Trophy Hunt – 11/19 | Insomniac Nightmares

It has been a period of reflection, for the most part. I finished Catherine: Full Body, with the exception of the Rapunzel minigame and the Babel levels. Both are being picked at, but my frenzy for the game has subsided a bit. Code Vein has fallen to my determination, with two of the four endings checked off. The last two can be done in one run (essentially, ignore an item, kill the last boss; reload your save, pick up that item, kill the boss again), but I’ve been picking at it slowly. The Cathedral area is pain personified, the least navigation friendly zone in any Souls-like game I’ve ever played, and doing it a third time (while having to poke into all the corners, because you need to collect all the doodads for the final ending) is just not making me a happy camper.

But, as noted, it’s been about reflection. Going back and ticking a few boxes on older games. I’ve been working on Indigo Prophecy, which I remember enjoying when it originally came out, and which still has some charm to it, but whenever it pops up the “get ready!” prompt in the middle of the screen, I cringe. Whoever decided to make the controls operate off of a pair of Simon Says machines running in the middle of the screen at fast pace never stopped to contemplate folks who’re down an eye. Kinda hard to focus on both of them, and you need to if you want to pass the QTEs. Still, about halfway through.

I also redownloaded Beyond: Two Souls, intending to give it a try again. I’ve absolutely demolished Heavy Rain, I’m about halfway through Detroit, I beat Indigo Prophecy when it originally came out and have hit the halfway mark on the PS4 version. What was missing? David Cage’s other magnum opus.

God, I hate Beyond. It makes me want to punch Ellen Page right in the nose. I hate Jodie, I hate Aiden, I hate the storytelling, I hate the lack of an actual story, and while Cage frequently has questionable control schemes (as noted, Indigo Prophecy‘s QTEs are annoying, and Heavy Rain and Detroit both have some iffy moments), Beyond seems determined to make me smash the damned controller. “Press the direction of Jodie’s movement when the camera slows!” the game tells me helpfully. Sure. Mind telling me which part’s movement I’m following? How about not changing the camera angle mid-input? Some indication of when to actually press it? No? Okay.

I don’t know how he managed to convince Sony to let him make Detroit after Beyond, but I’m apparently in the minority. Oh well. I’ve gotten up to where Ellen Page is homeless and feeling very indie-film, so I think I’m about a third of the way through; I can slog through the rest. Don’t know if I’m going to get the Platinum, though; among other things, it requires playing through the whole game in Duo mode, which I am not looking forward to.

Also revisited an old survival horror game called White Night. It’s a weird little artsy noir ghost story. Has some good ideas – the graphical presentation is definitely different and interesting, the story so far (I’m in chapter 3 of 6 currently) is interesting, grotesque enough to make you go “ewww” and subtle enough to make you have to work out the details and connections yourself without it feeling too vague and airy.

The controls are fucking awful, though. Combined with limited save opportunities, limited resources and one hit kills, as well as 150+ collectibles, it’s a slog. Another one that’s probably not going to be in the Platinum cabinet; among other things, you have to beat the game in one sitting between 8PM and 8AM the next day, which given how tedious and frustrating the game can be, I don’t know that I want to do it. But I’m pretty sure I can knock it into the 90%+ range, if I just sit down and do it.

All this backtracking and picking at things long dormant in my trophy list is about to push my overall percentage to 50%. I will do a little dance when that happens. (Probably about the same time as I finish either White Night, Beyond, or Indigo Prophecy, though completing the Rapunzel minigame in Catherine or getting the last couple of endings in Code Vein might do it, as well. Pushing a 15-20% into the 60%s seems more likely than tipping an 80% into a 90%, though.

Ghost Parade is on the way from GameFly; how no idea how that’s going to go. Apparently it’s a Metroidvania set in a forest full of Indonesian mythological and supernatural creatures? We’ll see. No one’s done a trophy guide for it yet that I can find, so it’s going to be mostly blind. We’ll see if I can wring a Plat out of it. Doesn’t seem very popular or played, either. Could end up in the rare shelf. Exciting!