The Platinum Road: Highlights from First 100

When it comes to games, I'm somewhat of a completionist. If I enjoy the game, I'm gonna try my best to get the Platinum Trophy. It's become more of an interest as I've got older and have more skill to get the trophies, but it's all paid off as I've reached the milestone of 100. As a quick aside, I may have had more platinum than this - namely Infamous, and Infamous 2 but those are lost to time on a dead PS3. I may have had them, I might not have. Just for the record, I'm only a little mad.

I did want to talk about all 100 of them and I did start but like… that’s too much and I was struggling to remember enough about each of them to write anything interesting on them. Instead, these are my highlights from my trophy hunting career - the best, worst, grindiest and whatever else. Without further ado…

#1 The Pride of Fastoon

Game: Ratchet and Clank: Nexus (PS3) | Started: 21/1/2015 | Obtained: 3/5/2015

My first Platinum (at least on this account) and I’m glad it was a Ratchet and Clank game. None of them are too difficult, they just kind of take a while to get the higher bolt count trophies or in this case - get max level with all weapons. I’m not sure if there was a gap in playing here - this was 9 years ago and I would have been deep in GCSE’s. There’s every chance this trophy just took that long. (I just looked below I was also playing Bloodborne). As far as first platinums go, can’t go wrong with Ratchet and Clank. As it stands, I have 3, 7 to go.

#2 Bloodborne

Game: Bloodborne (PS4) | Started: 3/4/2015 | Obtained: 28/11/2015

A common point about the Soulsborne games is their difficulty which is a conversation for another day - In terms of trophies, they’re usually just for straight forward things within the games like actually just beating them. Harder trophies usually entail getting each of every weapon, spell and the like. Bloodborne doesn’t have that to the same extent. What it does have is a rather long trek to one of the games hidden bosses.

Most Tedious Trophy: Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen

Bloodborne introduced the Chalice Dungeons – an idea great in concept but left wanting in execution. These were randomised dungeons for the player to explore, with a central non randomised selection that leads to the boss, Yharnam. To reach Yharnam, who is at best a 6/10 boss, the player must go through roughly 15 dungeons to get the Chalices and materials required. Not that it’s hard, or even particularly grindy - just dull.

#4 The Dark Soul

Game: Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin | Started: 23/02/2016 | Obtained: 14/4/2016

Grindiest Trophy: Master of Sorceries

Of the three trophies for getting each spell of the three spell schools, it is sorcery which remains an outlier. Proceeding through to NG+2, when the player reaches Drangleic Castle (the mid game dungeon), the player can buy two miracles and a pyromancy which are otherwise locked behind Covenant (online MP) rewards. For whatever reason, the last sorcery is not. For this, the player must reach rank 2 in the Bell Keeper Covenant. This can still be obtained offline by killing the randomly spawning Mad Warrior in Belfry Sol, if it spawns.

#23 Be Greater

Game: Marvel’s Spider-Man | Started: 08/09/2019 | Obtained: 21/9/2018

Funniest Trophy: With Great Power…

So Funniest here should be “Funniest” because it’s in a stupid way. I’d consider myself a decent fan of Spider-Man, but not like an uber fan. The way I would discover that Uncle Ben’s grave is in the game is if an uber fan discovered it, posted it on Reddit and it was picked up by something like ScreenRant. It would remain a hearfelt little Easter Egg for dedicated players to find. As a trophy it loses it’s charm slightly, becoming a checklist task between grabbing a backpack and smacking about some Sable troopers.

#39 Celebrate!

Game: Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted | Started: 24/02/2021 | Obtained: 04/03/2021

I played this game in flat mode, so while I didn’t get the full “Intended” experience, the team at Steel Wool Studios made sure the game was still fully playable without the headset. I’d say the hardest trophy was “Exotic Butters” which is just for beating the game - The game isn’t difficult but the Nightmare variation of the Plushbaby challenge took me a third of my overall playtime. Instead:

Funniest Trophy: Choking Hazard

After every successful mission beaten, the player is offered a prize in the form of a bit of candy, a plushy toy, a jumpscare or a little plastic toy. If you try and eat the plastic toy as you would one of the bits of candy, the player character will actually do it, resulting in a horrible choking noise. A+ for adding that in.

#41 Power Couple

Game: It Takes Two | Started: 27/3/2021 | Obtained: 10/4/2021

“Hardest Trophy”: Platforming Prodigy

Throughout my time in It Takes Two, I was bragging to my co-op partner Sean about my platforming prowess, especially off of the back of playing Sackboy. One challenge in ITT requires the player to ascend the Helltower. Throughout the game until this point, me and Sean were keeping track of minigame victories. The Helltower was supposed to be my bread and butter. Sean made it first try, I did not. Every failed attempt with Sean gloating from the top made me more desperate to succeed. A simple challenge made 100x harder by sibling rivalry.

#55 Big Adventurer

Game: Sackboy: A Big Adventure | Started: 13/12/2020 | Obtained: 8/1/2022

There’s such a big gap here as I had to wait for Sean to get himself a PS5 – this was back when there was a massive shortage of the console. Some of these trophies were for the co-op levels I obviously couldn’t do solo (They’re more involved than an unattended Second controller job). These levels also brought me around to trying the hardest challenges the game had to offer. And Hoo boy.

Hardest Trophy: String it Together

After completing the previous 13(?) Knitted Knight trials (Hard platforming challenges), you unlock the final trial: The Ripsnorter. This stitches (heh) together all of the previous trials into one continuous run which results in a 5 minute long endurance and skill challenge. The sections aren’t in the order that they appear in the list, but mercifully they don’t change. Regardless, this was harder than Super Mario Odyssey’s Darker Side of the Moon or 3D World’s Champions Road. This took me hours and hours but the feeling when I beat it was unparalleled.

#61 All Done

Game: Stray | Started: 24/7/2022 | Obtained: 25/7/2022

Trophy I should have hated: Productive Day

For this trophy, you have to leave the controller idle for an hour of real world time, consecutively. These kind of trophies just kind of seem like a waste, and they are. This also came at the height of the UK’s power expense saga (Just to date this). I think at the time I just did something else, maybe the review for the game. Still not a fan of these trophies, but at least the cat is cute.

#73 Boast Giant

Game: Ghost Giant | Started: 20/4/2023 | Obtained: 20/4/2023

The Trophy that also made me quit: Basket Case

Spread throughout the game in hidden spots and in the distant background are basketball hoops. The player can find basketballs in the environment with the trophy obviously being for getting a ball in each of the hoops. I don’t know if it was my setup, the age of my controllers, the game or a combination of the three, but I just couldn’t get some of them for the life of me. This very quickly turned to frustration, and getting the trophy was probably pure luck in the end. Certainly wouldn’t want to do it again.

#74 The Jedi Survivor

Game: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor | Started: 29/4/2023 | Obtained: 9/5/2023

You could have thrown any number of horrible trophies at me in this game and I would have done them, purely thanks to the inclusion of a Fast Travel - a feature sorely lacking from Fallen Order. As it happens, the list for Survivor was generally pretty good, mostly just requiring full completion. Everything except:

Cruellest Trophy: A Presence I’ve Not Felt Since….

One of the more notable improvements from Fallen Order to Survivor was the vast overhaul of the cosmetics system. We went from different colour Ponchos to being able to change Cal's entire outfit and facial hair. The Pink Poncho from the original was a fan favourite though, so Respawn had to bring it back. They were just really nasty about it.

To get the Pink Poncho, the player had to rematch Oggdo Bogdo, a notoriously difficult optional boss from the first game. Worse yet, Oggdo brings his son along for a 2v1. I'll be honest this fight borders on unfair and I only beat it thanks to a dead zone in the arena where the boss(es) couldn't hit me. The amusement at the reward made it all worth it though.

#82 You got yourself the Platinum Chicken

Game: The Many Pieces of Mr Coo | Started: 30/9/2023 | Obtained: 30/9/2023

A game that started off fun but got frustrating towards the end, The Many Pieces of Mr Coo has the laziest “NG+” kind of mode I have ever seen in a game, maybe ever.

Worst Trophy: Collector

After you beat the game for the first time, collectible pages appear throughout the game and for the trophy you need 100. Turns out, these collectibles are just overlayed on the game like the water from a squirt bottle, and after the first few still screens, you’ll have the 100 you need. This is exclusive to a second playthrough. Baffling.

#83 Pizza Possum

Game: Pizza Possum | Started: 30/9/2023 | Obtained: 30/9/2023

On it's own. there's nothing specifically special about this platinum. Pizza Possum is a fun and silly arcade game, trophies are given mostly for just exploring and beating the game. The Platinum becomes special for sentimental reasons - it's the first game me and Jade played together, first we got the Platinum for together and the first game she helped review for my old website. In that regard, a good game is made better with nice memories.

I still need to celebrate the milestone of reaching 100 Platinums, even if I am 4 months late. This is what I wrote about Platinum 100, as well as the original article’s outro:

#100 Deracine

Game: Deracine | Started: 30/12/2023 | Obtained: 31/12/2023

Platinum 100 had to be something special to mark the milestone. Not necessarily a difficult one, but a special one. I had this planned for a little while prior but left myself very little time to do it. I love FromSoftware, and this being the year I actually invested in VR - the stars aligned for me to play this. Trophy list was real easy, with only one missable trophy - the last one - but as long as you didn’t mess around with the props you’d be fine.

There we have it, 100 Platinum trophies. Chump change compared to other collectors, but I’m proud of my work to get to that figure. It is far from the end though, as I intend to continue Trophy hunting to 250, 500 and maybe eventually even 1000. Stay tuned on the site to see what my trophy hunting plans are for 2024.