A new project...

Okay, I admit that this is the last post for 2015, I swear! As you may have seen, I have teased to a future game platinum...

I do not own these pictures.

Yep, with Kingdom Hearts 2.8 (which I will NOT call Final Chapter Prologue, those words are too much to the title) on the horizon for PS4, I plan on getting off at least one Kingdom Hearts platinum as a goal for 2016. Which one is pretty obvious but I do not have plans for it for a while as I have another project lined up. Depending on whether part of it falls through, I may change my mind on the whole matter. However, I do plan on having my first 100% non-plat be obtained for New Year's Eve to celebrate the occasion:..

The cinematic experience of Kingdom Hearts 2.5 Remix: Re:coded. This is nothing but a giant set of cutscene videos. The creators did more than just remake scenes from the game in HD, they actually added a few combat scenes to make it look really nifty. Since we won't be getting a decent re:Coded Let's Play in the near future(blahblahlps is holding off on any more Kingdom Hearts videos until 2.8 comes out or is announced), this is an okay substitute. My first 100% non-plat for my last account was Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days video cinema. (This is because you need to view these cinemas to unlock secret cards for re:Chain of Memories, but I don't plan on playing that any time soon as you have to go through six playthroughs!)

Anyways, I hope you all have a great year and I'll show the new trophy on New Year's Day. Ciao!

A sneak preview

Coming in 2016...

Plans for 2016...

Author's Notes: Happy New Year's to you all! Since it took me a long time to get LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 platted, I had little time to platinum my tenth game so I just decided to work on the Vita games next. With Vita, I can download screenshots of the games directly from my Vita instead of timing everything (and missing the timing as I did with XBLAZE LOST: MEMORIES) so I plan on having my tenth plat be my first Playstation Vita plat.

I do have other games in the works: I am holding off on any game I have lined up for the Platinum Rain Day event(which I probably will not do in the future as getting plats primed takes a long time and then you cannot plat them until the Event), but Ratchet and Clank HD will be platted in 2016 as well as others. Right now I am sending back my two games - I had rented an RPG which I am sending back without playing because I want to try out other games first - and getting two more, which takes a week or so to return and a week or so to receive. So I only get about two shifts a month, but it's better than nothing.

I have some games in my ownership and I have a project planned to get three games platinumed in around the same time - I plan on playing a PS4 game, a PS3 game and a PS Vita game at the same day - one will take the morning shift, one will take the afternoon shift, and one will take the evening shift and then they will all get their trophies. The games will be ones which take a long time to plat so by doing it this way, I can get them all platinumed without wasting a lot of time.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy your celebrations and I'll see you in 2016! :D

Journal Entry #9: Harry's Wonderful World

PRELUDE: As the old year passes, here is a new change to my blog: I plan on putting a header telling what type of game was platinumed, since I don't know if anyone can get the game's title just by the narrative. Some of the narratives are vague and I don't want to confuse anyone. That said, I know you readers aren't stupid: You can probably guess the title of the game by the characters in it most of the time but this is just a little heads-up for 2016. Anyways, enjoy the next post!

GAME #9: LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 (PS3 version)

Reading the Daily Quibbler :)

After recovering from my last assignment(and disappointing lack of Christmas money), I got an invite for a later Christmas get-together from a familiar owl, Hedwig.

 Dear CJ,

I heard you were busy over Christmas. Me and the Weasleys would like to invite you to a holiday bash this month at 12 Grimmauld Place. When you get to the spot, give the secret knock I taught you, and I will let you in. Merry Christmas!

Your pal, Harry 

I decided it wouldn't hurt; at least I would be celebrating Christmas!

 

(Please forgive me, I cut and pasted from Googlepics these screenshots. :( )

Harry and his friends were at this place which happened to be the hideout of his fugitive god-father, Sirius Black. I had met Sirius before during my last investigation, but now he told me that the Ministry of Magic was trying to put a cover-up on the whole Death Eater crisis and wanted me to watch over Harry. I agreed to do so for the New Year.

Usual LEGO shenanigans. ^_^

Time in Harry's world flows quickly, and one week in my world barely passed while three years passed in Harry's world. I dealt with a tight-lipped *itch in Dolores Umbridge, investigated Severus Snape's reason for killing Dumbledore(which turned out to be a mercy killing), had to help Ron recover from a stupid love potion he drank by mistake(oh Roooon) and helped Harry locate Voldemort's horcruxes and destroy them...

This is NOT how the book described Voldie's death. Shame on you for poetic license, WB!!! X(

Thus ending the life of that fiendish warlock for all eternity. Good riddance!

I had taken an undercover job in Hogwarts as an assistant professor during those 'years' and helped form a resistance in the school when Severus assigned Death Eaters to the faculty. At the end, I had to shout a phrase that old Dumbledore told me he had said a long time ago...

PLATINUM DATE: December 30, 7:15 AM (stayed up all night last night to get through all the trophies! *yawn*)

"Ten points to Gryffindor!" Cheers erupted from the graduates of Hogwarts as they prepared for their new lives as adults in the Wizard World. I wished everyone well and went back to watch the ball drop on TV. Happy New Years, everyone - may 2016 be delightful! ^_^

AFTER THOUGHTS: As I said before, I got this in the mail early but didn't start trophy hunting on it until a couple of days later and was distracted by stuff like my return to Maplestory due to the new Reboot server and the new class, Kinesis(who is, ironically, a Magician class). Still, it is not too slow to plat - you only have to do one Quidditch race to get some hard collectibles and the rest of the time is just doing the usual Story Mode / Free Play run (Unlike Years 1-4, I did not go out of my way for collectibles until I cleared all of Story Mode. Death Eaters attack you during Years 7 and 8 in the streets of Diagon Alley, making getting the collectibles very difficult at best.)

Once I get my Vita formatted to accept my new account(after I do the Platinum Rain Day event), I plan on having the first three Vita Platinums be the Vita remakes of this game and the two LEGO Batman games. Cheers!

Journal Entry #8: Jingle Bells, Batman Smells... (Seriously, he doesn't shower?!)

Well, those idiots in the Justice League need my help again... and here I was hoping to enjoy Christmas with my family. No dice! But, as I said before, a detective's work is never done.

I spent all of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day helping the Justice League fight this insane alien android called Brainiac, who had managed to kidnap the various Lantern Corps and was using them to shrink the world. Not on my watch!

PLATINUM TIME: December 26, 2015; 6:30 PM

After some tough battles, I spend the rest of the holidays cleaning up the streets and getting some clues. Eventually I was presented with a trophy for being The World's Finest. Helped the DC Heroes fight evil during BOTH the winter holidays. When I got home, I found that my cheapskate folks gave me socks and some more mystery books. I love you, I do, but would it kill you to get me a better smartphone? :(

 

 

Well, Merry Holidays to you all, and may you have a great New Year. And do remember to respect your local superheroes, even if they DO drag you across space and time to stop an evil alien android.

AFTER THOUGHTS: Man, this has been a ride - I got a disc in the mail on Christmas Eve, but after spending all day on Christmas Day at my relatives' house for a party after Christmas Mass, I just decided to try to get some trophies and get the Plat for LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham instead of that game I received. As I said, this is the very first LEGO Game I played and it hooked me into continuing the grind in other LEGOs.

This is a fun game. The story is gripping and has its sense of humor, and while there are a ton of races that can screw you over, everything else is easy to collect - the hubs are small enough to discourage racing (although you have one race in the Hall of Justice) and the Red Bricks are all in the story levels. I got all the Stud Multipliers just by Free Playing the first five levels! The Green Loontern is a hoot and I loved the throwback to the old Batman TV show - I used to watch it on TV as a kid! Great job on this one, T.T. ^_^

I did all the DLC - which is shared among my accounts obviously - and got all the remaining DLC trophies on Christmas Day. I didn't have to do the DLC for the platinum, but a few DLC trophies always help boost the gamer score. I do plan on doing a few non-platinums 100%, but not for a while.

Merry Christmas to you all and have a Happy New Year!

Journal Entry #7: So much for a peaceful holiday season!

No sooner did I get back to my office when I got a call from Nick Fury. Yes, THE Nick Fury, head of S.H.I.E.L.D. - apparently he got my records from Gotham Police and needed me to help with an investigation on some Cosmic Bricks that were being hunted by Victor Von Doom, aka Dr. Doom. I'm not about to get embroiled in politics, but isn't Von Doom the ruler of that tiny place in Europe?

Ah well, too late for that. I took the cab-flight out to New York City...

And I must say, when you have to skydive so many times, it gets impressive. :)

Though the people I had to work with are... weird, in the most polite words. -_-

After racing Deadpool, locating his pink gatling gun, and then fighting alongside him, I finally got asked a question by Nick Fury from my cell...

PLATINUM DATE: December 22, 2015; 3:52 PM

I had to decline the lunch offer. I don't eat Egyptian food. I'm a steak-and-pizza guy! And I was hoping to get some pizza delivered on Christmas eve!

Sadly, the best laid plans of man and Maus often go astray... I got another call on the plane back to my home and office...

"Hello?"
"I'm Batman!"
*groaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan* :(

AFTER THOUGHTS: Another demon I exorcised, and to be honest, the PS3 version of LEGO MARVEL Superheroes is worse than the PS4 version - the game froze thrice - once during a race - and I got glitched a few times. However, I did finally push out the platinum after an all-nighter doing the usual - 100% each story mission and the 10 Deadpool side-missions. Deadpool is the only guy who kept me sane, I love his one-liners even though I know he's actually a giant living tumor. (Go check out ScrewAttack's Death Battle between him and Deathstroke.)

"Did you like that, huh? When are you gonna play the PS4 version of this game?! You know you can't have enough of the Merc with a Mouth!"

Not for a long time, Deadpool. :p

Journal Entry #6: I need to lay off of the eggnog...

Nothing like flying around on an 8-bit broomstick...

Dang that Gandalf! I knew that the teleportation spell would have weird consequences but THIS was just too ludicrous - I ended up trapped in this psycho place called the Phantom Field...

"Yes, thank you SO much for saving my life! I'll never trust old men with beards again!" X(

Luckily, this kind young sorceress got me out of that stinking place, but not before I ended up experiencing all of her stored memories. It kind of sucked, but I guess it was cool as well...

DATE OF POP: December 19, 2015; 4:19 PM

How I became a god by experiencing memories is beyond my dingo's flipping kidneys, but oh well, that was another plat for me! Now I am back home and chewing on stale gingerbread and waiting for the inevitable family reunion invites... Maybe I'd be better off back in Middle-Earth..

AFTER THOUGHTS: Ah, X-Blaze Lost Memories... so good that I rented you instead of buying you - even at $16.19, you weren't worth the 15 hours I spent watching cutscenes. You have the dubious honor of being my FIRST non-LEGO Plat. (Of course, there won't be many more LEGO games in the future, although the LEGO Avengers game is due out. Hopefully it'll be easier to plat than LEGO Marvel Superheroes. Stupid air races! X( )

My first and probably only Visual Novel(though that may change depending on whether other Japanese Visual Novels are released overseas and I'm shameless), this game was ridiculous. My induction into the BlazBlue universe was blah and, while I did try to avoid skipping dialogue, I did accidentally skip a few lines. There is a facade of a dungeon crawler - you go through several floors of the Phantom Field as an 8-bit character - but other than Floor 4(which has freakish black fireballs with faces) and Floor 6(which has a broomstick mechanic) the Phantom Field mechanic was tacked off for the more interesting visual novel.

While not the fastest platinum in the Universe(the honor for that goes to this game), it was and probably will remain forevermore my fastest plat ever - I got the game from GameFly on the 18th (nine days after it was shipped, which tells me a lot about GameFly), started playing on the eve of that day, got the platinum an hour ago as of this post and sent it back via the mail on Sunday, when I gave it to my folks and asked them to dump it off in a US Postbox. So that was that, and I putting the prequel to this drivel(XBlaze Code: Embryo) in my ghost bucket list - aka I probably won't ever plat it in my life but if I am out of options, I'll do it. Ciao for now!

I have also upgraded to the two-game plan because, sadly, the copy I had of LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7(which I had hoped would take this spot) was very defective and failed to load properly, so I had to return it to GameStop and they didn't have another copy. :( So GameFly is sending that game to me too - it'll arrive two days after Christmas depending on whether the Postal Service will stop flow on Christmas Eve and the envelope will rot in a cold post office for two days. 

Journal Entry #5: Fool of a Took! (quote by Gandalf the White)

I had not expected Gandalf's spell to send me sixty years into Middle-Earth's future, but it did...

And I got drafted again to help Bilbo's relative, a stupid idiot called Frodo, escort a dangerous artifact with evil sentience all the way to its place of creation to destroy it. Why me? :(

PLATINUM DATE: December 16, 2015; 11:59 PM

This, however, marked off a monumental occasion - my 5th Platinum Trophy! I was no longer a Novice Detective, I was now an Apprentice Detective. Apprentice to who, I do not know. I luckily FINALLY got back home just in time to prep for the holidays. Gandalf is much more powerful (and skilled in magic) now and was able to get me a portal back to my world. I think I will take a looong nap and take a few days vacay to shower after having to travel vast distances in Middle Earth.

AFTER THOUGHTS: Did I say I would hold off LEGO until 2016??? Remind me never to make a New Year's Resolution. :(

I had a very rotten December so far, but at least I finally exorcised the demons in my closet. LEGO Lord of the Rings is TERRIBLE - not because of the story, or characters, or whatever - but the collectibles. Isengard was not as bad as before but the one Mihtril Brick requiring you to climb MOUNT DOOM is EVIL! Also, I missed a few treasures and minikits and had to redo a level in free play several times, not to mention accidentally entering The Paths of the Dead story mode AGAIN when I was trying to set the King of the Dead on my radar. :(

Then I thought my save file was ruined when I couldn't find the Witch-King or several minikits, but turns out they were hidden TOO well. Thankfully Cassopiea from PSNProfiles helped me with a video on where the Witch-King was hiding in Minas Morgul. Thanks to PSNProfiles and all of its support as well as HappyThumbsGaming and his help for any missable collectibles. Now I can put this away and trade it back in for something else.

I have no idea of what I want to do for my sixth platinum. I still haven't touched Ratchet and Clank HD since November and it's hovering at 31%, I need to work on that. On the other hand, I just added $20 to my Playstation Store account so I could buy one of the new PS2 remakes on PS4, games I used to love as a PS2 vet - Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy; I flipped when I saw it! Rogue Galaxy was a niche game by Level-5(who created Ni No Kuni) and I had gotten through to the final battle of that game but died too many times, and I was reluctant to play it again... but now that it has trophy support, I have to add it to my platinum list as well as Dark Cloud! Thing is, I can only buy one game right now...

Not to mention I have repurchased the Tales of Symphonia Chronicles because I found a chart that will help me get another chance on it. And let's not mention the other LEGO games I have and other games like both Kingdom Hearts collections and Disgaea D2 and 5...

DECISIONS DECISIONS! I know I can't platinum most of the games before New Years, but Ratchet and Clank HD and the other LEGO games are quick and easy for platinums. If I get a sixth plat before the ball drops on 2015, then that's fine with me. I'm not delusional enough to think I can get far on many games before Santa passes by. ^_^

Journal Entry #4: We Hates LEGO, We Hates It Much! :(

Remind me never to explore haunted caves ever again. :(

Hey, watch it buddy! Playing with fire is bad! O_O

I ended up in a place called Middle Earth, where I was drafted into this ragtag group of misfits seeking to reclaim some magical relic from a dragon. The only other human in the group - the rests were dwarves and one 'hobbit' - was a wizard and he bailed on us midway through the journey.

(Taken while fleeing for one's life! O_O)

I should have asked for details on the dragon - I am so glad I made it out alive but that's one evil creature. And now it's wrecking havoc on the nearby village. Oh bother! Now I know why dragons should never exist - anything that can melt flesh with its halitosis is really too dangerous to live.

PLATINUM DATE: December 5, 2015; 6:23 PM

Still, for some reason Bilbo and Gandalf decided to celebrate with a dance party and adopt a Disco Fever dance. I did manage to get Gandalf to send me home, though - the dragon is going to be a problem but there's nothing I can do to save anyone. *sigh*

The Road Goes Ever On indeed.

AFTER THOUGHTS: Well, this game didn't troll me(no pun intended) as badly as the LoTR LEGO game did for PS3. There were a couple of B.S. races and jumping issues but I wasn't expected to do a bunch of crazy jumps up a thin tower like ISENGARD. X( Still, the Unassessably Wealthy trophy was a pain in the nickers and I had to use a bug in the game that made a purple stud(the most valuable stud) respawn every few seconds to get that trophy. Still, great game and I love the 8-Bit music and Carnival red bricks. ^_^

I plan on putting LEGO on the back burner for the rest of the month and the holidays. I want to focus the holidays on a short simple game while I enjoy Wizard101 on my computer for the remainder of 2015. I will get back to LEGO games in 2016, but I may not have as much time to play them. Ciao!