Hopefully the final post

I have decided to retire the persona of the Detective Prince. Sadly, I cannot run two Platinum Trophy blogs consecutively... and right after that last post, something happened and my copy of Crack in Time kept freezing on my PS3, so I had to throw it away as defective. :(

(I still have the save data so I can pick up if I get a new copy, but I don't feel like spending money on old games right now.)

All my readers can go to The Platinum Shrine instead. I'll still keep up this blog but it won't be updated anymore. Cheers!

Woo! :D

Woo! :D

Finally!

Possible future trophies for the cabinet of DetectiveCJ

I apologize to my readers of this blog but I haven't gotten any platinums yet. It's getting harder and harder to find good platinums and I need to start challenging myself, but I decided to put in a filler for possible future platinums. I'm participating in the Summer Backlog Event on PSNProfiles.com so I will have at least five more platinums this summer. The games are listed in my other blog.

Peace In Our Time

Qwilleran sympathizes with you, Agent Sidwell. ^_^

Platinum #32 - LEGO Avengers (PS4)

Really bad quality as the video was uploaded to Facebook, showing me getting the last trophy.

Yep, finally got this platinum after several days. As of this point, I have decided to end my LEGO career. The trophies aren't difficult... just TIME CONSUMING. And as much as it was fun to play around with the plastic bricks, I think it's about time I wean myself of LEGO so that I get more respect from my fellow trophy hunters. ;)

As of such, I decided not to double up and play the Vita version of this application. It'll be a watered down 3DS port anyways.

Smooth Criminal Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (lolz)

WARNING: PG-13 material!

 No, you can't prove anything! I swear I did not...

Okay, I plead the fifth. :(

Just die. X(

Platinum #31: Criminal Girls - Invite Only

As you can guess, I just go Platinum #31 - Criminal Girls: Invite Only. The reason it took so long was because it was a terrible grind-fest and the last areas were not great for grinding... and then the final final boss nearly wiped me out and the secret final boss trolled me and I had to go back and try to fight it again. What a jerkwad.

But yeah, I wouldn't recommend this game for children or any person who is offended by sexuality. This game is straight from Japan(in fact, they didn't do English voices, the voice acting is the original Japanese actresses) so expect that sort of weird stuff.

Now that that's over with, I'm going to return this game to GameStop and try to wash my hands of this affair and...

Pray that I don't get a wet dream about Shin. Oh Shin... ^_^

Torn away from the narrative (Milestone: 30 platinums!)

As of this post, I have decided to drop the narrative of my alter-ego, The Detective Prince. It was fun for a few platinums, but eventually it got difficult to write stories about his travels and his cases, especially when it made no sense.

And yes, I am ashamed to say this is my true face up there. I know that not everyone can be a hot stud-muffin but I am a bit conscietious about my looks and my voice. :(

HARDEST. TROPHY. EVER. I had to restart from scratch 20 times to get this, the jumps are insane.

Needless to say, in a game about a character who is delivering a message to the player, and considering that this game was the creation of Media Molecule, which is famous for the LittleBigPlanet games, I am not surprised that the quirkiness about a world made of nothing but paper-craft and involving every mechanic of the PS Vita(touch screen, microphone, six-axis) was evident, as was the difficulty of some of the trophies.

But anyways... I give to you...

Platinum #30: Tearaway

Here I am, with 30 platinums, and I don't intend to slow down. My goal for 2016 is to get to forty-two platinums and over 3000 trophies. Ciao for now! ^_^

Cats!

Just a little sigpic for my profile on PSNProfiles. Ignore this post if you'd like.

Also, why the cat? Well, I've been reading the Cat Who series by the now late Lilian Jackson Braum. This is a great series and you should check it out! ;)

I wanted to make an April Fool's Day Joke, buuuut...

To be honest, I really just couldn't bring myself to insult your intelligence with a silly prank on my blog about me platinuming Hannah Montana: The Movie The Game. Needless to say, you will have to expect a very sexy game to be on this list sooner or later. ;)

Anyways, I'm working on Disgaea 3 for the Vita a lot so I find it hard to tear myself away to work on any other games. Also, I have a few games I am going to almost-plat for the PSNProfile's Platinum Rain Day Event coming this August, so they can't be platinums for five months.

So my next platinum will probably be something from GameFly, when they deliver the next game. I try to pick games that don't take weeks to platinum. I'll see you soon!

Journal Entry #29: More Rings? Oh bother.

GAME #29: Guess the Game! :p

Having flashbacks about that strange sorceress and the Phantom Field made me go back and read the entire series of J.R.R. Tolkein, aka the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Eowyn - still awesome even on the small screen. ^_^

It was a heavy read, mind you, but it was quite the masterpiece, telling of Frodo Baggins and his struggle to take the cursed One Ring to the place of its creation and destroy it.

Still, I have no doubt that the world I was in was not the same one in the books. Still, it was quite an adventure... even though I got stuck in some weird place afterwards. I recreated the book I had been given by Frodo and put it on my cabinet as another platinum trophy.

AFTER THOUGHTS: And another late comer to the party - I put this in my Q for months and got no delivery, but it finally came in. Yep, the PS Vita version of LEGO Lord of the Rings. I spent all of of Good Friday 2016 to get every trophy no matter how much I hated it. (And the platinum trophy image is a mess - the Vita photo camera tends to mess up at this, but I don't want to waste time getting a replacement for it.)

Luckily, Vita versions of LEGO games are easy as pie, as they are ports of the 3DS version, which are complete garbage because the hardware is very limited. The only painful part was grinding out the 30 million studs to buy everything... 75% of the Red Bricks cost 5 million studs or more, even the cruddy ones you'd never enable like Helium Voices! :(

Anyways, another Vita platinum in the bag. I am going to cut down a bit on getting double platinums and I'm not into LEGO games as much anymore. (Though I hope LEGO Avengers will live up to the hype since I've seen Age of Ultron on the big screen. The original LEGO Marvel game was a bit disappointment in my eyes. I just hope they fix the flight mechanics.)

Journal Entry #28: Happy St. Patrick's Day, a week late

PLATINUM #28 - XBLAZE LOST: MEMORIES (Vita)

I had a strange dream about that witch who rescued me after Gandalf's spell went wrong, long ago.

 

 

I dreamt about her travels in the Phantom Field, her memories, and the memories of another called Es, and all the strange things that happened. I found a smaller plaque like the one that I found earlier, so I put it in the trophy cabinet with the rest and wrote off the whole thing as bad gas.


AFTER THOUGHTS: After two months of having it on the Q and not getting a reply, GameFly finally got the mail through for the PlayStation Vita version of X-BLAZE LOST: MEMORIES. And guess what?

Had it not been for the Sly 4 cross-save, this game would have been my fastest platinum! Yep, it was much faster to mash through the scenes than it had been on the PS3 version, and I burned through the entire game in under five hours while watching podcasts. ^_^

For now, Visual Novels are on the back burner. If I wanted to watch an anime, I'll watch an anime, not hog my precious Vita time on a book. X( To be fair, the gameplay was pretty nice and I had worried again about missing stuff but I got everything time.

Journal Entry #27: All Jak'd Up

Platinum #27: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (Vita)

I had that mysterious weird dream again, only the quality of the visions was crisp and clear. I chronicled everything I had dreamt only to find another of those platinum egg-shaped sculptures, a smaller one this time, on my desk. I put it next to its brother just in time to hear the doorbell.

"Mail for you, Mr. Groff."

I sighed and opened the door to find a small package wrapped in cellophane. I took it in and unwrapped it, my eyes widening in shock.

(Cue the Digimon theme song)

(To be continued...)

Sorry Dad, I had to buy this even though it came from my bank account. At least I only paid 55% of the price thanks to trading in the Jak collection on Vita (after getting the Platinum  and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time as well as LEGO Batman 3 for store credit.

Oh yeah, after thoughts. Well... this was a copy of the PS3 HD version on the handheld. I was warned that the controls were horrible and man were they right! The zoomer controls stank and I got more frustrated than ever. I was wise enough to trade in the cart after platinuming the first game... and I had missed a touch-screen trophy and had to do a second playthrough to get it. :(

NOTE: You may wonder why this is #27 when the last was #26. Well...

I cross-saved my file to the PS3 version and got Platinum #26(Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time for PS3) in under nine minutes. To amend myself, I DID have to re-upload and re-download the save because only half of the trophies got registered the first time I booted up the game. But I am NEVER GOING FOR CRAZED CLIMBER OR 8-BIT BENTLEY AGAIN!

Journal Entry #25: A Time-Traveling Thief?

I received a shiny silver cup wrapped in papyrus which had notes scribbled on them.

Please send help, trapped in Ancient Egypt. HELP!!! - S.C.

 
I wish I could help, but I don't know how I could have explained this situation to Bentley. I sent the note to Carmelita under an anon address and hoped for the best. I put the silver cup in the cabinet.

AFTER THOUGHTS: I'm really sorry I didn't make this major milestone - my 25th platinum - epic, but right after I got the platinum, I had to go grocery shopping. :|

Anyways, this is a great game and continues the story-telling that the original trilogy founded with cartoon animations for narrative interludes and the usual mission-based gameplay. Once you rescue each of Sly's ancestors, they get missions that show off their abilities. The treasures you pick up are all booby-trapped so you have to make a mad dash to get them to the hideout, but you no longer have to go inside to collect, and the treasures are all displayed on a shelf in each hideout. There are even several special treasures you get for collecting all the clue bottles in a hub world from Coopgiwa's coin magnet to a reference to Sir Raleigh that gives you the old Water Safety ability from the first game, which is really great.

As of this writing, I hear of an claymatic movie of Sly coming out soon, just like Ratchet and Clank are getting one. I hope this bodes a sequel because Sly is trapped in ancient Egypt now and needs to be rescued, so come on, Sanzaru, give us Sly 5!

Journal Entry #24: The Dark Cloud Saga

Platinum #24 - Dark Cloud (PS2 port)

While I was in Teslagrad, I found a library full of old books.

"Are you interested in ancient legends of other worlds, sir?" asked the librarian.

"Sort of," I said, feeling my cheeks flush with intrigue.

"Well, here is a book you might enjoy. It tells of a world called Blue Terra." The man handed me a very old book with silver bindings. "Please take it."

"To own?" I asked, shocked. "I couldn't..."

"I am getting old and children these days do not care about the legends of old," said the old man, waving me off. "It would please me to see a young man like yourself take care of this book. The stories in it are unbelievable but very beautiful."

I took the book back to my hotel room and read through it.

"A long, long time ago, when the two moons were shining, there were two continents in the world, living separately but peacefully. In the East there was an advanced civilization; the development of technology had brought prosperity and wealth there. In the West the people lived in harmony with the natural world, co-existing peacefully with the spirits and animals around them. Then came the time of darkness. A great evil was unleashed, and a Dark Cloud overshadowed the Western continent. Whole villages were destroyed. Entire families mysteriously vanished. And a magical adventure began."

I absorbed everything about the boy, Toan, and his adventures to stop the evil entity they called "The Dark Genie." I even found a picture of him and had it photocopied on my computer. I dreamt of the adventures of this boy and his five companions and his fight against the Dark Genie on the way back home and put the picture in my cabinet to honor this brave young man.

Me on the live stream of GE-MA Productions on Episode 22 of the Dark Cloud Platinum Live Stream. ^_^

FINALLY. X(

 

AFTER THOUGHTS: I decided to do this for the Platinum Leap Event on PSNProfiles.com, because I had only a couple of trophies left for it.

When this game and its sequel came in the first wave of PS2 ports on the PS4, I grabbed my cash card and bought PSN cards to buy this. Actually, I bought DC2 but you get the point. Once again this game got second banana to its sequel. ;P

Nevertheless, this is probably the easiest RPG to platinum ever because there are only 30-something trophies, and 1/5 of them are beating the bosses of each of the story dungeons. Dark Cloud is a dungeon-crawler which created randomly-generation dungeons.

The worst and hardest trophy for you to get is Sticky Fingers because it's all luck-based; the only weapons which have the Steal ability, which is needed for this trophy, are in big chests - you cannot buy them. So you have to farm levels in a dungeon a zillion times and pray that a big chest appears and doubly pray that it has a Bandit Slingshot or Bandit Ring - I highly suggest farming Floor 2 in Wise Owl Forest because you only need to worry about getting a blade for Toan or a slingshot for Xiao(who I named Koko after a famous cat in literature that I love ^_^) - if you try for the ring, you also have hammers to deal with at minimum. I was a bit lucky that the Bandit Slingshot appeared after ten farming trips or else I would have been playing Dark Cloud all day.

Anyways, this is still a great and easy platinum if you can get the Bandit Slingshot early - I didn't get it until after I beat the game and then I just save-scummed until the chest with the weapon appeared.

Getting closer to Golden Completed

I must be insane to fight this guy. (Not, he was a pushover, all he did was spam Megidoloan)

Here we go, two more Persona 4 Golden trophies in the bag. All that's left requires me to finish the first playthrough and do a New Game Plus. ;)

Journal Entry #23: Of Lightning and Magnets

PLATINUM #23: TESLAGRAD (FOR PS4)

 

After being cooped up in the office for so long, I packed up and went on a grand tour of Europe, only to stop in Russia for a brief period of time. I got lost due to a snow flurry(it was that time of year) and found myself holing up in a small town known as Teslagrad. The odd name was punctuated in the morning when I went sight-seeing and found a giant tower that pierced the heavens.

"Young man," said a native elderly woman. "Do you wish to know the story of this town?"

I shrugged. "Sure, and of the tower."

"Long ago, this town was ruled by a despotic king. Nobody could oppose his tyranny as he had the power to summon the lightning. But one rainy night, he had his army scour the city to find and seize a young boy who, according to prophecy by those who opposed him, had the power to defeat him."

 "That young boy, whose name is lost to legend, fled into this tower, a place created by the king as a symbol of arrogance and filled with the deadliest traps based on electricity and magnets. So vain was he of his power to control the lightning that he had this tower built... but those who opposed him, the very sages who gave this king his crown, created four mighty weapons to help the young lad gain his own powers over the magnets in the tower..."

Sadly, this is the best quality I can get from my camera. :(

"And soon, he confronted the evil king and destroy him, and it was said that this boy took over the rule of this town and made it a wonderful place to live. We have a statue of the child in the center of town, if you are interested."

I was very interesting, so I investigated the legend and it had some hints of truth to it. I picked up a souvenir to take home and hang in my cupboard.
 
AFTER THOUGHTS: Wow, it's been a long time since I got a platinum. And wow, this game. There is no a single word of dialogue, but the game really brings the plot home. Oh, and I didn't really fight the evil king, as the trophy list doesn't require you to beat the game, you just need to collect all 36 scrolls. But some of the scrolls are tricky to get.

I recommend this game for your list if you don't mind having a little frustration in trying to figure out how to complete the various magnetism-based puzzles and fighting the four tricky bosses before the final one. As I said, you don't need to fight the final boss to get the Platinum. ^_^

MORE NOTES: I actually have a few games ready to platinum, I just need to find some more tough trophies for them. My next platinum should either be Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (the last trophies I need involve some frustration fuel) or Dark Cloud(I just need to farm for a specific weapon and then I can complete the game). I also have Persona 4 Golden(complete the first playthrough and then bum rush through the second and get all those Rise lines), Jak and Daxter The Precursor Legacy(for the Vita, I bought the Jak collection for that), and Dark Cloud 2(really need to clear the medals in Moonflower Palace ASAP) on the back burner but on the way to completion.

More Jak? Nonsense!

(I'll start putting narrative in a 'film noir' color from now on for my avatar.)

Once more into the breach...

 Yep, I took the plunge and got the Jak Collection for my PS Vita... and it stinks. The Precursor Valley is a nightmare because the Zoomer controls like a janky mecha and it's hard to control. Still, I'm doing good and got 27% of the original J&D trophies so far. I plan on trying to platinum Jak 2 and 3 on the Vita first to practice for when I have to do it on PS3. (I'm still upset at the races.)

I loved Ratchet and Clank. Will I go for R&C Collection on Vita? NO. First off, I'd have to download it from PSN because Gamestop doesn't own a copy, and two, I was warned that the controls are even more janky on the Vita version of the games, so the hoverboard trophies would be impossible. :(

I'd like to thank Dragon-Archon, one of the mods of PSNProfiles.com(which is my #1 source for trophy information) for warning me about this danger and saving me years of frustration and a possible backlog that will rot forever. A shame, the Vita has such potential. If you follow the link to Dragon-Archon's trophy checklist, give a tweet to him and tell him DetectiveCJ sent ya. ;)

Time Travel Stinks (trophy update)

I love how Sanzaru references the other members of the Mascot Trinity(Daxter, Ratchet and Clank). :)

Wanted to put this here as a memorable photo op - the last map was the boss battle I hate the most in this game.

And I missed one mask in this mission but it was ironic that this is where I got the next trophy.

I heard that Sly Cooper is living in Ancient Egypt now, is that true? I have to investigate this...

As of now I have 88% of the trophies in my Vita version of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. This is a great game, don't get me wrong - I really like how Sly does a bad Italian accent in one mission. :) - but the last few trophies are murder. Doing speed-runs is never my thing and the fact that the speed run in question requires an unskippable cutscene beforehand and you have to redo that cutscene every time you mess up(because Sanzaru put checkpoints all over the place) is painful. :(

So far, I'm close to platinum on these games:

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (Vita)
Persona 4 Golden
Dark Cloud (PS2 port)
Dark Cloud 2 (PS2 port)

I am also doing Teslagrad for PS4(rented) but one scroll is ticking me off. And I'm starting a bunch of games for the second Platinum Rain Day event. (I put a link so you can go check out that thread.)

Eating Humble Pie - with whipped cream!

Okay. I can admit that I need to take a page from the Panda King and eat humble pie. I made a vow for Lent to myself that I would not be tempted to give up on games just because they are kicking my frustration into overdrive. Therefore, the statements I made about Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves being backlogged forever were a bit... rash. (I have deleted that post to conserve my pride a bit.)

Therefore, now that PSNProfile's Mod Dragon-Archon is going to make the Platinum Rain Days a bi-annual event, I decided to put this game on the list. It's basically where you get all the trophies save one and then pop the platinum on the event date. I have seen a full video of the rest of Sly 3 and spoiled myself but I do plan on finishing this game up by buying a copy of The Sly Cooper series when I get the money, the HD Collection is still available at my local GameStop. Jak II and Jak 3 will also be on this list as I struggle to get through the stories of those games.

That said, I plan on having most of the games I actually own be platinumed for August 20th, which is the Platinum Rain Day for this year. Plenty of time to take in the Summer Olympics, no? ;)

Burn My Dread

It took a while to get over the shame of having a backlog by letting a Sly game beat me, so I decided to go back to RPGs and relax a bit. I plan on having a ton of games near-plat for the next Platinum Rain Day, but...

Anyways, I'm working on P4G right now for a thread on PSNProfiles. I want to get this game platted before Persona 5 comes out in the late part of the year. So I won't be having any more platinums for a while, sorry about that. Depends on whether GameFly is going to deliver my stuff on time considering its bad track record earlier. :(

A little something something

A little preview of what's coming up. ;)

Journal Entries #21 & 22: More Files on the Phantom Thief

Games #21/#22: Sly 2 - Band of Thieves (PS3/Vita)

After that odd dream and the strange egg-shaped trophy I got after waking up, I found another of the mask trophies and it read:

Thanks for helping with the Klaww Gang - S.C.

I decided to read over the second case file on the mysterious raccoon thief, Sly Cooper, and learned of his quest to destroy the body parts of his archenemy, Clockwerk, who had been shattered into pieces at the bottom of a Russian volcano after the thief defeated him.

Good right ahead, ruin the shot, you stupid truck. :p

However, the infamous Klaww Gang, a group of global criminals hell-bent on major crime, had been using the various Clockwerk parts to advance their own criminal schemes ranging from illegal drugs in India to deforestation in Canada. Despite not knowing it, Sly and his two comrades helped the International Police to bust this criminal gang and destroy it...

But an agent turned rogue and things got ugly when Clockwerk came back to life with a new soul. Once again Carmelita Fox and her rival worked together to bring down the robot bird and this time he stayed dead, but tragic happenings forced Sly Cooper to surrender in order to save his friends. I can't reveal what had gone down but I found the name of the trophy ironic indeed. I took a sip of my favorite soda and relaxed with one of my favorite books involving a writer and his two cats. ;)

AFTER THOUGHTS:

Just in case you think I'm a liar, here is the PS3 platinum. Excuse the image in the back, my TV was reflecting. :(

Another lumping of lists, but this is because I doubled up on this game like I did with Sly 1, only this time I did both games at the same time so they got platinumed consecutively - the PS3 first(because it is on a rental disc) and then the Vita one which took a couple of days. At least I am glad that is all over with as I was getting bored.

Don't get me wrong; the games were good. It's just that I need to get these games out of the way ASAP so I can focus on the harder games, and some of the parts were a bit stinky in the way of challenges, especially since I suck at stealth games. This game didn't make me want to plat Assassin's Creed II anytime soon. *sigh*

Still, it is a great story and the ending was sort of tragic. Play the games yourself, okay? (The screenshots mostly came from the Vita version as it's better for screenshots of a game which is across different platforms - I can't figure out how to upload screenshots from my PS4 and I have to rely on wonky camera shots for my PS3 screen.)