Gravity Rush: the Platinum Trophy info-blog

One of the most anticipated games for the PS Vita was a quirky, innovative J-RPG game by Japan Studio called Gravity Rush. It starred a cute, spunky blonde, used the PS Vita's tilt functions like nearly no other game has so far, had a unique story and in my eyes, did not get nearly as much credit as it deserved. I LOVED this game for the two weeks I played it. I even stopped caring about looking like a nut on the train whenever I tilted my Vita around like a steering wheel because it was fun. But reviews said otherwise and it became a freebie on Playstation Plus (which is worth getting). But I'm not here to review the game itself and even if I was, I played it so long ago that it wouldn't be a good review (you probably gathered that from my opening paragraph). What I'm here to talk about is the Platinum trophy which shines in my PSN when you look at my trophies!

I'm not really a 'trophy hunter'...but I'm not...not a trophy hunter either (good description). I get excited whenever I get one and I use them as an excuse not to put a game down and also to get my money's worth. I loved Persona 4 Golden and Gravity Rush before I finished them and couldn't imagine putting them down yet, so I made the decision to obtain the Platinum trophies. Time consuming? Yeah. Unneccessary? Probably. Fun? Oh yeah.

Below, I'm going to list the 3 easiest non-story/tutorial-based trophies and the 3 hardest ones and then give you a summary on my experience. Hopefully this will help you decide if it is worth your time. :)

Easiest trophies:

3. Frequent Flyer
Objective: Land 10 gravity kicks without landing or taking damage.

This trophy was actually one of my first in Gravity Rush and is something you'll learn early in the game. This trophy can be done in the enemy fighting challenges and was one of my main techniques. I found this technique to be the best way to fight as it usually hit's the enemies weak spot dead on. As long as you don't tilt your Vita while doing this, you'll get 10 in no time!

2. Throwing Machine
Objective: Hurled 10 objects into enemies without missing of taking damage.

There is a challenge where you throw things at enemies non-stop so this isn't hard. Just...throw stuff at enemies and make sure you aim? The only real challenge with this is the enemies move sometimes but I'm sure you'll find another enemy and more stuff to throw.

1. True Challenger
Objective: Cleared EVERY challenge.

This one's easy, as long as you're paying attention. It doesn't require you to 'rank' (get bronze, silver or gold) in the challenges, it just requires you to find them all. So use your map wisely and this one is easy as pie to do while you play the story and unlock new areas.

Hardest trophies:

3. Illusory Game Hunter
Objective: Defeated the rare Nevi in Rift Planes: The Mirage

Holy crap. I had to do this battle SO MANY TIMES OVER. The problem with this enemy is it's attacks make it hard to get close to when you need to hit one of it's many weak points on a certain angle. There were special attacks involved, sitting in far off areas waiting for it to stop attacking, flying further away in the area to restore health and reading strategy guides. Phew.
It's brutal, but I did feel very proud when I got this one.

2. All That Glitters
Objective: Gold-medaled EVERY challenge.

This one requires patience and knowing when to walk away from your Vita and come back when you're not frustrated/have peaked for the day. The trophy requires doing all the challenge courses over and over until you get the gold. Some are obviously going to be easier than others for different people, but this is the 'perseverance' trophy so again...you'll feel proud. Invisible tears of relief kind of proud.

1. Lost in Time and SpaceObjective: Heard the mysterious couple's complete story.
I needed a guide for this one. What makes this trophy difficult is simply the fact that you have no indication on where you will find the mysterious couple next. You can either gravity shift around looking for them everywhere or you can use a guide. I will say I found their story to make this trophy extremely rewarding and I think it's more than worth it.

Honourable mentions: The other Game Hunter trophies for being challenging, Going Underground for being tedious and for Gem Aficionado and Top Cat being nowhere near as hard as they sound as long as you are playing the story and doing challenges.

I found getting this platinum really, really fun. The challenges provide simple entertainment that doesn't require you to remember huge amounts of stories, just for you to play them and think of new ways to beat them. Same goes for the boss battles, it's all about the challenge. This platinum trophy took me three weeks to get and I did it on my first playthrough mostly on train rides (at this point my daily travel was 4 hours though). It's mostly simple, just requires a small amount of thinking and if you get into the story, it becomes much easier. I also recommend the DLC trophies for a little extra challenge!

Let me know how long it took you to platinum trophy Gravity Rush and if you would consider doing it (or not).

Until next time!

-Tara
PSN: guittaraxx

Australia: Buy Tales of Symphonia Chronicles from PSN, not retail

Want Tales of Symphonia Chronicles but think $80+ from retailers is ridiculous?

I just noticed on PSN it's going for $44.95.

I've been looking around to see if anything is different than the physical disc content (I don't own either so I can't check myself) but so far the digital copy seems to have the exact same content which is the HD remake of Tales of Symphonia and Dawn of the New World. If anyone can confirm this, feel free to do so in the comments below and I will update this post!

I don't know if this a PSN price error or what but if not - good on you PSN. When I saw popular Australian retails (JB and EB) doing this for over $80, I was like what? Kingdom Hearts HD version had 3 games technically and was only $49 on release. Maybe it's the usual 'JRPG and Anime fans are willing to pay a premium because these products are hard to get' mentality that I swear retailers have but $80+? It makes no sense. That's coming up to the price of new PS4 titles.

I know the price of games if you include inflation is getting better. But this isn't a new game, it's a remake. Frankly, above $70 is pushing it in my eyes, but still acceptable.

What do you guys think? Would you be happy to pay over $80 for a remake?

-Tara

PSN: guittaraxx

All four new Persona games will be localised for 2014 and 2015!

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Persona 4 Dancing All Night and Persona 5 have been announced for an English release on AtlusUSA's official YouTube.

For Fall 2014 (which is Australia's Spring) we will see Persona 4 Arena Ultimax on PS3 and XBox360 and Persona Q on 3DS (and you bet I'll be buying a 3DS for this). Persona 5 for PS3 and Persona 4 Dancing All Night for PS Vita are scheduled for 2015.

Applause to Atlus for doing localisation for all four new titles! Also, I highly enjoy the way they're releasing these. A console game and a portable game. One for home, one for the train. This probably wasn't their intention at all....but it's genius.

Here are the links for the trailers: (will insert them in this post when I'm home)

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

Persona 5

Persona 4: Dancing All Night

There are no words for how excited I am. I'm going to have to save a lot of money to afford these, but it will be worth it. I'm most excited for Persona 5 as the theme looks very interesting and is meant to be an 'empowering' game so I'm curious to see what Atlus has in store for us! (Want to read a translated article from pepsimangb's Tumblr on Persona 5? Click here!)

What Persona game are you most keen for? Will you buy them all or only a few or none at all? Comment below.

Have a great day all! I'm off to work (blergh)

-Tara

PSN: guittaraxx

Games That Changed My Life: Persona 4 Golden

Some games catch your eye out of nowhere. I saw the Persona 4 Golden trailer (below) while I was flicking through IGN's Youtube stream and I just liked it. Maybe it's because it had anime. Maybe it's because I like yellow. Maybe it's because the music was cool. Silly reasons aside, I was drawn to Persona 4 Golden. It happens sometimes and as I learned with it, usually they end up being some of my favourite games.

Persona 4 Golden is a JRPG cross dungeon crawler where you live life as a truth searching high schooler who moves to the fictional town of Inaba where a serial murder case is beginning to unfold. While this protagonist sleeps, an old guy with a big nose tells him about his destiny and on his second day in his new town, he finds he can go inside TVs and fight monsters with a thing called a Persona. There are also shadows, school exams and relationships to uphold and the story grows into a full-blown mystery. I played it for 8 months and what changed my life was its focus on relationships, friendship and the power of perseverance. It reminded me of the importance of nurturing my own personal relationships at a point of my life where I was all work and not much else. It reminded me not to forget about the people who are important and to make time for them.

What Persona portrays best is time and this made me think about what I choose to do with my time. And that's what's great about Persona as a series. It makes you think and it makes you want to make the right choice. Hell, it even gives you bad/not as awesome endings when you make the wrong choices. Partnered with great dungeons and fun gameplay, I'm still in love with this game even after a month apart. Thankfully, I still need to finish Persona 4 Arena. I'm also waiting for Persona 5, Persona Q and Persona 4 Dancing All Night (which I originally though was a complete cop-out, but then remembered I loved Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F....so I'll probably love it.). Life will be okay....but until then, Persona 3 FES is on the PSN Europe/Australia store and in my downloads!

If you like JRPGs and haven't played Persona 4 Golden, do yourself a life enriching, fun favour and just play the game. Just do it.

2018 Edit Note: This article is still really special to me as one of my first big ones, so I didn't want to edit it too much, but I'm linking it in a more recent article so I edited some grammar and word choice errors that I've learned since writing this.

First Impressions: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

I wanted to write a proper first impressions. By proper, I mean short and after just a few hours in rather than a mini review.

I'm over 20 hours into Lightning Returns and it's only been a few days.
I wanted to write this post...but I was having too much fun.

So to start off, I will be blunt: if you're looking for the perfect game, you won't find it here. It has flaws, some lovable and some a bit silly. I'll explain.

Basically I feel like I've found a way to rig the game. Chronostatis is a special ability that stops time temporarily. It costs 1 EP. EP is earned by fighting battles. I fight a few battles, fill my EP gauge and set off chronostratis. Do a couple more till I'm at max EP again. Once time is back I do it again and I use next to no game time. So in this game which is a countdown till the end of the world where I need to do everything before 13 days is up, I feel I have not a care in the world. Time stops in battles - I have nothing at all to worry about in the time department. I am a time troll.

And being a time troll when time is one of the main aspects of the game? I don't know if it's a pro or a con. Pro for me as I can probably platinum this game in one or two playthroughs. Con for the game as it throws the whole concept out the window. As much as I abuse this ability, I feel they should've added a daily limit or something to make the game more challenging. But since there isn't a limit and I want to prove a certain character wrong for saying I can't do everything in 13 days, I'll keep using it.

Quick note: I'm playing on easy mode as I read that that's what Square Enix recommends for the first playthrough. It is harder to get EP on normal and hard mode, but I still think it wouldn't be hard to build up EP while time is stopped.

Being reunited with characters from previous games has been described as 'lacking' by other bloggers. I disagree. Over 500 years, these characters have big burdens to talk about and I've cried twice (I'm not even sorry). The only character that could be lacking is Lightning. I feel like they tried to make her a little more likeable, but some of the things she does seems a little too playful. I'm not saying she's turned into Vanille, but a few things seem out of place.

Topped off with an awesome battle system, I like this game. It's fun. A good way to kill time.

Will I play it for 8 months? Probably not. But it'll give me some good fun for a week or two. If you enjoyed XIII-2 or like closure, I think buying this game may be a good idea.

Until next time, I've got a world to save!

-Tara
PSN: guittaraxx

Ps. I have a measly 50 views on this blog and I'm stoked about it. Thanks for visiting. <3

Pss. Square Enix, I loved that FFXIV reference.

Psss. Whenever Lightning says 'Savior's got a job' in battle, does anyone else imagine her working in McDonalds? No? Just me? Okay, cool.

Lightning Returns is out today!

Months of getting taken the piss out of for being keen for this game are about to end!

When I pre-ordered Lightning Returns last September, I was excited. That's why you pre-order games right? You're keen!

Then I had the joy of asking my work for a photo we put up in store for Lightning Returns (I work in one of those stores that sells games and other stuffs) only to receive laughter and be called lame. (I'm also still hoping to receive the photo) This game cops a lot of flack and cynicism, so it's definitely going to be an interesting experience.

While not disliking the 13 series has copped me a lot of flack between friends and co-workers, when listening to these people rant on about Lightning, I'm reminded of the characters I AM looking forward to seeing. Everyone hates on Lightning because she's apparently boring (which I can't blame them. She's so driven on her goals that she's not the usual complex protagonist people are used to) but they forget about Vanille, Hope, Serah, Snow, Fang and Noel (and others of course). I think these characters are stand outs and I'm excited for closure on their stories.

...While dressing Lightning in Moogle dresses.

Happy Lightning day all. Let me know what you think of the game and I shall post my first impressions in a few days.

Happy gaming!

-Tara (PSN: guittaraxx)

Discussion: what makes you platinum trophy a game?

I would love to turn this blog into a discussion area although I know I have a small reader base right now. So I thought we could get the ball rolling by asking about Platinum Trophies on Playstation. I want to know what makes you decide to put the time and effort into earning that shiny trophy and extra PSN level points. Is it because you're an avid trophy hunter? Is it because you loved the game? Is it because you're competing with a friend? And what games have you Platinum-ed?

Let me know and let's talk!

My answer:

I've gotten the platinum trophy for two games: Persona 4 Golden and Gravity Rush, both on Vita. Doing these trophies on Vita was an awesome way to keep playing these two games as I could just do it on the way to work. Once I had finished both of these games, I didn't want to stop playing yet, so I decided I may as well get the Platinum Trophy and use it as my excuse to keep playing! Since then, I keep a general rule that if I love a game so much that I know I'm going to go back to it multiple times or keep playing, I go for the Platinum. It's challenging and let's me see a good majority of what my favourite games have to offer. :)