what Sylens is up to. But then it dropped that while Aloy seemed to forget about that and instead helps out the local tribes with their problems. Then it picked up with Far Zenith etc.

Compare this to HZD. In that game, I found the story a lot more consistently engaging from start to finish. I think part of that is due to the premise of HZD. You were learning more about the world, and Aloy and the mystery of what is going on is introduced quite early on and involves a lot of these threads. This meant any new revealtion or plot point carried more weight and felt more special. Plus the main story was a lot shorter than HFW so it had a greater concentration of interesting missions.

HFW starts off at a disadvantage because the mystery of the world and Aloy's character is already known. The blight doesn't feel new or threatening enough to be interesting. Sylens and his time with HADES is interesting but that gets resolved surprisingly quickly. The story does pick up considerably when Aloy first encounters Far Zenith. They present the story with the mystery and intrigue it had been lacking but it comes around 1/3 into the story and even then, doesn't really get going until much later.

 I think one issue Horizon's world faces is that much of the backstory and lore for what the old World was like was already revealed in the first game and HFW only continues it rather than twists it or shows new sides to it.  Compare this to Fallout Games. Since much of the pre-war world wasn't shown as much nor was the pre-war culture and entities so homogenous, it allows for stuff like Vaults and other areas which reveal new stories about pre-war stuff and if any later survivors interact with it. So reading scraps of documents in Fallout often feels more engaging than in HFW. Which is a shame. I think it would have been more interesting if there were more wacky elements of Horizon's 2060's played more of a role in its present. HFW does have some things like the Embers and how it intersects with 2060's Las Vegas that I wish were more present. Like, how about some tribes take notes from the fictional Superheroes and movies of the time and use their theme song as their own? Horizon's world already has groups like Tenakth, Quen and Nora whose names and beliefs are based on misinterpretations of some past entity like Joint Force 10 and Norad but those tend to only be localized to the main quests rather than side stuff.

 

 Anyway, back to the main story.  Once Aloy encounters Far Zenith for the first time, things are a lot more engaging as they provide a more tangible threat as well as introduce more stakes and intrigue. They also make the interactions with the other side characters in the game more interesting. It's great talking to characters like Erend, Kotallo or Alva and getting their takes on the situation. These side characters also have their own optional questlines which are great and really expand on the cast and even Aloy at times in engaging ways.

 

The way the story juggles and frames many of its threads is handled quite odd though. For example, Regalla and her army are a persistent part in the first half of the story. But are then completely forgotten about until near the end of the game where Aloy decides to make her own plan to save the Tenakth and end the Civil War where that thread is resolved surprisingly fast. Or how Far Zenith feel really important in the latter half but get demoted in the final mission in favour of Tilda and later Nemiesis. It feels quite sudden. Like, it's not bad. I was certainly invested and enjoyed it but it didn't land as well as it could.

I am also mixed on the cliffhanger ending. Generally, I am not fond of cliffhangers in games because games have certain requirements that cliffhangers could hamstring. For one, games take years to develop so any continuation or resolution is a long time away. Even assuming the sequel does get made. The nature of game development is also quite flexible which means ideas that seemed good before may not work as well. A cliffhanger now means a sequel has to address what was set in the past. In addition, there's gameplay to consider. A cliffhanger dicates what the next game's opening would be like which may make it harder to make an interesting tutorial and build on the story at the same time.

But in HFW's case, there are some smart things done to help alleviate some of the issues. For one, nothing specific about Nemesis is known. The story doesn't say much about how exactly Nemesis works or what it looks like or how it plans to destroy Earth. Only basically, what it is in a broad sense, Nemesis is and its broad goals. This gives Horizon 3 a lot more wiggle room in how they want to address this premise without locking them into something specific.

 

But one challenge with the way Horizon handles its continuity is that even with recaps, I imagine it may be confusing for new players going forward. Horizon Forbidden West has quite a few main and side quests that rely on players being familiar with events of main and side quests from the last game. For example, the game makes the big revelation that Nil is the mysterious Red Rider if you complete all the gauntlet runs. I remember being confused for a sec on who Nil was until I remembered "oh yeah, this was the guy Aloy worked with to complete bandit camps with in the last game. And that I chose to kill". And given how many side characters and quests Aloy completes across the 2 games, if Horizon 3 continues this approach, I wonder if even people who've played the games may start having a hard time remembering what's happening?

As for the gameplay, it's good. It's mostly more of the same from HZD but there are a few complaints I have which I feel weaken the positives the game has.

For one, the game feels quite bloated in its design. Like, in HZD, once you completed a cauldron, you got the overrides and could use them right there and then. But HFW requires you go and kill machines to get specific parts so you can actually use the overrides you got from cauldrons. Which makes cauldrons feel less special. In fact, a lot of HFW involves a lot of crafting and looting to upgrade weapons and armour which I feel kills the pace and makes rewards a lot less interesting. Completing a quest and recieving a cool Hunter bow loses some of its appeal if it's worse than the upgraded Hunter bow I already have. I could spend the resources to upgrade said bow to make it better but I feel that kills the pace. Plus, I don't know if the Hunter Bow is better or more useful until I upgrade it and I may find something even better later which discourages really experimenting or trying out different weapons.

To compare it to other games, in Borderlands, loot is technically disposable. As you level up and progress through the game, you naturally gain higher level loot that replaces your older loot which can help the game feel fresh as you may alternate what kind of weapons you use as you play. In Assassin's Creed Odyessy, it's a somewhat similar system, but if you really like a particular peace of gear, you can pay a something expensive fee to bring that piece of gear up to your current level. In Call of Duty Multiplayer, you can customize certain weapons with attatchments which can change how a weapon operates. All of these games make it more fun to go around and find new gear.

I feel Horizon Forbidden West's arsenal would be more fun if instead of upgrading individual weapons and armour, the focus instead is placed on mods and coils. The game already has coils but they seem quite minor. This way, it feels more fun to instantly try out different weapons since mods are easily transferable between gear and you don't need to upgrade a weapon for it to be viable.

Another issue I have is towards navigation and interacting with the world. HFW has a climbing system similar to that of Assassin's Creed where Aloy can easily climb sheer rock faces and buildings with no issue. But unlike AC, HFW is quite arbitary with where Aloy can climb. There are plenty of cliffs and buildings that Aloy cannot climb that look exactly like cliffs and buildings that Aloy can climb. It can feel quite annoying and really break the flow to be climbing a mountain and have to stop because the yellow handholds don't extend any more for no reason. It's worse inside buildings, cauldrons and ruins since many of them turn off Aloy's ability to climb basic walls and railings that Aloy can normally climb right outside for the sake of the puzzle. In addition, many of the solutions to these puzzles are quite obtuse because instead of being able to use Aloy's default abilities to solve them, you need to figure out what obtuse set of actions are required. I remember looking up a few guides on Youtube when I got stuck and a lot of the comments on them echoed how unusual and obtuse the solutions were. For example, one of the ruins in Las Vegas requires you to move a crate across an area after you flood the area. The offical solution appears to be to lower the water again so you can push the crate in position. But the player can use the grapple hook the move the crate over water. Except in this location, the railings seem to block the grapple hook. I found a way to get Aloy to stand in a particular spot to the side to be able to pull the crate but it seemed that wasn't the intended solution despite being a mechanic in other parts of the game. 

Another example was in one of the ruins, you have to stack 2 crates to be able to reach a ledge. Except yo can sequence break it by performing a wall eject. But a similar puzzle later on seemigly disables Aloy's ability to do ejects at all.

I find this design really annoying and it pulls me out of the moment. Why have such cool mechanics like wall jumping and such interesting locations if the level seems designed to disallow such moves? I feel it would be more fun to have multiple ways of solving puzzles using different mechanics.

Speaking of which, the game has 4 kinds of new tools you can use to access more parts of the world. In a bit of Metroidvania-esque design, there are many locations you can't fully explore until you get tools later on in the game. These tools are an explosive to blow up red Firegleam Walls which can open holes in certain walls, special software to cause green Metal Flower Vine's to disappear, and a grappling hook for being able to pull on certain blue objects. These sound cool except they don't really change how you interact with objects. You see a wall with Firegleam? You blow it up. You see Metal Vines? You turn them off. They often feel more like how HMs in Pokemon games work.  The Grapple hook is a little more interesting as you can pull certain objects a certain amount so there's more thought required. But many times, you see a blue object, you grapple it and pull it.

I feel it would be more interesting if these tools had more interesting applications. For example, you could activate Metal Flowers as well so they could grow vines in certain directions. So puzzles could involve arranging certain patterns of vines to either walk/climb on. Or you could use the Grapple Hook to swing across points. Maybe combine the different tools together. I feel that would be more interesting than just "use tool".

The strongest aspect of the game is, just like its predecessor, combat. Fighting large machines using the assortment of weapons is still really fun. HFW makes a lot of effort to expand and improve these parts by giving Aloy more weapons, an entire new melee system with combos and special moves, new enemy types, and new skills and abilities. It's a blast. But much of the stuff around the game still feels like it's a generation old. The stealth is quite basic so Rebel Camps feel less advanced and dynamic than Far Cry 3 in 2012. The climbing feels less intuitive and fun that Uncharted 1 in 2007.

In conclusion, Horizon Forbidden West is a good time thanks to its combat and interesting story, and is an easy platinum to get. But the rather dull navigation and exploration bring it down.

Next up for me is God of War 2. See you then

God of War 2 Platinum

 Hello everyone I recently platinummed the 2007 game God of War 2

The platinum itself wasn't too hard to get. Most trophies were straightforward with some individual challenges being rather tricky. My plan was to beat the game normally. Then complete the "Challenge of Titans". Then use NG+ to mop up anything I missed. Though, it is possible to skip most of the NG+ playthrough as you can complete the required trophies during the first playthrough.

I only missed the "You Know the Germans Make Good Stuff...- Collect all Uber Chests" trophy on my first playthrough despite it not being that hard because I missed the Health chest because I forgot where it was. I assumed it was further ahead than it actually was from my memory from the PS2 version I played as a kid. When I got the Magic Uber chest, I suddenly realized my mistake. Oh well, at least speedrunning NG+ with the "Cod of War" only required around 3 hours to get back to where it actually was.

The one trophy that requires you to go out of your way to grind a collectible is "Eye Sore - Collect 20 Cyclops Eyes". There are only like 5 cyclops berserkers in the entire story mode. Fortunately, once you complete the story mode, you unlock the "Challenge of the Titans". A series of 7 rather difficult challenges. The first challenge requires you to remove the eye from a Cyclops which can you can repeat though I found it didn't increase my count for some reason. But once you complete all 7 challenges (and get the "Bleeding Thumbs" trophy in the process), you unlock the "Arena of the Fates". A mode that allows you to spawn whatever enemies you want and set their AI as well as whatever buffs you want. I used this to spawn endless Cyclops berserkers and get the remaining 16 eyes I had left.

The Challenge of the Titans is a really cool addition. In addition to being a way to farm for specific trophies if you haven't gotten them yet like "Stoner- Stone and Shatter 30 Enemies", they provide some really cool and fun challenges that twist many of the rules. Stuff like "collect 500 orbs before time runs out" or "Defend the Translator" are quite fun. Plus, unlike GOW1, you don't need to beat this in one sitting to get the trophy. My one criticism is that it seems harder on VITA than it does on PS3. I noticed that in Challenge 2: "kill 10 enemies in the air", PS3 videos were able to get multiple hits in with the L1+square attack in the air. While in the VITA version, the technique resulted in fewer hits. Perhaps because the PS3 version is running at a higher framerate, your attacks which deal damage on every frame get more chances to deal damage?

There is one glitched trophy. "Boss Batch 3- Kill the Kraken and all three Sisters of Fate". Now, GOW2 has 3 of these Boss Batch trophies for killing a certain set of bosses. I assumed that the trophy essentially just pops for killing the latest boss of the batch since GOW2 is a linear game. It's not like you can do the bosses out of order. But apparently, for Boss Batch 3, if you save and quit at any point between the Kraken and the final sister of fate, the trophy might not pop. So you have to defeat these 3 bosses in one sitting. Which I found took a long time. Good thing the VITA can enter rest mode at least but it's weird the trophy seems to actually check if you've defeated all 3 bosses. My guess is that there's a flag in the game's code for when you defeat one of these bosses and once it hits a certain number (i.e when you defeat all the bosses), the trophy pops. But turning off the game resets that flag back to the default?

 

Also, one of the Bronze Trophies is  "Swinger - Cross the collapsing Grapple Bridge". I hated that section. I died 40 times on it. That trophy should be Gold 

 

As for the game itself, I really love it. GOW2, in terms of combat and general gameplay, is a huge improvement over GOW1. The new L1 + Square, O and Triangle moves give you a lot to work with. Later Enemies are pretty nimble so you can't "Square, Square Triangle" your way through the game as much as you progress through the game so all your other options are more useful. All 3 sub weapons fulfill different niches and are fun to use (though, having to go the menu to swap them out does kill the flow. I recall reading that was because of hardware limitations because the PS2 couldn't load the assets for all the weapons simultaneously and the menu trick was a way of buying the PS2 enough time to load and de-load the assets). The different magic abilities are much more refined. For example, Typhon's Bane is a lot more useful than Zeus' lightning from GOW1 because you can move while aiming and have more kinds of attacks like rapid fire blasts and mini hurricanes. Cronus Rage allows you to spawn lightning orbs, making it a more active version of Poseidon's Rage from GOW1. The game also speeds up the animations for moving around crates and makes movement and platforming a lot smoother so it's a lot of fun to play through. I also really like how the game handles its NG+ with how it allows you to use bonus costumes and urns (special gameplay modfiers) that allow you to entirely break the game if you want. Really gives you a lot of variety.

I do wish the game had more animations for the QTEs as they do get repetitive after a while as there's only one per enemy.

I also love how GOW2 leans into Greek mythology with many of the characters you meet. Such as Theseus and how he's overconfident after his successes and has respect for Kratos. Or how Perseus is now much more villainous and desperate since he couldn't save Andromeda since he couldn't kill Medusa because Kratos killed her first in GOW1. In fact, many of the side characters and bosses in GOW2 have a lot more personality and are more memorable than bosses and side characters in GOW1 despite them having so little screentime. GOW2 really makes the most out of its interactions.

My one gripe with the gameplay is its pacing. Or rather, how it approaches puzzles. I remember as a kid always getting stuck on GOW2 more than any other GOW game because of how many puzzles the game has. I remember getting stuck in the bog of the forgotten as a kid for a few years because I never realized you could put the body into the stream and have it navigate around the area. Not having internet access at the time really made stuff like that annoying but I would just play the game until I got to that area, try for an hour to solve the problem and then restart the game from the start and play through until I got to the Bog again and repeat the cycle. I think I once accidentally dropped the body into the water and was so surprised that I could actually progress. Only to be stuck again on the statue after Perseus, I never found the statue you'd use to block the light for another few years. Once I did, I never realized you could put Perseus' shield on it.

Fortunately, as an adult and on this most recent playthrough, speedruns were kind enough to show me that you could do that. Though, I did get stumped on the Phoenix Puzzle were quite a while because I missed there were ice shards on the ceiling and on the 3rd sister because I missed where one of the blades were.

I fully embrace the possibility that I just missed the hints (probably didn't help that the smaller VITA screen probably made it harder to see the detail of the environments) so I won't complain the game was unfair. But even so, I do feel like the abundance of puzzles like this do make the experience drag a bit more than usual, especially if you happened to get stuck at any point. I don't recall any of the other classic GOW games being like that and being much more fun and fast paced.

 

A minor thing, but I dislike how GOW2 (and GOW3) remove the player's red orbs after the opening. I get the purpose of it. It's to give the player a taste of how strong they will be early on. But I feel resetting the player's red orbs to 0 sorta discourages playing the cool opening. I remember whenever I play GOW2 or 3 now, I rush through the cool opening since my performance doesn't matter until after the opening level. I feel it would be better if the player's health, magic and upgrades are all reset but the number of red orbs obtained during the opening remained the same.

As for the story of the game, I'm mixed on it. On the one hand, I like the moral ambiguity and set up it has for Kratos and Zeus' conflict. Like, the story of Kratos is designed such that in GOW1, he's this kinda sociopathic antihero but you end up sympathizing with him because you see how he's motivated by his guilt and self loathing. That all he wants is for the pain to end. And in GOW3 he's become the villain and monster he was always angry at. His personal vendetta against the Gods and how they hurt humans has become a more destructive version of what the Olympians have done. GOW2 acts as that transitional step between sorta sympathetic antihero GOW1 Kratos and full on monster GOW3 Kratos. GOW2 is cleverly set up so you root for Kratos to succeed but has plenty of hints to make you start to see that things aren't so black and white. For one, there's the obvious stuff that Zeus kills Kratos and later all Spartans. We also see how the Gods tortured Prometheus. This gives the audience plenty of reason to root for Kratos and root against the Gods. But at the same time, the game points out how Zeus kinda has a point and that Kratos isn't all innocent. Kratos did disobey the protocols of the Gods to destroy cities for his fellow Spartans which increase tensions on Olympus. Like, Kratos is doing the exact things that made Athena justify killing Ares back in GOW1. From Zeus' perspective, Athena skirted Olympian protocol to make this God killer a full on God. This God Killer shows no respect for the other Olympians, if not outright hates them, and destroys Greek cities. And Zeus knows that Kratos is his son and could attempt to kill him. Like, Kratos has the means and motive to want to kill Zeus and thus destroy Olympus and is inching closer to realizing that. It makes sense for Zeus to want to take some action (albeit extreme).

But at the same time, the game shows us how the Gods aren't entirely at fault. Kratos for example, disregards the well being of his fellow Spartans just to pursue his vengeance against Zeus which does result in nobody being there for Sparta. Kratos here has been both the mortal ignored by the Gods, and the God ignoring the Mortals for his revenge. We also see how Kratos brutalizes people like Perseus and Icarus who also have genuine reason for seeking the Sisters of Fate. This shows how even if Kratos were to succeed, it wouldn't mean things would get better for people. Plus, we see how the Titans are manipulating Kratos to keep going just for their sake. Like, During the times when Kratos was cool with dying and being done with his quest, Gaia tells him to keep going because "only cowards accept death" and "Zeus will torture your soul forever in the underworld. You will never know peace".

All this is kinda why I dislike that in GOW3, it's revealed that the Evils of Pandora's box are what infected the Gods. I prefer it without that since it better communities this moral ambiguity.

But as much as I like all this going on in GOW2's story, I can't help but feel it is a lot less consistently engaging compared to GOW1. In GOW1, Kratos' progression through Athens and his flashbacks peppered through the game allowed the story and character to develop throughout the game. In GOW2, Kratos himself doesn't really change or grow. He does arguably become more brutal and sociopathic in subtle ways but much of his interactions with other characters feel more disconnected. Like, it feels that you could rearrange in which order Kratos encounters characters and which challenges he does in GOW2 and little would change. Wheras, that was less apparent in GOW1.

Plus, much of the game is getting to the Sisters of Fate, but the story spends more time building up to fighting Zeus and treats the Sisters are more of a Stepping Stone which makes progression feel a bit unsatisfying at times. Wheras in GOW1, the game builds to getting to Ares, and before that, Pandora's Temple and how that would lead to Ares.

Still, I enjoy the individual interactions in GOW2's story but the overall story of GOW1.

Also, even though I really love the cool time travel scenarios in GOW2, I have to do some small nitpicks and point out the time travel is a bit inconsistent.

For starters, when Kratos is fighting the second sister of Fate, she takes him to the events of GOW1 just before past Kratos grabs the giant statue's sword to be able to fight Ares. Her plan is to destroy the sword so past Kratos couldn't use it to kill Ares so that means present Kratos wouldn't be here. So the time travel seems to work on Back to the Future rules since Present Kratos has to stop her from destroying the sword to keep himself alive.

But later on when Present Kratos time travels to before Zeus kills past Kratos, he tackles Zeus and takes the Blade of Olympus before Zeus can deliver the killing blow to both his timeline's Kratos and Spartans. But shouldn't this create a paradox? If Past Kratos doesn't die here and get motivated to go reach the Sisters of Fate, then present Kratos can't be here because his Past Self didn't take the same steps he did. So now the Time Travel seems to switch to Avengers Endgame Rules where you can interact with the past without it affecting the time traveller. Especially later on when Present Kratos Time Travels further back into the past to bring the Titans to "his time" (or rather the timeline he was in earlier). Which should affect the events of GOW1, Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta and 2.

So does that mean there's now a timeline where Kratos dissapears after using the Loom so the Zeus and co of that time are disposed of him, and a timeline where there are no Titans after the Great War, in addition to the timeline where there's 2 Kratos and an injured Zeus that the Titans make their attack on?

Hey, that could be an interesting point for the next GOW game. Imagine Kratos and Boy ending up in Kratos' original timeline where the Greek Gods are still alive and thought Kratos was dead the whole time.

So in conclusion, GOW2 was a really fun time and I enjoyed my time with it and getting the platinum. Next up for me on the VITA is probably Sly 4: Thieves in Time. See you then. On the PS4/5 end, I've been trying out this cool indie game called Elden Ring. It's pretty fun.

Welcome Park Review

 Hello Everyone. I recently 100%ed the game Welcome Park and would like to talk about the game,

The best way to describe Welcome Park is that it is to the PS VITA what Astro's Playroom was to the PS5. A short game included with the system to introduce you to its features. Though unlike Astro, Welcome Park is just a collection of gimmick minigames/tutorials. No Easter Eggs or anything like that. The game doesn't even use any of the buttons of the VITA except the start button to pause the minigame. So it's all touch, motion and camera control.

The minigames themselves were quite fun to play and 100%ing them was both quick and enjoyable (too bad the game doesn't give you a platinum for 100%. Only a Gold Trophy 😤) . The game also has a really nice and beautiful aesthetic that feels like a "kiddy version of Apple". It was honestly quite relaxing at times.

So the game has 5 sets of minigames: Digit Chase, Snap + Slide Puzzle, Skate Axis, Sound Loop and Hello Face. Let's start with Digit Chase

Digit Chase is subdivided into 3 sub minigames you have to play in order though you can restart an individual minigame without it affecting your progress in the others so you don't have to get a good time 3 times in a row. There's a trophy for each of the individual sub minigames where you have to get a good time on each of them but also one where you have to get a cumulative time of less than 1 minute on all 3 of them together.

One of the 3 sub minigames is Tap Stage. Here you have to tap on number tiles ranging from 1-5 appearing on the screen in the correct order. However, some tiles have specific properties. Some titles (indicated by having 2 circles) require you to tap them twice. Some tiles have 2 copies on the screen so you have to press them both at the same time. So if there's one 1 tile, two 2 tiles and a double bound 3 tile, you'd tap the single 1 tile once, tap the two 2 tiles at the same time and double tap the double bound 3 tile.

This one was quite fun. The "order" of the tiles is the same but the position changes every run which means you can only memorize part of the process. You get a trophy for completing this under 30 seconds, but for the Digit Chase cumulative time trophy, I recommend getting at least under 26 seconds for this one. My best time was around 25.031 seconds. I recommend setting the Vita down on a table and using both hands for this.

The second sub minigame is "Flick and Drag". Here you have to spin a carousel of pages containing numbers from 1 to 10 in random order and flick them in the correct order. Each number has a different colour. This one can take some time at first because the position of the numbers is random and spinning the carousel is inconsistent. But it's still fun. The game helps a bit by having the next page curl whenever you flick the previous one. So instead of needing to spin through and find the next number or memorize the pattern, you can just look to see which paper curls in the background. You get a trophy for completing this under 20 seconds, but for the Digit Chase cumulative time trophy, I recommend getting at least under 16 seconds for this one. My best time was around 14 seconds.

 

The 3rd sub minigame is "Rear Touch Panel". Here, Your aim is to shoot a ball either on the left or the right side of the screen through numbers 1-5. You have to touch the left or right side of the touch pad to launch the ball. I like the idea of this minigame but it's too easy to cheese by just alternating left and right since many of the puzzles only ask you do that. I suppose just doing Tap Stage again but with the Rear Touch Pad might be too imprecise. How about there's a pizza and you have to slice it by swiping on the Rear Touch Pad and the game tells you which direction to swipe? I feel that might be a more interesting minigame.

Anyway, You get a trophy for completing this under 20 seconds, but for the Digit Chase cumulative time trophy, I recommend getting at least under 18 seconds for this one. My best time was around 17 seconds.

 

But yeah, these sub minigames aren't too bad (minus the Rear Touch Pad one). I could see myself maybe returning to the first 2 at some point in the future for a nostalgic trip. But then again, I could find mobile games like Piano Tap which scratch the same itch but have more content and songs to try out.

The next minigame is "Snap and Slide". The way this works is that you use the VITA's 0.3 megapixel camera to take a photo. The minigame then turns that photo into a sliding block puzzle. You then have to solve the puzzle. You can choose between a 7, 8, 14 and 15 block version of the puzzle. And each of these have a trophy for completing the puzzle in under 20, 30, 40 and 50 seconds respectively.

I am terrible at sliding block puzzles. So my trick was to take a picture of a 4x4 grid of numbered squares I drew to help me out a bit. One catch I noticed was that unlike other Sliding Puzzle games, after a couple seconds, the game lets you rotate an entire row or column. Allowing you to solve even impossible arrangements and save time on possible ones. It took me around 45 minutes to solve each set of puzzles under their allotted times. I eventually reached a point where I would reset the puzzle until I got starting boards where the 1, 2, 3 and 4 squares were close enough to be lined up so I'd only have to solve the remaining ones.

This is a fun minigame and I do enjoy this. But the VITA's camera is a bit too low resolution so actual pictures are made harder by default.

The next minigame is Skate Axis. Here you control a skateboarder. You move him left or right by tilting the VITA and you make him jump by quickly rotating the VITA. You earn points by dodging bouncing balls and collecting stars. There's a trophy for getting 500 points. You earn 10 points by dodging under a ball, 50 points for jumping over a ball, and 10 and 20 points for collecting bronze and silver stars.

I know many people dread such motion based minigames but this one was actually quite decent. I found I had great contol when tilting. I never missed or accidentally did a jump when I didn't intend to. I found it quite easy to get to 500 points. I honestly wouldn't mind an expanded version of this. This was quite fun. I guess all that time I spent using Gyro Controls on Switch really helped me out here.

The next minigame is "Sound Loop". And this isn't really a game. Here, you record segments of audio using the VITA's mic and they show up as these coloured balls orbiting around. You start a recording by holding down on the touch screen. You can tap icons to vary the pitch and tap the rear touch pad to add effects and music. To be honest, I didn't spend much time on this so I can't review how easy it is to create sick beats using your VITA. There's a trophy for recording 20 balls worth of audio.

The final minigame is "Hello Face". And this isn't really a minigame either. Here, you once again use the camera but you have to take pictures of things that resemble faces. These photos then come to life and emote which is quite cute. So basically it's a tool for Pareidolia. There's a trophy for bringing 3 faces to life. I took a photo of my electrical socket 3 times since it looks like a face.

So yeah, that's Welcome Park. Overall, it's not a bad way to introduce the VITA. The minigames are short and don't overstay their welcome. The aesthetic is quite relaxing. It uses the features of the VITA well. I'd say I wouldn't mind a WarioWare style game on the VITA but I've already played Frobisher Says which is that style of game and it was fun and free so it's not like there weren't minigames for the VITA to show off its features. I do wish there was platinum for 100%ing it though

But as I played this nostalgic game I first tried out in 2012, I felt oddly melancholic. Welcome Park was supposed to introduce people to this brand new futuristic system with all these bells and whistles. But the VITA is long since dead and been abandoned by Sony. It feels like playing a multiplayer game nobody plays anymore. All these mechanics and potential, never to be seen again. Even Welcome Park itself is no longer novel. All of its minigames can be replicated on my iPhone. Future handhelds like Switch dropped most additional features in favour of a more traditional control scheme.

Though sadly, I feel no matter what Sony did, it would have been an uphill battle for the VITA. Like yes, Sony didn't help themselves with the memory cards but even if Sony made the VITA use microSD cards and lower the price by removing the touch pad and camera, the VITA likely still would have struggled. The VITA's biggest issue were the economics behind developing for it. It is expensive making AAA level games back in 2012. The 3DS got away with weaker specs since that meant it didn't the best graphics to succeed so developers could afford to make cheaper games for that which had a better return on investment. The VITA's biggest selling point was being able to play console quality games on the go, but it was too weak to run most PS3/PS4 games well but making games for the level the VITA could run was too expensive and risky given the few sales and limit the scope of the game even if it was released on PS3/PS4 as well. That meant there wasn't many games for the system which started killing it. Of course, Indie games and Sony's Cross Buy system was arguably the thing the VITA needed but that happened years too late.

 

 Still, At least Welcome Park was a fun time.

Pokemon: Kanto Black

Hello everyone. I recently played the Pokemon Kanto Black Rom Hack and would like to give my quick thoughts on it.

 

Pokemon Kanto Black is a rom hack of Pokemon FireRed. The main feature of this rom hack is that it's Kanto from FireRed but all of the Gen 1 Pokemon have been replaced with Gen 5 mons instead. Plus some Gen 6 mons in addition to a lot of quality of life and other interesting features.

So this novelty of Gen 5 and 6 pokemon in Kanto does shake up the experience significantly as there are both new ways to tackle some challenges and also new challenges to face. For example, the first gym leader, Brock, is now easily doable with any of the 3 starters since the fire starter: Tepig, evolves into a fire/fighting mon. It also goes the other way as many enemy trainers have much more powerful teams and combinations that take advantage of both Gen 5/6 mechanics and Pokemon. For example, Giovanni has a strudy Petaya Berry Bisharp with Sucker Punch, Swords Dance and Iron Head which can really catch you by surprise. It was able to one shot my overlevelled Dragon Dance Tyrantrum easily which I thought would destroy his entire team. As a result, it was really fun teambuilding and deciding which new strats and Pokemon to use for what I assumed to be familiar challenges only to have some pretty surprising responses from enemy trainers. 

In addition, the hack makes quite an effort to try and integrate these new Pokemon in ways that feel natural to the story and setting. For example, instead of Snorlax sleeping and blocking off routes, it's Musharna. Instead of Mewtwo being the Pokemon created by science, it's Genesect. Instead of Diglett Cave, you have Drillbur cave. And these add so much so the world that at it almost feels like it was made for these Pokemon initially. There are also other changes like Blaine being a Normal Type Gym Leader, Loreili specializing in Water rather than Ice, Agatha specializing in Fire etc. There is one case where I was expecting things to be changed but weren't. In FireRed, we learn that in Saffron City, there was originally a fighting type Gym. When Sabrina came, she opened her Psychic Gym. As the town was supposed to have only 1 gym, the 2 gyms fought to see who'd get to be the official Gym. And obviously Kanto Psychic types beat the Fighting Types. There's no Dark types or even good Dark moves they could have used so they never stood a chance. But in Kanto Black, there are Pokemon like Scrafty and Pangoro which are Dark/Fighting types which are immune to Psychic type moves. They also have moves like Crunch and Sucker Punch as well as competitve items. I'm surprised this wasn't brought up in Kanto Black with a "well actually, the Fighting Type Gym beat the Psychic gym because Sabrina thought her team of fast but frail Psychic types would easily win but lost to the Fighting Type Gym that had ways of countering that". Seems like a missed opportunity there.

In addition, there's quite a few more changes from base FireRed. You have the usual expected features from Rom hacks like reusable TMs, the physical/special split, the fairy type and its moves. But you also have some other cool stuff. For one, the Sevii Islands, the postgame content for the original FireRed, is now mostly accessible once you beat the 4th gym in Kanto Black. And these islands contain a lot of Gen 6 Pokemon you can't obtain in Kanto (which mostly houses Gen 5 mons) as well as allowing access to a good chunk of postgame story you can do right there. You have lots of items from later gens present like the Choice Scarf and Specs, Weakness Policy and Life Orb. And also items like Seeds which can help increase a Pokemon's IVs by a couple points. You have an entirely new island housing a Battle Facility for Rental Battles and 3v3 Battles in a Battle Tower which award both BP and Money. I love this aspect because it means instead of going out and having to do stuff like farm for heart scales/shards/berries or breed the perfect Pokemon, I can just do Rental Pokemon Battles to build up the currencies to do that faster in a more fun way.

This island also contains a new Trick House with what seems to be entirely new puzzles I've never seen before in a Pokemon game. And they can get quite intense, mixing ideas and requiring a fair amount of thought (some of the later ones do drag though).

In addition, the other battle facility, Rush Tower, has been updated with battles against gym leaders. There's an island that gives you random eggs for rare Pokemon allowing for more variety.

Like, all these alone made it a very fun Rom Hack to play through and strategize through. I'd love to one day even come back and try a nuzelocke of this game in the future once it's out of beta and polished up more. I recommend it that much.

But I do have some significant criticisms. As this game is in beta, I hope they can be addressed at some point.

Firstly, the game is quite buggy in places. Moves like Moonblast softlock the game which can make it difficult to progress. For example, there's a Team Rocket Admin who uses a sturdy Carbink with moonblast. This Pokemon always uses Moonblast for whatever reason. Even against my Excadrill who resists the move. And since it has sturdy, it cannot be knocked out in 1 hit meaning it can always get off a moonblast and soft lock the game. I ended up getting through it by switching to my Greninja and using save states to spam Dark Pulse until I got a run where it flinched several times in a row so I could then finish it off with a torrent boosted surf. As a result, I often ended up really getting afraid whenever I ran into a fairy type. Other stuff like the new postgame Battle facility doesn't seem to have the Boss Trainers spawn.

Secondly, the EXP share works like it did in Gen 5 rather than Gen 6 and onwards. Meaning you cannot level up your entire team per battle. I played the game on Challenge Mode which meant I only had 1-3 Pokemon at a reasonable level at a time while the others really lagged behind even wild Pokemon. Had to spend a fair bit of time grinding as a result. There are also doesn't seem to be Gen 5's "proportional EXP system" to help level up faster. Which does kill the pacing at times. I often found myself replacing team members by finding stronger versions in the wild. In one case, I swapped my level 13 Adamant Drillbur for a level 30 modest one just because I didn't want to grind.

Thirdly, the game doesn't seem to have unlimited item storage, either on your bag or in the PC. This wasn't that much of an issue in base FireRed because there weren't that many interesting items. But since Kanto Black has a lot of competitive items and medicines from later games present, I found my PC Item storage filling up quite fast. I had to resort to placing many of my individual items as Held Items onto Pokemon in storage. Other Rom Hacks don't have this issue and have implemented larger bag sizes or at the very least, a larger PC Item size.

Platinumming Astro's Playroom

Hello Everyone, I recently platinummed Astro's Playroom and wanted to comment on the experience.

I would classify the game has having basically 4 sets of trophies:

-Mandatory "Story" Ones you get by completing major levels. e.g "Greatness Awaits! -Cleared GPU Jungle." Nothing much to say about these ones.

 

-Find the Collectibles. e.g "Such a Big Fan!- Got all artefacts in Cooling Springs". Even without a guide, most of these were pretty straightforward to find if you played a lot of collect-a-thons. A lot of "hidden corners" and spots house the artifacts and puzzle pieces for the trophy. These were pretty fun because there were only a couple collectibles per level, levels themselves weren't too long and it was quick to access previously completed levels.

 -"Easter Eggs/Interactables" is the 3rd kind. These include trophies like "Disc Swap!- Opened the lid of The PlayStation console in PlayStation Labo",   " Jason! - Sheltered from the heavy rain in Memory Meadow. ". These operate a lot like the collectibles where you need to find the specific thing or reference and figure out how to interact with them. Normally, the last part is easy as you often just have to hit or stand by them but finding them without the trophy menu itself can be a bit tricky.

Finally we have the challenge trophies. These ones require you to complete a particular gameplay challenge. These include stuff like "Adequate, Boy…Hit all rabbits with arrows at the mountain peak of GPU Jungle.", "Keepy Uppies - Juggled a ball 5 times with the Frog Suit", and "No No No Noooooo!
Fell 30 meters and caught yourself in the monkey suit in GPU Jungle." These aren't very hard to do and at most, require a few retries. The challenges themselves were quite reasonable. My favourite was the one for completing all the speedrunning levels with a total time under 7 minutes because the mechanics and movements were surprisingly fun.

 

Overall, I enjoyed my time trophy hunting in this game. Because of how brief the game is, it wasn't tedious searching every nook and cranny. If anything it was always enjoyable because every Easter Egg/Reference to other PlayStation games always brought a smile to my face. If you wanted to introduce someone to the world of trophy hunting, Astro's Playroom is a good if not the best starting point.

While I'm here I might as well do a review on the game itself.

Astro's Playroom is a 2020 Game that comes bundled with PlayStation 5 consoles with the intention of showing off the features of the new platform. When I first booted up the game, I was expecting it to be like Welcome Park on the PS VITA. A series of short quick minigames/mechanics you can get through in an afternoon designed to show off the system's features. A distraction in between the "real games". But to my surprise, Astro's Playroom was one of those Real Games.

The game plays like that of a standard 3D platformer. You play as an Astro Bot. One of PlayStation's new Mascots since 2013. This Astro Bot is pretty fun and responsive to move around. The little guy can run, jump, glide with lasers for a short while that also damage enemies, punch and do a charged spinning attack. The mechanics themselves are pretty solid and levels often build on concepts introduced earlier so there's some progression. I especially liked the bonus speedrun stages as they highlight this with how you can skip certain sections and move Astro in interesting ways. Granted, it's not a very difficult game but pretty short and sweet during its runtime.

The game is divided into 4 main level areas each based on an "aspect" of the PS5 such as the "SSD Speedway (represented as this futuristic neon light highway)", The Cooling Springs (represented as this beach and icy area), GPU Jungle (based on this tropical jungle area) etc. The designs of each of these areas are quite distinct and fun to traverse. Every area also has 2 levels based on a "gimmick" that uses some of the Dualsense's features. For example, GPU Jungle has areas where Astro needs to put on a monkey suit and climb up a wall. You need to tilt the controller left and right to control where Monkey Astro will move and aim, swing the controller to make Astro swing, and press R2 with varying amounts of pressure to grab certain handholds, and release R2 while swinging to make Monkey Astro go soaring. SSD Speedway has 2 gimmicks. One where you use the motion control to aim Astro in a giant Slingshot and the touchpad to launch him. This makes him use a paraglider to glide for a while. And another one where you have to control this little space ship by tilting your controller and pressing L2 or R2 for thrust in specific directions. You can press both L2 and R2 for extra speed. Cooling Springs has a Sping Suit where you have to tilt the controller and vary the amount of pressure on R2 to launch said spring. And finally, Memory Meadows has a ball suit you control by swiping on the touchpad.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if most people either disliked or tolerated these sections. After all, they are pretty rare forms of gameplay on PlayStation systems. Unless you played Tearaway Unfolded, or owned a PSVITA, 3DS or Wii, you likely haven't had to play many motion based games. But I kinda enjoyed these sections in Astro's Playroom. I found the motion controls to be quite responsive so performing tricky jumps or movements was quite feasible. Plus, since these sections are quite brief, they never went on long enough to become annoying. To me, they functioned as decent minigames to vary the experience.

Anyway, beating the 4 major levels unlocks a bonus level where you fight the T-Rex from the PS1 demo as the final boss. I'm really upset that The T-Rex was chosen as the final boss instead of Polygon Man 😤. Imagine getting roasted by a floating spikey purple head whenever you die to him!

To become serious again, now to talk about one of Astro's Playroom's biggest appeals, its nostalgia and celebration of the history of PlayStation. This was one of the things that made exploration so cool in this game. Levels have so many references, either in the form of other Astros tucked away in corners or out in the open re-enacting sequences from PlayStation games, or collectibles in the form of old controllers, systems and attachments.

To the discuss the former, it brought a smile to my face seeing stuff like these cute little robots cosplaying as Cole McGreath sliding on electrical wire, or one with pointy ears and a little Rabbit, or one playing with a Spyro doll that breaths fire when you punch it, or 2 of then hiding from a bot with mushrooms on its head, or cave paintings of bots fighting a giant monster in a rhythm. It seems like almost every franchise from PlayStation's past, no matter how small gets some representation here. It really enticed me to keep looking and trying to guess the reference. Add in that some of them even award a trophy for interacting with them and it was quite fun.

Levels also contain collectibles in the form of PlayStation artifacts. You can find all kinds of things from alternate versions of prior consoles like the 2 different PS3 Slims. To obscure stuff like the PS3 Buzz Controller, the PSP GPS and Camera and more. It's a shame that the game doesn't include wires. I would have liked to see more stuff like the PSP to AV adapter. It was fun collecting these because they show up in your PlayStation Labo museum and seeing these massive recreations of these objects was quite cool. It was fascinating to see this history. The game really feels like a massive tribute to and celebration of PlayStation's history. Even its design as a 3D Platformer feels like a throwback since such kinds of games have only recently made a bit of a comeback after being quite popular around the time of the PS1.

Finally, I want to talk about another major selling point/appeal of the game: the Haptic Feedback. I was quite skeptical when this was announced. Like, Was this just "fancy rumble? The Switch had this for years earlier". But I feel quite won over by Astro's Playroom's implementation. Almost every floor, move and scenario has a "vibration profile" associated with. Walking on a wooden bridge causes the controller to vibrate in a specific way that corresponds with how Astro's moving on it. Him taking a step with his left foot causes the controller's left side to vibrate in such a way to mimic walking on wooden bridge. And it's a different profile for walking on metal surfaces. When it's raining, the controller provides feedback of all those little rain droplets.

I really like this feature. Aside from being immersive, it also helps with accessibility and providing additional information. I remember a section when I muted my TV but with just the visuals and haptic feedback, was able to "experience" the section just fine.  As I often play with the sound of my games muted so I can listen to podcasts, I like that haptic feedback can somewhat "compensate" for the lack of sound. I'd love to see a Splinter Cell Chaos Theory port use this feature. Imagine actually sneaking across surfaces and "feeling" the sound you're making. You probably wouldn't even need to keep a constant eye on your sound meter to be able to tell how much noise you're making and that's cool.

But to be more cynical for a second, I don't think the DualSense's features are going to get much attention in the future, even from Sony. I expect we might see the adaptive Triggers and some Haptic Feedback used here and there in major Sony Exclusives, but the Touchpad is likely going to get almost 0 use. And Third Parties will make minimal use of the adaptive triggers and haptic feedback. Because that's kinda been the story with the PS4's DualShock 4. That thing has both a touchpad and some decent Gyro Controls. But those barely get any use. Hell, you'll find PC games using Steam Input allow you to use Gyro Aiming using the DualShock 4 than games Sony themselves made for the DualShock 4.

And I can see why. To most 3rd parties, it doesn't make much sense spending valuable time and resources adding super specific features to one platform when platform parity is pretty important. Plus, unlike Switch owners, PlayStation owners haven't been very vocal about these features so they're unlikely to even get Gyro Aiming. So it's going to lead to some odd situations. I remember in Watch Dogs 2, in order to switch radio stations on PS4, you had to hold down the Touch Pad and move the Right Stick left or right. Instead of what GTA V did and let you switch radio stations by just swiping on the touchpad. I feel that unless Sony releases some kind of equivalent to Steam Input on the PS5 where players could create custom and share custom profiles for games where you can bind specific inputs to touchpad swipes or Gyro Motion,  I don't see many 3rd Party games being any different on a PS5 controller compared to if you could play them on a PS1 controller.

 

In addition games like Call of Duty, which rely on super fast reflexes and reactions, would be discouraged from using some of these features because the vibration and triggers may put some players at a disadvantage. Taking a second longer to press R2 could mean death. I can relate. I played Borderlands 2 on PS4 with the controls swapped so R1 is to shoot so I could actually rapid fire.

Which means I wouldn't be surprised if in 5-9 years when we look back at the PS5's history, Astro's Playroom remains the only game to make the most out of the DualSense. And in a sad way, it's oddly fitting that a game about PlayStation's odd history, itself becomes a historical showcase for features that never were.