Insomniac Nightmares

The hunt continues. It’s endless, really. A constant war against the unachieved, the uncounted, the rare beasties hiding in the already-too-long list of games I’ve played.

I’ve been told it’s pointless, that I should give up… but I can’t. It may be unhealthy, but a significant portion of my pride and joy is wrapped up in earning these little meaningless shinies, and damnit, I’m going to keep doing it.

This last week has been slow, but somewhat fruitful. Persona 5 will fall before my blade. I’d already done the Royal reissue, and had come back to clean up the regular version, but for a while it was touch and go. One trophy, “Passionate Listener” required me to hear 250 lines of dialogue from one particular party member. The problem is, a lot of those lines basically come from getting your ass kicked, and given that I’ve played and finished all the Personas – and a few other Shin Megami Tensei games as well – I kind of already know how it works. My experience with Royal only taught me more about this specific entry.

I had reached the last boss, the final chance to earn Passionate Listener, and did not yet have it. Most enemies had been steamrolled, and by the time I realized I needed to lose a bit more, to suffer from ailments, to deliberately cast ineffective spells, I was already so overpowered that most enemies ran from me and those that were left died too quickly.

Then it happened. The final boss hit me with a status effect. Then another. And another. The whole party was incapacitated. The talkative one went nuts, reeling off line after line of how so-and-so was out of it, their defense was lowered, they couldn’t hit anything. Grinning, I swapped out some members, and let it happen again. And again.

The ding as the trophy popped just as my last member recovered automatically from the bad status was more satisfying than unloading all the skills I’d been holding back on his stupid face and blowing a Godzilla sized hole in his skull. If you’ve finished either version of Persona 5, you know.

So the plat is going to happen. I just have to start New Game+, work my way through the first month of the game, fuse the ultimate Persona and kick the hell out of the optional boss. I’m not stressing any of that. Just dreading the three hours it’ll take to get there (which is funny, since between the two versions I’ve already put 200+ hours into Persona 5. Another 3 is really just a drop in the pool.) After that, a fresh shiny platinum will be mine.

Other games being worked on are Death Mark, which is a breeze that I just need to sit down and do; I’ve already beaten it on Vita, and am only playing the PS4 version for the additional case. It’s realistically just an hour of two of fast forward, followed by another hour or so to solve the bonus case, but between Persona, the heat, and general malaise I just haven’t done it yet.

Also on the blotter is Assassin’s Creed III, in my quest to finish all of the extant games before Valhalla drops. Haven’t gotten far, but it’s nothing special. There’s also Kawaii Deathu Desu, which is a very bizarre little offering. Basically, Death and several other monsters have decided they want to be Japanese idols. The problem? Legions of rabid fans trying to interrupt their concerts! The solution? Slay them and collect their souls, of course! It’s fast, it’s mindless, and it’s fun. The trophies are a little glitchy, but rebooting seems to fix it every time, so no worries there… and it makes for a nice palate cleanser after the slog and seriousness of most of my library the last couple of weeks.

What about all of you? What are you playing, what trophies have you earned that give you pride and fulfillment, which ones are torturing you to no end? Let us know down below!